Glitter + Ashes Page 21

  “Coming back to us?” Her voice is a flute to Nora’s saxophone, but either way it’s musical. “Sorry. I should’ve figured.”

  “Not your fault.” I inhale, hold, and exhale, again and again. After a minute I can feel the calmness licking against me. “It’s been a while. I’m good.”

  I take another breath and hold it while Melody leads me inside. There are floors here that have never seen rain. Ceilings you can’t watch the stars through. Stairs. How long has it been since I’ve had to climb anything? I’m lost in the recaptured novelty, of all these pieces of my old life bursting like dying stars.

  There’s a grandmotherly-type with dark skin, snowy hair, and steely eyes waiting for me on the upper level. She must be Elder Jennifer. Like the wooden chair she’s sitting on, she shows her age. Maybe enough to have known the world before it went askew.

  “I thought you were a story,” Elder Jennifer says. “Giant women. And now here you are.”

  “Here I am,” I say, never a story and no longer a giant. “I’m sorry for overstepping. I’ve been looking for someone, and when I saw her art...I had to make sure.”

  “Oh, you mean young Nora,” Elder Jennifer says. There’s a weight to the way she looks at me. “So talented. Such a shame.”

  “Shame?” My legs give out and send me crashing to the floor again. “What happened?”

  “The Imperial Protectors.” Her words sizzled in the air. “She had to run. We gave her all the help we could, but it’s a harsh world. You understand. You knew her, then?”

  “We loved each other.” I let myself breathe. Of all the things that could have been true—she’s dead, she’s turned to glass, she’s trapped in a painting—running for her life wasn’t the worst. She’d done it before. “The world got between us. It’s been so long. I’ve been trying to catch up with her.”

  “I know how you feel,” Elder Jennifer says. “I lost my wife in the troubles. But you didn’t come to hear an old woman go on about loss. Why don’t you stay for a while? The world does a number on people like us. You could use a rest.”

  I want to argue, but words like “tired” and “exhausted” don’t even come close to describing my life. Since Monolith City fell, I’ve only stopped to sleep. I’ve always been moving, always been searching. At least now I know Nora made it this far. Instead I nod. I don’t have the strength left for anything else.

  Melody takes me outside to a little wooden stall suffused with wonderful smells, where a person in a patched green cap stirs a simmering pot. She nods at him, ladles out two cups’ worth of whatever’s simmering, and hands one to me.

  “What is it?”

  “Not quite tea,” she says. “But it’ll take the edge off.”

  We sit and talk for a while, about everything and nothing. She doesn’t mention Nora, or me being a giant. It’s the first time I’ve been on equal terms with someone in years, and as time drifts past I can feel myself loosening. All I need is to rest a little, and then I can grow back to normal. I’m sure of it.

  That’s when the artificial screaming starts. No matter how far I walk, no matter where I go, the worst-case-scenario alarm is constant. It’s always that harsh, throaty howl, rising and falling and rising, built to signal the end of the world.

  Two alarms in one day. Melody was sure that had to be some kind of record. At least she didn’t have to run back home for Samantha’s rifle. She was more than ready to drill some fresh holes in whatever raider swarm or Protector platoon was at the walls. Grace, though...Melody knew what it looked like when fear was in charge.

  “That’s the attack warning,” Melody said. “Best for you to find a corner and keep your head down until we deal with it.”

  “All right.” Grace said, meekly nodding. What else could she do? A giant woman could intimidate an army, but an ordinary-size woman had to fall back on whatever weapon she could wield. “I’ll try not to cause any trouble.”

  “I don’t think you could make a dent, considering,” Melody said. “Stay safe.”

  The enemy was already in sight when Melody made it to her position atop the wall. A force of Imperial Protectors: no surprises there. She recognized Blaine at the front of their formation and her old scrapwagon at the rear, loaded down with boxes. Because of course he’d rub his theft in her face.

  “Not another foot, Blaine, or you’re gonna get it!” She couldn’t hold her tongue, not with that kind of provocation. “Try me, see if I don’t!”

  “Oh, it’s our little deviant scavenger!” Blaine threw his voice through an old, hoarded megaphone. Every one of the men behind him had rifles ready. “Gotta say, you’ve got a hell of a knack for engineering. Too bad you’re fucked up every other way.”

  Her crosshairs were on him. It would be so easy. One pull was all it would take to wipe him from the world. It would only cost a storm of bullets, and the wall could only stop so many. She kept her aim on his head, dreamed of watching it explode like an overripe melon, even after Elder Jennifer arrived with a megaphone of her own.

  “We’ve paid your tributes,” she said. “That doesn’t mean you’re welcome at our door.”

  “You’ve been doing more than that, haven’t you?” Blaine shouted back. Melody’s finger tensed on the trigger. “You shrank that giant woman. The Empress wants to know how.”

  “Sheer queer ingenuity,” Elder Jennifer said. “Now, unless you want a few too many holes in you, better get your butts back to the boilers.”

  “Don’t pretend that this’ll go away,” Blaine said. “We’re watching you, deviants.”

  Melody followed Blaine through her crosshairs, carefully and surely, until he and his men disappeared back into the ruins. Then she took a breath, set the rifle down, and punched the Railyard’s rough walls until her knuckles split and her fingers slick with blood.

  It’s all my fault. Everything down to Melody’s busted-up hands. After she found me in a corner and told me what happened, that’s the only answer that makes any sense. I’ve been trying to grow, even just a foot or so, but it was all for nothing. I go to Nora’s mural, looking for strength in her brushstrokes, but there’s nothing of her energy left there now. I press my hand against the paint, and paint is all I feel.

  None of this would have happened if I hadn’t come here. I’d been so focused on looking for Nora that I never stopped to consider why she’d never looked for me. It’s hard to miss a skyscraping woman.

  I step into the train car again, pushing my fears away. Elder Jennifer is on the bottom level this time, knitting on a couch as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” I say. “I’ll turn myself over to them. Get them out of your way.”

  “Are you kidding?” Elder Jennifer shakes her head at me, like she’s seen this a thousand times before. “They’re like viruses. All they care about is a way in. If you weren’t here, they’d have found another excuse. Nobody concentrates force like that because they’re bored.”

  “If I wasn’t around, they’d have one less.”

  “Just because it’s a harsh world out there doesn’t mean we have to be harsh to ourselves,” Elder Jennifer says. “Or each other.”

  “If I could grow back to normal, I’d be worth something.” I keep my gaze locked on the floor. “Now I’m nothing. I’m worried I’ll be nothing forever.”

  “Nobody’s nothing,” Elder Jennifer says. “Together, we’re a great something. That includes you, don’t forget.”

  “I stepped over your walls,” I say. “I got those Protectors wound up.”

  “And yet, here you are.” Elder Jennifer smiles at me. “People like us need to stick together. Especially in times like this. Who you were isn’t important. What matters is who you are. If there’s nothing more to you than being a giant, then...who are you, really?”

  “I don’t know.” For so long my life was neatly divided: the small years, being a dreadnought, and looking for Nora. Now that there are no more dreadnoughts, a
nd now that I know she wasn’t looking for me, I feel hollow. “It never seemed important.”

  “Your name is Grace, and you matter,” Elder Jennifer says. “That sounds like a starting point to me.”

  I nod and go outside, out into the open. Focusing should be easy. It’s like they taught me in Monolith City. I follow the exercises, guide my thoughts, and picture myself as a dreadnought again. Energy crackles up and down my arms, harsh and uncontrolled and burning, but I don’t allow myself so much as a scream until I collapse on the ground, not an inch bigger.

  That night, I watch the sunset. The next morning I watch the sunrise. I can’t remember the last time I’ve stayed in one place for so long.

  Melody couldn’t remember how she’d endured with the cabin being so quiet. After weeks of sharing her space with Grace, there was an energy there that hadn’t been present even when Samantha had shared her life. Still, Melody couldn’t help but see tragedy in it. Every once in a while she saw a flicker of the confidence Grace must have had as a giant woman, but it was ground down and stamped flat by the realities of living in a minuscule skin.

  “What’s it like?” Melody asked while they worked on the new scrapwagon. “Having that perspective, I mean.”

  “Hard to put into words.” Grace shook her head and focused on the wagon. Her attempts over the weeks to return to her old height had only left her taller-than-average. “I could handle bullies. I could see far. I felt safe.”

  “That’s in short supply these days,” Melody said. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any need for a wall around the Railyard. “You’ll get there again, Grace. I believe in you.”

  “Thanks,” Grace said, dull and monotone. “Dammit, this wheel is on my list. What a piece of scrap.”

  They had it fixed in time for more nighttime scavenging. Grace’s presence on the boneyard trips put Melody at ease, with another pair of eyes and hands and ears in case anything went wrong. Most of the old city was long since picked over, but between Melody’s night-vision goggles and her trusty laser cutter, there was plenty of scrap out there that didn’t know it yet.

  “Looks like the wall’ll be happy with this load,” Grace said after midnight slipped past. Some steel, a little aluminum, plastic that didn’t know how to die. “I’d love to help reinforce.”

  “We can always use more hands,” Melody said. “I’m glad you walked over the wall, you know?”

  “Yeah, me too,” Grace said. “I got to meet you, for one. That was nice.”

  Despite the moonless night, Melody turned her head to hide her smile. That was why she noticed the beam of light slashing through the darkness when she did, but it was already too late to do anything about it. It was helmet-mounted, with an Imperial Protector wearing the helmet.

  “Damn, I’m getting deja-vu,” Blaine said. “Except this time, I’m going to take that foot, and then some.”

  He stepped forward with his rifle at the ready. His crosshairs must have been on her. One pull was all it would take.

  “You really need to stop being so predictable,” says the lead Imperial Protector. “At least change your route. This is just sad.”

  He can’t be anyone but Blaine. Even if Melody hadn’t told me about him, I’m good at recognizing bullies. He’s the sort of man I’d be happy to step on, if only I could still step on men and make it stick.

  “Fine,” Melody said. “Take it. Gives me a reason to build a better one. Third time’s the charm.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Blaine says. “The Empress isn’t happy, and when she’s in a mood, the world rearranges itself. She really doesn’t like the two of you.”

  “That’s fine.” I don’t bother reaching for the gun Melody gave me. Some situations can’t be solved with bullets. “I’m really don’t like people who burn coal. So it’s mutual.”

  “I like to think I’m a nice guy,” Blaine says. “So throw me your guns, and I’ll give you a minute’s worth of deviant together-time before I end you.”

  He’s got men behind him. Too many to miss. I breathe in, hold it, and exhale. So this is how it all turns out. At least Nora ran fast enough to get away. We turn to each other. Blaine probably wants to see us touch, kiss, whatever. At least we can deny him that.

  “You can do it, Grace,” Melody whispers. After I fell into the Railyard, I had to look up at her; now she looked up at me. She offers me her hand, and I take it. “It’s all a matter of perspective.”

  I nod and close my eyes. Every second I expect Blaine to get bored of waiting a full sixty seconds, to pull his trigger, to end us both. Maybe that’s why when the energy starts burning me, I welcome it and channel it and let it crackle. I lost my home. I lost Nora. I’m about to lose Melody and the Railyard. I don’t have anything left to lose. I hold on to her hand as tight as I can.

  So much energy was liberated when the world went askew. So much possibility.

  “What the fuck?” I hear Blaine say, but it’s distant and soft, less steel than wool. Gun-thunder cracks across the night, and I feel pinpricks. Sharp, momentary annoyances. Maybe even a little blood. “Hell, sustained fire!”

  It’s been a long time since I’ve heard rat-a-tats like that. Not since the time I stepped between two angry towns and put a stop to their little war. I open my eyes and find that I’ve risen. Blaine and his men are like cicadas now, small and annoying and harmless. I turn to Melody, hoping she’s taken the chance to break and run, until I realize that I’m still holding her hand.

  Neither of us is looking up at the other.

  “Oh my god,” Melody says, her voice full of wonder. “Grace...”

  There’s nothing to say, so I squeeze her hand. I know how frightening it can be to have a new perspective.

  “You Protectors better run back to your little Empress,” I say. “Let her know that I don’t like her very much, either.”

  I ignore them as they retreat into the darkness. I’ve got more important things to worry about. Like what’s going to happen now.

  “So,” Melody says. “We’re giants.”

  “I didn’t think it’d work like that,” I say. “Hell, I wasn’t sure it’d work at all. I’m sure we can shrink you back down.”

  “No,” Melody says. “I want to know what it feels like, and...you’re my friend. I don’t want you to be alone.”

  My heart tightens, and I feel a tear slip down my cheek. It’s been a while since I stood in for rain.

  “I still don’t know who I am, you know,” I say. “Other than being a giant. Maybe you can help me figure it out.”

  “Sounds like a cool project, especially since salvaging just got about a thousand times easier.” Melody kneels down and picks up the scrapwagon between her thumb and forefinger. “What’s your problem with coal, anyway?”

  “It’s nasty stuff when you burn it,” I say. “All that smoke. Makes it so that you can’t see very far at all.”

  High above us, the stars are shining. They’re too far away for me to touch, but I know they’ll always lead me home.

  let’s say the world doesn’t end

  and you go to its edge

  and yes, it is a real place: the ocean pounding

  and pounding at the gates, white foam

  winged and salty and lonely sluicing

  and feral will you

  stay there, on your hands and knees

  looking for god count your infinite

  offenses into an unending rosary try to be good

  on a land you never really

  could claim kin to tilling your

  lonely into a field

  or will you find another way

  make your own heaven know

  the seed that makes you roam

  this world like tina turner in mad max:

  black bad assed and silver haired

  enthroned in your own bare skin beguiled in

  your own story its siren call

  Dream Askew gives us ruined buildings and wet tarps, nervous faces in the campire
glow, strange new psychic powers, fierce queer love, and turbulent skies above a fledgling community, asking “What do you do next?”

  Imagine that the collapse of civilization didn’t happen everywhere at the same time. Instead, it’s happening in waves. Every day, more people fall out of the society intact. We queers were always living in the margins of that society, finding solidarity, love, and meaning in the strangest of places. Apocalypse didn’t come for us first, but it did come for us.

  Gangs roam the apocalyptic wasteland, and scarcity is becoming the norm. The world is getting scarier, and just beyond our everyday perception, howling and hungry, there exists a psychic maelstrom.

  We banded together to form a queer enclave – a place to live, sleep, and hopefully heal. More than ever before, each of us is responsible for the survival and fate of our community. What lies in the rubble? For this close-knit group of queers, could it be utopia?

  Queer strife amid the collapse.

  Collaboratively generate an apocalyptic setting.

  Content warnings: violence, gangs, oppression, bigotry, queer sexuality.

  For 3-6 players across 3-4 hours.

  What a Session is Like

  Players sit down together at a table, catching up and checking in with one another. They establish some tools for maintaining trust before they start to play. Players each choose a character role – a template that allows them to create their own unique main character. They also choose a setting element to steward in play.

  The community, a queer enclave weathering the collapse of civilization together, is described and brought to life through a worksheet. This process leads to questions, excited brainstorming, and impromptu fiction. Scenes emerge, characters gain depth, and plot arcs start to reveal themselves.