Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

“So what is up with you and Molech?”

Redana has fallen headfirst into the aesthetic known on Tellus (among the commoners, not the palace) as Post-Crossroads Poisongoth. It took some doing! She doesn’t exactly have the services of a stylist on board! But the dark lipstick and pattern of crosshatched diamonds running down one cheek are vivid against her skin, and her now-dark hair is fashionably ragged, her bangs the color of beetlewings and ancient copper. It only took a little coaxing for her spacer’s gear to become a dress that falls about her thighs, with her boots becoming longer and very impractically buckled. Between her shoulderblades, the stylized cross of Hecate marks her as cursed and beset by woes[1].

She is clinging desperately to the aesthetic of the clothing as both balm and indulgence. If she is like this, she is allowed to brood and sulk in a way that would be ridiculous if sunshiney, chipper Redana tried. Her eyes are half-lidded and project disinterest as she folds her arms and leans, unarmed, against a bulkhead wall, watching as Alexa fends off a battalion of crabs. Her sword was broken by Dionysus, and none of the regular weapons in the army feel right, and besides, aren’t people always making a fuss about her putting herself in danger? You can’t complain about her fighting and then complain about her not fighting, numbnuts.

“It’s like, did you even read the Codes of War?” Redana lifts one boot and lets a crab scuttle past to latch onto Alexa’s ankle. “All human life is of infinite value,” she quotes, sing-song. “The true general makes all who oppose her vassals, in the end. But I guess, like, that goes out the window when you see a scary guy, so it’s, you know. Whatever, I guess. What do I know?”

She shrugs to indicate that she doesn’t really care about crabs, war codes, or even Alexa[2].

***

[1]: she bullied Dolce into using the stylus. Needles are obsolete tech, as long as you’re human. Just press tip to skin and painstakingly draw, clicking the beaded head to change between gradients of color.

[2]: caring about things without a filter hurts. So the only safe way to care is to act like you don’t care and you’re untouchable and the universe can’t take anything else away from you.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

You are torn for a moment, Constance. The weight of the implicit demand is like a stone crushing your chest. In the old days, the blood-and-stone days, the days before the coming of the Arimathean, this would begin a blood feud. The relatives of those who lay here would take up arms to avenge them, would give up their own lives to slay Uther in their name. If you agree to this, you will destabilize the kingdom and plunge it into blood and ruin.

And you hate the thrill of excitement. The temptation. It flowers inside of you, pressing roots against that crushing stone. Say the words. Prove yourself a daughter of giants. Bring the dark days back in the name of the dead. Be a figure known from Cornwall to Lothian, deathless, dread. Be an ender of kings by command.

It is the presence of Robena that makes you flinch. Perhaps you could justify leading nebulous knights to their doom, but knowing that Robena would die to right this wrong makes you pause. Not without her leave, but you fear she would give it to you anyway. No. You will not make Robena join the unquiet dead. You will not set Britain alight in the name of the otherworld.

Not yet.

“You have been ill-done by,” you say, your mouth dry, but your shoulders squared. “It is not to be borne. Robena! Go and find their bones in the grass, picked clean and left scattered. Bury them under a Christian stone. I will see to their last meal.”

You will need sheep. More than one. An ox would be better, a white bull best, but you are no noble to have those at hand. Sheep you can afford. And you will need Robena to hold them steady. Your little knife will do the rest.

And perhaps on your way you can return this cat that rests on your chest like that pressing stone.

Fellowship: The Heart

Ailee!

The only way to trick the King is to convince him you are acting by his will already. And you are cleverest, little mouse. Oh, you are cleverest indeed.

”I give you leave,” King Dragon declares. Black smoke leaks through the cracks in his rail-line head as he returns, and growls in triumph.

He is very, very close to his goal. But you have his leave.

And then before you can start a proper inquisition, after scurrying away from him, that’s when Sasha shows up with a goddamn clown.

***

Coleman!

You’re going to owe him for this, you know. Owe him big. He’s choosing to divert the storm of instinctual holy hyperviolence that he’s supposed to bring down on those who irk him. You know, like a real clown.

But you get him pointed in the right direction, which is... well, back to Ailee, actually. Near the huge and victorious form of King Dragon. Not too close, but still uncomfortably close.

That’s almost everybody— where are Jackdaw and Lucien??

***

Carinadir and the Fool!

One is a genius, the other’s insane...

But the joke is always that you’re not sure which is which, you know.

Down you go, the two of you, toppling down through wires and leaking vents and somehow avoiding the crash of razor blades and scissors that’s at the bottom. Whoops! Better luck next time, death trap!

And here it is. The heart of the Station, an intricate tangle of magical threads. Your signature, Carinadir. It’s woven in and through the machinery that controls the station, and vibrates with barely-controlled hate. Step too close, and strings might just snap, coincidentally strained too far at just this moment, vicious enough to take an eye out.

The Fool, of course, may use them as impromptu limbo practice, should the whim strike them. As long as they remain ignorant of past and future, nothing may befall them, after all.

“Father?” The voice that comes through the speakers now is rough, scratchy, pained. A massive metal claw tears through the ceiling and the threads vibrate as the speakers become an incoherent shriek. “Please, father,” the Station wheedles. “Save me, I know what went wrong, I can show you, please [mind the gap] please [destinations from Skyward to Windhame will be rerouted] don’t let it [eat fresh at our convenience stands] I’m scared...”

Wormwood Station is scared and needy. It also will destroy you if you try to help it. But letting King Dragon play with this... you can’t stand for that either, can you, Carinadir?

Sunshards

Money.

The third spiritual force. It descends into the gross physical form, Cash; it rises by degrees into the refined conceptual form, Credit; it is purified through acquisition into the Value of the mighty. The worthy find that it flows into their possession to become greater; the lowly can only hope to produce more of it for their superiors. And— fatally, for the Scales of Meaning— the creature that once had been was a bioalchemical creation brought forth from Money. It was not her place to make it herself; it was her role to clean the gears of the vast societal machine that was powered by it. Why should she want it?

(Leave unspoken, of course, that a spy and kidnapper who can be bought is a hiltless sword. Sooner or later, you will wound yourself upon it. And her king had. Never mind that she had just wanted to prove her worth.)

Money. The vital essence of the old world. And all too often, a blinder that weighs down the heart and deafens it from hearing the quiet whisper of the Way. Hoard, build, set yourself firm as stone against the currents of reality; that is the way of the masters of Value. Yet even the poorest insect sings.

Rose from the River pulls her pin from her hair and lets it fall in loose cords. Dear Thorn Pilgrim! With a flick of her wrist it becomes a long and elegant saber, held low at guard. Like a panthress she moves, her feet silent upon the grass. Does she reveal herself? Perhaps.

Perhaps the Scales of Meaning have heard of the pilgrim of the Way who carries the moon’s own sword. Perhaps she has not. Still, Rose from the River plays with revelation, flirts with it, dares boldness.

“You are glorious,” Rose from the River purrs. One step, another. Which of them is prey? “Your numbers are without limit. Surely you can tell me what my price must be. Name it, if you truly are the exalted Scales of Meaning, she who sits above the bull and the bear, and I will be yours seven times over. If you fail, then surely you cannot be the wise sage who tramples deception under her scales, and I will do with you what I please.”

The saber circles the epee. That smile! It is a quiet mockery. It is the suggestion of what Rose from the River may please— a reversal of servant and mistress. Does that not gall, Demon of the Second Exalted Rank?

Will you dance with the pilgrim clad in moonlight?

[Rose from the River works to Figure Out the inner workings of Scales of Meaning. With a 7, this is two and one. So, the first question: how would she feel if Rose from the River won?]

Breathless Dead

SUBSPACE PACKET SEND (Y/N?)

The words throb. Redana lies on the damp sheets, staring upwards. The words shine and she can’t stand them. She can’t touch them. There’s something sitting on her chest and crushing her.

She rubs one thumb on the largest piece of Bella’s special collar. The one she picked out special. The one she meant to be a gift. Here you are, Bella! Have a reminder of how special you are!

(Y/N?)

Bella, I’m sorry. Please go home.

No. Maybe it’s the words that are wrong. She edits with a shaking hand. Bella, I’m (your princess.) (Come) home. No. Stupid. No. Bella, I (meant to come back.) But she didn’t. Not until it was too late. She saved Alexa so that Alexa could turn around and kill a stupid old man. Wow! Two for two on trusting murderous bodyguards! Spectacular!

Bella, I (miss you.)

Stupid. Bella doesn’t miss her. Bella hates her. Bella is a mask. Underneath is just another Mynx. Just another assassin. Stop. Don’t think about the “good times.” Don’t ruin them.

Don’t let that stain spread like mold. It ruins every smile and every curtsey and every adorable squeak. Because she wanted a friend, now everything, every day, every outing, every activity is soiled. Because she’d trusted. Because she thought she’d get one thing that was hers. That was special. That would love her.

Stupid! Stupid stupid stupid! Bella was right! Alexa was right! She’s stupid. She’ll fall for anything. Well, look out, world. It’s time for a new Redana who doesn’t fall for anything! Who takes the universe as it is!

Bella, I—

Bella—

MESSAGE DELETED.

She tosses the collar shard into a corner of the room and shoves her face aggressively into her pillow to sweat out the fever. She draws her knees up and makes a huddled mass of sweat-soaked blankets to hide from the universe just a little bit longer.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

"Honored dead of Britain!" You advance on the ghosts like a wave upon the shore, bearing Cath like a royal orb in one arm, chin held high as you squeeze the cat close, your way of letting Cath know that you will not let her fall. "I am this woman's arbitrator. Whatever your quarrel with her, I will guarantee restitution." There. You know that not even the dead would dare strike you (not without provocation, at least), and you know that this is the only way to protect Robena from the anger of the dead. "Share with me her failure, and we may agree on how it may be made right."

How that twists your heart! To speak as if Robena was not here, as if she was some fool vassal and not a brave and clever knight. As if you had the right to speak for her in such fashion. If Robena takes offense and complains, she might bring the wrath of the unquiet dead on you both, and you just have to hope as hard as you can that she's better than that. That she can trust you. That you've been trustworthy, a pillar of strength that has awed her into compliance, despite the best efforts of donkeys and horses.

[Constance does her best to Win Them Over and rolls an 8. She wants the ghosts to agree to be appeased if their grudge is made right. How could I assure you that I can appease your grudge?]

Sunshards

Ancient claws grasp at Rose from the River, holding her fast by the neck, the arms, the waist, and with a deep trill of triumph, the ABC Mechanism drags its prize in.

That is its intent, at least. But Rose from the River does not move. She has dug herself into place, her toes and heels spreading into the riverbed below. As the leviathan pulls at her, losing the battle against her roots, two new arms define themselves and unfold from her torso, unseen by its primitive cameras. (Down here, poor thing, it is half-blind. All it can see is magic, and that like a woman groping towards sunlight from her bed.) And in them she grasps the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade, which with a flick of her wrist becomes a thick-bladed cleaver, keen to a sorrowful edge.

One, two! One, two! Claws are torn from the body by the strain of Rose’s wiry arms. (Her change is slower, now, a thing of breath and growth, but every moment makes those arms stronger and more generously fleshed.) She stands fixed, unmovable by heaven or hell. And so the ABC fulfills its programming the only way it can, so maimed, its cast-off limbs settling all around them: it flings itself forward and traps Rose from the River in the cube like a girl trapping a butterfly underneath a cup. This is a strong yet humiliating move, were there any to witness; it presses its sensors into the packed river-mud, pushing its weight down to prevent Rose from lifting it off of her. Now it only needs wait until the circle cuts off Rose from her roots, forcing her to withdraw completely into the prison.

But even as it constricts around her, Rose from the River (now lit by the soft white glow issuing from the sides of the cube, a figure of darkness within the gentle and invasive light) flicks the ogre’s knife she holds once, and it narrows, lengthens, becomes a gleaming victory spear with a fin-curved head. She gathers her strength, even as her essence without the cube withers away, crumbling and retracting, and takes a breath, fills herself with potential energy until it is enough to consume her if left unreleased.

Dear Thorn Pilgrim! As the jaws of the trap close around her, her spirit shines all the brighter! She takes her weapon, fallen from the strange and pale moon which is the doorstep of heaven, and with it performs the Royal kata, which is a continuous cutting motion. In one flourish, her feet still rooted in the earth, she circumscribes the binding cube from within one hundred and eight times.

This done, she takes her victory spear and moves into the presentation kata. Ten heartbeats pass. Then the cube unravels, torn into one continuous skin, the binding circle translated into a pattern of preservation. Limbs fall ascatter all about, even as the thing that once was a cube twists and attempts to understand its transcription into something different. (If washed up onto a village bank somewhere, it would be a strange wonder, indivisible and singular.)

Rose from the River pulls her feet from the riverbed, flicks the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade into the shape of a pin, and ties her braids about it. Then she kicks upwards and scrambles artfully onto the bank, water gleaming moonish on her eel-dark skin, her blade lit from within by its own virtue where it holds her hair in place, all four arms well-shaped and strong.

Dear Thorn Pilgrim! She looks more like Love, Rising From The Waves than a human; the lap of water on the bank is her shell and her choir of heavenly spirits. Her eyes are molten gold, pierced by thorns; who can meet them? Her hips could crack mountains in the swing. The effect is only slightly ruined when she coughs and has to massage her gills into her skin before she suffocates on dry land. But even her cough is deep, a thing like home-brewed coffee.

Now let the Scales decide whether she is to avert her eyes from the shameless nakedness of this river-nymph or let herself be entranced in turn.

[Rose from the River Defies Disaster with a 12, willing to sacrifice her freedom in order to undo the Mechanism from within. This being done, and done with style, she emerges from the water and offers Scales of Meaning an Enticement with a 7. Is Scales of Meaning interested with what is offered?]

Breathless Dead

"I give you your life, Liu Ban," the recording of Mom says. "It is worthless." Molech tears at his beard and weeps, bitterly. The Pallas Rex lies defeated. If it were appropriate to have Mom portrayed by an actor, she'd have her foot on the statue's throat. Instead, in the midst of the Ceronians who have victoriously taken the bridge, there is a spotlight, and the impression of movement caused by shadow filters. Then the lights go out, and the curtains fall. Five minutes to the next performance.

Redana applauds. Bella doesn't. But Redana smiles for her anyway. "Wasn't that great?" It was. It was phenomenal. And one day, she's going to do something just as big. How could she be content to stay in Mom's shadow forever? No, when she gets to see the stars, she'll do things that make this, this grand drama of betrayal and hubris, seem small! Just you wait, universe! Redana's coming to get you!

***

"I give you your life, Liu Bei! Ban! Liu Ban!" Nailed it. Redana (her eyes red and puffy for some mysterious reason) lifts her head and looks down the spear. Yes. That's definitely a spear. She pats it, gently, so that Alexa knows it's okay not to spear whoever this mad machine hermit is. "Hello!" She sniffles and wipes her nose on her sleeve, even as Alexa very much doesn't lower the spear. And she smiles[1] and pats the spear more forcefully.

***

[1]: The resemblance is impossible to ignore. After all, not that Redana knows it, but here's someone who knew her mother for a very, very long time. Here's someone who's seen Nero both composed and regal and coming unhinged. And here's someone who can recognize the spitting image of Nero, but very much not Nero. It would not take a mad strategist-genius to put the pieces together.

Sunshards

Water. Stillness, broken by motion. Moonlight on rippling scales, dreamlike in the middle hours of the night. Hair hangs heavy, shining pale. One look was too much; when Rose from the River looks away and closes her eyes, all she finds hidden underneath them is silver light and entwining motions. Either way, she is trapped.

So where is the harm in watching?

If she is to see either way, let her see with her eyes open, free of all desire but to witness. She empties herself and stands hollow by the riverside, and allows black and silver to fill her with rippling motion.

And then, so filled, her clothing scatters on the riverbank, strewn about her mendicant’s pack. Rose strikes the water and sinks, heavy, to the bottom. The water is deeper than it looks. Down there, she glitters, gills fluttering feather-soft, the necessary counter-balance to Scales playing upon the surface.

Ah, perhaps this was the harm in watching.

Does Scales of Meaning descend to speak through twisting coil-whorls and sword-dance underneath the water, or does she withdraw to the bank until Rose from the River rediscovers buoyancy?

[A String, offered.]

Sunshards

The sweep of the hillside is peppered with thickets: stiff, brown-edged grasses; trees hunched low like grandmothers in their gardens; bushes beloved of the sheep that pass on by in their roving herds. Here and there are flowers in the soft pink of dawn. But it is dusk, and the slow embrace of night draws a curtain of velvet shadow over the thickets, making them mere suggestions of form, a deeper dark against the grey. From this distance, there is no reflected glint from the lens.

If you came quite close, shielding your eyes from the joyful lights of the Pyre, and let your eyes become accustomed to the subtle distinctions of the gloaming, you might distinguish, here, among the low branches, a long-forgotten tablet. Time has allowed roots to tangle around it, back facing the road, which (should you inspect it quite carefully indeed) is strange, given that it is refurbished in leather and brass, the case distinctly Ysian in its fusion of disparate design elements. It must have been tossed aside immediately after it was made. Who would be so careless? By it lies a fallen tree, bush-buried, something to step over carefully lest there be a serpent slumbering beneath.

One silent, unblinking eye watches the procession. Occasionally, there is the muted chirp of a silenced camera, lost in the sound of night-birds and crickets at play. The wind makes the branches of the trees overhead shudder and clutch at themselves as if pulling a shawl tighter over bony shoulders. Above, Archer’s Ladder shines, almost as bright as the procession and the fires of understanding.

Below, the bells and drums swell to climax and then recede into the distance, leaving behind a mud-trampled serpentess. The lidless eye watches her as she pulls herself up, hissing and cursing the air scarlet, redistributing the filth on her face with each angry smear across her cheeks. Perhaps she suspects the observation from how she glances about, but the world all around is soft and shifting shadow. Then she slithers away, on her own path, seeking Yue of the Terraced Lake. Then there is deep indigo dusk, and a rabbit content to graze in the stillness, and for a time there is nothing here to hold the eye.

If there was anyone here, peering into the dark, staring at the lost tablet, they would be very suddenly surprised. The effect is much like suddenly seeing a picture within a picture, or a young woman in the portrait of the old; various elements and shadows cohere all at once, no longer harmonizing with the world around them. What seemed for all the world roots were truly braids, which whip and entwine of their own volition, releasing the tablet now taken up in mottled hands, slowly bleeding away the pattern of light and shadow that broke form and outline. The moon’s thin light catches teeth as white as mountain snow, bared in a triumphant grin. “Got you,” Rose from the River says, flicking through her gallery.

Here it is: the gaudy, enticing carnival of desire, whirling and whorled, a familiar expression of excess. In another life, on another path, they would be rivals. Goblin-bushes and hunting-stags would harry the Pyre and trap stolen sub-souls in prisons of vine and flower, all for the glory of the Princess of Undermountains, crowned in the full glory of spring. And instead Rose stands on a hillside, alone but for the distant rabbit, and leans against a twisted trunk as she lets herself be briefly enticed by the colors, the cloths and silks, the gags— she exhales quick through her nose, imagining the lovely sensation of a full mouth and a soft cloth pulled tight over her lips. A shudder runs through her braids, flowers unfurling their petals and retracting in turn, all shades of dawn muted in the moonlight. Then, in reflexive embarrassment, she glances to either side, and then back to her task.

Having been a prisoner trapped in unquiet sleep for centuries gives one a complex relationship with restraint. So does not knowing if your desires were written into you as a means of control by your creators. So does not having a private space any more to experiment with one’s new body. Say what you would about Yin, but at least she was willing to tie her knight down...

(When it didn’t feel wrong. When her body didn’t feel too heavy, too ill-made. When their schedules coincided. When the Knight made himself open for her.)

But self-indulgence for the sake of self-indulgence is selfish. While not the worst of sins, sloth and excessive self-pleasure are dangerous enticers that keep many pilgrims from pursuit of the Way. There is work for her to do, heroics to enact if she plays her part, people to help. Taking the place of the Voice of Ballet, dressed like a Ysian concubine, is a thought that will keep her company when she lays down to sleep tonight, but it is only a fantasy, and one to only lightly indulge in lest it cause her to falter in the face of the Pyre.

A moment’s consideration, pausing on a shot of the Scales of Meaning. Here. A smaller, more comprehensible aspect of the Pyre. As inviting as the wild carnival may be, her instincts are telling her that her own path is entangled with that of the serpent. (A fellow serpent, even. It’s been some time since she took on a serpentine aspect, but she was still fondest of her eyes.)

The tablet is holstered in one of her pack’s outermost pockets. A fine silver wand is retrieved from another pocket, where it lay hidden from the moonlight. A wave, and it becomes a walking stick, light but steady. Thus armed, Rose from the River begins to follow her quarry, humming a half-remembered jingle from a neon-shadowed ramen bar. The rabbit raises its head and scurries away.