Glk! Hurp! Ooooorrrgff! Eh? Eep!

The following has been a small but representative sample of the responses of Dulcinea d'Avingon to being the center of attention. In the event of a real emergency, you would have heard a high pitched shriek, followed by an explanation and detailed directions to the nearest emergency shelter, hospital tent, or Anti-Giant-Snake Zone. Thank you for your continued patience and cooperation!

So yeah, this is bad. Not, like, Jetpack Dinosaur bad, but still pretty aggressively not good. It turns out that metaphorical spotlights don't do self styled heroines who prefer to work from the shadows any more favors than do literal ones. It's why anybody with half a brain works out a system of what the acceptable ordering options are before they even go there if there is even the slightest chance they might wind up there again, because you never want to be the person the staff recognize on sight. You don't want to be the one they tell stories about because you took ages figuring this out in person, and you absolutely do not want to be that girl who only ever orders the one thing because you will walk in one day and a pretty waitress will smile at you and say, "The usual?" as she hands you a platter of chicken strips, and just... eeeuuuueh. Shiver. Gah. No. NO.

"What? Sure. Yes. No? Don't make this weird." says Dulcinea seconds before draining her entire iced melted ice cream in an awkwardly long shot.

And that's when everything goes really south, because there's a Rinley staring right at her. She winces. Audibly.

See, Rinley is... not a friend. We don't get to have friends, right Dulcey? So no, that is not what Rinley is. Rinley is a... Valued Research Assistant. Which is to say she occasionally provides very illuminating data when she walks right into an experiment and breaks all of the fragile and expensive equipment. She is a curse that you can summon by saying, "Gosh, this is delicate work!" or any number or more Normal People phrases that imply it. She is the kind of girl that will invite herself along to your late night bar crawl, tell you she isn't hungry, and then eat all of your fries while you're going over your notes. She cheats at Go. Probably? I mean, she has to be. She definitely cheats at Mario Kart. Who intentionally drops to 7th place just to pick up a gold mushroom? Who even does that???

Also not that anybody asked, but Rinley is unfairly, dangerously, lethally cute. That's how she gets away with all the other stuff, and why she has to be kept on a very tight leash a safe distance away whenever possible. Otherwise, weird little daydreams start creeping into field research where suddenly she's parked her silly foxy head on your lap and looking straight up with begging eyes and a fully blepped tongue and it's just like? Rinley??? Stop that. That's not what people's imaginations are for, Rinley.

"Right. Well. I see my ride, so I'm just gonna... yup! As you were, people. Toodles!"

And then she's off and it doesn't matter if she's going Too Fast or not because frankly regional properties are a dubious science at best and also because it means she's leaving her Most Important Problem right now before it can hurt her. Always dance with the devil you know, right? That's how she's wound up with her arm around Rinley's shoulders all conspiratorial-like (the sleeve is very damp, she's so sorry), spinning her right back around and leading her away from the cafe, deeper into the streets, and down an alley.

"Just the person I was looking for! Tell me, my dear, uh..." she snaps and (badly) pretends to fumble for the name, "...girl! When would you say you noticed that the sun was broken? And what are you prepared to do to fix it?"

Name, right, names are important, do not want to upset The Sun with no name or in fact anything else. "Ah, no. You are not in the Consuming Hells, and I am not a devil." Not technically a lie. "My name's Mila." Also not technically a lie, but we are not thinking about any other name we might have had no ma'am. "We're in Town, the outskirts by Lake. Not in Outside though. And... I know some courtly rituals but I don't know which are the right ones. I... I hope you're not offended?" Was that the right level of contrite? How do normal people react when they come face to face with Great Powers? Why didn't she study this?

"Oh!" said Jasper with a brilliant smile. "Of course that's fine, it's so much to remember - I'll teach you!" She walked over to Mila and stood behind her - her breath against your hair is so soft and warm you brain might melt away into the endless blue sky and dream of tropical islands. Forwardly, she pressed herself against your back, taking hold of both of your wrists - "You stand straighter, like this," murmured Jasper, remembering her own lessons. "This hand extended, this hand back here. Head high. You need to stand gloriously, as your most entire self, worthy of love. Believe in yourself!"

And then she swirled away in a burst of yellow fabric, walking backwards with a hand to her chin to inspect the results. "And of course if you wish to challenge me to a duel of swords, or dance, or weaving, or archery, that would be wonderful!" she said.

Have you ever looked at something and immediately realized you were going to love it? It hits you right in the chest with feelings you weren’t expecting and definitely didn’t ask for! Like, the first time you saw the abandoned shrine on Pomegranate Way, up on the hill, with the knotted ivy and the moss lingering on the stony statues of sages and dogs and the biggest tree you’ve ever seen, and you’ve seen some big trees before, and you just know that you’re going to be able to call up what you’re seeing like it’s a picture for the rest of your life? Or when you’re a kid, darting from street light to street light on your way home, singing “Blow Ye Winds” to yourself because everybody knows that ghosts can’t get you while you’re singing, and you’re really looking forward to being home, and you look up the slope and see the moon, nestled in the branches like a nest, and honestly that’s probably where we get the word from, and you’re just like, oh, and you stop singing and put your hands in your pockets and stare in awe as the wind shakes the trees and the moon slowly drifts along, and then you go home and think so hard about the moon that you end up engaging on Fortitude’s first LUNAR EXPEDITION from your bedroom, only eventually you realize you never left at all, but the cardboard box was an amazing moon rover. Like that. That’s what seeing supporting characters is like.

It’s also like the glow around menu options when you select them, pulsing and saying pay attention to me but the pulse is their heart talking to yours, but because they’re not me, they don’t know how to tune their heart like a radio to send transmissions clearly so all they can do is send out: is anyone listening? pay attention! is anyone listening? pay attention!

So of course I notice her. And I notice Dulcinea, and suddenly I am caught in the terrible jaws of a FRIENDSHIP QUANDARY, because I want to immediately sit down and figure out who this straw-haired girl is and why I haven’t seen her around before and what her name is and if she wants to hang out so I can figure out why she’s going to be an important character! But also, friendships are important to maintain, and I am basically Dulcinea’s best friend forever. And only friend? She’s kind of a shut-in, and she keeps telling me we’re not friends, and without her heart (most of the time) I can’t tune in properly to tell her that we’re totally friends. I’m friends with basically everybody, except for jerks and creeps. And Dulcinea isn’t either of those things! Usually!!

And ignoring a friend so that you can shovel more sweet nuggets of friendship into your mouth is the kind of thing that proves you don’t deserve to have that friendship in the first place! So there’s nothing for it: I’m going to have to duplicate myself.

It’ll be tricky. I don’t even know where I could get a copier machine at this hour! And the one in the Archives is way too small, I’d be left with a Rinley head (again) or a Rinley butt, and that’s only useful if I’m trying to trick someone into a cunning trap! Like, the bad guy’s looking for me, and they see my tail nooooot quite tucked in behind a tree, so they creep up with their chainsaw gun and when they peek around the tree, surprise! It’s my butt! And I’m up in the tree dropping a fishing net on them, and when I pull off their mask, it turns out to be..... Principal Entropy??? And he would have gotten away with it, too, if not for my butt! Then, when the sheriff takes him away, I’m allowed to keep the chainsaw gun because I was a responsible citizen, which I then use in only the most responsible manner at a chainsaw gun range. But this is not a situation in which having a spare butt would be useful! So it has to be a Rinley-sized copier machine, and I need to have good paper, too, because if there’s a paper jam then the Rinley that crawls out will be in endless torment and want to fix herself with my skin, and I need my skin for a lot of things, like sunbathing, and swatting mosquitos, and getting scritches, and holding all my gross guts inside me where they can’t try to escape (except for that cheating appendix, who I’m keeping an eye on). So that wouldn’t be any good.

And I can’t stomp so hard I tear in half, either, because then I’d have to hop over to both of them and be like, hey, ignore that I only have one eye and one arm and one leg, I promise I’m not one of the dread Fomorians, and then Dulcinea would lecture me about how symbolism works whether you want it to or not, and the straw-haired girl would probably be too distracted by my resemblance to the Fomorians to become my friend, and would just want to hang out as long as I could curse her enemies, though I can’t imagine she has a lot of enemies and oh hello Dulcy I guess we are going into this Sideways now!

(Here in Fortitude, we call little alleys like this Sideways, cause that’s short for Outside Ways. I think that’s neat!)

“The sun’s broken?” I gasp! This Glass Dragon business goes all the way to the top! Literally!! “Of course, that’s the connection,” I say, smacking my fist into my palm. “Dulcy, have you ever heard the story of the Glass Dragon? Because, storytime!”

You're talking. But for your info, a normal person who is a Fortitude resident would be relatively nonchalant in this scene, even if she were to conclude that one or both of you were goddesses. Fortitude's got plenty a goddess in it. They deserve respect, don't get me wrong, but it's really nothing to get huffy over. I don't mean to interrupt though, carry on.

You see, the issue with this is that Mila, being a person without a childhood, among other things lacking, does not know this.

"Oh!" said Jasper with a brilliant smile. "Of course that's fine, it's so much to remember - I'll teach you!" She walked over to Mila and stood behind her - her breath against your hair is so soft and warm you brain might melt away into the endless blue sky and dream of tropical islands. Forwardly, she pressed herself against your back, taking hold of both of your wrists - "You stand straighter, like this," murmured Jasper, remembering her own lessons. "This hand extended, this hand back here. Head high. You need to stand gloriously, as your most entire self, worthy of love. Believe in yourself!"

And then she swirled away in a burst of yellow fabric, walking backwards with a hand to her chin to inspect the results. "And of course if you wish to challenge me to a duel of swords, or dance, or weaving, or archery, that would be wonderful!" she said.

She shivers for reasons entirely unrelated to cold as she's shown the pose, and does her best. She makes the motions exactly right. That's the most painful part of this. It's a pale imitation of what it should be and something is deeply off. But once she breaks the pose, it becomes not quite as stark. "I am afraid of those I can only dance, and I don't know what'd be at stake." She smiles. "So, ah, do you plan to stay in the area long? Or would you like to duel for answers to a question?"

"What? No, I... what? What?? That's so st-- where do you even... what? Rinley, this is serious!"

This is all coming out as high-pitched yelling. Sorry about that. She doesn't mean it! She's not gonna say that, but it's true! This is just... kind of one of the worst days of her life, at least in recent memory. She really wanted to wear this turtleneck and feel cute today! She spit in the face of probability and had the audacity to hope for once!

And look where that got her! She's sweaty and sticky, Rinley! Her eye shadow is running so badly it looks like she's starting to cry tar! Her hair is... ugh. Ugh! It's so bad right now! She's going to need a shower! Do you have any idea how dangerous that sort of thing can be? What if she drowns? Oh jeez, she's probably going to drown and die and that's just going to ruin her entire weekend! And she just had a bunch of people staring at her! Which is awful, ok? A cafe owner just asked her if she was alright! A cafe owner, Rinley!!

"Listen, just... first of all, ok? The glass dragon story is obviously a metaphor for nuclear war. It's a reference to dragons being really hot, like atomic... no, the other way around, whatever. Like bombs, ok? And the classic slang term 'glassing' for dropping them. And nobody here has any nuclear armaments. I know because I've checked several times. So put that out of your... and I mean, even if there was a glass dragon, it would not be controlled by a glass remote. You'd need a scepter or a tiara, or... or... anyway! It's an inherently fragile design to begin with, so that's the kind of problem that solves itself. Cool? Cool, moving on.

Second of all! The sun is not going to 'stop being a sun'. And even if it did, there's... that's already taken care of, alright? There are, you know, contingencies for that sort of thing."

She brushes her fingers across her chest where her heart used to be without really meaning to. Her whole look goes super wistful for a second. Then she sneezes, which sounds like if a kitten got into a helium supply, and the whole thing passes.

"Third of all, you need to stop cutting to the front of the line on your conclusions. Haven't I told you a dozen times? Premature theses are dangerous! Possibly the most dangerous thing in the universe! All we know for sure right now is that today, uh... um... Th-Thursday? Is it Thursday? I'm sorry I was trying to get my calendar to work inside my phone and my calculator together. You know, like an app! But I used too much wolf and now it's kind of gone fer... you know what, you don't need the details. The point is, days of the week are hard right now.

Regardless! We know that on this day, the sun began exhibiting Overly Sun-Like Qualities, such as being too darn hot, and getting hotter after getting cooler for a period of 22.7 repeating minutes. There's simply not enough data to make such a strong concluding statement, all right? And that is why... we're going to take measurements! For GRAPHS!"

And the way her face lights up, she sincerely believes this is the most exciting thing that's going to happen to anybody today.

She shivers for reasons entirely unrelated to cold as she's shown the pose, and does her best. She makes the motions exactly right. That's the most painful part of this. It's a pale imitation of what it should be and something is deeply off. But once she breaks the pose, it becomes not quite as stark. "I am afraid of those I can only dance, and I don't know what'd be at stake." She smiles. "So, ah, do you plan to stay in the area long? Or would you like to duel for answers to a question?"

"Oh! Oh!" Jasper jumps up in the air with the excitement of someone who's never had someone challenge her to a duel before. "You actually want to - Yes! Yes, anything you'd like! Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, you want to dance -" she holds up one finger, turns around, and there is the sound of muffled squealing into a shirt sleeve. Then she straightens up and turns around regally with a completely impassive expression. "I accept your challenge and your terms," said Jasper Inkra stiffly. "The victorious will have total command over the secrets of the defeated -" there is a lot of willpower going into keeping a giddy grin off her face. "And as is expected, the challenger may be the first to dance."

Jasper paused and looked around. "Where are your backup dancers?" she asked.

“Oh, Dulcy!” I close my eyes and shake my head, astonished at how gullible my bestie can be. “Don’t tell me you actually believe in ‘nuclear weapons’!” Yes, I do the finger quotes. “Because, first of all, if they’re real, why has nobody ever made one? Second of all, even if somebody did make one, probably in the Bleak Academy, nobody in their right mind would ever use it! You have got to get your head out of those conspiracy theories, girl!”

But she’s got a point about my remote theory. Why didn’t I consider the tiara? It’s perfect! Witches love tiaras. Wait, no, that’s magical girls. I was a magical girl once! My name was Rinley Lovebell, and I had the magical power of heart! Together, me and my friends defeated the shoggoth of Neo Tokyo 7 through superior firepower! Then they started licking themselves and lying in sunbeams. It turned out all my friends were cats! And the shoggoth was a cucumber. Since then, I’ve never eaten cucumbers. What if it wants revenge?

Huh wait we’re doing graphs? Yeah! I know all about graphs! Autographs, graphite pencils, and mimeographs! “Okay,” I say, with a thumbs up, “But you’re providing the pencils! The cats keep stealing mine.”

"Backup dancers?" She stops, frozen momentarily from fear. Then grasps at it, like a desperate person would at a lifeline. "Yes, backup dancers, we'll need to figure out a good time to arrange this for later when they're available. Guess we'll have to schedule it later!" Wait wait crap there was a bit mentioned there. "And it was for ONE QUESTION, not all the secrets!"

Okay, let's fade out for a moment. Let me toss around some XP while I'm at it
[Rinley: I got an "oh no, Rinley!" from Dulcinea there, take 1 emotion XP. You also proposed a theory about your underlying situation, so that's an Adventure Get! XP.
Dulcinea: You got Rinley involved in your research. 1 Outside Stirs XP
Jasper: 1 emotion XP for DANCE CONTEST!
Mila: 1 emotion XP for being the recipient of DANCE CONTEST. Poor thing.]

*****

So, we started on a nice warm day, let's jump ahead. It's now the middle of the week, let's say Thursday. It's still spring, but the weather is looking foul today. Threatening clouds and a sporadic drizzle, plus there's been this flare up of Outside dust. It's ruining things near the docks especially more fragile and less well-maintained things. The wood's holding up, but old rope is fraying and giving out entirely, books are getting ruined if they aren't inside behind some good quality glass, produce that was left out is inedible, and rust and stains are appearing on metals and paints. Even clothing isn't totally safe, though if it's nice clothing that you've taken care of, it's probably holding up well enough.

Some places, it's acting extremely unfairly. Shokyou's little room in Fortitude seems to have drawn quite a lot of it, even through the closed windows, and her terrible agony at her lost comics ring out through the block.

Mila, your little shop that you've started working on seems to have gotten it badly as well. The dust snuck in under the door and found some old dry rot where you hadn't gotten around to refurbishing yet. Turns out it was weaker than expected and a whole set of shelves with at supplies gave out, dumping everything unceremoniously onto the floor near the back. The Archive where you're staying is pretty okay though, but you're going to have a lot of work just to get yourself back to how things were for your project.

*****

Jasper, the weather is terrible. Water fell from the sky earlier today! Is that supposed to happen? Maybe the sky is broken and it will just keep happening forever? Your stuff is pretty okay though, the dust just can't really get to you in a personal sense (and if it could, you have this uncanny feeling that you could just fix that and probably manifest some new power to go with it). But the world around you seems a bit the worse for wear. How in blazes are you going to manage a dance off with conditions like this?!

*****

Dulcinea, this is worse than normal and your equipment is picking up spikes that indicate the outside dust is behaving in a targeted way. This is two data points of unusual behavior. TWO! Do you know what you can do with two data points? You can draw a line! A LINE, Dulcinea. Lines have slopes and they indicate things like trends that predict future results. Any more data points and you might need to do Statistics.

You've got a couple pretty good leads. You're close enough to notice the impact on Shokyou and you can tell even from a distance that the Archive is weathering this better than normal. Either one could provide you with not only more data, but better data! You might even get some proper thaumaturgical readings for your notebook. Moreover, the odds of this being connected to dinosaur shrine maidens are low, but you can't rule out that possibility either without some investigation.

So, where do you go?

*****

And lastly, Rinley. I get the sense that not even an outside storm can really keep you down. You could intervene in any of the goings on of your friends (the new girl with the sunny disposition is definitely going to hold a dance off sometime today, you can feel it). But, if I had to guess, I think you're looking for that girl with her straw hair in the twin braids. The one you didn't quite manage to connect with because Dulcinea impressed you into making graphs. But now you've got the chance to look and a couple days of exploits with which to regale a new friend! Where do you think you'll find the lovely young lady?

Jasper Inkra is pretty sure she is dying.

The rain isn't coincidental - the rain is happening because that is what happens when the sun dies. The sky goes black and poison falls in shards of broken arrows and it sucks all the light and heat from her trembling body. The hollow feeling at her core that she identified before as the Lighthouse's curse has become increasingly intense, sending spasms of agony through her entire body. But worst of all has been the incomprehensible sensations that enter her face through her nose. Like the tempting colours of the Consuming Hells they torment her with desires she can't articulate or understand.

Strength has left her body. She's wracked with cramps. She can't stop making the sneeze-sound that Mila made before and every time she does it's awful. She's at once deliriously hot and freezing cold and she was right the first time and this is the Consuming Hells and it's awful and Mila is a devil and she lied to her and this is all part of her scheme to win the dance contest and she doesn't care any more and just wants to go home...

(To anyone looking at her it would be very plain that Jasper hasn't eaten for three days and is misdiagnosing starvation as a yozi plot)

The temperature over the past few days has been dropping like a stone - her arrival hit forty degrees and three days later it's less than nine. The town weatherman has been dropping all his christmas in july jokes and it's insufferable.

JOURNAL ENTRY NUMBER ̴̟͈̂͌̈́͊̏͋̅̾̄̕9̸̢̱͖̅̃͒͊̚͝8̶̨̳̻̬͎̭̪͎̾͐̓7̵͓̘́̾̂

The math was... wrong? That doesn't make any sense; math is never wrong. I must have done the math wrong. Except that doesn't make any sense either. I'm me! Unless I'm secretly Me-Alternative and I just lack the critical memory components to realize that at present. Regardless! Project: Gwaihir has been a complete and utter waste of time. Re-recording the project notes below for posterity:

# Rinley is a [praise redacted]! It's so simple! For generation of data pertaining to the sun, there's no better starting point than eagles! Obvious. Obvious, I say! The only problem is... 'acquisition'.
# Acquisition completed. Turns out the local supermarket is still selling six-packs, even though eagles are definitively out of season. Perfect!
# Wait. How do I actually get the data from them? They are birds. Would take literal years to learn their dialect. Somehow moths?
# Nevermind, got it. Will be installing the USB ports later this evening
# Preliminary surgeries 5/6 complete. Birds are taking well to the new kill switches.
# Note for posterity: it is always easier to lead with installing an on/off switch in subjects when performing acts of nightmare surgery. save on anesthesia that way. also makes it easier to get all the wires in there without zapping yourself.
# Have begun considering designating a Primary Eagle for higher altitude observations by grafting wings/engines from a C-5 Galaxy to it. A Lockheed-Eagle. An Eagleed, if you will.
# The Eagleed has done a nose-dive directly into my washing machine. Devastation is beyond repair AN INTRIGUING CHALLENGE. What hath science wrought????
# IT IS COLD NOW AJFJFJSKAKJJSLLSODHFHGHAHSKNKJBPIIQHOHOBDF
# WASTE OF MY TIME I SWEAR TO
# NEVER
# AND I MEAN NEVER
# TAKE ADVICE FROM A RINLEY
# ever

****

Dulcinea grumpily trudges her way toward the door and unthinkingly grabs an umbrella as she passes through the door. A chorus of frightened squawks and screeches falls silent as she slams her thumb onto a button that looks like a garage door opener. Somewhere on the other side of Town, a garage door opens. Still elsewhere, the stars spin stories of such incredible beauty and softness that if you had the ears to understand them you would weep forever until you died from dehydration. Also, somewhere? Ms. Anderson's dog is barking.

She stomps down the stairs, not caring what her neighbors think, and kicks the door open with one angry boot. Her wool sweater, apart from being so black it looks like it's been charred rather than sourced from a local black sheep, is pleasantly and perfectly warm and cozy. Her miniskirt and fishnets are decidedly less so. The umbrella opens even as she's crossing the threshold and instantly her world is filled with the fierce sound of rain. She kicks a puddle, gingerly sticks the umbrella in the clip on her Whoops Wait One Minute Pole, and kicks the door back open to stomp her way back up the steps.

Forgot her bag. She checks to make sure it's got what she needs. Wand? Check. Calipers? Also check. Dust-Containing-Glass-Test-Tubes? Check, check, and check again. Unreasonably Tiny Vacuum? That's a big check. Spare notebook? You know it, baby. Last known printing of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles? Don't... actually know what that is, but check? Ok, that's everything. Fist pump!

STOMP. STOMP. STOMP! KICK!!

Dulcinea daintily plucks her umbrella up again and starts dejectedly making her way down the street. Other setbacks notwithstanding, this is too good an opportunity to gather fresh data points for plotting. Unfortunately... everybody knows that rigor demands you start by gathering information about the worst-hit parts of a disaster first, and then you start checking into the one place that's mysteriously more ok than everywhere else to see if it has a property or circumstance you can replicate for widescale protection. Without a clear concept of why things are being targeted and what's actually happening to victims and victim-sites, even a notebook is scarce protection against the dangers of drawing biased conclusions.

So she's not going to the Archives today. Or to eat lunch at that posh new gastropub. Or anything else that might be fun or relaxing (but not too relaxing). No, she's going to see...

(shudder)

Shoukyo.

Unless maybe a convenient dinosaur shrine maiden would like to go rampaging about Town right now? She looks about hopefully.

[Storytime: 1/9
Adventure GET: 2/21]

Hold up! Maybe I missed it because it was on the last page, but you asked me who in my family is the best cat-speaker, and I just let that slide on by, a narrative hook unbitten! If I don’t fix that right here and now, nobody’s going to know anything about my family, and at that point I might as well just say that I’m an orphan who was raised by cats, and now when witches plague the streets of Fortitude, I pull on my cat mask and take to the streets as Catmaiden, a grizzled vigilante shrine maiden who adopts orphaned rats and broods on the roofs about how both my parents were stolen by birds. But don’t worry, only Mom was stolen by a bird.

I think my dad used to be the best, but these days he’s a little... you know? He travels a lot on business and doesn’t leave the house a lot in this time-space continuum. Sometimes I run into him in the kitchen. I don’t usually see the cats around.

My older siblings are both Claimed by rat gods. Kuroma is King Death, who passes by night, whose sword is naked, who reaps where he does not sow; he is the statue crumbling in the wilderness that says “—EED MY WO—“ on it and the cart full of tiny rat bodies and the lights all turned out. He eats like he’s still a teenager and sleeps in until noon and sulks around, usually, and he’s not so much good at talking to cats as he is an oversized lazy tom, you know? Wait, not lazy. Well, kinda? But in that “I have lots of energy but no pressing need to use it” way of a cat melting into the sofa cushions.

Caroline is the Dread Witch of the Far Roofs, and she’s the best cat-speaker, because she can actually have conversations with the cats. Technically all the cats of Fortitude have sworn fealty to her to act as her minions, but that works maybe twelve percent of the time? Cats aren’t good at things like remembering orders or guarding prisoners or even paying attention. But she’s their Baba Yaga, their cackling broomstick hag, except don’t tell her I used the h-word okay? She gets really mad because she’s not even thirty yet. It’s her job to be the dangerous witch they visit because they need a prophecy, or to steal a treasure, or to prove that they’re brave, and she hardly ever actually kills one, and even then...

Look, it’s always an accident, okay? The Witchness comes unhinged inside her, and she locks herself in her room with ice cream and Shelley the tortoiseshell for days after. She’s not evil. She’s a grounding rod for a god.

Hang on, you might say, squinting suspiciously at me, Rinley, if both your big siblings are hosts for dread and powerful rat gods, why aren’t you, like, Eater-of-candles or the Rice Fox? And you ask that because you’re not using your brain, silly! I’m Rinley. I’m already walking a road, and at the end of it, I’m immortal and forever until crows forget how to say words, after somebody like Dulcy actually builds a nuclear weapon and kills everybody.

And today, if this is a Rinley story, Rinley decided to walk outside with an umbrella made of a giant lily pad because she was sitting inside, leading around the Admiral and Phoebe with the feather-on-a-string, when suddenly the urge to walk picked her up and put the feather on the cat tower and shoved her feet into her sandals and pushed her outside where she took a breath of the air which was cool and much more real than the cloyingly sweet air of her home, and that’s not to say she doesn’t like it, and contrariwise it’s always a bit of a shock, like there should be a depressurization chamber in the middle that she’s skipped, some room where she can turn a dial and raise the ambient levels of reality and objectivity until she’s ready to be in Fortitude, but it’s better this way because she keeps some of that sweet incense soaked into her shirt and coiled around her belt and kissed into her hair and it lets her bring just a little bit of her home into sleepy old Fortitude, to push things just over that line into the way they should be.

That’s my explanation for where I am right now. I was walking, and now I’m not. There is a lily pad that’s crumpling and rusting under the rain tucked into my shoulder, and the circle of runoff is getting smaller and smaller all around me, and very soon now I am going to get an object lesson in why more people don’t use lily pads as umbrellas. I really should get up and duck underneath the overhang of that tiny roadside shrine, the one with the tiny stone statues in iconic form, with the red aprons tied around their waists, as I figure out some way to not get soaked, such as digging a tunnel (no good, I’d dig into Big Lake) or knitting all the aprons into a new umbrella (but then I’d have to make new ones or suffer their curse, slowly turning into another stone statue, shrinking and becoming firmer every day until I’m found, a tiny weather-worm statue, lying in the middle of the road) or even waiting it out (but then I’d have to figure out something to do while waiting out the storm). But I don’t. I can’t get up.

My skin is prickling and pleasantly chill. I’m squatting by the side of a man-made lake, watching as the water droplets hammer down between the growing stalks of rice, and my mind’s a lake being drummed into stillness by rain, and my butt’s sitting on my haunches with my tail wrapped around me and my breath’s all slow, my chest rising, falling, rising, and I feel half a statue right now already, and the sky’s grey and the water’s grey and I’m going grey to match them in my heart, a cool slate grey like the eyes of a studly sword hero with a quiet voice, and the sound of the rain falling is a curtain of beads swaying in a summer breeze, and there are frogs croaking their lovesongs out of sight and birds croaking and I’m silent and still and the run-off from the lily pad is nearly at my knees now.

Maybe I’ll go look for someone later but I think that happens after I get wet, which happens a moment from now, five million years from now, an age of the world from now. And maybe you’ll wag your finger at me and say, Rinley, you’re supposed to be connecting with these important people, take a point of the Isolation issue, and honestly, fair, but just because this story is about me and my friends doesn’t mean moments like this don’t still happen, and this is the moment I have right here and now, and I need this moment alone with just the sound of the world around me and the chill prick prick prickling at my skin and the emotion which doesn’t have a name, which denies naming, the emotion of places and experiences which are uncontainable in a little box of understanding, the three-in-the-morning feeling, the feeling of being a Yatskaya, and right now I’m as much Yatskaya as I am Rinley, and I am quiet and I let the world fill my empty places and it’s important, it’s necessary that this be alone, at least until the lily pad collapses, because being empty in the world is different when you’re holding hands with someone; it stops you from becoming a statue, an empty pitcher, a little idol wrapped in a red apron sitting soaked by the side of a rice field.

But I also think probably somebody sees the lily pad dump water on my head.

Mila is finishing up with the cleanup. It is a maid cafe, of course, and never mind that yesterday it was instead focused on beat poetry, she felt like that'd be too insincere and she'd only get people who showed up because they looked up what beat poetry is after seeing her cafe's name and that doesn't seem like a good idea, so instead it is a maid cafe. And as it is a maid cafe, and she is the only one working there, she is wearing a maid outfit. Never mind that it isn't open yet, she needs to get used to the uniform after all, but this does leave her in a maid outfit, having finished the sweeping and restacking the supplies that fell and making a plan for new shelves and now she is going after the Outside dust with a feather duster and is starting to second guess her choice of outfits because what if somebody walks in right now this would be mortifying.

Jasper and Dulcinea!

Dulcinea, as you round the corner towards the front side of Shokyu's house, which overlooks a small shopping street, you see an intriguing young woman just sort of standing there as another drizzle picks up. She looks deeply in pain and your InnerTurmoilometer is reading off the charts! Despite this clear reading of what should be massive internal crisis, you feel an odd connection to this person, like she'd be strangely easy for you to get along with.

[This is something you'd be able to get an even better read on if you were to spend Will on your weather sense skill to do a really good job of weather science for this situation. A 4+ result there might give you some significant scientific and personal insight into the lady in front of you and your broader investigation, and a 6+ would let you be showy about it.]

Jasper, you're a bit caught up in yourself at the moment, but the young woman who rounds the corner with her umbrella and her journal out seems like someone you could talk to about your problems. More even than normal I mean. Maybe she could help break your curse? Or at least help you feel better about being cursed forever.

*****

Rinley! Ask and ye shall receive. This is a lovely slice of life XP action. I can just see the rain starting to pool on your lily pad as you stay and reflect on your family. From above, it starts as a few drops gathering in the center, almost helping you keep the lily pad's balance. But it starts getting heavier and the shape isn't quite regular so the water makes the stem start to list to one side. You subconsciously adjust, but there's more and more and the stem of a lily pad isn't really known for its tensile strength. So...after a few moments it tilts and SPLOOSH!!! there's a big puddle of water splashing on your head. Take 1 XP. Oh and here, while you're at it, flings take this Silver Something to Deal With Issue. It's not isolation, you were socializing with Dulcy earlier this week, but it's clear you're really focused on your thoughts. The Issue bounces near you with a distinctive *dink* sound. You now know that Silver issues go *dink*

[As a reminder, you get +1 MP for that, and you've now got the thought
You keep thinking about things you don’t want to think about. It’s uncomfortable. You want to distract yourself from it.]

You are immediately distracted by the sound of light, tinkling laughter carrying over the storm. It seems that at some point while you were lost in thought, that girl with the straw hair came up behind you to look at what you were doing. She's wearing a royal blue raincoat and holding what looks to be some kind of giant dandelion for an umbrella. It's sort of doing its job as the rain bounces and slides around the puffs and drips around her instead of on her, but it's looking sort of like it might get waterlogged if she doesn't find shelter soon.

"I think you forgot to empty your lily" she says with a laugh, but she's also reaching out a hand to help you up from your unceremonious soaking. Maybe it's time you both sought some shelter?

*****

Mila, the work is going well. Now that you've turned your attention to the corner, you've managed to dust things up without getting the lace on your dress dusty at all. You're working on replacing the boards, which is not too bad, you've found the studs in the wall easily enough to get the dry rot boards out and the supplies are safely out of the way in the corner.

Now, I do hate to break it to you, but there's someone at the door. Inside the door, actually. She's already opened it and is peaking inside at you. You and your thick maid's dress with its layers of poofy fabric and your lovely bonnet and all. She's got red hair worn loose. It's looking a bit windblown and it's hanging to just above her shoulders. Navy blue turtleneck and jeans, and a bright yellow umbrella.

"Oh hey, um, sorry if I'm...uh...intruding..." she says when she realizes you noticed her. "I just, I was walking over to Shokyu's cuz I figured she'd need some help, but I heard something here and I thought this place was abandoned, I mean, you know, because I've lived around here for a long while, like a long while, and it's been abandoned for most of that while, which is a thing I would remember. So, I mean, I figured I'd check it out when I heard somebody here. And um...I didn't know the owner had hired a maid! My name's Seizhi, it's very nice to meet you!"

She extends one hand while kind of working at lowering her umbrella one-handed with the other one.

[I'll note that your scene is invoking a Fortitude region property. If you wanted to do something here, mundane or miraculous, it might be better than normal. Or if you see a way that your hard work gets you into trouble as Seizhi enters the scene, you can pick up an extra MP for your future use.]

"...Walked this ENTIRE way and STILL not a single dinosaur, maiden, shrine or otherwise! What kind of two bit, third rate sorry excuse for a--"

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! Dulcinea is on the warpath, and she's making a point of stamping every puddle on her way, because every tiny distraction is another half second she doesn't have to put up with the Wishing Girl and that makes it time worth spent. That's what carries her across the street in the first place, ranting and tossing her umbrella between her hands depending on which one she needs free for gesticulating.

"Can't BELIEVE I pay all these taxes and we can't even get a SIMPLE scientific quandary resolved without half a dozen things exploding. Metaphorically, even! Because of course they wouldn't ACTUALLY blow up! That might be COOL! I swear to... ngghffrrbl... rrrrrgh! And other words!"

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! In incomparable Ms. d'Avignon trudges miserably within inches of the only person in Fortitude who maybe (maybe) surpasses her own abject misery. She clomps on by with loud stomps and louder ranting without so much as a sideways glance and disappears around a corner.

Three.

Two.

One.

Dulcinea is moonwalking. She reappears around the corner and slides back to the spot where she picked up the strange reading, still facing the same direction she was originally travelling. She overshoots her new mark by a full twenty paces. When she starts walking forward again she's considerably more measured. All stomped out, if you prefer. She turns her head and properly looks at Jasper for the first time.

She almost drops her umbrella.

"You! Are! PERFECT! omg omg omg omg just... stay right there! Don't move a... here, hold this for me. No wait wait, actually, hold this, hold this! I can't believe my luck!"

Without waiting for a response, she shoves the umbrella in Jasper's drooping hand and doesn't seem to care or notice that a cold drizzle is now soaking and chilling her through to the bone. There's goosebumps crawling up and down her for all intents and purposes bare legs but there's no time for that right now because she's got about thirty things to fish out of her--

No hold on a second she's not holding the umbrella right, just... lift that arm up like this... a little to the left and... ok, now she's got about thirty things to fish out of her bag. She drops the bag carelessly on the sidewalk before tucking her notebook inside it with surgical precision. Her first prizes in her self looting spree include an empty test tube, a flashlight, a pocket knife, a stethoscope, on old popsicle stick that from the looks of things was grape flavored once upon a time, and a pair of absurdly unfashionable glasses, which she immediately slides on her face.

"Hm, hm, I see... interesting. Interesting..."

She's got the popsicle stick in her mouth as she works. Working is probably the wrong word for it, though. Dulcinea dances. She snatches individual raindrops from the sky and places them in her test tube, mixing them together with a vigorous swirling motion before holding them up to what light there is today and then draining the contents into her own mouth. She swirls the rainwater around in her mouth before swallowing and making a surprised face.

"Really? But then..."

Long and, if we're being honest, kind of rough and bony fingers grab your face, Jasper. She traces the contours of your jaw, turns your head from side to side, tilts it up, tilts it down again, shines her flashlight in your eyes, then your ears, and then your mouth, asking 'and how do you feel?' roughly every quarter second or so without exactly waiting for an answer. How about now? How about now? How about now??

That seems to be enough. She snaps the pocket knife back out from the inside of her shoe and clicks the blade open with a casual flick of her wrist. She shakes her head, gingerly replaces the blade, then pulls out the special one that's underneath it. And she jumps! Hop hop hop! She's really got no hops, quite frankly, you'd be in huge trouble if you wound up with her on your pick up basketball team, but it's enough to get her high enough to make her little curvy slash slash motions through the air above her own umbrella. Where the blade slices through the rain, the air falls away. Several raindrops are cut in half. She cuts four lines in a square(ish) pattern and then plucks the resulting swatch of rain-soaked air out of the sky, turning it over and over in her hands before crumpling it up and tossing it onto the street over her shoulder.

Her conscience crystal turns an angry shade of red. That's littering, Dulcinea! She shrugs and stuffs the little know-it-all back in her back in the same motion that she draws her notebook back out and starts rapidly jotting down a universe's worth of notes in incredibly tiny letters.

"Right! So! How about we start with the obvious question: is there a... particular reason you haven't eaten anything in the last 72 hours? Is there some festival I wasn't informed of? New religion? Old religion? Lost a bet? You lost a bet, didn't you."

[you'd best believe we're dropping 4 willpower on gettin' that 6]

This... this Jasper understands.

Dances. Why does it seem like this girl is dancing? It's like nothing she's ever seen before but... there's rhythm to it. There's passion to it. There's knowledge and practice and instinct so deep that each of these motions carries its own music. She's seen devils dance before but this is something else entirely - cold and joyful and curious and revealing, like she's being peeled apart layer by layer. It's a dance that reveals more about the world than the dancer, but expresses the dancer's heart in that very curiosity.

She's never seen anything like it.

For the first time in her life she's speechless when asked a question. And then the questions keep coming! And each time she untangles her tongue enough to start saying something her head is yanked to the side and she's asked something else! Her thoughts and feelings are wrung from her in Ers and Ums and Eeps! Every time she tries to put on a brave face all it earns her is a tiny frown and an intensive ocular examination. But even through this total deconstruction, Jasper never once stops trying to hold the umbrella over Dulcinea's head no matter how much she appreciates the relief from the rain. Even here on the brink, the instinct to see other people safe and warm and dry takes priority.

And then there's a pause, and Jasper is half way through her first sentence before she realizes she hasn't been interrupted.

"I don't know what you mean by 'eating' -" she said, then froze as she remembered her manners. "I am Jasper Inkra, and I am - ah - a-tsnk!" she unsuccessfully attempted to hide a tiny sneeze in her shoulder. "Honour..." despite it being soaking wet her throat was somehow the opposite and resisted every word. "T-to - um..." she stared with watering eyes, trying her best to be strong. Her duty was to fight for the smiles of everyone, to fill the world with light and she couldn't let down this vivid stranger. "I've... I'm... are you the...?" Her teeth chattered away the last of the words, every part of her shaking except for the arm trying to hold the umbrella over Dulcinea.

[Storytime: 1/9
Adventure GET: 3/21
Up to Date: 1/15
Something To Deal With 1]

There's a train that runs from Horizon to Arcadia, and from here, we can see it go rumbling on by. I think it's better that there's no train station here. I mean, it's not exactly convenient that you have to take the bus or walk over the hill to get to Horizon, but that means the train's always like that: beautiful and far away, the orange of its windows a contrast against the grey of the sky. We didn't go underneath that tiny shrine, because there's no way both of us would have fit unless we squeezed together, and something about that idea sends fireworks right up my tail, so we didn't; I just folded up my lily pad and let her hold the dandelion's drooping head over mine so that both of us were getting a little wet, and I thanked her and said something silly about how I usually do empty my lily, but I was just lost in... and then I waved my hand at the world. And I think she understood, or at the very least she nodded and smiled at me and I got really hot against my wet clothes, which of course aren't so much drenched as temporarily inconvenienced by the rain, and I did throw on a coat as I was walking out, but it's not a rain coat, so it's much more wet than the rest of me, because it's something I threw on. At least the rain's good for the flowers in my crown, and it makes hair nice and shiny, though it's nowhere near as good as rubbing in some proper fish guts. It's a Fortitude thing; over in Horizon they use this really slimy shampoo, and there's all kinds of hair products you can get in Arcadia, but over here there's nothing as good for the outsides of a head than the insides of a fish. Anyway, we didn't really say anything important before the dandelion started to really droop and we had to make a mad dash for the tree down the road, laughing and shrieking a little, and now we're here, pulses thumping and smiles showing and listening as the rain decides to double down, and pretty soon it'll just be a curtain draped over the fields, and I turn my head and watch as the train goes by.

Is there anybody in there looking out? You don't need to answer, I'm just thinking out loud. It's the question that always pricks at me when I look at that train go by. It's so far away that even if someone was sitting with their head against the window, I wouldn't be able to pick them out from all the seats, and if someone was sitting with their cheek against the glass, feeling the coolness of the pane and the rumblethump of the wheels, they'd just see a tree gripping the earth with its roots, standing unremarkably next to this rice field, in a landscape more like a quilt of fields and gardens and houses and trees and little winding streets, settled over the earth like she's peeking out from under the quilt on a winter morning, thinking about how beautiful the swirling snow is outside, but how much warmer it is underneath the quilt. I don't know them and they don't know me, but if I happen to be looking at that train, and at the very same time they happen to be looking at the tree, maybe just for a moment there's a connection between us, and it's just as real even if we don't know about it. It's the not knowing that makes it special, actually. Rain trickles down onto the collar of my shirt and I shiver, before turning back to my new friend.

"So I'm Rinley," I say, pointing up at the ears. Twitch, twitch! "The Rinley. You know. But I haven't met you before! I mean, I saw you the other day, but I'm pretty sure that's the first time, and I know basically everybody in town, so that means I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't get to know you, too! I mean, can you really call yourself part of the community if you don't know me? So tell me your deal. Are you from Fortitude? Or did you move here? Is it your lungs? Or a family member's? The air here's really good for the lungs. I'm sure you or they will make a full recovery, even if it takes a little while. Or, are you, no, I don't think you're American," I add, really looking at her. She's pretty like an American, but she doesn't have that, you know, je ne sais eagle. "I'm Rinley," I blurt onto the end, even though I'd already said that. "What's your name? What are you doing out here? Do you like my umbrella? I like yours, even though it's drooping a lot. We can share mine once the rain settles down." My grip tightens on the stalk. I want to be her friend so bad. It's important! She's got that sense of importance and weight to her, that selectable menu option fuzz, and if we're friends it'll be cool to hang out together. I don't have a lot of friends friends, even if I know basically everybody, and why else would I want her to like me so much if I didn't want to be her friend?

Please like me, my heart blurts out to her heart. Please please please. I promise I'm cool and I'm good at telling stories and you're really pretty and I think I want to hold your hand. My heart's terrible at lying. If I knew what I was doing, I'd use my heart to tell her: I'm super cool and you should tell me everything interesting about you and listen to me when I talk, but you have to be really honest when you're speaking with your heart. And it's not like normal talking where you're hearing the words, it's more like... like being able to convey the meaning of what I want to say without having to use the words at all.

[Rinley pumps a heroic 4 Will into the Intention: win over the straw-haired girl. Also marking XP for Up to Date for grilling the straw-haired girl on her deal.]

"Owner?" Owner, owner, she had dealt with this, right, went to the records hall and done that little twist inside and been so polite, and had gone through all the abandoned lots and found the one. This one. And asked very nicely to have it if she fixed it up. And that's all well and good but remembering all of that loudly instead of say talking to this strange woman may be a good idea. Wait, no, may not be a good idea. "I am the owner. Actually. I looked in the records hall for a lot nobody was looking after and offered to fix it up and use it if they gave it to me. Which they did of course. I mean, of course because I'm here using it and fixing it up. In the other order." Mila please, please stop talking. "And the maid outfit is because it's going to be a maid cafe because beat poetry is a nuanced thing and I don't think I could do a genuine open mic night." Mila whyyyyyy. "And I'm Mila. Mila Mesmer." She finally notices the hand that's been outstretched and shakes it, shuffling the feather duster to the other hand. See. Perfect. Nothing out of place.

[spending 4 will on changeling to have possession of the building and not be suspicious in getting it]

Dulcinea, your readings are of the charts! Like, you are rocking it. These raindrops are of nearly perfect purity. You've never seen anything like this! And this woman's face, why it's got sun chi lines etched into it running just below the surface. Yes, you're certain, these are sun energy readings crisscrossing everywhere. Even your hops, maybe not basketball hoop category, but you're nailing the ballet audition here, you've got the elegance of a black-tip reef shark gliding majestically over a bed of corral. That air you slashed for a sample: perfect lines, best air sample you've ever collected. You feel alive and energized, and it's visible to the whole world in every movement you're making.

And here's the thing. These readings, the weather, the chi lines. They all point to exactly one thing. This woman in front of you is the sun. Like The Sun. With capital letters. Maybe not THE SUN because that much capitalization would imply a kind of confidence and comfort in the job that she's clearly missing at the moment, but definitely The Sun and no mistaking it. Now, you might be aware that a different person used to be The Sun (her name was Jade) but that she got shot by a dark black arrow by the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy, who you have personally visited at some point in the past and found to be an extremely unpleasant person even when she's not firing shadow arrows at people. Anyway, this is very clearly a different person who is now The Sun. You did this! This is all you, congrats on saving the entire world, which is a thing you know that you did and that everyone else is not nearly aware of or grateful enough about compared to how they ought to be.

I hardly need to do the logic for you regarding her current physical state and the unusual weather, and I'm sure you know what to do about that problem. My question for you is what does this mean? Like, alchemically and metaphysically? How is it connected to the Outside storm? Tell us your hypothesis, then you can test it, for science!

[Grab 1 emotion XP for leaving us all speechless]

*****

Jasper, your prompt is responding to Dulcinea, I cannot possibly offer you anything more just yet. If you need any inspiration for what to talk about, you do feel irrationally certain that this person will understand you and how weird it is to have fallen out of the kingdom of heaven.

[You are dealing with intrusive mortal things (like sneezes) right now though, so go ahead and grab an XP for The Miracle. Also note that I forgot to flag an XP for your Mortal Life theory in your previous post. Go ahead and take that now too.]

*****

Okay Rinley. She gets it, her heart hears you. How could it not, you're broadcasting like a beacon of Gondor, which is a thing that you definitely have no idea what it is but also understand inherently is a very large beacon that would get a lot of people moving around and doing things.

"My name is Sessily Shishika" she says, blushing more than a little, especially when you compliment her strange umbrella. "I'm a...well I'm a spirit, I guess and I'm kind of new to Fortitude, which is probably why you haven't met me before. That's um...that's not too weird right? Like, that I'm a spirit? You're okay with that?" Her dandelion seems to droop a bit like it's almost worried and trying to give her a pat on the back, but all this manages to do is shake water onto the both of you. She looks it over and says "hey, stay up straight Totem!" and then looks back at you and blushes even harder because she's sure that most people don't scold their giant dandelion umbrellas in front of new friends and probably that's a very embarrassing thing to do. She thinks for a second, trying to come up with something to say or do.

"Um, so, uh Rinley, I heard there's a new beat poetry place that's supposed to open up near the Archive. Maybe we could, um, go take a look together? They might have shelter from the rain at least." She gives you a warm little smile and oh that's a friend smile, she's trying to be your friend, you cannot possibly refuse this friendship request!

[And yes, do collect that up to date XP]

*****

"Hmmmmmmmmm" Seizhi looks at you and makes a long humming sound as she finishes leaning the umbrella into a wall and starts working on her coat. (why is she taking her coat off, surely you have satisfied her, what possible reason could she have to stay????). "Eh, okay, I mean, halls of records are pretty official places and every real person knows that if something is filed there then it's got to be accurate because what would the point of official records even be if they weren't official? Being a real person, I also know that, so your story checks out."

Seizhi nods to herself once in a very self-satisfied way and resumes trying to get her arm out of the coat sleeve, which really shouldn't be this hard but she's making quite the tangle of it. "Okay, well, that settles that. You've clearly got a lot of work here, and if you're the owner and it's going to be a maid cafe, you're going to need a chef. It just so happens that I, Seizhi Schwan, am completely prepared to become a master chef for any cuisine that is appropriate to a maid cafe! So, I'm applying for a job right...um...as soon as I get this...one second I just need to move the sleeve and...right now!" Seizhi finishes with the coat, tosses it to the wall, and now dressed in her t-shirt and long overalls gives you a beaming thumbs up in place of her resume.

[I thought this was more than a bit suspicious on your part, so go ahead and take that XP for the Art Shop and Garden.]

[Storytime: 2/9
Adventure GET: 3/21
Up to Date: 1/15
Something To Deal With 1]

The floof starts right at the small of my back and shoots out in both directions so that by the time it reaches the top of my head and my ears and the floof runs through them like a wave, my tail’s already voluminous with excitement. “Oh bells and high watch,” I say, breathless, “you’re a spirit!” My smile is broad enough to swallow her blush right up! “Of course I knew you’d be important: this is Rinley and the Spirit!”

I shoot up, brandishing my lily pad like a sword, likely provoking a squeak. “She was the legendary shrine maiden, descendant of Finley, heir to the mantle of the Fish King himself! She was a spirit, the thought that the world has about itself! Can I make it any clearer?” I stop, and lower the lily pad. Not sheepishly, because I have never done anything sheepish in my life, but... in acknowledgement that I probably shouldn’t wave a lily pad at my new friend(!!). “What are you a spirit of? Wait, don’t tell me. If I can’t figure it out, I don’t deserve to know.” I’ll have to figure out a classification system and narrow it down. Maybe she’s a spirit of trees, or a specific tree, or the way the wheat moves in the wind, and did you know that back in olden times it used to be called corn? What we know as good ol’ corn is technically “maize.” That’s why, when you hear of people wearing crowncorns, you shouldn’t imagine a bunch of corncobs pointing out like a halo of swords! I could imagine Sessily (what a fun name! Ssssssessssssssily~) with a corncrown and a cornucopia without even breaking a sweat, but then again, what if she’s actually a spirit of rainy days? I’d be so embarrassed if I looked at her then and told her she was a spirit of plenty and sunlight on the wheat, and besides, wheat’s grown more often in the Walking Fields, on the other side of Horizon; in this part of town, rice is queen, and she doesn’t strike me as being a rice spirit; she’s not sticky enough at all, probably. I should try touching her to test that hypothesis.

“The Fish King’s a fun story,” I add, stepping out into the rain with my lily pad over my head and a hand outstretched in invitation: follow me. “Which means it’s storytime!”

***

Once upon a time, Fortitude went fallow. It didn’t happen all at once, but bad harvest year followed bad harvest year, and what’s worse, the fish stopped biting at all. Kaiju kept attacking, and to their surprise their arrival wasn’t met with screaming and panic but with forks and knives and napkins, but man cannot live on Kaiju alone! Some people put their affairs in order and moved to Horizon, or out to the Walking Fields, leaving their houses shuttered and dark looking out over dry and withered fields.

The drainage ditch beside the road is covered with small stone slabs. It’s usually safe to walk on them, or even ride a bicycle on them, because people don’t leave gaps. That’s dangerous, you know? But here, there’s a spot where the ditch suddenly dips, as the road slopes downward, and if the sound of rushing water didn’t warn you, you might have a nasty surprise. It roars, as if trying to drown out a story unsuited to green and grey forever, as far as the eye can see.

Rinley got so skinny that he could hide behind a lamp-post after eating dinner, and fed up with how things were going, got in his rowboat and went out into the middle of Big Lake, so far that he could only see land if he squinted. Then he tied a line to his toe and leaned back with his hat over his face and let Big Lake rock him to sleep.

When he woke up, he was in a great big four-poster bed, soft as a duck’s rear end and twice and three time as comfy. When he turned his head, he saw a bunch of fish swimming by. And he comes to grips with the fact that Big Lake just judged him. He’d always thought he was as safe as a fiddle: that while he meant trouble, he didn’t mean trouble, and he didn’t think he was wicked. Wickedness must have crept up to him sneakily, unless it was running on a conversion rate, and a thousand misdemeanors and shenanigans became one wickedness, worthy to be swallowed up by the lake and never seen again. Except, now that he thought about it, his new accommodations at the bottom of the lake seemed awfully cushy for being the wages of sin.

We see the truck down the road after it passes that one clump of trees, and we step off the road; my sandal starts to slip on the steep slope of mud between road and field full of water. Sessily grabs my hand and I nearly pull her off balance too and drag her into a wet, muddy mess in the field. Instead, I let my lily pad fall into the crook between my head and shoulder and frantically wave my arm around until my foot stops sliding, we’re precariously balanced together, and we’re not in the water. The driver, going a couple of miles now, flashes his lights and bobs his head apologetically. I wave him on with a smile. It’s Mr. Pradelemov, given the GOLDEN PERCH FISHERY label on the truck. My sandal’s a mess of mud, and we stop to wash it off before we keep going.

Then, a lady came in, wearing a shimmering silver dress and a tiara set with rosy pearls the size of your smallest fingernail. Rinley pretended to still be asleep, because people always say interesting things when they think nobody’s listening.

“I hope he wakes up soon,” the lady said. “Unless someone finds the witch of the waste and frees the king of all fish from her nightmare aquarium, Fortitude will waste away until it’s beyond saving; and he’s the only hero that’s left in Fortitude. Everyone else who’s gone looking for her has been lost.” Hearing that, Rinley yawned and rolled over, and looked her up and down. Then, with his noble heart hammering in his chest, he took her hand, as dark and gentle as midnight, and promised her that he would do whatever it took to find the witch of the waste.

From here, we can see the Archive, beginning to loom as we round the hill. The roof is a complicated thing of tarps and repurposed sails and rope, and it looks like it’s about to explode into an amazing flying ship; the walls will turn out to have been a hull all along, a panel will slide back in the great spiral staircase to reveal a glowing blue crystal humming with power, and with the wind in its sails it will take everybody inside off across Big Lake to New York, or Hyperborea, or Shangri-la. But I don’t want to get too off track, so we just look at it a moment and then I look at her and go, “it’s cool, right?” and her face lights up and she asks me what it is and I tell her: it’s the Archive of Professor Hideo Hayashi.

That’s why, the next day, Rinley went out with a bunch of cats on leashes, wearing a jacket covered in bells and goose feathers in his hat. Everybody he passed stared at him, and asked him what on earth he thought he was doing. Even Rinley Yatskaya himself couldn’t make all those cats go in a straight line, and he was constantly having to pick them up and carry them when they got sulky, which meant he ended up being more leash and cat than man. But, eventually, he herded them past a particularly blighted old farm, and the cantankerous old man who happened to be leaning on his gate squinted at him and asked him what exactly he thought he was doing with those internal creatures. That being the sign that he had been told to watch for, he let all of the leashes go and let the cats scatter all over that farm.

“Rust your hide,” the old man said, hitting his fist on the gate, “I’ll get you back for this, youngster, or my name isn’t Martinev Titov!” And Martinev went chasing after the cats with a broom while Rinley let himself inside the old man’s house. In the back, in the laundry room, there was an old boarded-up well. Rinley used the shoehorn he happened to be carrying with him to pry up the boards, and then hopped straight down (and of course he landed on his feet). Down there...

***

“But then the beat poetry cafe overtook her,” I say, in my most breathy and exotic voice. The kind of voice that deserves beads and silk and fancy ice cream. “And she lapsed into silence. Will you tell us the end of this story, her sister asked, and Rinley said: if I am alive and also we hang out again.” I empty out my lily pad one more time, and then fling the door open.

“We are here,” I declare, “for the beat poetry! Let the beats commence!!”

...this does not look like it is open. Or a beat poetry cafe. There’s a redhead and a maid, and both of them are important, vitally important, two in the same room— or is it the room that’s important? This requires immediate investigation.

I tap my chin. If this were a dating sim, the important things would be highlighted, or at the very least drawn on a different layer. Things being what they are, I have to trust my intuition. “Where are you hiding the beats,” I accuse them, accusatorily, with a point. “Are you an illegal beat operation? A smuggler’s den? Tax evaders? Are the beats in the back, and this is all a test? Because let me tell you, we’re going to pass. Sessily and I are amazing at passing tests. Go ahead! Test us! Let us prove that we are worthy to accept the beats!”

[Marking a Storytime XP.]