The Lap of Luxury 4.2

Mishka's shield cracked and splintered, before, from one moment to the next, shattering. The wave of energy washed over them both, and… did nothing.

Or at least, Astrid didn’t think it had done anything to her. Mishka’s device had said everything was somehow being forced to be thirty four point seven three years old, so perhaps her body was now about nine months older, but there wasn’t any kind of obvious difference from her perspective.

When she turned to Mishka, however…

Her friend, the short-ish bear woman who dressed like a magician and was annoying and strange but underneath it all was actually a very nice person was gone. Standing where she had stood, wearing a shrunk-down version of her magician-like outfit was quite possibly the most adorable child that Astrid had ever seen. Mishka, the real Mishka, wasn’t a tall woman, at five foot two or something like that, but this child was perhaps three and a half feet tall, at best.

Mishka’s already cute face had become positively cherubic, with chubby cheeks and large eyes, and her hair was proportionally longer and fuller, with her massive ponytail reaching down almost to the back of her calves. Also, the ribbons she closed her shirt’s collar with and used to tie her hair back didn’t seemed to have shrunk, and were almost comically large on her. Her bear-like ears also looked to very much have been something she had grown into, and dominated the top of her head.

She was utterly adorable, and despite the danger of the situation, Astrid couldn’t help but let out a little coo as she took in the kid-version of her friend.

“Who are you!?” said the little Mishka, stumbling back away and looking around wildly and speaking in a language she’d never heard Mishka use before, but which must have been Ursulan - lots of hard sounds and borderline snarls. “Where am I!?”

“Hey, hey, it’s OK,” said Astrid, glad that she had the translation parasite. “My name’s Astrid, and I’m you’re friend.”

“I don’t know you, alien!” said the child, summoning a fistful of crackling lightning. “Get away!”

Astrid gulped. Right. Apparently thirty-four year old, incredibly cute kid-Mishka, or ‘Cub’ as she’d said, could use deadly magic. And probably didn’t have the same reticence that her adult self did in deploying it, from what little she had been able to glean about Mishka’s military past.

“Mishka, listen to me, we are on a ship and being affected by a Blue Hole,” said Astrid in a soothing voice. “It has transformed you from the… three hundred and something year old you are, into your thirty four year old self. But you and I are good friends. We need to get the engines working, that’s what you told me before the wave hit us.”

Mishka regarded Astrid sceptically, but the lightning around her fist did vanish as she began to tap away at her bracelet.

“Um, what are you doing?” asked Astrid.

“Activating my distress beacon,” replied Mishka.

“Mishka, no! Mishka, don’t do that!” said Astrid, lunging for her.

Astrid didn’t know exactly why Mishka was on the run from her people, but she’d hinted that it would be dangerous, perhaps even catastrophic if her people found her.

Before Astrid could reach her, however, Cub-Mishka’s hand blurred and caught Astrid’s wrist in a vice-like grip.

“Ow!” said Astrid, gasping in pain at the sheer strength of even little Mishka’s hands. Spirits, what did they feed little ursulans? “Ow, Mishka, you’re hurting me!”

“Stay away, alien!” said Mishka, letting go and backing away, tears in her eyes. “I- I won’t let you trick me!”

“Please, please Mishka,” said Astrid, rubbing her sore wrist. “You need to believe me. You- you are hiding from your people, you cannot call them or let them know you’re here. You- you must have a diary on there? A journal? Records? It’s a super-database, isn’t it? You can verify I’m telling you the truth!”

Mishka’s eyes, which Astrid saw were now very scared, studied hers for a few moments. Then she began to tap at the bracelet. Some kind of text appeared, interspersed with a few aethergraphs of the department store, the battle with Baelgoroth, and even the asteroid. Cub Mishka studied them carefully, her eyes flicking back and forth at a remarkable pace. Mishka honed in on things, tapped about for a few moments, before closing to mana-screen.

“You’re… my friend?” said Mishka, looking up at Astrid.

Astrid smiled and nodded. “That’s right,” she said.

“Why am I friends with a primitive?” said Mishka.

Astrid was about to say something snarky, then she saw the fear in the little girl’s eyes and the tears threatening to spill over. If Mishka’s future memories had been… lost in the transformation, then this was a little girl from a xenophobic species and might never had seen an alien before. From her perspective, she could have simply appeared from one moment to the next on the ship.

“Mishka, the woman you become is very kind, and very brave, and for some reason ran away from her homeworld - she doesn’t believe the things you might have been taught about aliens,” said Astrid. “She saved me, twice even. And I need your help again, to repair this ship’s engines, and get us away from this ‘blue hole.’ OK?”

Mishka turned towards starboard, where the blue-hole, now dominating the starscape, slowly swung past as the ship rotated on its axis.

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“But… you’re an alien,” said Mishka warily. “You’re… you’re evil.”

“Do I look evil?” said Astrid.

Mishka hesitated, before shaking her head. “No,” she said.

Astrid offered her hand, and after a moment’s consideration, Mishka took it. “Alright,” said Astrid. “Let’s get to the engine room then.”

***

Little Mishka was gripping Astrid’s hand so hard it almost hurt as they made their way down the stairs and into the park that covered central section the ship’s upper deck. According to the brochures that Mishka had been reading, sometimes aloud, the Starseeker was three kilometres long - making it one of the largest non-military vessels that Astrid had heard of. It belonged to the same guy, Nolan Stunk, who owned Stellar Horizons, the exploration company that had financed the disastrous dig on the asteroid that had been ended by the thing that Mishka had termed ‘The Absence.’ Astrid’s boss.

Astrid had no idea what was going to happen when she finally got back to Pescia. She very much doubted that management were going to buy ‘a creature of the Beneath attacked and killed all my crewmates and removed all memory of them but then I was saved by a passing space magician from the mythical ursulan race who can travel the stars without a ship no really I’m serious it did happen you’ve got to believe me.’ More likely she’d be blamed for the catastrophe, her career would be over, and she might even end up being sued.

But now, she reminded herself, was not the time to fall into that particular pit of worry again. They were being sucked into the accretion disk of a ‘Blue Hole’ - which Older Mishka had been very concerned about. So far, apart from the fact that it had turned the woman who had the best shot of saving them into a child, it hadn’t been that bad. But if something even a tenth as bad as the Absence made its way aboard…

It was chaos in the park too, with those under thirty four shouting in alarm and confusion and despair, and those over it wondering how they got onto the ship. A few of the people more around her age were clearly trying to take charge of things, and she saw an alven man in a crew’s uniform, standing on a bench trying to shout instructions, but for the most part things were bad.

She pulled little Mishka onward, across the manicured park towards the aft section, skirting around the large lake they’d arrived next to that had drenched much of the surrounding area in water when the ship had pitched, but which was rapidly being refilled by thick rivulets of water that pulled at their ankles as they passed through the devastation.

They were just moving by what had been a little cafe that served ice-cream when the decking shuddered again, and Mishka screamed and latched onto her like a limpet as with a massive surge of water some kind of horrific sea-monster, as large as a house, breached the surface of the lake. It looked like some kind of mix between a giant octopus and a shark: all flailing tentacles and deadly maw of teeth. The tentacles lashed out, reaching for several of the people in the shallows who had been fighting their way back to land.

Little Mishka was screaming in fear, and holding onto Astrid so tightly that she was worried her bones might snap. A tentacle crashed down beside them, and Astrid swore, managing to twist and pick up her tiny, juvenile friend and heft her up over her shoulder - which was easier said than done, child she might be, but even little Mishka was heavy. She broke into a run.

Another tentacle slammed down in front of her before she could take more than a few steps. Astrid cursed, and darted left, moving into the artistically ‘wild-like’ forest where they had first arrived.

It was quiet between the trees, and the sounds of screaming and thrashing fell away as they passed into the boughs. Astrid set down the small heavy cub, who was shaking like a leaf.

“Hey, it’s OK,” said Astrid, squeezing her friend’s shoulders. “We’re safe now.”

“I don’t like sea monsters,” said Mishka, her puffy red eyes darting up to Astrid’s. Mishka sniffed. “I want to go home.”

“I know sweetie,” said Astrid, stroking the poor cub’s hair. “But we need to fix those engines, get out of this field that is making you younger. You’re the only one who can do that, so you need to be brave for me, OK, Little Bear?”

Mishka gulped, before nodding and taking Astrid’s hand in her own smaller one. “OK,” she said quietly.

“Alright,” said Astrid, turning towards what she thought was aft. “If we head this way, we should find a way down towards the engine room.”

They continued through the forest. Thankfully, it had been designed to be easy to wander through for passengers, and there wasn’t much need to scramble or bash through bushes. They walked for a few minutes in relative peace, before reaching some kind of open clearing with a pavilion and what looked like yet another cafe.

There were dozens of people present, all of them appearing to be in their mid thirties like everyone else, but rather than running about and screaming or being attacked by sea-monsters, they were calm and quiet and arrayed in a circle around a large silver barked tree that had sprouted from the ground. Many were prostrated beneath the beautiful growth’s canopy, and even though it was objectively very strange, Astrid couldn’t help but understand why they felt drawn to it. It was… it was beautiful.

“Astrid, what- what are you doing?” asked Mishka, trailing behind her as Astrid stepped towards the wondrous tree. “We- we need to get to the engines - that’s what you said!”

Astrid frowned. The engines? Oh, well, yes, she supposed they were important. They’d go there in just a moment. Any moment now…

Somehow she found herself standing in front of the tree, however. Ahead of her, one of the other Faithful pressed their hand against the silver bark, and with an exalted sigh began to merge with the great trunk, become one with it, their arm sinking in, more and more of them-

Krakow!

A deafening blast of thunder rocked past her, and crashed into the tree, smashing the upper half to splinters. Astrid screamed as she felt Its pain as her own, and rounded on the tiny child that had dared harm the Most Holy. The tiny cub stared up at Astrid with scared eyes, even as roaring fire surged into being around her fist.

“Astrid, it- it is using mind control!” said the cub, lying through her teeth.

“You will pay!” hissed Astrid, reaching for the cubs neck.

A pulse of force erupted outwards from the cub, knocking Astrid and the other Faithful back, and fire streamed from the child’s hands, washing over the Most Holy Tree and setting it ablaze.

The tree screamed in her mind, and Astrid tried to scramble towards it, to smother its flames with her body as many other Faithful were doing. But a hand grabbed her, stopped her, and began to pull her away from the tree with impossible strength.

Astrid turned towards the cub that was pulling her, kicking and hitting and screaming at the tiny creature as she was dragged away from the burning and dying tree-

Astrid paused, her foot halfway towards another kick as the thread in her mind snapped, and she suddenly realised what she was doing, and what she had done.

“Oh Saints,” she said, kneeling next to Mishka, whose lip was bleeding. “Mishka, I’m sorry, it was in my head.”

Mishka regarded her slightly fearfully, and did not take her hand again when she offered it. She did, however, fall in beside Astrid as they quickly moved away from the tree as it burned and the surviving… brainwashed people picked themselves up, horror dawning on them as it had on Astrid as they realised what had happened.

They needed to get the Starseeker out of the blue hole, while there were still people on it to save.