The War For The Pallid Throne

Persephone, Shepherd of the Wicked Eight

I see her reflection in the waves. I see her teeth in the anchor and throat beneath the water. The whales are her children. We know this from the shape of the skull and the color of the oil. The primordial ones leave their signatures in the strangest of places. Sometimes in the trachea, the kidneys, the liver, or the omentum. Persephone is unique because she scratches the eye sockets and vomits in the oil. That's why the liquid is glossy and the barrels burn.     

11

Several hours passed before the winds finally died down, leaving behind only the distant rumble of thunder. Persephone lowered her head to the ground, nestling an ear in the sands.

There was a heartbeat, a drum pounding, a slow rhythmic thud. Her mother's heart was steady, and the battle was long over. Did she feel the kick in her side this time? Icarus and Xerxes never pulled punches. Persephone knew best. After all, she rode the sands close to her mother's endothelial lining; puffy, red, and swollen, Persephone could feel the heat as her brood dove into the river of pus.

Today, there were violent currents in the milky mass, currents the likes of which she had never felt before. The soup pulled her scales and dug into her skull, the fluid in her inner ear bouncing like marbles in a jar. The world spun around, and she heaved as thick waves battered her ribs.

"Locking the ooclid chamber," Id five whispered. "I will assume control."

Persephone then heard a clicking noise as the endolymphatic sac hardened and tiny calcified disks spun, forcing the fluid of her inner ear to settle at the bottom. Soon, the world steadied itself, her hands quit shaking, and her stomach grew calm.

Nearest the gills along her neck, between the rope-like flesh across her waist, and below the grooves in her tail were a thousand tiny projections with web-like fans and pointy sharp fingers. They poked through her membrane under pressure and beat in unison, stirring the already violent waters. There was an increase in pressure now, a stiffening of the fingers as her blood vessels constricted and eyes dilated.

Persephone shot through the river of pus like a strung needle through milk, the waves flowing with her. Left, right, left, right, she knew every step, every flourished wrist, and tapped foot; this was a song and dance that her fifth Id knew well. Persephone was right to bury Navigator's skull so close to her inner ear.

"Rotating the scaphoid, tapping the phalanges. I will assume control," Id six said, grip tightening on a bundle of luminescent thread.

Fortitude had such a firm grasp with locking thumbs. She was the muscle, the heavy hand, the one who drove the brood forward.

Crack!

Fortitude swung the glowing weave, and eel-like serpents leaped out of the thick rolling waters. They clapped their fins, matching Persephone's rhythm and speed. She was right to bury Fortitude's skull so close to the muscle fibers in her neck.

"The left flank is moving too slow. A defect in the fins, I should think," said her third Id from behind her ear.

Ingenuity was correct. There was a skip in their beat, a limp in their heel. Looking close, Persephone could see a slight indent in the dorsal fins of the left flank, causing the fluid to arc and sputter. The cut wasn't clean, and so the current pushed them off course. The eels had hatched too soon, not enough time in the kiln.

Persephone had picked up a trick or two from Xerxes and his obsession with antennae. Roll the dough and flatten the hide, pinch the center and mold the corners. There was no need for a stalk; that made things easier. These appendages were flat like wings but with a folded shape. They were not meant to catch the wind but the rain. No other engineer would dominate the sea beneath the sands like her. That's why she buried the skull of Ingenuity close to her optic nerve. No other part of her consciousness had such an eye for detail.