"We're going to want to bring this to a witch." Kalaya says, turning the relic over with Petony as they look inside. "There may be some meaning to these trinkets they can tell us."

The animal bone is of interest, but only passingly. Far more worryingly to her are the items that speak of specific intent or links to the Kingdoms. The coins of Chrysanth, and the blue veil - what could they mean? She pauses as she retrieves the final item.

-==-

Kalaya runs down the hallway, her sandles clapping echoingly on the tiles. She can hear the festival music all around the palace, but the unfamiliar layout almost guarantees that she's taken a wrong turn. Huffing in irritation, she looks around, trying to see anything which might indicate which way leads to the balconies above the river where the fireworks display will be most visible.

"Give that back Lin!"

Frowning, Kalaya heads towards the muted voices and sounds of movement. While whatever is going on is probably none of her business, the anger and pain in that shout piques her curiosity. A few moments later her feet bring her out to a secluded garden, closed off from view from most passers by. A young girl, probably within a year of herself, is lying on the ground while an older boy stands over her. One glance is all it takes to know what's happened here.

"Hey!" shouts Kalaya, turning heads towards her. Stepping forward into the silence, she continues.

"You heard her. Kindly return what you've stolen."

"Oh yeah? Well come get it then." The boy smirks. "But you better run along little princess, before your pretty dress gets ripped."

"I said, give that back." she says, starting forward but the boy just grins and reaches out to grab her.

Flashes of movement, Kalaya's reflexes kick in - twisting away and pushing his arm out, but the boy has clearly had training - as well as the benefit of a couple of years' growth. She lands a solid kick to the boy's stomach in the scuffle but soon has her face pushed into a wall, arms pinned behind her and head spinning from the impact.

"Nice try." he huffs, grinding her cheek against the masonry. "But you princesses belong locked up in your towers or playing your stupid games. Leave the real fighting to the real knights."

Kalaya tries to squrim free, only earning further pain before there's a grunt and the pressure on her is suddenly gone. Blinking, she's steadied by smaller hands as the other girl comes up beside her. The boy, Lin, is now standing a few feet away, trying to balance despite a noticeable limp, and glaring figurative daggers at both of them.

His hand makes for a literal dagger on his belt, fist clenching and unclenching on the hilt. Meanwhile Kalaya and the other girl both stare him down. Arms folded, backs straight, but both acutely aware they are unarmed. For a moment, everything teeters on a point.

"Bah!" he spits, turning away. "You aren't worth it."

Once he's gone, the two girls let out the breaths they'd been holding and turn to smile at each other.

"Kalaya." she says, offering a hand.

"Ven." smiles the other, whose expression turns from relief, to confusion, to surprise as she feels what Kalaya passes her.

"Yeah, he was strong, but wasn't really keeping a close eye on his pockets." she grins.

Opening her hand, Ven can't believe what she's seeing.

-===-

A small earring of pink and yellow. The symbol of Snapdragon.

"Petony" she says, voice rigid from shock. "this is ... can I take this? I ... I need to get this to a witch right now."

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Dry at last. You can’t get her now, stupid rain! Han wins!!! She’s got a big old umbrella and, and, a thick, heavy blanket to snuggle up under. She’s wrapped up cozy and tight, s’real soft ‘n maybe she’ll just lie here forever and you’ll never ever get to rain on her again. Ha! Just you try to find a gap in her perfect, snuggly, heavy, gosh, really really heavy, enveloping, purring, arm...twisting...blanket?

Bwuh?

Ow ow ow ow ow ow owwwwww okay she’s awake! Always been awake! She didn’t tap out, pass out, or anything, she’s here and she’s fighting and King’s Crown Machi did you fill your pockets with boulders to keep from getting homesick you big ox?! Because despite her best wriggles, the most she accomplishes is eliciting pain from her shoulder and delight from her wrestling partner foe.

All the world is purring. Machi pushes her arm back inch by agonizing inch. She clamps her mouth shut and screws her eyes tight. She won’t give her the satisfaction. This doesn’t hurt. She can take your worst, mangetail. So go ahead. Tear her arm clean off. Play with her hair. Tell her whatever nonsense you want because it won’t make a lick of difference (augh no wait bad words). Machi doesn’t mean any of it anyway. It’s all a trick. A big joke on her favorite target. How many other girls has she put in a headlock and whispered sweet nothings to? Answer: So many.

But endurance alone doesn’t win wrestling matches. Not from this, uh, position. Nor can she tap out either. N’yari wrestling doesn’t work like that. The round continues not until one party surrenders, but until one party endures a penalty for surrendering. And the only way Machi will let up is, is...

A shadow of fear passed over her face.

The Sorrowful Kitten Prostration. The only technique that’s ever satisfied Machi. The only way she’ll accept her victory.

(A glimpse of the priestess, through the mountains of fur and muscle, through the hot breath and honeyed words. She’s all but leaping from her captor’s lap, straining uselessly against arms as big as her. Her eyes are wide. And they can’t stop looking back at her.)

“You i-idiot.” From beneath the warm cold dead dumb mountain, a spark of fire. “Who’d want to be a rock? Who’d want a rock?!”

Machi’s grip tightens. A starburst of pain. She grits her teeth, but she can’t do it. She won’t do it, do you hear her?! (Not in front of all these people. Don’t give them a reason.) If that’s what you’re into, fine! No kittens here! Nothing but dumb, jagged, ugly rock as far as the eye can see!

An arm bursts free of its prison. She punches the deck so hard it splinters and yields her some leverage. And still she pushes, and presses, her muscles bulging, straining.

And Machi, impossibly, rises an inch off the deck.

[Rolling to Figure Out a Person: 5 + 1 + 0 = an absolute 6. My XP is limitless. Asking bonus question for physical conflict: What awakens the beast inside of you?]

Of course she's right that Giriel means to placate them! The dead deserve their rest. They deserve to be treated kindly. Do you think it a coincidence that the rituals to honor them also placate them? It is not by chance that the honored dead do not rise to inflict terror upon the living any more than it is by chance that a traveler greeted with a hot meal is likely to welcome it.

Giriel gives Uusha a look that is a little sad, a little wistful. It's not that she's wrong exactly. Red Wolf was powerful, dangerous, heroic, tempting. The thought brought the slightest blush to Giri's cheeks, but she remained steadfast. Defending the kingdoms didn't mean desecrating them! At least not for this sort of threat. It would be another thing if a gang of demons burst out of the forest and the dead were all you had to hand, or perhaps if some fool got it into their head to play at being a warlord with some dark artifact and the dead were needed to combat them. The point is, it's not that the idea is stupid, but the dead deserve more respect than this and raising them to attack regular soldiers who had no say in their position because of the grand games of politics wasn't the right thing to be doing.

Of course Peregrine wouldn't even worry about that point of ethics. For her, this was a proof of concept. If the dead could be summoned and directed effectively, that meant that witches had more tools in the world. Giriel was sure that Peregrine would point out that resentful energy was just as good a form of energy as any other type and the only thing preventing people from using it were old traditions, and that Peregrine could perfectly well tap this sort of thing without being corrupted or what have you. She might even be right (though one did have to be careful that the "darker" sort of magic didn't affect one's personality, demons in particular were known for trading in the abstract and that might include some modifications to your common sense or personal restraint).

Peregrine was a conversation to come though. For now, Giriel needed to serve soup and Uusha was the problem with that. She ought to know better, but it was clear the knight was desperate. Giriel let out a sigh. Peregrine may not think much of the traditions, but they did matter. Witches, or anyone who practiced proper magic, had the right to make offerings to the dead, it was part of the station, the title, along with similar rights for certain spiritual problems and entreating with gods. It came with a compact that practicing the Art would be used for good, not to cause terror and darkness but on behalf of a community to honor their ancestors, and bound Giriel to adherence to the traditions. Bringing it up now might set her at odds with Peregrine, and Uusha wouldn't take kindly to being forced, but...she couldn't just do nothing, not when she'd just gotten here. She needed time to talk with them.

Giriel ladles out her soup and stands, not breaking her stare with Uusha as she moves to set the bowl before the exit to the cemetery. "I have the right to do this" she said, walking past Uusha. "We swore that compact before the Sapphire Mother and all the little gods of the earth generations ago, before one of the great heralds of Heaven as witness." So she set out the food as her offering, and only then ladled a bowl for Uusha, and one for Peregrine, and for anyone else who asked until her pot ran down to the base.

[This post spent the second question on how to get Uusha to allow her to make her offering to the dead and placate them.]

Piripiri!

Were you a witch, you might know that you have just struck one of the Passages of Hell, the Pseudoamphisbaena. It is a two-headed serpent, with the startling quality that both of its heads are on different bodies, and the creatures of the Demon City hang them upon brass poles far from each other, that by giving offering and praise, they may be allowed to pass through the serpent that is shared in common, and emerge from glistening fangs in some far distant district. And if they are pleased with the offering, the traveler shall come to no harm; and if they are displeased, or else hunger, then the traveler shall find themselves in the lightless, hungry dark. This would be useful to know, for reasons that are about to be clear.

Its jaw unhinges like some hideous fish from the very depths of the sea, stretching wider and wider, impossibly vast, and when it swallows the two of you, it does so head-first; all is darkness, and the clamminess of that demon road, and rhythmic constrictions of the throat, Azazuka pressed tighter and tighter against you, until it is able, self-satisfied, to close its jaws over your shoes. And then there is no trace left of you but your cast-off clothing, and two umbrellas floating on the surface of the lake.

The demon road is like being crushed forever until you are a precious stone. It is like crawling through rain-slick passages deep beneath the earth, with no way back. It is like slithering, limbless, on your belly, tongue flicking the air. It is like falling a long, long way. These are the ways you will remember it: as what it was like, not what it was. For the serpent devours the knowing of the road itself.

When you are cast from the open jaws of the other head, the world rushes back to you in a shock: the damp stones you crumple onto hard, the fur of moss under your throbbing palm, the sound of revelry and festival both impossibly far away and somehow just on the other side of a wall, the sliver of light leaking around the edges of a door which is too faint to do anything but confirm you have not gone blind, the sound of Azazuka hitting the ground with a crash of bangles and an exhausted groan, the hair damply sticking to your face, the prune-like wrinkles on your fingertips, the still air of a windless and lightless place. All this at once, jockeying: notice me, Piripiri, acknowledge me, welcome back to the land of the living!

And in that moment of overwhelming notice from every sense, the dark grows a hundred gauntleted hands. Do not feel ashamed, daughter of Hymair: even if you had the strength and sense of mind to fight back, you would find the Wrack-dolls of the First General foes who do not care for knives or punches to the cavernous, empty throat. As it is, you find yourself lashed tight with rope (desecrated, having once been from a shrine, now befouled by the rites of Hell), forced to kneel with your wrists secured to your ankles. The ball they force between your teeth is faintly luminous, having been touched by the power of the Green Sun, and it throbs with that power as it forces your lips and jaw open frustratingly wide. Beside you, you can hear Azazuka attempt to invoke her family and their wrath before she is forced into a loud and increasingly garbled tirade; you hear and feel more than see her furious struggles, that second pale green light beside you only serving to limn her generous, pouty lips.

And then the Wrack-dolls cease, seeming to melt away, and there is stillness in that dark chamber again, save for Azazuka trying to shuffle towards you— and being pushed back into place by unseen hands. You have been captured by the powers of Hell. Perhaps by misfortune, but more likely by design.

As you wait in the dark, listening to Azazuka’s limitless capability for incomprehensible complaints directed at your captors, feeling your limbs complain at being locked in place after such a harrowing journey, where do your thoughts take you? To your instructors, teaching you patience and a willingness to strike only when the time is right? To your brother, telling you stories of the War In Heaven and the infinite malice of the overthrown regime of the Titans, bound and sealed away in the undone body of their king? Or to the fleeting moments, in the dark of the demon road, when you felt a broad, ringed hand in yours, squeezing as if to say: I am with you, and you are with me?

***

Kalaya!

When you continue onwards, it is towards the northern border of Rose. Petony still means to show you the ropes of knighthood: battle against N’yari reavers, in which you will scare them away from their hunts and teach them a thing or two about the valor of the Flower Kingdoms. She’ll have you all to an inn only an hour or two after nightfall, don’t you worry; the hard march will toughen you up, princess!

(And besides, all the best witches are up in the highlands anyway. So two birds with the same stone! Whatever’s bothering you about an earring from a dissolved kingdom, they’ll put those worries to rest, don’t you worry.)

In the faint silver light of dusk, that’s when they appear on the road ahead: two priestesses of the Sapphire Court, traveling together. As they draw closer, through the clear rain you can see that one wears a white stone mask, one that indicates a Heavenly deity is acting through her.

(Not that you’d likely recognize their name, right? Most people in the Flower Kingdoms know the Sun, Moon and Maidens— that is, the wandering stars, from Mercury the Traveler to Saturn the Psychopomp— but everything below them is simply “the eight million gods” until you get to, as it were, the regional administration under Sapphire Mother of Lotuses.)

The other is— beautiful. Alluring. Just a glance is enough to know this, silly girl. She turns to her companion, the goddess-ridden, and whispers something behind her voluminous sleeve that causes her to break out into melodious giggles.

***

Zhaojun!

“—there she is,” Victorious Vixen of Violets lilts delightedly. Before you march a company of the local mercenaries, led by a knight aspiring, in her own undoubtedly brutish way, to follow the high principles of your Constellation.

Here, the rulers understand that desire is the highest principle; they require their champions to lead warbands of admirers and sycophants, then control them through desire for the approval and affection of princes and princesses.

The knight in tigerskin has suffered heartbreak, and recently. It throbs from her, desperate for solace, intense in its hues. The young knight beside her, fresh from her squiring, is dwelling on someone who was once important to her. That much is effortless before your eye.

“She may not seem like much,” Vixen continues, “but doubtless this is because she has drifted far from her Destiny due to the machinations of those wicked things outside the right order of Heaven. How fortunate she is that we have arrived to set things right!” She laughs, delighted at the power of Heaven to set right what has been put askew.

She does not tell you the nature of the girl’s Destiny. You already know it. Of course you do. You’ve always known it, ever since you were sent to this land. It’s what you were sent here to do. Just remember that. You are here for the Chosen One.

What is the nature of this Destiny, the one that sends luminous pink fires shivering up and down your spine? What must this girl become for the will of Heaven to be made manifest?

***

Han!

Machi rolls with you, scrabbles for position, ends up on top of you again. Face to face and chest to chest. Your wrists pinned to the deck over your head. Machi’s braids dangle over you, brush against your cheek. Her breath is hot and hitching and smothering just like the weight of her body on yours and her eyes are so happy and—

She kisses you.

She kisses you like she’s drowning.

Her tongue is as hot in your mouth as the fire inside your heart.

“Mine,” she growls. “My stone-heart.” Then she kisses you again. And this time, her fangs caress your lip as tenderly as a thumb rubbed against your hand, in their own way; she lets you know she could break skin. Her body radiates warmth, like a blanket you could fall asleep in.

What awakens the beast inside her? Competition, like the kind you can give her. Claiming things from others and making them hers. (She glances over at the priestess, who is staring in goggle-eyed shock; she’s not just doing this just because she wants you. She’s doing this to show off in front of a... rival? Okay!! Do not think about that!!!) Victory over a worthy rival. And a few helpless cuties to torment as the cherry on top. This moment, all those things intermingled, has pushed her past that edge she always flirted with crossing growing up.

(You can almost hear the Seedin sisters back home, pointing at you and laughing: catkisser, catkisser, Han kisses cats! Ew, stay away, catkisser! They must never find out they were vindicated a decade later.)

She licks your face, panting her possession with every lap as you squirm, getting more and more excited as she goes, and— Hanaha. Kigi. Stop whistling and cheering for her to “get it, girl.”

When she raises herself up, putting pressure back on your wrists, her face is a mess of raw feelings: desire (for you) and smugness (at every lowlander she’s scandalizing) and excitement (at seeing you strain and strive and fight for her) and wicked impishness (oh no).

“Yield,” she purrs, just loud enough for a certain priestess to hear, “and we can share her, Han’ya.”

(Because she can share her toys. As long as she gets to turn that into a game, too. As long as she gets to kiss and nip and vie for her stone-heart and her prize and be wanted and needed and the winner. As long as you both belong to her.)

Mark Insecure and think about being wanted, kitten.

***

Giriel!

Uusha nods. It is not a nod of approval. It is a nod of acknowledgment. Yes, you have this right. If the Stag Knight were to stop you, then she would not be who she is. You have overcome her hand; but do not think yourself safe from retaliation, either.

The dead come to the food, shivers in the damp air, and kneel down to feed of the soup. When they are done, when they have had their fill, the soup will remain, but it will be cold and tasteless and will not fill a belly. They eat of its essential food-nature, and the warmth the cook invested into it, and the honor they are shown. Heavy, weighed down by the feast, they become somnolent and idle. Hardly the sort of wraiths that could drive soldiers mad.

Peregrine sets down her erhu, notices the bowl, and shrugs her shoulders. Then she begins to pace among the stones, muttering to herself, having a conversation with the only witch who can keep up with her. Which leaves you, Kayl, Uusha, and Uusha’s band of wicked rogues.

When the gauntlet lashes out, the dark nails do not dig into your skin. She is careful, despite her strength; her fingers press into your cheeks, force your mouth into an undignified O, as she cocks her head like an animal to get a better look at you through that helm.

“You may go, boy,” she says, without looking at him. “If you tell anyone, I’ll know. I’ll set the Rattler on you.” Kayl, ashen-faced, looks from Uusha to you, frightened and desperate for some sign from you that—

That it’s okay to be a coward. That you’ll forgive him. That you won’t insist he stay and face fears even scarier than the ghosts. And even Uusha, moving your face around, peering close and making an uncanny, hollow tkk-tkk-tkk with her tongue, can’t take that power away from you.

Much has been said thus far about yearning and desire. Enough. We talk instead today about politics.

To operate under the auspices of one of the great Bureas of Heaven is to be an a thread on their lyres. Pulled and plucked and tightened and disrupted or neglected in turn to play a music only the the Sun of Heaven may hear. But though they be a band of five, the Maidens, like every other band, desire nothing more than to subordinate all the others to their creative direction[1][2]. Where Mars seeks to pound the world into a crater with her howling power-ballads and Mercury wishes to inspire everyone with her pure-hearted heroine act, it falls to Venus and her vast and mighty Bureau to put away their niche genres until the second half of the album. Until the singles are over they are to stay on backing guitar where they belong.

So there are disputes. Given that Mars' suggestion for settling the disputes[3] was vetoed, the alternative is to wait until the Pattern Crabs decide that a certain individual has a load bearing destiny. Once located the idea is to make sure that destiny collapses as massively in your direction as possible. If Mars had twisted the arm of Venus while Iupiter chewed upon her ear and breathily entreated her to share her perfect-world ideas for the young princess-knight Kalaya, she might have said "A number of extraordinarily thrilling and ego-boosting low-commitment sexual encounters render her a devilish flirt to rival the Red Wolf, which naturally forms an escalating rivalry between the two until together they break every heart in the Flower Kingdoms except each other's, and at that point they can have True Love". Under the circumstances, though, Venus would simply be happy if the idiot girl simply knocked it off with all this knightly bullshit, or at the very least kept it confined to courtly duels rather than riding around the countryside getting in unsexy brawls with no-name demons.

In case it was not obvious: Venus hates being made happy. If she is going to go through the trouble of commandeering a Celestial Lion and sending it all the way out here to the fucking sticks she expects to get everything she wants and a foot massage. It would arguably be less dangerous to return to the Heavenly City with a straight-up failure under her belt than a partial victory because then, at least, Venus would be distracted by the other Maidens putting her in her place.

"Well observed," said Zhaojun, raising her hand to approvingly scratch Vixen's ears. "Unfortunately I have need of your charms for something other than my own pleasure. We need to boost this girl's desirability until every maiden in these kingdoms seeks to throw themselves at her feet, and we need to boost her ego until she starts using them as foot-stools. Such is the will of Heaven and will no doubt prevent some sort of disaster[4]. You need to seduce her."

She does not bow to the approaching knights - she is in the role of a goddess and will bow to no mortal - but she does, perhaps unnecessarily, let her petting hand form into a grip on the back of Vixen's head and push her down into a deep bow. Her eyes burn azure-bright as the stars fade against the back of her head as she stares at Kalaya; stars, surely, for if it were faerie venom she saw it would no doubt seem entirely different and immediately obvious, for the rakshasa are not subtle creatures.

"Kalaya," she said aloud. "You are expected."

[Figure Out: 6]

[1] Excepting Saturn, that subby bitch.
[2] The fact that desire lies at the hearts of their actions should, in a just cosmos, render Venus the chief amongst them.
[3] Mud wrestling
[4] According to the Bureau of Serenity, Venus not being in charge is definitionally a disaster.

The unpleasantness of being swallowed. Not something she'd experienced before, a disgusting and frightful act which set off primal, visceral disquiet. Being eaten is a messy and slow death, a fear so thorough that even in civilized times it pervades masked plays and horror songs, played after the young have gone to bed. A quick memory flash of having snuck out of bed, one such night, so long ago, to listen to a player who before the sun's setting had sung of such wonders, and the nightmares that accompanied her that night after listening to his terrors.

Then a series of experiences she only knows because they remind her of other experiences she's had. Being under the earth, squirming through a tiny hole to find the cave it guards. Hiding in the grass, stalking a merchant from the ground beneath his notice. Hiding in a closet from proctors sent to shoo them to bed, a quick squeeze of hand saying "I am with you, I am here". It was like these things but was it's own thing, but she cannot remember it for itself and so constructs it after, out of fragments of other things.

Sensation again. One's surroundings, the gut-twist of imminent danger. An attempt not at combat, but at flight, her knowledge useless unless delivered. Die if one must but come back first. The swarming of hundreds, here for two, the inelegant dance of scrabbling, furious negation, overwhelmed by pure numbers. The ropes.

Piripiri comes back to herself slowly, within the embrace of those profane ropes. She is not fully herself, yet, and probably will not be when so bound. Her normal stillness of action withheld has turned to action denied, and there is a peace in that, even as she gives a perfunctory shrug of the shoulders, testing her bindings. No give, no escape, as is expected. So instead she floats, thinking of nothing at all, eyes closed and ears tuning out Azazuka's angry threats as useless noise. There will be time, later, for plans, resisting interrogation, escaping or fighting or even just being executed. But for the moment, nothing can be done, it has been enforced that she does nothing, and she relaxes into that blessed relief.

In contrast to their first march, the journey to northern Rose was muted. The retainers still sang, but Kalaya spent most of the time turning thoughts over inside her head while doing the same to the earring in her hand. Petony couldn't help but notice the change in countenance and, wisely, left the young knight to her own musings.

The presence of travelers out on this road was not expected, given the driving rain. That one was a goddess on the mortal plane was even more surprising.

But all of that was nothing beside the words she spoke.

"I ... am?" replies Kalaya, straightening from her bow. For knights know to afford the divine at least a measure of courtesy.

[Figure out a person: 4 - woo, first xp of the game!]

This is heartbreaking. It would surely have been better if the young and fearless shepherd had been a demon in disguise, or some spirit tasked with leading her to Uusha, or a sympathetic local god. Instead she got a brave fool who's bravery went as far as ghosts but not so far as angry knights. Well, that was smart of him, angry knights were far more dangerous than ghosts and far less predictable.

Though Giriel's face is held, her cheeks pressed inward by the careful but firm metal gauntlet, she gestures to Kayl with a dismissive wave of the hand. It says you may go and also your duty is done, and a little bit of you don't matter, shoo because the color drained of his face says that a little anger and indignation would do him good and he would be better off for withdrawing with his dignity than with his tail between his legs. A youth of his bravery doesn't deserve to be crushed by Uusha, even in passing.

So go, get out, leave her be, she needs no more guide. As for this, this is fine. Giriel's eyes are looking up at Uusha's, looking at her stag helm, at the weight of her symbolism and the burden she bears. That she sees herself, alone, as responsible for the salvation of kingdoms and it weighs on her as though the whole heavens press on her shoulders. It's enough to break a heart, all these people hurting. Enough that it brings a tear to Giriel's eye, though Uusha could be mistaken for thinking the pain she's causing is physical as Giriel shudders.

Nobody wants a dumb rock from the Highlands.

Lowlanders’ll tell you to sand away the rough edges, paint it in an inoffensive floral pattern, and so long as it makes the right noises maybe it’ll be worth something. Highlanders’ll tell you there’s more than just dumb rocks up here, and any dumb rocks that happen to be nearby ought to keep their mouths shut if they don’t want to talk about it later. N’yari are huge jerks who only want to suplex dumb rocks because it makes for a good laugh for a night and then they’re off for whatever catches their eye next.

Dumb rocks don’t get held. Dumb rocks don’t warm up from the rain beneath another, enveloped in them, every twist and pull caught with heavy, cushioning softness. Nobody’s ever looked at a dumb rock like it was the most precious, most valuable thing they’d ever known, like just being near it made them happy like nothing else could. A dumb rock could go its whole life, and never imagine somebody filled with a hunger for you, for your lips, for your stupid, trembling face as they devour you whole and still want more, more, more

When Machi finally pulls away, when Han finally remembers to breath, and her lungs fill in wild gasps, and her eyes stay fixed on that impish mouth, and her thoughts put themselves in a language she recognizes, they bring to her a terrible realization:

Oh gods above and below Machi was serious.

The whole time. She. She meant every word. Every flirt and every poem and every moonlight serenade slash wrestling championship was. Was. Oh no.

She, she couldn’t. This wasn’t. How. This was a fight! They were fighting! And then, they weren’t, and she. She just. Twice. And. Was she going to do it again? (And if not, why did that make her heart sink?) But why. Why?! They were fighting! They’d always been fighting! (Would anyone ever look at her like that again?) Machi was. She’d. A bully! A big, dumb, strong bully who was still so very very close to her face and. And. (What if this is her only chance? What if this never happens again? With anyone?) She. She had to...to...

Share?

Oh. That’s right.

She...had to stop. This, and Machi. Because the N’yari didn’t actually want a dumb rock from the Highlands, she wanted Han’ya of the Oei. Because every victim she’d carry on her back betrayed a little girl who dreamed of a life free of bullies, and no amount of kisses(?!?!?) could make her forget that. Not even if she just kidnapped everyone who really had it coming. Because, today, a kind-hearted little priestess didn’t deserve to get roped up (literally) in...in her stupid nonsense.

(Because mom would get her rose-candy sticks at New Year’s, no matter what they’d said to each other that day. Because dad still had stories she hadn’t heard, no matter how many of them were going to be too long and too old for her.)

She had to stop.

And she had to stop her.

[Marking Insecure, Activating Tenacious Purpose. Goal: Save Lotus and also the rest of the people here from the N’yari. How can she advance her goal in a way that violates civilized norms?

Oh, and Han is now Smitten with Machi. The answer to the question “What have you done that you are sure they view as inappropriate?” worked into the post above.]

Piripiri!

The warlock is short.

It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust to the light and get a good look at her. She is looking over you with an appraising eye. The hand curled under her chin is flesh and blood; the one cupping her elbow is made of ornate green-stained brass, from fingertip to bare shoulder. From the old burn scars visible there, the fitting was not a pleasant process.

“Well,” she says, finally. Her smile is a knife. “It looks like the rat actually brought me something worthwhile. If it isn’t one of the spoiled merchant brats. The sort of girl that thinks money is a substitute for lineage.”

Azazuka’s spirited attempts at insults continue even when the warlock grabs her by the curls and viciously yanks her head back. “I wonder how much your family will contribute to the Work, thinking I’ll give you back. Thinking that I will have a place for those traitors and cowards in the kingdom to come.”

She considers Azazuka, red-faced, drool bubbling on her gag as she tries to pull her hair free, spirited and braver than you might have expected. Her voice drops, a ragged hoarseness at the edges. “But I might find a place for you,” she says, trying and failing to keep her voice steady. “Every queen needs a pet, after all.”

She shoves Azazuka down onto the tiles, hard, and steps on her. There’s a sadistic glee in her grin as Azazuka writhes under her foot, the sort of nastiness that you might recognize from your school days: a subject of bullying now come into power, drunk on it. “Faithless. Honorless. Arrogant. Pathetic. I’ll make you learn your place.”

Then she pulls back, takes a ragged breath, and composes herself. “And what is this one,” she asks, looking at you as Azazuka tries and fails to get back up onto her knees. “A guard? A suitor? A sycophant?” She lets her eyes drift up and down your half-dressed body. “A whore?”

She squats, cups your cheek with her brass hand, traces the ball between your lips with her thumb. “Plain,” she concludes. “Unimportant. Disposable.”

Do you gather information, scion of Hymair, do you read into the bitterness of her eyes and the eagerness of her cruelty? Or do you show her true nobility, entice her with a look of intriguing defiance?

***

Kalaya!

The priestess approaches you on quiet feet, turning her umbrella’s handle in slender fingers. Her shoulders are bare and smooth; her eyes are painted with subtle violet. She considers you before she speaks, and her voice is a soft and smoldering whisper.

“My Mistress is here to advise you, Kalaya-Phraya. The Flower Kingdoms are in turmoil, and Heaven means to set them into right order. You are to be the instrument of our will. Together, we will do wonderful things. But— as my Mistress bids— we must begin with the Peacock-star. An act of daring, something that will exalt your name.”

When she finally meets your eyes, her eyes are dark and lovely and hard to look away from; the contrast with her bright, expensive veil is even more striking. There are few secrets to that sort of gaze.

Kalaya-Phraya, as you consider her words, you are yourself evaluated by that even gaze, by this beautiful, enchanting, just-your-type priestess? Sure, you might have been thinking about that Snapdragon princess, but if you keep looking at the priestess, you really should keep looking at her, doesn’t she look like her, too?

Like her but fully blossomed, even. Better than you could have dreamed. Or perhaps exactly as you could have dreamed, little ditz. Is there anything in your heart but dreams of heroism? Iron and Salt, are we going to have to do a rescue romance?

Kalaya-Phraya, how could Victorious Vixen of Violets act, or change herself, in order to make you Smitten with her? And don’t worry about saying it out loud. Your heart squeals like a squeezed songbird. Enough to make a girl... thirsty.

***

Zhaojun!

There is a surefire way to make sure Victorious Vixen of Violets wins the heart of Kalaya-Phraya and wins glory enough to swell her ego. Oldest trick in the book.

Kalaya needs to save Victorious Vixen from peril. It needs to be terrible peril, but the sort that can be controlled by Heaven’s strings: no demons or fairies need apply. Kalaya needs to be seen doing this by onlookers who can sing her praises. And, of course, there must be a contingency plan in case Kalaya falters.

This much would be clear before the eye of the goddess. So, too, would be the ease with which these two knights could be maneuvered: like pieces on a Gateway board.

Now, the real question is what sort of peril? Wild animals are a classic, easily warded from causing risk, but perhaps anything smaller than an elephant stampede would just be too ordinary. The local moon-touched barbarians, perhaps, would make for an excellent choice; one could play on the extant animosities in order to increase Kalaya’s own glory, if a suitable champion was met and defeated in battle, a squirming Vixen tossed over one shoulder the entire time. Consider also the Dominion, beloved by Mars; seeing Venus’s champion overcome them in the name of love would be a thrill, would it not? One would need to falsify evidence and have her arrested for crimes against the local Embassy, of course, or arrange for her to catch the eye of the local Dominion emissary.

Whatever must be done, surely Victorious Vixen of Violets will understand the necessity. She is, after all, the perfect student, submissive to her Mistress’s will, and not likely to act on pique. Even if her role requires her to be paraded to a gallows so that Kalaya can knock down the hangman at the last moment, well, of course she would meekly place her faith in her Mistress.

She can, in fact, be taken as such a dependable asset that there is no reason to inform her of any plans until they are already in motion.

***

Giriel!

With hot, angry, flustered tears in his eyes, Kayl turns and flings himself into the dark, sure-footed as a goat, running away from something too big and fearful for him. He’s gone and away soon enough. You did your part for him.

Well done.

Uusha lowers her hand and rests it (possessively?) on your shoulder. “Not hollowed out by fire yet,” she concedes. “Come with us, Honored Sister. There’s work to be done.”

The choice isn’t really between accepting or politely declining. If you refuse, do you really think Uusha will just let you leave? But if you challenge her to fight, even though she’d fight you one on one... she’s Uusha.

Do you really think you can fight your way through her to keep your promise? Or perhaps not. You are a witch, after all, and Peregrine is lost in thought; you might be able to call upon the dead or the forest gods. Or perhaps you will stretch that promise long, say to yourself: I will come, Agata, but you will have to wait.

***

Han!

Machi has left herself vulnerable. Not wide open, not her— but she’s expecting you to squirm and fight for leverage and try to roll on top of her, or get her in some sort of lock.

Which means you can sucker punch her right in the kitty bitties and when she flinches, that’s when you get your legs under her and flip her over the side. After that? You’ll have to stop her from climbing back on board the barge, and you have just the tools to use: grab a couple of umbrellas and fend her off with them until she gives up and claws her way back onto the shore. Sure, you might have to break a couple, but what’s a broken umbrella or two, right?

Then use the umbrellas to get Hanaha and Kigi off the barge, taunt the N’yari to keep their attention, grab the priestess, and leg it. If you know anything about Machi (though you definitely know less than you thought you did, apparently, as new avenues of Machi knowing have suddenly revealed themselves), she’ll leave the barge alone to chase the two of you, and she’ll have to call off pursuit eventually or risk being caught out by a knight’s retinue.

Then the wedding party will just need to wait until someone struggles loose or another barge drifts downriver. And, Mother be praised, there’s even the faint glimmer of lanterns far upriver that suggests another might be on its way.

Now all you need to do is look possessive, warm, heavy, needy Machi in her (surprisingly tender) eyes and give her a haymaker to the tits so hard that every gal on the barge is going to flinch in sympathy. Get on that, kitten!

It may seem uncharacteristic for an entity like Zhaojun to admit limitation, but only the Emperor of the Heavenly City was infallible. So, here for Iupeter's secret eyes only, the truth: Zhaojun fears and does not understand the Dominion. From the Heavenly City she never had call to deal with them, and from her temple shrine gates she saw them only in their passing. There were no doubts levers and ways to their power, they were no doubt governed by the same yearning as everything else in this world, but Iupter had kept them apart from her and to proceed into their den unknowing would be to cast herself at the mercy of the Maiden of Secrets. And such a thing must never be allowed to happen.

No, Zhaojun turns in this moment of crisis to the familiar. To power, to desire and the will to act upon desire, to cats and the girls that love/are them. She will seek out the N'yari and turn them loose upon this pairing. Simplicity itself, and the possibility that she might be captured in turn is so absurd as to scarcely be worth entertaining.

With a gust of the south wind and the turning of the rain she is gone, heading up the mountain.

The moments pass quickly, or slowly. She can't tell, because time doesn't mean anything for her at the moment. From her floating perspective, Piripiri waits, and then at some point later, watches. A new woman enters the room, a warlock, in charge and insecure about it, overcompensating. Azazuka attempts petty defiance and by doing so, gives her a chance to exert her authority. A reinforcing loop, it's how you break somebody to your will. There will be sugar, later, to convince the merchant compliance is rewarded, with defiance punished. Keep it up long enough, if you are skilled enough, and anyone will fall, to the conditioning or death. Piripiri doubts the warlock's skill here, though they are in Hell. She would doubtless have tutors.

And then Ven (though she does not know her name yet, she will learn it in the flow of things) turns to Piripiri and the passive waiting is over. Insults, yes. Demeaning, humiliating even, but the barbs fail to find their mark. She floats above them, uncaring, unimpressed. She looks up at Ven as the thumb presses the gag slightly deeper. "Plain. Unimportant. Disposable." These are true words, in a way. She's a tool. Even then...

Even then, she stares back into Ven's eyes, disdainful. She has lived honor. She has fought for her family and her land, navigated the politics of the academy, bleed and done terrible things. But she has never given up. This warlock, she's forfeited. She took the easy path, the path that any sucker could take, and calls herself special for it, for having bought power at the cost of kneeling to the Broken King. She gave up on the idea that she could fix things.

Piripiri stares up into her eyes, from within the binding ropes, torn leggings and tunic paling beside Azazuka's finery and Ven's infernal wardrobe, and her gaze burns. Her thoughts can clearly be read in her face.

How pathetic.

That's a 10 on enticing. This will be as fun and unhealthy as a drunken run to White Castle for food.

Giriel meets Uusha’s gaze. Kayl running off hot with pride was the best she could hope for, and now Uusha is her attention. Fight a knight? Was that really the only thing open to her? She had promised Agata to return when she had resolved things here. She didn’t think that fighting Uusha, running her off, would change her mind. Giriel didn’t think the Red Wolf thought that either, otherwise she’d have gone herself, a hero of the Dominion. One did not hire a witch to go smashing about with swords, even as a backup plan (barring certain very specific demons), and whether Red Wolf had any inkling of Uusha being here, the response to the N’yari would have been much the same.

No, one hired a witch to talk and set things to right, or perhaps to set things wrong as Peregrine was doing for the sake of experimenting with her Art. And that meant that things might just take a little more time. Time enough to change a mind perhaps. Magic was, after all, about Will. You didn’t practice if you didn’t have that basic sense of self.

So Giriel stared at Uusha, the stag knight, and slowly shook her head such as the knight’s gauntlet would allow. “I will come with you, but I won’t help you rouse the dead. You’re making a mistake and I’ll stay with you long enough to help you see it.”

... Ven?

On the outside looking in, Kalaya's brain is able to figure this out. It's pretty clear that when one is thinking of a long-lost childhood friend, they can convince themselves of seeing them in passers by. A fleeting glimpse in a crowd or, in this case, an eerie lookalike stranger on a rain-soaked road after an emotionally charged battle. It's perfectly reasonable. There's no subtext or other possible explanation as to why this very (very) pretty priestess should be triggering those memories and feelings. And despite her (again, very pretty) eyes and oh is it getting warmer out here - wait, still cold and raining. Right. Where was I? Ah yes, very pretty eyes, there's no romantic reason why they should be linking to that particular memory or person.

I mean, after all, Kalaya's dream is about being a knight in the truest sense and making the Flower Kingdoms a better place. The idea of getting smitten isn't even on the game plan. In fact, its not even in the arena. If it was anywhere, it would be two kingdoms over, kicking back and going fishing.

...

Even if Kalaya was to let someone into her heart, it probably wouldn't happen quickly. She'd always thought that the person, if they ever existed, would be her friend first. Good and true. A partner and supporter in her dream. Her other half in every sense of the words. If Victorious Vixen were to be that ... Can she even be that?

...

Those eyes. They gaze with such intent.

"W-why me?" she asks, cramming all of that back inside and meeting the priestess' gaze with an sizzling intensity. "Why me, and why now?"

Her body is still, but her hand is gripping her sword hilt so hard that her knuckles are white.

Han looks her dead in the eyes. She opens herself wide, and lets Machi’s longing gaze pour into her. No distraction. No hiding. And on any other day, Machi might have realized what was coming. But today is the first day she has ever kissed her stone-heart, and she could not recall even the rules of Highland fighting, ingrained in her by a lifetime of practice. For in the Highlands, when you stab someone in the back? When you hit them where it really hurts? You have the common blasted decency to look them in the eyes when you do it.

A decision crosses the space between them, faster than even regret. Leverage crumbles. Legs coil. And a champion goes sailing into the river before the pain could fully register.

(We regret to inform you that Han’s Special Time has. Experienced some unforeseen delays.)

When Machi emerges, it is not as a flailing kitten. It is not as a soaked cat, scrabbling at the deck. She _erupts_ from the river in a great spray of water that sets the barge rocking. And Han nearly tips it over, exploding off the bridge with an umbrella gripped in each hand. In the air they meet! Machi catches the kick! She shatters the umbrella! And the second whirls down on her back and spikes her to the water. A barbed rain of splinters hangs frozen in the air. Again they strike. Again, a champion falls!

“Yield!” Han roars, punching and righting the swaying deck as she lands. “Yield already, you, you! Stinkhead!” She breaks another umbrella over her knee, banging the two jagged lengths of wood together, sounding her challenge to the very heavens.

[Rolling to Fight: 3 + 3 + 3 = 9. Han takes a superior position, and gains a String on Machi. Machi gets to pick an option in return.]

Zhaojun!

An unruly pack of wind-gods meet the Messenger of Heaven on the slopes of Mount Fang. They are inconstant, not in the manner that Mercury is but in the sort of way that the Moon is, waxing and waning through shadow and light, and like the choirs of the Moon (whose musical output is eclectic), they are creatures who do not take well to the song of domination. Or, rather, it might be better to say they sing it as a round, and woe to the one buried under their verses.

They circle around Zhaojun on their leopards and jackals until one approaches directly in the high airs, where the gods play their dramas, seeing but unseen to all but the wise. Her leopard bares its long silver fangs, the winds caressing the opals and turquoise woven into its braids.

“Hail, star-daughter,” the wind-god says. Her third eye is merry and promises mischief, the same as her flickering heart. Her accent is excruciatingly thick and terrestrial, a thing befitting a lesser spirit. “Have thou business ere? Hie up hither on mine ounce.” She scruffles her leopard affectionately and grins through curved teeth. “Thou’s hae a ride as fits lowland hindways fineful, blue-shine. Or this one’s no Jenny Tosstrees.”

...she seems to be offering a ride on her leopard. It’s possible that accepting would put the Emissary in her debt or leave her open for their pranks, but refusal might be perilous while surrounded by half a dozen wind-gods. By right they should yield to Heavenly authority, of course. And presenting them with her scheme directly might play on that love of mischief— if they do not choose to spite her, instead.

***

Piripiri!

Blood rushes to the warlock’s cheeks. Shame burns in her eyes, and anger that she feels ashamed, and confusion, because this isn’t how this is supposed to go. “Are you paying attention,” she hisses. “I’m in charge here,” she says. A rookie mistake. If you’re in charge, you only say that after establishing, without a doubt, that you are. “Your life is in my hands,” she adds, and looks away, having lost the staredown completely.

“In fact,” she says, standing, starting to pace, “you’ll regret your impudence. You’ll wish I tossed you back! Then at least your suffering would be brief. I was taught by the Princes of Hell how to hurt someone. And I’ll do it! You should have begged me for mercy!”

One of the Wrack-dolls laughs.

It’s a shuddering, wheezing sound, a thing of rusted metal scraping against itself, but it’s laughter. Ven turns on her heel and shoves the nearest Wrack-doll back into its brethren, hard, and the sound of that happening is auditory torture, like being stuck in an abandoned armory during an earthquake.

“I! AM! IN! CHARGE!” She yells, like someone who desperately needs to believe it. She snaps her fingers and the Wrack-dolls collapse to their knee guards, shrouded heads bowed, while the warlock breathes hard and fast and furious.

The look she gives you is furious. Like it’s your fault that she is airing out her insecurities in front of a prisoner, like a cut-rate opera villain. (It takes a very special kind of person to play the tropes beloved of Hell straight and not get that reaction, to be fair.)

“Take her,” she orders. “To the Gate. I will call on the Laema later.” (The Laema, the Modiste of Hell; she intends to give you a most indecent makeover. Not being a witch, the most you have are stories about that serpent-witch and her infernal fashions.) The Wrack-dolls stand, and two cut the rope between your wrists and ankles, hauling you up to your feet.

Take a String on Ven, having embarrassed her in front of her own demons.

***

Giriel!

“Oh,” Peregrine says, halfway to Giriel’s lair. “Hello.”

You’ve been walking next to each other all this time, and it’s only now that she’s aware enough of anything outside of her own head to properly recognize you. On either side are Uusha’s brigands, and before and behind, too; Uusha herself leads from behind, covering the trail in your wake.

“Generality is a dead end,” she continues. “Encoding specific narrative through the translation is key to being able to enforce it.” Peregrine is talking about her current pet theory: she thinks she can translate the tongue of the gods into music in order to create heightened meaning and symbolism, and that all sorcery somehow echoes or points back to it. The only rub is that she’s the only witch who can seem to get it to work; every other witch who’s tried has ended up with a burning, ruined instrument. “I told them a story,” she continues. “One about that soldier.”

This soldier... the Red Wolf? Uusha? Someone else? She knows what she means.

***

Kalaya!

Ugh. Of course you’d be that sweet and sentimental. Easy enough to manipulate, but... gross.

It must have just been this, Kalaya: that the priestess needs to be protected just like Ven needed you. That’s why you thought of her. When she glances up at you for a moment, she now reads as bashful, in need of a strong knight to protect her. Being that beautiful? It must really be a curse. Everyone probably thinks of her as just a pretty girl and doesn’t take the time to look past her lovely eyes and effortless grace. Not like you. You’re a good person.

“Because Heaven has willed it,” she says. “It’s not our place to argue with— oh, and she’s gone.” She leans in close and whispers, conspiratorially: “Half the time, I don’t even know what she means. We just have to trust that she knows what she’s doing. Which means— can you introduce me?” She touches your arm, looking for reassurance and protection, and peeks past you to Petony. “I’m afraid I don’t know the knights of the Flower Kingdoms as well as I should. But I’m sure that you’re all doing your very best to keep us safe.”

But don’t you think that Petony is leering a bit too much? That was, indeed, not exactly a respectful look that your mentor was giving the innocent, sweet-hearted young woman. Really, more like an assessment. Probably just saw her as a hot body and a sultry voice, and you should definitely let her know what you think about that.

There’s even an XP in it for you, if you do.

***

Han!

There’s only so much water that one of the N’yari is willing to handle in one day. Machi doesn’t admit that she’s beaten; she just stops trying to get on the barge, claws her way up furiously onto the bank, and whistles for her girls.

You spin around to fix Hanaha and Kigi with your best “get outta town” glare, eyes narrowed, promising them a world of trouble if they don’t get going. And you glare so powerfully that Hanaha decides that she needs to delay you so that you don’t get any cute ideas about hitting them with umbrellas as you go.

So, looking you dead in the eyes, the N’yari raider steals your hat off the priestess’s head, sets the priestess down on the railing, and shoves her over. Then she scampers in the other direction as quick as she can, gleeful, because she knows you’re going to dive right in after her.

Without even really letting yourself think, you leap over the side, ready to dive down to the bottom of the river to save her, and only after you’ve hit the point of no return do you see her, legs up against the barge, impossibly floating on top of the water.

Which means that landing on her is a lot like falling off a log placed over a river. She can’t go underneath the water, no matter how much pressure you’re putting on her, and that leaves you churning your legs under the water and grabbing at her robes to try and stabilize yourself. You end up rolling her a couple of times over the top of the water with muffled grunts and squeaks before you manage to get steady.

She looks away, and what you can see of her suggests that she’s absolutely mortified about this incredibly normal priestess thing. You’ve never heard of a priestess doing this, but they probably just don’t tell the likes of you about their amazing walking-on-water powers. After all, the Sapphire Mother is a goddess of the waters, so it stands to reason that they can all do this and Crane just hasn’t shown it off in front of you because her training trumps her need to rub everything in your face.

You did it! You saved the day. And now you’re soaked, your hat’s gone, you broke a whole bunch of umbrellas, nobody’s going to want you to stay on that barge even after you untie them, and you’re inconveniencing a priestess after you tried to give her a rescue she didn’t even need.

And the worst part is that Machi’s breath still lingers on your mouth. The feel of her still weighs on you. That’s the first time you’ve ever been properly confessed to, and it’s not going away anytime soon. The process of actually setting everyone free is going to be an embarrassed blur of awkward coughing and zoning out as you think about muscles and kisses and being picked up and held.

Feel free to try to leave after, feeling the weight of those glares on you, hearing the murmurs, knowing that everybody blames you for what happened. Even the priestess seems to be keeping to herself, looking over the broken pieces of the umbrella she tried to give you. (A smarter girl might realize not all the murmurs are about you, and that she’s trying to avoid talking to anybody more than trying to avoid you, but you’re busy wallowing in this feeling. Go ahead. Wallow away.)

Mark a Condition, too. You were playing rough and hard there at the end, and your heart hasn’t had a chance to have a breather. That, and that injury’s definitely making itself known.

“Hi! Peri! Slow down, you know we can’t all be savants. Which soldier do you mean? Give me a name if it’s safe.”

Giriel tried not to sigh as they were walking. For one thing, a big sigh meant inhaling a lot of dust from all the raiders on dry mountain roads. The lowlands had a recent storm, but it hadn’t made it up this far, not yet at least. So, the tension in the air wasn’t just from Uusha, but spoke of thunderstorms to come sometime soon. They’d be welcome when they came, a reminder that the fury of the heavens was beyond all these petty squabbles and even the dead paid due respect to such things.

Dealing with Peregrine was a challenge though. She had eaten her soup at least. She hadn’t noticed who it had come from, of course, or where, but it was right there next to her and other people were eating and that had been enough to get her body going through the motions from muscle memory even if her mind had been elsewhere. It was a blessing that she had said hello at last, and now she’d launched into theory. And while Giriel might be able to understand it, she knew that she couldn’t try to do it at Peregrine’s speed. Plus, one did have to say the safety things very carefully. For all Giriel knew, “that soldier” was a euphemism for some high ranking demon and Peregrine would just drop the name in the middle of a field like it was nothing. Probably not, but one did have to be careful.

Really, Peregrine and Uusha made the perfect pair. Frustratingly so. A better knight would not have put Peregrine up to such blighted work no matter how good her theories. And a better witch would have talked some sense into Uusha in the first place before she’d gotten all this momentum and convinced herself she was acting for everybody’s good by disturbing their ancestors to engage in mass murder.

“And Peri” she added, before the other witch could launch into a second run of theory, “why are you raising the dead for this? I heard about signs of demons near here on my way up. If you’ve got a good theory to test with your music, turn your magic on them and help everyone, not on young soldiers trying to make a living.”

Of course. That must've been it. Only possible explanation.

Rallying admirably, Kalaya straightens - her hand unclenching from the sword and, completely unintentionally, taking a step back from the priestess who was getting oh too close.

"Yes! Safety! Right." she replies. "As Knights of the Thorn, we'll gladly assist you and the god-chosen. Petony-phraya here will--"

Turning and spotting the look on her companion's face, KAlaya starts and frowns.

"Petony-phraya will, of course, help too. After all, a knight is sworn to protect the weak. Not to size them up like a piece of meat."

She could wield enormous power here with a simple act of secrecy. Simply by being an ambassador from Heaven and failing to speak her desire she could paralyze this entire court. None could act against her if they did not know her agenda. If they knew she had duties relating to mortal administration they could offer their services dearly, whereas if they knew she was here to investigate and censure then they could throw rivals and scapegoats at her feet. They seek the shape of her so that they might know how to push her, and how far.

In what direction is always a mug's game to guess. Wind spirits will help or hinder as it suits them, but they would find little satisfaction by blowing about thing she found meaningless. What they crave is relevance and entertainment, and that means that they need to know what they are assisting or thwarting. This of course is dangerous territory as Iupeter's domain brushes against Venus', but more relevant than the dance of the maidens in this moment is that Zhaojun is weary. She is a cat, after all, and a damn sight better a cat than these miserable leopards who allow themselves to be ridden like mules.

So with feline imperiousness she climbs atop the offered leopard without a word and immediately rests her head against Jenny's back, whispers her destination and falls into an easy daydream almost immediately. And she does not fear that these sky-spirits will lead her astray because the desire to find out what business a creature such as her has atop a mountain such as this will overbalance any competing trick that they might think of on short notice.

And so she nuzzles into Jenny's back and begins to purr.

Han works the knots in a bubble of silence. Where she goes, the quiet follows. Where she leaves, the whispers start. Never to her face, oh no. Goddess forbid someone should say an unkind word and ruin the mood, right? Much better to blame someone behind their back, where you can be as brave as you think you are.

Whatever. She doesn’t have anything to say to them anyway. She has...other things to think about.

The Priestess. She hasn’t said a word to her since the N’yari left, and it’s the smartest move she’s made all evening. Do y’get it, bud? Do y’see why you should’ve left her alone? Now you know; next time you see the toughest girl in the room keeping to herself, you return the favor. That’s nature’s way of telling you somebody’s trouble, and all the best intentions in the world can’t save you from what’ll happen. (She thought she was being careful. She thought she remembered where it fell. All the same, the Priestess holds a shattered handle.)

The trip home. No umbrella. No hat. No poncho. No problem. Not like she was getting any wetter. It was getting late, but so what? Not like she had a carriage to catch. (Not like anybody was waiting on her.) She’d get there when she got there, alright? Things happened on the road. That’s how it was.

Machi. Machi. Stupid, stupid, Machi.

What were you thinking?! Did you seriously expect her to just, just swoon to pieces, because. Because! She wasn’t. Gonna. That wasn’t gonna happen. It wasn’t gonna _ever _ happen. And you’d have to be an absolute rockhead to think otherwise. And now. (Her chest feels. Light. Lighter than it should. Wrong, now. It remembers the weight, the pressure, the warmth. It may never forget.) Shut up. (A blur. A dizzying, blazing blur. Both of them. Impossible, to pick a moment right now, and not get lost in them all.) Shut up! (She meant it. She meant it. She meant it. She meant it all, and more. All of it.) Shut! Up!!!

“Sometime today, catkisser.”

Han blinks into the iron face of a scowling bridesmaid. Did she just- “You wanna run that by me again?”

“I said. Sometime today. Catkisser.”

Oh. Now there’s some backbone.

“Please.” Another sits nearby, massaging her sore wrists. “Don’t make a scene. We don’t want any more trouble.”

“Any more trouble, huh?” Han barely turns to her, and she wilts immediately. “Is that what you think’s gonna happen? One wrong move, and I pick up where the N’yari left off?”

The bound girl sniffs. “Don’t shout so much, I can still smell the cat on your breath.”

And that’s when the silence hits her. Nobody’s whispering anymore. No one makes a sound. They stare at her, or around her, all their attentions orbiting her, and she sees the expectation in their wide eyes and too-tense limbs. Nobody knows what’s about to happen. But everybody suspects they know.

They’re wondering who will come to save them the second time.

Han rises, and carries the bound bridesmaid with her. No one breathes. “Here.” She tosses her into the lap of her companion. “You in a rush? Do it yourself.” A chorus of indignant oaths strike at her back; she ignores them. (Others are already rushing to help. To soothe her. To glare in solidarity at the unbelievably rude Highland thug.) She binds her sword anew, slings it over her back, and in a single leap clears the stream to the riverbank.

Who needed a stupid boat anyway? She had two good feet. She could walk. It wasn’t that far. She wasn’t that wet. Her arm didn’t ache that much.

She didn’t need any of them.

She didn’t need anyone.

[Marking Angry.]