you're the high that I can't give up (part XXIX)

(Roleplay entry. Continued from part XXVIII.)

They'd been working in the orbital lab over Haven, unpacking equipment and installing it into the system for the next project: seeing if there was a way to detoxify Dragon Egg's snake meat for eventual consumption by humans or animals. Far be it for them to question the phrasing of the contract, as venomous creatures usually were not envenomed, themselves, but that was how it was written, so that's what they were going to set up to accomplish. The Duchess wasn't sure they'd succeed, but they were fairly sure that if nothing else, the Sphinx-Templar Syndicate might end up with a decent paralytic or systemic anaesthetic out of it.

In the lab were the Duchess, Justine, Lina, S-T's Nephilim head of security, and a priest Justine knew from the Night Court the Duchess had only met once before, when she'd inexplicably brought him in during the birthing. The conversation had drifted through various topics before settling on firearms, Justine having finally mastered the art of targeting, in order to get the snake bodies from Dragon's Egg to sample.

"It's one thing to identify a target," said the priest, "but harder far to avoid collateral damage."

Justine nodded. "True, Fen."

The Nephilim shrugged. "Not if the bullet is a special technomagical one."

Justine tilted her head. "Hmm."

"Though the damn thing cost a whole planet's worth of cash," Lina muttered afterwards, darkly.

Fen just nodded. "Magical ones are always the ideal...choice."

The Duchess looked up. "Problem with that, though, here," the Duchess said, working off a casing to add additional connectors.. "'Technically' magic doesn't exist on Haven."

Justine nodded. "Right."

Emilly nodded. "We had our wrists slapped on that one the first day."

Justine nodded in response. "We were nearly arrested! Thrown in irons!"

The Duchess turned, lifting the glass column of the gas spectrometer out of a packing crate, onto a side table, looking over. "That was later, wasn't it?"

The priest only smiled. "A lasting correction, I gather."

Lina shrugged, polishing her rifle. "I know a few technowizards, as well."

The Duchess nodded, slightly distracted, hooking up one of the panels, testing the readouts. "So do we," she murmured.

Lina looked up. "Cool."

Emilly shrugged this time. "But, the vagaries of place. Here, Hiro's not a leopard, and I'm not fae."

Lina looked interested. "Maybe they can figure me out, then."

Emilly shook her head. "We're both playing humans. And hoping we don't get caught."

Justine smiled. "You almost fake it convincingly, too."

The Duchess grinned at her. "I live in fear of iron bullets, but beyond that, yeah."

Fen smiled at her. "I think of you as fae, Duchess."

She smiled back. "Thank you, Fen."

"I wish I knew just what the hell I was," Lina said.

The Duchess nodded. She sympathized. Her genetic structure was odd enough, but then being raised away from both races who'd sired her, and that before being pulled through time and space because she was Sídhe-sided enough to help the Unseelie Court achieve...whatever...they wanted to at the time...She sighed. Her problem was not that she didn't know what she was, because that, she finally knew. Her problem was that she had never met anyone exactly like her for comparison. A Tengu father and a Kitsune mother was odd enough, but then being taken away by a Western ship's captain when her mother's village burned, and being told she was a cat often enough to decide she must be one....all of which was before she was pulled to the Winter Court and enchanted into Phouka form...it was enough to make anyone dizzy.

"That can be tricky," she finally murmured, moving to the stasis tank, to check that the feeds were properly connected.

Fen nodded. "That's a pretty human wondering."

Lina looked up. "I used to be a ship's AI."

Justine blinked. "A ship AI?"

Lina nodded. "A long time ago, that."

"That reminds me of a wonderful sci fi novel that I read long long ago," Fen said, lips quirking.

The Duchess half-shrugged, fitting another piece of equipment into place. "One reason you're so good with machines," she said. "You were the ship."

Lina nodded. "Yes. The USS Icarus." She looked down. "I miss those days."

Justine looked over. "Do you ever think of...shifting back? Doing that again?"

"It's natural that wonderings did increase," the priest said.

Lina just shrugged again. "Tried; no such luck. One of the Tenowish thinks it's because of what happened."

Emilly looked over. "What happened?"

The priest turned to face the Nephilim.

Lina didn't seem to notice. "We were dealing with an all-powerful alien force, and...long story short...they destroyed the whole Verse. As in, everything."

The Duchess looked over, blinking. Let that thought settle in. Huh. So, not this Verse. "Well, damn," she finally said.

Justine looked stunned. "Whoa. How did you escape? How did you end up here?"

The priest mused on 'all-powerful'. "That sounds almost godlike."

Lina nodded. "They were godlike. And...I didn't know after the explosion, or destruction, or...whatever...I found myself waking up in a huge vat of Klingon blood wine."

The Duchess blinked again. What?

Lina went on. "Naked, and in some pain. The first time I ever felt pain..."

"That must have been a shock," the Duchess murmured.

Lina nodded.

"An old Klingon saw me fall out of the sky and into the vat. He helped me out. Dried me off and gave me a robe. He was shocked that I understood every word he said to me."

"Good sort," the Duchess mused.

Fen nodded. "Pain is a part of being human. Emily Dickenson said 'pain has an element of blank to it'."

Justine heard a tiny ping, checking her wrist comm. She looked up. "Emilly...I think we need to get to the library in Gearhaven. Do you think you can put your hands on something called 'The Book of Ose and Hiram'?"

The Nephilim was still lost in thought. "At first he called me a demon, but then he saw my wings and horns, and was, well...tryin' to figger me out..."

The priest nodded again. "Obscuring past and future, it heightens the present moment."

Lina nodded. "Yeah. I was in shock."

Justine looked quizzically at Fen. "Pain has an element of...blank...to it?"

While the priest nodded, Emilly put down the digital scale, considering.

"I think so?" she finally said. "Might need to see if STAN's talking to us, or if he's still partially offline."

The penny dropped for Justine, and she turned to the Nephilim. "An entire vat of blood wine. I wonder if they still drank it after you'd been in it?"

The Duchess shrugged. "Why waste good blood wine?"

"I did just get a ping from STAN," Justine murmured.

Emilly nodded. "Right. So he's active, at least."

Lina just shook her head. "I'm not even going to tell what happened when they did that."

The priest looked up. "When they did what, Lina?"

"When they drank the wine," she answered."

The Duchess blinked. "Oh dear."

Justine widened her eyes. "Wh-wh-what happened??"

Lina shook her head. "Anywho, my story...not important," she muttered.

"Yes it is, Lina," Justine said, trying to reassure her.

The Duchess considered. "Well, she was in pain," she said. "The chances she was also wounded were high, considering skyfall. Do the math, a bunch of Klingons drank her blood with the wine."

Lina nodded. "Let's just say there's a group of Klingons who think I'm a goddess of blood wine, and want me to swim in more of the stuff."

Justine blinked. "Ooooh."

Emilly grinned. "That must have been...interesting."

Lina nodded. "They think it made it taste better. No, thank you."

The penny dropped again for Justine. "Ohhh!" she said.

Emilly just grinned. "They might be right."

Justine furrowed her brow, thinking. "They might..."

Emilly nodded. "I mean, come on, the Klingons are a race that gets drunk on sugar. Who knows what your blood did to the mix?"

Lina frowned. "Don't you two start, I am SO not doing that."

Justine just shuddered. "It can't make it taste worse, that's for dead certain. That [sh*t] is FOUL. NOT a fan."

The Duchess laughed. "Not to Klingons."

Lina agreed, meanwhile. "I know, I got a good mouthful falling into it."

Emilly nodded. "I bet."

Lina nodded again. "The old Klingon helped me out a lot. I never asked his name, due to, I think, I was in shock from it all. Bein' alive, and losing that...that was to me...all that I was, I mean..."

Emilly nodded sagely. "The mysterious benefactor."

"Hmm," said Justine. "There are a lot of Klingons in the Verse," she said.

Emilly nodded. "True."

Lina nodded, expression dark. "Why I avoid them."

"And a station," Justine continued. "I wonder if it might have records of a demon goddess that fell into a vat of blood wine, giving it magical properties?"

The Duchess shrugged. "Maybe."

"Even though that was another Verse, they're all connected..." She looked up then, narrowing her eyes at Justine. "Stop it."

Justine shrugged. "Okay, no more talk of finding your mysterious rescuer."

The priest tapped his lower lip in thought. "I remember a book called 'Angels'...It was beautifully illustrated with both good and bad angels...Perhaps you're in there."

"Well, as long as my pic's not in there, I'm happy," Lina groused.

"We'll keep you well clear, Lina. Don't you worry." Justine patted her shoulder.

"Thank you," Lina said.

The Duchess moved closer to Justine.

"So, the library in Gearhaven. Has books," Justine said. "You've been doing some research, digging through the archives, haven't you, Emilly?"

The Nephilim looked up. "Books?"

The Duchess nodded. "Yes, we should probably go look. And I have been trying."

"Which ones?" Lina asked.

"Okay, look," Justine said. "There's four of us, let's go have a look."

Emilly tilted her head, staring at Lina. "The Book of Ose had Hiram," she told her.

"Right," said Justine.

"And no," Emilly said. "I've heard of Hiram, but Ose...I know I've heard of Ose, I just can't remember where...But there's no saying it's not in the archives. though. Or that it hasn't shown up...recently..."

"Y'all up for a trip back down to Gearhaven?" Justine asked.

"Accessing," Lina said.

The Duchess looked between the Nephilim and the human.

Lina's eyes flared silver-white. "Copy found," she said, her voice distant. "What do you inquire?"
Justine leaned in, whispering to Lina. "The Book of Ose and Hiram," she said.

The priest joined them, placing a supportive hand on Justine's shoulder.

Lina's eyes shone, a growing trace of the mechanical in her vocal tones. "Copy found," she repeated. "Please state the nature of your inquiry."

(Continued in part XXX.)