Ariadne Black Week 2 Part 5

Alan sat on the shore with Ariadne. She was quiet, violet eyes on the clouds.

"You haven't asked me what I want, or why I'm doing this," Ariadne murmured.

"What?" Alan tried to think back. "Haven't I?"

"My memory isn't perfect, but I don't think you have." Ariadne sighed. "I've told you parts of it, but it's a strange thing, hosting Harem Hotel. I have a situationship with a betrothed, a job, friends. I had other options, even for freeing Laurel. Perhaps they were worse options, but there were doors I could have opened."

She waited.

"Sky said something about Tess's mom?" Alan remembered.

Something in Ariadne's face settled.

"Oh, that was one of her worst ideas." Ariadne's smile was soft. "Tess is another story you haven't thought to ask me about."

"That seems like an easier question," Alan admitted.

"My father was her doctor. Her husband cursed her. She sought someone who could save her from what he did. My father was very far down the list of options, and when she reached him, she was very close to breaking. The curse was beautiful. Her husband wove a network of biological warfare and esoteric influences that formed a kind of ecosystem that hunted her from body to body. Some of my earliest memories are of my father's study of her condition. I was smaller than Nagasaki, nameless and curious."

"That's, um, more wholesome than I assumed." Alan laughed. "So, he saved her, and they became friends, and decided their kids should get married?"

"Not exactly." Ariadne looked delighted. "I was engaged to the curse."

Alan was silent for a little while as Ariadne giggled.

"I don't get it," Alan admitted.

"He didn't break the curse. He added to it. He made it bigger and more complex. He made it into something that could choose to dwell in a prepared vessel cloned from Mary Tudor, rather than follow her soul. Her mother named her Theseus, and she goes by Tess." Ariadne looked very pleased at the look on Alan's face. "I decided to call myself 'Ariadne' after we became engaged."

"Your father's a strange man." Alan laughed nervously.

"Now consider Sky's plan." Ariadne snorted. "Imagine a cancerous mass of plague, black magic, demon sperm, and cloned meat turns up at your door, on the run from foreign police. She has her girlfriend with her, and her girlfriend's babysitter, who is in a coma. Would you let them in?"

"Um, is Sky an idiot?" Alan looked down, embarrassed to ask.

"Let's call her 'optimistic' when she's not depressed." Ariadne sighed. "You know, I'd really like to earn some VP tonight. There's only so much a girl can take. I'm starting to think you don't like me."

They earned more than one VP that night.