Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

Poor, poor Ember! The ink painted onto her has somehow not run, but the rest of her is a mess. After a certain point, sweat evaporates; her fur is matted and curling in strange patterns, and she smells like the ghost of a fire. (See how even her sisters offer her a wide, reverent berth.) Stripped out of her safety jumpsuit, her nudity is more striking than it is alluring; cunning eyes might note the ring of coral still on her finger. For a moment, her gaze passes over the desperate Magi, seeming far distant, her mismatched eyes pale.

Then her eyes focus on the figure before her, one coiling upon herself defensively even as she rubs her ringed fingers together. Her ears perk up, and she flashes that irrepressible smile that drew in the attention of Mosaic herself, tail wagging delightedly. "Oh, you silly darling," she says, her voice shifting to lovingly mimic the Azura's own. "There's no need to be worried! We are the loyal crew of the Plousios, and for those who respect our traditions, walk our corridors, and join in the labor, we welcome you with open arms!"

(And perhaps this will now be so. After all, Ember- the favorite of Mosaic, the Speaker for the Tyrant- is speaking, even as her sisters approach and help her with her honors, hiding her away from that lascivious serpentine gaze. Armor and silk, pearls and silver earrings, a sword returned to her side.)

The Ceronians close ranks around the Azura, smiles hidden but for the light in their eyes, as Ember approaches and cups the Magi's chin. "Your wish is my command," she says, all the more terrible for the earnestness, the sincerity, even as gloved hands trace her scales. "Come with us, o honorable scholar, and we shall open the secret side of the ship for you, once we have initiated you into the Crew." The way she says that makes it sound like she speaks of a priesthood, and it may yet be, one day hence.

When the Silver Divers leave the engine room to follow Ember into the hidden passages of the ship, the concealed compartments and the service tunnels, they do so carrying a squirming Azura, each one contributing to the lifting of the tail. Did you not know, Merya, what it is to ask the hospitality of the Daughters of Ceron? What it means to ask to be their guest? Did you not think to ask the people of Beri how the Silver Divers treat those who have fallen into their grasp?

Ember has no doubts. Memories overlap in her enchanted mind, but she still remembers with flustered fondness how she was initiated into the pack, and trusts in her new friend Merya to pass the trials just as winsomely, with just as much stamina and endurance, and with just as much submission to Taurus and Gemini- and to Ember, who speaks for Mosaic.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The soft mumble of Dolly's voice is only for her goddess and the knight. It is a shared bounty spread out between the two, and Smokeless Jade Fires is generous in this moment. But of course she is; Dolly's beauty is a token of esteem, and one that the two of them particularly enjoy flaunting to the elect. One stray curl bounces down between her eyes as she holds as still as she can, her dress sliding off her shoulder with aching slowness. She is, perhaps, even happier than if she had carried her goddess to victory.

"As I deem fit, Whispered Promise," Smokeless Jade Fires says, with a sway of the hip that almost produces an audible squeak from her priestess. Despite the fact that Whispered Promise has seen her nude, this is much more embarrassing, and thus much hotter. Her hands twitch with the urge to fly up to her face, to hide her expression and her plight. "If you desire negotiation, then you may ask permission from my high priestess to discuss matters further in our shrine. I may not have humbled you today, but she is still the one who speaks on my behalf, and the one who chooses who gets to speak." Even through her delirious, giddy mortification, Dolly still recognizes that her goddess does not sound petulant or sulky; she is treating with the Fisher as if bantering with an equal.

"But I have a feeling," she concludes, with an exhale that carries both mild regret and an irrepressible enjoyment of the fight, with the knowledge that she fights like a hunter, every time, "that Dolly will be more than happy to hear you out, if you can find the words..."

Breathless Dead

Ember hums happily, a half-remembered work song— which must be from Ceron, some round which ripples through the pack, yes. For it is the Ceronians who keep this spacefaring pleasure-palace alight. So what if there is so much to do that only a few of her sisters have come to join her in caring for the cavernous heart of this paradise, this oddly quiet furnace?

Head out of the clouds, Ember! Your lover needs you to focus! The right hand of the queen takes her time and carefully dons her ceremonial (and practical) armor, all green-grey metal without ornamentation. In Hestia’s heart, ornaments cannot survive; gilt would run, crystal would crack, and any carving into the surface of the material would be an unacceptable weakening, a stripping away of what might be a crucial layer of protection. (And yet it is not heavy enough to make her steps ponderous, and she moves fluidly in it. Mighty are the works of the craftsman, wise are the chemists and the engineers.)

Her tail wrapped around her stomach, she enters into the shrine with a polite bow of her head, a breath of praise and worship on her lips. It is not dark here, not anymore, not with the molecular bellows pumping hard. The walls are the color of predawn, and the gases that drag along the walls writhe like Azura coils, and the fusion spark’s steady light casts shifting, unreal shadows on all sides. But that’s all right. The spark’s what she’s here for.

The fuel is shaped into cubes, broken off one by one, and offered to the flame. It flows as creamy and white as butter once it leaves her fingers. She almost loses herself in the way that it runs down the gutters. Soon it will all be consumed, and the engine will be the purest light, the purest heat. Soon it will all be gone, and only energy will remain. But that’s too soon. Toss the last of the fuel into the pillar, stretching its limbs across the top of the sphere, and run, Ember, run!

Mosaic could have done this easily, if she were not battle-weary. (They say she threw all of Beri, and the thought isn’t real to Ember yet. She still imagines houses being pried up and being tossed one by one; no one has yet explained to her exactly how she has underestimated the woman she faithfully explores.) But it is to her consort’s credit that the gates do not stick as she hauls them open, and down the gutters run white serpents with tongues of fire, almost seeming to flick at the air as they vent— no, they tear the air down and rip out its vital gases, gorge themselves on heady chemical mixtures.

She laughs as she makes her way towards the exit, skirting the peril zone, averting her eyes from Hestia’s Spindle as it builds, reaction by reaction, into awe and splendor. If she were to look now, not even her faceplate’s automatic tint would be able to protect her from its divine glory. Her face is glowing, sunburnt, shining with sweat. Her body has aches running from her crest to her heels.

When she emerges, she must go from that wild run to a dead stop; she must stand and wait, armor groaning and sizzling, for it to drop to a safe temperature for removal. Until then, she will stand awkwardly still and bask in the applause from her sisters and that oh-so-friendly magi, aware that her touch is death until Hestia’s glory has passed from her shoulders. And she will hum happily, the words so close to the tip of her tongue, words that mean exertion and pack and peril. If only she could remember.

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.