Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

“That is so sad!!”

The princess will find herself aggressively squished against the knight, who is sniffling. But she can’t get her arms up around the princess, and there’s no way she’s going to put her down, so there’s no way of stopping the tears.

“Surely that’s not all! There’s got to be… what about…” The knight thinks, or tries to, but the specters of princesses in need of rescue haunt her as she marches along, even in her distress still surefooted and careful. After all, we can’t have a delicate princess tumbling out of the arms of a knight. What a scandal that would be! What would everyone think?? (The fact that there is no one around to notice doesn’t occur to her.)

“…but that must be the reason there are knights!” And what of what she’d said? What had she said, anyhow? Something about happy endings? “That’s what we’re for! To be there for you! To stop those dreams from dying! No sad princesses! Not while I’m around!!”

No sad princesses! It echoes in the dream of cities, a declaration that will be draped over her shoulders. Here, then, is a virtue of chivalry!

Breathless Dead

Had she ever been here? In the depths of the city, surrounded by the city, by people, by crowds, everyone crammed into cities built to house entire species? Where everything was loud and crowded and houses were built on top of houses, stores exploded out into the street, and everywhere you turned there was someone else?

The answer becomes no. The memories of clinging to her arm slip away, replaced by a city more real than real. A city without anyone else; a city built for the benefit of the buildings, which whisper to each other in the dark. A city of secrets and hidden places; a city that has meaning that is not derived from inhabitance but from existence and context.

From high up, she glances down through a window and sees a shack, squatting in a grassy square in the shadow of taller walls, wires curling on its sides. From below, she looks up and sees ten dozen golden windows, each one spilling out light, each one promising solitude. From across the way she catches a glimpse of pink-white trees lit up by phosphorus beacons, casting long shadows of reaching arms across the city.

“All knights are the same kind of knight, milady,” the knight says. “It doesn’t matter whether they have a sword or a spear or an axe, except that swords have an advantage over axes, and axes over spears, and so on. Some ride horses and some ride skateboards and some ride rainbows. But all knights are the same knight, because in their hearts, they all have a quest. And sometimes this quest is to go someplace, to find someone or something, to never give up. And other times it’s to go where someone else is, to keep them safe no matter what, and to never give up. And sometimes, I guess, it’s both? I’m both. My quest is to protect you, and to follow my fair damosel triangulus, and to not let that kill me, because then you’d both be very upset at me for being so careless! Knights rescue the helpless, the captured, the kidnapped, and even when they get caught up in it, they’ll always find a way out in the end. To be a knight is to devote yourself to the happily ever after as your mistress, your tyrant, your god.”

The ceiling overhead is vaulted but thin-slatted, and where there are slats missing, the pale pink sky of twilight peeks through. Around them are locked doors and locked windows, invitations to peek inside and see treasures. It would be wrong to crack these vaults open and take what they like; it would be easy, but it would be a blasphemy. So the knight continues onwards.

“It’s your turn,” she says, smiling, hefting her up a little higher, pulling her a little closer. “Tell me about princesses. What sorts are there? What kind are you?”

Huntresses of Hybrasil

“Again, you refer to me as royalty! As one who does not rule but is revered— ah, I see how that must translate for you aliens, with your bloodlines of rule!”

She’s keeping the worst of it off Dolly. Her beloved pilot is still squirming under the weight in ways that are not very productive, but that is because her legs are pinned under weight as comforting as Jade can make it. What a kitten she is.

It’s up to her, as always, to find the solution. That is her role, after all. To show Dolly the way out, to make her thrill, to make all that dare to challenge them look like fools. And there is a way to do so here! It’s just that she hasn’t seen it yet, and she’s running out of time. Soon this Invisible Avian will tire of showboating and bury the both of them under the rubble.

“I may not be one of the Honored Ones,” she continues, avoiding even their proper titles. Not even she would casually speak of her Grandmothers before the watching crowd. Dust showers onto her front as she strains, and realizes that she is stuck, unable to get leverage to push it up further. A thought flickers into her head, and she guides Dolly’s arms back down, slowly blotting out the sky. One foot hooks the bottom of the tank. “But you are right to acknowledge me and my authority. I am one of the powers of the universe, immortal from the moment of my birth. I hatched from an egg, born to myself, and I walk the eightfold path that is forbidden to your kind.”

Metal groans. Dolly’s arms are wobbling with the effort. You can do it, sweetie. “And if that makes me a princess, then I accept it— princess of the hunt, stone-crowned, and—“

The plan was simple enough. Shove it upwards, using the bottom of the tank as leverage, knocking it into the Ephemeral Swan and giving them an opening to scramble up and free, but her knee jams into something, the tank jars loose from her grasp, and she has barely a moment to decide what she will do.

She flows over Dolly like night. Pins her down. Pushes her face against the floor, swaddled in shadow. She interposes herself between Dolly and the feedback of being crushed underneath the cement-weighted tank. Her own cheeks burn with embarrassment, and some quirk of the feedback makes her feel like she bears all that weight on her shoulders, her back, crushing her against the voluptuous curves of her priestess.

No pain for Dolly. Just weight, entrapment, helplessness. Even failure will be a gift for you. As long as you are here, as long as your goddess is here, as long as you have offered yourself up body and soul, you will be protected, and indulged, and loved.

Well? You want to finish this fight, Preening Crow. Lift the tank. Mock them if you must, but you won’t end it like this. You won’t abandon the chance to continue showing your power. You’re hungry for it. Perhaps you will ready cords, or step on your opponent as you lift it off, but you won’t end it like this.

But until you do, all Jade can do is push one knee against Dolly, insistently, and watch her squirm, night-hooded and barely audible, arms stretched out, hips bucking by centimeters, trapped underneath the weight of her goddess, who would hold up the world for her.

[They could have tried to Synchronize, but the image I had in my head was to Defy Disaster with Daring, no matter that it’s their worst stat. Anyway, they have rolled a 4 and are at Ada’s mercy; she gets to define how the match continues, or if Jade has any further chance to win.]

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Giriel!

The warlock closes the gap between you. But she does not strike. The sword is the promise of violence in her hand, but she holds it back, torn between anger and hope, doubt and longing.

“You’re lying,” she spits between her teeth. “I wasn’t offered help. I was never offered help. And where was your help, witch? What have the people of these kingdoms ever done for you that wasn’t done to curry your favor, to buy your help with the spirits, the portents, the demons at the door?”

---

Kalaya!

Two mud-slick hands grasp at you. One is desperate, flailing, the delicate hand of a dainty maid.

The other is the firm, clawing hand of a N’yari warrior. One who could, one imagines, put Fengye and Sagacious Crane at risk. You know how opportunistic the N’yari are; if you pull her out, she’s likely to try to grab someone and make a run for it.

So here’s your choice, noble knight. Do you pull them both out? Or do you fumble, try to get a better position, and risk the enveloping, clinging mud-embrace of the spirit?

---

Lotus!

Oh, Han.

It takes you some time to realize how she’s shivering underneath you, trying so desperately not to… to do something. Your attention was absorbed in the delicate work of pouring your essence through your lips, your tongue, giving her everything you can. Here, far from water, in the wood which drinks its essence, you give her everything.

The gash scabs over, the scar glossy as lacquer. The bruises ebb, the blood-dam loosening with a twist of your essence. Cool waters lick along her veins, dampening her fires, reducing her pain, and that must be why she shivers; her skin prickles with cold.

You try to stand, to not linger, to not take more from Han than she would want from you, and the room slips sideways. Your essence is unbalanced; you silly girl, you didn’t need to give her so much of yourself!

But she catches you.

Your head is on her lap. Her hands are on your head. When you shift, the links of the chain around your ankle drag across the fine boards of the floor.

“You saved me again,” you say, and you can’t stop yourself from smiling. Your face uncovered, your dress splayed out around you like the petals of a flower, you smile up stupidly at the girl you…

“It was my fault,” you blurt out. “I got you into this mess, and I did too much— I should have gone slower— thank you, and, if I had to be here, with anyone, I love. That it’s you. That’s what. And. And.”

You turn, blushing, still smiling, and nuzzle your mouth against her palm, toes curling as you try to will yourself to turn into water and melt through the floor.

“I want you,” you mouth against her skin, again.

Breathless Dead

Two magics, one right on the heels of the other, like Olympians desperately competing for the laurels.

The first? That’s the sweep— one arm under her knees, one cradling her shoulders, tucking her head in close to the breastbone. The huff of breath through a scarf, the firmness of her biceps, the set of her shoulders, both suggesting that she’s not treating this casually, not underestimating the burden, but not fearing it, either. No, she is like the horse which flares its nostrils before it begins a long and steady trot, the kind that can continue for hours.

The second is the sparkle in her eyes. She knows who she is. It has flowered inside of her, suddenly, but right, so right. Why this moment fits into her hands perfectly. Why she follows the triangles. Why she has a sword. How could she have forgotten?

“It is the privilege of a knight to carry a fair maiden,” the knight says, puffing out her chest with pride and delight. “Thank you for doing me this honor.” She cradles the fair lady gently, as chastely as she may with a hand on her thigh, for her heart belongs to another, and any flustered glances will bounce right off her oblivious delight.

A knight!

She is a knight!

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Jade freezes up. The roof. She’s going to bring down the roof on their heads. And there’s no time! She starts moving for an exit, anyway, but there’s no time!

Girders groan, ruined machines hiss, steam vents up in gouts, and the roof buckles. Faster, Dolly, faster! All the grace in the world can’t help them if everything comes down around them, and—

Dolly slides. There: a manufacturing device heavy and bulky enough that even with its supports turned out, even flipped over, it still makes an almost-tent. She lifts their lance, and Jade pushes power into the tip. When the roof comes down, it’ll be explosive, blasting away falling rubble. But she’ll be blinded from the whole thing coming down anyway, and the machinery should shield them when the roof comes down.

[Unfortunately, they’ve rolled a 4 on Defying Disaster. I offer their position and their speed at getting out from under the rubble as well as their cloak.]

Breathless Dead

“It’s a good thing you’re not alone, then,” she says. “None of us are.” And that’s true, too, isn’t it? Despite the journey, none of them are missing.

(No, that’s not quite true, is it? There are people who should be here who aren’t. But their absence feels different, somehow. Long ago, in a place far, far away…)

“I don’t know how far I’m going,” she admits, “but I don’t think going to Gaia should be too much for me. As long as there are new places to see, new people to meet, and new feelings to… to feel, then I don’t mind coming along. You and Triangles and me, and the sheeps, and the yellows, and the lot of us together, until we all find the places we’re going.”

She takes the princess by the elbow and leads her on. See? Each step is a step further than you could have done alone. And that’s because two feet are— wait, no, hold on, four, right? It’s four feet are better than two, said the centaur— or is that how it goes? It can’t possibly go up to eight, that’s a terrible number for feet. Doubling past that is getting to be too much all around. So maybe sticking to two feet, but it’s one each?

This is a deeply engrossing conundrum.

Breathless Dead

She’s still for a disconcertingly long time. Because, sure, she knows what she wants! Boon: easy. When you meet a princess, a real princess, of her own planet, with the laurel wreath in her wheat-blonde hair, with the red dress dripping with the golden beads and the purple sash, with a face that’s on the adorable side of pretty, with the gloves, the real white silk gloves— that’s the kind of thing you can’t miss out on! You have to ask her for the opportunity for service, or for a kiss, or for a sword to fight her enemies with, but she keeps digging deeper into the things she knows, in her bones, in her blood.

“All right,” she says, looking the princess in the eye, how odd that they’re the same height. “I know what I have to ask. What’s the impossible deed that’s troubling you? Is it… taming a giant lion made out of five smaller lions? A truth hidden at the very heart of a death-moon? Picking between three eggs, one of which has the fire that does not go out inside of it, one of which has the sea that is not quenched inside of it, and the last one has your heart inside of it, only nobody knows which one is which? Beating you in a cross-planet race, because you can only marry someone who beats you fairly?” She considers for a moment. “I’m not sure I can help you with the last one. I’d have to ask… you know, the triangles? Her. She might still say yes, though, so if that’s it, we should— no? Okay, well, the reason, the reason, is that when you meet a princess who’s just miserable, it’s because she has an impossible wish in her heart, like… like…”

(“Like looking up through the clouds and catching sight of a star, impossibly far away, and wishing you could close your hand around that star, not because you want to drag it down to earth but because you want to use it as a handhold to pull yourself up and see all the places you’d read about, dreamed about, imagined— only, you would never get to see them, because you were a doll shut away inside of a closet, waiting, and if the throne was ever empty, you’d be brought out and sat on it so that you could be a replacement, and that would be even worse, because it would mean that your mother was gone, your confusing and loud mother, your mother who would yell at you so that she could smile like a cat and say that she loved you when you ran to see what was wrong, your mother who wanted you to be the you that she could see in her heart, only you didn’t know how to be that girl, and you sat in the closet and grew heavier and stupider and you stared out at that one star, a gift from your father, and you made a wish to go— and then you realized that if you stayed in the closet, you would never ever see that wish come true. So you pushed the door open and slipped away, a little doll with a bruised cheek, dragging a statue along with you in a pleasure yacht you didn’t know how to sail, but you prayed to the lord of the shining rainbow sea, and he took his beloved niece where she needed to go most of all.”)

“Like that! Exactly! And that’s all over your face, your highness. And the only way to make things better is to make that impossible wish happen. Then you can be yourself, instead of a miserable princess, because all miserable princesses are the same in how sad they are, or how they’re sad— that’s better. So what’s your impossible wish, and the impossible deed I have to do? I think I’m good at doing them. How else would I know all about them?”

(”…”)

“Well, if you don’t know, or you can’t say— I bet it’s because you can’t say, that’s usually part of it, princesses are always having their voices stolen away one way or another— then come with me. I think we’ll figure it out on the way! Come on, take my hand, try slipping that wreath off, and we can find you an incognito dress! It’s not an impossible task, but it might just make you smile, your highness. And that’s part of the quest! Just take my hand, and I promise: I’ll find a way to help. What’s your name?”

(“…Redana Claudius?”)

A very long stare. “No,” she says, finally, “I don’t think that’s your name. Because your name is supposed to make you feel good, not look like you’re waiting for the world to crash down on your head, your highness. Maybe that’s your official princess name, sure— but I think we might be able to find something better. Not like I’m one to talk. Triangles has got it, I think. She’s the dependable one…”

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Up! Up!

Dolly barely needs the prod from Jade. They’re both Hybrasilian; they both know how to respond to a situation like this. The jump is powerful, but the pivot off the shoulder of the Unfindable Gander is almost delicate. A hand that could be used to grip a lance or drive it into the guts of a mecha, instead brushing their opponent’s shoulder. Thruster microbursts, kisses of wind, turning her body, bells spinning and singing—

And then they are above the steam, changing position, the night air cool on her back as Jade calculates the landing. A chastisement. Hardly enough to secure victory, but feel how Dolly’s heart races! She spins, she holds her arms out, she entrusts herself to her goddess and the night itself.

Then they plummet, and the drop in Dolly’s stomach means that she squeals as the ground races towards them. Their opponent has but half-turned, attempting to bring some weapon to bear, no doubt. It is Jade who brings her hands up into the chastising mudra. The cloak’s flickering on impact will mean that the audience will have one perfect shot of her body, one to be paused and zoomed in on.

Leg extended and locked into plac, Dolly kicks her opponent full in the face, and then springboards back, further into the factory. Sparks briefly light up the dissipating steam as she digs her legs in.

“I’m afraid she’s already taken,” Jade proclaims, her righteousness dripping from her fangs. “Whatever you may have heard about the Red Band, she is still MINE to discipline. And I have decided she gets to keep her modesty for a little longer.” They’re on the move again, circling; Jade’s grandeur echoes through the factory. ”I can’t have any milk-mouthed pilot thinking themselves the equal of Smokeless Jade Fires, after all. Did you learn nothing from my matches? Or were you too busy drooling over the matchless beauty of my… ah, yes, my princess, that’s what you called her~”

[Boxcars on Defy Disaster with Grace, much to Dolly’s good fortune.]

Breathless Dead

Her fingers dig into the soft fur, and the girl in her lap makes small chirps and growls of delight. She is tucked into one corner, back to the sea, facing the hills which blaze out yellow (and blue, that rich indigo blue, the flowers like bells) (and red, red-black, like the scales of a snake) (and purple, sheep-wool-curled purple clinging to the hills). Beside her the hound-girl reclines, head in her lap, playing at watching the clouds. The hound is one-in-two, the ones that share their thoughts. So when she digs her nails in, when she rubs circles in the fur, when she fluffs up an ear, it’s two people that feel the joy of being pampered.

Her hands are disconnected from her head, which watches the colors go by in their vast swathes. She’s seen colors like those before, hanging in the sky. Was it a sky? It wasn’t really anything like the sea, now, was it? Those impossible clouds melt under her tongue like candyfloss in bursts of flower petals.

The hound heaves shoulders up into her lap. She responds by rubbing and playing with the exposed throat, and the sound of the hound’s tail hitting the chariot bed is near-deafening, a drum solo of enthusiasm and joy. “Right there. Right there. I can see why you had a thing for her. My sister’s so lucky, isn’t she?”

Sisters? Sisters, then. Yes. Maybe an in-law one day. It’s fine to have a sister-in-law on your lap, tongue lolling, panting, grabbing at wrists whenever they seem to be drifting away so that she can pull them back to their work. A bond of friendship-through-association being strengthened with scritchies.

Thump, thump! Speak of the Beloved and she will appear. The hound playfully leers up at her sister, mimicking the act of taking a photograph. The girl instead stares, respectfully. She could join in, but there’s a head in her lap, and they’ll both hunt her down if she stops. Instead she just intently studies the way her Beloved stretches, the lift of one heel, the muscles working under her skin.

Thoughts of skirts will bedevil her long after the sound of bells moves on, moving up the line.