Concordia discors

[Thank you to everyone for friending, reading, linking and pimping; the author is grateful for these little kindnesses on your part. ETA: Extra thanks to timian for spotting the it's/its mistake.]

Disclaimer: Mina de Malfois is an original fictional creation. These stories and characters are the sole property of the author, but she lends them out for fanfic and fanart. A list of Mina de Malfois/Sanguinity things by other people can be found here. This is a work of fiction. No resemblance is intended to any person or persons living, dead, or online. No BNFs were harmed in the making of this fic.



‘Ahoy, Lady Mina,’ said Xenalvr’s message. ‘Care to sign on for grog and good times? I’ve reserved a bunk aboard the Honey’d Briar in your name.’

Ships had been seen in the harbour--the gameworld harbour, that is. The in-game soundtrack had acquired several nautical tunes. I’d been busy setting up Malfois Manor, which, thanks to small but frequent donations from my generous fans, was located on one of the desirable cliffs below the really humungous cliff on which Lord Henri Antoine Silvestre de Gravina’s castle towered. I had, however, seen the sails of at least two largish vessels, and had wondered idly if they were player property or whether, like the castle and Lord Silvestre de G himself, they were part of the game. Sanguinity Online was so vibrantly interactive it was hard to tell the difference sometimes. I’d already heard the most delicious rumour that players who built up enough in-game hours and assorted points could win a chance to have their avatar graphically and ruthlessly bedded by the non-player-character Lord Henri Antoine Silvestre de Gravina. The very thought made me tingle.

‘You’re in charge of one of the ships?’ I asked now, curiosity sparked. Constructing and furnishing the manor was nowhere near completion, but Lady Mina had to get out there and interact in order to increase her sociability and plotline scores.

‘Alas, that honour belongs to Capt. Arc,’ said Xenalvr, ‘but her first mate, Xena, is m’self.’

‘You and Arc are on speaking terms?’ I asked, which was poor etiquette I admit, but my astonishment had gotten the better of me.

‘You don’t think two bosom chums who were at school together could stay on the outs forever, do you?’ she answered.

I was skeptical. I had no experience myself of this old school tie thing, so perhaps it induced more nostalgic loyalty than I was giving it credit for, but I doubted it. It seemed to me that n. l. probably came in smallish doses. ‘How long is this truce expected to last?’ I asked.

‘Oh, probably until roughly the time she finds out I’ve asked you to sign on,’ Xenalvr said breezily, ‘but she can’t call dibs forever. Can we count you amongst the crew, matey?’

I agreed that they could, though not without a mild sense of foreboding.

This was the first I’d heard of Arc’s having an in-game presence, let alone of her being in possession of such a major piece of property as the Honey’d Briar. Given the spot of trouble that had arisen back at Penn’d Passion, I suppose one couldn’t blame her for putting out to sea, although I strongly suspected the same problem might pop up in gamespace. There was nothing to stop Warr1or registering an avatar, after all.

His devotion to PrincessB had taken a new, and disquieting, turn. Looking on the bright side, it had been a while since he’d called any of PrinceC’s fangirls a whore. On the less-bright side, his preoccupation with fandom’s wanton females, (or, as he invariably misspelled it, wonton females), seemed to have coloured his perspective on the Sanguinity canon. In an effort, I think, to maintain his precarious psychological balance--and I have the educational background to back up this view, as I almost became a psychologist, but I switched majors--he was writing lots of fanfiction in which PrincessB appeared as a chaste, innocent fourteen-year-old girl. My theory is that the canon PrincessB, who is patently obviously an adult female, and a well-developed one at that, was too threatening for him. Possibly she struck him as too dangerously impure.

At any rate, whatever his particular damage was, Warr1or was resolutely working through his issues by writing lots of fanfiction, and you’d think, wouldn’t you, that that would be a good thing. Fandom, let’s face it, functions as a sort of impromptu group therapy for a lot of people, and the hand that pens the fanfic often twitches with suppressed psychosis. But Warr1or’s particular approach involved pairing his young, innocent, pure, devout, and shall I repeat fourteen year old version of PrincessB with a more or less canon version of Jab: manly, muscled, workmanlike, sweaty, and adult. I privately suspected, based on Warr1or’s loving physical descriptions, that he was in actuality writing the “PrinceC’s hed pastede on” version of Jab that so often appeared in fanart.

So Warr1or’s PrincessB parroted his views so exactly that one rather wondered if self-insert Mary Sues could cross gender lines, and his Jab bulged, throbbed, and brooded to a degree that would do Heathcliff or Byron proud. Nothing untoward had actually happened in Warr1or’s fic--it was entirely possible that he didn’t know how sex worked--but the stench of chan rather hung over it, and readers had, predictably, begun to threaten full-fledged hysterics. So Arc had reason, really, to plunge into the relative sanity of online gaming and set sail.

She might have chosen a less perilous distraction, though. Life onboard a wooden sailing ship was hazardous. As soon as it became generally known that we were setting out on an exploratory voyage but intended to steer well clear of the Furry Islands, we were pelted with ‘no furbashing’ messages. An entire flock of Elizabeths showed up,¹ wanting to book passage. I urged our captain to turn them all away, having deduced from the miniature Ouija boards which their avatars wore on chains around their necks that these were some form of Ciyerra supporters, but Xena exercised her first-mately wiles and persuaded her to take three on as servants. They all looked identical, and all simpered in unison, but they also all claimed to be skilled at wielding a pistol, so perhaps that would come in handy. I found them off-putting, but Arc claimed to find them less creepy than she found the rest of the crew, who were all NPCs. I pointed out that the NPCs had more fully developed, well-differentiated personae than did the Elizabeths, but she ignored this.

And then we were hardly out of the harbour when another vessel drew alongside. I gasped with excitement at the sight of Lord Henri Antoine Silvestre de Gravina’s insignia. ‘Load cannons,’ Capt. Arc said dispassionately, ‘and wait my command.’

‘Arc, are you kidding?’ I asked. ‘You can’t fire on them; that’s one of Lord Henri Antoine Silvestre de Gravina’s ships!’

‘Address the captain like that again, and I’ll have you flogged,’ Xena told me, her avatar grinning wolfishly.

‘Lord Henri Antoine Silvestre de Gravina is the in-game enemy, Mina,’ Arc said patiently. ‘We’re supposed to fire on his fleet. Should we try to sink her, or just cripple her?’ she asked Xena.

‘Aim for the masts and sails,’ Xena advised. ‘De Gravina’s men are rumoured to traffic in human cargo; we might be able to rescue them.’

‘Probably more bloody Elizabeths,’ I muttered darkly, and my avatar stomped off to help Elizabeth9, Elizabeth114, and Elizabeth!1! ready the cannon.

‘Are you going to be a discipline problem?’ Xena called across to me hopefully, and Capt. Arc gave her a look that could’ve frozen whole oceans, salt content or no salt content. None of us noticed, until it was too late, the dashing avatar that leapt over the side to press the blade of his cutlass across Arc’s throat.

‘Prepare to be boarded, ladies,’ he said cheerfully.

‘It’s PrinceC!’ the Elizabeths shrieked in unison, swooning and collapsing across the decks in heaps of uselessness. That’s what happens when you set your ‘sensitivity’ readings too high during avatar creation. Idiots. Although I’ll confess in passing that my own toes curled at the glance his avatar gave mine. I couldn’t help it. His every pixel gleamed with military manliness and historical accuracy.

‘How can your dexterity points possibly be that high this early in the game, you blighted nuisance?’ Arc asked him irritably, and he grinned.

‘Never you mind,’ he told her smugly. ‘I’m here to parlay.’

‘Then put your sword away, you young idiot,’ she told him, but sort of affectionately. ‘What’s up?’

‘One of my crew retrieved a message in a bottle,’ he said, producing a scroll of parchment, ‘and I thought you might want to assist in the mission.’ Xena and I crowded close to Arc so we could read over her shoulders.

‘Please help me,’ it began. ‘I’ve been kidnapped by a shipload of P/J slashers. They saw I’d listed the Inspector Devlin novels among my interests and came looking for me, thinking I was one of their kind! I tried to tell them I only enjoy the Devlin mysteries for their wealth of historical detail, but they wouldn’t listen. They got angry when I said I hated their ship. They’ve made me their cabin boy, and are threatening to force me to commit unspeakable acts.’ The message was signed ‘Warr1or.’

‘Kidnapped by Jammies,’ Xena snorted. ‘It’s a fitting ending for him.’

PrinceC threw back his head and laughed. ‘We can’t just abandon him, though,’ he pointed out. ‘Imagine his panic. Besides, once you’ve been made aware of a mission you lose perseverance points if you don’t complete it.’

‘I didn’t realize Jammies were so dangerous,’ Arc said, looking amused. ‘The ones I’ve met seemed content to stroll around in striped silk pyjamas and read Evelyn Waugh novels to their teddy bears.’

‘There’s a rougher element down by the docks,’ PrinceC said. ‘I assume it’s those who’ve seized Warr1or.’ Arc looked as if she’d be perfectly content to let him stay seized, but I gave her a look of avatarial pleading. I mean to say, think of all the points that hung in the balance. Plus, undertaking a rescue mission alongside one of Lord Silvestre’s ships seemed a fine and fitting expenditure of gaming hours.

‘All right,’ Arc sighed. ‘Let’s go rescue the idiot. Everyone keep their eyes peeled for lavender sails.’ We agreed to set out next day to search a nearby cluster of islands, PrinceC’s avatar disappeared by some means I didn’t quite catch, and I logged out of gamespace to check my email.

It’s disorienting, returning to the real world after time spent in-game. My messages got me re-grounded quickly, however. My readers were adoring chapter three, except for a handful who variously claimed it revealed a lax moral attitude, an anti-Catholic bias, or a failure to respect real vampyre culture. Par for the course, really. I also had a notice that a submission by a Booter awaited my editorial input. I rather looked forward to that: the Booters could do things with riding boots and assorted tack that made one reflect quietly on the possible joys of leather one had been missing out on. And, finally, I had a handful of emails from fangirls who’d all forwarded me the same invitation to an upcoming séance. It breathlessly promised that, guided by a lifelong devotee of the work of Joseph-Antoine Boullan, a select group of the former friends of BalletChic were going to attempt to contact her spirit incarnation, Ciyerra, via the miracle of IM conferencing.

I remember reading once something about ‘to thy haunts kindred spirits flee,’² but this was the first time I’d ever heard it suggested that the haunt in question might be instant messenger. For a fleeting instant I itched to explain to them that receiving messages via computer from someone who wasn’t dead wasn’t proof of anything beyond their own congenital idiocy, but I saw it would be a waste of time. Besides, séance by ouijanet might be amusing. I RSVP’d my intentions to be amongst those present.



Footnotes:

1. The Elizabeths are, as well as Ciyerra supporters, big fans of Pirates of the Caribbean. Specifically, they are that kind of PotC fan who, while envying Elizabeth her moments with Will and Jack, hate her with a frightening intensity.

2. I remember reading once something about ‘to thy haunts kindred spirits flee,’ The quote is actually "to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee," and it's from Keats' "On Solitude.