xtothed



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    After the Taumoeba leak, after I decided to die after all and turned my ship around to save Rocky, after Rocky's frantic calculations about food supplies, Taumoeba multiplication rates, and human caloric intake needs, after we realized that with some rationing and luck I would make it, but that we were headed toward the unknown territory of trying to rapid-prototype me a life support system and synthetic food supply on an inhospitable planet: after all of that, after everything, I shouldn't have been surprised that it only took a few months on board the Hail Mary for things to get weird.

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    16 Jun 2026

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    It's not every day you wake up with five arms and no eyes, but Ryland Grace stopped having normal days a very long time ago.

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    15 Jun 2026

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    Rocky suggests a learning experience, and ends up learning a few things about himself that he's not quite ready to know.

     

    “I could leave the room and observe from out there,” I say.

    “No,” Grace insists. “Go to other end of ship. Go back to sleep. Go unconscious.”

    “I want to observe,” I say. “You’re enjoyable to watch. I want to know. I want to perceive everything about you.”

    Grace… doesn’t say anything in response to that. His mouthparts move soundlessly, and his tongue flickers out to moisten his lip.

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    12 Jun 2026

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    “Don’t have to face any specific direction to talk to you, Grace,” Rocky says. “Am radially symmetrical. Hearing organs on whole body. Grace biologist, should know this.”

    I suddenly regret teaching him literally anything about biology. Some things more than others.

    “Figure of speech,” I say. That’s so not the point. “Listen, is this about the other day? Because we can pretend it never happened, if it’s making you uncomfortable.”

    Rocky skids to a stop. He slowly backs up a few paces, and now I can tell he is actually focusing on me, even though it doesn’t really matter which facet of his body is pointed in my direction, due to the aforementioned radial symmetry.

    “Not uncomfortable,” Rocky says. “Interesting display of human culture and biology. Grace very kind to share with me."

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    12 Jun 2026

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    In early spring of 209 AC, on the cusp of his heat, Lyonel Baratheon takes the hedge knight Ser Duncan the Tall to his bed. It ought mean nothing. But when Baelor Breakspear survives the Trial of Seven, the hours Lyonel spent with the hedge knight and the babe that comes of them set in motion a cascade of changes that warp the fate of the realm.

    Plague, drought, politics -- Duncan has little opinion on any of them. He only knows that somewhere, at the point where the sky meets the sea, Lyonel is waiting for a true knight to return to him. But to become a man worthy of Lyonel Baratheon requires growth, and the Red Keep is quick to grind its heel upon the unwary.

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    24 Apr 2026