[IC] Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

[Thanqol]

The Twilight Market!

The Annunaki don't believe in idle hands. All must labour to strengthen the Great Chain. Idleness is freedom, and freedom is an abomination, so purpose will be found for all - even if it is as one of the multitudes kneeling for ten hours a day in the great cathedrals to the Gods. During the day the streets are clean, wide and open - the luxury of space and solitude afforded to those atop the Chain. It is only when the sun rests that the teeming mass of humanity is hurled out onto the streets en-masse. During this liminal moment of contact and transition the Twilight Market forms - slow-moving street stalls run by vendors on their ways back to their homes. Only a scarce few hours exist for this trade before the streets empty out again - this time because of crime rather than the whip. In between has to fit the entire human cultural experience. People make do.

There are the Scrapmongers, those rickshaws heavy and laden with kitchen scraps left over from the Annunaki's feasts - sugars and berries and tarts turned stale or over-ripe but still desperately sought by those who can't stand another day of the gruel. There are the Sharpeners, those fleeting shadows who offer broken weaponry to those terrified for their safety or plotting doomed rebellion. There are the Gossip-Shouters, carried atop the shoulders of their fellows, calling out the news of the day, reading lists of births, deaths and missing persons. There are the Chainsmiths, who have enough connections with the authorities to arrange for a soul to be moved to a different place on the Great Chain. New times call for new occupations and the market has a way of adapting.

There are old occupations too. Canada rides her bicycle rickshaw, pulling along her mobile workshop with its sides plastered with photographs. Smiling faces, pictures of cats or beautiful places or angles of the landscape and sky that are not yet filled with the grandeur of Annunaki architecture. Bicycles are more in demand - a customer will take over pedaling her rickshaw while she takes their bike up into the workshop in the back to work on - but that is only because pictures are so expensive. The chemicals she requires to develop them are irreplaceable, and besides, few even have access to a camera. But it, too, is known that she makes exceptions for the needy and there's oftentimes a small cluster of children following her cart and speculating loudly about the people and places in the coveted photographs. They do their best to come up with heartrending explanations for what those wonderful photographs mean to them - "that bowl of soup was made out of my best friend, Ricksty the Dinosaur, oh I wish someone would give me that picture so I could remember him," - but playful imaginations and unpracticed deceptions made the attempts at begging more comedic than sad much of the time.

Today there are no freebies. Today is a time for bargains of her own. She's not looking to just get by this time - she's looking to acquire, and a photograph goes a long way in the modern economy. Her eyes gleam with feline hunger as she haggles with the Chainsmith, stepping to the offense with uncharacteristic intensity. The picture of the smiling Ugandian man isn't his beloved, but he looks close enough to make it too precious to pass up. Hands are shaken and promises are exchanged and a little scrap of chemically treated paper changes hands in a strange echo of how commerce used to function. For a strange echo of how love used to function.

Of how it would function again.

She felt bad for playing on his emotions. She felt bad about the moment when she'd hinted that the picture might wind up with one of the children - a particularly loud and obnoxious one - if it didn't get sold soon. She'd talked about his beloved in the past tense. She hadn't warned him that she intended to use this connection for rebellion and that it might get traced back to him. She'd built a false sense of urgency and then gouged the man for everything she could get and it felt cruel.

But that was the cost of wishes.

She had to change the world. She had to. Whatever it takes, the Cat had said. Everything she had broken needed to be put right and it started here, with the access a bribed Chainsmith could get her and the Phantom Thieves.

She just needed to make sure she was too tired to dream. If she trained hard enough she could outrun even the nightmares. If she ran just fast enough she might outrun the person she was afraid she might be becoming.

[Anarion]

The Tale of the Loyal Scribe
By Anathet of the Zhianku

Dedication: For Auntie Rose, this story never would have existed without you

They say you meet love
in unexpected places
Doing your duty,
living a vigorous life,
Even serving, secret strife

Long ago a scribe
loyal, brave, and quick-witted
Serving on the chain
Recording with care, always
guarding the master's estate

A scribe and a spy
silent slippers pass unseen
A mind remembers,
and a quill scratches secrets
guarding the master's estate

Summer night, warm glow
betrayal by candlelight!
Loyal scribe observes
the lord's poison soon prepared
One ingredient 'til done

Abrupt departure
seeking the poison by night
The scribe but follows
silent shadow on the trail
descent to the lower wards

The poisoner, her
auburn hair dancing firelight
brighter than the sun!
Scribe took in a quiet breath
Time stopped, so too did her heart

Rash action, scattering
Scribe stumbles upon the scene
Perhaps an accident,
unknown, but no more unseen
What words passed such lonely lips?

A secret affair
nights and still more summer nights
Meetings without time
betrayal newly joined or,
a clever trick to delay?

One day, new door guard
leaving scribe remarked and seen
A scribe, quick of wit
knowing that time has ended
Rushes to her beloved

A poisoner's choice
abandon the art of death
Choose to love instead
Travel with her lovely scribe
Seek a new life, together

Quill scratches out words
The plot all revealed, laid bare
Poisoner and scribe
Loyal first to the master
Safety of the highest high

Then the two lovers
departed, their duty done
New lives still to seek
They slipped into the market
Silence carried them away

All praise loyal scribe!
whose service was dutiful
All praise the lovers!
who sought out their peace and joy
All found their place on the chain!

Author's notes
-The play may be performed by one person both reciting the lines and demonstrating various roles by use of masks. When departing as the lovers, two masks should be held together, neither entirely touching the face.
-The play may also be performed by two actors, alternating recitation, or by two actors and one independent reciter.
-Suggested musical accompaniment, if desired, is a wood block drum and a two or three-stringed shamisen

Author's secret notes

The final three verses should be read ironically. The scribe has not chosen the master, but rather used her role to mislead him, leading to his ultimate downfall. Done properly, the lovers depart with the group of resistance members plotting the tyrant's overthrow.

[Phoe]

Lady's shoulder is too bony to make a very good pillow. Étoile's butt is too sore and the chariot's seat is too hard for the ride to be at all enjoyable. There are rope burns criss-crossing all over her tender skin that sting whenever air whispers over them too sharply. And if that weren't bad enough, Jezcha hasn't shut up the whole way back. She bounces back and forth between crowing about her 'amazing haul' and making all sorts of cutesy put-downs for Étoile to pretend to smile at.

It's impossible to get the rest she so desperately needs right now. But even so? There's nowhere in the world she'd rather be.

"Who's a good girl? Who's my good girl?" Lady softly whispers, just for her.

Étoile's voice is so exhausted from squeaking, giggling, and wailing for help in increasingly less believable ways that she can't even croak out a 'me~', so she has to let the fluttering of her eyes do it for her. She pulls her legs in close to her stomach and leans as hard as she can against Lady's hard but oh-so-relaxingly warm body to take the pressure off of the sorest parts of her body. One of Lady's hands glides through her mussed up hair and slowly untangles the matted clumps into something resembling the golden splendor that made her such an expensive slave in the first place.

And Étoile? She melts. Burns and bruises and silly disheveled costumes and all, she uncoils and unwinds until she's nothing so much as a vaguely Étoile-shaped noodle. Her eyelids grow heavy. It's not an easy thing to act badly on cue, you know? All of the training that goes into presenting a believable face works against you when you suddenly have to sound wooden and clueless and still shut it off and go back to being a real person at a moment's notice. It's even harder when you have to bounce back and forth between "tricking" humans in such a stupid way that they couldn't help but pop out to look insulted and then needing to sound plausibly excited whenever Jezcha got bored and decided the dumb little pet wanted smacking, instead.

But Lady kisses the top of her head and calls her a good girl, and the happy shiver that runs up her spine tells her today was a good day. Lady is safe. Is it too much to hope she realizes how much her lamassie had done for her today? And Jezcha seemed much more relaxed around her than she'd ever been before. Even Marianne felt happy right now, if only because she was imagining the possibilities a sloppy Jezcha represented. Étoile could possibly have access to new depths of intel soon, if she could keep her silly mask in place. Oh, the fun that they would have...

Her eyes are too heavy to keep open any longer. The pain doesn't matter. The work doesn't matter. Étoile is a good girl, safe in the arms of her Lady. With a sigh and the tiniest of groans, she lets those warm and tender fingers coax her to sleep. And maybe, she thinks as she slips under, she'll be lucky enough to get tonight in Lady's bed.

[Tatterdemalion]

Haman ab-Marduk!

The breeze you ordered comes wafting over the garden wall, curling about your guests as they applaud the esoteric that you got for the garden. It is appropriately exotic. The Macaw chanter and Lynx musicians standing by one of the fountains begin their own performance, performing the Twenty-Seventh Prayer of Celebration. It, in turn, is appropriately familiar and soothing. The entire garden moves like a well-oiled mechanism, and this is just as it should be. You appreciate it when everything does what it is supposed to. When things do not work as they should, you are unfortunately forced to press the issue. It's such a bother.

A successful party like this, tastefully restrained, appropriately indulgent, adds to your reputation. Naturally, you are the Seneschal of Caphtor. Of course you are. Why wouldn't you be? You proved yourself in the Hymissian Reach against the foes of the High Gods, fearsome but ultimately pathetic devils and unholy beasts, leading first a company, then a legion, then an entire Expeditionary Force. You secured spoils and broke every weapon that was arrayed against you in the name of the High Gods. Your promotion to civic administration was deserved, as was your rise through the ranks.

You even had three children, one of whom was actually promising. The most the other two can offer is not disappointing you. Not shaming you. You're not meant to break them, after all. Not unless the Inquisitors are circling.

You take a sip of your black wine and breathe through your nose. Yes. All is as it should be.

"My lord," the Thornback hisses apologetically. Your gaze drifts down to it. Your execrable wife's favorite. Maybe that alone makes it worth breaking. You arch a perfect brow and say nothing so viciously that it digs its talons into its own palms. "You have a visitor awaiting your pleasure in the Eightfold Nave. The honored and esteemed Asahel ab-Shamash of the House of White Steel offers his congratulations on this, the celebration of your incomparable daughter's upcoming examinations, and bade me insist on a moment of your time."

You press your drink into its hands and stride away without a word. Asahel. Now what does the Huntsman want with you? He knows you are busy tonight, and he knows better than to waste your time. He is not the first Huntsman of Caphtor you have seen during your administration, and he has wisely kept his distance.

When you enter the Nave, he is pacing in his ridiculous flight-jacket and boots, his veil close-fit to his face. "Haman," he says, with undue familiarity. There is sweat beading on his forehead. "They're coming here."

You take a breath. Your fingers curl. He will regret every word he has just spoken by this time tomorrow. "Slow down," you bid him. "I fear your wits must be addled by the high airs. Take a seat. I will call for drinks."

"No time," Asahel says. "They sent word by courier, they want a hunt prepared for them, suitable accommodations, we will need to advance their feast days--"

The blood turns to ice in your veins. You reach out and take Asahel by the breast, fixing him with the furious eyes that made your soldiers quail and advance time and again from the trenches. "Asahel. What did you overindulge in?"

He wordlessly hands you what he should have offered you from the first: the tablet, golden and gleaming. The commandments, each one carved perfectly. The seal of Shamash, the Breaker of Horses, who turns the stars in their wheels.

For the first time in centuries, one of the High Gods descends upon the unworthy from the heights of Babylon.

[Tatterdemalion]

||SHAMASH||

OBJECTIVE: One of the High Gods is visiting. The Annunaki are all abuzz, and there will be a triumphal parade from the landing pads on the far side of the city to the Temple of Ishtar, which has recently stepped up their security. Making a play there is foolhardy. No, what we want is to make a play. Preferably one that doesn't lead to us getting nuked from orbit.

OB1: Acquire one of the Fleet Keys that Shamash carries and replace them with these forgeries. The Fleet Keys are concentrated data shaped into rods instead of tablets, hanging upon their breastplate. If #MAT can take one apart, she'll be able to put together a "skeleton key" - something that identifies you to the ship's systems as having the authority of one of the High Gods.
OB2: Identify what Shamash is doing here. Ideally, figure out some way to get them to leave. We don't need the attention on this city in particular.
OB3: do NOT allow yourselves to be compromised. As long as Shamash is here, this city does NOT have revolutionaries. It is law-abiding and smoothly operational. The reprisal would be terrible if anything were otherwise.

***

The chariots are a host darkening the sky. There are at least fifty of them, heavily-armed and expertly piloted. Work crews in Caphtor Below frantically finish their realignment of the intricate hangar systems as they begin their final approach, after seven times soaring over the city. It is impossible to tell which one is piloted not by one of the Annunaki but by Shamash themselves.

If you are human in the city, you are either collapsed in bed after three days of double shifts or rushing to finish your tasks under the watchful eyes of your overseers. There is a nervous mania in the air: what Shamash has decided to do is almost unthinkable, breaking with centuries of tradition. While it is understood that Shamash must by necessity often leave Babylon, they never stoop so low as to descend upon a planet personally. (Excepting, of course, upper atmosphere dogfights, where the unworthy foe seeks to hide in the winds and the clouds, but even then they do not land.) It is not done.

But now it is happening. (And of course, the Annunaki nervously joke, if any of the High Gods were to do this, of course it would be Shamash, wild and free, touched by the spirit of adventure that so define the ab-Shamashi. Of course it is them, and not Ishtar or Ereshkigal.) The rumors as to the reason for their appearance are wild and excited and impossible.

Name your approaches.

[Thanqol]

He was here for her.

From the moment she'd heard the news she'd known. No, from the moment she'd seen him in the telescope she'd known. He'd seen her and whatever he'd seen had been enough to tear him from the stars. This was a gesture of enormous respect - terrifying respect. It meant that Shamash was bringing his full attention and fury to her directly without any games. She was being treated as a once in a century threat by an alien god.

And now she had to earn it.

She's been half-dreaming of this moment. She choreographs the encounter in a hundred ways. He might move like this. He might speak like this. She writes him lines and writes herself responses like scripting a movie. She imagines the pain - for there will be pain. At night she lies awake in bed and imagines in vivid detail the breaking of her arm and how she'll fight on despite that. She needs to get this right.

New techniques are called for.

She can't come at this through the physical world. She's too obvious, even veiled, to get through security of this level. So she walks through the border of the mirror realm, wrapped in the void of her own heart. She has never done this before and there is good reason for that. It seems as though she is walking through the real world but every mirrored surface glows, the source of a strange black light. Where this light touches it's not reality she sees but the other place - deepest night and occupied with more true incarnations of everything within it. The streets are slashed through with lines of mirrored darkness - every gleaming suit of armour, every fine pane of glass, every pool of water creates a puddle of alternate reality where everything is different. The rules change with every step between dark and light.

She wonders if this whole idea is a mistake, and rather than solving her problems she's actually doubled them.

She wonders if the dark version of Shamash will be scarier than the light.

[Anarion]

[Potential 3. Insecure]

The Seneschal's estate had been abuzz since the news of Shamash's arrival had come out. Even Anathet had heard about it, despite spending several days on extended gardening duty (technically, Anathet had not done anything wrong, having met her deadline to Auntie Rose and not having any fault found against her in the bar, but Auntie Rose had still assigned extra work to "build character"). It had not been hard to learn about it from every visitor. She was still an attraction for those who wanted a quiet walk and some ancient Zhianku wisdom (sometimes with invisible air quotes). Everyone who had come by was like "O.M.G. Shamash is coming!" They didn't say that exactly, but close enough as far as Anathet was concerned.

She'd been keeping her ears open for news, but it wasn't obviously forthcoming. Not surprising, people didn't come to her drunk and easily manipulated, so while it was easy to soothe their frazzled nerves and remind them to take calming breathes while she raked a rock garden, it wasn't particularly easy to pry their secrets out of them.

What she had gathered, though, was that the Seneschal was at the center of the matter. So, without waiting on Marianne and Canada (who were busy doing some weird psychic dream thing that gave Anathet the creeps) she decided during the evening to sneak into the Seneschal's estate as Set. She had been there several times and figured it wouldn't be difficult to bypass the outer guards and teleport inside. She knew some shadowed corners in the library shelves that would be hidden even if others were there. Then she could make her way through and find the Seneschal or his advisors. If she was really lucky, she'd find them in their cups and sharing information, but if not at least perusing their data tablets would yield the city's plans for Shamash's arrival and appropriate treatment during his stay.

[Phoe]

"Oho? Oho? Ohohoho? What is this? You have been holding out on me! When were you planning on telling me you found a Path Between? Wicked Canada! Naughty girl, keeping your playground all to yourself! C'est terrible! You are begging to be disciplined, yes!"

Marianne's feet have not touched the ground since she slipped her way in here. She glides effortlessly on a hazy cloud of shadows next to Canada, and starts to laugh. The gold of her chain-mask glints painfully. Her ruby-fanged grin spreads wider than her actual head, as if the shape of the girl floating along the hall here wasn't enough to contain all that power and fury and raw domme energy that's always dripping off of her.

Every time she passes a reflection, there's a different shape to notice. Or rather there are different pieces of the same shape: here a long serpentine tail with a whiplike protrusion that resembles nothing so much as a thresher shark's appendage, there a wall of quivering muscles wrapped in dark and shredded robes, further up a pair of broken, feathery wings too devastated for proper flight, and finally her face, her true face, as enormous as the sphinx and just as inscrutable for all her rakish, hungry grinning.

Marianne, which is to say the phantom thief herself, blinks from a spot just behind Canada to a point several steps in front of her, looming and staring with a look of intense judgment plastered all over her that she doesn't bother to conceal. In here it's possible to watch her in action, to pick apart the mechanics of her movement. She doesn't teleport, obviously, that's simple enough to figure out just from having been carried side-along one or two too many times. But here, the paths are obvious; without much effort at all it's possible to see her stretch her leg beyond the accepted border of a space and leap into the architecture of the space around her. She's free running: performing feets of parkour across nightmares and truth. Canada can make her own decisions about whether that makes her more or less impressive.

"The paths are shallow here," she pouts, "But your sea is deep. I like it very much, mon chevalier! Yes! A shining knight should walk a twisted path indeed. Is this your hope, Ca-Na-Da? Are you twisting yourself into a knife the stab the heart of the tyrant-gods? You are too small for this, yes! A little mouse and nothing more! Give it to me! Return yourself to a shield and give the role of cutpurse over to its rightful owner!"

She grins, and spreads her shadow wide across the street. The impression of a shark smelling blood in the water is impossible not to conjure. But then she tilts her head. It's a question, then. What are you here for, little knight? What do you want? What do you want? Tell your big sister Marianne what moves you!

[Tatterdemalion]

Anathet!

Getting inside the library is easy. There's always the thrill of risk: for all that you have planned things out, there's still the chance that some guard, or even a guest or servant, might be in the abandoned corner of the library you are sneaking into. Does that make you anxious or does it fill you with energy?

Either way, you're inside. You're on one of the upper rings of the library: it radiates outwards and upwards from a luxurious reading area on the ground floor. Tablets are tightly packed on the shelves, but there are a multitude of niches for paintings, statues, and trophies, much more than you'd expect from a human library. (It's the fact that they pack all that information onto a tablet, you see. Gives them room to show off.)

There's conversation close by, and you start towards it, only to come face-to-face with Tia immediately, and that's not a face you want inches from yours all of a sudden. It's a jump scare, to be honest. How do you handle the sudden surprise?

***

Team Mirrors!

There are no people here. Only their shades. In the mirrors they are a strange menagerie, but here, in the Mirror-Margravate, they are indistinct and trembling shadows that bend and warp as you pass through them. (On the streets of Caphtor, Annunaki feel a chill run down their spine and step aside without thinking. Guard patrols unconsciously bend their paths to avoid the sense of being watched by many burning eyes. Gardeners clutch their shears tighter, their collars itching about their necks.)

The wind, too, is only here. It is cold and dry, wailing down the streets. In the neon-blue sky, painfully vivid, chariots scream and roar in their final landing approach. You are on your way now to the landing pad to get a first-hand look at Shamash's shadow.

[Thanqol]

There are other presences, but none as overpowering as Marianne. Canada can drown in that flow - the ferocity, the confidence, the musical and flowing speech and motion. She seems like genius made manifest. Each sentence she wants to replay in her head, first listening to the rhythm and grace of it, and then descending into the meaning. Each glance between the shadows and light, each act of transdimensional acrobatics she wishes she was filming. The eyes that flash out of that shining mask like thunderbolts see not only her but her futures as well - the ones she seeks, and the ones she will not attain.

She's stomping her feet a little. Letting the armour rattle. So direct and lumpen in comparison, a castle amidst a sunstorm, hoping the noise and regularity steadies the rhythm of her pounding heart.

"I-I didn't know I could do this," she said, and what an embarrassing coincidence that she stepped into this puddle of shade and shivered right as Marianne was talking about punishment. "I never had to before."

Some part of her wonders if she regrets the wishes of her youth. She'd dreamed of who she was now - the speed, the face, the curves. She'd wanted to be this - exalted that she was this. But there was something about the motion of that tail, the creak of those broken wings that made her struggle not to stare. How did they feel to touch? Would it be rude to touch them? Were they like hands or shoulders or... something else?

"Well - uh," she swallowed. "It's not that I'm twisting myself, Marianne," she said, raising her head and speaking clearly - and oh, in that moment she does not know how clearly she's speaking. How commanding. How bright! "My heart is set. I know the world I wish to create. As long as that remains unchanged all that's left is building it. Shield, spear, they're both tools and I will wield whichever one I must."

Replace every colon with a question mark and you will know the shape of her heart, though you would not know it from her voice alone. She still struggles with the lesson of the Cat.

[Canada is explaining how she thinks the world works, looking to shift your Superior down and Danger up. Accept her words or reject her influence.]

[Anarion]

[Potential 3. Insecure]

Anathet teleports out of there and back to her bedroom where she had just left. She figured that blind teleports are risky, but that if she just happened to pop up somewhere that a servant or guest was standing that if she disappeared instantly, they would have a jump scare, but nobody would believe them. "Oh, look at the servant, seeing phantom thieves around every corner, we'd surely have heard if they were operating, Marianne always leaves a calling card!" So, seeing someone right in front of her face triggers her instant scuttle plan and she is out of there!

Her mind then catches up with who she actually saw, and she lets out a small exasperated sigh from the safety of her own home and teleports back, again. At least she knew the spot was safe now, since it had just been Tia and the conversation nearby hadn't remarked her on the first entry.

[Don't scare me like that!] She thinks at Tia (who hopefully either followed her through those teleports or is still there a few seconds later despite Anathet suddenly disappearing into the floor). Her thoughts are faster now, since Tia was talking in words after their last meeting, Anathet thinks in words instead of bigger images, though there's a bit of startled tiny dog falling over in her mental background. [What are you doing here? I'm trying to find out what the plans are for Shamash. Do you know where I should look?] Then a bit belatedly, Anathet realizes she's being a little rude and adds [It's good to see you, Tia].

[Phoe]

Marianne spends a moment floating in front of Canada, simply staring with those bright burning eyes of hers and drinking in the measure of the knight. She tilts her head, and for a terrifying moment she is nothing but quiet. She sinks into her own shadow and pops up directly in Canada's face. Her breath is hot, and smells faintly of smoke. Her smile is playful, but it doesn't reach her eyes. Of course it doesn't. Just look at her!

She takes Canada's face in both of her hands, caressing her cheeks with the warm leather of her gloves. Her fingers explore up and around, stroking behind the ears with a feather touch. She lingers like a lover, stroking and caressing lower and lower, down the neck and then back up underneath the chin, when all of a sudden she seizes Canada behind her head, grabs a handful of hair, and pulls her into a kiss.

Marianne does not kiss gently. Her lips are hot and her tongue is forceful. She kisses like she's trying to steal something; breath, the heart, the fillings out of teeth, the soul perhaps. Her tongue presses deep into Canada's mouth, finds her own, and pins it forcefully to the bottom of her mouth. She does not come up for air. She does not need to: she can breath inside this space, this moment, just fine. She holds it, seizes it, twists it and tastes it.

And then she parts, and wipes her mouth on her sleeve with an exaggerated, wet sigh. She tosses her head up to the sky and laughs. HA! HA! KHEHEHAHAHA!

"Ah Canada, you are a better thief than I gave you credit for! I am proud, yes! Such pretty words, yes yes! Who did you steal them from? Do they know you are carrying them around in your pocket? Ah, but not, I think, in your heart."

Marianne grins and prods Canada in the chest, getting all up in her business, draping herself across her shoulders. Zero sense of personal space.

"You do not taste like conviction, mon petit chevalier. I could not find your fire, non. Just as well, you aren't to this body's wants anyway. But very well! Be the dagger if it pleases you! Marianne shall be your cloak tonight! And when you realize which shape you are meant to belong to after all, she will teach you how to bring down walls with a shield! Yes!"

[Reject: 5. Marianne marks guilty, potential, and the shift]

[Thanqol]

Sometimes Canada feels like she's drowning in Marianne's presence - it's so easy to do. Follow the waves and undercurrents and riptides no matter how far away shore gets. But now she's under the surface and it's...

Fire and touch and tongue and lightning. Intensity and curiosity and intimacy. Her tongue touched the inside of her mouth and tasted her thoughts and she melted into that. Please. See me. The mask she could never take off was torn away and her knees shook in fear and her heart pounded in exaltation. She'd missed this. Please... she needed to be known because she didn't know herself. She needed to be vulnerable because being strong was so hard...

And then she was standing, blinking, lips glistening, hands trembling as judgement was passed.

She tried to speak but her tongue had not accepted the idea that it was free and untangled. She tried to fall to her knees but before she could she was supporting Marianne whose weight was on her shoulders and she couldn't drop her. She tried to blush and at least something went right.

And through it all she had the intense feeling she'd been found wanting. So much for confidence.

She started taking shaky steps forwards, the kind of stiff march that came when every footstep was an individual requiring dedicated care and attention. "You..." wantkissedsavedshattered "...disapprove." she managed, resisting the urge to touch her lips that still sparked like stars. "I'll work harder," she said because that was all she could think to do.

[Tatterdemalion]

Anathet!

[You must hide,] Tia thinks sternly at you, but you can feel the fear roiling underneath the surface. The kind of fear that causes people to lash out and panic. [You may be brave after They leave. Yes. That is when you may be brave. Not now. Not like this. I am not allowing you to be brave.] She crosses her arms and plants herself right in front of you.

"...the parade will be the First Regiment..." Aha! Yes! Your instincts were good: the Seneschal is hashing out the last of his plans for Shamash's triumph right here and now. Down in the bowl of the library, there are probably two or three of his peers, prepping and sending off their last-minute orders. If only you could pretend to be one of them! Or somehow sneak bad information in! But you're definitely not getting off any plans, clever or otherwise, with Tia being so overprotective. Who knows what she might do if you press her?

***

Team Mirrors!

The Sacred Field has been brought up from the depths of the Temple of Shamash, a vast circle of tempered brass and gold etched with holy geometries, and here the chariots make their final approaches. They, amusingly enough, resemble nothing more than George Lucas's podracers, with two tethered engines suspending a very dangerous energy field between them, crackling and lashing plasma, connected to an ornate car. Don't be fooled: they evaded missiles with ease and tore fighter jets out of the sky during the invasion.

There are two nobles here, along with their retinues, to welcome the High God: Asahel ab-Shamash, the Huntsman of Caphtor, and Jezcha ab-Marduk, here as a representative of her father. A full company of janissaries stand by as an honor guard. You arrive on the open hangar as Shamash's chariot touches down, and the Annunaki fall to their knees, shimmering shadows suddenly at half height. (Their retinues grovel on their faces.) The chariot's portal dilates, and Shamash unfolds from it.

They're eight fucking feet tall.

This is the first time either of you have seen one of the elusive High Gods, and it's a shock to realize that their superhuman depiction in Annunaki art might not just be artistic license. There isn't a hint of skin to be seen (and you can see them far too clearly, as if only a faint gauze separated you from them), just gleaming black and burning gold and a helmet shaped like a screaming horse. From every reflective surface nearby -- every tracking panel, every bowl of offered wine, every golden decoration on the banners of the city -- comes the sound of dying cavalry charges, or else of chariot engines shearing themselves apart. It's difficult to tell.

They are hesitant a moment, staring out at the assembly before them, but it's impossible to say whether they also stare at you. You can see the plaits of their helmet lashing in the backwash of the engines, the sway of the fleet keys upon their intricately graved breastplate, and the minutest twitch in the gauntleted hands, each one the size of your head, one at their side and one on the chariot.

They saw you once before, Canada. Was it a stupid, doomed plan to think that you could sneak up on them again? Does your nerve hold in that moment?

Their power is not like yours, Marianne. You can smell it. It is not even simply dead, it is other, alien. If this behemoth has any power in your land, it is the power of tools and devices and tricks. This "god" is not a deity here, even if it can see you, even if it can touch you. You belong here. It does not.

[Anarion]

[Potential 3. Insecure]

Deception was not really Anathet's strength, but she did want to listen. [Just let me get a little closer Tia. I'm not going to do anything, it would raise too much suspicion anyway. I just want to know what they're planning so I can tell my friends. Then I'll leave, okay?]

Anathet tries to start creeping closer so she can hear everything they're discussing and see the data tablets. She just needs to keep out of sight while going down a ring or so. It's evening, the lights aren't perfect, it really shouldn't be that hard if Tia just lets her move forward a bit more. If she can keep eyes on them, then once they leave, she can grab a copy of the data tablets (or follow wherever they're taken until somebody puts them down). That would be more than enough information to set up an operation against Shamash, or maybe to try for something else secure while everybody is distracted. Either way, these plans are worth well more than a tablet's weight in gold.

So, just, let her get a little closer, okay Tia? Everything will be fine.

[Thanqol]

This was it.

She sealed away her tempestuous heart. Doubts and fears and loves all needed to be still for a little moment. This was the moment when the world might change, where she could undo all of her failures and have one more chance at saving the world.

She touched two fingers to her temple and then to her heart, drawing a mystic line of light between the two. She spread her fingers and pulled her hands apart, letting her hair fall backwards into a wave of raven disarray, and the line unfolded into a profoundly complex mystic circle. It spun as it stretched to the tips of her outstretched fingers, the heart-shape glyph centered above her own heart, igniting with pink and golden flames.

The roof shook, and then exploded, letting in a beam of brilliant noonday sunlight to strike her like a spotlight. It grew brighter and brighter as it touched her, the light burning away her robe, her veil, her menial civilian clothing. It soaked into her skin rendering her a silhouette of light amidst the lights and then overflowed, soaking out of her like honey and condensing into pink-gold crystals and metals. A gleaming gorget formed around her collar, engraved with solar rays. Arm-bands circled her wrists like cuffs and then lanced out a cage of quartz bars to guard to her elbows. A slash of indigo erupted from within her as her hands touched the top of the circle, cascading down her in consuming dark silk, barely not concealing feet that step into woven gold sandles.

She stands there for a moment, radiant amidst this darkened place. And then she snatches the mystic circle from the air. It doesn't just come in the form of light, it pulls the very reality from the air within the bounds of the circle, twisting and solidifying into a mirror in the midst of a barricade of light. Canada, the Light of Ra, stamps upon the ground sending a shockwave of sunlight from her that scorches away every shadow in the hangar.

And then she points with one outstretched finger. "False God Shamash," she declares, "I, Canada Taliv, challenge you to single combat."

So much for the stealthy approach.

[Taking foolhardy action to clear Insecure]

[Phoe]

Marianne bears witness to this moment. Her coat flutters behind her, and inside its shrinking shadow her ruined wings wrap themselves around her shell. Her hood is torn from her head and flaps around her neck with a series of dull thwacks, the bounding of a half severed head. Her chains are rattling furiously. She raises one arm to cover her face, but there's nothing to hide the brilliant golden hair that's whipping unchecked behind her with all the rage of a waterfall and shining as though it were a crown pronouncing her a queen. The red-tinted gleam of her teeth shines painfully bright.

She is scowling. A thousand insults shred themselves to bits on her teeth before they escape her mouth. This is an important moment. A turning point. A moment of reckoning she has allowed to happen in her sloth, and so must allow to play out in full. She is decided. She will not cut Canada down at the knees. She will not swoop in and steal her away, she will not add her voice to this chorus, will not step onto the stage and wrap around her like some smothering security blanket. Great paws of shadow tense themselves at the edges of the light.

She leaps up, and is gone. Marianne finds a column of Doubt looming over Canada's battlefield, and she spins herself around it and vaults on, up, and on again until she reaches the top. She leans forward at the edge on all fours. She is a lioness waiting to pounce. But just now, she bears witness. From the cracks inside the light, she watches, and snorts, and smolders.

She knows who you are, Canada Taliv. She knows how this will end. Marianne is watching, waiting, to see what kind of shape your dagger-heart might be. This is the moment, the only moment, for you to find out what sort of teeth are hiding in your mouth. What is a dagger to you, Canada Taliv? And once it's in your hands, how will you choose to wield it?

Marianne leans forward. Her burning eyes drink in the sight of a god, the first god of her young life. She licks her lips with relish. She will bear witness.

[Tatterdemalion]

Anathet!

[No!! No!!] Tia screams the words inside your head, frantic. There is no way for her to bar your passage physically, so she compensates by trying to boil your brain. [They will kill you!! Not allowed!! Mine!!! This is mine!!!] She spreads her arms wide, opens her mouth in a silent scream, and her hair writhes like a nest of snakes. Fear and distress blind her (is that insensitive to say?) to what she's doing to you, and vaguely you hear discomfort from below: the psychic backwash is affecting the Annunaki, too.

Take a Powerful Blow, Anathet.

***

Canada!

A laser bolt pings off your vambrace. Jezcha ab-Marduk knows exactly one (1) response to what's happening right now and that's to draw a sidearm and shoot at you. You bat it away reflexively, as if the laser bolt was a naughty kitten, but then the janissaries see that as their cue and turn, muskets raised, heads lowered away from your searing light, and begin to open fire, too. You are very quickly the center of a storm of lasers, about a third of which come anywhere near you. But still, it's a hell of a barrage.

Then it stops, all of a sudden.

No, it doesn't. They're still firing. But the laser bolts are failing to cross that final distance. Space yawns in a sudden vast abyss as they approach you but are unable to reach you.

"DISARM."

Laser muskets clatter to the engraved platform, and even Jezcha flings her pistol, albeit in your direction. It spins uselessly in that forever approach. Shamash, Breaker of Horses, raises one gauntleted hand and snaps his fingers, and space resumes its normal dimensions all at once. Which means that all those lasers suddenly can hit their destination.

***

Marianne!

Canada's a big girl, she can handle some lasers and a pistol thrown at her head. No, watch this, the false god and the true. Watch as Shamash stomps forward in their ridiculous panoply, all gold and gilt. The anticipation coils around them, their own delight at seeing a worthy challenge, yes, yes! It is familiar, non? What can challenge a demiurge but a god?

"I was worried I would have to hunt you through the warrens," Shamash says with their false voice. What does it sound like underneath that head they have pulled over their own? "But here you are. The one from my dreams." What a fright they must have had, yes, yes! They must have summoned up all of their magi and charlatans and poets in order to interpret the dreams of that burning eye, laying bare their mouse-soul. "I accept your challenge, but this is unworthy of us."

They offer their hand, heedless of the gasping from the groveling Annunaki. "Come, Canada Taliv. I will drown you in wines. I will garrote you in garlands. Be my sacred offering, feasted and fattened."

[Anarion]

[Potential 3. Insecure]

[I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'M SORRY!] Anathet all but shouts into her own mind space. She nearly shouts it out loud, just barely holding onto the need not to reveal herself in the Seneschal's palace. But sending her thoughts in the face of that Gorgon-esque onslaught is like trying to shout across a field in the middle of a hurricane.

She accompanies her apologies by crawling backwards as fast as she's able, back behind the pillar and then up another level, carefully, curling in on herself behind a statue of the Seneschal or some ancestor of his holding a book in one hand while his other, outstretched arm points at the horizon in an epic pose. It's really too much for highlighting a ring of bookshelves, but then again this is the central dome of the most powerful Annunaki in Babylon (save for gods of course).

[I'll be a good girl, I promise, I'll stay right here out of sight, far away, okay?] Her mind flashes back to those first memories she had inadvertently shared with Tia in a rush, her childhood embarrassments and fears bubbling up when her own self-confidence was waning. Maybe that's why Tia was being overprotective.

[...Who are They] she asks, after a moment, putting the same stress on it as Tia did. [Do you mean the Seneschal and his ministers? Or the god who's visiting or...someone else? Why can't I be brave until whoever they are is gone?]

[Thanqol]

Whatever it took.

Canada was moving as soon as she saw the laser volley, fast as thought. Of all the weapons of the Annunaki lasers were her favourite. Weaponized light? Against her? You can't fight Poseidon in the ocean, friends, and you can't fight Canada with your false suns.

Her shield sweeps like a tennis racquet, catching the volley all along its length. The light touches the mirror and bends, reversing exactly along her angle, concentrated to a single spot. And then she's moved again, as quick as thought, into the new path of the volley of laser beams - the point behind Shamash. She will catch that now-concentrated volley of laser fire on her shield and reflect the entire destructive blast into a single point in the small of the High God's back where the armour was thinnest. Defense and offense and light and speed - this was how the sun went to war.

Her heart was pounding so hard she felt it was going to burst. She had won. She hadn't hesitated. She just needed to hold steady until those lasers hit.

Until those lasers hit...

Time wasn't moving in slow motion. Canada's eyes reluctantly strayed over to the right where the concentrated volley of crackling, deadly laser fire hung suspended in mid-air, not moving - heading right towards her but never reaching her.

And instead the High God had turned about to face her and was smiling and inviting her to dinner.

...

"um," said Canada, giving another hopeful, yearning glance at those frozen lasers, "I... guess?"

[Unleash my Powers!!! 3!!!]