Book One: A Storm of Glass and Ashes

Chapter Ten: Agender Cassandra, facing Prometheus

Emile Yong lived in the back end of New Mexico, facing Nevada and Las Vegas. They often said they felt like Lot's wife, only they weren't just looking back. They were thinking burn, motherfucker, burn every time the neon went out. Emile was the sort of person who would listen to the nightmares of their political opponents and go, that sounds like a great plan. They kept dying their hair rainbow colors because it kept the shitheads away, or so she said. Verbatim. Emile kept a white picket fence around their house like domesticity's last rites, and once again someone had spraypainted profanity across its face like that meant something. They didn't know they'd just added to the layers, obscenity upon white upon obscenity, built up like layers of metamorphic stone. Em called it a monument to themself. 

They'd been Hawk's best person at the wedding. Complete with a sash and a tuxedo that ended in a mermaid skirt, because why the fuck not.

"Eventually, they're going to give up on the fence," Hawk said.

Alex grinned at her.

"What?" She said.

"You wanna know what ant bait looks like to ants? Welp. There you go. Long as they've got one in the area code, a bigot's gonna spray nonsense on Dr. Yong's fence."

"And that's worth the coats of paint because?" She said.

"They know the bigots are there. That it's not safe to put anything they really care about out where the bigots can get to it. That's why you have banners. Stick it out, see if anybody shoots at it. They shoot, you know better than to camp there." He turned into Emile's driveway. They'd moved house a couple times in their acquaintance with Alex—he radiated heteronormativity the way some stars do gamma rads, and unfortunately that made the more interesting people a bit hesitant to bond with him. He tried to make up for it with a lack of pressure and a willingness to turn bigots into human chutney—and each time they stayed in the shadow of the volcano, so to speak. Far enough that they didn't worry overmuch about someone poisoning their dogs or chickens (...or turtles. Or beehives. Or...Hawk and Emile had a lot in common) but close enough that fear was just the price you paid for having neighbors.

Humans, Alex thought, and not for the first time, can really fucking suck sometimes.

It was nearly dawn when they reached Emile's place. Neither of them felt like going home. It felt...wrong, to Alex. It'd be like tracking mud, or worse, through the wide and white expanse of someone's parlor carpet. Home was safety. Home was inviolate. Home, with this inside of it, would be flayed open, gutted and spread eagled and defiled. Better to drive all night and more and keep the genie in the bottle. Safety in the house. Danger in this car. Either, or. Your pick. Alex picked Emile Yong and his wife's intellect.

They were waiting outside.

Alex stopped the car and looked at them for a couple minutes without moving.

"...are they standing outside, in public, in a bondage harness?" Alex said.

Hawk looked at her friend. "Well, yes, dear. But they're also wearing a peasant dress."

A peasant dress, Alex thought, that was missing enough of the skirt to be a blouse with a tail. He was pretty sure the missing skirt was intentional, and since that harness would be rather hard to put on at all, let alone over that much fabric, he had to assume that they had not walked into a closet with their eyes closed and still managed to trip into the sex drawer, and that the harness was as intentional as the dress. Their hair was a riot of color, golds and blues and greens and oranges, clashing with anarchic disregard for taste or harmony. They clashed with everything, largely because they wanted to.