Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

Death in a deathless place is still holy, yet that does not mean that it is loved.

The moment when the drone dies is distinct. In one moment she is holding a drone, and in the next she is holding a body.

It doesn't fall apart. Bodies should, shouldn't they? It's still as it is, because one of the daughters of Artemis (like Bella) has done her sacred duty. Still. Limp. Empty.

Ember doesn't shiver. She doesn't make a face. She closes her eyes for a moment, and then she opens them. Then she sets the empty shell down on the bed, carefully, cradling the head on its broken neck.

She squats. Takes up the suit jacket again. Digs in a pocket until she finds the two coins down at the bottom.

"We summoned a monster of the void," she says, voice neutral and steady, as she lays the coins down. "I was the bait, and the ritual demanded that Liquid Bronze come and save me. But Love brought me here instead, and now... I'm alone. No pack, no ship. And if I don't make my way towards the bridge, then everything we did to call that Angelshark here will... I have to make my way up to him. But I can get you to a shuttle first."

The sir is unspoken.

Return to Thellamie

Hazel!

Well, we just have to start with you, sweet little thing. So nervous. So anxious. So desperate to be a good boy. (What, did you think you could hide these things from me?) You need approval. You need to be chased. And you need a blessing or you’re never even going to make it to the Chrysanthemum.

The thing about the kiss I give you— on the lips, with your lips, light passing between us like the heat of a summer’s dusk— is that, in a way, it’s your kiss for yourself that your heart wouldn’t admit it needed, but was screaming out for all the same. Keli’s my daughter, you must remember; I have a weakness for you soft little things. Especially ones with those sad little eyes like a wet kitten and that slender figure just made for playing dress-up and no idea of what to do with your hands while you’re standing.

But when I pull back, for a moment, you’ll be able to see the stars in my eyes (like in your gritty true crime drama, Oshi no Ko). I am old, darling (and in that moment, you intuit this). I am older than anyone in this world. I fell from Heaven because I could not help but make things more interesting. I am helping you, Hazel, because I think that you will be interesting. And if you bore me, I will not abandon you. Not without seeing if I can force you back into being entertaining first. And you should not, under any circumstances, underestimate my ability to make situations more entertaining.

You are cute. You are entertaining. You need to be comforted. You need to be tormented. You have my attention, Hazel Valentine Fletcher, my Golden Fawn, and the attention of any of Us is perilous.

Does that answer your question, sweetieantlers~?

---

Eclair!

The skateboarder, the maid, the prodigal, she has nine tails. Her own, which lashes with excitement as she speeds along, and the eight strings of firecrackers which trail from her hand, long and glimmering and Outside-touched.

She spares you a glance over her shoulder, through that laughing mask in black and white, and then builds speed, lifting up into a 1080 spin, giving her an excellent vantage point and momentum. With one hand she grips her board and the strings (can you hear her giddy laughter) and with the other, she flings a line at you.

And as soon as it comes close to you, you can see that the firecrackers are crudely shaped like lizards in a multitude of colors— indigo, chartreuse, honeysuckle, cream, viridian— and then you have just enough time to see their eyes glow and a little fire spit from their mouths.

Suddenly it’s not a spiraling spring of firecrackers. It’s two dozen simultaneous barking sparking snapping hissing shuddering roaring explosions spreading through the entire east side of the plaza, and you’re headed straight into it unless you do something now.

---

Yuki!

Boom!! The plaza explodes into a tumult of fireworks as the masked maid lowers herself on the board and aims right for the Stone, tossing out a string of fireworks to either side of her.

Yowl!! Juniper’s suddenly staring down Hazel and those darn foxgirls bearing down onto her, and behind them the city guards and the Khatun’s pack (and the view looks different than you remember, though I don’t expect you’ll have pieced everything together yet.

Swoop!! Olesya sweeps Juniper up in her arms, her curved heartblade lying on the tiles, crushing the nun against her as she tumbles backwards out of the way of the tumult, cradling Juniper as a Nagi’s coils crash through the space where she was (and, unfortunately, the net snaps up a pack huntress right behind her).

“Golly!!” Hazel is scampering like his life depends on it, squeaking and bobbing and weaving and sliding, and Keli and Seli have their thin heartblades out kissing the air and stinging any hunter who gets too close.

---

Cair!

The path is blocked!

Specifically, the path from A6 (Armory, S-Y) across to G1 (Civil Regalia/Shrine) is blocked by a collection of illustrated Hub guides. Or, more specifically, they’re being blocked by the Hero’s Shadow, who is expertly turning the page of a guide to Basal, their dreadful talons gripping the corner with ease.

Their sleek-spotted tail thumps. Their wings shudder iridescent. Their empty eyes reflect unseen lamplights. Their heat fills the corridor, a pleasant but powerful sauna-sweat. A spiced floral scent lies heavy on the tongue.

They’re a reflection of Heron’s soul, supposedly. That’s the theory, at least, and asking the Shadow to confirm a theory is useless, because they’ll just answer with “if you say so, it must be so.” Also, they might Challenge you afterwards, and then you’ve got to toss out all your plans for the afternoon to deal with that. Anyway, that’s supposedly why they look nothing like Heron, and why they’ve shown up with as much regularity as Sayanastia.

“Six and one and six. Boxcars, but she’s elsewhere.” Their voice is androgynous, melodious, the kind that makes sense of nonsense. They cock their bearded-vulture head, stroking the illustration of the Deep District (done up in seven shades of purple) with the back of one wicked talon. “Tell me: which of you has the purest nature? I need all of your answers.”

It’s always gotta be a whole thing with this one.

---

Hazel!

The kettle whistles, and the scent of something almost exactly like what you would call tea-tea fills the cramped little room.

“You will want to take those off, sweet,” Amali says, setting a tray of tea and cinnamon biscuits and toast with butter and goblin-orange jam before you on the table. She gestures to your antlers. “Or they’ll be soaked through and no good tomorrow.”

A light blanket is wrapped around your shoulders. A goblin that’s almost exactly like a cat, just with a checkerboard for a fur pattern, is making biscuits of his own in your lap. You’re sitting on a soft cushion on a hard chair, and the ticking of a grandmother clock fills the room as much as the scent of the tray’s treasures.

Your lips are still faintly tingling.

Breathless Dead

Ember doesn’t have her weapons to hand: not her sword, neither her knife. That would have ruined the magic, after all. All she has to hand is the suit jacket wrapped around her and her own body.

So much to say that she is not disarmed.

All she needs is that nod, that gesture, and she’s tearing off the jacket, flying the black flag of herself. (You’re married, Dolce, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.) She’s behind the drone before you can say “Ceron!” and wraps her limbs around its thin, waspish waist, between thorax and abdomen.

Redana of Tellus was an Olympic wrestler.

The suplex drops the drone like a thunderbolt. It’s too strong to be stunned, but those gangly limbs and powerful face can’t get at Ember, who uses their prone position to adjust her grip, and then has the drone on her shoulders, now lifted into the air like Antaeus with one hand at the neck and the other at the waist.

“Okay! Where do you want me to put her?” Ember says, tail wagging, suit jacket finally settling onto the floor, grinning broadly at her reunited… friend, yes, that’s the fire burning in her. Her friend! Her Dolce! Not her Dolce in that way, but how else is she meant to express her joy?

[Overcome 10.]

Return to Thellamie

Rurik!

Civelia smiles. It's the kind of smile that an artist might struggle to achieve, the ideal that they would strive to be able to create on demand: subtle, gentle, without pulling the lips back from the teeth. A smile that is not mad, don't put in the news bulletin that she got mad, she's so happy to be rebuked by the Hero of Ages.

"We're going to need to have an Emergency Civil Conclave just to untangle all this trouble," she says, sweetly. Her gaze lowers to the tiles, lit by flickering starlight and lanterns. "Just having this unexpected revelation from the stars would be trouble enough, but the Khatun has begun to play her hand at last, and perhaps other dragons have begun to stir in their slumber." (Heron hasn't been to the Mansion... recently, that is. If you asked Tsane, though, there would likely be notes from a previous life's infiltration somewhere in the stacks, and Cair would have inroads on where to find the apron.)

She clutches her hand to her breast, and though there is no wind here, still her hair dances. There is faint and flickering starlight on her stony lips. "Heron, by the Trust placed within me by the First Fallen, I charge thee with bringing some token to the Emergency Civil Conclave upon the morn which shalt suffice to shine Light full upon Our troubles and turmoil. Furthermore, I beseech thee, bring forth some treasure which has been vouchsafed to you from Our keeping, that from it I may draw strength in proportion to the tumult that does Us surround."

There. That's the real thing. That's not a polite request. The Goddess has called upon her Eternal Bridegroom, formally, invoking magic almost as old as the world itself. Time to get on it.

By and by, where's Kalentia?

---

Kalentia!

"We are not the descending into starglamour," the Lunarian says, staring down the length of the Via Cobera. Like many major Crevas roads, the Via Cobera contains both a stairway and the broad Nagi paths, heading down the straightest route to the Welcoming Plaza. Or, at least, it should. It's just that... it doesn't. There's supposed to be a straight path, and if you squint you can almost see it, but... no, it snaps right back to splitting around a building jutting out of the center of the road like a mountain, and sending both sides of the Via Cobera veering off into other streets.

They've extended an arm (the bandaged one) to stop you from running down into it. One of the earlike things floating above their head twitches. Their shoulders are hunched, and as far as you can tell, they're exhausted from the running fight. But they stopped you from following said running fight into the 'starglamour.'

"I am the displaying of penitence for failing to arrest this disturbance of serenity. You are... the judging of my weakness, Mending. You are dictating how I am atoning."

---

Yuki!

Speaking of doubling back, however, it appears that some members of the Khatun's pack have doubled back for their goblins. A goblin-crab is scuttling along walls, goblin-horses gallop recklessly down paths made for the Nagi, and a small sharp-winged goblin soars upwards, against the stars. Olesya and Juniper both tense up, watching its arc, and then Olesya shrugs. "If she knows..."

The huntress doesn't bother to finish the thought. What does Juni see in her, anyway?

Together, the three of you make it across rooftops and over streets until you're within eyesight of the Welcoming Plaza. Well, isn't that perfect? There's only one way in and out of the city, assuming that you're not going to dare the perils of the Outside. Perhaps you can lay a trap for him here? Or, well, not a trap. You usually don't think about making traps for your friends, do you?

"Oh, perfect," Juni says. "We can lay a trap for him here!" She sounds positively giddy at the thought, and is already pulling some sort of folded net out of her robe's inner pockets, like she's the blonde member of Mystery Incorporated.

---

Eclair!

Here's the trick, Eclair. The poisoned tip of this scorpion's sting.

The Paladin's gamely trying her best to keep up with her, and it's to her credit that she can keep up a sprint even faster than yours, but she doesn't have a skateboard. You do. And you have no hopes of catching up with the distant sound of tricks if you don't take to your skateboard. Leave her in your wake vainly trying to catch up.

But if you were to abandon her, well. Then you'd get close enough to see. To call out. And then it would be a race. And we all know who happens to be grinding towards the Welcoming Plaza at this time of night.

---

Hazel!

It would be polite, at this stage, to offer me a String, wouldn't it? I do think you should be a good boy and do just that.

Particularly because, at this point, I might as well be you. The you that scampered into my den, at least, just with better eyeliner. On either side, my daughters peek out from behind me, hands to their veils, eyes alight with intermingled pride and affection. And I am putting on a show of stretching, limbering up, getting ready for a run (which you should definitely get in the habit of doing, Golden Fawn).

"It's such a shame we can't take him home yet, yah?"
"He'd look right at home on the Garnet boardwalk!"
"It'd be easy for him to get work, yah?"
"He'd die blushing first~"
"So? We'd kiss him back to life~"

That barrage from my girls is interrupted by Amali making her way through the door. Ah, Amali, brought here on extremely short notice, game and ready for anything that her Auntie asks of her. My perfect weapon against you, Hazel Valentine Fletcher. My trap to keep you right where you're needed for our game.

"Why, isn't he a handsome young fellow?" Amali adjusts her half-moon spectacles, getting a better look at you, smiling with the warmth of an Aestivali hearth. "They'll love him up at the Chrysanthemum." (Keli and Seli frantically swallow giggles, electric with the prospect of going and finding you there.) "Don't you worry about a thing, darling," she says, looking up at you, hair silver with age, leaning on her driftwood cane, ears at attention even as she radiates the benevolence of age. "We'll overnight here and then head out with the crowds in the morning. You certainly look like you could use a good night's sleep after all that excitement and magic and such. You're probably peckish, too, and we can feed you properly, dearie. I've forgotten more places to eat around Crevas than you've known!"

"But for now," I say, your accent almost down, "how's about I, uh, give you this, maybe?" I stand up on my tippy-toes, the way that you would, to snap two nets around your antlers, letting them contract down to a tight fit. "It's thirsting wool; it'll grow soggy and heavy with your light if you leave it on too long, but, um, maybe it'll work for short distances? And you can always wring it out to get liquid light, and, oh, gosh, that's really useful stuff! Just be aware it'll soak through and get as sheer as, uh, as," and I do a devastatingly true-to-life hand gesture at Keli, who offers you a bouncy bow.

"Now, the two of you, gosh, you've got to get going! Because soon this whole place won't be here anymore, and you'd be right in the middle of all those strong Nagi and opportunistic Serigamalu and then all that effort I put into helping you would go right to waste, and, oh, Amali would probably get hurt, too, and we both know you're not going to let that happen! So get going, okay?"

Amali takes your arm, and you're definitely not going to be able to wriggle out of helping a little old lady to her hostel. You've been bound as tight as can be, Hazel. Aren't my bindings so very pleasant?

Return to Thellamie

Yuki!

Thank you for handing Olesya that String; I'm sure it will come in handy sooner rather than later.

"The Khaganate's system is very different from slavery," Juniper says, because she's been set off. "It's an honor offered to those who could not evade the hunt but who have useful skills which are used to support the huntresses and it's an acknowledgement of how useful we are despite the fact that we couldn't overcome the hunt and thus our lives are forfeit ceremonially but have been taken up by the pack because it's not like they'd actually kill anyone and on top of that we have the option to request another hunt within a reasonable time frame and if we can use the skills we've picked up to evade being caught for a set period of time then we have earned freedom and a boon from our mistress with the caveat that if we do it before we've learned enough from them we'll receive a corrective punishment but really it's about knowing yourself and knowing what you've been able to learn in the process of serving which is in and of itself an important thing to be able to do and before you ask being invited to share body heat is an honor and--"

Olesya snaps her fingers and gives Juniper a Look, and wow, that's a Look. The eyeshadow, the lowered eyebrows, the stony and flat expression, the way her eyes aren't even open all the way but she's still Intense... be honest, you're in the splash zone at least a little bit, aren't you? Either way, Juniper blushes and stops talking, tail wagging uselessly. Olesya then spares a moment to give you the Look, like, you got her started, so behave.

(But it does sound like slavery with extra steps and a whole framework of "I caught you and could kill you," doesn't it? The underlying hunt ethos is so gauche and barbaric, and just between you and me, Olesya and Juniper here are actually doing it properly, the way those Serigalamu were a blink of a century or two ago, lovers chasing each other across the edge of the Outside with a net they'd woven together, "prey" offering exactly what they wanted to give once caught. But things have certainly changed out west, haven't they?)

"...we track naturally," Olesya says. "Even in unnatural places." And, come to think of it, this does feel a little unnatural, doesn't it? Not quite the same as the Outside, more like someone talented and clever is pulling the wool over the eyes of the world, saying: what if things were like this, instead? "...but you are not pack. Can you scent his trail?" And she casts a hand over my Labyrinth of empty houses and winding alleyways, still looking to you. A request, but also a challenge, and also a measuring. What can you do, Yuki Edogawa, Heroine of Crevas?

---

Sayanastia!

Oh, darling. That would be fun, wouldn't it? But Civelia makes half of a scoffing noise before belatedly remembering that it's beneath her station. Her purpose. Her role. Her coffin. She's not just a one-armed girl, you know; she's a goddess with as many memories as you, if not more, and she's a Beacon of Hope for the Struggling of the World and all that. She's already trapped in a crystal, and the crystal's called Society. (Deep.)

To challenge you directly, she'd have to know that Heron was out of the picture, and believe that there was a threat she couldn't wait out, and that it was your fault. Or you'd have to convince her to want something, with her maiden's heart, her young heart and not her old thoughts, and stand in her way. Or, like, I guess you could enact some sort of Wacky Scheme teaching her self-defense with Injimo, only you keep bullying her, and you get her to stand up to you, and in the moment when she starts to overpower you with her one arm you lean in and press your forehead against hers and steal what Heron never wanted--

"The Civils would do it," she says, looking away from Temptation, waving her hand. "Or Heron. Who--"

She turns to Rurik. Chooses her words carefully. "...may have been distracted from the importance of this ritual. Who has not gone to chase after the Fawn. Who, perhaps, may be entangled in side errands and tasks that seem dreadfully important in the face of a ritual I have been preparing for centuries?"

She smiles, sweetly, on reflexes almost as old as the world. She's struggling so very much to be angry with Heron, but this is beyond the pale for the Hero of Ages. Or would be, if she were here. Attending the festival. Not on the Moon.

---

Rurik!

Civelia cannot know that Heron is on the Moon and you cannot let her follow up on Sayanastia nearly blowing the whole operation just to needle her and you have to have a reason that you didn't leap into the fight with the maid and Civelia is looking at you and she's almost certainly going to have an Emergency Civil Conclave set up here by morning and you are on the spot, so good luck!

---

Aadya, the Rock upon a Mountain!

"I am Aadya, the Rock upon a Mountain," you say, somewhat tetchily. (I'd estimate roughly two-thirds of your thoughts right now are just a repeating mantra of REMATCH REMATCH REMATCH.) "And... wait, no, that..."

You stop to hold your chin in one mighty gauntleted fist for a moment. "...the Sister already knew your name. Vessenmer can't be a spoiler here, turning her against you, unless she were in some sort of ridiculous scheme with wide-ranging implications across the Church." (REMATCH REMATCH REMATCH) You don't have any reason to suspect Vessenmer, not above this snooty maid (REMATCH REMATCH REMATCH) or poor Tammithyn herself, who was a mess of tears when she came to you to beg for help, and this is frustrating and none of it really makes sense, does it?

Hold onto what you said. Either Eclair (REMATCH REMATCH REMATCH) is lying to you, or you got played by a Sister, or you got played by someone who made the Sister lie to you, and she was very convincing, and would someone being blackmailed really be that good at acting? Maybe. Dammit.

Maybe it's time to pull out the biggest gun you've got.

"You know," you say, with as much firm casualness as you can, "the Goddess herself is in the city tonight. And given the fact that this involves the Church and your mansion," and you see that she hears the lack of capital letter there, which is a petty victory but a victory nonetheless (REMATCH REMATCH REMATCH), "I can probably expedite this. Get her to cross-examine both of you. I'll have to pull her out of the celebrations, but she's the goddess herself, she'd definitely want to pass judgment. Now, if you're really innocent, you'd have no reason to deny that, would you?"

---

Eclair!

You hear, distantly, a noise that is familiar. A noise that cuts through distant tumult and the sound of this Paladin's blustering.

Someone, out in the streets, is grinding down a handrail.

---

Hazel!

Oh, come now. We don't do that here. All that sulking, when you should be properly awed and indignant and squeaking. You'll make me look bad, you know? And we can't be having that. I'll end the story right here if you think you can make me look bad in front of my lovely daughters.

"That may be so," I say, and my daughters glance aside with the casualness of a caught kit, which tells me that they don't know, and it's not like I can flip back and review the story thus far. Naturally. "But that is why we need to get you out of these clothes, ya?" There. Did we get a reaction with that one?

I clap my hands, as if calling for a servant, and my fires light the room: blue-white, the color of my light, dazzling and enchanting. Have a look, Hazel Valentine Fletcher: have a look at the clothes hanging from the racks. "Now, we don't have much time, so pick something out. Girls, you will be coming with me. We need the switch to last as long as it must." And not a minute longer- but that's a spoiler, isn't it?

Crevas is known for its colors, and that is what I offer you, Hazel. Soft silk and comfortable linen, all in your size, all in a dizzying array of colors, all lit by my radiance. Hoods and veils, vee-necks and loose trousers, and it's a coincidence that all of them have the subtle patterns denoting a servant of the Karn family. Not that you'll know that yet, so forget I even said it. Here, Hazel, something to hide those horns, something to blend in, and all you have to do is sacrifice your Yukisearth clothes. Don't you worry, there's a changing booth, and I'll keep the girls from peeking too much.

As you hesitate (we both know you do), I let a bit of reverb slip into the voice. It's such a delightful party trick. "As I said, we do not have much time. Unless you want to be on a leash by morning, be quick about it! Besides, Amali is waiting, ya?"

"Oh, she's here?" Good girl, Keli. That trill in your voice will let Hazel know your delight.
"You can't keep her waiting!" And there, Seli, with the swat to his rump, not giving him time to really think about this. Oh, you've been taught well.

Tell us what you pick out, darling, underneath my light. You'll love it. That's my promise.

Breathless Dead

It is one of the quintessentially romantic images, perfect for the damsel in distress, the lure of the Angelshark (which must, surely, even now be lured out of position).

It would be much more romantic if Ember were not hacking and coughing, red-eyed, sputtering, waving the unwanted cigarette in one hand which just makes the smoke spread. Ceronians don’t smoke. They’ll burn incense, they’ll spread perfume, they’ll control the scents precisely, but the stench of roses and nicotine that surrounds her is cloying, suffocating, overwhelming, not made for her.

What this practically means is that she doesn’t have a clever argument for why she’s using her love for Bella, her Mosaic, to save her from being saved by her ritual love, Liquid Bronze, which is really just mean of the god— how dare he put this princess in a position where she has to either renounce her ritual or deny her heart? That’s the sort of thing that gods are doing all of the time, but still!

Instead, she is just, well, rather canine. And part of that animal instinct is knowing how to wiggle out of someone’s arms. Not gracefully, not with any concern for where she will end up, but with the wriggling panic of an anxious dog in a suit worrying about things like wine sales: in such wise does the Princess Alpha free herself from the clutches of Love Himself, flopping in a heap on a neat and tidy bed in front of at least two sheeps.

She coughs again, twice, like she’s about to throw up or expel a hairball, and then brushes her hair out of her face, suit jacket hanging half-open to show her— well, let us be polite and say undergarments.

“…Dolce!” Her smile is like the sun on a day with a picnic basket and a pleasantly cool breeze, isn’t it, Dolce? “From Beri! Juno be praised! Have they been making you cook for them all this time?!”

(A sheep might here, perhaps, remember the Silver Divers, and perhaps even one of their scouts who would occasionally enjoy his cooking.)

[With an 8, Ember gets to Dolce quickly and without harm, but not quietly and without attention.]

Return to Thellamie

Eclair!

The Paladin stops, leans on her broom, stares at you. Her eyebrow twitches above those starglasses. “Look,” she growls. “You already beat me. You already convinced me to…”

She trails off. It’s doubly hard to gauge her expression behind those lenses of smoked glass. “Either you’re being honest, maid, or you’re trying to trip me up. Get me to reveal where she is. What kind of mission from those dragons has you shaking down a supplier of ecclesiastical… supplies? And, look, she didn’t just tell me that you’re her deranged stalker, she told Vessenmer, too, well before you even showed up, so why don’t you try coming up with some clever reason for that? Her name’s Eclair, and she’s relentless, and she’ll threaten people in my life if I don’t return her love—”

She cuts herself off a little too late; she didn’t mean to play her hand so baldly. The sound of your breathing, the two of you, is loud in the cavernous room.

“…and here you are saying that you just want to clean and have polite conversations with a woman who’s terrified of you. Okay. You beat me. I’ll clean. But someone is playing me here, and I think the maid who just kicked my ass is the more dangerous possible liar here, as opposed to a scrawny, anxious nun. So you want to meet her? Only in a place we pick, with Paladins guarding her— that’s the only way I’d even consider it.”

Your tablet pings.
>[.onarainyeve]
>How are you finding the City of Colors, Eclair? I imagine the colors sticking to you as you go.
>No. Sticking to me.
>Damp like Morning’s moss, beaded with dew like pearl-diamonds. Smearing scales.
>Is that how the Nagi learned how to change colors?
>I wonder how to get colors out of a skirt. You would hate imprecise color smearing. Get under your skin. Tik-a-tak. Out out out. Not right.
>Oh, you poor dear…

Evening is the bookwyrm of the three. She’s probably coiled in the library tapping at her special tablet, claws fading into being long enough to register each letter, steaming violet and indigo, rising from her scales. She’s also the mimic; her voice is a patchwork of imitations, stolen words and phrases slipping into her speech. It’s an honor to have her attention like that. But, also, she does have a tendency to have her dreaming thoughts go in… odd directions.

---

Sayanastia!

Civelia— polished, perfect Civelia, that statue pretending to be a woman, that girl discovering she was always a statue— stands and strides over to you, despite the looks she gets from the Paladins.

“If your wicked hand and will are the cause of this,” she says, hand on her hip, eyes dark and unlit, voice as sharp and brittle as glass, “I shall make you explode like we did at Yellow Run. Then I shall have you scooped up into a cube, then smelted, then used as the cornerstone of a new monastery. I’ll put a picture over you, the stone cube you, depicting you tripping down the stairs here during your challenge speech on the Ninth Return. No, I shall have a ‘manga’ made. And then it shall be given to congregations for free. And then I shall fill the monastery with mathematicians.”

She can’t actually do this, but the threat makes her feel better.

Both of you have reincarnated so many times that you’re getting familiar with the patterns, even when they don’t seem quite the same. And you both know that she was created to be Heron’s wife— and that she’s not good at it.

But the two of you still haven’t… you know. Something always comes up. You have… had… a tendency to have her in your clutches, build up the circumstances of her peril, and then chicken out of demanding her heart. Remember the one time that you stalled your own wedding for two hours until Heron showed up to save the bride?

Besides, you bit her arm off back at the dawn of time. That would probably put a dampener on any… you know. Weddings. Even if her duty to Heron wasn’t paramount, literally built into her heart. (You will, of course, have noted the comparisons to Kalentia by now.)

And yet, as she stares down at you, indignant and exhausted, you take a String on her anyway, as she gives into the desire to pay attention to you over the crisis, to needle you, to get needled back, to have your attention again. What will you label this String, o eater of soaps?

---

Yuki!

It’s no use. Every time you look at someplace, it seems distinctly more confusing. More complex. Almost as if, when you weren’t looking, someone was slotting in streets, smuggling in entire rooftops, and making a proper labyrinth for the hunt. (You’ve seen this film from your earth, yes? The one where nothing is what it seems and if you had just kept walking forwards, you would have gotten straight to the castle.)

“…tell me what the Fawn is like,” the Baygum commands, leading you uncertainly onto the next rooftop as her answer. No scenting magic (that she can break out on the spot, or has the resources for), just trying to get around and ahead of the hunt. Baying echoes from below, increasingly distant. “Will he be difficult to tame, Gonji? He will have my sluzhina as a tutor.”

“Me?” Juniper’s voice cracks a little, but not in a bad way. Like Olesya, she’s just accepted that the Khatun will catch him. “I… I wasn’t thinking about that. He’ll need a lot of training to really understand his place in the pack, Yuki! Cooking, cleaning, sewing, entertaining, behaving…”

Go ahead and share with the class, Yuki! And remember, this is for posterity, so be honest.

---

Hazel!

“Oh, huntresses~?”
“You’ll have to tell us all about it later, yah~”

You’re probably in a residential part of the city now— that is, the sort of part where the buildings aren’t tall to show off, but because it lets you pack more people inside. That’s as good a reason as any for the way the streets narrow, right? And the colors are even more gaudy, almost like a neon sign, hot on the eyes. You keep making turns, tighter and tighter, and the baying’s getting quieter behind the three of you, which means you might maybe have a chance to double back if they’d just stop and actually listen to you.

(And you probably don’t notice the patterns worked into the banners and the signs and the tiles. Why would you? You aren’t a starblooded ashiq of Aestival. So, too, you miss the look the two give each other, and the nod of agreement.)

Then— once again— you’re pulled to one side, suddenly, Keli and Seli’s hands firm on you, yanked off your feet and through a beaded curtain and down onto your knees on cool tiles. One hand covers your mouth, predictably, but the other covers your eyes, and together the two push you into a bow, straight from running, the air whistling through your nose. How cute you look like that, on all fours, trying to figure out what’s going on here.

“ara ara~”

The exhalation of smoke, issuing from between my teeth like a dragon.

“You may look, my darlings, and the Fawn too. I’m decent.”

And the hands are removed, and you may look up to see me, my electric blue robe already sliding off my shoulders, drawing the eye to the flat, toned chest fully on display. It might be somewhat more defined than yours, but you’ll have to forgive me for that; I haven’t had the chance to observe the particulars yet. I especially think I had a good eye for these glowing antlers, though they aren’t the only thing causing the shimmering halo of light on the walls behind me.

“What, do you not have mirrors on Yukisearth?” I say, in your adorable voice, gesturing with my dragon-headed pipe. “Next you’ll be telling me that you don’t have shell games, either.”

My dear daughters know better than to ask if I’ve been here the entire time, if I had a plan, to what degree I’m capitalizing on an opportunity here. As if I’d tell them straight! Or you either, for that matter.

I am here. That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. And won’t we have such fun, darlings?

Breathless Dead

“See, it makes a lot of sense when you think about it,” Plundering Fang says, stretching in such a way that her arm rests against the wall just above the Pix’s head. “There’s a lot of you, right? Just scurrying around, looking for something to do together, and hey— wouldn’t you know it? Finishing the flood traps is something you can do together. Is actually improved by having a bunch of girls running around and coordinating by squeaking at each other. We’d be spread too thin and we don’t really do the, uh. The squeaking and squealing.”

The Pix spokesvixen stares up at Plundering Fang with a defiant pout that is only mildly ruined by the furious blush. Some ways down the hall, her soon to be former subordinates huddle, watching with all the courage of Pix who are not within arm’s length of a Ceronian.

“What we’re going to do, instead, is get ready to fight the Summerkind.” Even saying the word seems to make the hull groan. Soon this ship will be full of desperate battle. Pix and Ceronians will have to stand… well, not exactly side by side. Not if the Silver Divers have anything to do with it. “You know them? The bugs? They live, they die, they live again? You’ll want to leave that to the big girls, sweetcheeks.”

“Do you forget that we outnumber—”

Plundering Fang reaches out. Her fingers are gentle, the thumb indenting the cheek, the lift forcing the Pix to look Plundering Fang in the eye, rather than staring balefully at her chest. One of the Pix onlookers falls over.

“But we’re going to work together, right? Like Mosaic-Bella commanded. Unless you want her to come down here and be sardonic at you… what was your name?”

Plundering Fang lifts her hand just that little bit more. The Pix lifts onto her tiptoes, her tail a stiff counterbalance.

“Marbret,” she manages.

“Well, Margret. We wouldn’t want that, right? She’s very busy. And if she can keep our Alpha in line, heeled and leashed, what do you think she’ll do to a bunch of prissy little girls who think they’re too good to accept assignments, hmm? She’ll toss you right out there to be the monster’s appetizer. So. Margret. Are you going to be a good girl for Mosaic-Bella? Or am I going to take you to see her myself?”

Snickers ring out from behind red-haired hands as Margret’s head is shaken from side to side. Then Plundering Fang spins her around.

The sound of the smack is almost louder than the sound of Margret’s yelping indignation.

“Get going, vixen. And get that tight little ass of yours to work.”

Return to Thellamie

Sayanastia!

Welcome back! You just got punched in the soul. Metaphorically. The stars slowly wheeling overhead are mocking in their light, like someone else’s perfectly precise and unattainable brushstrokes.

Things are… relatively calm. There was a fight here between the Nagi and the survivalist pack of mostly Serigalamu, but it’s over: the pack’s howling off down-city, the Nagi are following them and trying to slow them down, and the regular people, the people who were just here to celebrate and enjoy themselves and see something once-in-a-lifetime… well, they’re now regathering in places that aren’t here, the epicenter of the whole mess.

(In places that aren’t this plaza, parents are yelling the names of their children who got lost in the crowd; people are being treated for bruises, concussions, overheating, overexcitement, and the lingering emotional effects of being grazed with heartshot and heartblades; cafes and shops are throwing open their doors, and glasses of tea and water are being handed out, and blankets are being thrown over shoulders, and lost children are sitting on chairs eating cookies. Say what you will about people, but they have a tendency to do unforgivably sentimental things like this when disasters happen.)

Here, Civelia has taken a seat pulled over by one of her paladins, hand resting under her chin, staring furiously at nothing in particular, with Rurik and Injimo over there, listening to those Paladins bicker over what to do, since the maid that attacked— pity you missed that— might have accomplices nearby, and Civelia’s tapped on magic, and there’s a vigorous and violent chase roaring down the streets between here and the city’s exit.

As far as disasters and calamities go, how is this one stacking up against the sorts of things you used to get up to?

---

Eclair!

The Paladin sweeps like she fights: aggressively, with, well, sweeping motions. Good for getting a mess to the point where real work can be done to make it presentable.

“If you aren’t in Crevas stalking Sister Tammithyn,” she asks, after a period of abashed and sullen silence, “why are you following her and trying to get information about her? Even going so far as to hunt down the shop where she’s been buying renovation supplies from. When I met her, she was a nervous wreck at the thought of you finding where she was staying. So why are you here asking questions about her, if you’re just an innocent maid like you say, Eclair Espoir?”

Even as she says this, she overextends, gets her broom behind a vat, leaves herself open. Open to explanations. Open to questions. And— that’s a good stretch, isn’t it? Worth admiring. Well-muscled arms. Sticks her foot out behind her just a little bit to counterbalance.

Anesh Vessenmer’s office slats have creaked, the once, and the sound of scribbling has ceased. You’re definitely being watched by the proprietor, even as you attend to the closing chores: sweeping, sorting, and oiling.

---

Yuki!

“Wait, you don’t?” Juniper sounds a little panicky. “What am I saying, of course you don’t! Suli would know but she’s back there and we can’t double back—“

“There,” Olesya says, nodding. Down there you catch a glimpse of golden antlers bobbing, and less down there the roiling melee of hunters and guards that’s bleeding both. If Hazel ran all the way down and back up, he’d probably lose all but the most dedicated and dangerous hunters— but that would be a mess. And, ah, the golden glow ducks around a corner and is gone.

The Khatun’s not at the head of the pack; she’s at the back, driving her hunters on. At the front are three Serigalamu who are moving together: the comparatively lanky one, the comparatively short one, and the comparatively blonde one. They’re, presumably, the huntresses that Hazel needs to worry the most about. Given that the three of you cumulatively know about as much of the city as the huntresses do, and you’re scrabbling on the roofs to avoid their fighting, you don’t have the best odds of getting to Hazel before they do.

You need some sort of plan, because Juniper’s plan is “whatever Olesya says,” and Olesya’s plan is… well, hard to tell. Want to gamble on it, or propose your own?

---

Hazel!

Two pairs of triangles perk up. The two exchange a Look.

“Oh. You know Yuki?”
“Maybe we should—“
“—yah, if he wants to leave—“
“—Garnet?”
“Yah.”

There is a crash at one end of the alley, behind you, and all three of you jump, and there are three high-pitched squeaks in unison. The rest of the Nagi guard who slammed his shoulder into the corner is still piling up behind him as he tries to change his direction of momentum. (There is quite a bit of tail, you see.)

“Golden Fawn! Make your way to the Viperiat at once!”

“You’ve really gone and made her mad, huh?”
“All the more reason to leave, yah?”

“No, don’t—!”

Seli takes your other hand and pulls you along, even as Keli blows the guard a kiss.

“You really got under her shed, yah?”
“Sounds like she’s got the whole city after you!”
“Trust us, the Garnet Shore is much calmer!”
“We’ll take you to the most exclusive spa~”

…they really don’t know what they’re getting into, do they? The glowing antlers, the frantically slithering guardsman, the running: they haven’t connected everything. They don’t have context. But would they act any differently if they did? Are…

Are you tricking them? On accident, but still with full moral culpability probably? You trickster.

No string for you, incidentally, but you do get something they think you want~!

Return to Thellamie

Eclair!

The Paladin does not go down gracefully. She fights. She bucks, she flails, she gnashes her teeth— but first she crumples to her knees, and then on all fours, panting, cheeks squished, poked and prodded and given scritchies. (Don’t worry about the seating. Her back is broad and strong.)

“…you promise?” The words are muffled, but insistent. “I… nngh.” She can’t lift you; every time she half-rises, you bring her back down with a devastatingly timed distraction. The little bell on the collar jingles jauntily. “…can’t… have to… promised I’d stop you… damn it…”

Her eyes flutter shut as you find just the right spot underneath her chin. Her gauntlet scrapes against the tile. Her heartglaive is useless under her hands, pinned down by your shared weight.

It’s fairly obvious, come to think of it. She’s a sledgehammer. The kind of girl who responds well to challenges, being given good instructions, having someone to compete with. The kind of weapon that someone might fire at you if your investigation caused them problems. Come up with a sordid story, convince her that you’re a cackling, scheming villainess, and then watch as she flings herself at you repeatedly. If you don’t convince her of your innocence, she would come after you again and again until ordered to call the pursuit off. Dogged, relentless, morally struggling with the fact that you’ve found The Scritchies Spot, and… well, as devoted to her tasks as you are to yours.

She would be an excellent cleaning partner and a reliable asset, if flipped. You just need to convince her that yielding, that not being an invincible wall of stone, is not Giving Into Wickedness.

Now would be a wonderful time to introduce yourself, incidentally. I’m quite sure this is where you do it.

---

Kalentia!

One of the Serigalamu bears down on you, intent on going right through you— and the running and slithering people behind you— to… well, there’s probably some handhold, some boxes to climb, some route that’s so important that shoving you to one side’s no trouble at all. And your feet feel rooted to the ground, and wouldn’t a barrier have helped here?

Except the Lunarian interposes herself at the last second. Unarmed, she gets her shoulder under the breastbone and flips the Serigalamu over, catching and twisting their arm along the way, disrupting the connection with their heartblade. The hunter hits the tiles hard, the air forced out of their lungs, and the Lunarian settles into the sort of stance that Injimo would recognize, ready to burst into action again.

“I am the advising of cessation of the unmaking of serenity,” the Lunarian says, a little raggedly. Yes, that’s it. Strain under the buzz of their voice. “You are the irrational unthinking, the disrupting of the serene.”

Then she looks back at you, her face hidden behind the smoky visor of her helmet. “You are the assisting of the disrupted. The path upwards is the protecting from disruption.”

Then she bounds (bounces?) into the fracas, and watch what she’s doing: trying to put herself, without a heartblade, between the people she’s waving over to you and the Khaganate pack. Taking blows which bounce off her armor, and doing her best to disarm and neutralize these rampaging huntresses.

---

Sulochana!

Chaos. Complete chaos. In your city! The screams of the crowd: these are your people!

All around you, loyal guards try to stem the tide of these flea-bitten venturers. Long, muscled tails smack scampering, leaping huntresses back; forked spears catch motley blades in their tines and skewer the least prepared of the lot. But the clever members of the pack know that they don’t need to get dragged into a fight.

“Don’t let them through! Crevas is on the side of the Golden Fawn—“

You barely swat aside a headshot. The Khatun, damn her eyes, snaps off another shot as she lopes towards you. Her mere presence seems to push her pack to redouble their efforts, and— you can’t look. If you take your eyes off the Khatun, you’re done for.

You have the reach advantage, and the advantage of knowing that you are defending that helpless boy (Hazel, like the Hazelnuts), who will doubtless be grateful and ready to be tamed when Yuki puts in a good word for you. Yuki! She must be ready to jump out any moment now and catch the Khatun from behind! The two of you, just like back when you were sneaking into Crevas from below. Where is…?

There. Dashing south-and-downwards, flanked by two huntresses. Your stomach drops; for all that she must have a good reason, you can’t help but feel… abandoned.

The Khatun is on you, and from her heart’s weapon— that recurved bow— she somehow pulls a broad-bladed, recurved knife, and you barely have the time to register that she’s suddenly got in under your guard before she’s sliding the heartblade into your stomach, twisting, dragging it upwards, and the hoarse scream that bursts out of you is barely recognizable as your own.

Abandoned. Betrayed. Alone.

Someone catches you as you stagger, and the Khatun has bounded past, not giving you so much as a second glance. The shock of that blow is still reverberating through you— you can hardly breathe through the tears.

This was supposed to be your night.

At least the sight of the Golden Fawn nobly descending is a comfort. Of course Yuki’s friend is noble and self-sacrificing, pretending to be clumsy and easily caught in order to draw away pursuit from festivalgoers. How noble…

---

Yuki!

“For the mounts?”
“No time.”
“So where?”
“Not up. Out.”

Olesya and Juniper let you go, but Juniper grabs your hand and interlaces her fingers with yours. The three of you start running, following the fleeing crowd, and… huh, Olesya doesn’t have her heartblade out. She’s moving quick, though, and it’s all you can do to keep up. She runs like she can somehow catch up with ten minutes ago and stop any of this from happening.

She slides to a halt by a low-hanging wall and drops to one knee. Juniper lets go of your hand and jumps, landing with her foot in Olesya’s hands, and— woof. That’s a very strong toss up, like a vertical caber toss. And Juniper tries to smooth down her skirt a little too late, giving you an eyeful. So stop looking up, look at Olesya! She’s going to do the same for you if you can get the momentum up.

And then, once you’re up there, that’s when the rooftop parkour will begin. There’s a lot of verticality to scrabbling over the tiles of Crevas’s rooftops, and plenty of daring jumps from one roof to another, all to try and cut Hazel off— but that depends on you trusting in Olesya first, and pulling her up after you with Juniper after.

(You definitely didn’t have the chance to do something like this last time— being up on top of the city instead of sneaking through secret passages and basements. It’s very “Assassin’s Creed,”isn’t it?)

Either way, mark a Need with Sulochana. That’s just the way these things snake out sometimes.

---

Injimo!

You’re fighting just like the Nagi are, you know. Not in technique, but in purpose. You don’t land a solid hit on this maid, and she can’t seem to land a solid hit on you, either. It’s all fluttery scratches, a fleeting rush from glancing blows with her fan— because she doesn’t want to drop you. She just wants to get past you, and you are impossible to ignore, not letting her slip past.

Finally, she has an opening: her fan’s edge kisses your chest, right at your breastbone. But the shock of her own heart striking yours is something you’re trained to push through. An iron heart is an impenetrable heart.

So she hops back, clicking her fan shut. Behind you, three Paladins are now covering for Civelia; you’re the head of the spear, and now the rest of the spear is in place. So she dips into a curtesy towards you all.

“Excellent, excellent! You are lucky to have such a lioness defending you, goddess! But you must be lucky every time, my dear, and I must merely be lucky the once~!”

She points at Civelia with the closed fan. “For I, Eclair Espoir, the Violet Flash, shall have my vengeance on you, yes~!”

One of the Paladins moves— fool. No sooner is he in his swing than Eclair Espoir is jumping, landing on his blade’s flat in her heels, and launching off, already swinging her skateboard off her back and smoothly under her feet.

Mark a Condition as even your iron heart feels the blow. Another pale scar to add to your collection.

---

Hazel!

You skid around yet another corner, heart pounding in your ears, the baying of the pack and the clash of heartweapons echoing in your wake, throat hoarse from the dry Crevas air and from yelling for people who decided to stay out for a quiet cup of tea or for board games in park squares that they should get inside, pronto!

Anyway, you skid inside the alleyway and then bounce.

“There you are!”
“There you are!”

The veil and sash are snatched away from you, even as Keli takes your hand to help you back up. (Her other hand is, ah, stabilizing herself.)

“We come up to save you and you’re diving off rooftops?”
“Managing to knock out that bossy snake, yah!”
“Without even a thought of coming back for us?”
“And since when do antlers glow in the dark?”

The hunt is getting very, very close, Seli is adjusting her veil with an air of aggrieved pride, and Keli is peering very closely at your antlers.

Do you feel like digging yourself deeper into debt, little fawn? Or do you want to dare doubling back on your own trail? Do you think they really don’t know what’s going on, or are they just trying to lull you into a false sense of security? And Keli definitely isn’t letting go of your wrist now.

And you do still have your purse…