Refuge Pg 3
The seelie are a High Court now. They parade around in moonsilk and faeweave, showing their tits. They ain’t got a speck of flash showing, they’re nat all through. The tower is their home, the tower, rising like a finger, like a phallus from the center of the City. The tower is the shaft, the slums the balls, the outcasts and unseelie the little hairs and mites. The tower is the phallus of the High Court. You step outta line, you get fucked.
Flash is a good industry these days. You know how to rig a body-bot? A new arm? You can hold the flesh together when it starts to fail, and you’ll keep your own hide just a little longer. Best flashwalla is a beast, little ape with horns and a temper. Flings his shit if he’s had anything to eat, otherwise just makes new eyes and ears, new muscles. It ain’t pretty, but it works.
In the slums, there be one rule, na? You stay alive at all costs. You beat back the sickness, the wasting, the slow death. You keep moving, you keep reaching. Die by the sword or the sizzle and that ain’t a bad way to go. No one wants to sit and wait to fall apart, and anyone you meet will kill to keep it so.
(The attached image is the third page of the comic short Refuge, written by me and illustrated by Christina Beard.)
Refuge Pg 2
Streak is brass, crass. She leans in real close, gets up in its face. The flesh don’t move much, but it opens its eyes. Heartbeat, one-two, one-two. Flesh is a girl, Streak sees. Outsider, but girl, wearing a dress that isn’t Streak’s style. Streak has got a rep to maintain, and the water damage doesn’t help.
In pain, in powerlessness, Zurisha feels the pitter-patter of tiny little feet. She hears the shouting of giant little lungs. Little fairy on her chest, she still dreaming? Little fairy with metal in her jacket and pink in her hair. Little fairy, little fae.
Brutus the mountain, he comes up close. The pretty little flesh be thin, so thin, he can scoop her up in his arms. Baby, baby, don’t say a word. Daddy’s gonna hunt you a mocking bird. In his mind he sings to her, he knows her name, he gives her light. Streak buzzes around his ears, but he’s lost in the flesh.
High above, near the source of the river, a man in ragged steel plate and chain crouches by a fire. He holds a pale, impaled arm up to the flames. His stomach rumbles. He waits, he waits for his dinner to finish. There is now enough food to go around.
(The attached image is the second page of the comic short Refuge, written by me and illustrated by Christina Beard.)
Refuge Pg 1
Zurisha is bleeding, na? Bleeding from her gut. Lifeblood pumps out, one-two, one-two, her little heart sings. She’s a stranger in the City, and she’s dying in a river of blood.
Streak flaps her gossamer wings faster than Brutus can see. Streak the devil-child, the mischief-maker. Streak moves like a hummingbird, but with cooler hair. She writes in the air, the mist is her paper and pen. She writes with precision, Streak does. She writes, ‘Fuck’, and laughs.
Brutus is a big mother, but he’s careful. He avoids stepping on a flower poking its head out of concrete and rebar. He likes flowers, the yellow ones most of all. His hand blurs as he slaps a jackfly who is biting his neck. His hand comes away red. The familiarity of it saddens him, and he reaches into the river to wash the blood away.
High above, near the glacial source of the river, a small village is still in flames. An infant lies half-dead, quiet in the cold. His head hurts, but his body is numb, and in the flickering shadows he falls asleep.
(The attached image is the first page of the comic short Refuge, written by me and illustrated by Christina Beard.)
