Tatterdemalion

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Maid!

You hit the mud again hard. Your stupid mortal weakling head rings, and your lungs burn. Everything here is heavy and hard and slipping away from your small, delicate fingers.

Nearby, the cat roars her defiance against this agent of the usurping, false heavens. If she begins speaking the oldest tongue, your head might explode, having all that meaning packed inside of the useless cotton fluff of your head, like your old dolls, like the coats of your soldiers.

It is very tempting to give up. It’s not your fault. It’s just this body. It can’t be trusted. It’s a bad blade. Shoddy. Broken. Worthless. But you lift your head for a moment, anyway, blinking the rain-sodden dirt out of your eyes (only two, how inconvenient, what were you all thinking when you made these pathetic creatures)—

And she’s watching you. She’s still watching you. The witch. The priestess. The servant of Heaven. Your tormentor. Your jailer. Your challenge. The one you will overcome. The one you must overcome. Your pathetic hands ball into fists, and shake, and hot tears spring to your eyes.

How dare she? How dare she sit there, looking at you, so calm, so placid, so superior? How dare she look at you when you are like this? How dare she enchant you, bewitch you, wrap you up in blue chains? How dare she? How could she? How can you let her?

You don’t have a name for what’s burning inside you. The only thing close is bloodlust. Shamelust? You have to see her lose. You have to see her lose.

You force yourself up, and it’s the end of the field battles of the War all over again. Back when the gods and the dragons launched their final assault in the name of pathetic humanity. You still stood. It’s not your fault. Everyone else fled, or let their courage fail them, and the lines of command collapsed, and you, you, you had to continue fighting the next stage of the war in exile.

(In your mind’s eye, for a moment, you confuse which one of you stood there. You could not have been as small as this, not then; they could not have picked you up and thrown you like a centipede, flailing black sleeves and white lace.)

You roar. Your tiny, squeaky voice breaks halfway through. Your ears are hot and your heart hammers and you glance furiously at the priestess, who is mocking you, you know it, you know it, if she smiles at the sound that came out of you you will fall over and die, and yet you look just in case she does.

Then you launch yourself at the back of the other slave of Heaven— you wrap your legs around her massive hips, digging in with your heels— you reach up and claw at her face and you hiss and spit and what little there is left of you lets you pry the mask free. The connection between goddess and mortal snaps like a thin wire, and then it is yours. You stop to gaze at this power.

This power that you will devour.

You will metastasize within Heaven. You will be beautiful. You will turn all their schemes into disasters. They will never know that their greatest enemy has infiltrated them. You will become a queen, as beautiful and terrible as the light that was before the creation of the world. You will reign in Heaven, and make of it a new Hell for the unjust, the unruly, the ungrateful brats.

And then you are tackled and the mask is crushed underneath furry tits, pressing the breath out of you, fingers trapped under the body of a grinning, sharp-toothed, tuft-eared, hot-breathed, moon-kissed, wet-faced, beautiful, terrifying, triumphant warrior

and the heat coursing through you

the images flashing through your head

are things that the General cannot feel, but you, you aren’t him, you’re the Maid, and the Maid is blushing and stammering and feels arousal and desire and blue chains wrapped tighter and tighter about her (your) heart, as you stare at her lolling tongue and remember the awful, humiliating, aching trip back, and find yourself clenching your legs together tighter and tighter as more and more unfolds in front of your eyes, and the worst part of it all

the worst part of it all

is how much you want her to suffer it, too

---

Lotus!

“You cAN—“

You swallow, and strain against the ropes (which are. very well placed. just like you’d expect from a Dominion agent) and try again, shutting your eyes, as if that will save you from the embarrassment.

“You can do it!” Your voice is drowned out by the roar, by the clash, by the, the fwumph, but you’ve got to try.

Because she can! Han can do this! She saved you from Hell! She’s the strongest, most amazing dragon you’ve ever had the chance to meet!

(And. Hypothetically. If you keep cheering for her. The dragon’s paw of the Dominion might. Maybe. Just possibly. Make you. Stop doing that. Thoroughly. Which is a most unworthy thing to be secretly hoping for, Lotus of Tranquil Waters.)

---

Kalaya!

“We need to find the General,” she admits, under her voice. The wind chills slightly; the rain outside spatters more heavily. “Or the thing that your… friend turned him into. It’s their politics. But I’m playing them, Kal.” The strain of her voice. The flint in her eyes. The way she leans in closer, as if hoping you’ll hold her. “They just want a couple of, you know. Captives. And then they’ll help us throw out the Dominion. He’ll help us. The… up there, back there.”

“Ligier,” the witch says, savoring the syllables. Savoring the power.

“This is how I help you. This is how we win. And I’m trusting you, okay?” Ven suddenly takes your hand. Draws it to her breastbone. Is close enough to kiss. “You. I want you. With me. My queen. You’re the only person I can… you’re the only person I want beside me. We can do this. Together.” Her brass fingers tighten on yours, almost painfully, pinching.

Her brass fingers.

“And we’ll have what we deserve, Kal, please.” Her voice is raw. Hoping. Yearning. She wants you, Kalaya Na.

The waitress at the stand makes to serve you your food, then sees Ven’s intensity and pretends that she forgot to fetch a plate from the kitchen.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Blue!

Synthetic fingers on a synthetic wrist. A gentle, curious stroke of a carefully designed hint-of-ulna (which, to be clear, 3V does not know the name of, and thinks it is just part of the wrist bones). A juke.

“I can think of much better things to see you in,” she says, with a disarming sincerity, a knife slid between two ribs. Then, hammering from cooldown, following up into a combo: “And it is now your job to figure out what they are. I want a feature presentation, Little Miss Blue.” A slow, careful pulling in. Glorious. Commanding presence. “Presented. On your knees. Later.”

Because they’re still, you know. In public. Only so much you can do on stream. She’s modeled cosplay before, haven’t you seen the compilation videos? She’s been flirty (see: So I tried this BeeDee collab skin, You Lose You Cosplay I-XI, GOING APE WITH HANUMAN) and she has been ridiculous (see: So I tried this BeeDee collab skin, You Lose You Cosplay I-XI, GOING APE WITH HANUMAN) and she has been clever and charming and never particularly dominant (except for her suave Praetor Artemis purr, and she made that red contact lens work as she dragged the metal claws gently down her cheek). Which is to say: she’s setting a boundary while encouraging the behavior and also if she’s going to be inhabiting the role of a dominant it’s going to be with a teasing, simmeringly rebellious android on her knees in front of the couch, presenting a visual presentation with bullet points while 3V rests an ankle on her shoulder and winds a leash around glowing neon knuckles.

And it’s a testament to how fun Blue is presenting such a game that 3V’s even interested. Props to you, cutie. The frisson of danger, the risk of losing control and ending up dethroned, the transgressive play— that’s how you get her pulled into the promise of a scene.

She makes to stand up, and then adds, in a whisper, leaning into Blue’s ear, “And if you don’t get the answers right, there will be. Consequences.”

Then she straightens up and goes over to check some shelving and make sure the board game shelf is properly sorted and also she can’t let Blue see the look of childish thrill on her face.

Gamer on the streets, roleplayer in the sheets.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

There are some mechs which come to life in zero gravity. Up there, where there is no up or down, the best pilots can shed the concepts like a snake’s skin. All directions are one direction, and the only resistance is momentum. Most pilots instead hold onto to thoughts of gravity, clinging to the grid of directions, even if there are more of them in play, even if which direction is up changes from moment to moment.

It takes a miracle to bring the effortless grace of zero-gee into a planetary atmosphere. There’s been talk about a mecha called the God-Smiting Whip that can do it, alien in its movements, unmoored by what the body can do.

What Dolly and Jade are doing is not that. They hang in the air like a stormcloud, and when they walk, it is as if they are on the ground. No part of the mecha lags; gravity has seemingly no hold over them. The combined effect is alien, perhaps even unsettling, and Smokeless Jade Fires thrills in it.

The clouds caress her; the winds dig their fingers through her fur. Whenever she takes a step, she feels unseen hands holding her up. It’s like something out of a story for kittens, every time.

Jade leans her forward, then further, then further. The ground comes no closer as she guides Dolly’s hands neatly under her chin, elbows leaning on nothing.

The microthrusters in points of articulation whine, and Jade fortifies them with her will. Her consciousness expands in rings, and each of her smiles is contained within another smile. Behold. This is what her pilot, her bride can do. This is her Dolly. Are you watching, o Red Band?

“Do not think you are hidden, Erys Bander,” she purrs, thunderously. “As small as you are.” The roads are not superimposed on the world, but they strain just beneath the surface, drawn up from stygian depths by the weight of her contemplation. She is a magician. She is a goddess. She is the huntress. She knows the prey. This is her assertion.

“Stomping around in that heavy, lumpen thing. Will the mountain come to the sky?” It would be quite the jump, and foolish besides, given the advantage obviously possessed up here. “I think it must. Because—“

There is no space for thought. There is no space to warn Dolly. It is not a calculation. (At least, it is not a calculation that she is aware that she has made. Which is the point.) It is magic. It is the power of a goddess. It is the color of the green road leaching into the world.

Together, they arm and fling a missile, as good a throwing knife as any when goddesses duel. Their supply is very limited, and throwing one by hand is hardly how one is supposed to be launched, but this is a message. This is fire from heaven. This is the lightning bolt. This is power tossed carelessly, but with impossible accuracy, and how can you deal with this, Erys Bander?

It’s a lightning bolt as it leaves her fingers, and it’s also a knife, both in one. The explosion below is enough to make her flinch, but she tries to turn it into one of Jade’s nonchalant shrugs. She can’t let her goddess down. No weakness. Not in front of a big bullying pirate and that insufferable handsy girl.

“—your silly tricks and cloaks do not work on me, little raider.” Was that a flicker of cloak? Was that a shower of debris bouncing off thin air? Not a clean shot, but surely enough to put the terror of a goddess into the skulking Erys Bander. Surely. Enough to “tilt” her. To make her sloppy. To play her hand early, or make the fatal error of joining battle in the sky, where Dolly is a coiled cloud-serpent, where they have mobility the likes of which Erys Bander and her clan have never seen before.

Her lance lolls in mockery, as if this is not serious enough for her to have it ready and level. Jade specifically has her let the head droop, but holds her fingers tightly around the shaft. It’s a fakeout. And then they’ll, they’ll use the momentum against her? That sounds right.

“Come out~! Or shall I knock this city down around your ears first?”

A second instinct: a draw, a fling, a roar as masonry crumbles and roots are exposed. The thrill of it! She is beyond you, Erys Bander! You are her toy, her quarry, her threat to scare her bride with and then overcome! How can you hope to defeat a goddess? What a grand and intoxicating innocence!

Go ahead! Call on Dishai, see if she answers you! Let Smokeless Jade Fires show how she can consume earth and stone alike in the flames of her passion! Old hag! It is the youngest goddess who burns brightest!

Smokeless Jade Fires, invincible, inimitable, unstoppable, inexorable, glorious!

[Smokeless Jade Fires rolls a 7 to Defy Disaster with Spirit and accurately, impossibly bomb Erys Bander’s cloaked position, offering her position in the sky as collateral (and also her pride). She should be given success at a sacrifice or a hard choice.]

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.