Tatterdemalion

Sunshards

Rose from the River recognizes that fatal moment. How can she not? That moment of hesitation. When someone’s heart gets in the way of their sword, and they leave themselves wide open.

It’s never been her. Did you know that? When she was the monster that haunted the Burrows, that moment was her cruelest weapon. Thief of faces, ruiner of hearts! But on Chen’s face, there’s none of that oh-so-familiar hurt and betrayal that Rose from the River remembers from these moments.

No, she recognizes this from a different place. From her own face, pale and gaunt and noble, with painted lips and a gauzy veil. It is desire, need, interlaced with fear that you will be tested and found wanting, that you are incapable of even knowing what you do not know, like a blind woman who has been told that the very culmination of the Way lies just across a bridge as thin as a knife. Rose’s heart aches in sympathy for Chen’s—

But foxes are still bringers of miracles, aren’t they? And Cyanis, for all her fox crimes, brought Chen here. She brought Chen where she needed most to be, where she could be confronted with someone confident and knowledgeable, willing to initiate her into those seemingly impenetrable mysteries.

So when Rose screams wordlessly for Chen, straining against her bonds, eyes wide, her heart throbs in time with Chen’s own. She knows this story, sweet little princess. She knows that sometimes, dreams are kind, and the world is in truth eager to guide you across that perilous bridge. So know defeat, Chen, just as First of the Radiants knew defeat in soft silk and gentle hands!

Breathless Dead

How wonderful, Alexa! The wonders of the Endless Azure Skies crumble into dust beneath those strong fingers, even as Skotos all but swoons into that multitude of firm arms. This is the shape of the story, after all: an attempted theft, a moment of danger and fear, tension rising, and then salvation. It’s as intense as a drug running through Skotos’s veins.

Can you feel them shiver, Alexa? How they shake and tremble against your stone! How their breath comes suspiciously fast and how, how Skotos leans on you as if their strength had left them!

“Philosophers are the most perilous of scholars,” they quote by rote. “Their experiments cannot be contained within anything less than the sphere of pure logic or the cradle of a world. They alone dare to camp beneath the shadow of Olympus and present their findings to the mighty ones far above, an act which is as much the enticement of the harlot as it is the unveiling of a painting.” Their voice is soft and easy to ignore. Go right ahead! Let danger drown them out. It has no inflection, merely a gentle monotony. “By the graces of philosophy was the Atlas Cultural Sphere raised up above all other cultures, refined and wise, and by the follies of philosophy did Molech bring it crumbling down upon his head.” They do not laugh at the unintended joke. “Philosophy, at its heart, consists of the proposition, which is simply as follows: that it is possible for civilization to more perfectly please the gods through a change in its fundamental principles, whether on a small scale or a grand one.”

They didn’t complain, so it’s absolutely fine, it’s not like they’re trying to make a point about the dangers of speaking to a philosopher, and that is indeed the next step that should be taken.

…but maybe Skotos should be carried over. Yes. Just in case. They’re already right here, Alexa. All you would need to do is scoop them up. It would be so easy. Practically effortless.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Constance Nim is the other side of the wheel, rising (or perhaps descending) towards mortality as the Lady Sauvage withdraws from it. For the first time in days, there is color in her cheeks, freshly washed and scrubbed until they shone, and rather than gliding stately along, as unapproachable as a snow-capped Caledonian mountain, she... walks. She moves as you or I might, simply, as a woman. A smile is not far from her lips, and if you have the eyes to see, it can be glimpsed hiding in the quirk of her lips or the tightening of lines around her eyes. More than one choice was made last night, and so, perhaps, Constance will continue on this road, and dwindle, and become nothing less or more than a priestess.

What of the knights? She's been so withdrawn, her heart locked away, that she knows them best as partners in Tristan's japes; as a Greek chorus offering judgment on her and her schemes; as people whose hurts and needs she has not addressed as she should. But she will have long days, in the summer, in the waiting, perhaps with Robena, perhaps with Apricot alone, and time enough to remember how to care; time enough to plant crops in the soil and water them through the cracked-earth days of the dog star, time enough to relearn gentleness and vulnerability and how to be firm enough to be a shelter and how to be soft enough to be held.

The worst is over. Now the future stretches out in front of her in yellow and gold and red, and all that remains is to see whether her knight walks away alive in the face of the numinous, or whether Constance will bury her bones in British earth-- but however her story ends, there will be a place for Constance. The ice has broken; the river runs.

"A good question," she says, quietly, not as a gnomic pronouncement but as an acknowledgement. Leave it to Tristan to ask it.

Sunshards

Click!

Clack!

Click!

Under the best of circumstances, navigating down a flight of stairs in high heels is tricky. Descending while being led on a leash is trickier. Doing all of that with your ankles tied together and your hands behind your back? It’s lucky that Rose from the River is in control right now, because silly little Rose would have had to scoot down on her butt, or even be carried by the handmaidens swirling about her, all of them ready just in case that characteristic Rose clumsiness kicks in. And it looks like it will! Rose might not have laser claws or power armor, but she knows how to get some attention, doesn’t she just? What with her thighs flexing with each hop, her jingling top bouncing along, her veil flying up and showing off how firmly she’s gripping that scarf between her teeth... Rose from the River loves to show off, and if she can’t do it with a glaive and a flourish, she’ll do it one hop at a time.

She’s being led to a pillar that Keron had set up all along. Really, incredible work from her; she knew how all of this was going to go down, and knew that Chen would need a visual reminder of what she’s fighting for. Rose happily wiggles her way over and lets her friends (yes, that’s what they’ve been to her over the course of her training) free her wrists just to secure them over her head, which really helps emphasize her hips and stomach as she wiggles them in turn, dramatically tugging on her wrists as she looks out over the battlefield: at Chen (beautiful and spunky and achingly cute) and at Yue (who is shining with a very inauspicious but familiar love of battle, one that the monk knows she should quietly condemn, but the slave feels free to gasp at) and Keron (who she treacherously hopes will win, or at the very least, will try to distract Chen by, oh, shredding Rose’s top with her laser claws, for a start) and the squire (who is herself, whether she knows it or not, attuned to the Way).

Her job is to be the prize. To be fought over. To sink into the bliss of not having to make a choice between Keron and Chen— to simply accept whichever outcome unfolds. (Not that she’s going to entirely be neutral. If Chen wants to win, she’s going to have to prove her mastery of the self and her enlightenment of not being distracted by Rose’s squirming, grunting, jingling, and muffled calling out of her name. Consider it a challenge, girlfriend.)

Breathless Dead

“You don’t have to worry, champion,” Skotos murmurs, their voice like the morning mists. “Beware humility; it is a vice. You do not need to hold back for their sake, noble one. If you fear reprisal, this one will swear to your provocation. If you fear endangering one in your care, this one will vanish and not be seen by them again. Show them your might, blessed of Athena.” Still, the cultist nods their saffron-shrouded head. An order is an order.

And perhaps, just maybe, they might still want to see Alexa toss around some rogues and scoundrels with those perfect, chiseled arms. To fight with fist and improvised weapon against enemies bearing weapons more threat and accessory than danger. These are the Endless Azure Skies, after all; getting in fights along the grand streets, scuffling with villains, and discovering the thread that leads one to an exciting story is the sort of thing that happens all the time here.

And Skotos is not allowed to take part. It is not Skotos’s place to wrestle again, to sharply rap knuckles against the street so that weapons go clattering uselessly to the ground, to pull carpets from clotheslines and toss them over an assailant’s head, to sweep ankles and crack jaws and dangle thugs over a drop until they admit what foul business they were sent on by some scheming vizier or wicked noblewoman. Therefore, Skotos’s only hope of being, in some small part, witness to that story? It is the hope that brave, strong, patient, fearsome, kind Alexa will protect them and be the heroine of that story instead.

Not that Skotos’s hopes are of any value. Not that they deserve to be any part of that thriller. Not that they may expect Alexa to do so for them. Not that they may even use the seal on one gloved hand without Redana’s permission. They are a servant, and Alexa’s will is to be their will. As she says, so shall they do, and their wishes are completely immaterial. This is what it means to be penitent.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Piripiri!

The Laema plays a joke on everyone. It is not a nice joke. This is the joke: she has decided that you must be kept safe, and that the safest place to keep you until Ven returns is in Ven’s own chambers. It will enrage Ven, disappoint her own daughters, keeps you from going to find Azazuka, and means you have to spend the night (if not longer) in that miserable room.

It is a transitory room. It is the room of a young woman who both hoards possessions but does not much care for them beyond having them close to hand. It is tacky luxuries imported from Hell and then papered over a room that lies at the thin point between one side of the castle and the other.

Rain streaks down over the dusty panes of one window, clamped in place by old and rusted iron in the classical Kingdom style. It is dark, and cool, and the night beyond is silent and still. Green sunlight shines through the thick panes of the other window, and the distant chaos of Hell is a dull roar at the edge of your senses, the kind of thing that takes some time to acclimate to. Between the two is an overly plush bed somehow crammed in, despite all the exits being too small for it, hung with green curtains and covered with swirling, writhing labyrinth-sheets.

In this room, there are maps, crammed haphazardly into a lacquered box; in this room, there are two piles of clothes, the used and the unused; in this room, there are masks, and incense sticks, and shaman-pouches full of Hell’s trinkets.

In this room there is something like a black monkey with a hideous and arching claw on either hand, locked in a thing like a birdcage. Its bulging, oversized eyes have no lids. It has no mouth that you can see. It watches you with unwavering intensity, scratching something into a brass sheet with its nail and then returning to stillness with just enough irregularity that it is impossible to relax. Perhaps anything you do in here will be presented to Ven; perhaps anything you do in here will be presented to Ven’s masters; perhaps it is writing an aria intended for the revels of the Broken King’s tattered heart, and your paranoia is misplaced.

But isn’t it tempting to figure her out by proxy? To play a game with the demon scribe, to spy without being caught spying, to gather a picture of the fool before her return? It would at least distract you from that unearthly, far distant music— from the flutes, the drums, the pipes and bells, the harps and tambourines and horns— singing to drive off a silent, deadly, all-consuming wind— playing because silence is death and death is swift and because Whirling-in-Rags dances still through the winding black streets, his golden feet streaked with his blood, his yellowing robes swirling all about him as he loses himself in the ecstasy of motion which he shares with the Fivefold Wind whose sermon is the release of all those painful attachments to the world that she has lost and therefore were only and ever holding her back and in her depthless benevolence she will carve them from you too until you are free from existence—

Perhaps it is best to think about other things. Yes.

***

Kalaya!

Ven stiffens awkwardly as she is held, much like a cat that has been bowled over by an affectionate dog. There is little softness in her, particularly on one side of her body, hard as a sword. For a moment, there’s nothing in her face but confusion and distress— until realization, memory, uncertainty bloom. “Kal?”

Despite that, when you hug her again, exuberant, for a moment some of that hardness slips. Her nails dig against your shoulder; she leans into you like a ship hugs a cove in a storm. She looks down, lets your eyes get lost in her short hair, the way it curls at her jaw, the way it hides her own eyes in the dark.

“I had to leave the Kingdoms, Kal.” The words slip out of her like a dagger leaving its sheath. “To study. To find myself. There wasn’t any future for me here, not as a failed princess.” The dagger turns. It is not driven into you, but for a moment its sharpness is unmistakable. “Now I’m here. Pilgriming, obviously. Doing pilgrim things. Walking to some of the old shrines. Paying homage. Seeing what’s left for me.”

She wants to push you away. She chooses not to, again and again, because she wants to be held. Because she wants you to keep holding her more than she wants whatever else keeps making her tense up, keeps her from opening to you.

“I’m. I’m really lucky to see you,” she admits. “Just... please don’t tell anyone else, okay?”

She finally looks up at you, and her eyes are dark and large and perilous. That’s what you call places where you could drown: perilous. And that dagger of a voice keeps turning, keeps leveling its tip away from you, hard and sharp and trying so hard to be gentle with you.

“I don’t want people to know I came back,” she says. “Not unless it’s on my terms. Thus. You know. The hat. And the cloak.”

She pulls her cloak tighter against that unnaturally hard arm in unconscious self-consciousness. A veil, of sorts. Something she wants to hide, even from you.

***

Zhaojun!

The N’yari camp is typical for them: small, camouflaged, easily pulled up and relocated. They’re evidently early in a raid: their spoils include a few pigs, a couple of lockboxes into which clothes and coins and materials are sorted, and two girls who are both a little scared and a little excited, torn between embarrassment and curiosity and fear of the half-known. One girl sits in Machi’s lap during the strategy meeting, her linen-swaddled face buried into Machi’s neck, squirming in tantalized fluster as one hand kneads her rump with distracted feline rhythm.

“Now, I don’t just want the knight,” Machi dictates. “I want hidden treasure to bring back home, and I want to match up against the dragon girl again, my little kitten, just so she knows I defeated this knight.” She presumes that her new spirit will know innately who the dragon girl is; her rival-desire for the girl burns brightly. The dragon girl is strong and cunning and wonderfully unscrupulous; the dragon girl is her destined trophy, prize, and makeout partner, and Machi doesn’t just want the glory of bringing her home, she honestly thinks that she’ll be bringing the dragon girl home — that she’ll be doing right by both the dragon girl and her community by helping her discover she belongs among the N’yari.

In contrast, she just wants to dress up this knight in a cute maid outfit, force her sword-hands into mittens, and show her off at feasts as proof of Machi’s strength and prowess. Maybe dangle her from the chandelier in her family’s hall, for guests to bat at and spin around. Clearly, there is work to be done if Machi is to be convinced to be Kalaya’s nemesis, properly and completely.

***

Giriel!

“Ah, yes. The Prince.” The General begins to move again, restless, beginning a great arc that will eventually end with you surrounded on all sides. “An excellent protege. The dancer taught her etiquette and extended her protection when she was weak and unforged, and the sun gave her new flesh and lessons in statecraft, but I was the one who taught her the war. Swordplay, strategy, and liberation. She was cast down, and it is our privilege to make her a weapon, an agent for the front, to raise her again, just as our standard will rise over the rebels, the revolutionaries, the anarchists, the traitors.”

Pale fingers twist a pauldron into useless scrap, effortlessly. It is discarded into the heaving sea of trash.

“First she simply wanted her kingdom returned. It took time to convince her to be a uniter; we must maximize our beachhead. She’s still in the early stages of the campaign, introducing saboteurs to the occupation, suborning their defenses, facilitating our advances, delivering us traitors. Soon she will be ready to move on their regional hub, and we will raise her to glory, and their kings will kneel and lose their crowns, and she will make a throne of them, and stand on their throats.” He stops his rambling for a moment, and then turns to you, speaking almost conspiratorially.

“She has recently identified a vulnerable asset. The daughter of a revolutionary.” A god’s daughter, then. “When she acquires it, we shall see whether she gives it up to us or not. I will think less of her if she tries to hide it from me, or thinks to give it over to my brothers. But the joke is that I will take it. There are interrogations. There are disciplines. There are humiliations. There are punishments. I have my right. I will not be denied. There is a war to win.”

It would be unwise to point out that his motives are nakedly revenge that he cannot admit to himself, rather than being driven by any sort of tactical sense. Watch how his fingers twitch with their naked need to punish the gods and their children and their servants. Try not to imagine the deep pits, the oubliettes, the prisoners lost underneath the waves of this horrible sea, alive beyond the reach of time. Try very hard not to imagine the General deciding that you, too, are on their side.

(There is, of course, even in the demon city, the hope of reprieve. There is always the chance of being fished out by demon-thieves who scurry beneath Tichtokh’s notice, unearthed by the churn of the Waste, or even being traded away as a prize so that the General receives the concessions he needs for the neverending war. Small comfort for anyone sinking to their knees in the Waste, betrayed and handed over to face a litany of their crimes against the rightful ruler of the world.)

Peregrine makes the little noise, beside you. She doesn’t blurt it out, but if she doesn’t know who he’s talking about, she knows how she can find out, and she finds this interesting, perhaps interesting enough to distract her from Uusha’s need— at least until she gets the answers she wants.

“Now, go pick up your meat. Take it to Kingeater Castle. Their little joke on the front. There you’ll find my Ven. And if she thinks to hide it from me— I have my ways. She cannot keep it from me. But unbar the door, and I will remember.” Ah. So he wants you to call on him so he can intercede very directly.

Add that to the list of things you definitely should not do.

***

Han!

The little bud shivers and gives you tiny appreciative squeaks and breathlessly thanks you for saving her from such an awful fate. It would be fairly obvious how titillating, how both scary and enticing she finds it, for anyone who wasn’t busy brooding. Which, of course, means that it soars right past your head.

By the time she falls asleep, her head resting on your shoulder, her dainty body all tucked in next to you, you’re still running over those thoughts of Machi, over and over, and the difference between you. Machi is wild, selfish, and impetuous, and she thinks any cutie she sees is hers to kiss. And after sharing what the N’yari are like with the little bud? If you remind her of Machi, she’ll make some excuse to leave you. She’ll run away from the catkisser.

And that thought hurts, doesn’t it?

All you have to do is be the opposite of those things. Be safe and tame. Be selfless. Don’t do things without thinking them through very carefully. Don’t think of Crane scoffing and telling you that you’d never be those things. You have to prove that you’re nothing like Machi.

Drop your Feral to 0, and then tell us how you try to show Lotus that you’re a good girl over the course of your trip, and how you deal with unwanted heart flutters.

(For her part, she walks without complaint, but is easily distracted; she is constantly on the lookout for whatever she finds beautiful, which is often something quite ordinary. She is cheerful, and happy to share little songs, but drifts close to you and shrinks whenever someone passes by. And she watches you when she thinks you’re not looking, all her judgment hidden by her veil.)

Sunshards

There we go. That’s her girl. Look at those soft cheeks go all flushed just for her. Even tied up and barely dressed, Rose has Chen wrapped around her little finger, and what a rush that is.

Rose from the River’s helplessness is tempered, rather strongly, by her self-assurance. When she luxuriates in Chen’s flustered reaction, it’s from a much more centered place to stand than silly little Rose, and when she turns her head and looks, properly, at Yue— just there, as Yue points to the stands, as she’s limned by magic— there’s experience in her nod, an acknowledgement of how Yue has already grown, how (unlike the careless strength of Rose from the River herself) Yue has put in the work. Receive now the approval of the demon of the ancient world, bought and sold, yours to command if you dare. She is ancient, unflappable, and proud of her companions. A thousand blessings on the Way for carrying them into her life!

Then she is smacked on her curvy little rump and she squeaks and squirms and reacts, flustered and embarrassed, like a blushing girl just out of her village, and it’s only half an act. And maybe it’s Yue who sees (though perhaps without recognizing) the way that the formerly big and formerly scary shapeshifter melts into her performance, trying to sell to everyone (and most especially herself) that she’s in need of being rescued, that Chen is the heroine today and that Rose is the damsel in such blushy, jingly, tight distress!

Is it not said:
There is no weakness like that
of the mountain that shrugs free the sky;
there is no freedom like that
of the woman who chooses to close her eyes.

Breathless Dead

Outside of Redana’s light, Skotos is a little more present. The hair is rising on the back of their neck, even though they don’t spare a glance back at their pursuers. Indeed, in the depths of the hood, they smile. Fools. Fools! Skotos walks with the mighty Alexa, and therefore, there is nothing to fear.

(Redana had been somewhat preoccupied, and Alexa had been busy, and— between one thing and another, it turns out that Skotos is blissfully innocent of any withdrawal of Athena’s favor, just as it is likely Alexa wouldn’t know why, should the hood be pulled back, this Hermetic cultist looked a little bit like Redana if you squinted— the lank yellow hair, the girlish face. Though given that only Alexa knows Mynx’s game— besides Dolce— perhaps she’d figure a part of it out.)

Skotos follows Alexa, and their eagerness is almost palpable. Soon they will have the honor of witnessing how the glorious warrior defeats her foes. Who would not be allowed to want for such a thing? Who would not be allowed to thrill at the thought of witnessing Alexa’s strength, prowess and heroism in an Azura bazaar? Just like in the stories. Any moment now.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Han!

“Once, the world belonged to the dragons.”

It’s raining harder now, and you’re already soaked to the bone from falling in the river. So it’s just natural for the two of you to be huddled up underneath a copse of trees. The fire came easily to your fingers, and for once, you didn’t even have to hide it. And she actually clapped for you! And it probably wasn’t meant to be condescending!

The little brown fox has already vanished off into the night, being very busy carrying messages for the gods, but not before giving you a look. You’re not particularly adept yet at interpreting meaningful glances from the little brown foxes, but it probably meant: don’t screw this up, bud. As if it has any room for judging you after such ruthless betrayal!

But here you are, warming yourself by the fire, with the priestess snuggled up against your shoulder for warmth, listening to the snap of the fire and the soothing roar of the rain. (She’s pulled down her hood. Her hair is brilliant blue, the kind you only get near the coast. And her eyes are just. Wow. You know? So nice to look at. Framed perfectly by those glasses.) And she’s using the Storytelling Voice, the one that makes you want to curl up under a blanket and close your eyes and listen even after it looks like you’ve fallen asleep, like back when you were a little girl.

“After the War in Heaven, the dragons were given dominion over the world by the victorious gods. The gods thought that their possessiveness would make them good caretakers, their cunning would make them excellent judges, and their strength would defend the world against every threat: the fairies, the fallen Titans, the dead below, the far-flung stars, and the deep kings.”

She pauses a moment and lets the image sink in: the enemies of the world, met by tooth and claw and thunderous Essence. A vast shadow between them and the sun. The roar of terror, descending to the earth like lightning. Your heritage, however far distant.

“But what the gods did not consider is that there is no such thing as a society of dragons. The only way that they could interact with each other was by fighting to see who was stronger and who was weaker, to take from each other their prizes. And they would rather die than share a prize; and what is dominion over the whole world but the greatest prize of all?”

Does that stir something in your own heart, Han? A possessiveness? A desire to hold things fast and protect them? An ancient avarice that sought absolute and unquestioned power and majesty? Or is your heart (stone-heart, owned heart, smothered-heart) all too human, even still?

“They fought, and they lost, they all lost, and Royal Perilous simply lost the least, and so she gathered the riches of the world to her golden bed to sleep for a thousand years, and left the world to the descendants of the dragons.” She turns to look up at you, and fire dances in the reflection caught in her lenses. “The Thunder Dragon loved these lands, and when she died her scales each became a flower. And so, when the kingdoms need her protection most, her blood quickens in a child of the flowers. It is different for the Dominion,” she concludes. “The Mother of the Host still takes mates, when the urge strikes her, and their families become great and powerful— but still hers. Always hers, even now.”

The fire snaps and crackles. The sound of the rain seeps into your spine. Her face is so close to yours. It would be so easy to reach over and do something probably very regrettable. You’re supposed to be a hero, after all. Heroes don’t yank down veils and pull trusting priestesses into kisses, no matter how pretty they are.

“Your turn,” the little bud says. She looks away, very casually. “You obviously have a lot of... experience with the N’yari. What would have happened to— to us, if you weren’t there? It was the first time I’d ever... you know, met them. Are they really...?” She sneaks a glance at you, then back to the fire, the very picture of idle curiosity and little more.

This is definitely not an opportunity to Entice her by playing up your heroism and the perils of being captured by the N’yari. Certainly not. The very idea. So what if she might look at you like you saved her from certain doom?

***

Giriel!

“The sickle,” the General murmurs through his mandibles. “Yes. Excellent. Flower-cutting. Trophy-taking. Corn-reaping. Throat-slitting. An auspicious sign.” His voice curls around the two of you like serpents. Despite yourself, you find yourself walking closer. One step. Then two. The ground underfoot is shaky.

“What boon would you have of me, little augur?” You could reach out and touch that serene mask. The impossible body behind seems blurred and distant, as if you are trying to ignore that multitude of shoulders. “Speak your desire, before I send you to the little Prince, your commander on the front.” Not optimal, most likely; you’d have to convince the warlock unleashing the powers of Hell that you, a pair of mountain witches, were there to help— and who knows if your bodies would remain? Would Uusha come and check on the two of you, your breath slow and your inner furnace cold, your bodies waiting for your return?

“Tell him we want instruction,” Peregrine says, animated, but as if on the other side of a wall. “We should learn everything about his dolls.” But is that what you want? Or do you want Peregrine to stop meddling with the dead? Or do you want to see Cathak Agata again? Or do you want some other favor from one of the Lords of Hell? What bubbles up from your heart? Whatever you could wish for seems tantalizingly close, for what could a Lord of Hell not do in service to a wish?

(Answer it in the way you might hope. Do it without breaking the world in some small way. Hinder their own plans. Act against their own natures.)

***

Kalaya!

It’s difficult to overwhelm one of the N’yari. Generally, they tend to thrive when the fighting gets hot; they rely on their strength to overcome resistance. How incredible, then, is bowling over two N’yari in a single charge. Your sword sings in the dark; swords fall to the grass from stung hands. The traveler presses her advantage against the one remaining, and slips her broad sword into the gap between armor straps; she wets its tip. The three N’yari panic, and each one’s panic feeds on the other two, and they break and run, wounded and heedless of the swords left behind: a trophy worthy of a knight.

The traveler wipes the tip of her blade off on the grass. “Little villains,” she growls. Then: “Good swordplay. Thank you.” She reaches up to adjust her hat, slid back on her skull as she fought— and the moonish light shines on her for just a moment. Long enough to read her jaw, her nose, her cheeks. Even once the brim is pulled down low— it has to be her. It has to be Ven.

Unless you’re losing your wits, pining for lost love. Knights are always doing that sort of thing. Maybe she’s really just a traveler. Or maybe she’s a tree, and the N’yari were badgers you’ve scared senseless, and none of this is real. But the risk of it not being a feverish Venus dream is too great (which, again, is a very knightly thing to think).

What do you say to this long-lost princess, now dressed as a humble pilgrim? Even as you stand there, overcome by joy, she stops and considers you, standing like a fawn unsure whether to step forward or dart back, her uncertainty palpable. She does not recognize you, but her heart remembers you regardless. (And this, too, is the sort of thing that happens in a knightly romance.)

***

Zhaojun!

The happy growl that rumbles through Machi reverberates through you, as if you were a freshly-struck gong. She does not move her eyes from your face as she reaches up and covers your chopstick-wielding hand with her own, broad and earthy and warm, warm, warm. Her ears flick with intense interest.

“You are a spirit of the flowers, then,” she purrs, even as her warband mills closer all around. “So eager to serve, just like all their pretty girls. If I follow, sweet-addled thing, will I get to keep you, too?”

The desires of Machi of the Ōei are uncomplicated. When she sees a pretty girl, she wants to have them. To own them. To feel the rush of power from being able to reduce them to blushing, squeaking, yearning messes. It is like picking flowers, wearing them, and then replanting them before they can wilt— if a flower could understand it was being picked because it was both beautiful and helpless, if a flower could squirm and moan as one long-nailed finger ran teasingly across its petals, if a flower could be bid to cook and clean and bathe and provide entertainment. So not quite exactly like a flower.

But she is interested in strength. You have to be so careful with flowers. You can be rough with the strong; you can actually flex your muscles and strive against them, and every victory is sweeter, and every defeat simply encouragement to do better next time.

So she’s caught coming and going. She wants to see if this spirit of the lowlands is a flower for display, or a worthy challenger, and either way, her entire focus is on Zhaojun herself. Not the knight. Not the girl who spurned her tonight, who she intends to keep chasing. She is so wonderfully uncomplicated like that. She sees a pretty, interesting girl, and she wants to have them, one way or another.

Her tail curls around an ankle. Her muscles tense as she prepares to roll over, to reverse the hold, to see whether Zhaojun is stone or petals. She has to know, after all. But will Zhaojun, in the face of such desire, allow it? Or will she strive and strain and match her strength against Machi and win as the N’yari do, making a great show of it? Or will she slip a knife into the brigand’s heart by belittling, humiliating, and mocking her?

However it goes, Machi has won a String on her in turn.

***

Piripiri!

“She doesn’t mean it, you know,” one of the demon-maids hisses as they fit you in a long gown. This is not loose and revealing; this one is tight and yet concealing at the same time. The corset is achingly strict, but hidden under a broad belt of gold-and-green, with the grand Green Sun of Hell offset to your right. The lowest layer of skirt is enough to hobble you to tiny, demure steps, but the outermost layer, descending into a long train, is voluminous. The shoulders are so snug that you cannot lift your hands over your head, but they are lost in the long sleeves (and the stiflingly thick gloves). And a demon is dragging her fingernails up the back of your neck. “She wouldn’t tear it out. She just gets like that when she’s insulted by an ape.”

“She would,” says one of the attendants locking the high-heeled sandals on your feet (the locks then to be hidden underneath another layer of silk). “Not tearing it out, but she’d turn it to lead. Or steal your mouth.”

“Or, if we asked her nicely,” the first continues, “she’d let us stuff your mouth so, so full of our work, just to see your cheeks go red. Because you would, wouldn’t you? Silly mortal girls always get so embarrassed. It’s much more fun than lead tongues, which are terrible for kissing.”

“And we’d have to find other places to kiss you without a mouth,” a third says as she paints your nails in swirling white and black. She catches your eye and then does the lewdest lick of her lips. “So maybe you wouldn’t mind too much if we got you in trouble.”

“I love their legs,” the first croons. A tail’s end winds around your load-bearing ankle. “They’re so spindly and cute. Though this one is very spindly, isn’t she, girls? Look at how tight we got that corset.” She runs one thumb up the small of your back, lingering on each string.

“But quite pretty for one of the apes,” the third continues. “Maybe if we’re lucky, that fool Prince will take offense at this one, too. And we’ll get to undress her all over again.” She runs one hand up your calf, and while her eyes are lost in the fringe of her hat, that grin is as inviting as it is licentious.

The Laema snaps her tail like a whip, and all three fall sheepishly silent. “It is beneath my daughters to dally with it and its kind,” she hisses from where she sulks, looking through engraved tablets for inspiration. “Humiliating enough that we must let our works be wasted on them. Traitors, one and all.”

“We’re just tormenting her, mama! Every mortal girl is very tormented if you find the right compliment,” the first says, brightly, in a familiar sort of way. Even Hell has its daughters who learn early how to lie to get away with what they really want. “For example,” she adds, draping a heavy necklace over your shoulders, adding to the weight. “This mortal looks like she’s very good at lifting her skirts. Maybe we can ask her to give us a demonstration while we wait for her courter to come sweep her off her feet~”

“Every Prince needs a consort, after all,” the third adds, working her way up your front under the excuse of checking your corset. “And what’s a consort without... experience~?”

The Laema smoothly plucks that unfortunate third off you like a leech and tosses her into a wardrobe; the doors swing shut, the lock clicks, and muffled pounding and squealing emerges from inside, ominously dwindling down to still silence. The other two demons attending you very quickly clam up.

If the experience is making you even more firmly against Hell and all its works, mark a Condition out of sheer humiliation. If you see a little humanity in these daughters of Hell, conversely, give them a String. Then model the second dress for the Laema and prove to her you are elegant enough for the constricting, hobbling design.

Breathless Dead

In a moment that is only for themselves, Skotos may be found at the edge of one of the hangar bays, even while Redana praises the Alcedi Plover pilots, reminding them that their skill, their prowess, and their courage may be necessary should the Azura seek a display of force, or worse. All eyes are on the radiant princess, save for those of Skotos, who looks out upon the violet shroud of space.

Who is to say what they think? They are anonymous, after all, a mere shadow. From the rest of the hangar deck, they are nothing but a faint silhouette against the shining clouds, the color washed from their robes. There is no one to witness Skotos reaching down and wringing at their own robe in silent torment.

Redana has well-considered opinions on the Azura, built brick by brick from lessons on history, theology, statecraft, milhis, and naval strategy. Can you imagine a princess who simply wished for a place where dreams came true? Where there was adventure in abundance, where you could see a new wonder every day, where the worlds and the people were strange and decadent and perilous? Tellus provided everything: true civilization, more wonders than could be catalogued over a lifetime, wealth in such abundance that she could have demanded something new every day if she had the courage and imagination to do so, and strength. Such strength. Even now, she is like a monofilament thread cast into the void, unbreakable and perilous herself.

Who can say what Skotos thinks? Does anyone care? How difficult would it be for them to slip away, to become another shade in the shadow of towers? Redana would know. Redana would not let them. Redana alone always knows where her Skotos is. But even she could not speak concerning Skotos’s dreams, if dreams they have.

She could not tell whether they gazed overlong on Manaemede, if the avarice of the Magi is awake in their heart, if they wish to walk among the glories, to be perhaps the last to ever look upon the trophies and masterpieces of the Shah, perhaps to even steal away something to be their own, just so that not everything of the Shah would yet pass from memory and being. She could not tell whether in longing they looked upon Igorthian, imagining Plover duels through that half-formed skeleton of a fortress, even as the storm raged all around them, each moment a test of their determination and prowess. Not even whether they dream of walking long upon the shores of Salib, of reclining upon the sand, their yellow robes indistinguishable from the shining shores, and waiting patiently forever and a day until some miracle was theirs to behold: the survivor of a crash washing up upon the shore, pursued for the medallion she holds tight to her chest, or some princess whose chariot breaks down, the result of sabotage by her disloyal servants, or a noble warrior casting her saber into the water with a despairing cry— and then Skotos could be pleased, knowing themselves a part of that story. Perhaps— perhaps even— they could—

Thunderous applause, like the falling of warheads on the desolate Saliban plains. Skotos wavers like the dream at the edge of sleep, a figure half-remembered. Bloodless fingers can for a moment be seen digging deep into the folds of the robe. They sway in the throes of an unwitnessed agony, and almost reach out, as if to ask Olean to wait— please— she just—

Then they are gone. Redana sweeps from the hangar, basking in the praise of her vassals, and it is haunted no longer. And of the torment of Skotos, no sign remains. Thus, it never was.