Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

How can the great be reduced? That’s not the question. Of course that’s not the question. Redana knows the answer to that one. She’s been reduced so many times herself, and she’s supposed to be great. She’s been small, she’s been captured, she’s even been so ashamed of herself that she stopped being herself. Of course she knows the answer.

She stops at the base of the pyramid and rests one hand against its black stone. It remembers. He remembers. Just like Dany did; just like she tried to forget. At least, that’s her understanding. Maybe she’s projecting. But maybe she’s not.

Then she’s bounding, step by step, up the pyramid, towards Sagakhan, towards ending the battle, but her mother’s eye throbs in her skull, in pity, in sympathy, in concentration. What does it show her? How does it answer the question she did not speak, but her heart is screaming?

The question is not how the great may be reduced. The question is always, always:

What can I do to help?

And so often she picks the wrong answer, but not today. Because today she is on the other side of the veil, today she is fighting for Dolce and Vasilia and Alexa and Epistia and the Coherents and Hades himself with his pitying kindness and Bella, Bella, Bella. Today her eye is unlocking deep parts of itself, functions so often held back, systems it doesn’t trust her with, insights it held back out of condescension and love. So today she’ll get it right. For once, she’ll get it right.

[Redana marks Keen Senses, asking a question that must be answered honestly. This one is deliberately broad: point her to where she needs to go.]

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Kalaya!

“Nonsense,” the Red Wolf explodes, jovially. She slaps one hand on her knee and then bounds up to her feet. “It’s the least I can do now that everything is settled. Oh, Princess, I am delighted to be able to release you!”

She scoops your face up into her hands, which are warm on your cheeks, dangerously and beguilingly warm. “Together, we’ll protect this beautiful land, stop those fairies and cats, and prove to everyone that I was right to trust you!”

She plants a possessive kiss on your forehead, lingers for just a moment too long, and then sweeps past, already giving orders.

“I’ll have her released,” she says to the medic. “Get her something to wear for now, show her to a cabin, and then get her something appropriate for a bold knight.”

Congratulations! You’ve done it! Now you’ll be escorted to a (guarded) cabin. Maybe you’ll even be allowed (accompanied) roaming of the barge! Everything’s looking up for Kalaya Na!

***

Piripiri, in the Threefold Gardens!

“Oh,” the demigod says, suddenly hesitant. “Well, see, their leader was very… she wanted Han to join her, to be one of the N’yari, and she was very… kissy. So naturally there was some confusion afterwards.”

She’s upset about that. But there’s something more complicated there than the most simple reading. You could try puzzling that out, if you like, for intelligence or simply your own curiosity.

“And while she was fighting,” Lotus adds, rushing past that unpleasantness, “she broke some umbrellas, and she really is a nice person, it’s just that when she’s all riled up, she’s not thinking about how someone’s umbrella is special to them, she’s just using everything she can fight with to fight.”

She glances back at you, suddenly worried. “You won’t tell her I told you about the umbrellas, right? Please don’t. I don’t want her to think I’m being a gossip…”

***

Giriel!

The Red Wolf’s bunk is opulent. She apologizes, of course, making excuses for how hard it is, how cramped, how it’s only what an emissary could afford— but it’s big enough to be cozy with her entwined with you, your hair intermingled, her fingers tracing maps of unknown territories along your shoulders. It’s sinfully soft and the sheets are velvety smooth and it’s got many, many oddly firm pillows.

And the Red Wolf declaims poetry in the Dominion idiom into the expanse of your body, unafraid, adoring, impossible. That you could be wanted by a woman like this.

Between the far-flung poles the mountain stands:
the blessed rod, the cornerstone of earth,
by which the shiv’ring world anchored holds,
o Meru, peak of peaks, unconquered height!

Yet I have climbed a peak as resolute,
foundation set to hold the skies apart,
and there I left my conq’ring claim to stand
in royal color: red to match Her mail.

And there beheld a vision wond’ring fair:
the flowers pink, bursting from the snow;
and these I plucked to make a garland sweet,
the fragrance for to wreathe about my head.

Has anyone ever spontaneously declaimed poetry at you? For that matter, have you ever been wooed like this? Have you ever known luxury like this?

And what else do you let slip, unwisely, during pillow talk?

***

Fengye!

Han of the Highlands is like a stringed instrument in your hands. Maybe not an erhu, but an oversized Western mandolin. Ask Han your two questions, which will be answered honestly, whether or not Han knows she is answering them.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Aevum!

Gensoukyo. The Land of Illusions.

The styling of the place is self-conscious Classical Japanese: the sloping roof tiles, the dark wooden walls, the lantern out front. Parking’s cramped around back; 3V takes it in with practiced ease, and then they’re in a different sort of privacy, not the anonymizing privacy of being visible by everyone but the cramped privacy of having no eyes on you at all, and while it’s can access the store from the back door, you can also take the back staircase and be up in 3V’s rooms. That’s the whole reason for the place, after all— to be just a flight of stairs away from the possibility of company. The same reason she’d never really consider moving to the Park.

“If you need a ride back,” she says, “it’s no problem after I help close up.” It’s not necessary, given the bus stop around the corner, but that’s only half of what she means. “Upstairs is a mess, but you’re free to crash there. Or behind the counter, if you like. I always like that— getting to see into the employees’ area. It’s always enlightening, seeing the full geometry of a place for the first time, when you strip away what you’re meant to see as an outsider.”

An offer of intimacy, one that’s got nothing to do with vibrating fingers. Stress-testing the fake relationship. Offering a treat as a way of saying thank you, using what she knows she’d appreciate herself.

***

The Park!

“…so the thing is, it plays fantastic on virtual tabletop, but the thing that really elevates it is the companion app. It does everything that you’d expect an app to do— character sheet management, dice rolling, quick reference— but it’s also got a build-your-own-mech feature where you can cobble one together out of segments or customize one of the frames already in the game, and when I plug it into the printer, boom, customized mini. And almost all the time, the player drags me over to the hobby table to figure out their first paint job. There’s something fantastically tactile about that.” She raps her knuckles on the chair, as if reminding her audience that, yeah, she can still feel, maybe better than she used to. “And the mech corps in-game are keyed off different genre archetypes, so you’ve got the one that’s grody and almost organic, with— hey, boss!”

She couldn’t do it. She’s curious, sure. And that curiosity’s eating at her. But if he tells her Ferris’s secrets, then suddenly she’s a wedge right in the middle of whatever they have going on here. She doesn’t know what it is, and something something she who breaks a thing to understand it has left the path of wisdom.

Like a vampire, she has to be invited in. And Ferris just keeps shutting this door on her. So, y’know. It is what it is. She leans back and lets the conversation that was trail off into the nebulous space of “you really gotta try it out, I will bring you the files on a USB if I have to.”

[Rolled a 7 after modifiers.]

Breathless Dead

Mind. Heart. Sinew.

Redana breathes through the rose-pink silk, a long, slow breath. She adjusts the grip on her sword. The heart thumps in her chest, trying to escape. The Auspex hammers her perception with lines, with arrows, with the flow of battle. It hums and throbs and tries to explain to her the basic truth: that they will be overrun.

Green arrows crash over violet lines, over and over. If they hold and simply try to fight for time, they’ll get wrecked, isolated. (A shell explodes into caustic gas: up and to her right. The smell is horrible.) And the Kaeri behind, quick and clever and relentless. She’s lost to them once before.

Die. She could die. She’s going to die. Threads of possible futures snap one by one, until there’s only one left. Run. Run now. You’ll survive.

Her feet don’t move.

Maybe this is how she’ll prove it to everyone this time. That she really is sorry. That she’s sorry for failing Bella, sorry for hurting Dolce, sorry for dragging Alexa out here so that she could lose her arms. The only thing she’s not sorry for is wanting.

Mind. Heart. Sinew.

“How do I win?” She hisses, angrily, under her breath. The Auspex’s calculations of war halt for a moment, and then highlight the Master of Assassins. A monster. She’s seen what happens to monsters. She’s still got that thug in armor by her side, but…

But if Redana holds her life at the tip of a sword, maybe even she would yield. Maybe she doesn’t have to end this with killing someone. Maybe, just this once, as many people can walk away as possible. (The Auspex does not agree. But she’s the princess, not the Auspex. And she’s not going to— maybe even that old hag has a story and heart. Maybe even she can accept defeat.)

“Lacedo,” she says, placing one hand on her friend’s wrist. “Give ground. Don’t break, but don’t die for ground. I’m going to cut through.” And then she moves before she can let the fear catch up with her. While she’s moving, she doesn’t have to be afraid. And—

The Auspex roars in her skull, and the world falls away, and is replaced by golden thread, coiling, uncoiling, and the gods in a different shape. They are the space between the threads. They are everything. They are existence, and here, they are present— but look closer. They’re all here. They’re all always here. Her uncles and aunts and cousins, all present, always present, each one the size of the universe itself. Against them she is so small. So very, very small. But she is here.

“Could you always do this?” Silence. The Auspex (which should be part of everything, but is shut up, severed, made as concrete and discrete as Redana herself) simply draws a ribbon through the not-air for Redana to follow. And she darts forward like a hart with victory on its antlers.

[Redana, for the first time, marks Camoflauge on her Auspex.]

Sunshards

Rosepetal knows better than to look at that candle. Even if its new wick wasn’t encoded for her, anything potent enough to stop the Pyre of Inspiration in her slithering tracks would almost certainly work on her, too. Cyanis is wily and impish and took such terrible advantage of her back on the Sky Castle, and behind her, she can hear the stillness of the Pyre, and beneath that incredible stillness, heated huffs of breath. But she still has a part to play. She can’t just sit around like a helpless damsel in distress who needs her Chen to save her, as appealing as the thought might be! No, her Chen trusted her to handle an army of foxes, and that includes fox tricks!

Her wrists are caught, but her fingers are free. If she can get the flame between two fingers… it will hurt. She is a thing of wood, and even if the living wood does not burn, it still fears the flame. But how better to prove her bravery? If there is anything that she still holds dear, it is Chen: Chen who freed her, Chen who saved her, Chen who came back for her.

So she digs the heels of her shoes in, and scoots back, inch by careful inch, as Kat cheerfully pretends to snooze on top of her. It is painstaking work. If she doesn’t lift her hips just so, she’ll either startle Kat or work her skirt right off, and she’s not going to let either of those things happen! She twists and rocks back and forth, seemingly helpless, getting grass stains all over her shoulder blades, not flinching a bit even as Hyra lays out her plan to cry havoc and let slip the foxes of chaos. She bites down on the sodden handkerchief filling her mouth, keeps scooting along, and comes closer and closer to the prize.

Then Cyanis laughs: a maniacal cutie laugh that promises mischief and mayhem, and directly brings those things about by perking up Kat’s ears. The little vixen lifts her head, sees that her prisoner of war is being sneaky, and she yells! Her war cry is squeaky and adorable, and her weapons are two flooferdoodle pawsies that she brings up and back down onto Rosepetal’s cheek, doing almost absolutely nothing.

Except for turning her head so that her gaze falls on the candle.

One hand cups her chin, and another wraps its fingers around her hair.

They’re not real, Rosepetal tries to tell herself. But her spine and her skin both betray her, as the candle’s flame coils around her cervical vertebrae. You are being held, they both say. Can’t you feel the pressure? The fingers tightening around your hair? How your jaw can’t move? You can’t look away.

More hands press down on her, pinning her arms against her torso, her legs to the grass, holding her heels together. It’s useless to try to struggle; they won’t let her slip an inch. She can’t even kick. She tries. She strains. But her brain won’t let her legs lift; after all, she’s being held down.

She takes a deep breath to try and call for help from… somebody. Anybody. Chen, with her clever sword’s singing tip, which could lash out and cut the candle in half, send it toppling to the grass. And the hands press over her mouth, more than one, the pressure sending a giddy shiver down her body as she’s stopped even from pleading for help. A pathetic, needy groan leaks through those strong fingers.

Then the sensations of hands slip under her clothes, and her eyes widen, and she tries to buck and yelp, but she can’t even do either! Her eyes flutter as hands work up and down her body, squeezing, pinching, rubbing, weighing, like a dozen eager Chens, and—

That may have been a mistake to think. Because now the candle’s got a name and a face and visible hands, drawing on Rosepetal’s own memories to fill in the blanks. Who knows what the Pyre of Inspiration is seeing, or whether she’s capable of imagining being caught by anything but her very own self, coiling around her, stifling her thoughts and making her a prisoner of her own thoughts.

“Did my silly little Rosepetal think she was going to be the hero~?” Chen purrs, her eyes a flickering flame, kicking her adorable heels behind her as she lies on the grass. She reaches out and boops her Rosepetal on the nose as her many, many grips tighten. “I can’t even leave you for a moment, can I?”

And Rosepetal, blood rushing to her cheeks, skin alight with the wicked intentions of a dozen imagined Chens, makes a valiant attempt to try to talk back, to defend herself, to do anything but melt into a blissful haze— and fails, utterly.

Kat, triumphant, curls back up on her cushioned bed, which has conveniently stopped trying to get around and is instead pleasantly vibrating in place. Another decisive cutie victory.

[Rosepetal rolls to Defy Disaster with Wits and hits a beautiful 5.]

Breathless Dead

It was bad enough seeing it on the flickering screen. At least then there was some distance, some interference, and Bella to decisively end the threat of one— just one— of these monsters.

Grey and pink and grey and pink and white, bleach-white, white as sand. Grey the bark and pink the leaves, cherry-pink, pink like the soft places of the body, eaten away, long gone, blossoming out of eye sockets and between jaws and bursting through bullet holes in the backs of skulls. Grey the wood that wraps around grey skin and bones, white bones, slick with rain, grey the skin that peeks out from archaic coats and too-recent uniforms, and pink the flowers that tear through guts and ribs.

Death was a horror bad enough. Jas’o, lying in the mud. Hatchan, headless. But this? This is worse even than Hatchan’s guards. This is the worst thing she has ever seen in her life. It is wrong and even when she blinks, even when she crushes her lids shut to stop looking at them, her auspex, throbbing in her socket, the eye of a goddess, won’t stop telling her the exact numbers. Forty to one. Forty to one.

“Hold,” she groans. “Hold,” she screams. Her sword comes up, stiffly, so that she does not drop it. Her throat burns. “I’ve— I know how to kill them,” she says. Thank you, Bella. Thank you. “Destroy the head. That’s… it comes apart when you do that. Through the neck, or up through the jaw. Nothing else. Losing an arm, being torn open— nothing else works. For the head.”

Rain trickles down her back, and she shivers. This is all wrong. She could be a whirling dance of steel if she needed to, but Imperial duelists aren’t taught to go for the head. She’ll have to improvise, use strikes she’s never practiced. And if she gets it wrong, if her sword and its wicked edge still gets caught in fabric or wood, then…

”’You have to be lucky every time,’” Bella said in her spookiest voice, reading from the book open in her lap, as Dany pulled the covers up to her chin and stared out at the vast room all around, shadowed and haunting. “The wolf said, pressing itself against the window. ‘I only have to be lucky once…’”

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Piripiri!

The priestess considers the trees on the riverbanks beyond, black shapes moving on a black sky, as if marching under the beating rain. An experience she’s had recently.

“I don’t think she understood— it’s different here,” she says. “You weren’t tied up or anything, right? That’s… it’s like you’re tied up in here.” She taps the side of her head. “But we can’t see that, so we, I mean, she’d just assume that you were angry about needing to give your blood. Because if you’re not tied up, you could just tell her no. Or slap her! It’s only when someone’s helpless that you need to take care of them and not threaten to cut their hands to steal their blood for demon worship!”

She shivers. Not unexpectedly; of course the daughter of a high-ranking goddess would be scared of demons. If she’d fallen into the General’s clutches, he would have condemned her to a terrible and prolonged fate imprisoned beneath the Wrack-waste.

“…I think even if she knew how you felt about it, everyone would have been in more trouble if she didn’t do that, right? Without you, her options were to lead us all deeper into that horrible city, or sit there and let us all get captured by that awful thing, or—“ She starts. A thought has suddenly struck her at high speed. “Or she could have just asked the dragon who was carrying me.” She buries her face in her hands for a moment and groans, then steadies herself.

“…but I really don’t think she understood just how bad that was. I mean, she probably thought it was bad, but because you’d think she was the kind of witch who makes people her puppets with their blood and sacrifices more than oxen to the gods, and much worse things. I hope she’s not. She didn’t seem like it, but you can’t tell, can you? Can you? I haven’t met very many witches at all, you see, and some of my tutors said they were just terrible, wicked people who’d do anything for power, but others said they were just trying to mimic what we could do all on our— that is, um—“

Her cheeks flush as she tries to find some way out of the conversational corner she’s backed herself into, and decides to dive out of the way by making a fool of herself. “But it’s all about the fact you weren’t tied up. Or chained up, I suppose, but I think the N’yari do it better with their ropes and their big thick cloths. Did you know that’s how we met? Not you and me, but me and Han. She saved me from a N’yari attack on our barge. Well, not our barge, just the one we were traveling on. They grabbed me and tied ropes all around me and stuffed my mouth full of, of—“ Her flush gets more prominent, until she can barely squeak out the word. But she does, and it’s pretty clear what she thought of the experience (and how much it thrilled her).

Which makes a lot of sense. It’s not hard to get a read on her. A sheltered scion, trapped in a gilded cage, who’s never had anyone dare to flirt with her, who craves submission and humiliation for how forbidden they are. If your orders weren’t to make sure she’s seen leaving, very publicly, you could take her by the wrist and offer to show her more, and she’d follow eagerly into the jaws of your trap, biting her lower lip and prancing after you.

“And then Han wrestled their leader,” she breathes, “and tossed her off the boat, and when they tossed me off the boat she dived in after me to save me. And then everyone was so beastly to her and she ran off and I had to go ask her if she’d take me to the Two Hundred Gates temple, and she said yes, and…!”

…and she’s head over heels for the highlander. If they somehow, impossibly, manage to have a future together, you’re fairly sure that it will involve the demigod bossing the flustered highlander around and telling her exactly how she wants to be kidnapped and safely, in private, embarrassed.

Consider also that she’d surrender immediately if you threatened the highlander.

***

Giriel!

“What a difficult position you put me in, you wicked little thing!” The Red Wolf reaches around, tugs, pinches. The chuckle in her throat is dizzying. “How am I supposed to punish you and thank you for your service? How could I possibly uphold my duty to the Immaculate Faith and treat you as you deserve?”

The leather is snug where she pulls it around your neck. You heard it coming from the jingle of bells. She must have planned this from the moment she entered. The click of a padlock behind your head, a key twisting in the lock. You can feel the blood rushing through your body, hot and fast.

“I will have mercy on you, Lady Giriel,” she purrs. “I sentence you to the service of the Dominion until I judge you penitent, enlightened of your error and cognizant of your place in the world.” One finger taps a bell, sets it to chiming. “My service.”

“Now,” she continues, fingers digging, probing, her hair spilling over your front as she leans in and lets her hot breath wash over your neck, your collarbone, the breath of a dragon who has added a queenly prize to her hoard, “for the matter of your reward. You know, I’d meant to have an attendant here for us. Someone for us to share. But then you had to go and cut her hand open. And now she’s busy. So who ever will be able to thank you for your service? Name her, and she’s yours.”

There’s an obvious answer. An answer that makes a mess of who is owned and who serves. Maybe that’s part of the fun. But is it too obvious? Would she discipline you for being impudent? Is she trying to trap you in her games, just like she’s trapped you in her service? Is her weight on you, pushing you down towards your thighs, leaving your rear defenseless, all part of her teasing? Or is she craving to show you the chivalry of the Dominion, a lordly knight stooping to hold vigil between your thighs, her breath so hot, feigning innocence as she makes your collar sing?

You had best make your choice, even if you can barely think through it, o lowly slave-girl.

***

The Baths!

“That does sound nice, though,” Emli sighs blissfully. And she actually means it. Her eyes are, for the first time tonight, shy. “Imagine not having to think at all. That’s one of the best things about the drills, you know. There’s a place you can slip into where there’s no you doing any thinking at all, just the motions you’ve memorized. And you don’t have to do that with just plates and forks, either.” She turns her eyes up back to Han, and they smoulder.

“There’s other ways I’ve been taught to find that place,” she adds, with a sly boldness, her hands drifting down to Han’s side. “Very fun ones.”

“But it doesn’t last,” she adds, and she pouts, breaking the spell of that moment. “I guess it’s because I’m not meant to be a scribe. I’d love it to, though. I could spend all day and all night in that place. No thoughts, just obedience. Everything is right or wrong, and doing what you’re told is right.” Her hand drifts back up to her elegant collar, which she touches with surprising reverence. “Thank you for the rebuke, honored one.”

***

Kalaya!

The Red Wolf sighs so sadly and shakes her head. “I am trying, your highness,” she says, and if she’s mocking you, she’s hiding it well. “But it’s quite possible I’ll just have to keep you here until such time as we’re able to confirm that the fairy has been completely defeated. Operational security demands that any threat to my men be kept under lock and key, be kept from concealing contraband, so on, so forth. And I have to follow the rules, just like you do. Unless you can give me something I can depend on, some plan, some oath, some way to ensure that you won’t accidentally undermine the security not just of my household but the entire Flower Kingdoms, I’ll have to send you back to wait out the exorcists. And that might be some time.”

There it is, laid out simply: convince the Red Wolf you can be a good girl, or return to your cell. Submit, show you want to help, and get Dominion clothing, a cabin, bodyguards; be stubborn, and get a cramped cell in the brig, waiting naked in the dark. And if you get locked up again, well. It might take the Red Wolf a very long time to find the fairy.

What if she goes to ground? Hides and bides her time? What if you remain A Danger to the Dominion’s Operations for the rest of your life? The last Dominion representative used to threaten to send prisoners to Lamentation— what if the Red Wolf does that to you? Her reputation suggests she wouldn’t, but the threat of it is beneath the surface of your thoughts like a sandbar, ready to tear hulls open.

“Anything coming to mind, your highness?”

Sunshards

Distract them.

What that is supposed to mean is Rose from the River using her peerless swordplay, her power and prowess as a paragon of the Burrows and their craftsmanship, to hold an army at bay. But what it could also mean, now, is Rosepetal dancing, drawing all eyes to her, unapproachable but desired, barely out of reach, leading an entire army away with a shimmy and a prance. And what it means right here, right now, for the battle of Chen and Hyra…

Rosepetal kneels on the earth, knees carefully apart, skirt hiking up to a scandalous degree, and then pats her knees. Yes, see? She’s getting your attention, Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits, champion of Hyra the Wolf Princess, devourer of whatever you like, a foe who cannot— who cannot— be defeated by force of arms. That’s right, Katherine. Not even Rose from the River in her prime could do that. There is no way to defeat you with the art of the sword.

But look! Rosepetal reaches up and begins stroking her hair. Such soft, gentle, languorous strokes! Imagine how that would look, Katherine, or better yet, imagine how that would feel, those fingers running up your back to the base of your floofy tail! How those clever fingers could wub you just right behind your perky triangles! See, in the twist of her wrist, the promise of floofing your fluff, of digging her fingers in and really fluffing your floof all over! How she flutters her lashes and conveys, through little more than a soulful look, how empty her lap is without a brave, courageous, and renowned vixen there to spoil! That’s right, Katherine, she doesn’t just want you, she needs you.

And so slowly, so slowly, you advance, tail wagging, hiding behind little clumps of leafs and then scampering close, wiggling and bouncing, only to poumce! Leap, little vixen, and be swept up into her arms! She presents her face and allows you to lick, her fingers rubbing up and down your sides as her mistress goes to face your mistress’s mistress (which, we can all agree, is quite a lot of mistresses). Don’t worry, little fox, dearest Katherine, you don’t have to worry about that fight! Chen of the Northern Wind has sacrificed her most beloved of girlfriends just to keep you— yes, you— at bay long enough for her to duel without you tangling her shoelaces and tugging at her skirt. After all, how could she be expected to fight Hyra and keep from stepping on your luxuriously soft tail, o most talented of narrators? And if she did that, then she would lose the duel by default, and never get the chance to show Hyra what her swordplay looks like when her heart is free and her maid outfit is so cute and she has a girlfriend to watch and cheer for her with adoring glances and eager nods and muffled squeaks! She would have to toss down her sword and surrender to Hyra for cutie crimes, or else face the wrath of Yue the Sun Farmer, and that’s even worse, oh yes it is, oh yes it is! So knead away, lick and drool, that’s what the apron is for! Scrabble your precious little pawsies against her buttons as you streeeeetch up to her face, and wrap your tail around her wrists, and—

“…mmmmff???”

Wait, little— dear little Katherine, there must have been some misunderstanding! You’re a silly pet, not— and her elbows, too? Katherine, please, how is she supposed to indulge you with her arms stuck like this, without anyone to pull them apart for her, and— and, oh, you’re slithering out of her lap? You’re headbutting her thigh and trying to get her to put her legs together? Oh! Oh! Yue!! What did you teach this wily little vixen?! Has she been this cunning the whole time? Don’t just giggle and play innocent! That exaggerated show of innocence fools no one, and— and— eeeep!

Down Rosepetal tumbles onto the soft grass, and up Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits hops onto her, radiating smugness as she flops down on Rosepetal, using her chest as a pillow, and begins kneading her apron with the indolent pride of a silly pet who has bested an even sillier pet! Rose reaches up as best she can to keep giving victorious Katherine awkward scritchies, and the delighted, smug purr radiates through both of them as Rosepetal, blissfully happy in her continued and yearned-for and completely safe humiliation, turns her head on the grass to watch Hyra and her wonderful, sweet-hearted Chen from an awkward angle indeed.

[Rosepetal really should have known better than to roll a 5 on such an important Entice if she didn’t want to end up all tied up and helpless again~]

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Vault of Rushing Fountains!

It is very difficult to have a bathhouse on board of a barge, no matter how luxurious. It is thus all the more incredible that the Dominion has managed it. It’s simple, true: one small, if not particularly shallow, tub, which requires slaves to fill it up with buckets of heated water. And, yes, it means that there’s not particularly such a thing as personal space. But the water is warm, the scented candles are strong, the attendants are here to scrub and lather and rinse, and it’s difficult not to feel stress melting away.

This, then, is the other side of the coin to the prisoners’ first arrival; this is how the Dominion treats honored guests.

“Honored scribe,” Emli says, some bashful color in her cheeks— not just from being in this cozy stone tub along with Azazuka, Han, Jali, and Fengye, but from her admission of inadequacy. “I’m sure that you could explain to our guests what was the matter back there better than I could. I’m still learning my catechisms, you see, and… and you’re smart, you know these things!”

She cuddles closer to Han, skin on skin, still blushing, and stares at Fengye with big, earnest eyes. The water ripples and steams; bells chime gently, though the barge is so steady that it must be some shift in the air, rather than the river below.

***

Piripiri, with Lotus!

“You’re hurt?” That’s what the little demigod says, brown eyes blinking in concern. “I didn’t even— here, please, let me help.”

She lays her hands on your glove, looking at you not with pity but with an earnest desire to help. She doesn’t care that anyone might turn the corner and see you; all of her questions about what just happened to the witch are, for a moment, forgotten.

Do you allow her to do so?

***

Kalaya!

“I have very little interest in giving the fairy the opportunity to weave her net of lies tighter around you,” Agata says brightly, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I want the opposite, truly, I do! It is absolutely unbecoming for a knight like you to be made a fairy pawn. No, striking at the cats works for everyone: I can show my commitment to working with the Flower Kingdoms, you have the opportunity to display some knightly heroics, and perhaps even win some trophies of your own.“

She lowers the compress, which has left her face wet, and gives you a maiden-killing smile, all smoulder and wry amusement at her own self. “Come on, princess,” she says. “Give me an excuse to set you free. Help me set aside the Principles of Domain Management for the benefit of a pretty girl, and let’s make the future brighter for both of us.”

Right here, right now, it’s not hard to tell how she’s become the heartbreaker of half of the Flower Kingdoms. What ever would Ven say if she saw this?

***

Giriel!

The waiting was the hard part. Kneeling on the floor, knees on a rush mat, legionnaires standing on either side, alone. The small gods of this place are still, or indolent, or suspicious of you, and so you sat, bound, silenced and blind to the world, awaiting the pleasure of Cathak Agata for what seems like hours. Long enough that you might begin to doubt.

Then a door, opened; the presences beside you withdrawing; a door, shut, locked. Boots, slipped out of; feet padding almost silently across a floor. A coat crumpling to the ground. Liquid, being poured from bottle to cup, with casual lack of perfection: the glop and splash of liquid that a patient and well-trained girl would never allow.

Then the Red Wolf drapes herself over you.

“Someone’s been a naughty girl, hasn’t she?” She sounds… amused. Perhaps slightly tipsy already, or just in a whimsical mood. She cups your chin and lifts it as she… from the sound of it, sits on top of a low table, the kind you ate at during dinner. Just enough height that she’s making you blindly look up at her.

“You’re going to have to be punished, you know. I’ll have to make a show of it, at least for those of us on board. Nip any rumors of excessive leniency in the bud.” Her giggle suggests a mischievous smile. Her thumb traces the lower edge of the scarf, then trails down to your jaw.

Then she tugs down the scarf, firmly, and works the sodden cloth out of your mouth— only to tuck it down the front of your fine black top, making sure it’s well and truly secured in place, wedged firm. Only then does she raise the wine to your lips and tip it just so, wetting your dry mouth. You stop when she decides you stop, lowering the cup once more.

“Do you have anything to say in your defense, my Lady Giriel? Is there anything the court should be made aware of before I pass sentence on you? Extenuating circumstances? Service already performed for the Dominion? Groveling, pathetic apologies?”

One finger hooks in the collar of your top once more, and tugs, teasingly, insistently, downwards. “Would you even commit the folly of attempting to bribe one of the Daughters of Victoria~?”

Her voice is a purr that would put a N’yari to shame.

Breathless Dead

War begins in the heart and emanates outwards by degrees. First master your heart; then master your thought; then master your sinew. This triumvirate, united, overcomes all. The challenge of war, then, is of inducing disunity.

And what of the great weapons, you may ask— what of the fire that descends, what of the titan who stalks the battlefield, what of the gods themselves? Simplicity: standing before them is a fault in one member of the triumvirate. Where the world comes unwoven, stand not there.[1]

The hilt of the sword in Redana’s hand is the most real thing in the universe.

Her long gloves fit neatly against it, their material conforming to her need: to not have the hilt slip, to hold it firm, to use it as the fulcrum point of the world. The sword itself was a close-quarters cutlass when it found its way into her hands. It was easy enough to remake it, to make the metal fit another mold: long, double-edged, wickedly sharp. It might as well be the sister of the dueling swords she learned to fight with back at home, down to the elaborate, rose-patterned guard at the hilt. The body remembers this kind of sword. She could fight with it if she were walking through a dream; she could move through a battalion of Kaeri like a gale whipping through willows, disarming, undoing, disarming, never killing, always removing from play.

Match point goes to the Princess. Reset; take your positions.

The thunder rolls. She adjusts the scarf again, burrows her face deeper into it. Roses, pink as roses, light and shimmering, yet opaque and clinging. It felt better than wearing a full-face mask. Leaves her full field of vision open, too. That’s important. It’s a flimsy way to hide her identity, but it makes her happy in a way she would struggle to articulate out loud. In some ways, Redana is simple: it makes her happy, so she doesn’t question it. She simply indulges without asking herself further questions.

After all, the aesthetic is the principal consideration in choosing armor, for Redana Claudius is human. Humans do not wear armor because they are afraid of death; humans wear armor because Athena wears armor. Would armor have saved Jas’o? Not so. Would armor stop the Master of Assassins from stopping Redana’s heart? Not so. Do the Kaeri have any hope of killing Redana, a genetic juggernaut, by force of arms? Not so.

The breastplate is cherry-pink, inlaid with silver, a cuirass hung with tassels and Athenian talismans and bells, silver bells, small and sweet. The half-cloak falls to the small of her back. The skirt sighs as she moves, many-segmented, studded down the length of each strip. The greaves and vambraces gleam over her long gloves, her long stockings. Beneath them all, the black bodysuit holds her tight, a second skin from throat to ankles, patterned in subtle arabesque, as if her very skin is mailed.

Her hair, too, is pink: vivid at the roots, fading to pale tips at the end of her ponytail. Aesthetic is everything. Commit in total, and feel your heart swell to meet the challenge. Instead of a ribbon, however, or a simple tie, her hair is bound by an Alcedi charm: bright-feathered, golden, a promise of victory.

It is not much of a disguise, but it is an assertion nonetheless. Who could this figure be, among the kingfishers, who fights like an Imperial duelist? Who could she be, this human, small and compact and dangerous? There is no disguise that could stop her from being recognized by her enemies, but she is not disguised as this mysterious heroine for their sake. Rather, so that Alexa can say: everyone knows Redana Claudius is blonde, that she wears black and sometimes gold, that she patterns her clothing after that of sailors. Clearly, then, I cannot tell you who she is, this mysterious heroine.

Thunder rolls, closer now. Redana’s fingers tighten about the hilt. About her, Lacedo sees to her honor guard, hand-picked for the duty of keeping pace. Redana will cut through the enemy like the slug of a Hermetic railgun to get to their champions and undo them, and she needs fleet-footed companions on either side.

She isn’t ready. If all was fair and kind in the world, she’d have had more time to rest. More time to let her body mend from what she did to it on Salib. Determination will have to serve for all, then. Because she’s not going to let anything stand between her and this second chance to prove to herself, most of all, that the Nemean was wrong. That she can be there for her Bella. This time. This time. It will all be fixed this time. And nothing will stop her.

Not even that hulking brute in garishly ugly armor standing at the side of the Master of Assassins. She’ll carve through them. Her palm is sweaty, but her grip doesn’t slip even a hair’s breath. Even that monster, dredged up from some Assassin-temple. It will fall.

Any other thought would lead her back to that black despair on the bridge of the Plousios. Therefore, she has no other thought. Just the grip on her white sword, the crunch of sand beneath her boot as she adjusts her stance, and the sensations of her body as the sinew remembers how she has used it so often before.

***

[1]: The Tactics of the Parynesshian, Vol. 1.