Tatterdemalion

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

It is the calm before the storm. Or, rather, it is the anticipation before the storm; the socialites, the Civils, and the entertainers in attendance are almost buzzing with anticipation. Soon, the Golden Fawn himself will be making his grand entrance. There shall be fireworks, and a red carpet, and champagne salutes. Let no one say the Chrysanthemum does not know how to party.

But that is not yet, so the tension has not been broken. It sways to and fro about the room, and builds to a feverish pitch around certain notables.

Civelia, Goddess of Civilization, is one of these notables.

Her dress is blue, but curving lines in white race up from the flared, floor-length skirt, spiraling around her body. Her tiara is platinum wire and sapphires. The gem on her ring finger is lit with a cold, clear fire within. She holds a wine glass between her fingers, and the starlight within the white wine winks faintly in and out. She is a mountain. She is a pillar. She is incapable of being moved by temptation or wickedness.

There are a great many paladins in tight suits standing around her, unable to relax even when under strict orders to enjoy the party. I do think at least one is checking under the buffet tables for hidden maid assassins. A useful but unsubtle asset for civilization, aren’t they?

---

Yuki!

Sulochana is here early. Of course she is. She has been here early for hours. She was worked around by caterers and event staff who knew better than to try and shift the Princess of Crevas.

She is radiant. She is arrayed in the patterns of her house, in vest and blouse and half-cape, and her tail is covered in small stones in impossible shades, entirely new colors made specifically in lightless workshops on the very edge of the Outside, each one affixed in the center of a scale. Her braids are thick with flowers and golden ornaments, washed three times in perfumes. When it comes to standing out, who could beat her?

Unfortunately, as much as we might enjoy a moment of the two of you staring at each other with unresolved tension, someone sweeps your leg out from under you while you try to figure out a good name for a color that is purple-green-copper-but-pale.

“Watch your step, little hero,” Aria Thendragon sneers. She is back to the suit, the macabre corsage of flowers growing out of her ribcage, the starglasses to hide the pale glow of undeath. The smell of her is sickly-sweet and cloying. (Her lady is not present, curiously.)

If Aria has something beyond that bullying cliche to share, however, it will have to wait. Because unless you’re quick on your feet and of your wits, Purnima is about to get herself unceremoniously kicked out for attacking Aria Thendragon. For an attack on you is an attack on her, and condescension to her lovable minion is not to be borne! The indignation is of you but not for you, if you understand me, but the indignation is there all the same.

Azaza was much the same way about her mirrors.

---

Eclair!

Of course it matters, Eclair! Take away the Golden Fawn, and a party like this is still a celebration of a job well done on your part. An explosion of civic pride (for a city you left behind) and defiance. Defiance against an old enemy of the order, against the poison that the Order rebelled against back in Aria’s day.

Set aside the Fawn, and there are still dramas to attend to. Heron and Civelia, over there— surely the goddess cannot have recognized you. Not yet. You are wearing a fetching domino mask, which I very much approve of, and so I have decided that she will not recognize you. For as long as her failure amuses me, and for as long as you do not draw too close.

Even I have limits, Eclair.

But the two are there, and there is tension between them. If you were more like Timtam, I would here point out that this makes them vulnerable to manipulation, that one could be played against the other to give the Order breathing room, but you would just give me another Sad Cat Look.

Mayzie is doing her best to get between you and your fans. Maybe there is some resentment here on their end; maybe Mayzie will be remembered as a vainglorious manager. (But that is not why she does it.) She wears a glittering dress to match with your martial jacket and gloves, a dainty counterbalance to your stiffness. (Here, behind this mask, it is considered dignity and not awkwardness. How the clothes make the woman!)

Do you keep sulking, Eclair? I shall have to make your life interesting, if so. Or do you prowl in this sea of suspects for a lead in the all-consuming case?

---

Hazel!

Olesya drops to one knee. She shakes with it. Trembles with the force of Down and her unwillingness to submit.

(Keli and Seli are also affected. I believe you call it do-geza?)

But she has stopped leading with her mouth, and you have a moment to catch your breath.

When she looks up at you, her eyes are red. Not in the sense that they have become like the eyes of a demon, but in the sense that she has been crying. But her cheeks are dry.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and there’s meaning in it. But it levels out into more monotone than is usual for her (and that is saying something). “I was just. Overcome. With how much. I want you. Hazel.”

There is a need in her eyes. But it’s not a need for you. (And I can already hear your inner monologue: well of course it’s not me, who would ever actually want me? I’m a uniquely ugly and unlovable boy who will die alone, despite all the women literally throwing themselves at me. If only she were as good an actress as Timtam, then maybe your complex wouldn’t be growing right about now. But if Timtam had come in here to kiss you, you’d have a completely different set of problems, wouldn’t you?)

Breathless Dead

Dany nearly lets the moment go, and she doesn't even know why. She comes right up next to damning the galaxy by releasing some awful thing pretending to be her mother, and there's no rational reason for her to do so! Her mind stops thinking in anything so sophisticated as words. Because, and here is the truth of it, the ugly painful truth of it: she didn't realize Bella would be tempted, and now all she can see is that Bella is tempted.

It's a rough and painful thing to realize that your heart is blind. It's even worse when you're steeling yourself to stand as a unified front against your mother, the thing that has stolen your mother's face, the thing that now lurks under Nero's wine-steeped laughter in her memories. There's no space for reason, for Apollo, for anything in the heart but shields up and lances out. And then to feel more than see Bella move? Now she's dizzy with the sudden loss in the shieldwall, stumbling, unseeing.

Her body knows better, as usual. Her body lunges out to catch Bella's wrist, and fails, and it's her body that decides there's only one thing for it, as per usual, the thing that Bella has taught her not to do, and now is the only thing she can do to her wife:

She lunges forward and interposes herself between her wife and the fires, trusting that if there's one thing Bella will not do, it is to destroy her in order to quench[1] those hellish flames of Dis. And if Bella would, well, being destroyed is what Dany would want to have happen to her anyway, come to think of it? Better to be trampled in the process of discovering that Bella values the approval of her mother-in-law more than the bodily integrity of her wife.

She makes mouth noises. Does it matter what they are? Neither she nor Bella nor Nero really care about what those mouth noises are, after all. A noisy, witless princess even to the end. So go ahead, Bella: maybe it's her turn to get locked in a closet, unable to stop you from chasing your heart's desire. Maybe it's Dany's turn to get hurt.

Maybe you're still capable of hurting her.

---

[1]: what a word. quench. queeeeeeeeeeench. haha. we have fun here.

Return to Thellamie

Of course we’re coming back to the Chrysanthemum for the ball. Call it a victory lap, if you like. Call it proof that things have been repaired, and that better than ever (thanks in part to the Mystery Builder, Heroine of Vespergift).

The “ballroom” itself is a stained glass platform built around the chrysanthemum tree in the center of the building (itself very, very heavily magically warded by the Civils to avoid a repeat of what happened with Walking Elm). The repaired staircases lead to walkways jutting out over the ballroom, and private dining suites on platforms all about the tree. Underneath, the baths and the hot springs still boil and froth, just waiting for even more private dalliances.

The restaurants, the theaters, the massage parlors, these have all been closed for the evening. There’s only one event, and it’s the main event: winning Hazel Valentine Fletcher’s heart. (Aren’t you so excited? Just so, so excited??) Yaz’s girls are butlers and maids and coatchecks and hangers-on this evening, and that Nagi matron has got profit on her mind, profit in all sorts of different shapes and sizes.

---

Handmaidens!

There are vinyards in Kel. They are the hardiest, most exclusive vinyards in all of Thellamie. Up there, in the inhospitable mountains, under the unfiltered light of the stars, the Civils grow grapes glutted with starlight. And these grapes grow, and grow, and grow, until they are so full of starlight that there is more light than juice when they are crushed. And they are crushed, because the Civils hike up their skirts and dance in the vats, and they make wine of this juice, and it is bottled and aged for centuries until it is the most potent thing in all the world. It causes ecstactic madness and whirling visions and comet dances. It is the sort of wine that is fought over in heist and counterheist.

Civelia has been under a lot of stress lately. She was attacked; she expended much of her divine power to give this token to Hazel Fletcher; her church is under assault. Thellamie strains at the brink of open war between a goddess and a Khatun. So she took a bottle, and she poured herself half a glass. After all, she is a spirit of restraint. Of decorum. Of civilization itself.

Three bottles in she started messaging Sayanastia and it got graphic fast.

She erased the entire conversation the next morning, but what has been seen on the shared Handmaiden Tablet cannot be unseen. Not unless you get Cair to brew a potion of forgetfulness, extra strong. You might really want to forget the mental image of what she was saying she’d do to Sayanastia’s tail.

It’s rumored she’s making an appearance at the ball! Rumored because she hasn’t responded to any means of contact from Team Handmaiden since. Naturally, Heron will be required to make an appearance on her arm.

Simple enough, right?

---

Mystery Builder, Heroine of Vespergift!

Two weeks ago, Mayzie Sighs was working at a cafe and trying to maintain a low profile. She didn’t deserve any acclaim for donating money she hardly earned to a good cause, after all. But then you two came back, and she set you to work.

You were the only member of the Order helping. The Order has called back its members; the Mansion is being fortified. You, and you alone, put your shoulder to the work; you, and you alone, are entrusted with keeping the spark of the Aurora burning while Morning, Noon and Evening are defended by your sisters. I daresay it’s one of the longest fortnights you’ve ever had in your life.

Even you couldn’t do it alone. But the Mystery Builder became a symbol of sorts. A symbol of rebuilding, of reconstruction, of hope that one day more than the city would be reclaimed from the Witchwood. Recruitment applications for the Gardeners have shot through the proverbial tower roof. And wherever you’ve gone, Heroine of Vespergift, fans have followed, with their tablets and their fanart and their hopes.

Their hopes, Eclair.

So of course Mayzie was dragged into your wake: your manager, your squire, your interface with the Vespergift reconstruction project. Her face has been right next to yours on all the graffiti, all the posters, and in everyone’s hearts.

So tonight, Mayzie Sighs is going to be the sub-belle of the ball. Not as big a deal as this Hazel boy, but it is your sworn duty to ensure that she enjoys an evening of being in an auxilary spotlight, that she feels it burns as brightly as any star-sodden rack of antlers.

Tell me about her dress.

---

Yuki!

Purnima shows up in a golden palanquin to take the two of you to the Chrysanthemum. Her hair is in the “Princess Leia” buns, and did you have any hand in that? Her dress is gold, gold, tassels of it, chains of it, gold on gold on gold. Her eyeshadow is gold flecked with powdered starlight, for that intoxicating kick when one meets her eyes. Her scales shine with gold-flake oil. She is a mace to the face, aesthetically, and she intends to pummel Hazel into submission with every trick she’s picked up from you.

Your theme, the one she dictated for you, is “silver.” In the sky, a silver ribbon winds up to the moon. What does silver mean on Yukisearth? What does silver mean to you? And did you obey her command, or are you, as they say, being a brat about it?

You’ve got time to answer, borne in this palanquin, swallowed up by her possessive golden coils. She squeezes whenever you shift, as if to lay claim to you all over again.

---

Hazel!

Olesya pushes you up against the mirror and kisses you on the mouth.

While you’re still half-dressed, too! My darlings were in the middle of getting you dressed – a task they simply couldn’t possibly leave to anyone else, you have to be fitted and buttoned and made up correctly for the ball – and then Olesya was inside your dressing room, taking up the room, all of it, shoving Keli and Seli aside to grab you and, well, see above.

This isn’t supposed to happen! Miss Yaz promised you the best of security! And, really, I’m somewhat disappointed in her if she let a brawny Serigalamu huntress get past her best. She should have had better traps in place, at the very least.

She is mashing her mouth against yours. But there’s no passion in it. She’s just doing it harder and harder like it’s supposed to do something. Like she hasn’t been told that she’s allowed to stop. Don’t worry, my girls will have her off you in a minute…

But that’s still a minute where she’s doing a terrible job of making out with you in increasing awkward desperation. And that’s still a minute where it’s incredibly clear that she could pick you up effortlessly.

It’s not like she did this at all while you were enjoying her hospitality! She was quiet, practically your shadow, more than capable of fending off anyone who might get Bright Ideas about challenging her for possession of the you. She showed you how to shoot a training bow, and tried to give you tips on how to shape your heartblade into a bow – you go ahead and tell me if that succeeded. She fed you stew and steak and the kind of little goblin birds you eat in one mouthful. She did not push you up against anything and kiss you like she was kissing a mannequin.

So what gives???

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

“We are protecting love,” the maid says, simply. “Always.” There is steel in her resolve, and passion enough for a heartblade. She would die before she allowed intruders into the Mansion, and consider it nothing more than the duty that love is owed. As would the maids in the room beyond. As would, well, at least some of the maids throughout the Mansion.

When the Order of the Aurora contracts, they contract as hard as diamond. That the two of you were allowed this close was a tactical error on their part, and they do not intend to make that mistake again – not easily. Not here. Not when the stakes are so high.

If Heron were slumbering in the heart of the Stacks, would not each and every one of you do the same? Wouldn’t you keep her secret then, as you keep her secret now? Look at her again. Look at the maids beyond, trying not to be caught peering into the room. Do you recognize yourselves in the mirror?

“You will have no barriers to exit,” the Serigalamu maid says, even as Kalentia’s tablet pings.

On it, an unfamiliar handle, and a heartfelt message:
>[moreofamorsel]
>If you can save Eclair – from the Civils, from Timtam, from herself…
>Please. I’ll pay anything. I’ll make sure you can get in.

---

Eclair Espoir!

You do not see, I think, the way that Mayzie plays with a curl of her hair. You do not see the way that she looks away, self-conscious, unsure of how many layers of herself you have penetrated, unsure how many layers she has to be penetrated in the first place. Oh, there is something of my camp in her, my darling: she is a creature of masks and dreams and beautiful illusions.

“You’ll need a new disguise,” she says, primly, chin in the air. “I can’t have the most wanted woman in Thellamie dragging me down to Civil prison with her.” And, yes, Hazel, she did have to specify the most wanted woman – but this isn’t even the part about you, so sit back down. And, yes, Civil prison does involve tea and biscuits and lectures about the need to work together as a society, but while you’re squirming upside-down, so do your best to avoid it. As fetching as you’d look with a serious expression, attempting to convey the seriousness with which teatime is meant to be treated.

By the time you look over at her – once you’re done, of course, of course, you need time to type, no ability to get distracted by another task until you’re finished – then you’ll see her hard at work, already sketching, trying to transform your black-and-whites into a truly durable disguise. This is a way for her to express what her words cannot. I hope that you appreciate it properly.

Take a String on her, if you would. Tangle her up in it, until the two of you cannot break free.

---

Hazel Valentine Fletcher!

She does not hold you down and stab you. She could, you know. It wouldn’t even be particularly difficult. A whistle and she’d have more guards in here. An order and Juniper would be dragged out, and if Olesya ever wanted to see her again, she’d have to pin your arms while the Khatun showed you the shape of her wicked heart. And she’d carve into your feelings, your dreams, your very heart, until it hurt to think, it hurt to breathe, it hurt to be wanted but not for yourself, it hurt to be carved and cut into a good boy.

It would be the magic of the Stars against the magic of one particular Fallen Star, true. But she would have an advantage here, where it is swelteringly hot, where she rules by strength, where the Stars cannot see you. She knows a rite that would send you tumbling down into… well, you would call it Hell. The prison of a fallen Star, where there is fire and darkness and fury forever.

But sometimes she wants to win fairly. She wants to win, oh, she needs to win. She will do anything, anything, to win, Hazel. But if she has to toss you down into Hell immediately to win, that would be unbecoming of a Khatun. It would be an acknowledgement that you are more than a pretty little trophy.

And what a trophy you will be, on the wedding day with her daughter. You will give her good grandsons and strong granddaughters. You will give them your silly flushed cheeks and your adorable voice, and if she were young and endlessly powerful again, she would be the one competing for you, to own you, to make you proof that she can have whatever she wants, that life is a series of hunts for what one’s heart desires, that the strong rule and the weak obey, that she decides who is predator and who is prey. But she is old now. And she will not let time take her achievements and undo them.

You will give her a dynasty.

Is that not attractive enough?

“Carpets. Well. I’m sure that Olesya can arrange something if you are attempting that reversal psychology, Cutie.” She says it with a Capital. Because she is a huntress, and having the right bait is important, and seeing the look on your face when she uses Yaz’s name for you as a knife…

That’s its own victory. And that’s enough for her.

For now.

---

Yuki!

Purnima does not give this more than a moment of consideration.

“But if anyone else tries to make my statue,” she says, with an airy wave of her hand, with a squeeze of her coils, already envisioning it in her thoughts, how golden it will be, how it will be the centerpiece of Crevas, how it will immortalize her forever, how even if the Outside were to rush in and drown the world in subjectivity her statue, her statue, would be the last one that stood when even the Nails were drowned and Sayanastia could celebrate a victory without joy over that hated thing, Existence, and she would lie in her own arms and, oh, she would miss your statue when it went, probably, but the true tragedy would be the loss of one Purnima Karn-Pana…

“They might not get it right!”

Breathless Dead

Redana Claudius, Princess of Tellus, Alpha of the Silver Divers, looks up into her mother’s monstrous face. Behind her she can feel the tension of Bella’s body, a bowstring pulled taut under impossible pressures. Before her she can feel the heat, not just of the fires but of her mother’s judging gaze. The world is a plate being spun on the very tip of a knife.

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” she says. It’s a small, pathetic sentence, but its impossibility in a place like this is impossible to ignore.

How dare she?

How dare she be so small?

“Every connection is building! Every love is love, you, you, you dummy!” She takes Bella’s hand. She squeezes. The clammy skin under her fingers…

Where is the hate in that?

“Love tore a hole in the universe, and I’m sorry, but— what, does that mean we’re not supposed to love? Not supposed to care? If this is all there is, then I’m still picking my silly little goal and my silly little friends and my silly little wife anyway!”

Her voice is silly and small and cannot reach the farthest corners, but fire blossoms in the heart of it.

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

Frost.

Creeping up the windowpanes. Tracing the contours of the twisted room. Fringing the very edge of the teapot's spout. Spreading in spurts, in delicate fractals.

"She did not, because she would not. Eclair Espoir?" In her eyes. In her fingers. In her teeth. "Eclair Espoir would not. Would never. Not unless all we hold dear was at stake, and then she would come back to us." She does not say: and I would hold her, and stroke her back as she sobbed, and reassure her that she had done the right thing, and that there were simple chores waiting for her precise touch. But that is what she means, in her heart. It is only frozen on the outside.

When she exhales her breath is visible. Like a dragon's own.

"If you are going to lie to start a war, pick better ones. It would not do for the Champion of Thellamie to bring ruin and to destroy a place that has done her no wrong over such a flimsy, threadbare one."

---

Eclair Espoir!

She takes your hand, Eclair. Not sweetly, not slipping her fingers between yours, but so firmly that it digs your fingers against your palm around that too-solid hilt. She is frightened; she is furious. She is all her feelings, and no way to let them spill out properly.

"You! Idiot!" She sobs, shaking your hand. Keep the sword away from her. You have enough strength for that. I believe in you. "Did you think I would just buy a tower in the middle of a ruined city? Swoop in, and, and twist someone's arm until they sold? The Syzerpaws Memorial Tower!! That, that would be throwing it all away, and I thought you'd want, and anyway, the fastest way to get all those tents, all those groceries, all those rocks from Kel was just..."

She tries to make a gesture with her shoulders which says: if my palms were open, I'd be gesturing with them to suggest letting money fall out of my hands. But she's not very good at it. Her face says: how dare you be angry with me when I've already been angry at myself. Her fingers' shaking says: how dare you hurt yourself over me. How dare you how dare you how dare you.

"...what does money mean if I live every day in a broken city knowing that I didn't help all of them when I had the chance? Do you think I'd ever be able to look one of you in the eye ever again?! Do you??" She doesn't ask to be answered. She asks to be heard.

She stands. She draws.

Her heartblade is the color just before dawn, shivering in the shape of a long knife. Not the weapon of a duelist at all.

"Now put that awful thing away and duel me. And when I win," she says, willing victory into her unpracticed hands, "you will never do that again, Eclair."

---

Yuki!

Perfectly answered. You know, that must be why you met my daughters so early on your journey: you've been one of mine all along, for all those Kelish spots on your coat. To have a heart like that, that is.

Purnima takes her coffee with a ridiculous amount of cream and sugar. Sweet and spicy. And, yes, that means yours also has a kick to it. Do you cough when drinking spicy coffee, Yuki? I bet you do. I bet it's just the cutest, most adorable thing in all the world. You take coffee together, there in the Den of Evil, with the guards blushing outside.

"And when I am Queen of Crevas everything will be perfect and wonderful forever," she says, preening at herself. She's always doing this sort of thing when not in public: running fingers through her hair to catch tangles, rubbing at her scales to make sure one's not loose, looking at herself in the nearest shiny object to make sure there's no blemish that she hasn't caught before showing herself off to others. "I will make statues of myself that also double as fountains which also double as vendor machines, like on Yukisearth, and everyone will look up at me when they get their vended food and they will think to themselves: she is the most beautiful woman who has ever lived and my life is so much better now that the Karn-Pana family is in charge instead of the sanctimonious puffed-up Arjus. I will now go enjoy being twice as wealthy and four times as happy. And maybe you'll get a little statuette somewhere! And you'll be looking up at my statue so that everyone knows how lucky you were to pleasure me!"

Her smile is beatific, as if a fire demon were to suddenly experience bliss.

---

Hazel!

There is dead silence. Olesya is staring off into the flames, her body taut. Keli and Seli are holding their breath between them, afraid to so much as twitch an ear. In one of the braziers, there is the snap of coal falling apart, and a curl of smoke rises. The temperature is oppressive. The shawl around your shoulders is itching at every place where it touches your skin.

The Khatun laughs, the once. Her smile is yellow with age and tea stains. Yellow like the heart of the fire.

"Oh, this is a brave boy! You picked well!" She toasts the unseen stars with her teacup, tail swishing to the left, then to the right. "A brave prince with a clever voice. If I were half my age I would be rolling you up in a carpet myself!" She lowers the cup, sets it back in the saucer.

"But I am not," she says. "No need to be afraid," she says. "We will all do our best to help you choose," she says.

The teapot whistles. She does not flinch. Her eyes are on you.

She hungers.

Breathless Dead

"It was."

Ember stands straight at attention, helmet tucked under her arm, her knight's finery hidden under the heavy ceremonial cloak. Outside, the low rumble of munitions; the tea quakes in its cups. Her hair falls lank over one side of her face, leaving one green eye looking up at the dead empress. At her mother. At her Shogun.

"You were right that I wasn't ready, looking back," she admits, and it's a knife to her own ribs. The words collapse to the floor as soon as they leave her mouth. Do they even reach her mother? "I wasn't good enough," and it's like tearing out her own spine. She opens her mouth to admit what they both know - that she's not even worthy of being the heir - and she flinches away from it. It hurts too much. It hurts too much.

"I am here because of my allies," she continues, though her voice is frail, trembling. "The Starsong Privateers, who saw me across the underworld and beyond. The Order of Hermes, who taught me how ships work and how to ask questions of the universe. The Alcedi, who were brave and true and got me to the Lethe. Alexa, who stayed behind, who..." Her hand, which once held command seals, shakes. She forges on. "The Silver Divers, who welcomed me into their pack when I didn't even know myself. Mynx and Beautiful and Beljani, my sisters-in-law in moonlight. And Bella Hostilius Mosaic, herself... my wife. My huntress. My everything."

Her cheeks are wet. A mile distant, a war howl reverberates through helmet amplifiers. A mile distant, there is an explosion of butterflies.

"I'm useless," she says, "except that everyone's still following my dream. That's all. And that's why I had to go even if I wasn't... even if you didn't..."

Her voice gives out.

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

At first, the repulsion of the attack leads to another, more determined attack, which leads to yet another even more determined attack. After that, the maids switched to marching in and demanding a duel, which didn't work either. And the clever part, the very clever part about Tsane's plan here, is that it's part of the house. They don't want to carve it off, and they can't abide it being in such a state either.

So eventually, reluctantly, someone decides on diplomacy instead.

She's Serigalamu, this maid is, and she's what you would find if you looked up "statuesque" on your tablet's dictionary function. Her hair is silver and straight and neat; her gloves have no crease or rumple; her eyes are half-closed in a way that reads as superior and emotionally cold. Her eyeliner is so on point that it might stab you.

With her she brought peach schnapps. In a teapot, of course. She's not a barbarian.

"We are at an impasse," she says, pouring peach schnapps into a teacup decorated with an ivy pattern that twists and shifts when it's not being looked at. "You have stopped us from seizing you, but I do not think your trick will allow you to get out of the Manor. And if you were to, perhaps, jump through the window... well. We have strict rules about disturbing the rosebushes."

The rosebushes are certainly much taller and more imposing on the outside of the windows than the last time they were observed.

"We are willing to release you if you carry Heron a message from the Order: namely, that she is not welcome here. We are not a dungeon or lost tomb or labyrinth that she must solve in order to bring back treasures for her hoard; we are a dream of sorority and organization, and if Civelia thinks that she can fabricate a righteous quest to bring us to heel, she and her puppy are sadly mistaken." Her expression does not change; she betrays nothing. "We have done nothing but help the communities of Thellamie for generations; we attend to quests that Heron would never see. If we withdraw to garrison for a siege, there will be unnecessary suffering and untidiness all across Thellamie. Are our terms acceptable?"

---

Yuki!

How far are you going, darling? You're setting the tempo for your... dance. And the key for the instrumentation. And who leads and who follows.

Back when you first came here, called by the need of all Thellamie for a hero, you were too young to understand Thellamie beyond flirting and moments that made you blush, but now you are ready to appreciate just how the people of Crevas play - at least spoiled girls like this one, used to getting what she wants, doing as she pleases, using her wiles as - well, not so much a subtle weapon as a morningstar swung with impressive if not particularly accurate force.

She is cooler than you are, and she seeks your warmth; she is easily flattered, and she drinks flattery in like Azaza did (though she does not demand it, not yet, and she has not threatened to destroy you for failing to praise her beauty in the most superlative terms). She demands attention and rewards it with a firm grip on the hair, the ears, a possessive squeeze of her coils.

And if you make out with her, or even more than that, Sulochana will take it as a grave betrayal, and she will find out - if for no other reason than that Purnima will immediately brag about it.

But she's here. She's hot. She likes biting. And maybe you like being bitten.

So how far are you going? Far enough to break Sulochana's trust? Far enough to feel wanted and clever and competitive, properly competitive, and like you're in control of the situation? Far enough to feel like someone has you at the very center of their thoughts, that they need what you can give them?

Far enough to find out where she's sensitive?

Far enough for her to find out where you're sensitive?

---

Eclair Espoir!

She is defiant until the tear.

She puffed herself up before that, hot-cheeked and pouty-lipped and screwing up all her courage to the sticking point to keep looking you in the eye despite how every flick of her ear betrayed how intensely she was aware of your hand there by her head, cutting her off, so easily able to take her by the head. She was ready for heartblades at dawn before that, a stubbornness which would have lasted into the duel despite how incredibly out of her element she would have been.

But the tear? That disarms her at once. She deflates under your wrath and, worse, your suffering. She crumples just as you crumple, like a discarded rag. And she looks like the most distressed that a damsel has ever been. No princess could ever be so beautifully, achingly distraught, because no princess could fail to be composed in quite the same way.

"What does a dressmaking salon mean if it's in a ruined city?" she asks, and her voice breaks. "Did you want me to buy real estate on the cheap, a whole tower to myself, the New Mayzie Sighs Tower?" She could have. It would have been cutthroat, but she could have. But Mayzie Sighs would have lain awake in that empty, newly-purchased tower and been unable to sleep, or unable to get out of bed and eat, not when no one else in the city could.

---

Hazel!

There are much many fires in the vast tent of the Khatun.

Caught in lanterns. Blazing in braziers. Flickering on the tips of candles. Roaring in the hearths.

It's the size of a mansion, with false-hallways made of leather and fur, and everywhere fire, everywhere heat, everywhere light flickering across trophies: the heads of fantastical creatures, or their wings, or their claws, or their pincers.

The sluzhankas who guide you around? Just between you and me, each and every one of them challenged the Khatun. Each and every one of them lost. Each and every one of them had their bows broken, their sluzhankas freed, and their pride shattered and allowed to heal back crooked. They smoulder, too. The fire in their eyes is stifled and smoky.

The parlor is more of a den. It is heaped with knick-knacks: golden pots, silver spears, chests overflowing with furs, sparkling garnets set as the feathers of falcons, rugs from Kel, tapestries from Crevas, silks from Aestival, even tea sets from Vespergift. And at the center of it all, wiry and shawl-draped, is the Khatun.

She is old, Hazel. Old enough to be your grandmother. Old enough that her hands are defined by taut wrinkles. Old enough that her hair is silver braided on silver braided on silver. But her eyes are still strong, and there is no shaking in her, and she is as dangerous (in her way) as Aria Thendragon.

Not as dangerous as me. Not yet. And I hope not ever.

"He looks tame already," she says, as the tea warms up between the two of you. She is wearing stolen rings on her fingers - hard-won, she would say. "A fine Khagan, once he learns his place."

Beside you, Olesya shifts nervously and says nothing. She can't look at you. She can't look at her mother. She can't even look at Juniper - but you see the glance that the Khatun gives Juni. It's not a glance that suggests good things for Juni one day, and only the Khatun knows when that day will be.

The twins are, well, choosing to tactically retreat behind you as much as possible. Which is very clever of them. If you care about them, then controlling them is controlling you. And the Khatun is very good at control.

And here you are, sitting in a comically oversized fur shawl and a v-neck that is more like a v-chest, and also a tiara. It's the prettiest tiara that Olesya had, which the treacherous Juniper produced for you, and it's as dainty as you are. You do feel dainty right now, don't you, Hazel? The smallest person in the room, wearing clothes too big for him and a pretty, pretty tiara.

"I understand that there are contests. I am sure you understand already who will win them, Fletcher."

Breathless Dead

Redana does not hesitate to take that hand. She slips her fingers against Bella's palm as if it were a natural reaction: like a falling rock, like the failure of electricity, like the erosion of the Lethe. There was nothing else that could happen, unless a god were to step in and catch her by the wrist. But none does. None materializes. None lets their breath fall on her neck. None tells her that she is making a mistake.

Her mind is the surface of a moon, blasted and clean and bereft of life. The wind howls there, and it howls one name. There is a statue there but her back is turned to it. Her back is turned to her. Her back has been turned to her this whole time. What is there to say? What is there in acknowledging her but pain?

The options were simple. Come back in glory, or don't come back at all. It is impossible to face her, unnamed but increasingly undeniable, in anything less than triumph. Not after fleeing. Not after being disobedient, and impious, and a disgrace, and unworthy.

(She's only had the dream about coming back to the palace that was her home and finding another and better Redana already there once. Only once. But it's curled around her throat now. She can't speak that fear. She can't name it. Maybe that Redana who is not a disappointment is a shadow on that moon, beyond the touch of the sun. Maybe she is patient and waits with immaculate poise for a crown that will never come because you cannot succeed from a god unless they vacate the throne, and she is the sculpture of a flower in the sculpture of a vase, cold and nothing like her father at all.)

Redana walks with Bella, and it is very difficult to say which of them is supporting the other. It is Bella who leads and Redana who is dragged forward by love and fear. It is impossible now to deny what is coming. Her mind is the surface of a moon.

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

The ambush is in the tea parlor.

Perhaps the way that Ruthmoreness drooped when she heard that you were from the Hero of Ages should have been a clue. As, perhaps, the way that the Nagi maid smoothly led you into the tea parlor to await an audience with the High Table themselves should also have been.

The rain is gentle on the windows, which look out on several different possible landscapes (pick-your-own-vista). The hazelnut tea is poisoned: not lethally, but soporifically. This is meant to ensure that the dozen maid-knights hitting the room from three different doors will have ease in subduing you. The grooves on the wall? Meant for skateboarding tricks.

This is not so much a killzone as a capture zone. At what point do you realize this, and how do you try to hold out?

---

Eclair Espoir!

The answer is mumbled, but in the droop of the ears, the flush of the cheeks, the way she won't look you in the eye: in all these things, the answer is obvious. She didn't keep the money, and she doesn't want you to know that she didn't keep the money. Figuring out where it went? That will require digging. But as far as raising her own personal circumstances, your generous gift might have well have been tossed into a very big and very deep hole. (There are plenty of gorges in Kel here that would suffice.)

"Perhaps I didn't want to rely on charity," she lies, with a petulant toss of her head. "I worked my way through life, Eclair, and didn't need dragon mommies to treat me with sugar!"

It is a slight against the honor of your mistresses to let that one lie where it lands. Not even pretending that the words were caught in the bracing wind and tossed up into the sky will suffice in this moment, not when she is being like this.

---

Yuki!

She goes for your throat.

Her teeth are possessive; it will be a phenomenal bruise later. Maybe you'll have to greet Hazel at the ball (where, naturally, surely you will be going, if only to make sure that no one takes advantage of the poor innocent boy) wearing a very fancy turtleneck. Her muscles are strong, strong, strong, all around you, but she does not crush you. She is on the very edge of her self-control, but she still has it. Still has you.

When she leans back, ignoring her red-faced bodyguards trying to look anywhere that's not at the two of you, she's got the most self-assuredly smug look on her face. She thinks she's got you wrapped around her little finger, and you've just figured out the way to get her to provide you with what you need.

What do you need, incidentally? She's got resources, and can easily be tricked into deploying them, as long as she thinks she's seducing you rather than the other way around. (The fact that you are Sulochana's friend adds a dash of salaciousness to this that she is eating up, and also if Sulochana ever finds out about this she will hit the roof, as they say.)

"Good girl," she purrs at a tone that would almost assuredly destroy a deerboy. "See? Cooperation has its perks. Jomes!" ("Gemes, ma'am...") "Go and fetch us some coff-eh. And make sure one has some... chili to it." ("Yes, ma'am," he sighs, aware that he is going to break into a boarded-up restaurant to make coffee by hand.)

"Now," she says, still thinking that she's in perfect control of the situation, absolutely unaware that you can play her like a harp, "let's talk about outfits. Where will he be staring when I arrive to claim him? Up here, or down here?"

---

Hazel!

Olesya is distracted. It's obvious the whole time that Juniper is helping out Keli and Seli with their outfit change behind a screen in what is, I assure you, a very salacious affair. Chests are being pressed up against each other. Ear scritchies are being deployed mercilessly. Seduction and counter-seduction are being deployed furiously. There is a chorus of squeaks and gasps and muffled exclamations.

But Olesya isn't paying attention. She's staring into the coals, and your initial attempt to speak with her fizzles out into awkward silence. When she stands up, it is slow and careful and wow she's a lot taller than you huh? Could easily pick you up. Tuck you under one arm. Toss you over a shoulder. All sorts of ways she could carry you.

"My mother expects us," she says. That's all. She doesn't pick you up and walk you out the door immediately - you've got to wait for your sluzhankas, after all - but there's no hiding here. No trying to stay low and away from the Khatun.

You will be presented.