Tatterdemalion

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Kalaya!

Petony, the Tiger Knight, steps forward and wraps you up in the kind of hug that squeezes the air out of you. "See? That's why you're special, sprout! Never doubted you for a moment! Here we are, busting in to save you from the wiles of that clinging vine, and here you are worrying about my feelings! Well, let me tell you something, little Lily! My heart is indestructible, and nothing is going to get in our way! The three of us are going get off of this boat and see about earning you a story worth the telling!" Relief seeps into you as you realize that-- wait. Three?

There's a shadow at the doorway.

They must have gone down to the brig, first.

"Let's go," Uusha, the Stag Knight, growls. The hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. It's impossible to see the expression inside of that unearthly muzzled helm of hers, but the wood of the lintel creaks where she grips it. Uusha, who knows what you did in Hell. Uusha, who beat you senseless for it. Uusha, whose armor was shaped by forest gods, snaking and whorling about her long limbs. Uusha, perhaps greatest of the knights of the Flower Kingdoms. "We have work to do."

---

Han!

Emli blinks a moment. Her bemused smile is not cruel at all, and her fingers are soft on yours. "I'm your caretaker," she says. "It's my job, and my delight, to ensure that every guest assigned to me is satisfied with their care aboard the Beneficence." Then her voice softens, and for a moment, she's holding onto you, rather than the other way around. "I'm also a girl who was given the chance to see the world, to serve the Dragons, and to meet wonderful, wonderful people like you. So won't you let me be part of your story, Han of the Dragons, if only for this chapter? And for the rest of my days I'll get to remember the day I helped a dragon and a daughter of gods elope." Her laughter isn't magical, like Lotus's; it's just real, and delighted with herself, and so very, very happy to be held.

She guides your lips up to hers, her rosebuds part, and...

---

Giriel!

"You're dangerous."

The Rakshasa holds you by the chin with one finger, and you could not break that hold with all the power that is in you. Part of you is aware of the danger that you are in, but it is locked in the back of your head, hammering on the door, while the Rakshasa leads you on with that one finger resting beneath your jaw.

"Not that you could outsmart me, but even a big, dumb bear like you can be dangerous once you figure out what you're doing, and you're the only one of them, the whole lot of them, that knows how to stop me." (That's not true. The Hymairean, the one who hates you over the blood you shed, she could stop her. But you can't say that, and you shouldn't say that.) "Even the Celestial Lion, the diarch! I led her on and I danced with her and she's got my song coursing through her veins, all that power and it spins about like a child's toy here and there, wherever I lead it!" (She's gloating. She has to gloat. She put on the mask of the shrine maiden and it's still influencing her, her cloyingly sweet voice melting through your head.)

"And as for the witch, well... maybe we just forget about you? It happens. So much is happening tonight! When Kalaya Na rules the Kingdoms, do you think she'll remember you at all?" (The trees are whipping past terrifyingly fast. The wind is a howl and the rain is barely able to keep up, being lashed sideways to spatter against skin. The roar is filling your ears, the bottom dropping out of your stomach. She's hesitating, she's thinking, she hasn't made up her mind, she holds your life in the palm of her hand.) "No, maybe we just--"

Something shrill and small crashes into the Rakshasa, diving into her side, and that finger slips away as the two figures skid on the wet deck, howling in indignation and awkward scrabbling, and you are left staggering, and she had you right up against a gap in the railing and your heel's out over open air, so when you take a step back everything goes out from under you and the world plummets with a sickening lurch and the scream's bubbling out of your throat--

You're dangling from one hand, branches scraping against the barge dangerously close to your face, no purchase on the slick wood, gone from helplessness to helplessness, and there above you is the Rakshasa's lion, long nails digging into your wrist, being pulled inexorably close to falling herself, hair a wild mane, eyes burning a hot lambent pink flecked with shining azure stars.

Stagger, Giriel Bruinstead. But take also a String on the Rakshasa's lion.

---

Zhaojun!

Giriel is heavy and this is very difficult actually.

Your mistress and your would-be suitor are having Romantic Follies on the deck, the kind that involve hot-headed slaps and hissing, and perhaps that will not be a very good match after all. Ah, well. Sometimes it's more important for the experience to happen whether or not there's a permanent connection, no? But that's not what has your head pounding and your muscles screaming and even though in a moment here both of you might tumble off this impractically tall barge into a thicket while traveling at precisely twelve-and-a-half miles an hour, you don't let go.

Why?

Which one of you reached out for her hand, or were you working in tandem at the moment when you saw the step out into empty air, the spell broken, the horror in her eyes?

---

Azazuka!

Yayeh!

You are in love with the Red Wolf. You are going to kill the Red Wolf.

Yayeh!

Lead her on! Make her think she wants you! Be interesting, but not too interesting! Entertain her associate, but don't be indecent with her, either! And then you went out on a boating excursion, and everything from then on has been chaos and adventure and danger and Agata has been ignoring you! Why? Is it because she doesn't find you interesting without your attendants and your gifts? Is it because that daughter of the Sapphire Mother has been all doe-eyed and coquettish about the ship? How dare she? You've been sulking and miserable for days because you want her to want you, even though it's not allowed; you want her to glance at you and have her eyes widen, you want her to actually be clumsy and speechless for once looking at you, you want her to admit that you've learned quite clever things from your teacher and that there's more to you than knockout curves and your family's money!

Yayeh!

And speaking of the teacher, here she is! Enigmatic, exotic, competent, sweeping demons off their bellies and sparing you hardly a glance! How dare she? How dare she ignore you, too? You should teach her a lesson! You will teach her to underestimate you - you, Azazuka, who was never allowed to even dream of being one of the knights! Well, how's this, mother? How do you like this, father? Your cash sword lashes through the space where her neck was, but a moment before, but instead of curling around her and dragging her off her feet, she's ducking to one side, battering you back with her umbrella, as if she's trying to teach you a lesson still, as if she's not taking you seriously!

Yayeh!

"Are you watching, Pipi? What do you think?" Laughter bubbles out of you as you cut off her avenues of escape, forcing her into a smaller and smaller zone, your sword hissing all about. "Is it too much? Too noisy? Do you think darling Agata will like it? I'll ruin her! And then-- the funniest thing, Pipi, is that I don't know what to do next! Mother and Father will be so awfully cross, won't they?" Your familial piety, the very same that kept you from chasing dreams and fancies, still makes frantic attempts to bind you, but... but you can worry about that after you've slain your love! Then everything will explode so very messily, once these fireworks going off inside you have gone silent!

You catch her umbrella's haft with your sword, and you twist, put your shoulder to the work, pin her against a locked door and force all the air out of her. An elbow is deployed viciously. "Well? What do I win, Pipi?" Laughter is bubbling out of you; isn't this grand? Isn't this just wonderful?

---

Piripiri!

Mark a Condition, and do your best to squirm out from under Azazuka's pin; the heiress has got a solid advantage here in the tight, cramped corridors that don't let anyone escape her sword, and she's got you close and fast. Playing on her family's orders and plans for her would be a cruel knife, but perhaps a necessary one; she's let them stand between her and her childish dreams all this time, after all.

Breathless Dead

Redana's eyes widen as she absorbs what her mentor has just laid out for her. "Mother told you not to keep going out past Tellus. Of course. Because of everything she'd lost, and... and because she wanted to keep you safe. Just like she wanted to keep me safe." She rolls the thought around in her mouth. "Then I guess I am a Hermetic, then. Because I made that choice. Just like you did." And nothing can take that away from her. She made the choice. She made the choice! She became a Hermetic the moment she reached out her hand and asked Bella to come with her across the stars. And nothing could take that away from her! Not even...

"Do you think she'll be okay? Bella, I mean. I don't know how much you know about her. She's my maid. She used to be," Redana corrects herself. "I don't know what she is now. Alive. Not wanting to see me. She chased us down all the way from Tellus, and she helped us defeat Sagakhan, but I don't know if that's because they were enemies, and... I spent time with her on Salib. Only she thought I was someone else then, because Lord Aphrodite allowed me to wear his cloak as a disguise, and she thought I was someone else, someone who she could spend time with, and... she hates it out here, she thinks it's cold and dark and dangerous, but she can't go home. Not without me. But I'm not going home. So she's on the ship and she won't let me find her, but there's so much I need to say to her! I need to apologize for what happened on Salib and I need to tell her that I'm glad she's alive and I need to tell her that I missed her and that I'm sorry for the closet, it's just that I panicked and she hit me and she was going to stop me from leaving at all and I don't know if she hates me or if she... when I told her that maybe I had feelings for her, but she didn't know it was me because I was in disguise, she punched a wall into pieces and started screaming at Aphrodite! And I think I do have feelings for her but that's not the kind of thing you can have in a palace because she had to do what I said and what if I told her to do something she didn't want to do, like kiss me, and she didn't want to but she did it anyway and she hated me for the rest of forever? And then she's been chasing us and she's been a really different person and she's been mean and when I thought she was dying and abandoned I tried to turn this whole ship around? I could have really hurt Mynx and Dolce, I could have killed them, because it felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest thinking about her sad and weak and alone, do you know how much she hates being alone? She pretends she wants her privacy sometimes but I can tell, she's always been there for me, always. I was ready to hurt my friends because I could see her curled up on a venting, broken space station with nobody there for her, and is that love?"

At this point, she is pacing. Urgent hand gestures are involved. She has fallen into the excited, breathless cadence of a Hermetic offering a counterargument.

"And then I kissed her! On Sahar! Because it looked like we were about to die and that's the sort of thing that heroes always do when they're about to die, they kiss the girl, except she got really mad at me afterwards and even though I didn't order her to kiss me maybe that counts as the same sort of thing just because I didn't ask her for permission? Except there wasn't any time to ask her if I could kiss her because the Master of Assassins was about to trample us into the earth and bite us into little tiny pieces and if I had died and hadn't kissed her then can you imagine how I would have looked to Hades, all tormented by the fact that I never did get to kiss her like that, as myself? Because we did do kissing on Salib, only she didn't know it was me, and I thought maybe I wasn't going to be Redana anymore, because Mynx was doing a better job of being me, only that awful assassin girl who I think Bella like likes tore brave Skotos off me, and that's another thing, I don't know where she is on the ship but I bet you anything that the Master stuck her someplace like a sleeping princess and when she wakes up Bella is going to make a beeline for her, for some reason? Just because she's pretty and talks like she's the smartest person in the world and Bella wasn't silently resenting her for all of her life!"

Now she's starting to get a little weepy. Sniffling. Rubbing her face on the sleeve of her jacket, which is the same colors as the Shepherdess's armor today; that color scheme's now on pretty regular rotation in her wardrobe.

"I didn't know! I thought she was happy! Or, no, I thought I could fix her unhappiness! Because I could tell, sometimes, only I thought that maybe it could be fixed by the same fix as the thing that was making me sad, but now I think maybe the problem wasn't Tellus, it was always me! She was punished when I wasn't good enough and she was forced to pretend she liked to be around me because that was her job and how could you like like someone who you had to spend all day around while also pretending you liked them while also wishing they'd stop being an idiot so you wouldn't get in trouble? And I thought Mynx was the actor! So maybe I should just let her be with that assassin, who probably knows her real self far better than I do, and then I can toss myself right out into the rainbow sea because I did all of this because I wanted to give her the whole universe and it turns out she hates it, and we've come so far that if I turn back it's all for nothing and everyone who hurt and changed and died on Sahar did it for nothing, and I promised Hades, I mean uncle, I mean... the Lord of the Dead, he's so hurt every time he thinks we've failed, would you want to look him in the eye and say, oh, I got a case of the sadness, now Aphrodite has defeated yet another crew with nothing but the power of a mean, rude catgirl with tits out to here who wants to kiss a fucking Athenakissed genius who wanted to pull our eyes out, please don't tell her I said that, I'm just!! She hates this! She hates me! I'm terrible! I kissed her and she made a face! I want her to kiss me back! I want her to call me her little pet again! I want her to forgive me! I want her!"

Her own words hit her like a punch to the gut. She staggers.

"I want her, Iskarot. I want to hold her. I want to say sorry. I want to make her actually for real smile. I fucked up. I want to tell her everything. I want to get to know her again and find out if anything I used to love back on Tellus was actually real or if it was all assassin bullshit and forced smiles. I want to kiss her again. But I want her to want to kiss me more. And she doesn't. She won't. She ran away and I can't find her. What do I do? Do I let her hide? Or will she think I don't care about her and it's proof? Or do I go and find her? But what if she's Eros and I'm Psyche and lighting the candle makes her go away forever? If you'd waited and let me have the time I wanted... but even then she's just going to go and be with someone she likes more and I'm going to dive into the engine, right into the engine, except I promised my uncle that I'd find Gaia first, so we'll do that and then I'm going straight into the engine, and also! Also!"

She turns to Iskarot, face flushed, and declares, in anguish: "And I also promised Vasilia I'd tie her up! And she'll be disappointed if I don't, because Bella was extremely rude on board her ship, but now that she's here, what if she hates me even more for siding with Vasilly? What if it's the closet all over again?? What do I do, Magos???"

TSL: Sjakal

Silsila! Birsi!

The Vo siblings start out cheering for their Host and telling Bratty Birsi that she’s going to get it. That they’re going to make those kisses extra sloppy, just for her. Mele even starts applying the lipstick on herself, trying to distract the House Guard with exaggerated movements and smacks of her lip.

But it doesn’t phase her, and Om doesn’t immediately pound Birsi into the floor, and some of the energy bleeds out. “What are you doing, Host,” Emissa complains, frowning and folding his arms. “Hit her already! Are you going to win or not?”

“Fire Wheels are on the line here, so if you don’t win, Ekh is going to make your life hell,” Mele hisses. And she’s probably right! If Birsi wins, four people are likely to be punished; if Om defeats her, just the one.

But, oh, how well that one can fight!

---

Soot!

That’s it. You’ve got it.

Part of it, at least.

Ruz is vain, for all that she is cunning and capable of hiding her emotions. She’s given you your choice of subjects and told herself that you’re going to make good work no matter what, but in her heart she selfishly wants you to reaffirm that she is the most worthy model in the room.

But from the way she almost smiles at the clumsy slave, how she drinks in the moment with a sip from her glass, how she very carefully considers her next move and whether or not the dancer deserves punishment… well, perhaps she might enjoy a private commission. Something to hold onto, something for her to remind Grace-of-Heaven she’s immortalized this moment.

You are an interpreter of beauty, of moments, and of bodies. If you wish fine rewards and Ruz’s favors, interpret these things in a way that flatters her and cements her control over the young Sultan.

But what will she learn from you, when she glances at you, when she sees your sketches? What are your feelings towards Grace-of-Heaven, Soot? Do not think you can hide them from the Vizier.

---

Nahla!

“Best???”

Grace-of-Heaven awkwardly covers herself with one hand and pushes you off of her with the other. Her acting is surprisingly good, or perhaps she underestimated how mortifying it would be to be exposed in front of her guardian. She grabs your long black hair, near the scalp, and pulls you up.

“How dare you? In front of our esteemed guest? You stupid girl, you, you…!!” She lets out a strangled scream and stamps one foot. (Was that a chuckle from the Vizier? Perhaps she’s glad to see the Sultan acting childishly.)

“Ma’am,” she says, hotly, “please excuse me. I need to discipline this, this barbarian. Myself. Best assets… what a horrible thing to—“

“Without giving her a chance to make amends?” Ruz lifts one hand, and Grace-of-Heaven sputters. If the Sultan’s forced to go too far off-script, she might flounder. “Dragon-daughter, what have you to say for yourself?”

But this is good. You can salvage this. She’s still thinking of you as Grace-of-Heaven’s girl, not an ordinary palace slave, and she still thinks of you as an exotic barbarian. If you are haughty, just the right sort of impudent, she’ll let Grace-of-Heaven drag you off and then likely ask to see you again at a later feast.

TSL: Sjakal

Silsila! Birsi!

“What do you think, Big Girl?”

Mele Vo gestures expressively at the palace guard, who is presently mid-makeover. Emissa Vo has the blonde’s chin in a vicegrip as she gets some expensive palatial lipstick on her lips. Those lips won’t even be visible once she’s dressed properly! It’s just a waste of lipstick, a way to show off, and an excuse to manhandle her.

Mele Vo absolutely is not thrilled that the Khan’s Host walked in on this humiliation session for the poor guard, because she’s a wild card. Silsila has the authority to pull rank with a couple of low punks like the Vo siblings (and Ders La, who’s too drunk to function right now). The Host could join in, order the guard released, or even take the guard for herself, and Mele doesn’t have the brains to figure out which one Silsila’s leaning towards. So she’s going for shameless pandering, hoping it will endear her to the Host.

Birsi, meanwhile, is ungagged but still cuffed, and she’s only been ungagged for the lipstick and so that much worse things than a glove can be packed in her mouth. This is her chance, possibly— but her only hope for a savior is the imposing, muscled, dangerous Host.

Now, if she wasn’t currently cuffed, Birsi could relax in the knowledge that she’s been trained in anti-Host combat styles. A battle between the two of them would be surprisingly fair, as she’s a member of the elite House Guard. But helpless like this, how could she possibly use that to her advantage?

Unless she were to challenge Silsila Om…?

---

Soot! Nahla!

Ruz’s lips thin. Her Soot definitely has said something wrong, or gone the wrong direction. Not enough to chastise her yet, but just enough that it’s impossible for the artist not to pick up on it, as carefully attuned to her Patron as she is. Soot has likely opened herself to criticism after dinner, unless she can recover.

But, hooray, a distraction! Grace-of-Heaven claps her hands and lifts her face, grinning for the first time since she entered the room. “Oh, yes! Your gift to me,” by which she means Nahla, purchased by the Vizier, “is so talented, ma’am! I could watch her for hours, and I insisted that she should entertain tonight for us. She has a new dance that she’s dedicated to your diligent service!” Ruz raises an eyebrow, but the flattery is sweet and the implication that Nahla is acting as an appropriate distraction for the Sultan (who should be thinking about girls and pleasure and not about authority or rebellion) has put her at ease.

Nahla, Grace-of-Heaven is using her String to encourage you to show off a very special dance. The trick is to not be so good that Ruz intercedes on your behalf, but not so bad that you lose her attention. Afterwards, you will have to be quite silly-headed and “accidentally” provoke Grace-of-Heaven into a childish tantrum— and that, too, is part of the performance.

Soot, Ruz gestures for you to show off your skill. One of her personal slaves hands you your sketchbook and charcoal, but she does not specify a subject. Who is worth sketching while exotic Nahla performs?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Smokeless Jade Fires is young. She does her very best to hide it behind her laughter and her pride and her love, but she is astonishingly young, even for an immortal hunt-goddess of rushing, cascading thought coursing through the systems of a mechanized idol. She is young enough that when the thought begins to run through her, it frightens her enough that she pounces on it and wraps it up and hides it until that thought is entirely unrecognizable, and she can sit back and smugly accept the thought that it has become, squirming in layers of defensive lying: I think she would make Dolly a good rival.

Because stories are full of those! Dolly’s stories loved the figure of the brooding, dark-furred rival, exiled from their clan for unforgivable but perhaps understandable sins, dangerous and nimble and difficult to predict. Even if Angela Victoria Miera Antonius doesn’t have fur, perhaps she could be worked into shape. For Dolly’s sake. And if it so happened that the rival ended up repeatedly humiliated by a mighty and powerful goddess, well, that’s hardly without precedent!

And imagine the crossover. Imagine the two of them squirming together. The comparisons. The contrasts. Cupping Dolly’s face and lifting it up, seeing the blissful serenity of submerged space in her wide and placid eyes, and then forcing Angela Victoria Miera Antonius’s head up, her ears twitching, her eyes slitted and furious, because she might as well be Hybrasilian in this daydream, chewing uselessly on whatever Jade chooses to fill her mouth, squirming, struggling, uselessly, defeated, owned, tagged, and on the other side of her Dolly soft and inviting and moaning like she’s in heat as she pushes herself against Jade’s hands, and Angela refusing to stop trying to enunciate some petty defiance, and both of them showing Jade’s power and control and glory, Dolly through her eager surrender, Angela through her completely impotent indignation. And isn’t that beautiful?

The conception of Jade’s self shoves her knuckles into her mouths and swishes her tails giddily, imagining it. Girls. Girls. For Dolly, of course. It’s important she have some brooding firebrand to antagonize for the glory of her patron goddess. That’s why she’s even considering this. Her High Priestess is irreplaceable.

Even if she’s a goddess, her whims are sacrosanct, and there is nothing Dolly could do to stop her except cry, if Smokeless Jade Fires wanted to take on new pilots, new concubines, to form a harem. That thought alone is why she must wrap even the possibility of doing something that might lead to Dolly crying up in lies to herself, so that she does not fall into the terrible passions of a goddess unshackled. Just imagine it! That soft, beautiful face falling, crinkling, all of her emotional defenses crumpling as she fails to hold it back; the gulping breaths as she sobs, trying to understand why she wasn’t good enough. Because, and this is the terrible truth that stops Jade from collecting every pilot she defeats and cackling wildly about it, if Dolly was replaced as Jade’s pilot and slave and lover and polestar, she would blame herself. She wouldn’t rightfully call Jade out for being an insatiable demon tyrant; she wouldn’t even consider it.

Jade clings closer to Dolly, digs her nails in, drags tongues rough up her fur, nearly makes her drop the Barn Owl. Let the cameras speculate on the shakiness of the victorious mech, of its unsteady footing; she cares not. Her sweet, selfless, indulgent Dolly must be rewarded and reminded of her place in Jade’s heart.

…but the prize. Angela Victoria Miera Antonius encouraged to fight her again, in a better body, to make it more of a fight. The tangle of limbs, the lock of pistons, the terrible destructive wrestling of these vast bodies. Angela Victoria Miera Antonius ambushed, caught in a net, outsmarted, raging, screaming in that staccato— ai, ai, ai! Tagged again, and again, and again. And then Dolly ambushes her with a memory circuit blindfold, and Angela Victoria Miera Antonius finds herself in Jade’s clutches, dressed appropriately, and it would be worth the effort to allow Dolly and Angela to interact with each other in the simulated reality she constructs for Dolly, and then— oh— yes— mmmmh— to the victor, the spoils— the best for her Dolly— teach her to dance, to sing praise, to grovel fuming before the High Priestess—

“We’re going to the fashion show tonight,” she declares, her excitement a rumbling purr all around Dolly. “I’ll pick out your costume. Your reward for being my good girl…”

TSL: Sjakal

Birsi!

“Contained? Treated properly?” The Fire Wheel grins like a hungry wolf, and her companions bestir themselves behind her. “I think we know a thing or two about this ourselves, palace girl.”

She has her fingers around your sword hand before you can draw on her, and twists it up above your head. Then she shoves forward and pins you against the wall with her body, burying your cute little face beneath her bulk long enough for her friends to get involved. Three against one is hardly a fair fight at all, and soon enough she lets you slump against the floor, panting through your nose, chewing on the leather glove stuffed in your mouth.

“Now, the real question is…” The singer winds back, and then smacks your raised rump hard. “Do we take her back to the quarters?” Another swat, this one aimed to make what you’re working with bounce and jiggle. “Or do we help her back to her barracks?” A third, a fourth; you can feel blood rushing to your cheeks.

“Or do we take her out for a night on the town,” the drinker growls. “Lots to carry, and she looks like she’s good for it.”

Smack! Smack! “Really?” the singer drawls, dragging your ass back up by your belt, thwarting your pitiful attempts to squirm away.

“Yeah,” the drinker says. “Cows are good at carrying things.”

Which one do you think they’ll end up agreeing on? Being taken as a trophy back to their friends, being left humiliated to explain yourself to the House Guard and Strategist Hai Lin? Or being removed from the palace and taken out into the city to help the Fire Wheels on their “errands”? And while you’re considering that, how are those cheeks of yours holding up? Don’t tell us you’re making a mess drooling around that glove…

---

Silsila Om!

“Ekh! Ekh! Ekh!”

Rosethal dangles from a trellis by her ankles, and when she wakes up, she’s going to be furious with you for beating her— and ruing the fact that she was wearing a skirt. This is the first time she’s ever been subject to the Fire Wheels’ brand of humiliation. Of course, you could tell her stories.

When they decided to break you in, you weren’t protected by a mother’s wrath. If they subjected her to half of what you went through, Ruz would have their heads.

“That’s right,” Merov Ekh crows, and with a twirl of her finger, forces you into a spin. “Who turns the wheel?”

“Ekh! Ekh! Ekh!” The roar is deafening. The Fire Wheels know how to amp each other’s energy up.

“Now, tonight, I say we follow the wheel where it spins!” She’s amping them up. Tonight, you’re going to cut loose on the streets of Sjakal. Stealing kisses, purses, and wine in the name of order and the wheel itself.

Do you enjoy that, Silsila, or are you more often dragged along by Ekh as they make merry and teach the citizens of Sjakal not to fuck with the Fire Wheels?

---

Soot! Nahla!

The Lotus Hall is for private dining, overlooking the palace gardens. It’s nowhere near one of the outer walls of the sprawling Adamant, but it’s high up enough that it gets some magnificent views of the setting sun.

Here, soft couches with their backs to the sun look out over a mosaic of parading soldiers and dancers, a cleared space for dinner entertainment lit by the dying sun. Here, Grace-of-Heaven sits alone, hands folded in her lap, as her guardian examines her.

“And have you been keeping out of trouble? It’s very important for you to avoid besmirching your station.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It would be terrible if you stumbled now, after so much hard work. We would have to go back to practically the basics to finally get them to find fertile ground in your head. And you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“No, ma’am.”

Ruz tuts, doing her best to project the persona of the harsh but fair mistress of the house. Grace-of-Heaven doesn’t raise her head, for fear of being accused of ungracious manners, or of neglecting graceful movement, or of exhibiting unbecoming haste. As her guardian, Ruz has the right to discipline her until she’s ready to assume the throne— a time which seems as distant now as it was when she first took the post.

“Now, my dear,” she says, turning her attention to Soot, running one hand along the back of the artist’s, “what do you think you could make of her?” Another test; be careful with what you answer. Feel free to consider the question first.

Nahla: what do you think of the Vizier’s guest tonight? Have you had the pleasure of meeting the court painter before? There’s obviously something there, some chemistry between the two. While the artist is judging your lady, judge her right back. Feel free to lurk behind Grace-of-Heaven’s couch and think whatever you like while you wait for your performance.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Kalaya!

The door bursts open. There’s no time to grab a weapon, you’ll have to defend yourself with your bare hands from— Petony??

Your erstwhile mentor stands there with a wicked grin and her hooked sword in her hands, backed by several of her squires; the Dominion guards lie senseless on the carpeted hallway. “Ho, bud! Get your sword— it’s time to bloody their noses!”

How did she know you were here? How did she get here? What was that about bloodying noses? All questions she doesn’t really intend to give you time to ask— not unless you put your foot down and seriously try to figure her out!

But you’d better hurry. There’s the sounds of swords clashing from either end of the hallway. More of Petony’s forces, right? Surely. After all, why would the soldiers of the Dominion fight each other?

---

Giriel!

The Rakshasa steps out from behind you, because nobody was looking back there, and so she was free to declare that she happened to be there all along. She lifts your hand and lets her priestess’s veil fall, and wraps her lips around your finger. She works at it greedily, head bobbing, tongue wrapping right around the joints, drawing blood and more than blood out of you. It’s an offering, after all: she drinks your dreams to sustain her existence here, offered freely.

Mark Hopeless, for she has supped well on your dreams, Giriel Bruinstead, in a way that you’d hoped to prevent.

Finally she releases you, drooling, panting, blushing. “Hello, Giri,” she says. (She knows you. How could she not? You gave yourself to her.) “You could just surrender now, you know.” Her face is narrow, brown, tufted; now that you know what you’re looking at, she can’t just assert her beauty. Her teeth are small and sharp and stained with your blood. “It’s what’s best for the Kingdoms. The villain is defeated, the True Queen brings unity, and everyone gets to live happily ever after.” That’s a lie. The people she feeds upon won’t get that. But she’s gorged, just after feeding, and she’s got that heavenly spirit backing her up.

“Now are you going to be a good girl for me, or am I going to have to scream and call for rescue?” One hand drifts to a sword’s hilt, her flickering nightmare razor at her sash, and she’s hoping you won’t notice.

---

Zhaojun!

The maid telegraphs the swing; evading the windup is easy. Her smile is a feral thing. “Stop dodging,” she squeaks, before stumbling over her own feet and staggering, dragging the hammer’s head along the deck.

Find thyself a bride, you’d said. Of all maidens the fairest. But what is fair to the denizens of the Demon City, if not power, if not cunning, if not ruthlessness? Perhaps you should be flattered. Or perhaps you should do something about her and that hammer she’s gamely swinging around with both hands, even if your command upon her means that it’s impossible for her to win this fight; she’d knock herself out with the thing before she came close to besting you.

But do you want to? She burns. She despises you, but the command you laid upon her drags her forward on blue chains. She wants to slap the smile off your face. She wants to smother you under her thighs. She wants to fuck you like she wants to fuck the gods: furiously, until you mew and admit she’s in charge. And the minute you lift her chin and tell her she’s a good girl she’ll collapse into a stammering, blushing mess, nuzzling and wondering what this Strange New Feeling is.

Either accept her (perhaps myopic) choice, or point her like a tsundere lightning-bolt elsewhere. Her fate is twisted about your fingers; a twitch and she will be doomed to go among the catgirls, or to end up stuck in a closet with Cathak Agata, or even to the very gates of the House of Lapis Lazuli.

---

Han!

Emli is like a rabbit caught in the jaws of a dragon. Her heart is beating wildly, her eyes are wide, and her face is frozen in a sort of terrified smile. Only the fact that she’s seen your heart, Han, stops her from just breathily threatening to scream while enunciating clearly and exaggeratedly to give you a better target.

“The best part is the part only I know,” she adds, and she takes your hand with all the soft strength of someone who fulfills the desires of others for a living. “The part where you kissed me senseless, took my breath away, before making very sure no one would be able to hear me. Because dragons are hungry and take what they want.”

She leans in close, lets her lovely brown hair brush against your well-muscled arm. “And because I didn’t get the chance to teach you how to kiss her,” she whispers. Then she looks up, and impishly adds: “And, of course, I wouldn’t want anyone to be jealous. Feel free to steal yours, too, Lady Lotus.”

Lotus makes a flustered little squeak and squirms the squirm of someone who really wants to know how you’re going to react but thinks that kissies are good and she definitely isn’t thinking about how it would be like indirectly kissing you too because that would be ridiculous.

She’s definitely not planning to show you exactly how to render somebody helpless, either. She’ll just step in if she’s needed. Say, if you don’t know to cross her wrists over each other and create separate cuffs. Or to make sure you can fit two fingers under the ropes to allow her circulation. Or if you think that pulling a knotted sash between her lips is enough to satisfy her. You know. Just little things like that.

---

Piripiri!

Click-click-click-click-clack.

Azazuka is light on her feet, and she has created a zone of absolute denial around herself. None of the guards fighting her can so much as touch her; she smacks weapons aside with a flick of her wrist and a crack of her clattering cash sword. Color’s risen to her cheeks, and she’s laughing like she’s holding your hand and pulling you along the streets of Golden Chrysanth.

An umbrella is not a sword; this is a simple fact. The brawl happening through the corridors of the ship is being fought with swords and spears; this is another simple fact. Men and women who have the strict unit cohesion of the Dominion are struggling against each other, panting and growling in a grand free-for-all. And Azazuka stands as the queen of them all.

“Pipi!” Azazuka cries, delighted, and then lunges at you, click-click-click-click-clack! The guard accompanying you draws his own sword to defend you, and then slashes it through the space where your head just was.

What is this? A madness of blades?

Breathless Dead

“Where is she?”

Redana Claudius staggers out of the medical tent like a white-faced wraith, a spirit of the underworld herself. Have you heard the things she did to Dolce when they fought on the bridge? Did you see the star on her brow when she destroyed the Black Pyramid with the arms of a goddess? This is the young woman that drove the Praetor halfway across the galaxy, and looking at her now, is it that hard to believe? One wrong word would send her spiraling. Around her, Lanterns cringe and find things to interpose between themselves and Redana, the Imperial Princess who was twice touched by Dionysus.

“Why didn’t you let me say goodbye?” she sobs, grinding the heel of her palm against her eyes. “I brought her this far! Why didn’t you let me be with her until the end? Where did you take her? Let me say goodbye!”

“She’s not here,” Jil says. Dany turns, teetering on the edge of mania, and stares down the little mouse woman. The bags under Jil’s eyes suggest that, unlike Redana, she’s been too busy to do anything like sleep. She holds a surgeon’s sewing kit like one of her folk’s great war-shields. “Our Praetor left three hours ago. Before you ask, I don’t know where she’s gone.” Unspoken: and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. “But she wasn’t dead. Not when she left.”

Redana shakes her head, like a stunned bull, and the braid swings behind her like a tail. An instinct, a memory, brings one hand up, and her fingers trace the pattern. Her sobbing continues, but underneath it bubbles laughter. She got her miracle. Only her Bella would have done this, and if she was well enough to work the hair, how hard was it to believe that she could have—

Dany closes the space between herself and Jil suddenly, and scoops her up. The sudden moment of horror on all sides melts when she spins Jil around, laughing, wet-cheeked. Then she kisses Jil on the face, repeatedly, askew, because that’s the only way her fireworks-sparking brain can vent its heat.

“She’s alive! Bless you, bless you, Apollo light your way! Haha!” She sets Jil down with a sudden exaggerated care, as if worried she might shatter upon hitting the ground, and runs out of the temple because her body is on fire and, why not, she does a cartwheel that doesn’t even break her stride.

It takes quite a while for her to finally slump against a wall and crumple into exhausted, ragged hiccups and sniffles and giggles. After all, she’s an Olympian(-in-training). Plenty of people would have seen her, racing down corridors like one of the nymphs bringing in the springtime.

How different from that awful day when she had walked the ship blind and ruined, with only Dionysus for company! And yet, how similar, too: the people she saw becoming just a blur of uncomprehending faces, watching her as an emotion too big for her swallowed her whole.

“There’s still time,” she says to herself, smearing tears inelegantly across her burning face, and makes an inelegant and overjoyed hornk noise, and doesn’t even care.

---

“Magos!!”

Iskarot, cultist of Hermes, is tackled by his patron’s daughter. She hugs him like he’s a life preserver and she’s been drowning.

“I was so worried after they stole the ship— but I prayed, even if— well, I don’t think Hermes will listen to me, given who she is, but just in case, I lifted you up for her care and— your legs, what did they do to you, I’m so sorry!”

She sets him down, allows him his dignity, stands to attention. But she fidgets, chewing on the question that’s been boiling up inside of her.

“…I’m not an Initiate any more, am I?” And unlike everything that exploded out of her heart just now, she’s been mulling over saying that. Ever since Skotia. Ever since the Heart. Ever since she saw her mother’s truest self.

TSL: Sjakal

Nahla!

Grace-of-Heaven shines. Her eyes are bright with that irrepressible hope that her guardian has tried her best to stamp out of her. Even so, she refuses to let this hope smother her affection for Yasmin, Lila and Taima; she wants to be back by dawn, and sleep away the morning (as, to be honest, is customary in the harem anyway; late nights and lazy mornings are common).

“Yes,” she says, and takes one of your hands in hers. “We’ll do it. Together.”

Then she leans in and impulsively kisses you on the mouth. This isn’t the first time it’s happened; there’s not a lot of personal space in the harem, even if mouths are usually covered. It’s her way of showing affection. But just when it could, maybe, be a little more than that, she pulls away.

Are you disappointed?

Even if you are, you’d better hide it. She’ll need a lot of preparation: a beautiful dress, strategic weakening of the top, braids and decorations, and plenty of makeup to accentuate her features. Who helps you with everything but the weakening?

---

Silsila Om!

Submit? Submission is not in Rosethal’s vocabulary. Not while she has tricks and Hosts and pride. The only way to win this is to physically render her incapable of battle. To make her armor clatter to the floor, unable to recohere without her command; to stop her from talking and summoning up her slaves to defeat you when she becomes desperate; to smother her in shining, sweat-slicked gold until she goes limp and you can carry her off the battlefield.

Then Merov Ekh will reward you, your name will be elevated and praised by the Fire Wheels, and Rosethal will be dangled from her ankles to make fun of her. (And nothing more; Merov Ekh would punish any of her followers for risking Ruz’s favor by pushing too far.)

But if you were to throw, to yield, to allow yourself to be overthrown, then Merov Ekh would allow you to be dragged off by the victorious sorceress, and judging from her demeanor right now, the Almighty alone knows what would happen next…

---

Soot!

Ruz’s eyes flash with… intrigue? “Perhaps some pieces to reassure the people that I am their guardian. Their mother, even. Have I not protected them? Kept them safe? Fed them, disciplined them, allowed them to aspire? And, after all, if you can do this with a barbarian brute, I wonder what you would do with a better—“

“Word from the Sultan, your most illustrious excellence,” says the servant at the door. Ruz lets her hand fall from under your chin, where she was tilting your head up. Did you even notice? Where were you staring, little Soot?

She takes the missive and scans it as you fumble your paints and brushes into their lacquerware cases. And then she chuckles, in that self-satisfied way of hers.

“Yes, allow me an answer, just a moment. Soot: stay.” And then, well, you have to, right? There with the model and the servant and the cases, until Ruz returns a sealed note to be returned to the Sultan. The messenger leaves, and she turns to you, appraising you.

“No, that won’t do at all,” she says. “Not for dinner with her. Follow me, girl.”

You’re about to get a makeover.

---

Birsi!

“Don’t be like that,” the Fire Wheel says, not yet angry but starting towards it. She grabs at your glove, tries to pull it off, drunkenly laughing. “We’re friends, aren’t we? Working together? Keeping the peace?”

Her voice suddenly lowers. She’s stumbled into a resentment unexpectedly . “Yeah. We’re friends. Which is why we let you all parade around and play soldier. You ever been in a battle, palace girl? Ever used that little knife of yours?”

Are you going to let her keep controlling the conversation? Is she right that you’re untested by battle? Is that one of the sacred walls she’s backed you up against?

TSL: Sjakal

Silsila Om!

Rosethal is a woman who chases whatever she wants. When something no longer interests her, she drops it without a qualm. She is dangerous, capricious, cruel. And she cares very little about the opinions of others when she wants something.

Any other woman would hesitate, would think about the watching crowd, would think about the bets being made. Any other woman would lower her head, blushing furiously, and stammer out a heated demand for you to remember your place.

Rosethal grabs the back of your head by your hair, drags you down, and forces you into a kiss. She’s the aggressor: her lips are plump, wet, soft, painted. Her tongue is a lashing whip, her breath a scouring wind.

The crowd explodes into yelling, cheering, vulgar suggestions, ones that Rosethal could give less of a fuck about, but you’re not quite that composed, are you? Merov Ekh wants Rosethal defeated, everyone who bet on you wants you to deliver a decisive victory, and Rosethal is likely to make even makeouts a challenge, a clash of towering egos.

How do you use that String on her, o terror of the desert? Do you pursue victory, or are you melting into a tangle of limbs and possessive kisses?

---

Soot!

Ruz fell silent during the last parts of your work, as you mastered the interplay of color in the piece. Now that you have finished, now that the templar slumps in his ropes, the Grand Vizier finally leans over your shoulder to inspect the painting closer.

This close, her perfume is almost a solid thing, sweet and rich, the scent of far-flung flowers mixed with the rarest notes that the Faithful natively have to hand. Rich in more than one sense: you could gather up everything you own, sell it all, and sell yourself in the bargain, and you still wouldn’t be able to afford the scent that she is free to dab on her fine wrists, her strong neck, her heavy breasts.

“Yes,” she breathes in reverent delight. This is the strongest reaction you have ever gotten out of her: usually it is a content nod, some words of praise, a promissory note scribbled off to be taken to a treasury clerk. But today, you have her attention.

“As the poet says, a rare talent is more precious than diamonds; let your garden wither before the skillful woman starves.” One hand, heavy with jeweled rings, rests on your shoulder, possessively. “How are we to cultivate your talent, little Soot?”

This is very literally the opportunity of a lifetime. Say the right thing, right here and now, and you can have whatever you want: a dizzying thing, isn’t it? Say the wrong thing, and it might all come crashing down around your ears.

And while we’re at it, why don’t you tell us all why the Soot that Ruz finds so praiseworthy isn’t the real Soot, who she would never accept. It wouldn’t have anything to do with your extracurriculars, would it? After all, she spent years serving among the Stewards, and she’s very conservative…

---

Nahla!

“No, that wouldn’t work,” Grace-of-Heaven says, frowning. One hand lifts from the water to caress your cheek, guiding you just that little bit closer. (She’s nervous. Not about tonight, but about what she’s about to say.) “Who would believe that? That I would get angry at you over a dress? It has to be— it has to be worse than that.”

She takes a deep breath, her toes curling in the water in that way she does when she’s trying to wrap herself in courage. “I think we need to invite the Grand Vizier to dine with us tonight, Nahla. Then you need to tear my top open by mistake, and— and then make some clumsy joke about it. So that when I yell at you, when I stamp my foot, everyone believes it.”

The blood is already rushing to her ears. She’s been humiliated many times before by the Fire Wheels at the Vizier’s instructions, but being humiliated while she’s ostensibly trying to impress the Vizier would be a devastating blow, another indignity heaped on a head that has withstood so many.

It’s a miracle of her Faith that she’s still fighting, still rebelling, despite what the Fire Wheels have done to her. The heart of a lion beats in her chest, for all that she desperately clings to you as someone she can trust.

Then she looks at you, and her smile is as bright as the sun in this hot land. “But it will be worth it when we see my grandmother’s city.” She still thinks of it as belonging to her grandmother; she hasn’t been allowed out, and the Vizier makes decrees in her name until “such time as she is prepared and able to assume her duties.” A time that the Vizier makes excuse after excuse to push off, until she can make Grace-of-Heaven marry Rosethal.

What are your thoughts on Rosethal, anyway, while we’re at it?

---

Birsi!

The singer is the one who stands up. She’s taller than you, but not by too much. Her wrap only covers half of her chest, and an impressive scar snakes its way down her ribs. She stands there for a moment, and then she throws one arm over your shoulders.

“Palace girl,” she says. “You’re upset at us? We didn’t know a better place for it.” Her breath stinks of wine, and at a guess, you’d say even that was plundered from the palace cellars. “Tell you what. Angry little puppy. Come and show us where we can have some private time to ourselves, and we’ll share. Your stuck-up bitch doesn’t need to know, hey?”

It’s an expansive offer, clearly. The barbarians get handsy when they’re drunk (and even now, the singer is rubbing your shoulder in an overly familiar way), and it’s probably very good wine. Do you drink, Birsi? Do you drink expensive wine set aside for the sultan and her court? And do you want to be touched by barbarians?