Fanatical Zeal; or, Songetay Solves The Placement Test, Chapter 1

[viceversailles]

Title: Fanatical Zeal Chapter 1: Velvet and Her Iron Glove
Rating: Teen
Major Warnings: Abuse, sexism, transphobia
Genre: Canon Compliant, Side Character Focus
Summary: Velvet awakens to discover that she didn't exist moments ago. Her practitioner, Easton Songetay, has fallen victim to The Placement Test, a Ritual Incarnate of unknown allegiance that transforms people into places and their possessions into people. Velvet is Easton's Implement, the gauntlet with which he conjures elements and rules his summons. Left stranded on the cusp of the ritual's game, Velvet and her motley crew decide to play.

Easton's friend Myles keeps giving her weird looks, though. Wonder what that's about?

Set around the Sword Moot, after Easton and Myles' stay in Kennet Found, but before the end of Pale.

---

 

At first, she thought she was sleeping with a stone on her stomach. A familiar discomfort. Father must have seen fit to punish her again, though she couldn’t think of what for.

 

But the weight moved on its own accord. One of the dogs? 

 

Desperate to maintain the pretence of getting more sleep, she looked with only one eye. 

 

It was a boy. His mop of grey hair spilled across her chestplate, his jacket large enough for him to hide in, its hem collecting dust from the gravel floor. She couldn’t see his face in the gloom, lit only by the flickering gold bulbs that hung from the ceiling.

 

She would have thought he was sleeping, but he was too still. Holding his breath. He knew she was awake. 

 

“Get off me.”

 

He looked at her through his bangs. 

 

Gashes glowed beneath the hair. Scars, criss-crossing from brow down to cheeks. The red light was most extreme where the eyes were supposed to be, as if thin skin had healed over them.

 

An Other.

“No,” he said. 

 

Velvet finger-spelt ‘Axe’ with her right hand- without checking her gauntlet’s rings- and swiped at the brat. 

 

She must have been dialled into fire instead of steel, because she conjured a claw of flame instead of a weapon. The boy yelped, warned by the heat and light. He leapt off of her well before she could have made contact. 

 

Conserving power, she told herself, getting to her feet. Fire was cheaper than metal. Conjuring either came easier to her than most, but that was what her Implement was for. 

 

She pointed at the brat, a single sharpened finger more dangerous than any gun. In her oft-contested opinion.

 

“Hey! What was that for!?”

“What are you?” She demanded. “Where are we?”

 

“How am I supposed to know!? I just got here!”

 

Velvet glanced at the brass rings built into her gauntlet’s fingers. Whatever had knocked her unconscious, she’d seen fit to dial ‘fire, fire, fire, wall’ beforehand. Her go-to conjuration for warding off immaterial forces. She wasn’t equipped for facing echoes or spirits, but if a wave of flame wouldn’t hold them off, a spike of iron or wall of earth wouldn’t either. 

 

Given she had no idea how she’d gotten here, it hadn’t worked anyway.

 

Keeping her aim trained on the brat, she dialled ‘thrust’ on her middle finger, joining it with her pointer. A bullet instead of a spark. More range, in case he tried to run. “Tell me what you do know, then. Before I make an addition to your scars.”

 

There. That sounded suitably intimidating. 

 

The boy seemed more confused than intimidated, though. He looked at his hands, finding more cuts. Almost gently, he reached up to his face and traced the gashes. “Huh.”

 

“Ooo, that was a real zinger. Please, continue with the witty repartee.” 

 

Velvet spun on her heel, kicking up gravel in her haste to aim at the new voice.

 

In contrast to the brat’s shock of hair, this Other’s head was shaved short, fading to nothing at the sides. They looked like they’d walked off a runway for ‘chivalry chic,’ wearing street clothes beneath piecemeal armour. A visor without a helmet, worn like a tennis cap. A bracer and a greave on their left arm and leg, with no partners on the right. Their black singlet might have been a halter top, the combination of low neckline and tight fabric making an ambiguous chest unambiguously stylish. Vials hung off their belt, which cinched their jeans to invent hips where there were none. 

 

Overall, completely inappropriate for the weather. Velvet had the sense that Christmas had passed recently. 

 

But they were also obviously Other. Their eyes had red pupils, otherwise black from lid to lid.

 

Those inhuman eyes went wide as they raised their hands in surrender. “Ah! Don’t shoot! I was merely enjoying the show.”

 

“You sound weird,” said the brat. 

 

The model scoffed. “I prefer cultivated.”  

 

“If another Other startles me before someone explains what’s going on,” Velvet declared. “I will shoot first and ask questions later.”

 

The… Dog Tags? Bogeymen? The idiots looked at each other, listless.  

 

“Not an Other,” called a voice. “Please don’t shoot me.” 

 

Velvet huffed her frustration as the alchemist stepped out from behind a metal pillar. 

 

True to his word, he looked more Innocent than Other. Brown hair, slightly wavy and tousled too much for it to look artful anymore, with eyes that matched. In contrast to Velvet and the two dunces, he wore clothing that struck her as very usual; a dark winter coat with the collar of a polo shirt sticking out of the neck, a pair of denim jeans, and sturdy boots. All of it was dappled with snow, wet melt, and the occasional scorch mark. He held a heavy metal thermos close, perhaps for warmth. 

 

Ordinary, if one discounted the scorch marks. But he made it work for him.

 

He seemed shocked to see her. Eyes wider than the model’s had been, when she’d threatened them with her gauntlet. 

 

She lowered her firing arm. Third time’s the charm?  “What is going on?”

 

“How… much do you remember?” Myles asked, his voice hesitant, choosing his words carefully. A care that reminded her that his name was Myles.

 

She frowned, at his question and the knowledge it’d uncovered. The brat made an obnoxious hmm , since thinking obviously took him a great deal of effort. 

 

Velvet searched her surroundings for answers. 

 

Metal arched over them like ribs, lifting a high wooden ceiling. It could have evoked a viking hall, if it committed to that design. But where there might have been torches, there were hanging light bulbs, flickering. The glow and inconsistency of real fire, with none of the warmth. Instead of tables, the grey stone floor was interspersed with gravel pits like the one she'd woken up in, big enough for spars. Wire seats that didn’t look comfortable surrounded a bonfire pit that wasn’t lit. There was a hole in the roof above that pit. Letting snow in, instead of letting smoke out.

 

Two things didn’t belong. 

 

First, it smelled. Perfume, or a floral deodorant. Over-applied, to mask the stink of sweat. The result was like painting on concealer in an attempt to hide cheek-to-cheek acne. The stench reached new heights of rough and ugly, all the bulk of the sweat with all the kick of the perfume.

 

Second was the debris. Bagged snack food, cereal boxes, cans of soup and tuna. Scattered, as if from an explosion. The brat began stuffing some into his pockets, having given up on Myles’ question. Velvet would have guessed a party had been thrown here, if it weren’t such a full spectrum of trash, and that none of it had been opened. It looked like a supermarket had been looted wholesale, and the burglars had played dodgeball with their haul. 

 

What was this place? A confused, austere, modern fight club?

 

Velvet marked her escape routes. Two big doors on either side of the hall, two small doors between them. Closer to one end than the other. 

 

Myles piped up again. “It’s a bigger space than I would have guessed. He fell down before he cracked.”

 

“He?” Velvet asked, at the same time the brat yelped, “Cracked!?” 

 

“I seem to recall having come to inspect a ritual,” the model mused. Finally getting around to Myles’ question. They patted their pockets, and produced a metal booklet with a red sword on its cover, flipping to the latest page. “Ah, and I seem to have written notes. The Placement Test?”

 

Myles glanced between them, unsure of who to answer and choosing all three. “Yes. It’s turned Easton into this place, and his equipment into you three.”

 

Velvet frowned, but nodded slowly. It felt like she was being reminded, not taught something new. She was also an Other, then?

 

She didn’t feel like an Other.

 

“And since he was lying down-”

 

The model interrupted Myles with a loud gasp of epiphany, as if finishing his sentence first would score points. “The layout is like the body! We’re standing in the ribs. Heart and Plexus. And the exits at the ends, they’ll be to the rooms corresponding to the other chakras.” They pointed. “Neck, Torso, and the two arms.”

 

Her frown deepened. “Was he shot?”

 

“Whyever do you ask?”

 

She pointed to the hole in the roof. The brat snorted.

 

“No-” Myles started, and interrupted himself, this time, humming a thought. “Well. He wasn’t hit there recently. It might be a figurative wound. It’s not important.”

 

“What’s that smell?” The brat blurted around a mouthful of jerky. “It’s gross.” 

 

“I quite like it,” the model said defensively. 

 

“It’s Easton. Brie did say that the transmutation conserved that sort of thing. Why bother changing the smell when you’re busy turning bone to concrete?” Myles appraised the brat. “Good catch.”

 

“Well hang on now, I noticed too.”

 

It’s hard not to notice, Velvet thought. The model was getting on her nerves worse than the brat. Distracting them from the mission. “Myles.”

 

The alchemist startled, staring at her with that shocked expression again. He clutched his thermos to his heart, like a security blanket.   

 

Why does he keep looking at me like that-? Oh. 

 

Right. He hadn’t actually told her his name. Flummoxed by her own lack of tact, she spoke softer. 

 

“Myles, what do we need to know?”

 

“We’re not here to solve The Placement Test. It’s a ritual that turns people, places and possessions into places, possessions and people, in that order.  Easton and I were sent to recover a guy called Hudson Musser. He’s our kind-of boss’s kind-of nephew.” 

 

“Whatever do you mean by-”

 

“Shut up,” Velvet said. 

 

The model flinched as if struck. 

 

“Keep going.”

 

“I specialise in restoratives. Healing potions, sure, but also mending, curse breaking. I figured I could try and transform him back into a person.” He shook the thermos. “Besides patrolling Hatchlings, there’s barely any danger until you take the challenge at the dais. So if the potion didn’t work, we were just going to head back to Brie and Zed.”

 

“But Easton cracked,” the Hatchling brat said. “Like a bitch.”

 

“He’s not-” Myles looked at her, of all people. “The potion didn’t work. And the reaction from the wider ritual was…”

 

“Explosive?” Velvet gestured at the debris.

 

“Yeah.” Myles swallowed, trembling.

 

Ah. He thinks he killed the man he came here to save. Velvet eyed a battered box of Queen Cronch. Who turned into a supermarket, apparently.

 

That explained the shock. 

 

“Easton dived in front of me. Body-blocked the backlash.”

 

That would also explain the shock.

 

“Badass,” the brat said, still chewing his jerky. “Does that mean this is people-meat?”

 

Somehow, the question of cannibalism seemed to calm Myles down. “It’s not the walls or floor. Hmm. But one of Hudson’s Implements let him process raw animal matter into trophies. People included. So if it’s not Hudson-meat, it could still be Hudson’s meat, if you catch my drift. Transmuted and then transmuted again.”

 

“Badass,” the brat said, still chewing his jerky. 

 

And Scarface takes the lead in the getting-on-my-nerves competition. “We’re off topic.”

 

He snorted. “You’re not the boss of us. Who are you supposed to be?”

 

“I’m Velvet.” She clenched her gauntlet, and gestured at her armour with her gloved left hand, steel plates and brass ornaments united by fine red velvet. “Obviously. Who do you think you are?” 

 

Her confident retort shook the Hatchlings. Of course it did- they hadn’t even had independent thought moments ago, let alone names. The model pulled up one of the wire chairs, lounging on it as though it were a throne.

 

“I’m not entirely certain, but that’s to be expected. Given we’re all fresh transmutations, our ethereal and visceral components are still aligning. The lingering echoes and vestigial psychic detritus accreted on our template-objects may inform a single coherent Self, but they cannot be expected to summarise themselves as one Self without first allowing the freshly united network to process qualia and self-reflect. Or Self-reflect, rather.” 

 

…Velvet wasn’t sure how that applied to her, but didn’t want to seem like a fool. Thankfully, the brat volunteered for that role. 

 

“Does that mean anything, or are you just using big words to sound smart?”

 

“I was also wondering that,” Velvet mumbled. 

 

Myles hummed noncommittally. Velvet took it as agreement.

 

“Oneself is engaging in practical praxis. Demonstrating theory and thesis, simultaneously,” the model proudly declared, and paused as blank faces stared back at them. “You’re quite right, Velvet.” 

 

“Finally, you’ve said something worth saying.” 

 

“If we’re to be a team, we’ll need names. And we’re all part of Easton Songetay, yes? His slumbering Self reflected in his inventory? Well then. Son-je-tay… Song-Tay, Song-Taylor-”

 

“Tyler?” the brat suggested. “It could be a girl’s or a boy’s name. I don’t know which you are.”

 

“Sss-sure!” Tyler accepted. “Tyler. Tyler. Tie-ler.” They shimmied like they were trying to put the name on, make it fit. “Who are you, then?” 

 

The brat grinned, proudly presenting the meat chunks stuck inside his teeth. “West. Since I’m from the rest of East-ton.” 

 

Velvet groaned. 

 

“We’re miles from the matter at hand,” Myles said. 

 

Velvet groaned louder. Tyler tittered. West barked a laugh. 

 

“I’m probably about to explode.”

 

That shut them all up.

 

“Zed- he’s kind of become the go-to guy on this- he showed us a practice for holding our Selves together, within the ritual’s space.”

 

He coughed, and the cough became a rattling spasm. He spoke through it, hurling up the words.

 

“But written diagrams aren’t really my thing? But, I didn’t have time to make a potion that could work as a substitute, so I just half-assed it, and the backlash broke what I did do, so-”

 

West backed away from the alchemist. “You’re not going to blow our place up too, are you?”

 

And Velvet’s heart skipped a beat.

 

Watching Myles come apart like this disturbed her on a level deeper than she could articulate. She didn’t know what he’d been to Easton, but Myles was the only real person she knew. Tyler and West were hatched items, farces with faces. They could be discarded for new clothes, just as quickly as they could discard their conjured humanity. 

 

Velvet was an Implement. Part of a real person, attached at the soul. Precious, irreplaceable. There was a future for her, as part of the whole that surrounded them.

 

If Myles could get her out of here. 

 

If Myles didn’t destroy this place when he cracked.  

 

“This way.” She hooked her unarmored arm around Myles’ waist- it wouldn’t do to yank him, he might come apart- and lead him to the one of the side doors.

 

“Where are you going!?” The model called.

 

“The layout is Easton’s body, right? Well, I’m his right hand.”

 

She shoulder-charged the door. 

 

And bounced, jostling Myles. 

 

Fuck. 

 

She tried the handle. It opened easily. 

 

“This way,” she repeated, breaking into a run. Red in the face for other reasons.

 

They were outside, just as she’d hoped. The arm, missing from the elbow down, turned into a veranda flush with the ‘ribs,’ the hall. They ran down wooden steps off the balcony, stomping through snow. Products, wires, glass and concrete splattered the white plain like paint sneezed onto a canvas. She yanked Myles past a tilted sign, the initials ‘H.B.M’ styled like a franchise logo.

 

“Velvet.”

 

“What?” 

 

They almost tripped on debris, rubble hidden by fresh snow.

 

“Velvet!”

 

“What!?”

 

She stumbled again, skidding her knees into slush. But she committed to this fall, using the momentum to spin Myles out of her grip. 

 

“Go!”

 

He wobbled. Found his balance. Stopped. 

 

“What are you doing!? Get away from my hall!”

 

Myles turned to look at her. Trembling, a bomb about to go off.

 

But his eyes were calm. 

 

He looked at her, at her panic and her urgency, and this mad dash to save her Self, and he found something that brought him peace.

 

“Velvet,” Myles said, the same way she’d said his name. 

 

Like they knew each other well. 

 

“Be cool. Hold this.”

 

He handed her the thermos. The half-used, undercooked restoration potion, that blew Hudson Musser to smithereens. 

 

Then he exploded too. 

 

Velvet had expected to be blown away. Yet the transmutation only rushed over her. It was forceful enough to make her bones tremble, sure, but she wasn’t dead. She screwed her eyes shut on reflex, but could feel the fresh floor lifting up beneath her feet, hear walls hammering into place. 

 

The screech of glass quenching rapidly. 

 

It took long enough that she felt stupid for being afraid. Stupid for how the sounds and forces were fucking with her, reaching through her armour to rake at nerves and shake organs. She’d already gotten worked up running away, and now she had to sit with her roaring heart and heaving breath, with nothing better to do than withstand the loss of her… ticket out of here.

 

She held Myles’ thermos tight. 

 

The noise settled. 

 

The air smelt like soap.

 

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. 

 

She opened her eyes.

 

Myles had become a laboratory. Glass was plentiful, beakers of all sizes tidily packed into cupboards beside long tables, and Velvet could see Easton’s hall through a floor-to-ceiling window. The sole departures from inoffensive beiges and blues were anatomical diagrams and hazard-yellow safety notices. One gave her the impression that the space was intended for teaching children, reading: “Safety is paramount! Make sure to clean and replace all materials used in an experiment after it is completed." It wasn’t exactly clinical, between the lounges and the open plan, but that made it feel welcoming. Perhaps a classroom, or a doctor’s office. 

 

It felt so much smaller than Easton’s space. Then again, it was so much more full. Someone could live here, call it home. She spied stairs to a second floor.

 

And, directly in front of her…

 

“Myles?”

 

He looked more like Myles’ older brother. His hair was combed, he stood taller, and he wore a lab coat. Tinted glasses hid his eyes, polished to a mirror-finish. It made his expression- Myles’ expression, that caring calm- into something cold, calculating, and distant.

 

His other hand was on the thermos, just above her gloved one. He tapped it too, expectantly. 

 

“Hello. I’m Al. Al the Chemist. Would you let go of my Implement, please?”

---

Thank you to Tojin for helping coax the brainstorm into a bottle, picking the music, and writing wherever I ran out of ideas! I expect this story to be done by the end of the year, as Velvet and Co sort themselves and The Placement Test out! Next chapter sometime in the next two weeks.

For those lacking in context, here is the reason for the title of this piece:

“If I could drink a potion, become a woman, and be Abraham Musser’s next wife, or someone equivalent, a little less old, I would suck that dick with fanatical zeal, for all the perks, fortune, standing, and everything else I could get by doing it.”

Verona stopped drawing and looked over at Easton.

“And you’re a moron for not feeling the same way,” Easton said.

“Dude, Easton, man, that’s a lot to unpack, but hey, you do you, chase your dreams.”