Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

Redana? There is no Redana here. There is only the Eater of Pancakes. Behold it arise in its glorious pajamas[1]. When it yawns, the galaxy trembles. It has been summoned here by the possibility of the FEAST. The chocolate chips, half-molten, sunken into the pancakes like fallen meteors; the Ridenki false-banana extract, expertly mixed into the batter; the sinfully soft butter, just like the kitchens back home used every day; the nameless cream of Dolce’s kitchen, white and fluffy in its whorls. Yes. Yes! This pleases the Eater of Pancakes! Eyes still closed, it descends upon the table and accepts the offering lifted up.

Pancakes fall like battleships, each one torn apart by the Eater of Pancakes as she demolishes the arrayed fleet. Woe to you, delicious treats! When you were first formed, given shape by the hands of your creator, did you know that this would be your fate? Or did you, in your hubris, think yourselves too soft and fluffy to ever be eaten, a meal fit only for the gods themselves? Fools! It is the Fates who decree the span of each life, and they who decide when kings and servitors and pancakes meet Hades for the final trick! Is it not said that the life of a pancake is like a bird that flies through a feasthall? For a moment it has come out of the dark and the cold, and all around warmth and life and revelry, and yet in a moment, with the beat of its wings, it is gone, never to be seen again. So it is with you, o pancakes!

And yet a higher power and a keener mind has made of you a sacrifice, and secreted within you the doom of the Eater of Pancakes. Like a sacrificial ship, packed with explosives, you are, o most perilous of pancakes! The Eater of Pancakes bites down, and the venom within explodes through her mouth, first as hot as a Thousand Embers curry, then cold and numb. With a terrible squeak, the Eater of Pancakes drops fork and knife, hands fluttering to that terrible omnivorous mouth, as the final payload of the Sweet Fluffy detonates in her throat. Already her body works to modulate, change, and overcome; only the most wicked and fast-acting of venoms could send the Eater of Pancakes to the House of Hades!

And the cook turns from a soft and fluffy sheep to a crimson-haired Redana with a shimmering of scales. “Hey, Dany,” Mynx says. And the smile she gives is a fragile thing, like a bird too soon removed from its nest, cupped shivering in your hands. It is rueful and hopeful and sheepish and ever-so-slightly amused and exasperated that the old “envenomed breakfast” trick worked, holding back the scolding that Redana should always, always rely on a taste tester and not simply trust in an iron stomach and a mutable throat, because iron can be melted and throats forever silenced with but the right compound, the perfect poison— but that would be too much, too soon, a headlong charge across creaking ice with an infinite abyss below.

And the look that Redana gives her is vulnerable in turn, confused and worried and unsure if she’s about to be attacked in her own chamber, but alloyed with a wordless longing for things to be other than they were within the Eater of Worlds, a stupid but unquenchable hope that maybe this time, things will be different.

She lets Mynx take a seat at the modest table, one hand over her mouth with a napkin to stop herself from drooling helplessly, and tenses, but does not leap into action. Not yet. Not with her Mynx. Not after so long.

***

[1]: upon detecting REM sleep, Redana’s clothes are designed to become very cute, loose jamjams. The theme is: leviathans of the deep, chibified. (The same pattern she’s given her jamjams since she was eight.)

Sunshards

“FFFN! Fff’fff fffhhh mmmmmffn!!” Rose enthuses, eyes wide, looking out over the world in a way she’s never seen before. It’s nothing short of miraculous, and she hardly notices the ropes that the Baroness has set her in for display purposes, and she definitely isn’t letting the thick white band of silk over her mouth stop her from trying to share her enthusiasm with the princess squirming underneath her.

How could she? This is magic. This is a beauty that she has yearned for all her life without knowing, a secret spell woven on her heart. How often did she look up at the peach-bruise sky and find inside her a nameless desire? How often has she sat on the side of roads and looked up, and up, and up, at the lights flickering up and down the elevators, mysterious and incredibly distant?

After all, the Burrow Folk made no aircraft, allowed no competitors in the sky. There was no reason for them to flash warning lights so that dragons like Princess Jessic would one day be able to avoid them even in the dark, even in the fog, even in battle. There was no message they needed to proclaim to the surface, no final testament they sought to leave behind; it cannot be communication. Or if it is, it is in no code or cipher that the people of the world know.

And yet the lights flicker anyway.

The world is full of things like that! Up here, she can see them all. She grunts in delight and nudges Yue with her shoulder and gestures with her head, trying to get her to see: look, below them, a Five-Tailed Firebird (not actually on fire, named for their bright plumage, tail does split into five long and distinct trails)! And, oh, oh, mmmph, hmmmph, look at that, brave Knight! Look at that! The shards! The sunshards! Oh, if only the Princess could see! But the Princess is hiding her face, isn’t she? What a silly girl, nuzzling into Rose instead of watching the world made new and strange and beautiful!

...but she cannot judge the sweet little thing too harshly. Maybe she’s afraid of heights! Or maybe she’s stuck down there! That might be it. Princesses do tend to get stuck places. That’s why Rose is going to do her best to explain everything, everything she sees, even if talking’s a little difficult right now?

But, but isn’t that the fun, too? Yes, Rose is very certain that’s fun. It’s difficult to explain, but... but trying to talk is more fun than actually talking. It makes her feel all kinds of hot and warm and excited, not being able to talk! And Chen— ah, maybe that’s it! Maybe that’s the key. She must be cold up here, where the winds are so strong, where the air howls so incredibly, where it exerts strange pressures on the head. She must be looking for the warmth radiating out of Rose’s heart in happy beats.

No fear, little princess. That warmth is yours, too. So Rose makes sure to envelop the princess as best she can, to be blanket and pillows and comforting weight, even as she shares bright, sparkling looks with the Knight. Isn’t this wonderful? Truly, Sai a’Niz is full of miracles. Just like her world! It’s simply incredible to think that one fox goddess could have painted the sky with these hyperreal colors and then given her loyal priestess the opportunity to experience it with such amazing companions!

And deep within her, a thing of scales purrs happily and settles into itself, thinking impossible things, enjoying the relief of freedom through bondage, silenced at last, and yet safe, safe, safe. No mountains to lie beneath, no dark dreams, just Chen and Yue and a wide open sky, and a burning candle.

Breathless Dead

To you, lord of the deeps,
let there be praise and fearful awe.
Who has seen the nebula’s heart?
Who has run a hook through the Eater’s beak?
Surely that man has not been born,
the one who knows the deep places
that you have dominion over;
the deep places and the unknowable dark.

***

Fingers clench firmly on the grips as Redana’s face breaks into a helpless grin. Here it is. Another beauty, a pearl found shining in the mouth of glorious Poseidon. This is not the still, stately glory that she saw as she worked her way to the Eater of Worlds. This is energy, wild and violent and joyous, like the mania of Dionysus. This is no flotsam and jetsam; this is a storm-wracked tomb, the resting place of a mighty weapon about to be repurposed once more.

The plovers have no tethers here. It would be a death sentence; the tempest would whirl them around, make nooses and garrotes of them, shearing limbs and shattering cockpits. They will have to trust their engines, trust their cooperation, and trust that they will not suddenly be ambushed by ELF weaponry. They seem to be alone, out here in the storm, but— they haven’t seen Bella in a long time, and the Azora are quick raiders. To lose power here is to be lost.

And doesn’t that just make Redana’s heart race? When the jump’s called, she’s the first one from the starting gate, as sure-footed as if this was another Olympic sprint. She vaults into her uncle’s arms and tumbles, wild-eyed and grinning, down through the hurricane.

There is no straight path; each plover will have to take their own spiraling route down to the Achae. All Redana can do, as her Plover shudders and whines around her, is lean in hard, sinister grip slammed shut, engine roaring as she angles herself against the winds. Her teeth rattle in her skull. Her head throbs as the world outside goes lavender and indigo and hot flaming pink, flashing straight to the back of her eye. And her stress bleeds through her mouth, her laughter surely at risk of depressurizing the cockpit for how densely it fills the space.

Eventually, after a short infinity, she lunges out, the bulk of the Achae filling her entire world, her boarding hook skidding, seeking purchase, until it catches just long enough for Redana to reorient herself. She presses herself against the bulk, then begins to grope her way down the length of the ship, her boosters whining and hissing as they continue to force her down, to give her an artificial gravity, to keep her from being torn off the back of the Achae as if she were a tick on an animal’s back.

The journey will be long for each and every one of them, falling one by one onto the hulk. The calculations to deliver them all to the veal directly would have required, well, Magos Birmingham, who she has been assured is very good with calculations. If she ever meets him, she’ll have to apologize for stealing all of his subordinates, but, in her defense... they are her vassals. Apparently. Because she is the daughter of Nero, who is to be revered as Hermes herself. Which makes her... Hermesette? Hermesind? There’s a title for the daughter of Hermes, if she could just remember which one. Though Princess is a very broad and all-encompassing title in and of itself. A noble name. Her name. And yet she works alongside them, because...

Because she’s not her mother, the woman who regretted ever leaving Arcadia. She’s her own self. And Redana Claudius doesn’t want to be up on the dais waiting for her generals to come to a conclusion. She doesn’t want to be up on the bridge, letting her Auspex track the infinitesimal forms of Plovers on the vast hide of the Achae. She wants to be here, where there’s work to be done. That’s simple. That’s easy. That’s good. The work is the work.

When they meet together at the prow, there will be work to be done. Hours of it. There will be a rhythm to it, hooks rising and falling, severing the appointed mounts and the pins the size of tree-trunks. There will be so much of it! Then, when the prow sloughs off under its own weight, nine Plovers will use it to cut through the storm until they all break free of the giant’s grip[1].

When Redana returns to the Plousios, she will have pushed herself to the brink of what even she, human that she is, can do. She will ache from the stresses she has forced her body to undergo. Her arms will throb with Plover’s Grip, her gloves sticky with sweat and her golden hair plastered to her pale forehead. And she will know she kept pace with the Coherents, and she will be proud enough to cry.

But that’s not yet. Now? Now is one limb in front of the other, all while the tempest roars around her, her visibility ahead cut down to almost nothing, her Auspex slowly counting down the number of steps it will take for her to reach her destination, and the rain making oracle patterns on the windshield that only her uncle could read, each one lasting only a moment before becoming something new and true and incomprehensible. Now is only the joy of the Princess.

***

[1]: Then a more stately pace back to the Plousios. It is inauspicious for a new war-beak to taste its own ship’s blood first.

Fellowship: The Heart

Ailee!

Lothbruk is not empty. Lothbruk is teeming with pilgrims. Lothbruk’s streets steam with the King’s blood, gushing from rents and sores, hardly missed, for his heart is invincible; Lothbruk’s buildings are strung with rope bridges, a teetering garbage metropolis. It is here that the Rats of the Dragon attempt to refine their natural essence to be allowed to draw near to King Dragon without being obliterated. Only that which is of the King is permitted near the King; one glance on what is Not will consume it utterly.

And so the rats draw up the blood in corroded buckets and pour it into vats, and they drink of it, and many die in agony; but some begin to learn the secret of being as the King. To become a living avatar of his vices is their dearest desire, for it comes with incredible power.

You do not need to deal with them, Ailee Sundish. Surma has her hand on the tiller of your boat, a groaning thing made from the carcass of a train, split and gutted. It can withstand the blood of a dragon, at least for a time.

No, what you must deal with are the trials of the King. Show your vast disregard for the world, display your Wasteful nature, take it into your throat; peel back shrouds and dig your talons into the world, display your Curious heart, take it into your eyes; pass sentence on the unworthy and enact your declarations, show that you have the power of Judgment, take it into your hands; vent your fury at all that has denied you your rights, let no barrier restrain your Wrath, take it into your gut; and crown yourself in dripping Pride, worthy to speak with your King, and erase doubt and modesty from your heart utterly.

Do this, and Lothbruk will open like a flower to reveal the shining hoard of the King. Do this, and you will look upon those wounds, that torrent of blood, and know them to be yours. Do this, and the King and you will be one.

***

Jackdaw!

You’re here. Ouch.

You’re here with two bodies and a book and Lucien’s not broken but he’s not there and the Professor is going cold and still like the stone and you’re on the very edge of the story now, Crowhame spilling out behind you like a vast puddle of a mess.

(In the distance, there is a series of honks that suggest a very elaborate pratfall. In the distance, there is the chime of hag stones knocking against each other that is almost laughter. Those things need to stay in the distance. Those things very need to stay in the distance, actually.)

You could... just not close the book, you know. When you close the book, you won’t have a lot of time to convince the two they aren’t dead. And there’ll be just a mess of clowns all around. You saved them. You could just stay in the moment of having saved them forever, and there’d never be any question of what happened next.

(But you’re going to close the book, because you want to know what Lucien says next. Better to try than to exist in an always might-have-been.)

***

Coleman!

The Long looks at you with eyes the size of moons, Coleman, and for a moment you consider each other. Maybe it is thinking of the two of you as a beautiful symbiosis; maybe it sees you as an upstart and a challenge. The moment is... well, to fall into the joke, Long.

Then it looks down— down, down, down— and the eye is drawn to the struggling figure of Jackdaw, so pathetically tiny, down there at the edge of the white and black and red.

The huge vast blackness of the Long, scales only defined by the half-moons of white at their very edges, eyes as red as dying suns, considers Jackdaw. Then it turns to you; then it turns away.

Not every story ends with glorious battle. The Long is patient and forever.

Besides, even gods of flint and root and blood can acknowledge their inferiors; though the gulf of communication is so vast, almost as vast as the Long itself, that you will never know why.

Go scatter the clowns around that closing book and show Jackdaw the beauty of the two-in-one.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Purity.

The water is clear. She can see herself stretched out in it, a landscape. An island. White cliffs lapped by the sea. Untouched. The way we all were before Brutus arrived, before the Arimathean came with his cross.

Purity.

A chalice that can be torn away and trodden on is no chalice at all. A pilgrim who only keeps on the road as it suits her is no pilgrim, either. Devotion is an all-consuming thing, and the Chi Ro demands so much. The circle only requires that you yield, that you not break yourself by trying to push against it, that you accept each in turn: the spring, the summer, the autumn and the winter. Yet Robena is a follower of the Xristos, and if that is where her heart lies, let her hold to it. Let her hold fast.

Purity.

Constance rallies together a motley band of servants and squires to create the centerpiece of a mystery play in the courtyard. Dig but a little in the hard earth, and the water comes bubbling forth. Dig but a little, and set the saplings there to shroud the fountain. Dig but a little, as Constance does, her pale shoulders straining, and set the flagstones in place: each one with the chalice. Let her tread upon it, and let her be tested once more.

Prepare her wardrobe, Tristan. Tonight the Lady Constance wears green, and drapes dappled scales around her shoulders. Tonight, she offers Sir Coilleghille the knowledge of weal and woe.

Breathless Dead

The first time Redana heard the Nero verse, golden hair tucked into a bandana and mask pulled up to hide a rather distinctive face, her cheeks burned and she fell silent, listening to it ring out all around her, her pride pricked and prodded. How dare they talk about her Mommy like that! How dare they mock her subjects! She was sullen and dejected for the rest of the shift.

It took time for her to figure out what they meant. It was like a lightning-bolt striking her the day she realized that what that song meant was that they agreed with her. Kind of in a mean way, but the Coherents didn’t have much of a filter in a way that made her... well, relax, once she knew that not everything they said was calculated and intentional. That they said the first thing they thought of, and if that got a laugh and a “fuck you!” that wasn’t a challenge to duel but a mild rebuke or even an acknowledgment of, yes, I don’t mind what you said, but don’t think I won’t push back if you try to insult me.

Then she started to sing with them, in time with the hammers and the wrenches, the cabling and the scything. Her voice was made for operatic solos before an audience, but here, among the strange shapes of the Coherents, this neo-creed, this trans-crafted fellowship, it was one note among the many. And once she was there, she sang the verse about her mother loudest of all.

Because one day, they’ll be singing a verse about her, and she means for it to be a really, really good one.

(And Redana noticed more than they let on, too. Noticed how they closed ranks around her, didn’t let her get singled out when the Magi were looking, how they Knew that the human princess was looking to slum with them... but she kept her head down and didn’t complain, and they let her be one among the hundreds.

(Catch her, soot rings around her eyes from her goggles, glowing with exertion as she flops into bed without even undoing her ponytail, smiling her way into dreamless sleep. Catch her, delegating as much as she can to Iskarot, sneaking stamps of approval for the Order’s motions and resolutions on lunch breaks while around her, there is laughter and insult-contests and jokes about Nero snapping off Zeus’s swan[1] between her cold thighs.

(Catch her shouting back into the hubbub: “How long does it take a Coherent to install a bulkhead?” Catch the reply swelling all around her: “Depends on how often the Magi change their minds!”

(Catch the smile around her eyes, crinkling over the smoothness of her mask, one golden strand escaping to curl on her forehead, as she listens to Big Jenny talk about the movie she starred in[2]. Catch the moment of serene acceptance.)

***

[1]: long, stately, beautiful, and prone to causing catastrophes.

[2]: chan-barra-chan-barra-chan-barra-chan!!!

Breathless Dead

Redana’s instincts manage to kick in. A little belatedly, but still they kick, bucking like the engines of an old runabout. She stands up with a flourish and hands Acolyte Bian of the Fractal Goddess the blueprint she managed to get knocked out and ready for the meeting.

Bian inserts the blueprint into the Revelation Niche, and the surface of the wall it controls ripples into black and white, indenting where her pen pressed hard against the paper, until Redana’s handiwork is plain for all to see. It is the head of a star dragon; it is the deconstruction of a Hoplite into planes and angles. It is modular armor plating and an engine system inspired by putting her head together with Magos Theodorus of the Infinite Throttle. She has had Documentor Agatha annotate it in her precise, spidery notation, each piece of the design laid bare in clustered jumbles of letters, numbers and sigils. (She doesn’t know them yet. But she wants to.)

“If the Azora want us,” she says, into the semi-hush of whirring processors and the click of lenses, “they’ll have to catch us and pierce our hide first. Motion is the impossible miracle.[1] Let’s see the Tricorns handle this.” She crosses her arms and grins, and for a moment she is more like her mother than she could knowingly bear.

***

[1]: The Mysteries of Velocity, Winged Sandal Press: Magi Timatheo of the Gracious Message, The Anchorite of Diana, et al.

Sunshards

The ropes (thick, unyielding, joyful) melt away into... perhaps smoke. Yes. That is the sort of thing that other things melt into. Rose may use her mouth again; it is time for her to be able to speak. That is what Sai a’Niz commanded of her, after all.

When the Dragon shows up, you are to do exactly as you are told. And you are to say exactly as you are told. And obeying makes you so happy.

A shiver runs through Rose as she speaks, her voice dreamy and breathy and just this side of a moan. “In the name of the Goddess, I offer you these treasures, noble dragon: a helpless princess and the noble knight who tried to save her... and myself, the High Priestess of Omnibenevolent Sai a’Niz.” (Surely that is not a squeak from someone who is realizing that she was much cockier than she should have been, somewhere distant. Surely not. Goddesses do not squeak through the hands cupping their face, eyes peeking horrified through splayed fingers, tails constricting as if trying to shrink down out of sight. In a locked dungeon cell, something made of coils and scales and petals laughs huskily to herself.)

“Please spare them your wrath,” she continues, cupping the talon in her hands. Despite the dissimilar shapes... no, they’re nothing alike. These are the hands of a helpless woman giving herself over to a dragon. They’re not weapons and Rose is not dangerous at all. “Take us and tie us tighter and carry us off to your lair, where you will of course offer the Goddess a reward for her generous gifts: two precious cinnamon rolls and a silly, air-headed holy woman who does whatever she’s told.”

One command cleared, the next slams roughly into place. Clean the Princess’s foot? Which one? The one whose foot she’s holding. Not a cute, dainty... no, Princess Jessic is not dainty. She is large. Powerful. Strong. Beautiful.

She drags her hot tongue along the back of one powerful talon, not caring how her gag must have made her mouth so wet. That, that’s why... why she’s drooling. Yes. Built up by... by the things that the Goddess had told her she’d used. So many! Frilly and lacy and stretchy! Until her cheeks were stuffed and packed full! But now her mouth is magically empty, as the Goddess wills it, and what better use could she put it to?

Her world narrows, focused on the task at foot. How her fingers need to adjust, tilt the great claw, so that she can get every inch. How she needs to use her long, clever tongue just so. How she needs to nuzzle and pat her cheeks against the talons that could shatter stone with a simple flex, to make sure the princess’s noble foot is dried off, no matter what it might do to her own face. How a pressure and heat builds up inside her, even deeper than a simple positive reinforcement feedback loop made by a very clever and smart and talented Goddess.

The part where she smushes her face against the soft pad of the foot, for example, as she serves the “heel” of the dragon with her tongue: unnecessary, mortifying (for onlookers prone to embarrassment, which she’s sure describes... somebody she knows?), and possibly capable of making whatever lies imprisoned at the bottom of Rose’s heart thrash and shriek and gnaw at herself in helpless flustered frenzy. The sort of thing that powerful, self-conscious, and complicated monks would never lower themselves to doing; the kind of thing that makes Rose purr as she marks herself with a dragon’s scent and a high priestess’s shame.

Rose sits back on her haunches, cheeks a mess, hair (...”hair”?) beginning to frazzle, eyes half-lidded, shoulder straps frantically trying to hold on and not slip down uselessly, with eyes only for Princess Jessic. She lets her tongue loll out of her mouth as she sits, waiting for her next order, managing to only squirm a little bit with needy expectation.

Whatever it is, she’ll do it. For the sake of her Princess and Knight, and for the sake of the pressure throbbing in her chest, and for the glory of the Goddess.

Fellowship: The Heart

Ailee!

Surma’s laugh comes with a ridiculous snort in the tail. One moment she’s a mouse, the next she sounds like a piglet. And there’s not a trace of self-consciousness in it. She just is herself, loudly.

“You’re crazy and going to lose,” she says. “That much is obvious. But I got here by betting on dark horses and I’m not about to stop now. Besides, when you lose, you’ll need someone to pull you back up.” She doesn’t say that you’ll just dive back down. She doesn’t need to. That’s as easy to understand as her teasing.

“That being said, if you get phenomenal cosmic power down there, can I at least get the arm back out of the deal before you obliterate me with your laser eyes to hide the secret of your mortal origins? A girl deserves to go out whole and with no regrets, after all.” She glances at your chin(?) while she says that and arches an enigmatic eyebrow. Very confusing.

***

Jackdaw!

A shapeless name, a nameless shape, an empty cowl, black backwards footprints from where she twists herself all around to look back on her trail: these are the Jackdaw. The shape between two shapes, the optical illusion, the present-in-absence, the loss of words as they become slush on the tongue: these are the Jackdaw.

There is a standing-stone that was once a foolish man who wanted to be immortal. Crowhame knows immortality. It is the forever now. It is being your self always throbbing out into the world. The book that is the encapsulation of Crowhame lies pinned between stone fingers, and Crowhame flows out through it larger and larger like an inflating bladder-balloon, no, like the air that fills it, and the pages the thin skin, and the book the pinch-point.

There is a piece of meat that used to be a funny man in an extravagantly understated shirt. Its nerves are red flash-fires in a dying sack of broken bones and contusioned flesh. It is thrown down into the snow to wind down its clock to zero midnight, to cool and melt into the story of always here. Above it, something that also used to be a man grips ribs in huge taloned paw-hands and begins the terrible final wrench that will tear his own self apart.

Above you the Long unwinds, coil upon coil, and then snarfs down a huge tent like it’s devouring an egg. Maybe if everyone in the world is lucky, it was the one where that terrible Grail sat in state, black blood frothing from its lip, holy of holies, the clown-birth and the beginning of a replacement forever. As if there is any forever that is better than the heart of Crowhame.

***

Coleman!

Wolf has to be defended. Jackdaw needs time bought for her to do whatever the fresh hell she’s doing. And the world is a mosh pit full of clowns and crows and flung pies and little snakes and a giant snake that is eating the Big Top.

Sasha’s boiler is running hot, and she is groaning with the stress of restraining herself, not releasing the energy that is building up inside her.

Tell us how the Battle of the Dark Carnival was won. Tell us about Sasha’s whistle-roar. Tell us how she makes you proud.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

“It is not hate for the dead that I would bury at your grave, Sir Coilleghille,” Robena says, each word as deliberate as the steps of a stair. She stands, too, and faces Robena. Here, they can be peers. Her bloodless fingers rest on the gilded back of her chair.

“I will bury us there, Sir Coilleghille. Then we will see what the spring makes of our bed.”

She takes up the skull, conceals it once more in her sleeve, and makes to leave. There is a moment enough for a word more, before she passes through and the castle returns, resumes.