Tatterdemalion

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Piripiri!

Were you a witch, you might know that you have just struck one of the Passages of Hell, the Pseudoamphisbaena. It is a two-headed serpent, with the startling quality that both of its heads are on different bodies, and the creatures of the Demon City hang them upon brass poles far from each other, that by giving offering and praise, they may be allowed to pass through the serpent that is shared in common, and emerge from glistening fangs in some far distant district. And if they are pleased with the offering, the traveler shall come to no harm; and if they are displeased, or else hunger, then the traveler shall find themselves in the lightless, hungry dark. This would be useful to know, for reasons that are about to be clear.

Its jaw unhinges like some hideous fish from the very depths of the sea, stretching wider and wider, impossibly vast, and when it swallows the two of you, it does so head-first; all is darkness, and the clamminess of that demon road, and rhythmic constrictions of the throat, Azazuka pressed tighter and tighter against you, until it is able, self-satisfied, to close its jaws over your shoes. And then there is no trace left of you but your cast-off clothing, and two umbrellas floating on the surface of the lake.

The demon road is like being crushed forever until you are a precious stone. It is like crawling through rain-slick passages deep beneath the earth, with no way back. It is like slithering, limbless, on your belly, tongue flicking the air. It is like falling a long, long way. These are the ways you will remember it: as what it was like, not what it was. For the serpent devours the knowing of the road itself.

When you are cast from the open jaws of the other head, the world rushes back to you in a shock: the damp stones you crumple onto hard, the fur of moss under your throbbing palm, the sound of revelry and festival both impossibly far away and somehow just on the other side of a wall, the sliver of light leaking around the edges of a door which is too faint to do anything but confirm you have not gone blind, the sound of Azazuka hitting the ground with a crash of bangles and an exhausted groan, the hair damply sticking to your face, the prune-like wrinkles on your fingertips, the still air of a windless and lightless place. All this at once, jockeying: notice me, Piripiri, acknowledge me, welcome back to the land of the living!

And in that moment of overwhelming notice from every sense, the dark grows a hundred gauntleted hands. Do not feel ashamed, daughter of Hymair: even if you had the strength and sense of mind to fight back, you would find the Wrack-dolls of the First General foes who do not care for knives or punches to the cavernous, empty throat. As it is, you find yourself lashed tight with rope (desecrated, having once been from a shrine, now befouled by the rites of Hell), forced to kneel with your wrists secured to your ankles. The ball they force between your teeth is faintly luminous, having been touched by the power of the Green Sun, and it throbs with that power as it forces your lips and jaw open frustratingly wide. Beside you, you can hear Azazuka attempt to invoke her family and their wrath before she is forced into a loud and increasingly garbled tirade; you hear and feel more than see her furious struggles, that second pale green light beside you only serving to limn her generous, pouty lips.

And then the Wrack-dolls cease, seeming to melt away, and there is stillness in that dark chamber again, save for Azazuka trying to shuffle towards you— and being pushed back into place by unseen hands. You have been captured by the powers of Hell. Perhaps by misfortune, but more likely by design.

As you wait in the dark, listening to Azazuka’s limitless capability for incomprehensible complaints directed at your captors, feeling your limbs complain at being locked in place after such a harrowing journey, where do your thoughts take you? To your instructors, teaching you patience and a willingness to strike only when the time is right? To your brother, telling you stories of the War In Heaven and the infinite malice of the overthrown regime of the Titans, bound and sealed away in the undone body of their king? Or to the fleeting moments, in the dark of the demon road, when you felt a broad, ringed hand in yours, squeezing as if to say: I am with you, and you are with me?

***

Kalaya!

When you continue onwards, it is towards the northern border of Rose. Petony still means to show you the ropes of knighthood: battle against N’yari reavers, in which you will scare them away from their hunts and teach them a thing or two about the valor of the Flower Kingdoms. She’ll have you all to an inn only an hour or two after nightfall, don’t you worry; the hard march will toughen you up, princess!

(And besides, all the best witches are up in the highlands anyway. So two birds with the same stone! Whatever’s bothering you about an earring from a dissolved kingdom, they’ll put those worries to rest, don’t you worry.)

In the faint silver light of dusk, that’s when they appear on the road ahead: two priestesses of the Sapphire Court, traveling together. As they draw closer, through the clear rain you can see that one wears a white stone mask, one that indicates a Heavenly deity is acting through her.

(Not that you’d likely recognize their name, right? Most people in the Flower Kingdoms know the Sun, Moon and Maidens— that is, the wandering stars, from Mercury the Traveler to Saturn the Psychopomp— but everything below them is simply “the eight million gods” until you get to, as it were, the regional administration under Sapphire Mother of Lotuses.)

The other is— beautiful. Alluring. Just a glance is enough to know this, silly girl. She turns to her companion, the goddess-ridden, and whispers something behind her voluminous sleeve that causes her to break out into melodious giggles.

***

Zhaojun!

“—there she is,” Victorious Vixen of Violets lilts delightedly. Before you march a company of the local mercenaries, led by a knight aspiring, in her own undoubtedly brutish way, to follow the high principles of your Constellation.

Here, the rulers understand that desire is the highest principle; they require their champions to lead warbands of admirers and sycophants, then control them through desire for the approval and affection of princes and princesses.

The knight in tigerskin has suffered heartbreak, and recently. It throbs from her, desperate for solace, intense in its hues. The young knight beside her, fresh from her squiring, is dwelling on someone who was once important to her. That much is effortless before your eye.

“She may not seem like much,” Vixen continues, “but doubtless this is because she has drifted far from her Destiny due to the machinations of those wicked things outside the right order of Heaven. How fortunate she is that we have arrived to set things right!” She laughs, delighted at the power of Heaven to set right what has been put askew.

She does not tell you the nature of the girl’s Destiny. You already know it. Of course you do. You’ve always known it, ever since you were sent to this land. It’s what you were sent here to do. Just remember that. You are here for the Chosen One.

What is the nature of this Destiny, the one that sends luminous pink fires shivering up and down your spine? What must this girl become for the will of Heaven to be made manifest?

***

Han!

Machi rolls with you, scrabbles for position, ends up on top of you again. Face to face and chest to chest. Your wrists pinned to the deck over your head. Machi’s braids dangle over you, brush against your cheek. Her breath is hot and hitching and smothering just like the weight of her body on yours and her eyes are so happy and—

She kisses you.

She kisses you like she’s drowning.

Her tongue is as hot in your mouth as the fire inside your heart.

“Mine,” she growls. “My stone-heart.” Then she kisses you again. And this time, her fangs caress your lip as tenderly as a thumb rubbed against your hand, in their own way; she lets you know she could break skin. Her body radiates warmth, like a blanket you could fall asleep in.

What awakens the beast inside her? Competition, like the kind you can give her. Claiming things from others and making them hers. (She glances over at the priestess, who is staring in goggle-eyed shock; she’s not just doing this just because she wants you. She’s doing this to show off in front of a... rival? Okay!! Do not think about that!!!) Victory over a worthy rival. And a few helpless cuties to torment as the cherry on top. This moment, all those things intermingled, has pushed her past that edge she always flirted with crossing growing up.

(You can almost hear the Seedin sisters back home, pointing at you and laughing: catkisser, catkisser, Han kisses cats! Ew, stay away, catkisser! They must never find out they were vindicated a decade later.)

She licks your face, panting her possession with every lap as you squirm, getting more and more excited as she goes, and— Hanaha. Kigi. Stop whistling and cheering for her to “get it, girl.”

When she raises herself up, putting pressure back on your wrists, her face is a mess of raw feelings: desire (for you) and smugness (at every lowlander she’s scandalizing) and excitement (at seeing you strain and strive and fight for her) and wicked impishness (oh no).

“Yield,” she purrs, just loud enough for a certain priestess to hear, “and we can share her, Han’ya.”

(Because she can share her toys. As long as she gets to turn that into a game, too. As long as she gets to kiss and nip and vie for her stone-heart and her prize and be wanted and needed and the winner. As long as you both belong to her.)

Mark Insecure and think about being wanted, kitten.

***

Giriel!

Uusha nods. It is not a nod of approval. It is a nod of acknowledgment. Yes, you have this right. If the Stag Knight were to stop you, then she would not be who she is. You have overcome her hand; but do not think yourself safe from retaliation, either.

The dead come to the food, shivers in the damp air, and kneel down to feed of the soup. When they are done, when they have had their fill, the soup will remain, but it will be cold and tasteless and will not fill a belly. They eat of its essential food-nature, and the warmth the cook invested into it, and the honor they are shown. Heavy, weighed down by the feast, they become somnolent and idle. Hardly the sort of wraiths that could drive soldiers mad.

Peregrine sets down her erhu, notices the bowl, and shrugs her shoulders. Then she begins to pace among the stones, muttering to herself, having a conversation with the only witch who can keep up with her. Which leaves you, Kayl, Uusha, and Uusha’s band of wicked rogues.

When the gauntlet lashes out, the dark nails do not dig into your skin. She is careful, despite her strength; her fingers press into your cheeks, force your mouth into an undignified O, as she cocks her head like an animal to get a better look at you through that helm.

“You may go, boy,” she says, without looking at him. “If you tell anyone, I’ll know. I’ll set the Rattler on you.” Kayl, ashen-faced, looks from Uusha to you, frightened and desperate for some sign from you that—

That it’s okay to be a coward. That you’ll forgive him. That you won’t insist he stay and face fears even scarier than the ghosts. And even Uusha, moving your face around, peering close and making an uncanny, hollow tkk-tkk-tkk with her tongue, can’t take that power away from you.

Sunshards

Rose is movement. She is so spread out amongst herself, inhabiting each long-practiced step, each careful curl of her fingers, each alluring sway of her hips, that there is no center, no queen sitting on her throne giving orders in the chambers of the heart. The nameless thing slumbers peacefully and does not dream; or, if there is a dream, it is only a dream of unconscious motion. Step, step, shimmy. Step, step, sway. Step, step, knock. Swish, swish, open. Step, step, check the door closed with one useful hip. Spin, spin, and— EEEEP!!!

The breakfast trays balanced perfectly on her head come tumbling down. Before she can even finish jolting awake— she catches them. She doesn’t even know how she catches them. The teapot is balanced on its spout on top of a spoon. She balances, wobbling and instinctively correcting for the wobble, on one sparkling high heel, the other stretched out behind her as far as her hobbling chains will let her. Then she wakes up and comes tumbling down anyway— but Cyanis the Fox has whisked away the trays, and Rose has what smart engineer people call “built-in airbags” when they’re teasing her. She rolls over, takes a moment to cringe— ow— and then wiggles her way back upright. Cyanis already has her arm around her by the time she’s halfway up, stopping her from giving an apologetic groveling bow.

And Cyanis— a pure fox, an innocent vixen, someone you trust with your life— asks her for help, and Rose’s brow furrows for a moment with the strain of thinking. She’s obviously not supposed to help people escape. If they’re put places, that’s where they’re supposed to be. But she hasn’t been told not to help Cyanis out, and she has been told that a good girl is Agreeable and Loves to Serve, and she isn’t supposed to worry her Silly Useless Head with thinking for herself, because she’ll just get confused. Which adds up to mean...

“Mmmhmmm! Ff’s duuu’t!!” Rose nods with a bobbing of braids and earrings, clasping her hands demurely in front of her. Yes! Yes!! This is right!! Even if she and Cyanis would look wonderful as harem sisters, dancing for the Countess and nuzzling noses under their veils, a Good Girl is Agreeable, and Rose loves being a Good Girl, and so she agrees! Wow!! It’s so, so simple! Whatever Cyanis needs, as long as she can explain it to Rose’s Silly Useless Head, Rose will do her best to please!!

Oh, can’t you feel it, Cyanis? The joy radiating from her maiden’s heart? The bliss of not being important, of being a treasure rather than... than something else? Of being given headpats and possessive squeezes when you’re a Good Girl? Of being desirable and desired, not feared, not looked up to and given responsibility? Oh, oh, isn’t it the most wonderful thing? The most wonderful feeling in all the skies? When she gets to share the joy of submission with her Chen, oh!! Then her heart will just burst with joy!!

And in the meantime, maybe she’ll get a kiss from a pretty, daring, innocent fox? A kiss between girls? Oh!! That would be wonderful too!! Rose is very kissable. She’s kissable and touchable and very good at obeying, Miss Cyanis!!! Please, Rose will do her best and be as kissable as possible!!

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Giriel!

The three of you walk down into the dell and up into the graveyard, where moss gathers on stone markers and stagnant water pools for the washing of hands. Kayl clings close; Uusha moves, unhurried, after you. Her legs are long, but her footfall is almost silent on the wet grass.

From this vantage point, you can see more clearly that the N’yari here are nothing of the sort — some of them, at least. This is what the knights of the Accord would call a dishonorable false flag. (As a witch, of course, you don’t need to know what to call it to have an opinion on it.) Knights are supposed to announce themselves, to bring glory to their kingdoms, to be noble and true in the eyes of the Sapphire Mother— but Uusha has her brigands whispering to the woken dead, some costumed in beads and ears made of reeds.

(Some, but not all; Uusha is willing to take in N’yari outcasts and sellswords in her retinue, too, and more than a few of the rest are mountain-blooded, shaggy-haired and long-nailed. Having cultural advisors certainly helped sell the ruse.)

“She’s very pretty, isn’t she?” Uusha folds her limbs and hunches forward, elbows on her thighs. “Or so I’ve heard. Haven’t met her yet. Where’s the sense, letting her get her hooks in?” She taps her gauntlet-claws staccato against a greave. “A pretty face and a charming smile and you forget what she brings. What is in conjunction. Venus. Mars. The Mother. The Eater of Cities. The kingdoms ignore their duty. Until there is one crown and one voice for us, the Red Wolf will splinter us apart. One by one. Like ants dug free with a knife.”

She glances back at the shades, swaying, more smoke than figure where Uusha’s retinue passes. They do not cry out, not while Peregrine plays. After that, if you have any knowledge of witchcraft, once the song no longer holds their attention, they will turn to the anger coursing through them. Not all of them will make it out past the boundary stones; less than half will not dwindle and fade away into dappled shadows and the sound of rain dripping from above, to return to their sleep. But there will be enough who continue, woken to rage, that Legionnaires will die alone and far from home, faces twisted up in terror.

“We all must fight,” Uusha says. “The quick and the dead. This is their land as much as ours, and they have been here the longer. Let them fight for it, too.” That may be a command. It’s hard to tell.

So that’s her stake. An army of the dead, motivated by the tales her retinue whispers in their cold ears: of a homeland invaded, of a threat to their descendants, of an inevitable war that Uusha means to win. Less clear is Peregrine’s stake, but knowing her, it’s as likely as anything else that Uusha simply presented her the challenge of performing non-violent necromancy, en masse, without dishonoring the dead or inflaming them into immediate violence, and let Peregrine dive head-first into the work.

And she is masterful. Whatever her motivations for being here, Peregrine is an excellent witch: her song is not cruel but it is insistent, and even living you feel it tugging at your heart: wake! Brush away sleep, open your eyes! Come and listen, come and bear witness! Peregrine now calls you!

When you reach out your bowl to offer it up to the ghosts, Uusha puts one hand on the rim. “Do you think they need to be made heavy with food?” Her head cocks like a crow. “We want them roused, not satiated with offerings, Honored Sister.” Do you insist? Do you try to talk your way through? Is she right that you mean to placate them?

***

Zhaojun!

“Stars,” Zhaojun says. “An artificial imposition. Useful, even necessary— but we will chew some holes in their net. After all, I pursue larger and more important quarry and would have your service. You are... but a stepping stone for me.”

The two separate, then come together. The finger pulls the trigger; the fire roars through silk thread and dreams of the dark and sends bandar-logi screaming and skittering away deeper into the embrace of the underneath, beyond the light of the sun and moon and stars. The flickering nightmare razor sings and makes one beautiful cut, one perfect arc, searing the air into what is and what is not. And Zhaojun

[Sealed By Authority Of Iupiter, Maiden Of That Which Is Unknown]

walks, unhurriedly, out into the stillness. The air is humid. It clings with unseen hands to breath and skin and stone and mud. Over the rice plains unseen beyond, thunder rolls. It is a moment between drops. It could last forever. It will not last longer than it takes to walk out of the forest. The rain will return, by edict of the cloud-gatherers, themselves serving at the pleasure of the Sapphire Mother of Lotuses, herself serving at the pleasure of Venus Morningstar who turns the wheels of Heaven. All is desire; it is the axis of the world, the secret of the broken wheel, and the method by which two may be one.

The priestess sits primly on the steps, legs folded beneath her, hands lost in her azure sleeves. Around her is the memory of battle: splintered wood, broken brooms, shattered white masks, torn black fur. At the direction of the goddess, she has brought low her foes. Even the backwater has a hidden gem, after all. Surely this is remembered. Surely her devotion is recorded. Behold her humility, her willingness to transcend pride and yield whole-heartedly to instruction.

“Truly, you are more clever than a serpent, Exalted One,” Victorious Vixen of Violets says, bowing low to her teacher. “Better to strive against Mount Meru than to vie against you. May the evil spirit of this place be sealed here for a hundred hundred years without hope of parole!”

At a gesture from her teacher, the nubile priestess rises, demure despite her noble bearing. Whatever would Honorable Zhaojun do without her guide to the Flower Kingdoms? The self-unconscious way she strokes a stray lock of hair behind her ear, the way her lashes flutter over her coin-weighted veil, the sway of her bare shoulders: surely she is the most beautiful woman in the Flower Kingdoms, though of course she is too humble and pure of heart to notice. She is the sort of maiden that topples empires, and to please her, Zhaojun would—

Well. We shall see, won’t we? Won’t we just.

“So swift is my Mistress in battle,” Victorious Vixen of Violets breathes, her songbird-lovely voice almost muffled by her luxurious veil alone, “that we may yet meet with the Chosen One before nightfall. Glory be your purpose to save this land from war and strife, o radiant Zhaojun, victorious over all misfortune and wicked intent!”

***

Kalaya!

“I don’t know yet, bud,” Petony teases back, running one hand through her short, dark hair. “Maybe show me some actually impressive fighting and you’ll convince me.” The banter between knights! You’re doing it! You’re making it! If your parents could see you now, how proud they would be!

That’s the high spirits that Meke finds you in when she brings what she found out in the field. The red-tattooed retainer cradles an ivory-adorned relic in her arms, abandoned by the demons forced to put to flight. It’s witch-work, true, but also spoils of war, and Petony’s to keep until she is ready to offer it to her kingdom (Rose or Hyacinth, still depending on her mood).

Inside there is a long bone that once belonged to an animal, scrolled round with the script of Hell, harsh and angular. Inside there are broken thorns and nettles. Inside there are small coins stamped with the spires of Golden Chrysanth. Inside there is a priestess’s blue veil, torn in two.

And at the very bottom, underneath one of the veil halves, there is a delicate earring made in the shape of a snapdragon in bloom, pink and yellow.

Once upon a time there was a princess who wore ones like these, Kalaya. You knew her, once. Then other kingdoms went to war with them; then her family’s champions were defeated and humiliated; then she wasn’t around anymore, and your family simply said that failed royals just went off to live with their families, far from the places they’d tried to rule, on pain of humiliation if they dared return.

(One of her brothers was caught trying to travel through her family’s old land, and was paraded through Rose during one of your visits several years ago; his face was dark with anger when he saw you with your hostess, but he couldn’t exactly say much, now, could he? Especially when he had other places to go and be ceremonially thrashed by a priestess, writhing in the stocks under her palm. The laws of the Sapphire Mother are clear on the mercies and punishments she will allow the kingdoms.)

How do you still remember her, Kalaya? Is it her laughter, or her small and serious face, or playing out in the gardens between the fountains? When you hold that earring in your palm, what memories of Ven of Snapdragon return to you?

***

Piripiri!

“Thank you,” Azazuka says, earnestly, after a moment of contemplation. “You’ve given that a lot of consideration. I respect that in an associate.” She squeezes your hand, and then—

The boat rocks. The boat rocks dangerously. Azazuka’s grip on you tightens for support; you glance over at the urchin, who’s gone clammy-faced. “Oh no,” she murmurs to herself, not because she’s panicking but because she knows what’s going on and doesn’t like it. “Oh no oh no oh no.”

Then the snake flips the boat over.

The water is very cold. Azazuka is very much holding onto you. And as you react with the cool head of one trained in the clandestine arts (as if this is the first time you’ve been thrown unexpectedly into water), you see the snake begin to coil around.

It is dark, perhaps— yes, furred. Its eyes are shining green lights in the dark grey of the lake, and they flicker like fire, like the mad green sun. A demon serpent from the Endless City is upon you, and it winds about the two of you with contemptuous flicks of its long tail. Soon it will construct. And then—

Perhaps it is an assassin. Perhaps it is not. Perhaps it is hungry. Perhaps it is not. You cannot afford to find out. Azazuka is still in the panic of someone who hasn’t been in this sort of situation before, and you don’t have time for her to try and conquer that panic.

(The urchin is not in the water. The urchin knew something was up. A thought for when you are not under attack by a demon serpent.)

Boat: not capsized, but upside-down. Urchin: not in water. Surface: close enough for the two of you to swim to if not dragged down by the serpent’s coils. Shore: too far away if Azazuka is not an experienced swimmer. Other boats: too far away for immediate assistance, but likely that someone noticed. Azazuka: her fingers tight on your glove. Umbrella: floating on the surface of the lake.

Serpent: unknown capabilities, unknown purpose. Flute would be useful if you had one and could play it underwater.

***

Lotus of Tranquil Waters!

You can do it!!

That’s what you’re trying to say around the frilly and mortifyingly interesting wad stuffed in your mouth, held in place by a tightly-knotted sash beneath your stolen veil. Your heart is racing like a drum played by Skaral, the Drummer of Season’s Ending. Something that’s not quite panic is fluttering inside your chest like one of the baby birds you helped Grandaunt of Cranes foster as one of the fearsome N’yari pulls you back against her firmly, and your breath is coming fast and hot through your nose, which means you’re just smelling more N’yari, and... nnngh! Bells Below!

Come on, please, get up, you plead as the big N’yari grinds Han’ya(? Kitten??) against the deck. Because if she doesn’t get up, then... then your grand adventure is over before it even started, and all the risks the little brown foxes took for you was for nothing! How are you supposed to see the world for once, to meet other girls and have hot fried noodles and go for walks unchaperoned if you get taken prisoner by N’yari? You’d just be going from one cage to another.

(But at least in the second cage you might get attention from pretty girls for once— no! Shush! Bad Lotus! They might even keep you all tied up and gagged like this, and unlike hiding in your room back home, you won’t be able to wiggle out when you’re done playing— no!! Shush!! Meep!!!)

And, and besides, it’s not fair! Can’t you see she’s at a disadvantage? She’s hurt! And, and rained on! And missing her hat! How is Han’ya supposed to be able to win without her hat? Penalty! Reset the board! But, oh, silly girl, this isn’t shogi with the Blue Silk Glove Marchwarden, this is real, this is adventure, this is what it looks like when you put all your faith in someone who was mean at you and then tried awkwardly to apologize, not because your mother would be cross with them but just because they didn’t want to be mean at you, and...

You can do it!! You scream it at her as loud as you can, bouncing on the N’yari’s lap, not caring that your captor(!!!) will squish you back against her even harder. Because she has to know! She has to know she can do it, if she just tries a little harder, because, because true strength comes from the heart, and she has to have a heart, because... because she wanted to share the umbrella after all.

So please, Han’ya! Fight! Win!! And save everyone from the villains!

(But maybe take your time first, and a priestess should insist everyone else be untied first, and if you want to squeeze there a little more while you have the chance Miss N’yari... gah! Bells Below!!!)

Breathless Dead

Dolce!

The bridge is, for lack of a better word, trashed. You are ushered inside by a very sheepish (if you will excuse the pun) Mynx, who helps you navigate around the broken glass. There is a ridiculous amount of broken glass, as if many mirrors hanging on the walls had been shattered by strong hands. The culprit isn’t hard to find: her hands, already healed, still leave smears of her priceless blood on her glass. The room is full of the antiseptic smell of whiskey, and once again, the culprit isn’t hard to find, filling Redana’s shot glass again with a flourish of its velvet dressing gown.

Redana turns on her heel, back ramrod-straight, eyebrow arched in uncharacteristic confidence. Behind her, the god of madness waves, its mirror-mask reflecting a version of the room that most certainly is not real. At least, one sincerely hopes.

“Ah, Mister Dolce,” Redana says, her words too crisp for the flush in her cheeks. Her jacket is pinned back at the breast, and its motif is the twin-headed eagle. “Capital! I see you received our word. There is a ridiculous notion going around the crew that you are the Captain of the Plousios.”

She takes a seat, glass crunching under her boots, and gestures for you to do the same. Dionysus sets a neon blue cocktail sweet enough to drown the room by your seat, a decadence to melt a sheep’s composure like candyfloss. Redana herself sips from her whiskey and then meditatively swirls it around her glass.

“This rescue mission is going to be difficult enough, what with the storm we’re going through.” She idly gestures at the rainbow knot of disaster, stretched across the wall impossibly wide, slowly gaining mass and terrible details as the Plousios hurtles towards its doom. “We can’t have ambiguities in the chain of command at a time like this, what? Why, you might even...”

Redana stops, and for a moment she looks lost and vacant. There’s a terrible ache in her eyes as she looks at you, as if she’s trying to remember who you are. Then her eyes slide back down to her drink, and she knocks it back.

“...I am prepared to take steps to stamp out mutiny,” says the mutineer, with absolute confidence regained. “But let’s do our best to avoid unpleasantness, shall we? Bella here can’t wait forever.” She gestures at the God of Madness with that red-smeared hand, as if that explains everything. Then she leans forward and whispers, conspiratorially, as Dionysus fills her glass with amber again: “When I save her, she might finally accept my apology.”

Sunshards

The Girlfriend’s Plight

“W-wait,” Rose tries to squeak, realizing too little too late that she still hasn’t gotten to the “new wardrobe” part of her makeover. But she can’t! The words aren’t there for her! As the Countess (beautiful, terrible, confusing, amazing??) gazes victoriously at the squirming girl being pulled back to the gleaming, ornate manacles (with padded cuffs), just a little too high for her to be able to lower her hands, all Rose can say is: “Chen will save me! You’ll see! She’s the best at swords, annnnmmmph—!!!”

And that is how Rose ends up on display: slender wrists locked above her head, and her dainty ankles spread; her lovely face swallowed up by blindingly white cloth from the bridge of her nose, just beneath her striking eyes, to just tucked beneath her dainty jaw; her mouth well-packed with frills and lace and perfume. Helpless, without modesty, letting out useless little huffs and grunts as she rattles the chains, twisting this way and that as she agonizes over Keron’s accusation, which must be true, and without her Chen to rescue her...

But not alone. Never alone. And not ignored, but not mocked, either. After all, she’s here to watch and learn— and how can she do that without an example to learn from?

***

The Dancer’s Lesson

“My body belongs to my Mistress.

“For her sake, I make it limber, ready to be moved, and for her sake I train it to remember the steps. Without her to drive me, I would say to myself: Thara, this thing, it is too difficult! Perhaps you should go and eat the iced cream today, or luxuriate in sunbeams, or dangle your feet off above the clouds! Anything but mastering your body, making of it a beautiful thing!

“But our Mistress, she knows that my desire to excel is not strong enough to rule my heart. So she takes my desire for her, and she lashes me to it, so that I can follow her to where I want to be, so that I can move for her and she can move me as she pleases. For her sake, I dance; for my sake, she commands me to dance. For her sake, I am alluring; for my sake, she invites me to allure.

“Little sister, I do not bring you a special magic. You can be me, but you will have to want like I want. You have to want to move for our Mistress, and you must want this badly enough to train your body, clumsy thing that it is, to remember the orders you have given it, over and over, until it remembers, until it obeys without thought.

“Good girl. Follow me. My body is your body; my steps are your steps. Even a clumsy girl can learn someone else’s steps to follow. Listen, and I will tell you the secrets of the dance.

“The first is that you must make those who see you wish to touch you. Make of your body a whirlpool, a siren song, a living motion. Draw your witnesses in, remind them what it is to touch and be touched, to move and be moved, to love and be loved. Make your stomach a wave, your hips a wall, and your hands mist.

“The second is that you must not let yourself be held. You must punish an impudent touch and sway away from it, or check it, or invite it to try again, but when you are held, the dance is over. Then you may be of other use; but your honor as a dancer depends on making your Mistress struggle for mastery of you when you move for her.

“The third is that you do not need to speak. Let your body speak for you. Let it say: desire me! Let it say: take me! Let it say: I am yours! Let it say: you must win me! With your beautiful eyes, little sister; with the shine of your navel; with the elegance of your ankles and wrists; and with the bounce of your chest, you lucky thing! To dance is to supersede words, and it is all the better for you to learn like this, unable to give in to the temptation.

“If you practice, my little sister, you may become as graceful as I am. If you make yourself beautiful in your movement, you will not be useless. You will be adored, treasured, and free to submit.

“Good girl. Now, let’s get you dressed properly. The Countess had some very specific instructions for you, my dear~”

***

The Pirate’s Tale

“I was a pirate queen, once upon a time.

“I had a fleet of ancient ships, older than the burrows. They were like the Sky Castle, but unlike; they were dangerous little shrikes. With them I controlled the skies from elevator to elevator. Nothing bigger than a bird could challenge me and my Empire of Winds.

“Jessic defeated me. And Jessic saved me. I tumbled, my line cut by a treacherous first mate. I wanted nothing as badly as I wanted not to hit the ground; and Jessic dived, despite the shell and the cannon all around her, to catch me. After the battle, which went on longer under that sky rat, I begged Jessic to enter her service, to be her slave, because I had lost everything I thought I had wanted, and all I had left was hers. And so she asked the Countess, and now the Countess lets my Mistress have me. I am hers; I prepare her tack and I shine her scales. And I have never had to hurt someone ever again, because Jessic keeps me safe, and I can trust her with my life.

“I don’t know why a little thing like you needed to hear this story, but whatever you may have done, you dainty little thing: I’m living proof that the Sky Castle will keep you safe, no matter what happened in your past.

“Now, let’s get to work. Keron tells me you have dainty, useless little hands, but personally? I think these hands are perfect for the sort of things you’ll need to do. I’m a little jealous, even! We’re going to start with folding laundry, which is perfect for a pretty little maid like you. Just remember: strength isn’t in here, it’s in here— gosh, that jingles a lot, doesn’t it?

“Do you like— haha! Oh, stars above and sea below, you’re precious. I prefer leather, myself, but you do look very nice in that veil, little sister.”

***

The Artist’s Story

“When I was younger, I was given a very useless present indeed, and this one caused me to be given another. The first was a gender, and the second was a future.

“When I was young, you see, I stumbled across a broken machine, and I lucked upon the key to restoring it to its old use. It ran for a few months, flickering tape connected to our projector, before its account ran dry. When the collector came to discuss payment plans some time after, the exorcist who defeated it took me in as her apprentice. And I took to it because that was my future: a repairer and, more importantly, understander of machines.

“But the thing was? The machine had been colorcoded inside of its guts: not like to like, but complement to complement. Each component found its home in its partner. Against normal circuitry and code I was helpless; the colors were all wrong. And so I spent my life thinking that I would amount to little more than a second-rate exorcist.

“Indeed, I was so hapless that I was incorporated into a package deal, as my mistress found her match in haggling in the person of the Countess. As the new exorcist of the Sky Castle, entrusted to maintain wards and routers, I was, as you might expect, not particularly talented; the Countess soon realized that she had made an error in that deal. So she gave me a command: a full year and a day on the Sky Castle to discover who I was and who I wanted to be, and if I could not come up with an answer by then, she would send me on my way. And if she saw me wasting a minute of it, she’d put the fear of a sun into me.

“It was the sky, ironically enough, and all its colors. Not just the elevators and the Sunshards but the space in between them. That’s what taught me that I can be the empty space full of colors, too. I can be what defines other things by not being them. And soon enough I’d figured out how to save that on canvas, and in other forms, and when the Countess asked me what my calling was, I said that I was an Artist of Emptinesses.

“And, like most of the girls I meet here, I just want to tell you: don’t let the Countess scare you into being something you’re not. Let her scare you into what you want to be, like Thara does. You have emptiness inside you, but you also have a fullness inside you. Find your fullness, like I found mine, and don’t let anyone scare you away from it.

“...fine, I’ve been around enough of you girls to know what those puppy-dog eyes mean. You did a wonderful job of pouring my tea and you sat very attentively to listen, and you are in fact very pretty and demure. If this is who you want to be, Rose, you’re very good at it. But remember that, as scary as the Countess is, she just wants you to have the courage to know what you truly want. How else can she give it to you?”

Breathless Dead

When she wakes, Bella is still there. Her lips are set in a frown, and how she smiles. Her coat is cruelly familiar, and her eyes still throb as she lights a cigarette and exhales something that stains the walls clear. Behind the mirrors are machines and masks, and every one of them is her.

“Zenoy, Zanzenoy, Zenangelov,” the Laughing God purrs, and the knowledge hits her hard and fast like lightning. She stumbles out of the bed, trailing the Scyllan medical tether until its jaws yield and leave her bereft of its monitoring and enhanced nutrient lines, and she begins fumbling, pushing through the mirrors, grabbing at them and knocking it down.

“Redana,” Mynx says, and she’s wearing a mask, too. Princess Redana Claudius, thinking herself clever. The pink of Redana’s skin melds too neatly with the red scales of her neck. “Are you okay? The Alcedi grandmother said that there wasn’t anything wrong with you, and neither did the Magos, but—“

Redana grabs Mynx by the mask, and finds that she can’t find the seams. Well. That’s all right. “Mynx,” she growls. “Mynx. I have to find the right one.”

“You... what?”

Redana pushes Mynx back, not unkindly, and continues— no, not here, not in here. She stumbles out through the decontam and lets it wash over her and Mynx, even while she checks— no, not here, either.

“Redana, you’re scaring me.”

“I have to find the right one.” The mask on the door (Princess Redana Claudius, upon eating something that she had been pushing around her plate for ten minutes) glows green through its eyelids and Redana pushes through and groans at the sight in front of her, rows upon rows upon rows of masks all the way down the corridor. “I have to find the right one,” she says, repeating herself, louder, with more urgency. “Because I can’t save her without the right one.”

“Zenoy, Zanzenoy, Zenangelov.”

Redana starts running. She glances this way and that, and wherever she looks the mirrors crack and masks pour out of the walls. Sometimes she stops and begins to root through them, uncertain, until she stands up and hares off again, certain that the one she’s looking for is just a bit beyond.

Just a bit farther. Just a bit further. Just a few more steps. It’s around this next corner. The machinery is deafening in her ears, and she almost understands it. Maybe after she finds the right one, she’ll be ready to listen to it properly. But that’s not here. Not yet.

“Redana,” Mynx says, her face still embarrassingly smug, “I really don’t think you should go in there.” Redana stops, looks at her hands, then back at Bella, who is waiting for her. Her stone tail curls around the helm, and smoke curls in the empty places of her back. Redana pries the door open, ignoring Mynx’s squeak of terror, and marches in. There it is, hanging right where it’s supposed to be.

Redana reverently takes the mask and gives it to Bella. Bella hooks the string behind Redana’s head and settles the mask firmly on. Her fingers, clawed, crumbling, linger on Redana’s eyelids before trailing down her new cheeks.

Captain Redana Claudius sets her hand on the helm. “Magistrix,” she says to Mynx, her voice calm now, self-assured, but without arrogance: “Seal the doors and inform the crew. We’re taking a Tristranian Folly. Engines shuttered, save on my mark.” It’s an elegant dance of engines, a way to kill momentum, to make a hard turn without straining the ship past what it can bear. Too slow for battle, but whispersoft if you get the timing right. She pulls the cords and messages begin their long relay down the ship.

“You are to be commended for bringing this to my attention, magistrix. You will be disciplined for cowardice and desertion of a true comrade, which are high crimes, but I will take the circumstances and our long acquaintance into account in your sentencing. Phobos and Deimos make fools of us all, and I will not cut off my own nose to teach my face how to behave. Once we are on our new heading for Ridenki, you are to confine yourself to the brig. Am I clear, magistrix?” Captain Redana Claudius speaks as a woman of the high seas should, her Armada accent crisp and steady, her words carefully enunciated, her passion hidden behind a stoic demeanor.

“And for the sake of the Thunderer,” she says, frowning at what she’s just received on the pneumatics, “send word to the phalanx that if they think the cook is in command, they are gravely mistaken.”

With a wave of her hand, one wall becomes the starry sky far beyond, and even here she can see the gears, the levers, the turning keys, each one hiding behind the drifting colors. Perspective. That’s what she needs. With the right perspective, you could understand the entire design. Isn’t that right, Father?

Isn’t that right?

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Zhaojun!

Zhaojun laughs. She laughs and laughs and laughs. Her eye, revealed where the mask has shattered, is startlingly blue. Like the sea. Like the sky. Like the robes of Venus. Her hair is wilder now. Her robes gossamer-purple. But still she remains Zhaojun, Broken.

“Once there was, once there was not,” she says...

An enemy of Creation who sought to destroy this land.
Maybe it was the Broken King.
Maybe it was the traitor, Neptune.
Maybe it was me.
He took all the little foxes.
In those days they were red, red, red.
So red.
Incarnadine.
He took the foxes, all of them.
He tied torches to their tails.
He set them loose and watched them run.
Trying to escape from the fire.
They set fire to the world.
But then the rains came.
They churned the earth into mud.
All the little foxes rolled in it.
That’s why they’re all brown now—
And black, where their tails burned.

(The story’s wrong. The little foxes are not red. The little foxes are not brown. They are a hot lambent pink, and their teeth are needles, and they are the fire that they carry. They multiply inside the body, one become a hundred become a thousand. The rakshasa has set the fires, her teeth both flint and steel. Now the pink foxes squat at the crossroads of the heart and chew holes in proclamations and dig up buried and forbidden thoughts, though whose— that is not to be told yet.)

“Shall I tell you another?” The placid expression on Zhaojun’s mask is somehow now mocking, despite not having changed at all. “I shall tell you another. Once there was, once there was not a diarchic maiden who walked into a trap. When asked why, she said: because I am governed by desire, and I desire to be as I am.”

(Be we and be free!)

Zhaojun draws her flickering nightmare razor from between her fingers, möbius-edged. It is barely extant in the dark. “You knew me,” she asserts. “And you chose this,” she asserts. The razor glides smoothly against an exposed neck, separated from throbbing fox pandemonium by the thinness of a sash of fine silk. “You are two-in-one, each so desperate to surrender. I have led you here from the moment you donned each other. You never had a choice.”

***

Kalaya!

“If there’s one thing I can say about the Red Wolf,” Petony says, “it’s that she’s a terrible judge of character.”

The rain’s gotten heavy. You were able to smother the unnatural flames with wood, choking them out on what should have been fuel. Now you’re drying off on the long porch, having been soaked in the battle and the toil afterwards. Still, Petony seems pleased by you, still willing to follow your impetuous lead; it’s her thoughts that have her frowning.

“She puts her trust in unworthy women. A woman like her is easily tricked, easily used. No wonder her commanders act so cruelly in her name. No wonder she is tricked by lying princesses.” She breathes in deeply from her pipe and blows out a smoke ring. “There’s no solution. If we send them howling back to the Lamentation, they’ll just come back with orders to kill; the Red Wolf’s got her hounds restrained as much as she can. Do you think the likes of Rose and Hyacinth will be able to stand up to them? Now, Holly. Maybe Holly.”

When she breathes, the smoke pours out of her nostrils like a dragon. “Maybe not. It was easy when it was the Despots, back when you were still in diapers. Then we knew where we stood; and Uusha danced through their stone-horses and cracked their legs, and little Dima hounded them up and down the rivers, and then there were Leeli and Amara who were our teachers. And then there were Vika and Kesh and Nuumel, and...”

She grows quiet for a moment. Her eyes smolder. “And they’ve laid down their swords, or turned them against each other, and who’s left to stand up to the iron and the fire? Me? You really think we could have beaten them, little petal? Them who have the blessing of Red Mars?”

That’s important. The Accord of Thorns is blessed by Venus Morningstar, who makes battle into sport and love into war, who wants champions to defend what is good and peaceful in this world. But the Imperial Legions are blessed by Mars, who is interested in conflict, the shedding of blood, and the dominance of strength. Mars shines over the Imperial Mountain, it is said, and the scales of the Scarlet Empress gleam with that star’s light.

If you were to come to blows, you would be echoing a celestial argument of philosophy; and Mars has the upper hand in open battle. Venus knows hearth and home and heart, and thus these things are held dear in the Flower Kingdoms, but can they really overcome hardened killers?

Possibly. Even starlight flickers. But impetuous Petony seems on the low ebb of her swing, shoulders bare of her tigercloak, which hangs over the kettle-fire to dry. And when she looks to you, it is with the tired hope of someone who remembers being your age.

***

Han!

A stray curl drifts on the surface of the river. If it had any use as a mirror in the low light, the rain has warped it; you are just a silhouette enveloped by a larger silhouette. Your blood rushes in your ears; under the world-swallowing sound of Machi’s purring, you can hear Hanahan and Kigi cheering for their champion, and the supportive(?) noises coming from the little priestess. You feel, more than hear, her stamping her feet on the deck. It’s something to think about instead of the way Machi has you pinned to the railing and has one arm pulled tight over your neck.

She pushes you lower and lower, but never unbalances you, makes you feel like you’re going to be flipped into the river. Your head dunked, maybe, but then she’d pull it right back up. She’s not going to let you go that easily. Not tonight.

Her tongue is rough and wet and hot where she drags it against your ear. Even knowing that this is decently restrained for a N’yari (she’d be shoving that tongue in your mouth if she was trying to aggressively flirt) doesn’t stop it from coming across as possessive.

A surge of incredibly not flustered and actually incredibly composed energy runs through you, and you manage to squirm to one side; Machi’s hip slams into the railing next to you, rocking the barge, eliciting a muffled cacophony from your fellow passengers: shrieks of fear that the two of you are going to tip the boat over. With all of your might, you grab at Machi, and you make a valiant attempt at throwing her over your shoulder.

It’s like attempting to toss a mountain. One foot sweeps your legs out from under you, and your knees hit the deck hard, and Machi topples down with you, and the deck comes up very fast. By the time the temple bells stop ringing in your head, Machi’s got one of your arms wrenched up behind your back and her chest (absurdly warm and fluffy and pillowy) enveloping the back of your head. From underneath Kitty Tofu Hell you manage to get a glimpse of the little bud, squirming in Hanaha’s lap, still wearing your hat, trying so very hard to say something that’s probably “Han, you idiot, are you throwing this match?” That’s definitely it. That’s why she’s wriggling her shoulders and leaning forwards for emphasis, unable to take her eyes off you.

“You are not a flower,” Machi says, and you can feel the powerful rumble resonating through your head as you scrabble on the slick deck for leverage. “You are stone: hard, strong, beautiful.”

“Tell her about her hair,” Kigi sing-songs, running her claws through her new pet’s hair while he moans helplessly.

“Your hair is the fire that once burned in the heart of Aunt Je-he-rakusa,” Machi growls, twisting your wrist back into a position that you are definitely not limber enough for even when you’re not banged up. “I will pile it up in lowlander gold and make it your crown, and gift you combs of white stone for brushing it.” She runs her fingers (with the arm pinned under your neck) through it, and not roughly, even as she threatens to push your hips through the deck. How is she this heavy?

At least Machi stopping to paw at your hair has given you another chance to try and wriggle out. You are going to wriggle out, right? You’re not going to succumb to the promise of being carried back to the mountains by Big Strong Girl Who Has Many Weird Compliments And A Very Warm Mouth, right? Look at the little bud there— how can you let her down? If you don’t assert yourself, she’s going to end up your wedding present, in a teenie tiny apron and a headdress of semiprecious stones, trussed up on top of a pile of looted treasures!

***

Piripiri!

Azazuka lays her hand on yours. She’s so careless about it, and she’s not even looking at you, but. It’s her hand. On top of yours. Big and soft and warm, even through your gloves.

“That sounds wonderful,” she sighs, but then: “But now you’re here. Safe from lava and fairies and other such distressing things.” She sounds... dismayed. “You don’t need to worry,” she adds. “No danger ever comes to Golden Chrysanth. The princesses may squabble, the N’yari might reave, but our moat and our walls keep us safe. The most you will ever have to worry about are stray fireworks or mercantile ‘wars.’”

As a student of espionage, it’s trivial to gauge her. It’s not as if she’s particularly good at hiding it (unless she’s much cannier than you, which cannot be discounted as a possibility). She has no idea what real danger is like, but longs for it anyway. If a river dragon breached or the rat urchin pulled up to a pirate sloop, she’d be as delighted as a child on their birthday.

Do you encourage this longing, or tamp it down?

***

Giriel!

From the moment you hear the bow being pulled across the strings, you know. You deny it to yourself and press onward into the dark, following the song to wake the dead, but the knowing piles up inside you until you make a turn along an overgrown trail and see her, crowned in moonlight and gentle rain, playing her erhu: Peregrine. Around her are N’yari who do not move like N’yari, attending to the graves; and around her sway the shades of the dead, called up slowly and with care.

The road to her is down, into a ravine, and then back up, winding around the side of the hill. And, knowing Peregrine, you will need to touch her to even have a hope of getting her attention when she is in the middle of a rite. You don’t need to be next to her to know that her eyes will be closed and her lips parted, deaf to all but the song.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

She looms out of the dark so suddenly, a figure of such terror, that Kayl screams and crumples, his legs failing him. It’s hard to blame him. Her verdigrised armor was shaped by forest gods, curling and snaking about her over-long limbs, and her helmet extends into a long muzzle, locked in a boar-tusked smile. The horns bend inwards before splintering into a mess of prongs, curved and sharp, just like the nails of her gauntlets. In the low light, the eye sockets of her helm are dark pits, revealing nothing.

“Have you come as an exorcist, Honored Sister?” Uusha, the Stag Knight, asks, her voice rough and wry, reminiscent of the forest gods themselves. “Or have you come to join the work?”

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

The dress looks faintly ridiculous in the sunlight. It is made for night, meant to be cloaked in shadow and to shroud Constance in temptation. In the last of the daylight, it does not flatter Constance as she pins her hair in place; it makes her seem gangly and grave-pale, and it was definitely not made to be bunched up while she sits.

But once the night falls, then it will be different. Then she will wear the night itself. Then her paleness will become like marble and its lustre where it flashes beneath the layers will be like the barrow-hoards of the dead kings. Then her make-up will be effective, deep and dark enough to drown Robena, rather than looking faintly like peat.

Artifice, Artifice, all is Artifice— but when the sun lowers her lids, then will that artifice be revealed in its hour and glory. Then she will be Night’s handmaiden, the serpent in the garden, a stone to break Robena’s hull and send her heart spilling into the sea.

“Thank you,” she says, to those assembled, and her sincerity is fine and brittle as chalk. Her heart is a bird in a snare in her chest, and her fingers unconsciously twist at her dress already, as if eager to pull layers away.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Han!

The sound that Jazumi makes when she is sucker punched by you is kind of a “nuuh.” Then she spins on her heel, topples over the side of the boat in a jingle and jangle of charms, and hits the water with a hard splash. Like, painfully hard. The little priestess winces a little. But don’t worry, because she immediately comes back up flailing and hissing and pulling outraged faces as the current sweeps her away. N’yari don’t much care for the water, see.

Machi turns and fixes you with the kind of glare that would melt a lesser woman, the lantern-light shrouding half her face in shadow, as Kigi and Hanaha freeze. Then, terribly, inevitably, Machi’s face breaks into a grin and she cackles. “Haha! Wonderful, Han! Grandmother, I thank you for this blessing, that you bring our paths together again!” She kisses two fingers and holds them up to the sky in honor of Grandmother Moon. Then she brings her attention back to you— that is, the two of you, because the priestess, arms still lashed behind her back, is shoulder-to-shoulder with you. You can feel her all fluttering like a leaf, even as the rain trickles into her shoulder-bobbed hair, which is a glossy dark blue in the low light, her poncho’s hood pulled back by Jazumi.

Machi swings her sword off her back and hammers it, still sheathed, down on the still boat so hard it rattles the deck. “I claim that priestess as our prize in the name of our Grandmothers,” she purrs, claws clacking on the hilt. “But I am willing to yield her to Han’ya of the Ōei, my raid-bride.”

Oh. Oh gosh. Well, she’s given you two pretty clear options. On the one hand, she means to beat you in a duel and take the priestess just so you’ll come chase her. On the other, she intends to give you the priestess as a gift. An initiation present. And of course the priestess can tell she’s being bartered over. It’s obvious! Clear as day! That she’s being dangled like a prize! You need to make it clear that you’re not interested in having her as a prize— because you’re not thinking about it, right? You’re not considering slinging a cutie over your shoulder and feeling her squirm and hearing her squeaks, no, that’s the furthest thing from your mind. And besides, what kind of thanks would that be to someone who was kind to you, who offered you an umbrella, who wasn’t afraid of you (though she probably is now...).

What might be going through your mind instead is an image of Machi, big stinky cat bully, toying with an innocent, helpless priestess, and it’s all your fault you brought attention down on her head. Enveloping her in those muscles, licking the sweat off her skin, leaving hickeys beneath that veil, being possessive and mean and... meep.

Is it that? Is it the way that, instead of sneering and being bombastic, Machi sounds devious and excited at her own cleverness and eager to tempt you into joining her? Is it the casual strength of her stance, knowing she could pick you up and toss you overboard if she wanted, but that she doesn’t want to, because she wants you?

Why does Machi of the Ōei take a String on you, Han(‘ya of the Ōei)?

***

Giriel!

“What will you do when you find them?”

The young shepherd glances back at you. He’s so young, just having earned the right to take the flock past the river to graze all by himself— old enough for the responsibility, but, despite his protestations to the contrary, young enough that he doesn’t know better than to lead you.

Which is, in and of itself, curious. The farmers and herdsmen of the lowlands often struggle with the superstition (grounded in unfortunate fact and logical fallacy intermingled) that the appearance of a witch brings the attention of the Unseen to their doorstep; that ghosts linger in your wake, demons listen to act on your every thoughtless word, and that gods being their attention and judgment on those who interact with you. Kayl is young enough that he thinks himself brave enough to deal with all those things. It’s very cute.

But that’s not all. Because while you’re used to some distance, ever since you started asking around about the N’yari raids and the Legion patrols, you’ve been stonewalled, and there’s the worry of worse. A woman even came out of her mother’s house to throw beans at you. Beans! Like you’re some common bandar-logi! People this close to the mountains should know better!

Which brings us back to Kayl, all energy and impish smiles, always a few steps ahead of you, carrying a pole and a goat-knife. The only guide you’ve been able to find to the local graves, and the only one you’ve been able who’s willing to talk about the ghosts. Sure, he’s only seen them from a distance, but he’s heard them, and once, while he was trying to sleep, he heard a whole procession on the other side of the low wall he was huddled up against, and he kept his eyes closed even though his heart was hammering so loud, and he didn’t so much as breathe while they marched past with their dry feet and their heavy bangles and their low conversations in old people speak, and if he did breathe, he was so sneaky about it that they didn’t so much as sniff it.

“Are you going to call the demons? They might come to you. Meris says she’s seen them camping in the forest. Their fires are all green, like the leaves, and they keep tossing rocks into it.” (Worryingly accurate. The Tears of the Green Sun don’t burn wood, only stone. They tarnish metal and sear poems into flesh.) “I think you shouldn’t be allowed. The priestesses should come and send all the demons home and make you do your penance. Is it true that the Mother of Witches is all tied up under Lake Zenba?”

***

Zhaojun!

Sagacious Crane of the Reeds lands, again, in the mud, face-down, veil drenched in mud and marked with the pattern of a goddess’s slipper. One of the bandar-logi reaches out to her, chittering, as the rest crowd greedily in.

Sagacious Crane’s hand lashes out and seizes the bandar-log by the wrist. It makes a small noise, an acknowledgement of its imminent doom, and then Crane pulls herself up, and, in one smooth motion, pulls the bandar-log off its feet and flings it shrieking at her tormentor—

Who is no longer there. And that is what breaks her. In a towering fury she plows through the bandar-logi, screaming for Zhaojun to come back, not out of fear but so she can shake the possessed girl until that mocking, immutable mask tumbles off and she can look her in the eye and tell her off, how dare she, liar, tormentor, false messenger, to say such things, to strike at her goddess, to strike at herself, to make such implications—

Beneath the shrine, Zhaojun walks in the deep places of the earth. Shadows drift and drape. Banners hang limply, each one seeming to proclaim: he who wove me was beautiful! she who held me was mighty! behold me now, a memorial to a place that was, a time that was, a people who were! But it was not, it never was, and they never were. Zhaojun walks through falsehoods and the weight of her threatens to cause a collapse. The rakshasa will have no choice but to reveal herself—

And so she does, in a form that Zhaojun does and does not remember. A voice that cries out for release, dry and cracked but unmistakable. The goddess is strong, but the body remembers; this trap is made for it. Come close, it says in every aspect, every perfect detail, come close.

What temptation, perfectly crafted, is too much for the [possessed/encircled/sleepwalking] priestess, Zhaojun? What hides the porcelain fangs until it is too late?

(When the fangs sink deep and the venom spreads, Zhaojun will mark XP. So yield, child of earth. Succumb.)

***

Kalaya!

When a demon’s sword is shattered, as Petony’s hook swords are deft at doing, a curious thing happens. The demon stops, kneels down, collects the pieces (a process sometimes delayed by the warriors with clubs batting them around), and then marches away, holding them carefully. One by one they begin to trail away, bleeding away their strength, until Petony hooks their strange icon’s pole with her sword and snaps it. When it falls onto an exposed stone, a low groan rolls through the ranks of the demons, and they rout entirely. Victory!

Victory, save for the fact that the farmstead the Legion occupied for their stand is now alight with green fire, and rather than trying to put out the blaze, they’re pulling out and making to regroup and put distance between you and them; their commander evidently does not want to take responsibility for what just happened here.

Here’s your choice, then, gallant knight: if you give up on the opportunity to chase the legion and hold them to account, mark a Condition to reflect how much it hurts to watch them get away without being forced to acknowledge the harm they have caused.

But if you chase after them and challenge their commander, you’ll have a chance to capture all of them for justice— at the cost of failing to rescue the farmstead. The farmers will live, but their home and possessions will be lost to hell’s fires.

For her part? Petony would encourage you to chase after them, without hesitation. It’s better to kick ass and feel good about it than to spend time trying to put out strange magical fires.

***

Piripiri!

“Do you have anything so grand in Hymair?”

Possibly it is a dig at you, a veiled (ha!) snub to make her feel superior. Possibly it is not, and it is as it seems, a breathless and happy question as the two of you huddle under your umbrellas, looking out over the clouded mirror of the great lake at Golden Chrysanth. From here, it’s hard to see the pennants and banners, and so the city is defined by its myriad of lights and the great spires and towers that rise above them, dark against the silver sky. Even from here, it is possible, just barely, over the constant sound of driving rain on water, to hear the noise and clamor of the city— but muffled, as if swaddled in a blanket.

Extend that metaphor. You are the one in the blanket, you and Azazuka and the rat girl (who has an umbrella in the crook of her elbow that she’s desperately trying not to drop as she slowly poles along, and you could swear you caught a rat holding onto it for her). It is hot and humid under the blanket, but the weight of the air is also comfortable, suggesting to you that you can afford to relax. The world beyond, as grand as the scale of the city may be, is muted. It is just the three of you, and the rat girl is doing her best to make it seem like two.

“It is older than mortal habitation in the Flower Kingdoms,” Azazuka says, reciting a teacher’s catechism. “When we arrived in the light of the sun, it was here, waiting for us.” Which means that it may have been built by the Titans for their demons (the technical term for prelapsarian demons is daemons, but only an insufferable scholar would correct you) or by one of the other servitor races from the beginning of time: the Rapta, the Chorus of Lights, the Thirteen Belled. Either way, it gives the city an even grander air, and puts into context the feeling of renovation you sometimes feel walking those streets, the way that the garish wood and paint and silk is the affectation of a long-term tenant, and that if the lake washed it all away, the black stone would remain inviolate.

Her earlier question still stands: do you have anything so grand in Hymair? Golden Chrysanth is truly a wonder from the ancient world, like shattered Chiaroscuro. What does your home have in way of comparison—

She’s looking to you without(?) guile. Her cheeks are soft. Her braids gleam with oils. And the smile playing on her full, red lips is worth an Imperial Tribute in and of itself. She hangs on your words. Quick, storyteller; quick, little Pipi. Sing of Hymair, lest she turn away from you and find you common.

Sunshards

Good girl. A thrill runs through Rose from her toes all the way up to her head; her hair floofs in a perfect and impossible way as the shudder reaches the top of her. Yes. Yes! Another piece of the puzzle fits into place with an almost audible click: she’s weak, fragile, useless, Chen’s girlfriend, and she is a good girl. A good girl: is good, is a girl, does her best to keep quiet when punished, check, check, check. And her mouth is for pleasing her mistress (in her silks and fluffy scarf and shining eyes that see the beauty in everything) and she won’t use it for anything else unless she wants to be punished.

(Does she want to be punished? That’s a prickly question. Punishment is bad. Punishment is... dark, and sleep, and loneliness, and she can’t remember what the temple did if that’s what she remembers of it, and the thought hurts. Punishment hurts. It hurts so much. Is that what Keron will do to her if she is a bad girl? Will she make Rose fall asleep and bury her forever under the castle? Then how will Chen find her? Please, please, Chen, if that happens, you have to find her, please.)

So she has to use her mouth to make her Chen pleased. And what would please Chen? Rose thinks as hard as she can, Keron’s stare hot and hard on her. Then she speaks, looking up with eyes like gold and onyx.

“Princess Chen tries so hard,” she blurts out. “When she laughs, the world lights up all around me. I used to think princesses were no good, were power-hungry, needed somebody to keep them in line— not me, of course,” she squeaks, squirming. “But I don’t want anyone to stop Chen from smiling. She does that enough herself. She deserves someone big and strong to look after her and keep her safe and hold her and instead she picked me and every day she makes me feel a little more like she made the right choice. Because that’s what she does. She sees the beautiful things in landscapes and draws them out, and she sees the beautiful things in all these silly princesses and draws them out, and she sees the beautiful things in useless, weak girls who can’t even use a sword... and she makes it so that everyone else can see them, too.”

And then her mouth clamps shut, because begging someone else for reassurance wouldn’t be pleasing to Chen! She’d want to know that her fragile little Rose never lost faith in her, and no matter how much she wants to be called a good girl again, she can’t ask. And, and, and! And the look that Keron is giving her makes her feel all the more useless, useless, useless, because her heart’s hammering and she’s all hot and she’s being held in place by a handmaiden who can move her around, and, and, and if her mouth is only for Chen’s kisses she shouldn’t want Keron to steal one from her mouth anyway! That’s not a good girl thought, right? R-right? She doesn’t know the words for that kind of girl, but they’re probably... w-whatever the opposite of a good girl is!

No, a good girl is... someone who Chen would be proud to save. And that sort of girl would tilt her head like this— before Keron can decide her fate— and let out a little “hmmph!” of defiance, like Keron doesn’t make her scared and excited and weak and useless, like she wants to be punished, and even though she’s scared, she can’t stop herself from trying to be the most like Chen’s girlfriend she can be.

Because Rose is a good girl.

[Despite herself, Rose is Smitten with the Countess. She may take a String, herself, on Rose; and if she tugs that String, she will tug Rose helpless and all confuzzled and thirsty with it.]