[b]Eclair![/b]

Three attendants converge on the two of you, with the kind of sublimated nervous energy that one gets in a service job. But that doesn't matter to the two of you, does it? Not with that danger in the air, just waiting to ignite. She's raised her starglasses now, all the better to give you a half-incredulous, half-insolent look.

"Morning, Noon and Evening, huh? I'd call them has-beens, but that would im-[i]ply[/i] that they ever [i]were[/i] important. My mom's gonna hunt your [i]mommies[/i] down, you know. Drag them kicking and whining into reality, turn them into cute little sluzhankas, and keep them as trophies in her yurt. So if you don't want to join them: get out of my face, [i]bitch[/i]."

Behind her, a woman in a sequined western crop top and a diamond-studded collar is crossing her arms, shaking her head, and mouthing: [i]I am so sorry please don't fight her I am SO sorry[/i]. An attendant in an Aestivali bathing outfit is taking those catering boxes off your hands. You are being invited to an exclusive fish dinner since you are today's lucky winner, ma'am, if you'll just come this way?

And her smile just keeps getting wider as she stares you dead in the eyes. [i]Daring[/i] you to start something.

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

"[i]Cutie[/i] will do," Amali says, giving you the kind of Look that might put the fear of Me into you. You know, the sort that says that you have been quite decisively [i]outfoxed[/i]. "Good to see you're on the cutting edge, Alci. I said to myself, I said: if anyone's going to be leading the Golden Fawn Cabaret, it'll be Alcideo."

"Aww, shucks, Miss A, Yaz just tapped me for it, that's all," he says with a familiarly self-deprecating wave of the hand. As if a boy like [i]this[/i] could feel the same embarrassment of praise as [i]you[/i] do. But it's impossible to say that he's faking it, so what even gives??

"Yes, well, I don't doubt that Yaz will be putting our Cutie here right under your wings. Keep him out of trouble with the Girls, will you? I promised his dear mama that he'd be safe here until the tea's no longer simmering." She winks, and Alcideo nods with (mock?) solemnity.

"Of course. Don't you worry about a thing, Cutie. People will be so busy looking at your horns and your chest that they won't be paying attention to your face, and the tips should be [i]really[/i] good while this whole hunt for the Golden Fawn's going on. If you can dance that's great, but if not we'll just get you on drinks."

The lift comes to a stop and opens up on an opulently decorated room, even by the standards of this place. Lots of marble and gold and more dark wood, and oh boy Amali's got you by one arm and Alcideo's got you by the other, and you are being led across the room. Which, you might notice, is definitely not empty, there's several desks and several people in much more sensible clothing dealing with some sort of pneumatic tube system, and it looks like they've been integrating tablets into their system because they'll take messages from the tube system and read it at their desk before tapping away on a tablet with a stylus, and that's something to focus on instead of the elaborate screens that you're being dragged to.

"You mind if I go first?" Alcideo is saying. "I'll be right in and out."

"You should come in with us," Amali says, firmly, "seeing as she'll want to hand Cutie here your way."

And then the three of you weave between the screens - to the right and then to the left - and you're in an office with one hell of a view. Wall-to-wall windows, with just a little bit of gutter down into the floor, show the giant tree down below, and the steam rising from the baths, and multiple levels of brightly-decorated entertainment halls, and gosh it's a long way down, hope you don't get weird around heights.

Or around big women curled around a specialty Nagi couch, wearing a fur-lined silk blouse, tapping on a tablet while holding a long smoking pipe in one hand, eyes gleaming in the smoke, taking up at least a good eighty percent of the room because even coiled up around the couch her tail just keeps going and going and [i]going[/i], and when she looks up at you it's like being pinned to the screen behind you with the intensity of her eyes, gold and black like a solar eclipse.

"Amali, darling." Her voice is so low and powerful that you can feel it in your bones as much as you can hear it. "And 'Deo, good, good. Just the people I needed to see." She sets the stylus down with a definitive [i]click[/i] and then crooks her finger. At you. Very definitely at you. "Let's see what Auntie's sent us. [i]There's[/i] a good boy."

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

While Cair repairs that armor, you're dealing with the double whammy that your patient is hyperresponsive to dark magic and is also depressed as hell. The way that she is sinking into herself and crumpling into the hot tub because there's nothing for her to [i]do[/i], nothing for her to grapple with, nothing for herself to throw herself into so that she doesn't think about her circumstances, is likely very [i]familiar[/i]. It's a textbook case of chronic heroism burning out when there's nothing to hero about.

Your quest: get her mind off it, and also the person she's missing, in a way that doesn't risk her flopping face-first into the pool and succumbing to the sickness that's drawn to her like a magnet while she's outside of her suit.

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

"W-what my guard here means is that we're going to be returning to Aestival [i]after[/i] we've taken the waters in Vespergift. Being part of that intolerable [i]ruckus[/i] in Crevas was, ah, jangling. For my nerves. But I know as well as you, o Hero, that once Sulochana Arju gets her hands on the Golden Fawn and the Crown of Light, all of these troubles will be melting away like snow. You do support her claim, don't you? Not those barbarous Khaganate hunters?"

You might be unsubtle, dear, but your friend is similarly unsubtle, and poor Pasenne is practically tripping over her own coils as she sets out plates on the cyclopean stone table and starts pouring drinks from a bottle of Crevas wine. The three of you would look dreadfully suspicious to anyone with the acumen of, say, Eclair Espoir. But perhaps [i]the[/i] Hero of Ages herself won't notice, despite the fact that she's probably got lifetimes of noticing when things are Going On up her poofy silk sleeves?