Zhaojun!
What is a battle between martial artists but a dance by a different name? Sagacious Crane flares into life, her maiden’s heart wounded by this sudden betrayal, for a moment too angry to fall apart; she is not too dissimilar from her sister, if one digs in the right place.
When she strikes at Zhaojun, ineffectually, her mud-drenched sash lashes through the air like a whip. The bandar-logi crowd in on all sides to watch, their heads cocking to one side and then shuddering slowly back upright. They make a sound like raindrops striking bamboo as they do, until the world all around melts into a haze of sound, the pearl that by necessity is formed by the crude world of matter around the things that truly matter.
Ah, Zhaojun! This girl has been molded already, from the first time that she saw an icon of the Sapphire Mother, from the first night she spent blissful and secure in the Temple of the Pure Lotus, from the first day she spent walking the roads of the Flower Kingdom as a rising star amongst her peers. She has been reassured, over and over again, that if she walks this road she will be rewarded, accepted, beloved. She has tamed and sublimated her temper— the very same that flares now. It will burn but a moment before it dwindles into despair, unless it is stoked.
If she is mocked— if she is reminded of her birthplace— if she is challenged for her right to serve her goddess— then she will hold the bandar-logi at bay with the strength of that old and well-buried hurt. But to burn water is a terrible thing. It will hurt her, perhaps more than it will turn her against you; she will go from this place, no matter what happens, and quietly insinuate that the possession was flawed, that the goddess Zhaojun was decieved into an inauspicious and unstable manifestation, that perhaps the Sapphire Court should correct this error.
But left to dwindle, confused and betrayed, she will be helpless before the rakshasa, let alone their servants.
As for her fear? That her peers, her goddess, and her world that she is so desperate to fit into see her for what she is and reject her; that she is not some sparkling gem rescued from humble birth but simply another common stone. That in this place, Zhaojun will judge her and find her wanting, tainted by her birth in the mud between the rocks. Nothing more, nothing less. That is the fear that would drive her to defeat the bandar-logi. Will Zhaojun act upon it?
And how, pray tell, does Zhaojun let slip what she hopes to get from Sagacious Crane, or does she armor her heart and refuse to let anything by her stone face?
***
Giri!
It is very difficult to know Cathak Agata’s true feelings. After all, you are simply a witch; you have not gone on pilgrimage to the far side of the world where her matriarch-ancestor lies and receives the tribute of nations. The gleam of emotion in her brilliant eyes, the one you do not know enough to read right, is like that of a dragon who has seen something it wants. Perhaps it is the touch of skin on skin, your controlled strength, your humility. But more likely it is your sincerity that Cathak Agata wants to take between her teeth until the taste has grown less novel.
Even so, she is not a monster. Take a String on her, and know you have leverage on her heart. Even the judges of the dead may be moved by sentiment; how much more a breaker of hearts?
As for the divination: here, each sign reveals itself. Central, of prime importance: possession, achieving a goal dearly sought. On the outer rim, low, are several symbols that are almost clear if you squint: success in love, victory in battle, to come into possession of a material windfall, the sorts of things that people always ask if you see in their future.
But in the upper right (an unfortunate direction), clear as day, the stain forms a broken circle, a dire omen which indicates the influence of the Broken King. And this isn’t the first time this month you’ve seen it appear, or even this week; the King is on the move (which is to say, his shattered aspects and their infernal hosts have been invited into the Flower Kingdoms to act on the behalf of those who listen to their poisoned words). Conversely, in the upper left, still oppositional, is a mountain, strength, associated with the N’yari. Which means that her goals are opposed by the N’yari, or the highlands in general, or someone or something renowned for their strength.
Which does suggest the reading that whatever she wants will be opposed by both the N’yari and the power of Hell. Which, in turn, suggests that whatever she’s striving for may very well be a good thing. Even if that isn’t necessarily the case, wouldn’t it make you feel better if it was? Better than assuming that the Broken King is stoking her towards a downfall, or that her achievement of good fortune might come at the expense of others.
But you want to know how she leaves you, don’t you? At the steps to the teahouse, that liminal space between light and warmth within and the pale rains without, she stops you, takes your hand in hers, pale fingers curling against your skin.
“When you have put them to rest,” she says, her voice earnest, her eyes shining to blind sense, her grip inexorable, “then come back to me, Giriel. I want to thank you for your service— not just to the Dominion, not even just to me, but to the legionnaires who stand beside me— in person.”
And she lifts your knuckle to her lips, bowing before you in that exotic manner of a foreign knight, and you feel not just the heat of her lips, the steam of her breath, but how one tooth grazes against your skin, promising more, rougher, all of her—
And then she lifts her head, strokes one stray lock back from her face with the innocence of a girl who has just been given her first kiss, and dismounts from the steps, looking back up at you as the rain hisses ever so softly against her cheeks.
If you promise her that you will, if you swear to it, if you understand better than she feigns what she means to reward you with, or if you just become Smitten with her immediately, mark XP. If you hesitate, if you catch a glimpse of the dragon beneath her fair mask, if you let yourself be caught up in thoughts of broken circles and ill fortune, mark a Condition. Either way, Cathak Agata has relinquished her String on you.
But she has not relinquished her intentions on you.
***
Han!
The moment is textured, rich, pregnant with meaning. The way you can feel her fingers, so delicate, underneath yours. The way she stays, as if transfixed. The fact that it is growing darker, and she is a silhouette against the lanterns now, and even if you dared look at her you could not see her expression. The agony, not just of moving your arm, but of being vulnerable.
Then you feel her fingers curl around the side of your hand, and her thumb grazes a thoughtlessly devastating path along the back of your hand, and you hear her hiccup slightly, but you can feel that smile.
It just hurts all the more, literally, when she is yanked backwards off her feet and, as part of the fancy transitive property, yanks you forwards too. You weren’t expecting that, in a moment of vulnerability and overextending, and you end up sprawling into the rain-slick deck as the N’yari acrobatically vault onto the ship from the riverbank.
You’ve seen N’yari before. King’s Crown, you’ve seen these N’yari before, you realize as you retract your throbbing arm. That’s Kigi there; she grabbed the pretty boy from the wedding party who tried to get in her way and is now sitting on him, giggling coquettishly as she pins his wrists to the deck and smothers his face in black-speckled fur. And that’s Hanaha (or “better Han”) menacing the bride and groom, tail flicking as she drapes herself over their laps and squishes the bride’s cheeks in one hand, making jokes about a “matching set.” And, Mother of Lotuses, that’s Machi’s hellion of a little sister, Jazumi, wrenching the priestess’s arms behind her back and lashing them fast (and don’t pay attention to the way her shaky grunt of discomfort hits a note that’s almost appealingly husky, or how her frantic squirming is pulling her poncho tight against her, that definitely isn’t worth noting for thinking about later). Which means—
When Machi hits the deck, the barge shudders. Her huge sword is slung over her back; the chains keeping it in its scabbard are set with labyrinth-charms carved from rough stones, the same as the ones dangling from her braids. The purr of her amusement is a low rumble that sets the water on the deck vibrating. “Look at you, little lowlanders,” she says, her mismatched ears twitching with amusement, earrings gleaming in the lantern light. “Don’t you know there are taxes for using our river?”
“And tariffs!”
“And charters!”
“And fines!”
“Battle-sisters,” she says, grandly, “take your prizes, scent-mark them, and bind the rest fast.” (The little priestess lets out a breathy gasp and squeezes her eyes shut.) “If a voyage down our river is what they want, then it is what they’ll have!”
But you, brave Han, are lying unnoticed in the dark, being rained on, and even though Machi is starting to sniff the air, recognizing a familiar scent, you have a moment to...
To do something. To make the mistake of trying to have a swordfight on a barge (one that Machi will not even draw her sword for); to make the mistake of tackling Jazumi and likely knock the priestess overboard in the process; to make the mistake of trying to intimidate the brats into leaving, because then you’ll be threatening them with a good time.
Really, so many possible disasters unfold in front of you. While you’re picking one— how do you know them, anyway? Have you chased them off, have you saved a sister from them, have you (Sapphire Mother forbid) spent a summer being bossed around in Machi’s sprawling family home in a little frilly apron?
***
Kalaya!
Petony pinches your cheek in a way very reminiscent of your older sisters before she stalks off to arrange payment. And already, you might feel, she falls naturally into that role. But to impress you, more than to follow her old oaths, she pays from her own purse (and follows it up with shaky credit from Rose when that runs dry).
You go forth from that place into the paleness of morning, and you go on narrow roads up and down the gently rolling hills, making together for the border of Rose. Even if Petony has no little love for the kingdom as it is now, the rumors she has heard, of both N’yari on the move and the dead sleeping restless, these prick at her heels even after she has sobered up. Like a turtle her retinue moves across the land, umbrellas interlocked as they follow her.
(They are something like soldiers and something like servants and something like adoring admirers. To be a knight is an ambition that many do not have the fortitude to follow, and so they content themselves with clubs and quilted armor and daubed symbols showing their allegiance. It is for this reason that the great battles between kingdoms, ones that see crowns rise and fall, have the character of a violent ball game as much as anything that could actually be called war. You do not yet have a retinue; you have yet to make your name the seed of a story.)
And you walk together, and you sing walking-songs together as the rain beats down, and Petony lifts her voice up in challenge to the world— and that’s why it takes you so long to hear what’s over that next hill. And then? Then Petony begins to run, unsheathing her hooked sword, and her retinue pull out their clubs, and there’s you working to crest the hill, too, you ready to fight by the Tiger Knight’s side no matter what’s causing the roar of battle just beyond—
Then Petony stops, hesitates, and you can see why, even as her retinue mills about the two of you, looking down at the battle being fought in knee-high water, in rice fields, in the driving rain. On one side, there’s the red-lacquered armor of the Imperial Legion, with their heavy shields and spears, struggling to form a shield wall with only an eighth-Talon’s worth of men. A banner in the Imperial style snaps in the wind as legionnaires force open the gates of a farmer’s compound, putting innocents at risk just so they will have a place to stand and a wall to put their backs to.
On the other side are things that it takes you a moment to understand are actual, real demons. Their many-medaled coats are an ugly bruise-green, their heads hidden under hoods and shrouds, and they grip heavy sabers in pitted gauntlets. The sounds of flute and bell accompany them as they dance, manic, like wasps, sabers rising and falling as they spin and jerk their way through gaps in the line.
(If a witch was here, they could tell you more. That the icon borne, there, is their Promissory, which grants them leave to act in the world, as provided by the warlock who accepted their services. That these are Wrack-dolls, made by the clammy hands of the First General, the soldiers that do not die, for they are dreams of black mud and infected wounds wrapped fast around their scavenged armor. That their warhounds, harrying the crossbows on the flank, are Fathers-of-Serpents, which the eye rejects and abhors, which must be fought by striking where you dare not look. But you only know that these are monsters of story and song, and that they serve whoever summoned them here.)
What is happening below is not the battles you heard about growing up, where champions duel in the midst of their armies, where the defeat of one knight is the signal for their retinue to withdraw and yield. It is ugly work from both sides, the work of iron Mars shining high above the clouds. A family patriarch dares confront the legionnaires about bringing the battle to his land, his home: you see him, his robes white, being tossed down— impossible to tell from the distance if he moves or lies still. Demons set fires to the stone walls about the compound, hungry green flames that lick at and devour the very rock.
Petony’s hesitation is not because she is afraid. It is because her outrage wars with the responsibility you represent: the struggle is plain on her face as she tries to decide whether to charge the demons from the rear, or to charge them and keep going until she has her hands around that legionnaire commander’s throat.
***
Piripiri!
“Have you not been? It’s the sort of experience you have to have, Pipi!” That. That sure is a nickname. And that sure is a way she takes your arm in a way that brooks no dissent, steering you down towards the docks.
And then, the trouble. The trouble is that the street urchin whose boat is closest has a slender boat, and three people would be a tight fit— but what does Azazuka do? Does she wait for one of the larger boats, perhaps a barge, perhaps invite half the docks to join the two of you in festivities?
Well, she considers it. You can see her glance across the lake, survey the boats in evidence... and then take an umbrella from one of her handmaidens, a gaudy pink-and-purple thing of waves. “Why wait,” she bubbles, pulling you in after her, handing the barge-rat (who has an actual rat peeking out of her vest?) a gold coin ten times what the trip is worth. “You must see the city from the lake in the rain, there’s nothing like it,” she adds, and then claps her hands together so suddenly that the barge-rat fumbles her pole and nearly loses it. “And the lanterns! Melai, go and fetch us two paper lanterns! We can release them on the water and add to the lights all about the city! It’s the sort of experience you must have.”
But that gives you a moment, standing in the boat with her and the little barge-rat, with her bodyguards glowering at you and your pilot, and time enough to second-guess yourself (and third-guess that second-guess). You should insist on a chaperone, even if the thought of impropriety (seemingly) hasn’t crossed her mind. Just so that there’s no way she can use it as a weapon, or that it can be used as blackmail.
But what if she gets offended and invites you to go by yourself? Or what if she’s actually scheming and intends to seduce you out there on the lake, bribing the street urchin into staying silent as she plies you with kisses and— hey, stop thinking about that! The fact that you would even think that is why you need to have a chaperone!
Oh no Melai is coming back with lanterns, you have to choose! Make a scene and risk hurting your business partner’s feelings (and after she bought a treasure for you, ungrateful thing), or stay quiet, despite the fact that anything could happen on that lake?
