Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

The dress is the deep red of rubies, or of living blood. It fountains down from her left shoulder. Beneath it, the undershirt clings to her like a second skin, black and gold. It pours itself into the grooves of her shoulders and her back.

At the shoulder, a brooch gleams: the thunderbolt of Zeus, swan-winged. It blazes where the lights strike it, limned in gold, shining adamant. It is the shadow of the tiara on her brow. If you could catch starlight, hammer it into place, make it cool until it hardened, and then string it on lace— that would be the tiara of Redana Claudius.

Here, then, is the prize of Odoacer. Here is the daughter of Hermes, with suns strewn in her golden hair. Here is the daughter of Zeus the Thunderer, who set the wheel into motion, who speaks with authority. Here is Bella’s yearning and Dolce’s hope and Alexa’s catalyst. Here she stands, small in stature, but beautiful, radiant, treasured.

For Bella’s sake, she holds her head up and does not look away. And that makes it easier to notice that this is not one of her mother’s court dinners, at which she is meant to show off her poise and fine manners. And it strikes her that here, at last, is the reason. It’s not to get a passing grade, it’s not to earn a reward from her mother, and it’s not because of her title. It’s because everyone is looking to her, and they see the Imperial Princess, and they long for her to be more than she is. So maybe, just for tonight, she can be.

“Friends,” she begins. She’s calmer now than she was earlier, when Bella was helping her with the dress, with the rouge, with the lipstick, when she felt small and clumsy and steeped in peril. Now the dress (flowering down her body, ending in skirts like petals) feels like a new kind of armor. “Sailors. Comrades. If I may speak.”

The cheering is honest. She parts her lips and then closes them around the half-formed words. Her eyes are hot and she has to blink them clear. “We have done the impossible already. Now all that remains is doing it again. No one has survived crossing the Rift— but no one has defeated the Master of Assassins, survived the perils we have faced, or gathered such an auspicious and determined crew!”

Her hands aren’t shaking. Not after she got all the words out of them. “I cannot promise that I can match the blessing that Lord Hades has offered us upon our arrival at Gaia, the seed at the root of the universe.” She says it right. The words have been careening around her head for hours. The root of the seed of the seed of the root of the universe entire. Flowers, trees, things which grow, the grave of the Master, the trees of Mynxkiss. But what is this room but a garden? “But I will promise you glory wherever I rule, hospitality wherever I live, and satisfaction with whatever I can provide. And…”

Her cheeks are wet again. The lights blur. But she is still smiling, and there is no murmur of discontent or scandal. It is safe here. She is safe here. Here, out of all the universe she has seen, because of who is here with her. She raises a glass instead, and the reply echoes and multiplies until it is her father’s jovial roar.

“And I know that we are going to succeed,” she says, as if she can carve it into the universe through saying it. As if maybe, this was in and of itself a ritual, like the ones she performs before the altars of her family— no, one of her families. Because this is her family, too.

She holds the glass higher, and with all of her strength, declares: “Damn the Rift! Glory to the Mariners! To Gaia!” And all around her, her family joins in, joyous and defiant.

And then she lowers her eyes, and catches a glimpse of Bella across the room, her own lips half-open, a naked hunger in her eyes, and a giggle bubbles out of her. Come and catch me, she tells Bella with a wink, sipping the bubbling champagne in her glass. Pull me aside with urgent news. Where are we going to hide? How are you going to praise me? And how are you going to stop me from being too noisy and interrupting the party~?

Every moment until she finds Bella at her arm will be all the more electric for it. Come, Assassin. Show her the power of your Hunt.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Dolly!

Not Angela.

Shivering, squirming, toes curling, trying to arch, head full of sloshing water seeping into her spine, soaking into her gag, trickling out her pores. That’s not Angela. Impossible to be Angela. Not a heart like that, all hunger and need, barely restrained, teeth at the back of her neck.

The realization makes her heart rattle loose and bounce around inside of her. Jade has been captured. That was the heart of a pirate! Soft, certainly, but… appreciating softness. Like, say. Her softness.

What if I never get to pilot Jade again? What if I’m Valynia’s pet priestess now? What if she doesn’t let me see Angela and Ksharta again? What if she stuffs me in a box or a cage or a flight locker? What if I’m her hostage to make Jade obey? What if she seduces Jade through ME? What would Angela think, what would Ksharta think, what would my big sister think? What if she dresses me up and takes me to fancy dinners and then makes me ride back in the shuttle luggage bin all stuffed with everything else they’re bringing back??? What if they don’t let me pilot her again, if I never get to feel her hands on me, if I never get to be her good girl? Valynia, please, let me— mmnngh, what if she makes me beg, and mlem, and humiliate myself before she lets me, or, whether or not she’s going to, and she just lets me think she’s going to, and she touches this mark on my shoulder when she tells me, because she’s in control, and please, even if it’s hot, this is important, Jade, please, Jade—

But all she can feel from her goddess is moaning and imprisonment and— envy? I want to be her. Oh. Oh! Well. Dolly flushes, the heat spreading through her. She wasn’t even thinking about Jade’s feelings. Maybe… maybe that was better? If her goddess found someone who was better? If she really loved Jade, shouldn’t she…?

Power. Desire. Lust. Control.

Desire. Desire. Desire. Desire.

What do you want most of all, Dolly?

Dolly lifts her head, the heaviest thing in the world, and stares at the door with all of the dignity she can muster. On one end of the scale are all the delicious, embarrassing, confusing delights and humiliations that Valynia can inflict on her, things which she’d never ever be brave enough to admit to Jade, or even things that Jade just can’t do… but on the other side is Smokeless Jade Fires.

She’ll break. She knows it. Once Valynia starts squeezing and rubbing and burying her underneath the musk of her own desire. But that doesn’t mean this little hare doesn’t have the heart of an earthshaker, doesn’t have enough strength to make one more demand to be reunited with the goddess she lo—

WHISPERED PROMISE????

The defiant, gargled demand for her goddess never leaves her swaddled lips. It’s more of a ridiculous horking drooly bray, much more audible than she was expecting, and she can’t even hide, or cover up, or, or, and gosh, that’s— that’s her— she was— and the look she gives Dolly, all tangled up and dangling, is as calm and, and controlled, and she’s all of that underneath??? There’s no way— she could be thinking anything— behind those river-lake-sea eyes and that, that dress, that is not how, piloting, you see, look, except she’s trying to find anywhere else to look, but it’s no use, Mirror and that gorgeous jaw-dropping dress and those unique spots underneath, which she doesn’t want to stare at in case, you know, it’s rude, but would Mirror say anything, because she’s in control but underneath she’s so, she’s so, she’s so…

So hungry.

And the thing about her calm, her mask, her unblinking neutral expression as she looks over Dolly’s disarray is that Dolly has no idea, no clue, where that hunger’s pointed, but that definitely was an appreciation for softness and her softness is on display and the thought of Mirror squeezing her, in control, finding all the buttons—

Buttons?

BUTTONS.

…”what does this do,” she’d murmur, so soft, so calm, as Dolly’s eyes bulged and fluttered in turn, learning her like only Jade had, plundering her deep vaults and carrying out treasure, controlling her white fire engine perfectly, and what would it be like to be her? To be loved by her?

Her eyes dart between the pirate and the terror, between the dread-desired and the enigma-with-teeth, and they’re— going— to fight— over her???

Oh oh oh Jade!!

And for a moment

Dolly can feel

A wet cheek pressed against her own

Dolly can hear

her name, drooled

Dolly can know

she is wanted

Breathless Dead

The princess keeps returning to the idea of writing things down, only to shove the thought away and pull the goggles back down instead. There is so much to do. There is so much to do. Enough so that she can glut herself in it. Roll out of bed in the morning, try not to wake Bella up, wake her up anyway, apologize profusely, and then work until Bella finds her and picks her up and carries her back for dinner and words and hungers. She needs to be hundred-handed. Every person on the Plousios is working two jobs, and Redana keeps volunteering for more. Let her do four jobs. Let her do six. Let her drag the ship to the Rift herself.

Because if she's working, there's no room for the doubt.

What if you wrote everything down, Redana? But then you'd be admitting that you'll need it. And then you start wondering whether you'll even remember how to read. What if you filmed yourself? But no good. We don't have the materials. You can't divert Isakarot from the vigil on the engines. And what if you forget what words mean? What if you're scrubbed clean? Scrub. Scrub the cables. Dislodge the crabs from behind the Third Hub. Carry a message to Jil, who is herself a hub, who speaks for the Lanterns scurrying crossways and up and down and doing the same work she is. Spin out a plover-cable, make sure the reinforced plating is holding, try not to stare at the mind-annihilating river-scar tearing open the universe.

If she thinks too much about it she might think she's making a mistake. If she thinks too much about it her hands might start shaking. It was easy to be brave on the Tunguska. It was easy to feel like she was doing something big, and brave, and meaningful, and Bella was by her side. But then the thought starts creeping in again.

What if she forgets how to read? What if she saves everything she is and it doesn't matter, it's lost anyway? What if the Lethe scrubs words away, too, and the ship will breach the other side with all words and sigils and numbers washed clean? Wash. The fountains need to remain clear of crabs, otherwise the flow of water through the ship will be disrupted, and then the water will grow stagnant. She murmurs prayers to her Uncle as she unclogs pipes, and she finds herself resting her forehead on the cool stone, unable to move, letting the water wash over her.

The smoke is everywhere. She lights incense before the altars anyway. Father Zeus, please protect us. Uncle Poseidon, we honor your strength. Cousin Artemis, make our way straight and clear. Uncle Hades... Cousin Apollo, show me the right thing. Aunt Demeter, please keep rot from our food supplies. This is the role of the ship's champion, here where there is nothing left to fight.

(What if there is something to fight? What if nobody comes back because there are great big eyeless Lethe-snakes writhing through that pinkfire sea and everyone's forgotten how to use plovers by that point in the trip? How can you organize a defense when you might be forgetting the fact of being attacked as soon as you look away? When you forget how to use a sword?)

---

He's staring at the rift, too. Or, no. He's bathing his face in its light. There is concern in his expression, though not fear. Redana stops to look at him, and she could keep running, but she doesn't. Her face is smudged with grease. Her eye flickers and switches off the faint line it's tracing to her next destination. The further away from Tellus she's gotten, the weaker it's been. Or is that just her imagination? Maybe it was something else. The fight with Sagakhan. The proximity to the river. Maybe it's forgetting, too.

Standing next to him is comforting. The warmth suffuses her skin, makes prickles run up and down her arms, cups her cheeks. "Thank you," she says, and clasps her hands together in that way that he likes. He returns the gesture, but doesn't look to her. He is silent, as always. (As apparently always. She hasn't seen him very often at all.)

So it's up to her to fill the silence. Which she does. Eventually. It's hard to tell how long. They took a seat; they both fold their legs, but only Redana hunches forward to rest her elbows on her thighs. She can feel her heart beating through her body. She's warm. Like a fruit on a summer day. Pluck her right off the vine.

"Am I stupid?" His expression softens, and he lowers his eyes from the scar in the sea. "Because... everyone else thought it through, didn't they? Back on the Tunguska? I thought, if I really, really believed in Bella, and we wrote everything down, and... what if we forget that, too? What if we're, what if we're babies? Babies can't steer ships! We're just going to get eaten by forgetting-eels! And it's my fault!"

He reaches out and takes her hand. It's almost painfully hot. Almost. But she curls her fingers around his hand anyway. The throb of blood fills her head. Her eyes are wet.

"...but if I don't do this," she says to him, to the wound, to her mother, "then Uncle Hades is just going to be that sad forever. Like he was when he thought I was going to die, on that very first battle at the Eater of Worlds. If I don't do this, then Epistia and Beljani will have become Belistiajani for nothing. I will have dragged Dolce and Vasilly through all this for nothing, and Bella, and Mynx, and stranded Alexa so far from home, and..."

She does not cry prettily. Her fingers squeeze tighter around his hand. The Lethe throbs; rivulets of white sear through it like lightning bolts, almost invisible. Behind them, so very far behind them, the pilots of the monsters have tea forever in the sunlight, and they'd told her, hadn't they, be bold, be bold. There's something special about this crew, this voyage.

(You have two shadows, Sir Aeon had whispered in her ear, one taller than the other. Take heart in this.)

"...but they'd still go," she admits. "It's not my fault."

It's not your fault. Is there any enlightenment more difficult? Or so often attained and lost, over and over?

"Just because I started this, doesn't mean..." She wipes her face on the back of her free hand, and then discovers that he has offered her a tissue. "Because Bella, she's going for a wish, now. Her sisters. And Dolce and Vasilly, they think it's possible, too. If I ran away, I'd just be leaving them to face this alone."

The Lethe roils. But Redana looks up at it. Stares, until she remembers to worry that maybe her eye can forget itself.

He leans in and gives her a kiss. One, singular. The faintest brushing of his lips against her skin.

That night, Bella will comment on the sunburn, on the almost red-gold tinge. And that night, they'll sit together and write.

---

MY name is Redana. It's your name, too, if you're the girl with the gold hair and the one blue eye and the one green eye. If that's not you, please give this to Redana instead. Okay, Redana, since you're reading this now. You're from Tellus, which is on the other side of the universe. Don't go back!!

You are going from one side of the River Lethe, which is the very big pink-white awful thing you are going through, or on the other side of. If it's behind you, don't go back!!

You have to keep going. You're looking for a place called Gaia. Once you get there, you'll deliver a message from Lord Hades. If you've forgotten the message, I think really YOU are the message. So just get there and everything's going to be okay, I promise. Once you're there, or maybe once you go back, Lord Hades will offer all of you a wish. You want your mother to change her mind You want Bella to be free You want everything to be You want everyone to be able to choose their life for themselves. Don't forget, please. No asking for a discus that always comes back or more Batrachomyomachia sequels or for Bella to love you (because she does)!!

This is Bella. She's beautiful. You know that. She loves you, and you love her, and you couldn't do anything about it until right before we got to Lethe. So please ask her if you can kiss her again, and if she forgets you, do your best to fall in love with her again. She's mean on the outside but that's because her mother was AWFUL to her growing up, and on the inside she wants to take care of everyone and help the people who can't help themselves.

This is Dolce. He's one of the smartest people you know (but see also Iskarot when I write about him, too). But he's really kind, too. Give him big hugs! He's so soft and fluffy and he makes silly noises when you wiggle around with him. He used to be in charge after you tried to turn the ship had an argument with him. But then he decided not to be? Jil's in charge now. Please take care of him. Protect him.

This is Jil. She is very good at telling people what to do. Whatever she says, you can probably trust her, unless she's drunk, in which case you really shouldn't. I wish I could tell you more but she hasn't been captain for very long and you've been busy. I've been busy. Mostly you've been working together on ship maintenance.

Oh! Ship maintenance!

[...]

Which is why you should never ever ever let the crabs back INTO the pipes.

...oh. Right.

This is Vasilia. She's proud and dangerous and prickly, but she loves Dolce more than anybody else, and she's really fun to fight with. Not a real fight, but a practice fight. If you forget how to fight, ask her to teach you. She's the best at swordfighting. Bella's stronger than her, but you CANNOT fight like Bella can, so don't even try it.

This is Alexa. You won't find her on the ship anymore, but you owe her SO MUCH. She protected you even though you dragged her on this quest and... maybe we should forget that. But we shouldn't forget Alexa. She's the best at lifting and the BEST at hugs. She's on the other side of the Lethe (DON'T GO BACK!!) and she's looking after Hades' dog. When you come back and everybody is free to be themselves, you go find her, you go give her more hugs, and you ask her where she wants to go and you take her there. Okay? You owe her a lot. She's the reason you made it this far.

[...]

That's everyone. Everyone you're friends with. I didn't mention the Master of Assassins or the Azura on Salib or any of the Kaeri because we were NOT friends and if you forget them, good riddance. Good luck. I believe in you. You're going to do an amazing job, Redana.

PS. if you get in trouble ask the Shepherdess for help. She's you, but from later. I don't think she forgot any of this, so maybe I'm just worrying about nothing? Maybe my eye really can remember all of this? But just in case, just in CASE, please do your best to remember everything here, okay? Study it like it's the Hesperidean Dialogues. (Maybe try to forget those too, actually?) Bella says she's going to "dunk you in the Lethe if you forget those after all the hard work I did" so try not to, and if you do forget but she forgets she said that, don't tell her. This one time. I promise it's okay.

That's all I can think of. Don't forget the gods, either. They're actually your family. Don't trust Aphrodite. Say a special thank you to Apollo. Remember we're doing this for Hades. Her the god that Iskarot worships is your mother. And Iskarot isn't going to forget her, so you can ask him for an explanation, but if I write her name down maybe she'll be able to come find us immediately? I don't know. I worry about it. It's complicated. You can't go home and see her until you've had your wish. Okay? Please?

Don't give up on Gaia. Don't give up on Bella. Don't give up on swords and adventure. I think if you do all that you'll be doing an okay job of being me. So let's do our best, okay?

- Prin Redana Clau Dany

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Dolly!

”Stop fighting me, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius!” Heat, speed, outraged grunts almost at the edge of hearing. “I will not let anyone stand between me and my Bride— not even you!”

She is vast, writhing, a thing of eyes and teeth emerging from the dark, sudden motion and jaws around the throat, a goddess terrible in her wrath, swirling around her newest temple dancer. Tails lash against the floor like whips as Angela strains, grunts, fights Jade because she thinks she knows better, because she would! Each moment is a frenetic gamble as they weave between a dozen pirates, heat licking at Angela’s smooth and lovely skin to represent each shot that kisses the paint of their shared idol.

And there is nothing that the silly little prize of the Pirate Queen, Valynia Bander, can do to help them except to strain and send all her hope, all her reverence, all her desire, to her goddess, who owns her, who loves her, who has a plan, who tames aliens and Hybrasilians alike, who will be more than a match for a reeking, possessive pirate. Pray, Dolly, pray! Burble your belief! Believe in Smokeless Jade Fires and in Angela Victoria Miera Antonius, who have come to save you, who must save you, who will save you!

You’re not going to be a bad girl, are you, Seven Quetzal? You’re not going to secretly hope that Angela gets captured and strung up next to you, so close that you can rub your branded shoulder against hers? You’re not going to envision being used as a hostage to force Jade to surrender, are you? If you think about it, it will happen. Everything going on depends on the purity of your heart, despite the kidnapping, despite the marking and claiming, despite every breath you take being full of the smell of excited pirates, despite the hand rubbing your cheek.

And you can’t even stop yourself from nuzzling that hand, you weak, silly thing. It just feels so good. It smells, it tastes, it is overwhelming in the ways that your goddess cannot give you even though she tries so, so hard to bring your dreams to life, to tell you how much she loves you, to be there for you, to choose you…

Dolly lifts her head and tries. She tries to smoulder. She tries as hard as she can. Like she’s got the upper hand. Like this is exactly where she needs to be for Jade’s plans, and isn’t that mysterious and enticing? Aren’t you intrigued, Valynia? She’s even wiggling, trying to show off, trying to distract you.

Pay attention to the priestess. Reveal your scheme. Admit how much you would give if only to have her for… a while. This was Jade’s plan all along, wasn’t it? To undo the Red Band from the inside out?

Huffing pirate musk, drooling into thick stuffing, dangling from the ceiling, absolutely helpless and condescended to, Dolly flutters her eyes and perks up her ears and tries to look smug, like she’s already won.

[Dolly attempts to Defy Disaster and do one last-ditch, epic attempt to make Valynia fall for her and be compromised in the middle of the rescue mission, giving Jade and her mystery pilot some sort of opening or advantage.

She has rolled a 6, but is burning her string on Valynia to bump it up to a 7. Dolly is the goodest girl who always does her best! There will definitely be no consequences!]

---

Jade!

”Hhy won’hh givvuhfh!”

The pirates and their gods leer at the beautiful priestess tied to the pole in the middle of their canteen, her arms stretched above her head, her fashion clothing all but torn off of her. She is so scared, her heart racing, the ropes biting into her, but she remains irrepressible, defiant, even as brats and brutes paw at her and make her squirm, fists clenching, heart fluttering, unable to take a free breath without gargling pirate stench.

“All you need to do,” the leopardess purrs, pressing one condescending hand against her innocent cheek, “is devote yourself to one of our gods. One who is ancient, powerful, and capable of taking care of you in ways that runt of a goddess never could.”

“NNHH!” The beautiful priestess strains, shaking her body back and forth, her helpless limbs unable to tear her restraints apart and fall upon the pirate queen in a fury. Her fists clench and she stares at the smug pirate through narrowed eyes. “Nffffr!! J’dd hff mhh unn… mmhh mrrr uhvv~!”

“Your true love?” The pirate empress admiral scoffs. “Even now, she has been defeated by a devotee of Irtana. She is humiliated, tormented, helpless to save you. You must choose between being the plaything of my entire fleet, lowest of the low, or protected by our superior divinities!”

“Ffhee’d dhhnffngh hhyu’vvvh mmh!!” The priestess tosses her beautifully bouncy hair and smoulders, defiantly, as lecherous and impious pirates crowd around…

This indignity is for the sake of Dolly. Cling onto that, Smokeless Jade Fires. You’d do anything to save her. That means that you are letting Whispered Promise use her admittedly impressive piloting skills on your behalf. She is a mercenary and you are choosing to allow her to have her fun.

The hopping from foot to foot as asteroids spatter against her front? All part of the payment. The drooling, frantic squeals and frantic squirming as, for a moment, you thought you— your idol— was going to be shot apart and left to drift, salvage of war? Acting. Definitely acting. You will choose to remember it as acting, which you learned from Dolly, and are… using… sympathetically. To ensure her rescue. By acting as she would act.

(But Dolly would not stick out her rump like this. She would descend into a low, deep, sultry purr, inviting the worst treatment that her precious heart can imagine, not this high-pitched yelping and nasal whining. She would not stamp her foot, because she is better at submission than you are. For all that relief floods you when she handles you impossibly well, for all that she is making you feel things you felt impossible, for all that you could almost close your eyes and imagine that Whispered Promise is going to perform a miracle of her very own, you are afraid. You are scared that you will turn your head, having surrendered, and see her staring at you with those watery eyes, and such a mocking smile, and know yourself so small and pathetic that Dolly will dive into her arms and refuse to come out. Something so small that it can be contained like this, inside of an idol.)

(Then your foot curls and you sway on one foot, and Whispered Promise guides you, won’t let you go, helps you unclench the foot, adjusts your headings with buttons that replace instincts, and something inside you that was clenching up again releases, slumps, buries your face in its hands, is relaxed in a way that you have not ever been in your life. Whispered Promise is piloting you. She won’t let you fall. She’ll save Dolly. She is the underworld-striding hero who plucks the skull from the tree. She is the hope that even a goddess can reach for. She bears the God-Smiting Whip, and you yield to its instruction so well.)

(But you cannot take her on forever. She is strong, and does not need you, does not need this. It is a game to her; it is everything for Dolly. You must get her back. You must.)

[Smokeless Jade Fires is Smitten with Whispered Promise. Take the String.]

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Fengye!

There are lights on the other side of the river. They are not candles; they are not entirely fireflies. Cinnamon and honey hangs over the omnipresent smell of rain. The House of Lapis Lazuli is close at hand, and the gods are thick and close about, unseen but intent on you as you catch up to the spirit of clinging mud wading through some farmhold’s rice paddies.

Incense rising on the other side of the river. The sound of strings and bells. Blue silks and chains. Zhaojun would either thrive here or be in dreadful peril here. But she is not here; it is you, hemming in this minor spirit, shaking your umbrella at it. It roars and bubbles defiance, and tries to break around you. To the river. To the House. To file a complaint.

If the Maid passes into that House, it is likely that she would never be permitted to escape. She would be sealed away beneath Lake Zenba by the priestesses of the Sapphire Mother, a shard of Hell imprisoned in the world that rejected those ancient titan-powers. Jazumi, conversely, has equal odds of sharing such a fate or being ransomed to the wind-courts. And you? You, Fengye?

Polite, curt dismissal, if you are lucky. Battle with priestesses and gods of river and rain, if you are not.

---

Kalaya!

The kiss on your cheek is sad. But it’s as much as Ven can give you. The brush of her lips against your cheek; the inhalation as if she means to remember your scent. “Then go to her,” she says. Not a command. A prompting. A hope.

And then she follows her witch, and leaves you with the dumplings that taste like nothing. She doesn’t look back.

It is as you sit by the last dumpling, wondering whether you should bother to eat it, that a very disheveled priestess approaches the inn. She looks sleepless, her cloak askew, her hem trailing in the mud, her hair frizzing out from under her hood, and when she looks at you the first time her gaze passes right through and past you. Then she takes several more steps and happens to actually notice you, and a small spark of attention lights in her eyes.

“You! You there,” she says, pointing, a little desperate. “You’re a knight, aren’t you? You do, you do quests, and finding people, and making things right?”

Whatever she wants you to do, you could ask for a meeting with the Sapphire Mother herself as a reward. Or, well, maybe not, if she’s looking for someone’s lost dog or had her wagon stuck in a ditch, but she could point you to someone who could! Clearly, this is a sign!

And she would probably appreciate that dumpling.

---

Giriel!

“Hello, Bruinstead.”

Of all the things to interrupt your valiant efforts to get this half-a-raiding-party pointed in the right direction to do the right thing! It would just have to be Peregrine (again) working with someone shady (again)— in this case, the warlock, the one that Kalaya is besotted with. They’re following a Necessity of Emptiness, one that Peregrine’s called into the world, seeking something or someone out.

“Where is the vessel of the General?” The warlock gets straight to the point, chin lifted proudly high, brass hand on the hilt of her sword. “You had her, didn’t you?”

“It was definitely here,” Peregrine says, drumming tunelessly against her thigh. She looks even worse than usual— something’s really got her by the reins. Is it Uusha, do you think? Or, no, a new project. Something even more interesting to her.

---

Lotus!

You cling to those solid, dirty, warm fingers like they’re your only handholds.

She fought for you. For you! You couldn’t do a thing, and you couldn’t save her when she dunked herself in the river, and you can’t escape being led by the servant of the Dominion towards a promised captivity, but she still fought for you, and whenever you start to pull back, self-conscious of how clingy and needy you’re being with the hands you can’t even see, she tugs you back. So gentle. So insistent.

She wants to hold your hands. That’s what keeps you grounded as your heart keeps racing, as your legs start to complain about the walk, as you feel the heat of your cheeks and the blood thumping through them, caught between a rock and a soft place. You’re unable to talk, to embarrass yourself by trying to thank Han through words, to try to convince Piripiri to let you go, to open yourself up to humiliation when she points out that you’re not even sure that you want to be let go.

You’re not even sure you want her to let Han go.

Which makes you a terrible person.

And yet, whenever you let her go, there her hands are (so strong, so careful, so rough, so good for holding) to tug you back. To rub a thumbpad over your nail in a way that makes fire race up your spine and a pathetic mewl burble through your well-covered lips. To invite you to explore her hands, her sweat-clammy palms, her raised scars, her downy backs. Of her hands. Just her hands. You can’t even reach her back. Because you’re tied up. And because it’s one thing to hold her hands but she probably wouldn’t. Even though. Imagine her wrestling shirtless like one of your mother’s courtiers. The shape of her back, how strong, how firm, how very made to be kissed…

You stumble and are suddenly caught with attention from both sides: your captor catching you by the arm, arresting you, making sure you don’t fall, and your… your… your Han squeezing both of your hands tight and desperate with the need for you not to fall.

You try to hide your face in your shoulder, sure that the entire world can tell how conflicted and full of forbidden desires you are, uniquely terrible and unworthy of all the love— all the affection you are being shown from either side. Affection you are likely making up because it’s a pretty story to tell yourself, because Piripiri sees you as a captive pawn of the Dominion and Han is just the kind of woman who protects travelers, even if they keep being absolutely unworthy of her.

But whenever you pull away, there her fingers are, telling you a different story. Stay, Lotus. If I could, I’d swing you up into my arms and carry you to safety and I’d accept a demure shake of your head when I ask you if you want to be untied…

Breathless Dead

“Do you want a drink?”

The princess pauses, suddenly still. The neck of a bottle rests against the mouth of a glass, in honor of the deeds their own have done. She does not tilt. Not until her love nods, mute, stricken. A small, pained nod. And then the wine sloshes gracelessly into the cup (it’s as if she never learned) and Redana gently but insistently pulls Bella down to sit next to her.

You are included, she does not need to say. I’m here. “I’ll fight them all for you,” she does say, louder than she thinks. Water, then, and stirred. Not straight. Not for Bella, not right now.

“You couldn’t beat us when you were alone,” she adds, feeling out the thought as it leaves her lips. “We were working together. You were angry and scary and all you had at your back were owls and mice. But as soon as you and your sisters stopped pulling each other apart, we brought… her… down. Together.”

A squeeze, and then she lifts the cup to her lady’s lips, in exactly the sort of way that every hero here recognizes. Such is the conduct befitting a knight.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror!

Smokeless Jade Fires keeps her head lifted high, and Smokeless Jade Fires refuses to stop complaining, even though both of these choices work against her and betray her. If she lowered her head, you would less clearly see how her eyes dilate and her ears flick, her body-of-dreams betraying her with every caress, every drag of your claws through her fur, and with every swat on her tight little rump when she, predictably, refuses to cooperate.

It is a simple cycle. You give her an instruction. She refuses, haughty, burbling, tails tugging at their chains, wet chin lifted in the air. You smack a cheek beneath a tail, or reach around and methodically twist, informing her that she is in breach of contract, and she submits with a drooling squeal and a series of furious garbled half-words, feet flexing as she tries vainly to stamp them. By the time she finishes with the console (rebelliously, to her own color scheme, with her own textures) you have discovered that combining the two is the most efficient method; nipping an ear, smacking a thigh, or tugging hard on her base elicits immediate, unconscious obedience, her lower thoughts rushing to please while her higher thoughts are howling in indignity and sensation.

You are reminding her that she is bodied. You are gifting her sensations, and consequences, and allowing her to pretend that she is doing your bidding because she has no other choice, even as she lets her holy spittle drip down her front, puddle at her feet, spray out when she screams something very unbecoming of a good girl mid-instruction, while her hands writhe and clench above her head.

Then you sit down in your seat, and you run your hands over the controls, and she shivers.

You take manual control, easing your speed, sending out a pulse, hands drifting in familiar patterns, and next to you (close enough to touch) her arched feet wobble. You thumb a joystick and her hips begin an unconscious and familiar squirming, trying to find something that isn’t there. You kick-pedal thrusters into life and her haughty, high-pitched, whining complaint drops an octave into a purr that echoes around the cockpit. Smokeless Jade Fires is not her idol, but she inhabits it, and your commands are bypassing her higher thoughts now.

She has piloted many times. She has always been in control, demanding the obedience of the world to bend to her. What you are gifting to her, Whispered Promise, is freedom. Freedom from having to worry about Dolly, freedom from the guilt of not being there for her, freedom from expectations. It is just the two of you, after all, and any future where you tell the world of her shame is too well-hidden in the brush for a silly little brat like her to think about. Every flick of the joystick makes her sweat higher-pitched, tongue-pinned whining, makes her hips buck, makes her fiery eyes dim with, well, smoke.

”Dhhlleeeeeee… Dhllllleeeeeeee…”

She is in love, and love is her weakness. She is in love, and would do anything— anything— to get her Dolly back. She is in love, and she can only express it now, when she cannot mistake control for admission. Raw, messy emotion-sensation thrums through the memory weave: want, hopeless adoration, a petlike need to please, an impossible desire for a real body to share with her, the imagined taste of her body. Overwhelmed with pleasure, she reaches out blindly for the girl she loves, only able to communicate so clearly when she cannot speak.

How good are you at piloting like this, Whispie? Can you fly while dealing with second-hand infatuation, with the bliss of a unsatisfied goddess thrumming through you?

---

Dolly!

The brief flashes of distant connection with Jade are very clear about what she should be doing with Valynia. Not that anything else is clear, but it’s impossible to mistake (not that she would have any vested interest in interpretation, n-no, not at all). Jade might as well be in the room, one hand between her shoulder blades, trying to push her body up against Valynia. Which is. Which is certainly. Jade’s always been so jealous, so “only for me,” so “I want everyone and you want me,” and this is confusing and exciting and her stomach does the occasional flip as Valynia does not let her, in any way, shape or form, fling herself onto Valynia and beg for the holy honor of sleeping with her.

(What’s next? Letting Dolly do that with, to, for, with Angela? After she tries and fails to come save her? Hahahahahahahaha. Haha. Ha. Hahaha. Haaaaa.)

At least she can’t focus on that. She keeps being distracted by the feeling of being small and safe and a good girl who gets touched there and there and right there on the back of the neck, uhhuh, uhhuh, the melty spot. She can’t even hear her own purrs, just feel them, because they’re all soaked up by the fact that she’s gagged. The very tip of her tail uselessly twitches and she couldn’t do a defiant headbutt right now if Jade ordered her to.

When this started, she was scared, angry, embarrassed, ready to fight. And now she’s slumping bonelessly into her bonds, face burning up, wishing Valynia would ravish her senseless, or even let her try her very very best to be slinky and seductive and use her hips and her purrful voice like Heaven’s Touch in Seven Years in Reed Marsh to convert Valynia to a new faith of hunting and star-chasing and subservience, but if you obey the holy goddess you get me as a rewarrrrrdddd~

right there right behind her ear right above her gags yes yes yes uhhuh all she can do is vibrate her skull and even that might be the sway of the ropes but you’ve got to know that’s the right spot, just like running your thumb down each vertebrae, just like pinching the back of her neck, just like licking the back of her ear and getting a little more pirate stink on her, and Jade, please, she is TRYING—

Who allowed you to be soft, Valynia? Who let you be more than just a handsy pirate daring to blaspheme? And why are you very obviously so important to Jade’s plans that she would keep insisting you be seduced by her… her… her temple bride and that is the only title sweet Dolly can use for herself right now, because if she uses one of the names for a promiscuous bride she will implode. Messily.

Breathless Dead

The sound that Redana makes is a breathless gust of wind, the fall of a hungry hawk, the mousegirl that finds the cheese. When she rushes forward into their midst, it is only her color that makes her distinct, the healthy glint of her wheat-gold hair— and the solidity of her build, a weight that seems to draw them all towards her. Half a dozen heroines of similar stature sit together in the shadow of the pavilion, and already a faint silver tea has been poured for the Imperial Princess. Come, Bella, if you dare, and sit surrounded by your girlfriend’s people.

“Of course! We’re the ones that are going to pass through,” Redana says, without a hint of irony; the bones of her mouth are a flash of clean white, solid as ice. “Our captain is the cleverest— no offense, Nobody— our champions the boldest, our cause the most righteous. Even if we break our arms in the process,” she says, nodding to Ortji, “we, we are going to know victory.” She sips, and for a moment she’s actually serene, a warrior-queen surrounded by her peers. But she can’t stop her smile. She is life and death cupped in one hand; she has affirmed desire in the shadow of infinity. Her past lies behind her, notable only in how it allows her to recognize the notables assembled all about her, and the future is one shining ribbon-road that cuts through the awful Aphrodisian gash across the beautiful sky.

When she looks back to Bella, it is with implicit invitation. You deserve to be here, too, among the heroes, she almost says out loud, and the pat on the stone bench is impossible for any of them to miss. Come meet your peers, Bella, even if all of them barely come up to your shoulders. Here are champions that shucked their old selves, their old skins, their old names. Here are those who have gone through transformation and survived. Here are the blessed, and Bella—

You belong here, too, as much as Redana does. She will fight you if you dare to suggest otherwise, this girl who meets the impossible head-on, just like Sir Aeon, just like King Anjia. Bring the sharks, too, so Ikari may marvel at their softness and their innocent smiles.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Euna!

The takeout is greasier and more fried than 3V really should be eating. She will regret it later, she is aware, but food is about how it makes you feel right now— the crunch as you bite down, the warmth that floods your mouth, the sauces you can dunk the food in. She does make sure there’s a good spinach dish, though. She’ll slurp that down buttered fast as you can blink. And because she’s nothing if not annoyingly good at remembering weak points, she’s even got those dumplings you like.

And she’s gone quiet. Dangerously quiet, even. Thinking. Rolling that thought around in her head. Who owns the land?

Who owns the apple tree?

It’s one thing, Locke, to get huffy about men deciding to put fences up around apple trees. There’s basically infinite space for apple trees down there on the blue marble. They grow without being asked, and drop their fruits easy. Up here, there’s nowhere else to run to. Up here, what we’ve got is what we’ve got.

On the one hand: the machine. Vast, undefeated, roaring. The feedback loop of being fed, which allows it to keep swallowing up apples. On the other: a dumb little gym for people who have needs that a chain won’t be able to meet.

Should have figured it out from the beginning.

Part of her agrees with Euna. There’s no way they win. When you see the machine coming, with all those teeth and all those hands and all those apples in its gut, what can you do? The only way to make it stop, to leave your little tree alone, to stop it from stamping down the fence and setting fire to your whole life, is to make it think the whole process will be too painful to bother with. And most of her thoughts about how to do that are “illegal” and “not how we do things” and “there’s no way you’ll make it to his office with the baseball bat 3V and the cops will shoot you even if you try to explain it’s just his kneecaps and you have chosen to let him live.”

She bites into the crisp skin and stares a hole through a wall.

“…who decides the leasing?” It’s not directed at Euna. It’s the only way out of the maze. Because machines are made of people, all linked together in a chain.

---

V3 The 3V: If I remember right, isn’t the story accusing both groups of people? Because the ones who title drop from Omelas still aren’t helping the kid.
V3 The 3V: The real answer is that you’re supposed to scoop the kid up and walk out of Omelas while the entire utopia crumbles around your ears, because walking away to cling to the knowledge that you’re a good person because you’re not benefiting from the suffering of the kid still means that you’re letting the kid keep suffering.
V3 The 3V: This gets trickier when you try to make it applicable in daily life, when there’s not just one kid or—
V3 The 3V: fuck, November (my staggeringly awesome and beautiful and so incredibly gay girlfriend) has a point too
V3 The 3V: what does the kid think about the whole situation?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Whispered Promise!

Smokeless Jade Fires is a thousand hands, a shadow of fractal tails on the wall, and a volcanic cloud rising to meet this giant of a woman, this inexorable One Day Defender. And then, miraculously, they coalesce and out of them roars Jade, the huntress, with a spear in one hand and the cords in the other. All around you, chains lash and writhe, silver-smoke, living serpents, seeking to coil and lock and constrain. But they do not descend upon you in a pile and bury you under their weight. You still have your eyes (like liquid silver, wet as a kiss) and your feet (shifting, careful, thoughtful) and the goddess has not stolen either. She could. You know that she could. You’ve read the reports of the first pilot she ever overcame.

This is your first victory, as Little Sister Fire fills the room with dizzying light, with mirage-butterflies with thirsty chains behind them, as the thump-a-thud of scampering feet fills the hearts of a pilot and a goddess. She has not overcome you in one shot. She plays the game with you. A battle is a question: who is to rule?

She tells you how she has seen you with the kiss of her spear against your cheek. You feel the skin split, shallow; you feel the sting. Danger, incredible danger, a dance of giants in a beautiful bullet curtain, each movement precise. Chains behind butterflies. Instincts screaming to chase them. The bespoke throb of pain. One of you will be trapped in them; one of you will be the dancer. And you know that it will not be you.

Smokeless Jade Fires cannot give you control. You must take it. But she is letting you reach your hand out. Her pride and her need war. (See how she dares to touch you? How she rubs against you in the pass? How she pins you with her spear and pushes you towards a chain, which wraps about your ankle like a kiss?)

And if you win— no, when you win— you will have won the right to her submission, one which cannot be given freely.

[Jade hits a 7 on an Entice, and Whispered Promise may win as she pleases.]

---

Dolly!

Every breath drags in territory and heat and need and claimed and desired, the feelings drenching the cloth pulled over her nose, the air dragged across the lusty musk of a dozen pirates. Her pores sweat submission. Her mouth is a leaking lake stoppered and dammed, her cheeks packed sore, her cheeks throbbing heat. Her eyes are heavy and her body keeps leaning forward without her permission, putting her weight on the ropes holding her in place, because it knows better than her how badly she needs to be touched, licked, scruff-bitten.

Jade, she’s sorry, she tries to think. It’s just that. It’s just. Ten thousand years of a sensitive little nose, of communication by more than chirps and tail-twitches, is a stone weight in her gut. She leans forward, and the padlock on her collar jingles softly, and Valynia doesn’t even notice.

The courier has, though. The one bringing in manifolds and taking out boxes, slipping easily in and out of the room, who is a witness. Who can’t touch her (wanted desired claimed property) but can see her (straining silent tight drooling) and the mark of Valynia on her arm (sting throb kiss untouched) and it’s more electric than being on display for Jade’s entire temple (she’s sorry she’s sorry she’s sorry she’ll do penance when she’s rescued but you can take your time) and she drags the breath in and there’s no give in the ropes and all her squirming does is give the courier a show, and Valynia won’t even turn around (butterflies— butterflies?) and she huffs a garbled whimper out but it melts uselessly in the air like snow on a finger, if it even escapes the pirate-stinking cloth.

This isn’t the best day she’s had in her life. It can’t compare to the joy of being seen, of being wanted by a goddess, of being promised everything she’d ever wanted, of an endless night of muffled screams and prayers…

but it is definitely up there. Her stupid treacherous heart is a trophy, too, and it must be Jade’s blessing that Valynia is busy, that she’s just a trophy, because the only sort of seduction she could manage right now would be clinging and agreeing and daring, begging Valynia to treat her like a pirate. To kiss the mark she’s left. To bite the back of Dolly’s neck. To rub her paws all over Dolly’s claim-swaddled face. And to make that padlock swing and bounce and jingle.

Or even just to stare at her! To look at her! To think she’s a worthy prize! To pay attention! (Jade pays so much attention.) To value her! Valyyyyy! Please, Valy!

But she has to dangle there, and be quiet, and huff the love of the Red Band (mingling with her own, and isn’t this room warm?), and imagine the air conditioning kissing her right on her mark of Valynia’s claim, and will Jade want it removed? Will she even want it? Will Valynia insist on giving it to her again next time?

(Because even as she knows she will be rescued… she’s already hoping there will be a next time. With these brutish, rude, presumptuous, inappropriate, musky pirates, and Valynia, who, admittedly, did deserve to be hit with a purse… but now she wants to do it again hoping that somehow, some way, Valynia will just smile and make the punishment even worse, and, and, what if Angela tries to save her, and…)