Tatterdemalion

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Han!

You bite down on something terrible, and it yields under your jaw. How could it not? You could bite through the mast of a real sea-ship when you are so suffused with Essence. There is a horrible echoing scream, and the kidnapper is released, only to be caught up by a dragon.

There is a wild panic in her eyes as she rolls over, mostly tangled in her cloak, sword half-drawn. She’s helpless. You are power, strength, rage. And now you get to make her squeal about where your little priestess is.

But first, doesn’t she deserve to be small and scared? Doesn’t she deserve to be punished for everything she put you through?

***

Kalaya!

There is a dragon in the room. It is standing over Ven. It throbs and burns with power, with essence flow unlike anything you’ve ever seen. It is not the dragon from your storybooks, to be revered as an ancestress, or the dragon of the Dominion, ancient and greedy and so, so distant. It is here and it is alive and it is an animal, and it is going to kill Ven.

Are you a knight, or aren’t you?

***

Piripiri!

Uusha shoves you onto the ground. Hard. For a moment, your head rings where you hit the ground. Then the hiss fills your ears.

The room is furious with arrows. Burning arrows, ricocheting arrows, howling wind arrows. And Uusha has just put herself between you and it. Arms crossed before her, feet set, head lowered, she takes to the task of protecting the three of you without complaint. Did she even think about it?

***

Giriel!

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.

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 [Uusha] into a sobbing berserker, or leave you with nothing but cold ash where your regard for her was.

***

Fengye!

There! The General roars, a hoarse and chorused bellow, and jerks back a mangled hand from the sea. Something on the other side got him fierce. He rears up and out of his sleeves spill dolls, hundreds of them, jerking broken shattered empty uniforms and breastplates, who walk as best they can on top of the sea of waste. Whoever is on the other side (which is to say, likely Kalaya) is about to be dragged into battle with a demon army. Could even she claw her way out of that kind of host?

If he pulls too much harder, incidentally, he risks doing damage to the world itself. The kind that will fester until its effects on the Flower Kingdoms are impossible for Heaven to ignore. It would ruin a beachhead for Hell, but the effects on the Flower Kingdoms would be… deleterious, in the short run.

The ideal ending for all of this is for the General to be distracted long enough for someone enterprising to contact the priestesses of the Sapphire Mother to exorcise this place as thoroughly as they can, at great expense.

He could be distracted, perhaps, with a truly audacious lie. Or with whoever this Ven is. Or— no, you wouldn’t hand over this cutie, you’re not that cold.

Breathless Dead

Once, Redana ruined an art project. It’s important that an empress be talented at everything, after all! She sat back after spending hours working on the canvas, making clumsy figures, her anatomy wretched, her command of space in the scene hardly there, but she’d made it and it was hers. Wouldn’t you know that it was the moment her Mommy fought Molech? And then she knocked over the basin at the side of her work table, and the muddy paintwater spread, and spread, and spread, and where it touched everything was ruined, and she watched as something she’d poured her heart into was undone, and even if Bella said it was her fault for not removing the basin at once, Redana knew that it was all her fault.

As above, so below. As before, so now. As mother, as daughter.

And no wonder she’d been yearning all her life. And no wonder her mother shut all of her beloved humanity in that walled garden. And no wonder she’d been forbidden to leave, to come out here, to fall in love with a ruined universe. Before her, the stain spreads, blotting out colors, details, treasures, languages, mothers, daughters, futures. And the worst part of all is that this has all been seen before; is that her mother remembers, and she can hear her voice now, and it is a small, brown, brittle voice, without any of the bombast or pride she recognizes, simply the elevated register of someone reciting poetry meant to be memorized:

”Next those from Asterom and Melonian Orphidaeus, ruled by the Twin Kings, sons of Ares who the fair queen Astelia bore the mighty god, for they loved him and all his sport in defiance of Molech. Then the Phoecians, who sang to make Apollo weep, daughters of great-hearted Iphero, who held Cyprusa and rocky Pythan, Alena and Panopsus; the dwellers of Anomene and Hyrapolis, who sang their ships from the living coral; those from Lisbea by the clouds of Sephisus, who hid their reavers within those shining storms. Next the Lokirans…”

She’s sorry. But no amount of being sorry will make her mommy stop. Her memory continues, relentless, because to relent would be to forget, to allow that awful blot one final victory. To let everyone who tumbled down in their millions into Hades be forgotten one last time.

And so Redana curls up, and sobs herself hoarse, trying not to listen, incapable of not listening, of not understanding, of not seeing flashes in her mind’s eye: Iphero’s mottled fur, the precise color of the Anomen corals, the trophies of the Sephisean reavers. And later she’ll have time for the existential revelations, to grapple with her relationship to Iskarot, to look at her own face and see the shape of Hermes— but right now, all that is required of her is to witness. And so that is all that she can do.

That’s all her mother could do.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

When she was small, Vesna insisted on bringing pajamas everywhere she went. Clothes, all the time, everywhere! Clothes were the hallmark of civilization; clothes separated us from the barbarian and the beast! It was travel that slowly weaned her from the habit; if every bit of space in the bag counts, ditching the clothes that aren’t for public wear is just common sense. By this point in her life, the one concession to being in someone else’s house is that when she slips under the covers, she’s still wearing her sports bra. (A spare; of course you bring a change of underwear to climbing a mountain.)

She lies there, in the unfathomable dark, and keeps staring up at the sky, at the stars, through a skylight. Maybe it’s because of a life spent staring at screens, but the frame of the window seems to impart some extra meaning to the stars. The shape she imposes on it is all in her mind, but even now she can see it: the hunter with his shining belt and his bow, immortal until people forget why he’s named Orion at all, until they stop being able to see the shape. And he ran and he ran and he ran until she grew tired.

Eventually, she pulls the thick comforter over her head. Her hand sneaks out of the covers and grabs her phone where she left it on the nightstand. It’s on as soon as her fingers touch it; a perk of her hands, used in lieu of a regular password. And in the dark of the dark, there is light.

Another perk of the hands: her thumbs can go as fast as her thoughts. She’s not at her phone’s maximum input processing, but she pushes it harder than most people can. No need to worry about carpel tunnel here. So it’s a bit of casual work to shoot off a couple of emails and make a few OurSpaces posts to see who’d be available to help with archival. It’s only after that that she scans through her emails, sorting valuables from the detritus and chaff that everybody gets: newsletters you’ll never unsubscribe from, sales notifications that you’ll also never unsubscribe from, requests from old fans, requests from weird fans, and Did You Know November Posted This Photo (Please Follow The Link Because We Want You Lured Onto Our App)?!

What’s the gold this time? There’s always something interesting: an old friend reaching out, a crowdfunding announcement, or a sale actually worth the time it takes to scan it.

Sunshards

The city is doomed.

That’s the plain and simple of it, laid out for Rose in terms that she can see, even if Chen can’t. Yue definitely doesn’t see the moving pieces here: Yin’s Radiants, shining, glorious, arrayed in their invincible armors, even as their former allies fought desperately to stop them, but it won’t work, First of the Radiants trained them, he did it too well, all for the conditional love of someone who wanted him to be static for her, a stone to lean against, a statue to display. The Pyre of Meaning, burning, burning, and she could fight Scales of Meaning to a standstill but not every one of her sisters, and when she realized Yue was on the field there would be a confrontation and there’s only two ways that goes, and how’s Hyra supposed to keep her safe from that? And Qiu, arrogant, correct, the thought of her smirk sending terror down Rose’s spine, the pitying glance, the “oh. how cute.”

Everything is fallen apart and the Way’s withholding itself from her, she can’t feel it flowing through her, she’s too thick and heavy with love and desire and fear, and what is she supposed to do?

They’ll tie her up and show her the coffin and this time it’ll be worse because back then she didn’t care about anyone they were all pawns or fuel or enemies and she struggled for the sake of freedom but they’ll shut her up and she’ll never ever ever see Chen or Yue or Hyra or Cyanis ever ever ever again stuck in the nightmares again for another eternity—

The Way isn’t here for her. But Chen is. Rosepetal follows because the alternative is falling apart, a helpless little coward on the edge of the battlefield, feeling the walls of the coffin close in all around her. She follows and she turns the fear into a kind of dirty fuel, enough to make her feet strong and her legs powerful for leaps and she doesn’t care how silly she looks being strong while dressed for softness, and her sword is a staff in her hands.

Crack! Crack! Anyone who even tries to come close to the blazing star shooting across the battlefield has something else to think about very quickly, and while she’s not here to put people in the ground she’s only barely holding back. Assault Ribbons are swatted out of the sky, spears held by peasant conscripts are shattered below the heads, and in the center of it Rose moves like the sort of creature she’s trying not to be.

But she has to keep up. She has to be the kind of monster that Chen will value. And so she spins that staff so fast that it hums a warning-song, and every crack is the percussion, every fall a thunderbolt, every rap against the earth enough to shake it.

The Way isn’t here for her. She chose the misery of desire, instead. So all she can do is follow Chen, her heart on a leash, and repay her for every tenderness she offered the Equal Of Crowns.

Stand before her, Pyre! Bar her way, Yin! Try to stop Chen, you hordes! Rose will dance with you instead, buy Chen a sky to fly in, even if it’s a fight that even Rose cannot win. It will be enough to lose slowly enough for her—

And to hope that, maybe this time, when they bury her, Chen won’t stop until she breaks the coffin open with her own dainty, gentle hands. That maybe she’s been good enough that one of her friends won’t let her stay down in the dark to outlive them all. That somebody will care enough for Rosepetal to save her, where they didn’t care to save the HUNTER-Class 猎犬.

Breathless Dead

“This is embarrassing,” the naked princess says, sheepishly. “I think there was some sort of— I think she’s a little bit dead right now?” The boxing stance is natural to her; she balls up her fists and takes a counterpose. “And she’s out of control. Or was. Is? She’s only mostly dead, but I don’t exactly remember, there was a fight— but what’s important is that Bella is doing all of this for you. She told me. In detail. So even if I could turn into a blood-drunk barbarian queen right now, I wouldn’t, because I am not going to kill you.”

She darts. Her body might be breaking down, slowly failing her, but her courage roars in her chest like a lion. Between the stones she goes, going in for a heroic tackle. If she can just pin down Beautiful’s arms, then it should be easy enough for Bella to get over here, right?

Beautiful lets out a quizzical sound as she sidesteps and pins Redana against the railing, one hand twisted up behind her back. Her witty rejoinder is drowned out by the sound in Redana’s ears, the roaring of her heart. She tries to twist away, get a leg under Beautiful, restrain her for Bella. And she really, really tries! She super does! But it’s very difficult to wrestle with someone who knows everything you’re going to do before you even get around to doing it!

Chalk it up to how strung-out Beautiful is right now that Redana even has a chance fighting against her, that she’s not pinned down and forced to watch Beautiful dig that shining blue eye out of her head. She keeps getting up every time she’s knocked down, like a puppy that refuses to be removed from a lap, and with similar effect, except—

Well, all of Beautiful’s attention is on her, right? On the princess who wasn’t even supposed to be here. On the girl so pumped full of venom still, it’s a wonder she’s standing up! On Redana, who can’t let herself fade away and stop being her terrible, miserable self when Bella’s depending on her to save Beautiful somehow.

Maybe that’s why things go the way they do, right here: because Redana gets flung to the floor, and even as Beautiful sighs and shifts her stance, she scrambles back up and flings herself at Beautiful’s stomach, only to end up in a headlock, and Beautiful reaches for the eye only to flinch back just in time because, biting, Redana, really? That’s not respectable wrestling!

But Redana’s here to win, even if it’s literally impossible. Because giving up would mean letting Bella down again, and she’s going to delay that for as long as she can. Don’t think about the conversation where Bella tells her to come back. Don’t think about Bella kissing Beautiful. Don’t think. Just elbow Beautiful in the stomach and keep trying to win!

Win the Gold for Bella, Dany!

[Redana manages to squeak out a 7 to Keep Beautiful Busy with this ridiculous, irrepressible girl.]

Sunshards

The road to Ys lights up in the twilight. Everybody’s got a light: the harsh LEDs of the Burrows, the warm flickering light of a lantern, sunstones in jars, and best of all, the light you only get spilling out of a food truck.

It’s to an okonomiyaki truck that Rose comes, accompanied by little Yue on her leash, and she’s so patient, isn’t she? She walks so slowly so that she doesn’t outpace Yue’s tiny, careful, jingling hops, feet together, fluffy pigtails and even fluffier tail bouncing as she practices her walkies. Well, her hoppies. Besides, it’s not just a cute show for everyone as they pass by in the gossamer light of twilight; it’s good footwork and coordination practice for swordfighting. And besides that, Yue’s got the perfect beanpole body for hopping without bouncing all over the place, like some dancing girls we could name.

So when Rose approaches the food truck, she waits for Yue to catch up and come into the light, so that the chef who’s flipping the patties on her grill with a couple of battered old spatulas, the honorable sidearms of the fry cook, can see how sparkly her eyelids are, how cute the flimsy little veil is going up and down with each hop, and how big the silly bell on her collar is. It’s so big, and round, and shiny, and even if she wasn’t on a leash, there’s no way that she could try to sneak off with stealthy hops wearing a bell like that!

Rose curtsies like she was born to do it, flowing like a wave. Then she playfully tugs on Yue’s leash, and the shepherdess… well, she tries her best, but with her hands all tied up behind her like that, it’s more of an adorable squat and butt wiggle, tail wagging behind her. Rose’s smile is a gentle reassurance that, yes, Yue did good. What a good girl.

“Octopus, please,” Rose says, and the cook (who has big, pudgy, cute arms) sprinkles a bunch of tentacles in the batter and slaps it on the grill, and then looks to Yue with a playful expectance. And Yue, pink, wide-eyed, mumbles into her gag. Rose helpfully steps in to translate: “She wants scritchies. She’s been a very good girl today.”

And the cook flips over a few patties so that she’s got the time to spare, turns the heat to low, and then comes back around to lean over the counter and get her short nails under Yue’s chin. “Good girl,” she says, and her voice is so husky it could pull a bobsled, her accent dredged right out of the mud of the Hante river. “You her owner?”

“This handmaiden,” Rose preens, “is merely bringing a queenly gift from Princess Chen of the Northern Wind, heir to the Crown of Ys, first among sword savants and saints, to the honored wolf-maiden, Hyra, who performed the princess a great service in the Sky Castle of Princess Jessic. This is one of the finest jewels the princess could offer.” Oh, Yue, between the dramatic praise talks and the fingers on the top of your head, you’re over the rainbow, aren’t you? Eyes fluttering and tail wagging and just melting into those ropes.

Now, we could talk about the presentation. About how intense Hyra looks for a moment, seeing her girlfriend all tied up like that, before she sees the wolf ears and the tail; how Rose does this low, low grovel, hands stretched out in front of her and butt up in the air, and treats Hyra like she’s a Countess; how Hyra scoops Yue up in her arms and orders Rose to leave in a growl that runs right through both dancing girls, and how Rose gets Very Controlled in her movements as she walks off.

How Hyra takes her time unwrapping her gift in the backseat of her car; how she makes that bell jingle; how she reassures Yue that nobody’s going to see them as long as Yue holds still, even while she gets down on the floorboards and unties Yue’s legs for spreading. How Hyra makes her pretty precious puppy howl, even though she’s the only one to hear.

But we both know that Yue’s going to treasure the moment she spends with Rose, sitting on the back step of a covered wagon, watching the sunset, as Rose helps Yue take a breather. A bottle of water recycled from an old wine bottle, with a bit of Khen cork that Rose has to pop open; her gag lying damp in her lap and her veil lowered so that she can lean forward and take adorably big bites out of the okonomiyaki, held up to her face on a fork; getting to snuggle up next to Rose and feel safe and cozy and just as pretty as a princess’s girlfriend. And it’s that moment that fills her up and makes her so warm and excited and supported that when she’s presented to Hyra, she’s even able to do her best attempt at sultry, batting her eyes like Rose would even through an industrial-sized blush and excited tail wags.

Because they’re friends now, and friends look out for each other. And you know what, Yue?

Rose is lucky to have a friend like you.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Fengye!

It’s almost too easy. Kalaya’s senseless bravery means that you’re off and away on the demon horse, fast as a whip, before either horse or owner can recognize each other. Doubtless she is going to die a heroic death battling against a warlock and one of Adorjan’s Daughters, but at the very least you can make her sacrifice worthwhile by saving the breathless priestess clinging to you like you’re the real hero.

Then the world strains and snaps. The Wyld, that unreality which surrounds all that is like an egg, presses close— and that weakens existence enough, here, for someone else to punch through.

You barely dodge the first one in the dark, not understanding what it is, simply that from the size of the air displacement it must be very, very large; you can feel something whipping past your cheek, a hair’s breath away, as the demon horse hugs one wall and becomes unnaturally thin.

Then it is past, and you could almost dismiss it as some demon trap that failed to catch you— but now the demon horse is hopping from stone to stone as something rises and falls on the floor. There is a hot breath of wind in here, and the music of Hell is louder and terribly, terribly present.

A door slams open to your right, and before you can stop it, the horse veers right so hard it nearly knocks you both off. You and the priestess both hunch low over its back as another huge something barrels through the door in the opposite direction, just over your heads.

And then you are in Malfeas again, riding over a frothing, storm-tossed sea of snapped spears, shattered shields, stained bandages, frayed ropes, cannon-scorched masonry, and rusted silver stirrups. Above and all around you Tikhtokh, the General of the Wrack-waste, plunges his countless arms into the sea.

“Ven,” he roars, in trumpet and pipe and drum, and the echo shakes your bones. “Where is your prize, Prince? Did you think to hide her from me?”

His information is out of date as long as the priestess doesn’t say a word. As long as you continue to escape his notice, he’ll tear down Kingeater Castle around Ven’s ears trying to find her. This might have Ramifications, but you will have saved this priestess everyone’s worried about, and tricked one of the mighty shards of the Broken King’s soul in the bargain. For all that you’re in a perilous place, you’re in no danger as long as she doesn’t squeak and alert him to the prize right under his nose.

Mark a Condition, too; this is getting stressful, isn’t it?

***

Vermillion Beast of Lanterns!

The girl picking herself up off the floor in the dark hallway is not Melody. No. You recognize her. It’s the kidnapper.

There’s a moment where the world holds its breath; a moment where you loom over her; a moment where you pause, in your glory, and shine; a moment in which her eyes widen and she begins to understand the enormity of her error.

Then two things happen at the same time: a huge, maggot-pale hand snaps out of the darkness and latches around her ankle, dragging her backwards, costing her coat buttons, as she screams and claws frantically at the stones underfoot, and the woman with her becomes arrows.

Many, many arrows.

Close your eyes, o glory of heaven, and let the heads break on the ridges, the stones and the irons and the brasses and the black glasses; let them seek your soft places even as you knock them aside like stinging gnats. To anyone else, this would be cause to surrender, to curl up in a ball and scream for mercy, here where the air itself cuts.

But this presents a problem for even you. The hiss of arrows in flight is deafening, you cannot risk opening your eyes for fear of losing one, and how can you fight a wind?

Must you fight a wind?

When the kidnapper is so close, ready to be chased, no matter where it takes you?

***

Kalaya!

The entire castle shakes. And that’s when the air comes alive with huge, grasping, groping fingers, unseen but felt where they displace the air. You’re not the person they’re looking for, but it’s still harrowing. Wherever you turn, there’s more: fingers as long as your arm, bristled with boarhair, the smell of molding cloth adding to the smell of dying roses, and a terrible roar that seems to fill the whole world.

You’re going to drive them back with your sword flashing, jabbing at fingers like a mouse with a needle, until you have breathing space. You’re going to hear a terrible roar and a sound like thousands of bowstrings being loosed from the other side of that door. You’re going to be left with the terrible choice of what to do next: to try and follow Fengye and hope they haven’t been attacked and caught by demons, to try to lead whatever this is on a wild fox chase up into the fresh air, or to open that door again out of a terrible curiosity to see what’s going on.

Take a Condition. The fighting will not be pleasant, not at all.

***

Piripiri!

“You know, little cosmopolitan,” and she definitely puts the stress on it to suggest that she knows absolutely everything that’s going on, “I should kill you. You’re not an enemy combatant, you’re a filching little thief and spy.” She pulls her arm tighter around your neck, dragging you along in an awkward position; your choices are simply to stagger along with her or to go limp and try not to black out, throat pricked frighteningly by her thorns.

For a moment, she lifts a hand as if to claw at your face, and then closes it into a fist again.

“But I’m a Knight of the Accord of Thorns,” she growls— no, not quite. Growling doesn’t quite convey the air of frustration, exhaustion, not at you but at herself, at her circumstances. “Defender of the weak. Giver of mercy. Even when I’m standing against enemies that will swallow whole everything I hold dear. So don’t fight, and I’ll make sure you’re given the chance to go stay with the Priestesses.”

Oh. Well. That suggests that a) she’s expecting you not to know about the supernatural prison beneath Lake Zenba (Azazuka certainly has the reference pass over her head) and b) she has connections with the House of Lapis Lazuli. It’s possible that she might have the backing of a… radical sect within the priestesshood, one more willing to see the Dominion ejected by force.

***

Giriel!

“You can’t let her do this,” the city girl pleads with you, under her breath, as Uusha drags along the dragon-blooded girl. “The Holly Knight is out of control! Everything she’s done has been dangerous and making it less likely we’re going to be able to stop this warlock, so do something, please!”

And there’s that, too: you’ve never been good at letting people down. On the one hand: Uusha. Strong, buff, devoted to this land. On the other: a distressed girl who reminds you of a lot of your petitioners, scared out of her wits by the violent, looming knight. (Not to mention she’s probably in a position to reward you handsomely after all this, based on her very posh accent.)

If you take decisive action against Uusha, even though she’s hot, if you take the reins and let her know you’re in charge from here on out, take a String on Azazuka and an XP for your troubles.

Breathless Dead

The lights are on, as they should be. The halls are empty, as they so often were. A skeleton crew kept the Princess’s Palace running, all the better to keep her safe. But now there is no one. No one except for her and the monster.

She scrambles down the slick stairs, and behind her is the sound of tearing paintings, shattering vases, overturning statues. She doesn’t turn around, but she still knows what’s underneath everything that the Nemean destroys: fur, matted and bloody, shuddering with each breath. The whole edifice, rotting, built on top of her.

Outside the windows, there’s a storm wracking Tellus, ELF flashes tearing through the bloody clouds, and beyond them all, a hand vast enough to kill a planet. Like that’s special. Poseidon could do worse than that with one of his cast-offs, and—

She turns a corner and stumbles into the clothes, which stick patchwork to her, burning on her skin like lashes: white silk gloves, sensible mary janes, a stained apron. Behind her, the bull-roar of the advancing fury, here to show her what’s down in the basement, a sight that will kill her and leave only the killer. With a desperate cry, she throws herself through a door, locks it behind her, feels it wince beneath her hands.

Then the strength leaves her and she crumples to the ground with a cry. It’s over. She’s failed. She failed Mynx. She failed Dolce and Vasilia and Alexa. And she failed—

“Bella!”

She doesn’t expect the hug. The heartbeat, so strong through the oversized nightshirt. The bubbly giggle. The arms, already strong, holding her so close that all she can do is cling in her misery. The smell of the perfume Mommy gave her for her birthday. Small hands doing their very best to be gentle and kind, stroking her hair, fingers sending streams of cool water down her throbbing spine.

“Did you have a bad dream again?” Redana asks. Her eyes are emeralds in the dark, where the stormlight catches them. “Come on. No bad dreams are allowed in Fort Hypnos!”

“I can’t,” she croaks. “I deserve this.”

“No, silly,” Redana says, and she meant it. She really meant it. “Nobody deserves bad dreams, especially not my best friend.” Redana reaches out and taps the bell, which rings once, and it makes her breathing slow and the pain go mute for a moment, listening to the sound. “I’ll always be here for you, I promise.”

The door splinters apart. The Nemean pulls Redana out of her arms and shakes the princess until she goes limp, then tosses her aside, and it’s just the two of them left. A window shatters, and the sound of battle exultant roars outside. And the Nemean reaches for her, to bring her to the rotten heart, and there to consume her, heart and hope and soul—

Don’t touch my daughter.

The eye opens, and then opens again.

Bella, fallen while playing tag in the cramped garden, stocking rolled down from her bloodied knee, and her Dany getting all fluttery inside when she kisses it better.

Bella, her eyes wide, barely maintaining her composure when she sees Princess Redana step out in her Hymn To Nike dress, the laurel wreath and the slit thigh.

Bella, drooling, asleep with her head on Dany’s shoulder, and Dany holding as still as she can so that she doesn’t wake her up, her face warm as she feels Bella’s weight slumped against her, embroidery forgotten in their laps.

Redana, practicing her speech as she modulates her clothes into the outfit of a daring space heroine: We’ll go see the stars. The stars, Bella!

Redana, laughing, without cruelty, just joy, as she scoops Cutie Princess Bellaphonika up in her arms, juggling her and her wooden sword as she kisses her warm cheek and feels her heart explode with the happiness of being the hero.

The hero takes the Nemean by the wrist and turns, and she draws the wand as she does, and with a flick of her wrist it is a could-have-been sword.

When she runs it through the Nemean’s heart, it becomes real, her blood dripping down the serpent-damascened blade, red on gold. The Nemean leans heavy on her, knees buckling, and with her own weight pushes herself onto the sword, down to the serpents wrapped about the hilt.

“I will never leave you,” the Nemean says, hands on the hero’s throat, slippery with gore. “Never. You can’t kill me. Weak, decadent, useless—“

“I dreamed you were a shepherdess, and I a forest nymph,” the hero sings, and the fingers tighten on her throat. The weight of the Nemean is incredible. She crumples to one knee, both hands on the hilt. “I dreamed myself a jeweler, and you my model dear. I dreamed… you were… a sailor…”

The Nemean’s threats become slurred, even as the lullaby falters. Lights dance in the back of the hero’s skull, but her eye won’t let her pass out, showing her everything: the ooze of thick blood down her wand’s blade, the sprays of blood raining down onto Tellus as Bella fights an army, the crumpled body of Princess Redana Claudius and all her innocence, the aplopexy of Dionysus’s daughter.

Then they crumple to the floor together.

But it’s not the Nemean who gets back up.

The Shepherdess scoops Redana off the floor and shushes her when she stirs. “It’s all right,” she says, and kisses Redana on the forehead. The princess smiles and nuzzles closer. “There’s nothing here you can’t defeat, dear heart. We’ve got so much to do tomorrow, but for now, sleep, dream. Then wake, act justly, love. When you’re ready to be me again— oh! How beautiful it’s going to be!”

She tucks the princess in. Redana snuggles up close to the snoring kitty and is out like a light before you can count to three.

And the Shepherdess, already fading like dreams under dawnlight, steps over the rotten mass of nihilistic violence bubbling on the carpet so she can watch her Bella fighting again in the skies of Tellus.

“I dreamed of us both, together and free.”

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

This is the most alert 3V has been the entire visit. She’s been animated, she’s been intent, she’s been thoughtful, but she’s awake and considering the discs like a dragon that’s just discovered a hole knocked in Fort Knox’s back wall.

“This wouldn’t be useful for me,” she says, very deliberately. “I don’t have the hardware or the technical expertise for it.” Even gloved, she keeps her hands behind her back, as if afraid of a careless touch. “However!” And here she shines, gives Ferris a sparkling smile. “I do know how to get in touch with people who do have the hardware and the technical expertise, I’m fairly sure. It’d be a stopgap, but making it even more of a later problem than this did. Does. You’re not the only person doing this kind of archival work, you know, but… this looks thorough. Not just games, but the infrastructure around them, the— holy shit.”

She’s seen it. The game. The game. The game so popular, so oversaturated, that nobody bothered to keep the original copies. A global case of “this has definitely already been done.” The game that was considered completely lost without hope of recovery ten years ago when a hard drive in Australia finally burnt out.

“You have Skyrim?”

Sunshards

There’s a certain type of story that everyone loves, Yue (and Kat, we can’t forget you). Everybody loves a story about a kind-hearted fool who does impossible things simply because she doesn’t know that they’re impossible. The girl who climbs up the glass mountain blindfolded because she thinks she’s walking home! The girl who spends all night in the haunted Burrow ruins and thinks she’s playing twenty questions with her bestie who’s already been apprehended by site security, and convinces them to let both girls go all on accident! The girl who has tea with the last sun and the moon all unsuspecting and tells them, no, I didn’t drop that silver sword or that gold sword!

The girl who lets out the huntress in Rose’s heart by short-circuiting her brain!

She was doing so well, too, trying to make herself small! Demure, treating every perfect parry and bit of footwork like it’s a quiet bit of handmaidening, like she’s the training robot helping you fence, except you put the thing on Expert by mistake and it’s not letting you get a hit in! Because she’s not just representing herself, no, she’s representing Princess Chen of the North Wind and how well-behaved her handmaiden must be!

But even there she couldn’t help but put an extra challenge in front of herself, because she really is very, very good. She’s been putting extra swish into her parries, trying to make her bracelets and her beads dance, and putting on a little show, because she really is a performer at heart, isn’t she? Even when she was a shapeshifting secret policepuppy, she was all about that moment when she let the disguise fall and got to see everyone react to her reveal. When she was a monk, she tried to turn being a conflicted and zealous monk into a performance, with the Princesses as her antagonists. And when she was Keron’s slave-girl, she turned that into a jaw-dropping performance. Even now, when she is scared of everybody seeing she’s still strong, she wants everybody to be watching her. To reassure her that they care about her. And that’s why your gift of utter flusterment is so valuable, dear Yue-and-Kat!

Because she can’t think about meeting Chen’s parents and hold back!

“We, that is, I,” Rose stammers, and her flourishes become a little more animated, and when she parries a blow she straight-up reverses the energy to send Yue stumbling back with all the power she’d hopped forward with, “I was hoping, she? Because I’ve never actually, Yin, she was, and before that— and besides, she’s known them for her whole life, and it’s not a handmaiden’s place to decide what— but we haven’t—“

Even in that floofy pair of trousers, being caught by one of her legs and sent flying is a hell of a thing. Bounce, bounce, scamper back up, Yue! Rose barely even stops to fret about you, she’s so busy fretting over what Chen’s parents are going to think!

”—I don’t think a lapsed monk is the sort of inconstant person our daughter should be fraternizing with—“
”—the outfit is tacky, what were you thinking, trying to ape our fashions without understanding the cultural context—“
”—and you haven’t been socialized properly, Yin made you into a man and you still haven’t learned how to really be a woman outside of Keron’s training, and that only makes silly girls good for one thing—“
”—you can keep her as a handmaiden and a toy but we really need to talk about arranging a marriage to one of your peers, sweetie—“
”—and, come to think of it, aren’t you a few thousand years too old for our daughter?”

She’s supposed to be swordfighting, so she swordfights (and starts methodically closing off escape avenues with big flourishes and footwork that’s about as dangerous as Hyra’s), but she’s sneaking glances over to Chen in the stands. Was this a mistake? Is she the sort of creature that’s allowed to be liked by mothers? What if she’s too strong? What if she’s too weak? What if she’s too sexual? What if she’s too rustic? What shape do they want her to be?

She sneaks a glance over to Chen, all doe-eyed and hiding her inner turmoil behind that veil she picked out just for herself, and oh, you think that’s the perfect time to go in for a butt smack, don’t even try to hide it. She knows you’re there not in her thinking brain but in her snake brain, and there’s no thinking as she:

1. grabs your wrist
2. sweeps your ankles out from under you
3. sends you down to the ground on your butt
4. falls on you like a wave on the Terraced Lake sweeping over a sandcastle on the shore, but with more butt on your stomach
5. flips you up into the air over her in one fluid movement
6. so she can bring you back down to the ground again and end up on top of you again
7. except this time she’s lying on top of you, all deceptively soft and smooth and big, big like the kind of snakes that swallow lambs whole and then go to sleep for a month to digest
8. with her sword underneath your chin with the sharp edge resting against your throat
9. and she’s heavy and her hips are pinning you against the ground and her veil’s brushing against your chin and you can hear her breathing, so steady, like that wasn’t even a workout for her
10. because she was created a very long time ago to be a creature that hunts silly girls
11. and ties them up and makes it so that they can’t even squeak and have to plead with their eyes
12. as she sends them to jail
13. and it’s really lucky for Cyanis that Chen made Rose let her go, because just imagine being picked up by the arms hemming in your arms with those elbows and knowing that the bondage was a very enjoyable formality for her

And then she wakes up and notices that she brought you from respectable duelist to pinned cutie in about as much time as it takes to fill up Kat’s bowl in the morning, and the embarrassment, the shame at being so big, being so much herself, just radiates off her in waves.

But then the applause starts. And you can feel it, like your hearts are right up next to each other, nuzzled so close. Rose from the River was so big and flashy and showy because she needed to convince everybody to respect her and the way she was trying to be safe for them. She wanted to show off how in control she was through the Way, how she’d definitely made the right choice of philosophies to help her rebound after having her heart break into so many pieces, how her decision to be a girl was just making her stronger but safer than ever. How you only would have to be afraid of her if you were doing things against the Way of All Happiness, and even then she’d really be fighting for your happiness too.

Rose wants to be loved. She wants people to look at her and double-take because she’s so pretty, and she’s embarrassed by wanting it. She wants Chen to lead her around and stand between everyone who might want to turn her into a weapon again, and she wants everybody to watch her and envy Chen for having such a hot and awesome girlfriend. And she wants people to see her swordfight and be delighted, not scared or jealous or scheming about how to make her into something she hated being again.

But she also sees the honest happiness spreading across your face, doesn’t she? And she feels your heart beating hard and fast, too, and she’s listening as hard as she can to what she’s getting from it. Can you tell her? Can you tell her how you feel about her now, and maybe, if you feel like it, when you stopped being afraid of her? Because she doesn’t know how she deserved it, even now.

So she follows the applause and scoops you up, spins you around, squishes you close to her and sashays over to where Chen is sitting, and sure, you’ve got your sword, but the most you could do with it is smack her thigh a little bit, and you can feel her heart racing with excitement, and you did it, Yue! You did it!

“Would you like your present now,” Rose says, showing you off to Chen, “or would you like me to put on more of a show, my— my Princess?” A ripple runs through the crowd, and if she had a tail, you just know that Rose would be wag wag wagging it. “Don’t worry,” she adds, with a little wiggle, “I’ll be sure to package the present for you~”

And when you open your mouth to add something, whoops, no you don’t! Rose’s hand smells good, like the kind of perfume you get from trees, and it’s big and firm and you can hardly get a squeak out through it, probably! Don’t worry about falling, her other arm’s got you around your arms and chest so safely.

“She might make a good present for your mothers, if you want to regift her,” Rose adds, and it’s a joke for the crowd and also a way of letting Chen know how much she’s scared of making a bad impression and she’s probably not serious, actually. After all, then she’d have to fight Hyra! Like a for serious fight! And she probably wouldn’t get anywhere trying to talk Hyra into being packaged up with you, but you can go ahead and think about that anyway! “After all, who wouldn’t want to have the cutest sun farmer from here to the Elevators as a handmaiden? Do you think she’ll look better in furs or as another dancing-girl~?”

[Questions hopefully answered, and another one (or maybe sneakily two) asked in return. Also, that one Yue string gets spent… to add 1 to an Entice, making it a 10, if Yue is at all into this, just maybe.]