[b]Yuki![/b]

Aria's hands (claws) tighten on you. Painfully. Ready to shake you apart. She was not accustomed to being [i]sassed[/i] when she ruled in the secret name of the Rot Star, and having that awful vat of poison poured into the shape of her soul has not improved matters. She considers, for a moment, how satisfying it would be to unhinge her jaw and then bite down on your skull. How sweet the crunch would sound.

But then there are flowers. And there is a hand on her wrist. And she is releasing you.

And there is another hand on you.

Soft. Cool. Smooth. Like the surface of a very expensive table.

"Miss Edogawa," Walking Elm purrs in feigned delight. She is resplendent in gold, but the subtle variations of color make that gold difficult to look away from, a shimmering forest floor under the dappled sunlight, and she smells of honey and flowers and desire. Her ears are hung with gold and her hair is banded in gold and she shines like the sun. Purnima only knows one volume; Walking Elm's modulation of the color shows her mastery.

She was made for this, after all.

"I do so appreciate your company," she says, sweeping you along. (That is a vine at your back. Her grip is iron.) "All that unpleasantness - well! You deserve a treat tonight, don't you? I do think you do." Don't you? Don't you? Don't you? Drown in honey, Yuki Edogawa, while Aria casually positions herself between the two of you and the serpents.

Drown in honey until the solid rock of Aadya steps in your way.

A lifeline. A twist on success. Your savior.

[hr]
[b]Eclair![/b]

Well, I could quibble. In fact, I will toss you the Clue that the wanted posters in Vespergift do have your face on them, not that of Timtam's disguise - which means that someone gave that face, your face, to the Civils, and someone in the Civils accepted it. That is a lead worth following when one is free to socialize with the Civils, no?

But you have insulted me, and for this reason I am delighted to announce that you are interrupted in your brooding stalk outside by a young girl.

She is wearing her very best dress in pastel pink and creamy white. There is a comb tangled expertly in her hair. The buckles of her shoes have been shined until they catch the light and toss it every which way. And she is looking up at you like you are the most important thing in all the world.

"Misstery Builder," she says, unfolding the paper in her hands, "thank you." She has more prepared, but she hides behind the paper: fine drawing paper. Her parents - her mother works for the Royal Bank, that's effortless for you to deduce - watch at a safe and respectful distance. She is at an age where it is important for her to show some independence, where she must be allowed to step forward and act on her own terms.

It's good for a beginner. The kind of figure that you paint when you can only see at a distance, because you're not allowed on a construction site. The watercolors are lower quality than one would wish for, but good paints have been funneled to the reconstruction in bulk, and even through the flatter colors the superheroic quality of the woman who helped rebuild her home is captured with the devotion of the novice.

This is not a scam. This is not a lie. This is sincerity and truth, which is the deadly knife hidden up my sleeve.

This is a child who longs for her hero to acknowledge her love.

"...thank you," she says, and starts sniffling, overwhelmed by the moment. She holds the picture out, and does not know whether she wants you to take it and promise to hang it up in your knightly castle or to sign it with a flourish and tell her that you will never forget it.

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

[i]Archery was a bust. Riding lessons were a bust, and that scratches feats of riding off the list, too. Wrestling? You ended up upside-down in a head lock in three moves. The Khatun watched often, and did not speak. Not to you, anyway.

This left trailblazing and sneaking, and this you could do, the three of you (Keli and Seli being left back at camp to stay out of mischief): you and Olesya and Juniper. Being in the Outside is like being in one of your video games, the ones with the open worlds, where anything could be over the next ridge, over the next hill, and strange landmarks rose out of the hills. It would be the adventure of a day to get to one, with your antlers showing you the way.

And when you actually managed - actually pressed your palm up against the flank of something that was like a horse and like a frog at the same time - and it jumped and hopped away - that is when Juniper clapped in delight for you, and Olesya nodded and gave a thumbs up, because she'd seen you use it, and she'd figured out what it meant, and she wanted to show you that she was trying to learn from you, too.[/i]

She gives you a shaky thumbs up, here, in your dressing room. Her fingers are trembling. She can't look you in the face. But she tries. She pours every bit of her strength into that one gesture, into trying to get you to stop worrying about her.

I think it is likely that it has the opposite reaction.

You're the kind of boy who can see a lie told on someone else's behalf from a mile away, aren't you?

She turns with a sudden violence. She leaves. No: she flees.

Leaving you with a gesture that she learned from you, and the lie that she is okay.

...you're on in two minutes, by the way.

[hr]
[b]Handmaidens![/b]

Something is wrong.

One, two, and Civelia stumbles at three.

Her eyes are on Sayanastia, drinking her in, listening to the siren call of rest, but there is a droop to them which she is not controlling.

She opens her mouth to speak in her serene voice, and then she coughs.

She raises a hand to her lips.

There is blue on her fingertips: the color of her blood.

In that moment, her eyes lift again, but she is already crumpling into the arms of the Dark Dragon.

And right before the Golden Fawn comes out, too!

Really, some people have no sense of timing. Can't help but to upstage a perfectly nice young man.

So here's the thing: you have to figure out what's wrong without alerting the Civils (who are looking with alarm to Civelia) because they will figure out that Sayanastia is disguised as Heron and then immediately assume that she has returned to her wicked ways once more and is making an attempt on the goddess's life in order to overthrow the world into inchoate chaos once more and so on and so forth.

Ideally I would like for you all to do this in such a way that it does not disturb Eclair Espoir receiving my vengeance down on the ground floor.