"Almost Green"

Welcome Home

Tu-turu-tun~!

Fanfares blew the streets apart. Pipe instruments sounded aloud, tended to by the more and less fortunate. The musically inclined and the beginners, those with bright golden wings, and those without. Hooded and bare, shielded and open to the thawing sun. Everyone was there. Everyone had gathered to enjoy The Bloat.

Streets glimmered with unspoken words, electrified with an air of anticipation. One could feel the zaps and sparks coursing through each molecule, had they steeled their sight and nerves hard enough. Gazing from the many rooftops, frolicking about the busy streets, everyone had gathered to enjoy The Bloat.

Pam-para-pam!

Klang-kh-klang!

Pam-para-pam!

Salvos of gunshots spilled onto the streets – all aimed carefully towards the bright, cloudy sky. Bullets pierced the clouds. The Law, the Heavens – they smiled warmly, down upon the devoted crowd.

And the crowds smiled back, for it was a time of great celebration! It was a time to enjoy. To bask in the overbearing Bloat. To give oneself whole to The Bloat. To Bloat about with others. Enjoy the closeness of other Bloat-bearers. To walk out into the streets and fire off a volley of 9x19mm in the Bloat's good health.

It was a celebration, after all. A great one.

Children sprung from the marble streets like mushrooms following a heavy downpour. Their hands, filled with swirly cotton candy. With no adult supervision, they ran between the legs of everyone gathered, causing mayhem and engaging in little acts of absent minded mischief. A gloomy Liberi spun like yarn, taken by the wind stirred by the little Law-breakers. They would've yelled after them or grabbed the little shits by the scruff, but what purpose would it serve? Liberi on Sankta violence – that never held up well in front of the Lateran Curia's tribunals. Instead, they shot their equally Liberi friend a look and clapped along to the booming music that shook the streets.

In another part of the city, an armored parade marched through the white-clad streets, boasting garbs welded from the highest quality of shells, battle tested to perfection. Or so had everyone thought at least. These tin cans couldn't have seen much action since the end of the Lateran "intervention" in Kazdel, and even if they did, it wouldn't have been much. The head of the Curia was not a stupid person. He knew not to carry out the same mistake twice.

Thud-thud-thud.

Their armored boots bit the marble pavement. Claps and squeals of excitement followed their each step, erupting from the surrounding crowds. Children looked up at the walking, faceless idols of the Law's fortified will – looked and saw their own faces looking right back, mirrored by the pristinely polished steel. Rifles by their chests rattled, filled to the brim with dummy pop-rounds. Live ammo was permitted for special occasions, sure, but why risk it? Blanks blew the eardrums of everyone present just as well, provided they were overloaded enough.

They sure did elicit the same "oh"s and "ah"s of awe that real bullets did.

Pam-para-pam!

Klang-kh-klang!

Pam-para-pam!

Children and adults alike, Liberi, Sankta, Perro, Forte, Feline, (whatever else!), all ran to witness the spectacle – the row of pure white columns standing up straight, brandishing their shiny weaponry and firing off salvo after salvo into the sky. After each magazine, their heavy, plate-clad fingers reached for the empty boxes with flair in their movements, and switched them out between strings of muttered prayers. The sound reverberated all across the city, all across the maze of marble – in each little nook and cranny, the cheerful celebrations made an appearance. Nowhere was safe.