Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

The chill ascends from feet to knees,
the fever sings in mental wires.

Lifeboats shunt off, spinning slowly in loose orbits around the Sphere. Cable after severed cable lashes madly between them, like a nest of maddened serpents. The flock— what remains of it— contracts to try and salvage their beachhead, their tactical advantage that might yet gain them the secondary prize of the fleeing Plousios.

Here, Ember dances, her enchantment burned away by the rising tide of instinct and battlefrenzy. Flow state, Tides, ecstasy, revelation, Howl from the Ashes. Howl. Howl. Howl.

And Ashes’ spirit, ranging for revenge,
With Ares by her side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Howl havoc and let slip the wolves of war!

A pike she rams through the gravitational core, twists it like she works the guts of a boar, and then there is only making her way out without the use of the cable, for the cable is burning, the Sphere leaking its essence into the tumult of Poseidon’s sea. But the flock is scattering, and the Sphere rolls like a dying whale, and only the sight of a ripple of red and gold cuts through the desire to hunt each one down one by one, burn them out, leave them drifting, wring their reinforced spines—

But that is a leash. You will return.

And so Ember waits, and at the moment when the world goes silent she flings herself from the Sphere, firing towards her waiting lady, more for aim than for momentum, because then the Sphere ruptures outwards, and the force shakes her into shaking laughter as she hurtles back, and the startled crows scatter so far that they’ll be days cohering again.

Back to Mosaic. And what will she think of a pupil-dilated, tail-bushing, sense-shifted Ceronian coming back to her from the blossoming force-rose of a dying gravitational core?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

“Your heart is not selfish,” Dolly declares, her hands balled up into tiny fists against her shoulders. “Your family comes first, right? With the right family, there’s nothing you can’t do! Alone, mmhm, alone one is small and vulnerable.” Her tail sways like a metronome. Do you understand her, Angela? Dolly can barely comprehend the idea of doing something so big alone. That is a job for many Hybrasilians working in concert. So the place to start is always with the dream, with making the case that together, this thing must be done.

“…what is it like on Valor, Angela? Do you miss it?” She should miss Hybrasil, but being with Jade is like bringing Hybrasil with her wherever she goes. She could be in the heart of the Consortium and never be lost as long as the goddess was with her. All places are one place to her. “Please tell me.”

There is meaning bursting out of that request. And she is so prim and proper, ears tilted forward to listen intently, trying to imagine an alien world that gives birth to creatures like an Angela…

Breathless Dead

Even with Dyssia's distraction, getting close enough to the Reactor Sphere to steal a new tether is impossible. Of course it is impossible. There are a dozen crows between her and the prize. The moment she sticks her precious little nose out of her shield of plovers, it's all over.

Which is what makes it work. Several of the frozen plovers around her are already spinning in the eddies, and she spins away, lets the current take her, drifting on momentum behind a furious pilot. She is, for a few precious moments, floating in the greatest sea that has ever been, eyes closed, hands adjusting position on her throttle.

Then she opens up her howling engine and feels the acceleration in her teeth, in the back of her eyes, as she hurtles tetherless towards the Sphere. She twists into a spin, into a loop, elegant, reacting on instinct before her slow eyes can catch up with the crackling bolts that she's evading. Her stomach drops like Mosaic's picking her up and whirling her around, and when she finally rips a tether out of the hands of a technician, feet already drumming the enemy cockpit senseless, it's almost incidental.

Because it is, you see. Because Ember's got her eyes on the prize.

Because the flock will have to scatter if a Sphere with an overloaded reactor spins languorously into the midst of them all.

[9 on Overcoming the peril.]

Breathless Dead

Ember streaks across the sky like a comet, throwing caution to the winds. Or, at least, that’s how it must seem, right? But this is Ceronian pack tactics at work. Our Little Ember takes point, seemingly reckless, and any daring little crow that makes a dive for the tether is open for the teeth that follow her.

She arcs wide, makes for a flank, her ELF lance harmlessly sparking outwards without making so much as a glancing shot, wasting power as she holds the trigger down until it grows hot under her fingers—

But notice how the shots are cutting off retreat? It would be so easy for these villains to make repeated swoops against the Plousios, to fade back into the stars as soon as Mosiac’s knights bare their teeth. No. Ember is a cunning sheepdog, and it doesn’t matter that she will most likely have to be towed back to the Plousios.

For already the other knights set their lances and charge forward into the absolute zone.

[8 to Keep Them Busy.]

Huntresses of Hybrasil

"Well, it depends, I had a lot of choice but some families are still- eeeheeeeheeeeeep!!"

Dolly's hands go straight down into her lap, and she balances almost right away. Her ears are all atwitch as she settles into her seat, thousands of years of evolution acting beneath the cruft of consciousness to ensure that she's bobbing up and down in time with the roll of Angela's shoulder. For all that she looks like she's terrified of being dropped, all stiff-backed and wagging-tailed, it's unlikely that Angela could manage to dislodge her if she was actively trying.

"For, well, see, I did go through the selection process for Gardens, I, I was- am? I'm good at it, actually, if Jade asked me for a garden I could make her a vibrant garden that wouldn't look ashamed of being next to one of Mayze Szerpaws' dresses, if you don't mind me saying so, I, I am good at flowers, and ferns, and fungi, and... it's just, you know, a miracle happened, and wouldn't you have done the same thing, Angie...la?"

Her natural state is timidity. No wonder she dreams of exposure. The world all around is full of things so easy to misjudge (unlike plants, which are screaming out their needs if you can just listen the right way), and bereft of Jade's grip on her scruff she is a fussy little thing, uncertain of the space she's taking up, tucking in her ankles and trying not to pay attention to the glances she's getting. (She doesn't even know that, with her bright feathered blouse, she's reminiscent of a parrot.)

She ignores the question about the hunts, however. Maybe there's a little bit that doesn't tumble out of her right away, and what if a careless comment spoiled the reputation of all Hybrasil? "...your body is really strong," she says, turning her face away slightly, tail curling at the space between Angela's shoulderblades. "But... I don't know. We're not very strong, compared to you. That's why we go around, tangle you up, pounce from the blind spots. Jade would know, but that's the experience of being in her body, and she's very good at being like us, because she's born from us, or from our hopes, or... she's the strongest I've ever been, being with her. In her. Hers. If she had a body our size, she'd be a strongwoman, she'd lift you onto her shoulder."

A flick of an ear. A kneading of her skirt. "...did you know about the prize? The wish? What was yours, Angela?" She almost manages to avoid sounding guilty, even as images of that first battle flash through her head. Bagged, Tagged and Gagged! "Because all we wanted was for everyone to see Jade like we can." The second we encompasses more than the first, which only has room for two. A multiplicity. An invitation. A hope.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Like some sort of useless herded animal, Dolly absolutely cannot ask Angela to pick her up (again). There's absolutely no signs that she wants that, to be lifted and squished. Ignore the tail starting to curl around Angela's leg on its own. No, focus on the way she's scrolling up and down the list of components and looking around, trying to find Electronics Collectives. Somewhere where the ceilings are low and the barter is... oh, no, she can't take Angela there, she'd end up on her hands and knees! Or maybe that's why she should take Angela there? No, no, on short notice... they'll have to do Terenian-style shopping, won't they? With the fixed prices and the exchange of credit?

"I'm not just a pilot," Dolly points out, standing up on her tippies to try to get a little height over the crowd and failing miserably. "I'm the High Priestess. I have to do the things that the goddess needs done, that's my responsibility. And it's not like I'm not used to menial, to work? I was a Gardens, you know. You have to start by learning a lot about plants and soil and growth rates, but we also have to keep the gardens running. Sprinklers, lights, heating... we need to know how it works, so that we can fix it, and so that we can tinker with it. I even know some of the things we're buying today, I just... don't quite know where we're...?"

She trails off, then adds, thoughts bouncing off into the weeds, "Thank you for coming, by the way. Even if, you know, we're rivals. I'm sure you'll get your revenge on Jade eventually. It's just that she didn't want me coming alone after everything with the Red Band, and you're actually really impressive? Like, Stones filled me in on you and the Zaldarians at the Gala, and, that was, wow, and, did you really throw an entire refreshments table? I could understand throwing a bowl or something, but an entire table?" The lilt in her voice suggests that she very much wants to hear about throwing the table at the Zaldarian Queen actually please ma'am.

Breathless Dead

The Plover shines like a piece of Olympus granted to Ceron, resplendent on the black-and-gold marble of the launch deck. It is not strange to only have a handful; everyone knows that exclusivity is a marker of taste and quality. A knife is thrust through her belt as a last resort; a blade as large as a statue sits ready for the Plover and her pilot. The fools don't know what they do, daring the anger of this war-machine, this great and terrible wrath that stands poised to make this flight their very last.

"I'm going to name you... hmm." Ember twists up her mouth in that little way she does, one hand on her hip, looking up at the Plover. "You do need a name. Or maybe you want to earn one? That's it, that's why. After we scatter them into the void, I'll have the right name for you. I'm Little Ember, and I'll be riding you today. Thank you for your service and your loyalty."

She waves with a clash of bangles over at her wingsnake, ears up and delighted, smile tinted coral pink by her silk. "Over here! Gosh, goodness, a real knight of the Azura! What will the terms of our wager be? Don't worry about making it particularly fair, you're doing us a service by joining me anyway. Don't underestimate me, though; even if I haven't piloted one of these before, one look and I know, I know I'm going to be good at this. I'm Little Ember, and I know you, you're Dyssia, aren't you? I haven't had the time to thank you for what you did on Bitemark, that little unpleasantness, what have you thought of the ship thus far? Beautiful, isn't it?"

Breathless Dead

Stars, scattered across a high ceiling.

When Ember led her friends (including, notably, Goldie and Taurus, and also Magus Fussyfangs) into the Observation Hall, she was the only one who believed that it would still work. Surely the old cartographic wonder wouldn’t work at all— surely its lenses would be clouded and useless, its walls no longer able to shift and illustrate, its shrine to Poseidon bereft of all holiness, nothing but a waterlogged ruin.

But no. Not with a little bit of polish, some work to realign lenses, a favor owed the Azura Knight to borrow an Atlas Thalassa from her ship, and one of Little Ember’s visions was realized for everyone else to see: a room where the Endless Azure Skies were on full display. It’s one thing to go and party with Plundering Fang, but it’s another to press your hands on the wall and watch as representations of a hundred planets blossom, brightly colored, fern-curls of nebulas wrapping around them. Draw them down, spread your fingers wide, watch as the figures of the gods on the walls hold a representation of a planet between them, stretching from wall to wall, until it’s too much to fully take in.

Sagetip can have her temple. For now, at least; Fussyfangs is drawing up plans for how to cut Sagetip off, and then Ember can begin petitioning the gods on behalf of the pack properly. But for now, Ember is satisfied with painstakingly repairing the shrine to Poseidon, wreathed in detritus found in odd corners of the ship, crowned with crabs, surrounded by offerings by Ceronians wishing for safe voyage to a hundred hundred worlds.

And Poseidon has responded, hasn’t he? Hasn’t he just.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Everyone is watching.

It’s always been the promise, the thrill, the risk, the tug that kept Dolly scampering on. The electric feeling of eyes on her— on her— impossible, infeasible, ridiculous. To be desired, the center of attention, but with plausible deniability. How mortifying it would be if she was exposed and the reaction was just irritation, hissing, or lectures about how good Gardens wouldn’t do such a thing! Beneath the fear of bothering others, a pit of sensuality, bottled up until her goddess exploded into her life.

But this is different from having compromising images leaked to a rival pilot or being toyed with in public by the invisible hands of her lover. This is a very public demonstration for a private event. The whole station feels like it’s packed into the tent as Jade guides her through the performance, pushing at her boundaries carefully, a delectable snack dangled in front of everyone, especially—

Especially Angela. Does the Terenian catch the shy glances that her “rival” kept tossing her way, over a bare shoulder, hands guided down her stomach? This certainly wasn’t the first time Angela had seen her like this, but it was the first with this sort of… imbalance. With Angela as a member of the audience, watching as Jade guides Dolly through a prancing circle, tail lifted, wrists in the air, hips swinging exaggeratedly. Definitely not the sort of thing a Gardens would do. If she was able to speak, would she blurt out something hot-tongued and awkward to the lovely alien?

Then Six Stones pulls her top off, prances on stage, and pulls Dolly close, disrupts the dance, and suddenly it’s very hard for a silly gay kitten to look anywhere else. And it’s both their hands, huntress and goddess, which lift and peel her own jumpsuit open, wriggling out of tight sleeves, letting it hang like a train over her tail.

And it is Dolly who lifts her hands and holds them behind her head, even as she makes frantic little squeaks and huffs, even as Six Stones makes a show of leading her around the room and inviting the fortunate few to fake a closer look at Dolly Hunters, the toy of the goddess. And it is Dolly who lifts onto her toes and then drops back down right in front of Angela Victoria Miera Antonius, with Jade blowing a taunting kiss at the both of them. And the courage almost makes her melt through the floor, but she’s the one who adds a waggle to her hips as she’s tugged away.

Not that Six Stones escapes, mind you. Eventually, when Dolly’s almost dizzy with heat and fluster and exertion, the dancing is exertion, the goddess has her peel that glove off and wrap it around Six Stones’ throat, and lets her stumble in a borrowed jacket and a half-undone jumpsuit to go sit next to Angela (who tugs at her curls idly and playfully mocks the goddess who would make such a pretty little thing do such things, ai, stay here and you will be safe as long as you behave, precious meow-meow), as Six Stones finds herself in the clutches of a goddess whose thirst for domination is almost insatiable.

One cannot help but wonder whether the half-hour burlesque routine about Maintaining The Idol (with Bending Over, Getting Stuck, Running Out Of Washcloths, and Incurring Wrath) was really a spontaneous invention on the part of Smokeless Jade Fires, or whether she’d been practicing it, somehow, in secret. Don’t ask Dolly, though; she’s flirting like a meek schoolgirl with an alien who’s seen exactly what drives her wild.

(And by the end of the night, she will find herself a centerpiece once more, locked in a saucy embrace with Six Stones and the pole, as the goddess reminds the audience that they should behave, should they wish to avoid becoming entertainment for a great and mighty goddess…)

Breathless Dead

Howl From The Ashes was defeated near the end of the Tharassian Interregnum. Plundering Fang liked telling Little Ember the story, emphasizing how her legacy was that of a failure. That was a joke of a bloodline meant for little bitches who would never, ever lead the pack. And that much was true! Howl From The Ashes never led her pack, except by example. She was not a great leader of wolves, and when she was defeated, it was because she was standing alone.

Goldie told her the most important part of the story, though. Howl was defeated, yes. It took a dedicated pack-of-packs thirteen hours to overcome her, fighting alone for the glory of her alpha. Howl was untouchable, moving in negative space, flicking nets back at their casters, flinging spears through vehicles meant to run her down, trailing trophies in her wake. The challenge she presented ground the invasion of the Minosiam to a halt. None could pass her by.

She was paraded on Akhol in lieu of her alpha. She never flinched, and it is said (by Goldie) that no one could look her in the eye. She was offered a seat at the right hand of the Ceronian who would, by the end of the Interregnum, restore the Shogunate— and her refusal saw her spend fifteen years chained to his throne.

Fifteen years, until her Alpha struck in a heist which stole away only one treasure, and one treasure alone. To this day, her blood is a watchword for loyalty, for skill, and for romance. Nothing breaks the daughters of Howl From The Ashes, no matter how low they fall. And that is what Plundering Fang tried so hard to hide from Little Ember, and instead quickened in her blood.

---

“Like, why don’t you do it?”

An off-hand question, tossed out triflingly. But it latched onto Ember like a leech. She watched the stars play on the vaulted ceilings of the Plousios,, almost lulled by the serenading of far-off songbirds and the sound of repair crews (of which, oddly, there were many— but surely it was the hiccup of the hearth needing to be rekindled). She tried to hide from it, tried to convince herself that she could back Plundering Fang, instead. That she could be quiet and loyal. But still the burden lies in front of her, and no matter how she turned, there it was.

Letting either of them seize control of the Silver Divers would disrupt operations aboard the Plousios. Who is Sagetip but an untrustworthy vizier? Who is Plundering Fang but an unwise steward? Either one of them would set the course of Mosaic’s ship straight towards disaster. And there was no other viable candidate but someone who had a direct line to Mosaic, who had the friendship of not only the former Alpha but also a leashed Magi, who was— recently?— first aboard the ship.

True, some might think her strange, giving her ring odd looks, whispering behind her back of enchantment. Some might point out that she is descended from Howl From The Ashes, and doomed to lose in the end. And some might just be loyal already to another candidate.

And yet there is enough for her to begin planning her opening strikes. Carefully, of course— not to disrupt repairs or the operation of the luxuries of the ship…