Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

Of course Redana’s heard Bella say those words before. They were playmates, after all. Saving Bella from felt snakes and blanket ropes was one of her favorite pastimes as a child. But she has never, ever, heard Bella ask for help. Not as long as she’s known Bella. It was always the other way around: is there anything you need, your highness? May I be of assistance, your highness? Please let this humble maid be of service, your highness. Can your… favorite little meowmeow… cheer you up, your highness?? Always giving. And whenever Redana tried, Bella would make such a fuss! No, you don’t have to do that! Please, let me take care of this for you! Dany, isn’t it, aren’t you supposed to be in the conservatory for music lessons?!

She’s never, ever, asked Redana for help. Not really. Not meant it. She was just playing along when she squirmed and begged her hero to come save her. But the hero always got the girl, and the hero always had a sword, and, wow, wouldn’t you know it, the hero’s gone now, and it’s just stupid little Redana left. And the minute she raises a hand against somebody, it’s going to turn into a thunderbolt on the way down and the laughter of joy-in-killing and the Nemean loosed to reave and kill as she pleases. So that’s “charge and suplex everyone” gone as a plan. Shut up. Shut up! She can’t hear herself think! What does Bella want? You to die. She said so. Give up. She wants to— oh! Oh!!

It’s what Skotia would do. And there’s nobody in the world she’d want to be more than Skotia right now.

She stands up, fists balled so tight that they’re bloodless. Her eye burns like the fires of the Party below, an azure hole in her head. The look on her face is anguish barely contained by resolve. She looks like a wrestler broken but unbeaten at the end of a match, the sweat on her skin almost close enough for the oil. She is small and hard and battered, the prow of a ship, an outcropping in the surf.

And she screams, her voice raw, trying to drown out the intoxicating song of surrender, for her Bella, for her pet, for the friend she wishes she’d been able to keep, if only the whole universe wasn’t wedged between them:

“Hey! Moron! She‘s in love with you, so shut up and listen to her!!”

There it is. It’s out. No use trying to hide it. Trying to pretend she might get kissed like Skotia did. He didn’t come with a cargo train’s worth of baggage and ownership and useless pining and so this is good, actually, this is good, she can go save the universe for the sake of ideals now, everybody getting to see the universe, every star in the sky a new horizon, and it’ll really be for everybody now, and conveniently Bella will still exist in the category of everybody, so she’ll still get it, too.

With Beautiful.

Who will treat her right, probably, if she learns to listen when Bella’s talking. So it’s fine. It’s fine, actually! It’ll be fine!

Let go and you won’t have to watch her take what you want, the Nemean whispers, using base cunning. They will never be allowed to be happy. There is only one punishment for disloyal vassals. Give in before they hurt you more. You don’t have to hurt ever again.

“Shut up,” she screams, again, at the Nemean, at Beautiful, at her own heart, at the world. She was poisoned today! She almost died today! She kissed her ex-best-friend a lot! By lying to her!! It would be really nice if somebody would shut up already!

Breathless Dead

“I’m not done yet,” Skotia says, with a venom-rawed throat, so quietly that maybe only a Praetor might hear his prayer. “Please.” But you only get saved once. You only get that kiss one time, no more than that. Don’t be greedy. The mask flakes underneath Beautiful’s regard and threatens to blow off his face; he desperately clings to it, pushes it against his face as if willing it to stay, to be the real face, to fill the hollow in her heart. But it’s already melting away.

The sound of him accepting this is a hollow, joyless laugh. Of course it ends this way. Don’t you know, Skotia? At the end of every story the wicked get their just reward, and all the lies are resolved.

He crumples to his knees like a fresh-birthed calf as the fire consumes him. But he keeps forcing the words out. All he is, all he could be, just tatters and a voice now, so he’ll use it even if it makes him feel like he’s got Bella scraping those talons down the inside of his throat, because some things are more important than a moment of comparatively less agony, and what Skotia says is:

“You wanted to die for her. Don’t.” He hunches his back like a wild animal, his hair flowing like molten gold across his shoulders. His shadow is long. His shadow is long. “Listen. I can’t be her hero anymore. I can’t. Masters don’t abandon their pets. Masters don’t abandon their pets.” The effort of existing forces black spittle from his lips, his hands pressed so hard against his face that the head he’s losing throbs and aches. “Don’t you dare!”

Then he’s gone, and maybe it is that Hades folds the shape of where a thing was into a neat jacket to drape over his arm, and maybe it isn’t, and it’s left to Aphrodite to pick up the pieces of the name after the party’s over.

Her shadow’s long. There’s an echo at the barest edge of hearing. Her shadow’s long. The air crackles with ozone and the smell of battle, sweat and blood and tears. She’s hunched over herself, naked and shaking, veins protruding on her neck and her arms as her muscles strain against each other.

And Redana Claudius screams at the monster threatening her Bella, screams like her Bella’s never heard, screams like she’s holding an axe by its head: “Avaunt!”

And the shadow doesn’t go away just because she screamed at it. But it doesn’t eat her whole, either. She holds it back for Skotia; she holds the whole world on her shoulder and doesn’t snap in half. That’s it, that’s the entire world, the weight of the Nemean telling her that Redana is violence, cruelty, abuser, useless, she’ll snap Bella’s neck and make it a mercy because at least then the pain will stop, let her in, let her IN, there’s nothing she can do that you wouldn’t do worse, Bella hates you, Bella deserves to hate you, Mynx hates you, Mynx deserves to hate you, Dolce hates you, Dolce deserves to hate you, don’t you get it, they all hate you, let go, let GO, stop hurting, stop hurting them, weak as your mother, weak as humans that abandoned their pets across the stars, and she’ll wipe it all clean as a mercy, she’ll crack Tellus in half because it’s there, she’ll kill them all for the challenge of it, and she’ll never stop to whine about how bad she feels, when a servant fails you you kill them, when a lover refuses you kill them, when a mother denies you kill her, and she’ll laugh and kill and make merry and do it all without the pain, because the pain’s the real enemy, Redana, the pain, the weakness, the doubt, and you’re too weak, aren’t you, too weak to commit, too weak to kill, too weak to fuck, too weak to live, so let her in, let her IN, let her in let her in let her in let her in

Why was dying for her the easy part?

It’s not even a word any more. It’s a noise. Animals make noises. Her face is wet. Don’t look at her. Please. Don’t make the Nemean’s job easier. Don’t remind her how little she deserves to exist. She can barely believe it herself.

”You have a life to go and live after tonight. And you should live it.”

”Don’t throw away the one good thing I get to do with my life.”

”Owners never owners never owners never owners never”

But she does. Bella said so. Skotia deserved to exist. And now he’s dead. So she’s got to keep fighting the monster for him. He gave her so much. So much. A kiss. A hold. A carry. Bella, for a moment, comforted. Bella, for a moment, holding her the way she always…

She can’t. For Skotia. And always, as always, from the first moment she looked up at the smog-choked sky and decided she was going to run and run until nobody could catch her—

For Bella.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Ven!

When you go down into the tunnels beneath the castle, it is with a torch held by a servant. Every other time before, it’s been a wrack-doll, but right at this second, well. You’re already making plans to shift your operational strategies, aren’t you?

Ordering the dolls to go and assault a major settlement, like Turtlehead, was cutting the knot. The only move you could make. They’re ultimately loyal to their creator, after all, and he’s… he won’t understand the play you’re making, but he’ll be distracted by the tactical strike against “supporters of insurrectionists.” See? You’ve got this. Everything is perfect. Everything is going to work. You’ve salvaged this.

Except as you approach the dungeon door, you find it open. Your heart skips a beat, even as Kalmanka, your ronin knight, whistles between her teeth in amusement. And you draw your sword…

***

Kalaya!

“Look, I’m an artist,” the demon says. “Commissions pay the bills.” Do demons even pay bills? Is Hell that cruel, that even the emanations of the Titans must pay rent to live on their backs? “So let me finish my job.”

“MMMMPH!!” The priestess says, wiggling behind the demon in the middle of a professional lighting set-up: lanterns, mirrors, candles, and prisms make her look like she’s on a mountaintop at noon, really bringing into sharp relief the way that her dress is scandalously torn, her hair’s starting to frizz, and the way her veil’s been lowered to show off the green-and-brass-colored scarves swaddling her face. Dangling from the ceiling by her wrists, she sways and squirms on tiptoe, desperately trying to get your attention, even as the artist-demon harrumphs through his baleen mustache and spreads his many (many) arms.

“I don’t even care what you humans want to do with the subject material afterwards! But this is my livelihood, so piss off and let me finish!”

***

Fengye!

You’re out of time. You made it here just to find there’s a jealous guardian, a spider-peacock of crushed dyes and mingled inks, and the way behind you is about to be blocked off. Even if Kalaya bullrushes through the artist, snaps his brushes and scatters his easel’s bones, there won’t be time to save the girl.

It was a good run, though, right? Really got to feel like a hero. Sure, the horse is almost certainly going to betray you when its mistress whistles for it, and you’ll be lucky if you end up tied back-to-back with the little priestess, and not just tossed into one of the deep pits down here, to fall for the rest of your life.

Unless you’ve got one more trick up your sleeve?

***

Giriel!

All the props for the wedding scene are back here. Fried pastries made of folded paper, stacked in ready-to-serve trays. Wreaths, also made of folded paper, that almost somehow seem like they could look better than the real things, once you brought them into the light and brushed the pervasive dust off. Venus-blue banners hanging from the ceiling of the (tunnel? passageway? backstage?): Long Life, Lasting Happiness, Bountiful Gardens. Dresses on mannequins that look almost like real people, in all their ruffles and rainbow colors. In the hands of one, a very conspicuously out-of-place umbrella.

All you have to do is wade through the props until you find the exit. Easy enough, and this trip backstage seems like it’s deserted right now, no bandar-logi to worry about. The only danger here is the kind you bring yourself.

Uusha does a spin in midair to build momentum. It’s beautiful; she controls her body with the grace of a predator, completely under her control as she kicks the barmaid in the side of the head.

***

Piripiri!

There are two ways to fight a daughter of dragons.

The first is to challenge them properly, to trust in your own method of channeling essence to overcome them. Bold, confident, and very dangerous.

The second is to stop them from channeling their essence in the first place. Never give them a moment to breathe, to reach for that power, to feel it flow through the stations of the body.

You can’t breathe; Uusha isn’t giving you that chance. When you try to get up, she’s there to knock you back down. When you try to cover your face, she punches you in the throat; when you try to cover your throat, she slams a fist against the side of your head and makes stars explode in your vision. She isn’t cruel, she’s not trying to kill you, and isn’t that a bleakly comforting thought?

She’s just going to pummel you until you can’t fight back. Smart of her. If you needed to restrain a daughter of dragons, and you didn’t have an opportunity to rely on drugs, you’d probably have to stoop to the same tactics. Unconsciousness opens her arms wide and invites you inside her bedrooms to sleep.

Then Azazuka tackles Uusha from behind and tries to get her in a bear hug. Silly girl. Uusha’s armor makes hugging her like hugging a holly bush; there’s no safe place to do it. Thorns dig into her soft skin as she takes two steps backwards, dragging Uusha off you before Uusha catches her heel on the floor, vaults over Azazuka’s head, forces the merchant’s daughter down to the floor with a squeak. Barely avoids goring her on those antlers.

Then she’s charging at you again, almost too fast to counter. But you bumped into one of the mannequins, didn’t you?

And now there’s a very familiar umbrella handle under your hand.

And you’ve got just enough time to let essence flow through your body in one savage inhalation of power. Fairy-essence, admittedly; this is not a particularly safe place to channel essence, to draw on power. But whatever the cost later, it’s yours now.

***

Han!

Oh, you’ve got a choice, don’t you? Not much of one (we all know what you’ll choose), but there it is, a choice nonetheless. Just in case we’re wrong. Just in case the dragon roars.

On your right, there’s a fight. The dragon blood in you thrills, because someone’s drawing in essence. A rival. You’ve never been acclimated to other dragon-blooded, after all. This feeling suddenly surfacing inside you is new: the challenge-lust, the desire to prove that you are the strong dragon. There’s a reason that only Scarlet remains of the true dragons that once ruled the earth.

Dragons do not have a society. Dragons only have dominance. And you know, instinctively, that you need to prove that you (yes, you) are the strongest. That this is your territory.

(Piripiri’s had training. Every dragon-blooded child goes through socialization, learning to keep that instinct on a leash, turn it into motivation to excel. But you, child of the mountains and the wild places, you’ve never practiced keeping this on a leash.)

But on your left? You hear, from a far distance, echoing, Melody. Trying uselessly to call for help with her mouth stuffed full, just like the first night you met her. There’s no way of telling how far she is, but if you run, if you break through everything in that direction, you’ll get to her eventually. And she needs her dragon.

Fight!

Rescue!

Dominate!

Hoard!

Your instincts writhe in your gut, burning away sleepiness and leaving dragon behind. Your blood burns, and for a moment you feel like you could let all that roiling essence out in a torrent of fire.

Go on. Let the dragon out. You know you want to.

Sunshards

When Yue challenges Rose, the new handmaiden is coming back from cards at Rahn’s place, which is to say, she’s coming back from that great big cat with the windows in the sides, almost like some sort of bus. It’s warm inside (like you’d expect), and the black rabbits vet everyone who tries to climb in for their Burrow bonafides. You gotta be somebody to get into Rahn’s— a leftover, an archeologist, a collector, a rube, or eye candy, because Rahn’s not just a Burrows demon, she’s also a disaster lesbian. When Rose tried to sneak in this time, Rahn hopped up on the sales counter on one side of the long damp room and wolf-whistled and applauded until everybody’s attention was on the pretty little handmaiden who just came in.

Of course, some of them just took it as Rahn being Rahn. She’s got a few screws loose; the treatments she took for the contamination in her blood, leftovers from cut corners in her production, were intense. You have to be patient with her, whether she’s in a high manic mood right now or in one of her sullen fits, gnawing her blackened fingernails down to the quick. That’s one of the unspoken rules of Rahn’s. Follow it or the rabbits will fucking get you.

So that’s why some of the guests here to look through Rahn’s antiques turned back to their business pretty quick: an architect in a pretty nice suit discussing tech with one of Jezara’s salukis, also in a pretty nice suit, with the hulking demon serving as one of their bodyguards playing with the bat on his shoulder; the bitter old man talking about his hunting and trapping during the first winters as he turns a 3D model of a tree over in his hands, and the black-eyed man listening with complete, vast and unearned gentleness; the brawny man with a massive hammer on his back, discussing repairs with a half-horse engineer and an imposing eagle-woman in a suit of High Burrows armor. They had their own business to attend to, after all. And a good thing, too. When Rose met those black eyes for a fleeting moment, she took them for a lightless planet, and shivered, knowing she wasn’t the most powerful being in the room.

That’s Rahn’s for you. It’s the kind of place where you can find peers if you’re a leftover super-soldier or a sword saint or an attempt to make a god.

She ends up at the card tables on the other side of the room, looking for approval from one of the regulars. One of the few people in the world she’s jealous of. And when The Duke saw her, they (no, leaning he today) gave her one of those dazzling smiles and told her to take a seat. And when she did, he asked her with mock seriousness to blow on his cards for good luck, those vivid green cat’s-eyes dancing (not literally, you have to specify with him) as he reached one hand around and gave one thigh a flattering squeeze that made Rose feel pretty and silly and enviable.

That’s not the only reason she’s jealous, the way that The Duke seems to effortlessly know what someone needs to be validated and encouraged. There’s also the way that his shapeshifting is a lot more sophisticated than hers; when he wants to lean female, she just flows. She can try out new bodies and styles like she’s trying on clothes, and that’s before she turns into technicolor canines or almost-perfect copies of people, keeping the eyes as a deliberate affectation. And there’s also the way that he shrugs off everybody’s expectations of what a Burrow relic should do with their life, and the smile that makes even Rose’s heart skip a beat, and the way he seems to know everybody who’s anybody. Even monsters have their role models.

“So who’s the lucky girl?” He asked, and everybody got to see Rose from the River, the Thorn Pilgrim, squirm and stammer and smile helplessly as he laid down his cards. And hardly anybody minded that he’d bluffed them out on two pair, not when Rose was playing with her hair and trying to explain, see, there’s this princess…

There even was a princess at the table! At least, a self-claimed princess: Rahnya (no relation), from a city without a name, far away, that had something to do with tigers. Very nice girl, somewhat sleepy. And there’s a warden-witch, too nice to hate, her blonde curls getting everywhere; and there’s Fayruz, wait, no, Dr. Fayruz now, she got her medical license recognized in Pasalkhen and she’s headed to Ys just in case someone needs the best damn medical care in the Nine Kingdoms (anything up to and including death’s door); and there’s Nova, who works for Kikil now, looking good with her shock of blue hair standing out against the Tesla jumpsuit; and even Sainbec, shirtless and more cat than ever, betting some of his outrageously gaudy rings against The Duke’s stake.

But that’s not what Rose is always going to remember from visiting Rahn’s again. No, it’s The Duke off-handedly mentioning that he always knew. And Rose asked: that I’d lose to a princess? And she let her hair down loose, all silver-and-black, and filled out her silver-and-black vest, and gave Rose a ladykiller of a look, and smiled: not the gaudy smile, not the completely self-assured smile, not the we-can-figure-this-out-without-resorting-to-violence smile, but the kindest, gentlest smile she had on tap.

“You know what I mean,” she said, and then touched her cards to Rose’s veil in a way that made her brain overheat. That’s The Duke for you. She could run her own kingdom if she was into that these days. But it’d be impossible to extricate the part of her that didn’t want that responsibility and still have The Duke, so here she is, playing hands in Rahn’s.

Which is why, when she’s ambushed on her way back, almost floating on air, her first reaction to being challenged to a duel is an unreasonable spike of fear. What if Yue is insulted that Rose won’t go all out? But what if Rose does go all out, in front of a crowd, no less, and then everybody knows about Princess Chen’s amazing swordwoman bodyguard who probably needs to be encouraged to work for them by putting Chen in peril? What if she’s too strong for this to last? What if, what if, what if? Does she even deserve to use this sword?

But that plea in Yue’s face is too precious, too earnest, to refuse. “All right,” she says, with a curtsey. “I am happy to serve,” she adds, with another little thrill. Then, to Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits, she bows and asks: “what are the rules?” Because if she has rules, she can stay within them. If she has rules, then she can be an ordinary sort of swordswoman, maybe even a cute one. If she’s allowed to be just an exceptional handmaiden, oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful? Not a weapon that any of these travelers would kill to possess, but just the best Rose that Chen could ask for?

Besides, everyone knows that foxes give out reasonable rules and requests. Everybody. No further questions about Rose and foxes are allowed at this time! None!!

She flicks her wrist in that special way— still got it!— and the sword becomes—

It’s a scimitar. A very Ysian scimitar. With a snowflake-patterned guard, and thorns worked up and down the blade. A sword for Chen’s Rose. Behind her veil, Rose bites her lip and lets out the tiniest squeak over how her own sword has betrayed her. How dare you, moon sword? This is a completely unjustified betrayal, and now she’s going to have to change her style completely!!

Breathless Dead

There’s more than one reason for the mask. How thoughtful of his modiste. It takes him longer than he would like to work it back on over his face, to hide the wound and the agony; his fingers are numb, slowly regaining enough feeling to hurt. But once he’s Bella’s hound again, his pain hidden (how appropriate!) he grits his teeth and forces himself to keep up.

That’s the role of the pet, after all, the one that Bella played for so long. Keep up, no matter how unfair the world gets, with a (rictus) smile on your face. That’s what Bella did for Redana, and that’s what he has to do for Bella. Otherwise, what’s the point? What’s the point of the pain? If there’s no point, then he’s just hurting like this for no reason and it would break him. So there has to be a meaning for the pain. And the meaning is that he has to hurt like she has hurt for her princess.

His half-dead fingers interlace with hers as she accepts his weight. Pets and owners. The loyalty they owe each other. Pets and owners, and the debts they inherit from the people they used to be. Does that mean she’s given up on Redana? Is the connection of pets and owners broken apart between them?

…well, good. Because Redana never deserved her Bella, anyway. And they’ve got a Beautiful to save. So don’t let that hurt too, Skotia. There’s enough poison searing your heart right now, you don’t need cigarette ash choking it shut. Besides, this is the farewell, isn’t it? Unless he really does go with her. Unless he lets Redana Claudius sail on in pursuit of a relayed dream.

Why does that thought hurt, too?

Bella’s fingers throb between Skotia’s, so strong he can feel them through the dull ache. Bella’s got a heart that won’t stop. And he never would have known, and Redana never would have known—

He squeezes her fingers, and he tries to give her the reassurance she’s been looking for for so, so long. That he sees her. That he’s sorry for breaking her heart. That he’s frightened of having to become a new person once he takes everything off. That he thought he was going to die and his last thought was Bella’s still in danger and he thought he was going to die knowing he’d failed her again.

So many things trying to squeeze their way out through his fingers as they help each other up the stairs.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Kalaya!

As Piripiri could have told you, beneath Kingeater Castle is a labyrinth of old passages. The rotten smell of roses is thick enough to choke you down here, and it is lightless. Close by, too close by, is the sound of Hell’s revelry: just behind a door, on the other side of a wall— but so, too, there is the sound of barked orders, and the clash of swords. Hell is martial in nature, in some of its seasons.

Up there, you broke through some of the dolls effortlessly, knocking them aside with your sword, letting Fengye trample them, and oh! It was thrilling! But down here, you don’t have to worry about being chased (yet) or fighting for your life (yet).

All you have to do is follow Fengye, one hand on the disturbance in the air that is her horse, and hold one hand over your face to avoid retching at the thick, intolerable smell of dead roses all around.

Can it be that Ven is down here, too? Can you even fight her in the oppressive dark? Can you hope to protect two priestesses and yourself, here in the dark where danger could come from any direction?

***

Fengye!

The dream part of that was over faster than it could even properly begin. A burst through, a charge, the discharge of firewands, and then Kalaya kicked open a cellar door and the demon horse almost flowed down the steps. (It’s quite possible it doesn’t have hooves. It has something else?) And now you’re down here, in the aforementioned dark, with the aforementioned smell of charnel roses all about.

The horse is the one actually leading you, and you have to hope that it’s leading you to someplace good, and not someplace like its home. The home that is so very, very close down here.

a-click-a-click-a-click. You hear the sound in the distance, now close, now far, as if it flows through the walls. a-click-a-click-a-click. Like hail falling on the tiles of a roof.

And four winds birthed the Mother of Loss, and one was the grinding-wind, and one was the brilliant-wind, and one was the promise-wind, and one was the arrow-wind. And of these only the arrow-wind will kill, with a thousand darts, or with the arrows of Yes and No, or with a long knife, as she chooses.

That’s as clear an omen as any as to who the horse belongs to. Kalmanka, the Arrow-Wind. She can be ten thousand arrows, or she can be a needle; she can be a black wolf, a silver swan, or a woman wearing a scale-coat of arrowheads. If Ven has called upon her, she is digging herself very deep in debt.

But worst of all is that Kalmanka holds the arrows of Yes and No in her quiver-soul, with which she may inflame passions or shatter them. No sorcerer may command her to use the one without accepting that she will also use the other as she wills, and often to their doom. She could turn Kalaya into a sobbing berserker, or leave you with nothing but cold ash where your regard for her was.

Zhaojun alone could face her and hope for victory. You? Never.

***

Piripiri!

You’re not fast enough.

Which is to say, there’s never enough time to do everything! A snake’s working its way up the highlander’s body, unnoticed, while you focus on carving out space around Azazuka, who’s trying desperately to catch her breath so she can try and help. And when the witch finishes her spell, well, you won’t have time to get away from Uusha. She’ll be on you.

But you set out to protect Azazuka, and that’s what’s important. Well done! Truly a triumph of the Dominion’s way.

***

Han!

”Everything’s so hard,” a voice hisses in your ear. There’s a tickling sensation, like a tongue flicking against it. ”Isn’t it? And your heart’s been so heavy.” A comforting, knowing sigh. The kind that a good friend would make, listening to your romantic woes. ”Why don’t you sit down? Tell Aunty what’s been troubling you.”

This is an excellent idea, probably. So excellent that, if you let the world keep getting kind of fuzzy and indistinct while you share your woes, for Aunty (and definitely only her, who is the soul of discretion, and who’s listening nearby anyway?) to tut and console you.

Your blood’s heavy, too. Isn’t it? Like it’s thick. And you feel warm. No, warmer. Like you could shed a few layers, too. It’s really comfortable. Like sitting by the fireplace. Take your shoes off, your very hard-to-digest shoes. And open up that heart of yours.

***

Giriel!

That’s very definitely a Heartache Worm on Han’s shoulders. One of Hell’s nasty little ambush predators, drawn to broken hearts and inner turmoil. Takes a very long time to digest its prey, but also takes a long time to get around to eating them; you’ll be able to get it off her once you finish, as long as you can get someone to pin her down. They’re nasty little puppeteers when threatened.

You’re about to slip behind the screen, as it were. Like in a play. That’s where the fairies are. You’ll have to lead everyone down behind the screen, into the earth, through the tunnels. It won’t be a real place, and that’s very much by definition, but as long as you don’t linger you shouldn’t attract any nonexistent predators. Probably.

More troubling is the fact that Uusha’s extremely intent on the waitress. In the “I have spotted a danger” sense. You’re likely going to have to defuse a very tense situation once you pull everyone behind the screen.

What kind of stories do you like, Giriel? This is a very important question, so don’t lie to us now. We’re about to go backstage, after all.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

3V finds her way over to the window to stare. She’s seen these before, too. Fallout: Magic Kingdom boasted one of the most complex skyboxes in modern gaming: real simulated weather patterns, real simulated dawn and dusk, and between the two, a night sky only here and there broken by the neon glow of settlements and the lights strung on MK Moss’s Castle. But, in some impossible qualitative sense, these stars are different. They weren’t created and set to their courses by an algorithm (unless you believe in the New Sequence party line). They’re the same stars that cavemen watched, back before fire, back before the spark of energy that would lead them all the way up here.

“Did you know that as many as 80% of original SNES games have been lost?” She leans against the window, not looking at her hostess. That’s a night sky you could fall into forever and ever. “Just gone. The emulation data’s gone, and their creators didn’t keep backups. Nobody’s ever going to play them again. More to the point, no one is ever going to have the opportunity to experience them. The most you can get is finding some obsessed fan’s wiki listings: this is what ActRaiser was like. This is what Chrono Trigger was like. This is what EarthBound was like. And it’s not like they were necessarily good, but how would I know? Not like I got the chance to play them. Because hosting fees, and anti-piracy rulings, and every year more and more slips through the cracks.”

She raps her knuckles, gently, against the grass. “And that was just an experience for a couple of generations. Imagine losing something that was a shared part of humanity for generations. The experience of climbing a mountain. The experience of looking out at the stars. Even the muscle ache of climbing, but in a constantly working uphill way, not a climbing wall way. Different muscles. Maybe you could get that if you took the stairs? But that’s not quite the same thing, either. Stairs are just the same damn thing over and over. Maybe some interesting graffiti, maybe some leftover gum. A thing like this almost does emergent discovery perfectly.”

A snort. An aside. “Almost. The one thing a mountain doesn’t have is intentionality. When you climb a mountain in a video game, any developer worth their salt will have worked in interesting content. A suggestive tableau, an encounter with wildlife, a perfect view. Out here, you’ve got to make all of that yourself, or just luck into it. Exhausting. Can you believe I enjoyed myself anyway?”

Sunshards

There’s nothing quite like the water on the hot rocks. The steam, the pleasant hiss, the warmth given to the whole room: what could be better than that?

Rose’s skin is… smoother, now. Not as rough, now that she’s found someone she wants to touch her. But when Chen rubs one hand along her shoulder, her fingers still feel the slight roughness, the quiet reminder that her girlfriend isn’t human. Her hair’s a little more natural, less obviously moss, but the flowers still bloom in her locks. She is still tall, still strong, but now she feels confident enough to not present herself as a warrior of warriors. Confident that she’s not faking. That she can be this, and not a weapon. That if Yue, unthinkably, tried to control her… well, Chen wouldn’t let that happen.

As long as Chen’s by her side, she can ignore the Way. She sits in Chen’s grasp and feels pretty in a way that doesn’t require her to be small or effortlessly domineering, and she lets herself just relax, not thinking about all the problems she could be solving, should be solving right now. Not thinking about them at all. About the great responsibility given to those with great power. She’s too busy. Because she’s watching her friends.

Hyra lounges like a wolf; she takes up space in a way that Rose finds very familiar. She doesn’t do it just to make a point, though. Rather, it’s that she can relax when she’s with Yue, in a way that is intensely relatable. But she still sits between the lovers and her Yue. No funny business, not from a princess or her, her rosepetal. No teasing Yue or making her suddenly self-conscious!

Because Yue is so incredibly unconscious. Her nakedness is only and simply that, and when she sinks down low into the water and lets her brown curls surround her like a halo, like a sun and its rays, it’s with the air of someone who really, really enjoys a hot bath. Her smile! It’s effortless, practically spilling off her face. Her laugh! Endearingly dorky, particularly when you consider that it belongs to a very special heroine indeed. If anyone could be trusted with carrying around the fortune of the Burrows in her head, it would be her, and best not to tell her; she’d just worry, the poor thing. The longer she goes without finding out, the more peace there’ll be in the world, and more importantly, the more peace there’ll be in her heart.

Yue submerges beneath the water for a moment, only her eyes visible, like the great whale who swims in the depths of the Terrace Lakes, and then— fssst! Out the water sprays from her mouth, shooting like a jet at Chen, who squeaks and tries to hide behind Rose. (Rose finds herself trying to catch the water, to be a good… a g-good handmaid. A thing she’s never gotten the chance to be before. How do you know whether you’re doing it right if you’ve never had the chance to practice?)

Chen. Chen, who snuggles up to her Rose, who doesn’t leer but who isn’t ashamed of herself, either. (Why should she be? She’s had her whole life to get comfortable in one body. Of course she’s not worrying about whether she got it right.) Chen, with her beautiful laugh. Chen, young and vital and full to bursting with energy. (They’d be close, with Rose not too much her elder, if she could pretend the long sleep of centuries didn’t count at all. Surely years spent in dark and dreamless sleep didn’t count? She wasn’t robbing the cradle, right?) Chen, still childish enough to splash Yue back with her feet, and then to command: “Rose, get her!”

For a moment, Rose freezes up. Just for a moment. Long enough for Chen to look at her, and then look at her again. Then Rose breathes out, intentionally, trying to say without saying anything that she’ll be okay. You didn’t mean it, and— besides, watch this!

Her hand skims the surface of the water at a precise angle, and from it erupts a great spray. Yue, with a delighted shriek, ducks underneath the surface of the water, which means that it ends up hitting Hyra with a full blast and an undignified yelp.

And the rest of the spray hits the coals and becomes a great, relaxing cloud of steam.

***

“Yue,” she says, as they walk back to the bed-and-breakfast in the long, beautiful twilight, right in the middle of the road, and to their left a crumbling old wall barely at thigh height, and beyond it rolling half-wild fruit orchards, which will provide their breakfast. She doesn’t quite stick it, and she coughs to give herself an excuse for the upwards inflection she thought she’d try. “Yue,” she says, in a more reliable voice. “It would be very silly if a handmaiden was looking out for you without being assigned the task,” she explains. “I told you that I was going to look out for you. Protect you from the Princesses, from Qiu and Chen and Yin. But…” She spares a glance for Hyra, who’s part of why she’s saying this. But then her attention returns to Yue, and she gives her the most sincere smile she can find, only drawing a little from old (bad) memories for what that should look like.

“You don’t need me to protect you any more,” she says. “Not the Wolf of the Sky Castle. Not the same Yue who proved her worth in the arena. Not the same Yue who helped save Princess Chen and I. If I insisted on looking out for you now, I’d just step on your toes.” She’s too self-conscious to try to laugh in a more Rose way, and one of Rose from the River’s condescending, fond chuckles wouldn’t work. So she just adds: “Please, accept my resignation as your guardian.”

And she takes a moment to curtsey, hoping that the next time Yue needs confidence in herself, she’ll remember Rose telling her that she doesn’t need protection (from her) anymore.

***

This is the most self-conscious she’s ever been in an outfit. Ever.

When she was the HUNTER-Class 猎犬, clothing was something that it created out of its own flesh. Part of a disguise. Learn what people wear, what will give it away: what brands are appropriate for what social class, what modifications are usually made after purchase, how much plausible deniability it had in baring skin (and how important a flash of bare stomach might be while stretching) to arouse and thus distract a target. Nobody thinks with a clear head when they’re controlled by lust. (Not even her, she treacherously thinks.)

Then when she was First of the Radiants, he dressed to Princess Yin’s standards. Tight, constricting, monochrome suits. Gloves, ties, breastplates. Layer on layer on layer until he might as well have been trapped in the Coffin again. Faced with the most petty choices in what was appropriate for a gentleman of his station to wear: which precise combination of jacket and shoes, tie and cufflinks, scabbard and greaves? Variations on a cloying theme.

Then, the Briar Pilgrim, dressed to announce her new femininity in the most deniable of ways. A bared midriff, bare feet, all concessions to simplicity, surely. Dark, muted hues, because if she dressed to attract attention she’d have to admit that she wanted attention. Attention it wasn’t safe for a monster like her to want. Attention that would entice others to ask her to stay, to break her promise to the Way, to be bad. Or, worse, if she tried to dress like that, what if others told her she was trying too hard?

Trying too hard.

That’s why she doesn’t look Chen in the eye when she comes out of the booth. Because she chose every part of the outfit. She can’t hide behind Keron this time. She’s the one who picked out the pink, baggy trousers, reminiscent of the much more translucent pair she wore on the Sky Castle, with her sword hiding in plain sight as a Rose-sized flute on the belt; she’s the one who picked out the top with the faux rose gold beading, the one that shows off her cleavage and leaves her toned stomach on display, and she can’t hide behind practicality and lightweightness as an excuse, not with the way it jingles with every sway. No, she picked this out, just like she picked out the shoulderless sleeves hugging her biceps, the ones going down to a ring on either middle finger, just like she picked out the earrings (no monk-prizes these, cheap hoops for a girl relying on her girlfriend’s credit), just like she picked out the flat-heeled sandals. Just like she picked out the veil.

The one she’s trying to hide, too shy to wear. Because it would be trying too much. Because it would make Chen frown and ask her what she’s doing, dressing up like that, like she’s a real Ysian. Are you that desperate to be someone’s girlfriend, Rose? Go back and—

“Kneel,” Chen says.

A shiver runs through Rose as she, with surprising awkwardness, gets down on her knees, and her flute-sword raps once against the floor. Yue’s talking to the owner of the shop, nobody’s paying attention, it’s just her and Chen, why does she want somebody to look at her following orders as much as she’s mortified by it? Because maybe they’d approve. Because maybe it’s allowed and it’s been allowed the whole time.

“Let me see what you have there, rosebud~” Rose tries to find someplace that’s safe to look as she hands the silly, exciting pink thing over. You were going to put it back. Just say you were going to put it back! If you’ve left the Way behind like a selfish girl, you might as well go all the way and start getting used to—

It’s so soft on her face.

It’s so soft, the way Chen touches her.

“There we go,” Chen says, guiding Rose’s face up to look at her, and Rose blinks, and blinks again, not really understanding why she’s tearing up.

Chen leans forward on her tiptoes and kisses her rosebud on the head. “Yeah, there we go,” she says, and it’s so kind that Rose can’t stand it. “That’s the perfect look for my Rose.”

And then Yue does look over and notice, but that’s just because of the noise Chen made when Rose picked her up to hold her so, so close, and she’s got her face buried in Chen’s shoulder, so she’s got time to compose herself before she shows herself off again and practices wearing things that make her happy.

Breathless Dead

”You know, maybe we don’t have to do this,” Bella whimpered, digging her fingers into Dany’s lace shirt. The little scaredy-cat peeked over Dany’s shoulder, still so tense! That was okay, though. She was going to have fun.

She still was jumping at noises and wringing the hem of her pretty dress and according to Dany’s research in the Encyclopedia Puellae she might be missing her litter, and even if she was clapping at games and smiling with all her teeth and following Dany around everywhere, she needed to have fun. She needed to see that life from now on was going to be awesome. Just the two of them, all the time forever.

Below them, the three hundred steps of the Blue Skies Staircase.

“This is going to be awesome,” Dany said, and tilted the sled forwards. Bella squeaked and leaned forward with Dany, and the front of the sled hit the first step, and down they went, picking up speed even as it got bumpier and bumpier, Dany clinging to the lead to keep the nose up, Bella clinging to her chest so hard and making a noise that might have been a scream and might have been a squeal, right in Dany’s ear, and Dany grinned big enough to fill the whole world, but the whole world was just the stairs and the blur shooting past them, exquisitely carved railings and mosaics on the walls and marble pillars burnished until they shone under the azure-blue light of the Victoria Chandelier, none of them distinguishable as they went down faster and faster and then she didn’t pull the nose up high enough and they were launched into the air, and then everything was blue stairs and a blue chandelier and spinning and the sled flying overhead and the air getting knocked out of her lungs and Bella shrieking and thump thump thump thump thonk, except she didn’t remember the thonk, that’s just what Bella said later it sounded like when her head hit the floor, and from her perspective the world suddenly became Bella.

“Oh no oh no oh no,” Bella said, her ears flat on her head and her hands smooshing Dany’s face and her eyes wide. “Milady, are you okay? Do I need to— I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—“

“‘mokay,” Dany said, and giggled out of the leftover adrenaline and the way the world was still spinning, even if the look on Bella’s face wasn’t really funny, but that’s okay, because her next plan, whatever it was going to be, would really make Bella laugh and have fun, and besides, that was awesome, even if the sled was going to mysteriously go missing afterwards, and it was all the better for having Bella on the sled, holding onto her, yowling, and even if she wouldn’t admit it was fun, Dany knew, Dany knew that scream was a fun scream right before they went flying…

It would be nice to be Redana again.

Stupid. Feckless. Disastrous. All reasons why she can’t come back. But it would be nice, wouldn’t it? For this moment to have some kind of context. To be able to blurt out “‘mokay” and see the relief flood her scared face again, to know that in all their roughhousing no one ever really got hurt, that Dany just wanted to make her dour, serious little puella smile again.

But Skotia can’t be Redana, because to be Redana right now would mean being a dangerous, selfish friend-killer. Being Redana would mean being the person who turned Bella into this monster who fights monsters instead of a maid who looks away and bites her lip so she won’t laugh at a dumb pun. Being Redana would mean taking on all the responsibility for everything that led them here.

And being Redana would force Bella to give up this Beautiful and make her whole world about the princess she hates and resents. Again. It would mean ruining her life all over again.

No.

Redana has to stay dead.

But when Skotia comes back to himself, with a throat full of black bile and a body that’s alternating between feverish cramps and the chill of death, it’s so hard not to wish he was Redana, in Bella’s arms, and that she’d have the right thing to say this time. A thank you. An apology. The words to convince Bella to take her hand and come back to the Plousios and have dinner with Dolce and see how much and how amazing Alexa has been growing, the strongest and most amazing warrior in the galaxy, and she could show Bella how much she’s learned about naval engineering and starship engines and then, oh, she’d swap places and prove to Hera and Bella how much she really meant it by being Bella’s maid, learning what it was like for Bella back home, doing her best to earn some forgiveness from her ex-best friend in the whole universe, while Captain Dolce led them all to freedom and a new tomorrow.

But it’s okay. He can’t blurt anything disastrous out. He can’t even touch her and tempt them both away from saving Beautiful. When he convulses underneath her, and her eyes go small and frightened and her ears go flat on her head, he’s only saved by her last-second realization; she turns him on his side as he vomits up wine and party snacks and the ablative layer of his esophagus, until he’s a shivering, helpless mess, crying and hacking and miserable.

But this, too, is just. Is right. Bella must have been miserable, abandoned and shut away in the dark and unable to move. Her hurt is his hurt, just like she has made his hurt her hurt (burning red in the socket, don’t you remember how much she cried out of one eye, the other’s ducts swollen shut after the surgery?).

Right now, he’s ugly, like her heart always was. (It must have been. She was so selfish. So oblivious. Just trying to make her new toy stop being sad to make her feel better about owning it.) His hair is plastered to his forehead; his lip is black and swollen; his eye is bloodshot and half-blind.

Is this enough, Hera? Is this enough, Bella? Until you forgive him, he’s not allowed to stop. Even if he can’t stand up, or even take her hand. Even if his perfect human body is fighting back with agonizing slowness. Even if watching her kiss someone better will crack his heart in half because he doesn’t deserve another kiss from her, ever. He’s still not allowed to stop.

Because if he gives up, he really will be worthless.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Fengye!

You sit on the shape of a horse, and it settles in an eerie calm as you scream. One of your hands finds an ear, fluffier than you might expect, and perfect for scritchies. Finally, it turns and begins a slow trot towards the ruined, moss-veiled castle.

The only problem? Well, other than the fact that you’ll run out of breath eventually and need to figure out some way of keeping the noise ongoing? Well…

***

Kalaya!

You know what’s really good for stealth missions? Just stupidly good? Screaming. Screaming is amazing for stealth. That’s why the most famous thieves are known for howling “IGNORE ME” as they make their way into the treasure-vaults of queens. Fengye is a genius.

Nothing jumps out at you, but you’d better have some sort of second plan, because if you try to walk through that broken, empty gate, you’re walking right into the wakeful jaws of whatever evil lurks within. Just like Fengye is doing right now.

Do you help her take the reins and then try to find some hidden way inside (that will also fit a ghost horse)? Or do you let her approach the gate, or even run up to take point and meet whatever awaits you there with steel?

***

Han!

You make it up with almost everybody, and the almost isn’t even really your fault. It’s not Azazuka’s fault, either, let’s be clear: it’s the snake that headbutted the tree right when you were at your most unbalanced. If it hadn’t sent a reverberation up, shaking the branches, all three of you would be sitting pretty.

But Azazuka is jarred backwards, and slips right off your arm as you fumble her, and down she goes screaming—

Onto the backs of snakes. It’s half-comical for a moment, as if she were a boat floating on the waves of their backs. But then they start to slither over her, while she curls up and (rather unadvisedly) screams. It’s mostly a fear scream. (If you saved her, it might become just an adrenaline scream and giddy, confused laughter.)

***

Piripiri!

No, actually, because your student is in danger, because this dumb musclebound country girl dropped her. Umbrella or no umbrella, it is your duty to defend the innocent.

No, actually, here’s a question for you: when you dive for her, what gives your Hymairean training away to the keen eyes of the Stag Knight?

***

Giriel!

A Tipplebacked Hammerhead rears up, almost level with your face. This one’s spirit-touched, a child of the earth; some of the scales around its broad snout are stone. And the Tippleback has a very dangerous reaction to being startled by a human close up: it slams its head into whatever startled it after rearing up for height. It’s like being kicked by a horse.

You have just enough time to think that before Uusha dives down, grabs it by the throat, and lifts it bodily off the ground before heaving it into the rest of the Hunt with a low, animalistic grunt. It splashes. Not in a gory way, but in a “snakes flying everywhere” way.

She glances at you, and for a moment you see her eyes in the depths of her helmet, and then she looks away with— Uusha! Is that embarrassment? “Good work,” she growls, and spins her long spear, a stick good for warding off serpents.

She’s got your back, and you’ve got a String on her (on her! actually! wow!).