eldest

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Honorable surrender accepted. Ow.

She blinks away the daze in time to look up into the tide of arrows, hissing their way towards her, and Uusha, and Giriel behind. Kalmanka. She'd seen her act once, from a distance, in a town whose lord was vicious and treating with demons. He'd gotten a taste of what he dealt out, and she'd watched, because her sifu had a point. Even the worst of powers have positive uses.

And now that was pointed at her. More importantly, it was pointed at Uusha, who did not have the tools to deal with it. Letting her captor become a pincushion and walking free doesn't even enter her mind. She snatches at her umbrella, squashing the guilt that this is bending honorable surrender quite far indeed, and shoves it forward, popping it open and breathing. The breath draws in the essence, the heart refines it, the hands channel it, and the umbrella...

The first arrow hits the umbrella, it's flight to Uusha's shoulder interrupted, and bounces off the dainty painted paper with a plink.

The immediate job of protection done, she begins to hum, and then to sing, a heavy, low song that fills the air, and the onslaught of arrows slow.

"Upon the sea, the sea, a tragedy
A fisher, a fisher once cried
He had not a boat not a sail to his name
For all that he touched had died

with the four winds he'd fought and he'd bleed
for he had no mind to yield
they fled and he was becalmed on the sea
flat as an unsown field

Three sunsets he saw come and they went
while he cried saltwater tears
on the fourth a swan sat on his mast
and set aside all that he feared

the swan she saw the sun kiss the sky
she took wing and flew on a breeze
the wind had filled his sails in the night
and soon he saw shore and it's trees

the sailor he gave up the sea, the sea
and went from shore to shore
all things, even wrath, must end
all must obey this lore"

She's breathing heavily as she finishes the song, half-sitting up and still holding the umbrella up as a shield, though no arrow had hit it for a verse. She takes a moment to breath, and then deliberately closes the umbrella. "My apologies for arming myself, and my appreciation that you did not act immediately out of suspicion. No escape or rebellion was meant." And with that, she rolls it away from her again.

Defying Disaster with spirit, rolled a mighty 12. The Arrow-Wind should no longer be in hail-of-arrows form. Gain a Tradition from following a commandment in a self-sacrificing way.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

The club conversation happens first. It's a pretty easy one because there's what turns out to be a homemade drone disassembled across her table, and "hey, what's up with that" turns into excited chatter about the unofficial robotics club and said homemade drone. The official club, she goes on to learn, is run in cooperation with Hexabots!. Sasha spends a good two minutes on a scathing complaint about the exclamation point alone. The company has a death-grip on educational kits for learning small electronics and drone construction. They are, in turn, very rigid about making sure that Hexabloc! A-17 slots neatly into Hexabloc! U-4 during step 48d. The company Education Resource Liason did not take kindly to Sasha improvising a crawler drone in the back of the room while he was going over step 4a.

So after the ERL attempted a parental phone call to Matilda, which backfired on him, Sasha'd found out about a different group interested in using... honestly, junk, and seeing what they could make of it. Started as something out of the history department of all places. They'd been trying to find the fault in the circuitry when she showed up, and that was a pleasant half-hour of work with a multimeter.

And while they were working on that they talked. She explained, bluntly, what was coming. Media frenzy and it's all going to be her, pretty quickly and not very pretty. Mattie'd never changed her name afterwards, even in the divorce, so Sasha Au Clair was likely to get attention for this. How Elodie would be okay with however they wanted to deal with that, including lying about it. Especially lying about it: she never wanted any of this for them, not unless Sasha chooses it. How the news always has an agenda (yes, even when she's reporting it) and how few people watch for it. A fumbling, careful explanation of why the news reacted this way, not just to her, but to anything that would threaten the existing power structure. Several book recommendations, for further reading. And a big hug. The follow-through, the actual hit pieces, mercifully only start getting churned out late, after they're asleep.

Matilda, meanwhile, calls around dinner. She knows enough people higher up in OESN to know what's coming ahead of the articles dropping, even from her lowly position in the accounting mines. The following conversation is chilly and brief, two fencers warming up for the coming prolonged match. They didn't dislike each other. That would have been easier. An agreement is reached, with Sasha's input, of their return the next day and staying at Mattie's the next weekend, in exchange for a visit (if it's safe, Matilda stressed) during said weekend and a future, longer stay when there is not quite the focus on Elodie, details to be hammered out later. Bloodless, agreeable, exhausting.

The cap on the shitshow of the day, though, was the one NBN piece that York forwarded her, warning attached. Sasha was asleep on the couch and she was on her phone in her room, winding down, when the message popped up. "Ugliest One Yet. Non-actionable.". Joy. The article itself starts off with the usual allusions. Same social circles, activism groups, and background as the confirmed bomber. It has a copy of her resume, somehow, with police experts from the bomb squad helpfully explaining that somebody with her skills could absolutely make bombs. The real painful point, though, was an old essay of hers, "The Last Elephant". It was mediocre, a teenager flailing to make her point, how we'd used up Earth. The last rocket off planet, from the perspective of the last, aging elephant standing in the bones of Africa. Clip a sentence or two here, a paragraph here, and the message changes. "Fuck the factories" becomes "fuck the factory workers", "make less trash" becomes "have less people". Death of the author as the author watches.

She cries herself to sleep, silent to not wake Sasha.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Sometimes you play your hand and you get your ass handed to you.

Piripiri takes her hands from where they'd been grabbing at the knight's gauntlet, heedless of the thorns, and pulls them away, tapping twice on the back of Uusha's hand. "Yield." She doesn't have the breath for more, it's honestly a shock she got that much out. And she goes limp, unresisting.

In noble Hymair, this leads to a fairly stable set of events. Once one has surrendered, one is searched, disarmed, and restrained, before being interrogated. There is a difference, here, in if you are being treated as a noble or a spy. The noble will always get the gentle questions. The spy may not, but either form would not harm the prisoner, as once they've surrendered, it would be a drastic dishonor to the jailer and their house should harm come to their prisoners. Finally, one may not attempt any form of escape until the sun crosses the horizon twice. The combination of the possibility of escape and need to protect the prisoner leads to many quick ransoms and hostage exchanges, keeps the number of agents and nobles available reasonably high, and leads to many, many romance plays where a captive falls in love with a jailer, or vice versa.

There are, of course, dark tales of houses that breached etiquette in noble Hymair. What the prisoner knew was worth more than the risk if anybody found out, or perhaps they needed the prisoner to loyally serve. She knows the theory of how to do this even. Just in case, if she needs to resist it. But she's never needed to, and never plans on it. No reason to threaten something that also protects oneself.

This is not noble Hymair. But she'll play by her side of the rules, assuming that Uusha does not break hers.

Surrendering and triggering Help Me!~~, gaining an XP.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Elodie isn't surprised when she doesn't need to give her address. She waits till they're a few hundred feet up to stare out the window at what just happened, glaring down at the crowd that had suddenly turned from unable to see her to unable to focus anywhere else. She jerks, turning, when one of her tentacles that had curled around a metal bar grips it too tight and the metal starts to creak. Just about in time, too, because there is, naturally, an attendant. Can't have the VIPs get too unattended. They might need to get their own water. What a shame.

She stays by the window as he approaches, though, and to his credit he doesn't ask her to sit down. Not sure if that's because he sees how many points of contact she's got, between tentacles and grabbing a rail above the door, or if he's just paid enough to ignore the safety hazard.

"Can I get you anything? Beer, tea, coffee, digestive?"

"Privacy, and since that's not happening, tobacco."

She doesn't expect either, and is thus shocked when the attentent re-emerges from the back with a small tin and an ashtray. "Press the call button or yell if you need me." She blinks twice and manages to mumble a genuine thanks, acknowledged with a gleaming smile, before he once again disappears into the back. She takes out her rolling papers and, in the privacy of the helicopter, where nobody can see, stops holding back the shaking once she's lit up.

God damn she hates this.

*

The helicopter sets well short of her apartment, on request. She goes the last leg over the roofs, staying far away from the edges where the pedestrians below could see her. She's got one, thin window that opens into her bedroom, and she slips through that, thankful that she didn't run into any parkour-ing 'dashers. She takes a second to freshen up, change shirts, and goes out to the only other room in her cheap-ass flat.

She emerges into a mess that wasn't hers. The carving she had been working on, previously on top of her table, had been set to the side and replaced with the disassembled guts of something electronic, tiny tools haphazardly strewn about the workspace. A bag of takeout containers sits on one of her stools at her kitchenette counter, gently steaming, one open and half-eaten already, fried rice from the look of it. The skull and crossbones adorns her walls, next to a bookshelf full of things that aren't books (paper's expensive). Her desk, the last piece of major furniture, sits next to the door out, untouched by the chaos.

On the sofa, Sasha AuClair sprawls at the eye of the storm, black curls falling in their face as they tap at their phone. One battered sneaker gives her a wave as she enters. "Hey mom."

"Hey kiddo. Work was shit, but quick." The phone flips around, showing the still of her pinning the police commissinar down. "Yeah... yeah. I'm gonna be in trouble for that."

"Mother's on the warpath about it already." Sasha confirms, rolling up off the sofa as Elodie starts to unpack the takeout. Chinese-American wasn't her favorite, but it was the right sort of retro to be in again, and extra-spicy General Tsao's was never something to complain about it. "What happened?" A bright eyed eagerness, not quite innocent. Only a few months of being able to see them again in person, weekends and the occasional, awkward group outing with her ex-wife as well. Elodie smiles, bittersweet, and starts to tell them about it.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

This cannot be her umbrella.

That's the only thought that actively crosses her mind, but there's a quick, intuitive series of leaps behind that. It cannot be her umbrella, but it is an umbrella she can fight with, here, behind the scenes, where the fey rule. There is a Rakasha about, and it's identity still unknown. The Rakasha wants her to fight Uusha.

Use what tools are to hand, even if it disgusts you.

She takes the umbrella and passes it from hand to hand, in a low guard, as Uusha shakes off Azazuka and stands, preparing her own spear. She doesn't take the chance, here, to go on the offensive, instead catching her breath and resettling herself. She watches, carefully, as Uusha circles, waiting for the strike. One's best defense is to not be there, and in a contest of strength, it's clear who'd win. So she ducks away from the opening stab and parries the followup, umbrella a rod of solid hardwood one second and then bending like a willow branch the next to slip around Uusha's guard and jab at her arm. No damage, just after space, and she retreats a few steps under the following barrage of spear-strikes. Enough space to enact her plan.

"Uusha! Rakasha, fey, false faced, lie-speaker and bearer of false oaths! Thus I name you!"

And now the Rakasha (who is certainly not Uusha, to be clear) has way more to work with. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Stag Knight.

6+2 to Fight with Grace. I am provoking Uusha to get a String, and then striking not at her heart, but at the court of public opinion, and thus creating an opportunity for Vixen (not that I know that she's the Rakasha).

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

It begins with finding the right shot.

You need, when doing this sort of thing, to develop an eye for it. Elodie hasn't got it down solid yet, it takes her a few tries wandering around with York and Harkness in tow, before she finds it. Crowd centered in the background, red carpet visible off to the left, and the corner of the stage off to the right. We're here, sure, we're covering the big event, but it's not about the big event anymore is it?

But, for the moment, she is the professional, and York the fellow professional is doing his warmups, which leaves her on mentor-duty. Ignore the butterflies, go and shore up the flagging guest-interviewee.

"Best if you don't overthink it, miss." Jezebel startles as Elodie speaks, coming back from that anxious half-daydream state that comes with stage fright. "Know your information, yeah, but better to come off as human than wooden. Ain't got the real fancy live-edit AI that the big channels have to smooth everything out all perfect, but that's okay, because anybody who's watching isn't going to want perfect. They'll just want you."

Breath in a four count, hold a four count, breath out, hold. Helping others through the same shit helps you through it, never you mind how different the shit actually is. "If it helps? Your worst case scenario means you're in the news cycle as whatever they're spinning for about a week or two. Initial spike now, build up tomorrow, then it peaks and goes downhill. The news corps, they can't make scandal come out of nothing, and there just isn't that much material to work with for the normal person." The old hurt spikes, and then quells. She's not the focus here. A twisted smile. "It's not like you bombed anything. So. Worst case, all that. Two weeks of crap. Normal situation? Reached out and educated, iunno, fourty-fifty thousand? Maybe one in a hundred of those reach further, for more, dig some more. Overton moves in your favor. Maybe one in a thousand becomes an actual activist. And the seed you planted sprouts and made somebody else care about the hurt out there." Stretch, limber up as York winds down his warmups, almost showtime. "You won't ever have to deal with my shitshow. They can't pull that on everyone."

York does the introductions, rapid fire. "Good evening, gentlefolk! We're live, covering a police abolition town hall that has become today's hottest event, and we're going to be dealing with the actual message instead of the noise of what celebrity showed or didn't. Welcome to the Anthropozine."

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

The witch either hasn't noticed Han's peril or is busy with something else, the Stag Knight will be both useless against this and probably coming right for her, all of the goons are beneath her notice, this is the time to leave. Because everyone's distracted and they'll be helping Han, she can get away easily, but if she goes and helps herself she'll be distracted when Uusha (say her name, coward, she's a target but she's also a person, one always offers the courtesy of seeing the life you ruin) stomps over and backhands her, and then explains to the rest of them exactly why she's not to be trusted. She can leave.

But.

But that'd be wrong.

So with a remorseful glance at the forest around them, so easy to bolt through, Piripiri walks towards Han, pulling and dropping the last of her knives as she does. They can't help here and might harm. She doesn't glance at Uusha. No use seeing what she can't control and has chosen not to react to. And she reaches the snake, and holds it's mouth shut. She's no witch to chant bindings, she is no Immaculate monk to seal it away with prayer strips. But that doesn't mean she can't do anything.

She speaks, carefully, but with conviction. "You are not the only one who cares. And not everything you touch will burn."

Defy disaster: 6! Gain a tradition, spend it to enable her to hit a 7, and she loses her knives to make it work.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

"I will never let a weaker person fight their own battles." An oath was sworn, and that is binding.

Piripiri dives off of Han's shoulder after Azazuka as she tumbles, knives flipping out, not in the awkward clutch of a maid but a trained, steady grasp. She feels the world slow to adrenaline-soaked heartbeats as she falls, giving her time to not come up with a plan, but select the sequence. The student is in danger. There is a large snake. Kill it.

Flip and land on your feet, bouncing low into the undergrowth that seems to cushion her even as it resists the viper. Surge upward, knife the underbelly, one wound, two wounds. Kick aside brass demon-serpent to stop upward momentum, jungle plants bending as if in a wind from the force of her intent, and ignore the brass bastard as it flies outside of her tunnel vision. Far enough away and she doesn't care. Seven left. Flip knives point-down. The largest snake, bleeding twice over under it's mossy, spirit-touched scales, lunges. No way out other than down, and she throws herself to the ground, trusting her body weight to (inelegantly, but effectively) kill the smallest one and surprise to keep her from being bitten, roll to the side, pierce the head of one nonmagical but likely poisonous snake that was getting close to Azazuka and getting ideas, and kick yourself up to standing again. Throw knife to the eye of the large one, replace with spare from boot as it hits more from luck than judgement, stomp another, small but vicious. Three left and with no demon to drive them forward right here, the only one still interested is the very, very angry spirit-touched viper. It hisses and she circles in snake-stance, four fangs facing off.

Rolled a 4+2 on defy disaster. Gain a point of tradition, finally, from self-sacrifice following a commandment, and pay to squeak that up to a 7. Anybody paying attention knows she's a daughter of dragons.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Assets: ritual materials, mostly powdered herbs; five knives, secreted away; an intact cover; a blank mask, politically important in Dominion areas, she hadn't had the time to make discrete inquiries about the legalities here; three sachets of flashpowder, smuggled from Hymair at great effort.

Piripiri takes a second, from the vantage of the trees, to mourn her misplaced umbrella. She'd had no chance to find it or fashion a replacement, and it was proof against steel and fang, the perfect sort of tool to use in this situation. Alas, one works with the tools one has. So, from the vantage of somebody's shoulder, take a look, try to figure out the pattern and who they're after, if it matters to your missions or your honor, and-whoashit.

They're in the air all of a sudden and she was not prepared.

Roll to figure them out: snake eyes. Budump-tsh.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Oh yeah, this was a terrible idea.

She's off the commissioner the second he seems under control and it's still far too late for her liking. The pleasantries are exchanged and she can at least fake a bit of politeness for the witnesses, so she gives him a stunted nod on the introductions, but she's dwelling on those eyes. This is going to make her life hell.

"Push enough unmarked buttons to find things out, eventually one vents the atmo." Not a parable or saying, she'd had to clean up the gore from Robot John's fuckup in the generating incident for his nickname. They're currently walking with purpose away from the red carpet, looking to get several kinds of distance from what just happened. It's important enough to get this right to use actual grammar. "That being said... I think it was a bad toss of the dice and not a judgement fault. You took a risk. It paid off but put you in deeper than you'd expected. We have enough for initial coverage and a strong direction to dig. Next time you want to bait angry, vindictive bullies with power, it'd be better for you to bring me in the loop. So I don't go charging off into a nest of pondan without knowing."

She sighs and looks out over the crowd they're currently skirting. Serious talk over, grammar rules need not apply anymore. "Cuz right now, you're not in trouble with them. I am. And honestly? Not sure how the hell'm gonna deal." She pauses a minute, the chuckles mirthlessly. "Damn. Should of told him 'good talk'. Would have been a fantastic one liner." She smiles without humor, and then sighs, rubbing her eyes. "So. What's the plan, bossman? My evening and my peace of mind are ruined, gotta have something to show here."