[b]Jade[/b]

[i]The road to the realm of the living is precisely the length it needs to be, as your grandmothers would be quick to remind you. A goddess is given precisely the trials that she needs to establish her mythology. This does not mean that her victory is ordained. You know full well how many a wild and unruly goddess has been bound and gagged, how many overthrown, how many were let loose only to achieve wild wreckage and then were cast down in their turn. Peace is not the end state of the gods, but harmony, perhaps would be the right description, Smokeless Jade Fires. Balance must be in all things, and for each of them a time and a place. This, Mu Ysha rages against, with her six blades, but you laid her low. This too, you have raged against, and soon will face the goddess who bound you once. Your road returns you precisely in time to consider that as you reach your Priestess once more.[/i]

***

[b]Dolly, Mirror[/b]

Six Stones throws down her cards in disgust at being named the Bride after being forced to discard the Goddess again and Nines made a good run of it, but Mirror nailed her with a Jackal after she played the Pilot. This leaves just the two of you, with most of the upper half of the deck emptied out already. And all the space in the world to talk as the night winds down.

***

[b]Isabelle[/b]

Kiriala swept you away the second she saw you. Over first to some of her friends, to give you an herbal Hybrasilian drink that hit a lot harder than its taste would have had you guessing. “You came you came!” she said with excitement, and then there were stories of Shantriala and the time she solved the murder of Hybrasil’s most famous geneticist and on and on. Other Hybrasilians drifted by, and you met some of the retinue of Smokeless Jade Fires for the first time, and they insisted on a drink to celebrate hooking another Terenian (with some allusions to a cross-bow binding of some kind that you consider that you ought to avoid if you want to be able to train for your next match instead of dragged off as a cult offering). But they insist on a drink too. And then there’s Angela who drifted over seeing another set of Terenians, and she insists on giving you a backslap and a congratulatory drink as well.

So as the night wears on, you’re tipsy and light-headed, and surrounded by celebrators. It all went by in a blur, but tell us what the highlight was, and then drag yourself to bed to get ready for the next match. 

***

[b]Solarel[/b]

While there is no particular logical theory as to how size relates to time, it is nevertheless true that at a vast size time seems to move differently. How long does it take to step a single earth-shattering stride among those empty planes? To review data, calibrate the balance, calculate forces? And then to correct and stride again. And again. 

Is it not perfection to swing a hundred blades and test the weight of each? To measure the kickback of your sniper rifle with a new leg angled in every possible firing position?

It will be time for the next match by the time that you have fully learned all the specifications and functions of the new leg. Why is it that, when you reach that point, knowing all the myriad ways that it can be used, all its advantages and disadvantages, you still believe it inferior?