She paused to really let it sink in, before whispering into his ear, “...I know I do.”

  She drawled those last words, and paused again before breathing out,

  “-won’t you please let me know, boo?”

  All this time Vi noticed that the walls seemed to be breathing, breathing as hard as she was, but as slowly too. She was used to psionic hallucinations, but this was a different kind of hallucination. It didn’t seem to phase her. She giggled again, and this time it was much harder to stop.

  “...come on, come on, dance with me, give me a wink if you want me to faint.”

  No mere half chub anymore, Eidren now had a raging erection. Blood vessels engorged, pulsating gray, raring to go. Her words were what really took him right over the edge. The brain, after all, was the biggest erogenous zone. She seized his hip, and thrust their pelvises together, just totally indecent.

  “...and I licked my lips, while looking at you fly…”

  And that’s when Dazey decided to drop the bass.

  She thanked the Gods and the Goddesses, even Maetra, that they had finally been brought together. She was so thankful. She felt infinite gratitude, the kind she felt with Talisa, only more so because this- this was something else entirely.

  She was finally where she belonged.

  With him.

  After a whole long lifetime of searching, fifty-six revolutions, in another realm from where she was born, she had finally found what she was looking for all this time. And she didn’t even know she was looking for it until just six lunas ago.

  “I’m runnin’ slow, slow, slow…”

  “I wish you could see me, look at me. Ask me to spend the whole night with you, on the dance floor.”

  She had found home. It was wherever he would be.

  “Got nowhere to go.”

  As Dazey ‘DJ Minni’ Amallark toyed with little progressive trickles, played up against grinding bass, she subtly replaced the dying stream with a smooth new rivulet. It had a rhythmic drumbeat that really grounded everything together.

  “...We will go to the ocean, and we’ll find love on the other side. And I’ll take all our chances, just as long as we’re together. We can set sail to the night.”

  What else did they need to say? They could probe each other’s thoughts just as they had before, their minds had been entangled so closely together, and now they were being drawn closer and closer by the molly and the acid, and the corruption left by the gestalt began to warp and bend, and flex and flow, and grow and meld and merge and re-emerge, and renew and reform stronger than before. The scar tissue of their minds became their bitter strength, and what was once not them, was now well and truly them.

  Just them. Together.

  “'Cause I crave you, I crave you, I crave you tonight.”

  And then they just danced.

  They just pressed each other’s bodies close to each other and danced.

  “Come on dance with me, come on dance with me. Give me a wink if you want me to faint.”

  “And I know you want me.”

  That’s all they needed. To cherish this moment, however long it lasted. They were comfortable in total silence not just in speech, but also in thought. It was enough to be with each other. It was enough. Their minds could be with each other when their bodies were away, and now it was just that their simple physical meat and spirit bodies were united too, and they had yet to take full advantage of that. But they didn’t need that. Not yet.

  “'Cause you push me down tonight.”

  Plus, the music was dope.

  “...And I know you want me.”

  Dazey dropped in a minimalist electro holder to really pull the tension of the mid set plateau, she needed to replace that build up sense of longing that she lost.

  There was something about the reverent hymnal humming that was divine, spiritual, prophetic about it, but he still couldn’t quite understand how to untangle all that, it was so hard, so difficult to describe in words.

  The psionic energy of the revelers linked up now, and the mass of elvan bodies pulsated and flowed like a single organism. As their minds linked, the urges and desires of the crowd all around them began to seep deep into the Rogue Princess and her Prince.

  Now they were beginning to need more than just dancing.

  The porgy was heating up and was descending into a proper orgy-porgy now. Jhynie had started by making out with the left hunk first, then switched to the right hunk, before slinking down and switching off on the things they had down there, before sliding back up and letting herself have them both at the same time. Yikes. And all the couples and polycules followed the Huntress’s suit, only daring to let themselves loose once the heroine of Deuteronilus Mensae did it, which was quite soon into the proceedings, and most too shy to do the dirty deed right there in front of everyone else, like the exhibitionist few were doing right now. Dazey was a bit miffed that the ingrates were going to miss the rest of her set. Whatever happened to decorum?

  Now their psionic energies, all linked up in semi-Gestalt, not contained and controlled, but rather the primeval chaos of ancient and indecipherable serotonin patterns of the cosmos firing through the hundreds of minds, all entranced together in a singular merging, it began to rip apart the fabric of their perceived realities.

  A great fae tear opened underneath the dance floor, and now those still dancing, and not outright making love, were dancing on a solid sea of stars, the rippling edges of the tear unfolding further, and further, in colorful and infinitely complicated fractals, swirls of eyeballs all gazing their adoring love upon their observed subjects. Sacred geometries composed of rays of light intersected and pierced through each body and mind, connecting them all as one, a splendid flurry of revelation.

  Resentments melted away, grudges were forgiven, gone, as if no hurt had ever been done. If poor Ser Serun, ghost in the shell, had only made it to this moment, Eidren would have gladly given his brother-in-arms a hug, and implored for his forgiveness for beating his ass, because that must have really hurt, made him feel bad.

  Those in the crowd who had also indulged in a little bit of the good old moon sugar now found themselves dissociating, dissolving, their corporeal beings melting into the whirlwind of joy and catharsis. Their corporeal beings were still there, just lying in a puddle on the floor. And with the protective guidance of spirits who wove protective psionics, no one would be capable of accidentally stepping on them.

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  Okay, maybe this is the best rotation of my life.

  Same.

  It wasn’t clear if that was Vilithe, or Eidren, thinking those things. Because it was a conscious collective. A lot of elvans were thinking the exact same thing.

  The psychedelic fabric reality tear had rippled all the way up through the roof of the Hive to the zenith of the skies above, and now they were truly dancing in the void itself, surrounded by every one of the stars that could be visible without any light pollution at all, from all degrees, all angles. The Milky Way embraced them all with warmth and love. The universe was experiencing itself. A bubble of psionic spacetime cavitated contraction, to expansive dilation supernova, now warped together every farthest shot made by the Webb Telescope – from the Pillars of Creation, the Titan Clouds and Surface, the Tarantula Nebula, the Hubble Superbubble, the First Light, the Stellar Sword, all of it – and brought it close, so that they were dancing in every single corner of the galaxy.

  “Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars”.

  You know that one is starting to grow on me.

  See? We’ll make a jazz fan out of you yet.

  Hush your mind, dear, and give me another kiss.

  As you wish, Princess.

  And although all of this was completely theoretically possible by the established mechanics of psionics, and was therefore magickal, let’s not get concerned with the details and admit that this was truly magic.

  Because magick itself was magical.

  That all this existed was magical.

  And it was magic to be alive to witness it.

  Those who had not fallen to their knees in holy reverence, sobbing tears of joy, just thankful to be breathing, then just hugging whoever was close, pulling their energies into them, so they could just share in this joy, nothing more complicated than that- those who had not done that, were definitely making love, if not here, then elsewhere. Don’t want to profane sacred ground. Or did the sacred act only sacralize it?

  It left only the Princess and Prince the last ones still dancing, now simply slow dancing together, in embrace.

  The universe zoomed by them, through them, into them, and out from them and their psionic and psychedelic enhanced perceptions of all of it. And since it was psionic, it was, in their sensation, just for the two of them alone. The universe, the Princess, and her Prince.

  But of course, since it was psionic, they were still well aware of the debauchery happening all around them, as the crowd thinned out, the introverted and therefore less exhibitionist couples, like our Princess and Prince, looked for a nook or cranny in the hive that offered a little bit more privacy, with fewer distracting psionic fireworks. At least a fifth of the audience, mostly the moon sugar takers, were just completely unable to even move anymore, and were just swept up into the experience, guided and shaped gently by Miz Dazey’s curation. Now these were her people, elvan. Her real fans. They were here for the music, not the zug-zug.

  Of course he was the one who suggested it first.

  “Getting a bit silly here, Vi, shall we ghost, bae?”

  “Read my mind, boo.”

  They squirmed their way through the hot mess of an orgy that was swimming its way through the universe, and bust their way into the outer chamber 111118 arterial now where some too-cool-for-the-porgy Amallarkean psions were smoking the cigarettes they won in the lotto, and talking about how lame all these posers were, and how the techno just wasn’t hard enough, the underground not eclectic enough, or the deep cuts just not obscure enough.

  They ripped right past the hipsters trying to out-hipster one another and tore away for Zitra’s chamber.

  Zitra and her handmaids were still at the porgy so it was just them. Eidren gently threw Vilithe to the wall, while she aggressively pulled him towards her. He slid both his palms into hers and their fingers interlaced and interlocked, and they squeezed each both each other’s hands hard as they kissed, harder than they’d ever kissed before, even that hard magick breaking, spacetime continuum penetrating kiss they shared after Vilithe proposed to Eidren, and he said yes, I’d like nothing more than to marry you. I want nothing more.

  Can’t do without you.

  The rolls were hitting hard now too. They were peaking. They had danced quite a bit, and Eidren was like, yo, bae, is it normal that my eyes are shaking around right now? If he wasn’t so ecstatic, in a very literal sense, he would have been quite unsettled.

  And Vi having absolutely no experience with this stuff either, just thought I don’t know, boo, same thing is happening to me.

  Pause. I love you.

  But he knew the cooler thing to think here, I know.

  The Princess and her Dashing Rogue.

  Oh, you, she thought.

  No, you, he thought.

  Their lips were moving the whole time they telepathed to each other, but they were too busy moving their lips to make out, not to communicate. All they needed was their minds.

  The receptacle was swung wide open, so they rushed to the big fat queen sized rolly mattress where Zitra slept with her latest batch of broodlings. Thank Goddess the sheets were fresh and clean.

  And then they did the zug-zug.

  Really filthy zug-zug. They went at it like orcs.

  Now if you’re looking for smutty details, let’s afford our hosts some privacy here. Scryer, you know where to look.

  We’re not going into further detail past this point out of privacy and respect to our hosts, but suffice to say, things were getting hot and heavy.

  Berlin feat. Miss Platnum - Modeselektor

  Water Flow - Klyne.

  Jee-sus, drugs, again? Must they be so relevant to the plot? Shush, please! Less meta breaks. Especially ones so asinine and inane. You’re ruining it for me. Alright, Vi, alright.

  Not from the song called Crave You. It’s from Prettiest Virgin. Confusing, we know.

  Much, much later they started trying the advanced stuff. They had access to the psionic legacy. They started off with the Kama Sutra, taking the wisdom of the Godlike Suvar?anābha. They took their time with the easy course, the Tigress, the Milk and Water, the Clasping, the Queen of Heaven, the Ballet Dancer, the Splitting the Bamboo, and the Padlock, but then they bit off more than they could chew by doing the Bridge at Eidren’s insistence, and he finally hurt his back bad enough that they were stuck with missionary for a fortrote or two, which they preferred anyway, and dared not venture forth again. Elvans were albino- vanilla. Leave the advanced stuff to the orcans.

  Jakob - Christopher Schwarzwalder

  These were not hallucinations crafted by psychics, but by the psychedelics.

  Spirits?

  ‘Hey, a lot of people’s gurlfriends are in there.’

  I mean, they knew the original name of the place now, and even the incredibly stupid reason why the name was changed, and Aryss certainly doesn’t rhyme with ‘Stars’, does it? No one else at the porgy realized that they were, in fact, seeing what spring is like on Mars, which was nowhere near as nice as the song made it out to be.

  And bride-to-be.

  Do you want me? Or the pretty lights? The ones glowing in the darkest night, spilling over every side and filling up the city skies, looking like a color map of the sun? If you think I’m taking your precious time, then you’d better finish making up a changing mind. I could be passing by behind your eyes.

  Typical androus behavior. Vi, being quite gurly, wanted Eidren to take the lead. Even in a matriarchy, some things don’t change.

  Miz Dazey was hoping the secret star couple would at least make it through for one more song. That one more song would be whichever song she deigned to play next, making their exit, in Miz Dazey’s ideal, indefinitely postponed.

  Ai-sha?

  Shanna?

  Wow, a lot of things that could be done with that. And yes, they did.

  The footnotes. All the smutty details are hidden in the footnotes.