Tatterdemalion

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

[Storytime: 1/9
Adventure GET: 2/21]

Hold up! Maybe I missed it because it was on the last page, but you asked me who in my family is the best cat-speaker, and I just let that slide on by, a narrative hook unbitten! If I don’t fix that right here and now, nobody’s going to know anything about my family, and at that point I might as well just say that I’m an orphan who was raised by cats, and now when witches plague the streets of Fortitude, I pull on my cat mask and take to the streets as Catmaiden, a grizzled vigilante shrine maiden who adopts orphaned rats and broods on the roofs about how both my parents were stolen by birds. But don’t worry, only Mom was stolen by a bird.

I think my dad used to be the best, but these days he’s a little... you know? He travels a lot on business and doesn’t leave the house a lot in this time-space continuum. Sometimes I run into him in the kitchen. I don’t usually see the cats around.

My older siblings are both Claimed by rat gods. Kuroma is King Death, who passes by night, whose sword is naked, who reaps where he does not sow; he is the statue crumbling in the wilderness that says “—EED MY WO—“ on it and the cart full of tiny rat bodies and the lights all turned out. He eats like he’s still a teenager and sleeps in until noon and sulks around, usually, and he’s not so much good at talking to cats as he is an oversized lazy tom, you know? Wait, not lazy. Well, kinda? But in that “I have lots of energy but no pressing need to use it” way of a cat melting into the sofa cushions.

Caroline is the Dread Witch of the Far Roofs, and she’s the best cat-speaker, because she can actually have conversations with the cats. Technically all the cats of Fortitude have sworn fealty to her to act as her minions, but that works maybe twelve percent of the time? Cats aren’t good at things like remembering orders or guarding prisoners or even paying attention. But she’s their Baba Yaga, their cackling broomstick hag, except don’t tell her I used the h-word okay? She gets really mad because she’s not even thirty yet. It’s her job to be the dangerous witch they visit because they need a prophecy, or to steal a treasure, or to prove that they’re brave, and she hardly ever actually kills one, and even then...

Look, it’s always an accident, okay? The Witchness comes unhinged inside her, and she locks herself in her room with ice cream and Shelley the tortoiseshell for days after. She’s not evil. She’s a grounding rod for a god.

Hang on, you might say, squinting suspiciously at me, Rinley, if both your big siblings are hosts for dread and powerful rat gods, why aren’t you, like, Eater-of-candles or the Rice Fox? And you ask that because you’re not using your brain, silly! I’m Rinley. I’m already walking a road, and at the end of it, I’m immortal and forever until crows forget how to say words, after somebody like Dulcy actually builds a nuclear weapon and kills everybody.

And today, if this is a Rinley story, Rinley decided to walk outside with an umbrella made of a giant lily pad because she was sitting inside, leading around the Admiral and Phoebe with the feather-on-a-string, when suddenly the urge to walk picked her up and put the feather on the cat tower and shoved her feet into her sandals and pushed her outside where she took a breath of the air which was cool and much more real than the cloyingly sweet air of her home, and that’s not to say she doesn’t like it, and contrariwise it’s always a bit of a shock, like there should be a depressurization chamber in the middle that she’s skipped, some room where she can turn a dial and raise the ambient levels of reality and objectivity until she’s ready to be in Fortitude, but it’s better this way because she keeps some of that sweet incense soaked into her shirt and coiled around her belt and kissed into her hair and it lets her bring just a little bit of her home into sleepy old Fortitude, to push things just over that line into the way they should be.

That’s my explanation for where I am right now. I was walking, and now I’m not. There is a lily pad that’s crumpling and rusting under the rain tucked into my shoulder, and the circle of runoff is getting smaller and smaller all around me, and very soon now I am going to get an object lesson in why more people don’t use lily pads as umbrellas. I really should get up and duck underneath the overhang of that tiny roadside shrine, the one with the tiny stone statues in iconic form, with the red aprons tied around their waists, as I figure out some way to not get soaked, such as digging a tunnel (no good, I’d dig into Big Lake) or knitting all the aprons into a new umbrella (but then I’d have to make new ones or suffer their curse, slowly turning into another stone statue, shrinking and becoming firmer every day until I’m found, a tiny weather-worm statue, lying in the middle of the road) or even waiting it out (but then I’d have to figure out something to do while waiting out the storm). But I don’t. I can’t get up.

My skin is prickling and pleasantly chill. I’m squatting by the side of a man-made lake, watching as the water droplets hammer down between the growing stalks of rice, and my mind’s a lake being drummed into stillness by rain, and my butt’s sitting on my haunches with my tail wrapped around me and my breath’s all slow, my chest rising, falling, rising, and I feel half a statue right now already, and the sky’s grey and the water’s grey and I’m going grey to match them in my heart, a cool slate grey like the eyes of a studly sword hero with a quiet voice, and the sound of the rain falling is a curtain of beads swaying in a summer breeze, and there are frogs croaking their lovesongs out of sight and birds croaking and I’m silent and still and the run-off from the lily pad is nearly at my knees now.

Maybe I’ll go look for someone later but I think that happens after I get wet, which happens a moment from now, five million years from now, an age of the world from now. And maybe you’ll wag your finger at me and say, Rinley, you’re supposed to be connecting with these important people, take a point of the Isolation issue, and honestly, fair, but just because this story is about me and my friends doesn’t mean moments like this don’t still happen, and this is the moment I have right here and now, and I need this moment alone with just the sound of the world around me and the chill prick prick prickling at my skin and the emotion which doesn’t have a name, which denies naming, the emotion of places and experiences which are uncontainable in a little box of understanding, the three-in-the-morning feeling, the feeling of being a Yatskaya, and right now I’m as much Yatskaya as I am Rinley, and I am quiet and I let the world fill my empty places and it’s important, it’s necessary that this be alone, at least until the lily pad collapses, because being empty in the world is different when you’re holding hands with someone; it stops you from becoming a statue, an empty pitcher, a little idol wrapped in a red apron sitting soaked by the side of a rice field.

But I also think probably somebody sees the lily pad dump water on my head.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kazelia!

There is a moment where it feels that everything is over. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Your father, defeated for all time, never to hurt your world again. But it’s not enough to stop him from continuing harm; you have to mend what has been broken, too. And it is at this moment that Argossa begins to crack.

At your feet, polluted magic begins to leak through the cracking bark, ice-cold and fierce. Great wounds begin to open in its sides, threatening to pour this poison into the sea, to drown the world in his last act of foolish spite and arrogance.

What artifact has he placed deep in Argossa to pollute her heart?

***

Adila!

The smaller branches overhead begin to splinter and fall in great splinters of stone and crystal, still large enough to seriously hurt anyone caught underneath them; lanterns, smashed to the ground, start catching the wedding decorations alight.

You lead your friends back down into Argossa, where great gouts of wicked magic burst from walls and hang like a miasma in the air— but at least you’re less likely to be crushed to death. Ourania, freed by Alina and Rita, hangs on the shoulders of Dandy, who has her in a fireman’s carry.

As you delve through the palace, which is shaking itself apart, Azora Howl takes the magic swirling all around you and redirects it; she’s making everything around you more turbulent and dangerous in the name of clearing a small path for everyone. Kazelia, too, helps— but Azora is clearly very comfortable commanding and redirecting this kind of magic.

You remember anxiously patrolling through this palace, unable to trust Ourania. Where do you find the artifact?

***

Alina!

“We’ll have our wedding in your castle,” Rita says, half walking with you, half holding you. “But the reception at my family’s castle. And, and everyone is going to be invited! It’ll be a celebration, not just of us, but of Hyperborea!”

“Let’s focus on surviving, first.” You jump, startled and guilty, as Diana emerges from the storm of magic swirling all around. She’s had your lights for all of, what, an hour? At least some of that unconscious? And she’s already figured out how to make a hazmag coat and closed helmet out of them.

“The ramifications of losing Argossa alone,” she says, her voice clipped and angry. “Not to mention the attacks in Feloria, Jedad, Ilumina...”

She might be being bitter, but also... she has a point. Happily ever after may have to wait until you’ve worked even more, even harder, to fix things.

What price needs to be paid to stop the artifact from hurting Argossa any more?

Fellowship: The Heart

Coleman!

The Flood reaches out and caresses your jaw with one rotten hand, and where scales and wood meet, the wood flakes away. For a moment, you are driftwood floating on the tide; you are a stone being smoothed by the current, washing away the words etched into you in memorial; you are love poetry surrendered to the water. Then the tide recedes, and you realize that, for one reason or another, you're still alive. And you only seem to be missing a little bit of yourself. A memory or two, but you'll be run over before you can tell where the holes are.

"This is the only time I offer," she says. "When you come to me again, I will take you both together, if you ask." And the way that she says it... she invites you to imagine yourself colonized, brutalized, or otherwise consumed by the powers of the Heart, dragging yourself and a dying Sasha along, and finding yourself at the shores of a still river. Her arms are wide and her heart is cruelly caring and she is so certain that you will eventually find forgetting yourself in the deep more palatable than your fate.

She recedes, wading to her knees in the water, and then--

It's like a magic eye puzzle (not that you'd recognize that; you'd have to ask Jackdaw). What was the Flood's merest fingernail is now just trash floating on the water; here, a spur of wood, there, teeth and gold.

The crossing has just become extremely ominous. But, again... the other path is through the Houses of Parliament. And she seemed like her vengeance would be like the flick of a hippo's tail, rather than the death roll of a crocodile with its prey in its jaws.

***

Lucien!

She wants you, too.

Not like she wants the train egg (a terribly cursed turn of phrase, still). But when she cast her gaze over you, she held your eyes for a moment with those cloudy pearls. But for all that you may have done regretful things, there's still more to be seen. Isn't that right? There's drinks to be emptied and sights to ogle and somebody needs to keep the mouse from dooming herself.

***

Ailee!

This power is a cowardly punk who got so huffy over not making out(?) with Coleman that she immediately collapsed into trash parts and if you don't cross her while making rude gestures you're going to explode. Screw "maybe not going over the power Coleman just offended/turned down and looking for a safer route," if she tries anything on the crossing you could probably blow her apart just by looking at her angrily.

***

Jackdaw!

What preparations need to be double-and-triple-checked on Coleman's lovely raft? Because it's amazing, yes, especially with the limited supplies he had to hand, but there's always something worth worrying about, and where oh where are you going to perch? And maybe you should leave sooner rather than later, what with the way the locals are giving you all the stink eye after you managed to make their god appear and then immediately swan off back into the water.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

“Oh, Dulcy!” I close my eyes and shake my head, astonished at how gullible my bestie can be. “Don’t tell me you actually believe in ‘nuclear weapons’!” Yes, I do the finger quotes. “Because, first of all, if they’re real, why has nobody ever made one? Second of all, even if somebody did make one, probably in the Bleak Academy, nobody in their right mind would ever use it! You have got to get your head out of those conspiracy theories, girl!”

But she’s got a point about my remote theory. Why didn’t I consider the tiara? It’s perfect! Witches love tiaras. Wait, no, that’s magical girls. I was a magical girl once! My name was Rinley Lovebell, and I had the magical power of heart! Together, me and my friends defeated the shoggoth of Neo Tokyo 7 through superior firepower! Then they started licking themselves and lying in sunbeams. It turned out all my friends were cats! And the shoggoth was a cucumber. Since then, I’ve never eaten cucumbers. What if it wants revenge?

Huh wait we’re doing graphs? Yeah! I know all about graphs! Autographs, graphite pencils, and mimeographs! “Okay,” I say, with a thumbs up, “But you’re providing the pencils! The cats keep stealing mine.”

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Ourania!

“Your radiance, I am appalled at the state of these bindings.” Underneath you, Argossa trembles. You remember when you came to this place, this beautiful jewel; the memories are a thin and welcome skim over a deep ocean of pain. Far away, you tremble, shake, slip for the first time in centuries. Water trickles away into the black from cracks in your wall, islands tilt and flood, and magic bleeds around you. If Hyperborea survives, it will be lesser in some small way because you failed, here at the very end. And it is the beauty of the world you protect that it will forgive you.

How your head towered over the mountains full of dragons and crystals! How the devils offered you gifts! Jewels and silks and bouquets and other silly things. All they needed to offer were the epic mushroom quatrains of the lachrymose poets of Deep Hollow, and the smiles on the faces of gardeners in lush Feloria; you were caught, as if bound, by the light shining through fountains in Ilumina, and the serpentine dances of the nomads of Jedad, and the lazy sunbathing of the cats of Askaia. You hold this world in your coils for love, the greatest invention of devilkind.

Around you, the Garthim go still, and the fox princess shifts you in her arms. You are limp, your head nestled in her shoulder, your train trailing behind her as your heels bob inches from the ground. Your nerves are alight with pain, but you don’t let yourself worry about that. You are being held by one of the foxes of Konkon, your old rivals, your fondest foes, and you know that she will do her best to treat your agony, and that your little princesses will save the day. They are so brave. You are so proud of them.

You feel Oberon coming before Kyouko does. You try to warn her, but your cry is garbled and weak. He grabs her by the scruff; her grip around you tightens by instinct, stopping her from using her clever tricks to escape. You wish you could tell her to leave you behind, please, just get to safety.

Oberon tears you out of her arms; you hit the ground, and the pain bursts through your thoughts. You scream, and only through tears see him fling the fox skywards, hurtling to her doom miles and miles away.

You’re so sorry, Kyouko.

Oberon drags you to the edge, fist knotted in your dress, and hauls you upright. You can see the princesses behind him, converging tightly, but hesitant to strike while he has you in such a dangerous position. (And if they knew that your death throes would crush and drown this world in blind agony...)

“You know,” he says, between rough kisses to your neck, your jaw, leaving bruises where he bites, “this will be the soonest I’ve ever lost a wife. I’m sorry, my love.” And while he doesn’t fool you...

You can tell that he’s managed to fool himself.

[HEART OF IRON: Jessamine’s attack automatically fails, and Alina must relive her pain and choose to pay a price, stand down, or attack him now.]

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kazelia!

Cassian deflates. He shudders with a guilty sob, and then wordlessly reaches up and lifts the thong of the Amulet off his neck, struggling, as if it is a heavy iron collar. Then, all at once, it's up and over his head, and he hands it over to you, closing your hands around it.

"I don't deserve to be here," he says. "Tell the Iluminan I'm... you know... I really am," he says, lamely. Then, he takes advantage of the sudden chaos as the Garthim go wild to duck away, trying to run away from the excruciating experience of having to look Alina in the eye after what he's said, what he's done. And maybe she'll forgive him, and maybe she won't; but what's important is that you have the means to control Oberon's last and final army.

***

Alina!

The moment should last forever. That's what you deserve. But Oberon ruins everything.

You pull Rita in close, and her surprised chirp fills your world, and so does the smell of Askaian perfume on her skin, as you roll out of the way of Oberon's boot. Where you were, there is a crater of splintered bark and crystal. He's not even following you! He just saw a chance to distract Jess by trying to kill you.

And it works! Jess makes a wrong move, trying to interpose herself between him and you, and he lunges out and grabs her by the throat--

***

Hornet!

You have only a few materials available to hand, but your best friend trusts you to fix things. And what's the first step in fixing things? That's right, analysis of the problem. So you construct (using a Garthim claw, your hairband, a napkin from the buffet table, Oberon's scarf that Alina dropped, and a floral bouquet) a Representational Weakness-Diagramming Automatic Writer Device, aligned towards Oberon.

It draws the head of a dragon, which makes a lot of sense. Of course Adila is his weakness! She's the strongest princess ever, you assume, although that reminds you that you should finish constructing your Strength Analytical Gauntlet, sized for both a dragon and a devil... wait, it's drawing another head on top of that one. One with what appears to be the representation of a crown. It's very spiky! And not connected to her head, weirdly. And then a third head, and this time it draws eyes, driving the claw deep into the napkin and scribbling the eyes as almost perfect black ovals, the white spots inside carefully avoided. A pattern?

"Adila!" You run over to her, and she politely sets only the Garthim around you on fire instead of breathing fire all over you. You hold up the Device. "Please assist me in interpreting this data!"

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

Sara Jimenez squeezes her wife's fingers, and slowly breathes out through her nose. It's a miracle that Euna gets to feel that squeeze, the sweatiness of Sara's hands, the warmth of their touch. It's an even better miracle that the two of them get to stand up here; that they get to have this.

"I had my career planned out," Sara says, her eyes wet but her voice even and steady. "I was going to string my whole team along for fandom clout and shipping wars, so that I would be big and controversial and popular. Because that was the only way for me to be safe. If I didn't have everyone's eyes on me, I'd fall between the cracks." Her grip tightens. It would be gauche to talk about hunger. At her own wedding? She can't talk about wanting to eat the whole world if it made her whole. "And then I met this nerd with a stick up her ass. She was a tiny munchkin with a rules fetish and an encyclopedic knowledge of the Duelist movies, and when I saw her, I was like, okay, here's the corporate snitch, better play ball so she doesn't whine to her handlers."

She rubs a circle around the side of Euna's palm with her thumb, and looks the bride the eyes. "And then she took the stick out of her ass and used it to kick ass. She saved my life more times than I can count, taught me that love is stronger than any curse, and tossed my entire shipping chart right out the window. And then I strung her along, tried to make us just friends with benefits, and, yeah, I deserved to be kicked to the curb. But she didn't. She gave me another chance to get my head straight, or, well, you know. Not straight at all. But she didn't abandon me. She didn't leave me in the dark. And now I've fooled her into taking care of me for the rest of my life? Like, hun, you know you're getting the raw end of this deal. I'm getting to spend the rest of my life with the most wonderful woman in the whole world, and you're just getting this amazing vag on tap. But if you're sure..."

"I promise that I'll stay," Sara says, even as a chunk of pew hurtles towards them, only stopped at the last second by an expanding mandala in silver and roses and lines that look like skillwires. The celebrant gestures for them to hurry up, please. "Always. Forever. I won't let go." She's crying, now, and her voice is thick, but she keeps forging on without taking a break. "No matter what. Rain, shine, sickness, health, all of that. I'm yours, Euna. And I'll always take that hand."

She sniffles, and finally closes her eyes and lets the happy sobbing out.

And she lets Euna guide her trembling hands up to lift the veil, and then pulls her Eunacorn in for the best kiss in the whole world, because the whole world is a knight and her princess, and their cheeks are wet with joy, and the tightness in her chest is fireworks forever and ever, world without end. All around them, hardlight blossoms in unconscious patterns, wings and shining eyes and shining mail arms choked with roses, and her hand is cradling the small of Euna's back, and their tears intermingle, and whatever the celebrant's saying to make it official is so much noise.

They've already done the important part. Everything else is just paperwork for other people to keep up with them.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

Have you ever looked at something and immediately realized you were going to love it? It hits you right in the chest with feelings you weren’t expecting and definitely didn’t ask for! Like, the first time you saw the abandoned shrine on Pomegranate Way, up on the hill, with the knotted ivy and the moss lingering on the stony statues of sages and dogs and the biggest tree you’ve ever seen, and you’ve seen some big trees before, and you just know that you’re going to be able to call up what you’re seeing like it’s a picture for the rest of your life? Or when you’re a kid, darting from street light to street light on your way home, singing “Blow Ye Winds” to yourself because everybody knows that ghosts can’t get you while you’re singing, and you’re really looking forward to being home, and you look up the slope and see the moon, nestled in the branches like a nest, and honestly that’s probably where we get the word from, and you’re just like, oh, and you stop singing and put your hands in your pockets and stare in awe as the wind shakes the trees and the moon slowly drifts along, and then you go home and think so hard about the moon that you end up engaging on Fortitude’s first LUNAR EXPEDITION from your bedroom, only eventually you realize you never left at all, but the cardboard box was an amazing moon rover. Like that. That’s what seeing supporting characters is like.

It’s also like the glow around menu options when you select them, pulsing and saying pay attention to me but the pulse is their heart talking to yours, but because they’re not me, they don’t know how to tune their heart like a radio to send transmissions clearly so all they can do is send out: is anyone listening? pay attention! is anyone listening? pay attention!

So of course I notice her. And I notice Dulcinea, and suddenly I am caught in the terrible jaws of a FRIENDSHIP QUANDARY, because I want to immediately sit down and figure out who this straw-haired girl is and why I haven’t seen her around before and what her name is and if she wants to hang out so I can figure out why she’s going to be an important character! But also, friendships are important to maintain, and I am basically Dulcinea’s best friend forever. And only friend? She’s kind of a shut-in, and she keeps telling me we’re not friends, and without her heart (most of the time) I can’t tune in properly to tell her that we’re totally friends. I’m friends with basically everybody, except for jerks and creeps. And Dulcinea isn’t either of those things! Usually!!

And ignoring a friend so that you can shovel more sweet nuggets of friendship into your mouth is the kind of thing that proves you don’t deserve to have that friendship in the first place! So there’s nothing for it: I’m going to have to duplicate myself.

It’ll be tricky. I don’t even know where I could get a copier machine at this hour! And the one in the Archives is way too small, I’d be left with a Rinley head (again) or a Rinley butt, and that’s only useful if I’m trying to trick someone into a cunning trap! Like, the bad guy’s looking for me, and they see my tail nooooot quite tucked in behind a tree, so they creep up with their chainsaw gun and when they peek around the tree, surprise! It’s my butt! And I’m up in the tree dropping a fishing net on them, and when I pull off their mask, it turns out to be..... Principal Entropy??? And he would have gotten away with it, too, if not for my butt! Then, when the sheriff takes him away, I’m allowed to keep the chainsaw gun because I was a responsible citizen, which I then use in only the most responsible manner at a chainsaw gun range. But this is not a situation in which having a spare butt would be useful! So it has to be a Rinley-sized copier machine, and I need to have good paper, too, because if there’s a paper jam then the Rinley that crawls out will be in endless torment and want to fix herself with my skin, and I need my skin for a lot of things, like sunbathing, and swatting mosquitos, and getting scritches, and holding all my gross guts inside me where they can’t try to escape (except for that cheating appendix, who I’m keeping an eye on). So that wouldn’t be any good.

And I can’t stomp so hard I tear in half, either, because then I’d have to hop over to both of them and be like, hey, ignore that I only have one eye and one arm and one leg, I promise I’m not one of the dread Fomorians, and then Dulcinea would lecture me about how symbolism works whether you want it to or not, and the straw-haired girl would probably be too distracted by my resemblance to the Fomorians to become my friend, and would just want to hang out as long as I could curse her enemies, though I can’t imagine she has a lot of enemies and oh hello Dulcy I guess we are going into this Sideways now!

(Here in Fortitude, we call little alleys like this Sideways, cause that’s short for Outside Ways. I think that’s neat!)

“The sun’s broken?” I gasp! This Glass Dragon business goes all the way to the top! Literally!! “Of course, that’s the connection,” I say, smacking my fist into my palm. “Dulcy, have you ever heard the story of the Glass Dragon? Because, storytime!”

Open At Your Own Peril.

You Know What This Is.

Last Chance, Phoe. I Mean It.

Once there was a grad student! But this grad student was getting her Doctorate in Witchness at the Bleak Academy! So she came up to the Headmaster with a thesis proposal that she work with local artisans and unethically sourced labor to create a glass dragon capable of destroying the world, or at least a facsimile world in a controlled environment, and the Headmaster of the Bleak Academy signed the approval slip along with the Faculty Board of the Bleak Academy, and so the grad student came to Town in order to make her thesis project in Witchness!

She optimized it for hating the world by reading the news to its temporarily separate glass ear every day, and for shooting laser beams out of its eyes with a specially designed optical array, and then she added a glass furnace where its stomach should be so that it could barf molten glass over anybody who tried to stop it! And she made sure that the labor was unethically sourced by entering into a relationship with her craft provider and not filling out a conflict of interest funding report, just like she’d told the Headmaster she was going to do!! So when she finished the project, they shared an evil kiss and then the grad student pushed the big red glass button on her glass remote to activate the glass dragon, and then it exploded!

So obviously the glass dragon is back and it is breaking the sun by staring at it, when everybody knows that only eagles are allowed to stare at the sun without proper protective goggles! If somebody doesn’t find the remote and push the button again, the sun’s probably going to stop being a sun, Dulcy! Which is why we are going to go on a quest to find that remote!

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kazelia!

"Do you, Ourania, take High King Oberon of Hyperborea to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"She does."

("I've already got what I want," he says, tugging on Alina's leash. "He'll let me keep her after he changes her. I'm the only one left." His voice cracks. "He has to.")

"Do you, High King Oberon of Hyperborea, take Ourania to be your lawfully wedded bride?"

"I do."

(When he looks at your father, it's with envy and need and vulnerability. He wants that power. He wants a girl, so he can show off that power. If you don't object at the right moment, if something goes wrong, he'll treat Alina exactly the way he watches your father treat Ourania. Because he thinks that will make him safe, that will make him loved, that will finally make him feel respected.)

"The ringbearer will now present the rings." Cassian nudges you with his shoe, holding the impressive-looking book that's just for show, as he prepares to swear them in. Man and wife. And night over Hyperborea forever. He's not looking at you; he only has eyes for your father. One day, you can almost hear him thinking; one day, I'll be like him, and nobody will ever make fun of me again for sleeping with my plushies.

But then--

***

Alina!

"I OBJECT!"

Jessamine didn't get the timing right, but she's got the volume. Shiva swoops up into the sky above you all, and for a moment her wings are the only light. Oberon snarls, and shoves Kazelia aside as he uncoils Pearlion and throws--

And you will not let your sister be hurt, or Dandy behind her, or even Azora Howl rising elegantly off Shiva's rump, and most especially of all Rita von Catabas, clinging with grim determination to Jessamine's cavalry breastplate. Gold wraps around the ribbon-spear inches from Jess, and it slackens and floats uselessly down as Gold hangs in the air and glows brilliantly, suffusing the entire wedding party. Oberon draws some horrible whip-sword from his belt, and then drops it with a sharp hiss as the golden light plays around it.

Then everything happens all at the same time.

Azora Howl lifts up a dozen Garthim with her dark shadows, leaving them wriggling and roiling in her grasp, even as the rest begin boiling on top of each other in an attempt to reach Shiva and her tasty princess-sized magic treats. Dandy jumps, and even as she does, half of the flowers that Cassian used in the decorating -- the ones that aren't ice -- burst their pots, growing wild and dangerous and thorny around the host. They can't pierce those glossy black shells, but they can constrain and keep her free to rush over to Adila and Hornet.

Jessamine, meanwhile, swoops low on Shiva and then feints, makes him brace to stop the pegasus in her tracks, and he would have, he's strong enough with that gem glittering beneath his suit, but Shiva soars over his head and Jessamine drops down and plants her foot in his face, and Rita follows, diving for you with a heartfelt yowl, and you're going to be saved.

One more miracle. One more.

***

Adila!

This changes the calculus of tactics a lot, but what it can't change is the sincerity of what you just said. Hornet looks up at you through those goggles, those shields between her and the world, and she smiles a little bit. A fraction of a twitch at the corner of her mouth. But it's enough to tell you that she is listening, and trying her best to write this down in her heart as an important new data point.

Then Princess Dandelion swamps one of the Garthim holding onto you with a wave of moss and white lilies, you're able to wriggle out of its claws, and then you return to your proper self. The one that's sized properly for fighting these nasty parasites.

Your quick battlefield analysis: Azora's bowling Garthim through the biggest clumps, Dandelion has everything near the bouquets on lockdown, Jessamine's boxing Oberon, Rita's helping Alina out of her bondage, Kazelia's got her spear at the ready... if you can turn the tables and get a decisive victory here and now, you've got a fighting chance.

The longer that you draw this out, however, the worse things are going to get. The Garthim are unstoppable, even if they're easily confused and tend to get knocked about easily, and they're already starting to clip their way through Dandy's vines and flowers. Oberon's off balance, but if he connects with Jessamine even once, she's going to be out for the count.

For Hyperborea!

Fellowship: The Heart

Lucien!

Jackdaw asked a question, bell started ringing, catfish-cat said that her story was consigned. Hypothesis: this is an excellent place for burned spies, people with unbearable regrets, and the like. An alternative to alcoholism and black nights staring out the window: give your sins to the briny deeps. As a result, you have no idea what these catfish-Beasts might be capable of, and honestly? Probably neither do they.

You, of course, have never regretted anything in your life, except possibly belated realizations of even snappier comebacks hours after the fact.

The bell’s just a bell! It’s not particularly likely to hurt you or help you. That being said, it does signify that Jackdaw has brought down the attention of one of the powers of the Heart, who is vastly more likely to hurt you or help you. As previously mentioned, the Flood could drown you, wash away your cares (and memories), drown you, dredge up strange and terrible things from her depths to torment you, or drown you.

Leaving immediately isn’t the best idea, but honestly? You are not presently likely to get any proper supplies here. It’d be better to calm the wet trash goddess down and then try to cross her ASAP, or just descend into the Houses of Parliament and hope you all get out alive. That said, there is almost certainly risk of being eaten crossing the Flood, given the ominous ripples starting to appear on that placid surface.

Thanks, Jackdaw.

***

Coleman!

“It’s best when they are given,” the Flood says. It’s impossible to tell if she is smiling, given the eternal rictus. “So sweet. So full of longing. And I am the first you have met. I do not taste the huntsman on you, or the lizard, or the Grail.” You can hear the absence and presence of capitalization. There’s another question: why does the Flood respect the clowns?

“Turtles lay their eggs in the sand.” Uh? Um? “When they hatch... so many die, as they travel to the sea. The birds snatch them up, the snakes poison them, and the careless tread upon them. The mothers shed their tears; so I am born. Maybe you will make it to Terminus,” she hisses, and reaches out to stroke Sasha, who flinches away with a chorus of metal whining. “But maybe you will not. I offer you certainty. Life. And she will not suffer. I am an end to suffering. I can even take away your guilt and shame. You need not suffer, either.”

You have to give her something, Coleman. If you don’t give her Sasha, she will make an attempt at killing you as you cross; if you don’t make any sacrifice, she will make a serious attempt. The difference between idly swatting at a fly and bringing the Flyfucker down on it with both hands. The fly’s much more likely to survive the first, even if it doesn’t enjoy it.

And it’s best if it means something. She cares about what it means, after all. That’s why she takes.

Oh hey would you look at that, the rest of your delving team just showed up with the whole town in tow, how nice.

***

Ailee, Jackdaw!

Coleman’s talking to a Wet Trash Homunculus. Behold, a god(‘s avatar). You can smell it from here.

Jackdaw, how blissfully ignorant of the Flood’s capability of taking your anxiety from you are you?