Vigor Mortis

About a tenday later, as I sit through the incredibly surreal experience of eating breakfast with my family, I'm mildly surprised to hear a knock on the door.

Not in the sense that I don't see it coming, since of course I can feel a person approaching our house from anywhere within a thousand yards and this is especially notable when that person happens to be Penelope, but in the sense that this is not at all the time Penelope normally drops by every day. Penelope likes to stick to a firm schedule, and usually waits until about four or five hours after the end of night to perform the daily biomancy treatments for everyone. Day more or less just broke, and we’re all sitting around a table preparing to chow down on the food that we have stored in our house. Even Vitamin has a meal ready for her, although I’m the only one that can prepare it.

Seriously. We have spare food. Inside the house! Something freaks us all out about that, it just feels wrong. Shouldn't we be eating it, if for no other reason than to prevent someone else from coming by and stealing it all? But no, we have a house now, not a shack. It's made of stone, and people can't just push the door down. Lyn and Rowan are usually home instead of usually not home, and can kick the ass of anyone stupid enough to try and rob them… but actually we can just legitimately expect to not be robbed, because everybody nearby is in the same situation! Hell, if something bad happens to us the guard might even actually help! Or at least Penelope says so, though we know better than to believe her.

"Come in!" I shout at her, and she lets herself in with her key. "What brings you around so early?"

Penelope smirks. Unlike usual, she's got some kind of satchel around one shoulder, a fancy, rich, expensively-dyed accessory that I've never seen her with before.

"You have absolutely no idea what day it is today, do you?" she asks.

I frown, trying to remember which island passes over us next.

"Shattered Stones?" I answer. It's not so much an island as it is a collection of enormous boulders in the sky, but it blocks out the light when it passes over so it still counts.

"Correct!" Penelope says happily. "Which means it is also…?"

All of us stare blankly for a moment before my little brother Jari chimes in. Actually spending time with them has done wonders for helping me remember their names.

"It's weird mask day," he says.

Oh yeah! Weird mask day. Once a year all the rich people put this crap on their faces, and a bunch of fancy stalls get set up and tons of people all crowd the streets and everything just becomes a smorgasbord for stealing. Weird mask day is a good day. Penelope chuckles, apparently thinking this is quite amusing.

"It's the Skyhope Festival," she corrects. "The day celebrating the foundation of our city?"

"Yeah, for sure," Lyn agrees. "Weird mask day."

"None of you seem terribly excited," Penelope pouts with fake disappointment.

We shrug. We aren’t supposed to steal things anymore, since Penelope is providing us food and whatnot, so it doesn't really impact us much.

"It's kind of a rich people holiday," Basra dismisses.

"Well," Penelope says, opening up her satchel and pulling out a spread of animal and monster masks, "how would you all like to be rich people for a day?"

Squeals of excitement erupt from around the table, and before I know it breakfast has been devoured, everyone is masked up, and the family plus Penelope are dashing excitedly down one of the city's main thoroughfares, being greeted by stall owners with pleasant smiles rather than the suspicious glares we're used to. The street is loud and busy, exactly the sort of ideal place for pickpocketing. Today, though, we are here to have fun, so some of the kids actually resist the urge to do so.

"Thanks again for doing this, Penelope," Lyn says from behind her smiling cat mask. "Honestly, I've had no idea what to do with the kids lately. They're all used to being cooped up at home, but now that they aren't starving to death they seem to have all kinds of energy that they didn't before. Makes parenting a little harder."

"Funny how that works," Penelope answers dryly. She picked an intricate snake mask for herself, each scale delicately carved into the wood. "I suppose I could always stop feeding them, if it's too much trouble."

"Well, I'll think about it," Lyn jokes. "Seriously though. Thank you so much. You are pretty much the best thing that will ever happen to them. There's no way we can possibly repay you, you know."

I don't need to see Penelope's face to know that she's smirking.

"Oh, I'm sure I'll find something for someone with your skills to do."

Lyn laughs.

"Not so much of an altruist after all, huh?" she asks.

"Am I not? I imagine you're dying to have some way to spend your time," Penelope responds coyly. "Your boyfriend makes a better homebody than you do. Surely finding you some work is but another favor?"

That makes my mom laugh even harder, and she slaps me on the back.

"Vita, catch this one while you can, I want to make sure she sticks around."

"Okay?" I answer hesitantly, not quite sure I understand. Then a flash of embarrassment passes through Penelope, and I figure it out, causing the same to happen to me.

"I'll leave you two alone then," Lyn taunts, placing her hand on my head and rubbing around a little before running off. "Katie! Honey, we pay for those now!"

With Rowan already off wrangling some of my other siblings and Vitamin staying close to him in case anyone gets suspicious of her, that does indeed leave Penelope and I alone. That used to be relaxing, but now it's just… weird. What's with everybody pushing me into, well, whatever it is I'm being pushed into? I don't want to think about it. I like Penelope. I do. I just don't—

"So, how do you like your mask?" Penelope asks quickly, interrupting my train of thought. "I had it custom-made."

I reach up to feel the art strapped to my face. I hardly need her to tell me that she had it made especially for me, considering what it is. A great blue eye, wrapped up in tentacles so that it's barely peeking out from behind, shyly peering at the world with an abnormally piercing gaze. The tendrils are wrapped around each other as well, intertwined and swirling in complex, beautiful patterns.

It's a depiction of my soul, obviously, and though the wood and dye are a pale imitation of the real thing, I can't deny that I love it. I love it a lot.

"It's good," I mumble. "Thank you."

Satisfaction fills her, both from my joy and from the usual smugness she feels from being right about something. It relaxes me a bit. It's not attraction, not really. She's just happy I'm happy, and I'm happy to be happy about that.

"Any of the stalls catch your interest?" Penelope asks. "Smell any food you want? Any games you want to try?"

"Not picky about food," I answer, shrugging. "You know that. I see a cups stall, over there. That might be worth a laugh."

Penelope raises an eyebrow, and I lift an arm to point after briefly trying to indicate the direction with a tentacle. Unfortunately, it's not safe for Penelope to have the soul sight spell active in public. If a metamancer saw it and knew what they were looking at, we'd immediately be in trouble. Penelope can't use the metal tattoo strategy either, because she might actually be under some scrutiny and the magic we use to block other people from detecting our magic is apparently also illegal, at least to have on an individual. We’re only risking it on Vitamin because she’s illegal anyway.

"That ball and cup game?" Penelope asks. "Sure, if you like. Why?"

"Rowan used to run games like that all the time," I tell her. "I helped out for a while before becoming a hunter. It's how our family used to get most of our money. Anyway, I know all the tricks, so it should be a fun and easy win."

"Well, I do like winning," Penelope agrees with a nod. "Lead the way."

We push through the crowd, a somewhat slow and frustrating endeavor for someone as short as I am. Honestly, it's kind of a miracle I can see any of the stalls behind the mass of celebrating people. At first, moving around was pretty stressful, not because everybody is huge and in my way (I'm used to that), but because every once in a while someone in my range nearby will randomly freak out as if they're under attack. That raises my hackles, and I have to try and figure out how much danger we're in before inevitably figuring out that they're scared of me. Everybody with a danger sense goes on high alert when I walk nearby, which is starting to get a little annoying. Thankfully, most people do not have one, so I should be fine.

We get in the line for the cups stall, which thankfully isn't very long. It's much fancier than Rowan's ever was, though, with a big sign and a rack of prizes that you can win sitting behind the guy running the games. He's clearly a bit of a weasel, what with a murky, shifty soul that's slippery and hard to see through. I don't blame the guy, though. Sometimes you just have to make an honest living by cheating everyone else out of their money. The game is set up a little differently from Rowan's, the premise being that you could bet three, six, or twelve in a row, with the expectation that each game of cups would get progressively harder. If you get every single game that you bet correctly, you win a prize, with better quality more games in a row you got.

"Well, that's cute," Penelope says, pointing at one of the prizes. "A stuffed Little Disciple. Perhaps Rosco would like a friend?"

"Rosco is a loner," I answer matter-of-factly. "He needs no friends, only hugs."

"But what is he supposed to get hugs from, if not a friend?" Penelope counters.

I hum, considering this. She makes a very valid point. Penelope truly is a master of rhetoric.

"Twelve games please," I tell the stand owner, dropping the chitin coins for it on the counter.

"And someone takes the twelve game challenge!" the stand owner announces loudly, trying to gather as much attention and spectacle as he can to try and draw in more customers. "Could this little girl be the first person today to get twelve in a row?"

"Fifteen," I correct.

"Hmmm?" he prompts, confused.

"I'm going to get fifteen in a row," I tell him. "Just to humiliate you for calling me little girl."

Penelope gets a flush of excitement over that, causing me to regret it a little, but some things I refuse to stand for. The cups guy grins a showman's grin, and we're off to the races. The first few games are pathetically easy, but of course that's part of how he gets customers. The more people watch the twelve-set, the more people are going to think they can easily do three in a row, which will end up harder than they expected from watching me. Of course, even if they succeed, the amount of money they pay to play the game isn't worth the prize they get, so it's really a win-win for the guy. The speed he can move the cups around is legitimately impressive, and after the fifth game I wouldn't be surprised if many normal people would lose track of the ball even if he wasn't cheating. After the eighth game, of course, the cheating comes out and he secretly palms the ball before moving it into a new cup once or twice during the rotation.

Obviously, I'm also cheating, having reached out with a tentacle and put a small soul shard in the ball, as well as the backup balls he occasionally replaces it with. Every round I point at the correct cup immediately, without even bothering to look his way, enjoying how increasingly flustered he becomes as a result. He starts using kynamancy after the eleventh game, and considering how stressed he is about it I imagine he probably doesn't have a license. It's actually kind of interesting watching him do it with all three eyes, since my soul eye doesn't use light to see and is totally unaffected by the illusion, while my physical eyes see whatever his spell wants me to see. Thankfully, he doesn't use illusions to mask the end result, only to make it look like cups are spinning in places where they actually aren't, so I don't need to call him out on his cheating in order to win. He’s smart enough to cut his losses. After all fifteen games, I become the proud owner of a new tentacular stuffed animal, which I squeeze snugly while mentally promising to make it up to Rosco with some double hugs.

"Your name is Jermaine," I tell my new friend, and then put him on my head as a hat. The little stuffed tentacles wrap around my scalp snugly and securely.

Penelope says nothing, and I pointedly ignore her cacophony of embarrassing emotional reactions. Mostly because they are embarrassing for me, not for her, though I know in my heart of hearts I don't actually have a reason to be embarrassed. Stuffed animals, particularly Roscos, are the ideal companion and friend and I will not deign to pretend otherwise. When you hug a stuffed animal you get all the comfort of a proper cuddle without having to worry about getting touched in weird places or if the other person is sick or if they're about to put a knife in your back or if they're just trying to steal something from you. I do not at all like being put in a position of vulnerability, but with a stuffed animal I am always safe and in control. It is a welcome change from the constant, ever-present danger of normal life.

Penelope and I continue to enjoy festival games, though neither of us find any of them very interesting unless we can use our abilities to handedly win, which is always quite entertaining. I also keep slurping down endless piles of sweet and fatty festival food, which Penelope refuses to stop buying for me and I find myself unable to protest against that attitude on principle. I definitely like food, and as long as I eat it slowly enough maybe I won't get full before I run out of it. Honestly, things are going really, really great. At least until we step into an alleyway to take a break from the crowds and a certain familiar soul suddenly pops into existence beside us.

I jump back and draw my spear, glowering ineffectively at a pink-haired, fox-masked crazy lady who I can only assume has been waiting just outside my sensory range for precisely this opportunity.

"Hello again, friend!" Capita says cheerfully, waving with excited energy. "Can I celebrate with you too?"