Purpose:
To explore the nature and composition of the Cu’enashti pleroma.
Participants:
Daniel McDarragh, Ari del Eden’d, Sir James “Jamey” Maonach
Materials:
Flowers and a selection of vases. A piano.
Hypothesis:
Heavensent came to visit me. “I have a message from Elma,” she said. “Elma knows what you’re trying to do. She wants to warn you that you’ll hit a point of no return. Your ability to see clearly as a prophetess will be irrevocably corrupted by blue.”
I didn’t say what I was thinking – that Elma’s ability to function clearly as a human being had been irrevocably corrupted by Gyre. The blue amrita was much safer – and it was my own private business, something I shared with my husband. “I’m willing to take that risk,” I said dismissively. “Is that all?”
“She said that you’ll corrupt Ashtara, too. In fact, you already have. Two penises – really.”
“And a small tentacle. Work proceeds on a prehensile proboscis.”
“The tentacle and the penis are equally bad, in my point-of-view. Male anatomy is ridiculous.”
I shrugged. “To each their own. Ash has a mangina, too. I have to admit that I don’t know what to do with it.”
“Elma could show you,” said Heavensent sullenly.
“Is that what Elma’s on about?” I asked. Heavensent was silent. Then I realized that it was exactly what it was about. Ugh, I’ve always been stupid about things like that. “You’re jealous,” I said.
Heavensent dodged the accusation. “Elma thinks it would be nice to have someone on her own level, someone who understands prophecy. But she doesn’t want you tainted by the blue amrita.”
“Elma doesn’t like to have love-juice inside of her, penis or no penis,” I said, retrieving a bottle from the stasisstorer. “That’s her own business. But how do you feel about that?” I took a large swig. I had grabbed the flask at random; the juice was Ari’s. I felt an enormous surge of obnoxious arrogance ram down my spine.
Heavensent lowered her eyes, but it was not a gesture of deference or humiliation. Rather, she looked flushed, and the corners of her lips twitched with a hidden smile. “It’s different,” she said, “being a girl.”
“Is it really?” I asked. Then maybe it wasn’t just perversity that Ash decided to have a…
I poured the rest of Ari’s juice into a tumbler, and topped it off with rum.
Procedure:
And then the feeling nagged me all morning. Ari was calling to me – and it wasn’t just his usual possessiveness.
“They specifically want to do this now,” said Rand, “because I’m the one emanated. I’m a flower, too.”
It took me a moment to understand what he was talking about – the first emanation of any Cu’endhari Nau’gsh is called “the flower face.” It certainly made sense when it came to Daniel, and perhaps, stretching the concept, Quennel. But Rand and Axel didn’t seem much like flowers – and certainly not Ari.
“I wonder if that concept should only apply to the first flower of any given grove,” I mused. Of course, there were no other groves. Ash was the only Cu’enashti who had more than one tree.
“I think that’s what they’re trying to find out, at least, part of it. Jamey is running the experiment, using Daniel and Ari.”
The experiment is to be conducted at Jamey’s flat. I had never been there before. It is basically a vast greenhouse with a huge open patio, overlooking the sea. The only concessions to human needs are an outdoor shower and a hammock strung in the corner. There is no kitchen, and for a moment, I wonder how Jamey eats. Then I realize that inside the pleroma, there is no need to eat at all – or shower, or sleep, for that matter.
It’s nice to lie in the hammock and feel the ocean breeze, Jamey signs.
There is a workspace at the edge of the greenhouse area where an array of vases has been lined up against the front wall of the apartment. Before them is scattered a fireworks explosion of cut flowers.
« Huh, » I mutter. « Ash meant the title of the experiment literally. »
« You don’t like it? » Daniel asks.
« Arranging flowers is, well, it’s boy stuff, » I grumble. « I mean, I like flowers and all, but my mother would spin in her grave if she thought I’d put flowers into a vase. »
You grow flowers, signs Jamey.
« That’s horticulture. It’s science. It’s agriculture. It’s not fluffy. »
Ari snorts. « Spoken like a woman who still owns a pink-maned pony. »
« El Mooney has nothing to do with this. »
« I have to admit, » says Daniel, « that I never quite understood the concept of gender. I think it confuses I and I, too. »
They look at me expectantly, as if I could possibly explain. « It’s cultural, except when it isn’t. »
« It’s a huge part of the culture of the Domha’vei, » says Ari, « considering that they’re still fighting about it. »
« It’s better than it was. Back in the day of the 4th Matriarch, we had the War of the Sexes. Although it was really more like the war between Skarsia and Volparnu. They had differing views of the roles of the sexes, but Skarsian women got along just fine with Skarsian men, and Volparnian women didn’t fight against the crap they had to put up with. No, the causes of that war were really political and economic. »
Volparnians and Skarsians have very different gender expectations, Jamey signs. It doesn’t have much to do with biology.
« Yes, but there are biological factors dependent on species. Like human females have babies. »
« You don’t, » says Ari.
« The female is receptive. »
« Elma isn’t, » says Daniel.
« You’re never going to get anywhere in biology by looking at outliers. »
« That kind of makes all the experiments we’ve been doing moot, » says Daniel.
Active and receptive are better words when it comes to botany, Jamey comments. Flowers can be both.
« Doesn’t it make more sense for the biologically active partner to be the dominant one? » asks Ari. « Especially considering the physiology of size. »
I look up at Ari. Way up.
« You’re just being silly, » says Daniel. « Honestly, who is in control here? If Tara frowns at you, you’re on the verge of tears. »
Ari closes his eyes; he has the expression of a man who is stealing himself up to make a grand revelation.
« Tara doesn’t like Skarsian men, » he says.
« Tara thinks that Skarsian men are weak, » he says.
« Tara thinks Volparnian men are suckhogs, » I reply.
« Then why aren’t you a lesbian, like Elma? » asks Daniel.
« Well, I don’t know that! She was just born that way, and I was born this way. It’s just a preference. »
« Does it make any sense for her to be born with preferences that won’t result in reproduction? » asks Ari.
« Does it make sense for me to be born with preferences that will, and not want children? »
Ari considers. « Humans are messed up, » he concludes. « Whereas the Cu’enashti – everything about the Cu’enashti makes sense. »
« Then why didn’t Ash just stay a tree? You know, I’ve never understood that. Why would the Cu’endhari possibly want to take human form? »
It’s easy, signals Jamey. Pick a really tall, showy one. Then group the others around it in the vase. Let the shape of the vase influence the shape of the composition. The other blossoms should make the central one stand out, but they can’t be too homogenous. It should be symmetrical, but not too symmetrical. Play with color and contrast.
He gestures at the vases. He has a look of infinite patience. He will stand here all day until we arrange the flowers.
I grab a vase at random from the ones grouped along the wall. Ari picks a blocky, roughly finished piece, and Daniel a cheerful ewer of folkloric design.
« Tara likes men, » says Daniel, cheerfully lumping handfuls of daisies and daffodils into the container. « She likes Cillian, and she likes Callum. She likes Patrick and Constantine. She likes Wynne and Evan. She likes Ari and Jamey and me. But Tara doesn’t like women. »
He looks directly at me. « Why is that? » he asks.
« I don’t trust them. Except for maybe Lady Madonna. »
« Why do you call Lady Lorma by that name? » Ari asks.
« I picked it up from an ancient song when I was a kid. She couldn’t stand it because she said it meant “Lady Milady” and it didn’t make sense. So I used it because it drove her crazy. I was a brat. »
« Why don’t you trust women? » Daniel presses.
« Probably because the bitches on Skarsia were all out to get me. »
« But your uncle was out to get you too, » Daniel replies. « The only one who was ever nice to you was Lady Lorma. That’s what you always used to tell me. »
I stare at the flower in my hand. I had chosen a particularly large and showy lillifer as my focal point: Pseudolillium berensii var. ‘Dark Lady’. The lillifers are all mildly toxic. I should’ve been wearing gloves.
You won’t get sick, Jamey signs. Not even when you’re outside. You can always touch plants with your hands.
« I can’t allow myself to get careless. You might not always be around to protect me. »
« You don’t trust us, either, » says Daniel.
« It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that…»
« Blame Dermot and Davy, » says Ari smugly.
« It isn’t just that. It was Goliath, then Yggdrasil, then Ashvattha. Ash can’t always be with me. »
« Yes He can, » says Daniel. « That’s what Canopus is for. And you can always come inside to be with us here. »
You don’t have to be afraid anymore, says Jamey.
« Don’t be an idiot. Something could always happen. I can’t afford to let my guard down. »
« So you’ll isolate yourself from everyone, just in case something bad happens? » Daniel asks.
« Something bad did happen! » I scream, grabbing his vase from the table and hurling it hard enough that it flies off of the balcony and over the seaside edge. Daisies fall like rain in an arc across the room.
I turn back to them. Ari’s eyes have filled with tears, and Jamey is flinching, his thin bones folded behind Ari’s enormous girth, but Daniel just stands there, meeting my gaze, looking infinitely sad.
« I’m sorry. »
« No, I am, » says Daniel.
« It wasn’t your fault. »
« Yes, it was. I should’ve…»
« It doesn’t matter. Maybe you could’ve made it better, or Ash could’ve made it better, but it doesn’t negate the fact that we were attacked. My uncle’s men attacked us. You were beaten and thrown off the side of Starbright Mountain, and I was kidnapped, brought to Volparnu and forced to marry Merkht. We were barely more than children, and we were attacked. We were the victims. »
The words sting in my mouth. It is true, but I had never admitted it before. I couldn’t. Because when a woman admits to being a victim, it’s all over. She’ll be trash, she’ll be chattel, she’ll start waiting for some man to save her.
Like Ailann. Like Ash. “The one who loves you to the throne will raise you; twice will he fall, thrice will he die afore you claim the Staff.”
The prophecy. Suddenly I understand why the 5th Matriarch had always treated me with such contempt. I understand why she had always paired me with older girls in the combat training, skillful ones sure to defeat me. “Bruises thicken the skin,” she’d say when I was black and blue.
She thought I’d be a traitor to my gender. And wasn’t I? Teaching Volparnian males to read.
I need a drink.
I’m sorry. I don’t have any alcohol.
I stare at Jamey as though he were a crickicada.
« We can go down to the Gold Lounge, » Ari suggests. Daniel says nothing. He is busy picking up the fallen flowers.
Jamey stares at Ari as though he were a crickicada. Ari flinches, the giant somehow looking much smaller than the reed-thin gardener. Your vase is still empty, Jamey signs insistently.
Jamey turns back to me. You don’t have to run away anymore, he says. We won. Your uncle and the 5th Matriarch are dead. You have the power, you run the show. All the labels – male and female, human and Nau’gsh, animal and plant – don’t matter. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of you. We won. Tara and Ashtara won.
There is a lone poisonous lillifer in my vase. Daniel hands me a bunch of daisies.
Data:
I was pretty shaken when I got back. At least my quarters had a fully stocked bar. I poured myself a vodka and redberri, minus the redberri, and joined Rand on the verandah, where he was sitting next to Canopus.
“Tarlach sent this,” he said, handing me a datapad. “It’s his latest research. He thought you might find it intriguing.”
| Gender composition of Cu’enashti Emanations | Heterosexual Male Chosen | Heterosexual Female Chosen | Homosexual Chosen (“Gay”) | Homosexual Chosen (“Lesbian”) | Bisexual Male Chosen | Bisexual Female Chosen | Asexual Chosen |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100% male | 0 | 71.3% | 80.8% | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6.1% |
| 85-99% male | 0 | 7.1% | 8.2% | 0 | 12.2% | 0 | 12.4% |
| 51-84% male | 1.2% | 17.6 | 7.6% | 0 | 26.1% | 15.2% | 10.3% |
| 50% male/50% female | 0 | 4% | 3.4% | 0 | 24.9% | 38.8% | 45.6% |
| 51-84% female | 3.5% | 0 | 0 | 4.2% | 24.7% | 32% | 11.1% |
| 85-99% female | 16.4% | 0 | 0 | 6.4% | 12.1% | 13.5% | 9.6% |
| 100% female | 78.9% | 0 | 0 | 89.4% | 0 | .5% | 3.9% |
| Total percentage of applications | 45.1% | 46.1% | 3.3% | 2.9% | 1.1% | .6% | .9% |
Source: Compiled from Disclosure Applications 3595-3615
Sexual preferences of the Chosen are self-reported, and conform roughly to the general human population. 25.7% of emanations are sexually inactive. Of these, 39.3% consider themselves “companion emanations” not involved in reproductive activities. To some extent this explains the phenomena of emanations which do not suit the reported sexual preference of the Chosen, but not entirely. A certain percentage of humans engage in sexual activities contrary to their own reported preferences, either occasionally or consistently.
Data on the percentage of transgendered human respondents was unavailable.
The phenomenon of “companion emanations” has been hitherto unexplored since it has been the assumption that all Cu’enashti emanations exist for the purpose of sexual interaction.
“I don’t know what to make of that,” I said.
“Tarlach says it’s a lot more complicated than he thought. The minute that Cu’enashti start interacting with humans, they stop making sense.”
“Do any of Ash’s emanations who are virgins consider themselves to be companion emanations?”
Rand covered his ears. “That was a rather vociferous denial,” he said. “But it only makes sense. Would you want a platonic emanation? You take pride in your sexual appetite. You…flaunt it.”
“Do I?”
“I suppose that there are people who are shy, or ashamed of their sexuality, or just not very interested. I mean, I don’t understand it, but I guess that they might prefer some emanations without any pressure to have sex.”
“I flaunt it?”
“Well, I mean, when you drag Callum around half-naked…”
“Callum likes being dragged around half-naked.”
“He wouldn’t if you wouldn’t.”
“A strong woman is supposed to have a hearty appetite. The 5th Matriarch had four consorts.”
“Tiny taters compared to you.”
“She had them all at once.”
“Whereas you go to the Gold Lounge to enjoy your harem.”
“I’m getting another drink.” Rand follows me into the sitting room. “It’s not like you to be so perverse.”
“I can only tell the truth,” he said. “If you want to be told that you’re a sweet flower of modesty, have this conversation with Evan.”
“Then tell me the truth. Is this really what Ash wants?”
“You should know the answer to that. He wants that vision of you in the future – Tara’s destiny. Anything on the path to that is holy ground.”
“But if he really wants to be a man, then why give the mothman a set of female genitals?”
“If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it was mostly because He wants you to recognize that we defy human conceptions of gender. Jamey was right about flowers being both active and receptive. Driscoll considered breasts, but didn’t think they would look right on Ashtara’s torso. And then it’s partly because it’s a prototype, and they were wondering if you’d be into it, and partly because they needed a place to hide the tentacle, and partly…it really is impossible for me to lie…partly because Driscoll was yanking your chain, just a little. Remember, it’s just a prototype, so if you don’t like it, we can change it.”
“I want Ash to be happy with it. I want it to best express the true nature of him…her…it…”
“Elma is yanking your chain, too. That doesn’t mean she wouldn’t take you up on it, though.”
“Elma is over 900 years old. That’s a bit too much of a Stella-Novemberoon romance for me. Besides, Elma is lacking something very vital in her anatomy.”
“A cock?”
“Leaves.”
Results:
I had promised to take lunch with a few of the ladies of court – the Duchesses of Verhim and Treival, and also Lady Geverna, the Duchess of Silvermine, who was making a rare visit to Dolparessa. When I returned, Ash was waiting for me again, wearing his prototype body. He was in the foyer, looking like he was making every effort to stand on the floor, but still floating a few centimeters above it.
“You can come in, you know,” I said. “This is where you live.”
I wonder if he sees it that way. Perhaps he thinks of the trees as his home, and sees himself as a perpetual guest at my estates.
He tried taking a few steps, but what happened was that he took one step forward and then floated into the sitting room, while his other foot flailed uselessly in the air. I stifled a giggle. It was the first time I’d ever seen him look awkward.
I thought I’d better meet him halfway. I looked up at his faceless face and realized that I had no idea how he felt. Evan would’ve been embarrassed, Tommy would’ve laughed it off, and Ari would’ve been indignant. Maybe Ash felt all of those ways.
I had no idea how he felt about me.
As if in reply, Ash placed his hand upon my chest, over my heart. It was solid energy, but not cold like a force bubble. It was warm; it vibrated slightly.
I remember my exact thought at the time: What the hell do I do now?
I drew closer to him, and slowly placed my hand on the small of his back. I could feel where the tail joined, just beneath it. He shuddered a little. I’m guessing that the design team made the tail an erogenous zone. Why not? It might as well have some function other than taking up volume. Ash certainly didn’t need it to be a glorified flyswatter.
I moved my hand down to the outer side of his thigh. It was covered in moth-scales, iridescent, papery and silky. They were really beautiful, lovely to touch.
He got an erection. Two of them.
Why the hell did you have to give him two cocks, Lorcan? Other than the obvious reason. Why couldn’t he just look…human?
He’s not human.
I wrapped my arms around him, pressing my face into his chest. My heart was pounding. I was scared. He’s not human. He doesn’t have a face.
I was frightened. He had loved me all his life, and I was frightened of him, and this is why in the 27 years since I’ve understood what he is, he has been so reluctant to appear to me in his mothman form for more than a few seconds.
I tugged his hand, leading him into the bedroom. I undressed quickly, waiting for him on the bed. He was going to have to take some initiative.
He settled on top of me. He was warm and solid, but his body has almost no mass. I could feel him against my skin, but there was no weight pressing on me, which was disconcerting.
I stared into the void of his face.
This is why he took me from behind the first time, well, besides that it made better use of his unique anatomy. But I’m sure that a big part of it was so that I wouldn’t have to look at him while we were making love.
He entered me with the lower, larger of the two cocks. It was good, so good, warmth and light and pleasure. I closed my eyes, luxuriating in the sensation. It was so very good.
He could make me come, again and again, and I could just lie there, enjoying the sensation. I could lose myself in ecstasy. But he’s my husband. He isn’t a sex toy.
I forced myself to open my eyes.
He doesn’t have a face. I can’t gaze into his eyes, I can’t read his expression. What the hell was he feeling? Was he even enjoying this?
I pressed my face against his neck, covering it with kisses. I ran my hands through the silk of his hair, telling myself, This is what he is. This is what I married.
Or is it? He changed his form to better please me. He has hair and finely defined muscles, both of which serve absolutely no purpose other than aesthetics. He could look however he wanted. He could look human.
He does look human, most of the time. But this time he wanted to not look human. He wanted me to know – if not what he is, then at least what he isn’t.
What the hell does he want with me? He could’ve stayed in Atlas, peacefully enjoying the existence of a tree. He could’ve stayed like this, soaring through the stars without the burden of mass. Why spend most of his life in human bodies, with their odd secretions and smells, fluttering hearts and lurching digestion? Looked upon that way, I was the one who was disgusting, alien.
I fell back on the pillow, overwhelming pleasure grappling with overwhelming fear. But he is my husband, and I was going to look him in the face while he was fucking me, dammit.
And then I noticed that his antennae were twitching, and there was something about it that reminded me of the way a cock twitches, like when I’m giving a hand job to a man that’s just about to come. I used to do that for Johannon, but it’s pointless to do it for the emanations, since they can’t come unless I do.
I broke into giggles. His antennae were twitching. Mischievously, I raised my hand, fingering the tip of the right one.
Fuck, there’s no mistaking he likes that. He was going nuts.
I closed my eyes again, and it was just pleasure, pleasure, unimaginable pleasure, and then suddenly, weight. I opened them, and Rand was there, and we were coming, he was coming like God pelting gold at Danae.
“Dermot is right,” he gasped. “As long as we’re anchored to the spacetime continuum, orgasm serves a practical purpose.”
“Rand,” I murmured. Rand was that thing – the mothman. The mothman is Rand, my love. But I’ve always known that. I’ve said that it’s when I recognize that fact, I fall in love.
Ash is beautiful, so beautiful. He’s everything to me. And yet, it’s so comforting for him to have a face.
I’m weak.
I have to be better than this.
Conclusion [Reported by Rand del Shambhah’d]:
All evening, she’s been avoiding me, and every breath I take is frost in the pit of my stomach.
I’ve done nothing, nothing for her to love me, and nothing for her to hate me. It was Him that she thought she saw, and Him that she runs away from. Why not me? Why can’t she love me for what I am?
It was like this from the day I was born. A sad puppet, nothing more. All I ever wanted was for her to fall in love with me, and now that it has happened, it is so bitter.
She comes into the music room, but she doesn’t look at me. She stares out the picture window, into the twilight, down the strand towards Atlas. I don’t know what to say to her, so I say nothing.
She finally meets my eyes. “It is him. I see it.”
I take a step towards her. “Don’t,” she says, raising her hand. “I don’t deserve it.”
She turns away. “It’s not fair,” she says. “Why is it so much easier to love you?”
Future Investigation [Reported by Her Eminence Tara del D’myn, Matriarch of Skarsia]:
Behind me, I could hear Rand sobbing. Fuck. I’d done it again.
But when I turned to face him, I saw him jerked into the air, and then dissolved into light, the way the Ashvattha emanations do when Ash is about to appear.
He manifested in his original form – no legs, no tail. I took a step towards him, but he pointed at the piano. There was a sizzling noise, smoke; the varnish on the top of the piano began to blister. The scorch formed into words:
ALL
I AM
FOR YOU
I crossed the room to him, saying, “I want to love you for what you are.” I embraced him, throwing my arms around his enormous torso, making myself touch the place where the human chest joined the insectoid abdomen.
It didn’t feel like I expected. It didn’t really feel like anything, which is a difficult sensation to describe.
He shook his head. I heard a voice in my mind, a strained voice, saying, This is not all that I am. I looked up into his face, and suddenly I was looking into him, into the vast void that I had once before experienced when it had been induced by Molly Fenton, the telepath. The perimeter of the void was established by the presence of five trees, marking posts stretching between galaxies. And within the trees was the color space of the pleroma, each hue a spinning whorl of energy emitted by each emanation or emanation-to-be. The parallax between the light and the trees created a shifting illusion: the condominiums, the sea, the island, the boat, the bodies of the emanations themselves. And then the light became concentrated, a star, a supernova of deep golden yellow, a light that became flesh, that became Rand, kneeling on the floor, weeping.
Smoke and sizzle again. I turned to the piano, which now read:
WIN YOU
PIECE BY PIECE
I knelt next to Rand, putting my arms around him. He was shaking violently. He looked up at me with Ash’s eyes, eyes full of misery. Eyes so wide, lips so full – it occurred to me that his face really was like a flower.
“You hurt Him so much,” he said. “Not by how you reacted to Him this afternoon, but by how you treat the emanations. We’ve been wrong – we aren’t puppets, not anymore. We aren’t masks that hide the truth of His nature. We’re facets on a diamond that reveal it, but sometimes we reflect the light, and the brilliance becomes an obscuration.”
“I get it. He’s not the mothman. He’s the mothman, and the trees, and all of you. He’s the pleroma.”
Rand’s body was hot. I placed my hand on his forehead. “You’re burning up. Are you ill?” I helped him onto the couch.
“Just tired,” he said. “Exhausted. It’s so hard for Him to communicate directly.”
“I wish I understood.”
“Imagine that you had to deliver a message – the most important thing you ever had to say. And now imagine that you weren’t allowed to use your voice, or even your hands. You had to use your kneecap, and you spent all day using it to trace crude figures in the sand. How exhausted, how frustrated would you be?” Rand leaned forward, taking my hands between his. “The voices of the emanations are His voice, Tara. And don’t discount the work of our hands, either. When Driscoll paints, or Tommy sings, or Lorcan writes poetry, or Cüinn comes up with another wild theory, Ashtara is speaking to you.”
“Piece by piece,” I said. “He wants me to love all of Him – not just the mothman, but the trees, all of the emanations…”
“The Gold Cards aren’t about rivalry, Tara. They’re about success. But if it makes you feel better, I’ve taken the Golden Vow.”
“The what?”
“It was Seth’s idea, something he cribbed from Mahayana Buddhism. The Bodhisattvas swear not to enter Nirvana until all sentient beings have gone before them. It encourages them to help other people achieve enlightenment. In our particular version, we’ve sworn not to enter the Gold Lounge until all emanations, all 101 of us – are allowed to enter.”
“That could take some time, seeing that most haven’t even emanated yet. Some are just numbers.”
He smiled. Rand has a beautiful smile, like light breaking through clouds. “I guess I’ll just have to go to Tommy’s when I want a cocktail. It’s okay. We’ve got time, plenty of time.” His hand reached for me, gently stroking my hair. “We’ve got time to enjoy this.”