Tales from the Broken Moon - A Queen’s New Clothes

June 2067. After surviving the collapse of the apartment complex in Tokyo, Lucia is now part of the crew of the Mattanza - a fishing vessel turned pirate ship. Still, she has to deal with the reality of her situation: locked in her hybrid wolf-human form and donning only what's left of her cape, she's having a hard time getting accustomed to her new routine.

Tales from the Broken Moon – A Queen’s New Clothes

As the lights went down in her private cabin, she yawned a little. It was just 8PM, but electricity was a luxury on the high seas and needed to be rationed for the moments where it was actually needed. Fortunately, Lucia could see in the dark pretty well – one of the perks of her… condition. She lay down on that uncomfortable metal cot she had for a bed, crossing her legs, her clawed hands resting under her nape. That fur of hers would have also been useful to keep heating to a minimum. Shame that, in her current form, it only covered her hands and forearms up to her elbows and her feet and legs up to her knees (maybe a little bit higher on one leg, but nothing to write home about). The rest of her body was a mess of bare human skin, which – indeed – was pretty sensitive to warmth and coldness. A loud sigh escaped her lips, through her sharp, animal fangs. All her senses were amplified, she could almost see the world moving in slow motion. That was okay and even inebriating for short periods of time, but for two months straight? It took some time for her to adapt, to learn how not to space out during a conversation. Well, ‘conversation’. Aside from a couple decently cultured people, the main bulk of the crew of the Mattanza was a mix of South Italian workers with no mastery or knowledge of even the basic grammar. She was Italian herself, so that was less of an issue – but, with some of them, she couldn’t even exchange two words before not managing to understand what the other was talking about. Those dialects felt foreign to her, almost as much as Japanese, or Persian, or Russian.

Yet, the question of what to do to deal with that pressing issue of regulating her body temperature still lingered. Heavy clothes would have made her life miserable, due to how her fur loved to keep her unreasonably warm, light clothes would have been an upgrade from her current condition but wouldn’t have solved the problem at hand. Fortunately, her cape (what was left of it, at least) was still keeping her company. The fabric was a self-cleaning polymer that prevented it from getting too dirty or to accrue nose-twisting smells, yet it couldn’t self-repair. Which meant that the rips and holes were there to stay. Not that she minded about them too much – if anything, they were apt for a self-proclaimed creature of the night. She smirked, while diving down memory lane. The way she came out of hiding, sitting like a wolf on the pile of fish, her eyes shining in the night, her howl causing the seamen to cower in fear and call the protection of San Gennaro. That had been a delightful introduction, striking enough fear and respect that the rest came easier. When she snapped the arm of the first mate – the one who tried to shoot her with his gun right after she claimed she had no ill intentions – made it clear to the rest of the sailors that their best chance at survival was listening to her. And that’s what happened, surprisingly without needing to break any other limbs. The first mate had gotten better, in the meanwhile, and even came to accept her continuous presence aboard the ship. Originally, what they agreed on was a simple deal, mutually beneficial: They would have let her live among them and feed as much as she needed to, while keeping her existence secret, and she would have protected them in case of danger. She knew she could do that, since, in her final form, she was an even match for a regular team of US Marines. Her mettle had been put to test sooner than she had anticipated, as a competing vessel tried to pillage their wares, not even a week after she joined the crew. She remembered that moment with absolute delight, as she made short work of the assaulting force, decimating them before they could even understand what they had unleashed. Amateurs, wannabe pirates. They didn’t last minutes and – before she knew it – the hostile ship had been pillaged in turn, with a sizable stash of weapons and smuggled items being transferred to the Mattanza in record time. That event changed the sailors’ opinion of her from freeloader freak to our queen of the battlefield. After witnessing her impressive show of prowess, one of the mates, a middle-aged Neapolitan man named Salvatore, started calling her exactly that, ‘a riggina lupu, the wolf queen. That had made her feel a little bit better about her chances at turning her fortune around. The Wolf Queen of the Broken Moon. A fitting title, much better than just an Angel among many.

In the coming weeks, during an all-hands-meeting with the crew, the new course was set. They knew they weren’t a match for her, she knew she couldn’t govern a vessel of that size on her own. Piracy felt good to those grizzled sailor, and – now that they tasted its sweet flavor, they wanted more of it. The feeling of being the predator and not the prey, something they could have never thought about before meeting Lucia. That feeling had been inebriating and led them to the resolution of turning what was no more than an illegal fishing ship into a full-fledged terror of the high seas. Around one third of the sailors didn’t agree and were allowed to disembark at the next port. The two thirds who remained, though, swore loyalty to Lucia, the Wolf Queen who would turn every expedition into a success. Which brought her to her present situation, as the de facto leader of a fishing vessel that still acted as such for a steady source of income, but performed remarkable acts of piracy on the side, while simultaneously having disappeared from all charts. A ghost ship, which would show up at a port without notice, only to be already gone when the morning came, as howls announced her departure. A very powerful image that – no doubt – had already caused some urban legends to pile up. Lucia found herself smiling at that thought. She couldn’t really complain about that arrangement, as it had been for the best, despite her initial skepticism. She also obtained an important result, something she deeply cared for: the crew of the Mattanza was now treating her with the respect she deserved, and not just as a scary monster to be afraid of. Yet, after all that time together, it was still annoying to be subject to those lecherous gazes, as she moved around the premises. None of her finely crafted clothes survived the fight at the Kiku apartment complex, leaving her with nothing but her cape, and, during the time she had lived on the vessel, she hadn’t managed to find a suitable replacement yet. To her credit, she didn’t like it either – she wasn’t that kind of exhibitionist – and she had tried several times to arrange something together from the spare uniforms on the ship, none of which fitted her size. Unfortunately, she failed miserably. They had no tailor aboard and the results of her experiments ended up being too large, too brittle, too prone to ripping off and too crudely made, with the added disadvantage of making her look like a cute mascot when worn, instead of the menacing Wolf Queen she should have been. When a very wide t-shirt fell on her, the head opening so large one of her shoulder could go through it as well, the end result was making her look harmless and clumsy, like a puppy playing with laundry. The exact opposite of what she craved for. So, until further notice, she had decided to endured the stares and keep her feral make-up. That lack of garments, together with her flashing eyes and her menacing cape, gave her the aura of a dangerous beast, something to be feared and revered. Which worked perfectly well… until her period struck. So much blood on the floor, blood that needed to be cleaned off, as she had blushed out of sheer embarrassment. Of course it happened while she was discussing about potential new preys with the crew, of all times. Of course. Luck had it that there were two other women among the seamen and that they had a box of internal tampons they could share with her. That had been an unexpected moment of camaraderie and one of the few times she lowered her guard – causing her to even thank them for helping. Still, even with the menstrual problem taken care of (at least temporarily), going around in her birthday suit had more outs than ins.

She weighed her options, as her eyes wandered on the ceiling. Just wearing simple underwear would have made her look stupid, like a pin-up model on some furry slut magazine. A full tuxedo suit would have clashed greatly with her inhuman hands and feet and would have to account for her furred patches. Yet, did it look bad? Maybe not so much – it was an idea she could work with. It would have been a big departure from the sailor uniforms of her travel mates and definitely an impediment for fighting effectively, but that might have helped for formal meetings. She shelved that in her mind drawers, as something to consider for later. No, her main issue was what to wear for her day-to-day operations. She needed to find a stylish something that granted her the respect and aura of command she deserved, while giving her enough freedom of motion that she could rip and tear without having to replace her clothes every other day. That something had to include her cape too – no way she would give up on it. It was a part of her as much as her fur, her claws, her fangs. For a moment, she pictured herself wearing a black or red leotard, with her red mantle flowing in the wind, while standing atop a high-rise building. No, that felt so cliché and – frankly – stupid, but unfortunately was pretty much everything she could think of that suited her vision. She went through her requirements again. No gloves (impractical with her clawed hands), no shoes (ditto for her feet), any sleeves had to be comfortable enough for her furred limbs (and account for the fact that her fur patches were slightly asymmetric), her human chest and hips had to be covered decently (that was the whole point of her ordeal), and her cape had to be part of the outfit. She closed her eyes, as yet another sigh escaped her lips. Such a basic question, yet no useful answers. Having no tail, though, made things slightly easier. If she had to account for a tail too, things would have been waaay more awkward, with additional holes and what not. On the other hand, if she had a very flexible one, she could have wrapped it around her hips to hide her bits from sight. Maybe a little bit uncomfortable, but it would have worked as a temporary solution too.

Her wolf ears bent down, she shook her head. It was funny how she’d never thought about that issue while she was an Angel. After all, the number of times she had reached her supreme form could be counted on the fingers of two hands, and the time she spent in it had been – on average – less than one hour. It was her last trump card and usually enough to get rid of her opposition before they could have a good look at her. Only once that had been a problem, during an infiltration mission gone south. She was lost in enemy territory without life-saving drugs for one long week. As she felt her body breaking down, she turned into her pure wolf form, hoping her unconsciousness would make her passing less painful. To her surprise, though, her internal clock had stopped ticking. It was hard to realize, at first, because of how little control she had while in her animal mode. She was still there, in the corner of the beast’s mind, observing without having a say on its actions, as if lost in a dream. Still, once she realized that she was – in fact – not dying and that her organs were not deteriorating, she tried her luck at turning into her mixed, final form. And, much to her surprise, the results were the same. Outside of her human form, she didn’t need a daily dose of Stratosphere drugs to survive. If anything, they were just required to let her return to her normal appearance. That discovery left her inebriated. She had a way to cheat death, to cheat the destructive biological trigger Stratosphere installed inside each Angel. That meant she could defect at any time, provided she was okay with looking like a beast for the rest of her life. Yes, that might have been a steep price to pay, but it was one hell of a bargain to have a way out from Mr. Magnifico’s grasp. After she was rescued, she didn’t make word of that with anyone. Officially, she had taken an additional stash of vials with her before leaving for the mission, a stash that ensured her survival and run out shortly before Ghost and Lemur retrieved her in enemy territory.

One terrible doubt still lingered, though – how much of a beast was she, when in her mixed form? She had never kept it active for more than a couple days, until the incident in Japan, so she wouldn’t know. After almost two months, she still couldn’t reach a definite conclusion – she had noticed a marked appetite for meat and fish, a tendency of licking her fur to keep it clean with maniacal precision, and the urge to playfully hunt the mice that littered the ship, but, aside from those rare instances, she still felt in control. Yet, the most pressing matter was one that could manifest soon, despite all her efforts to avoid it.

Will I go into heat? And, if so, how many times per year?

That scary thought crossed her mind again. She really didn’t want to have to answer that question, but it was somehow stuck in the depths of her mind. Dogs went into heat around two to four times per year, depending on their breed. The thought of being dominated by her instincts, causing her to pounce on every other male crew member of the Mattanza while not being in control of herself made her feel uneasy, to the point of making her shiver. She was already working on a contingency plan, something about reinforcing her cabin’s door, so that she couldn’t get out even if she wanted to, during her period of rabid desire. Their next supply trip would have taken care of the materials and she would have overseen the installation – the sooner, the better. Even if the price to pay was howling and scratching against a metal door for a couple days every four-five months, it was still better than falling into a mating spree with anything that breathed.

She let out one more sigh, while staring at that metallic ceiling, in that cabin that was as naked as her – if not more. Just a cot, a chair, a small table with an alarm clock, a chemical toilet with a small washbasin, some personal hygiene products and a cupboard with one, single anglerfish plushie standing among three books about abyssal creatures, one about wolf anatomy and two cheap romance novels she had already read seven times each (the male lead of one of them was so dumb she had often hoped the ending would magically change and let him be eaten by a shark, but she hadn’t been that lucky). That was the limited extent of her personal belongings, the extent of her corner of world inside the massive, creaky vessel. No internet connection either, just a radio picking up communications from other ships and – when she was lucky – some music for a coastal repeater. At least, the one circular window in her cabin opened just above sea level. She liked watching the great blue. It made her feel a little bit homesick, as she was born on a town on the coast of Italy. And yet, there she was, presumed dead, leading a motley crew of sailors on a ghost ship she seized, surviving on illegally caught fish and attacking cargo vessels like ye pirates of old, while trying to find a direction.

So. Many. Unknowns.

Suddenly, a noise. Someone knocking at her door. She grumbled a little, sat on her cot, stood up slowly.

“Yes?”

“Martina sugno. I’ve brought you the magazines you asked for. We didn’t find many before we had to leave and I can’t read English. I hope it’s what you wanted.”

Lucia opened the door to her cabin, only slightly, leaving it ajar, just a thread of light coming through. A hand, a human hand moved through it, passing four crumpled magazines through the slit. Lucia grabbed them as delicately as she could, trying to avoid damaging them too much. One annoyance of her current condition was that her nails were hard to keep under control and her dexterity wasn’t that good. She could still write, albeit badly, but stuff that required precise manipulations was hellish. That included certain activities she longed to perform, at least once in a while, to keep her mind clear and her instincts under control, but were next to impossible, since each of her fingers terminated with a sharp claw. Yet, she did her best to keep the pages as unscathed as possible – and largely succeeded, aside from a couple minor rips. In the darkness of her cubicle, she didn’t manage to grasp the features of the sailor talking to her, but she didn’t need to. Martina was one of the three women aboard (she included) and was around thirty centimeters taller than her, with muscles the size of a baobab trunk. Still, that wasn’t enough to beat her at arm wrestling – not when her Gift kicked in.

“Thank you, Martina. Anything else to report?”

“Oh, yes, but the captain is dealing with it, for now. We are on our way to pick a new passenger, a dotto’. He was the one that contacted us via radio a couple days ago. He’s a China, though. I hate Chinas.”

Lucia sighed. He wasn’t Chinese, he was Japanese. Dr. Shissu Kobase, better known as the mad surgeon of the underworld, searched by the police of half of the known world for crimes against humanity. Being contacted by him had been an interesting opportunity. In order to replenish the crew after one third left the ship, Lucia had her men spread their radio address in the slums, every time they made landfall, but – so far – only two or three able-bodied sailors had decided to join their venture. Reeling in Dr. Kobase had been a stroke of luck, as they missed a proper medical officer and everyone agreed he was one of the best on the market. True, said practitioner was also notorious for malpractice and human experiments, but, in her situation, she couldn’t afford to be picky. She would have taken care of welcoming them as soon as he boarded the Mattanza. And, as it was customary for the new crew members, she was considering assaulting him in the most brutally feral way she could, to scare him shitless, before actually toning her behavior down, gently explaining to him how things worked on the Mattanza, and show him his living quarters. That was one of the few occasions where not wearing anything worked well – it added to the shock value and made the recruits believe, for a couple seconds, that she was nothing but a wild beast, before fully subverting their expectations – making them face the two faces of their new boss. She secretly enjoyed those moments and would have never given up on them, no matter what. Yet, maybe Kobase would have required… a softer introduction, to avoid having him throw himself in the water our of fear. That would have been a total waste, indeed.

“I’ll deal with him at the right time. Call me when he’s on board.”

“Sure as hell. You are the only one who can speak with Chinas. Captain can just say yes or no.”

Lucia slammed the door behind her, back to the quiet of her room, gazing at her little treasure chest. Fashion magazines, of all shapes and sizes. The ideal way to get some inspiration on how to solve her outfit issues. She spread them on the small table, stared at the covers. Two of them showed pictures of the same model, one she had known of for a while. Myadeline Heargreaves, a neko with… interesting assets. Lucia sighed one more time (one too many, for that evening). Had she been into women, she would have painfully regretted the fact of being stuck with clawed fingers, after seeing those photos of her. Myadeline’s shapes were something her dream body would have sported, and her outfits were doing nothing but making them even more palatable. On the first cover, she was wearing a set of crossed belts as makeshift garments, with nothing underneath, in a way that made Lucia blush. She had never considered the possibility of dressing like that. It might have been practical and better than going around in the nude, due to her current condition, but it was a little bit too hardcore for her tastes. The outfit on the second cover was way more modest – something that looked like a sleeveless high-neck top, joined with short trousers that ended just under her buttocks. Lucia examined it with interest, trying to imagine those clothes in red and black, and how they would have looked on her. Right length, right amount of covered skin, no interference with her cape, no overlap with her fur-covered limbs, no stupid boob window or belly skin left on show. Classier than a leotard, leaving less to imagination, and able to be split into both a top and a bottom part, making it easier to wear and take off. She opened the magazine, looking for more pictures of it, skimming through the pages. The lingerie section caught her attention again, making her cheek turn a little red due to how risqué some of those garters were. The only reason why she could stand her body being seen in her natural state was that she knew she didn’t look fully human. Had she been in her base form, that would have been unacceptably embarrassing. Her beast instincts were what made her endure her situation until that point, but, every time she started reading something, her human mind took charge of her reactions, constantly reminding her of the inadequacy of her wardrobe. Winning against her woes (and eyeing a nice black lace set she would have killed for), she finally landed on the clothes she wanted to examine the most, with even more pictures of Myadeline to boot. The backside of the outfit looked as good as the front side, with no skin exposed and a good balance between a stylish and practical design. The brand was called ‘0K’, not one she was familiar with, but definitely the one she needed. According to the article, it would have been available in several colors soon too – including black – and was expected to hit the market in a couple months at most, after being shown as a global preview at the Tokyo Fashion Week starting next August. She snapped her clawed fingers, as a wide smile opened on her face. That was it, that was what she wanted!

Yet, she felt like something was still missing – what, she couldn’t say, though. Going through the rest of the pictures, she didn’t find anything worth noting, aside from a couple dresses of the same brand she would have liked to wear – in a more relaxed setting, that is. She also found a couple of equally sleeveless jackets to complement the outfit she was so laser focused on, but she still felt like that wasn’t the end of the story. She closed the first two magazines, opened up the third, skimmed through it, until she landed on a five-pages special on sportswear for MMA. There she eyed them – foot pads, hand pads. They weren’t gloves and shoes proper, but they could be adapted to her paw-like appendages, in a way that complemented her choice of outfit and fitted the ruggedness of her cape. She took note of the brands, marked the page, giggling like a little girl the night before Christmas, while picturing herself finally wearing something that outlined the prowess of her true form. Out of curiosity, she grabbed the fourth magazine too, one whose cover was very different from the others. To her chagrin, she realized that she was staring at nothing else than an erotic magazine, whose front page prominently featured a scantly clad girl opening her mouth in a very suggestive way, with a blindfold covering her eyes and a rusty peace locket dangling between her bare breasts. She took a mental note of teaching Martina the difference between fashion and porn, but seen as the first Myadeline cover skirted the line between the two realms, she couldn’t even be that mad at her. She went back to the second magazine, in order to be sure she had got all details right. And, then, she noticed it. The freelance designer that drew those garments she was ogling at was…

A deep growl echoed inside her cabin.

Valentine “Mono” Kishima.

Of all people, her? That had to be a cruel joke, since the cause of her current situation was precisely the woman who designed the outfit she craved for. That was the kind of dramatic irony that would have led her to rip the page from the magazine and swallow it whole, after burning the rest in an impetus. Yet, she endured it, took a deep breath, calmed down.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I’m not passing on these clothes because of who made them. That plus-sized cat be damned.

Content with her deliberations and her countenance, she pulled the radio device from the wall of her cabin, quickly composing a number on it. Static noise welcomed her, before a male voice emerged from the speakers.

“Ue’ ue’? Who’s there?”

“Hi, Salvatore. It’s me, Lucia.”

“‘a riggina! What can I do for you?”

“Next time we make landfall, I want you and your team to gather intel on which ship will transport the ‘0K’ container for the upcoming Tokyo Fashion Show and when.”

“Thinking about ransom money? That sounds interesting, those ****” there, Salvatore used a slur for queer people, underlining it with a higher, squeakier voice tone “would pay everything for having back their ****-designed clothes!” he added, repeating the same expletive again for a good measure.

“Oh, no, no, no!”

Lucia laughed at the radio, while trying to force herself to keep a straight face.

“I’m just planning to go on a totally ordinary shopping spree.”

She could have waited for those clothes to hit the stores and send her men to grab them for her. She could have even have them delivered to her, using some front, or even grabbed some cheap South-African counterfeits as soon as they dropped. Yet, what was the use of having a full crew with knowledge of that trait of sea and a pirate ship at her disposal, if not to do some crazy stuff, once in a while? She grinned at the window, watching the calm waters outside. It would have been hard to wait so long to see her plan finalized, but the end result would have been totally worth it.

After all, she had all the time in the world.