Infinite Moonshine

Collateral Tourism

"No, seriously, how would a Death Vixen even form?" Mozzetta's lights blinked incredulously.
"Died of...death?" I hesitantly gestured to him.
"Everybody dies of death. What the fuck are you on about?" He took a swig of his beer - I still never learned how Taranti drink - and set it down with a metallic sigh. Though it was less a sigh and more a continuous scrape until he finished proving his point that he was exasperated. I shrugged, letting my shoulders snake inwards.
"I dunno. But I feel like one could exist. Maybe if you get an Angel to kill you through a sacrifice?"
"I guess! Anyway, are you still trying to find work?" Mozzetta side-eyed me.
Christ, that question.
"I-I don't know, man. Things just feel weird." My shoulders were collapsing in on themselves like a black hole.
"Things feel...weird." He tasted the word in his mouth and didn't like it. "What, working is weird?"
"No! It's just..." I paused for a moment, letting the words tumble through my head and out of my mouth. I worded it a few times in my head to be precise, and then immediately stumbled through a few more stutters, "I want to find who I am. I wanna find my Sword."
"What, still on that?" He clanged and scraped out a laugh, "You're done, dude. You've been through all this and still haven't found your Sword. It's time to call it quits."
"I-" My voice caught on a barb in my throat, "I think there's still something!"
"If you say so, man."

We sat in silence for over a minute. He occasionally drew the glass to his face (I don't think he really had a mouth under all that machinery), and I would sit, trying to think of something to say, and fail miserably each time.

"You know, Rev," Mozzetta stared down at his near-empty glass as if it were the one talking, "maybe you should travel out. Meet some new folks. Do you think Eden's really your place?"
I sat there for a moment. It was all I could really do right now.
"I should go to Ghalago."
"Okay, okay, maybe not that far. That's, what, three weeks of driving through the most dangerous parts of the country? Two if you're insane. You know how many Vixens and angry Eaudenils occupy the center of the country?"
"A lot."
He scoffed. "Yeah. A lot. You're gonna go out there, alone, and try to make the trip to Ghalago. I would just take the DIA, if I were you."
"That's not the point, Mozz. The point is the journey."
"The point is the journey." he mimicked my phrase in a nasally voice, "Dude. You're gonna die. And we won't find your body because Vixens'll be ripping you apart. Actually, I was wondering." He stared me up and down. "Do you ever get the urge to like..." I could tell he was about to say something horrifically offensive, "kill your boyfriends? Like just decapitate them?"
"Yes."
"I—oh. That."
"What? Am I gonna lie?"
"No, I thought you were gonna get offended and uppity about it."
I tilted my head to him. "I'm plenty offended. But I also definitely want to take their heads off their spines."
"Do you think this is in the same vein as people trying to look for Adam's apples in more humanoid trans women? Is it a trans thing for you? Like, you know how their throat will have that bump and some assholes will try to out them as trans or whatever, yeah?"
"I...guess? This is a fucking wild line of questioning, man."
He nodded firmly.
"Yeah. It is. Sorry if it's like, insensitive. But I was curious."
"It was insensitive."
"Have you ever tried to do it?"
I laughed that one off.
"That was too. And no, I haven't. It's like...you know when you get the urge to jump off a cliff when you're near it? Call of the void, right?"
"Yeah. Call of the void."
"It's like that. Like, I'll think about it, but it's never enough that I'll actually do it. It's just in the back of my head."

We sat in silence for another moment.

"Hey," I started, letting my thoughts trail themselves through my mouth, "I've got a van. You think I'd be able to head out tonight?"
He gave me a full head-turn now. "You're really serious about this? You're going to Ghalago on your own?"
"Yeah. I've heard fun things about the west coast. Plus, I wanna see the Lambents."
He scraped again. Stared at me. Scraped one more time. Decided that that many scrape-sighs wasn't actually enough and did it one final, final time.
"I'll miss you." He stared into his glass again.
"No, you won't."
"...Yeah. I won't. You won't miss me."
"I won't."
"Good luck out there, asshole." He gave me a much chippier scrape and pushed his shoulder against mine, paying for his drink and leaving me to my own devices.