Author's Note: Yar, thar be dialogue ahead! Or, at the very least, monologue.

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HeMeleNoLiloLover: Thank you for the compliments and the fave. Excuse my burst of flailing and sputtering, but on your favorites list are some absolutely awesome works. When on a list with such works as "Choices"! there is no choice for me but to squee and use an emotion interjection. Because that's just how much awesome that story is.

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ri2: They are a group of oddities, aren't they? Although I don't think Cinsiyet is really a hermaphrodite because, from the information I've found, that means he needs to have both male and female reproductive organs, sterile or otherwise. I think he's more of just a general intersexed mix, with only one set of reproductive organs but a mix of male and female traits in other areas.

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Wikitiki99: Thank you for the fave!

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Grey Screen

It was odd, the sensation of feeling everything and nothing all at once. Everything because he could not remember ever feeling anything before and nothing because he was floating in a void of pale, misty grey. Not doing anything, perhaps not even breathing. He wasn't sure, because he couldn't remember if he'd ever preformed that particular biological function before and didn't know if there was any air, or even any need to breath, in the void. So he just floated, completely relaxed, staring up in to the void with half lidded eyes. He assumed all of this should be pleasant and that, perhaps, he should be happy. But he was quite sure that he had never been happy or unhappy or felt any sort of real emotion, and therefore had nothing to compare his current state to. So he just drifted, although there was nothing to see but the grey and so he couldn't confirm whether he was drifting or just floating in one place, allowing the nothingness to give him some semblance of completion. Before him there was nothing. Around him there was nothing. And for this he was… glad, to the best of his knowledge.

It was strange, this comprehension and yet he was not in a state of mind to ponder over his cognitive abilities. He didn't even known if he was alive, though he doubted it. If this was life or, more specifically, his life than it was a very poor one as far as he was concerned. Perhaps others had it worse off, but it this was as good as it got than life was a copout.

"That it is, that it is," a voice mused. He had no idea where the speaker was, since he hadn't yet developed the ability to detect the direction from which sound reached him. He was left shivering, struggling to sit up and curl himself in to a small ball that would do absolutely nothing to protect him but would make him feel at least a bit better anyway. Unfortunately, all he managed to do was slowly drift up and over, a sort of summersault that landed him right back in the position he had been trying to get out of. Apparently there wasn't much in the way of gravity wherever he was.

Just as there was no way to tell if he was moving, there was no way to determine the passage of time. He had no idea how long he had floated through the void in total, or how long it had been since he had heard the soft voice musing somewhere beyond his range of vision. But at some point in time he began distinguishing something that was not made of the same misty material as the rest of the void. It was nothing more than a blurry little smudge, just a shade or two darker than everything else. However, it was different and therefore fascinating. If nothing else, it gave him something to focus on, something that wasn't as static as everything else, being that the blotch was clearly getting larger. That or he was so bored by the monotony of the void that his eyes were playing tricks on him. Or it could have been his brain, as in cases such as this one should never rule out the possibility of insanity.

"But insanity is all there is," the voice said, drifting to him from the grey beyond. "Just as normalcy is a figment of existences' collective imagination. To be in a state of pure normalcy everyone would have to be exactly the same, the slightest difference in any facet rendering the individual in question to be imperfect, on the basis of deviating from the established norm. Being that this is not the case, perhaps bar the simplest of single-celled organisms, sanity can no more exist than normalcy can."

That… That just made his head hurt. He had to admit, if that voice was a product of his own mind, his mind was damn philosophical. Too much so, he decided, as his antennae lowered to rest closer to his aching skull. Had he just made his own head hurt? If so, that was… most unfortunate, considering the distinct possibility of being stuck with only his sapient mind for company. Or at least he thought he was being deep; that whole conversation could have been a product of the very insanity it insisted everyone possessed.

"No, good guess, though. I'm not a figment of your imagination, only another entity drifting by on the flow of reality, forced to follow the plane of time wherever it goes."

He stared straight ahead. He looked to the left. He looked to the right. He glanced up. He twisted his neck to look beneath himself as best he could. He finished his spot check by straining his neck backwards to check behind himself. No one in any direction. Well, that was that. He was officially, undeniably crazy. Completely out-of-his-mind bonkers. Well, at least he'd be moderately entertained and vastly perturbed for the duration of his life inside the void.

"Oh please. You're no crazier than anyone else. In fact, you're actually moderately sane, as sane as any being capable of so-called higher thinking can be, at any rate."

No one there, no one there. He stared in the direction he assumed was skyward, yielding to his own insanity with absolutely no fight. Wasn't like there was anything he could do about it. This was probably just one of those environmental insanities, the kind you got when you were stuck in a cave or a desert. If he ever got out of the void, assuming there was anything besides the void, he hoped he'd come out a-okay and with only one voice in his head. His own, that is, not this other voice.

"I'm not in your head. I'm just outside your range of vision."

Inside my head…

"No… Outside of your head, in what you have so uncreatively christened 'the void.' For the record, you're dead. Welcome to Limbo."

Well, that stopped his brain in its tracks for all of fifteen seconds. Then he decided one of two things had just happened. The first option being that he wasn't insane and there really was someone else beyond his range of vision. Or it could be that whatever part of his brain was insane had somehow wound up much more informed than whatever small scrap of sanity he possessed. Which just wasn't fair at all, he decided. Or maybe his lunacy wasn't clued-up in the least but creative and had simply fabricated its intelligence. Which was nothing short of a stoke of brilliance, in the opinion of his sound mind.

"Your 'insanity' isn't informed, it's fabricated. You want to be sane? Fine than, just grab onto the fact that I'm telling you I'm not part of your imagination. See? Look at that, an easy way out! A simple solution has just presented itself to you, you don't just let opportunity like that slip away. You jump on it; it's not that hard."

That's it, he decided. Life was a copout. His insanity was a copout. His life -he could find no eloquent word to describe how he felt- out and out sucked.

"Oh please," the voice grumbled. "You didn't even live long for your life to, as you put it, suck. You want to know how bad life is? You weren't even alive an hour and it'll take at least a month for you to be processed in to the afterlife. Why? Because self-government and bureaucracy don't mix. But that's what happens when you try to hyper-organize half a dozen people in order to micromanage the portfolio life."

What. The. Hell.

"My sentiments exactly. Upon my own induction in to the afterlife, that is. You should come to find that attempting to rationalize existence, be it life, death, or otherwise, is an exercise in futility. Unless you're into that kind of thing, that is."

He knew his brain had stopped. Frozen? Definitely. Shut down? He couldn't tell, though he wouldn't be surprised if it had simply skipped both and went straight to melting. Too bad he didn't have ears for his liquefied mind to leak out of. From where than? His mouth? Ew, he certainly hoped not. His tear ducts? Still disgusting, but at least he wouldn't have to taste the remnants of his brain. Unless it dripped down in to his mouth and he… Okay, now he just felt sick. He wondered if could actually throw up. Did he even have a stomach?

"Wow, your thought train just screams, "Look at me! I'm a total newbie!" doesn't it?"

Besides answers to his questions, he also wished for some sort of solid object. He didn't really care what, just something large enough to bang his head against. If he was dead, this could not possibly be heaven, because he wanted to slam his head against something, anything, until he black out, preferably in to a coma.

"My, my, I do seem to make an awful lot of people want to do that, don't I? A talent that is not entirely unuseful, I must say, to make people wish for torpor of any form. As far as answers, there is only so much information I can provide you with. Since you were barely even decanted at the time of your death, you have been… gifted with mental prowess that far exceeds your physical age. And you've grown, too. Other than that, your body is as it was when you died. Minus the need to eat and breathe and whatnot so long as you don't take on a physical form."

As the voice had rattled on, in what he sincerely hoped was not a parlance but an attempt to impress, he glanced down to examine himself. Wow was his body boring. There was absolutely nothing that he could see besides uninterrupted pale green flesh. The only interesting thing about himself, as far as he was concerned, was the fact that he was vaguely transparent. Which would have been a lot cooler had there been anything in the void worth looking at.

"Actually, there's plenty to see. Limbo is rather like a window, or perhaps more like a two-way mirror. We exist here, outside the scope of the living world. We're not actually on their plane, but layered over it. We can see them, if we open the proverbial blinds, but they cannot see us nor can anyone from either plane interact with anything not immediately on their stratum. You'll just need to get some practice in before you can do anything but float."

Okay, so at this point life, his insanity, the void, and death all managed to suck. Damn, his life, or lack thereof, was going to be miserable, wasn't it?

"Well of course death isn't going to be a cakewalk. You died; cashed in your chips for a one-way ticket to go west to meet your maker after buying the farm where you'd push up daises after kicking the bucket. More specifically, you suffocated. You're not on some drug-induced trip to the magically sparkly land of sprinkles and little scantily-clad flying people, or whatever such happy nonsense smeets dream about."

Scantily-clad? Damn, that made him, or at least smeets in general, sound like some sort of pervert in training.

"Absolutely not the case. There is a clear line between nudity as a perversion and nudity as a way of life. Smeets dream of those things as an expression of their mind's desires: to run free unrestrained by rules or uniforms and eat all the delicious, sugar-loaded junk they can fit in to themselves. Just as there is a line between smut and science, however much trouble most people have in identifying it."

What…? How had they even gotten on to this topic?

"In a very roundabout manner," the other informed him.

Well obviously. Since he didn't seem to need to talk for the other to hear him, he didn't bother trying to find out if he was actually articulate. Who are you anyway?

"Me? Ah, just some poor bastard who got too caught up in the dealings of the Empire for his own good. Enlightened, since death I suppose, but a poor bastard in life. In death, though, I like to think of myself as something of kindred spirit to those in need, a mentor and a guide to those I empathize with. A father or big brother figure, so to speak."

So basically you pity me and are therefore keeping me company as well as giving me information that is largely unhelpful.

"Hell no. It's called boredom. And I think I'd find a way to obtain a permanent physical form for the singular purpose of killing myself if I ever pitied anyone. You think your life was a travesty? You didn't even live an hour, you whiny little neonate. That's not suffering; that's mercy. You think this void is torture? Be glad you never had to bother with the whole ordeal of actually going through life."

Oh, yes, my sincerest apologies for being killed. I should have never bothered with the whole loving thing, since it's so horrible and all that. This other was bringing out the worst in him, wasn't it?

"I'm not an it, you intersexed twat, I'm a male. Definitely and indisputably, unlike you."

If it had been just about any other time and place, his mind would have likely gone in to overdrive to figure out which meaning of 'twat' the other meant. Not that either was a pretty option, but he had a clear preference for usage, which he simply stuck with for the sake of simplicity.

"Yes, well, it's all very well and good that I've been given insight and whatnot but doesn't mean I'm actually educated. Not stupid or incompetent, I would say, but certainly I have a bit of a right to ignorance."

"Oh, look at that, you can talk. Happy now? Also, for the record, never admit to being uneducated. I mean really."

He glared out at the void, eyes narrowed and mouth set in to an angry pout, although he really meant for it to be a scowl. He supposed, assuming he really had been artificially aged, it still didn't remove all the childish qualities from his person. Like pouting, for example.

"Ah, but aren't we all children somewhere deep down within ourselves? Not necessarily hidden away to repress the child inside, but to garner ourselves some respect. Plus, when all else fails, you can let out the child and hope cute, cuddly, clumsy, and adorable clueless, yet still somehow insightful, saves your otherwise dead hide."

At this point, he was all but ready to give up. He wondered if he might be able to save himself a lot of trouble and just gnaw one of his own limbs off to pass time. That or tear his antennae off; both were sounding evermore appealing the longer he conversed with the unknown entity.

"Hooray for me." When his eyes refocused, he was quite sure he screamed, although he may not have. What he was sure of was that he went careening backwards through the void, flailing his arms like there was no tomorrow –which there probably wasn't- or like he was attempting to escape from hell, which was a lot more likely. This was certainly a case where his enhanced mental capabilities didn't help him in the least. It wasn't the other's appearances that made him scurry away whilst screaming, but his appearance. Just the fact that there was something physically tangible in front of him, let alone another person, was great. But the other really really really did not have to materialize so suddenly.

Once he was sure that the other wasn't going to lunge forward and fulfill his early musing on removing a bodily appendage or two, and that he wasn't going to somehow manage to die when apparently already dead, he took the other's visibility as a go-ahead to look him over.

He could recognize the other as a member of his own species but that's where his comprehension of what he was looking at ended. The other was floating in a mostly upright position, leaning forward just slightly but with boot-clad feet decided underneath the rest of his body. The other had pale eyes that almost blended in with the rest of his body due his transparency. Male; for he was quite sure that antennae ending in straight, albeit bent, tips were a masculine definer. His companion's clothing was simple in his opinion, but rather exotic and also a bit skimpy in the opinion of the Empire he had so briefly been a part of. The other's shirt was, as far as he could tell, a yellow that was several shades brighter than his eyes, which rather distracted from the pale orbs and made them just that much harder to see. It was short sleeved and loose fitting, the collar dipping in a wide sweep to expose a delicate collarbone, just beneath the hollow of which a small triangular cut was made into the collar to reveal just a bit more semi translucent flesh. The shirt looked like it had seen better days, with a large dark blotch of a stain domination the left side of the garment on the lower part of his chest and extending downwards. The right sleeve was also a torn along the top, not quite in the middle but a bit closer to the edge of the collar. There was another, smaller stain of the dark substance around the rip. Actually, there was quite a lot of the substance on the other's face. There was a long, thin line of it over his right eye that trailed downward in larger quantities, flowing around his eye and, on the far right side, traveling in small streams to end at his cheek. There were three dark wavering lines above his left eye and on the cheek beneath were two darker lines, more of the substance trailing from one down to the other and finally off his face roughly between his cheek and chin. It was fascinating, actually, and he wondered what the substance was that so copiously coated the other's visage. So great was his interest, that the other's plain black pants and boots were entirely disregarded in his wonderment.

"For the record," the other grumbled, likely due to the excessive staring, "my name is Trenzi."

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"Before you ask, yours is Cinsiyet."

Finally, a name! Both the other's, no longer an unidentified entity, and his own. Now that was pertinent information. That and it simply made him feel better. Things seemed just so much more tangible, so much more bearable and controllable, when they had names. Death, Limbo, Trenzi, Cinsiyet. So so much better than Someplace, Void, Voice that may be in my head, and Me, whoever that is.

"Ah, but alas, your time is running short."

"I thought you said that I was dead."

"Yes, that you are. However, the jury grows tired of your case. You have them in quite the upset, you know. 'Love the sinner, not the sin' and all that. They just don't know what to do with you. You embody the sin that so many avoid, yet you yourself did not live long enough to be of mind to sin. Therefore, what are they to do with you? Punish you for being born, or let you off scot-free and send you on to Elysian- which seems to be the ultimate goal of the afterlife. And they really don't went to send you straight to Elysian; they haven't done that for ten million some-odd years, not since Farook and Leor, I believe. Not that those names mean anything to you now, but some day, I suppose."

Cinsiyet, for he now knew his name, flinched suddenly as a sharp pain stabbed at his brain. He shook it off, however, as soon as it began to subside. Nice to know at least he'd be able to experience tactile sensations.

"And until than you'll have Thil, I suppose."

"Thil?" he asked, wincing slightly as pain lanced along his nerves once more.

"Oh, yes, I do believe you'll be seeing quite a lot of him. Affectionate little fellow, unfortunately hard to hate since I myself do find him rather annoying."

Cinsiyet nodded in understanding. Although he had clearly never been in such a position, he could imagine it and the conundrum it had the potential to present. As he did, however, he felt a sharp tug at his hard that caused him to gasp, unable to breath. His eyes widened when the pain didn't relinquish its hold on him and he found himself unable to draw the oxygen that he had been told he didn't need. One of his hands flew upwards, grasping at his chest, still-small fingers digging in despite the fact that he had previously thought he wasn't entirely solid. He gasped, chest rising and falling rapidly, if only barely. He couldn't get enough air, couldn't breath…! His eyes were wide and they darted about rapidly, looking for something, anything, to help him. There was only the grey of the void and the pale, partially transparent Trenzi, who looked down at him with a sort of benign, if slightly wistful, smile. Why wasn't he helping!?

"Don't fret, small one. You are being Recalled. To life. Someone is bringing you back, giving your body life once more. I suppose that stops the counsels deliberation in its tracks, doesn't it?" The wistful look extended to his pale eyes, but was gone when he blinked and he found the other's gazed hardened with determination. "Go, live," he commanded. "We will meet again, I can assure you." With that an odd smirk crossed the other's face, eyes unfocusing for barely a minute before returning their gaze to him. He was fading from death quickly, and as his body became even less substantial, he distinctly heard Trenzi singing, the sound fading farther and farther away as he left death to return to the land of the living.

"Let me know that I've done wrong, when I've known this all along. I go around a time or two just to waste my time with you. Tell me all that you've thrown away. Find out games you don't wanna play. You are the only one that needs to know. I'll keep you my dirty little secret. Don't tell anyone or you'll be just another regret, my dirty little secret.

"Who has to know? When we live such fragile lives it's the best way we survive. I go around a time or two just to waste my time with you. Tell me all that you've thrown away. Find out games you don't wanna play. You are the only one that needs to know. I'll keep you my dirty little secret. Don't tell anyone or you'll be just another regret, my dirty little secret. I'll keep you my dirty little secret. Don't tell anyone or you'll be just another regret, my dirty little secret. Dirty little secret… Dirty little secret… Who has to know? Who has to know?"

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Whoo! 3,674 words of story after Cinsiyet died in the last chapter, 3,703 words to this chapter, minus Trenzi's singing at the end because Cinsiyet was only barely clinging to death.