Marienheid (2)

2

It was ultimately to the panther’s benefit that he couldn’t see the contours of the grey sheets lightly draped over empty air, the seemingly solid surface the three of them were laying on nothing more than a trick of the AG emitter’s steady thrum underneath. It was hard enough for the panther to comprehend the living canyon he uneasily paced through, the sheer size and scale of the two giants on either side. They both looked peaceful, even when he was close enough to hear their lungs fill up with air and feel their warm exhale run through his black fur. He reached out to stroke the deer’s face, amazed he was small enough to fit inside the herbivore’s mouth. So lost in the daydream of it that he was entirely unprepared for the booming greeting, while the diminutive panther leaned into his face. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Markus was stunned into silence. Corin brought his head up and rested it on his palm. He let out a nice long yawn, a living, breathing statue from the perspective of the micro panther. He glanced over to Pub, hoping he had also woken up. “It’s alright…you know how deep Pub can sleep, especially after he’s thoroughly satisfied.” Involuntary memories of the tiger’s two orgasms sprang to the panther’s mind and were just as quickly suppressed. He didn’t have the stamina to keep chasing those thoughts. “Come now, I can’t be that intimidating, not after last night…”

The panther blushed, wary of the advances of other giants.  “N-no, of course not, I know you don’t mean me harm–”

The deer raised a paw, silencing the obedient panther. “You don’t have to feign politeness, not around me. Pub’s really into the ‘sirs’ and ‘oh, master please!’s but I seek different pleasures.” The strange way the deer said the last two words sent Markus’s heart nearly into convulsions.

“No, sir, y-you don’t understand, your size–it would be inappropriate for me to think that I’m at your level–”

The deer sighed. “Enough with that bullshit too. Honestly, I expected more. All that Pub is going through, and because of you…” he trailed off with two clicks of his tongue and a shake of his head, disappointment unmistakable. “What I want to know is if Pub has told you why he hasn’t activated your lace.”

The word meant nothing to the panther, and so he shook his head. “Wh-what’s that?”

“Typical, always likes his little secrets. Well, I outrank him, so I can activate it for you. If you wish.” The deer’s words dripped like honey into his ear. It was almost enough to make the panther want to comply, to make the charming deer happy. The deer reached down, a fuzzy digit ruffling the top of the panther’s head, and the panther started to calm, a feeling of gentle reassurance seeping through his body. He would ask Corin just what a lace was–while the deer accessed the tiny little spindles that lay dormant throughout his brain and activated them.

He felt a million pinpricks of light slowly dissolve from and into his vision, replaced in their stead with a vast, deep blackness. One by one, the pinpricks came back into focus, starting to form connections, what seemed like an eternity passing as the panther observed each and every path slowly come together to form an astronomical loop of trade and transit. He realized to his amazement that the entire Republic was laid before him: every ship’s relative location to each habitable system and the webs of traffic that wove the tens of thousands of unique habs together. Olonne was in there, somewhere, and he spent a fruitless eternity searching for his homeworld. It took another eternity for the deer’s words to come through, but once they did they wiped the galactic map from his thoughts. 

“I’m starting to see why he waited. It was a little reckless of me, bringing you in here without running you through your paces.” The voice was impossible, louder by several orders of magnitude than the loudest sound that he had ever heard. The deer was an adept, having spent more time by some measures in this virtual space than in the world of flesh and blood. “Focus on the sound of my voice. It’s something solid you can cling to without getting overloaded.”

The words were propelled by their own force and absolutely filled the panther’s mind. He had no choice. The more attention he paid to the words booming through his mind, the clearer the words suspended in air in front of him became. He realized there was a lot more information hidden behind the words that he could access if he felt so inclined (points of inflection, ambiguities of translation, transcriptions in hundreds of different formats), but it was just as easy to ignore them and focus on the words themselves and their meaning. He realized the Autonomous Zone map had faded from his view, but if he tried to focus on what was lying behind the deer’s words, their source, all he could see was large stalks of fur. He stared at the light brown to dark auburn fur, drinking in every millimeter of the massive titan, and realized he was able to perceive the deer in all his enormity, bigger in this virtual space than a planet, booming down orders like some intimate Godhead. “There we go. Now we can talk just the two of us. We won’t have to worry about Pub.”

The panther didn’t speak, in fact found himself quite unable to respond. Instead he passed a quiet moment in stunned contemplation of just how something so unfathomably gigantic could speak, let alone speak to him.

“I like you, Mark, I really do, but I have a few questions for you.” The panther was still shell-shocked by the deer’s enormity. Corin let out a sigh, blotting out the micro’s vision and replacing the massive tufts of brownish-black fur with a cervine little more than twice the panther’s size. “I’m not getting any smaller, Markus. You can’t take away all my fun. So tell me…how much do you know? Why would you say that Pub was sent to your planet?”

It took Markus a moment to figure out how to speak and another to decide what to say, amazed that this virtual environment had shifted so seamlessly into a public garden, furs of different sizes (none bigger than the cervine) ran about and lounged and all the things that nobles could do on public lands before Publius liberated and then ate them. The thought helped him to find his voice, the words coming out in a torrent as he related the story as he saw it. Publius Maximus was a divine avenger, sent down from the heavens to conquer their planet so it could be developed and aid in the war effort for a war that he confessed to not knowing much about. “But it must be a great cause if master Publius has pledged his life for it. And I am here because he wants to give me citizenship, for reasons that only he knows.” An arched eyebrow from the cervine who took a seat, realized he was shorter than the panther, and grew himself so that his seated form was a few feet taller than the panther. Intimidated, he added, “P-perhaps–because I would follow him anywhere, and any cause that is worthy for him is certainly worth my own devotion.”

“You know very little, then, and that is a very dangerous thing indeed. Not nothing, but very little. Would you like to know more?”

The question was a rose with sharp thorns,equal parts enchanting and dangerous. It gave the panther pause. “I…think I do.”

“It is not an idle question,” the deer said, relishing the booming resonance he could bring to his voice. “Nor is it a trick. I can tell you things that Publius won’t, or can’t. Surely there is something you wonder about.” He started to crawl over the panther’s head, growing large enough his toned arms held his broad chest and shoulders far above the awestruck panther. His first thought was of a church, Corin serving as an altarpiece to himself.

The panther let out an instinctual “N-no” that grew more resolute on repetition. “No, please no. I trust Publius’ judgment.”

“I was hoping you’d put up a fight.” The panther’s shoulders slumped in relief, before the next words proved that relief premature. “It gives me an excuse to do this.” A chill ran down his spine as Corin began to grow again, his slender arms ascending into the heavens as his smirk grew all the more threatening. “Are you sure there’s nothing you want to know?”

The panther wisely sensed a trap, but foolishly thought a shake of his head would get him out of trouble.

The deer’s smirk inverted, now a heavy frown. “Oh come now, I know that isn’t true,” he continued to grow, his frown softening as he noticed how quickly the panther seemed to dwindle under the canopy formed by his torso. With a theatrical flick of his wrist, the deer conjured up a lovely forest scene centered on a meadow large enough for Corin’s growing body It was surrounded on all sides by a line of trees with multi-colored flowers–some not even part of the panther’s visible spectrum–a radiant sea that spilled through that distracted Markus for long enough that Corin was able to ascend to the heavens. A full mountain of deer flesh loomed overhead, his forepaws large enough to scoop up an entire city. “And I can’t just tell you secrets, little panther…” He leaned down so his face–larger now than the largest buildings that panther had seen, even the ones on the outskirts of Patelwa–filled the sky above the panther’s head. “You have to ask the right questions first.”

The constant shifts in size were too much for the already overwhelmed panther. He had seen too much, too quickly. He was curious, and wanted to know more about the tiger and his mission, perhaps now even more than Lukas with his meticulous notes on what the tiger said and where and when, his tired and sententious debates about what the “words of our lord” meant. What did Publius really mean when he said that the sky was filled with light at all hours, and not just during spark-showers? They had both had so many unresolved questions–and they all seemed pointless now. Trivial. Neither he nor Lukas could have anticipated anything like this. And so he continued to hold his tongue.

“I’m not letting you out of here,” the deer’s words boomed ominously through the panther’s mind. He felt encased in the deer’s very thoughts. If there was a way he could escape this, whatever this was, he did not know and furthermore had no clue where to start. “Not until you ask me something. So if you won’t speak, I may as well have some fun with you.” The deer, quite the adept at disrobing in any environment, snapped his fingers and rapidly outgrew his remaining clothes, making the sheer Dionysian robe that barely preserved his modesty fall to shreds around Mark. It was one thing to take in a deer who was only ten times as large, but the scales involved here were unreal in every sense of the word. In many ways he was more impressive than when he was planet-sized; he could actually fathom the massive tower of fur and flesh as a living creature and not just some unfathomable and immense deity. He was filled with a deep, gnawing terror that only increased when the enormous cervine’s cock thumped down onto the ground mere meters away, followed shortly thereafter by a brown-furred digit that pressed him into a cockhead a dozen times his size.

He struggled in vain against the deer’s still-growing erection, no longer sure if it was getting larger from mere arousal or his continued growth. “You need to be better at guarding your thoughts. Of course, that’s also why I dragged you into here, so you couldn’t hide behind your coy exterior. You are positively filled with doubts…” He pressed the panther into his slit–already wet with pre–just enough force so he felt himself slowly but surely start to slide inside. The deer’s words remained audible even as the panther drowned in Corin’s warm flesh and cum. “I, however, know that I made the right call bringing you into here. For one,” he let out a loud, heavy moan, large enough to make the panther reach up, fighting the tight flesh and wetness surrounding his body and covering his overawed ears as best he could manage, “you feel even better than usual…and I can even provide an easy escape valve for you! I’ll let you out the moment you ask me a question about Pub. Your master.” The sneer in his voice was as unmistakable as it was horrifying.

Corin, caught up in the moment and savoring–as he often did–the feeling of being so much bigger than the drowning panther, had overplayed his hand. Markus did not know that he could not actually drown in this virtual environment, that his desire to breathe was just a reflex from his waking mind that could be switched off easily with the proper thought. This was intentional on the massive cervine’s part, who wanted to put an absurd pressure on the panther to tell him what he most wanted to know about the tiger, but he didn’t think Mark’s mind would collapse under that pressure, completely blank as he struggled, frantic for some air. He asked the first question that came to mind. “How…” the cum rushing into his mouth made the words hard to form, even as the feeling of it splashing down his throat was strangely pleasant in the virtual environment. “How large should Pub be?”

The deer paused for a moment, all motion temporarily frozen in his consideration. Just as the panther felt himself start to drown in his cum, the deer’s strokes grew more furious. The panther’s sense of the sheer size of the cockhead he was trapped inside was beyond him, to say nothing of the size of the entire shaft. The deer’s breath quickened as he rapidly reached climax, a load the size of several aquifers splashing through the modeled city surrounded by his brown-furred thighs. He struggled against the sea of deer inundating him, the panther felt the deer’s moans turn to laughter. “That’s your question? You want to know what I think about THAT, huh? Well, to be honest, I think he looks best when he’s looming over a city…not unlike how I’m currently looming over you.” His voice retained its raucous, earth-shattering qualities, a size and scale so far beyond his wildest imaginings, even with his knowledge of Pub and the predilections of giants like him. “Those scales are denied to us in the real, so we have to escape here to live the truly impossible.” The implicit possibilities in the deer’s words would have stunned the panther if he were capable of registering them for anything but their physical effects.

Rivers of cum flowed around and through the fantastically large buildings, dislodging a few megastructures as the panther, light enough to float downstream, tried in vain to avoid the tons and tons of debris. “I suppose I can pull back a bit now that you’ve served your purpose,” his softened words were followed by Corin dwindling in size, his massive, continent-spanning ocean of cum slowly subsiding. The panther, hyperventilating on the ground of a picturesque city park and still covered in the deer’s seed, remained completely unprepared for Corin stomping down on either side of his stupefied body. “I don’t think you can handle it here. I see now why Pub kept your lace off.” The deer lifted his hoof–even as he shrank he was still more than large enough to crush the panther’s entire body–and then it came crashing down, disconnecting the panther from the network and sending him thudding back into the real.

His physical body–breathing just as heavily as when he was struggling against a sea of deer seed in that virtual city–had the benefit of at least being dry, though his head ached with a dull, throbbing pain while his back was now pressed against the tiger’s, each snore loud enough to reverberate through his one-twelfth-scale frame. He usually had to worry about the tiger turning in his sleep, crashing down and smothering him in warm, hefty tiger fur, but as he turned his head to meet the mischievous glint in Corin’s eyes, he knew he had much more dangerous things to worry about. And he feared he had wasted his only chance to find out what they might be.

*

Of the 28,417 orbitals, megastructures and hollowed-out asteroids that form the permanent and fixed installations of the Kynthari Autonomous Republic, most serve some practical purpose. Although the logic of post-scarcity economics does not require the same level of specialization common among grade 4, 5 and even grade 6 interstellar cultures, the residue of such specialization remains common even among the remnants of sublimed civilizations, where one might assume the highest level of historical development, provided one grants, arguendo, that energy sublimation is the endpoint of all political economies.

As a result, the Arkendus Orbital is somewhat rare among emplacements in that it lacks even a nominally practical purpose; it is alone in a three-planet system orbiting a white dwarf without even microbial life, many parsecs from the nearest population centers, Kynthari or otherwise. It is about average for orbitals of its class, composed of 32 plates, each with a population ranging from five hundred thousand to fifty million sentient souls scattered over 1,472,621 square kilometers, each plate overseen by an administrative council of three to five Dhi who are themselves overseen by a council of three random Dhi chosen by lot on a biannual basis from the qualified AI’s…

The rabbit skimmed down the page, glossing the tiger’s verbose prose in search of anything useful, something he didn’t already know. He knew he had at least read this introduction–maybe five, maybe ten years ago–but it all seemed unfamiliar here and now. A lovely cadenza galloped up and down four octaves through the string section in perfect counterpoint to Cody’s frustration.

With few exceptions, all plates adhere to the fifteen principles outlined in the Declaration of Sentiments drafted and signed by the original Construction Council (29 biologics, 143 drones, and 7 Dhi):

1. Historical literacy. Arkendus shall function as a living, breathing document to past ways of being and supposedly obsolescent modes of production.

The first principle remains the central organizing pillar of the orbital. All estates conform to some central theme, some sort of historical ideal that they strive to recreate in a unique way. Freedom of expression is valued; different perspectives on historical events are encouraged, and it is rare indeed to find a singular viewpoint represented even within one estate. This is especially unremarkable given the communal nature of these exhibits, created by groups of biologics and drones…

This archaic style was more than a little pretentious, and as Pub went on and on, providing commentary on every principle in turn with the same overwritten nonsense, Cody, a resident of the orbital now for more than sixty-five percent of his life, decided he did not need a refresher on its internal workings. He skipped to a later passage as the string section crescendoed and the horns rang out rapid, ascending G-minor arpeggios.

1. Enthusiastic and continuous consent. Both visitors and permanent residents will at all times be allowed to leave any installation or experience. No forms of power and exploitation will be simulated, even those based on originally coercive relationships, without the full and explicit consent of all involved.

Consent is of course paramount to any proper historical reenactment, and though Marienheid is uniquely situated, historically and geographically, to certain intensities of sentiment…

Pub could go on when he was in a mood. The rabbit knew from experience how easy it was to blur the line between consensual and non-consensual without violating the spirit of the law. His eyes glazed over the rest of the explanation and turned instead to the next page.

It is interesting to note the flexibility built into the principles. Though there is a common goal of understanding and learning woven throughout their very fabric, it is tempered with an acknowledgement of the necessity of experimentation. Principle fourteen, History is not static, a little ornament that you can pluck up and store in your kitchen cabinet next to the fancy silverware and jade. It is a living, breathing thing, a chimæra that individuals and social movements and academics and politicians and commissars try to reshape to their whims, a rapids we are drowning in and swimming into and against–all in vain. And it is in that spirit that we have established Marienheid, the subject of these three volumes.

Based on historic estates from Old Terra, Marienheid embodies the true spirit of Arkendus, a complete exploration of what it means to live under an absolute hierarchy, not just of status and wealth but of that most important quality, size…

The rabbit burst out laughing as he read this, amazed the tiger’s libido was so brazen that it could come out even in the midst of such heady concepts. An ermine threw him a look of disgust from the next box over that he only just caught out of the corner of his eye. His box was the only one scaled to his size, so Cody paid her no mind; besides, her girlfriend’s eyes were completely glazed over, staring off into some virtual environment–an even greater lapse of plate etiquette.

The tiger did come up with several reasons why testing the effect that massive physical discrepancies have in social formation is a worthwhile endeavor, but the arguments were well-worn and obviously pretextual. Cody had heard a very inebriated Pub admit as much to him several times–”Oh come now, you know it’s just an excuse to fuck with some little people,” followed by a belch loud enough to send their paw-sized servants scurrying away in terror.

But then the tiger was annoyingly multi-faceted in an age that the bun found exceedingly simplistic and sterile. That was why he had been drawn to him during his first century, the radical juxtaposition of technologies that made up- and down-shifting possible with their potential historical impact, how those of increased size might abuse their authorities in new, distinctly horrifying ways. There wasn’t much more to set Marienheid apart from other estates with a similar sadomasochistic bent, but at that time the handsome tiger and his Lilliputians were more than enough reason to stay.

Cody closed the book after the introduction, as it progressed into a narrative history of the estate, long, drawn-out sections the rabbit knew would soon include mention of himself. Things that he was intimately familiar with. Nothing of use to him now.

The dark green cover was embossed, a clear facsimile of the historical style of so many works in his library, a nice serif typeface and a title page that goes on and on, overexplaining the premise in the most excruciating detail…

He remembered that first night together with the tiger, the way his laugh filled the bedroom when the bun admitted he was only fifty-five. “You’re barely an adult, then, probably just out of university, assuming you’re that type,” which was a very safe assumption to make. “And since you’re on Arkendus, I think that’s a safe assumption. Where did you go?”

Cody, lithe and demure: “The Pro’ushtal College.”

“My alma mater! What are the odds? It has been too long since I’ve been past the Ladelian Nebulae…I can see why you came here. Not that far away, but remote enough that your friends didn’t know it when you said you were moving there. Didn’t even have to bring up the cute tiger you had a crush on even though you hadn’t properly met.”

The tiger had him so thoroughly pegged that he had no choice but to object. 

Pub had thrown up his hands in mock surrender. “Maybe I’m wrong. I’m only ninety-five, after all.” The rest was history, a sly wink before they shifted into discussions of what they would change about history, given the proper resizing and bouts of passionate, mixed-size sex.

Pub was large. He had a certain weight to him that he couldn’t help but throw around. Cody was foolish, stubborn, and unable to drop his resentment at his given height. Of course the constant array of micros licking his asshole helped to blunt that harsh reality, but he still resented the way the tiger carried himself, strutting around like he was the inevitable outcome of millions of years of evolution, both natural and directed. Of course he was a positively titanic mountain of soft, furry warmth–was it any wonder that the rabbit wished he was the large one, a tiger handheld and malleable, forced to see his mighty form eclipsed by the twinkish bun. The bun was desperate to make this reality, to feel the tiger’s dwindled little body in his fist and tease the erection his forceable resizing drew out of the once-fearsome giant.

And so he’d stolen one of the estate’s shifters, even reskinned it in a classical ray-gun style to appeal to the tiger’s antiquarian sensibilities. Pub hadn’t believed he was serious when he pointed the ray-gun at himself. “I won’t if you beg me not to.” Cody had offered, but there was really no choice. He was too proud and Cody knew it. It was part of the scenario’s appeal to them both. His confidence dwindled with his body, the unfamiliar terror of looking up at the bun only grew more acute as Cody made him smaller and smaller, half his size and then a quarter, an eighth, a tenth…small enough to feel the rumble of the bun’s footsteps like seismic activity, relishing the reduction of the Marienheid’s lord to toy-size.

Pub was completely broken that night, a whimpering plaything begging for his size back, too embarrassed to summon a drone or message a Dhi or anything that would allow him to grow back to his proper height at the cost of his pride, which he would admit to the now-massive rabbit after a few hours under his gargantuan rear, in between endless compliments of his natural leadership qualities, compliments that shifted over the night into a sincerely coerced demand that the bun help him run the estate. They were both eager to explore the past with such a perfect giant–allowing the tiger back to his original size was more of an acknowledgement that Pub would not be nearly as interesting submissive as he would an equal, a partner-in-crime.

If only he could remember the name of the alligator currently struggling for breath against the musky, overwhelming heat of his rear end. While there were allowances at Marienheid for genetic enhancements that were not period appropriate, most of which allowed for the myriad resleeving and consciousness backups standard to the average Kynthari, even as other tasks–like staring slack-jawed into the distance because your girlfriend has dragged you to some boring reproduction of an ancient opera and you could only make it halfway through Act I–are somewhat discouraged. But the gator (either a Duke or perhaps Larson) is a rare treat, a micro without a backup. It was a high stakes game to play with the massive rabbit, all the more because it was a challenge Cody relished. He has, despite his bravado, never actually brought himself to kill a tiny in a situation like, uh, Dukesson’s, but that could always change. Tonight might be the night. Larduke or whatever had already tiring by the first intermission and completely lifeless throughout Act II. He wasn’t making a good case for himself. Pub would never.

But then, Pub wouldn’t shrink for Cody. He’d said as much when he invited Corin. He was all business these days, no time for pleasure if it didn’t serve some larger, more noble goal. He’d hoped to get more from the book, but he didn’t have the patience to wander through 800 immaculately bound and absurdly overwrought pages in search of some novel insight into someone he had known, lived with and loved for decades. It was a fool’s errand. He’d never put it into his writing, not even the margins of the dry historical stuff, his personal favorite. Nothing there that Cody didn’t know.

He looked down at the stage, faking a smile as the full-figured mouse soprano met his enormous gaze as she ascended a Picardy third arpeggio with impressive intonation. She was barking up the wrong tree, of course, but that didn’t mean the bun couldn’t flirt a little and try to forget the next morning. Maybe one of the dancers would want to spend the night with a lonely giant. They, at least, would last long enough to get their master off.

*

History is a current against which we all struggle in vain. It is a narrative that ties each atom of the universe to every other in an infinite chain of being from the smallest to the largest of forces. It is a meaning imposed upon us and by us, a common understanding that we use to shield ourselves from the reality of our decisions, the consequences of our own actions and beliefs. It is a blindness that protects our fragile egos from even a scrap of necessary self-reflection. Marienheid pulses with this knowledge, it is alive with the certainty that one day all our tales will be forgotten or so twisted by re-telling that we would not recognize them. But still we will leave an impact on the very fabric of being. History is the process of examining the eddies in the water, piecing this with that so that X can lead to Y and then Z and Q, so that one event can be said to have caused another–though it was earlier, took longer, and happened for much more complicated reasons than you suspected…