Chapter 18: Taylor (I Promise You)
Taylor didn't stick around in the baths. For one, The Empress might have had a nice clock telling her how long she needed to stay, but all Taylor had was a bunch of gibberish. Came with never having a full exam, apparently.
For another, Taylor liked feeling human again. Sure, she felt like she'd pulled several muscles and everything ached. She needed a cane to walk. But that was a cheap price for having a clear head and keeping her ship self mostly quiet.
So as soon as she could, Taylor got out of there. Too much information, The Empress was trying to stuff an entire world view down her throat. Taylor had tired of it, at least for the time being. She was mobile again.
Someone had arranged for a demure one piece swimsuit to be waiting for her. It was a nice deep blue. Taylor didn't even have to be careful not to tear it with an errant twitch. Rather, she struggled to put it on, but she managed. The helpful hands were firmly rebuffed. Taylor was injured, not an invalid. She tried not to look too closely. Their eyes made her uncomfortable. There was a weight of expectation behind them. Like Taylor owed them to be something she wasn't. Luckily, none of them approached her as she hobbled out of the baths.
Wakumi was sitting on the ground outside, leaning against the wall. The carrier looked eighteen, nineteen. A recently enrolled college freshman, maybe. She bobbed up to her feet and gave Taylor a happy little smile.
"All done Miss?" Wakumi asked.
Now Taylor wasn't great with people. They tended to be uncomfortable around bugs. Wakumi? Her eyes were dark, down. Not at all in matching with her smile or voice. The Miss was new.
"Miss? What happened to Bertha?" she asked absentmindedly, trying to reorient herself.
"Huh. The lunch room's collapsed. That was a bit more collateral damage then I was expecting." Taylor thought.
Wakumi's smile only grew a bit, stiffening.
"I wouldn't hope to presume, Miss," she answered.
Her eyes were fixed somewhere around Taylor's bellybutton. After weeks spent being glared at, this change; this shift? It was eerie from her Escort Leader. Taylor shook her head, she needed some time off. She figured Wakumi would have been more missed for at her for using one of the girls as a missile.
"Then don't," Taylor tried out.
There was nothing. No pushback, no "just a freighter jokes". Ne beating. Wakumi was pretending to be as meek as a newborn kitten and Taylor personally knew better. Which only raised her unease. It was one thing to be told the Abyss was crazy. This was something else.
"I'm leaving," Taylor said, because it felt awkward not to as she started hobbling to her place. She heard footsteps following her.
"Still escorting me Wakumi?" She probed.
"Apologies, Miss. This one was ordered to ensure there are no more accidents."
That? That had grated on her from the beginning. The way they were supposed to lower themselves before their betters. Part of her told her it was culture clash. Japanese politeness clashing with American… Individualism, pride. Something. They were speaking Japanese but Taylor was from Brockton Bay.
It grated on Taylor to speak that way and it still grated on her to be spoken to like this. She knew the translation wasn't perfect, that nuance and meaning were lost but she thought in English. Even translating everything in her head, something was lost.
Taylor walked on, unsure what to do about it. She was pretty sure just asking her to call her Taylor would not end well. She could see one angle to try.
"Accidents? I suppose that's one way to put it. Wakumi?"
"Yes, Miss?"
"I'm an American Wakumi. We don't stand much on ceremony," Taylor tried.
The carrier nodded, head bobbing. "I shall keep that in mind, Miss."
Taylor headed out to her little spot out in the shallows, Wakumi following. Weather to spy on her or as her attendant, Taylor wasn't sure. Could be both. She kind off didn't want to know. Both were bad in their own way.
Taylor needed some time, space. Some peace of mind to think things through.
• • •
The tree was waiting for her. It wasn't alone. Scratch and Itchy leapt up upon seeing her. They came at her like a freight train, yet ground to half once they got near, the spray soaking her. Taylor was used to it.
"Hi girls. Missed me?"
Scratch gave her a massive lick that took her off her feet. That had Itchy snapping at Scratch and mewling. How a giant shark monster could mewl was something Taylor was going waste time figuring out.
"I'm fine. I'm fine you big lugs. Just a bit banged up," Taylor reassured them. Didn't work much, but she was quickly situated in her spot, scratching Itchy just the way she liked it. Wakumi looked sick, watching play with her pets. Taylor couldn't relax.
"What?" Taylor asked. The young woman flinched, as if she'd been slapped.
"You kept them," she said, keeping her eyes on the floor. "Miss."
Taylor shook her head. "It's more of a lease. I've yet to see their owner show her face."
Wakumi choked. "They're Midways, Miss."
That? That was just par for the course for this whole thing. Figures the pets Taylor made would belong to her host. Serves Midway right for letting them manage on their own. That seemed to remove whatever bug was bothering Wakumi, so Taylor relaxed, closing her eyes. As much as she could with an interloper around watching her. It wasn't that bad.
• • •
"Miss?" she asked after a few minutes.
"Yes Wakumi?" the Miss allowed.
"Aren't you going home, Miss?" Wakumi questioned. They were awfully exposed out here. She opened one eye to glance back.
"I am home," She answered. After a moment the other eye opened: "Where did you think I slept?"
There was a ball of anxiety, fear and misery sitting in her gut. Wakumi could do nothing about it, so she tried not to think about it. Another rock just felt down her throat and landed on the pile.
"In your room Miss," she said, trying to stay positive.
The Miss didn't look mad, but that only meant Her revenge would be creative. Wakumi hoped the girls who died in the lunch room were spared further punishment. It was a forlorn hope, but she hoped anyway. Miss was kind to Her pets. Maybe She'd be kind and only kill them for their sins.
"What room?" Miss snapped.
Wakumi felt her crew tremble. For a moment she was back there, helpless. Being torn apart from within because she'd been judged sinful by a higher power, a bad girl who deserved to suffer.
"What room, Wakumi." Miss repeated, softer, kinder, as if She could even care about Wakumi.
After they'd beaten Her. Wakumi felt sick, but didn't let it show. She had to be strong. Couldn't keep failing her duty. They'd retire her. If Miss didn't do worse first.
• • •
The beach house didn't look like much. Taylor had expected more Abyssal stone but no. It was just a regular two story beach house. Raised on stilts, with an attached boat room that hugged the ocean. It looked like something the Abyss had taken, rather than built. How they'd maintained it was a question for later. It was there. The doors were unlocked.
There was a large, open living room, stairs leading up and a small kitchen on the side. The hallway past the stairs lead to the bathroom and a couple of individual rooms. Doors opened on the top floor and a voice called out: "Amelie? Sachi? Is that you?" It was followed by footsteps.
"It's just Bertha." Taylor said.
"Who?" the voice asked, as a girl came down the stairs. She was maybe fifteen, wearing a black two piece made of a sleeveless cut-off tee that left a bit of her stomach open, with a swimming shorts bottom. A white, bony helmet was casually held under one arm. Taylor hadn't seen that Class before, not close enough to recognize in this condition.
"Bertha. I live here," she said, finishing silently "Apparently."
"You're the girl who's never around, aren't cha?" She asked, peering around Taylor. Wakumi wasn't what she was looking for, as she shoot her head and yelled upstairs:
"It's not a mission!"
She peered at Taylor, before shrugging. "Look, I know you're never here, but you need to do your part or give up the room. This place needs at least some maintenance and it isn't fair to Sachi you're letting her do your part. Later. See ya Wakumi," she waved lazily as the teen dismissed them and went back upstairs.
Taylor watched her go and didn't have to look back to sense Wakumi cringing behind her.
"Bit abrupt for a fist meeting, don't you think?" Taylor asked.
"Yes, Miss. As you say, Miss." Taylor was getting really sick of hearing that Miss. It was also informative in that knowledge of what happened in the lunch room was not being shouted to everyone.
She went looking for this room.
"Who's this Sachi?" Taylor asked.
"No one important, Miss." Wow. Was that backbone? From the new, meek Wakumi? Taylor sent a questioning look her way.
"She's special Miss." was all Wakumi said.
They got to the end of the hall and were faced with opposing doors. One was closed and had a paper that said "Bertha" hung on a nail next to it. It had been torn down and cut up, then put back together with sticky tape before being re-hung. The door across was open, but Taylor had bigger fish to fry.
The door wasn't locked. Taylor walked into… a room. It was sparse: a bed, dresser, closet and a small fold out desk with a backless chair. There were stairs leading down into the boat room. By the grease on the floor it looked like this used to be a tool shed, or something similar for the boathouse below, but they'd turned it into a room. Her hand picked up a faint layer of dust on the table. So not something thrown together after her accident.
A couple of nick-knacks were stacked on the dresser. A hair brush, a small mirror, a drawing of her in her rigging, some pots and utensils. The kind of minor luxuries she'd traded in; stacked like moving in gifts.
Wakumi was fidgeting, deeply uncomfortable.
"Some of the girls took their back, when you refused them. Uh. When you just left them there. Ah." she was stumbling on her words.
"When I never came, or said anything," Taylor finished, softly.
"Why the boathouse?" she asked, descending into it. It was empty, no boat, stripped of most everything. A few scattered tools still hung on the walls, and two steel tables were pinned to the floor and wall with scratch marks around them. Someone deciding they weren't worth the effort of prying lose.
Wakumi swallowed. It was loud in the quiet.
"Big Sis Shinigami noticed you liked sleeping with your toes in the water. So she traded for a room that had access."
Her hand pointed to a corner where the ramp lowered into the sea. There were several thick blankets and a pillow stacked up against the wall there.
"We'd made a nest for you, Miss. So you could sleep well. I guess Sachi must have folded it up at some point. Miss, did Sapphire never tell you?" she asked, fretfully.
"How long Wakumi?" Taylor asked, feeling something burning within her. Anger yes, oh she was angry. But it was more. Disappointment with a pinch of regret. Because even seeing it, Taylor still couldn't understand, but she was starting to.
Wakumi folded in on herself like a wet rag. Her voice was a whisper: "After your maiden voyage, Miss. You were part of the fleet then."
After Acapulco. Weeks ago. How? How did any of that make sense? How could anyone fuck up that badly?
Taylor froze. The incident was after Acapulco. Did Sapphire plan to tell her when Taylor broke, but just not care anymore after Taylor wasn't her job? And what, everyone else just assumed? What kind of blind incompetence would do that? Were they…all…twelve…
Her nostrils were flaring and her fist was shaking. And a girl was crying behind her. Wakumi was trying to keep it quiet and when Taylor turned she kept her eyes on the floor.
"I'm sorry Miss. I think it might be raining." Wakumi said in a calm voice, even as her chest shoot and she silently cried. It took Taylor a moment to connect the crazy dots. She was apologizing because Wakumi thought her tears were distracting Taylor. That she was crying too loud, or that it wasn't allowed. And the Carrier was looking for an out, letting Taylor excuse her by blaming the whole thing on imaginary rain.
It was disgusting, wrong. More than anything else since she'd woken up, watching Wakumi apologize for disturbing Taylor with her tears lit a fire in her heart, all the way down to her soul. Because, here, now? After everything?
The idea that Taylor's life was priceless and Wakumi's worthless sickened her to her core.
• • •
She was fucking this up badly. Wakumi knew that the first rule of Midway's fleets was that they always kept their composure, never showed they were hurt or scared. Midway didn't like it.
"You are a ship in the fleets of the Perfect Princess. Act like it."
But Wakumi was failing so hard right now. A gentle but firm hand grabbed her jaw and made her look the Miss in the eyes. There were blue, painfully blue and shining like living lightning.
"We all have our twists," the Miss said, the words drawing every bit of attention Wakumi could spare.
"I do not like it when girls lie to me Wakumi. In word, in deed, or by heart. Be honest Wakumi," the Miss finished softly, wiping away her tears. All of Wakumi's fears came pouring out, a deluge of ugly fates worse than death. Things she'd heard about. Some she'd seen. The Miss just stayed there, listening to her, calm and composed.
Wakumi was terrified of what came next. What would her punishment be?
The Miss rapped her knuckles against her forehead, making her flinch. Slowly she opened her eyes, to see the Miss walking back up to her room.
"There you go. Revenge done," She claimed.
Wakumi swallowed. It was never that easy.
"Oh and Wakumi?" She added.
"You will be available to answer any questions I might have, won't you? It seems I've been making some stupid assumptions on any number of things. I need a local guide. Will you help me, Wakumi?"
Wakumi was nodding and bowing so fast her back and neck hurt.
"Yes Miss. Thank you Miss. You're very kind Miss."
Being the personal helper of a Princess wasn't so bad, right? Long hours, odd jobs and little chance to rest trying to keep up with a Princess. Of course the Miss could still use the job itself as a punishment and Wakumi had no idea how long she'd serve until the Miss felt the debt paid. But it was light. So light, it could have been so much worse.
Grateful and deeply relived, Wakumi scampered after her new boss. It wasn't formal in the fleet, but what a Miss wanted She would get. No one was going to raise a fuss over a mere Light Carrier. This was Midway, not one of the lesser Holdings. She'd need to find someone to take care of her girls.
• • •
Taylor came out of her door wanting to strangle The Empress. And Midway. The room across the hall was occupied. A Light Cruiser teen yelped, dropping her bag, while a woman fully grown stepped between them.
"Yes?" she asked, blocking the door.
Taylor blinked, wondering what messed up shit was going to hit her next. It just seemed like a day for it. Meet the Abyss, everyone and everything is fucked. She could almost feel it coming. She stepped into the hallway leaving whatever was going on there and was nearly to the door when a young voice called out:
"Wait. Wait! You're Bertha, aren't you?"
A little head was peering past the scowling woman into the hallway and looking at her.
"Hi, I'm Sachi! I've been trying to meet you." Her expression fell.
"Not that you've been avoiding me! Or that I'm trying to stalk you! I just really, really wanted to welcome you to the fleet!" Sachi sputtered. She ducked back into her room.
"Just a moment!" was heard, before she was slipping pass the irritated woman. Who was also worried that Taylor could explode and trying to hide it, if Taylor didn't miss her guess. Or plotting how to kill Taylor, either one.
Then Sachi was in front of her with a drawing. It was Taylor, in the fullness of her rigging, running over the open ocean. It was done in crayons, but looked like the work of a professional worthy of the old animated children's films. Her dress was drawn in the same style as Snow White. Taylor was smiling as the rain fell around her, a pot boiling on one side, while on the other her arm and cranes sewed a glittering dress.
"Do you like it?" The little girl asked, with wide, innocent eyes.
Taylor didn't have the heart to tell her no. She ended up dragged to Sachi's room. The woman hovered somewhere between an angry thunder cloud and a concerned mother. Sachi called her Lie-chan. Wakumi had joined Lie-chan at the door, giving Taylor some space, but ready to respond.
Sachi's room was the gallery of an artist. Dozens of drawings and sketches were hung on the walls, mostly of girls in their rigging, serious and fighting some distant enemy. But every now and again, there was a spot of color, like her own. They were spread out, almost deliberately, so that every dark corner had a little bright spot. They started off childish and worked their way up the walls, increasing in quality until they were indistinguishable in quality from cartoons Taylor saw as a kid.
Sachi liked talking. Sachi talked a lot. There was only so much Taylor could take.
"Sachi, you've talked her ear off. Why don't you ask her?" Sachi's friend interrupted. She sounded vaguely European.
Sachi hid behind her bangs.
"I don't want to impose. I'm sure she's busy, Lie-chan." The Light Cruiser demurred.
Taylor tried to be patient. Whatever it was, maybe she could leave afterwards.
Sachi fidgeted, before jumping out of her chair and scurrying over to the dropped bag. She pulled a box out of it, before looking around.
"No peeking," she admonished. A minute later Taylor was face to face with Mr Mushi, a well-worn and cared for plushy rabbit. It had a few small tears and a couple of uneven fixes. It was missing an ear. Sachi was holding the severed ear in her shaking hands like it was her most precious possession on this Earth.
"Can you fix him Berth? Please?" This, at least, was something she could fix. Then she remembered they broke her cranes. Bracing for the pain, she tried to bring up her rigging. It stung, quite a bit. But she didn't feel like she was about to collapse. There was no way she was walking anywhere in this, but Taylor could sew. The machinery ached to operate, but with a little girls dreams in her hand, it wasn't hard to find the will to push through.
Slowly she worked, careful not to further weaken it. While Taylor sewed, Sachi's hands drifted to her crayons.
• • •
"Good as new," Taylor announced. It had been more than a bit tricky, working with plush, but she managed.
Sachi let out a happy shriek and grabbed Mr Mushi, dancing with him. She wouldn't let Taylor leave without paying her back. "The Cat in the Hat" made an appearance.
"I like the cat. He's silly." Sachi giggled.
Amelie, as it had come out the woman was called, gave Sachi a disappointed look.
"You know not everyone has your kind of time Sachi." she chided.
"I know." Sachi guiltily replied.
"But it has pretty pictures and when Bertha comes back, she can come over and I'll read it to her." Sachi replied with triumph.
Taylor's eyebrows climbed for the sky.
"I'm not illiterate. Why would you think that?" she asked, bemused.
And the room was silent.
"That's wonderful! Can you teach me?" Sachi exploded.
"I've been learning on my own, but kanji and kana are hard, and spelling makes no sense." Sachi pouted.
Spelling was weird and huh, Taylor did know kanji and kana.
But these were minor matters next to the implications ringing down her mind. The girls couldn't read. Or write. Guessing how Sachi was weird, even for an Abyssal and the fact even Amelie couldn't it meant most Abyssal girls couldn't. Because no one had taught them. Because there was no one to teach them. They were fighting a war for survival in which literacy was optional. The Empress knew if she was reading papers, but she was a Princess. It took schools, teachers, civilization to give everyone a chance to learn reading.
Taylor had no idea how the Princesses were even leading and waging that war with girls that couldn't read orders.
Taylor was still wrestling with the discovery when her voice said:
"Yes, Sachi. I'll teach you if there's time."
Well. Now she should at least read the "The Cat in the Hat".
Taylor sat on the bed, Sachi burrowing into her side. She was warm and soft. When was the last time Taylor felt a touch that wasn't to hurt her?
"The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Sejuss." Sachi recited, happy as a clam.
"It's The Cat in the Hat by Doctor Seuss." Taylor corrected.
"The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
So we sat in a house
All that cold, cold, wet day."
Taylor read on.
• • •
It started with the Light Cruisers on the floor above. They were drawn by the rhythmic words, echoing through the thin walls.
"A lot of good tricks.
I will show them to you.
Your mother
Will not mind at all if I do."
They hovered outside the door, but somehow were noticed. Wakumi explained the situation and they were allowed to listen in, if they were quiet. They called their friends. Their friends called their friends.
"Sachi got a Young Miss to teach her to read." the rumors said.
"If it's Sachi, it can't be helped." those who heard would answer.
"Everyone is allowed to listen in. She's having lessons right now." it would go.
On they came, until they couldn't fit in the house. Until the entire party had moved out to the beach. There was only one rule. No violence. Everyone is welcome, no exceptions.
Submarines gathered in the shallows and girls on patrol listened in over radio. While most weren't readers, there were plenty who were, if not great ones. But reading was a favor to be traded, like any other luxury in the Abyss. Not something to be freely given out, to everyone who could attend.
When the Miss read the book the third time, hey sparkling blue eyes pinned several girls in the front row.
"I see how you're looking at the book. If you so much as touch it, I'll deal with you myself. It is Sachi's and will remain so. Are we clear?" she'd commanded.
Most were unsure of the gravity of the threat. A few girls who survived the touch of the Graveyard leaked so much terror into the fleet the rest quickly lost all desire to try their luck.
Midway would only take pieces out of you as punishment. Some things were worth that. No one wanted to have anything to do with things that made Heavy Cruisers vomit in public at the thought of it.
That promise? That warning? It opened the flood gates.
Girls ran for their homes as the cooks brought out tables and chairs to the beach. The fleet was there, The Miss was there, so the meal came to them. Those who left returned with their own books. Hoping for the same protection and to hear their book read by a Young Miss. It just wasn't the same when you were reading by yourself, or paying for the privilege.
The Miss had a way with reading, as if every word mattered. She breathed life into the stories. And she was a Young Miss. Sitting there, spending time with them, on them. That was precious, even if there was a crowd.
Montana came forward last. Her book was well worn. The page earmarked and a bit smudged.
"Thank you." she said.
The Miss raised her voice to read to everyone and everyone joined in, happy to be here. To be alive. This one? This one they knew. A choir answered her voice, a choir of damned monsters, a choir of doomed girls.
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are!
Up above the world so high,
Like a diamond in the sky."
The Miss was crying. Her tears were a brilliant blue.
"When the blazing sun is gone,
When he nothing shines upon,
Then you show your little light,
Twinkle, twinkle, all the night."
Her tears fell, and reversed. A hum, an echo, vibrating in the air, sending each brilliant blue drop falling upwards, into the night sky. Like stars.
"Then the trav'ller in the dark,
Thanks you for your tiny spark,
He could not see which way to go,
If you did not twinkle so."
Slowly, the voices went out, one by one. No one knew why the Miss was crying. But everyone could feel the pain breaking her heart. Each drop hit the sky and turned to silent, blinding blue lightning.
"In the dark blue sky you keep,
And often thro' my curtains peep,
For you never shut your eye,
Till the sun is in the sky."
A single voice followed her into the final verse, Sachi singing her heart out, oblivious to the world. The fleet looked at the Miss and in her eyes saw their own reflection. Like a five year old child that had just taken her bunny to pieces and was proudly presenting the bloody remains to her mother. Unaware, unknowing of what was wrong. But suddenly sure that She could see something in them and that that something was terribly wrong.
"'Tis your bright and tiny spark,
Lights the trav'ller in the dark,
Tho' I know not what you are,
Twinkle, twinkle, little star."
Sachi opened her eyes to see everyone looking at the Miss, crying and unsure why they were weeping. Their tears flowed like a river, a murky, dark thing until it was gathering in a moat around the Miss, silent beats humming in each swirl. The Miss fled into the lagoon and the river followed. A dark wave chasing a woman running under shining stars rising to the heavens.
• • •
She'd ran out of places to run, in the middle of the lagoon. The dark was in her. It was in all of them. It had saved her from the kiss of death, but it demanded its due. The dark wave caught her and rose, swallowing her whole. The Princess of The Abyss Emerged, fully rigged, her dress swaying in the waves. The night sky was filled with stars, cloudless, yet flashing with webs of lighting that her tears rose to join.
They were monsters. They were children. So was she.
She knew the answer. If she had ran and yelled and screamed at The Empress. Not enough time, not enough resources, not enough Princesses. Too much to do. An entire ocean and two whole fronts to manage, just here, around Midway.
She felt every fiber of her rigging, every Nightmare and Sin woven into it. The Abyss, claiming its own.
Taylor turned her head to the heavens, her eyes blazing.
"No. Not like this. A debt I'll accept, for saving all our lives, but not like this." she ordered.
Waves were rising and Taylor could feel the beating hearts of so many girls woven into her rigging.
The clouds rolled in, sudden and heavy as the storm descended on Midway. Not the one that ever lingered over it, but Her Storm. Taylor's lightning jumping, riding the clouds as the waves roiled beneath her and the rain fell in thick sheets that consumed the world.
"You and me," Taylor said to The Abyss, looking to the choir gathered at the beach, "someday soon, we've going to have a frank and honest discussion on just what you're doing to these girls."
Dozens of arcs of brilliant light gathered high above her, a web of lightning combining, growing, until fulmination fell from the boiling heavens. Her Legend descended from the storm as a blinding azure sea serpent thicker than Taylor was tall, singing a promise of oblivion and a better tomorrow.
"And if I'm not happy with the answers, I'll find a way to kill you too," The Slayer of False Gods Promised The Abyss.