Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

Redana really thought that she was prepared for anything. She’d thought it very hard when she’d woken up in the middle of the night [1], worked her way out from underneath Bella’s outstretched leg, and made her way down to the kitchens to carry out a scheme she’d had itching in the back of her head for… well, for a while.

Because that’s how it works, right? This is what they need for things to be better, going forward. This is how she apologizes, and offers herself, and balances the scales, and learns. If she wants to kiss her oldest friend, she needs to understand what it is to be a maid. And she already had readied an outfit or two, just so that Bella would be comfortable, just in case Bella demanded this balancing of the scales, even though if Dolce hadn’t been up early making breakfast she never would have been able to finish all of the details in time!

Prepared for anything. For Bella to insist on having a chair. For Bella to set her on chores. For Bella to tug on her leash and ask her if she’d been having thoughts like this forever, and how maybe that could open up how much she’d wanted to kiss a maid, but how afraid she’d been of ruining this, of ruining everything, of making Bella hate her, and how nothing Bella could do back could ever make Dany hate her, not here, not so far away from how awful they’d been on Baradissar.

But it’s one thing to pick out a dress because you want Bella to have something pretty, and it’s another thing to belatedly realize you never imagined her wearing it. And it’s one thing to imagine Bella bossing her around, and another thing entirely to see her smile and want to stare at it while stumbling forward like a snake-charmed bird, right into her claws, and it’s another thing entirely to hear how easily command comes to her, and how easy it must have been for Jil to follow her, Bella, Queen of Space.

“You can,” she says, dreamily, still staring at one of Bella’s fangs, blood racing through her cheeks, just beneath the skin. She can. It’s allowed. The door’s locked on the inside and Redana can handle anything and Bella chased her all the way here, and she’s owed something for that Hermetic station and for Baradissar and for all the places where Dany failed to protect her, and that smile is everything and she’s going to fall into it.

She takes a step forward, teetering on the edge of that condescension, unfamiliar from sweet soft gentle agreeable Bella, but intoxicating, just enough poison to let the mind spin, just like when they’d danced—

And the bell jingles.

Redana takes a step back. Continues to redden. Claps one hand over her mouth. Bella seems taller and her eyes flash amusement. You can? Is that what a maid is supposed to do, Redana Claudius? Is that the example that Bella set out for you? For shame!

“I mean, yes ma’am, sorry ma’am, I’m, I’m, yes!” She curtseys again, which lets Bella see the look on her face again, and, and, and? Is this really the kind of maid she is? The kind who would never be able to satisfy the standards of Bella, maid extraordinaire? The kind who begs to be punished like some sort of penitent villainess? The kind who keeps her Mistress waiting?? Not that she ever made a fuss about Bella, but Bella was always making a fuss for her about being punctual and seeing things done, Dany never would have had to say anything like that to Bella! And!! Ready for anything!

Approaching Bella with the dress is almost overwhelming. All this time, back home, she’d occasionally felt awkward letting Bella help her with her outfits, aware of her maid’s physical proximity, of the pleasant smell of her body, of how gentle and careful her fingers were.

Redana will be just as careful, even if she is not as practiced. She will drape you in the colors of the True Sea and pull its sash snug around your waist, lace ribbons all the way up your battle-scared spine, make you…

She’ll make you look like a Princess, Bella. If you let her. Eyes trying not to linger too long, tongue sticking out between her lips as she ties you off with sailor’s knots, stepping up on her toes as she smoothes out your hair, and if you let her, if you allow her to go so far, she’ll even offer to comb your hair, My Lady Mistress, and she’ll self-consciously flick a stray hair behind her ear, and she’ll lose the battle of self-control stopping her from staring even as she fidgets and waits for, no, hopes that you will let her do this for you. If only this one time. Let her give it back to you.

---

[1]: actually, almost exactly three-quarters of the way through the night. If we’re counting.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

“Hear me!”

Dolly lifts her arms wide, and the spotlights click onto her, standing on a platform between Jade’s thighs. She’s got the cloak now, the rainbow of feathers, the brooch secured to her suit’s clasp. It’s borrowed power, borrowed authority, borrowed courage. If she thinks about what she’s doing, she’ll fall apart.

No, that’s not quite right, either. The physicality of just doing it is the solution, but it’s the fact that she’s doing it that’s dangerous, that will have her blushing and stumbling over herself. What she clings to is that this is her responsibility. This is what she agreed to do; this is what Jade has commanded her to do. She is the person who gets to speak for Jade, but she is also the person who gets to try and change her mind.

“Smokeless Jade Fires has heard my pleas on your behalf…” Supplicants? Pirates? Faithful? None of them right. She lets the thought trail, tries to make it seem intentional. “She is willing to believe that you are overexcited.” (The word she uses is closer to “overstimulated,” and is more often used to describe the actions of children.) “And because I asked her,” and in her heart she puffs herself up a little bit, draws her knees together, and tries to believe that she is a real high priestess, “she has chosen to grant my plea, and show you mercy, and withdraw her fury. Now, you must go and wash yourselves.” Ritual work; hands, top of the head, back of the neck. “Then she will allow you to take your offerings and—“

Take. She said take. She pauses, swallows. Jade leans against the railing, her back to the Banders, not looking at Dolly, but she’s here. She’s judging her Bride and making her heartbeat louder and she’s the huge immanence of the mecha behind Dolly but she’s here, too, because that’s what being a goddess is. It’s being with her all the time.

“…and offer them to her,” she continues. Is that a twitch of a smile on Jade’s lips? Is it because she said offerings and offer? Or is it because she did a good job? She doesn’t let herself turn her head. “Then you may go.” Depart. Depart would have been the better word. Augh. Augh. Augh. “And when you depart, know that you do so because she is capable of showing mercy… and because I asked on your behalf.”

Jade takes Dolly’s wrist, leans in, brushes against her cheek as she whispers. She still keeps her back turned to the Banders; she might be lifting her curse, but that does not mean they have earned her regard. Thank you, Nine Forests, for the information, keyed into a terminal while the Banders groveled.

“And Erys Bander?” Jade has lifted Dolly’s hand so that its back rests against her chin. She is the Gloating Priestess from every cheap thrilling adventure tale. Her voice is drifting into a higher pitch, which either makes her sound like a villainess or a kitten, and she can’t help it. This is almost too much. But there’s an exhilaration in being made to do something you’d never have the courage to try, and that’s the secret of why she’s standing here in the first place, at all. “Remember that I am not your opponent. I am her priestess and pilot. And when she defeats you, she will be sure to see how your inferior war-body looks strung up as a trophy.”

Erys— is that? Is that the one who— no, she’s the spotted jaguar, the one who’s glaring, the big one. Not the leopardess. That’s disappointing. It would be… it would feel really good to be Jade’s tool to defeat her.

The spotlights click off, and Jade tugs her to one side. She turns, slowly, carefully, trying to maintain dignity. She’s taking small steps because she’s being serious, Banders. They can’t see the chain pull taut between her ankles.

”What an obedient girl you are,” Jade purrs, her tail undulating as she drifts gracefully. “What goddess could ask for a better orator?”

“You honor me, my lady,” Dolly says, small, breathless, aware that she’s not out of eyesight yet. She’s still got a whole bunch of stairs to take on her way up.

”It will make it all the more enjoyable to disgrace you, Dolly. Be grateful that they do not deserve to see your beauty, or I would have you peel that garment free from your velvet-soft fur, your moon-kissed breasts, and walk as they deserve to walk.”

That is a thought. That is a thought of tugging the leopardess’s leash while she snarls and drools on herself, naked, impotently glaring, taking these mincing steps. And behind her, the rest of the Banders, mewling, jingling, trophies of the goddess— and at the very end, in those rose-colored silks, Angela, Angela, Angela, and in this daydream she’s struggling but not going to headbutt anyone because she knows she lost fair and square.

And then Dolly presents them to Jade, who decides that they are only worthy to be trophies to show off to the faithful, but that Angela deserves chief place on the altar, and Dolly, I need you to go down and kiss her clean of her defeat, be my mouth, be my words, show her how wonderful it is to surrender to a goddess, and then, oh, and then…

”Would you prefer the endurance of fire or the endurance of stone?”

“Fire,” she whispers, needily. Stone is maddening. Not in a bad way, but— but she doesn’t want to hold a position, body locked in place, on display for a temple packed with illusionary petitioners, when she could be bent over an altar with Jade’s fangs on her scruff, sating her voracious appetites. “Please. I want to undress for you, Smokeless Jade Fires; I want you to…”

The cockpit opens, and she has to fight to not glance over her shoulder. Inside awaits Jade’s punishment, and, she’s trusting, because she loves Jade, Jade making sure that she’s okay, and helping her forget that moment where she was scared of the scaffolding giving way, giving her so many treats to indulge until she’s a mess, please, Jade.

“I want you to pack my mouth so full,” she confesses, a thirsty little Bride, barely able to keep her tongue behind her lips at the thought. “And I want you to claim me.”

”Am I not generous to my faithful? But not until your regalia lies on the floor, Savior-of-Pirates, Seducer-of-Beauties, Crocodile-Mouthed, Tight-Chasmed.”

Dolly’s flustered squeal is cut off by the cockpit sealing shut behind her, and woe betide any who think to enter the holy place while the Bride communes with her goddess.

[Erys Bander is hit with Wingman; Smokeless Jade Fires takes +1 Forward to Fight or Entice.]

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Kalaya!

“That sounds great,” Ven starts, pulling her cloak tighter around herself as the three of you stand on the back veranda of the inn. The world is shifting mist and gentle spattering, and Ven shuffling closer, until her shoulder is resting against yours. For a moment, for just a moment, everything is perfect and sweet.

“But we have work to do,” says the stranger. Thin, pale, bags under her eyes, intense. “The sooner we uphold our end of the bargain, the sooner that we will be able to reach the end result. The promise of alchemy. The iron-wheeled cakkavatti. Heaven under one hand, Hell under the other. Came at it from the wrong direction. Should have known better. Not outside enough for the shape of the working, even with my presence.”

(Giriel would be able to tell you about the cakkavatti, the monarch who is able to dictate the destiny of their country, who is able to defy both the will of Heaven and the power of the dragon-blooded. It’s an occult topic, a shorthand for a perfect ruler, a theological thought construct that has seen other kingdoms collapse in hubris. She would warn you that Peregrine has latched onto the idea of making one manifest and is pursuing it without stopping to ask about the consequences of failure. She would tell you that Ven is walking the edge of a knife. But Giriel is not here.)

“What she means,” Ven says, shifting her weight, “is that we think we know why Uusha won’t, can’t succeed at what she really wants. But I can. And I need your help.”

“Want her help,” the stranger corrects, drumming her nails on the railing. “Insisted on her help. Acceptable source of resources. But we need to start. Find the discarded prior, anchor the Title. Then it gets fun.”

“We can do that from the dumpling bar,” Ven says, but weakly. Not exactly the paragon of chivalry.

---

Fengye!

The eye of Heaven(‘s messenger-hound) slides off you, molten gold, redirected by how meek you are, how pitiful you seem, how much you turn yourself into the inversion of a threat.

Then she bounds forward into a dance of swords, thinking herself capable of defeating anyone she pleases, and she’s quite right.

It’s just that she ignores the Maid completely, who responds by jamming her pommel into the hound’s hip, which is the difference between her snatching the mask and Jazumi knocking her down, but she’s springing back up, and now there’s three duelists watching each other, and the Maid’s snarling, and Jazumi’s pretending to be cavalier as she sizes up this new challenger.

You will have your work cut out for you trying to get the Maid to win, but now it is possible, as long as she is able to claim both masks, and is stopped from wearing either one.

---

Giriel!

“Big B!”

Hanaha (“better Han”) pounces on you, delightedly. She can’t get you off your feet, but she’s got you doubled over in an enthusiastic chokehold, and— oh, okay, that’s the power dynamics. This is Machi’s crew, and Machi is Not Here. They’re defaulting to Jazumi, but she’s trying to deal with both the Banneret and the Maid on either side, much too competitive to stop the fight just yet.

Hanaha, meanwhile, is giving you an impudent noogie. She will doubtless try to take you prisoner, as a bit, but what she really wants is for you to wrestle with her, to be the half-wild witch that you are, to position yourself as a liminal figure who can speak with N’yari using their own language.

All you have to risk is your dignity, the integrity of your outfit, and the fact that—

She’s right there. The scribe. The possessed. The woman who caused so much turmoil on the barge. She’s right there and she’s giving you a Look and if you are an undignified wildwoman she will Watch and she’ll know you, Bruinstead. As if she had a String about your heart.

But the alternative is being bullied by— Hanaha is attempting to put her tongue in your ear now actually this is what you have to deal with, mountain catgirls are just Like This and the only way to deal with them is to be Like That even harder back at them.

---

Lotus!

You could run, you know.

It’s an option! You could sprint and try to find someplace to hide. You could call for one of the little brown foxes and send a message to a god and get help!

But Han is straining.

Your hand has your dress in a deathgrip, and the other clings to the umbrella for strength. Your toes dig in as you stand and watch, breathless, wordless, eyes wide, as Han fights the nice lady from the Dominion, and it’s almost like you can see the essence pouring off her shoulders, the shape of the mighty dragon boiling underneath her skin, and then—

You feel the pulse of wood essence that flows through her feet, the rush of blooming flowers, the colors bursting in the back of your head. The noise you make is indecent, new, delighted? Delighted. She never did this around you before. Not like this. And you’re half-god, you’re the child of the river, and the world reflects its dragon-joy right back at you, and your heart is hammering as Han vents more, more power, more heat, more heat, like the dragon she is, and is this how the children of dragons conquered the world? Is this how you want Han to conquer you?

“Get her!” Someone yells. The voice sounds familiar. “Han! Yes! Yes~!” Oh! Oh. Oh.

They’re fighting over you, Lotus. All of this is for you. And if Han wins she might come over and tug your veil down and kiss you, her heart beating fierce and fast and fiery, and if the lady from the Dominion wins, wraps you up close, leaves you throbbing and blooming and helpless…

Oh! Oh! You are useless! Every blow, every clash, every pulse, leaves you reeling, gasping, and so, so fortunate that neither one of them can see your face, because it might betray how selfish you are, that you want them to fight over you and then claim their, their, their prize…!!!

Breathless Dead

Bella!

—and it’s the smell of pancakes that drags you up out of the depths. You’re late. You haven’t been late in so long (if you’ve ever been, you punctual little thing, you). You need to get dressed, you need to bring the Princess her breakfast, you need to wake her up and set out her clothes and it only then trickles in that this isn’t your cot, and this isn’t your job, and it hasn’t been your job for well over a year.

You’re in a bed with dark sheets, which haven’t been changed in some time. They smell like Redana; they smell like sweat; they smell like sex. Let it come back to you. The bathrobes provided by an inconspicuous, somewhat scandalized sheep. The giggling, stumbling through the halls, with wet feet and wet hair, her hand in your hand as she pulled you along, nearly falling over, leaning against walls, catching your breath, sneaking in kisses, who cares who might be coming around the corner, the world is bright and perfect and the piano haunts your footsteps and then you were stumbling into her room, the lights snuffed, bathrobes falling onto the floor, and you made your way to her bed eventually, with the occasional detour involving the table first. And then the bed. And then all of you, you poured it out, you took what she wanted, you made her squeal, you stole her squeals, you dug your nails into her back, you wrung her dry for everything and then succumbed to the dark, tangled in her, buried in the back of her head, sniffing, nuzzling, overwhelmed by the dizzying presence of her.

And now you are here, and the absence of her is a hollow. You may take a moment to feel it like a knife; you may helplessly dig your fingers into a pillow as your stomach contracts and your heart outraces your thoughts— but you are ravenous, the stomach is demanding pancakes, your mouth forces you to swallow down the drool building up before it slips right between your full lips, and you sit up, you brush back that glossy mane, you squint out at the dimmed lamps and the figure waiting for you.

Drag those eyes up. Let your Auspex record the sight. The shined shoes with their buckled straps, as dark as her boots. The milk-colored stockings, clinging to her legs as if trying to conceal the power in them, making them almost dainty. The ruffled lace of the hem, just long enough to hide what is needful, just short enough to invite thoughts of dropping things on the floor. The apron, with tangled flowers in each corner (a standard Alcedi design, easily achieved with a modiste’s stylus). The short leash dangling from the belled collar, the bell is exact, this had to have been commissioned, this had to have been planned. The headdress, and the golden bun peeking up over it, messy, done by hand, done by a girl who is used to ponytails and nothing fancier.

“Good morning, your highness,” Redana says, and curtseys, blushing, daintier than anything she’s maybe ever done, the bell swinging freely as she bows her head, and there are pancakes on the table (when did she have time, did the sheep help her with this) and there is a dress on a hanger behind her the color of the deeps of the sea (garlanded with pearls and flecks of a nebula’s gems, and not sized for Redana) and there are two bathrobes folded clumsily on a shelf (she must have been as quiet as Jil) and behind those bathrobes propped up against the wall there is a burned-out reel (___________).

And Redana stands still and holds the curtsey and waits for you, ridiculous, and there’s an attempt at a bow in her hair holding the bun in place, and she’s wearing lipstick just a little too bright, and the leash dangles waiting to be tugged, and you could be forgiven if you think that you’re being mocked, but then she looks up through her lashes and if she’s mocking you she’s an actress as good as Mynx.

And you are very hungry, aren’t you?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Dolly is speechless. Not because of Jade, not this time, but because her brain is barely capable of stringing words together. All she is boils down to feelings. Feelings are why she is panting through her nose, teeth locked together. Feelings are why her eyes are wide but she’s not smiling, not a bit. Feelings are why she’s shaking, just a bit. Feelings are why she doesn’t know whether she wants to pull this Bander in for a kiss, with teeth, or push her off the railing.

“It’s not my forgiveness you need to worry about,” she finally manages to work out through her jaw, glaring (glaring? yes, glaring) at the Bander. She tries and fails to tug her hand out of that grasp, and so she improvises, slides her hand up, wraps her fingers around the Bander’s wrist. “Smokeless Jade Fires is the one who you insulted. Weren’t you listening? You come up here without purifying yourself, touch me without considering that I’m hers. So you know what you’re going to do?”

She points down at the ground floor with her other hand. She’s shaking— with fear? With anger? With the tight grasp around her wrist? All that energy, ready to explode. The weight of Jade’s gaze is all that keeps her brave. That, and the fact that they still don’t deserve Jade’s fury. Not like that. Not unless, um. Unless they. Unless they had thoughts about high priestesses.

“You’re going to go down there and you, all of you, are going to fall in supplication.” On their faces, wrists outstretched and crossed, haunches resting on their thighs, like defeated warriors, surrendering themselves to Jade’s judgment. “Because she’s not going to change her mind unless she sees you beg for it. Okay?” Her heart’s racing. The Bander is breathing heavy and slow and her eyes are stones. “And I’m not saying this because I want to see it but because I know her.”

Jade hisses through her lesser mouths, an exhalation of steam, the vent of compressed air. The pirate shrinks down almost imperceptibly. Speaking directly to them, to her, again, would cheapen Dolly’s role as her high priestess, as her mediator, as her Bride. But she is right. No forgiveness for the unchastened.

And this feels good. So good. Why are other goddesses so content to act with subtlety? Why do they not make these kinds of proclamations? It is like a fire in the gut. Her Dolly was in danger, and now she is her strength, her castle, her glorious goddess whose shadow is an honor draped upon her. She drinks from the wine of victory until she is dizzy.

The Bander finally lets go. Dolly squeezes, once, pettily, and then does the same. When she turns, the stairs are wet dark stone, lit by flickering lights, vine-choked.

She takes them slowly. The sounds of the hangar are gone; the Bander has vanished. Dolly has to assume that she’s gone back down to convince her crew to humiliate themselves for Jade’s forgiveness. She’s in Jade’s world now, the one that she pretends not to notice sometimes repeats assets. Even for a goddess, making an entire secondary world has to be difficult, and it’s all just for her.

The cockpit is an ancient temple door that dilates open on its own, soundlessly, and then shuts with a soft whisper behind her tail. Inside the cockpit, inside the temple, Jade is seated waiting for her.

“Great one, worthy of praise, queen of the hunt, born of yourself,” Dolly says, sinking to her knees and stretching out her arms, laying one wrist neatly over the other. The tip of her tail trembles as she waits for them to be tied into place, but instead Jade is quiet and still. All Dolly sees is the perfect flagstone under her face. “I come to beg you to turn your face away.”

Go touch her. Ask her if she’s all right. Tell her that you’re holding her, and while you’re at it, tell yourself that you are, too.

Smokeless Jade Fires sits and maintains her world, where she is present, where her Dolly sees the world as it should be, where she can be the unassailable goddess her Bride deserves.

“Did they hurt you?” She knows the answer already: the ache in Dolly’s shoulders, the tension in her muscles, the roughness where she tried to pull her hand away. But she’s not asking because she needs to find out. She’s asking because the goddess has to ask.

“I’m okay,” Dolly huffs. No thanks to you, she rebelliously thinks for a moment, and then flinches in shame. Except she did act. Just… slowly. And overwhelmingly. And without being there in person.

When that would have meant the entire world.

Because she loves you, Jade. And she’ll remind you if she has to.

”If they had hurt you, nothing would stop me from destroying them,” Jade hisses, and means it. Means it like venom. How dare that awful little pirate paw all over her Dolly? Her Dolly! Her perfect precious gentle loving…

Her first instinct was to intercede for them! After she was knocked down and felt up and had her heart speed up so hard it hurt her! She immediately forgave even that, because she is the sweetest, kindest, best girl in the entirety of space, her Dolly, her Dolly!

Dolly pushes herself up onto her forearms. Stretches. Feels the burn of embarrassment at being so indulgent when there’s the fate of other people at stake. But… Jade likes this, right? Jade does this for her, right?

“Would my mouth be able to stop you?” She asks, all husky, eyes a little closed, trying not to collapse in on herself like a white dwarf star, feathers whispering on her shoulders. “My goddess, my mistress, my star-speckled lady.”

FUCK.

Jade feigns indifference, but her fingers, treacherous, are already digging a groove in the side of her god-created throne. The cleft between Dolly’s breasts is a knife in her ribs, viewed from the cockpit cameras so that she can enhance, loop, incorporate the sight into herself without having to command Dolly to look down. The look on her face is what beauty is.

Her gratitude tumbles together with her desire to possess with her validation, her vindication.

Jade pretends not to notice, but Dolly can feel her eyes on her, and it’s…

The hot little knot building inside of her since the Bander bowled her over is getting much more insistent. Even when she’s mad at Jade, she’s hopeless; the attention of a goddess makes her weak at the knees. The thought that she — she — is who Jade chose. And Jade’s staring, and Dolly wants her to stare, and Dolly wants her to do much more than that. Much, much more.

Then Jade stands. Her feet don’t quite touch the floor as she stalks forward, all power, all control, all for her. An apology? Maybe. Jade’s not likely to explain herself for what happened on the stairs, any more than she brought up that headbutt on Akar.

”Your mouth is easily stopped, my prisoner-in-flowers.” Two fingers on Dolly’s lips. A promise of more. Later. Soon. “But if I were to let it… perhaps. Your voice is sweet, even when it is not soaking into cloth.” A thumb, stroking its way up her chin, the nail dragging. She feels the shiver up Dolly’s spine like it was her own, and the growing arousal, too. It’s further validation.

“But I am angry,” she continues. “My power has been ignored. My property has been defiled. Why should I give the unworthy mercy?”

“Because it will bring glory,” Dolly whispers around those fingers. “Let Hybrasil know you forgive those who beg your forgiveness. That you may be swayed by supplication.”

”Someone must be punished,” Jade says, wrapping her tail around Dolly’s back with aching slowness. When Dolly starts to reply, she slips her fingers into that perfect mouth, presses down the tongue, dreams it wet and hot against her fingers, and Dolly obediently wraps her lips around them and stares up with such longing that chains rattle in her blood and it is only the role that stops her from giving Dolly everything, everything, as much as she can for an apology for freezing up, for letting the pirate touch her, for letting her ever get hurt. The subtle bob of Dolly’s head, once, makes her invincible diamond burn too white-hot for thought.

Jade drags her fingers out and wipes them on Dolly’s cheek, a simulated coolness that still sends her plummeting. Jade, please. Jade, this is the Bride’s duty. Jade, she’s never going to get tired of this. Jade, give her everything you’ve got, as soon as she comes back, don’t leave them there waiting…

“Punish me. I will suffer in their place.”

She tilts Dolly’s head up, up, exposing the gleam of her throat, and this is vulnerable, isn’t it, you all know it, your teeth are all so sharp, and the collar is your only protection.

“If you break,” and Dolly nearly breaks just hearing it, her body begging to betray her, “I will place it upon them once more.”

Then she pushes Dolly’s face to one side, not enough to make her sprawl, to risk hurting her, but enough to make her look like she is. And that’s important. Because Dolly wants to feel like she’s been sent sprawling by the power of a dismissive goddess (because she wrote it, three different times, two different stories).

“Now go. Tell them that your…” Her bare foot prods at Dolly’s treasures, eliciting a gasp, a reflexive reach up to steady herself that she stops of her own accord before her fingers can reach her top. “Piety has convinced me. That they are to wash themselves, make their offerings, and depart knowing my mercy. Then return to me and I will see myself revenged.”

hnnnnnnnnngh fuck Jade you are going to make her walk out with her thighs clenched, not touching her, so that she can perform, so that she can say the priestess words, knowing she doesn’t get rewarded until she’s done? Jade Jade Jade.

She presses her forehead against Jade’s foot, trying to give her ideas, and says, trying very hard not to pant or drool, “As you will, bright huntress, promised victory.”

And she mouths “thank you,” because she means it.

And Dolly thanks her, which means she did a good job of being a goddess, and she salvaged what happened, and she is going to apologize thoroughly and at length with the best that she can give. After all, she loves you, Dolly. And she has to prove that she deserves you.

[Dolly and Jade take comfort in each other’s company and increase their Harmony to 2.]

Breathless Dead

Redana has been Not Staring so loudly that it’s nearly drowned out the water. Nearly. But the water is loud, joyful, and there is soft conversation in whispers all about, and they keep bringing her cups. The cups are good. They’re brought to her lips, and the liquid (thick, rich, syruped, like pulped appleskins) trickles down her throat, and the fires of her inner furnace die down to a dull roar. And between the tilt of the cups’ lips and the soft, gentle hands helping massage her mending bones into place and the rushroar of the water striking the pool, she stops thinking. Her world is the suckling, the comb brushed through her hair, the feeling of her bones settling as her body’s hundred thousand mouths are sated.

Then Bella asks her about that.

Apples flood her nose, splatter on her thighs, sympathetic squeaks and noises as her attendants scatter into a loose cordon, as she bends over at the waist and tries to get her breath back under her command, as the implication rattles around her head. Something else? Are we?

“I?” The voice is wrong. Sugar up her nose, dribbling down, rub the back of her hand on it, gross, and she keeps trying to talk anyway. “Here, I mean, if you’d like, because— because—“

She looks helplessly over to Jil, who smiles just as helplessly back and nods at the pool, nods to Bella, and that’s what Dany needs. The encouragement. The reminder. The example. Her smile in return is all apples and tears.

Then she slides into the water, down onto her knees, beneath the warmth, beneath the waves, and she can almost imagine that her uncle is here, too, that this is what it looks like when he is kind, or when he slumbers, and then she stands, and breaches the water, and tosses her head back, and her gold slaps against her shoulders with a wet slap, and she rubs her face clean with her hands, breathing more easily, and that turns into running her palms over her hair, elbows out, hiding nothing. Hiding nothing at all. And this isn’t anything new, and it’s a newborn chick struggling out of the egg, because Bella has seen everything before, but not like this, not here, not after asking, not after cracking open the world’s shell, and Bella’s eyes on her burn.

Bella doesn’t move. But that’s okay. Redana knows how to move. It’s what she’s best at. She doesn’t run, but she pushes her way through the pool, forcing her hips and her thighs through water inexorably, relentlessly, each step feeling it trying to push her away, push them away. And the push is something she can understand. Ahead of her, Bella looms, titanic, dangerous, unexplored, a continent, a nebula, still, allowing her to approach, a knife, a nymph, a fire, a thunderbolt.

A thunderbolt.

She knows without words that she is destructive, that she is a plummeting doom, that Bella can be destroyed in this moment. And her words can’t fix it. Her heart is going to burn its way out of her chest. But all of the other ways she has learned to move, under different names, they know better than her words do. All she needs to do is trust her body.

She presses herself against Bella, her hands going up that uncharted expanse of spine, breaking the water, pulling her close, with no fear of breaking her maid, with no fear of being too much, her skin creating new territories wherever they touch. And she stares, and when she finally meets Bella’s eyes, it is with her father’s hunger in her mismatched eyes.

They tumble into each other like a planet crossing the event horizon of a black hole. By the time that Bella has lowered her head in willingness, by the time that Redana has pushed herself up onto her toes, by the time that the imperial maid’s hand has slipped under the water to help her princess up, by the time that the runaway has hidden her fingers in her huntress’s hair, it is inevitable. But it still surprises Redana, silly little Redana, how hungry she is, and how much that hunger is returned.

Words could never. Only kisses will do for explanation. I need you to stay, they explain. I was so afraid of breaking you, they say in the way that Redana refuses to hold back this time, the way her fingers knot in the luscious curls, the way her body pins Bella against the side of the pool. I have wanted you the whole time, her soft breath says, her refusal to respond to Beautiful’s wolf-whistle, the way her heel hooks around the back of Bella’s leg.

And love is the passing of the thunderbolt from one heart to the other.

And if she is to die today, she will have died kissing her Bella, and she will sink down among the breathless dead in the bliss of this moment.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Gym!

Rising and Setting Sun.

Always makes her nostalgic. You can’t play a game professionally and not have stray bits and pieces lodge in your brain. This is the Surya pack emote, her brain helpfully supplies as she stretches her arms out, arching her back, accepting the glory of the sun. Voice clips echo in the back of her head. Breathe in. Breathe out. ”Oh, let me show you my boys! I’m so proud of both of them!”

Leg Lifts.

No fair! November can do this so much smoother than she can; her legs still tremble a little bit as she lifts them up, back level with the ground, hands by her side. The way the pros do it here has always made her think of machinery, even the ones without prosthetic legs. As if there’s a swivel in the hips. Up, and down. Up, and down. ”Up and down, up and down, all day long! Can you blame me for wanting to make things a little more interesting?”

Mermaids.

Torso flat. Shoulders down. Feel the stretch of her spine. Her head feels a little light as she returns to neutral. What does that feel like for androids, that expenditure of power? Like ebbing strength, or an awareness of power being used? Can November feel her spine stretch as she goes through the motions, leaning first to one side, arm above her head, and then to the other? At the furthest point of her stretch, she runs an impulse through the fingers on her raised hand, letting them rise and fall in a wave, up and down, up and down, and tries her best to understand the connection between her thoughts and her shining invincible hands.

Then she hops up onto her feet, wobbles a bit, and then offers that hand to November to help her up.

---

Gensoukyo!

“Would you have picked Zalmoxis?” It’s getting easier to see the colors as aspects of one person splintered through a prism, but it’s hard to shake the humanocentric assumption that one body is one person. She intentionally holds her tablet in such a way that Blue can see the blue kitty ear headband ($16.78) in her peripheral vision. The lack of eye contact is also part of the Bit. “You did a really good job subbing. You know, halfway through. But I don’t think you would have gone for the vampires?”

New tab. Burger Kong Maid Outfit. $66+shipping. Her stylus hovers menacingly.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Fengye!

Fighting in the mud is, evidently, what is done around here. There's no protection from the rain here, save for what the branches overhead break, and the N'yari revel in the opportunity to show off how tough they are, how good they look with wet fur, and how steady their feet are in the constant mire of the wilderness.

You are seated on a throne of lootboxes and repurposed bamboo, with a covered mug cupped in your hands, filled with some spiced alcoholic drink that the N'yari have brought down from their mountain homes. The N'yari flanking your throne have one hand casually on either shoulder, reminding you that you are not yet out of the peril. And that peril is looking rather certain, given the disparity between the two combatants on the field in front of you.

One of them is Jazumi, who is flourishing her oversized blade to show off, to the cheers of her raid-sisters. She scampers past the Maid, who is stumbling and trying to keep her footing in the mud, and smacks the Maid right on her rump, which elicits lewd hooting and a breathy gasp from the Maid. The tip of her sword drags in the mud, and she runs into her own crossguard, a ridiculous little comedy act.

But before you can offer advice, you are grabbed from behind your throne. Big, soft arms wrap around your chest and half tug you out of the grip of the N'yari. "Hello, Zhaojun," someone bubbles into your ear. "What a naughty little thing you are~"

---

Giriel!

A N'yari raiding camp!

The Banneret has given away most of the opportunity for surprise, but it's very clear to you what's going on here. How could it not be? You are a witch, after all. The sorceress and the Maid were caught by N'yari as they wandered lost in the woods, and now, well, it seems that the sorceress has convinced them of her power while the Maid is being forced to fight for their entertainment. And that's dangerous; that might awaken some of her latent power, if she gets angry enough, if she's allowed to use a sword enough. And having her bindings snap would be perilous for anyone around, most of all the sorceress.

It would be best for everyone involved if you took possession of the Maid and the sorceress, and stopped either of them from having exciting swordfights or speaking. Give the mask to the Banneret and she'll take Zhaojun back to Heaven, and then you'll be left with Azazuka and your prisoners and--

Actually, you should probably hang onto Zhaojun's mask until you've been escorted away from the camp by the Banneret. Which means you'll need to get hold of it before the Banneret does. Which is a problem, because it's swinging from the belt of the N'yari dueling the Maid.

---

Ven!

The din of forgework is everywhere. Your arm itches at the shoulder. The molten metal writhes and tries to escape its molds, and you force yourself not to look away, until the afterimage of it is seared into your vision. Your most glorious teacher tempers the metal with the touch of his blackened fingertips, and then drops his creation into a barrel. The barrel strains, then bursts, spattering boiling black blood across his apron, across his tools, across your boots. Hearth-imps rush to dab it away with their yellow rags, and the Green Sun strides heedlessly through them to bring you the third of his gifts, cooling, dark as night.

The lock is a puzzle made of teeth. The waves on the outside are the waves of his sister-bride, frothed with acid and bile. The ring for the chain is elegant, a spur, as unbreakable as his edicts. This one is a gift. Your choice. The first is for the creature that was the General, and the second is for the creature that has twice disrupted Hell, but this one is for whosoever you choose to give to him.

"When you bring them back," he says, his eyes disassembling you, peeling away all that you might try to hide from him, "then you will have your heart's desire."

Your companion smiles, thinly. There is a fire in her, too. If you stepped away from this path, Peregrine might drag you back here herself. She needs you to win. Only the Flower Empress can wield the temporal power she needs to carry out her greatest experiment.

Time to go on a date with your consort-to-be.

---

Kalaya!

You go from dreams about fire-breathing pigs to awake in the flash of an eye. You reach for your sword, but a hand's already on your wrist, pushing it back against your chest, and warm metal presses over your mouth, pinning you down against your mat ruthlessly.

"Hey," your girlfriend whispers in the dark.

You're at an inn just inside Holly, and Petony is still snoring on the other side of the room. Nearer the door, the third occupant shifts uneasily. It's just the three knights to a room, right, your mind's catching up to you, and their retinues are sharing the common room downstairs.

But Ven's here, impossibly, quietly, stinking of sweat and metal, and there's someone else in the room. In the dark, it's impossible to tell who, but they've got something long slung over one shoulder.

She lets her palm slide down from your mouth, her fingers trailing on your lips gently, and then tugs your sword-hand. The universal signal for "let's go without waking anyone else up."

---

Lotus!

Okay, clearly, this is a trap, right? She'll say anything in order to hand you right back to the Red Wolf.

But it's her. You know. The one who was so kind to you on the barge. What if she's telling the truth? What if--

what did that wink mean. what did that wink mean? it was clear, through the mask, she was winking at you, both of you fun, is she? is she flirting with you? does she? and Han? she and Han? um??? you are no stranger to that sort of thing, in concept, because you have grown up among gods, who are both jealous and non-monogamous, but the thought is looping in your brain, and Han, she doesn't, so maybe?? maybe kissing mysterious Dominion woman okay? but is it okay when it's Han you really want to be kissing? and?? "mysterious domineering woman initiates blushing virginal innocent" is, even you know, a thing in cheaply-printed commoner broadsheets, the kind that have a prayer to your mother at the top.

"You'll have to MAKE us," you say, and then your thoughts catch up with how much you would like her to make you actually and wow you are the worst girl, selling Han out like that, Han doesn't want, doesn't deserve... Han doesn't deserve being kissed by... Han. Uh. Han. Uh. Han. Getting kisses. From Dominion agent. Like she deserves. Someone who knows how to make her body. Aaaaaaaaaaa. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

The sound you make might be mistaken for fear instead of distress over how conflicted the thought of Han getting what she deserves from someone who isn't you makes you feel, and that thought is so much a Thought that it's completely trampling out the thoughts of being ravished by someone who's actually interested in you, but don't worry, you can melt down over that later.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Her heart is a rabbit in her ribs. She pushes up, and the Bander pushes down, and the Bander wins, and her heart has its paw caught between two ribs, and all her words are crammed up in her throat. The Bander kneads, lazily, the clench and release of her fingers sending an undignified sound bubbling out between those words, and the blushing little gardener turns her head and tries to hide in her hair as her bodysuit squeaks under tension.

The Bander reaches up and forces her head back to looking up. Squeezes soft cheeks under her fingers. Dolly’s lips form an undignified O, and she can’t stop it, can’t stop her, reaching up to wrap her fingers around her wrist, and she knows what happens next. Bossy little mouth. Should watch where it runs. Before it gets stuffed and hidden. Jade. Jade. Jade?

”Mine.” The reverb sets the scaffolding vibrating, runs through both the vulnerable bodies and through the concrete and through the faithless and the faithful. There is a raw edge to it; speakers and voices are both inadequate for what may be contained within them. ”Seven Quetzal is Mine.”

She turns her head and the scaffolding shakes. If she moves too fast, too hard, it will fall to pieces. She will be fast enough to catch Dolly. She will not be fast enough to protect her cult. Therefore. Therefore. Therefore.

”Your hands, unclean. Is this how you approach me? By thinking yourself my equal? That you may touch what is sacred?”

Sacred. Scared. Sacred. Scared. Jade. Jade, the scaffolding is. Jade, are you—

Dolly closes her eyes, wet breath through her puckered lips, and lets her free hand dig into the ridges of the grate beneath her. Like little waves. Up and down and up and down. If this all comes down, there’s not a thing she can do about it anyway.

”I hunger for the heart of a maiden, given over to suffer unimaginable bliss as my Bride…” You promised. You made so many promises. Beneath her, waves. On top of her, peril. And her heart works her way free of those ribs, and plummets into the soft, infinite embrace of the many-handed sea.

”I set my face against you. I declare defeat upon you; you will be delivered to the hands of your enemies. I set my face against you. I hear you not when you cry to me. Victory to your foes, glory to those who break your spear. I set my face against you. Let this not pass from your pack until I will it so. Four times have I set my face against you, three rivers have I crossed, eight roads have I mastered.” She ceases to speak, and the silence rushes in, vast, and she shivers in the idol-body, reclothed from her descent, her drop down, down, down to the place where she can, she really can, she can do this thing.

“Now. Take your filthy little paws off my high priestess and beg her forgiveness, or I will take the star path of your birth and unmake it.”

She.

Can do that?

Above them, Jade is still, but her attention is almost smothering, so total that she isn’t even manifesting. Is it just her imagination that makes her think she can feel it? The magic, the curse. Like she should be able to see it arcing from post to post, settling on the heads of the Banders, and—

She tugs at the Bander’s wrist, and it’s slack enough for a moment (in thought, or in fear?) that she can lift those fingers from where they have dug into her cheeks.

“I… I’ll intercede.” She has to. Even for this. Even for them. “Just— she’s protective.” Of me. Of me. Of little Seven Quetzal who studied how to maximize crop yields without sacrificing beauty. Of someone who can’t fight like the Banders or like the Huntresses. “Just get off?”

Because even this pirate doesn’t deserve Jade’s curse.

Her Jade.

Her Jade who saved her, like Dolly knew she would.

[Jade Defies Disaster with Spirit and offers to sacrifice Dolly’s Security. She also rolls a 6, which is her fourth XP.]

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The stairs exist for safety reasons. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should, particularly when tools and components are being carried. Nevertheless, the scaffolding that caresses Jade’s idol-body is designed with vertical ascension in mind. And so there is much less unconscious barrier between where one is and where one desires to be, and Dolly doesn’t think to ditch the stairs until it’s too late, and the Red Bander is there, winded with the exertion of the sudden ascent, grinning lopsidedly.

“Hey,” she says, through a golden fang and hair coming loose from its tie, jacket over the bodysuit, armband pinned to the sleeve.

Dolly draws herself up to her full height, which is almost eye level. “I didn’t you approach me,” she says.

The pirate (the pirate) raises an expressive but silent eyebrow. The blood rushes through Dolly like a flash flood. I didn’t you approach me. “Give you leave to,” she corrects, crossing her arms, then uncrossing them, then very intentionally shifting her feet (so belatedly, Omen would be so ashamed of her) into a dueling stance. Just because she’s, she was a Gardens doesn’t mean she hasn’t had hand-to-hand training. She might not have the instincts, but she knows a little of what she’s supposed to do.

Dolly is helpless. Jade’s supposed to do all of the fighting, to make the decisions, to stop her from being in this position in the first place. She loses precious seconds cycling between options. Is this a deliberate ploy to get her eyes off Nine Forests? Or is there a second Bander making their way through the scaffolding? Dolly’s perspective: limited. Look through her eyes, never see what’s going on behind them.

The pirate looks down. Looks up. Looks down again, lingering on the swells in Dolly’s suit to the point that it feels vulgar. Like she can see right through it. Like she can see the things that Dolly was trying to cram into a box in the back of her head. Like she’s putting her thumbs on the collar and peeling the suit open, and inside—

Dolly steps up, jabs one hand onto the pirate’s breastbone. The pirate leans back, still grinning, half-gloved hands gripping the pole beneath her body, one leg locking behind Dolly’s thigh. Precariously balanced. If she fell, she’d probably catch herself on the way down. Probably.

“You…! How dare you,” she says, and then continues to die inside because that’s what the heiress says when her barge is boarded by pirates, that’s a stock phrase from network fiction, that’s the best she could come up with, and she’s obviously flustered, and now they’re all looking at her, aren’t they?

Jade coalesces her attention, guides Dolly’s hand out, hooks her fingers in tight-fitting fabric, has her bride tug the impudent girl closer. To— push her down? Toss her to the scaffolds at her feet? She’s used to syncing Dolly in combat with all the power of a mecha at her disposal.

If part of the mecha breaks, it can be repaired. If. If. If.

Even the strain on Dolly’s fingers makes her thrill with an unbecoming terror.

“Care to explain yourself?” Dolly asks, brushing her hair out of her face so that she can try to salvage this with a haughty high priestess look that would come across so much better if she was in control of her ears right now.

[Even taking into account her Anger, Dolly manages an 8 on Figuring the Bander Out. So, honesty, please: what does the Bander feel towards Dolly, and what does she hope to get from Jade? One question may be demanded in turn; feel free to fold it into the next beat.]