Tatterdemalion

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Jade’s laughter is a hop and a skip away from being frenzied. Like a real person’s recorded voice, it strains against the limitations of the medium. There is spittle in that laughter, but also relief.

She was never offered this among the gods. And Dolly is stiffening under her hands because doesn’t really know what a knight is. (Armor, service, dedication, savior, dragonslayer, wins the princess, round table, all connections flashing through Jade as she reaches for them.)

“Then defeat me, Sir Promise! Only by overcoming the gods can you win the right to face the Dragon!” And this is what she can do. This is her magic. Transforming the world through her words and will. Making it right and good and soft for her Dolly, and judging the wishes of those who pray to her.

She has already won what she wanted to pry out of Whispered Promise from the very first moment they met. She has won the respect of that slinking, impudent, unreadable trickster. And when she becomes the Road to the Kingdom, she will be—

She will make everyone happy. Oh, Dolly will have to learn what a knight is, but they’ll have plenty of time together as honorable runners-up. Plenty of time. Together.

But that doesn’t mean she’s going to make it easy. A knight has to be challenged, don’t they? Yes. They do. She has decided this, and so it is law. A fair fight. And how Dolly squeals when the swords nip at her! Shh, Dolly dearest, and you, o watching knight, behold the gift of the goddess drawn across that squeaking mouth, and the shiver as the blindfold is raised and her eyes meet the intense gaze of the knight who fights her goddess with respect.

Now all that is left is to punish that impudent hand before they are done. (She is a hunt-goddess. She cannot help it. She must have her trophy, after all.) So she lunges— or, rather, she lunges Dolly. Their body-mecha crash together as Jade reaches for the hand that desecrated her altar. Give it to her, Whispered Promise! Let her know that you were properly chastened, and your jibes about spanking kittens shall be magnanimously forgiven!

Breathless Dead

"Welcome!"

The Knight, from above, makes a bold gesture, a sweeping of the arm, an acknowledgement of the great worthies of the universe, and chief among them the Lady of the Plousios, the Queen Under Heaven, Mosaic Regina. Her eyes are alight, quite literally, and her raiment glimmers as she smiles proudly, her own guest shyly coiling behind her. "Hestia bless all of you, friends of Our Lady, and may you find your true dream here aboard our pleasure-palace! Our hearthflame is sparking and soon will be properly kindled; our Corvii are working the molecular bellows like Hundred-Handed Cottus! We have musicians ready, a chef stolen from the finest kitchen on Bitemark, and enough champagne to fill the Cocytus!"

She jumps down from her vantage point, leaving the friendly Magi behind, so that she can bound up to her love and... "Well met, fellow knight," she says, bowing low. "I am Ember, a humble servant of the Lady Mosaic. And you are doubtless the flower of Azura chivalry, a sword's blade folded a hundred thousand times. If it would please you, I invite you to our dueling grounds for a sparring match; I would like to test my meager skills against your own, developed over the course of a lifetime." Her tail wags eagerly, and the ring on her finger is beautiful as she presses her hand against her chest. "But I dare not monopolize your time amongst the wonders of our vessel. Come in! Come in! This is the place where dreams are true."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

What!? This is impossible! How are you doing this?! I am invincible! Curses! Curse you and curse your entire clan! I will have my revenge!!

To her credit, Smokeless Jade Fires says none of these things. She is young enough, enough of a kitten, to be able to accept when something is impossible, and then to see how it is done anyway. Her divinity is not calcified, and she can see the shape of Mirror's movements in her cognition.

"No," Dolly says, and her voice is small. "We never had to fight in the war. This is as close as we can come, and I hope-- I hope we never do. I tasted what it's like to fight for real, in that last match, and it's awful. This shouldn't be a war. And even having a wish at the end... no, I suppose that's why everyone else showed up. It would be awful if we took it from you or your opponents, wouldn't it? Even if we gave it away to second place, Jade..."

Then she hisses, because Jade can only do so much to shelter her from the feedback of an explosion rocking her hip, her breastbone, her ankle twisting. She nearly crumples under the precise fire of the tail, which is tracking her every movement before she makes it, because Whispered Promise knows what she's going to do before she does it.

"Even if I would let you lose, dearest one," Jade says, fierce pride for the both of them burning in her voice, as she whistles for the jackals to race down the alleyways, their one hope shattering the iron focus in those watery and pale eyes, "do you think I can lose to the likes of this trickster, my bride? This god-defying warrior? Who denies my offers, who lords her age over us, who... no! Push your buttons, pull your levers, but know that I will not submit so easily!"

For the sake of her goddess, Seven Quetzal throws herself into the punishment of tails without any complaint that manages to escape her well-trained lips, and for the sake of her bride, Smokeless Jade Fires desperately tries to find another impossible victory, another miracle that she can use to prove that she deserves Dolly's love.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

"Kittens?"

The sudden flash of the spear pierces one of the tails through its engine. Even furious, Smokeless Jade Fires knows better than to try and go for the kill; the punishment would be immediate. Even here, seeking to dismantle the tails one by one, to peel back the defenses of the Fisher, Dolly's footwork is frantic.

"How dare you mock my recent birth?! Impudent, disgraceful little thing!" A low swing, an attempt to throw Mira off-balance long enough to harpoon another tail, or best of all to trick her into firing on herself. "You are infuriating! So smug, so teasing, thinking that you are better than me because you have nothing to prove!"

"What is your wish?" Video linkup accepted. The headband of her ornate headdress is over her eyes, cloth draped around the hollow of her neck, lines of vibrant cobalt the net that she is hopelessly caught in. False but more real than real, a look offered at the bride of the goddess and how she fights, or rather, does not fight. In her hands, the lance is a long dancer's pole garlanded in sashes. She is bare-chested, adorned in gold, unable to reveal fluster without the use of her ears or tail. "All we need is... all I want is for everyone to see her for who she is."

"And everyone will see Dolly wreathed in my glory when we overcome you, and the Zaldarian, and everyone will have to admit that the goddess born from stone is more than an accident of weave-programming!" For a moment, she is visible behind Dolly, teeth and eyes and claws in multitude, a sudden shock of blue jade fire. She vaults, kicks one tail into another's flight path.

"We do owe you, Whispered Promise," Dolly says, her skirt settling as she lands, braids wild about her shoulders, already moving into the position demanded by the pull of her goddess's strings. "If you apologize, we can, I can... we do still owe you. I don't want to crush your dreams."

"For your rudeness! For distressing my wife! For treating the hunt and the contest like a puzzle to be solved and passed through untouched! All of it, [God-Wrestling Trickster]!"

Dolly leaps, and twists in midair, and her feet fly at the screen as their idol kicks the Gods-Smiting Whip in the chest- and does this force the One-Day Defender to stumble back into a hidden mine, or is this exactly where Mira wanted them?

[8 to Fight. Take a String, seize a superior position, if you please.]

Breathless Dead

"Ha! This wonder of the cosmos has been through worse! I would like to see them try to overcome us, and--"

The spirit of the Plousios is interrupted by the hand gripping her jaw, squeezing her cheeks, pulling her close. Her tail ducks between her legs as she instinctively whimpers and lowers her ears, looking as small as a Pix, indicating that she is no threat and does not intend to start a fight. Her eyes widen as the implications of what is being threatened sink in. A dilemma. If she downplays, acts humbly, she simply makes herself seem more mysterious, more of a prize. If she boasts, she makes herself seem worth the terrible risk.

"Against the gods themselves man contends in vain," she says, meekly, piously. "Our Lady is the daughter of Artemis, the moonclad huntress, and she is crowned with their favor. To try and claim me is to invite your own destruction, o my honorable guest. She would do anything for my sake," she says, so earnestly that it might even be true, "and that is if I am not forced to protect you from yourself, sagacious one." She reaches up and places one hand on the Magi's wrist. It is a soft grip, until the Magi attempts to shake it away. It's incredible how she can ooze the charm of a humble, tamed Ceronian and still display the swordgrip of a knight, isn't it?

"As for kindling the hearth: certainly! I am sure our learned ones and mystics will be certain to help you!" She waves one hand down a brightly-lit corridor[1], beaming the sort of smile that won over Mosaic's heart in the first place. "After all, that is a holy act, one that must be carried out with proper consultation from the gods, with sacrifice and divination, with the offering of jewels to the flame and other such sacred acts!"

---

[1]: The damp drips down from the lichen-blackened walls. Tiles are missing underfoot. There is a suggestion of scuttling up high in the yawning dark. Sour salt lingers on the tongue. This deep within the ship, it is almost as if it is still down there, beneath the heavy waves, and that all around is crushing death, and only its hallowed walls hold the flood at bay.

Breathless Dead

The name of this palace is Plousios.

It is five kilometers long and one kilometer tall. A full fifth of its expanse is dedicated to glorious Hestia, providing the warm wind that billows throughout its winding corridors. Another fifth is the prow, shining, inlaid with golden paeans to Poseidon's glory and might. Inside, there is room for an entire city of intrigue, astonishment and delight, and yet the genius of its design is such that a pack of Ceronians may man it, resplendent in their uniforms of pearl and coral.

"Here," she says, spreading her arms, letting the ruby on her finger flash in the mirror-light, "is the Souk of Ourashima!" The sound of running water is omnipresent here, cascading down ornamental falls, fountaining up into the air, running down diamond-tiled channels, visible wherever carpets and pelts have not been laid. The yawning roof above is bright white-gold, and the light turns the spray and the jewels into prisms. This is the treasure-house of the Lady of the Plousios, who looks down forbiddingly from the marbled throne on the wall: ruby and citrine her eyes, sapphires and obsidian splinters her hair, pearl the flash of one fang. Ember touches her lips, one breast, and then bows in the direction of the mosaic. "Hera keep your heart," she says in ritual blessing. Then, turning her attention to the visiting Magi and her retinue again, she beams: "Here, all of us in the court of the Lady play at commerce. The tribute of a thousand thousand worlds flows through our hands in this place! She brooks no theft, here, in the treasure-vault of heaven, so we all must haggle for whatever we like. Keep what you like, trade whatever you do not as dearly as you can, and give the Lady her tithe when we next arrive in port! It is one of our many wonderful games aboard, along with the Vasillian Arena, the Phantasmagoria of the Two-in-One, the Orchidwars (which you may already be embroiled in, but only as a pawn, never the victim, not until you join the court or the crew and begin the dance of high-and-low), the Dolcenarium, the Repository of Saffrons, and the astonishing False-beach of Tides." Names spill easily off her tongue, strange fantasies, shapes that resist definition; her head is full of strange smoke.

She helps the Magi pick her way up through the souk, pays no heed to her retinue's bristling, pouts and preens when her guest-and-host (strange, to be both?) has such trouble making her way up through the crowd. What a way to be acting in the midst of paradise! "Wherever you like, I will show you," she offers brightly and easily, the silver ink glowing on her fur. "Though if you wish to sneak into the Court of Bells or the Divers' Rock, you accept the consequences~! The greatest reward comes with the greatest risk, after all, and you will quite be pulled into the Orchidwars if you are caught! Nothing can be hidden from Our Lady's eye for long~!" Her tail wags in playful mischief. "Whatever you want of me is yours, guest of Our Lady; your wish is my command!"

Then, a thought surfaces like the shell of a turtle, and with a coquettish flutter of her eyes and a hiding of her face, she continues: "Except, regrettably, I must warn you against requesting me. There are places here where you may watch me dance, if you like, and in those places there is fine music, and all kinds of delightful substances to indulge in, and you will not want for any sort of eager company, and there are such trees in that place..." For a moment, her brow furrows, her voice trails off. But that is such a slippery thought, and not one appropriate for such a lovely place. "But I am Our Lady's most favoritest favorite, her good girl, her pet Diver, and she would punish us both terribly if you challenged her claim, dearest heart. I am the most perilous prize in this entire souk, sweet Merya. She defeated the Divers for me; she pursued me so, so far. So far. Across the Plousios and back! So anything else, my Magi, ask anything else of me and you will be enriched thereby, but just do not wish for the phoenix's egg, or for Our Lady's seat, or for me!"

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Reverberations, then silence. Dust, settling. Stillness.

"Then what is the fucking point of this, Whispered Promise?" There is audio distortion at the edges of Jade's voice. Maybe it's intentional. Maybe it's more than that. "Tournaments are a game! So what if you aren't the one who gets to-"

Dolly taps her lips and closes her eyes, stressing to her goddess that this is important. The bindings of the goddess fall away, and Jade stalks behind their body, passing through towers like smoke through air, lashing her tails and growling, that growl still the undercurrent of her pilot's voice.

"Why do you need to face her, Mira?" Dolly's voice is small, despite the vastness bouying it up. Unassuming, gentle, trying to snuggle up against her at a party, trying to get her to relax with cards and snacks and drinks. "You're about to snap in half like your nail, and... we do owe you. At least enough to not... why aren't you enjoying this? We want to show the world Jade's glory, and not lose to the Banders, but... who comes to a tournament they think is stupid, and makes themselves miserable, just to fight one Zaldarian knight?"

"She pilots our body once and she thinks she's unknowable and untouchable," Jade murmurs, behind and below Dolly. "As if it's my fault that the Banders had their own gods on their side, both times. When she tells you to shut up, we go for her throat. I'll beat her with her own tails."

"This hasn't always been fun, but that's always been because of, of what's outside the fight. This is thrilling, and daring, and everybody's watching us, and I can't, we can't... we owe you for what you did, Mira. Saving me. I can't solve your problems, but I can't even help if you don't say something, please, just... you're not my enemy. And almost nobody in this tournament's been an enemy, just a friend I hadn't met yet. I don't want you to walk away as one today."

Stillness. Dust, settling. Silence, then the reverberations of Dolly's breath.

---

This may be the stupidest thing that Angela has ever done. Ever. In her life. But she's done plenty of stupid things already in this tournament, and look where it's got her: on the ropes, trying to figure out how she can pivot from failure, and clawing for any scrap of victory and respect that she can get her hands on. A long, slow, lingering defeat? That's not her style.

The fight with the Zaldarians, that's her style. And that's not going to happen as long as that sword's there to cut her apart as soon as she closes in. But Marcina knows that her zone is impenetrable, which will let her try the impossible, stupid plan of firing her missiles at point-blank range, charging into the explosion of chaff and grazing impacts, and-

So of course it's not a simple thing to disarm someone in a fight like this. There are power cables. There is a grasp that could swing a mountain around by the roots. But all of Marcina's strategy relies on that sword, and if Angela wants to level the field at all, her only option is to swing her head in for a headbutt even as she tries to force a release of that sword, to let it fall by Marcina's side trailing from its cables, to...

Well, to do what Smokeless Jade Fires would do. Make the match about something different, something you can win at, because if you play the game that your opponent wants to play, you're doomed.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

Hsien!

"Ma'am, don't worry! Help is on the way! Unidentified Anomalous Creature, you have five seconds to remove yourself from the civilian or we will exercise lethal force!"

So the good news is that it's just two of the idiot HOUND soldier cosplayers, presumably drawn over by the sound of a damsel in great distress. The bad news is that they're pointing guns at the wombat, which is refusing to shift itself from taking a nap(?) directly on top of you. Having something directly on top of you being shot at sounds like a great way to accidentally get shot yourself, and also, won't these dinguses (in big, face-concealing helmets) try to arrest you once they realize exactly who you are? You're lucky that a headless wombat is just such a great distraction...

---

Shifu!

Izi gives you a long, lingering, impossible-to-read look before sighing and deleting the picture off her phone. "Well, I did promise."

"For the record," Chan butts in, "we can't transform. Except by transforming into old people with back problems, one day at a time."

"Now, what was that about needing to find your parents? Because I can set something up," Izi continues. "Set the group chat on it. Are they somewhere in the city? Do you even know? What do they look like? Can they look like anything, because they're shapeshifters? That would be really tough..."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Don't worry, Whispered Promise. Smokeless Jade Fires has the lilt to return and then some in her reply. "Greetings and defiance, champion of Yourself! I will not insult you by insisting on a surrender you will not offer. Let me offer a game, instead! A prize for each of the first three blows!"

Cloak against cloak. It is draped across Dolly's shoulders and cinched over her face, gossamer-thin. This is the sort of game that huntresses play in order to hone their skills, their stealth, their maneuverability. Ghosts hunting ghosts. The best rely on tricks to draw each other out: distractions, feints, dirty tricks. Jade purrs and feels her hair standing on end, excited. This has to draw out the huntress inside of Whispered Promise. How could it not?

"A shame you didn't stay longer; you left just before my glorious return. I could have offered you divinations and blessings from the underworld, and reassured you that it is no shameful thing to lose to a goddess! Just ask the lovers I have gathered in my wake! Angela Victoria Miera Antonius, Ksharta Talonna-- how they have come to accept the weight of the divine!"

Jade works from the ground: mines, solid-shot jackals lurking in alleyways, the gentlest shifts in weight distribution as Dolly daintily takes step by step. Too much risk flying above, not when attention to detail and awareness of their surroundings will be key in flushing out Whispered Promise. Then the game can really begin, and there will be joy in the fight, such that not even she can deny it!

---

Missiles!

Angela does not strike her forehead, though the impulse runs down her arm. Mecha pilots learned quickly to tamp down on certain instincts, certain moves, when connected to such a powerful frame. This is going to be very difficult without some way to flush out defensive instincts, to force Marcina to flinch. Loud, explosive, disorienting missiles would do the trick, whether or not Marcina logically knew that they couldn't pierce the armor.

There's no way that passion wins this battle. There's no way to make it look particularly good, either. It will be constant maneuvering, staying out of range of that sword, waiting for one of her possible targets to open up for a short snap of autocannon fire, whittling away at the behemoth. One mistake and it will risk being over. If only she had experience with the sort of action games that rewarded such methodical, careful play...

Huntresses of Hybrasil

"I wish I could help her," the melancholy young woman says, wrapped in the arms of the sacred, watching as their shared body is healed. The body that they have presented before the entire universe, so often damaged, so often repaired. "But I invited her in, and she stayed outside. And I waited for her to come in, but..."

"Then we will repay her by finding her heart," Smokeless Jade Fires says. She has not stepped away from Dolly for hours. She notes the exhaustion in her bride's stance, the stress in her shoulders, and she wraps herself around her love to protect her from the whole world. "Only then can you open it and help it to... do whatever it is that plants do when you touch them."

"...what?" Dolly scrunches up her face. "I... are you thinking of ferns? The ones that curl up when you brush a claw against them? Because most plants don't really do anything at all when you touch them."

"No. Plants grow better when you touch them." It is a statement of fact. "I remember watching you care for them. Your magic is a little thing, but it is something I will never have." Dolly's eyes are wet, suddenly stinging. "I cannot do anything but challenge Whispered Promise to fight. We can tear each other open and wet our teeth with each other's hearts, but you can touch her, dearest." "I couldn't last night." "That is because you were not touching her," Jade continues, stubbornly. "If you really had, she would have bloomed. I know this."

"Girls aren't flowers," Dolly murmurs. "And maybe all I touched was ice on the river."

Above them, their shared body waits to be touched, so that it can curl around them.