Riolaria had been at war as long as anybody can remember, and during Argent's childhood history lessons, he'd learned of the flourishing beauty of his world in spite of it--with the universe exploding around them. He'd read great books of literature from far-flung galaxies, studied timeless works of art, fingered the last remains of all broken worlds that had found their way into the Riolaria galleries by traders and stragglers, survivors who had heard of his world's great collections, their fierceness in defending them.
Argent has always known war, and always known why he was fighting in it.
-
At 15, his half-brother betrothed him to a princess from Wellon, and when Argent had gone to meet with her, he'd walked into her chambers to see her beating a small child with a hand mirror and gone away from there. That night, over dinner, she'd smiled and held her utensils perfectly, with a matchless grace, her dark, smooth hair curling beautifully over her cheeks. She'd spoken of art and science and after the meal, when Argent requested an audience, she'd played beautifully on the many-keyed organ, and made harmonics that shook the walls, so beautiful he closed his eyes and almost believed it would be okay.
"She's very beautiful, Argent, congratulations," his brother said to him.
"She was beating her servant," Argent whispered. "He had to have been less than ten."
His brother's face darkened, and he put a hand on Argent's shoulder. "An alliance between our worlds is invaluable, brother. We all have to fight."
"How is this fighting?" Argent asked, and never got an answer.
-
At 15 and three days, Argent left Riolaria on a rattle-trap transport with three tax evaders and a drunken, whoring pilot. He pawned off anything worth money on Meso and lied on his forms while enlisting when he finally reached Atlantica. Argent knew he was too thin and too slight to look anywhere near 20, but nobody comes to the offices willingly anymore, and the woman at the terminal gives him a slight smile and some papers without asking any questions.
"Have you thought about what you'd like to do in the forces?" she asks, touching her screen with flying fingers, so quickly it's even more beautiful than Wellon's princess and her hands dancing over the organ keys. "Which branch?"
"I'm smart," he says immediately. "I already know how to fly."
"Oh?" she asks, finally blinking her eyes at him from behind huge lenses that reflect the neon-blue of the computer screen. "Which kinds of craft? Hover? Rover? Fighter? Transport?"
Argent's mouth goes dry, because this is different fighting than he's been prepared for, different than anything he's ever known. He was always a promise, a term on a contract, and the binds he's broken will make Riolaria ache, but he'll never shake the image of the mirror shattering on a child's shoulder, and he can't make it up any other way.
He says, "Any of them. All of them."
-
10 years later, he meets Dr. Laila Noreen for the first time. She's four years his senior and at least twice as bad as everybody has claimed, and nursing his bruised face in the municipal police office on Atlantic, watching her weep drunkenly about how she's dedicated her entire life to science and how it's a terrible husband, he starts to feel a little bit bad for her.
"And then this cosmic slut asked for someone else's dial!" she wails, waving her hand vaguely at Argent and weeping into a pile of digital directories.
But only a very, very little bit, Argent promises himself_
When the city gave a low, ringing chim, John saved and shut down the word processor immediately, calling up a security schematic of the city and putting an expression of supreme concentration on his face when Rodney burst into his quarters, red-cheeked and shivering with nervous energy.
"Hi, Rodney, come right in," John drawled sarcastically.
"No need for modesty: I've seen your penis and all your porn already." Rodney dismissed him with a wave of his hand and pulled a glare saying, "That bitch has done it again."
John blinked. "You said you couldn't prove Simpson was the one who glued you to your chair," he said.
Rodney colored. "No," he snapped. "But I will eventually--but I was talking about this bitch on the One Life newsgroup."
John rolled his eyes. "What happened this time, Rodney? Kavanagh question your use of the serial comma again?"
"The serial comma is an established--!"
"Not in AP style, it isn't," John said, just to be contrary.
"Are we writing for the Atlantis Daily Record?" Rodney demanded. "No! Serial comma! Oh my God--why am I arguing with you about this anyway? You don't even know how to hit the shift key in an email!"
"That hurt me," John pouted. "Deep inside."
Waving his hands in frustration, Rodney growled, "The point is! Somebody is upstaging me."
"With serial commas?" John asked, and at Rodney's increasingly-red face, he held up his hands, saying, "Okay, okay. On the Ancient Booze Toob newsgroup, right? What, are they being a bigger drama queen than you are?"
Rodney launched into a long and complicated whine about how nobody appreciated him for being a groundbreaking innovator and how his readership had all but abandoned ship as more and more poets crawled out of Atlantis' professional ranks and started posting their own masterpieces. Rodney's epic story (now at chapter 78/?) had been overshadowed by Parrish's (103/?) and both of them had been blown sheer out of the water by Miko and her filthy, filthy art pens. Eventually Rodney got frustrated trying to use words to describe the sexual positions she'd put Themero and Helion in ("Hey! Helion likes girls!" John argued; "Oh my God, would you just look?" Rodney complained) and shown John the post, which had made both of them speculative and a bit randy.
"We still don't bend that way," Rodney gasped.
"We made a good effort," John comforted him.
"Yeah," Rodney said happily, cheeks flushed. "Oh, and whoever this twat is that's writing all this Helion backstory better watch out."
John put his face in his pillow, and bit his lip as hard as he could.