So that’s how the brain texting feature works. The message has a different taste to how Gestalts felt when they talk in my brain.
I would love to say I jumped out of my bed ripped and raring to go. But that would be a lie. I certainly felt better than yesterday, but my tank was only half full.
‘No dreams last night Gestalt?’
[We thought it best that you rest and recover.]
‘Honestly I could do with a break from our hot and heavy therapy sessions. Could we have a happy memory for the next dream?’
[We are certain that we will be able to accommodate that.]
‘Awesome. What time is it?’
[We are not your personal secretary.]
‘... Fair enough.’
The maids prepare me an actual bath this morning. I’ve been making do with strip washing so far so I am very much looking forward to washing my hair properly. If you are wondering about the whole toilet situation, then you will be glad to know that it’s basically fancy outhouses across the house. They are really cold too.
There is also a chamber pot under my bed but I haven’t had the stomach to use it yet. I would feel bad for the maids.
The bathroom was fancy as hell; the tub wasn’t so much a tub rather than a small swimming pool built into the ground. Apparently the water is heated by a water filter that is stuffed with red mana crystals.
The maids tried to stay and wash me but I was having none of it. One of them wasn’t much older than me so I think I would die if she saw me naked.
Yes I can hear you now. ‘Tangerine you are basically a ball of frustrated horny. Yet now you are missing an opportunity to literally get touched up by a hot girl in a maid outfit?’
[We were not thinking that. Interactions of flesh are distasteful.]
‘Wasn’t talking to you. Also brains are still fleshy.’
[Nobody is allowed to touch our brains.]
Anyway, back to my self narration before I was rudely interrupted.
A: It feels kinda bad to have an interaction with a maid that means a very different thing to me than it does for her. Recent dreams have shown me that I may need to have a little more consideration with how others feel about my horny.
And B: Zero chance I keep my cool. I would be a blushing, squirming mess. I would give the game away instantly and want to die. Probably wouldn’t be great to have the fact I’m a raging lesbian on the maid gossip hotline too.
With the maids pushed out of the bathroom, I get to scrubbing. After soaking for twenty minutes first. Soaps are weird but they do the job. The shampoo though... It’s in a glass bottle, there is some elf lady drawn on the front and words on the bottle written in a fancy language I don’t understand. Looks Elvish though.
[It is.]
‘Nice.’
This Shampoo must have some magic shit in it. My hair sparkles now, and not in an over bearing way like someone dumped a packet of glitter on my head. No this shit sparkles like the lighting has hit me just right, on my good side, all of the time.
Actual fucking magic.
I would ask myself when I turned into such a girly girl. But I was always femme as fuck. It just got hidden for a while.
Scrubbed up and dressed in my Victorian drip I venture downstairs to meet Emily and Derek.
Derek is Maria’s husband. I haven't interacted with him much but he seems like a stand up bloke.
I missed breakfast but Emily saved me some. I wolfed down the cold toast and what I think is bacon. It’s the wrong colour, shape and flavor. But other than that, it's bacon.
“Daddddddy, can we go diving today? Please, please, please.” Emily goes full six year old on her fathers arse.
Derek places the newspaper down and strokes his very full mustache. “Diving? That could be a good idea. It would be nice to take the day off. How about you Tangerine, do you feel up to it?”
Do they mean diving in the sea or swimming pool? Outside of the mermaid place I haven't seen any large bodies of water. Wait holy shit am I going to get to swim with meremaids?!
“Diving?” I ask, best to keep it safe.
“We take one of the big barges, then go outside the city and jump off into the aether! It’s so much fun!” Emily machineguns.
Ahhhh man, no mermaids? But still floating around in space does sound like the type of relaxing that I am looking for today. “That sounds like a lot of fun.” I said.
Derek pulls out from the table. “Excellent, I will see if anyone else is interested in joining us. Make a bit of an excursion for the day. Emily please get Tangerine ready.”
Emily drags me back into my room. I need to do another costume change. Apparently, I need to wear trousers, as it would be “unbecoming for a lady to dive in a dress - someone might see your undergarments.”
When Emily is older I’m going to break her mind, telling her about all the things we used to wear back home.
I pull the black trousers as tight as I can around my arse, because you know. They do alright but they are pretty baggy below. I have some knee high boots with a short heel over them. Top half is a black corset that attaches to a short black jacket with a high neck. The fit is more steampunk than Victorian but I still look like the fucking mummy. Action mummy?
I do proper make up today, eye liner sharp as fuck, lips full and dark. I leave my long black hair down.
I look like the love child of Indiana Jones and Morticia Adams.
Fully trousered we all make our way to a very large and fancy barge moored at the edge of the city. Well, our edge. We are pretty high up and the City expands out a lot more the further down you go.
The barge is a sleek thing. Large sails coming out from the sides and underneath it. The whole thing is made of pristine wood and gold trim. There is already a party starting to happen on top. I spot a few familiar faces. Lady Angie and her son Rupert are here. So is Miss Daisy, which I’ve got to say really doesn’t feel like a noble ladies name at all? There's a whole bunch of other people there as well, but I haven't even been here a week yet, I just don’t know that many people!
Fuck, I’ve been here a week. Mum probably thinks I’m dead now doesn’t she?
I drop that thought train as soon as it starts. Nobody likes the loser that cries at a party.
The barge leaves the dock once all the people are on board. The sails stretch out and we slowly move away from the city and towards the colourful void that surrounds it.
Rupert, probably from orders of his mother, is trying to engage me in conversation. Daisy is running interference so I catch her eye and give her the briefest of nods. She nods back. It looks like we are on the same page. I do my best to keep her between Rupert and myself.
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I met two more of my future classmates on the barge. Lillian and Bronson. Both Nobles.
Lillian is fun as hell. I met her lording over the snacks table with both fists and mouth filled with food.
I giggle a little. “Hi?” I said to her, giving a little wave.
She looks up at me, grins, swallows and said “Heya, I'm Lillian. You can call me Lils though. You're the aberrant girl ain't yah?” She points at my collar.
“Yeah I am. Tangerine, you can call me Tans. I’m staying with the Rockwoods.”
“Tans, nice, I like it. You ever been diving before?”
I just shake my head.
“Ohhh you are gonna love it!”
She drags me over to the side of the boat. Lillian is taller than me but who isn't. Smaller than Daisy though, five ten maybe? The girl is broad though and I bet there is some serious muscle under her loose white shirt.
More into femme girls myself but I would never say no. She looks like one of those hot MMA fighter women. How do they all stay so hot? You would think that repeatedly getting punched in the face would, you know, make them ugly. But every time I see one of them on their promotional stuff they always look banging as fuck?
Back to reality and Lillian is basically hanging off the side of the barge at this point, pointing down towards the center of the planet? I guess.
There's nothing below us here. The world just bleeds out into colourful mist. It's the same above too. There is no sun, either, which is strange because it does get light during the day and dark at night? The light just seems to come from everywhere.
Out in the distance I see land masses floating in the mist. Some tiny, some enormous.
Emily has come to join the two of us and has made fast friends with Lillian. Having spent all of ten minutes with her I'm starting to realize that Lils is a bit of a goof.
The barge is called to a stop by the captain and the sails are folded back into the body.
As soon as they are in, both Emily and Lillian jump off the side of the barge. Lillian hollering and Emily in a fit of giggles.
Well, when in Rome.
I launched myself off the Barge too.
I fell a lot faster and a lot further than I thought I was going to. I even start panicking a little bit just before I start to slow. The Aether around me is getting thicker and thicker.
Eventually I slow to a stop and then start to bob back up again. I don't make it all the way back up to the barge. I ended up just floating around a good twenty feet under it. It's kinda like being underwater but you can breathe. Not as thick as water either. Which makes it very hard to swim in the Aether but it is very relaxing.
I spot Lillian and Emily floating around not far from me. Both of them giggling their heads off. I can't help but join in.
Ropes with big hoops on the end are lowered down to us. I climb inside the hoop and the rope drags me back up to the barge.
Lillian, Emily and I spend the rest of the afternoon jumping off the barge. I know I was tired but it doesn't take much energy to fall.
Bronson joined us too. I wasn't a massive fan of the guy as he seemed pretty arrogant.
Rupert managed to slip past Daisy and join us off the edge of the boat. Daisy didn't join us as she was wearing a skirt. It's a shame since it's a lot of fun.
Rupert kept trying to engage me in conversation but I just politely fobbed him off and nattered about all sorts of bullshit with Emily and Lillian, basically using them as a social shield.
When early evening came, Derek brought out a couple of large cases filled with guns. I think the guy works for a weapons company or something. I should probably pay more attention to my surrogate family. Well, it's only been a week.
The adults at the party start playing a form of clay pigeon shooting. It was actually really cool. The discs they were using to shoot lit up with different colours on their arc. And depending on what part of the arc you shot them, they would explode in different ways. If you hit them at the right point they were basically fireworks.
I found the whole thing really exciting. I had never been close to a gun before, what with living in England. They aren't really a thing there.
I walked up to Derek. “Would it be possible for me to have a go?” I asked him.
“Of course!” His face lit up with a big smile.
It turns out that guns are Derek's thing and he takes them very, very seriously. Not as seriously as a gun range back home, this is still a steam-punk Victorian era. The safety briefing was basically don't stick your face in the barrel and don't point it at others.
“Hold out your hands.” He asked me. I comply of course. He puts a heavy rifle in my hands and takes it away again as soon as my arms sag.
He replaces it with a smaller rifle and then that with a pistol.
A few more pistols later, each time checking my balance and how I hold the thing, he eventually settles on a gun that he thinks I will like.
It's reasonably long for a pistol but also thinner and lighter than most I had tried. It's a revolver. Almost all the weapons here are revolvers or single shot. Some of the rifles take a clip but that's as fancy as it gets.
It all feels very cowboy.
He handed me some bullets and showed me how to release the chamber. There's four holes in the thing. I take the bullets, which are longer and thinner than I expected, and load the weapon.
Derek points out into the nothingness. “Give it a go.” He’s grinning.
I raise the gun in one hand like I saw others on the barge do and pull the trigger.
Holy fuck.
Guns are awesome!
My shot on the other hand was terrible. I'm pretty sure my gun is on the weaker side. Yet the recoil nearly ripped the thing out of my hands, making me stumble back a little. God knows where my shot went, not that I was really aiming for anything.
I have the biggest shit eating grin on my face. I look at Derek who has a grin matching my own. “Holy shit!” I said.
Derek bursts into laughter and starts heavily patting me on the back. “Isn't it awe inspiring! Never let Maria hear you say that!”
I look down at the weapon like it's the best thing in the world.
I do my best to channel all of the American TV I watched in the past. Instead of copying how people are shooting here, I brace the weapon with both hands and relax my legs. I breathe in, and then out, hold my breath and squeeze the trigger instead of pulling it.
The weapon is much more under my control at this point. I squeeze out three shots in three breaths.
Derek gives me a slightly impressed look. “Want to try shooting a disc?”
I nod my head eagerly. “Yes please!”
He took me over to the clay pigeon machine and handed me a box of ammo. I reload; it takes me a bit… it's trickier than you would think.
I give him a little nod to signal that I’m ready and he pulls a leaver that fires a clay disc out into the Aether. I squint down the sight and squeeze the trigger.
Miss.
It’s okay, don’t panic. I breathe out and squeeze again.
Miss.
My mind is clear.
I squeeze again.
The disc explodes like a firework, purple and blue arcing trails bursting out from the shattered clay pigeon.
FUCK YES!
Holy shit that felt so good. Guns are so fucking cool!
Derek has the biggest shit eating grin on his face. “Hitting your very first disc girl! Very impressive.”
The two of us are lost in our own world for a little bit. He showed me some stuff like how to hold the weapon, better ways to reload it, stuff like that. But mostly he’s firing discs and I’m knocking them down.
Maria joins us all a little later on in the day. And let me tell you, the woman is a murder machine. Derek fires off some discs for her, she just raises her empty hand and then there is a gun in it. No sound, no flash of light. Just no gun, then gun. She fires off a bunch of rounds and barely ever misses, even shooting one handed, as seems to be the style around here. She never bothers reloading, just puts the gun down on the table and then pulls out another one from wherever she has it stored. Her domain I guess?
Maria, Derek, Lillian, Bronson, Rupert and I, plus a bunch of other older nobles I don’t know, start playing a shooting game. It was pretty fun. You lose points for every missed shot, and gain points on hit. You gain more points depending on what part of the arc you hit the disc and you take away points if you shoot your opponent's disc.
I did surprisingly well. Not because I’m some aim genius or anything. But because I’m shooting with two hands instead of one, which helps a lot. Lillain and Bronson did start copying my pose towards the end of the game.
Derek won, followed closely by Maria. I was fifth, which I will happily take considering this is the first time I had fired a weapon.
The game ended and it had gotten pretty dark out. Which again is really strange considering there is no sun that I can see. The colourful mists just get darker as far as I can tell.
I’m hesitant when I have to hand my gun back. I already feel like it’s my gun.
“Do not worry girl. I would never dream of separating a weapon from the shooter it chose.” Derek said.
“Really?”
“Of course.” He took the gun and cleaned it up. Placed it in a rather fancy looking box and handed it back to me.
I held it lovingly. The Rockwoods have been so generous to me. I don’t know what to say.
I might have started crying again. Derek didn’t really know what to do, but Maria did. I was pulled into one of Maria’s now famous hugs.