It's so hard to hide her wince. It's even harder not to glance around the room to catch all the eyes on her just now. But she mustn't. She must not. Oh Cellie, do you have any idea how much your big sister loves you?
"Am I... busy?" Étoile repeats with an exaggerated tilt of her head. She puts her hand on her hip, ignoring the offered drink for a moment. Her eyes smile vapidly, and she breaks into a loud, rolling fit of giggles, "You're so sweet to ask! Ah, I wish I were still a bright eyed student at the Academy so I would have time to properly enjoy wonderful party!"
Her eyes sparkle daintily as she trills with delight, so much that she almost stumbles out of line in her absurd sandals. Her silly pants swirl and tantalize with the motion; even at her ditziest, Her Ladyship has made her an object of desire. Étoile recovers with the smooth grace and humor of a slave that doesn't expect to hold her dignity for more than a moment at a time.
"But you know what would be even sadder than missing this grandeur? Failing to attend to my Lady! She has so very many tasks for me tonight, I shall hardly have time to give my report and scamper back home! Oh, but there is dusting, which is my favorite! Swish swish, be clean! Her Ladyship says I have magical powers! Where my feathers dance, the mantle sparkles! And after that I must draw the water for her evening bath and attend to her every need with respectful worship. That is also my favorite duty! And of course before bed I must rest my head in her lap to comfort her from all the hurts and weary turns of her busy day, prepare her evening honeyed milk, and sing her song that she may sleep soundly while I take my leave to prepare her meals for the next day! And then! Heeeee! I get to do it all over again! Is that not simply wonderful, fillette? You have so much to look forward to when you finally earn your collar!"
She reaches out and pats Cellie on the head, and her spell is sealed. It is easier by far to sell a performance like this when you take the time to smile under your veil. Not many people understand the way the empty turning of your lips can make your voice melt into such a useless, vapid wave of silly words. But it is essential. Celestine's safety tonight is counting on the acting skills of a Ravenelle daughter, and goodness knows 'Are you... busy tonight?' was not going to clear the bar.
She would apologize later, when there was time. But at least there would be a Cellie to apologize to.
If it hadn’t been for her father, things might have worked out ok. She was bred for beauty, you see. She was bred to be a champion. Her stock included Seneca, the first tiger-breed to sweep all ten categories at the Tellurian Servitor Show. Her stock included Maxima, the only Servitor ever to achieve perfect scores in the Poise and Posture categories. And there was pretty little Decima, who was better trained than any who came before her and set records on the obstacle course which hold to this day. Justus and Cato and even Aurelia contributed to her line. Her mother Aeliana gave birth while wearing all forty seven of her ribbons.
If her father had been like the rest of them, her life would have been normal. She would have been normal. A Servitor of exceptional breeding to be sure, a champion, but a normal one. But there had been concerns about the progression of the shape of the legs in her line. Aeliana had to be retired early after she’d developed a bad walk! So the Master in his infinite wisdom looked for genes outside of the beauty stock, and paid the exorbitant fee to rent the great racing-cat Felix.
She was descended from champions. She was born to rule the auction block. But as it turns out? She didn’t. The Master of the Kennels had never had a racer before. In the whole of Tellus, no one had ever seen a runner be so beautiful before. Certainly no Servitor had ever cost this much to produce before, and the Master was absolutely intent on receiving only the highest price for her.
It didn’t matter how prettily she swished her tail in front of buyers, or how sweetly she batted her lashes. It didn’t matter that she could do a perfect cartwheel or when she ran so super fast around them. It didn’t matter that her diction and enunciation were perfect when she asked, “Please, Mistress~”, and it didn’t matter that she could sing five entire songs with the voice of a little kitty-eared angel. Nobody bought her: she was too expensive.
One by one her friends and littermates were sold off. Month by month and then year by year she became lonelier and lonelier.
At first, the Master was kind to her. She was, after all, the crown jewel of the kennels. He pat her on her pretty little head and wiped the tears from her eyes, saying that it wasn’t her fault, the poor dear, these buyers just had no taste. She’d do better next time. But then next time came and went without a sale, and the Master found it a little bit harder to praise her. Was she doing this on purpose? Was she a bad girl??
Sick in her heart with guilt, the kitten practiced harder than ever. She studied and she learned a whole bunch more tricks, even ones that adults struggled to master sometimes! It didn’t help at all, and the Master was getting angrier and angrier with her. Didn’t she understand how much it cost to keep her here? Well fine, if she wasn’t going to get herself a buyer, she didn’t need to eat so much! She didn’t need to be warm at night! She wouldn’t get any more pretty clothes for her auction days!
When she started getting too old for a good sale (that’s five years, so you know), the Master started hitting her. It hurt. It hurt so much, but what hurt even more than that was being a bad girl who nobody wanted. She didn’t know how she was doing it wrong, but nothing she tried worked and all of her friends were gone now and the Master would never forgive her now but please, please, please! Don’t throw her out the window, don’t! Just give her one more chance!
But then a miracle happened. No less than the Praetor herself came to announce that the Empress sought a young Servitor to be a gift for the Princess. Only the very best would be acceptable. The Master of the Kennels had the Imperial Purse opened on his head. The useless, rotten, good-for-nothing little kitten got washed and brushed for the first time in months, got put in the cutest little dress, and then the Praetor tied a shiny bell to her fluffy white tail and stuffed her inside of a box.
The next time she saw the light, it came with a delighted squeak and a little hand reaching out to touch her. Then she got a hug, even though she flinched and growled when she wasn’t supposed to. And then for the first time in her life she got a name, and she was Bella. Because she was so beautiful! Or… maybe, because she was wearing a bell. The Princess was not the cleverest of girls.
The Palace
Officially, Bella was an Imperial pet. But the palace was huge and always in need of work, and simple-minded machinery could only do so much. There were so many chores, horrible drudgeries really, which nevertheless benefited enormously from the dedicated attentions of a Servitor. They had that, if you could excuse the expression, “human” touch. Besides which, Servitors love to work! They adore it! They were literally born for it, if you remember the histories! An idle Servitor is a mistreated Servitor, isn’t that the expression?
So Bella worked. She swept, she scrubbed, she did laundry for the Princess, the Empress, and half the Senate. She flitted about the palace in the early morning in her frilly little maid outfits and her mary janes, or she trudged through maintenance hangars in greasy jumpsuits and fixed worn down machines with instructions from the Palace AI.
When she made a mistake, she got beaten. When she took too long, she was beaten much harder. Of course she was, did she really think that being an Imperial pet would mean nobody would hit her when she was a bad girl? How else was she going to learn? Still, she was a clever girl (even though nobody wanted that) and learned more quickly than most. By the time she was grown up, she was (almost) never whipped anymore.
But her most important job of all was taking care of Princess Redana. She woke the Princess up every morning with a tray carrying her breakfast. She could always tell when she did a good job with that, because Redana would squeal and demand that Bella have some too, never having any idea she was sharing Bella’s own cooking with her. She gave the Princess her baths, she attended her during training, she stayed up way too late with her best and only friend staring at the stars and talking about what might be up there past the immutable border of the Empress’ will. She sang the lullabies that finally coaxed Redana to sleep, or put her back under when the nightmares started up again. If she was lucky, she’d spend part of the night curled up on that big soft bed in her Princess’ arms. She spent the rest of it in her own tiny “bed” on the floor. She had to be sure she woke up early, or there wouldn’t be time for all her work before the Princess needed breakfast.
She even helped the Princess with her studies. Redana’s grades took a dramatic (if still not acceptable) upswing when Bella started watching her study, reading over her shoulder and then playing the role of the silly kitty who needed the big scary concepts explained to her in simple words whenever she reached a passage she knew the Princess would bounce off of otherwise.
She was a clever girl. She was a silly girl, when her Princess needed that more. She was a Good Girl. And every day, she tried not to be jealous of her Mistress for having everything she could possibly want and still somehow have the audacity of dreaming to have more. Sometimes she even succeeded.
Then came the day the pair of them escaped the confines of the Imperial Grounds for their grand adventure in Ecumenopolis. Bella’s giddy excitement lasted her as far as the gate. Then she thought about the punishment that would be waiting for, and started tugging on her Mistress’ sleeve to go home. And then she saw the squalor. She saw the huddled masses, the pain and the hunger and the fear, the Servitors crammed into alleyways to be chewed to death by mange while they wasted to nothing on the scraps of scraps that nobody else could be desperate enough to consider food.
And she saw at last how far she might still fall. And she understood instinctively that this was where she was supposed to wind up, before her Princess asked for a pet. She understood, and her heart hardened into diamond, and she tugged on her Princess’ sleeve harder than ever before, until there was no choice but to finally go home where they could be safe again.
Redana betrayed her. Redana ran away. Redana beat her up and tied her up and told her lies like “I’m sorry” and “Be safe” and then she disappeared on that pathetic little sloop and left her Bella to the most vicious and savage punishment of her entire life.
The Games
Empress Nero had never looked so furious. She held her head and squeezed her eyes shut and said that Bella should be killed. Then she changed her mind and said she should be exiled. Then she changed her mind again, and said that Bella should go and retrieve her precious daughter, because by whatever accident of Fate this useless, stupid Servitor knew Redana best and might manage to retrieve her where a bounty hunter might fail.
If! Only if Bella proved herself. Only if she washed the stench of failure from her body and showed that she was Redana’s equal. Only if she won the Olympic Games in full sight of Zeus and every other god.
Bella trained like she’d been possessed. She broke herself on the wheel of toil and taught herself everything she could about boxing, wrestling, fencing, chariot riding, and racing. She sharpened her body and her claws, and even managed to keep up with her chores. But it was pointless. With enough effort she might be able to win the race, but the Games were sacred. The greatest athletes across Tellus would be there, and Bella was bred for being admired. She had no lineage for this, and nobody anywhere could be the best in anything overnight.
She cried every night, instead of sleeping. And when she thought no one was listening, she prayed. She prayed and she offered up everything she had, and then she prayed some more. Every night she cried into the emptiness and the moonlight, all alone. Then only her very last night before the competitions, Hera appeared before her. She brushed Bella’s hair, caressed her tear soaked cheeks, and smiled like a mother should when she said that Bella couldn’t possibly win the Games, silly girl. She wasn’t meant to.
But what could she do?
“Cheat, of course.”
And did she ever! In the sight of Zeus and every other god in the pantheon, Bella made a complete mockery of the games. She drugged wrestlers, and when she couldn’t she bit them and clawed them and strangled them with her chain until they were too weak to resist her. She threw sand and spit oil from the maintenance decks in the eyes of every boxer. She smashed every chariot but hers ahead of the race. The marathon… the marathon she might have won herself, but even still she set traps and threw obstacles and shot the other fastest runner with a pacification bolt she stole from a guard along the route. She won the laurel wreath in every event, just like she was… well, she won them, anyway.
The people were outraged. They booed and spit on her, they stripped her medals, they tied her to a post and had her flogged in the name of Zeus. The Empress herself came, and stared at Bella as she slumped and bled into her ragged clothes. She sniffed haughtily, and turned her back.
“You will come back with my daughter,” she declared, “Or you will not come home at all, Praetor.”
The Servitor
Bella is a beauty pageant queen masquerading as a soldier. She wears Imperial black and gold on her fancy dress with its long flowy sleeves, pleated skirt, and heavy boots for travel. But around her neck she wears the thick, black collar that marks her true position in society, whatever titles might be sprinkled on top of her, and on the back of that collar a heavy chain dangles all the way down to her knees. She stands tall in spite of it, to show how strong she is. She wears bells on her sleeves and on her tail. For… for luck, she says.
Yes. For luck.
Her white fur is soft and silky on her arms and legs, but has been chemically stripped from the rest of her body during her time in the Kennels. It’s considered more beautiful to look this way. Easier to paint. The hair on her head is a deep blue-black, and dangles all the way down to her back. She says it’s so long because it helps her hide the chain. It has nothing to do with Redana liking to brush it and style it, ok? Nothing!
Her eyes are sharp, feline, and shaped from liquid gold. Her tail is exactly 27 inches in length. Her ears are perfect twitchy triangles. The Master of the Kennels had her whiskers pulled when she was four because she was a Bad Girl, but you can’t really see the scars anymore. She’s built tall like an Amazon, with wide hips, a slinky waist, and the sort of soft, ample chest you would expect from someone bred for generations to be the perfect beauty. Don’t tell her that. But don’t not tell her that either, ok?
She’s here for one thing, and one thing only. She’s going to find Redana, and she’s going to bring her home. She’ll drag her back if she has to, drug her, beat her, she doesn’t care anymore. Whatever it takes, she’s going home. Where it’s safe. Where she’s loved. And if you think you’re going to stop her, that’s a mistake you don’t get to make twice.
***
BELLA, THE NEMESIS
Marked by Hera and Aphrodite
LOOK
AGENDA Inferiority Complex (prove your worth, at all costs, and at every opportunity)
STATS Blood 0 Courage +2 Grace +1 Sense -1 Iron +2
MOVES A Moment’s Hesitation: When you make a move against the Fellowship, they may erase a Bond they hold with you. Choose one: show them mercy, tell them something important, or act anyway, rolling with Despair
Steel Heart: Your Wisdom stat has been replaced by Iron. You cannot Speak Softly without a Wisdom stat, and cannot Talk Sense with Wisdom or finish with Wisdom, either. When you Finish by outlasting them in a contest of power or endurance, roll with +Iron. On a 10+ they pass out
Tenacity Incarnate: On 6- or a Fellowship 10+, gain Vigor and you cannot have Despair Dark Authority:
Your companions are Threats and follow Threat rules. They make cuts and do not roll dice. When a threat harms the Fellowship and survives the scene, you may forge a bond with them. If you need more minions, damage a stat and forge a bond with a local Threat, recruiting them instantly.
Speak Harshly: When you demand answers from someone weaker than you, roll +Iron. On a 7+, ask 2 questions (they must answer honestly). On a 9-, one of the answers may be a lie. You will not be told which one, or even if there is a lie. On a 6-, you may only ask one question.
What can you tell me about the Fellowship?
What are you hiding?
Where is ____?
No more questions. You deal damage to them, ending the interrogation.
The Bad Guy: You are not part of the Fellowship. Any 10+ Finish attempts by either you or they against the other cause the target to damage all their stats and be Taken Out instead of killed. When you are Taken Out, you are out of play for the rest of the session, but will Recover between sessions. You do not Recover when the Fellowship does. When you join the Fellowship, temporarily or otherwise, replaced this playbook with The Redeemed.
Cut Them (Loveless Family): The Nemesis may make Cuts under specific situations. If the Fellowship ignores you, you may Cut them. When you Cut something under the protection of the Fellowship, it begins as a Soft Cut. If nobody can responds, or if they respond but fail, it becomes a Hard Cut. Cuts made against targets the Fellowship cannot protect may be as hard or soft as you like. Bella may make Cuts when she acts in Redana's best interests (according to Bella or Empress Nero)
Cornered Rat Cat: While you are Damaged, your attacks gain the Dangerous tag
Avatar Imperial Regalia: You have Protection. This gives you immunity to a Location stat of your choosing, and you may choose which one to be immune to at the beginning of any scene.
Dark Power: You are a Threat to the World
Alone Against The World When you fight against them by yourself, you can try to Keep Them Busy no matter who they are, how outnumbered you are, or how poor your position is, even if they are a Group, Gang, or Army. When you Keep Them Busy by yourself, they take damage once you are done Keeping Them Busy.
Limitless Skies You can appear anywhere you can see, effectively teleporting through the air. Whether this is actual teleportation, divine insight, or extreme speed is up to you. You roll with Hope when using this to Get Away.
GEAR
Bella is a melee weapon Clever Tricks (Useful, 2 Uses) High Mobility (Armor, 1 Use)
The Empress Nero Claudius has given Bella a ship, a crew, and a command. It is ridiculous to expect her to grant a twice-marked failure real supplies. Bella’s title is worse than just for show, but by Zeus’ glittering smile, do not suggest that where she can hear you.
BONDS "I will capture Redana, no matter what the cost." "My feelings for Redana confuse me." "I do not understand why Alexa acts the way she does." "...Redana betrayed me."
The scene is an amphitheater nestled into a featureless, black void. As featureless as a black void can be with an amphitheater nestled into it. Raucous cheering erupts from the seats: all of it is the voice of Dulcinea d'Avingon. She is sitting in every seat in a variety of different guises, each guisier than the last. Here she is as a 1950s-style housewife! Here she is as a cat! Here she is as a child, a skeleton, Poseidon Earthshaker and Stormbringer, as a rave scene enthusiast, an Entrapta cosplayer, and the tsundere antagonist and secret best ending character of a dating sim. All of them are applauding and screaming and smiling from ear to ear.
D'AVIGNON PRODUCTIONS PROUDLY WELCOMES YOU TO ANOTHER EXCITING EPISODE OF!
Dulcey! Explains! Things!
The words hang there in the air, glowing bright magenta. Then the audience erupts into an absolutely deafening roar as the star of the show steps onto the main stage, brushing the letters away with the sleeve of her pristine white labcoat. The sleeves stain pink as the title dissolves into mist around her, but she turns and poses for the crowd without stopping to worry about it. There is screaming. And screaming. Fanchants. Somebody, somewhere, throws her underwear on stage. Dulcinea steps over it and presses a button. There's an enormous POV shot of Jasper floating in the air behind her now, filled with rain and sniffles and bits of Dulcinea-brand trinkets that clearly mark it as the moment our lovely and perfect heroine is experiencing this very second. Labcoat Dulcey picks up a pointer wand, and extends it. And extends it. And extends it.
And extends it. It wobbles precariously when she thwaps it against the surprisingly solid image.
"So! Thanks for coming today but we've got a lot to talk about so let's dispense with the pleasantries and get right to it!"
"YAY! YAY! IN THE SHA-DOWS! IN THE LIGHT! DUL-CI-NE-A DOES IT RIGHT!"
She blushes scarlet.
"R-regardless! This woman represents an alchemically significant event unto herself and I think we ought to talk about that! Now, as you are no doubt aware, the concept of 'alchemy' splits along a large series of lines depending upon the origin of the thought that spawned it, and all of them can be more or less significant to a particular discovery depending on the energies and leylines involved in the creation of the process!"
"SIMPLE! ELEMENTARY! YOU'RE SO CUTE OMG!"
Several screens pop up over the picture of Jasper. They're all diagrams, boxes with different colors and little elemental pictures. She clacks her absurd pointer over each one.
"So here you can see your classic Earth Wind Fire Water worldview, thank you so much Aristotle, no I do not think we are discovering Æther today. Shame. And over here the Persian theorem suggesting a great number of so-called 'lesser' elements but holding up our big four as 'sacred', which is nearing something approaching relevance but doesn't quite get us where we need. If we stretch ourselves a little further we can see the Pintrest model which breaks down thusly: Light, Air, Water, Fire, Nature, Mystic, Ice, Magma, Storm, and Dark."
"OOOOOOH!"
"Yes, I agree it is intriguing; you can almost invite comparisons to Outside dust from here," she waves at a picture of a swirling tornado with fangs and a big frowny face, "Though it's even easier if you adopt the Pokemon model. Tempting as that is though, we're better served by stepping waaaaaaaaaaaaay back, all the way to the practice of wu xing."
Applause turns to murmurs turns to stunned silence. Labcoat Dulcey nods solemnly and thwap thwaps her pointer over the five-pointed diagram.
"Yes, that's right. Admittedly we're leaving the firm ground of facts here and wandering into the luscious, sensual, and flirtatious arms of conjecture here but I submit to you all right now that this woman here, this... Sun is a phenomenon connected to a much larger chain of events. It does seem quite likely, given her general state, demeanor, and the fact that she has no clue what food is that she's not actually here by result of her own decision making.
"Ergo, we can reasonably assume she was brought here. And if that is true, we can further assume her physical presence as part of our world means she's not presently manifested in her full capacity as a The Sun, but rather as a celestial body brought to the earthly realms by some force, be it malevolent or beneficent. Therefore! Her dominant Principle can be assumed to be Metal!
"Which, if this is true, is very exciting because it FINALLY provides a narrow enough band of study for us to apply a dominant Principle to the dust of Outside. Metal carries Water. Metal cleaves Wood. Through careful observation we can determine whether she is part of a creative cycle or a destructive one. And that will allow us to, at long last, categorize these stupid storms! Finally, the Metaphoric Principle Assertion Device will have a purpose! We might even get a government grant! And then... ohohoho, and then..."
"DUL-CI-NE-A! DUL-CI-NE-A! DARK OR LIGHT! DARK OR LIGHT! ALWAYS RIGHT! DUL-CI-NE-A!"
"Buuuuuuuuuuut, we do also have to consider another unpleasant truth. If this woman is, in fact, The Sun, and again I have to point out the overwhelming likelihood is that she is. But if she is, then... doesn't she seem a bit... oh I don't know... old? To have been created by the ritual? But the altar is functioning perfectly, we checked it only last month. And yet? Doesn't causality imply that? That is? I mean? Did we create the sun? Or didn't we? And, if we didn't, then... what did... what did we actually do?"
Murmuring and angry whispers fade into so much noise as the camera zooms out further and further and further until the amphitheater is nothing but a tiny mote of light in a plane of pure darkness. Suddenly with a lurch sure to make audiences sick it zooms forward again, through the still-disturbed crowd of Dulcineas and then up up up into the sea of screens, past the unhelpful diagrams and straight into the eyes of...
***
Dulcinea blinks.
"Huh." she says, with a vague air of concern.
She packs away her gear. She glances nervously up and down the street, then at Jasper, then up at the sky. Then at her conscience crystal. It flashes the color of a shrug. She scribbles a few more quick notes and tucks the notebook under her arm, snatching the umbrella up with the same motion and best present-best attempt at a smile.
"Ok well my prognosis is that you are dying because you are very d... edicated to your weird lost bets. Or maybe you're a tourist? And you didn't read the brochure properly? I've got theories. Anyway the point is, and apparently this will be a shock to you, but you do actually need to take in as many calories as you burn on a daily basis or your body will collapse in on itself and you'll die and then I'm going to have to cut out my heart all over agai-- ahem! I mean, nothing! Hahaha, how silly!"
She flashes an even more best-try smile and grabs Jasper by the hand and starts dragging her down the street, carefully angling the umbrella to block the rain from off her head.
"Regardless! I did have plans for this afternoon but I just noticed my karma is getting a little unbalanced which usually works out pretty bad for me so really I've got no choice, no choice but to take you somewhere reasonably far away from here and the people I can feel lurking so I can introduce you, apparently, to the concept of ramen. Which by total coincidence is nowhere near that weird owl cafe I heard was opening soon and also has absolutely nothing to do with this weird roller coaster feeling in my stomach or the fact that you have the softest and most perfectly touchable skin I have ever seen in my life. This is a random charitable act with zero ulterior motive whatsoever! Trust me you will feel a lot better in like an hour, and that will be better for... basically everybody else in the observable universe. Probably!"
It would be lying to say she had a perfect life. For one thing, she hadn’t really wanted to move to Halcyon City, no matter how important Papa’s work was. She was supposed to go to school in Paris! All her friends were in Paris! Mama would have to live there for another couple years anyway because of how important her work was! Celestine was the one who really wanted to go, why not just let her visit?
But as it turned out there was a lot to like about Halcyon City, too. The lights! The nightlife! ASTERION! It was a cool place. And it was really cool getting to live in a high rise penthouse. True, that was only until Papa’s work on… um… what was it again? Advanced Cognitive… um… Je Ne Sais Pas Quois. The point is, it was only until the research grant ran out. They weren’t rich or anything, but it was a fun taste of the high life.
Go to school, come back home, call Mama, plan a chic party for Friday night, get dinner ready for her little sister Celestine, be the dutiful daughter Papa needed to feel comfortable working so late so often. A lot of responsibility, but not a bad life. Truly. Friends, fashion, and fun! Especially when she snuck out at night.
Étoile loved photography. Cityscapes! Bridges! The lights and colors and lines of a place that only came to life when the sun set and boring, useless drudgery went to sleep! Let Celestine sit at the coffee table all day facetiming Papa about all their weird… science… stuff. Étoile had a master’s eye for composition, and she was in better shape than either of them.
See, the secret to amazing shot composition was the angle. You had to see the city the way other people couldn’t. You had to show them the side of the place they lived that they were too busy and too distracted to notice on their own. That meant you had to look at a ceiling and see the arrangement of the desks in a classroom. You had to look at bridge scaffolding and see the waterways beneath it. You had to see rooftops and spires and see the roads that joined them together. An alleyway was a window, and a tunnel was a peak up the skirt of a dozen shops and businesses. Most importantly, you had to look at all the things people built to keep you out of the places they didn’t want you hanging from, and see a path. Parkour was a French invention, anyway. Just like everything else worth enjoying.
Someday, she dreamed, she’d change the world. Someday she’d expose some aspect of inequality inherent to city life and be hailed a hero. She’d do… she’d do something, you know, something amazing, make people see the world the way that she did and be a star. Haha, it’s a funny joke, you see? Because she… nevermind.
What she didn’t realize was that the world would change around her, instead. They came. They came for her city and they saw it from an angle even she’d never dreamed of. They came and they took and they found her.
She still remembers the phone call. Papa telling her to get back home, get your sister, do not leave. His voice was so strained. He was trying so hard not to sound scared, or to shout. He shouted anyway. I’m coming for you both! Don’t move until I get there! Don’t let Celestine out of your sight! Stay home! Stay safe! I love you, I’m coming!
But it was the Lynxes in their slinky gold armor who came for them instead. Her rescue took the form of restraining rods and spreader bars. When they got tired of her telling Celestine that things would be ok, and then screaming to let them stay together as they got pulled apart, it took the form of an awful tasting foam gag too.
Reeducation
An Annunaki Academy is not a place of learning. There are classes and there are tests, sure, but don’t be fooled. The Academy is a gauntlet. It’s a sieve; a way to separate the gold from detritus. They prod your body and make you climb ropes and catch balls so they can see how fit your body is for grueling, difficult tasks. Or tricks! They might want you for entertainment, instead! They hand classes colorful puzzles and tangled messes of rings to be arranged into neat, orderly piles. This is to test your mental adroitness. The Annunaki love a clever slave (do not be confused: they do not love a smart one). They make you memorize long registries of songs and rituals, to test your ability to be properly devout. Sacrilege is not tolerated.
The schedule is brutal. Up before dawn, ten hours a day of training, training, training! Obstacle courses and obedience seminars and impossibly dense lectures, all followed by test after test after test after test, graded on capricious and impenetrable curves. Those stupid enough to complain get dragged off for Disciplinary Actions. Back in the dorms they call them “spankies”.
Étoile was scared and stubborn when she started School. She looked for the angles and turned them into escape routes. Then she would get caught and get paddled and swatted in the room with that weird pink incense until she couldn’t sit still, walk straight, or think clearly through the haze and the tears. They made her promise to be a good girl. If she fought, if she spoke back, if she peeled off her veil, that naughty girl, she’d be dragged back in for Disciplinary Action. Eventually her attempts became half hearted at best. Her rebellion took the form of minimum effort schooling, instead.
And if that’s how things had stayed? They might actually have broken her. Maybe she would have been kicked back down to live with the Beasts and toil in the mines with her spirit still angrily smouldering, or maybe they’d have doused her completely and gotten a docile, pretty dancing girl to serve drinks and shimmy her adorable waist. Instead an overzealous guard made everything about threatening her sister if she didn’t straighten out immediately. They got their Good Girl. But they also put the spark of rebellion in Étoile’s heart permanently.
The trick was a simple shift in perspective. Learn what each teacher was looking for and then give them that exact thing. Some expected her to be simpering and obedient, and so she was. Some expected her to show initiative and cleverness, and so she did. Some expected her to be an agile little minx and some expected a clumsy ditz. Whatever mask they wanted, she wore. Good girl! Good girl, Étoile! Disciplinary Action turned into rewards and extra privileges almost overnight. They swapped out her gauzy veil for a richer, more opaque one to better hide just how desirable she really was. We can’t have our staff thinking lewd thoughts about you, sweetie. They put her in a nicer room, and they let her have tiny tastes of freedom. Because she was trusted, she got to weaponize it. The cruelest, laziest guards and staff got sold out for punishments of their own. The people she saw who needed breaks got overlooked when they would mess up or speak out. It wasn’t much, especially at first. But it was what she could do.
Étoile graduated early. With honors! A Five-Star Candidate, highly capable! Put this one on the Administrative Track and watch her shine! Give her specialty tasks, she’ll flourish, don’t worry, we promise! Just look at her lovely golden hair! An exotic beauty! Open your purses good sirs and madams, she’ll be the most adorable good luck charm to ever adorn your chambers! Come one, come all, and bid!
Étoile was purchased by a high-ranking ab-Marduki general. She screamed and she cried, and she begged not to be separated from her sister, Papa told her not to leave her behind! But that was of no use. She was purchased. She was owned. Her wishes did not matter, and now she had a very important job to do.
Her job was… everything! Cook, little French girl! Clean! Listen! Attend! Model! Bathe! Wait, what? Yes, she’d heard correctly. She was a present for the seneschal’s daughter: the beautiful, tender-hearted Lady Tamytha who was too frail for the important work and politics her station demanded. A headache the seneschal was sick of being responsible for. Now Étoile would tend to her every need.
You’re Not Me!
Étoile was a slave now, every minute of every day. She couldn’t kid herself about it. She wasn’t a “student”, and she wasn’t a secret rebel. She had a collar around her neck that told everyone she met at a glance who owned her. She had no tests and no more downtime, just endless chores and expectations. She played the role of the ideal servant every minute of every day (quiet, obedient, never needing to be asked twice, but still bubbly enough to never seem a threat), but her reward was simply that she was not punished.
Well, that’s not exactly true. It was… complicated. Most of the household was sneering and cruel toward her, but her Lady, the one who she ostensibly actually worked for, was perhaps the kindest Annunaki Étoile had ever met. It’s just, she was still Annunaki. If Étoile did a good job, she’d get showered in effusive praise. She’d get her head pat and told she was a good girl. If she did a bad job, she’d get scolded and made to stand in a corner. Then.. she’d get her head pat and told she was a good girl, and that her Lady was sorry she had to be so strict. If she was a very good girl, she’d get an hour of Playtime, which involved… um. It… you know what? We’ll come back to this.
So it was a charmed life, by the standards of being a pet. She couldn’t bring herself to hate Tamytha, not the least of reasons being that it was impossible to hate someone who suffered so much. All those migraines and fainting spells and coughing fits, and the bleeding, and… ahem. But still, everything else around her screamed at her to do something, do anything to fight. She did what she could. But there was only so much message passing and hand squeezing she could do. It felt like she was sliding further backwards every day. Every time a Resistance contact passed her in the hallway, now a drooling, giggly mess, she felt a fresh surge of terror in her heart. She was accomplishing little and less. More and more people were getting hurt. Maybe… maybe she should stop.
But the spark said no. And one night, the spark made her sneak out into the city, just like she used to when you could safely call it 20XX. She was looking for… she didn’t know. Maybe she could find an AEGIS contact. If she got some real, official guidance from the real, official heroes, maybe she could… maybe she could…
Get caught and pulled into a dark alley by an Annunaki patrol!
Étoile tried to scream, but the hand was clamped firmly over her mouth. She tried to run, but she was dangling a foot off the ground. She tried to kick free, but they pinned her so tightly that all she could do was squirm. Useless. She was useless. And now she’d… and now she’d! Her eyes shined like wet sapphires in the night.
“Shhh, little one. Dumuzid lives.”
And then she was alone, with only the pounding in her chest and a crumpled sheet of paper (paper!!) in her hands to tell her anything had happened here at all.
At first glance, the note was frustratingly blank. No explanation, no grand reveal. Just a picture of a sheep, and an address scrawled inside of its wool. In… in Papa’s handwriting. She tore the note to shreds, and she ran. She ran and she ran and she ran, vaulting over barricades and evading patrols by taking paths that weren’t paths at all, except to her. And when she reached the spot, breathless…
Nothing. Her heart sank in bitter disappointment. Just a crumpled old notebook and a tiny pile of weirdly colored dust. Étoile flopped down on the ground next to the useless lump of paper and waited to get caught. Enough, she thought. No more wishing. No more hoping. Just go out, little spark. Let her rest. Let her spend the rest of her life as a dog or something. Just…
She flipped through the notebook, to give her something to do while she waited. It was Papa’s writing again, his work this time. Advanced Cognitive Perception Via Theoretical Metaspace. What a mouthful; no wonder she could never remember it. Those weren’t even words, Papa. The rest of it made as little sense to her as the title, except… on the back, in fresher ink: Instructions. Diagrams. A little note, jammed right up against the margins.
“Shine, my little star.”
He’d given her a ritual. A prayer for strength. Something he’d cribbed from ancient Mesopotamian scriptures. She sat the way the instructions told her, she said the words, though she didn’t understand them, she snorted the dust, without stopping to let herself consider the ridiculousness of hoping in something so strange so soon after giving up. Shine, little star.
She plunged into darkness. There was nothing, and no one, and when she screamed it was swallowed by the darkness, so that even she couldn’t hear it. She screamed again, because she had to do something, and her legs wouldn’t work so running was out. She screamed, and her screams took shape in the black.
Her screams became a shadow, a figure so black she could see it even in this murk. It had a head like she did, only much too large and with a jaw on snakelike hinges. It had a body like a tiger’s, only again three times the size it ought to have been. It had swirling, tattered bits of… itself that stretched off in all directions. It had chains heaped on chains heaped on chains piled everywhere about it. And when it laughed, it did it in her own voice.
“Hello, snack. Do you know who I am?”
“A monster!”
“Good guess! And half right,” it chuckled, “I’m you.”
Étoile shook her head. She clapped her hands over her mouth and she cried. No, she whimpered, that simply couldn’t be. There was nothing this ugly inside of her.
The monster snorted. It shook the air around them. Étoile squeaked, having run out of words already.
“I am you,” it insisted, “The real you. Ohhh, woe is me! Je suis triste! Papa abandoned me! Cellie abandoned me! Nobody loves me, how can I do a thing to help myself? I’d rather pretend I have no power than have anything be my fault! Étoile has to be a good girl! I love it! Let me be your pet, Lady, please!!”
She didn’t think that! She didn’t blame other people! It was just… just circumstance and bad luck and… and that wasn’t her! It wasn’t! She wasn’t an ugly selfish monster! And with every shriek of protestation, it giggled in her voice. And with every insult she hurled at it, the monster grew larger. Or she grew smaller. It was impossible to tell in this space. All she knew is that her own voice sounded thin and tiny and pathetic, and the monster’s boomed about her like thunder, and it opened up its jaw that could swallow twenty mountains just for her, and this was really it, wasn’t it, she was really going to die?
And it really would be all her fault. If she’d ever listened to Papa, maybe she’d understand what he’d hoped she’d be doing right now. If she’d fought harder at the Academy, maybe she could have saved Cellie. Maybe she could have saved everyone. Or maybe she would have died or been thrown into the mines and left to suffer, but at least she’d have done it! At least she’d have been free and strong and fighting! Well… fine. This was fine.
Maybe Monster-Her would take her place after this. Maybe she’d do a better job of things. Be strong and free and brave, and not content to hold a little spark inside her hand and call it a flame of rebellion. Yeah, ok, she’d been weak. A selfish jerk. She’d gotten comfy, and she’d let herself forget her promises. So just do it. Do it, ok, me?
She opened her eyes as wide as she could, trying to at least stare down her end like a brave revolutionary should, and saw that she was not standing in front of a monster. It was a mirror. And this? Her?
She was strong.
Étoile Ravenelle snuck straight back to her little room that night, and the next morning acted like nothing had happened. But there was a spring in her step that nobody would ever break again. She’d stared down the darkness inside her heart and made it hers. Now she wore it as she pleased. She was more than a slave. She was the face of the rebellion, whose name is Marianne.
One Girl, Many Faces
Étoile spends the majority of every day serving as the right hand of her Lady. Every morning she draws the water for Lady’s bath and wakes her with gentle music, because she’s safest when she’s calm. She brings the herbal tea and the pills that come with it, and she eases her Lady into the water and gently washes every inch of her and rubs the oils into her hair. After that, her work begins. Cooking, cleaning, organizing files. And most importantly of all, modeling. Her Lady is not fit for politics, but loves to design fashions for all sorts of occasions. Étoile, with her slender frame and petite but fetching chest and hips, is a perfect mannequin, and must make herself available at all times of day when the inspiration strikes.
In her “normal” life, Étoile wears a variety of outfits, though every one of them has a veil of some sort to keep her decent. Her clothes are slave clothes, by and by, mostly gauzy silks and floofy pants gathered together at the ankles with little bands of jewels to draw attention to her dainty slippers. A low cut top with slender sleeves and an exposed midriff to show off her pretty stomach and her shiny silver belly ring, chains that link her collar to the necklaces looped underneath it, and pretty silver armlets shining with tiny jewels. Plenty of eyeliner and shadow. Her golden blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail, which is the height of fashion, apparently. You know, normal, boring clothes like anyone would wear.
But sometimes, she gets to be someone other than Étoile. Sometimes, it’s… ok, do you remember when we agreed to come back to this? Sometimes, it’s Playtime. And then she’s not Étoile at all: she’s her Lady’s darling little Lamassie. Which just… let’s just… there’s no way this isn’t appropriation, right? There are lynxes? All over the manor?? You know??? Are they really ok with the floofy ears on her silly headband, the tail poking through her gold silk underwear, and the shimmery, ridiculous wings flopping around on her back? There’s no way! No way… right? Well, in any case, Lady insists she’s not a cat. Space-cat. Whatever. She’s a Lamassu! A… listen, ok? With the mittens balling her fists into little paws, she feels an aaaawwwful lot like a cat, n’est ce pas? Just please please please don’t let any Lynxes come to give reports while she’s busy chasing the squeaky mouse on a string.
Ahem. Right. Sometimes she gets to be more than just Étoile. When her soul shines through the mask of her body, she wears the mantle of the phantom thief, Marianne. Dark and mysterious. Veilless! The scandal! The flair! But unlike many heroes who fight against the Annunaki, Marianne does not bare her face. Instead, she wears a series of closely linked gold chains in horizontal rows all the way from her forehead down to her neck, dotted here and there with bright rubies hanging on the ends of vertical chains crossing on either side of her face. She wears a long black hooded coat with a shredded end fluttering about just past her knees. Around her shoulders are a series of black, tiny chains threaded through with base metals shaped into spiky “teeth”, and a dangling necklace with the same chain/tooth pattern that dips into her slate gray v-necked button up blouse/vest combo. There’s another heavy iron chain looped around and around and around again on her waist that sits at an angle and dips below her right hip. Shredded gray slacks that completely expose both of her knees, and heavy black boots with the slightest hint of a heel. She wears bright red gloves on both of her hands, and on her forehead just under the chains it’s possible to see something shimmering in the shape of a vertical eye.
Étoile has seen into the world of the heart, and thereafter has been gifted with the power to see the worlds people keep locked inside themselves. At its most basic, she can extend her senses to hear the song a person’s heart is singing at that moment. If she opens her third eye, she can perceive the actual shape of that person’s heart world and learn more about them then maybe even they know about themselves. While wearing the mask of Marianne she can push it even further and see flashes of the heart of the universe itself. The further off the page she looks, the more she can see. The feelings and memories held inside of buildings or gardens, shining lights like foxfire dangling about in the air where mysteries abound, a twisting path forward that’s made only for her feet…
Additionally, her power is the freedom to go anywhere she pleases. She knows the ways that things are connected and can travel across these secret paths with ease. Diving into the corner of a wall and appearing out of a floor in another room is child’s play. Appearing on rooftops from the street, or inside the gears of a machine, or if she stretches herself enough, she might even put half of herself in the edges of one object while the rest of her leaks out of something seemingly not even touching. The world of angles and edges and chains is dangerous, but free running is about taking risks to go where nobody is supposed to be.
LABELS
DANGER +2 FREAK -1 SAVIOR +0 SUPERIOR -1 MUNDANE +3
RELATIONSHIPS ______ knew you from your civilian life first. You refused to tell ______ your secret identity when they asked.
INFLUENCE You look up to your team, they seem to have this superhero thing figured out. Give two of them Influence over you.
MOVES
The Mask You wear a mask and hide your real identity. Choose what label you embody while wearing your mask: Freak
Once per session (ish?), you can affirm either your heroic identity or your secret identity to switch your Mundane with your Mask’s label.
When you reveal your secret identity to someone who didn’t know it already, mark Potential.
Mild-Mannered
When you use your civilian identity to deceive, trick, or slip past someone, roll +Mundane. On a hit they buy your facade. On a 7-9, choose one:
You’re still under observation You leave something incriminating behind You’re forced to make a fool of yourself to sell it
On a miss, one of your civilian obligations rears its ugly head.
Dangerous Web
When you reveal a trap you’ve left for someone using your powers, roll + your Mask’s label. On a hit, your opponent trips into it, and you get an opening or opportunity to act against them. On a 10+, take +1 forward to pursuing it. On a miss, the trap inadvertently leads to a dangerous escalation.
SECRET IDENTITY Obligations: Celestine Ravenelle - her little sister is still safely nestled in the Academy. For now. Étoile has to pop in from time to time to keep the brilliant but opinionated younger girl from getting into too much trouble and getting herself thrown out entirely. She knows Étoile’s identity, and is frustrated she doesn’t get to be a superhero, too
The Lady Tamytha - sickly, frail, sweet. Misguided. Her Lady has many needs and a gentle hand to ease her through the day and handle all the assorted tasks she’s not up for or that her household demands of her slave. Completely clueless, both with regards to her “widdle Star’s” activities and to the sheer depravity of the society she’s a part of.
The Resistance - Étoile’s connections to the mundane version of the fight. They’re paranoid, fidgety, and needy. They also complain a lot. Someone has to run the supply lines, someone has to be the go-between for various freedom fighters, secure safehouses, and so on and so on. They’re mundane and small scale compared to the work of the Phantom Thieves, but without them the people would suffer. And isn’t that what this is all about?
When time passes, roll +Mundane to see how you’re managing your obligations. On a hit, things are going pretty well - you have an opportunity or advantage thanks to one of your obligations. On a 7-9, you’ve lapsed on one obligation, your choice. On a miss, you haven’t given your normal life anywhere near the attention it deserves; the GM chooses two obligations that are going to bite you in the butt.
Do not think guilty thoughts, Étoile. It will disrupt the rhythm of your heart's song, and then every bit of wrong will come flowing out like sewage leaking into a river. They will see it in your posture, and begin to watch you more closely. Jerioth ab-Ishtar will hear it in your voice, and take your pardons and attempts to slip out the back after your message to be insult rather than the deference of a loyal slave. Cellie will see it in your eyes, and her mind will jump to all the wrong conclusions, and in not knowing which grenade she needs to jump on to save and prove herself to you, will jump on everything even slightly grenade-shaped.
Do not think guilty thoughts, Étoile. You are the burning fire of the revolution. By definition all that you do for the cause is right and just. There are no victims here, but targets. There is no crisis here, but opportunity. Tonight is a gong that once struck will signal the toppling of an empire of depravity and the rise, once again, of equality and brotherhood. Your heart must be clear enough to hear the chime, or it cannot light the beacon. You did not suffer in darkness or don the mask of a righteous gentleman thief to be chained so provincially. So do not think guilty thoughts, Étoile.
Étoile is thinking guilty thoughts.
Yes, tonight is a night of justice. It is a heist on a scale that will dwarf her first missions, so grand it might even make it possible for the first time to see a world where the Annunaki do not tower over her entire imagination! So yes, it's... it needed to be done, but... it doesn't feel good to intentionally trigger an episode in Her Ladyship. Even if it was her in tonight. The perfect excuse to be here, right now. And the perfect excuse to leave again, quietly and quickly, to be where--
"Watch where you're going!" cried a drunken voice Étoile did not immediately recognize.
"Oh, a thousand pardons," replied Étoile (who was in fact not going anywhere at all, but standing in a line) with a smooth sweeping bow and deep step away that costs her her place in line, "Please forgive my clumsiness."
She smiles sweetly with her eyes, a skill you need to master quickly in a veiled society. She earns herself a lethal glare, but nothing more. Étoile sighs with relief. This would be good practice for dealing with Her Ladyship later tonight. She was sure to be scolded for abusing Playtime the way she had, and doubly sure for lingering at this wonderful party when she knew she was needed so badly back home. If things went poorly she might even miss the evening medication session, which... well, this is why she's thinking guilty thoughts.
She spares a long look at Celestine as she settles herself back in line for her audience. Speaking of guilty thoughts. Zut. There's no clean way out of this one. Telling her to sit still is no good. Asking her if she likes making trouble for her big sister is worse. And frankly there's no way she could have avoided attention long enough to be able to claim later that Cellie had actually seen someone else. Not the way Her Ladyship had dressed her.
You see, the reason why this party was so important to Lady Tamytha is that she was seeking eyes and approval for several entries she'd been working on and hoping to display at the summer gallery. Hence, she'd insisted her little star attend in her place as a living billboard. Her Ladyship had not, as of yet, fully succumbed to the phantom thief fashion craze that was sweeping the city, but she'd also put together this piece specifically to prove she wasn't behind the times or old fashioned.
Étoile is a marvel in the swirling palette of the ocean; playful greens and deep blues and silver accents sitting across her like flecks of foam. Her hair has been pulled into the tightest ponytail she can remember wearing, and her eyes are heavily painted in blues that lighten into silver curls that curve up toward her temple as they clear the corners of her eyes. Her veil is an opaque seafoam green, worn loosely to tantalize as much as conceal. About her neck and her wrists are shining silver clasps dotted with turquoise and lapis lazuli. She's been dressed in a loose, long sleeved half jacket that will not close or do anything other than dangling on either side of her upper rib cage, fully displaying the tight linen band that's squeezing her breasts almost flat. Her stomach's been painted in swirling silver lines that spiral into mesmerizing patterns across her tight skin around a jade belly button ring.
And then there are the pants. Calling them low waisted would be... generous. They begin far enough below her waist that her hip bones are on full display, as well as the golden thong she's wearing pulled high. The silks are tight against her thighs but rapidly open wider and wider as they flare up by her ankles, where bright silver weights spread them apart in an almost dress-like pattern. If she stands still, she might very well seem to be wearing a skirt, but as she walks in splits in half and teases the senses. Everything by her feet is constant motion, rising up into brighter colors that cling tight enough to leave her with few enough secrets for anybody's comfort. She'll catch an eye or twelve tonight, that's a certainty.
An eye or twelve beyond Celestine's, that is. Oh, why won't she stop staring? Zut, zut, zut et zut. There's nothing for it; she'll have to be folded into the plan. Étoile waves her over, adjusting the shining tablet and swatch of fabric samples in her hands so that there's room enough for hugging that will not impede her duties this evening.
"I accept this honor with all the grace and humility the crown demands. I will be the beacon for all of Illumina, the light that shines through the storm and the night. I will be the rain that washes clean the land and spread my love to every corner and every smiling face. I promise to be the treasure at the end of the rainbow for all who seek me."
The crown sits almost weightlessly on her head. She's practiced this speech a hundred times before today, just to make sure, just... because today of all days nothing can go wrong. Her mother deserves nothing less. Even so, her voice is so high and clear that it surprises her. Alina has to blink back a tear so that she can finish as strong as she started.
"Thank you for all you have given to your kingdom. I now take from you your duties and your burdens, and charge you only with being happy for the rest of your days. I will honor the legacy of your reign. Fear not, for you shall always and forever be my Queen."
The water goes splashing on her head, and the dyes on her dress run down the altar and into the crowd just the way that Free planned. Overhead, the sun pokes through the clouds and a massive rainbow blossoms across the sky like a field of flowers from Ourania's own garden. Alina laughs and she cries at the same time, and her mother whispers something that's just for her, and just like that she is the Queen of Illumina.
Her first official act is to hug her Mommy.
"I love you. I love you forever," she chokes out, burying her face in Halcyon's neck, "Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you..."
Diamond casts its ethereal light across the entire assembly, and for a moment nobody questions if the dreams in their heart are too bold or ask too much of the world. With such a strong light to guide this land, the promise of the rainbow is everything. And it is everywhere. And it is for everybody. And it is all of these things and more.
***
It could be your imagination, you know.
It probably is.
You shouldn't say a word, just in case.
It's definitely just your imagination.
But you could swear that Queen Alina stands a little bit taller than you remember her as a Princess. Just the tiniest bit. Maybe. Perhaps it's because she's learned to stand a little straighter now that her head and her heart have shed the weight of all her guilt. Or maybe it really is the magic of her Diamond demanding that she be flawless. Maybe those shoes just make her stand more on the points of her feet than usual. It's probably just your imagination.
Alina flops dramatically into a chair and sips at the remainder of her punch. Then she kicks off a shoe and stretches her bare toes in the cool, wet air. She's been mingling all day; regal and poised and perfect as can be. But the promise of friendship is that you get to be something less than your best self and they'll want your company anyway. Or better yet they'll take your imperfections and lift them up to make you a better best than you could ever be on your--
Don't cry, you silly Queen! What is wrong with you? She tilts her head up and laughs, and when she brings it back up her smile is as dazzling as it is wet. Come on, Alina, come on! Hold it together! This is not goodbye!
"Congratulations, Kazelia. And thanks for waiting until after the ceremony. Although, I couldn't have promised Jess wouldn't have killed your fiancée if you hadn't. You know? I... can't believe today is real. I can't believe..."
She trails off, lost for a moment in her best friends' incredible, special eyes. Adila's luminous golden orbs are especially beautiful tonight. And she's never grown tired of watching the stars for new constellations in Kazelia's. Above their heads, Alina's Coral play fights with Adila's Silver.
"Oh, did you guys see? The repairs have really come along in the last couple of months or so. You almost can't tell anymore! It's almost like we..."
Stop it stop it stop it Alina, you are a queen now. Queens don't cry because their friends are busy and moving on and...
Oh. Yes they do.
"You have to keep visiting, ok? I won't forgive you if you don't! I'm Queen of Illumina now, you have to listen to me! I'll throw you in my dungeon if you d... I'll build a dungeon and then throw you in it! A-and there's only going to be a few pillows down there! Ten, maybe! I won't use my good sheets, either! ...Ok fine, some of my good sheets! That'll... I..."
She hasn't reached the point where she's making A Scene, but it's only because she's leaning hard against Adila's warm neck, and pulling Kazelia into an ultimate group hug.
"They keep... giving me credit for everything. But I don't deserve half, no, any of it. I was just a scared little crybaby begging for my home back, and you were the only ones, the only ones who listened. I wouldn't have made it seven steps past the beginning without you! You made me stronger. You opened my eyes and my heart. You even helped my find Rita! That's why I... to me, you're..."
Alina sniffles away her last tears. All that's left on her face is a quiet and radiant happiness, and a soft pride that's warmer than the fireplace on Solstice Eve.
"You two are my family. And you will always have a place in my Illumina."
"...Walked this ENTIRE way and STILL not a single dinosaur, maiden, shrine or otherwise! What kind of two bit, third rate sorry excuse for a--"
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! Dulcinea is on the warpath, and she's making a point of stamping every puddle on her way, because every tiny distraction is another half second she doesn't have to put up with the Wishing Girl and that makes it time worth spent. That's what carries her across the street in the first place, ranting and tossing her umbrella between her hands depending on which one she needs free for gesticulating.
"Can't BELIEVE I pay all these taxes and we can't even get a SIMPLE scientific quandary resolved without half a dozen things exploding. Metaphorically, even! Because of course they wouldn't ACTUALLY blow up! That might be COOL! I swear to... ngghffrrbl... rrrrrgh! And other words!"
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! In incomparable Ms. d'Avignon trudges miserably within inches of the only person in Fortitude who maybe (maybe) surpasses her own abject misery. She clomps on by with loud stomps and louder ranting without so much as a sideways glance and disappears around a corner.
Three.
Two.
One.
Dulcinea is moonwalking. She reappears around the corner and slides back to the spot where she picked up the strange reading, still facing the same direction she was originally travelling. She overshoots her new mark by a full twenty paces. When she starts walking forward again she's considerably more measured. All stomped out, if you prefer. She turns her head and properly looks at Jasper for the first time.
She almost drops her umbrella.
"You! Are! PERFECT! omg omg omg omg just... stay right there! Don't move a... here, hold this for me. No wait wait, actually, hold this, hold this! I can't believe my luck!"
Without waiting for a response, she shoves the umbrella in Jasper's drooping hand and doesn't seem to care or notice that a cold drizzle is now soaking and chilling her through to the bone. There's goosebumps crawling up and down her for all intents and purposes bare legs but there's no time for that right now because she's got about thirty things to fish out of her--
No hold on a second she's not holding the umbrella right, just... lift that arm up like this... a little to the left and... ok, now she's got about thirty things to fish out of her bag. She drops the bag carelessly on the sidewalk before tucking her notebook inside it with surgical precision. Her first prizes in her self looting spree include an empty test tube, a flashlight, a pocket knife, a stethoscope, on old popsicle stick that from the looks of things was grape flavored once upon a time, and a pair of absurdly unfashionable glasses, which she immediately slides on her face.
"Hm, hm, I see... interesting. Interesting..."
She's got the popsicle stick in her mouth as she works. Working is probably the wrong word for it, though. Dulcinea dances. She snatches individual raindrops from the sky and places them in her test tube, mixing them together with a vigorous swirling motion before holding them up to what light there is today and then draining the contents into her own mouth. She swirls the rainwater around in her mouth before swallowing and making a surprised face.
"Really? But then..."
Long and, if we're being honest, kind of rough and bony fingers grab your face, Jasper. She traces the contours of your jaw, turns your head from side to side, tilts it up, tilts it down again, shines her flashlight in your eyes, then your ears, and then your mouth, asking 'and how do you feel?' roughly every quarter second or so without exactly waiting for an answer. How about now? How about now? How about now??
That seems to be enough. She snaps the pocket knife back out from the inside of her shoe and clicks the blade open with a casual flick of her wrist. She shakes her head, gingerly replaces the blade, then pulls out the special one that's underneath it. And she jumps! Hop hop hop! She's really got no hops, quite frankly, you'd be in huge trouble if you wound up with her on your pick up basketball team, but it's enough to get her high enough to make her little curvy slash slash motions through the air above her own umbrella. Where the blade slices through the rain, the air falls away. Several raindrops are cut in half. She cuts four lines in a square(ish) pattern and then plucks the resulting swatch of rain-soaked air out of the sky, turning it over and over in her hands before crumpling it up and tossing it onto the street over her shoulder.
Her conscience crystal turns an angry shade of red. That's littering, Dulcinea! She shrugs and stuffs the little know-it-all back in her back in the same motion that she draws her notebook back out and starts rapidly jotting down a universe's worth of notes in incredibly tiny letters.
"Right! So! How about we start with the obvious question: is there a... particular reason you haven't eaten anything in the last 72 hours? Is there some festival I wasn't informed of? New religion? Old religion? Lost a bet? You lost a bet, didn't you."
[you'd best believe we're dropping 4 willpower on gettin' that 6]
Alina sets her mirror back down on the table as delicately as she can. Flawed as it is, at the very least it doesn't crack any further. The smile steals its way back onto her lips, and she stands.
As she rises her skirts ripple down her legs like rain in a dozen bright, shimmering colors. It was Freesia's idea to use untreated silks; when she took up her crown as Queen, the rains would wash away the excess dyes and carry them down to the crowd below where they'd pool and fill the glass benches with all manner of new colors and light. But Alina's not thinking about that right now. Even her own coronation is a distant spark of the back of her mind compared with the beautiful smile of Rita von Catabas.
Alina moves with effortless grace across the space between them. Her hand reaches out toward Rita's and, just when she sees her lover's hand move to close around hers, she lifts it up and touches Rita's chin instead. That blush is the most beautiful, perfect thing in the universe.
"And I love you, my light."
Her gloves are satin, so they feel extra nice as they stroke the underside of Rita's chin. Alina smiles, and her eyes become deep green pools of love for a certain special someone to drown in. She leans in close and her mouth is filled with the warm sensation of purring as Princess Alina Cascade shares her final kiss with the most beautiful, precious, perfect, handsome, brave, and loyal cat in the entirety of Hyperborea. The smell is warmer than sunshine. The feeling is softer than fresh down. The taste, sweeter than Askaian wine. It's a moment that stretches on into forever, unfolding past the pleasantries of the afternoon and into a night that neither of them will ever forget. It crosses between kingdoms and over years, summer and winter and winter and summer, from the banks of the mighty Whitherwend to the misty spray of the waterfall atop Big Hill. The laughter of children echoes out through memories and into the future, where everything is brighter and safer than she would have ever dared dream--
"Do you mind, Your Majesty?"
Alina opens her eyes again and follows the finger impatiently tap-tapping on her shoulder to Freesia's half-glaring, half-smiling face. She flashes her sister a guilty grin and lets her hand drop down to entwine her fingers with Rita's.
"Sorry, sorry. We got a little carried away."
"Uhuh," uh oh, there's a Roc's worth of storm in Freesia's eyes right now, "But you're done now. Right? Are you finally ready to stop messing around?"
"Are you kidding me?" Alina laughs, "Never! What did you think I was keeping you and Jess around for?"
"Lina!!"
"I'm kidding, Free! You know I'm kidding. I promise I'm taking this very seriously. And I'm... I'm ready. To be Queen."
She squeezes Rita's hand in hers and takes a deep, nervous breath. Her eyes go darting around the room, hunting for approval. Beating down years' worth of instinct to look for the signs that somebody was still secretly mad at her and always would be. But there's nothing in this room except love, and pride, and a sense of excitement for the future.
Princess Alina Cascade manages a weak smile as she dabs away the tears in her eyes. And with one last squeeze of Rita's hand, she takes the first of many steps toward her new life.
"Euphie we've been over this and over this," Alina's voice is very... strained, "I can't do pigtails. They're not... you know, Queenly enough. I'm already shorter than the entire rest of my court, I don't need silly hairstyles making it even harder for people to take me seriously."
Eupheria pouts from behind the Princess-Promised as she sets her clever fingers to work on the elaborate braids Alina actually requested. For her part, Alina glares at her great grandmother's reflection while she watches her work. Not a word passes between them until:
"...It's not a vanity thing, ok? I just want my people to be able to look at me and see a Queen they can actually trust to keep them safe and happy! I don't think that's a lot to ask for, after everything I've put them through."
She turns her head to try and catch Eupheria's eye and find that little nod or flash of approval, but the Wicked Queen is nothing but pouts this afternoon. She swats Alina's neck and forces her head back around so that she can continue working. She's already woven three fishtail braids from left to center, and she's working on the fourth. There's still another layer of untouched hair flowing freely underneath, but it only adds to the impression that she's carrying her own lavender waterfall behind her back. Alina's breath catches, and her fresh glare melts into a heavy sigh.
"Fine, ok? Fine! You can try the pigtails for tomorrow's banquet. But just trying. Trying, I said! If I don't like it, we're... oh, forget it."
She smiles what may very well be her final princessly smile at the giddy squeak that erupts behind her. The rain taps gently on the glass while patches of sunshine spot through the room just as they must be outside. This really could not be a more perfect day: there's just enough rain to feel it kissing you, but not so much that it might make the guests uncomfortable as they take their seats. At this rate they wouldn't even need to use any magic to get a rainbow overhead. She reaches up to brush a finger over top her braids while Eupheria starts fitting her neck for the body-length scarf that ties the rest of her coronation dress together. Her elbow bumps the dressing table in front of her, and all she can manage is a startled squeak as the hand mirror balanced precariously on the corner topples over and shatters with a loud crash.
"Your Majesty I heard a noise what happened is everything ok let me fix it I'll get you a... oh no, your favorite mirror! Do you need me to fix it I'll just fix it real quick let me fix it everything is going to be perfect today I promise!"
"It's fine Free, I can handle it. Don't you need to be changing into your robes to conduct the ceremony? Just hand me my lights and I'll take care of it."
"Lina no! We have to keep them sealed in the royal box until the presentation of your crown!" Freesia purses her lips as she nervously adjusts her sashes and worries at the severe bun she's tied her hair up into, "It's tradition not to wield the Queenslight until after the coronation!"
"Don't worry," Alina laughs, "I'm not going to use Diamond. Besides, I still need the practice. Nobody is going to respect a queen who can't even use her own magic properly!"
Freesia stands there pursing and unpursing her lips, looking for all the world like she's trying to think of some obscure rule or tradition that would forbid Alina from doing any actual work today, but she comes up short. With a huffy sigh, she takes the brightly painted sandalwood box down from the shelf and gingerly unhitches the latch. Before she can even finish opening the lid, a sparkling turquoise light shoots out and hovers with obvious glee over Alina's left shoulder. Before she can get the box closed again, Coral sneaks out and bounces giddily on Alina's right. Freesia huffs and slams the box shut before the star of the show can zip out and ruin things any further while Alina giggles herself half to death with a most un-Royal manner.
Turquoise sparkles proudly as she reaches out and gingerly rolls her fingers through the air just over the fragments of the mirror. Piece by piece they're wrapped up in the glow, and then piece by piece they start to wobble. They roll over each other with soft chimes as the frame flips itself over and hovers suspended in the air. Shards of glass slide into place one after the other and the cracks seal as the puzzle fits itself back together again, unbreaking in a perfect reversal of the pattern it shattered in the first place. The mirror floats in place for a moment before Alina delicately snatches it out of the air and holds it up to her face, smiling her most dazzling smile at her flawless reflection.
CRACK!
A jagged line splits her smiling face in half. Another smaller one grows at an angle up from there. A small sliver of the mirror dangles from the board again for a single agonizing second before crashing back down to the ground and exploding into dust. Alina slumps into her chair. Her smile collapses into an enormous pout.
Alina lets go of Rita for the first time since they rescued Ourania. Immediately, she stumbles face first into the pile of cold stars. Her entire body is trembling, but is it with cold? Or with fear? She waves off the hands that reach out to help her, and drags herself a little bit further forward. She's so close, now. She's finally almost...
"It'd be... wrong, to focus on Castle Thessia so much... while Illumina is still hurting. So we'll, or well... I mean I'll talk to Mom and Jess about... delaying repairs. So there's more to help with the kingdom. And we'll do... the wedding in Aurora's Garden. It'll be easy to set up a big pavilion there! And, and you can see the castle, and..."
She laughs when she sees Diana glowering at her. No, that's right. She's not finally almost anything. After this comes the next thing, and after that comes something even bigger and harder than that. It's her fault. Her fault Diana suffered so much, her fault Illumina suffered so much. And Feloria and Jedad and... this would take her the rest of her life. But for an end of her adventures, this was a pretty decent first step. Alina reaches up with a trembling hand and grasps the World Seed between her fingers.
It's the coldest thing she's ever touched. So cold it makes her fingers blister just touching it. She can feel the echoes of the ice that sat in her heart pulsing through her veins. It's like touching him. How could something so beautiful be filled with so much hate? With a final surge of strength, she plucks it free from the trunk of Argossa before her arm goes too numb to be of any use. Is she still going to be able to use this arm after all this? She reaches for her crown and sets the horrible diamond into the empty facets adorning the top. It's so large that it eats up three slots, but even so it fits remarkably well.
"Oh! L-let's get Eupheria to plan the reception! With... with supervision, obviously. But it would be good for her to have a, a project. And maybe then she won't feel so much like she's still the wicked queen. Maybe people won't think of her that way."
All around Alina, the winds are howling. Bursts of horrible magical energy are still pouring through the cracks of the great tree. The floor is cracking and crumbling beneath everyone's feet. Strangely, the only person in the whole room that's reaching for her is Azora Howl. The look on her face is completely unreadable. Certainly it's not sympathy. Is she trying to steal the Seed and all its power? Even now? Alina shuts her eyes and winces as a lance of boiling magic almost takes her hand off. Should've known. Even after everything that happened in the Labyrinth, this is still the same person who tried to steal Rita's magic from her. Who stole Adila's skin. She's cast more corrupting spells across Hyperborea than the entire Hecatia Academy has even had to undo before. Evil is...
"Let's invite the former Riders too, right Rita? I mean, they're as much a part of this as anybody. If it wasn't for... all this, maybe I wouldn't have figured out how to tell you how I feel. And... come to think of it, this is really all Azora's fault, isn't it? Just imagine if she hadn't seeded the Slaugh in Summerveil? We'd have never had our first kiss, that's for sure. Yeah, haha, you're right. There's really no other choice, is there? Hey, Azora! Would you please be my maid of honor?"
Alina giggles carelessly while the winds almost imperceptibly begin to die down around her. Does it feel warmer in here to anybody else? Sitting atop her crown, a single crack forms along the surface of the great gem.
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