Yuki!

It feels like it takes entire days for Aadya to answer. She stares down into her teacup, slowly swishing the dregs at the bottom as if trying to divine the future, to see which route the stars have declared for Thellamie. I'm afraid it doesn't work like that, darling, not unless that terrible old bird brings down more dictates from those self-obsessed stick-in-the-muds. And yet she tries anyhow, or at the very least that's the vibe, as you kids say. Some people might say that there's not much going on in her head. (I'm looking at you, Miss Fullbright.) But her thoughts are grinding along like stone on stone, slotting into place.

"I wish they hadn't chosen him," she concludes. "Why couldn't it have been you?" Her hand reaches across the table: a bid for companionship, for solidarity, for acknowledgement. "Why not you? You trapped Azaza, you know our world, you could have chosen someone to be tamed by and we'd be done with the whole thing, and we could worry about the maids making some new bid to impress their sleeping dragons afterwards. And the Khagan! The Queen of Light would..."

Her voice dies. She can't make herself assert that a Queen of Light would see the Khagan as a problem to be solved. Not when there's other things to turn her hypothetical hand to, not when the Paladins might be able to handle things on their own, not when there are problems that Aadya hasn't taken it onto her own shoulders to try and fix.

Her finger brushes against the side of your hand.

---

Handmaidens, Howeverso Many You Be!

It's as you're walking through the humid Castle of Ginger, its psuedo-walls made of towering stalks, its rushes made of leaves, descending deeper into the sweet spice, that Morning makes herself known. One moment she isn't there, and then like an optical illusion it becomes clear that you were looking at her all along: that her scales look like ginger leaves on colorful tiles, that her beard looks like ginger-moss, that her clouded eyes are the color of sunlight filtered through the vine-windows, and that she is the entire world before you, her coils wrapped around stalk-pillars, her leaf-shaped tail closing off the way back.

[fight me] she says, as she demands of all heroes. Nothing more, nothing less. Her head sways, trying to see every part of you all at once. But Tsane would tell you all, she would, that Morning is a terrible foe to meet here in the Outside, because she wants to devour you- not in the way that you would devour a sandwich, but in the way that you (or her, at least) would devour a book.

It would be very, very perilous to remind her that Sayanastia is before her. Then she might remember not knowing anything at all, and she would drown you in the weight of how the nothingness beneath the world would fight the creation that accreted around the Nails.

I do not think Injimo has ever fought her before. Am I correct?

---

Hazel!

"You're here!" Juniper does a little dance-in-place, tail swishing furiously. "Oh, we have so much to show you! Right now we've made our way to the Fragmenthold, and once the storm clears, we'll have some time to show you around this place before the Khagan shows up! This is a place of making things, of piecing them together: the whole castle's broken and ruined but if you spend time gathering fragments and seeing how they fit, you can make all sorts of things, and there are these crabs which steam really well and then you put their shells together and usually they make a shield, wouldn't that be great for you? Because I don't really see you as being an attacker, an aggressive one, maybe if we made a crabshell--"

Olesya snaps her fingers and Juniper stiffens, blushes, glances over to her and then back to you. Pulls the breakfast bowl close to her chest and sways a little in place, fidgeting, happy.

"Make sure he's fed before serving him your sweets," Olesya says. Juniper scoots over to sit next to you, kneels right next to you, smiles with a twitch of her ear.

"Shall I feed you? Or would you prefer your own sluzhankas to do so?" She scoops a bit of egg on her fork (shining, a little chitinous, its handle curved organically). "We are happy to serve, noble guest." And she means it. She's ready to feed you the whole thing if it will make Olesya happy, and it will make her happy to do it. Welcome to the Khaganate.

---

Erika!

The shudder in Timtam is betrayed by her veil of beads, by the slight scrape of her fingernail on the cards, by the light that falls slant through the window, in the slight interruption in her breath. You have won a hit, Miss Fullbright: you have flirted with her when she is not herself, and someone else has done so not as herself, if you understand me. There are things truer to Timtam than this, but she can no more ignore what you have done than you could help yourself from enjoying a lovely gingersnap sheep with tufts of wool-frosting.

"You flatter me," she asserts. "Can you even see these lips to name them soft and precious?" She toys with one of the beaded strings, allows for the briefest glimpse. "Or are you, perhaps, seducing me for information to give your employer, Erika Fullbright? Or is this simply the sort of thing you say when you have nothing else to say? Do you like to say such things in order to make the people around you happier? If it does make someone happy, does it matter?"

The crack, the snap, of cards being sharply shuffled. "Do not answer," she demands, her demeanor changing again. "I have not earned any questions from you yet. It is a game of taking tricks. We play this in Aestival from the time that we are old enough to count. The distinction of this game is that we play our cards face down, Miss Fullbright. We tell each other what we have played. If a player likes, they may challenge the table entire, and anyone who has been caught lying is punished. And if no one was lying at all, well. Well~"

The way she rolls that well around in her mouth (oh, how it would roll around in yours, passed from one mouth to the other) brings to mind trick-taking games as played in the Mansion. Seven Prophecies. Nine Lives. Cravasmaid. Extreme Wizard. Plucky Princess. Bids run high and hot, don't they? And the punishments, well.

Isn't the best part of losing the part where you sit in the winner's lap?

Injimo!

Has she fought...?

No, she has not fought Kholessia the Flame Autoklave, who guards the Sealant Hills. She spent those hours sitting by the clock, learning to lunge to one side every nine seconds exactly, just so she would be ready to teach Heron if she ever needed to learn. No, she has not fought Meridiyen Twotusk, the Boar of the Earth, and the month spent learning to walk balanced on speartips was only so that Heron might not fall into her quicksand. And she did not learn to fly because she ever thought this moment would come.

But muscle memory is a hell of a thing.

The hurricane potion hits the ground and she is leaping over it a moment later. Solid rip on the windchute cable at the exact apex of her jump, catching the updraft and hurtling herself up into the sky. Just like she practiced for hours and hours in the mechanical junkyard of the training ground, where creatures larger than life were simulated with conveyor belts, mechanical cranes, and intricate obstacle courses layered with traps. She goes up. Up, away from the floor that is the Morning, who might twist perilously beneath her. Up, away from the branches that are the Morning, who might snare and hold her. Up, away from the eyes of the Morning, who might realize their mistake and see that she is not a hero after all. That edge is all she has to exploit; if the Morning has taken her for Heron, then she will expect a spark of genius in this battle.

She soars high on the most perilous of hopes, based on nothing and demanding everything. That the Morning will not see her stupid, rehearsed attack for what it is: a step-by-step replication of exactly the way Heron fought her the last time.

She nears the apex of her flight and she releases the windchute to whirl off into the sky, a kite in tiger's heraldry. She draws her bow. There will be a second when she ceases to rise but has not yet begun to fall when she will have perfect stability to fire a perfect shot.

And she does.

She could live in that moment forever. All the strength, speed and training of her life abruptly called upon and demonstrated in a single moment of sublime perfection. She can feel it in her muscles, in the callouses on her fingers, on the scars on her back, on the sweat of her hairline, on the surface of her beating heart.

It feels so good that she almost forgets that she is not firing an enchanted obsidian arrow capable of piercing dragonscale, but an ordinary hunting broadhead that will shatter pointlessly when it strikes the rising Morning upon her brow. Perhaps if she had given herself a moment she might have thought up a better plan, one that did not waste her one perfect technique on an attack that had no possibility of inflicting damage. But, as was said, muscle memory is a hell of a thing.

[Fighting her: 7
Take a string
Create an opportunity for an ally]

Erika notices (after far too long) that she is chewing on the tips of her hair. In her defense, it has no detectable flavor. The texture is oddly natural, and if her mind were otherwise engaged it would not be surprising at all to learn that it would feel natural enough not to call attention to itself. The good news is that her mind was engaged: she'd just collected a lot of very useful information, even enough to mark another line in her ledger and begin sketching an outline of Timtam's disguise, now that she knew it was a specifically relevant detail.

That cut the need off of... you could lose, you know. You could lose spectacularly. Don't you think? Wouldn't you rather? What does winning even get you? An answer or three? Respect? What good have those ever done anyone~? But losing, mmmmhmhmohohoho! They might blindfold you, peel you bare, but -- heeeee!! -- aren't you a detective? Be entertaining about it and you might be invited behind that veil? What secrets could you pry out of her tongue using yours instead of her stupid rules? Isn't this optimal, even? Won't there never be another chance like this? Isn't it worth the gamble, isn't it the only way to win? Don't you think that, when it gets right down to it, losing is just better than winning????

Erika notices her hair is in her mouth. Again. Hadn't she spit that out? Her cheeks flush as her elbow slips on the table and she almost plunges her face into the tea. She coughs twice, loudly, and hides her face behind her teacup.

"Mmm. Aha. Then. As the ante is paid in information here, am I correct in assuming there isn't much you can tell me about our fellow players? The game within the game would seem to be learning to read the tendencies of each member of the table the fastest. It would be, ah, crass. I would say. To have invited only a single new player?"

Yuki's hand trembles. Is it a shiver of fear? Of anger? She puts down her teacup carefully, so carefully, but even so it clatters against the saucer, a ring of little tremors as her hand shakes.

Then she just loses it. "Aadya...what the fuck? How am I supposed to even start on this? What, do you want me to tell you something wise?! I've got the quote, first thing I thought of is Gandalf telling Frodo that we can wish all we want to have had different times but that all we can do is decide how to use the time that's given us."

Yuki balls her fist, slams it on the table. The teacups rattle again. Some people look over and then quickly look away. "I know what I'm supposed to feel, Aadi! So do you! But fuck that. Doesn't make it hurt any less! No, I don't know why it wasn't me, why it can't be me. I guess I'm just not the right person for the job this time. Fate decided that whatever I had when I was twelve, I don't fucking have it now. Or fuck, maybe I do but it's the wrong thing to beat the...I dunno who are we even fighting, the rot star maybe? Whatever, doesn't matter, whatever beat Azaza isn't gonna win here, so it's not me, it's Hazel."

She takes a deep, shuddering breath, holds up a hand to stop Aadya from talking. "I am doing the best I can, the absolute best I can to be happy for him. He deserves to be happy. He deserves this adventure. Who the fuck am I to tell him that I deserve it more than he does, huh? So...so why would you want it to be me then? You want me to try and take it? Join the hunters? I'm not doing that to Suli and Juni! I won't, I refuse!" She pounds the table with both hands palm down.

Then she stares at Aadya. A part of her is aware that Aadya just beat herself up too. That Aadya can't imagine a world where she's not pushing herself to her absolute limit all the time until it breaks her. Yuki should reassure her about that somehow. But, she doesn't have the words. She doesn't have any words left. All she can manage is to slide over next to Aadya, hold onto her arm, and cry as she remembers again what it felt like to be filled with starlight.

Fragmenthold! He'd never heard of Fragmenthold before! A lot of Yuki's adventures had been in and around Crevas, and h’d only picked up a smattering of Khaganate territory from little asides in the group chat. It sounded old. And the way she said fragments sounded like it could be with a capital F. Fragments of what? Of everything? Of the past? How did you know what fit together? How hard was it to find missing pieces? Did people come here looking for things they'd lost? And, ooh! Crabs! Of course there were crabs here. There were crabs everywhere. Crab finds a way. And, oh, huh, a shield could be good for him? Or. Hrm. That's actually a really good question. He hadn't really thought of fighting in styles. He hadn't really thought of-

Snap!

Hazel jumps. A lump of heavy blankets wiggles. Trains of thought derail on contact with huntress. Fifty thinkie pileup. Millions injured.

Sorry. Sorry. He didn't mean to sidetrack. He just got excited. He'll keep a lid on it. Won't happen again.

Unless? Unless. Is Juniper not in trouble? She doesn't look very in trouble. She might not be in trouble? They might still be good? Except now Juniper's armed with a forkful of eggs, looking expectantly at him for an answer, except when she's looking back at her huntress, and heaven knows where the huntress is looking but she's definitely watching them closely.

This is a confusing breakfast.

Okay. So. Look. Juniper? Juniper. This is really sweet, and he appreciates the effort a lot. He knows how important the Queen of Light is for Thellamie, and the part he’s got to play in her crowning. He gets it now. But it's just Hazel. CinnamonDrumroll. Yuki's friend. It's okay. You don't have to roll out the royal Khaganate welcome for him. It’ll be easier on everybody, he won't mind. You all are doing more than enough, keeping him safe until the Ball. You don't have to hand-feed him too. Really, you don't.

(Encouragement.)

Hazel freezes, the refusal poised on his tongue.

(She's looking to the huntress for Encouragement.)

Juniper is very close. He can see the radiant blush on her cheeks. The shiver that runs from tail to eartip. The dreamy, happy smile.

The huntress is not so close. Her face is shadowed and painted in shadows. The smoke from the campfire drifts around her in hazy waves. But she is pleased. Don't ask how he knows it, he couldn't tell you. But everything in this tent is hers, and follows her wishes, and the body that wrestled a dragon sits in perfect, contented stillness.

Her eyes pierce smoke, distance, and Fawn with equal ease. They hold him in place almost as easily as one of her arms. Almost.

The cocoon of blankets feels. Oddly loose. Against his body. All of a sudden.

Hazel decides to shut his mouth.

Ha. Ha. Haaa. Hum. Well. You know. This…is a gift, right? So. It’d be rude to refuse it? Especially if he is. Um. An, honored guest, here, for her. Not even the regular guests at the Chrysanthemum refused the staff’s services. Could you imagine? No no, don't trouble yourself, the kitchen is right over there, I'll just pop over and get my own snacks. Who would do such a thing?

And. It was nice helping out there, wasn't it?

Juniper’s joy hadn't dimmed, nor had the fork dropped an inch.

“Well.” His voice is a little winded when he finally catches it. Hushed, and cracking. “I don't really have any sluzhankas,” and boy! That word! Is harder to say than type! “So. I suppose, it’d be okay if you did it.”

Did the customers ever feel so flushed and fluttery making their orders? No. Nah. Definitely not. They were all professionals at this sort of thing.

Handmaidens!

[oh heron did that!!]

It works, in a sense. In a larger sense, it does not work: it does not cause this dream to shatter and melt away, to be met again in some other place, at some other time. But the violence with which she snaps back, careening head over tail, swatting at Injimo with that tail as if flailing and falling helplessly, all this stems from the way that the arrow shatters on her head. And she is laughing, convulsions running along her body, as she lands on all fours on the ground- squats- lets her tail finish coming down like coils of rope- and then leaps at Injimo again.

[but you're heron and not!heron, which means heron must have finally, finally, figured it out! i didn't tell her! i would have remembered that! don't tell me, heron, i'll figure it out on my own!]

She wiggles from paw to paw like a cat, snaps her jaws in feints, grins wider and wider, her pearlescent eyes widening without any pupil to give them focus. Her tail wraps around ginger-stalks and brings them toppling down towards both of you; the air is thick and stinging with ginger-spores. She is giddy with motion.

[and you get it don't you? there's no thinking in fighting! in motion! in questing!][ She bounds up and makes of herself a circle, a ring, and then slams her tail down at where Injimo, a moment ago, was. [you've just got to go go go sweep sweep sweep run run run fight fight fight!]

She is full of joy; there is no defeating her by force of arms, save that you tire her out. Show superior stamina in how you move your body. Meet each exhortation towards action with an equal and opposite obedience. This is the way of the warrior-maid; will you prove their equal? (As for the opening, well, it is possible for a friend to slip past her, or to trade places with you- but who could hope to outlast her?)

---

Erika!

"Perhaps I like crassness from time to time," Timtam says, her inflection a perfect imitation of Noon's flirtations. "There's something delectable in seeing an innocent young thing desperately squirm as she tries to catch up with someone older and more experienced." She drags a nail across the table slowly, invitingly...

And then you, little Erika, are interrupted from further solicitations from this wicked cardsharp by the arrival of two more players. One is a big, scruffy Serigalamu huntress, her bandoliers decorated with goblin-fangs, her presence even larger than she is. This is the one who sits right next to you and uses that presence to hem you in, keep you from the door, bring you ever closer to Timtam. Stretches as a pretext to put one arm around your shoulders with the sort of swaggering grin that one expects from high-performing huntresses who wrestle with dreaming dragons.

The other is thin, like a knife for opening envelopes. Her mask glitters with crushed jewels from Aestival's coast, and her coat is swirled in the colors of Crevas. A red cloak, a golden sash, a charm dangling at her wrist: an agonistes, a wicked swashbuckling hired sword. Her makeup is muted, uncharacteristically so, but that is an illusion approached with great care.

If you do not have some sort of plan, this will be a three-against-one sort of game, and those are foregone conclusions. You do have some sort of clever plan to overcome collaboration, don't you, Erika? You're not doomed to spill all of the beans, are you, Erika? Some sort of alternative bet, more creative way of cheating, or a wicked faculty at cards hitherto unseen would all be useful in this moment.

---

Yuki!

Maybe this is one of the reasons that you were so drawn to the Paladins of Kel: they are very, very good at hugs. Or at least Aadya is. She is the rock atop a mountain, after all, and when she holds you, she feels like the entire mountain, with roots that must reach beneath the whole city. But she is not cold. Not even the post-workout cooldown can make her feel cold; if she is a mountain, she is rich with veins of hot, molten ore, the kind that cause mine disasters up in the peaks of Kel.

She doesn't use words to cup your head. She can't make an apology matter using her words, so she envelops you in a body like an avalanche, like being buried in snow, and in the snow there is quiet and peace and room to sniffle without the whole cafe seeing (though the waitress has graciously decided to avoid your table to give you this moment). And she rumbles: a low, comforting, deep rumble. It's common superstition in Kel that this rumble has healing properties, and though it might all just be the placebo effect of it all, that doesn't stop the warm shivers, the tension melting, the sense of one-day-you-will-be-whole.

This is her apology for hurting you, for pushing too hard, for not knowing what to do. Do you accept it? Give her a String, if so.

---

Hazel!

"Oh, but you're about to!" The padlock on the chest jumps and rattles as Juniper weaves eggs and sausage onto a fork. "That's part of your unique social standing here. Now, you're obviously not going to go and earn rank by wrestling with some savage goblin or fighting the mirrorfolk!" It's a blithe assertion, but one that might sting. Obviously not. Just look at you, Hazel. You do not have a wrestling bone in your body. "But if Negodincia had her way, you'd be just another prize, a hot boy to show off and lead around on a leash."

She holds up the fork, offering it as a bite.

"And after all the chores you doubtless were made to do at the Chrysanthemum, without proper compensation," as if being Encouraged was not compensation-- and do you blurt something out about that? "I think Yuki wouldn't want you being made to do all of her chores, the spoiled rotten thing."

"Careful," Olesya rumbles. "...I'm the one who's supposed to say that."

"Oh~ do forgive me~"

"She is, though. Spoiled." A huff, a lowering of the ears, a squaring of the shoulders. Responsibility with that capital R.

"As you say, my lady," Juniper trills, tail flopping about on the floor happily. "We are doing a great big game of pretend, Hazel. And the game involves you being the equal of women who wrestle goblin-elephants to exhaustion, while not having any of the accomplishments that they have. So having your own sluzhankas, infamous women gifted to you by a baygum, shields you with her accomplishment of catching them." Another forkful offered. "As will making your own shield here. It won't hold up well to a heartblade, but what does? But it will turn aside a goblin's horn or tusk, and that's what matters."

She beams. "Okay, your turn. Go ahead and ask. I know you're dying to know more~"

Sayanastia!

The Dark Dragon was not a Morning person.

She followed Injimo from inside her shadow, dragged along behind sprinting feet, gleaming eyes in the ever-shifting pool of darkness.

"Have you considered instead," she said, with the edged boredom of the lacuna, "not doing any of that?"
"Not!" Injimo said, racing against the hurricane of wingbeats. "Not?!?"
"Not," said Sayanastia. "Not run run run. Not sweep sweep sweep. Not - you get the picture."
"Mmm!?!" said Injimo, rolling to avoid the descent of talons.
"Morning is a fool, and worse: a fool by choice," said Sayanastia. "She has had a single idea in her life and has then spent the rest of her life in such a frenzy of activity that she never had time to question it."
The crash of wood and fangs. A momentary lull. "... yeah?"
"Do not look at me like that. I am entirely different from her."
She plunged suddenly as Injimo leapt off a branch, falling in an instant down miles down to the forest floor before lunging back up to the adjoining tree as quick as blinking. "Are?"
"Look - stop it. It is simple; her manic energy can only exist when feeding off the joy and energy of others. If she has no one to play with she will falter and fall to slumber. She does not know how to entertain herself and can only exist in the shadows of others."
"Hmm," a blade is drawn, blunted for training. Sayanastia curled her lip. All that skill without a weapon to put it through. She might as well try to cut through an oak with a spoon.
"I said be silent," said Sayanastia.
"'kay," said Injimo, taking her eyes off the shadow to look directly at the coming Morning. She felt the rush. She felt the joy. She felt like she could dance here forever, ten thousand years to overcome a single dragon, with her beginner's weapon delivering one bruise at a time.
"Oh. You fool," hissed Sayanastia. "You are as bad as she is."
Injimo nodded as the great whirl of leaves ascended. Her feet were ready as she waited for her moment.
"Then at the very least..." Sayanastia said, and she...

And she. And she? Reached.

Shaped. Bent. Destroyed. Obliterated, atom by atom, the dulled edge of that blade. Sharpening it until - no, not even that was enough. This thing was made by a fool (Heron) who knew nothing about blacksmithing. The iron was impure, the cast was misaligned, she could feel how trivially it would break. So she broke it instead. That was the easy part, but the hard part was. Was. Was.

It wasn't really the same thing as making something. She was just. Externalizing destruction. The same way as making a monster. A sword might be a beautiful thing but in the end it was a thing of hate, and she could understand that. She just needed to spit out a curse, hollow out this girl and render her an eternally damned sword reverent -

But she was that already. Wasn't she? The kind of person already damned to fight the Morning -

- So this was just... fixing that. Fixing a curse. Making it more like itself. Refining it, into something that wasn't just deadly, but was also...

"Beautiful," said Injimo, looking at the new sword of amethyst and silver.

And then there was no more time for words. The storm was upon them.

Did you know that over 70% of mining accidents are caused by gayness? Oh mother, I cannot clean out the ventilation system because I am too completely trashed by pining for a hot girl to do any work. Boom, mining accident. This has been a Yukifact.

There are not many other facts going on Yuki's head right at this moment. Warm. Good. Strong. Safe.

Aadya knows how to give an apology, and hugs are meant to be accepted. For many seconds it is wordless, quiet, nothing but the slow up and down of a heaving body and the warmth of tears pressed into a body. The slow hum of breath drawn through wrapped arms and the spreading warmth of that breath pressed against skin. It is an oasis, it is perfection, it is forever, and then it is over because we cannot and should not try to freeze time.

Yuki leans her head up, and her shoulder into the crook of Aady's arm, so that she's looking up at her friend's face. She breathes in, and out. "Thellamie is a good place, Aadi. Full of good people. It...it's not perfect, and we have to fight to make it better. B-but not every problem has to be our problem. Not your problem, not my problem." She breathes again, in and out, taking in the strong scent of her friend, the warmth of her arm.

"We're going to have to roll with what the world gave us. Because Gandalf (he's a wizard) was right, even when it hurts and it's unfair. So...so I'm gonna help you. And Suli, and Juni! U-until this thing sorts itself out. And we'll find your maid and you'll figure that out too."

And she looks up with her eyes still sparkling with tears, but full of hope too. That's what a good hug does for you.

[Aadya gets a string of course]

Eclair Espoir has never felt particularly short at any point in her life. The rest of Thellamie fits comfortably into two categories for her: shorter than she is, and so large as to not make scale worth contemplating. In either case there has never been a reason for the Maid-Knight to feel threatened by any situation or potential opponent.

That is to say that these would be new sensations for her, were she here. Or maybe there'd just be a fight right now, to simplify the vectors of possibility a little. Either way, Erika Fullbright feels entirely too small compared to the rest of this table. The huntress' muscles look as thick around as her head (she notes with equal parts fascination, trepidation, and excitement). The sellsword's wirey frame feels like it stretches all the way to the ceiling, and sitting calmly in between them even Timtam seems to be seated atop a mountain.

She swallows, once. These are the jaws of a trap. Between certainty of card draw and a total table-wide alignment toward a single goal there really only is one possible outcome. It's barely even enough to cheat because they can simply brute force her position into a losing one and accuse her of lying on the back end. The nature of the game is such that nothing short of a deck of cards up her sleeves would be enough to fight back, and that would only possibly spare her. She was not going to win any secrets that way, that's for sure.

She shifts nervously in her seat. The idea of just riding the massive loss all the way to Trouble Town floats back through the top of her brain, which makes her left ear flick in a way she finds annoying (it's such a tell! what kind of a loser has that for a poker face?) Her toes curl, and she shivers. In fear or in pleasure? She's not really sure.

And it doesn't really matter, does it? She's a private eye. And as long as a client's counting on her, she's got to do the best she can to crack the case. So when the deck is shuffled one last time, she leans forward and rests her elbow against the table. She squashes her cheek against her fist, and yawns as she watches the cards dealt around the table through half-lidded eyes.

She leans over a little to whisper to the huntress.

"Well this is a disappointment, isn't it? I've already played this game before. This exact game, I mean. Here, her cards," she gestures at the wraith across the table, "From left to right: Prince of Stars, Nine of Stones, Ten of Crowns, Princess of Crowns. Whereas I..."

She flashes her hand at the woman without having looked at it herself. It is, of course, all low value cards that would require her to bluff to get anywhere at all. There's no magic to what she's up to, this is simple marking and card counting. You simply shouldn't shuffle a deck in front of a detective if you don't want its secrets spilled out.

Is it a mistake to upend the table like this? Possibly. But the risk is so full of rewards she can't see past her big reveal.

She scribbles down a note with more hand information and flicks it across the table at the beautiful mercenary in her jewel encrusted veil, and shakes her head.

"And then you of course," she nods at Timtam, "Will declare you are playing the Princess of Knots. You like the yelp of indignation when I hear the name of such a high suit, because you know I'm not going to have any choice but to call you a liar. But when I do..."

She reaches across the table to reveal the Princesses of Knits, Crowns, and Stars all united against her Four of Stones. She shakes her head in sarcastic resignation.

"I mean, it's boring to play a game where we all know how everything goes the whole time, isn't it? We're not even going to make it to the cookie service before you've taken me for all I'm worth and then some. Er... there are cookies in this place, aren't there? I haven't made that up?"

She coughs.

"Well. Anyway! If it's all right with you, I'd like to suggest a few improvements we can make to spice things up a little. Let's have this one shuffle our deck again, and this one deal. You and I can take turns cutting the deck, if we like. And we'll all play single cards. Face down. Without looking. And the same rules and ante, of course. Let's play the odds and get a little messy, shall we? We could all stand to be a little more, mmmm, open with one another, shall we?"

She smiles a cat's smile, with her legs swinging mischievously under her seat. If she can turn the game from an unclimbable wall into a forest of pit traps for everyone to try and desperately scramble around, she will at least have a chance of trading shots, and that's to her advantage as the one with less to give. All that's left from there is to drive a wedge into the teamwork between the three of them, and then--

"Oh!" she chirps, "I guess I did still technically lose that last hand.

"Well then since you were curious, yes I can see your lips through those pretty little beads. If I'm watching closely enough. And it does matter to me that you're happy. So! Is it punishment time for me, or is it enough for you other lovely ladies to know that I'm secretly aligned with one other person here? I'd be careful what I share if I were you~"

He’ll have you know that he would not blurt out anything about Encouragement, thank you very much. Not here nor anywhere. But especially not when his mouth is full of eggs and sausage. Warm, but not so hot it burns. The meat reminds him of the gyros from that Mediterranean place his family would go to, where it’s not any one meat, but a combination of flavors into something new. Don’t ask him which flavors. It’s too early in the morning for big questions like that. It’s savory, it’s rich, it hits the spot, and that’s more than enough for him. Don’t ask him why Negodincia would think him hot either. Morning. Way too big. Can’t do it.

Now, there’s other things he’s trying to speak up about, but there still seem to be a lot of eggs and sausage in the way. You’d think that was an easy problem to fix, but it’s far trickier than that. When he’s finished a bite of breakfast, Juniper is still talking. Or the huntress (A Bagyum, possibly? What rank was that again?) is talking. And he’s not going to interrupt them, no. The blanket lump will shift as he raises a hand, trying to signal for silence, but before he can get the point across Juniper’s giving him another forkful. Have you ever tried to not eat something that somebody’s offered you? He certainly hadn’t! It’s really tough! The food is just sitting there. Waiting. Juniper’s looking at him. The huntress is looking at him. If there’s a way to make that moment any less awkward, it was a technique that was beyond him. Open up. Munch munch munch. Aaaaaaaaaand they’re still talking, it’s all important, so he’s got to listen closely, and it starts all over again.

(He is ravenous. He didn’t realize how empty he was until he’d tasted food. A big day. His first duel. Travel across Thellamie to places unknown. Pack rations keep a body on its feet, but do not make a proper meal. The gold-lined bowl is full of hearty, proper breakfast, and if you asked him he’d be hard-pressed to say if it would be enough for him.

Juniper is a trained sluzhanka. The fork rises with enough to make a mouthful, not enough to struggle with. Time her with a stopwatch; each bite is presented like clockwork. She keeps him at a pace where he has no choice but to relax, take his time, and savor this gift of a meal. An honored guest is not required to do anything else.

It only takes him a few bites to learn to stay still, and let her bring the fork to him. Later he will talk, and he will pause to open his mouth wide for her without thinking. Do imagine some of the following punctuation as breakfast breaks.)

“To be fair, the folks at the Chrysthanamum didn’t make me do a bunch of chores. I did have to do some chores, but like, not more than anyone else. I didn’t have to scrub dishes all day and sleep in a half-full cupboard. Really, I mostly just worked as a waiter. Taking orders, bringing people their food, making sure everyone was having a good time, that sort of thing. It was a good job, and, they didn’t force me to do anything more than that. Oh, and they gave us plenty of breaks, good food, and really, they were doing all this to give me a place to hide. Or, well, that was the idea, anyway. But that’s, I’m going off on a tangent there. Just, didn’t want to give the wrong impression.”

“I'm glad to not be doing Negocinda’s chores! That's very good.”

He hasn’t even mentioned Alcideo. Or Miss Yaz. Or all the other folks who worked alongside him at the cafe. Or the deliciousness spell. Or the soft beds and quiet dormitories. Or the, uh, very clear feedback and instruction he was given. But he’s rambling now. Way past rambling. Move it along, Hazel, move it along.

“So. Sluzhankas.” Plural. Gosh. “I remember the general idea. And some of the details from our talks. The plan makes sense.” And he’s very, very happy that plan does not involve elephant-wrestling. Or fighting the. Um. Mirrorfolk. (He breathes in freshly-cooked sausage. He remembers sweet flowers.) “So. First question: How do I…have sluzhankas? Practically speaking? I mean, I understand the idea of it, but, in practice, how do I, are there things I’m supposed to do or else I’m no longer shielded?”

“And are they okay in there? That doesn’t look. Comfortable?”

“...that’s two questions, but, you get what I mean.”

[Activating Friendly Benefits on Juniper.]

Yuki!

It's on your way to go see Sulochana, post-Aadya, that the ambush happens. Aadya's off following up a lead and doing her part with the reconstruction of the Chrysanthemum, and here you are in a part of town that's mostly deserted, off the major arteries of repair for the time being. That's when the Nagi strike.

The first one slithers from the shadows on your left with a long forked spear, and while you're reacting to that, a second is already coming around behind you with a sort of curved halberd for a heartblade. They're wearing armor in the segmented Crevas style, and they are coming at you hard.

The glint of faint northern sun off the decorative gorget of the first one- for a moment, it's like light bouncing off a mirror. You've had this fight before, and you won that time through luck and pluck and friends beside you. Not now. Not here. Now it's just whatever you've managed to hone yourself into back on Yukisearth.

---

Erika Fullbright!

It's the agonistes that flips the table, which means it's towards you, cards tumbling like rain. It's the huntress who reflexively interposes herself and catches the table, arms straining as she stops it from smooshing you into your seat. The telltale sharp ring of heartblade on heartblade, well, rings out on the other side; someone slams into it and makes the huntress strain, too busy with physical exertion to decide whether she should just drop it on your legs.

"Never trust a maid, yah?" This is a cramped space, which means that the sound of the fight on the other side of the table - and I mean quite literally the other side - is as much bodies as heartblades, hammering each other as they lock up for position. "No one plays Osorio Scarlett for the fool!"

"Whatever happened to professional courtesy?" Timtam's snappy when she's angry, no matter her disguise. "At least give me an opportunity to explain--"

The sound of a headbutt going through beads is unmistakable, as is the sound of a knee slamming Osorio Scarlett right in the fork. You're running out of time to figure out what to do in this cramped little space, crammed up against a probable enemy who hasn't figured out what to do yet, and a roiling foxgirl spat is raging on the other side.

Also, this establishment does have cookies. It's important to me that you know that. Rest assured that you might still be able to snag one, depending on how all this shakes out...

---

Hazel!

Juniper giggles and can't help herself. She very much can't. She ruffles your hair without mercy or reprieve. The great rufflening is upon you, boy.

"Oh, you are just precious! No wonder the stars decided to bring you along. Don't you think so, Olesya? So earnest," she says, playfully deepening her voice in a way that suggests she's attempting boyness, "so kind! Maybe we should have tried to just keep you as a sluzhanka and fought off anyone who tried to steal you~!" The effect of the whole is like getting simultaneously talked up and talked down by a big sister.

"Protect them," Olesya interrupts. "Tease them. The old laws." Her tone suggests that this is, in fact, extremely serious. You must protect them. You must tease them. You must, in short, be strong and also confident. These are very definitely two things that you can be, don't you think? Two expectations that will settle on your shoulders with ease and not crush you immediately.

"As for comfort, well, they have pillows," Juniper says in a way that very much suggests which pillows she is talking about, and how they are not providing support for heads. She jingles a ring of keys that was on her belt, swirls them along with a show-offy flourish, and hands one key in particular to you. "Go ahead," she says, with the enthusiasm that is the mark of any good Aestivali and definitely is not, whatever anyone says, 'wicked glee.' "It's a rite of passage every huntress goes through, if she doesn't go to the trouble of hunting down her own..."

---

Handmaidens!

Morning thrashes and collapses like a dying serpent, tail bringing down entire pillars, perfect sword plunged into the soft spot between two scales. The floor cracks. The roof sags. The smell of ginger is overwhelming and everywhere at once. Finally, she comes to a stop, rolled over on her back, sword tilted to one side: the side closer to Injimo.

[that was amazing and i am going to figure out how to counterplay that] Morning says, lifting her head. Her tail is already shivering out of existence, but these dreams of a sleeping dragon go slowly when they go. [so the skating, i get that bit, but the triple jump into a corkscrew thrust?? who taught you that, not!heron??]

Her grin is red and joyous. Her delight is literally infectious here and now, as she unravels, as somewhere Morning twitches in her sleep and lets loose a happy exhale through her nostrils. Joy floods the room, the joy of finding someone who beat you and now you have to figure out how to beat them.

More to the point, a token from her, given freely, would open the doors to the Mansion immediately. Get Injimo an apron and a skateboard straight away. She might have to explain herself, but it's one hell of an opening move, socially.

"Oh," says Erika Fullbright through the hand clasped over her mouth, "Oh dear."

It is at the very least not necessary to feign surprise. It really had been her intention to adjust the card game only, and here she'd gone and somehow flipped the entire table over! What had done it? Did Miss Osorio Scarlett catch an implied double shell game when she saw the extent to which the cards had been read? Is this some sort of Aestivali rivalry thing?

She hastily dives for her sketchbook and starts scribbling a rough estimation of two fox women clashing in a little duel: one with a fan, the other with (please forgive her artistic license, she can't see right now) a sickle dagger. It's a rough thing, abstract, there's no time to make it better and Erika isn't the sort of person who cares all that much. What matters is the information it conveys.

"Hey, um," she glances up from her book where her pencil is currently dancing, over to the woman still on the near side of the table with her, "She sounds like she's losing over there. Your friend I mean. Shouldn't you, like, help her?"

It shouldn't be surprising that a sellsword would be quick to blows when accusations of foul play are in the air. What is very surprising is that Timtam wasn't prepared for this. Now it was a question of battle lines. How tenuous were the connections Timtam was counting on? Were these two fighters hired separately, or together? Was it significant that Osorio Scarlett had gone right for Timtam and not for the pillar of a woman across from her, or was that down to positioning or a nose for trouble? A lucky guess?

She makes a noise under her breath that's half giggle and half a colon followed by a three Tell her more, dear guests! Please please please, spill all your secrets while you're busy, if you do not much mind~!

Erika ducks and scrambles down from her seat and scooches along the wall as fast as she can, ostensibly to get away from the fighting. There is a very frightened look plastered across her face. How could this have happened? And what is she supposed to do about it? Fight? Oh dear me goodness no!

Although.... as she eyes the door to the stairway.... well, there are a bunch of very strong looking, erm, "nuns" downstairs who would no doubt be highly interested in breaking up a fight~~

A maid knight's duty is to honor, and to her mistress. But a detective's duty is to justice, so if you'll just let her, uh, oops don't bump into anybody now ok? Easy does it Erika.

Injimo!

"There it is," said Sayanastia, winding over Injimo's shoulder like a serpent. "Little-miss-no-thinkies dark secret: she is going to go away and think harder than anyone has ever thought about exactly what happened and what she intends to do about it."
"I don't think that's what she thinks is good, though?" said Injimo, whose knees were telling her that she was well aware of her maximum weight limit for a healthy workout and her blatant disregard for facts would be punished. "I think it's what she thinks is good for fighting against her."
"I do not agree with that either," said Sayanastia. "The best way to beat her was what you just did: a single strike with a cursed blade. But her solution will not be to get a cursed blade of her own, it will be to learn how to evade a cursed blade for longer so that the fight will continue for longer."

Even though Sayanastia's words dripped with venom, they couldn't smother the taste of honey from Morning's twilight chatter. She was a mere mortal and she could not stand between the extremes of dragons without being pulled along by both hearts.

"That wasn't a triple jump," she felt compelled to explain. "That was me deploying a barrier scroll and wall jumping off it. Cair used to do that to win races with Heron, but I got suspicious when I noticed she only challenged her in mountainous terrain so I stayed behind to watch how she always got ahead."
Leave it there, leave it -
"But that wasn't the tipping point," she went on, compelled by her instructor's instinct. "The tipping point was noticing your observation loop is slow. When you lose track of me you come to a complete halt while you look around to re-acquire me. It's a predator's instinct, reminiscent of a diving hawk conserving energy if its prey has spotted it and is scrambling for a burrow, but you fight in far too close for that to be safe. If you lose visual on your target you need to act as though you're about to be immanently defeated, burn hard, thrash and scrape to dislodge anyone clinging to you, and gain elevation rapidly. Only once you're safe can you focus on re-acquiring your target. Relying on your natural defenses alone isn't a good idea for fighting non-dragons, mortal weapons are extremely transferable so you can never count on having the measure of our damage output."