{"id":649,"date":"2024-08-13T19:03:31","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T23:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/?p=649"},"modified":"2025-01-28T23:35:25","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T04:35:25","slug":"the-changeling-game-chapter-55","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/the-changeling-game-chapter-55\/","title":{"rendered":"The Changeling Game, Chapter 55"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\">\ntt {\nfont: .857em menlo, monaco, consolas, monospace;\nmargin: auto;\n}\nh2 {\ntext-align: center;\n}\nh2.chapterhead {\nmargin-bottom: 2em;\ntext-align: center;\n}\n  .nowrap {\n    text-indent: 0;\n    display: inline-block;\n}\n<\/style>\n<p><b>Title:<\/b> The Changeling Game <small>(Formerly <i>Identity Theft<\/i>)<\/small><br \/>\n<b>Author:<\/b> Ardath Rekha<br \/>\n<b>Chapter:<\/b> 55\/?<br \/>\n<b>Fandom:<\/b> <i>Pitch Black<\/i> (2000); <i>The Chronicles of Riddick<\/i> (2004); <i>The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury<\/i> (2004)<br \/>\n<b>Rating:<\/b> M<br \/>\n<b>Warnings:<\/b> Adult themes, controversial subject matter, harsh language, violence<br \/>\n<b>Category:<\/b> Gen<br \/>\n<b>Pairing:<\/b> None<br \/>\n<b>Summary:<\/b> Jack bestows some final parting gifts on members of the Meziane family, and encounters a surprising secret about one of them in the process.<br \/>\n<b>Disclaimer:<\/b> The characters and events of <i>Pitch Black,<\/i> <i>The Chronicles of Riddick,<\/i> and <i>The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury<\/i> are not mine, but belong to Universal Studios.  I just <i>wish<\/i> I were in charge of their fates.  No money is being made off of this.  I\u2019m writing strictly for love of the story.<br \/>\n<b>Feedback:<\/b> Absolutely, the more the better!  Shred me, whip me, beat me, make me feel grammatical! I post \u201crough,\u201d so I can always use the help. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<input type='hidden' bg_collapse_expand='6a8e786be273c2045279562' value='6a8e786be273c2045279562'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-more-text-6a8e786be273c2045279562' value='Long post is long. Click to read the story.'><input type='hidden' id='bg-show-less-text-6a8e786be273c2045279562' value='Hide the story again.'><button id='bg-showmore-action-6a8e786be273c2045279562' class='bg-showmore-plg-button bg-green-button  '   style=\" color:#D9ECFB;\">Long post is long. Click to read the story.<\/button><div id='bg-showmore-hidden-6a8e786be273c2045279562' ><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"chapterhead\">55.<br \/>\n<u>Forever Your Mermaid<\/u><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAre you absolutely sure? Once I do this, there might be no going back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">In front of Jack, standing on the roof of the <i>ait Meziane<\/i> house, Izil and Tafrara both looked a little nervous.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Izil nodded first. \u201cI\u2019m sure. I want this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI do, too,\u201d Tafrara said, nodding as well. \u201cI\u2019m sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack had to admit that <i>she<\/i> was nervous, in a way that she hadn\u2019t been since her cousin Rachel had convinced her to act as her understudy for Wendy in the Civic Center\u2019s production of <i>Peter Pan<\/i>, only to get sick two days before Opening Night. Audrey\u2019s realization that she was about to perform in front of hundreds of people had been almost paralyzing. What she was about to do was every bit as daunting.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She had stage fright.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">There were no scripts this time, no directions. No one, to her knowledge, had ever done what she was about to try to do. Where this act was concerned, she was already as close to an expert as anyone alive.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Which, for some reason, made her more conscious than ever that she was just thirteen years old.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">For a moment she had to focus on her breathing, the way Ewan had showed her, trying for calm and balance the way he\u2019d taught her in the last few days. Then she reached forward, taking Izil\u2019s and Tafrara\u2019s hands, and closed her eyes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It was weird to realize that she could still \u201csee\u201d everything around her, just not with eyes. She was all the way in U1 at the moment, but it and Elsewhere both filled her awareness. She could tell what belonged to each world.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>We are in both,<\/i> she thought, focusing on herself, Izil, and Tafrara. They were delineated before her, familiar and yet quite new as she looked at them this way. She felt herself shifting partway into Elsewhere, and felt them moving there too, the quantum frequencies governing their bodies now straddling alignments the way they did for her\u2026 the way, she realized, they always <i>had<\/i> for her since the Incident. <i>We are in both.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Izil\u2019s breath hitched and Tafrara gasped.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack opened her eyes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIs that\u2026?\u201d Izil had lifted his free hand, pointing upward and to the east.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack turned her head and looked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Floating in the sky, a mere <i>four<\/i> times as large as any other moon she\u2019d ever seen now that it wasn\u2019t full, Megaluna was a waxing crescent on the verge of becoming gibbous. Its tide would reach the <i>ait Meziane<\/i> house soon, and they could use the phantom waters that existed in only one world to learn to maneuver between \u2019verses, controlling which one they belonged to at any moment. They would have roughly an hour and a half before Jack would have to pull them back into U1 to avoid a risk of drowning.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">They could do it, she told herself, still feeling the same crazy escalation of the opening-night jitters that had filled her when it was time to sing <i>Tender Shepherd<\/i>, in front of hundreds of strangers, for the very first time.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYeah, that\u2019s Megaluna,\u201d she told them. \u201c<i>What?<\/i> Oh c\u2019mon, it\u2019s a perfectly good name.\u201d Sighing, she gave them a moment to straighten out their faces. \u201cRight now we\u2019re in both worlds equally. You\u2019ll see things that belong to each world. There\u2019s not a <i>whole<\/i> lot to see here right now, outside of Megaluna\u2026 jeez, <i>really?<\/i> \u2026because this is a coastal area that\u2019s under the water some of the time. But we\u2019re going to work on moving between U1 and Elsewhere\u2026 and telling each world apart.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI honestly can\u2019t tell any difference at all,\u201d Takama opined from behind them. \u201cAs far as I can see, nothing changed with either of you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cGood,\u201d Kyra said. \u201cLooking normal and hiding in plain sight is gonna be pretty important.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">General Toal rumbled a general agreement. He wasn\u2019t at all happy about this development, although Cedric and Takama had finally convinced him of its necessity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cSo,\u201d Tafrara asked after a moment, \u201cnow what?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cNow we go down to the ground level,\u201d Jack said, \u201cand start working with the tide. It\u2019ll be arriving in a few more minutes. The contrast between a wet and a dry world should help you learn how to tell them apart and control which one you\u2019re in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It went much faster than Jack expected. But then, although she had never done anything like meditation before she met the Meziane family, they were old hands at it and knew how to control their frames of mind. Within the hour, both Izil and Tafrara had figured out how to transition between universes and began mastering the finer points, passing through walls and making sure their clothes came with them, moving objects back and forth without displacing the air around them\u2026 everything that she and Kyra had spent hours or days figuring out by trial-and-error, they absorbed with stunning alacrity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Everybody had awakened early to make use of Elsewhere\u2019s high tide and watch them float in invisible waters; once it rose enough to fill the top floor of the house, they took a break, realigning themselves completely with U1 and having breakfast.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cEverything is so different now,\u201d Izil commented midway through the meal. \u201cI can still see into Elsewhere. There are fish swimming through this room right now\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cIt\u2019s pretty trippy,\u201d Kyra agreed. \u201cYou get used to it after a while. But it does take a while.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack found herself wishing she\u2019d been brave enough to do this with Ewan, when he was still there.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>It could have ended really badly if I had,<\/i> she admitted to herself. <i>We were having a hard enough time controlling ourselves around each other without access to another universe coming into play.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Yeah,<\/i> Kyra agreed, giving her a sympathetic look. <i>That could have broken both of you. It\u2019s better that didn\u2019t happen.<\/i>\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Maybe, in about five years, she could return and\u2014if Izil and Tafrara hadn\u2019t already reintroduced him to Elsewhere and taught him how to navigate it\u2014she could do it then.\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThere will be a few rules,\u201d General Toal said as the meal was ending. \u201cTizzy and Dihya already have to return all of the souvenirs they acquired from Elsewhere, so an important rule for the two of <i>you<\/i>,\u201d and he speared Tafrara and Izil with his gaze, \u201cis that you don\u2019t bring back any of your own. Nor do you leave anything straddling universes. Our prior intel indicates that the Quintessa envoy might be able to sense an object that is partly absent from this universe, the way that both girls could sense that about <i>her.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Both of them nodded, looking sober.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou are to make no visual or audio recordings of Elsewhere or its inhabitants. There must be no evidence in this universe, whatsoever, that you have access to another. When you are in Elsewhere, you must always have a plausible alibi for where you are in U1. For any trip longer than eleven hours, you must also isomorph back briefly to check in and make sure that your alibi is holding up. I will provide you with special comms to take with you, that won\u2019t be easily traced, so that your check-ins won\u2019t put anything at risk. Make sure, before you do a check-in, that no one in U1 will see or hear, and that nothing will record, your appearance and disappearance. There is <i>no<\/i> room for error here. More lives than you know depend on what you can do remaining hidden from both the Quintessa Corporation <i>and<\/i> the Federacy itself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Now both Izil and Tafrara looked grim.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cAnd <i>no<\/i> further spread of Threshold Syndrome is to occur without my knowledge,\u201d General Toal finished, now making sure that everyone at the table met his gaze for a moment.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">They had to wait for the tide to begin receding, and the waters of Elsewhere to drop below roof level, before they could begin practicing again. They first practiced swimming through walls and using <i>partial<\/i> isomorphs to swim\u2014or, from the perspective of those in U1, levitate\u2014at what would otherwise be crushing depths. Then they practiced transitioning objects to and from Elsewhere, using the various souvenirs that Jack and Kyra had collected before releasing them back to the waters once and for all.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Izil pioneered a way to leave all of the water behind when transitioning back from Elsewhere, his thoroughly-immersed clothing emerging completely dry\u2026 something Jack had <i>never<\/i> figured out how to do, but which she finally mastered right before the tide receded. With the ocean departed, Jack and Kyra taught Izil and Tafrara how to use surfaces in U1 as platforms in Elsewhere, climbing phantom steps and walking through phantom walls without falling through phantom floors, finishing up with the \u201ccricket trick.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cNow you know everything we do,\u201d Jack told them as the sun dipped toward the horizon. When it rose again, she thought with a pang, it would be time for her to leave. To stop being Tislilel Meziane\u2026 possibly forever.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Safiyya and Takama\u2019s parents, along with Lalla, had rescheduled their own departure for the morning-day, just in case Izil ended up needing to go with them after all. As night fell, everyone gathered for one last round of mint tea and conversation in the dining room. It was strangely awkward at first, as they all avoided talking about Jack\u2019s and Kyra\u2019s impending journeys. Neither of them were allowed to share any details about where they were going, even with each other.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Then Cedric began telling stories about Tomlin\u2019s adventures when he\u2019d been a fighter pilot, based on his elder son\u2019s personal confidences, and the awkwardness disappeared for a time.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>I\u2019m not going to get a chance to tell Kyra about the Kublai Khan,<\/i> Jack realized as Cedric told one of the more famous stories about \u201cEl Krim\u2019s\u201d battles with pirates along the Sol Track Shipping lanes, when he\u2019d discovered that one cargo hold of a vessel he\u2019d boarded contained a pair of very angry, very <i>hungry<\/i> shrylls.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201c\u2026So he was running as fast as he could,\u201d Cedric continued, \u201cand he said he could <i>feel<\/i> those things gaining on him, when this door he\u2019d just passed slammed open and three of the pirates who\u2019d run from him earlier burst out, whooping and yelling at him to get down on the floor. At least, that\u2019s what he thought they were starting to say, because suddenly they were screaming instead.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack shuddered. She\u2019d read about how shrylls ate, and had almost experienced it firsthand. \u201cDid he find the kids he was looking for and save them?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThat he did. The shrylls were still eating those pirates while he got everybody else off the ship and blew it up. Sirius Shipping was furious\u2014they\u2019d cared more about the ship than the kids\u2014until they learned that it was about to turn into a floating shryll nest. Then they finally admitted he might have had a point\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Everybody at the table chuckled, although most of the expressions also contained wistful sadness. The murder of Colonel Gavin Brahim Tomlin Meziane\u2014who Jack still found herself thinking of as just <i>Tomlin<\/i>\u2014was still fresh and painful in their hearts. A variation on the same story had been told during his memorial service by one of his comrades in arms; in that version, he\u2019d led the shrylls away from his companions, and they had all believed that he\u2019d sacrificed himself to save them, until he showed up in the boarded vessel\u2019s hangar with half a dozen children, wearing shorted-out slave collars, by his side, one riding on his back.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Riddick, she thought, might have liked Tomlin. At the very least, they would have been on the same side where the kids he\u2019d rescued were concerned. Her father had told her\u2014had he told her? Or had he just thought about it and she\u2019d somehow overheard?\u2014that there was a highly-classified story, one that nobody in law enforcement wanted the public to know lest they start thinking of him as heroic, about Riddick rescuing a group of children who had been abducted and enslaved\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>That sounds just like him,<\/i> Kyra whispered in her mind.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She supposed Kyra was right. Between the story her father had told her, and her own experience of how Riddick had treated her on the crash planet, he did seem to have a soft spot for kids. He\u2019d told his own story about Johns using some child hostages to catch him, but had refused to go into detail about just what had happened to them. All he would say was that Johns had killed a few of the kids. Imam, who had seemed to know more details about the story, had told her that she was far too young to hear them\u2026 even though she was already older than the kids who had suffered them firsthand. It especially galled her, even months later, given that any merc who knew her history might consider her an ideal piece of bait for catching Riddick\u2026 and might be a sicko like Pritchard.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The only question left was whether or not those kids\u2019 fates had been worse than what Pritchard had had in mind for her and Kyra.\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Why,<\/i> she found herself wondering, <i>do so many adults believe that keeping kids ignorant about the threats they\u2019re facing protects them?<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It was their last night with the Meziane family and Jack didn\u2019t want it to end, but most of them had awakened especially early in the evening-day to take advantage of the arrival of Elsewhere\u2019s high tide. Soon they were saying their good-nights, Jack and Kyra returning to their guest room for one last time.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The room felt strange, missing all of the driftwood, coral and shells\u2026 and missing <i>Sebby.<\/i> It sent a pang through Jack; she hadn\u2019t even left Tangiers Prime yet, and <i>it<\/i> was leaving <i>her.<\/i> None of the beautiful blankets and pillows that she and Kyra had bought, to decorate first their apartment and then the guest room, could come with them. Safiyya had said she was going to box them up and store them for the day when she, or Kyra, returned, along with most of the clothing they\u2019d bought that was too distinctive of Tangiers Prime to take with them. The few things that Jack could keep, she had to plan on discarding before returning to her family, walking back into their lives with\u2014at least, as far as anyone could tell\u2014nothing more than the extremely nondescript clothes on her body\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It felt like she was preparing to erase her<i>self<\/i>. As much as she knew it was necessary, it felt like its own terrible new form of suicide. Maybe <i>Jack<\/i> had to die as she became Audrey again\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u2026but why did <i>Tizzy<\/i> have to die?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Kyra looked every bit as brooding and morose as she felt. They didn\u2019t talk, taking fast showers so that they wouldn\u2019t have to think about who was no longer dancing at their feet. When Jack found herself in the starfield of the <i>Apeiros,<\/i> she anchored herself there, both afraid of the dreams of loss that might otherwise come to her and not wanting to get dragged into Kyra\u2019s dreams of hunting in the forest with Riddick.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>The other little larva no longer dreams of that,<\/i> the Apeiros told her at some point in the night. <i>It dreams of a world with three suns.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou\u2019re not talking to her, are you?\u201d Jack asked, equally surprised that Kyra might have initiated conversation with them and worried that they had resumed it without her consent.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>No. But it is broadcasting those dreams quite loudly. Seeking companions to play its story out with it. The visions are unusually detailed compared to its other dreams. They seem more like the things we see in <b>your<\/b> mind.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cThey\u2019re from the story I told her, the one you listened to. I shared some of the memories with her, to help her see it all better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>It loves being there.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cWhy do you always say \u2018it\u2019 and not \u2018her?\u2019\u201d Jack asked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Should we not? Have we offended?<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack shrugged. \u201cI keep forgetting how different we are. With humans, we\u2019re given names when we\u2019re born, and most of the time our biological sex is known right away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She and Izil had had an interesting conversation, in the wake of the answers he\u2019d given Mommy, about biological sex, gender roles, and variations within them\u2026 and he\u2019d given her a book\u2014in file form, of course, for her tablet\u2014to read on her journey home, one he thought might be hard for her to get on Deckard\u2019s World itself. He seemed to think she\u2019d been woefully undereducated on the subject, and she suspected he was right.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>You already know if you\u2019re male or female?<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYes. The \u2018other larva\u2019 is named Kyra, and she\u2019s female.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Noted. And you?<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2019m female too, although sometimes I\u2019ve disguised myself as a male. Males are less\u2026 preyed upon\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Do you have a name?<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI have <i>way<\/i> too many of those,\u201d she sighed. \u201cI don\u2019t even know which one is really mine anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Interesting.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou said your names were stolen from you,\u201d Jack recalled. \u201cHow?\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>We do not know much about what we become as our hatchings progress. But upon our sixth hatching, once we learned whether we were male or female, there would have been a ritual to give us names. The Demons of the Darkness prevented it. We have no names except the one you have given us. Is there nothing you would like us to call you?<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI guess\u2026\u201d She sighed, feeling like she was giving into the inevitable. There had been a time when she had been eager to return to this name, to put Jack behind her forever, but now\u2026 \u201cI need to go back to being Audrey. You can call me that if you like. Audrey.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It was weird how her driving goal, when she\u2019d been trapped in the hospital, now felt like a dead end. Part of her wished she\u2019d asked them to call her Tizzy. But that was a name she had to let go of in too few hours.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She would be Marianne for the journey home, and then Audrey for at least four more years\u2026 and after that, she had no idea. But she had better get used to being Audrey again.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She woke feeling a strange sense of resignation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Kyra seemed in slightly better spirits, at least. They even talked a little as they went through their morning preparations\u2026 and began setting out the things that they were planning on taking with them.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack\u2019s backpack barely contained anything besides her most nondescript clothing, her tablet, and the neurofeedback device when she closed it; it was small enough that she wouldn\u2019t need to check any luggage at either the train station or the spaceport, and what she had would be mostly unremarkable if security went through it. She looked around the room, sighing, and her eyes fell on the binoculars and telescope she\u2019d bought not long before the Spaceport Explosion.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She\u2019d gotten some good use out of them, but she couldn\u2019t take them home with her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cYou want either of these?\u201d she asked Kyra.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Kyra, who had been frowning at her tablet, looked up. \u201cMaybe the binoculars? I can see them being useful where I\u2019m going. But I don\u2019t have space for the telescope. Probably wouldn\u2019t need one, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Jack brought the binoculars over, sliding them into their case and setting it next to Kyra\u2019s pack. \u201cThey\u2019re yours. I hope you see some cool stuff through them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She hoped Kyra saw better things through them than she had, anyway. No more exploding shuttles or levitating corpses, at the very least.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">That left the telescope.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It was the last thing she needed to find a good place for. If she simply left it in the room, Safiyya would pack it away for her return. But that felt wrong. It was meant to be used. She wanted someone to get to enjoy it while she was gone, to think of her\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Ewan. She wanted to give it to <i>Ewan.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">\u201cI\u2019ll be back in a moment,\u201d she told Kyra after she closed up the telescope and its stand and put them in their case.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Slipping out of their room, she walked two doors down to Ewan\u2019s. She\u2019d leave it in his room for him to find when he next came home.\n<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The door was locked.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">For a moment she dithered. Go back? Ask Safiyya to let her in, or to put it in there for her? Or\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She transitioned into Elsewhere, the floor in U1 still firmly beneath her feet, and walked through the door as a phantom. She isomorphed back on the other side, aware that she was taking a liberty that Ewan, himself, might object to. She hoped he wouldn\u2019t, but a small pang of guilt almost overrode the thrill of adventure and discovery she was feeling.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">His room was laid out similarly to hers and Kyra\u2019s, but decorated differently. It felt like <i>him.<\/i> He had a fondness for blues and greens, and most of the furnishings reflected that. There were several paintings on his walls. She wished there was more light to see them by, or that she dared turn on his lights. They looked beautifully done, all in a singular style\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">When she walked closer to one of them, she saw that he had signed them, in English and Tamazight, <i>Ewan Zdan.<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">He was the painter of all these magnificent works that she could barely see.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">There was an easel near his bed, positioned to catch the light coming through the French doors leading onto his balcony. She walked closer; this painting, at least, she would be able to look at with more ease.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Her breath caught in her throat as the work came into view.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It was a painting of a mermaid.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The mermaid floated in a sea, arms reaching forward as though inviting someone into her embrace. While the sea was unfinished, mostly sketched out and not yet painted, meticulous detail had been lavished on the mermaid herself. Her strong tail was covered in aquamarine scales that seemed to sparkle; long golden hair fanned out around her and covered her bare torso, hiding her breasts as completely as if she were clothed. That hair looked almost exactly like the wig Jack had been wearing when they had first met. And the mermaid\u2019s face\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">It was <i>her<\/i> face. Even as she realized that, she found it difficult to recognize herself. He had painted her as if she were one of the galaxy\u2019s great beauties. Every feature was recognizably hers, but\u2026<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>Is this what he saw when he looked at me?<\/i> She wondered. Ewan\u2019s words, after they had left Elsewhere and were heading home, came back to her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>\u201c\u2026if all one had needed to do, to reach a new world, was take a beautiful girl\u2019s hand\u2026\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">He\u2019d only had a single week to create this. Less; they had spent almost every moment of his final Tangiers day in each other\u2019s company. And yet it was so\u2014<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She could hear voices in the courtyard below. Soon someone would come up, looking for her and Kyra, if they didn\u2019t go down to breakfast on their own. As much as she wanted to stay and marvel at Ewan\u2019s work, to let the sun rise and reveal all of his artworks to her, she had to go.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">Forcing herself to turn away, she walked over to the bed he had slept in. The impulse to curl up on it was hard to resist, but she was already late returning to her room. Instead, she carefully set the telescope case on the center of the bed. She\u2019d written no note, but she hoped he would know who had to have left it for him. Why hadn\u2019t she written a note?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">There was paper on his desk, and a pen. She found herself picking up the pen and a small, blank notecard, scrawling a message on it just for him:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;margin-top: 20px;margin-bottom: 20px\"><i>Forever your mermaid,<br \/>\nTislilel<\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\"><i>I can\u2019t leave him this,<\/i> she realized even as she turned to put it beside the telescope. It was the kind of promise that General Toal had forbidden, and she suddenly realized why. If she couldn\u2019t keep it, if the \u2019verse conspired in preventing her from ever returning, it wouldn\u2019t just be a promise that broke.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">She couldn\u2019t be that cruel to him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-indent:1em;margin-bottom: 0\">The notecard was in her pocket as she slipped back into Elsewhere and left Ewan\u2019s room.<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Title: The Changeling Game (Formerly Identity Theft) Author: Ardath Rekha Chapter: 55\/? Fandom: Pitch Black (2000); The Chronicles of Riddick (2004); The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury (2004) Rat","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"\u201cThe Changeling Game\u201d 55: \u201cForever Your Mermaid\u201d","bgseo_description":"Jack bestows some final parting gifts on members of the Meziane family, and encounters a surprising secret about one of them in the process.","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"categories":[9,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fan-fiction","category-the-changeling-game"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1164,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649\/revisions\/1164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/wips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}