Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

The picnic is postponed for tomorrow. The maid came up with such a clever little idea, prancing for her mistress, feeding her sweet cakes, seeing the sights— but the door stays closed, and the two keep their own company in that cabin until it’s too late in the false-day to wander about. There’s more lazy cuddling in there than you might expect. Or maybe you would, and it’s the catching up on years of clandestine lust that would be the surprise.

When they emerge (late) the next day, Redana is wearing something much more usual for her, all dark and just loose enough for Bella to sneak a hand in. It completely fails to hide the possessive marks all along her neck, her jawline, her skin flushed. Her choker is much more subdued, lacking a bell, but one trace of a gentle finger along it makes her knees weak, and her hair is lovingly braided. And she insisted— insisted— on carrying the picnic basket.

So here they are. Bella’s hand on her arm as they walk through this black cathedral together like courtiers showing off the latest fashions. A sword swings at Redana’s hip, but it’s little more than an affectation, the kind of thing to be unbuckled by a hungry not-a-maid. And Redana herself fairly glows.

She wants to see everything on the way, you see. She’s going to find a place with a view of the stars, backlit by that pink fire, somewhere where they can still see colors (through a brutally squared-off observation window the size of a stadium). And then? There will be a blanket spread out. There will be something bubbly from the kitchens, and sandwiches, and hard crackers with honey-clotted dip. But getting there is half the point, and so she’s half-pulling Bella along (who could, if she wanted to, pull the princess back into check, but not effortlessly) and she stares, guileless, from one cryptic anachronism to another.

“Love is war.” She laughs, almost seeming naive. Almost. “Love is, as the Magos tells me, neither war nor Elysium but a secret third thing.” Her tone is light, but she takes a step closer to Bella. “Love is one of the mysteries.” Love is trying to kill us. “Love is shaped like a star.” Love is shaped like the inside of a closet and a prayer that she’ll be safe. “Love is—“

Thank you, Bella. The princess looks around, as if the screens are going to stop their nattering on to stare at them, and receiving no sign that they are scandalizing the dead, gives that gentle palm a fluttering-eyed kiss. And that’s closer than anything she’d managed to say.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

“Danger surrounds us, but won’t bring us down~ Dadadada, turning darkness to light, riiiiiight beside you, wanting to fight~”

Breakfast sizzles in a stone pan. Dolly sings, and the world around her shines all the brighter for it, notes the color of ruddy sunlight spilling from her lips, sparkling as she forgets a word but holds the note perfectly.

Jade is supposed to be planning right now, but Dolly dutifully set up cameras in the rooms, and she gets to watch her bride from the outside again, like she did on the first morning she was alive. It’s impossible to worry about the Red Banders (who will be defeated, one way or another) when her Dolly is singing again. She rests arms on a tabletop and puts her head on them, invisible but immanent, and Dolly impossibly glances back over to her for a moment, as if—

Dolly slow blinks at the way the sunlight creeps into the room on clever little paws. It helps her remember. As if her lids are the shutters of a camera, and she can keep the photograph in her heart, which stills, beats gentler, accepting her gift. And it’s more than that now. Because Jade can see through her eyes, and maybe she’s looking right now, and if you are, Jade… you think it’s pretty too, right?

Her round little face, framed by those obsidian-black curls, tangled enough to get lost in. The lace on her shoulders, white on yellow and black, as delicate as the way she touches other people with the tips of her fingers. The way that she lifts up onto her beans while she walks around alone, just like when she’s going up stairs. The confident little flick of her wrist as she tosses the stir fry to keep the browning even, and even if she’s not a chef the way that Ksharta Talonna is, she makes it look effortless, like she’s following the way that the universe curves around her.

For a moment, Jade’s one day old again, and Dolly has Bioethics with Hekha Nedels in an hour, her student jacket tossed over an arm of the couch, spices lined up along the swell of a root-shaped rack, and the only name for something like her is…

“Goddess, thank you for your part in the food before me.” Dolly stretches out in the sunlight, on the balcony, resting the bowl on her stomach. Her chewing is lazy, savoring the taste of the vegetables. Not bad, Gardener.

”You’re welcome.” Jade indulges herself, gently scritches Dolly behind one ear, and even though her mouth’s full, the happy bounce of her tail is proof enough that it’s appreciated. “Eat up. You’ll need the energy for what we’re doing today.”

Swallow, lick her lips. “From above, right?” Jade’s so smart, she’s already figured this out.

”Hmm?” She rubs that ear more firmly, smiling at the way that Dolly’s leg wobbles. Keep talking, Dolly.

“Well, well, well, if we… if you pushed me, we could try being the Hawk again.” It’s terrifying, and exhilarating, and the first time Jade walked her off a cliff into open air was… well, she tried to make a lot of noise. But then they kept walking.

And then Jade made her dance.

No one can modulate thrusters like Smokeless Jade Fires. No one. As long as Dolly trusts her, they can do impossible things in the air. Unrivaled fluidity, like they’re walking on clouds, like they are a hawk with its wings spread, and the fall of their spear is the flash of its claws.

“I don’t push you,” she says. Her claws spread through Dolly’s fur, and she drags them so softly, so carefully, kneading like she’s practiced. Dolly makes an indecent mrrp-sigh. “I tell you what you can do. And then you do it. For me.“

“For you,” Dolly manages to breathe out. There. Right there. Jade Jade Jade right there. Mmmrrrrrr~

It will work. Dolly is so, so much cleverer than she thinks, aren’t you, Dolly? Nets will have to contend with gravity, and Dishai’s Clumsy Fist is a heavy beast. Come up to the sky, Erys. Let Dolly show you her dances.

Besides, Erys should get accustomed to looking up at her betters. The sooner the better.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Gym!

Let the record show, very officially, that 3V managed to bite down on that squeal. More of a squeak, really. Sure, the physical reaction of her shiver more than makes up for it, probably, what with how you can see it going all the way up her spine from the balls of her feet, but there was officially no squealing here, none whatsoever.

Distraction: the Euna Kim tangential. Euna is super sincere and she’s just as obsessive as 3V is. Was. Is? Has been known to be. Sure, her obsession is about all the ways that she can make the body do things that God never wrote into the operating manual, but game recognizes game. And don’t discount the power of being a sincere, cute dork.

Dig a little deeper. There’s the hardware connection, too. 3V got her bad girls as an upgrade, as a way to keep up, as something that she didn’t really think all the way through. Now they’re hers for the rest of forever. Can’t get the old flesh back even if you’re curious, sweetie. Even when you’re curious. But before you feel too sorry for yourself, here’s Euna Kim, all four limbs cybertronic and bionic, and she didn’t pick getting them. She just picked what she was going to do with them for the rest of her life, and she proceeded to do so, with vim, with vigor, and with an unassailable sense of cheer. How can you not like someone like that? Look up to them, even? Euna Kim is a goddamn hero and the work she does is more profound than what 3V used to do, even if her audience is smaller, her sphere of influence bounded to her tribe, her people, her domain which she rules with a mechanical fist and a bounce up to the ceiling when she’s flustered.

(You should see what her wife can do to her. Flustered her right onto her ass one time. Euna insists that she thought there was a chair there, but we know. We all know, Kimmy.)

Let the record show also that while someone was getting her knee examined and her diagnostics diagnosed, 3V slipped an arm around her smooth android shoulders. Not possessively, but in a show of solidarity, you know? Comfort. A silent reminder that 3V’s still here, still sweaty, still huffing, but here if you need something, babe.

Repaying that with Thighgate is one of history’s greatest betrayals, so let it be known.

---

Blue!

“You really think that’s my style, huh?” 3V smiles like Blue’s just walked into a snare (which is part of Artemis’s kit, if we’re being technical here). “Iiiiiiiinteresting. But I guess it makes sense. If you ask nicely, I suppose~”

She’s the embodiment of an emoji of a cool sheep wearing sunglasses. Bulletproof. Taking this attack and judo-flipping it back onto Blue. Insinuations, making it a confession on Blue’s part— even if Blue manages to withdraw her hand in time, she’s still up against a fierce actress who can turn on the cool in a heartbeat, when she needs to.

(Because that dress is hot and if she thinks about it too much, she’ll corpse. Goddamn lace. Goddamn bracers. Goddamn miniskirt.)

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Kalaya-Phraya!

“Sure,” says Peregrine, and she listens carefully as you explain Uusha’s curse. By the power of the wild gods, by the bones of the Flower Kingdoms, without solace and home. (The dumplings won’t even taste good. Not for you. Not today. Not with that hanging over you.)

“Are you attached to your name?” She offers, once you have finished. “That’s easy. I can destroy it. No you for the hooks to hold onto. No injury to the Kingdoms. Solution. Simple. Or. Or. The cakkavatti lifts it. Their prerogative. Her prerogative.”

“Oh, that would make things simple,” Ven says. From the look on her face, eating your name is not the most optimal solution. “All you have to do is help us, and then I can uncurse you.”

She reaches out and takes one of your hands with her own. She’s warm to the touch, almost feverish. Not just the humidity in the air. Hell was like this, too. Seared by green sunlight.

“And on top of that— we’ll stop the war before it can even start,” she continues. “No Dominion warships sailing up the river, no Holly barbarians pouring out of the north. Just you and me. We’ll be heroes. Queens.” She squeezes your hand.

What isn’t she telling you?

---

Hanaha!

The moment of distraction is all you need. You stuff the mountain witch’s face against your side and squeeze her head, reveling in the thump of blood through your limbs, in the back-and-forth of glorious competition (provided that you are the winner by the end of it).

This is what it means to be N’yari. And that is why you lick the top of her head, too, grinning and hot-mouthed and unrepentant. This is the insatiable heart that Grandmother Moon gave you, and nothing you do in following its irrepressible whims can truly be said to be wrong.

---

Lotus!

Now here’s a question.

Is there anything that could match their power, little flower? If your mother arrived, could she pry these two forces of nature apart? Possibly. Your mother is the spirit who holds power over all of the Kingdoms. But there’s doubt in your heart as you watch the two fight, and you get to see what it’s like when dragons fight over a treasure. (That’s you. You’re the treasure.)

Howls on the high wind. The cloud-spirits are beginning to notice what’s going on below. If they come down to watch the fight, beyond blanketing this whole area in fog and mist, they also might recognize you, or at the very least, might notice that you’re a little bit like them. And if anyone’s going to carry you off, you’d rather it be the exhilarating, beguiling dragon than a bunch of rowdy cloud-spirits.

So you rush towards the both of them, hoping that maybe you can— you don’t know, convince them to stop this glorious and jaw-dropping fight? You don’t really have a plan, you just hope that maybe if you get their attention, they’ll realize they need to stop on their own?

Or maybe you’ll get sucked into the fight, a tiny voice whispers. Tossed from dragon to dragon. Gently kissed by their unleashed powers, as Han and your pursuer bend around you and argue over you and fight over you~!!

Breathless Dead

The tears should have been expected. After all, Redana is very prone to being overwhelmed by emotion, isn’t she? She can never hide anything. You even knew, back then, that something was troubling her, that she was going to say something, that she was going to act out—

But you never could have expected the how, could you?

In the same way, oh Bella, oh most loyal of cats, oh most yearning of maids, perhaps the smile and the way she daintily baps at those tears comes as, if not a surprise, then a treasure long yearned for, absent for such a long time, for leagues upon thousands of leagues, and now it’s here. The princess— the girl that you risked it all for.

“Sorry,” she squeaks, and giggles a little. “I’m trying my best!” She shuffles backwards in the seat, as close to her Bella as she can, her eyes wet with dew and her smile defenseless. Her cheeks are still warm. (Did you hear her intake of breath, when you gave that order? Body and heart, love and worship. An invitation. No, more than an invitation, a command.)

“It’s just— I missed you. And I missed the person I thought you were. And I don’t want to miss the person you are.” Her mismatched eyes shine in the mirror, refracted through wet joy. “And—“

Is it just a finger on her lips? Perhaps. Her eyes widen, and she sits up straighter, and she crackles with the energy of a thunderbolt. Jingle jingle goes the bell! How brave the both are! To dare this, to give, to insist, to demand.

It’s the slowness that reminds her that she’s supposed to be watching. Supposed to be learning. And she does try! Through the occasional sniffle, the occasional happy squeak, she pays attention for as long as she can. Which isn’t as long as she really needs to, but there’s only so long that she actually can focus on the work, and then she’s getting distracted by the softness of Bella’s fingers, and the expression of focus on her— on Bella’s face. Her Bella. Her Bella! Her Bella.

She bounds up out of the chair as soon as Bella opens her mouth to say that it’s finished. But she’s not doing it so that she can race off, to go chase something else, and she’s not dragging Bella along behind her. Her fingers interlace with those strong battle-terrors; her palms press against those nail-pocked twins. She even stands on tiptoe, so that she can sneak in a kiss against Bella’s throat.

“Thank you,” she says, and then she says it again, and then she says it again, and then she’s nuzzling against Bella, holding her monster-killing hands close, a bubbling spring of sweet water, drink her deep, and the sway back and forth, the step by step, that’s dancing, isn’t it? Like on Salib.

“I’ve been waiting my whole life for you to say that,” she admits to everyone in the room, a grand revelation that comes as a surprise to only herself. “For permission to want you.” Her grip tightens. “And I do. I do want you. I want you to be free to be who you want to be and go where you want to go and love who you want to love, and I want you to choose me, I want you to choose me, I wanted you to choose me back there, and I want you to, to get anything you wanted, anything you never got out of your bones, every time you said well if I was the princess she’d be doing this, because it’s fair, it’s got to be fair, and you were—“

She fumbles, rallies, squeezes her eyes up, tries to hide behind their hands together.

“You were so hot on Salib. Are so hot. But especially there, when I was Skotos, and you didn’t know me, and you could want me without princesses and maids getting in the way, and I could be wanted by you, and I wish you’d ruined him.”

She rubs her face against a pair of hands and looks up like one of Artemis’s attendant nymphs, you remember, in that giant frieze in the north wing? A delicate warrior, a dragon caught by a ribbon, a— well, a Dany in a maid outfit.

“And I really want you to do things. To me. In this. To make up for lost time. Body and heart. I’ll be such a good maid. I promise. Everything you want.” And if you asked her to turn this ship around, you’d shatter her like glass. She’s fragile, but tumbling into your hands because she trusts you not to drop her, and because she wants to climb you like a tree.

Going places will probably have to wait.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Gym!

The trick is breaking it all down into subgoals.

Games are great at doing that. (After all, they’re how we learn about the world, how we interact with it— but they’re also hooked and barbed, too.) Clear a room; finish a lap. Change loadout; change intensity. Finish a build; finish a sprint. An hour-long match is broken down into constant adjustments, clashes, sudden spikes of intensity; a run is broken down into tricking the body into thinking it only has to go one more time around the room, and then one more after that, and then one more again after that.

It’s different on a motorcycle, or even just walking, because the mind is hooked, is interested in seeing what’s around the bend, isn’t having to try to bribe the body into continuing to keep pace, to not slow down into a more comfortable meander, is free to marvel at the world and how it unfolds. People who can do both at the same time are probably psychopaths.

(Or psychopomps. Ha!)

“Different speeds show how your hardware handles different intensities,” she explains, during one of the initial low-intensity laps. “Same reason why we alternate between high and very low intensity there near the end. If there’s a problem, either mechanical or organic, it’s easier to notice when you’re changing gears and alternating what you’re telling your body to do, instead of trying to run diagnostics on one speed until you fail to maintain it. Plus, it means you’ve got goals for each lap, which keeps your brain from eating itself.”

It’s not going to be particularly difficult to win. Consider yourself lucky, White; no need to blow yourself out trying to prove a point.

---

Shop!

“Oh, like Ame-no-Uzume,” 3V says, like a fool. Like an absolute Luigi Cadorna.

Ame-no-Uzume (Beguiler/Striker) has the measurements 85-56-83 according to mythos.fanopticon.net, which also details her dominant playstyle and builds as of Patch 17.0105, the controversy over Mythos’s age rating in Australia as a result of her unique emotes, and the various seasonal and event skins released for her. Age-restricted fanart is plentiful and the various uses that her Blender model has been put to are, ironically, sinful.

3V’s already paying for the outfit (an impulse buy that she may later come to regret when she’s budgeting) but any opponent that cannot leverage this bleed into a counterattack is, frankly, someone who needs to go back to solo PvE.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The hangar is half-dimmed, now. Safety lights in the ceiling, steady red and yellow, are too-regular constellations. The spotlights on Jade’s idol spill gold over her, and her darkness drinks it all in, makes her a deepness in the center of the vast hangar. Rings of lights, concentric, are almost-candles set into the floor. Hybrasil respects the night, and her children are comfortable in the dark; the 24/7 bonfire-cities of the Terenians are eyesores, attempts to make an eternal day for eyes too weak for shadows.

Dolly walks carefully from shadow to shadow, imagining the breath of cool night air on her skin. The hangar never truly sleeps, but the cult-crew is on half-strength, finishing tasks and standing vigil as Smokeless Jade Fires gathers her strength for her next challenge. So, for a little bit, she exists in the shadows, half-alone but not private, making her way to the altar.

It’s a temporary structure, half shrine, half toolshed, open on three sides. A 3D sculpt of Smokeless Jade Fires’ idol stands before the altar, doll-sized, and around it are the few offerings she’s received. The two stop to look over the contrast between what the Banders brought and what the crew has been leaving, and it’s Dolly who squirms a little bit, trying to make herself smaller despite being alone.

Artwork made in her image, drawn from the imagination of the worshippers, sacred acts of creation. Fanart, mailed in or made by the crew themselves. There’s more at the proper shrine on Hybrasil. It’s a reminder that nobody else gets to see Jade like she does. Some of it looks like her descriptions of the goddess, but others are imaginative— here she’s a jet-black pantheress, here she’s a half-bird circling around her idol, and here she’s a bigger, glowing-eyed Dolly. Here she’s gorging herself on offered dumplings, gravid; here she’s stepping on someone who might be Angela. Fine craftsmanship of the modern age, offered up by those who need a goddess most. Little twist-charm bracelets. She’d worn one in one of her first interviews about being chosen by the goddess, because she hadn’t been thinking, because she’d tried too hard to be normal, because she’d been through so many costume changes already. And even kittens can make them, and so kittens kept sending them, and kittens who pretended they were grown (like Dolly) kept sending them, too, little rounded cubes gleaming in the low light, reminders of who they represent. Lights for the dead to follow, for spirits to navigate by, and for goddesses to bask beside. Jade loves the candles; she takes several steps from Dolly’s side, takes a seat by several heavy-bottomed with shed wax, rests her head next to them. She looks small like this, but— that’s not the right way to put it. Like small makes her lesser instead of more…r.

Candles and incense are magic, okay? They just are. Old magic stuff. You’re supposed to be able to do magic with them. Keep the incense sticks by your family shrine lit and you’re asking your ancestors to keep visiting. Walk by candlelight outside a city and you might meet monsters, spirits, hunt-goddesses. And Jade is, she’s right, in the candlelight, one eye on the flickering flame, one hand on her knee, wreathed in incense-smoke, magic, special, a ghost-wife-spirit-princess-heroine, in impractical archaic armor turned bodysuit, and Dolly waits until Jade seems to notice her again and motions at the tribute from the Banders, just staring, just swooning, just trying to remember forever and ever what Jade looks like, like this, right here. She’s so pretty. She’s more than pretty. She’s numinous. She makes the world-magic so close to the real that it bleeds through.

The smell of meat; something was ritually burned here and then eaten by the crew. Nine Forests was given permission. Dolly was busy being stuffed already. There’s a bolt of cloth, one which unrolls put into her hands; she kneads, gets a sense for the feeling, the quality of the fabric, and Jade shivers and licks her lips. It’s simple enough to spin it into existence here, to run the maroon through her own fingers. Decadent sense-feedback. When she pulls it taut, Dolly looks away and tries to seem like she’s being so very casual. As if her Bride could resist temptation.

Finally, she lifts the necklace of lapis lazuli. The sun-choked sea. Success and prosperity; when crushed, sacred pigments, historically reserved for use by priestesses only. She drinks in the sight through Dolly’s eyes, and for a moment, feels a twinge of guilt. Could those pirates have been so bad if they came to bring her this? It’s so beautiful. The kind of thing that would have made her feel faintly ridiculous before, well. Before all of this. Before Jade chose her.

Imagine wearing it. Imagine her wearing it. Imagine aliens and huntresses looking at this on her chest. Imagine Dolly in blue and gold, marbled, flecked, the bodysuit clinging to her body, the light catching on the stones. Imagine—

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” Dolly clutches the necklace to her chest instead of reaching for a weapon. She turns, but Jade already knows who it is. “Sure they came from a bunch of ship-jacking corsairs, but stones like those, mmm, makes me think about spitting on my hands and swearing to Mu Ysha.”

It’s just Sixes. Dolly relaxes, tries to look normal, nods, continues to look so normal as the rangy electrician stretches. Dolly doesn’t notice the curl of her lip. She underestimates the cunning of Six Stones. “What do you think about it~?”

Dolly shrugs. Too much shrug. Her noncommittal noise is unbelievable. There’s an infinity of things that she could say about this. And Sixes is going to figure that out.

“No, no, go ahead, share what you really think, Seven Quetzal! I’d love to know~!” She knows. There’s no way she doesn’t know. But if she somehow doesn’t know? Then it would be mortifying to let her know. Right?

Sixes flops next to Dolly, and slowly looks up to meet Dolly’s gaze, but she won’t find it, because Dolly is pretending to stare so very, very hard the necklace. It’s one thing. It’s one thing, okay, to know you’re not really naked. It’s another to have your fur and your eyes tell you that Sixes can see everything, particularly the golden hoops with the stones dangling from them that sway every time she shifts her weight, the only thing she’s still wearing.

“Mmmn,” Dolly whim— Dolly happens to hum, for no reason whatever. It’s her secret. Sixes doesn’t really know. Right? Jade has her tell them about “games,” but she’s really vague and also emphasizes how much trouble they’ll be in if they spread stories about “strange things.”

Jade strokes Dolly’s cheek, slowly, torturously, grinning. “Hmm, why don’t you tell her what you think, my Bride? Is something wrong?” Sixes is watching every huff, just a little too strong, as if drawn in and pushed out with effort. Dolly’s body is prickling with mortified excitement, the forbidden joy of being in peril.

Then Sixes leans in, and Dolly clenches and bites down and her knees wobble after how much she’d put them through, and Jade reaches around to tug oh-so-playfully.

“Are you feeling all right, Bride of the Goddess?” Dolly nods, trying not to implode in on herself. She can’t rub her cheeks. Don’t do it! “I apologize if I’ve offended~”

Shake shake! Jingle jingle! Huff huff!

“Mmhm, I see,” Sixes drawls. “Well. May Smokeless Jade Fires bring your voice back from wherever it’s wandered off to, seeing as it’s hers, too.”

And that’s when Jade pulls the maroon cloth, with the yellow diamonds, over her Dolly’s face, and knots it impossibly snug behind her head, seals this last layer with a kiss, and isn’t it such a coincidence that it keeps her from looking away from Sixes, the cloth brushing up against her lower lashes?

“Put it a good word for me, won’t you? When you can.”

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Sixes saunters out, with one more glance back that’s half mischief, half… unclear. Dolly would know better. Jealousy? Hope? Maybe she wishes she was Dolly. Maybe she’s just satisfied in playing her part. Ask Dolly later.

“Bride,” Jade purrs, running her fingers over Dolly’s hair. “Keep your thighs closed. We’re not passing you around the engineers yet.” Dolly buries her face in her hands and lets out the tiniest, happiest squeak as she tries to hide inside that glorious lapis lazuli.

Hmm. That should stay here, actually. She’ll have Dolly wear it after the match, but wearing it immediately after the Banders visited? She’s going to have to have Dolly escorted back to her rooms already; no sense in making her any more of a target tonight. Not when she’s sinking right back into the bliss that devoured her all afternoon long.

Speaking of which…

“You should offer me prayers before we leave, Dolly. Set a good example.” Jade offers guidance, and Dolly is all too happy to tumble to her knees before the altar. “Make sure I can hear you,” she adds, her tail wrapping loosely around Dolly’s neck, the tip wagging back and forth over Dolly’s lips.

Her Dolly. All hers. See, Dolly? See how treasured you are? How safe you are? You don’t need to be scared of anything, your Jade is here. And she won’t let anything happen to you that she doesn’t control.

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…!!!