Tatterdemalion

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Exterior shot: the late afternoon sun casting its rays through the skyscrapers of Sky Gate City, painting their white-and-chrome surfaces with fire, drowning the color of the ubiquitous gardens and trees in shadows. The clouds rolling in off the mainland are hiding the penthouses and the glider pads, the blinking warning lights and the cloudfishers, leaving only the pillars standing between heaven and earth. The shadows are sharper than usual, harshly defined, and the lights switching on feel feeble in the face of night rising up from the sea.

---

Once upon a time, there was an old man who taught criminals the laws of the jianghu, the world beneath the city, the world of sewers and basements and access tunnels, of hidden dojos and stuttering neon lights, of tournaments and fat stacks of cash and, above all, honor. If a criminal did not have honor, even while breaking the law, what could they ever have?

The Flower Mountain rotated around the axis of that man: mastermind, martial artist, and enforcer of law on the lawless, the law that was the only constraint on those who had mastered their bodies and their abilities. And now that man is dead.

Which is why there is a fire spreading on the twenty-sixth floor of the Providence Tower, inside one of the residential blocks, and the outer windows are beginning to buckle and blacken from the heat.

---

"Pathetic Worm!" Xingtian raises their fist and, from one of the elegant flowers wrapped around their wrist, green-blue-black fire gushes forth, and underneath the hiss of fire is the howl of unquiet spirits. Spectral light throbs across their armor like blood pulsing through the body, and fire licks at the hem of their cloak. Like the snarl carved into their helmet, it's the kind of fashion statement that you have to earn. "You Are All Disgusting Parasites! In My New City, I Will Purge Your Vermin Dens With Cleansing Fire And--"

The Triad enforcer known as Ox jinks to one side, rolls, grabs a foldable bicycle someone abandoned in the chaos, and smashes it across Xingtian's helmet. And, to her credit, Xingtian takes two steps back, rocking on their heels. She follows up with two kicks to the head, sloppy Seven Shadows style, and then gets blasted through the front window of a Viet restaurant by Xingtian's Ghost Cannon, careening through tables and chairs.

Foxpearl! Xingtian's first appearance in the city was robbing from a bank, and there they got away after flying up into the clouds. But that crime had a lot more posturing and smashing through steel doors with that suit of armor, and a lot less fire everywhere in the middle of a nice neighborhood. You've got a vantage point from above (what kind?), and doubtless a theory on what's going on.

---

"Okay, everybody, let's go! You're going to be okay! Keep moving! Don't stop until you get to Tranquility, there should be city personnel there to help you! Nothing here is more valuable than you are! Make sure that you have all your family members!"

You can still distantly hear the Vermillion Princess, Rain. She's traded off going through the apartments on this floor and making sure everyone's evacuated to you, and now she's doing her best to act like the hero of the city, a beacon of calm authority that people can look up to in case of emergency. The slight warble in her voice doesn't matter; she's still making sure that this doesn't turn into a full-blown panic and nobody gets trampled.

You, however, have just found someone who hasn't evacuated.

That's because he's unconscious. And also tied to a chair.

Even by the standards of SGC apartments (tall ceilings, multiple rooms, designed to handle a family comfortably if necessary), this one is fancy. There's a decorative fountain in one corner, non-standard security cameras (the chair being at an intersection of a couple lines of sight), and a somewhat gaudy taste in wall decorations. That's an entire-ass halberd hung in the hallway, for example. And your brain's gonna be running through possibilities while you untie him, anyway, so why don't you scope it out?

Breathless Dead

"It won't work," Ember says, with conviction. "I will be good; I will follow your orders, Alpha. But she will smell betrayal on me if I come to her with secrets in my teeth, and she will defeat me, and you, and us, the pack entire, if we come at her with howling on our breath." Around her, the murmurs; she stares straight ahead, hands folded, ears perked, a signpost for the clan.

"And you know that." She takes a breath. Gulps. "The only path where Mosaic of Beri can be taken prisoner is one where she hands herself over to the pack willingly. She will not do this if I ask her; she will fight you instead, for daring to order me to ask her. You must take me prisoner and put me in peril which only you can defuse, and she will yield in order to save me. All this I share with you, packmate, Alpha of our clan, fellow daughter of Ceron."

She places one hand on her sword, drips Challenge onto the dirt. "But as a fellow daughter of Ceron, I cannot submit to betrayal of a lover." Her ears burn. This is the first time she's admitted to her packmates that what she feels for Mosaic is deeper than teasing a cutie and wringing information out of good boys and girls. "For her sake, I challenge you. Face me in any art and I will surpass you."

She won't. She knows she won't. This ends with her being used to embarrass Mosaic. But loyalty to a true lover is as virtuous as loyalty to the pack; she owes Mosaic this doomed fight to save her as much as she owes her pack information on how to overcome Mosaic. And if she, impossibly, wins, then she can throw her new weight behind Gemini's plan.

This is the way. Every Ceronian holodrama that Goldie has shared with her agrees. And Mosaic would understand too, wouldn't she? She might roll her eyes, she might make her lover a target of her barbed wit, she might even toss Ember off a cliff. But she knew she was falling in love with a Ceronian, and the bonds of the pack are just as much chains as the bonds of the heart (Beneath the Blood-Wetted Moons, dir. Xiophilina Entressus). So what if she will still lose? A knight is a humiliation-seeking device (The Knight of the Forfeit, dir. Nathan Svensson) and to share bonds with a lover is the third aim of romance (Dragon Among Lotuses, dir. "Simplicitas Pirata").

But Mosaic is worthy of being the cause of her first true pack challenge. Will you honor that, Taurus? Or are you jealous of her immeasurable virtues, not least of which is the thing she can do with her tongue?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

If the eye of the goddess was elsewhere, she could cut off the flight of the Zaldarian. If her attention was on Angela, she could shut a door, pen the knight in, give her a chance to catch up. She could read how Angela slows down, keeps an eye out for traps as she follows in the knight's wake, remembering the mine that ended their last battle together. The underhanded ploy, the trick that wins the battle. But her eye is drawn elsewhere. It is focused, entirely, on Seven Quetzal reaching up and patting her mouth, asking for permission to speak. Permission that the goddess grants her high priestess.

Dolly licks her lips as her gag turns to smoke, fades away by the magic of her goddess. The goddess perched on Valynia's shoulders, trying very hard to look casual, staring intensely at her. The goddess who is trying to give her a space pirate despite the roiling emotions in her heart, who is trying to find a way to incorporate Valynia into their play without melting down so that she can... carry out a plan? She never asked Jade about Valynia's plan, about her offer to incorporate Jade into the pirate gods. She opens her mouth, lets out a pathetic little huff, tries to find her words even as the pirate undoes her finger by finger, nibble by nibble.

"What do I want? I... I want the adventure," she admits to herself and to her goddess and to Ksharta Talonna and to Angela who is cursing at the receding back of Solarel. "That's why we're out here. The stars, and the aliens, and the pirates. But I want everyone to see Jade, too. She picked me. Out of everybody on Hybrasil she picked me to help her show the universe her glory, her divinity, and... when you kidnapped me, I. Well. Well." The inquisitive vibrates through her flesh.

She wants Valynia Bander. She's dangerous and takes what she wants and is the star of Dolly's teenage fanfics come to frustratingly sexy life. But there's a dangerous edge to being with her, too. The loss of control. The way that she wants to use Jade. There was tension and worry in that kidnapping, even while she got memories she'd only just started to blushingly share with Jade. Worry that she was going to be used to blackmail Jade, to make her serve the Banders, to be married off to a hot handsy pirate who saw her as a pawn. Jade is watching her intently. Is this all part of the plan? Valynia is tugging at the sensitive spot on the back of her neck.

What can she even say? I want you to teach Jade how to be you? I want to be your captive queen, since Angela is my rival and Ksharta is my student? I want you to pin me down and tie me up, to smuggle me out of the party in luggage, to show your Red Band how easy it is to kidnap me? I want you to be my villain, but safely, but dangerously, but in a way that won't hurt Jade? The heat of you, the smell of you, is driving me wild? I wish Jade had a body like this? No, I don't, I love her as she is, but your body makes me weak in the knees in a different way?

"If you promise," she says, as serious as she was piloting the idol by herself. She pushes back, dares to try to assert herself. "Promise me that she will be your goddess. That you'll make her your patron, and when you rule the Red Band that Jade will be the first one in your temple, the highest idol, the, the goddess of the Jade Band. You'll rename the entire pirates. The entire! You'll be the Jade Band! And Ksharta Talonna gets a free pass through your territory forever! Then..."

She swallows, dizzy, giddy. What she's getting from Jade is shock, but she's committed. For you, Jade. This time she won't fail. If this is what you want, then Seven Quetzal will perform miracles for you, too. As thanks. As a promise. And because she's very, very horny right now, and that gives her courage, too.

"Then I will fight as hard as you want," she says, and shoves Valynia Bander backwards, as hard as she can. Only a step or two, but it's enough. She pushes her hair back out of her face, lifts her chin, tries not to melt. "I will be a worthy conquest. You'll have to do your worst. Your worst. I'll scream. If you want. I'll try to escape. I'll use everything Angela taught me." (She should not have blurted that out.) "And. I'll enjoy it. Especially if you let me out for a chase every now and then. Planet to planet. A sacred hunt. My chance to see the universe with her again, your chance to catch me again, to take what you want, to... make me a prize. A trophy. Your Dolly."

"Dolly, you don't have to do this," Smokeless Jade Fires says, stepping between them, small again, flustered, her hologram-body fuzzy at the edges. "We're going to win the tournament anyway. You don't have to sell yourself to Banders just to glorify me!" Just to glorify her. Her heart's tearing. She steps forward, interlaces her fingers with her high priestess's gloves, even in front of the Bander, because she has to touch. She has to touch, as much as she can. She has to hold her beloved's hand. The high priestess who would do anything for her, and so it's up to her to look out for her sweet, vast-hearted bride.

"I can do this," Dolly whispers back, loud enough for Valynia to hear. "Like you wanted. I want to do this. Like in "Nine Parsecs Deep." The lodge back home will be... disappointed, but you'll have more worshipers than ever, you'll be able to change them, you and me and Valynia and Ksharta and maybe even Angela. That's why you told me to, you know... to seduce her."

"I what?!?" The goddess's jaw hangs open, without her even telling it to do so, moving on its own. A strange miracle that just adds to the shock it cannot help but express.

"You... when I was kidnapped... I thought you were ordering me to... that's why I..." Dolly's eyes flicker between her goddess and the pirate who she wants to pin her to the floor. She's overheating. "Did you not?! I could feel you being all seduction and want and... oh goddess." She slumps to the floor, and she can't even hide her face because Jade's still holding her hands. "...I really hope it worked?" Her look to Valynia is pleading, mortified, hopeful, insecure, vulnerable. "I still... mean it. About. I'll make that trade for... it's not even a trade. Everybody gets what they want. You get Jade's blessings. And Jade gets all of you. And I get to discover if... well... I... you know? And you get me. You get me. I want to be. gotten. Even if, I, and the seduction, and... do you still want me, Valynia?"

Jade turns to look at her rival, her potential cult leader, the impudence of Mu Ysha made flesh. The only person in the tournament who could really, truly take Dolly away from her. Angela Victoria Miera Antonius plays games, and Ksharta Talonna wants to be cherished, but Valynia Bander wants to challenge her for Dolly, to give Dolly the kind of special pleasures that only Jade could give her before, and to make Dolly a captive queen. Fear roils inside of her; fear of losing the ball game. Of being hung on the tree again. And if she lost Dolly then nobody else could fill her. Not Angela Victoria Miera Antonius, not Ksharta Talonna, not Whispered Promise. A memory not her own surfaces from within her, hugging a beloved bird-doll so tight that part of her worried that it might pop, nuzzling it like it was the only thing in the whole world.

Her whole world, sitting on the floor, looking up vulnerable and hopeful at Valynia Bander, the way that she'd looked up at her that first night.

And she can't even grab Valynia Bander and shake her by the front and toss her up and down in the air.

"No," she declares, before Valynia Bander can answer that dangerous question. The sudden sharp sting of disappointment from Dolly hurts even more. "As if I would need the worship of this, this scum! This pathetic bandit trying to take what the gods have not allotted for her! It is an insult to you and to me that she even thinks herself worthy of touching you! Why doesn't she keep her hands to herself, or better yet, why doesn't she go and hide under a rock somewhere? You, you handsy, stinking, reeking, oversexed, presumptous thief! She doesn't need you! Go keep your temples and your brands and your musk and your ion cannons and go fuck yourself with them! And then you can--"

Everyone feels it at once. Ksharta, curled up under the table. Angela, almost caught up to Solarel making her way to her mecha. Jade, phantasmal, up in Valynia's face. They all feel Dolly burying her face in her gloved hands, sobbing in embarrassment and shame and the backwash of Jade's overwhelming fear and the shock of betrayal.

And Valynia Bander gets to see, face to face, a goddess's world come crashing down around her ears.

[Insecure: take rash action to confront the object of your jealousy. Harmony drops when: one of you feels neglected or scorned by the other.]

Breathless Dead

"ShhhshshSHHH!"

Mosaic fixed her with a flat stare. The kind that made Ember feel small and silly and flustered. "Are you that ashamed of me?" The question was almost certainly a bit of barbed wit, but Ember wasn't about to let that pass, just in case. Just in case. Mosaic deserved nothing less.

"No," Ember whispered, Sincerity misting her breath, the bright orange-yellow of flowers on the mountainside, the sky at dawn as the sun broke free from the sea. "I don't want you to get in trouble for being found, like this, with a Ceronian. You might be arrested, or ostracized, or trapped underneath a very large rock!" In her mind's eye, she pictures Mosaic with her head and shoulders sticking out from underneath a mountain, chin cupped in her palm, glowering at the world for witnessing the shame of her being trapped by something too heavy for her to lift. She'd scare the sun down earlier and earlier every day, until dusk stopped existing. And then everyone would say: Ember, it is your fault that Mosaic has scared the sun into jumping down out of the sky every day. You should have known better than to seduce her and then let her get caught. You are a bad girl and you are on laundry duty for the rest of your life.

Mosaic stared at her very, very hard. Her lips twitched. That's a smile, right? She's trying not to smile? It's easier with her packmates, who broadcast what they're feeling, what they want her to feel. Mosaic just smells like Home. Like safety, and exertion, and the oil she uses for her hair. On first sight, Ember had lusted after Mosaic; on first sniff, she'd fallen in love.

Then Mosaic rolled over on top of her, pinning her down like the mountain, the muchness of her flesh sending Ember's heart racing like an athlete down some sort of prized contest's track. In the back of her head, she could hear Taurus scolding her, telling her that what she's feeling is what she needs to ignite in the hearts of her targets. The perfect operative uses desire as a leash and a garrotte, depending on what is needed to complete their mission. Between their legs, Ember's tail thwapped helplessly against Mosaic's voluptuous thighs, and underneath her, Ember held her breath, staring adoringly into the gold and the ruby of her mistress's eyes.

"I guess we'd better be quiet, then," Mosaic said, and clamped her palm over Ember's mouth. "There. Now you can't 'get me in trouble.' Is that what you wanted, Emb...?" A narrowing of the eyes, and then the curl of a lip back from a fang, one that knew Ember's neck and breasts well. "Oh. I see. No wonder you're always letting yourself get punished by that pack of strays. Well, I won't be shown up by them." Challenge glinted in Mosaic's eyes, and Ember realized that she was sweating out Lust again, hot-pink tongue-drool spread-lips Lust, growing damper with every half-hearted squirm and muffled meep beneath her lover.

This place would be obvious to any passing packmate for days.

---

"So, like, did the Earthshaker point anything out to you specifically~?"

A good girl shakes her head. A good girl flicks an ear. A good girl does not struggle more.

"Of course not, what am I sayyyying. He shows up in person for, like, the death of planets. You ever seen him, Emby?"

A good girl... isn't sure. A good girl doesn't remember, so a good girl shakes her head.

"Thought not. Wouldn't that just be wild, though, packie? Seeing Poseidon show up and knowing, ooooh, shit, we're sooooooo fucked. Well, maybe not us. Everybody else, though. Maybe us. If we were slipping. Probably not. We're his wavecaps. His silly rabbits."

You've always got to have a spotter for breath-holding exercises. Goldie volunteered. So she's lounging on top of Ember, wearing a strategically torn looted top over her wetsuit, presumably all Joy as usual. It hangs around her like a cloud, like the dye in her hair, like the oil on her cheeks, like the smile on her lips, like the servitors tripping over themselves to get her attention. Both of them are hiding out in the mayor's offices, away from most prying eyes, where Goldie can take a break from being adored and Ember can be face-down, hogtied, and buried in Gemini's craftsmanship without making anyone wonder if the wolves are turning on each other.

If she takes a breath, she'll regret it. Chastisement, blossoming hot and red and intense in her nostrils, and Disappointment hanging low and heavy underneath. In a real fight, Ember, this breath might be the one that makes you start drowning. Goldie will keep track for you and change out your gag every few hours; let's see how well you can do for the clan, little wolf. And a knowing smile, a caress of her cheek, a reminder of the incredible high of being loved by the pack.

And yet, unbidden creeps in the thought of Mosaic opening the door, tossing Goldie out the window with one hand (not that Goldie deserves it, she's one of Ember's pack favorites, but Mosaic absolutely would), asking Ember what she'd gotten herself in to this time, tossing her over one shoulder, maybe spanking her a little, and carrying her off as a trophy, daring anyone in the pack to fight over her. For her. Unable to so much as squeak, feeling Mosaic's hand on her side, paraded out in front of the village as Mosaic carried her off as a prize, telling Gemini to her face that she'd trained Ember too well in seduction and sensuality...

"You're doing real well, Embs," Goldie continues. "Too well. How about a little challenge?" Her claws whisper up and down Ember's sides, the soles of her feet, right behind her ears, as Ember strains every muscle in her body and grinds her forehead into the floor, holding her breath like a true warrior, seconds stretching out into infinity waiting for the playful gold-dyed Ceronian to end the semi-random spike in difficulty, each and every one of her strained whimpers swallowed up into the thickness of Gemini's cloth, almost as beloved as Mosaic's palm.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

How Do You Do, Fellow Teens?

• Vermillion Princess - dork, colleague, bearer of the Armillary Sash
• Bai Xiuying - transbian grad student, bass player for BABALON

Old Enough To Know Better

• Director Li - runs the HOUND Rapid Response Team, thinks guns keep people safe
• Stone Monkey - wants to run the city's jianghu so that he can do whatever he wants
• Tiger King - wants to run the city's jianghu so he can profit off crime
• Doctor Huan - desperately trying to explain to the funding committee that she didn't cause the ghost crisis
• ArAN - Tumblr illustrator who hit the big leagues, nearly didn't make this list but is barely old enough to be an Adult(tm)
• Joshua Chan - runs on coffee, runs Terochimomo Net Cafe

Respect Your Elders

• Empress - bearer of the Mandate of Heaven, Hero of the Republic
• Kirin - sorceress supreme, diviner of possible futures
• Lady Foxfire - lost a tail in her last fight with Empress, vanished into one of her many secret identities
• Jade Mayor - on his eighth consecutive term in office

Mysteries

• Xingtian - apparently the power source they needed for their armor was ghosts
• Thunderbird - apparently the power source they needed for their winged jetsuit and lightning cannon was ghosts
• Helldiver - apparently the power source they needed for their dimensional-hole-tearing gauntlets was ghosts

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

The promise of Sky Gate City is the promise of the nation: that no one goes hungry, that no one goes without treatment, that no one lacks the opportunity to make something of themselves. The Big Peach is the shining jewel of the Republic, built to exacting geomantic design in order to promote good fortune and prosperity for all.

But the promise is for sufficiency, not the fulfillment of dreams, and there’s no magic spell that can cure human nature.

In Welcome to the Big Peach, you read about Hsien Lang as she uncovered the mystery of her origins as the tail of Lady Foxfire, lost in her last battle with Empress and Kirin; you fell in love with Rain Lanahe, the grad student pursuing the mysteries of magic and science; and you marveled at the heroics of the Vermillion Princess, mystically empowered by the Armillary Sash.

You were shocked by the death of the Grandmaster of the Flower Mountain Triad at the hands of a mysterious assassin, which sent the city’s jianghu into uproar. You were on the edge of your seat when Rain got herself sucked into the underworld during the Night of Eight Million Ghosts. You winced as the Jade Mayor announced that the chaos in the streets could only be met by a special task force, given Empress’s heroic effort holding the Doors of Yama shut. And you had to wonder:

Is HorizonCon really going to be canceled just because of a few mad scientists and an outbreak of ghosts?

Find out in Ghost Gate City…

Breathless Dead

Of course the rest are for fun. Gemini is all about fun.

She's the Fun Mom of the pack, where Taurus is more serious. (Ignore that Taurus is about the same age as Ember; age isn't important to the Silver Divers, just experience and competence. The only requirement for being leader of the pack is proving, over and over again, that you are the leader of the pack.) When there's plunder to be won, Gemini is there. She's the one who receives the loot and the one who parcels it back out, stopping arguments over ownership before they can even begin. When there's a party to be had, Gemini is the one at the middle of it, playing scent like a harp, supremely indulgent but never losing control of her self. Taurus wins arguments by wrestling her opponents into submission, but Gemini wins arguments by making them never happen in the first place, or redirecting their energy when they happen.

Both of them are happy here. That's part of why they offered pack membership to Ember; they took pity on her and wanted to let her share in their joy.

Even so, approaching Gemini while she's working/playing is difficult. The crystal-clear images in Ember's head keep her from veering off to play, despite the squirming clerks all around, tied to chairs dragged out from their archival office, drowning in Indulgence and Defeat and Invitation, with scritchies and ear-rubs and kisses from passing Ceronians, and with the conductor in the middle of the sharing circle, sunglasses perched on her forehead, dressed in a loose gown with flowing sleeves, a vision worthy of an Azura master-painter as she runs a bolt through her hands, soaking it with artisanal scents, impossible to look away from as she stoops and pulls it snugly over just the right clerk's face, her sleeves whispering against their bound arms as she knots it snugly into place...

But Ember is a good girl. She stands to attention and radiates Urgency. Two of the clerks start struggling harder, ears twitching, trying to look anywhere that isn't a wolfgirl, only able to slowly rotate in the spinning chairs, but that's enough to get Gemini's attention. The sunglasses come down with a huff, and if she wasn't here on serious business, Ember would be tucking her tail between her legs and trying to make herself smaller, apologizing for interrupting Gemini's art.

"Share your report."

"I was on a training exercise," Ember dutifully recounts, hands behind her back, legs apart, chin up. Respectful stance, as befits the pack omega. "I still remember the exercise data and can recount it if you want. However, while returning to base, I encountered something new and noteworthy on two separate occasions." Gemini nods. There is no fear in Ember, only the relief of being able to share her sense experience. "First, while diving off the coast to avoid patrolling Corvii, I saw a dragon in the sky above, fifty meters above the water. It was five meters long, nose to tail. It was translucent, but filled with colors and light; I don't know if it can hide the colors to make itself more difficult to spot. The impression was crystal, not glass. From its mouth it projected a grid of light on the seabed, and this grid highlighted three-dimensional objects, including myself. After I was scanned by the grid, it focused the grid into a laser which it used to alert the Corvii patrols. Notably, it didn't attempt to use the laser to disable me, and it didn't chase after me. It's possible that it represents new discoveries in silicate-based biomancy, but I believe it's a relic of the gods, possibly Apollonian in nature."

Gemini nods. Not the nod of a new discovery for her, but of something she isn't surprised was new to Ember. Bashfulness coats Ember's inner arms. She's still the sapling, still the cub. But she hasn't done anything wrong; she's done exactly what is expected of her as a member of the Silver Divers by reporting this.

So she continues.

"I was pulled deeper out to sea by an unnatural current that I believe was a sign from the Horsefather. After swimming for approximately thirty minutes, approaching the limits of my ability to sustain my breath, I discovered what I was being shown: a structure of cyclopean size and make on the seabed. I can't estimate its length or height, but it was like a mountain range on the bottom of the sea. The water around it was polluted, and my instincts told me that it was leakage from the structure. In delirium, I approached the structure despite the toxicity of the water around it and had a vision which was difficult to interpret. It involved stars, and a star beneath the water, and crew instead of attendants. My original guess was that it was a temple built by humanity and drowned, intentionally or otherwise, by some change in the planet's climate, given its impossible scale. However, after having the vision, I think it's some form of starfaring craft, one which would require the entire clan to function at its barest minimum. I estimate that, drained and made functional, it could carry multiple Ceronian warhosts, or an entire planetary population. As I left, in need of air and disturbed by the nature of the vision, the Warsphere in orbit approached the site. I don't know whether they were previously aware of the site. It is possible that they have been charged with keeping us unaware of the site and now will need to escalate in an attempt to drive us away, but I think it's more likely that they were also unaware of the site and that they will move immediately to secure it. However, we have the edge in war in our patron's domain. We can take it and secure it, perhaps even repair it if my instincts about its purpose are correct."

Ember licks her lips.

"Do you still want the information from my training exercise, Gemini?"

Probably not. This is more serious than one of her training games. But she can't assume. It's possible Gemini will want her to recite the information just to prove that she is capable of holding it all in her head. She stands in submissive attention, waiting for her Alpha to require more of her or to dismiss her. She is Not looking at the clerks. It would be really fun to be told she can do whatever she wants now. There's one with a mop of curly hair and a lap that's begging for her to sit down in as she practices her own tactical pheromone usage with scarf and kiss and the remnants of his stuffy buttoned shirt. But she can't yet. She hasn't finished her duty until Gemini tells her she can stand down.

Ember is, after all, a very good girl. The one who takes this seriously, because she's the bottom of the pack. The one who takes this seriously, because the god of the Silver Divers has given them a sign. The one who takes this seriously, because she's so hungry for praise. And the one who takes this seriously, because Gemini might toss her right back to Plundering Fang, who might pull out another chair and make her an honorary clerk for the day. The Silver Divers may be egalitarian, but Ember's still earning her place among them, and being the bottom of the pack makes for a very respectful and dutiful young huntress. And, besides, nobody mouths off to Gemini. She'll just smile and then arrange your imminent downfall, possibly by having Taurus get you when you least expect it.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Two Empresses move forward, but not as fast as one Terenian. There's fire on her wrists and a goddess riding her, plain to see, a warrior chosen for a battle. Promises on the table from both empresses, and so much glory for you to win, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius, if you listen. Take it all and you can be the rival that Dolly truly deserves, the beautiful Terenian who--

No, that's not right, Dolly realizes, and offers a silent prayer to her goddess. She's part of this, too, and Angela doesn't want rivalry for its own sake. Take it all and you won't be anyone's joke, Angela. Can you tell her that, Jade? I have never thought of her as a joke, but she's been hurt by people's refusal to take her seriously before. And-- goddess-- my goddess-- yes, she'll be a good kitten, hands behind your waist, won't let go--

Take it all, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius, and...

"I saw this," Jade whispers in her Terenian's ear as she comes in hard, jabs at the Zaldarian's guard, takes early ground. Around them, a convergence; behind her, two empresses close in, unwilling to see their promises granted to this warrior. "Your potential. Your fury. Your warrior-heart. That is why I marked you as mine, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. I could think of no greater conquest save my first, my greatest, my beloved."

Dolly melts into the rub of her cheek and looks up with devastatingly soft eyes at her pirate captor, another hand of her goddess, and like this, it's easy to see why the goddess fell in love with her from afar. She leans into the gag, mewls like a girl who gets to have her fantasies come true every day, and when Jade guides her face into Valynia Bander's chest, she breathes in like she's on the beach trying to drink in the sea air, fingers curling against the pirate's back.

"Tell her your plans. Threaten her with your worst," Smokeless Jade Fires whispers in the pirate's ear. "She's a naughty little thing who wants to be the damsel in distress. Distress her. I'll take my time to save her tonight." Unspoken: but I will save her. I am in control of the scene. I am giving her to you because I love her and you are making her so, so happy for me.

Her fingers trace Valynia's neck, measuring for a collar.

Joy is clear on Angela Victoria Miera Antonius's face as she becomes, for a moment, the center of the room, armed with an ambassador's stave wrenched out of his hands, using it like a Hybrasilian spear, carving space for herself out of the fray. The goddess gives to those she loves, and in this moment, it's impossible for her not to see Angela Victoria Miera Antonius as Dolly sees her: the physicality, the demand for attention, the sweat on her bare arms, the bounce of her dark hair, the broad white teeth bared in a victory-grin.

The thought of Angela barging into the room, flush with victory, and revealing that she was in league with the Red Band the entire time makes Dolly's knees buckle and makes her bury her face in Valynia. And now, little huntress, I will have my revenge for what happened on Akar II, and then, and then-- but then after she's pawed at and groped and treated like a pirate's prize, at a party of all things, unable to cry out for help from oblivious partygoers, oh, then, Valynia double-crosses Angela, and she's got access to the outfits from Akar II, and she leaves them on the bed together for Jade, and, mmmfff, Angela in that pink-red gauze, tied so tightly together that Dolly can't lift her face from those generous alien breasts...

Angela's breathing heavier, and she's flushed for reasons that don't have to do with the battle. She's getting some images, some echoes, and Jade might be encouraging her by giving her glimpses of Dolly pressed up against her, batting those eyes, making her adoring little noises. But that's just part of the expanded senses Jade is offering. Words are becoming less useful, not when the emotions and the images are so much more immediate and easier for the goddess to spread out among those she's connected to. This is hard for her too, you know. But fighting and fucking start with the same letter, don't they?

No one can touch Angela Victoria Miera Antonius, not while she is dancing with a goddess on her back. Her prize awaits her in a side chamber, to be rescued or betrayed, but it is one of several prizes that can be won. All she has to do is fend off two Zaldarian empresses and somehow defeat this Zaldarian knight who gets fiercer the harder she's pressed, a battle-lust that is a mirror of Angela Victoria Miera Antonius's own, but guarded, not able to burst forth the way the laughter spills from Angela Victoria Miera Antonius's lips.

Dolly sways her hips, invitingly, but also to let Angela know that war is a dance. And she spares a moment to say another prayer for Ksharta Talonna, who is just as good a girl, and who would most definitely save Dolly and Angela before the station exploded. The station is allowed to explode because of Red Band explosives, it's her fantasy and she doesn't have to worry about logistics. But Jade shouldn't do that. Can you hear her, Jade? Some fantasies can remain fantasies, Ksharta can just say that the station's about to explode as she parades two lovely slave-girls back towards the idol, Jade, and also maybe tonight isn't the right night to do actual exhibitionism, and, mmmph, yes, knee there, nip there, tug her head back by the hahahahaiiiiir...

[An Entice has occurred, and it is a 9. It is Dolly attempting to entice Valynia, but it is also Jade enticing Angela with Dolly, and it is also Angela enticing Solarel through glorious combat. <3]

Breathless Dead

A dark shape cuts through the water with the ease of a shark. Out of the many dangers of the deep, she knows that she is one of them; that she is a part of the host of the outside. And so as a shark, sharp-toothed and sleek, dangerous but not vicious, Ember passes by crabs and jellyfish with equal ease. The residual intensity of the Adaption Instinct edges everything in crisp colors, but by the time that she beholds the ruin, it had almost passed. Almost.

It roars up her spine again, eyes wide, aware that what she is seeing is, no, has the capability of being a threat. It is without life, without animation, but it is intrinsically dangerous. Like a sword, lying unsheathed on a table. Even broken on the seafloor, this cyclopean ruin (for it was they, the one-eyed, who made the weapons of the gods) is a possible threat to the Silver Divers, and it is...

It is not her responsibility to investigate yet. And yet, she hovers in the water, slowly treads, looks down at the achingly familiar mystery. It is her duty to bring news of the dragon and its light-scanner to her packmates. It is, technically, still her duty to fulfill her training exercise. Going on an exploration of whatever lies inside that husk, bleeding death into the water, a slow accumulation of toxins that have her shivering just from the trace elements working their way into her nose from this far away, is not her duty. If she dies, breathless and trapped, or poisoned by the deathwound of this titan, then her information about the dragon's tactical capabilities may come too late. It is not her duty.

And yet, she struggles. She can see a gash torn in its flank, the deathblow of a comet. She yearns to swim inside, to walk down its halls, to see the drowned fountains, the miles of corridors cable-wreathed, the old chambers, the starheart, the starheart, the starheart, bound in adamant and raging, even buried beneath the weight of Poseidon, its veins seeping into the water, its claws abandoned in the corridors, its crew all shelled and pincered now, missing the captain, missing the temple, missing the stowaways, missing the statue, missing the princess, missing--

Her hand touches its flank and she starts. The water around her is clouded, stagnant, clinging to her fur. She kicks off, nostrils sealed, limbs pumping, and spends far too long getting to where the water is clear, and her heart is racing, and the tightness in her chest tells her that it is time for her to return to the surface. But she knows.

The way, that is. If she can lead from the beach, the dragon has given her the gift of knowing exactly, exactly how to reach the fallen titan. She can come back with packmates, with wetsuits, with rebreather muzzles, with her Alphas, who will know what to do with this impossible primordial corpse, how to pick its bones, how to learn its secrets, how to call for a reclaimer fleet; with pumps, this could even be their new fortress until it is lifted back into the stars.

It belongs among the stars.

Is she light-headed because the sun is drawing close, or because the thought has lodged inside of her brain like a knife in flesh?

It belongs hanging, impossible, beautiful, among the stars, and she belongs on it.

She loves it like she loves her pack. She knows its secrets, its turns, its furious planet-devouring heart.

And she has never seen it before in her life.

Ember breaks the surface of the waves with a gasp that is a scream, and she reaches up, tries to keep going, lifts her hand up towards the sky and the stars, and then she bobs beneath the water again, and the shock of it makes her sputter, shake her head, unseal her nostrils. She is already trying to sweat out toxins. She needs to get to her pack, to be hosed down, to deliver her message, and then--

And then they will invade the sea.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The timing's uncanny; the live musical performance has changed from the moving Hybrasilian ballad Among the Reeds, Unseen to a modernized performance of the traditional Terenian folk song Rotten Red Fruit, with a pre-programmed light show casting shadows of old gods and demons on the walls. Jade lets them through. (It's not that she's micromanaging the entire electronics system here, it's more that she's added herself to the great big complex system, another layer of projection and audio, Ksharta thinks.) The whine of the guitar, the thump-thump-thump of the drum (like all their hearts), the lyrics of defiance in the face of the two-faced coin of oppression and desire, they're all for this, all for now, for

Angela, whirling, catching the Empress of Zaldar behind her ankle and swinging her down into a dip, so she can whirl her back up and send her spinning into her rival, so she can spread her arms and laugh, so she can have the Empress shoved back into her, the impact sending shivering sparks across her front, the impact enough to rock her back on her heels, but those nails are digging into her shoulders as she's clutched possessively

Dolly, pulled into a red-lamped room, pinned against the wall, as Valynia thumbs the faint shape on her shoulder where her fur hasn't fully grown back in yet, the same shape Dolly insisted on only having partially filled in, the same shape Dolly's found herself occasionally touching, and the way Valynia rubs up against her and smiles sends shivering sparks across her front, and she takes a deep breath

Jade, many-eyed, but the security cameras weren't cleared for this performance, and the shadows shivering across the walls remind her too much of the underworld, and Dolly's delight is the same as Angela's delight and they're both things that she can't give, not really, the impact and the softness, the violence and the scent, but she does her best, doesn't she, and her jealousy claws and bites against the growing realization that she can feel it, too, she can smell it, too, she can feel fierce and small at the same time, if she closes her eyes she can feel the blood pumping hard under Angela's skin and she can smell Valynia Bander's intoxicating perfume

Ksharta hiding behind the buffet table, tail curling and twitching, aware that literally everyone else in this harem/polycule/channel/situation is horny as fuck right now

Angela, one wrist twisted behind her back as she's sandwiched between two possessive dragon girls, using her other hand to tilt up an imperial jaw, teeth bared in a grin, feeling the excited shiver as she pushes herself back against the other, dimly aware that she's the axis on which an entire species' intrigue turns tonight, wishing that there was something similar for the kittens, imagine if there were two goddesses fighting over her

Dolly, feeling Valynia's fangs on her neck, tugging, tongue dragging on her fur, mewling into her, but with enough devotion to her goddess to try and give as good as she's getting, cupping Valynia's toned butt and lifting it into a biscuit, wishing that the wall behind her was Jade feeling her up, and it would be bad if she was kidnapped from the party, wouldn't it, it would be a security disaster, so there's reasons to hope that doesn't happen, beyond the tangled-up feelings of what that would do to Jade

Jade, running into someone, no, through someone, passing through them like a ghost, wishing she was able to tear herself apart and be everywhere at once, glorying in Angela's physicality the way that Dolly does, helping Valynia turn her priestess into a shivering mess, running a reassuring hand through the fur on the back of Ksharta's head, and

"You know we can feel it, too," Ksharta whispers.

The desire is a loop, the want that is tying the four of them together, one hand clutched together, the other reaching out. There's more bleed the more it gets; palms over mouths, hands on wrists, eyes drinking it in, and the yawning need to meet those desires, to be a good girl, to make them sing like Whispered Promise can.

Jade stops. She doesn't know what room she's in. The song is reaching a crescendo. Black and white war on the shining walls, each one containing the next figure. She crosses her legs and folds her hands in her lap, seated on the air, and she opens up her heart, unfolding like the flower, and in that moment of vulnerability her harem can feel her helplessness on the strings of Whispered Promise, her need to keep Dolly safe, her hunger to be good for them and to deserve them.

And her hands are on Angela's wrists, guiding, squeezing, a halo of jade fire around her head, an encouragement to give as good as she can get, to make her goddess proud, to teach them not to underestimate Angela Victoria Miera Antonius, to show the goddess what this kind of fight is like and how to glory in having a body, how to enjoy the throb of pain, and she'll guide you to the victory you want

And her hands are under Dolly's corset, under Valynia's dress, digging in, working in circles, the hot breath on Valynia's neck, and if you want her you must have me too, the sting of the brand on Dolly's shoulder replaying on Valynia's skin, and hands between them offering materials with which to shut her up, this is how we play, Valynia Bander, with magic and trust and the glory of a goddess, and what you do to her you share with the harem

And her hands are running slow trails through Ksharta's fur, relaxing, comforting, reassuring, you are part of us but you are not required to lose yourself in the decadence, my heart is a stone temple and there is unquenchable fire there which gives off no smoke but there is also water, cool on the tongue, soothing, and in this space it is your choice to walk into the fire, and you are my good girl, Ksharta Talonna, I am proud of you, your cooking and your hunting, and your courage to wear me tonight, now tap my hand if you need more attention because Dolly you are a bad, bad girl, seduce her MORE, use your BODY, show her why I CHOSE YOU, I LOVE YOU--

And guests gawk at the figure of the goddess, eyes closed, handless arms unfolding behind her like the petals of the flower, the water of the Fishers dripping from her mask, an art installation, another performance, they say that she's actually the mecha that Seven Quetzal pilots, you weren't here when she pulled herself free from it, she's actually a hologram and a Hybrasilian psyop because of the Empresses being here tonight, you can pass right through her, what in the world is she doing?

Smokeless Jade Fires doesn't care. She can't. Her world is three women, and what she can be for them. That is enough.