Ready, Set, WRITE! - Week Four

Ready, Set, WRITE! is a summer writing challenge hosted by Erin L. Funk, Alison Miller, Katy Upperman, Jaime Morrow and Elodie Nowodazkij as a way to encourage participants to get going on their projects and to help keep us accountable.  We share brief updates every Monday so as not to interrupt writing time with blogging.  You can find out more here or check out others' updates over at the hosts' blogs.

1. How I did on last week’s goal(s)

More misses than hits, to sum up.  I succeeded in writing over 3,000 words (3,142), but it's still nowhere near my upper target of 5k.  I haven't finished G for Gabrys yet because the story has decided to grow.  And I am not halfway through chapter 7 of RoK because Gabrys's story decided to grow (but I am maybe a third of the way through it).

2. My goal(s) for this week

Continue (still) to aim for between 3,000 and 5,000 words.  Actually make a concerted effort to finish G for Gabrys (which should make things interesting).  And work a little on chapter 7 of RoK while I'm at it.

Fun thing to throw into the mix: try to finish The Ace of Skulls by Chris Wooding, because I've been putting off reading it for ages—it's the last book in a series I don't want to end!

3. A favorite line from my story OR a word or phrase that sums up what I wrote/revised

Ardashir dismissed his concerns with a simple gesture.  “Nonsense.  If I cannot show I can provide for you before our wedding, how could you have any faith I would after it?”

It was a reasonable concern, but it did nothing for the gnawing twisting of Gabrys’s stomach.  It was a very beautiful suite, there was no denying it, littered with thick rugs and low tables on which sat bowls of ripe fruits, with fine curtains separating each room and more than enough gilding on every available surface to make Gabrys’s head spin.  From this suite alone, it looked as though Ardashir was not just capable of providing for him, but for the subjects of both their countries combined.

That was the whole point, Gabrys supposed.

4. The biggest challenge I faced this week

Keeping myself on track.  I began to struggle on Wednesday and got nothing written at all on Thursday which I'm really not happy with.  I've also struggled with procrastination, particularly the bad habit of browsing when I should be writing or aimlessly checking for nonexistent emails, but I splashed out on the promo (pro) bundle of Cold Turkey which lets me block apps as well as websites and that's been working quite well so far.

5. Something I love about my WIP

That it keeps growing, mostly without me.  It was supposed to be a 500 nothing-thing for the A-Z Challenge but it seems to have developed itself when I wasn't looking.

Gamey Rambling and WiPpet Wednesday

It's been a sort-of productive week, surprisingly.  Thanks to Ready, Set, Write! I'm actually writing again, even if it sometimes feels like pulling particularly stubborn teeth, and I managed to complete another two computer games to go towards my New Year's Resolution, which technically means I've now completed it as I've finished 5 games this year.  To be fair, all five have been quite short, but that I finished them at all is pretty good—not least because the two I finished this week I've had since around this time last year.  (For the record: shooting things, hacking things and incinerating monsters is remarkably therapeutic after work...)

The games were The Fall and Digital: A Love Story.  Both were excellent, particularly if you have a massive small weak spot for sci-fi, AIs (the mainframe in The Fall is weirdly adorable, as is Arid) and twisty plots.

I'm also on Final Fantasy XIII, which I picked up during the Steam Summer Sale along with XIII-2.  This may have been a bit foolhardy as I have an atrocious track record with playing FF games: I have fifteen of them, including the XIV demo, and of all of those I've only ever completed one—and it's not the demo.  It's Final Fantasy Adventure on the original Gameboy, and I bought it when I was 16.  Still... I think I'm further through this one than I am with pretty much any of the others, since the voice acting hasn't made me laugh at inappropriate moments (thank you FFX).  It's weird playing games I'd usually associate with my Xbox on my PC though.  I still can't quite believe I can.

Oh, and for all that I'm playing pretty, shiny games on this PC, I also managed to get an Amiga emulator working on it.  From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Enough rambling about that, however...

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is a blog hop hosted by K. L. Schwengel where participants share snippets from their works in progress with one twist: the snippet must in some way be related to the date, either through simple means or WiPpet maths.  You can find out more, read other posts and sign up yourself over here.

A spot of basic mathematics for today's WiPpet maths: it's the 24th June 2015, so 24/06/2015.  2 + 4 = 6; 6 = 6; 2 + 0 = 2; 1 + 5 = 6.  6 + 6 = 12. 6 ÷ 2 = 3.  6 + 6 + 3 = 15, for 15 paragraphs.  (Phew.)

Last week, Fayth was at the waystation where he'd agreed to meet the (so far) mysterious Kaeder Pynes, and RQ is still not speaking to him despite his perfectly-good-totally-not-awful attempt at making him smile.

Also, very, very first-draft-y.  Even worse than usual.

He shook his head, then drew to a halt outside Pynes’ door and rapped his knuckles against the frosted pleximetal door.

“Enter.”

Without his touching it again, the door slid aside to reveal a wide room with a curved panorama window that Fayth was sure had to be augmented because the detail he could see on the moon beyond was phenomenal. It was almost enough to distract him from the task in hand. Almost.

The room was subtly lit, just enough to see by without spoiling the impression that it all came from the moon beyond, and there was more than enough light to make out the man standing just inside the room. Kaeder Pynes was a tall, older but still handsome man with a ready smile, whose jet black hair was slowly peppering to grey and who had a handshake firm enough to leave Fayth’s fingers tingling.  “Admiral Fayth, when you said you’d found him I almost didn’t dare believe it was true.”

Wearing his smile like a protective mask, Fayth found himself scrutinising the other man. If it wasn’t for Pynes’ slightly darker skin, warm brown eyes and stronger jaw line, he’d almost think that he and RQ could be related—but RQ would have told him that, wouldn’t he? He’d certainly seem more joyful. “I apologise for the delay, sir. It took me longer than I’d like to track him down.”

With an airy gesture of dismissal that could mean something or nothing, Pynes turned to RQ and wrapped his arms around the younger man’s narrow shoulders. “You were faster than I’d expected.”

RQ returned the hug, but stiffly, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do, and when Pynes released him to give him a more thorough once-over, Fayth thought he saw a tightening of the skin around the older man’s eyes and jaw. Odd... but none of his business. “I try to pride myself on my service.”

“And with good reason. You were the perfect choice.” Pynes turned that million-credit smile on him and Fayth tried to take pleasure from a job well done, he really did, but the smile was just a little too forced for comfort. There was no reason a man with the kind of money Pynes had thrown at the whole thing should look so unbelievable.

But it was none of his business. None of it was any of his business. RQ made that abundantly clear.

“The rest of the money will be in your account tomorrow. I hope that’s acceptable?”

“Oh? Yeah.” Pynes could have been asking him if he’d wanted to sell his soul and he’d have agreed; the sight of RQ’s forlorn face distracted him from whatever it was they were supposed to be discussing. Money? Something to do with money. Money was good. “Thanks. If you need me again...”

Pynes nodded decisively. “We’ll be sure to contact you in the future if your services are required.”

He’d never hear from them again, and suddenly he didn’t mind that one bit. “Take care of yourself,” he said to RQ as he turned to leave, and was strangely gratified to be rewarded with the barest hint of a nod. The door hissed shut behind him and the enigmatic raven-haired gardener was gone.

Fayth should be pleased with his success.

So why did it all feel so hollow?

Ready, Set, WRITE! 2015 - Week Three

Ready, Set, WRITE! is a summer writing challenge hosted by Erin L. Funk, Alison Miller, Katy Upperman, Jaime Morrow and Elodie Nowodazkij as a way to encourage participants to get going on their projects and to help keep us accountable.  We share brief updates every Monday so as not to interrupt writing time with blogging.  You can find out more here or check out others' updates over at the hosts' blogs.

1. How I did on last week’s goal(s)

It was E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) last week, so with the games announcements and conferences I missed a whole day's writing on Monday and didn't get much done on Tuesday, but (drumroll please) I did finally finish chapter 6 — twice, actually, since I thought I'd done and then realised I missed something — and I did finally write 3k (3,078, in fact), but I still haven't finished Gabrys's story because most of my efforts were focused on getting back into RoK.

2. My goal(s) for this week

Continue to try to write at least 3,000 words and preferably 5,000 words — if I managed to improve based on last week, then surely I can do it again without E3 to distract me!

I'd also like to finally finish G for Gabrys, considering it should've been done in April.

Lastly, chapter 7 calls (though a little less urgently than 6 did), so I'd like to be around halfway through it.

3. A favorite line from my story OR a word or phrase that sums up what I wrote/revised

“Good morning, slave.  I hope you’re looking forwards to your daily stabbing.”

I swear that actually says "first"

4. The biggest challenge I faced this week

Weirdly, a sex scene.  Just couldn't get into writing it, which is probably why chapter 6 stalled in the first place.  Also, my own handwriting: RoK's plot notes are handwritten so I occasionally find words and go "...what?"

And, of course, procrastination, my old friend.

5. Something I love about my WIP

Haha ... ask me again in a week?  I might have finally rediscovered it by then... though Kirill's developing a backbone a little quicker than expected/intended, so maybe there's that...


Thank you everyone for your lovely comments, they were incredibly motivating!  Good luck to everyone this week too!

Zzzzzombie... and WiPpet Wednesday

Due to the University of Nottingham* apparently deciding that their graduation ball needed to go on until 3AM this morning, with music so loud that it was vibrating my house over two miles away with 990+ other houses between me and them...

I got maybe four hours sleep and have spent the rest of the day playing catch-up with myself.

I could happily murder people today.

BUT!  On a more cheerful note, my Figma Tachibana Makoto arrived today, and he looks very happy to be reunited with Haru.  Between stationery and models I'm starting to run out of space on my desk... not that it'll stopped me buying more of both.

I also totally forgot, last week, to say I'd taken another bookbinding course, this one teaching how to sew headbands (the striped line of material along the top and bottom of a hardback book).  Turns out it's a very laborious process if you've never done it before; I unpicked my top one several times before I was even remotely happy with it.

And then did the bottom one first time.  Sigh.

It's not the neatest spot of covering, because shortly before cutting it I saw my friend slice the tip of her finger off with a scalpel and it kind of put me off using mine (scissors do not a straight edge make), but it came out better than I'd thought it would...  I'd quite like to try working out how to lay out and print one of my stories to try binding into a hardback, but I think I'm a way off finishing anything for now.

My friend is fine and bandaged, by the way, after a visit to her local A&E—which is probably better than visiting the one in the city we were in.  Not had good experiences with that place.  Not sure how she feels about bookbinding now though...

* I mistakenly blamed the racetrack for this at around 1:30AM, but in my defense, they were the reason I was awake 'til 3AM last time.

WiPpet Wednesday

Every time I tried to sit down to write this, something ended up dragging me away from the computer.  So while I technically started this on Wednesday, it's now... well, half an hour into Thursday.  But hey, it's still Wednesday in around half the world!

Sometimes it's really difficult for me to decide which bits to share, because I read a bit, and then I read a bit more, and I think, well, this bit needs this bit and this bit follows on better straight from here... and before I know it I've wall-of-texted everyone with a whole section.  So I'll try to be a little more brief...  Sort of.

Today's snippet is 17 sentences (sorry), for the 17th June, even though it's now the 18th for me and I did just really confuse myself with that fact.  A little time has passed since Fayth's misjudged action and they're now approaching the waystation Fayth agreed to deliver RQ to...

Also, small profanity warning, because Fayth's internal voice is sometimes a little casually sweary.

RQ had spent the past week and two days avoiding being in the same room as Fayth. He didn’t speak even when Fayth led him into the cavernous docking bay and along the twisted catwalks with their flimsy handrails up to the station proper. Fayth’d expected some kind of relief at being returned, but any pleasure the black-haired man felt at being safe again wasn’t visible on his face. A faint frown furrowed his brow and turned down the corners of his mouth every time Fayth glanced back at him. If Fayth didn’t know better, he might think RQ didn’t want to be here at all.

Nonsense, of course; he’d asked. He’d volunteered. Of course he wanted to be here.

The waystation’s corridors were just as interesting as the ones inside the Orenda, which was to say boring as fuck, but at least this time he could stop to ask directions. The uniformed crewman he chose for that very function gave RQ a curious glance but said nothing other than to direct Fayth to the appropriate floor and room, then nodded respectfully as Fayth led his silent charge onward.

After two weeks of conversation, RQ’s long silence both frustrated and irritated Fayth, but there was nothing to be done for it now. He just had to hope that he wouldn’t tell Pynes about the unwanted advances his escort had made; the last thing Fayth needed now was for the second half of his fee to be cut, and for all he knew, RQ might always be this quiet in the presence of his... employers? Whatever they were. Fayth hadn’t stopped to think about it before.

“It beats being tied up and led around, right?” He tried, desperate to crack one last weak smile before they parted ways, but RQ just stared at him, then looked away.

That was that, then.

Ready, Set, WRITE! 2015 - Week Two

Ready, Set, WRITE! is a summer writing challenge hosted by Erin L. Funk, Alison Miller, Katy Upperman, Jaime Morrow and Elodie Nowodazkij as a way to encourage participants to get going on their projects and to help keep us accountable.  We share brief updates every Monday so as not to interrupt writing time with blogging.  You can find out more here or check out others' updates over at the hosts' blogs.

1. How I did on last week’s goal(s)

Considering I only had two goals, it was a mixed bag. On one hand I did finish J is for Jonathan, but I missed my goal to write at least 3,000 words (ideally 5,000) by a mile - in the end I only wrote 1,870 in total.

2. My goal(s) for this week

I'm going to stick with the ideal of writing at least 3,000 words (ideally 5,000), to use as a benchmark against last week.

I'd also like to finish G is for Gabrys and get that out the way.

I'd also like to finally finish Chapter 6 of The Reconstruction of Kirill because it's just irritating me now.

3. A favorite line from my story OR a word or phrase that sums up what I wrote/revised

"Humans didn’t like it when seven-foot alfa punched them, but this time Jonathan thought it would be entirely justified."

4. The biggest challenge I faced this week

Procrastination; when the going gets tough I... apparently head straight for the nearest computer game.

And Saturdays in general: the first half of the last one was spent hunting down a fixing for a 25-year-old toilet and then installing it, and the second half therefore lacked any actual urge to write.  I need to build a buffer during the week to deal with Saturdays, I think.

5. Something I love about my WIP

I enjoyed finally writing Jonathan and Milos's first post-experimentation meeting, but I guess that's no longer a WIP now it's finished.  Beyond that... uh, it's probably listening to Johnny Flynn while failing to work on RoK, particularly the song Barnacled Warship as it contains the line that inspired the scene that then inspired the story in the first place.

Beyond that... ask me in about a week, when I might have actually started liking the damn thing again.  :p

Good luck to everyone this week!

Small Victories and WiPpet Wednesday (featuring the complete opposite of a victory)

I started Ready, Set, WRITE! on Monday on little more than a whim, and so far - fingers crossed - it's started out successfully.  I've no idea how long it'll last, mind, but I did finally manage to finish J is for Jonathan yesterday, so that was a massive relief.

It's not even a long story (~2,000 total - long for Blogging From A-Z but hardly insurmountable when not suffering from Gross Eye Syndrome, heh), but the longer it took to write the harder it got to write.  No longer having it loitering around on my HabitRPG To-Dos is great.

Not that today is going so well so far, but I have at least mowed the lawn!  It's no longer reaching my knees!  (Yeah, it really was as bad as it sounds; blame work.)

WiPpet Wednesday

It's that time of the week again (not that it feels like five minutes since last week!) - time for the ever-brilliant K. L. Schwengel's weekly bloghop where participants share snippets of their Works in Progress, with a twist: each excerpt is somehow related to the date.  If you've curious, want to find out more or read everyone else's excerpts (I recommend you do, they're all incredibly talented), you can find it over here.

This week's snippet is 18 paragraphs for the 10th June 2015: 10 + 6 = 16; 2 + 0 + 1 = 3; 5 - 3 = 2, therefore 16 + 2 = 18.  (Wheee, convoluted.)

So far, Fayth's trip to return RQ to Kaeder Pynes and his home has been uneventful, but it was never bound to remain that way, was it?  And it's even worse when your peace is ruined by something you've brought about yourself...

(*cough* Sorry for the wall of text...)

When Fayth asked if the Rose Queen had any name other than his title, the answer made him wonder if he was going deaf, or if someone had been distinctly prescient when they’d named their child. “Argue?”

The Rose Queen sighed and looked away, leaning back against the cabin door frame. Fayth was sure he’d seen him roll his eyes. “RQ. An abbreviation. For Rose Queen.”

“You don’t have an actual name?” He’d asked, but the Rose Queen—RQ, he supposed he’d have to get used to now—didn’t meet his gaze, and didn’t answer.

Still, it worked well enough. Fayth quickly became accustomed to muttering the letters as he leant on the door frame, arms folded, to check up on his passenger, and the Rose Queen answered to it readily. He alternated his time between sitting in the cockpit and staying in his room, slowly making his way through the collection of books and out-of-date magazines Fayth had accumulated for his guest, and the fact that they were heavily skewed towards what Fayth expected a stereotypically sheltered, slightly traumatised woman would want to read didn’t seem to faze him. If anything he seemed more taken with the magazines depicting rich fabrics and clothes Fayth would neither be caught dead in, nor could ever afford, than he did with the others in the motley and dog-eared collection.

Sometimes they even talked, when RQ allowed Fayth to enter his room and sit beside him on the always-immaculate bed. Fayth rapidly learned that RQ was both educated and intelligent—God knew he’d met enough men who were either one or the other, but rarely both, in his line of work—and that his genuine laugh, although rare, was as beautiful as he was. He showed Fayth things he’d found in the magazines and they discussed his past and the events following his theft, but never in detail. Sometimes they just sat in silence in the cockpit and watched the way the slipspace colours crested the window in a multi-hued wash. Fayth liked those times. He could watch RQ from the corner of his eye, and tried not to smile at the wonder on his face.

What Fayth most enjoyed was the way RQ gradually opened up to him. The way his tentative smiles became stronger. How he began to volunteer opinions rather than wait until he was asked. Fayth wasn’t quite sure where the man in the habitat who’d been so prepared to stand up for himself had gone—and if he was brutally honest he’d been more interested in meeting him—but this one was sweet enough and surprisingly close to the mental image of the female Rose Queen he’d had at the start of the job. And it wasn’t like there wasn’t the occasional tantalising flash of fire that had turned his fears about the journey into a hope...

RQ asked questions in return: about Fayth’s life, his job, the sheer extent of his freedom across the galaxy. Each answer made his eyes widen until Fayth wondered if his chaotic life really was as fascinating as RQ seemed to find it; but then, of course it’d sound fascinating to a man who hadn’t left the safety of the ship he was born on until he’d been stolen. It was a common story, and not one Fayth had ever felt inclined to succumb to.

That was probably how the mistake arose in the first place, when he thought about it. Who wouldn’t feel flattered at being the object of such rapt attention? It was so easy to take it the wrong way, so easy to think of the wide-eyed interest as being something more—

Well, RQ disabused him of that notion pretty quickly.

They’d been talking easily, sat side by side on RQ’s bunk so close their arms occasionally brushed, close enough Fayth could breathe in the man’s faintly sweet smell. RQ nodded at something Fayth had said, his lips seductively pink and parted, and Fayth couldn’t help himself. RQ’s cheek was so soft beneath his fingers, so warm against his skin; his lips tasted just as sweet as he’d so often dreamed.

And his fist hit harder than Fayth had ever imagined. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”

That. Hurt. How could such a delicate man have such a right hook on him? It took a moment for his jaw to work, and that was only after he was sure it wasn’t broken. “I—You—I thought—”

“Leave, please.” RQ turned away, his voice as tight and controlled as the set of his shoulders.

It was Fayth’s ship; he could argue the matter. He didn’t have to leave on the orders of some man he’d only known two weeks.

He padded silently into the corridor, sliding the door shut behind him.

In his own bunk, arms behind his head and eyes fixed on the ceiling without seeing it, he found himself struggling with guilt. Guilt! What use did he have for guilt? He misappropriated other people’s belongings for third parties for a living... belongings that didn’t often have wide, shocked eyes and expressions of soul-clawing betrayal.

He’d been so sure. It was hard not to believe that every fleeting touch, every warm word, had been indicative of a deeper interest. Was that how RQ had ended up being assaulted? Some guy couldn’t tell the difference between his innocent speech and a come-on?

Fayth flung himself over and snarled at the stars beyond his window like the whole mess wasn’t all his own fault.

Ready, Set, WRITE! 2015 - Week One

With my ear never to the ground as usual, I didn't know about this until today when Carrie-Anne Brownian posted about it on her blog.

It looks like a good idea, and I think it's been quite apparent over the last few months that motivation is something that I have been in distinctly short supply of, so with my fingers firmly crossed and a new entry on my HabitRPG dailies, here we go...

If you're curious about Ready, Set, Write!, it's a summer challenge set up by Katy Upperman, Erin Funk, Jaime Morrow, Elodie Nowodazkij and Alison Miller to encourage us to meet our goals and hold ourselves accountable (*gulp*).  You can sign up at the link over at the host blogs if you're feeling the call.  Every Monday we'll update with short sentences on the following topics:

• How I did on last week’s goal(s)
• My goal(s) for this week
• A favorite line from my story OR a word or phrase that sums up what I wrote/revised
• The biggest challenge I faced this week
• Something I love about my WIP

But for this kick-off week, that obviously won't work so well, soooo...

My Goals For This Week

This week, I'd love to accomplish a total of around 5,000 words, though considering the previous few months I think even 3,000 would be pretty damn wonderful.

Ideally this week I'd like to finish J is for Jonathan, because it was only supposed to be short and it's taking far too long now.

My Ultimate Goals For The Summer

Make discernible progress on (or, even better, finish):

• The Reconstruction of Kirill
• The Rose Queen

and finish:

• J is for Jonathan
• G is for Gabrys

Try to make some progress on plotting out Dust & Ash, because I don't think that can go anywhere without one.

And, finally, finish at least one item out of the four crochet projects that're sitting behind me exuding a malevolent aura.

...Wish me luck, because I think I'm going to need it.

No Self-Control and WiPpet Wednesday

I shouldn't be allowed to keep my computers and my debit card near each other, and particularly not when I'm not exactly feeling cheery.  I end up... buying things.  And I forget to read the dimensions on the things I'm buying, so when they arrive I get a bit of a surprise.

At least it gives me things to play with on my desk.

...Not that I can be trusted on that front either...

Still got very little on the actual writing front done, though at some point I know I'm going to have to stop staring at one of these stories and start writing.  At least the characters are still fidgeting around in my head and providing new revelations—for instance, one did actually deign to tell me his name was Demiah and he has heterochromia, so now I at least know what he looks like.  Always useful.

In non-writing news, although I've not resumed work on the other four (*sigh*) crochet projects, I did sit down yesterday and crochet a cuddly bunny.  It was kind of an experiment, to see if it'd be feasible to make some for my NaNoWriMo group, but he was too fiddly and time consuming: around five hours total, start to finish and finding eyes etc.  Plus, making him used almost all of a 50g ball of yarn, soooo...

And halfway through it I remembered stray fibres really don't play so well with my sinuses, so that wasn't much fun either.

Ahh, it's been such an exciting week.

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is K. L. Schwengel's brilliant blog hop, where everyone shares snippets of their works in progress with just one twist: the snippet must in some way relate to the date!  It's a lot of fun (I say this every week, don't I?  Well, it's true) and you can sign up and read other participants' WiPpets here.

Apropos of last week, I meant to reply to everyone's comments but somehow it got away from me...  I should say that RQ isn't a crossdresser in the everyday, 21st century meaning of the term.  It's a little hard to explain, but (as I'll no doubt go into further detail on later), he was born on and has lived his entire life on an orbital space station—and a quite particular one at that, but that's a little spoileriffic—with its attendant lack of access to anything other than plain, functional clothes that are assigned to pretty much everyone on board.

...In short, as far as RQ's concerned, if the clothes fit and look good on him, he couldn't care less who they were intended for.  This in no way reflects personal reasons for my general horror over clothing stores and their layouts, of course.  And Fayth certainly isn't complaining.  :p

It's the 3rd June today (and a surprisingly humid day too), and as a result my maths is 3 × 6 = 18, plus 2 from the year for a total of 20 paragraphs.  They don't follow exactly on from where I last posted, I skipped a little bit about Fayth asking why RQ was kidnapped for his gardening skills so I could have a section instead that shows how sheltered RQ actually is...

When he looked up again, it was with a proud smile that took Fayth’s breath away. “I’m the only person who can grow Halfeti roses in space.”

Fayth stared blankly at him.

He’d feared his incomprehension would dim the man’s pride; instead, the Rose Queen grinned. “They’re black roses, hence the name.”

Well, that made sense, as much as anything plant-related did, although it didn’t necessarily answer one important thing: “but... Queen?”

The Rose Queen shrugged. “I know as much as you do about that. It’s probably the hair. It usually is.”

It was so, so difficult to resist the urge to lean across and run his fingers through the glossy black strands, but Fayth had already seen how unexpected contact seemed to make him nervous, and with good reason judging from the events of a few hours before. Still, he couldn’t help imagining touching it, envisioning it spread behind him like a dark halo as he lay, sweet and compliant and beautifully naked, on the floor beneath him—

He hurriedly turned his attention to the navigation panel. “Maybe it was to throw people off the scent.” His voice sounded thicker than it should; he swallowed a few times, trying desperately to clear his mind. “You know, to make sure people were looking for a woman, not for a man.”

“Maybe.” The Rose Queen didn’t sound convinced.

Fayth waited until it was clear no further answer was forthcoming, then busied himself with re-checking their co-ordinates for the fourth time in as many minutes. No change; big surprise. He leaned forward to flick to another exterior camera.

The Rose Queen murmured something in surprise and reached out toward Fayth’s hand, pausing when Fayth froze. “Can I look?”

“At what?”

“Your knuckles,” he said, frowning at the hand in question. “When you hit—there was blood. You hurt yourself.”

“Oh, yeah. That.” Swallowing again, he let the Rose Queen very gently take his right hand and turn it this way and that. “My nanites are pretty good. I was fixed up within a minute.”

His frown deepened. “Nanites?”

Some people might be suspicious of them, but pretty much everyone Fayth had ever met at least knew what they were. How could the Rose Queen not? It was Fayth’s turn to frown at nothing in particular, the feeling of the Rose Queen’s skin on his own momentarily forgotten. “Yeah. You know.” But his mystified expression made it obvious he didn’t. “Tiny robots designed to repair any scratches or scrapes I get... or pretty much anything else so long as it’s not too badly damaged. They even fix diseases.”

The Rose Queen dropped his hand like it burned. “Really?” His voice filled with either distaste or panic, and Fayth wasn’t sure which. “They’re inside you? Can they get out?”

“Well, I assume I lose some when I sweat or sneeze or whatever, but they replicate to keep up a steady supply, so—what?”

Horror was written plainly across the other man’s face. “I could catch them from you?”

“No!” He laughed, unsure whether to be amused or just slightly insulted. “No, they’re hardcoded to my DNA. They won’t work for anyone else so don’t worry, you’re safe.”

“Oh...” The Rose Queen breathed, taking possession of Fayth’s hand again to stare more closely at his knuckles. There was no trace of the graze beyond some flecks of dried blood staining the back of his hand, which the Rose Queen flaked away with one nail.