It’s a strange party you find yourself in the middle of. You had no idea your friends knew so many different creatures from every plane you’ve heard of—and a few you haven’t.
You don’t see anyone you recognize right now, but everyone is chill, and you lower your guard.
It’s hard to know how to mingle in this crowd. Nevermind how to approach the hot succubus by the punch bowl, you wouldn’t know where to begin striking up a conversation with the self-intersecting knot of shimmering polygons. Its strange pulsing is hypnotic, though.
It notices you staring and tesselates at you in response.
You hide behind your drink, and you keep scanning the crowd for the host, feeling awkward and out of place.
A terrifying creature wearing a painful seizure of light catches your gaze with the eyes on its upper wings.
You glance away, but this one approaches anyway, folding their more eye-watering limbs away and settling into an archetypal form your mind understands more easily. Crystalline shapes coalesce as feathered wings. Their sun-sharp beacon collapses to a glowing ring overhead.
The androgynous figure before you offers a friendly smile that might be apologetic or amused.
They note your lonely lurking at the edges of the party and offer to introduce you to some folks. It wouldn’t do, after all, to have someone not enjoying themselves here.
The angel gives you their name: A Spear Breaks Upon The Dawn’s Light.
It’s a mouthful, but you feel honored that they choose to share with you their inner name rather than the sort of name an angel usually offers an outsider.
They really are treating you as one of them.
Before you know it, you’re among several more friendly faces. Or almost-faces, at least. And they’re probably friendly.
A masked witch, a towering demon, a winged faerie, and one other—a struggle to notice at all—greet you when the angel introduces you as their new friend.
The witch gives you its name: the Strike. It says little to you, but that colorful mask regards you for a long, lingering moment in a way that leaves you feeling exposed.
Does the mask smile in recognition? Or is that a trick of the light?
The demon gives you her name: Arileth. You recognize that it is unlikely her True Name, but the sound rings in your ears in a way that suggests it may be a genuine fragment of it.
She catches you admiring her biceps and sends a smirk and a flirty wink your way.
The faerie does not give you his name, but he will happily take yours.
He stares in silence, all three pairs of black eyes unblinking, waiting as though for a response before bursting into good-natured laughter.
He turns to the moth and asks, “is this when it happens?”
The moth speaks a name to you. You don’t hear it so much as feel it as a buzzing hum behind your eyes.
You blink away tears. Why are you crying? The ground tilts, and you fall, catching yourself on your hands before you hit the floor. Your head presses against the hard wood.
No, it’s brick. You’re dizzy but upright, leaning against the side of a building.
Your head swimming and the puddle of vomit at your feet suggests you’ve had too much to drink. Or was it pills your friend shared with you earlier?
You stumble out of the alleyway.
The city flares to life in vibrant technicolor. The lights scream a song you feel like you should remember the lyrics to, but the words remain just out of your grasp.
Where did he go? You rub something off your nose and realize it might not have just been pills you shared.
You look around, trying to find where your friend wandered off to. Or was it you who couldn’t handle the drugs and wandered away on your own?
You don’t see the club anywhere nearby. The signs no longer speak your language either.
You look up. The moon bleeds your name, and you catch the drip on the tip of your tongue. It reminds you of someone you used to know.
You recognize that you are lost, but the other priestesses at the temple hold you close and take turns whispering something like a poem.
You splash face-first into a lake, but in reverse.
As your head unbreaches the surface, you find yourself hypnotized by the ripples coming together in anticipation of your plunge. They almost spell something you can read, but even this sign eludes you.
The reflective surface finds its frame, and you stare into the face in the mirror, begging to be offered a choice. You don’t remember what choice you’re searching for, but your reflection mouths the most important words of all.
And yet you cannot read your lips.
The shapes fail to crystallize into meaning, and they fall dead from the mirror into your cupped hands.
You tear into them with your teeth, desperate to suck meaning from them, but they tear through you just as mercilessly.
“Hurry up. The party’s already started.”
You’re trapped. You’re choking. You tear your clothes away so that they can’t strangle you. When did they get so tight?
You get them off, but you’re still wrapped up in something stifling you.
Who invited you to the party again? Do you know someone there?
The light shines through the fleshy membrane trapping you, and you see it. The word. Your name. In a flourish of beautiful calligraphy you cannot read from this side. The shadow of it you see from here is mirrored, but if you can just claw your way through to the other side…
“Is this when it happens?” Your friend’s voice. He’s right there.
You peel yourself away from your chrysalis and your name returns to you at last. You speak it aloud in relief as you find your footing again at the party.
Oh. Yes. It is.
You look around, antennae twitching.
Didn’t A Spear have a friend to introduce?
More importantly, why are they wearing that absurd form? Who here would fail to appreciate their true beauty?
The question slips away as they return to themselves. You and your friends relax and enjoy the rest of the party.