Before Us

The sands of time flow like an hourglass. A perigee passes since last we met our Beforan rogues gallery. Meenah fails to court her friends onto her team for the upcoming game.

Normally, I would say "not for lack of trying," but this was entirely for lack of trying. Unfortunately for her, responsibility has caught up, a fact she remembers only when there is a massive knock on her door.

"Oh, shit," she says, sitting suddenly upright on her respite-slab. She follows it up with, "Shit, fuck, shit, SHIT!"

She knows who it is. It's HER. It's coronation day. It's the day she's supposed to take the crown! Another booming knock rattles the doorframe. Meenah's heart hammers in her chest in step with the knocks- Nearly as loud in her ears, too.

She hadn't formulated a plan, either. Again- Entirely for lack of trying. She had hoped that she'd come up with a solution to the impending coronation by now, but she hadn't, and now, the impulsive Thief of Life does what thieves do best. She steals away.

Outside, a bemused Benevolence turns to one of her drones.

"Fetch the battering ram," she suggests calmly. She, of course, being more forward-thinking than her descendant, expected this.

Knocks turn into the irritable hammering of a battering ram onto Meenah's front door, and in short order, the façade is blown off its hinges to reveal the empty entry hall of Meenah's palace.

"Meenah!" Feferi barks inside. "It's time to face the music!"

Feferi rubs her temples. She's been under a fair amount of stress lately. What with the ever-more-frequent meteor showers requiring a great deal of cleanup, the pesky insurrectionists, and of course, now, the errant heiress. Feferi looks around. Something isn't right. Meenah has never avoided her like this.

"Meenah?" Feferi says, still loud, but more cautious.

An explosion rocks the palace. The foundation clatters, and Feferi leans on her trident to steady herself. Feferi rushes outside with her drones just in time to see a pink spaceship, rocketing into the distance, Meenah Piexes most likely within.

Feferi is dumbstruck. She stares, gaping after the vessel, but her awe quickly ferments into rage. She raises her trident and plunges it through one of her automaton-drones, who falls over ineffectually, the drone collapsing like a ragdoll. Two of its fellow automatons solemnly carry it away.

"Rrggh!!!!" Feferi bellows. But for all the good it did her, it didn't bring Meenah back.

===

Meenah didn't feel great about this. She'd had to fly off pretty much last-minute, and she had no doubts that the drones would be scouring the globe for her. She hated to impose, and most of all, she hated relying on others, but she knew she would have to make her way to the pink moon to lay low, again.

One of Meenah's frequent regrets in life was her lack of preparedness. She always adored lazing about and procrastinating, but too often, when it bit her in the ass, it bit hard. Each time, she swore to never put anything off again, but here she was, on a last-minute getaway from her responsibilities. Hell, her entire goal of entering this game of hers was an elaborate getaway in itself.

She sighed as she hurtled through space towards my home.

Ah, right. If it wasn't clear- It's me, Scratch, narrating. Hello!

She opened her phone, checking to see if she still had reception. Instead of text, she dialed a number.

She hated to do this, too, to impose, to rely on someone, let alone HER, let alone the person she should least trust with her emotions at the moment. But she was Meenah's only confidant.

"Meenah?" Aranea's voice said sleepily on the other line.

"I fucked up," was Meenah's answer. There was a long silence before Aranea replied.

"Be specific," she said, tiredly. It sounded like Meenah had awoken Aranea. Meenah knew that Aranea was aware that today was the coronation, and judging from Aranea's tone, she wouldn't be happy about Meenah's news.

"I kinda ran away?" Meenah said, sounding unsure. Aranea made a long sigh.

"You ran away from the Benevolence. After you promised me-"

"I know what I fuckin' promised, Aranea, but you don't understand!" Meenah's voice cracked. Aranea paused. She'd never heard Meenah like this- Vulnerable. It was rare. Almost unnerving.

"L-look, Meenah, calm down, I'm sure we can..."

"No! I'm sick of playin' this game with my best glubbin friend, Serk. I can't be your li'l savior any more. I'm just one-" Meenah's voice shuddered. Aranea could hear her crying. "I'm just one gill."

There was a drawn-out silence. Aranea felt suddenly guilty, for all the times she'd pressured Meenah into her role as heiress, all at once. She didn't speak, and Meenah broke the silence.

"I can't be what you all want," Meenah said, quietly. "I'm me. I'm not some princess. I'm not gonna be some empress."

Meenah's voice was pleading, it was imploring. She needed validation, she needed to hear Aranea say that it was okay. Aranea knew that, and she didn't have to be an empath to know so. For Meenah had lived her whole life under the pressure of expectation, and Aranea was the only person in this moment that could absolve her. Aranea opened her mouth to speak, to say those words, but they caught in her throat.

Aranea squeezed her eyes shut, picturing every person the Benevolence hurt, everyone the culling system harmed. Kankri. Mituna. The lowbloods, the highbloods. The toil, the pain...

Aranea closed her mouth.

"You need to go back," she said softly.

And in that moment, Meenah's heart broke. As soon as Aranea had spoken, she knew it was a grave mistake. She could hear Meenah go cold.

"Wait-" she managed one syllable before Meenah hung up the phone. It was just as well. She'd just touched down in my front yard.

===

In the following sweep, Feferi was absolutely furious. Not only were the meteor showers getting progressively worse, public opinion of her was... Stagnating, to say the least.

"Tell me again," she said to a nervous-looking tealblooded staffer. The professional-looking tealblood cleared his throat, adjusting a frilly dress shirt before reciting the results of the recent poll numbers.

"Forty-two percent, Miss Piexes," he said, voice squeaking near the end.

Feferi slammed a fist down on the desk. Approval ratings had never been below so much as seventy. She scowled, and waved her hand for the teal to go, who obliged, scurrying away like a little mouse. Feferi put her face in her hands. All of her trustworthy advisors were long-dead. Even the Grand-Matron was gone, now. She felt so crushingly alone, and now she didn't have the approval of her people. All because of that- That-!

"That BEACH!" Feferi hissed to herself. They hadn't been able to find Meenah, not her drones, not her endless throngs of secret service. She'd flown the coop! She was probably among the stars, now. And worse still, the public suspected HER!

She hated this. The public LOVED Meenah for some reason, loved the idea that power could be turned over in a civil manner, and they saw Meenah's mysterious absence as far too suspicious. Too convenient. There had been rumblings that the Benevolence had done away with Meenah, like olden times. After centuries of rule, she finally saw merit to how her predecessor ran things.

"At least they wouldn't dare complain if I ran things the old fashioned way..." she muttered to herself, standing up, looking out one of her expansive windows down onto the city below. Her mind turned to the Grand-Matron, and visions of another one of her associates.

"Can't get any good teal-bloods around here, these days..." she muttered sullenly.

===

Years in the past, many.

In the same office, overlooking the same view, a much younger Feferi Piexes looked out across a much younger city. That wasn't to say she was young- More like "young-er." Though for the time, she still looked just as dour as we left her in the present.

"Boss," came a voice from the doorway. It was a familiar tealblood, a sharp, cold-voiced woman known to her business associates by a fearsome Mononym: The Prosecutor. Unlike the weak-kneed tealblood of the present, The Prosecutor was a welcome sight. Feferi's gaze relaxed.

"Ah, Miss Pyrope," Feferi said brusquely. "I hope it's good news this time."

The Prosecutor straightened her jacket haughtily. Her crimson boots matched her glasses, which, in turn, matched her eyes, red and burnt-out from blindness. For a blind troll, she was certainly skilled, as she should be, as head of The Benevolence's legal team. The Prosecutor's horns jutted out starkly from her head, perfect cones under a perfect coiff, rendered motionless from a rigorous regimen of brushing.

"It is," said The Prosecutor. "As a matter of fact, we've apprehended the two leaders of the insurrectionist gang and they're being held for questioning."

Feferi breathed a sigh of relief.

For sweeps, a roving gang of hoodlums had been waging war on The Benevolence. Her approval ratings were high, but she hadn't counted on outspoken minorities, much less ones endowed with funding. No doubt some highbloods bent on sending things back to how they were, blood-supremacy and all.

"We also took in several prominent members. It was as you predicted. Without their leaders, the organization is helpless. They're scattered to the wind."

The Prosecutor took a bow. Humility would never be a virtue she could be accused of. Her Imperious Benevolence nodded.

"Good work, Miss Pyrope. I expect this success will be further expressed in your salary, and in accolades," Feferi said, sitting back at her desk with renewed satisfaction.

"Naturally," said The Prosecutor. "But the job isn't finished yet. We need to know their motives and their co-conspirators. They couldn't have acquired their means alone."

"Oh?" Feferi cocked a brow. "I would have guessed they were dissatisfied aristocrats."

"Negative, Boss." The Prosecutor rested her hands on her pale white walking cane. At its top was the head of an alabaster dragon- An effigy of course, of The Prosecutor's lusus. "They weren't highbloods. It was a cerulean and a brownblood."

"Brown??" Feferi laughed. "Oh, god, no doubt, he got mixed up and indoctrinated into some conspiracy. What reason would a lowblood have to rebel? I've done well for them all."

"Maybe." The Prosecutor didn't sound convinced, but she wasn't here to criticize the empress. Just do a job. "The cerulean's been on our radar for a while. Woman who goes by 'Punk Rock Duchess of Spiders and Pain,' and the brownblood is a fellow who goes by the name, uh-" The Prosecutor hesitated, her nose crinkling. "The Breeder."

"Breeder?" Feferi's nose wrinkled, too.

"He communes with animals. His real name is Nitram."

Feferi nodded curtly.

"Well get any information they may have and... Do what you will, Miss Pyrope."

===

Memories. Feferi placed a hand against the glass of her window. She scowled at her own face, dimly reflected in the misty surface. That was the last she ever saw of The Prosecutor.

As she gazed up at the pink moon, she pondered where in the universe Meenah Piexes might be, her mind turning from memory to the present.

===

Long story short: Meenah spent an extended stay at my manor. Short story long- Well. You'll have to read on to find out, won't you?

For those of you keeping score, though, two perigees have passed since this story's inception. A mere ten remain before the game begins. Are you excited? I know I am. But I should impart something to you, dear reader.

I said at the outset of this tale that I knew my days were numbered. I have omitted some facts, again, this time from you. Though it wasn't from cruelty. I do hope you understand. I know one thing about the game, one small factoid amongst the void that is my knowledge on the subject.

Once the sweep is up and the game begins, I will be no more.