Fourteen Fifteen first met the Beloved Dust on their ship. Pure Cascara had recruited them all separately, of course, and this lunch was supposed to be a chance for them to get to know each other. In their current body, Fourteen was smaller than either of their new coworkers; just over five feet tall and covered in softly whirring cybernetics.
Tender Sky spoke first, and Fourteen kept their eyes fixed on her. Their target. Their coworker. The dossier they’d been given hadn’t mentioned how exuberant she could be, the way she talked with her hands and smiled like she could make anyone like her if she just laughed enough. “So, what do you all do for fun?” Tender asked, gesturing with a fork still loaded with garlic-coated beans. “We aren’t gonna do this all the time.”
⸢Signet⸣ shrugged slightly. “I have other duties.” She ate her food carefully, one large-cut piece of plant matter at a time. “There is pleasure in them.”
Tender snorted and leaned on the table, tail whisking the air behind her as she set down her utensils. “Yeah, but. What do you do for fun?”
“I read,” Fourteen said. They pressed back a little as the others turned to look at them. “I like romance novels? They’re soothing.”
“See?” Tender grinned at them, teeth flashing in the light. “Fourteen here knows how to have fun. What series do you like best?”
“In Pursuit of Truest Love: The Collected Travels and Trials of Coriander Callahan.” They interweave their fingers, listening to the soft whir of motors. “I like the conceit of annotated journals. When xir true love comments it’s especially good, because I don’t know who they are yet and it’s like collecting clues to who they might be.”
“I’ll have to check that out!” Tender glanced at ⸢Signet⸣ and then leaned over close to Fourteen to whisper, “I like the smutty ones.”
Fourteen flushed, and even if the metal bits covered most of their face it was clear from Tender’s giggles and ⸢Signet⸣’s long-suffering look that both Tender’s comment was audible and Fourteen’s blush was visible.
“I enjoy tea,” ⸢Signet⸣ said, voice just loud enough to reclaim attention. “Both the process of making it and the experience of drinking it.”
Tender sighed, and Fourteen guessed that she didn’t think this counted as fun either, but at least this time she didn’t press it.
Even dressed down, ⸢Signet⸣ was imposing. Fourteen leaned against the old-school pinball machine as her fingers danced across the controls, sending the holographic ball soaring through the 3D vertical scroller with expert precision. They didn’t watch her progress; the machine was plenty happy to announce “LEVEL UP” and “UPGRADE ACQUIRED” every minute or so as the projected environment smoothly changed from a bioluminescent cave system full of mushrooms to a verdant floral jungle to a neon-bright digital space full of stylised ghosts.
No, Fourteen was watching ⸢Signet⸣. Looking at the way she focused on the moving ball and carefully activated the bouncers to ensure it would continue ricocheting further and further into the eternal digital sky, following every movement of her slender fingers on the garish controls, and admiring how even in a retro arcade she managed to have found the perfect outfit. Her hair was elegantly braided into coiled loops that hung down to frame her neck, and she wore a long beetle-shell blue gown that clung tightly to her arms and spread into a wing-like mantle across her shoulders. Underneath its iridescent folds, almost luminescent in the blacklight, she wore leggings patterned space, stars twinkling with her movement.
It made Fourteen feel underdressed. Their cybernetics gleamed in the light, and they were wearing a nice collared shirt and a colorful skirt, and while ⸢Signet⸣ would never think that was insufficient, Fourteen still wished they could match her unconscious ease. But as it was, they were just glad for the slight smile curving the edges of ⸢Signet⸣’s lips as the pinball machine announced “FINAL LEVEL: BONUS ROUND” and the display shifted into a model that was definitely the Fleet in the Mirage, with the bouncers now being Divines.
⸢Signet⸣ bounced the etched golden pinball through the Mirage with casual ease, and Fourteen’s fingers gripped the edge of the machine. When at last the pinball made it through the last wave of NEH forces and came to roost in Empyrean, they let out a breath. ⸢Signet⸣ looked at them, then, a true smile on her face and her eyes soft. Fourteen couldn’t break away from her eyes, entranced, as the machine pinged and dinged its way through tallying her score.
The machine might have announced that ⸢Signet⸣ got a high score, but Fourteen was far more invested in how ⸢Signet⸣’s fingers felt against their chin, tilting it up. Almost dizzy with the potential of desire fulfilled Fourteen murmured, “Yes,” in response to the question framed throughout ⸢Signet⸣’s face, and reached up to meet her kiss.
For something that didn’t start off as an official date, they remembered thinking later, safely cocooned in ⸢Signet⸣’s arms, that was a remarkably successful one.
“Look,” Fourteen said, leaning on the bar of the private Beloved instance of The Steady. “I’ve got an image to maintain. It doesn’t matter if I usually like fruity drinks more; I’m the Gunslinger, I should drink whiskey.”
Tender raised her eyebrows and placed a bright pink-and-orange drink, complete with maraschino cherry and festive little umbrella, beside the whiskey they were grimly holding on to. “I can’t make you drink it,” she told them, “but I can provide the option.”
Fourteen scowled. The expression suited this face far better than their last one.
Behind them, ⸢Signet⸣ laughed, and Fourteen spun around on the fancy spinny bar stool to glare at her. She was lounging on a nice cushioned chair near the broad window that looked out at the endless sunset of the Mirage, and had her own fruity drink (pineapple, Fourteen thought it was) in one graceful hand. “You’re only hurting yourself,” ⸢Signet⸣ said mildly.
“It’s still my choice.” Fourteen swallowed the rest of the whiskey down in one go, coughing as it burnt their throat. Tender slapped their back, which didn’t really help, and ⸢Signet⸣ carefully didn’t laugh, which sort of did.
When Fourteen looked up, throat and eyes both burning, ⸢Signet⸣ stood in front of them holding a glass of ice water. “It will help.”
“No, no, it’s okay, I can manage.” Fourteen tried to straighten. “I’ve got to learn. Image, you know?”
“Fuck your image,” ⸢Signet⸣ said sharply, and Fourteen stared at her. When they finally caught the faintest flush on ⸢Signet⸣’s bright cheeks, they understood: ⸢Signet⸣ was somewhat inebriated herself. Otherwise there was no way she would ever speak like that; she cared too much about her own image to swear so violently for such a small thing. “Just drink the damn water, Fourteen.”
Silently, Fourteen took the glass. The chill felt good against their fingers, and they pressed it briefly to their forehead before taking a sip. ⸢Signet⸣ watched them, eyes sharp and lips pursed, until they swallowed. Then, with a slight nod, she turned and walked back to her chair with another drink—this one raspberry-bright—in her hand.
Fourteen leaned back against the bar and murmured, “What’s gotten into her?”
Tender sighed and slumped next to them, her elbow brushing against theirs. “I have no idea.”
“Huh.” Fourteen looked between the two for some time, then said, “May I have another glass of water?”
Tender reached under the bar and offered them one without changing her posture or her own gaze.
Fourteen saluted her with the glass they still held, then took the new one and walked over to ⸢Signet⸣. “You should take care of yourself too,” they said softly.
⸢Signet⸣ looked at them for a long moment, and Fourteen waited, not sure what she was trying to see but not daring to move or disturb the slow acceptance they thought they saw on her face. Then, satisfied with whatever she had found, ⸢Signet⸣ closed her eyes, reached up her hand, and nodded.
“So, do you get to pick the bodies?” Tender flopped upside-down on her bed while Fourteen moved aside a pile of comics from her chair and sat themself. “Because this one—Worthy of Grace?—sounds sort of like someone took me and ⸢Signet⸣’s aesthetics and shoved them in a blender with a vocaloid.”
Fourteen laughed and brushed at their hair. “I don’t get to pick.”
“I like this one, though.” Tender flipped over so that she was on her stomach, chin resting on folded hands. “You’ve got a nice voice, and I like this style of clothing way better than your last look.”
Fourteen casually flipped her off.
Tender stuck her tongue out at them, laughing. “Seriously! I don’t think you’ll be able to brood nearly as much, like this.”
“You have such faith in me.” Fourteen glanced at Tender’s tail, which moved languidly around her feet. “Was there a reason you wished to bring me to your room?”
“Do you really still need to ask that?”
Slowly, Fourteen moved off the chair and arranged their dress so they could kneel at the foot of Tender’s bed. Their face was almost on a level with hers as they said, “It’s only polite to check.”
Tender reached out to grab their hair and pull them in for a kiss, nipping at their lips as Fourteen melted into her touch. “This is why,” she said when she pulled away, voice rough and fingers still tight in their hair. “Do you agree?”
Fourteen nodded breathlessly, new nerves alight with the new familiar sensation of Tender’s touch.
“Good,” Tender said, and that was all the warning Fourteen had before she pulled them in again and they lose themself to her perfection.
Fourteen said, “⸢Signet⸣, it’s me,” and waited for Belgard to open.
It was— They didn’t know if anyone else had come to check on ⸢Signet⸣, and they needed to know, desperately, if she was— if she was okay. They had been performing when the broadcast hit, overwhelming everything and everyone, and it had been chaos. Fourteen had let themself slip into the background as they grieved for the loss of Independence and for the emotions of everyone in front of them paralysed by the revelations.
But Worthy of Grace could sing through anything, and so they did: They changed their performance on the fly from upbeat pop songs to covering some old sad songs that everyone knew the words to, and kept singing until everyone joined in, a bellow of sound that lifted the spirits because they couldn’t be alone when everyone’s voices were joined together in a single song.
The concert had still ended early.
Tender had been there, at the backstage door, when Fourteen had left. She’d been a mess, and Fourteen held her as she cried, not caring at all about how tear-and-snot-stained their dress would be. Worthy of Grace had more, and caring for someone Fourteen loved was far more important. Fourteen had taken Tender into their dressing room, and they had stayed there for hours, until Tender was all cried out and simply curled up loosely, head pillowed on Fourteen’s lap.
Then Fourteen had taken her home, tucked her in, and stayed the night; the simple physical evidence of presence and connection was something they had both needed.
As they’d reached Tender’s home, though, Fourteen had sent a message to ⸢Signet⸣, asking if she was alright and letting her know where they and Tender were in case she wanted to join them. No response had come by when they’d fallen asleep, which wasn’t the strangest thing. Waking up in the morning and seeing nothing, not even a “Read at 0247”, was a lot stranger, and Fourteen started to worry.
Tender had shooed them away, saying “You’ll only distract my patrons” as she prepared to open The Steady and let everyone come together in her own way, brightening her own mood along with theirs.
So Fourteen had kissed Tender’s forehead and requisitioned a small shuttlecraft of the Beloved’s to fly to Thyrsus and check up on ⸢Signet⸣, trying not to fret the whole way. By the time they got to Belgard herself and found the halls empty of all the scientists and researchers who had previously been there, they had found stable ground in the assurance that they were doing the most correct thing they could.
Even so, waiting was hard.
When Belgard’s entryway finally peeled open for them, Fourteen stepped through quickly and let it seal behind them. In the darkness, only the faint sky-blue glow of Chthonic-tinted running lights showed them where to go. Fourteen followed them carefully, doing their best not to disturb any equipment, until they reached Belgard’s heart.
At first they weren’t sure what they were seeing, but then the lights brightened slightly to dawn-soft rose, and Fourteen understood: ⸢Signet⸣ was there, wrapped in Belgard’s veils, bundled up in her own private cocoon.
Fourteen took a breath and found a place to sit, determined to wait as long as they needed to and prove to ⸢Signet⸣ that, even with Belgard gone, she wasn’t alone.
The letters, infrequent as they were, hadn’t prepared Fourteen for how different his new old coworkers were. They’d changed too—they knew they held themself differently, and had lived in this body longer than any other save the forgotten one they knew they had to have been born into—but Tender and ⸢Signet⸣ seemed both more alive and more stressed than they remembered.
⸢Signet⸣’s life as an Excerpt suited her. Fourteen had known that, intellectually; otherwise she wouldn’t have continued serving her role even when Belgard had been quiescent. But with Belgard beside her again, ⸢Signet⸣ seemed to have blossomed, and relaxed even as she took on more and more responsibilities. But the way she smiled at Fourteen was the same, fond familiarity and genuine affection as she came to clasp Fourteen’s hands in her own.
“I’d hoped to see you again,” she said, and it sounded like she meant it.
Fourteen smiled and squeezed her hands. “It will be good to work alongside you once more,” they said, at once hating how formal it sounded and unsure how else to address their old friend. “There’s so much— I don’t know how we’ll do it all!”
⸢Signet⸣ laughed, and Fourteen rejoiced in the sound. “We don’t need to do it alone.”
Tender draped one arm over each of their shoulders. “Come on, it’s just like being the Beloved again!” She hugged them tight. “Except we’ve got all these new friends to work with too!”
Fourteen leaned into Tender’s touch, relaxing as they released ⸢Signet⸣’s hands and wrapped an arm around Tender’s waist. “There’s still so much,” they repeated, but quieter this time.
“And there are more of us, too.” ⸢Signet⸣’s quiet words pierced Fourteen’s heart, and they met her eyes. There was a sea of calm in them, Fourteen realised, that hadn’t been there before. And she truly believed what she was saying. “We’ll make this work.”
“Cheers to that,” Tender said, and she started dragging them both deeper into The World Without End. “We’ve gotta get everyone together for a big dinner to celebrate being here together.”
“The galley should be well-stocked,” Fourteen said, trying (and failing) to take the lead. “If we just—”
Tender’s tail tickled the back of their neck, shutting them up. “Party means we go out and get someone else to cook for us,” Tender said firmly. “Let’s get everyone together and figure out where.”
Fourteen shook their head, laughing, and caught ⸢Signet⸣’s quiet smile as well.
It felt like coming home.