Snow White Wakes to Spring
Asticassia graduates put on a play
This story assumes you’ve read “Anesidora”. Like its prequel, this story is sexually explicit, though less so.
Tags: wholesome MILF yuri, everything and the kitchen sink, feminization arc, surprise butch, ghosts made me do it, sort of canon compliant.
The fact of the matter is, Enhanced Person Number Five looks startlingly good in a dress, which he agrees to wear for a play Suletta will put on for the schoolchildren — Snow White, or at least an approximate rendition which features an anachronistic number of mobile suits. Miorine, currently based in a GUND-ARM office a continent away, can’t take on a role but has offered to direct remotely. Suletta, her hands full with stage prep, cannot play Snow White. And so, on a whim, Number Five (so called to distinguish him from the other Elan Ceres) has offered.
“Well,” says Miorine on the video call, “this works. You’ve got the waist for it.” Then mysteriously she adds, “GUND-ARM is branching out into endocrine implants.”
After the call has ended, Suletta says, “I’m not sure what Miorine-san meant exactly.”
Number Five, unfazed, shrugs. The puffy sleeves and ombre tulle skirt shimmer flatteringly in motion. “Probably nothing. Who are you casting as the evil queen? Lady Prospera?”
“Mom’s not evil.”
A flash from the keychain Suletta wears around her neck; Number Five’s phone turns itself on, and a message scrolls across the screen. I will kill you extremely painfully. This time your brain won’t survive the event. It’ll cook in your skull and bubble out your ears. ❤ He chuckles. What a jokester, that Ericht Samaya. Rather fortunate she no longer has a twenty-meter-tall body armed to the teeth, though. Such excellent luck he never had to face it in combat. Four really couldn’t catch a break.
In the end, it’s Sabina who comes up with a candidate. “GUND-ARM is diversifying its portfolio with rehabilitative programs,” she says, gesturing with her phone. “I have just the person for this role.” She never offers herself as a candidate, nor any of the other Grassley girls; they’re bodyguards first and foremost — both Prospera and Miorine require their own security details, for diverse reasons.
Elan Ceres, on a call to Miorine, opens without preamble: “Can you explain why there’s a likeness of me in a dress and tiara and makeup?” A pause. “Sighted in an Earthian school?” Second pause. “Witnessed by scores of children and parents at a rehearsal?”
“If you hadn’t wanted this to happen,” says the former Benerit heiress, reasonably, “you shouldn’t have commissioned body doubles.”
“Number Five is a runaway! We gave Numbers Six through Ten their faces and identities back! Five could have asked for his!”
From off the camera, Secelia snickers.
Miorine Samaya calmly studies her fingernails. “I don’t know, Ceres. Maybe he really likes your face. Don’t take it too seriously. Having a reputation for being good with children is perfectly fine. It’s very philanthropic. Oh, look, I absolutely have to take this call. Investor conference, you know how it is. Have a good day.”
The person who shows up at the school is a familiar face to all Asticassia graduates, though considering what they were on trial for and the resultant life sentence, their appearance comes as a surprise. Another oddity: their features are… softer, more elegant. The hair is more lustrous than previously. There’s always been jewelry, but there’s more now — an earring. And the person’s silhouette has changed considerably.
“Let me introduce you,” says Sabina, eternally unflappable, “to Shanaya Zenelli, on bail to perform community service according to a work-release contract with GUND-ARM Inc.”
“It was honestly going to be Shanaya Ogul, but for some reason Father hasn’t disowned me yet.” A shrug; an urbane laugh. “He’s why I had access to a bit more amenities than you’d expect, even though he’s tied up in hearings all the time.”
Suletta considers a moment. Then she says, “Hello, Shanaya-san. I’m guessing you’ll be our Evil Queen?”
“Am I?” The woman blinks. “Can you tell me what we’re doing again? I was just told I’d have to do community service at a school. Sounds wholesome.”
Prospera Samaya has spent much of her retirement at work, against the objections of her daughters and daughter-in-law; she applies herself, still, with zeal. The processes and goals are more modest than her previous labors with Quiet Zero but, ultimately, the objective is the same.
(Once, her eldest asked her why Prospera Samaya and not Elnora Samaya. To that she said one cannot simply slough off twenty years. She cannot go back in time, cannot become the woman she used to be — one whose happiness was abundant, uncomplicated. In wisdom, one must accept one’s scars, take ownership and pride of them.)
It’s not a widely-known fact that Ericht is not precisely confined to the keychain. GUND-ARM staff, of course, has some idea of what she was capable of as the Gundam Aerial. They are unsurprised when she takes over a phone, a screen, a Haro — all trivial enough. That she is capable of more is known only to Prospera, and possibly Suletta. It wasn’t for nothing that Ericht had reached a permet score hitherto unmeasured. For now, though, the body encased in glass must remain Prospera’s and Ericht’s secret alone. Much of the foundational work is done, but the cosmetic touches cannot be rushed.
“I wish you’d work on something for you first,” says Ericht, from one of the machines in the home lab. “You’re important too.”
Prospera smiles, faint. “I’m very old, Eri. Let’s get this completed while I can still move.” Working in a wheelchair has taken some adaptation, but she’s grown used to it over the years — it is fortunate enough that her upper body hasn’t been paralyzed. GUND-ARM may have developed a good deal, but she remains the foremost living expert on the GUND format. Nika Nanaura is an excellent engineer, and Prospera has taught her much of what was passed down to her by Dr. Cardo, but Prospera wields a particular fluency with the tech, in spite of everything.
“You’ll always be able to move,” her daughter insists. “I’ll help you.”
There is, of course, that fallback — for her to abandon the flesh entirely, become a being of pure permet like her elder daughter, even perhaps incorporate herself into a full-body prosthetic. Ericht might well enable this seamlessly. “Maybe one day.” She pulls up, on her tablet, the program she and her eldest have been preparing. “And what we’re about to do is for me, daughter dearest, even if it’s not a new body. Are we ready?”
Ericht perks up at the prospect of helping her mother achieve something for herself. “Yes. Let me call back the Coven.”
This is all but instantaneous — the Coven often wanders, these days, through the network that stretches across the solar system. Chasing information, or sometimes simply their own curiosity. In the most definitive sense they are the ideal form of GUND, a consciousness expanded by being instantiated eleven times, each replica autonomous. For the most part Ericht, the original, the primary instance, is the one who speaks to Prospera. Occasionally the others address her too: there are minor variances to how they speak and think, though ultimately all of them synchronize with Ericht. She’s gotten used to it; she likes that her eldest is never lonely.
The next part will have to be managed very carefully, even with the Coven handling the processing threads.
Prospera has her own residence, separate from Suletta’s and Miorine’s shared household. This has prompted concern: can she really live alone? To that Ericht has always been quick to reassure that there’s no issue. Anything Prospera requires she can manage, and the house’s security is excellent. The real reason is that they prefer the data storm Ericht generates to be as undetectable as possible, even to GUND-ARM employees.
There’s that familiar tug and twist on the senses. Most people with permet implants can feel it, to some extent, when a data storm occurs. For Prospera this is even more so. To her it expresses as sharp pain in the legs that, these days, no longer feel much of anything. A reminder of what she’s given to preserve her eldest. Worthwhile, all the same.
There was one ghost that she didn’t get to meet, at the end of all things. One that didn’t appear with the others at Quiet Zero, one that has stayed in the providence of true ghosts, haunting and bygone.
The absence was understandable, in the sense that Suletta could only summon what Aerial — and before it, Lfrith — had seen and recorded. And for three years, Prospera felt at peace enough: her daughters are happy, her daughter-in-law is good to Suletta, the principles of GUND are brought back into the world and honored. True, there are occasional assassination attempts on both her and Miorine, but to date no one has been hurt. What more can a woman in her twilight years ask for? Still, this one absence gnawed. It occupied her thoughts; it grew. She, of course, lacked a copy of the person’s biometrics — that is, until they closely reexamined the Anesidora genome, and then took a sampling of Miorine’s DNA.
A perfect copy, of course. That person liked nothing better than to hide in plain sight.
For several seconds nothing happens. Prospera waits. Her breath is held. Everything stands still. There’s every possibility it will fail; not the right biometric, the mind beyond does not want to come. The ghosts have their own will. They’re capable of intention. Perhaps they did not part on the highest note, perhaps they didn’t…
Silver light falls over the lab, and then the lab itself recedes.
That greenhouse, with its golden light, its scents of earth and green growth. A woman puts down her watering can. “It’s been a minute, Prospera. You look rather worse for wear.”
“Being a witch has its price.”
Notrette draws closer, leaning over the wheelchair. “I hear my daughter’s married to yours now.”
The dead always seem to know a good deal of what’s going on — information seeping into the data storm, perhaps. It makes the ghosts appear almost alive. “Yes. Small ceremony, but exquisite.”
“Shame I couldn’t attend. You and I would have worn matching tuxes.” She runs her fingers down Prospera’s black-and-white hair. “Good for Miorine; it seems my daughter grew up to share my excellent taste for tough, tall women from Mercury with stunning jawlines.”
“So self-centered,” murmurs Prospera, without any seriousness. “It’d have been quite the sight, the mothers-in-law arriving arm in arm. Rather scandalous.”
Notrette actually giggles, the sound exactly as she remembers, vivid and crystalline. “The dinner conversations would’ve been so fun. I’m sorry about the Quiet Zero override — I had to leave my daughter something; who could have anticipated she would use it against you, rather than against her own father? He was the brute, not you.”
“How like you to not object to a plan for world domination.”
“Those fleets had it coming.” A chuckle. “I trust you. You wanted a future for your daughters. No goal could possibly be nobler. And you made sure my husband never got his hand on the project. You protected my legacy, and for that you never need apologize.”
Prospera’s throat closes. She marshals herself. “You seem happy here.”
“It’s a way to exist.” Notrette gestures at the tomatoes on their trellises. “Static, but peaceful. Not entirely solitary — the data storm collects almost every soul. But you must’ve done a lot to reach me here. I’m not exactly easy to visit.”
“Techniques in GUND have advanced in your absence. And I wanted to say goodbye.” Her voice does not, quite, crack. It comes close. “Our… shared work was too impolitic for me to attend your funeral.”
Around them the data storm is beginning to dissipate: even Ericht can’t maintain it forever, not with such limited equipment, and not without attracting undue attention.
“Oh,” says Notrette, enveloping Prospera’s hand in hers, “you misunderstand, darling. I’m coming with you.”
Suletta arrives at her mother’s house, a small, rustic-looking building that blends easily into the countryside. She’s no fool — she understands why her mother requires privacy, and why the place is equipped with cutting-edge security, hidden Haros and all. The world is not yet safe for them, however hard her wife works toward that goal; secretly, she and her sister have agreed that if it is necessary, both of them would fight to protect the family. Ericht would prefer to leave Suletta out of it entirely, but even she cannot be everywhere at once. In their dreams this would be unnecessary; in reality, many factions exist that would only respect an answer given through main force. There are lulls, and each feels longer than the previous. And yet the sisters prepare, in the back of their minds.
“Mom,” she calls out as she steps into the house, “we’ve nearly sorted out the cast for Snow White! The kids are so excited.”
She trails off. As a long-time pilot, and with which machine she piloted in particular, she has a slight affinity: something is in the home system here that was not there before. And it isn’t Ericht.
The living room’s TV turns on.
“Hello, Suletta.” The voice is a little similar to Miorine’s, but deeper, more vulpine. “I’m your mother-in-law. It’s lovely to finally meet you.”
Miorine remotes in for the fitting. She raises an eyebrow at Shanaya Zenelli. “You did always have the longest eyelashes.”
“Come now. That’s a stereotype.” Shanaya adjusts the gilt earring, then sets it down, exchanging it for one with red faux-gemstones instead. “And how have you been doing?”
“Fine. Just one assassination attempt this fiscal quarter; that’s a record low.”
She bursts out laughing. “Married life must really suit you. You positively glow.”
For some reason this makes Miorine flush. She clears her throat. “That costume is a bit too low-necked for schoolchildren, don’t you think. The all-black look works for you, though, and the fangs. I’m not sure if the Evil Queen is usually a vampire, but why not?”
“It’s called improvising. The neckline will look good onstage, and I’ll be wearing a mesh necklace. Who’s playing Prince Charming?”
“Princess Charming,” Miorine says. “It’s important to let Earthian children know that women marrying women is perfectly normal. Probably a pink Haro with a ribbon on. Chuchu’s really not into this entire fairytale thing. She’ll only go onstage if we change the plot to abolish monarchy and let her behead a few kings; Suletta and I talked it over, and she thought guillotines are a bit much to show kindergarteners. Nika’s too shy. So, a Haro.”
Shanaya looks over her own reflection critically. The treatment she’s had access to has been generous, for an inmate, but hair and skincare have been limited. Makeup will have to do the heavy lifting. “I had a lot of time to think, in prison.”
Miorine props her chin in her hand. Her wedding ring catches the light. “Oh?”
“Mostly about myself,” she admits. “How I related to external factors. How I… misunderstood a lot of things.”
“Seems to be happening a lot lately.” Miorine taps her fingers against her cheek. “Your work-release contract lasts seventy days. What do you plan to do after we’re all done with Snow White?”
“Not much.” Shanaya holds up a wrist, where a slim bracelet rides; the tracking device is monitored at all times. “It’s a life sentence, remember. I’ll spend seventy days enjoying fresh air and being the most upstanding of citizens, then I go back in. Father’s trying to get the sentence commuted, but it’s not likely.”
“You actually keep in contact with him?” She, after all, seldom talks to hers. Not much to talk about, considering.
“Yes.” A thoughtful nod. “He’s… been supportive? He actually apologized for inadvertently making me think I had to be a son. The way I saw it, most Benerit heirs were sons, and I had enough working against me as it was.”
“I’m a daughter,” Miorine says dryly, aware of course that it’s not necessarily the same. She, the child born into supreme privilege; Shanaya, the Earthian orphan. “Genetically unrelated to my father too.”
“But you were Madam Notrette’s child.” Shanaya pauses. “You never talked about her.”
Because she learned, a long time ago, that it was pointless to: not only was there no one to comfort her — no one worthy of her trust or regard — the dead were the dead. They didn’t respond or smile back, even if your own reflection looked more like them every day. Miorine is aware she’s a spitting image of her mother, and used to think that was why Delling Rembran couldn’t stand the sight of her. “She’d have liked Suletta,” she says before she can stop herself. Buried pain. They could have been a complete family.
“I’m sure she would. I mean that sincerely, even if she stole you.”
“Fuck off,” says Miorine. They both laugh. Peace, after a fashion.
The last time Number Five and Shanaya saw each other was in the Dueling Committee lounge, a fact that now seems faintly absurdist: all those duels that never meant or amounted to anything. To him Asticassia was a battlefield, and he performed his part at knifepoint. To the other students, he couldn’t begin to imagine why they took it so seriously. Marrying rich aside, the dueling game was foolish. It was an extended Benerit commercial. Inane.
Knowing what he knows now, though, he understands the woman in the preposterous vampire getup a little better. Their origins are dissimilar — he was born in space and she was not — but the game Shanaya played at school had real stakes.
“Hm,” says Shanaya, putting down her tube of lipstick. Bright red, naturally. Her voice has a warm, smoky thrum to it now. “You appear to be staring.”
“How’s prison? Been up to any terrorism lately?”
The woman smirks. “I’ve turned over a new leaf. And you? Not invaded any girl’s personal space recently, I hope.”
Five snorts. “Understand, I wasn’t attracted to Suletta Mercury in the least, nor do I actually make that a habit. I can invade your personal space, if you like.”
“Please, Mr. Five. I exclusively favor the attentions of women. You’ll have to get more in-character as Snow White first.”
Five flips the script open on his phone. “Sure, why not? I’m about to breathe, eat, and sleep Snow White. Are you up to improvising on the script? A little violence will spice this thing right up.”
Miorine is a little surprised her wife wants to meet at Prospera’s place — family dinners aren’t uncommon, but she was hoping for a little privacy. She and Suletta have a marital bed that has been somewhat neglected during her business trip. Remote devices have helped keep them in touch, so to speak, but nothing quite compares to the visceral experience of skin. She loves Suletta’s mouth, has developed a fixation on it. Well, delayed gratification is all the sweeter; she’ll wait.
She finds Suletta in the kitchen, aproned and adorable; as if sensing her, Suletta turns around. “Miorine-san! You’re back.” Her grin is wide as she comes in for an embrace; she giggles as Miorine, on tiptoes, kisses her mouth. “Can you keep an eye on this pot? Mom needs something.”
“Sure,” she says, miffed that her wife doesn’t want to spend a little longer in the relative privacy of the kitchen. She could use a few more kisses.
It’s less than a minute after Suletta is out of sight that the fridge beeps, once, and its screen purrs on. “Good evening, Miorine.”
Miorine stares at the little rectangular display. The face is one she knows as well as her own — not least because they’re genetically identical. Older than hers, of course; Mother was older than Miorine is now when she died. The face is more sculpted than Miorine’s, with the beginning of smile lines, the mouth more knowing. She takes a deep breath then says, “This better not be Ericht’s idea of a joke.”
“Indeed not, though she was instrumental in bringing me here. Unintentionally, though. Not to worry, honey, I’m not stuck in a fridge. The entire home system’s rather roomy. But everyone wanted to give us a moment together, before dinner.”
It is then, and only then, that it dawns. Not even the particular endearment, but the voice, the way Notrette talks; the way she always sounds like she’s about to laugh, not at her daughter but with her. As if Miorine’s existence alone gives her every reason to laugh, that Miorine is synonymous with joy. A sob leaves before Miorine can stop it, and then she’s crying in earnest, undoing the hard work of making herself look so polished, so grown up.
“I’m very sorry,” Notrette says, “that I left you all alone. That I left you to be treated so badly by your father.”
Through the tears, she can’t manage much more than an incoherent noise. She tries: “You don’t have to — it’s not like you planned to be assassinated. It’s fine. I — ” Then she cries again, more loudly, almost a howl, the same way she cried when she thought Suletta was dead. For the opposite reason, but even so.
Footfalls as Suletta, alarmed by the noise, comes back into the kitchen. Her arms wrap around Miorine from the back as she murmurs soothing sounds into Miorine’s hair.
In the doorway, Prospera sits, smiling. No doubt they’re all violating the laws of something — reality, higher powers. But to be together means more than any law, any god, and they all deserve it, after everything.
Shanaya and Five are rehearsing — with the pink Haro awkwardly playing the Princess Charming part — when the stage holograms crackle as someone moves through them. They turn, as one, to the newcomer. A protracted moment of confusion: this person looks a good deal like Suletta Samaya, but there is something… different. Taller, for one, broader at the shoulders. Even the attire is something Suletta would never wear: a quality button-down, jeans, men’s shoes. The features — the expression — look harder, more austere, for all that the person is smiling. Their gaze passes over Shanaya, disinterested, and settles on Number Five.
“Remember,” she says, “when you tried to hijack me, Not-Elan-Ceres?”
It takes him half a second. “Oh.” Then: “Shit.”
“I don’t hold grudges.” Ericht cocks her head. “Except when I really do. Come to think of it, your team did take off my limbs, Zenelli.”
“In our defense,” Shanaya says quickly, “we didn’t know there was anyone in the machine. Apologies, truly.”
Ericht lets the silence stretch on for several more minutes, each increasingly uncomfortable for everyone except her. “This body doesn’t have GUND-Bits, if that’s what you’re thinking. We couldn’t miniaturize them enough.”
“Haha.” Number Five, already pale, has turned the shade of a cadaver. “The tech moves fast. Lady Prospera is a genius, isn’t she, Shanaya?”
“You don’t have to worry, Zenelli,” Ericht drawls. “If only because of what you’ve done for my mother. And Suletta wouldn’t be happy if I fry the contents of anyone’s skull — even yours, Five. I will, however, crack skulls; someone needs to keep this production on track, and my sister is tied down with a family matter. That leaves me. Give me an update on the play.”
As a keychain, Ericht Samaya is endearing and amusing. In this body, she is neither; she has several centimeters on them both. On Suletta, the green eyes look sweet; on her, they glint like knifepoints. She takes after her mother. Shanaya can see — an uncharitable thought toward Suletta, unwarranted — why Ericht was, for so long, the favored daughter: there’s a willingness to commit that her sister lacks, a bristling eagerness for blood.
Not that she’ll do anything. It would upset Suletta. Not for the first time, Shanaya wonders what it’s like to have grown up with a sibling, and a fiercely protective one at that. Maybe it’s why Suletta turned out so… normal.
“It’s coming along,” Shanaya offers. “But we could use an unbiased critic. Want to sit in while we rehearse?”
Five looks at her as though she’s gone completely insane.
Ericht’s mouth crooks. When she sits, she does so with her knees apart, taking up space without apology and — Shanaya must admit — looking dashing while doing so. “Of course. This play means everything to my sister. We’ve got to make sure it’s perfect.”
Once the children have left for their own home, Notrette and Prospera spend a few hours watching a mystery show — serial killing, artistic tableaus, melancholic lighting. Prestigious and unpopular. It’s most of what Prospera watches these days; the more oblique a show, the better. “I had to sit through a very vast amount of children’s shows,” she’s telling Notrette, by way of explanation. “Suletta and Eri couldn’t get enough. Though I suppose they had to keep each other company after a certain point.”
“You sound sad,” says Notrette, gently.
“I wasn’t a perfect mother.”
The ghost, of course, cannot reach out and touch a living woman — not outside the data storm. That she’s able to relocate herself here, that they can communicate at all, is a miracle. “Who is?” she asks. “My mother wasn’t perfect. Quite the opposite. Next to her, you’re a flawless saint.”
“You had a mother?” Prospera puts her hand on her heart in mock terror. “Here I thought you sprang fully formed from stardust.”
“We need to get me a body so I can swat you on the arm. But yes. I had a mother; she was a fool who believed a man’s love could save her, instead of having the wisdom to understand the real promise of security was seizing his wealth and power.”
“Harsh,” she murmurs. Notrette, she supposes, doesn’t reach out to her own mother much in the afterlife. A brush of guilt for her relative luck, in both husband and mother figure. “You won’t be introducing me to her, then.”
Notrette brays. An indelicate sound, open, bright. “No, I’ll be doing something better. Come in, Prospera.”
The familiar sensation of a data storm — as Ericht once shielded Suletta from its poisonous effects, so Notrette is doing it for her. It makes the experience even pleasant, a hum beneath the skin, a soothing murmur in the air. The location: that twilit bedroom where they first fucked, all those years ago.
Prospera looks down at herself: she’s in the suit she favored in her tenure as Shin Sei’s CEO, but she’s not been made younger. She is as she is in the world of flesh, only more sharply dressed, more mobile. “Is this how you see me?”
“Of course, darling. Handsome at any age.” Notrette has adjusted her own appearance to match — no longer in her mid-thirties, the age when they met; nor even mid-forties, the age when she died. Instead she has given herself the crows feet, the laugh lines, that come with life’s dusk. Though she’s still slight, she’s softer around the middle, her skin not the poreless smoothness it used to be. She twirls around, her white dress — gossamer silk, bridal — spinning with her. “What do you think?”
“Stunning in any dress.” Prospera leans close, lowering her voice. “Or out of it.”
Another peal of laughter. “Do it. I dare you.”
And Prospera does, carefully at first. Sliding off a strap, unlacing the bodice one button at a time. It’s a pretty thing, this dress; she herself never did get to have a wedding — the circumstances and environment on Folkvangr hardly permitted much in pomp, chiffon, or bouquets. “Do you, Notrette Rembran, take me to be your wedded wife?”
“I do.” Notrette slips her fingers into Prospera’s. “In sickness and in health. As Notrette Samaya, I’ll be yours forever.”
Their kiss is soft, and then it is urgent, in the same way that Prospera’s hands grow urgent. No longer decorous or stately as she squeezes a breast through the beaded bodice, as she rips the fabric free of Notrette. She is not satisfied until all she finds is bare skin, the dress torn to tatters, drifting to the ground like snow. And then she hoists Notrette into her arms, spinning her around — Notrette squeals, delighted — before spreading her across the sheets. A feast, an offering from which she will cut bite-sized morsels.
Each of their touches is famished: it has been so long, their parting looked so final, and now they must cover every centimeter, must taste every drop. On her part Prospera has had trysts, here and there, after Notrette’s death. But they were unsatisfying, and eventually she gave herself entirely to her scheme, to Quiet Zero. She alienated herself from her own desire: what could it possibly matter anymore, when she had her singular objective.
And now she is reacquainting herself with that part long frozen over, buried beneath the glacier of her ambition. Notrette is her sun; Notrette is her spring. She surfaces into herself, and she thaws.
Mid-kiss, Notrette draws back and whispers, “Do you trust me?”
“With my life.” This is spontaneous: Prospera has not thought about it, has not considered her words. But the moment she says them, she realizes they are true.
“Good. What I’m about to do is to create an analogue for your body. It won’t harm your real nervous system in any way. It’s just,” Notrette says, impish, “an exploration.”
She gives one of Prospera’s breasts a loving kiss, and then her hand sinks into Prospera’s chest.
With anyone else, Prospera might have struggled — might have thought she’d summoned a restless ghost, furious and violent. But she does trust. And so she allows herself to immerse in the experience, which — as Notrette said — is little like flesh, and nothing like cardiac arrest. Instead it’s a firm hold, a lover’s caress, on her beating heart. It sharpens every other sensation within the data storm: it makes Notrette’s skin against her warmer, realer. It makes the passage of Notrette’s cock (prosthesis or flesh; in this place, it does not matter, makes no difference) into her that much more vivid. A slow slide, testing. The way it glides deep, wide and pulsing.
They fuck like that, Notrette deep inside Prospera in every way — tongue in mouth, cock in cunt, fist in chest. It is brilliant and bestial; it is violent, and utterly tender.
The backstage is dark, crowded with props and hologram projectors. Number Five is alone, until he isn’t. The moment he senses this change, he grimaces — for someone who is no longer a keychain, and who’s incarnated in a human-sized body now, Ericht Samaya is preternaturally quiet when she moves. No creak on the wood, barely a footfall. Eerie and alarming.
“What now?” He looks up, squinting at the backlit figure that — again — is far too broad and tall than it has any right to be. Suletta isn’t delicate to start with, but Ericht seems determined to outbulk both her mother and sister. She has also been determined to shred his entire performance, spending the hours of rehearsal sitting by and picking him apart. This or that gesture is insufficiently ladylike. He needs to smile more. He needs to alter his gait and roll his hips. It got to the point where Shanaya started to look at him with pity.
Ericht cocks her head. She doesn’t need to blink, and uses that fact to make her scrutiny of him more unnerving. “You seem surprised that I don’t like you very much.”
“Well.”
“Let me rank the offenses you’ve committed against me and my family, in order of severity. You sexually harassed my sister for weeks on end. You shot at my mother. You tried to hijack my body.” Ericht ticks off her fingers. “You failed to kill Kenanji Avery when you had a gun in hand and him in proximity.”
The final item strikes him as a complete non-sequitur. Nevertheless he holds up his hands. “What do I need to do, to avoid getting mysteriously electrocuted and left in a ditch once this play is over?”
Ericht chuckles. A deep, rolling sound. He can imagine it turning women into liquid — Shanaya was looking a little soft, a little too riveted by Ericht’s every movement. “You do appreciate the threat I present. Good. And you’re right — if you meet with a fatal accident on the road, Suletta will be sad, but she’ll move on, as long as she’s unaware who was behind it. You’re not that important.” She points at a dressing table. “Sit down, your makeup needs work.”
“I’m going home, I don’t need makeup.” He sits nevertheless: what he faces is an unquiet ghost, capricious and vengeful. Very likely he’s about to be stabbed in the eyeball with a liner or mascara wand, but that’s still preferable to being ripped limb to limb. It’s not that Five is a coward, but he is aware of his odds. GUND prostheses tend to confer on their users far more limb strength than flesh ones, and Ericht’s entire body is likely made of the same material, even if the synthetic dermis looks lifelike enough.
When she takes hold of his chin, he gets his confirmation: the force of her grip suggests at strength beyond the organic. She eases up quickly — warning delivered. Then she starts taking off his stage makeup, wiping away the thick layer that sits on his face like a mask. Once she’s satisfied that she’s working with a clean canvas, she begins applying eyeshadow, a muted taupe shade. Then eyeliner, in a cool brown rather than the more dramatic black he wore as Snow White. The lipstick is likewise, an unobtrusive light pink, topped with the faintest of glosses.
“There’s your everyday look,” Ericht declares. “Memorize it. Stage makeup is overpainted and garish away from the theater, so we can’t have you walking around in that.”
“My everyday look? I’m not — ”
“You told Zenelli you were getting into character, remember? Going to breathe and sleep the role?” She smirks. “As I said, the play’s very important to my sister.”
He does not miss the implied threat. “Is this some perverted hobby of yours?”
Ericht meets his eyes. Up close, the artifice of hers becomes more obvious. They don’t reflect light the way human corneas do. Too hard, too faceted. “The data storm records nearly every soul. A great ocean of the dead. I travel freely within it.”
Five keeps quiet, waiting for her to elaborate.
“Norea Du Noc. She’s there too.”
At this his restraint dissolves. He’s on his feet, grabbing Ericht by the shoulders, forgetting instantly that she’s much stronger than he and may — under the pretext of self-defense — genuinely injure him. That she has every reason to do so, and never mind the bloodstains it’d leave on the floorboards. “What. About. Norea.”
Ericht smiles, unperturbed. “She sends her regards. The way she put it, she saw something in you that you don’t yet know about yourself, or won’t admit. And while she’s already learned your old name, she looks forward to hearing your real one.”
The play, against all odds, goes off without a hitch.
Ericht “Princess Charming” Samaya, in a dress uniform of tight pants and gleaming epaulets, effortlessly steals the show. Many mothers and aunts in the audience, partnered to men, experience an awakening. Prospera poorly hides her pride. Like mother, like daughter, Notrette mutters in her ear before reminding Prospera to not look too hard at one of the other mothers, a bosomy blonde.
On the stage, there is a holographic sequence where the actors dub their voices onto mobile suits that bear a striking resemblance to — respectively — the Lfrith (chosen because some of the children here may well have been orphaned in Quinharbor; the Aerial Rebuild would have been impolitic), the Pharact, and the Michaelis (now possibly the Michaela). For reasons known only to the production team, after Princess Charming wakes Snow White from her slumber, the two of them challenge the Evil Queen for control of the kingdom via mobile suit duel.
(“Reducing death machines to a domesticated spectacle for young children is ridiculous!” Chuchu declares, from the back, muffled by Nika’s hand. “They’re supposed to learn that war is bad, not that it’s cool.”)
“I don’t remember Snow White happening quite like that,” Miorine says in an undertone to her wife. “What the hell has been going on with the script? And why’s my sister-in-law onstage?”
“It’s fun, Miorine-san.” Suletta pecks Miorine on the cheek. “Eri’s really enjoying herself, see?”
“Well, of all people I guess she deserves to, considering…”
By the play’s denouement, the Evil Queen, Princess Charming, and Snow White have come to a truce and, also, to a marriage negotiation. In this kingdom, evidently polyamory is legal. Three thrones are built in a hurry. The play ends in a grand, festive wedding; applause is provided by the seven Haros, who gave Snow White shelter during her stay in the forest. Bouquets are thrown. The children cheer.
(“You better not start getting ideas,” Miorine mutters to her wife. “I’m very monogamous.”
“You’re my one and only bride, Miorine-san. But now all the children will really understand that women marrying women is completely commonplace!”)
Sixty-one days post-Snow White, Number Five returns to the countryside branch of GUND-ARM Inc. There’s something different in the features, the body shape, the hair. Even the sensible hiking clothes sit differently.
Shanaya, days from returning to prison, is one of the first to bear witness. Upon the sight of Five, she puts her hand on her chest and widens her eyes. “Talk about fortuitous! A few more days and I’d have missed you. What do you go by now?”
Five arches an eyebrow. “Eleanor. I’m keeping the Ceres, just to piss the man off.”
Shanaya whistles. “Good job. He needs to be taken down a peg or five. At the rate we’re going, we will make Asticassia look like an all-girls school. Taken up Miorine’s offer on the endocrine implants?”
“Yeah. Really simplifies things, convenient, adjustable. She’s going to make a lot of money.” Eleanor looks SAL’s most wanted woman over. “What have you been up to? I doubt you’ve been sitting tight and engaging only in upstanding citizen behavior.”
“Naturally I have. Speaking to a few old friends is perfectly good behavior.” Shanaya spreads her hands. “I made mistakes back in Asticassia by being impatient. The long game’s what it is all about. I’ll miss looking up at the open sky, though.”
“But you’re not staying in there forever.”
“No,” Shanaya says with a straight face. “There’s always the thought of another work-release contract. I’ve abandoned all criminal tendencies.”
Eleanor shakes her head. “If you say so. Good luck back in there.”
“You too, out in the world.” Shanaya grins with a bright red mouth, clasping the other woman on the shoulder. “Sister in solidarity.”
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this, you might enjoy our forthcoming novel The Hades Calculus, pitched as Witch from Mercury meet Greek mythology. The Master of the Underworld, Hades, needs a pilot for her war machine… and she might have just found one in the killer cyborg Persephone.
Additionally, the G-Witch Force Fem Universe (?) is expanding! Read:
