Chapter Twenty-Eight

“What the fuck were you thinking? Were you even thinking? Seriously, bitch, you just…what kind of shit did you use to replace your brain, because I need to find whoever produced it and rip their intestines out.” Saori was pacing back and forth around the cage, in a way that reminded me of an agitated cat, and cussing me out. She’d been doing that with great enthusiasm and remarkable creativity for the past several minutes. I didn’t think she’d repeated herself yet, and I’d heard at least four languages in the mix.

“I already said I was sorry.” I sounded less agitated and more just tired. I was also sitting down and leaning back against the cage wall. I had plenty of room for it; they’d been courteous enough to put us in the same cage, a literal freestanding cage, but it was large enough that there was no crowding.

“And I already told you it was bullshit, yes,” she retorted. “I remember. Unlike some people, I still have enough cognitive functioning that I can recall basic information for ten minutes.” The kitsune sounded…not angry, precisely, but the insults felt less like an affectation than they usually would. “Look, sneaking into the VIP section and taking the table reserved for an actual VIP, I can respect that. It’s got style. But you could have at least told me that was what we were fucking doing.”…

Kassandra

“Kassandra Antigone!”

I wince. My mother sounds frustrated. She usually does, when she uses my second name. It was her idea to give me two for some reason, but not even Olga bothers calling me Antigone most of the time if she’s not upset. It sounds a lot stranger than Kassandra.

I set aside my tack and tools, and go to see what she’s upset about. She’s standing at the door of the stables, and if I make her shout it at me from there, that will be added to the list.

As it is, she’s already glowering at me. “What did I tell you about this?” She waves a hand, as though to take in the stables and horses and hounds around us.…

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Kali.

Kali, the dark goddess of the Hindu pantheon. The mother and the destroyer. She was the kind of goddess who consumed a whole army of demons in one sitting, and wanted to keep going. She was the endless darkness outside of time itself, the primordial night that had given rise to all things, and that would one day consume all things. She was the goddess of the cremation grounds and the birthing room, the patron of mystics and midwives and murderers alike.

And she was talking to me. I owed her a favor.

I was fucked beyond the capacity of my language or my mind to truly apprehend.…

Introduction to the Otherside

So, the Otherside has been mentioned a few times now, and I think it’s apparent that it’s a major part of the setting and the story. That makes this a good time to talk a little bit about what it is and how it works. I’m going to start with just describing it and listing out some common phrases and ideas that are widely known in-setting, and then discuss some more abstract details about how it works.

One thing to keep in mind, while reading this, is that my usual caveats about incomplete information apply strongly here. The Otherside is a complex topic with a central role in this setting. Even setting aside the complexity, there are a lot of things about it that are closely-kept secrets. I’m going to be discussing the mechanisms and abstraction in more depth here than a lot of people in-setting think about, but it’s still being simplified, and I’m not going to be revealing or highlighting those secretive elements.

Additionally, while I say this is an introduction, it’s still a lengthy discussion. This is a topic that has a great many facets, and even with this, there are still many things I’m not touching on. My writing process for the Otherside has a lot of thought put into things that most people are probably not very interested in, and most of this information isn’t necessary to understand the story.…

Chapter Twenty-Six

To my surprise, it really was painless. Portals apparently sucked so much that even a relatively tame one had left Saori semiconscious at best for several minutes, and while she had said that Ways didn’t have the same effect, I had still on some level been expecting this to be at least a little unpleasant.

It wasn’t. I moved forward into the darkness, and I had the feeling of continuing to move forward, just with “forward” pointing a direction I didn’t usually see. I wasn’t sure I was walking, and I had little awareness of my body; the world was dark and deep. But it wasn’t unpleasant, just foreign, and it only lasted a couple seconds before I was stepping out the far side. I didn’t pass out; I didn’t even lose my balance.…

Chapter Twenty-Five

I froze, literally midstep. “Excuse me,” I said, not turning back towards him. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me.” Caleb still sounded gentle, and he sounded so very tired.

“Yes, but I don’t think what I heard can possibly be what you meant to say.” I sounded, at least to myself, blank in a way that never meant good things with me. “Not unless you’ve read too many novels and picked up a drug habit lately.”

“Kyoko,” he said, sighing. “You are an absolutely terrible liar. We both know it. So can we please just accept that you aren’t going to be able to bluff your way out of this and move on with the conversation?”…