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Mar. 19th, 2006 08:21 pmFrom Milliways, one would see only that Miho suddenly notices the door, stares at it briefly with pursed lips, and then walks through it with a backward glance. Moments later, she returns. Her face is harder, now, lines there which weren’t before. She’s dressed differently as well, in a traditional kimono and obi, delicate slippers barely on her feet. Her hair, which seems a little longer, is pinned up, and although her face is bare she has obviously been wearing heavy make-up recently – the fine lines of her lips are stained red, and there is white paint caught in her perfect willow-leaf eyebrows.
Her eyes are closed – she opens them. She stares around the room, much less briefly, before the dead look on her face dissolves into huge pooled eyes and a quivering lower lip. She walks slowly to the Bar.
“Bourbon, please, Bar.” A heavy glass tumbler appears, two fingers of liquor in the bottom.
“And the bottle, please. I think I need it.” There is a pause. “Please, Bar. I’m a grown woman, I’m not going to do anything stupid.” Another pause. Then, with a wooden creaking that sounds remarkably like a sigh, the bottle, squat and slightly dusty, appears next to the glass. Miho hefts it. “Thank you, sweetie.”
She repairs to a booth, where she can curl up as far back in the shadows as possible. She doesn’t want to hide in her room – assuming that she still has a room, that she hasn’t been away a long time. It doesn’t feel like she has – everything looks the same, the air smells the same, but then this is Milliways. In some ways, it never changes.
Be that as it may, she would still rather be in the main bar. Around people she can trust, in a place she feels safe. It’s been a long time. She drains the tumbler, and fills it up again. And proceeds, quite methodically, to get steaming drunk.
***
From Miho’s point of view, the event had been rather different. She had seen the door. Remembering that the last time she had the chance to leave she had been gone only a week in the Bar, even though it had been a month for her, she hadn’t bothered with notes. She had learned from talking to others that the Door had a habit of disappearing if you left it. And she had unfinished business.
So as she was armed, and dressed sensibly, and mostly healed, she had gone through.
On the other side, much as she had expected, were the still warm bodies of her father’s men. She curled her lip at them in disgust. Really, she wanted nothing more than to leave them to rot, but she couldn’t afford to have them traced to her. If she were lucky, they wouldn’t have actually reported her location back. But she knew better than to rely on her luck. That would get her killed, and fast.
So she spent a few minutes dragging the bodies into the shadows at the back of the alley, and set out for the nearest phone. It was all taken care of swiftly and efficiently – the girls turned up, cars and bags at the ready. Disassembled the men into their component parts, and took them away to dispose of. She didn’t know how or where, except in the abstract, and nor did she care. Her job was the conversion of men to bodies; she had little to do with them at any other time, whether alive or dead.
It was late by the time she got back to her tiny apartment – bed-sit, really, but it was all hers. She threw herself onto her low futon, face first into the mattress. She really didn’t want to be here. She lay there for a moment, then rolled over, and stared at the ceiling, with its brown-edged watermarks. It was odd, how used she’d got to not seeing the marks there. To everything being clean, and dry, and safe. As safe, at least, as a Bar at the End of the Universe that was populated by beings from all times and all places, by Gods and anthropomorphic beings, by talking animals and all manner of things, could ever be.
She was back now, though. The watermarks were still on her ceiling; the draft still blew in under her window. She could still hear her neighbours through the paper-thin walls. She didn’t imagine her landlord was any less of an asshole than he had ever been.
She sighed, turned over, and fell asleep.
***
The next few days passed with no event worth noting. The usual crop of dicks assumed that whore was a synonym for prey, and found they were mistaken. They never even heard her coming - only one of them even felt the blades that killed him, and that was because he had been more than usually vicious, and deserved to die in pain.
In fact, nothing happened for over a week and she had started to think that perhaps she had escaped, when it was made clear to her that she hadn’t. Made quite uncompromisingly clear, when a group of men got the drop on her one night. Now this was a thing that hadn’t happened in many years, and she was at a loss to understand why. Had she let her senses get dulled, thinking she was safe? Had she neglected her routine in Milliways? She was sure that she hadn’t. She knew that she was at a peak, that she had never been faster or stronger, and that she was only going to get better from now. So how had it happened?
She understood, when he came into the small, cell-like room they were keeping her in.
“Miho.” Her teacher. The man who had taught her everything. Who had beaten it into her when he had to. Who had crafted from the girl a weapon of blood and bone, and then thrown her away.
She turned sullenly away from him.
He grasped her cruelly by the chin, forcing her face around, trying to make her look at him. She closed her eyes.
“Open your eyes.” His fingers tightened. She could feel the flesh crushing against her jaw, hear the bones creaking in protest. But she would not acknowledge him. She would not even struggle against him.
Silence.
“Open your eyes.” Each word was accompanied by a little shake.
“No.” Sullenly voiced, in English.
He let go, and her eyes finally flew open at the impact of his hand cracking across her cheek, and her head smashing into the wall. ”You do not speak to me! You certainly do not speak to me in English! Is that clear?”
She spat the blood from her broken lips, vision blurring. “No.”
That was all she said, for a very long time. If she spoke at all, which was rarely. They took her blades from her, they took everything. She refused to react. She became a living breathing doll. Their doll. They dressed her in delicate, confining silks and brocades. Painted her face, made sculptures of her hair. Eventually the bruises faded.
They took her away from her city, from her girls, from the people who looked up to her, who accepted her. They took her home, they said. Back to where she belonged. They presented her to her father, who looked at her with dead eyes, and turned away. Her eyes were no less dead.
”If you could not make me a weapon of her, at least make me something I can use.” Her teacher bowed, and handed her over to other men.
Life didn’t come back into her eyes until one evening, months later, when there was a door in the wall of her room that shouldn’t have been there. She spent almost all of her waking hours in that room, staring at its four walls. She knew that the door shouldn’t have been there. But she stared at it, dumbly.
Eventually, jerkily, puppet-like, she rose to her feet, and unsteadily made her way to the door. She laid a hand on the handle, and closed her eyes. Opened the door.
Her eyes are closed – she opens them. She stares around the room, much less briefly, before the dead look on her face dissolves into huge pooled eyes and a quivering lower lip. She walks slowly to the Bar.
“Bourbon, please, Bar.” A heavy glass tumbler appears, two fingers of liquor in the bottom.
“And the bottle, please. I think I need it.” There is a pause. “Please, Bar. I’m a grown woman, I’m not going to do anything stupid.” Another pause. Then, with a wooden creaking that sounds remarkably like a sigh, the bottle, squat and slightly dusty, appears next to the glass. Miho hefts it. “Thank you, sweetie.”
She repairs to a booth, where she can curl up as far back in the shadows as possible. She doesn’t want to hide in her room – assuming that she still has a room, that she hasn’t been away a long time. It doesn’t feel like she has – everything looks the same, the air smells the same, but then this is Milliways. In some ways, it never changes.
Be that as it may, she would still rather be in the main bar. Around people she can trust, in a place she feels safe. It’s been a long time. She drains the tumbler, and fills it up again. And proceeds, quite methodically, to get steaming drunk.
***
From Miho’s point of view, the event had been rather different. She had seen the door. Remembering that the last time she had the chance to leave she had been gone only a week in the Bar, even though it had been a month for her, she hadn’t bothered with notes. She had learned from talking to others that the Door had a habit of disappearing if you left it. And she had unfinished business.
So as she was armed, and dressed sensibly, and mostly healed, she had gone through.
On the other side, much as she had expected, were the still warm bodies of her father’s men. She curled her lip at them in disgust. Really, she wanted nothing more than to leave them to rot, but she couldn’t afford to have them traced to her. If she were lucky, they wouldn’t have actually reported her location back. But she knew better than to rely on her luck. That would get her killed, and fast.
So she spent a few minutes dragging the bodies into the shadows at the back of the alley, and set out for the nearest phone. It was all taken care of swiftly and efficiently – the girls turned up, cars and bags at the ready. Disassembled the men into their component parts, and took them away to dispose of. She didn’t know how or where, except in the abstract, and nor did she care. Her job was the conversion of men to bodies; she had little to do with them at any other time, whether alive or dead.
It was late by the time she got back to her tiny apartment – bed-sit, really, but it was all hers. She threw herself onto her low futon, face first into the mattress. She really didn’t want to be here. She lay there for a moment, then rolled over, and stared at the ceiling, with its brown-edged watermarks. It was odd, how used she’d got to not seeing the marks there. To everything being clean, and dry, and safe. As safe, at least, as a Bar at the End of the Universe that was populated by beings from all times and all places, by Gods and anthropomorphic beings, by talking animals and all manner of things, could ever be.
She was back now, though. The watermarks were still on her ceiling; the draft still blew in under her window. She could still hear her neighbours through the paper-thin walls. She didn’t imagine her landlord was any less of an asshole than he had ever been.
She sighed, turned over, and fell asleep.
***
The next few days passed with no event worth noting. The usual crop of dicks assumed that whore was a synonym for prey, and found they were mistaken. They never even heard her coming - only one of them even felt the blades that killed him, and that was because he had been more than usually vicious, and deserved to die in pain.
In fact, nothing happened for over a week and she had started to think that perhaps she had escaped, when it was made clear to her that she hadn’t. Made quite uncompromisingly clear, when a group of men got the drop on her one night. Now this was a thing that hadn’t happened in many years, and she was at a loss to understand why. Had she let her senses get dulled, thinking she was safe? Had she neglected her routine in Milliways? She was sure that she hadn’t. She knew that she was at a peak, that she had never been faster or stronger, and that she was only going to get better from now. So how had it happened?
She understood, when he came into the small, cell-like room they were keeping her in.
“Miho.” Her teacher. The man who had taught her everything. Who had beaten it into her when he had to. Who had crafted from the girl a weapon of blood and bone, and then thrown her away.
She turned sullenly away from him.
He grasped her cruelly by the chin, forcing her face around, trying to make her look at him. She closed her eyes.
“Open your eyes.” His fingers tightened. She could feel the flesh crushing against her jaw, hear the bones creaking in protest. But she would not acknowledge him. She would not even struggle against him.
Silence.
“Open your eyes.” Each word was accompanied by a little shake.
“No.” Sullenly voiced, in English.
He let go, and her eyes finally flew open at the impact of his hand cracking across her cheek, and her head smashing into the wall. ”You do not speak to me! You certainly do not speak to me in English! Is that clear?”
She spat the blood from her broken lips, vision blurring. “No.”
That was all she said, for a very long time. If she spoke at all, which was rarely. They took her blades from her, they took everything. She refused to react. She became a living breathing doll. Their doll. They dressed her in delicate, confining silks and brocades. Painted her face, made sculptures of her hair. Eventually the bruises faded.
They took her away from her city, from her girls, from the people who looked up to her, who accepted her. They took her home, they said. Back to where she belonged. They presented her to her father, who looked at her with dead eyes, and turned away. Her eyes were no less dead.
”If you could not make me a weapon of her, at least make me something I can use.” Her teacher bowed, and handed her over to other men.
Life didn’t come back into her eyes until one evening, months later, when there was a door in the wall of her room that shouldn’t have been there. She spent almost all of her waking hours in that room, staring at its four walls. She knew that the door shouldn’t have been there. But she stared at it, dumbly.
Eventually, jerkily, puppet-like, she rose to her feet, and unsteadily made her way to the door. She laid a hand on the handle, and closed her eyes. Opened the door.
