[IC] Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

[Thanqol]

Establishing shot: Outdoors, night time. A deserted stretch of country highway. Well maintained, avenue lined with trees and blossoming mountain flowers. Standing stones are draped in late summer ivy. A large orange sign dominates the scene, illegible in the dark. Gradually light begins to fall upon the sign until it becomes readable.

WARNING
HITCHIKERS MAY BE ESCAPING FOXGIRLS

And then an 18 wheeled truck smashes through the sign as it lurches chaotically down the highway.

"Lao tian ye!" shrieked Katherine Isabelle Fluffybiscuits. She's the newly minted and minty-haired foxgirl, two huge fluffy tails providing her with the bulk to fill out the driver's seat her slender body wouldn't otherwise occupy. She twists around in her seat, putting her head out the window to stare behind her, causing the truck to lurch wildly. "I think I hit someone! Oh no! Oh no!"

She doesn't see anything, of course, except for the attack helicopters.

Leaning over and grabbing the steering wheel is Cyanis, the frosty cool and smoking hot white-and-black haired foxgirl. Her bright teal eyes are hidden behind her night-time sunglasses - because she's cool - and her three magnificent tails have an array of chains, wealth-attracting charms, and spiked leather collars decorating them. She isn't panicking a little bit because she's a confident three-tailed big sister foxgirl now, as you can tell from her leather jacket and other accessories. "It's okay, it's okay," she said, in a cool way, as she fought to keep the truck from flipping. "Listen. Calm down. Have you ever heard of affluenza?"

A helicopter fired a missile. It obliterated a nearby tree, causing both foxgirls to shriek and duck under the dashboard. This did more than anything else to stop the truck from spinning out of control, especially because they were no longer fighting against the truck's built in safety computer.

"Oh no! Missiles!" said Katherine for short - or Kat for shorter. "Those can turn into hittles at any second! What have we done to deserve this!?"

"We did allegedly steal one of Princess Qiu's Sunshards," Cyanis said in tones of gentle reminder.

"Doesn't she have like a thousand of those?" cried Kat. "And she just finished conquering Ys and taking that one too! So ten thousand!"

"Four," said a new voice. Calm. Patient. Professional. "She had four shards. And now she's back down to three. Which is all well and good because this way everyone can keep calling her the Threeshard Princess."

Both Kat and Cyanis looked around in shock and awe. There was something about the way that Actia, the four-tailed third foxgirl, used numbers that was deeply intimidating.

It wasn't that foxgirls were incapable of learning numbers - Actia was proof that they could. But foxgirls had a system of mathematics already: there was this, which was what they had in front of them, and there was next, which was the thing they didn't have yet but were about to. Between those the entire foxgirl experience could be adequately contained; it didn't matter how much money was in that wallet, only that it was next.

But... the conceptual framework to not only assign a value to that wallet, but to decide that it wasn't next because something with even more value was next? That was frightening. That was Burrower Magic. Learning to think that way changed a foxgirl from a carefree nature spirit into something like...

Actia wore a cold blue sleeveless suit, glittering with shifting lights. They moved like incorrect reflections, capturing the eye, captivating the mind, shifting to emphasize her otherwise unnoticeable curves. She wore a cold violet digital tattoo sequence around her eyes, glowing softly to illuminate her eyes with sparkling purple lights like she was always staring directly into a set of studio lights. She had a long, heavy metal Burrower Mask on a quickdraw holster by her hip, cold red nail polish on her claws, and a cold 3 on her mouth.

Four tails. It was natural that the other two were a little bit in awe of her. It was like meeting a celebrity. Or a crime boss. Enough of both to get them both into this scrape.

"Now, calm down," said Actia. "Think. We've got Princess Qiu's Sunshard in the back. We know how she's attuned it. That's all the weapon," the way she said 'weapon' made them both shiver, "we need. Katherine," Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits sat up straight when her name was called. "What is Princess Qiu known for?"

There was only one answer. That made her think it was a trick, but she couldn't figure it out. That was the power of a four tailed fox. "S-swords?" she blurted.

"Correct," said Actia. "Which means that, this close to her Sunshard, swords can defeat helicopters."

Both kitsune stared at her blankly.

"... and you, Katherine, know how to use a sword," finished Actia patiently.

"Me!?" squeaked Kat.

"Of course you," said Actia expansively. "You traveled with the anime Yue, did you not? And the wolfgirl Hyra? You watched her swordfight with Qiu herself, didn't you? That makes you a fully qualified swordmaster."

"But!" Squeaked Kat. "But I've never! I've never actually - I mean, I don't even have a sword -!!"

"I picked one up for you," said Actia, pushing a dragon-hilted katana into Kat's hands. "Now be a good girl and go up there and destroy some helicopters."

*

She clambered with trembling legs up out of the truck cabinet as it raced down the highway. She flopped, face first, down onto the roof and gasped for air, clutching her sword in one hand and both her tails in the others. She shrieked a little as the truck lurched around a corner, and shrieked a lot when another missile lived up to its name. But she was a good girl, and besides... if Yue could do it, then she could too!

On shaking legs, she stood up on the back of the truck. She gripped her sword in both hands, holding so tightly that she couldn't even unclench her fists when she noticed she hadn't taken the scabbard off yet. She had to do that with her teeth and her feet. But then she was ready! She'd seen Yue do this stupid technique a million times, she could do it!

"This!" she squeaked, going through the first cut.

"Then this!" she had no idea how she was doing. She had no idea what she was doing.

"Ending like this!" she cried. And in that moment she panicked and threw the sword as hard as she could.

But Actia was correct.

This close to a Sunshard, swords definitely beat helicopters.

Kat only opened her eyes in time to see the parachutes lighting up in the distance, illuminated by the burning wrecks of two neatly bisected helicopters.

The truck sped off towards safety.

*

You might have noticed from the earlier descriptions that all three foxgirls were relatively thin, definitely pampered, and generally physically and psychologically unprepared for the hard work of moving a glittering magical rock the size of a pool table out of the back of a truck. They originally propose a solution of opening one of the windows of their hideout, opening the back door of the truck, and then reversing as fast as they can so when the back of the truck brakes hard the Sunshard will go flying out through the back of the truck and neatly into the house. This does not work. They settle for flagging down a passing car who hadn't read the warning about hitchhikers, enchanting the driver, and sitting on the lawn drinking pink lemonade while she sweats and huffs and hauls the giant rock into the house.

Finally, all three foxgirls gather around it. Cyanis, eyes ablaze, fierce, greedy. Actia, eyes calm, restrained, poised. Katherine, eyes nervous, still wondering if Actia is going to be mad that she lost her sword.

A Sunshard.

"Hell yeah! Good work girls!" said Cyanis, punching the air. "We're going to get our next tails for sure!"
"A-already?!" said Kat in shock.
"Definitely!" said Cyanis. She'd been checking her butt constantly since they'd escaped. "A crime like this? That'll do it for sure! But maybe we have to finish selling it first..." her eyes narrowed. "Or... or maybe only one of us can get the credit."
"But it was a team effort!" squeaked Kat.
"Yeah," said Cyanis, tossing her hair to reveal her very menacing and cool big sister spiked collar. "It was. Time for another lesson in Fox Law, cutiebiscuit~"
"Stop that," said Actia. "We're not done working as a team yet."
Eyes filled with confusion and relief turned to stare at her.
"But... why not?" said Cyanis. "We've got the loot. We're done."
"Sunshards are treasures," agreed Actia slowly. "That's their greatest disguise. They're so magical, so valuable that nobody looks at them and thinks... what's next?"
Now she had their absolute attention.
"The Sunshards have another feature," said Actia. "They are secretly keys. Keys to the greatest buried treasure of the Ancient World. Specifically, they're the batteries that power the guardians of that treasure."
"So we need to steal all of the Sunshards to get this treasure?" said Cyanis dubiously. That was a lot of Next. "Even Qiu couldn't do that."
"No," said Actia, gently brushing the Sunshard. "There's another way. A way only available to a nine tailed fox."
"Um, do you really think Damn Fox will help us, because I think she's got her next fifty years booked out -" said Kat, but Actia cut her off.
"We don't need her," she said dismissively. "I count nine tails right here."
Cyanis and Kat both shivered. That... wasn't right. That wasn't how it worked. Two and three and four didn't just equal... nine, did they? There were hundreds of two and three tailed foxes, but almost nobody ever saw a nine tailed fox. They couldn't just... do nine tailed things, right?

Actia smirked. "You doubt," she drawled. "Isolated and divided, you don't understand the concept of the cartel, the danger of collective bargaining. Techniques driven from consciousness and hidden in Burrower vaults where they could be wielded from positions of secrecy. But I know their techniques, and I know more than that. I know how we can use this one Shard to corrupt all the others."

She laid out her Technomancer's instruments. Masks of steel, rectangles of glass, wires of rubber. Treasures enough to tempt the lesser foxes to snatch, terrors from so deep they couldn't bring themselves to.

"The guardians are too powerful for us to fight," said Actia. "But we can make them fight each other. We can corrupt their memories and their hearts, twist their purposes, bind them to mortals and have them do battle to protect their mortals. From this Sunshard we can twist the entire system's information flow, and in the absence of accurate information even heroes will fall to chaos and butchery. And then..." she smiled wider, showing her fangs. "And then, rather than the energy of those guardians returning to their native Sunshard, we will collect them all here, in this one. This will give us the power to grant wishes, the power to breach the lowest level of the vault and claim the greatest treasure of the world for ourselves."

"A... a heist like that..." said Cyanis, trying to work herself up for it. It was hard. This felt wrong.
"A heist like this?" said Actia, examining her nails. "Why, I think it's not much to say that we could all be nine tailed by the end of it. It's hardly more to say we could demote every other fox back down to two, even Damn Fox, if we felt like it. Why steal casino chips when you can conduct a leveraged buyout?"

"Do... we really have to kill them?" said Kat in a small voice.
"They'll kill each other," said Actia. "There's no way that's our fault."
"But we're corrupting them!" Kat protested. "We're making them do it!"
"That's no different to an ordinary fox enchantment," said Actia. "Like we did with that lady earlier who pulled this thing in here. If she really didn't want to do it she wouldn't have. We're just... loosening them up."
"And besides," said Cyanis, trying to rationalize it. "They're not people, right?"
"Correct," said Actia. "They're guardian ghosts, bound in eternal stasis, unable to return to the underworld or on to the next life. Either they'd be delighted to be set free, in which case we're practically rescuing them, or they don't care either way because they're already dead and ghosts."

She held up a hand. "But if it makes you feel any better, I promise we won't hurt a single living person," she smiled. "We'll claim some of the guardians for ourselves, and we'll use our mystic seals to bind them all so they can only fight each other. What could be fairer than that? It'll only be ghosts fighting, and they're barely more than robots anyway."

Kat couldn't argue with that logic. Actia really had thought of everything, and... you know, how bad could it be to have ghosts fight? Yue had met a ghost dress and all it had wanted to do was fight so... you know... maybe... give her five minutes to think!

But she didn't have five minutes. Actia was already laying out the circuit wire and the microchips and the scales and balances and drawing the glyphs and codes onto the surface of the Sunshard in cold black. It stained the warm glow, pinks and teals radiating haphazardly through the ant tracks of sigils and glyphs. And then they were all holding hands around the twisted artifact, feeling energy rise and crackle along their tails.

Cyanis went first, straining against her own leash. She poured forth into the Shard her hunger - the twisting, relentless, predatory, snapping of jaws. What's next? What's next? Her curse, her corruption, soaked insatiability into the fabric of the guardians.

And then Kat felt Actia's stare turn onto her. She flinched, and when she looked at the Sunshard she flinched again. This... wasn't right. Yue wouldn't like this. But -

"Are you not brave enough?" asked Actia.
"I'm -" she squeaked.
"Are you not clever enough?" asked Actia, more darkly.
"It's all so fast -" she said.
"Ah," said Actia. "You're not quick witted enough." She wasn't being mean, just... disappointed. Like she was talking to a dog. "It's okay. I'll explain it all again from the beginning, so you can keep up this time -"
"No!" cried Katherine. "I can do it! I can -"

She didn't know what to do. She didn't know how to be as hungry as Cyanis. She was a house fox! She'd always had breakfast and, and, - she even had fluffybiscuits in her name! Actia was right, she was basically a dog, a slow witted, well fed puppygirl who couldn't even figure out how to be mean enough to do a simple ghost curse!

So she screwed up her face and her courage and sent sloth instead. Two of the nine would just... sleep. They didn't have to fight. They'd just never show up. Which they were already basically doing. That was enough from her, right? She only had two tails after all, she should watch Actia and see what she could learn from her. It was her turn next, and her chance to see how a four tailed fox dealt with things!

Actia walked up to the Sunshard and poured the most horrible emotion Katherine had ever seen into it. Like it was nothing. Like she was opening up a bottle and letting something already packaged and ready out. It was apathy. It was despair. It was cruelty. It was smug satisfaction. It was... it was the feeling of the world burning down all around you and being amused and a little bored. It was the spite of having lit the spark and the indolence of not sticking around to watch the fire. It was chaos.

"No!" said Katherine. "You can't -"
But Actia turned to her and her eyes were the same blank professionalism of a colon followed by a three, the stare of someone who has genuinely never done anything wrong in her entire life, the blamelessness of a cat - but of course, foxes weren't cats, were they? Foxes had to do better! Vixies had to be good girls, they couldn't just be...

The Sunshard erupted in twisted light and that was all she saw.

CHAPTER ONE:
KATHERINE ISABELLA FLUFFYBISCUITS DOOMS THE PLANET

[Thanqol]

For most people, the most shocking thing about waking up in a bathtub full of ice was the ice.

For you, though? That part is refreshing. Familiar. Reminds you of home. Reminds you of war. Reminds you of the gales on the North Sea, the cracking glaciers of the fjords, of leaping from the prow of your longship into the frosting water of home. You carried the bite of that ice all through your life.

No, what gets you is the bathtub. They had bathtubs in your day of course, but they weren't like this. A digital control panel (you know what all of those words mean?) with automated temperature modulation (you mark a rune and the tub never goes cold?) with a full bonus feature selection? You could ask it with your voice to fill the bath with bubbles or brightly coloured soap powder or herbal remedies and it would mix it on demand instantly. You know how to use this miraculous machine and you know, too, that this is not the luxury of a sorcerer king. Anyone could obtain such a thing following a brief barter with a Technomancer. It's more disorienting than being called to fight frost giants on the battlefields of Ragnarok. You might have imagined, before this day, how to kill a frost giant. You have not imagined that the art of bathsmithing had come so far.

But even with this strange knowledge of the modern world you cannot imagine why the bath might have come to be filled with bloodstained ice.

The answers lie with the young... you almost thought she was a boy, or less than a boy: one of those halfmen priests, who slaved in dark crypts in service to their dead god's book. Her baldness, the robes, the unhealthy slouch, the way she is holding the mead bottle as though ashamed of it - but no. Her robe is as bright an orange as ever seen in the locks of Ireland, her muscles are as wiry and thick as any shieldmaiden, and her knuckles have the scars of a great many brawls. You have heard tales from the Varangians about the exotic Turkic warriors who served the Emperor of Rome, and just like you knew the mystery of the bath, you too know that she is something of that lineage. A warrior priestess, an exorcist of devils and spirits, marked with the stigmata of mastery carved in bloody lines along the back of her shaven head.

Yes, this wretched and broken thing is your Master. She stares at you with shock, drunkenness and exhaustion. There was nothing deliberate here, even though it is her blood that stained the ice that called you. All across the floor are the traces of blood as she dragged herself, injured and shivering, out of the cold. One bottle is broken and one bottle is empty, the white... refrigerator where they were stored hanging open.

And outside the window, over verdant lands dressed in the dying days of summer, silver towers reach into the sky like ladders to the glorious full moon.

You have arisen.

[Phoe]

Truly, it could be said that the gods had favored craftsmen in the years since she'd been buried. Or perhaps they'd bartered, maybe even plundered these secrets from the forges of the dwarves. For all she knew about the construction of this tub and its operation, she had no insights into the secrets of why it existed in the first place. Not that it matters in the slightest. No, the much more important and more obvious fact of the now is that her kingdom had fallen after all.

It must have, if for all their mastery the bathsmiths had not thought to make it large enough for someone like her.

Indeed, every part of her is too large for the room she finds herself inside of. Long, much too long arms spill over the sides of the bath, revealing coiling muscles bound tight in roll after roll of white cloth and fur-lined leather wrist guards. Every finger on her hands is adorned with golden rings of entirely different sizes and styles, treasures she could not possibly have made for herself. More than one finger is even favored with a second mismatched ring. They curl in unnatural directions as she grips the sides of the tub and pulls herself through the ice with a wet slosh.

Now that she is lying on her stomach there is no room for her legs, which curl girlishly behind her and yet with all the seeming of a serpent's raised head in warning. Chain glitters in the silver light pouring in from the windows with hardly a clink as her feet kicked about, stuffed deep into her massive tanned boots as it is. A tight braid flops across the ground, soaked with pink tinged water in places and dry in others where it coils on the ground, far too long and majestic to have fit inside the bath with her. Her hair is the color of spun straw, dotted through with jeweled chains and heavy iron bands.

Even her eyes are large, flashing with equal parts danger and delight at the fridge, the empty bottles of mead, and at the warrior-priest gawking at her with all the seeming of a woman haunted by ghosts. Her jaw, too, seems bigger than it needs to be given the design of the world around her. When she grins, she shows rows of horridly sharp and jagged teeth. They line her mouth all the way to her lithe, dancing tongue. All of her is too much for the world she has woken up to.

Just as she was when last she lived. In that way, nothing had changed. She had failed. She spits out a chunk of ice and watches it slide across the ground to the priest's feet. Her fingers grip tighter around the edges of the bath until the material starts to crack beneath her.

Creature of the water. A mermaid, maybe, if much too large for that. Or. Or... whatever it is, not human. The sharp ends of blue-ink tattoos are just visible on her collar bone and the base of her neck where her armor shifts to show skin. The massive axe on her back clinks against her 'bed'. She has all the seeming of a lion, or perhaps more accurately a polar bear. No, a shark. It's not that she is trapped. There is simply no need to stand on ceremony here. A predator, a king, can afford to take her time.

Besides, there is power coursing through her body, and a dream lodged like a knife inside her heart. The world may still be building itself too small, but it's plain to see that it hasn't grown any weaker since she died. That's enough to put her in a good mood. There is fun to be had, still. And conquest. Perhaps she would fight a frost giant after all.

She smiles, and leans farther over the edge of her ice bath/bed. Muscles bunch and roll along her shoulders as she surges, the envy of any shield-maiden despite their impossible length. A heavy necklace slides out of the water and drips frigid water on the ground as it dangles from her craning neck.

"You called to me!" she booms, "Little priest. And so I have come. Congratulations, you war is already over. Now tell me, Master: do you fancy yourself my king? Or are you here to be my new wife?"

[Thanqol]

"A wife?"

The priestess' eyes sink into shadows. Her hand reaches to her side to touch the bloody wound there, underneath the surgical bandage. Her hand reaches across to touch a wooden staff, bent and curled, heavy with flasks that shine like gemstones in the dim light.

And then she stands. It does not come easily to her. She is crippled. It is more than the missing organ, it is her entire circulatory system - her chi, her magical essence, her very spirit is gnawed. The injury is fresh, the teeth marks are bloody, her power is stolen. Once, there was a great deal. Now there are but shadows.

"I had a wife," said the priestess. "For her, I broke my vows. For her, I left my post. For her, I forgot every warning. She promised me love eternal. But a fox loves nothing."

She wrenches herself to her full height. Against the pain of a broken body, she stands.

"I am not your king," she swears by the moonlight. "I have no desire to be your master. Spirit! You speak of war? I need your war not!" she declared. "I am nothing, and nothing to you! But you..."

She slumped forwards, gripping the edge of the bathtub, looking down at you with eyes filled with fury, tears, heartbreak.

"... you will be my vengeance," she said. "That alone I ask."

[Phoe]

Whether it was the best thing to say or the worst was impossible to know. There are no words in answer to the priest's defiant declaration or her pain filled struggle to stand up and express herself. A pair of hard blue eyes like shards of ice watch her from the frigid waters without a hint of smile or scowl. If anything this ghost has all the seeming of an animal's shrewd and alien wit, piercing the soul rather than the body without giving the impression that she understood a word of what was said. It is a small wonder she does not tilt her head.

Instead, she rises. And rises. And rises. An impossibly long, lanky, and muscular body surges forward and slides out of the water as easily as a seal might. She is leather and chain and fur from neck to toe, decorative skirts clatter as she climbs into the air and everything she is drips pink tinged water on the floor and on the priest. As she lifts toward her full height she starts to bend forward as well. It obscures her exact height, but the impression of the movement is less that she is ashamed or troubled by it and more that now that she has started moving her body does not wish to stop. Forward is as good as upward. So she looms as the bending branch of a gnarled tree might.

One long arm bends at an impossible angle and plucks the little priest into the air as one might grab a cat. Her robe is her scruff. The warrior holds her close to her face and sniff-sighs.

"I do not think you appreciate your situation, Master." she says, and tosses the woman into the bath she'd just stepped out of.

"Deny me all you like. It does not change your reality. You don't need my war? The others fighting it will not care. You have summoned me, and as the most powerful of the lot of us I will have answered the call last of all. Do you wish to pursue your vengeance in the face of a thousand traps, ambushes, and even armies? I admire your dedication to dying a warrior's death in the face of your loss. I will not deny you the attempt."

She crosses the length of the room in a handful of long, loping strides over to the fridge. She grabs a fresh bottle from the fridge before closing it with surprising gentleness and returns to place it in the priest's trembling hands. A thumb and forefinger stretch out and tear the cap off with a mere suggestion of movement.

"Drink. Rest. You are very fortunate to have summoned a king, since you cannot be one yourself. Very well: if you will not command me as a leader or compel me as a lover then what is left is for you to bend your knee instead. You might be so broken that you're barely supplying me with any of the energy I need to fight, but you're still what binds me to this world and I will not tolerate you dying on me before I even get to make my wish. You have that responsibility as a Master, whether you asked for it or no. "

[Thanqol]

> Be Diaofei
> Get tossed into a bathtub full of ice
> Request status update

The Body:

In the past 24 hours I have obtained the following inputs:
6 packets of salted snacks (chips, peanuts, twisties)
4 cans of beer
2 bottles of wine
1 bottle of mead
Some water from melted ice cubes
3 hours sleep

I have the following outstanding issues:
Weird burning pain in the back of head
Blood loss
Kidney stolen
Limited hypothermia
Muscle cramps
Dehydration
Hangover starting to manifest
NEW: DROPPED INTO FREEZING WATER

Recommended course of action: sink into the soothing embrace of death <3

The Brain:

I have been betrayed. Nobody has ever felt this way before in the history of the world, except maybe Linkin Park.

What's worse is that I was warned, repeatedly and at length, that exactly this would happen. Friends, colleagues, supernatural entities - my entire social circle told me that this was a terrible idea, that she was only flirting with me because of my status as River-Guardian, that foxes could not feel love. I was not humble when I told them they were small minded bigots and that Actia and I were destined to be together forever. I was wrong in the most dramatic, grating and public way possible, and despite being trained in universal compassion I wouldn't forgive me.

So I have spent the past few hours marathoning the Kill Bill movies while trying to summon enough magical energy to engage a ritual circle. I know my path forwards: It is to be a cool, confident badass who punishes the wicked spirit, regains her chi, and buries the wicked spirit under a bridge for 1,000 years. I need this spirit to realize that I am deadly serious and so highly trained that mere physical deprivation means nothing to me.

Recommended course of action: Stand up, unamused and unaffected by the ice, and stare the shark goddess down to establish the depths of my conviction.

The Soul:

I'M SO SAD
OH NO SHE'S HOT
I'M GOING TO DIE ALONE
SHE COULD PIUT ME ON THE SHELF
JUST TELL HER YOU FORGIVE HER SHE COULD HAVE MY OTHER KIDNEY IF SHE ASKED
I'M LETTING HER DOWN I HAVE A RESOPNSOTISNTMBITLIY TO NOT LET HER DOWN AND ALSO NOT DIE
WHY DIDNT THTEY WARN ME THAT ALL THE ANCIENT SPIRITS WERE GIRLS THAT I'D HAVE TO TALK TO

Recommended course of action: Say something really poetic, honest and meaningful, to impress her with my sincerity and build a relationship of trust and increase the number of girls who like me from 0 to 1.

The execution:

Daiofei hits the bathtub and sinks into it. The ice is old, partially melted, and so she slides through to the chill bottom almost without friction.

Then in one sudden motion she stands up, feet set against the tub. With poise and grace she says, "Like the swan said to the tiger, I may have failed every responsibility I've ever had in my life, but -" she didn't know how to close that out. "- but I... can't get fooled again. Won't let you down again. Hey by the way are you a campfire because -"

Actually, now that she thought about it, she was going to go with the Body's plan, that seemed way better than whatever this was.

[Phoe]

Two long and powerful fingers stretch out and curl under the priest named Diaofei's chin. They roll toward the palm and that is enough to lift her head up, though even like this she can't look directly into the hunching warrior's eyes without craning, or without an obliging look down back at her.

The skin on her fingers is like sandpaper. The palm is no gentler when it turns and caresses Diaofei's cheek. Thick rings and slender rings all of gold feel more like ice against such tender skin. Everything about this giant of a woman is rough and harsh, even the nature of her regal bearing. It's easy to believe she is a king like she claimed, but if it's true then her entire reign must have been in war camps and travel. Had she even once stopped to enjoy the fruits of her labors?

"That was an oath ill sworn, if you meant to join me as my brother." even her frown is toothy, "I cannot be the instrument of your revenge. Whatever form that takes is yours to discover. There is nothing you could offer me, nothing I would trust, that would allow me to walk into battle with you side by side so that our enemies lay dead at our feet."

It's not cruelty in her voice, or even disapproval. Her assessment is harsh, but with her thumb brushing underneath Diaofei's eye and her fingers now feeling their way up along the scars of her shaved head it's difficult to read her tone as rejection. This is a calculation. There is war to be waged, and war is a thing fought with the mind before the body.

She promised victory the instant she appeared. That requires getting to work.

"I could still take you as my woman. But I do not think that will work. Your body is as fragile as your spirit right now, and a woman who I take to bed must be prepared to bruise my body as much as I bruise hers. I would break you if I gave you myself, little priest. And I will not risk the Trickster's curse on me for claiming your heart while it is still entwined with hers."

The spirit looks around the room, lost in the thought. Her legs stay hunched forward in a high squat to keep the priest's face and neck in easy reach, and to fit inside the space the building leaves for her. Extended squats, possibly better known to some as horse stance can be some of the most brutal and torturous form of self improvement or training known to man, but she's held this position for several minutes without twitching. Either her legs are even stronger than they look, or something makes a bend like this mean nothing to her.

And then suddenly her arm wraps around Diaofei like a serpent and lifts her back out of the tub to rest in the crook of her elongated elbow, holding her as one might a puppy or a rugby ball. Now she is motion, a pair of impossible stretching steps reaching the door and prying it open, but the feeling of motion never reaches the priest in her arm.

"It will be easiest if I think of you as a treasure, instead. An exotic and delicate flower from foreign lands. Mine to have and my glory for owning you for however long my sword arm stays strong enough to keep you from being taken by anyone else. Do you like that, my Treasure? It is the role you are best suited for in your present condition. I cannot command you as a soldier or safely love you as a woman, but with this much I can anchor our contract and fight even without your magical energy.

Now come! If you will not rest where I put you then you will at least eat real food when I give it to you. But since you do not have any, we must hunt! We shall return here shortly with our feast, but for the moment this will be the fastest way to show you who you've summoned."

And without waiting for an answer, she is off. Her long, loping strides carry the pair of them down the road and over hills, avoiding the moonlight and favoring the shadows wherever she can. Even in the open air like this she does not stand at anything approaching her full height. If anything she moves more like a beast, low to the ground with her nose pointed toward the air to catch scents on the wind. Her free hand stretches out ahead of her and occasionally pushes off against the ground or pulls her further up the grass as she climbs the terrain. If her other arm wasn't full, the definite impression of her movement is that she would fall to all fours when it suited her without thinking twice about it.

But for all that she is a hunting beast, riding in her arm feels so smooth that it's more like sitting on a cloud. A very rough, warm cloud that won't stop grabbing your butt, but still a cloud.

[Thanqol]

Even the shamans could not have dreamed this world.

The sky is filled with an endless waterfall of diamonds, brighter than the stars, wrapping the fine earth. Enormous needles going up into the sky ever-visible on the horizon, silver and ethereal with lights blinking in time. A lake that falls into another lake, that falls into another lake, that falls into an endless pit. Hills and mountains and glittering lanterns in cozy clusters and rural solitude both. The roadside has shrines with fresh corn and tomatoes and other vegetables, laid out and free for taking. In the depths of the forest there is an artificial water fountain, clean and free-flowing allowing animals to drink without risking the rivers -

- The rivers. There's something wrong with the rivers. The lakes, the water - that hole in the Terraced Lake. Knowledge ends at the sense of dread - it is enough to know that everyone knows that what's down there isn't safe.

For a moment the thought is dark. It clouds the mind and makes this world seem fragile, a post apocalyptic outpost over the top of something forbidden. No wonder the distant space elevators - no wonder people would flee this place. For a moment this seems precarious. For a moment - and then!

And then a school of clownfish rush by your face, alight in vibrant colour, scattering and weaving as they try to evade the rushing motions of a skyshark the size of a dog. They hide in the branches of trees, and in the clusters of magenta and saffron coral barnacles that grow on one of the oldest shrines. And of course! In a world like this, where the water is dangerous, why would the fish stay? Why not grow wings and fly? And why would the sharks not follow them?

The bounty of the ocean has all washed ashore. No wonder people chose to stay here.

[Phoe]

So then. Perhaps that explained why her kingdom had not endured. This was the shape of the world after Ragnarok. If so it had been a battle well fought, and a battle worth fighting. But if so, she had not been called to it. Whatever the reason, the world had burned and it had not asked her to fight for it. The thought makes her jaw clench until a tooth snaps. She spits it out without concern; another is already pushing forward to take its place. The thought also makes her laugh. The dream inside her heart burns fiercer than ever before.

After all, the world has called her now. Countless hundreds of warriors had fought in the Twilight, but only nine were called here to fight in the light of the long Dawn that followed. Calling it something stupid like 'redemption' would be egotistical mockery. This was a challenge. That's why she'd been pinned to such a wretched priest, and it's why her heart sang at the thought of crushing those elite few who'd risen from slumber to challenge her here even with that weight across her shoulders.

Man or woman. Man or beast. Honored warrior or defiled corpse. King or barbarian savage. Excuses, excuses, excuses. None of it mattered in the face of being chosen. None of it measured up to the hunger in her belly. This beautiful world had grown from the ash of the world tree so full of fruit, it could hardly be considered a failing if she plucked and ate it. Her new kingdom would far surpass the old one. This time she'd take the whole of England, and see if she stopped there. Rivers would tremble at the idea of her, and not the other way around. Impossible, that she of all people should ever fear the water.

But just now, the current on the wind was her sea. Just now she slows her prowling, perched on a stone as silent and still as if she'd grown from those same rocks. Schools of little skyfish pass her by in abundance, and she lets them go. Let her smaller sisteren chase the minnows. She had promised her Master a demonstration. So she is patient as she holds her head up to the wind to feel the currents of energy waft across her face. And she hunches in wait for more worthy prey.

The swordfish comes wielding its deadly rapier. It is wrong to say she explodes into motion, but she hunts. The way she lurches up is almost awkward, especially with the weight of a person still tucked into her arm. They dance for long minutes, it thrashing and darting and almost skewering her precious Master, her bending and loping after it with low laughter caught in every breath. Her empty arm stretches around her back and plucks her ax free. She grips it by the very tip of its overlong handle, and when she swings there is far too much shoulder rotation and a pivot to her elbow. The blade whips about in a wild arc that seems to be travelling in a kind of inevitable seeming slow motion. The proud fish thrashes in response to the idea of a threat. Correct, little warrior. But it never sees the arc of that swing until it's cleaved through the spine.

The fish is heavy enough that the ground near her trembles when its body drops from the air. She breathes deep of the smell, showing more and more teeth with every whiff. And then at last she sets Diaofei on her feet and fells several trees with single strokes in the same lazy overwide technique she'd felled the fish with.

When the campfire blazes in the night sky, she kicks the massive fish at her Master's feet and upends a huge pile of vegetables overtop of it. There is an absurd amount here: the bounty of several shrines in their entirety that she plucked clean as she passed without even thinking of it. She spears the lot of it on a massive tree branch, and hangs it over the fire. She fastens the ax to her back again, and stretches one long arm to lift Diofei's chin once more.

"I will say nothing for the taste, little priest. But you will eat. And when you have finished I will bring you back to your palace so you can sleep. When you have some strength back, we can discuss our war. These are your king's commands."

[Thanqol]

The Body is hungry. She eats.

Her hands move over hot seaflesh and scorched vegetables, raw and grasping, as visceral and impatient as a drowning woman's first gasp of air. Halfway through a bite there's a pause and a regretful glance downwards at the fish, a muttered half-prayer, and then a renewal of the feast. She's lost so much, and that includes every restraint that stands between her and her appetite.

It includes, too, the barriers between consciousness and dreams. It takes a while to notice that she's gone - monastic training has not only made her capable of falling asleep while sitting cross legged, but she can do so with her eyes open. Slumping over or closing one's eyes would get one smacked by the master's broom - it was meant to teach discipline and the denial of bodily impulse. Daofei was always better at the appearances of virtue than virtue itself.

*

"Is there space by your fire, friend?" asked a voice as old as forests.

The stranger wears a dark and ragged cloak and a beard like a cloud devouring a mountain. His face is run through with his wrinkles and his brow sits heavily over his blue eye - the one that is not concealed behind the dark leather eyepatch. His age sits heavily on him, though seemingly none of it rests upon his body. He is still tall and he is still strong, barrel chested and muscular. All of his years seem to weigh only on his spirit and his aura of melancholy pierces as deeply as his stare.

Upon his shoulder is a raven. Its feathers are a blue passing into black, and its eyes are a blue passing into white, an electric tattoo of circuitry around the corners of its gaze. It twists and turns its head from side to side, watching with one eye and then the next filled with an eager curiosity.

The old man strides closer - it feels like he should shuffle, should limp, but his flesh refuses to give in to the weight of his soul - and takes a seat. Slumped half in shadow and in a rough and ragged cape, he holds out a begging bowl.

[Phoe]

Her hand is on the haft of her axe before the voice has a face. When she sees him, it lowers slowly down to her hip instead.

"There is room enough, elder. The food is hardly fit for kings, but if you can tolerate it you are welcome to fill your belly while you rest your feet."

Not possible. Not. Still, she does not strike. She only moves to pluck some of the meat and several charred vegetables from her spit and place it in the empty bowl. The gods are dead, this she knows. And yet it is... possible. And if it is possible, she cannot act. Terrible things befall those who fail the tests of Odin.

But even knowing who she might be speaking to the warrior does not straighten her posture or vaguely attempt politeness beyond her little niceties already given. She stays hunched with one hand planted on the ground in front of her. Pride is nothing before practicality and there is little enough to be gained by being a perfect host here in the middle of nowhere, so far from her halls and her wealth. In fact, the more of a beast she seemed, the better.

"There is nothing to wash it down with I'm afraid," she says with a jerk of her head toward her Master, "This idiot drained every bottle we were carrying. But there is a fountain not far off; if you require it I will point you in its direction."

She watches the old man's every motion with equal parts curiosity, caution, and unconscious reverence as she perches by the fire. She does not move, and yet she is not still. She is silent, and yet she is not quiet. Her fingers dig into the dirt and her hips shift her weight from side to side. This makes her leathers creak and her chain clink and rattle against the weapons she carries on her body. Her long, banded braid scrapes across her outfit until it falls on the ground with a heavy thud and pools by her feet.

It's a dangerous game though, to be playing at Host with someone who she might still need to kill. But what signs should she be watching if not the ones in front of her? He came to her after Ragnarok had passed and taken him. He came to her carrying a raven, but without any wolves. He came to her begging but unbent, at once weak and much, much too strong. There are any number of terrible things this old man could be, and the very worst of them is exactly what he looks like.

The thumb on her free hand stretches across her other fingers, and worries at her rings.

"None of this is free, friend. Your name, your destination, and a story. I'll accept those as payment for fire food and directions, though if you're hiding something richer I'll take those too."

She grins: firelight dances in reflection across her razor teeth.

[Thanqol]

"None of this is free..." he laughed a little, as he reached into his robe. A bottle moved over two aluminum cups, label hidden inside the fabric, and he handed one over. The liquid was unique, the golden bitterness of finest whisky coupled with the deep, rich aroma of an unknowable flavour that Ivar might one day come to know as coffee. "To charge for hospitality, to put a price on fire... What a hardscrabble life you must have lived! My friend, for my story look at my hands," he held them out. "The hands of a child," he said. "Hands without callouses. No sword held I, no spear, no tool, no chisel. Hands that had not done a day's honest labour in their lifetime. What sense might such a story make to you? What value such a name? No, we must turn our eyes to the only question that matters: the destination."

He chuckled darkly, a grinding half-grunt in a set of three, just enough to establish that it was not a mistake or a clearing of the throat. He held up a scrap of meat to his raven who gave him what could only be described as a dirty look. He shrugged and ate it himself.

"My destination, then," he said, looking up through thunderous eyebrows. "Is not victory. That is not sufficient for my purposes - I want something else, something that can only be accomplished in this world. Were I to achieve it then I would have no use for victory. And so I'll offer you a bargain. Give me the head of your Master, broken wretch though she is. I will supply you with the mana and the arsenal you require for your victory - and, when you ask for it and I have accomplished my ends, I shall offer you my head as well."

[Phoe]

It feels ridiculous to imagine a creature such as her sniffing cautiously at a cup of alcohol. But if it can be described as anything at all, that is what she does: holding the aluminum cup in front of her and taking several short, loud whiffs before daring the tiniest and most timid sip someone of her stature is capable of. Though the rest disappears down her throat in short order.

She throws the cup in the fire when she's finished. And then she laughs, the short barking bursts of the deeply amused trying to master themselves and failing utterly.

Her gaze turns to her Master. Her hand reaches for her axe. The bending of her limb and the sheer length of the handle lends an effortless sort of grace to the motion of loosing it. It is only now for the fist time that she lets her other arm leave the earth. It is in this moment hat her spine uncurls and her knees straighten.

Her neck doesn't lift with a King's pride. Not yet. She's spent too much of her life hunched over for that; she must stretch it out first to give herself back the proper flexibility to tower as she was meant to. But now that she is lifted up, she crests over nine feet from the ground. She is a monster, and everything about her is too large and too long.

"It is true," she says with a finger tracing the blade of her weapon, "That this woman is utterly worthless. She cannot supply me with mana. She is not a tactician, I am not even certain she knows what a war is. She cannot lift me up. She cannot even take care of herself. For a body as broken as hers, a warrior's death is the best that I can offer her."

She turns away from Diaofei to look now at the old man with the raven. Her eyes are frozen fury.

"But she called to me. And she has faithfully obeyed the demands of her King. You are correct, Nofather. Your story makes no sense at all."

Some would argue that she is a fool for sacrificing the surprise attack just to trade words and defend her drunken, dozing Master. But others are watching. With the speed at which she pounces, the way the axe lifts above her head in an instant, and the certainty with which she brings it down on the old man's head...

What need hath a warrior for skulking? When victory is at hand, why not grab it? If a head is offered to her so plainly, why should she have to play tricks just to claim it?

The might of her strike is enough to fell a thousand year old tree in a single blow. It shakes the earth and drives the winds to storming. And that is why she charged for hospitality, you fool.

[Thanqol]

Between the old man's neck and the blade is the crow, first to be cut through. It shatters when impacted, fibreglass and silicon crunching into fractal patterns, blue light spilling out in the microseconds before its power source shorts out. It offers no resistance and the blade continues -

On to nothing. The old man is gone. The wreckage of the crow scatters across the dirt and campfire, little more than a twist of machinery and the eerie ringing of a dropped bell.

*

Some miles away a Cherubim turns to whisper in the old man's ears. Culture has come a long way from the days when it was considered an aspect of God - the body of an infant and the face of a mature man, with a shock of red hair, rosy lips and an a golden trumpet. It's eyes, too, have the same circuit pattern that once marked the crow.

Here the old man does not wear the ragged cloak of a wanderer; he wears the simple black robe with white collar that marks a Catholic priest. His beard, brow and grim expression are unchanged from when he negotiated with Ivar. He listens to the whisper of the mechanical Angel, reading from a book that resembles a Bible, until he is interrupted by a laugh.

"Caster!" roared a man who was more kin to the Heavens than angels. "How fares your attempt to betray us?"
Fox ears twitch mirthfully. Cyanis, nocturnal sunglasses finding valid use here in the radiant presence of her Servant, grins and elbows the warrior angel in the side. "Don't be like that. He thought he was being sneaky."
"I was not attempting to -"
"Please," laughed Archer. "I have been in enough sieges to have a sense for these things. Someone always breaks when life and death is on the line - and you were never a man of faith, were you Caster?"
Caster snapped shut his psuedobible and turned to face Archer. "I chose my battles well enough to never require it."
"You played it safe," drawled Archer. "I don't need to know your name to know that. You radiate cowardice and failure, nothing dared and nothing gained. It's why you can barely manage that parlor trick of yours while I..."

Archer raised his hands outwards. The expansive gesture took in the hundreds of siege engines, vast catapults, trebuchets, ballistas, and blackpowder bombards that gleamed in angelic gold and spectacular engraved detail. The machines moved miraculously into position, wheels grinding and turning as ranges are taken and parabolic arcs calculated.

"... I wrote my name in the ruins of a civilization," said Archer. He grinned and looked at Cyanis. "Master. Permission to open fire?"
"Do what you want," said Cyanis, sipping a boba tea through a plastic straw. "I'm not your dad."
"Hah!" said Archer. "Then I call on you, O Father Who Art In Heaven! Grant me victory in this new crusade!" He spread magnificent angel's wings and pointed at the distant, flickering campfire. "Siegeworks of Antioch! Fire!"

*

A distant rumble like thunder.

A shadow over the moon.

Darkness enveloping the stars.

Ivar looks up from the ruins of the crow to see an impossible sight. It was no longer air that filled the sky: It was stone. A mountain's worth of stone in the form of a thousand boulders, all coming crashing down from above like meteors.

[Phoe]

Her eyes behold the sky. Or rather, they don't. Even the stars' light is blotted out and she is plunged into true shadow where only the light of her bonfire gives her anything to see. She smiles as she places the axe upon the strap on her back once again.

Her hand reaches to her hip to grip the hilt of her sword, instead.

"So you've already got an alliance, do you? Excellent, that saves time! If this is the true form of your invitation, I accept. Let's see which of us is stronger!"

The sword that she pulls from her scabbard is long and straight with an oversized grip, good for taking advantage of her unusual build and long, strong fingers. There is next to no crossguard, which she uses to grip it in both hands for maximum power. It is also a blade worthy of her boasting: plainly nothing less than a sword of kings.

The blade is gold and swirling silver inscribed with runes down its entire length from hilt to tip. They tell a story and they promise victory and they promise a fight worthy of the end of times, but the greater promise is in the shine of the metals and the glint of the impossibly sharp edge. The weight of the weapon is massive such that her Master would struggle to even lift it, but in her hands it sings. She raises it in front of her and steps into a swing.

...And then her head turns. Her icy eye falls on her Master. The precisely cleaved remains of a single boulder crash to either side of her and snuff out their fire with a plume of dirt and dust. That's one. And death still rains from above.

"Shit." she says, and wisely so.

"Shit, shit, shit. You pain in the ass, you'd better appreciate this."

She drops the two-handed grip to hold her weapon with only her right hand; her left bends to scoop up Diaofei as she turns and runs. All around her, meteors continue to crash and roar. She has a curse for every one of them, but they do as good as the air she blows on them to stop anything.

That's how it is. Luckily the one mark of all the greatest warriors in history was the ability and willingness to run away. She doesn't bother with the smooth strides of her hunt: now her overlong legs tense and burst off of the earth so that she rises into the air the way a shark breaches the water in pursuit of a seal. Forward she flies and up she rises. Left and now right and now left. She climbs a staircase of falling rocks, bouncing back and forth between them to push them into one another so she can ride the resulting to avalanche to something approaching safety.

But still they fall. Something clips her in the shoulder. She rolls along the direction of the blow to shield Diaofei and slashes behind her as she turns, but what good does it do to slay a boulder? She can only grit her jagged teeth and run, her heavy braid dancing behind her in search of fresh starlight.

[Thanqol]

Stone falls from the sky. Stone rises from the earth.

There is a wall in Ivar's path, vast and grim granite, slick with rain and misery. It is the bone of the earth, and with its grim presence all the solidity has been sucked from the soil, reducing it into a swampy morass. Each step closer to the wall sucks at feet, trying to consume boots, horses, chivalry itself. Murderous murder-slits are carved into the wall like crucifixes, the wicked manifestation of the Lamb God's warfare. And atop the wall of stone, a wall of steel - a Knight.

Only the English could build such a joyless castle.

Three servants. One to mark your location, one to target you with artillery, one to build the castle wall to pen you in. Last to arrive, with an incapable master, in the face of an alliance dedicated to your destruction.

Daofei stirs against you. Despite the wreckage of her mind, body and soul you can feel real muscles against yours. She was strong once. When she fails to support you it is not because the tap has been turned off but because the river has run dry. "Hey..." she slurs, still drunk. "I know another way to transfer mana... if you know what I mean."

Unfortunately the continued rain of artillery is unlikely to give you time for that. Any other ideas?

[Phoe]

She takes the time to flip her sword over in her hand. This is so she can press the hilt over her Master's lips. They stare into each other's eyes but the warrior is already scrambling away from the wall to avoid being crushed under the latest barrage of giant artillery.

"Patience," she growls, "If you want a treat then earn it, Master. The mystery of what's underneath this armor is more than worth the wait."

There is the merest hint of a smile before she lifts the blade again. She sets it gently in her teeth and bites down with practiced care so as not to shatter any on her invincible sword. Not that they wouldn't regrow, but it's a question of grip in the meanwhile. She hand slides smoothly along her side and up her back to grab her axe again, and she turns to face the onslaught of the skies.

One, two, three, she counts as she shadow above her grows deeper and fuller in the promise of death. Her long, sinewy legs tense in preparation of a charge. Four, five, go! The mysterious shark woman rushes forward to the absolute edge of the shadow and leaps up as high as she can manage. This batch of siege fire is better clocked on her position than the last volley, and is more densely clustered as a result.

That's what she was counting on. With a grunt of effort she kicks off the edge of the first boulder and tumbles into the second. Her feet scrabble against its rough surface for a moment trying to find purchase before she manages to turn herself around. She pushes off again and rises into the sky on a high arc that is carrying her directly into the path of yet another rock. Her eyes glint in delight and she throws the axe with all of her strength directly at the wall: it tumbles gracelessly end over end in seeming slow motion before it buries itself more than halfway up the head in the middle of the barrier.

The next boulder crushes into her, but the Servant is prepared for this too. Three on one, with time to plan, and hers a broken Master to boot? That just makes this fun!. She rolls her body to spare Diaofei the shock of the impact, the arm cradling her tightening as her body compresses to feel once more the truth of the hardened muscles the unfortunate little priest still has to her name in spite of every curse and poor decision that had dragged her underneath the waters of an icy bathtub in the middle of a ritual. Her free arm stretches and the warrior punches the side of the rock with all of her might. It buys her just enough momentum shift to hurtle her way toward the buried axe.

A creature of her size should not be able to pivot so smoothly or seem so at home in the air. Yet she manages. Her great tangle of powerful limbs rights itself out of the topspin in time to set her legs against the haft of her buried axe in control enough to push and leap off of her makeshift springboard, though it shatters the weapon to do so. Up she sails, and up and up and up. Down she falls like a comet, drawing her sword free from her teeth and crushing down on the knight in a burst of steel and sparks.

Expertly parried. The warrior's eyes light up with a thrill as she is hurtled effortlessly back up into the air again. She is forced to twist her hips and then her spine to keep momentum from throwing her back to the bottom again and even then only just manages to skid to a halt on the edge of the rampart. Her battle stance once again returns to a half-bestial crouching, only now with the sword in her hand and her Master still tucked protectively in the other she favors leaning far back on her left leg and stretching the right one out in counterbalance, hunching over her extended knee with her impossible torso instead of putting her weight on her hand again like a paw.

She snorts.

"Ho there, little English! You happen to be fancy yourself one of those honorable knight types? 'Cause I've got a mind to bargain with you if you've got ears to listen."

She shifts forward all of a sudden and they clash in a flurry of slashes that grind edge against edge. Behind her the latest deadly missile crashes through the floor of where she'd been standing just a second before. She lets out a low whistle as the material seamlessly reconstructs itself in an absolute refusal of the castle to yield even to the viciousness of her own allies. They separate once more, and a cold night wind howls between them.

"They call me Saber. At least so far as you're concerned anyway. Which one are you then, child of steel skirts and a lifeless home?"

[Thanqol]

The English Knight was not tall. One hundred and fifty, sixty centimeters perhaps - that was a strange modern unit of measurement to adapt to. Thinking about it, calendars and clocks are also weird here - and built like a waif. Her battledress is made of sleek, expensive steel, blended with blue fabric stained to a desolate grey that resembles her castle's stone. She wears a grim, face-concealing helm, eyes lost in the shadows of its depths.

"I am so sorry Mrs. Saber!" gasps an exhausted foxgirl who has just dragged herself up to the top of a flight of stairs. Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits is a house fox, and while (in her estimation) her scamper is second to none, she did spend most of her Big Adventure riding around on Yue's shoulders. And napping. And eating treats - look the point is that she's not cut out for this, okay? She's doing her best. She drops into a formal bow as a sign of contrition, not seeing the cordon of heavy sandbags that conjure into being around her as her Servant takes a defensive posture. "I'm really sorry! Mrs. Berserker here is having a really bad day and I'm doing my best to show her around but -"

Berserker conjures a longbow, a huge and vicious thing of yew. The arrow she loads into it resembles a ballista bolt. It's a slow, deliberate and hateful motion, but it feels like she's moving as fast as she can while still being able to do this all night.

"Oh no! Mrs. Berserker! She wants to talk! We discussed this!" said Kat, vaulting the sandbag and spoiling the shot. Berserker growls and lurches to the side to get around her. Kat gets dragged along, holding onto her bow arm. "O-okay, buster!" said Katherine, turning around to face Saber. She puts on her Negotiation Face - a foxgirl was always prepared to strike a deal, and none of the other foxgirls would respect her if she didn't. Berserker lurches again and Katherine acrobatically flips up to wrap both of her legs and tails around the black metal faceplate, dangling upside down from the blindfolded warrior. With her most serious voice she asks "Okay! You know, I'm a busy woman, but I think I can spare a few minutes - but you'd better make it worth my time."

[Balmas]

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[Phoe]

"Ah, the Master of Berserker is it? Hmm. You trust your comrades, I assume? Yours is going to be a very difficult war I think, whether your alliance holds together or no. If I were your Servant there is a lot I might say to you about your choices and your attitude. But..."

Saber smiles as she sheathes her weapon in defiance of the threat Berserker poses. She lifts herself back onto her feet and sets Diaofei down behind her with a drunken and undignified squawk and rises to about half of her full height before crunching her spine forward in a deep hunch to keep her face from getting too far away from the upside-down fox's. From her perspective it might be seen as a kind of permanent bow.

"I am your enemy," she finishes, "So I will simply say that I like you a lot. If you manage to stay in control of that tiny knight until the end of this I think I will share some of my prize with you. Though that is not the bargain I offer. Rather, you may notice my Master is quite sick. Look at her! No mana at all! I can barely maintain my own existence, let alone fight. I don't think it's any exaggeration to say you hold my life in your hands right now, child."

She reaches two fingers across her chest to grab a ring on the opposite thumb, and pulls the thick, ornate piece of goldwork off and holds it out toward the still-dangling Fluffybiscuits.

"There's no fair negotiation I can offer. I am asking you only for the opportunity to safely flee from your trap so that I can get my Master some help and return to you on proper footing. When I do we'll have a fair fight. As fair as three on one could be for you, hrnnn, ha. I am giving you this trinket so you have something to show your friends and not be so swiftly stabbed in the back for losing me. But the only thing I have to trade that is worth our lives is, well, our lives. I am a king and I will not bow to you, fox-child, but I will allow you to compel from me and my Master each one service before this war is concluded. I will spare a life you want spared, or I will sweep your enemy away as if they were my own."

Saber drops the ring on the ground by Kat's ear. She is already gliding backwards along the wall to pluck Diaofei back into her arm and make to hang off the far side of the wall in anticipation of escape. She does not draw her sword again, but her eyes flick back to the hilt constantly.

"I offer this to you and only you, because you alone of all the members of your alliance came to me without insult. But just because I am trapped here do not mistake me for being helpless. If it is simply a choice of how I die, I won't think anything of taking you and your Berserker with me when I go. So decide carefully but quickly, child. I have even fewer minutes to spare than you do."