Interlude 1.3

Content warnings: bodysharing (detail below; skip if you prefer surprises)

• A character explicitly states she is sharing a body with another. It is implied that this is by choice.

~.~

Finding Silpa’s workshop, as it turned out, was not that difficult for Dani. The clang of hammer against metal was a dead giveaway, and Dani followed the sound out of the kitchen, down the hall, and through a small door on the right.

Immediately, Dani was hit by a wave of heat as they entered the space. It was large—as big as a warehouse—and chock full of machinery that Dani had never seen before. There was the basic stuff: walls made of pegboard, workbenches against each wall, a bunch of different kinds of table saws, a lathe, an oscillating sander, and so on. Then there were the more outlandish contraptions: monsters of metal and glass that seemed to come right out of a sci-fi movie. A section of the workshop had the layout of a blacksmith’s forge, and another section appeared to be a glassblowers’ workshop.

Silpa was nowhere to be seen.

“Hello…?” Dani ventured. He was not the sheepish type, but he couldn’t help but feel dwarfed by the grandiose scale of the workshop.

"Just a second!" A hiss of steam echoed through the air, and something flashed in a corner of the room, and then a woman popped out from behind a nearby machine. She was dressed in denim overalls, a purple tool belt around her waist and a wrench in hand. Her dark skin was coated with machine grease, and her long black curls were pulled out of her face by a lavender bandana.

"Heya there! I don’t think we’ve met,” the woman said with a warm grin. “I’m Silpa! And you are?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know my name,” Dani muttered. A frown crossed Silpa’s face, but she seemed to take it in stride.

“Okay.” Silpa dusted her hands off and slipped the wrench into her tool belt. "So, what can I do ya for?"

Dani opened her mouth, then closed it. Now that she was here, standing before one of the pioneers in the field she wanted to study, it felt like the words just wouldn’t come.

As Dani contemplated his answer, Silpa’s form flickered, and for a brief second, Dani swore that he saw someone else standing in Silpa’s place: a man with dark skin, close-cropped hair, and a thin scar running down his left cheek. Then, the moment was gone.

Dani almost chalked it up to coincidence, but nothing was ever left to chance with these immortal fuckers. It was a good opportunity to deflect from Dani’s own discomfort, in any case.

“Who was that?” Dani asked, gesturing towards Silpa. “The guy who just flickered in and out where you’re standing, I mean.”

Silpa frowned. "Aw, darn, I was hoping I wouldn't have to explain that." She sighed. "I'm still dead, y'know? So my soul's hitching a ride on Mateen right now. Xe's not listening, by the way—xe's totally asleep. But this is xis body, not mine."

“What the hell?” Dani said, the words leaving his mouth before he could stop them. “What’s so important that you needed to borrow Mateen’s body?”

"I'm just maintaining some of the machinery that keeps this place up and running," Silpa explained, gesturing to the machine to her left. "It's been a long while since we were here, so everything is kind of in shambles. The WiFi in here won’t fix itself, you know.”

“WiFi,” Dani said flatly. “Okay. Cool. Great.” It was nice to hear that the immortals had their priorities in order.

“That’s not what you’re here for, though,” Silpa said, leaning forward. “So why are you here?”

Dani’s heart hammered against his ribcage. After so many years of trying to get a college degree only to be repeatedly shot down by her parents, it felt wrong to just lay her dreams out in the open, but…

My parents are dead, Dani reminded herself. They’re dead, and they can’t get in my way anymore.

“I want to study biomedical engineering,” Dani said evenly. “And I was told you would know something about that.”

Silpa nodded sagely. “I see, I see. I can certainly help you with that. You’ll need the money for college first, right?”

Dani shoved his hands into his pockets. “Yeah. Something like that.”

“Okay, great!” Silpa said cheerfully. “I’ve still got a lot of cash stashed away—looks like ‘ol Max couldn’t find and freeze all my bank accounts. Just let me know where you want to enroll, and I’ll foot the bill.”

Dani let out a slow breath. He’d spent his whole adult life trying to scrounge up enough to go to college, and suddenly, just like that, the problem was taken care of. It felt too easy. And maybe it was, because—

“I don’t know enough to do well in college,” Dani realized, fiddling with her glasses. “High school was so long ago.”

“I don’t think that’s entirely true,” Silpa said, tapping her chin. “You seem pretty smart! But if you want help…” She trailed off. “Well, I dunno if you’d want help from me, seeing as I’m one of the people who ruined your life. But if you want, I can definitely help you brush up, maybe even give you a head start.”

Dani paused. When Felix had first revealed the truth about her powers, she’d been justifiably mad, but having a month to think about it had cooled her anger a little bit. While it was true that Dani didn’t exactly appreciate the Ennead for giving her powers she’d never asked for, it wasn’t like having powers had suddenly ruined her life. Dani’s life had been fucked to begin with—having Soul Stealers for parents would do that—and hiding had been little more than an inconvenience.

And besides, Dani was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“That would be great,” Dani decided, looking Silpa in the eye. “When do we start?”

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