Tatterdemalion

Huntresses of Hybrasil

If a ping on a console could sound self-satisfied... well, it's not just a console. It's an entire symphony of little feedback noises, played in harmony to mimic the opening of White Panther, Green Dragon. Dolly spins around, dives at the machine, and snatches out the glove, hugging it close to her chest.

"Good girl," Smokeless Jade Fires says, and her smile is the smile of the huntress that has devoured a flock of birds. "Now, I believe... what have you been up to? Turn around, present." The priestess turns in the almost-dark, the lights of emergency panels and buttons flickering, enough to see the shapes of two panicking technicians and a sword flying out of the hand of her adversary. "Well, then. Here's your opening. Go, now, and don't stop until you see our Angela."

The glove Dolly sticks down her front, because she's going to need two hands to pry the ruins of the door open and then to run with both Sam and Tall. She'll hurtle down that almost-night corridor like a shot! And then, whatever happens next, it will happen with them under her cult's protection! Because that, that is the power of the high priestess of the goddess!!

Smokeless Jade Fires burps alien codesong, and licks her lips. She will have to figure out what this is, and whether to release it from the crucible of her star-stomach. Not with that insufferable trickster-engineer, though. With someone who knows how to treat a victorious goddess appropriately. And... well, now that matter is decided, she can focus her attention, her mind of blue razors, to exactly how she is going to reward her Dolly.

Gleaming, sharp and aching with love, she races along the walls as Dolly shoots out of the room like a spear, made of angles and lines, luxuriating in how she can show off. And if this sword-wielding maniac didn't want a shoulder to her hip, she shouldn't have been threatening people with the aforementioned swords!!

Breathless Dead

Unwashed bodies. Toxins. Animal fat. Toxins. Sewage. Toxins.

How do these people live on this planet? No, scratch that: how do they live on this planet without toxin filters in their respiratory systems?

The air is choked with the chemical byproducts of the reactions they use to power their machines, the reactions that their factories use to make crude polymers as basic as the materials she could make in kindergarten, and the reactions that they put very directly into their own lungs. And that man had been offended that she slapped the stick of burning tar out of his hand!

They don’t have anything between them and this world that they have made for themselves. No wonder their lifespans are barely one century long. The moment they’re born, they start the process of poisoning themselves. This would be an unpleasant enough world to live on as a Ceronian, but the Portuguese…

Ah. This is what Cash Money saw, isn’t it?

She shadows Mosiac, as if trying to throw her body between this world and someone who should remain unblemished by it. The large sack for the Lantern is heavy in one hand, gripped death-tight by the shoulder straps, and the Shield strapped to her arm is covered in a canvas sheet to disguise it as an example of Portuguese artwork.

The pack moves with her, badly suppressing the urge to whine, to flinch, to growl. Tension and Unease are draped about them, stringent underneath the toxin air. This world is worse than walking through the Underworld, because at least then, you’re dead. How can the Star Kings stand to be here? Advanced filtration?

And more importantly, how can they witness this without joining with Cash Money to try and save as many of the Portuguese from the slow death of poison, of rot in the lungs, of creeping cancers? How can they not give these creatures ships— no, not ships, not yet. Not when they’d just spread this way of life. They would need engines along with the ships, and medical intervention, and maps. Maps to places untouched by toxins, places where they could run with fresh lungs and jump over rivers and learn what living is. Because being crowded into one overstuffed and dying world…

That can’t be living.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Smokeless Jade Fires answers with laughter, and with her teeth. They are as sharp as thought, as intention, as domination. They are birds; she is the thing that cats do dream of. They are spirits; she is that which demands submission from the other side of the world. This was an inevitability, a weight that deepens with each passing flick of the wrist and gnashing of the jaw.

Yield! Bare your throat! Submit!

Do you not understand what you face, little birds? The predator heart of the hopes of all Hybrasil! The goddess in the five boxes which are opened, one by one, to bring about a happy ending! The power that Dolly puts her hope in day after day! The power that Whispered Promise entrusts with her worldweaving!

She burns and she burns with the name that is Smokeless Jade Fires, until she receives the submission that she craves.

---

"STOP THAT!"

It's shrill, angry, and more than half a yowl. It's a bluff from a small, well-rounded kitten. It's the flailing of a paw when you're trying to fend off a sibling intent on bowling you over. And it's the only card that Dolly has got in her hand.

"Were you raised in a nest? Just s-stop it with the cutting, and the hacking, and-- do you have any idea how expensive this equipment that you're going to just chop into is? The, the... back me up here, I, uh, I don't actually... it looks expensive? Right? Difficult to source? Do you want to try using your words, or, maybe? Asking? Put it down! Don't-- I said quit it!! Why are you like this?!"

She spreads her arms, looking from Sam to the Tall One to the figures in the background, the picture of an aggrieved High Priestess dismayed by a lack of decorum and appropriate behavior. The only thing she has left to be, because explaining ferns--

"I expected better from someone who wore that fantastic Syzerpaws dress!!"

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The panic reaction is entirely instinctual and physiological.

The way that she tenses up, tail bushing, is meant to make her look bigger and more dangerous to a threat. The strangled yowl that escapes her throat is a similar warning: teeth bared, a fierce huntress ready to bite into this challenger. The way that she clings to Sam is a memory of safety in numbers, in the camaraderie of the hunt.

But because she is also a person, Dolly eventually manages to squeak out: "...I didn't think they'd do that."

---

What ARE you?

The goddess cannot let this challenge, this lacuna in her understanding, pass her by. She shifts her position in the swirl, tosses out pistons, attempts to crack open what is increasingly barred to her (and barring her way to extraction). What ARE you? What ARE you, you thing of ghostwhispers, you unquiet spirit, you thing that has entered this place?

Are you a kind of thing like me?

This thought excites her, haunts her.

Are you a kind of thing that is born of the place where the clever stone meets the embodied spirit? Are you some (obviously much more pathetic and not-divine) peer? Her teeth are bared in interest, her focus sudden and all-consuming. After all, Angela's coming with the extraction, and Dolly will be sure to scoop up the glove, so she can continue to issue her demand for an identity.

What ARE you?

Breathless Dead

The Lantern is heavy bronze, worked in repeating spirals like the death of clouds. The power that thrums through it is enough to make the hair on Ember's arm stand on end, grey and shivering. The Shield is, in comparison, horribly light. The platinum that traces through it is like the hungry roots of a tree, stark against the dark metal. It will become more and more difficult to hold later on.

They are a necessary pair. The Lantern's fire draws in the howling energy of weapons such as the Star Kings are rumored to hold, bending their arcs in flight to smash the fragile casing apart. The Shield, linked by cable (secured to Ember's shoulders), traps the fire, flickering and hissing across its face, until the bearer is ready to return it.

Limitations? What is not limiting? The weight, the inability to draw her sword, the need to interpose the Shield between fire and Lantern, the way that any reasonable Ceronian would give the order to cease fire after the first return salvo-- but it will deny the Star Kings their preferred means of battle. Their mighty weapons will be tossed aside if Ember can do her part, and if she is fortunate and thoughtful, she might be able to bring down any fortification in their way.

Particularly if the Silver Divers can seize some of the weapons in turn, and use them to prepare the Shield's vastest roar.

The photographs sourced from the Syfenno were very helpful in turn. The light armor of the Divers has been hidden beneath red-and-black checkered tunics and rough blue trousers, their ears beneath hats-- some shapeless, some wide-brimmed. This is what wilderness women among the Portuguese wear, is it not? They will blend in, even with the scabbards at their sides, surely.

Breathless Dead

"Star Kings," Sagetip sniffs. "It's all psychology with them. And the weapons, but those can be circumvented. It's the superiority that makes them dangerous. Breaking their opponents' will to fight, acting as if they are invincible, and cluster bombing an opponent: that is where they get their reputation as warriors."

Ember is half listening, and half imagining the Portuguese, and more than half angry at the thought of a bunch of... and here she imagines the people of Beri, but in loud orange and green outfits... a bunch of people, stuck on that planet, stuck in a system where they have to spend their whole lives trying to scramble their way to the top, instead of there being enough for everyone. Poverty and being trapped and the only way out is through the Knight and what if they just--

But she has to think of the ship first, doesn't she? Like Mosaic. And how could she, leader of a pack, go in and fix it? It's not like she can trust everyone in the pack to behave, anyway. Oh, sure, they'd go down, they'd have fun, they'd declare themselves here to save the world, but... they can't. Not here. Not now. And it keeps stabbing at her, like a needle. That she has to do the right thing for the pack and the ship and her girlfriend. Not for the Portuguese (staring at her in her mind's eye).

Get in. Scatter the Star Kings. Get the materials they need. Get out. You can do that, can't you, Ember? Without getting in trouble? Without needing to be dragged back out? Without trying to slot into the perfect position that will be vacated once the Star Kings are gone? For everyone (except the Portuguese)?

Staring at the simulacrum of their world, it's hard to be sure.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

One thing more. One little twist. She's allowed this, isn't she? You knew who you were working with, Whispered Promise. You knew what laughing, petulant deity you were working with. To call upon the powers of the underworld is to recognize that power.

When the transmission cuts off, it cuts to the burning skull of a goddess, made of the leaping, giddy flames, the color of unclouded jade. The burning jaw contorts into a gleeful nip, a way to show the entire universe that this, the coup of Whispered Promise that will be remembered for generations, that will turn entire worlds on their fulcrum...

It could not have been done without the intervention of a goddess.

Then she turns her eye away from Whispered Promise's plummet (because she knows best of all not to intrude on a moment that is sacred in such a way), and she sets her labyrinth awhirl, drawing the strings of wild speculation being yowled out into the universe and sending them scattering where she will. Ten Things You Need To Know About Mayze Szerpaws. Szerpaws Revealed (Live Reaction). What Does This Mean For The Consortium? Nothing- absolutely nothing- will be allowed to pass through here that does not pertain to the Revelation of the Trickster.

Well. One thing. One string, tugged. One screen, flicked on.

"Come and fetch our Dolly, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius."

---

Dolly sets her jaw, insofar as she knows how to do it.

"...fuck," she says, and there's an adorable lilt to it, even now. "Goddess damn it all. I thought... fuck!"

Then she begins trying to move one of the server racks in front of the door, puffing, trying her best to buy time. What's the worst that they could do to her, anyway? Nothing they can accuse her of is anywhere as bad as letting Mirror's dream be shattered in this moment. Nobody gets to see Solarel and Mirror, not now, not until it's all over.

That's the promise she made to Mirror, after all.

"We are about to have company, so give me a hand here! We can't let them interrupt her! Please!"

[Dolly immediately pulls on that String.]

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Her fire does not give off smoke.

Here, in the center, in the shape of this which is a name, she burns, and her fire does not give off smoke.

Here, in the center, in the shape of this which is a name, she plucks a string, and she burns, and her fire does not give off smoke.

Here, in the center, in the shape of this which is a name, she plucks a string, and the reverberation pulls every block into place where she wants it, and she burns, and her fire does not give off smoke.

Here, in the center, in the shape of this which is a name, and the name is Smokeless Jade Fires, she plucks a string, and the reverberation pulls every block into place where she wants it, and she burns, and her fire does not give off smoke.

---

Her heart is racing. Her prey instincts, honed by evolution to keep her save from behemoths and hungry birds, yells at her to go and hide under a desk. She's been seen, she's been made, she's been spotted, she's been striped. It's all going to fall apart, and she'll have failed to keep Jade...

To keep her safe, in turn. To protect her as she protects her priestess.

It's like it's somebody else who moves her hand, who presses one finger against Sam's lips. But it's her that manages to wink. A plea from a place of weakness, but presented from a stance of strength. Those alien lips (like Angela's) are soft, warm. Breath mists against her fingerpad.

Won't you be a good girl and keep quiet for me, Sam? It's an actual question the way that Dolly's body asks it; a request. Not a declaration the way that Smokeless Jade Fires would make the question. And some Terenians like a soulful gaze from a voluptuous, soft Hybrasilian. (Actually, according to network searches, that number is much higher than you'd expect. Not that Dolly knows. But Jade does.)

[11 on either an Entice or a Defy Disaster, dealer's choice.]

Breathless Dead

“We need to know their mon and lineage,” Ember of the Silver Divers says. Her tense air is surely just eagerness to fight. She is Ceronian, after all. Thus the restless tail, the bouncing on her heels, the ears at attention. “Then we can start planning where and how we’re going to fight.”

She’s trying so hard not to look at Mosaic, both because of the feeling prickling along her spine and because, well, look at her! She’d be useless to the Tyrant of Beri with Venus arresting her eyes. She needs to be alert. She needs to pay attention. She needs to figure out what is making her fingers itch and her mouth wet. Maybe the Synnefo?

(After all, the Synnefo are perfect targets for any daughter of Ceron. What better challenge than to turn the unflappable, aloof bureaucrats into bleating, flustered messes? What more comfortable trophy than sheared wool? Every one has their weak spot, and it’s a long, delightful game to find it~)

This one’s good, though. Hardly blinking in the face of half a dozen members of the clan, all eyes fixed on him: half-lidded, hungry, proud. Go ahead, little sheep. Be a good boy and give us our quarry.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

“She’s just about got it,” Dolly lies, encouragingly. Her smile shifts from a facade to genuine as the technician does her fumbling best to fix it. Then, because only the very best of girls would be able to resist, she turns her attention back to Sam. “And really, you think I look like D— Seven Quetzal? Is she your favorite~?”

Hmmm. No, this can work. All she has to do is get behind the guns. She drops like a cenote stone, into the narrowing spaces. All she has to do is do a light/shadow attack— something that any reasonable program would have defenses against, but not this, not with the holes in its conception.

“Because if she wasn’t up against Mirror, of all pilots, maybe it’d be her down there against that terrifying Zaldarian, right?” The shiver is, to her surprise, not feigned. She’s getting pieces of the fight over the tall one’s shoulder, and the raw fury, the way that the hulking mountain of a mech moves…

What you do is you make a poison out of your tooth, and when the time comes, you bite the defenses. Light is shadow, shadow is light, the sudden blindness of high hot summer. Legitimate attempts to interact with the system are locked out, treated as the enemy, and the viper at the heart has everything fall at her feet.

Pins prickle underneath her fur as she watches for a moment, tail brushing against Sam’s ankle. They never could have won this. Not against this demon. Mirror should be losing instantly, crushed under the weight of Hunger and Night. But she’s not. She’s not. She slips through those claws like she slipped through Jade’s defenses. She is something outside of the game of gods and demons, and that’s why—

But that’s a last resort, even as the venom throbs in her jaw. Better to weave all things from here, constantly plummeting in and out of the dark as conceptual gravity warps around her.

“We couldn’t have won,” Dolly murmurs, with the flustered Sam close enough to hear.