The lilac dusk met nightfall as the futile protests of the plagiarists died to silence, and nineteen-year-old Wordless pressed her face to the glass to watch them. She clutched the window sill with paint-stained fingers and counted the men and women being loaded onto the military-style truck to be taken to prison—ten this time. There were fewer with each raid.

The Registry of Authorship was cracking down on non-writers. They would shuffle the talentless hacks to the bottom of the pile and make them disappear. Wordless eyed her Word Processor across the studio apartment and wondered if the Registry knew how very little she had done on her manuscript. Were they monitoring her? Was she next?

"Come away and write," Strange muttered. Wordless lifted jade eyes that connected with her lover's and read the sadness in his blues. He was concerned. His sallow skin boasted lack of sunlight; hers was too dark by comparison. He knew she had been sneaking out, ignoring her work, but she had to write.

"I can't. The colors interfere. I think of a subject and see it instead of hear it. How can I write?"

Her muscular thighs bunched as she crouched out of sight when one of the Registry of Authorship guards looked up at her window. The curtains fluttered shut. Wordless crawled to the canvas where a painting was taking shape. She would writer later. Always later.

In Papyrus, everyone was required to tell their story. They were born, they wrote, and they lived. It was the way things had gone as far back as anyone could remember. Word was religion and ruled with an iron fist, and those with no story were given one or deleted. There was no standard number of books a citizen had to release, but they all had to write at least one before their twenty-first birthday.

Strange pushed away from the desk with a scowl and dropped down next to her at eye-level. "This is no time for hobbies, Wordless. Your Primary Review with the Registry is weeks away, and you have nothing to show. If you can't produce planning notes or the start of a draft, I'm afraid I'll lose you." The cool silk of his caress to her face drew her attention. She looked from the acrylic portrait taking shape beneath her paintbrush. "I can't do this without you. You're my muse. Let me help you," he whispered.

"Muses are something writers made up to get laid." Her smile teased and revealed nothing of the thunderous roll of her heart beneath her ribcage. His kiss swept her anxiety under the rug and made her feel like prose, and yet she didn't have the words to describe it. Anything she wrote felt colorless, nothing like this kaleidoscope of bliss Strange inspired.

His nose bumped hers as he stared at her. "Let me write for you."

She shook her head swiftly. "No. You have your own work to do. I don't want you jeopardizing your next review. They'll cut your funding if you haven't met word-count goals, and you're barely eating enough as is. This whole mess makes me wish I could..."

"What?"

"...Rebel. Break with the status quo. I'd give them a story they'd be able to visualize."