[b]Eclair![/b]

The Paladin does not go down gracefully. She fights. She bucks, she flails, she gnashes her teeth— but first she crumples to her knees, and then on all fours, panting, cheeks squished, poked and prodded and given scritchies. (Don’t worry about the seating. Her back is broad and strong.)

“…you promise?” The words are muffled, but insistent. “I… nngh.” She can’t lift you; every time she half-rises, you bring her back down with a devastatingly timed distraction. The little bell on the collar jingles jauntily. “…can’t… have to… promised I’d stop you… [i]damn[/i] it…”

Her eyes flutter shut as you find just the right spot underneath her chin. Her gauntlet scrapes against the tile. Her heartglaive is useless under her hands, pinned down by your shared weight.

It’s fairly obvious, come to think of it. She’s a sledgehammer. The kind of girl who responds well to challenges, being given good instructions, having someone to compete with. The kind of weapon that someone might fire at you if your investigation caused them problems. Come up with a sordid story, convince her that you’re a cackling, scheming villainess, and then watch as she flings herself at you repeatedly. If you don’t convince her of your innocence, she would come after you again and again until ordered to call the pursuit off. Dogged, relentless, morally struggling with the fact that you’ve found The Scritchies Spot, and… well, as devoted to her tasks as you are to yours.

She would be an excellent cleaning partner and a reliable asset, if flipped. You just need to convince her that yielding, that not being an invincible wall of stone, is not Giving Into Wickedness.

Now would be a wonderful time to introduce yourself, incidentally. I’m quite sure this is where you do it.

[hr]
[b]Kalentia![/b]

One of the Serigalamu bears down on you, intent on going right through you— and the running and slithering people behind you— to… well, there’s probably some handhold, some boxes to climb, some route that’s so important that shoving you to one side’s no trouble at all. And your feet feel rooted to the ground, and wouldn’t a barrier have helped here?

Except the Lunarian interposes herself at the last second. Unarmed, she gets her shoulder under the breastbone and flips the Serigalamu over, catching and twisting their arm along the way, disrupting the connection with their heartblade. The hunter hits the tiles hard, the air forced out of their lungs, and the Lunarian settles into the sort of stance that Injimo would recognize, ready to burst into action again.

“I am the advising of cessation of the unmaking of serenity,” the Lunarian says, a little raggedly. Yes, that’s it. Strain under the buzz of their voice. “You are the irrational unthinking, the disrupting of the serene.”

Then she looks back at you, her face hidden behind the smoky visor of her helmet. “You are the assisting of the disrupted. The path upwards is the protecting from disruption.”

Then she bounds (bounces?) into the fracas, and watch what she’s doing: trying to put herself, without a heartblade, between the people she’s waving over to you and the Khaganate pack. Taking blows which bounce off her armor, and doing her best to disarm and neutralize these rampaging huntresses.

[hr]
[b]Sulochana![/b]

Chaos. Complete chaos. In your city! The screams of the crowd: these are your people!

All around you, loyal guards try to stem the tide of these flea-bitten venturers. Long, muscled tails smack scampering, leaping huntresses back; forked spears catch motley blades in their tines and skewer the least prepared of the lot. But the clever members of the pack know that they don’t need to get dragged into a fight.

“Don’t let them through! Crevas is on the side of the Golden Fawn—“

You barely swat aside a headshot. The Khatun, damn her eyes, snaps off another shot as she lopes towards you. Her mere presence seems to push her pack to redouble their efforts, and— you can’t look. If you take your eyes off the Khatun, you’re done for.

You have the reach advantage, and the advantage of knowing that you are defending that helpless boy (Hazel, like the Hazelnuts), who will doubtless be grateful and ready to be tamed when Yuki puts in a good word for you. Yuki! She must be ready to jump out any moment now and catch the Khatun from behind! The two of you, just like back when you were sneaking into Crevas from below. Where is…?

There. Dashing south-and-downwards, flanked by two huntresses. Your stomach drops; for all that she must have a good reason, you can’t help but feel… abandoned.

The Khatun is on you, and from her heart’s weapon— that recurved bow— she somehow pulls a broad-bladed, recurved knife, and you barely have the time to register that she’s suddenly got in under your guard before she’s sliding the heartblade into your stomach, twisting, dragging it upwards, and the hoarse scream that bursts out of you is barely recognizable as your own.

[i]Abandoned. Betrayed. Alone.[/i]

Someone catches you as you stagger, and the Khatun has bounded past, not giving you so much as a second glance. The shock of that blow is still reverberating through you— you can hardly breathe through the tears.

This was supposed to be your [i]night.[/i]

At least the sight of the Golden Fawn nobly descending is a comfort. Of [i]course[/i] Yuki’s friend is noble and self-sacrificing, pretending to be clumsy and easily caught in order to draw away pursuit from festivalgoers. How [i]noble…[/i]

[hr]
[b]Yuki![/b]

“For the mounts?”
“No time.”
“So where?”
“Not up. Out.”

Olesya and Juniper let you go, but Juniper grabs your hand and interlaces her fingers with yours. The three of you start running, following the fleeing crowd, and… huh, Olesya doesn’t have her heartblade out. She’s moving quick, though, and it’s all you can do to keep up. She runs like she can somehow catch up with ten minutes ago and stop any of this from happening.

She slides to a halt by a low-hanging wall and drops to one knee. Juniper lets go of your hand and jumps, landing with her foot in Olesya’s hands, and— woof. That’s a very strong toss up, like a vertical caber toss. And Juniper tries to smooth down her skirt a little too late, giving you an eyeful. So stop looking up, look at Olesya! She’s going to do the same for you if you can get the momentum up.

And then, once you’re up there, that’s when the rooftop parkour will begin. There’s a lot of verticality to scrabbling over the tiles of Crevas’s rooftops, and plenty of daring jumps from one roof to another, all to try and cut Hazel off— but that depends on you trusting in Olesya first, and pulling her up after you with Juniper after.

(You definitely didn’t have the chance to do something like this last time— being up on top of the city instead of sneaking through secret passages and basements. It’s very “Assassin’s Creed,”isn’t it?)

Either way, mark a Need with Sulochana. That’s just the way these things [i]snake[/i] out sometimes.

[hr]
[b]Injimo![/b]

You’re fighting just like the Nagi are, you know. Not in technique, but in purpose. You don’t land a solid hit on this maid, and she can’t seem to land a solid hit on you, either. It’s all fluttery scratches, a fleeting rush from glancing blows with her fan— because she doesn’t want to drop you. She just wants to get past you, and you are impossible to ignore, not letting her slip past.

Finally, she has an opening: her fan’s edge kisses your chest, right at your breastbone. But the shock of her own heart striking yours is something you’re trained to push through. An iron heart is an impenetrable heart.

So she hops back, clicking her fan shut. Behind you, three Paladins are now covering for Civelia; you’re the head of the spear, and now the rest of the spear is in place. So she dips into a curtesy towards you all.

“[i]Excellent, excellent![/i] You are lucky to have such a lioness defending you, goddess! But you must be lucky every time, my dear, and I must merely be lucky the once~!”

She points at Civelia with the closed fan. “For I, Eclair Espoir, the Violet Flash, shall have my [i]vengeance[/i] on you, yes~!”

One of the Paladins moves— fool. No sooner is he in his swing than Eclair Espoir is jumping, landing on his blade’s flat in her heels, and launching off, already swinging her skateboard off her back and smoothly under her feet.

Mark a Condition as even your iron heart feels the blow. Another pale scar to add to your collection.

[hr]
[b]Hazel![/b]

You skid around yet another corner, heart pounding in your ears, the baying of the pack and the clash of heartweapons echoing in your wake, throat hoarse from the dry Crevas air and from yelling for people who decided to stay out for a quiet cup of tea or for board games in park squares that they should get inside, pronto!

Anyway, you skid inside the alleyway and then bounce.

“There you are!”
“There [i]you[/i] are!”

The veil and sash are snatched away from you, even as Keli takes your hand to help you back up. (Her other hand is, ah, stabilizing herself.)

“We come up to save you and you’re diving off rooftops?”
“Managing to knock out that bossy snake, yah!”
“Without even a thought of coming back for us?”
“And since when do antlers glow in the dark?”

The hunt is getting very, very close, Seli is adjusting her veil with an air of aggrieved pride, and Keli is peering very closely at your antlers.

Do you feel like digging yourself deeper into debt, little fawn? Or do you want to dare doubling back on your own trail? Do you think they really don’t know what’s going on, or are they just trying to lull you into a false sense of security? And Keli definitely isn’t letting go of your wrist now.

And you [i]do[/i] still have your purse…