Tatterdemalion

Huntresses of Hybrasil

When Dolly returns to her quarters, she's chewing over her own thoughts. The distance between the hangar and the door feels like it slipped away, that she didn't truly experience it. The handle's real, and the way the door slides to one side, and the lights turning on automatically, as dim as twilight back home. Her pupils widen to drink in the half-lived room, and the emptiness. It's a terrible thing to come back to an empty house, isn't it?

But she knows the secret way to make it not empty. Although maybe there's more than one way, too.

"Jade?" She takes a seat on the couch, stretches her hands and feet, wiggles into a comfortable position. "I was thinking, would you like to have Ksharta or Angela over? I'd like to watch something. With buttered corn, and blankets, and maybe we can make it one of the big historical epics, like Sun Match? Or maybe a frontier romance?"

The goddess drapes herself onto the couch, and even that seems exhausted. After all, interaction for her is something that has to be intentional, all the time. She can't not think about her body, and how it exists in relation to other bodies, and how it only appears to exist at all. It takes her a little bit to render the effect of weight.

"Mmmngh," Smokeless Jade Fires, glorious hunt-goddess, murmurs. "Why should I share tonight?" Unspoken: can I even dominate tonight? Do I have the reserves to put all of my delicious brides-in-training in their places? Do I have the reserves to even appear to them, after being so thoroughly manhandled by the engineers of the Trickster-cult?

"Because I think they'll love you as much as I do," Dolly says, and offers a hand. "And it would be nice for us all to be together for a while. With you. Here. In blankets." And she pats her lap, an open invitation. She doesn't push, she doesn't impose, she doesn't reach out; she just is, and offers her time, her space, her attention.

"...I suppose it would be good for them not to wander too far. And you clearly need it." Jade dramatically sweeps her hair back. "After all, you were so deeply affected by that... link. Whatever will everyone think?" She flashes a tired smile.

"They already saw," Dolly says, trying her best not to look away. "I. Well. I... thank you, Jade. For, for this, for these chances, for making me show off, for being here with me, for everything. For the dances. And for the future. And..." She trails off into awkward kneading, realizing too late that she didn't have anything more on the tip of her tongue. "And anyone who deserves you in your glory deserves you in, like, in this. When you're the quiet moment on the hunt, too. This can be our camp."

Smokeless Jade Fires considers this for a moment. "...as a camp. Tonight. For you."

And the high priestess blinks adoringly at her goddess, and almost bounces over to the kitchen to prepare the buttered corn.

Breathless Dead

There are three broad classes of loot that the Silver Divers are capable of taking on: resources, captives and trophies. But resources, while necessary, are not exciting, and captives cannot be carried off in bulk. So it is trophies that the Daughters of Ceron crave most of all: trophies which demonstrate their glory, their prowess, and their right to conquer.

Ember needs trophies, true, and she does encourage her pack to grab what they will: fallen arms, eye-catching decorations, hard-won feathers. But more than any of these things, she needs to bring Beri back to the Plousios. So this is the edict of the Tyrant's Voice tonight, my girls: for every trophy you bring back, bring back something of Beri, too. Bring back collections of spoons, casks of wine, and bring back Dolce's stools and oven, while you're at it. Bring back gifts for the little people of the Plousios, which can flow through the would-be alpha's hands like water. Take these things which belonged to Mosaic's people and show our glorious leader how well we can attend to her wishes and whims. Gouge out all that was good from this place, which we never ruled but lusted after, and leave a ruined hollow in the sphere's heart.

And if you've still got room to carry plunder, toss a cute Servitor over your shoulder. The people of Beri are under Mosaic's protection, and it will be nice to have some spoils of war around to pour wine and carry lamps and be bullied by the Divers, proof of the victory here today. That ought to peel some of the pack off from Plundering Fang and Sagetip. Their first task will to be to carry the choicest trophies on Corvii shields to the Observation Hall on the Plousios, and there the Triumph will be held. There, the people of Beri will be invited to come and receive plunder from Ember's own hands, and to marvel at the halberds and the shields and the regiment colors that decorate the tent which will dominate the center of the hall, and the whole pack will be invited to make merry, to drink Azura wine, and to sing praise to Mars, to Mosaic, and to Ceron.

Absolutely nothing could ruin this moment. After all, Mosaic survived her battle, and will be quite pleased to see her wolf taking charge and thinking of her town. They haven't had a moment to themselves, but that's part of what their positions entail, and they'll...

They'll have time. Later. Once Ember has divested herself of arms and has finished being the leader that the Silver Divers need. Then there will be a place and a time for just the two of them to be, like on that moonlit hillside, and the thought of it sends shivers all up and down, like the tongues of little voidfoals. (The voidhorse stoically accepted the plunder in exchange for more rations, and a bridle helps lead it back to the Plousios.) Maybe she'll even be praised, even if she couldn't bring down Armatii.

And then Ember will present Mosaic with her very own new maid, seized during the fighting! Won't that be a perfect present?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Dolly's doing her best. Her very, very best. She's handling this one solo, since the goddess is a sweaty heap of mewing in her bed, and she's got to get this engineer out of their collective hair. Even so, she looks frazzled, flushed, a bit of a mess, a figure of fun for the cult to snicker about. Oh, how lovely it must be to get the goddess's attention, so on and so forth.

But the question was asked, and so Dolly stops and considers it properly, and something swims forth from the river of thought. Like any good Hybrasilian, she snatches it up immediately, lays it open, and feasts.

"What can you tell me about Mirror?" She blinks, slow, comfortable, despite her dishevelment. It's intentionally vulnerable, disarming. "Since you work with her. For her. With her?" A cock of the head: a question underneath the question. "After all, we are standing together. I thought I knew her, but the more I look, the more confusing she gets..."

Breathless Dead

There is no sound out here, not in the way that Ember can use. So the dance plays out in silence, in three dimensions, amidst the debris. Her heart rate normalizes as she opens up her belt pouch, slips a ration cube free, feels more than sees the tongue wrap around it, black and white on white, and it vanishes into that mouth full of inward-pointing teeth. The vast, membranous wings beat with exaggerated care, keeping the voidhorse in place.

Another cube, between forefinger and thumb; another offering. She drifts underneath, trails her fingers gently along its neck. This is a thing of sleek muscle. There is a scar against its shoulder, just before the wing structure. The slow wingbeat threatens to dislodge her; she clings like one of the newly hatched, and clambers her way under the stomach. Before it can roll into a ball and try to get more, she is working her way up, onto the back, behind the wings, and she tosses the third cube towards the ship.

There is no fear in her heart, just serenity, just admiration, just awe. No one ever told her about creatures like this. No one told her how much beauty there could be in between the stars, too.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

“ACK! EEK! YEE!! DOLLLYYYYYY DO SOMETHINGGGGG—“

”Um, erm, is that, do you really—“

“DOLLLLLYYYYY HELP THAHAHAHATH I’M NOT EVEN OUT OF THE SYHIHISTEM DOLLLLLLYYYYY—“

"I, I mean, you’re sure you really— oh, here you go, ah, wait, hold on, that’s her—“

“AUUUUUUUUUHGH DOLLLLYYYYY WHY WOULD YOU GIVE HER THE WREHEHEHENCHHHHHHHHH BETRAYAL AND CALUMNY AND WOE IS ME TO SEE THIS DAY WHEN YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP—“

"Have you, um, tried maybe just dis, dis, disentangling yourself? I’m still wearing my glove and you could just—“

“SHE’S IN MYHYHY BUFFFFERRRRRSSSS DOLLLLLLYYYYYYY I’M STUUUUUUUCKKKKKHHHH”

The mighty and powerful goddess writhes, doubles over, feet in the air, uselessly kicking, hands over her face as anguished giggles and squeaks burst out of her, with only one increasingly flustered witness to her agony, her dark night of the soul, her hideous torment. This is an impossible feeling, and really, Dolly should be the one feeling it, but shunting it over to her requires a level of fine control in a mind that is being flooded with an unfamiliar set of mechanics tinkering with her idol-body’s functions. And besides, it would be… unworthy. That’s what makes her hesitate when she almost thinks straight.

"Dampening clamps? What, um, what do those, well, I suppose they dampen, but— yes, you’re right that it would be catastrophic if she moved, but—“

It’s incredibly wildly unfair that her own weave is being used against her like this. Her sleek bob sticks to her forehead and cheeks as her legs are folded back and her arms lock in place. She can’t even double over now, not with the phantom rope between her wrists and ankles.

“DOLLLLLYYYYY WHYHYHYHYHY AAAAAAAA SHE’S A SADIST A SPY THIS IS ALL PART OF HER SCHEMES WASN’T SHE SATISFIED WITH PILOTING ME LIKE A DEPRAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAALLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYY”

"She’s, I’m, are you sure, I— well, yes, I suppose you’ve got everything on site already, and— oh, I, I didn’t, read, what she— and we do owe you, it’s just, um—“

Dolly glances guiltily at the cackling goddess arching her back, flexing her feet, incoherent and helpless given the level of meddling that Slate is innocently performing.

“And what do you— oh, that’s, are you sure you should— well, no, I’m not an engineer, and, yes, we do want the upgrades, it’s so sweet of you to do, but—“

“DHHHHLLLLLHHHYYY GMMM HMMM GRRRHMMM NNNLLK MMMMHH— MMMMMFFFF!!! UUULLLLEEEEEE!!!”

"I, uh, I, I think, the goddess, wants this done, as quickly as possible, so, so, um, how can I— oh, by, by sitting over there? And? Oh, I see, that, yes, I understand, and, um, eep, yes! Right away, ma’am!”

BETRAYAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL

“YEEEEHH GHHHH BBFFFFK MMN— MEEHEEEHEEEFFFF!!! NNNNNNNFFFFFHHH!!!”

Dolly reaches out, sitting on a bench, and awkwardly pats her goddess’s writhing form. She whispers, low and hoarse. “I, she’s really intense, and… at least nobody can, um, see, you?” Her heart is throbbing, she’s going to sweat straight through this top, and her legs might as well be made of a high-carbon polymer. She knows. She absolutely knows.

Jade’s going to be on a vengeful warpath, and there’s one target who’s going to fucking get it once Slate and her team are done. The thought of having Jade inflict holy vengeance upon her is leaving her lightheaded and giddy. Or maybe that’s just feedback from Jade, who is sounding increasingly lightheaded and giddy as she rolls and writhes around, yowling with laughter into increasingly snug muffling.

UNDIGNIFIEEEEDDDDDD

“ahreee!! —ree!! mnnnghm!! mmm!!! ——!!!!”

Dolly bites her lip, does her best not to stare at the goddess glaring up at her through a mess of cobalt bangs, folds her hands in her lap, and softly vibrates into a new plane of existence, one where her goddess isn’t getting worked over by an almost certainly innocent band of overzealous engineers, wondering if she can ever get away with occasionally having Nine Forests do something like this depending on how Jade is feeling afterwards, wishing that she was wired up fully in the cockpit during this, considering if Jade could shunt all the feedback her way or whether they’d just end up sweaty and wriggling together making the temple echo with their moans just like when Mirror—

An engineer sets a plug into place firmly, hears an indecent little noise barely over the sound of power tools, and glances back over her shoulder at the high priestess, who has her face in her hands and is doubled over making little squeaks.

oh okay okay so that. when she. sometimes when she. okay. that. wow. neat! neat!! really neat!!! incredible!!!

“I am! I’m! I’ll just! Be! In our! Room!!!” Dolly pants, shivering with the shared burst of feedback, and scoops Jade up into her arms before, shaky-legged, fleeing, clinging her groaning wife to her chest.

Dolly’s going to fucking get it. Eventually. Once the remodel’sssssszzzzfuckkkkkkk—

NOBODY CAN EVER KNOW OR THEIR REPUTATION WILL BE RUIIIIIIIINEEEEDDDDDD.

…even more than it already is, thank you, Jade, for, the dancing, though, only, Mirror’s team? Knows? For now? And hopefully, not, just belatedly, considering, the Red Band, ever? Or?? They might??? Try to set her up with an encore, and—

“MMMMP!!!”
"MEEEP!!!”

Breathless Dead

Nostrils seal. The jaw clamps shut. Secondary oxygenation begins. Her skin grows stiff, her body hair lying flat and dense. Her heartrate plummets from the frantic drumbeat of survival, causing Ember to feel light-headed, blurring consciousness. She blinks through tears like diamonds and drifts helplessly in the current.

What else could she do? She doesn't have any propulsion, doesn't have a signal flare, is a rounding error in size. Around her is the detritus of her exit, the hole they tore in the ship's side, the powdered rubble and shattered signifiers of Beri mingling with slagged plates of external armor and drifting clouds of chemical afterburn. But they are not lying still; there is turbulence, disruption in the space between, ripples on the face of the sea. Too much noise to spot her, her alone, in all the grand wreck of battle.

She could survive for a long time, out here, but if she is not found, if Mosaic does not fish her out and scold her for getting herself frosted all over, then eventually she will drown; she will close her eyes and her powerful heart will simply stop beating. She will linger here forever. That is, unless Polychromatikí pays attention to her and draws her along into a gravity well far off, barely alive, stranded on some farflung planet. (He is known to do this. Some lost souls even survive orbital reentry.)

Assuming that she is not fished out by Mosaic. Or by an ambitious Corvii looking to have leverage in their escape. Or hunted. The void is beautiful, but it is not (despite the name) empty. There are monsters here, too. Great Void Leviathans, Eaters of Worlds, and things which ride the solar currents with great thin wings and gaping mouths.

Was that a flicker of movement? It flashes silver out of sight. She has no way to pivot, now that it (whatever it is) is in her blindspot. With the fingers of an old woman, Ember painfully curls her fingers around the hilt of her knife, ready to defend herself from something much, much worse than a crab.

Poseidon, Horsefather, Master of Movement, Knower of the Unknown, she thinks to herself, as loudly as she can. I am your creature, too. My scales shine, my colors warn, my movements are as fluid as the tidal rush. Be with me, here, now. Do not forget me.

Breathless Dead

If Ember were a princess, pampered, innocent, and fond of holographic films, she might think of this thing as being made out of deaths. Everything about it suggests that a hero would miraculously get by unscathed, and that she, not being a hero, would not. She would be so distracted by seeing all the possible deaths approaching her that she would be unable to block them all, and then the sword would flick her away, or the skirt would lop her head off neatly, or she would be yanked up into the air and flung down an impossible height, and then she would burst into a cloud of startled sparrows and rats. That would be it. No one can fight a monster like this and win.

Ember does not think about death. She is Ceronian. She thinks about how to fend off the very next death. Each one, in turn, over and over, all for one purpose: to live a little longer. To see Mosaic come back for her with the Azura in her arms. Or to see her sisters bounding close, bearing weighted nets, because the only way to win is to stop it from fighting. So there's no room for thoughts that aren't about staying alive. No thoughts about what dying looks like unless it's to keep her alive. No admission that this is impossible and she will die, because then how can she live?

She continues to fight with everything to hand. Plates. Doors. Alleyways. You cannot fight something like this with your sword, you have to put your faith in the world. She smashes a barrel of wine and lets it flow down steps, forces the Armatii to clamber onto a rooftop to continue chasing her. Because, yes, it is a chase. That is the shape of the nightmare: a chase through jumbled, half-familiar streets where she used to pretend to be nothing more than an innocent milkmaid, or a day laborer with her hat pulled over her ears, or a shadow dressed in shadows. A place that she had learned so that the pack would learn with her, but also a place that she had learned because it was Mosaic's. A place that she had learned, in the end, because it was beautiful. And now all the pieces are here, but rearranged, randomized, turned sinister, and everything that comes to hand is a new attempt to buy another ten seconds of being Ember. Everything, no matter who it once belonged to, or what it meant to them, or how incongruous it might be for it to be within reach. Beri itself will be hollow before Ember lets herself die and no longer be in the same world as Mosaic, as the Silver Divers, as Beri's survivors, as the Plousios itself seen both as a wonder and as a ruin.

No thought. No time. No sentiment. Only life. Only life.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Of course it is. It's both: the highest confidence and the thrill of possibly losing. It's the statement. The implication. The refusal to admit that defeat, that being touched without permission, is even an option at all. The growl in the throat at the thought of waddling up to the Red Band in a body that is built for defense, that admits fear and recognition of their capabilities, and the thought of dancing through missiles and cannon fire in weightless space, of being the stealthy huntress that the goddess deserves, of showing the Red Band what it feels like to be ambushed unfairly, of having to rely on Jade completely for victory, and the knowledge that if either of them failed they'd end up in the hands of a jilted pirate, and the very threat gets her pulse racing, and because, now, backing down would mean weakness in the face of an ally, would mean acknowledging the trickster's cunning, would mean losing.

"That is the kind of body we desire," Dolly manages to say without melting into the cushion. "One where there is no room for failure. We know the stakes, um, ma'am, and... we want to prove that she, that we, can still win. That we can pick when and where to fight, now that we're not in a tournament. I believe in her."

"And I, in you."

"Also," Dolly blurts out, leaning forward as much as she can, "ferns. Embossed? I just think ferns would be a lovely motif."

Breathless Dead

Ceron! Ceron! Ceron!

But it's not Ceron that provides Ember's tactics here. No. It's stories. Half-remembered fragments of myth. Bright excitement is in her eyes as she gives the order: rear ranks, cords and scavenging. Anything that can clack together. Instruments, found in cabinets and stands. Horns, if you can get them. The clay tiles, the fractured pavement, the flutes and whistles and drumsticks that brought the people of Beri joy. Quickly, now: every moment wasted is another awful slash across someone's face, a crumpling shield, and a moment where the Knight might fall.

"Company," Ember yells, beginning to swing a cord with two clay tiles at either end, clacking ratatatat, ratatatat, ratatatat, "ROAR!"

The cacophony is almost deafening, almost a solid thing, interspersed with howling as a reverberating bass line, drilling into the heads of the Armatii. Stymphalia, Stymphalia! Deep in your heart, you know this: that this is a thunderstorm, this is a predator, this is a disruption in the air, this is no more thinking, this is dismay. The Daughters of Ceron still communicate as a roiling mass of scents below--

No, rising, too. Leaping off rooftops, tossing up lassos, digging pearl-handled knives into caught legs, dragging down these monsters of the air down into the phalanx like ants swarming over a broken-winged sparrow. There is blood, and much of it comes from bloodied mouths, deep-pierced breasts, ligament-torn limbs, but there are still more, still more, still more, and the pack works together, after all, wounded being pulled away, caught as they fall, but these monstrous alpha predators all descend alone and writhing.

Ember leaps, still swinging her castanets, her knife in her other hand, and when she lands it's one swinging around the throat and the other right in the spine between the thrashing wings. Mosaic, the Silver Divers cannot, will not follow: you must continue alone. This is knife-work, hate-work, a roiling mass that threatens to drive your own ears through your skull. So run. Run, while the Daughters of Ceron raise a din so loud that it might just crack the tiles beneath their feet.

[Overcome: 7.]

Huntresses of Hybrasil

"This is our body," Dolly says, as if it is the most simple thing in the world. "It doesn't need to be a machine made for winning fights, it needs to be a machine that moves when we move, that runs silent, that can... do... things." Her ears droop a little bit, and she looks bashfully off into the distance, trying to avoid looking at either the idol or the engineer. "Things. Like building. Or breaking. Or chasing. Or hunting."

The thought of the chase makes Jade purr. She sits on the back of Dolly's chair, drapes her legs down, runs her fingers through her priestess's scalp. "Yes. Good girl. We need this to be a Huntress. A Huntress of Hybrasil. No one will see us coming, and no one will be able to evade us."

"Speed," Dolly says, trying not to let her eyes cross. "Speed, and, and stealth, and something that will let us, more powerful catches, disabling and not destroying, cutting out comms, like, with Angela, and..."

"And something that will be the equal of the Red Band," Jade trills. "Yes. Now that will be a hunt worthy of me, won't it, Dolly? And I'm sure that we can put their plunder away to better uses, but the glory, the victory, and..." She pulls Dolly's head back with one hand over her mouth. "And the danger~"

There's no such thing as too much victory. She's beaten the Red Band once, and now she can make sure that victory is complete, over and over again. And the thought of facing them is making Dolly's heart beat in her chest like a delicious little rabbit. What a good, loyal, beautiful girl she is.

She pushes Dolly's head back towards Slate, but not before stealing a hungry little kiss, her thighs squeezing possessively.