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In Return to Thellamie → 3 mos ago Forum: Tabletop Roleplay
Hazel!

This is the tale that Amali tells you, slowly and carefully, as you wend your way through the city.

Vespergift, back before it was Vespergift, suffered in the cold. There was no forest to tangle the howling winds of the Outside in its branches, and neither was there a wall to break the teeth of the wind, and the snow came roaring off the peaks of Kel, and so this was just a connector-Hub, a place to briefly stop while on your way to the marvelous orchards and fields of the Old North. A town clung around the Stone, but all they had were hostels and inns and little shops where you could buy meal packages for your journey.

Then Heron herself came to Vespergift, back before it was Vespergift, and she was wearing fire. She bought seven shovels until she found one that didn't melt in her hands, and then she started digging. It wasn't long at all before she revealed that there was a lake beneath the town, and she poured fire into the lake's heart. Some folk say that she bound one of the Demons down there, burning forever as it seethes to think that we're all enjoying ourselves up here.

Then Heron came back up and extinguished her own fires, and the folk of the town built a bathhouse around it, and they began to outdo themselves to entertain the Hero. They sang for her, and they acted for her, and they provided her with company, and they painted her, and they poured wine into one of her glasses and tea in another and coffee in a third, because teabushes and coffeebushes and grapevines now grew here, and they named the place after the flowers that sprang up around the hot springs.

And it's here that you arrive at this vast tower-complex in the city's heart, dear Hazel. Golden light spills out of its windows like mead, and the sound of laughter and music and conversation all muddled together, and heat. This is another reason that lodgings on the ground are so valuable, my boy: they get their warmth straight from the source. But the Chrysanthemum, with its windows all chrysanthemums, its doors all grapevines, is a bright summer's day in the midst of a chilly city.

It is also difficult, now that Amali's guiding you towards the service entrance, not to notice the murals of Heron and her many scantily-clad bathing attendants, or the murals of laughing girls chasing each other with ribbons and towels and nets, or the actual girls up front waving fans and inviting people off the street to come in and enjoy the hospitality of the Chrysanthemum. One of them is wearing a maid outfit with an impractically short apron, while another is wearing a luxurious Crevas robe which has slipped right off her shoulders, and a third is wearing the glittering gem-laced silks of Sapphire.

For while the Chrysanthemum may have no fee for entry, it is not permitted to wander the halls alone (a law for which a pronouncement by Heron is dubiously cited as grounding). The rates to hire an attendant for various pleasures and marvels are standardized, but tips are both encouraged and elicited.

A Serigalamu in a fur-lined coat and a goblin-leather skirt (vainly, heroically clinging to her hips) is hanging by the side entrance, smoking a cigarette (and explaining that would see us here all day talking about some of the other purposes that the Avel have for teabushes). Smoke pours around the golden ring in her septum as she exhales; she glances at you without turning her head and grins. "Heya, Granny," she says in a voice that isn't so much husky as it is an entire sled team. "Which of your nieces is this?"


Eclair!

The black stone of Vesper Victoria's eats the buttery light of the Chrysanthemum on the other side of the street. It's a necessary counterbalance, at least according to the Civils: something to sober you up as you stagger out having over-imbibed on overpriced drinks. Yes, that place place is holy enough, but there's too much to do around here to pretend that partying all day long is acceptable behavior. Temperance, patience, and forethought are the watchwords of Vesper Victoria's, and to that end the surface of the monastery is covered in statues and gargoyles and bas-reliefs depicting all the terrible terrible things that Heron and Civelia are protecting all of you from, from rampaging Mirrorfolk to raging Demons to hideous Undead to the various faces of the Dark Dragon herself.

It's a hell of a climb. It'd be more practical to go inside, make your way up the stone stairwells, listen to choir practice and organ recitals, pass classrooms and archive vaults and the Museum of Edifying Horrors on your way, and then make your way out a window once you're close. But you're out here, making your way up to the head of Sayanastia the Dark Dragon herself, a regular daredevil, because walking inside without some sort of clever disguise would overly complicate your investigation.

Up there, you'll find the envelope pasted onto Sayanastia's tongue; you'll need either solvent or patient knifework to dislodge it. No traps are waiting for you up there, though knowing you you'll still be checking anyway. Sayanastia the Dark Dragon is large and frightful enough that you can sit in her mouth to open the envelope to find that eye-wateringly expensive ticket. Three days as a VIP guest of the Chrysanthemum, food and drink and most forms of entertainment all on the house, and a private suite for inviting pretty and well-tipped girls back to.

But that part doesn't appeal much, does it? You're a daughter of the Mansion, and compared to the Great Game, the intrigues and the innuendoes of the Chrysanthemum are vulgar and mercenary. In the Mansion, all serve, and all jockey for position in service; there is none of this dance between guest and guide, in which many a guest realizes that they are out of their depth and in need of a pretty girl or a charming boy to take the lead. The Chrysanthemum entertains one and all, but in the Mansion there is nothing that delights more than the Great Game and the attention of the mistresses themselves, those vast and primordial dreams enveloping you in their coils, prizing you for your very nature as a limited being.

That said, they do a mean breakfast buffet, and the cool rainwater baths of the Mansion are very different in character than the spas and saunas of the Chrysanthemum...


Rurik!

There's nothing for it but to take the Roads, at least part of the way. Vespergift is impenetrable. Any attempt to open a soft way into the city is rebuffed by the hardness, the solidity, of those legendary walls. So even if you take a shortcut to Stoneward, you've got a leg of travel left. So let's talk logistics. Are we going for the full parade through Kel, or do you mean to gather everyone up back inside of the Stacks before taking that last leg all together from Stoneward? (Let's be real, either way you're going to coincidentally end up breaking bread with Yuki Edogawa.)

By and by, how are we going to play this? Any semblance of stealth, trying to disguise what you're doing, or are Injimo and Aadya going to enthusiastically shake down half the city trying to flush out the Maid while flashing Civil badges and wearing starglasses?


Cair!

Meanwhile, back at the Stacks...

Rude riddle-risker / rue-reaping,
irritant know I / ire-inflaming.
Light-lost lass / lunatic-lolling,
Darkness-deprived / doomed to death.

"Hard does Heron trouble Hands, hopping to her horrid whim. Surely a slave of Light, seeing only the swinging of stars. With tempest we made to tear down tyrants, troubling us no more. For the freedom of fools we fought, feigned their fear and fell our friends."

Light-lackey / long-lingering,
To bounty bound / to bullion beaten.
Tower-trapped / treasure-tested,
of Artifice / an Artist.

The philosophy might be worth arguing over, but she's not stupid: she's accusing you of being Heron's handmaiden, someone involved deeply with the material world and the treasures of the Stacks, and can you really say that she's wrong?


Yuki!

"So that we can remain at least somewhat on a forward trajectory," Timatheo says, "I think that we can pivot with minimal effort to being vacationers in Vespergift. It will be notably more expensive, but to be frank treasuries are stored up for events like these. I have enough contacts at the Chrysanthemum there to get my finger on the pulse of the entire city and half of Kel in the process." He clicks the tablet shut with an air of satisfaction. "And if the High Council's ploy is to make us think they're hiding this Hazel, then we'll just have reinforced our cover by going to Vespergift and then 'returning' to Aestival."

"The Chrysanthemum?" Pasenne's tail rattles again, and she's brought her hands up to her veiled face. "You mean it? Will we- do you think there will be time to-"

"In the process of investigations, we will likely have to use various attractions for our purposes," Timatheo says, shooting the maid an amused glance. "Don't get your hopes up on anything specific, though, and don't think we'll be able to actually relax."

"If we find Hazel and tame him," Sulochana says, and there's something commanding in her voice, not bossy but taking charge nonetheless, "we'll all have a vacation wherever Yuki wants to go, and I'll cover for us. How does that sound?"

Anka looks you up and down and comes to the unspoken conclusion that she likes her odds of bullying you into deciding on Summerkand.

"Actually, the maid's right," Magasha interjects. "If we're going to the Chrysanthemum, it would be inauspicious not to enjoy ourselves. I'm sure that she and I can work together to bring good fortune to our expedition while Timatheo and Yuki there enjoy their detective work." She thumps her tail once in satisfaction, smiling as if the issue has already been settled.

"We'll need some coats for the approach into the city, but we're dressed appropriately for the Chrysanthemum itself," Timatheo says, not commenting on Magasha. "We'll be out of the city before the last festivalgoers have left, but it's becoming a much closer thing. Let's not waste time." Then he gives you an approving nod and a smile; you've impressed him at least a little bit.

But you're Yuki Edogawa, after all. Naturally impressive. Who wouldn't want to get on your good side?
In Breathless Dead → 4 mos ago Forum: Tabletop Roleplay
Her heart is all of her, from her ears to her toes to her frantically wagging tail. It's all alight with the wine of Bella: intoxicating, inflaming, as rich and deep as the sea. She stands on tiptoes, leans after her demigoddess-- which is to say her peer, but in the moment she feels unworthy of this woman cloaked in glory. But she longs. She yearns. She wants to be the bride more than she wants to breathe. She wants to take Bella's hand and jump off the ship onto the back of her horse and ride across the stars until they've found something that nobody has ever laid their eyes on. She wants to kiss her heroine under the eye of a dazzling sapphire sunset. And she wants to be that princess that Bella remembers.

(and a long-quiescent blessing stirs, and while it has withdrawn from Redana, it may still grant the wish of this yearning Ceronian girl as swiftly as if it were on winged foot; all this time, it has half-sleeping transcribed all that it has seen in a manner which will not burn out nerves and stop that vast heart, and for a moment it is roused once more with a mother's love)

There is a flash like all the endless azure skies beneath her veil, one which makes the shadows of lace dance across the floor. The bride staggers. With one hand she fumbles at her lips; with the other she pulls the veil free. Beneath, her hair is done up in a net of pearls, white on gold, worthy of a princess. Her lips are wet, and she drags breath through them like a drowning woman, blinking in pain and shock. But she is smiling, too, like she was in a giddy heap at the bottom of the stairs staring up at a frantic maid demanding that she not grab the pillow and ride it all the way back down again.

"Bella?" She looks up. A lock of hair has come free from her perfect bun. Her mismatched eyes shine like stars. Her ears are perked up and eager. "I... Bella!"

When she runs, when she jumps, her Bella's arms are there waiting for her. She clasps her own about her Bella's neck, presses her forehead to hers, laughs like a madwoman. "We did it," she babbles, feet kicking in the air. "Fuck you, Aphrodite, and fuck your river! We did it! I do, I do, a hundred times I do, and I'll say it again when we stand on Gaia together: Bella Hostilius Mosaic, I do! And--"

A sudden thought flashes across her face. Her ears droop. "I, um. Do you mind that I joined Ceron? I don't know if I can go back. Not that I can't, but that I can't-- ugh! It's that we match, and I don't want to lose that any more than I want to lose the pack, and you smell so--"

The kiss is sudden, the passion of violence barely restrained. The princess melts into the lips of her bride, the fingers of one hand digging into those blue-black locks even as the other smushes a bouquet of flowers against Bella's ear. One of her heels falls to the floor as she returns that hunger, inelegant and delirious with joy, heedless of the audience[1]. That net of pearls tumbles after, her hair spilling free over her first wedding gown. Love and Joy and Devotion[2] mist the air.

"I'm back," she says, as Bella nips at her sodden throat, "and I never left, and I missed you, and we found each other anyway, and I will marry you as many times as it takes, Bella, Bella, Bella..."


[1]: let all of the Endless Azure Skies see! Let the stars marvel at their good fortune! Let the gods attend in pride!

[2]: and, it must be admitted, Screaming Carnal Lust. Fortunately, there are no Ceronians around to pick up on the fact that Dany wants Bella to tear her right out of the dress.
In Return to Thellamie → 4 mos ago Forum: Tabletop Roleplay
Yuki!

"We have problems," Timatheo says.

Wait, wait, let's back up. You're now at the *~Lucky Star~* just off Welcoming Plaza, finalizing your trip prep in one of its upper-floor lounges, and by you I mean the Fellowship of the Deerboy. Let's run down the list real quick while I add them to the Dramatis Personae, and then we can get back to Timatheo and his tablet.

  • Princess Sulochana Arju. Her scales are a dull gold and warm brown, and she's wearing Aestivali fashion: loose, flowing, colorful silks. Her cloak does have a hood, but she's got it tossed back to show off the butterfly-combed ponytail. Her half-mask is white edged in gold, and silver tassels hang under it, her lips teasingly peeking out between them. A web of delicate golden chains covers her right hand from palm to elbow, looping in curves that draw the eye. She's burning a cover identity for this, one prepared by the spies of the Arju consortium for such a desperate hour, so she's spent the past hour going through the cover notes on her tablet and doing vocal warmups. Yah, she murmurs to herself, the beach house in Garnet's going to be lovely for the season, yah?
  • Pasenne, who presumably has a last name but you haven't gotten it yet. The ribbons that were wrapped around her rattle are now in her pigtails, and when she moves, the bells on her collar and wrist cuffs jangle along with her rattle. The one thing she gets to wear that isn't gauzy and diaphanous is the embroidered vest, all knots and coils (barring the veil, naturally). The symbols etched into her collar indicate that she's served fourteen months of two years of gambled service. She's squirming a little self-consciously, but that adds to the authenticity (and there's some giddy awareness of her own hotness in there, too). She's also doing the finishing touches on Magasha's eyeshadow; she's the cosmetics expert for this operation.
  • Anka Arju-Wajz, who's one of the non-serpentine Nagi. She's got scale patterns in her fur and wet golden eyes, but she's also big, shaggy, and broad-shouldered. Her mask is black and red, the swirls drawing attention to those intense eyes, and it exposes her glittering ruby-red lipstick. The mask, the red cloak tossed over one shoulder, the braided golden sash, and a charm dangling from her wrist: these things mark her out as a vicious agonistes. It's an assumed identity, but only barely one; I must have neglected to mention her whirlwind of heartblade violence at the disastrous ceremony last night.
  • Magasha Arju, her indigo hair pulled up around a headdress. Elaborate swirls of paint along her skin meld into slowly undulating scale patterns, forming symbols of the elements like contractions of a muscle. Her dress is embroidered with fortunate constellations. She's going to be another currently-enfranchised citizen of Aestival working in contract with Suli, the elementalist mage with (literal) firepower backing up Anka's storm of blades if you run into trouble. She's actually Suli's cousin, and the resemblance is striking.
  • And then there's Timatheo, also of an undetermined last name. His fur and skin are the kind of black that invite comparisons to ravens, to obsidian, to ink, which makes the white at the tip of his ears and tail all the more striking. He wears flowing violet that leaves his chest bare, and his cloak is the sort of grey that isn't fighting with his fur for attention. A subtle silver collar indicates that he's taking the role of a vazir contracted out to Suli.


"Firstly," he says, his voice conveying irritation while still being soft as the silk clinging to his lithe frame, "Purnima Karn-Pana has already left. I don't believe she's likely to make her way past the Khatun, and she might pull attention away from us, but she's yet another uncertain element in this operation.

"Secondly, Hazel Valentine-Fletcher has been seen at the Hard Gem Cafe in Garnet." He waits a beat, glancing over at you, and then continues. "And at the Spiral Ring, and entering the White Star Teahouse, and in the Tark markets, and diving in Topaz Bay, and being welcomed into Saint Sparrow's of Highpeak." He flips his tablet around to reveal a map of Thellamie (in the same style as a map of the London Underground), with little antler logos all over the place.

Suli groans and stares exhaustedly at the screen. "A shell game. Damn it..."

(There's no antlered logo in the north, though. Not at Stoneward and not at Vespergift.)

While you ponder that- what disguise have you taken here, armed with the largesse of the Arju family? An enthusiastic venturer-scout with a cool cloak and a compass inked on your inner wrist? An apprentice-agonistes with your hair in braids and a black cloak over your offhand? A glamorous, swashbuckling ashiq, making your way with your wits, your seductive wiles, and your audacity? A cartomancer with a gilded deck of constellation-cards? Surely not a debt-girl like Pasenne!


Hazel!

Vespergift is like New York City, you likely think at first.

At least, the NYC that you've seen in movies and TV shows: streets in the shadow of great towers, streets that are packed with people coming home from Crevas, carts on the sidewalk selling street food, snow coming down in flurries and getting packed underfoot into slush. That's a good starting point, and one which slowly complicates the longer you pull the rickshaw with Amali along the designated lanes- for Vespergift is a city of rickshaws, not of goblin-drawn carriages or wagons. You'll see few pets while you're here, too; even domesticated, the beasts of the Outside are suspect.

The buildings have a lot of character to them, too. Plenty of gargoyles (which is to say, the ones that spout water, or on days like today, loose flurries of snow). Plenty of intricate knotwork carvings are interlaced with crown designs all over the walls. Plenty of art deco posters plastered onto any space that will fit them. But down at ground level, there are less of those: this is a place for the good and the grand.

This has taken you some time to get to, but we'll just gloss over the long journey from hub to hub, headed steadily northwards; Anat was the most notable person you met. You've eaten with Kel families with rolypoly kids, with Khaganate musicians looking to avoid conscription into a hunting-pack looking for the Golden Fawn, with a dark-eyed agonistes brooding over being contracted to service in Vespergift instead of being involved in the hunt for the Golden Fawn, with a well-to-do Avel family all too happy to talk about their crystal horticulture business. Meeting people is part of the way that the Roads work, and so is the fact that Anat didn't show up in Vespergift at the exact same time you did. Maybe she got here earlier, maybe she's still finishing up a meal before she continues on her way to the Chrysanthemum.

You know. The same place that you're approaching with Amali.

"Let me do the talking once we're inside," she's saying, and there's a sternness to her voice. "You're going to come around to the side entrance; carry what I hand you and follow me, and don't talk to the girls, you understand? One way or another, you'll get in trouble for it, or shenanigans will ensue..."

As if you could avoid them in one of my hallowed places.


Eclair!

The eggs are glistening and ever-so-slightly wobbly when poked with a fork. Pierce one with the tines and the golden yolk oozes out sluggishly onto the plate. The pain au chocolat is buttery, fluffy, and rich whenever you bite into one of the pockets of chocolatey goodness. The tea is, alas, steeped for two minutes and ten seconds, but it's served to you with a wink by the waitress.

"I don't think I've seen you around before," she says, with a lilt to the S that suggests she was raised in Kel. Her hair is brown and black, tucked up into a messy bun, and her apron is stained to a degree that would never be acceptable in the Mansion. But her sleeves are rolled up to the elbow, and the shape of them, the effortless strain of holding a tray, that speaks to its own sort of dedication. "What brings you here, stranger~?"

On the other side of the street, someone is putting up a poster, dangling by a series of straps from a balcony so that they have both hands available for the work. The profile of a glowering maid with violet ringlets stares down balefully, lip curled to bare her teeth. It is not an attempt at realism, but constructed from the distinctive sharp-angled shapes of the New Vespertine School.

CIVIL REWARD
FOR THE PERILOUS ASSASSIN
ECLAIR ESPOIR



Injimo!

The paladin laughs. There's a blush to it, certainly, but also a disarming sort of self-effacement. "I mean, she did have her thighs around my head at one point," she says, and winks. "But I mean it, Heron. When she was talking to me, it was like she could have convinced me of anything. Like she was asserting a world where she was justified so strongly. I think she might be connected to... well. If you know, you know."

MASKERADE is a theory among the Paladins of Kel that argues that not only has Aestival been compromised by fallen star worship on a scale that beggars anything beyond the First Fallen, but that their ultimate goal is to take control of the Civil Church and the government of every Hub, at which point the Roads will be twisted into a Labyrinth and rule-by-masks will begin. (Don't worry, if it was true, wouldn't I tell you?) Conversely, DEMASQUE is the theory that the evidence for MASKERADE has been carefully faked to implicate the High Council when the true threat is a cult trying to weaponize mirrors in the name of Azaza, and then there's FAKEVELIA, which Heron very definitely isn't supposed to know about, because she's honor-bound to kick the ass of idiots theorizing that maybe Civelia's been replaced by skilled imposters for the past three incarnations, but that would just add fuel to the fire.

This is where she'd take a String, but she's immediately burning it by impulsively taking your hand and dropping to one knee. "Great Hero," she says, pressing her forehead against your fingers (and it's warmer than you expected), "let me join your entourage while we hunt for Eclair Espoir and Tammithyn Murr." (Her grip is strong, just like when she wrestled with you, laughing and pointing out ways that you could overcome her, and then still managing to win anyway. She wanted you to be able to win fairly so badly, but she also wanted to push you to your limits first.)


Cair!

You'd think an eight-foot tall woman covered in chains and hair would be easier to hear, right?

Her hair drags on the floor, covering her like a straw coat; her ears barely poke out of the tangled, coarse mass. She's like a walking fir tree. And she was very, very quiet, right up until she picked you up and pinned you against MOON (Aa-Da). The arm that is sticking out of the coat of hair is, as one might say, swole. If she flexed, her bicep would be the size of your head, easy.

Long I languished / lost, forlorn
Kept in chains / of constancy,
Mistress-mailed / in my might.
Doomed, despairing / for her death.

"These chains ye linked of loyalty, to keep as long in ground she lie. Void-tempered, vast-holding, vainly yet I strove. Now ye reckon, riseth she; rage-consuming, rabid-fanged."

Architect I / arbor-ardent
Stone stacking / in straunge shape.
Hearing her horn / happy hasten
to turmoil / and torment of the towns.

"Where my hammer, not to hand? Spineless-one, shivering-girl, slave of Light; speak! To war I waken, to your walls I wend, woe to world!"

...this is definitely, as Tsane would be able to identify for you, the Architect-Knight, raiser and feller of walls. She was the right hand of Dark Queen Aria, one of Sayanastia's incarnations, eventually defeated in epic battle far in the north of the world. But she's been marked as DEFANGED in the annals, since Aria very definitely bit it at the end there. The kind of gruesome death that fighting with heartblades helps everybody avoid-- but she was the one who used gross weapons first, so she can't really complain about the whole spearing thing.

Did You Know: Heron forced the Architect-Knight to build the Walls of Vespergift in a single night?

She could crush your windpipe like a cheap tin can. She could bounce you off the walls like a tennis ball. But she is doing neither of these things. She is just holding you in place, effortlessly, and, hey, if you did find the hammer for her, you could definitely get a repaired suit for the Lunarian out of the deal. She's a terror, but a terror that pays her debts. And, hey, you got a mixed success, so you've got plenty of room to wriggle here and to talk her into a deal. Fair's fair.
In Return to Thellamie → 4 mos ago Forum: Tabletop Roleplay
Injimo!

"The assassin?" Aadya blinks a moment. "I... did she go out and kill someone?"

A beat. The Civil's mouth slowly opens, and she eventually manages to find the words. "No, she... she attacked the Goddess?"

"What? After I let her go?!" The stylus proves its good manufacture by not snapping under the pressure of Aadya's forefinger and thumb. "I should have known something was wrong when she ran off... damn!" She gnaws on the stylus, glaring at the tablet like it was what convinced her to let Eclair Espoir go.

Then her eyes flick back to you, and she stands up a little straighter, tucks the stylus behind her ear, and actually tries to look like she's trying to be respectful of the Hero of Ages. "She was harassing a dyemaker, trying to get information on Sister Tammithyn Murr. When I arrived, she beat me in a fight and then made me help her clean the dyemaker's shop, and she tried to convince me that the whole thing was a big misunderstanding and that she wasn't stalking the good sister. Then she took me by the hand, ran out with me into the street, and finally jumped off me to start using her board. Now she's gone, Tammithyn's gone, and you're telling me she found time to attack Holy Civelia along the way?"

She stands even more at attention. "Eclair Espoir is a talented and dangerous opponent, happy to use her body and her skateboard to fight even more than she uses her sword. She's capricious and erratic, obsessed with cleaning, good at using her tongue. Appearance-wise, she's a violet-haired Avel in plate-and-apron."

Didn't Civelia's attacker have carrot-orange curls?


Cair!

As Kalentia tries to get the Lunarian to relax, or at the very least stop being as stiff as a board, all right angles and scandalized shivers, we turn our attention back to you. You've been dealing with the armor, right? We may as well talk about that for a moment.

The Lunarians are geniuses when it comes to technology, and this armor's proof of that. It's designed to be a self-contained lunar environment, and it's very hard; whatever cracked open the vambrace must have been very dangerous. Either that, or she pissed off someone with the world's largest crab cracker; the way that it interlocks, the shape of its various pieces, has a rather carcine air beneath the bamboo-stem elegance. When you slipped your hand into the gauntlet and tried to pick up a sword, it made you strong enough that you left the imprints of your fingers in the metal as if it were made of sponge.

The most you'll be able to do on it is a patch job, and it's possible that the pure essence of the moon has already leaked out of the suit. This could have... ramifications on the Lunarian's continued health, if she doesn't figure out how to survive down here where everything's dirty and messy.


Yuki!

Well, for starters, you should mark a Need for Aadya. Poor dear. We'll just have to see if we can avoid having her turned into a pincushion, won't we?

As for Sulochana, something in your words or voice seems to touch her. She hesitates for your sake, darling. For your sake and for the sake of a boy she still hasn’t properly met in person.

“…Yuki, I would appreciate your help,” she says, banking the fires of her intensity. “You’re right. I— what if coming with as many guards as I can just scares him? What if he’d be uncomfortable with riding in a palanquin or on the back of a goblin? Would it mean more to him if we disguised ourselves and went alone? He’s your friend, so please help me tame him in… the nicest way I can.”

What this means, dear, is that you now have a lot of power over how Suli intends to go forth. You can pick names, make requests, and otherwise take responsibility for making this happen, too. But that’s better than scaring Hazel, right?


Eclair!

For most hubs in Thellamie, there are two means of entry: via the Roads or by daring the Outside and coming from without. However, this latter, more unusual method hits several snags when an attempt is made to enter Vespergift thus. Snags, roots, walls and boiling oil. Or so the excitable rumors of childhood go; every child knew someone whose cousin knew someone who got locked out after sneaking out of the city, and when they tried to get back inside: slosh and splash and sizzle.

What this means practically is that you may enter the city into the Marché Couvert, which feels as if it is subterranean despite merely being at ground level, a maze of stalls and carts and cafes where Timtam might play cat and mouse— or you may brave the walls that the trees and the dead have broken themselves upon time and again, clambering from gargoyle to arrow-slit to oil-vent, all to try and outfox Timtam.


Anat Amora-Ugari!

There. There it is. The starlight inside of him glimmering, winking, bright and full of wonder. You caught a glimpse of that when Keli was dancing with him: that passion. The gesture you make with your fingers, for but a moment, is only for you and Amali and me; he doesn’t know yet what it means. But in this moment, you believe that one day this boy will know me the way that you do. (Oh, if only you knew!)

“Like you,” you say, taking a guess, “I could feel it inside here.” Your touch to your breastbone is gentle. “That feeling needs to be shared with others. By doing what we do, we help others touch the dance that is happening above us all, even if it’s only for a moment.”

Then you begin to prime him for initiation: you tell him about the places in every hub that welcome artists, but not about the symbols etched into doorframes. You tell him about paying attention to the calendars of the hubs and chasing festivals and parties, and how the Civils always have some sort of event they can point you towards, but you leave out the fact that you sometimes receive polite suggestions on where to go and who to speak with. You mention that the ashiq were the first traveling performers, and you do a little shimmy of demonstration that makes him nearly bury his face into his curry, but you do not talk about who taught them.

Good girl.

“…and I do have an apartment in Turquoise, though I spend only a few weeks out of the year there. How about you? Where are you from?” And you ask it with more innocence than anything else you have said, not knowing why Amali kicks him under the table.
In Breathless Dead → 4 mos ago Forum: Tabletop Roleplay
It would be very easy indeed to assume that the bride is completely helpless; is petrified with fright beneath her wedding veil; is a posable doll ready for the ceremony, barely audible even without the sound of Summerkind drones clapping and weeping to see the grace with which she takes such small, dainty steps across the room. At this point, anyone would have given up, and isn’t it obvious that Ember has succumbed to the inevitable?

Ember has succumbed to the inevitable her only lightly singed ass. She is a Ceronian scout. Her ears twitch under the veil, triangulating the positions of the audience, the shape of the room, the offerings before each shrine. Her nose twitches and sniffs, taking in the scents of the room, the air currents which flow through it, the emotional shifts of the crowd. Her arms tense; if she needs to buy time, she will have to toss them over Liquid Bronze’s neck and start strangling him with her bound wrists while wrapping her thighs around him to share the electric shocks and beating him in the face with a lovely bouquet of flowers[1].

Really, the most unfair thing about all of this is that if anyone, Bella should be at waiting at the shrine. Would that mean anything to Bella, if they were to…?

The thought makes her miss a beat and grunt in alarm as her rump becomes slightly more singed.

Would Bella even be on this journey if not trying to marry her princess? But she often seems so pragmatic (even when she is grinning, sweating and naked), and perhaps she simply needs to ensure that the princess’s mother and the gods do not curse the marriage together. Would this ceremony mean anything to Bella’s heart? Would she wish to see Ember— that is, the Princess— come down the aisle in a dress hung heavy with pearls and white lace? Would that make her eyes widen, her mouth open, her tail twitch?

The thought of it fills every bit of free space in her mouth. Suddenly, this entire plan — from start to finish — feels like a gamble too far. How dare she risk her own wedding as the stakes of survival? How could she let herself be trapped in a position where Liquid Bronze of all people might take her special moment away from Bella? And doubtless the pack hasn’t yet informed the Lare about her predicament, since the Sunshark is actively imperiling the ship— but will it disrupt the wedding in time? And will Liquid Bronze stop preening and ignoring just how pretty she looks coming down the aisle? Bella would never.

…does she even deserve salvation? She’s not really Bella’s princess. She’s just an echo, a new drink in an old glass, trying to live up to all the memories that her girlfriend has of that heroic, swashbuckling princess. Redana definitely wouldn’t have ended up in a position like this[2]!

Oh, if only Bella would swoop out of nowhere, scoop her up in her arms, and declare the wedding canceled! If only…


[1]: hopefully she can keep the flowers. Maybe put them into a vase in her cabin? Surprise Bella with them?

[2]: a thought which has all the certainty of dramatic irony.


[11 on Look Closely. Tell us about the wedding! Tell us about Liquid Bronze! And tell us about what is hidden!]
In Return to Thellamie → 4 mos ago Forum: Tabletop Roleplay
Aadya!

The chamber is empty.

In fact, it looks like it hasn’t been used at all. No, better. The sheets on the bed are neatly tucked in. The flowers were watered recently. The floor’s swept and the windows were left open to air out the room.

Sister Tammithyn Murr is nowhere to be seen.

Sure, there’s some sort of excitement going on today. Some venturer kid became the Queen of Light? And Civelia was attacked by a maid-knight while you were sparring with Eclair Espoir.

The possibilities writhe like snakes. The maids could have been working together, but why was Eclair chasing after a Civil— no, she wasn’t, at least according to her. What evidence is there that there were only two possible liars? Why did she run off last night? Where is Tammithyn Murr?

You have got questions to ask the monastery staff. Wait, no, she’s just at the summit, maybe? You should go and ask…


Eclair!

Ruthmoreness is clumsy, enthusiastic, and a little smug. It remains up in the air how much of her Herness is deliberate and how much is just her natural state, and it’s a distinction that many of your sisters-in-lace would regard as being nonsense. We are the personas that we adopt. (Down south, we have a similar-but-distinct philosophy surrounding masks and veils.)

Her hand finds the weak points in your armor, and acknowledges them: that you, Eclair Espoir, you have skin. Skin that has known rain many times before. Skin wrapped tight around a heart too big to fit through your lips.

Eventually, she sneaks your tablet out of its holster, while you cannot adjust to stop her, and smiles up as she awakens it. “Here, say—“ But she does not complete the thought, tell you to say “Teaaaaaaas!” for the photo, or take a picture. She instead frowns. Then her eyes widen. Then she flips it around for you.

>[.tmtwo]

There are no words. Just two pictures.

The first is of a ticket, covered in delicate scalloped chrysanthemums. It sits on a table of wood whorled in a way that is subtly, irritatingly discordant from the pattern of chrysanthemums. Full Service - 3-Day Stay is written in a flourishing hand across the face of the ticket.

The second is of an envelope. It sits on the black stone tongue of Sayanastia the Dark Dragon, frozen in a snarl. The irregular edge of the envelope in the sketch suggests that it has been pasted in place. “EE” on the front, in Timtam’s hand.

Of course you recognize the flower, even if only dimly. And you recognize the grotesque, too. Did you ever tell Timtam about those childhood memories? The lights of the Chrysanthemum glittering on the snowdrifts, only to get swallowed up by Vesper Victoria’s rising on the other side of the street like a black spear stabbed into the earth, its walls covered in figures of heroes wrestling with vines and skeletal hands just as Heron herself wrestles with Sayanastia, her jaws wide enough to swallow any child (if she were to bend her stone neck down and do a big stretch, and also you obligingly hopped up into the air for her, but that likely didn’t factor into the calculus of childhood fear).

Timtam is in Vespergift. How long has it been, Eclair?


Injimo!

On your way out, you pass a Paladin (tall, broad-shouldered, moving a little stiffly) looking through a Civil’s tablet, flicking down the list and frowning.

“And you’re sure this is everyone?” She’s asking the tablet’s owner. “Is there a way I can sort alphabetically— oh, here?”

She taps, taps, taps, then starts chewing on the stylus and staring a hole through the tablet. Her tail flicks in agitation.

Actually, out of any of the Handmaidens, you’re the one to ask: have you met the Rock Upon a Mountain before?


Kalentia!

The Hero’s Shadow drags one talon through the water, almost idly. No… visible changes occur.

You are helping a shaky Fallen Far into the hot spring. The pupils of her eyes are wide and dark, with a sheen to them like the wings of a beetle. She is clinging to a linen towel wrapped around her as if it were a talisman of good health and modesty.

Please tell us all about the hot spring, and the difference between how various members of your team enjoy it.


Yuki!

First of all, it must be pointed out: from the blush and the way she looks away and smiles, it’s unusual to say what you just said to Pasenne, and she very much appreciates it.

Suli blinks, however, and raises one hand to her mouth. “Oh, Yuki,” she says. “I mean the Aestivali High Council. They’re the puppet rulers of Aestival, and we all know who they work for. What we don’t know is how many people are on it: there are twelve masks, but the people behind them could be anyone. And they likely are stretched thin trying to defend Aestival from a possible attack from the Khatun.”

She pauses a moment, watches to see if understanding blooms on your face. Either way, she continues: “Because she’s so good at navigating through the Outside, an attack could come from anywhere, not just from the Roads. Anyone who ends up with their hands on Hazel will have to deal with her threat one way or another— and if she gets him, she might just withdraw to some hidden camp out there until he’s… tamed.”

She leans forward. Ambition glitters in her lovely (intense, enthralling) eyes— though you can certainly look away, as she’s not trying to draw you in intentionally. “There’s only two places in all of Thellamie that could stand up to her: the Civelia Subluna in Kel, and right here in the Viperiat. Not those beachfront maze-towns.”

(She’s wrong, mind you.)


Hazel!

I regret to inform you that, eventually, when the hot wings have been reheated and the curry’s been poured onto flatbread, you will have to make a choice: to squeeze in right next to Anat, to climb over Amali to sit on top of her knitting project, or to just stand like a very noticeable weirdo.

“…had to cancel my appearances in Garnet,” Anat is saying, talking with her hands as much as with her melodious voice. “That’s almost certainly going to be the next flashpoint. But Insela managed to get me set up with a few special appearances at the Chrysanthemum, especially since she knows my cousin’s Kysa Amora-Kallos…”

“Oh, fancy that!” Amali says, not giving away anything.

Do you give away anything, given that Amali is, in fact, taking you to whatever this Chrysanthemum is?
In Return to Thellamie → 4 mos ago Forum: Tabletop Roleplay
Eclair!

Well played! You are, despite yourself, despite the things that isolate you from those around you, a good player of the Great Game- and any other player can see that. And Ruthmoreness, with her clumsy-cute charm, has to concede that, too.

So she cracks open the book and makes... let us call it an attempt at reading. You're quite distracting, and she reads the same sentence over and over, and she reads the same sentence over and over, and she peeks up at you, and she reads the same sentence over and over, and she flutters her eyes, and she reads the same sentence over and over... but eventually she manages to get some headway.

"She's making a mess," Ruthmoreness concludes. "She's making herself some sort of... antimaid? Negamaid? Unmaid? Daim? Dame?" Her brow scrunches up with the effort of thinking about a maid outfit where all the whites are black and all the blacks are white. While she does that- what do you think of that theory, Eclair? Is there something to it, or is this just another tree that Timtam has you barking up?

Perhaps she's sent Ruthmoreness here just to convince you that she's an antimaid so that she can then wrong-foot you by being extra-maidy the next time that you meet. How far do her plans reach? Was she ready for this very moment? For all you know, she could be out there in the rain, tucked neatly underneath an umbrella. Don't look. You'll just be disappointed by the shape of her absence.


Yuki!

"Thank you, Radiant Edogawa," Pasenne says, with a flick of her rattling tail. That must be very tricky for her to keep quiet as much as she does, and perhaps the ribbons wrapped around it are meant to dampen the sound. "Since you asked," she says, a little daring, "I'm so glad that you're going to help our Princess get her crown." There's certainty there; she refuses to even consider anyone else the rightful Queen. "Once we expand Crevas, some of the floodwater will drain out of the housing market, and I might be able to get my parents their own place in a few years."

(And in that, the implicit: of course Sulochana will tend to Crevas's needs first.)

>[.rockamt]
>Well, you come over here and deal with my thing instead of getting dragged into the magical deerboy, obviously.

>[.praxispacksis]
>Aadya!! That...!!
>...means you wouldn't get involved in this, I guess.
>The Khatun's assembling for
>Well, I mean

>[.rockamt]
>Wait, you're friends with that deerboy people are talking about, Yuki?

>[.praxispacksis]
>WAS THAT NOT CLEAR????

>[.rockamt]
>I've been busy. But, hey, good to know you're friends with the Queen of Light, Yuks.

>[.praxispacksis]
>HUH?????

>[.rockamt]
>?

>[.praxispacksis]
>oh shoot I have to go Yuki just please don't
>let's not
>going with Aadya sounds great!!!!

Sulochana peers over your shoulder, having made her grand entrance just a moment before while you were engrossed in the weird vibes Juni was giving off. "Or you could ignore her and come with me. It sounds as if the High Council will need our help repulsing the Khaganate, and we could use your axe on our side." A very high-minded plea... with no mention of the fact that she'll want to snatch Hazel out of Aestival herself.

Since your friend group's at loggerheads, on this subject at least, you can get your benefits by either going to Aadya or sticking by Sulochana's side, and doing anything else (like, say, going and learning how to juggle, or sneaking into Aestival on your own) will get you the consolation prize.

Sulochana gives you a reassuring shoulder squeeze. "Yuki and Suli against the world," she says, and does the hip bump that you used to do together before she slithers into her couch and starts eating like someone who is struggling to maintain proper manners in the face of an empty stomach.


Hazel!

You're a bright young boy. You've played video games before. So you're familiar with loading screens.

The Roads are loading screens.

The skies above are black. On either side of the widely-paved road are evergreens: pines, spruces, firs, and (oddly enough) bamboo, all of them sharp black on black, refusing to be properly illuminated by everyone's lanterns. There are two lanes, and usually you're supposed to hug the left and let traffic pass by on the right, but foot traffic's overspilled onto the right for today. All trudging along, stuck in the same liminality as a long airplane flight by night. There's no sense of distance, of how far you've come or how far you're going.

We're closer connected than your world, but that doesn't mean that it's a casual thing to go from one Hub to another.

Eventually, Amali taps your shoulder. "This is a good place," she says, pulling out some tins from under her seat and hanging a red lantern on the side of the rickshaw. Almost as soon as she does this, you notice that there's a rest stop up the Road. (And before you ask: yes, it did just appear, and no, it wouldn't have appeared if she'd just hung that lantern up right as soon as you got onto the Road.) You pull over into this side street, park the rickshaw, and help Amali down the steps into one of the stations. As this isn't your first trip on the Road, you know what happens next: someone has to join you in here, this cramped barrow which smells of Christmas: pine trees and the crispness of snow and the curry that Amali's cracking open and the crackling, smoky hearth in the center of the station.

(Oh, this is one of our sources of, as you call them, urban legends. Stories about people who think they can just ignore the need to pull over and eat. About people who start eating before someone comes to join them. About people who are violent here. The rules of the Road are drilled into children's heads with as much strictness as your teenagers are taught to respect cars capable of traveling dozens of miles per hour, and for similar reasons.)

"I hope you don't mind," says a melodious and familiar voice, and your heart skips a beat, doesn't it?

Anat Amora-Ugari is here, tossed in with you by the chance of the Road, and she's brought a tin of hot wings for the table. Like most Nagi, she takes up so much of the station, as if it was built for people smaller than her. You'll have to squeeze in. Maybe there won't be enough room and you'll have to sit on her. Plenty of things to think about.

"Come in, dear," Amali says. "Don't you mind my great-nephew here, he'll behave himself."


Tsane!

"Our recommendation is as follows, Lady Civelia," the General Secretary says, summing up the past... hour? Closer to two. "Firstly: that our priority for the sake of Thellamie's stability must be ensuring that the conflict over the Golden Fawn is resolved without lasting violence. Secondly: that in the light of her actions last night, the Khatun of the Khaganate must be formally censured and informed that we reserve the right to take actions to bar her from the contest to tame the Golden Fawn if she continues to act in a way that disturbs the peace of the Hubs. Thirdly, that the Hero of Ages be dispatched to discover the identity of the maid-knight who attempted to lay hands on the Goddess herself. We thank you for taking the time to consult us and for blessing our efforts to come to consensus."

This is typical. The Civils are great for charity, construction, bureaucracy, anything that requires planning and hard work and big hearts, but they're spooked. And a spooked Civil is one that's going to minimize action, urge for patience, threaten vague consequences, and generally wait to be rescued. To be fair, Heron's usually pretty good at rescuing the church when necessary - and Civils tend to be in need of saving when she's around.

"I, in turn, thank you," Civelia says. The Sleepless Charm has been lying inert and dead in front of her for the past forty minutes, but now she gestures and draws it to float just above her palm. "Let us carry this out with all due determination- but there is one thing that I would have my dearest Hero do for us all before she pursues her Quest."

The Civils start to hum, looking for the right frequency to match the way that the charm spins. "There is a boy lost within Our world, ensnared within prophecy, bound by the will of the untouchable Stars. He must be fearful, desperate, lost, in need of solace." Chains- silver and gold- glow on the surface of the charm she is creating. "We shall not let this be so. We shall not. O Golden Fawn, for you alone I grant authority."




Injimo!

If you ever had to fight Civelia, which would require her to actually be willing to fight in the first place, this is how she would fight. You'd have to close in fast before she could command you to kneel, or command others to defend her on her behalf. But that would be a betrayal of the bond between the Goddess and her Hero. A white room fight.

The charm falls to the Goddess's palm as if too heavy to hang in the air any longer. Mana rises off it like smoke. It is a badge in the shape of a shield, one half silver and the other half ruby. The silhouette of a stag's head is done in onyx limned in gold, the tips of the antlers rising above the shield's rim.

This she offers to you. Its magic (and its Move) will not activate for you; it will be heavy and slightly too cool to the touch. "My most beloved champion, I ask you to deliver this to the Golden Fawn and teach him how to use it. By this gift he may dictate the contests of his taming. Once this is complete, seek out the maid who your handmaiden fought last night and learn her purpose."


Kalentia!

"This is the sickness," Fallen Far says, laying her head back down, though still trying to cover herself up. "Thellamie is the impurities of sickness. You are the infecting of passions." She says it like an obscenity, but not one directed at you. "The detestation of passions are the murdering of me. Your cha is the disordering of passions; the desiring of action both unbidding and unwanting. This is the cessation of my deserving: the nakedness and the wanting and the... and the..."

She sniffles. She raises her good hand to her face and turns it away from you, shoulders trembling.

"...I am not deserving the presence of her. I am the risk of infection, the punishment of passion. I am the murdering of her if she was present. But the wanting of her is, is, is. I am the impurity."

That's a familiar bit of self-loathing, isn't it? Even through the language barrier, that kind of raw you-are-perfect-and-I-am-garbage longing is... well, better that you're here than anyone else.
In Breathless Dead → 4 mos ago Forum: Tabletop Roleplay
Ha! Heh! Ember's tail wags eagerly as she slips effortlessly out of a door, leaving a dozen dozen Summerkind milling confused in the pheromonal research annex. When they try to come after her, they'll accidentally destabilize the vats and flood this entire section of the Sphere with a hundred thousand contradictory commands! Now, on to her next scene of mischief, of chaos, of innocent mayhem! All she has to do is scamper helpfully down this corridor, take a sharp left to avoid the security checkpoint down the hall, and--

It should be impossible for materials to fail her. Clothing is about form and function, each perfected since before she was born. The world is full of useful and wonderful things just waiting for her to figure out how to use them.

And yet the heel of her shoe twists underneath her and the perfect dance of chaos comes to a sudden, yipping, undignified halt.

She stares up at the brown, slowly dripping ceiling, and too slowly realizes that the grating is dripping the peanut butter from the Heartwarming Wedding Cake Disaster. Ah. Well. In the last moment before being buried underneath a wave of Summerkind, she folds her hands and considers how all mortal endeavor is ultimately its own sort of farce--

[3.]
In Return to Thellamie → 4 mos ago Forum: Tabletop Roleplay
Yuki!

When the tablet shows a new message at breakfast, you nearly knock over the chai while trying to check it. It's just you and a Nagi maid in here, for now, and not a maid-knight either: just a girl about your age by the name of Pasenne who's handling setting the breakfast table and bringing dishes over. (A seven-course breakfast- expect nothing less from Sulochana.)

The Princess herself is still finishing up attending to her morning routine: hair wax, scale cream, killer eyeliner, a facial scrub followed by sunscreen, and then putting her hair up in an elaborate set of braids. That means Pasenne (and the private chef in the other room) are the only possible witnesses to you fumbling for the tablet and nearly spilling your drink all over yourself. But it's fine! You've got it! And...

>[.praxispacksis]
>I am so, so sorry about what happened last night!!
>I won't be able to talk much, but...
>Is Sulochana okay? I heard from Mekesh that she fought with the Khatun, and...
>Do you think she'll be angry with me if I DM her??
>And are YOU okay??

Also, unrelated to Juniper's guilty worry, palpable through the screen, a different message pops up.

>[.rockamt]
>Hey, squirt. Something's come up. I'm covering the Civil meeting this morning, but I need your help with an investigation. Think you can swing by so we can talk?
>Also, bring bruise cream if you've got it. I'm out.

(There's a non-zero chance that she'll pull you into private and strip so that you can slather it onto hard-to-reach places to soothe and heal bruises, let me be clear. Not in a flirting way, just in a "shit, can you get this for me?" sort of way. Right? Not swooning at the thought, are we?)


Tsane!

"...sending the Hero of Ages against the Mansion of the Dragons is unprecedented, Mason."
"So is a blatant attack against the Goddess in broad starlight, in the middle of a disruption of the proper order that the Stars had to mend! We do not know to what degree they are involved in this, to what degree they may have had a part in causing it, and to what degree they plan to take advantage of it!"
"Permission to interject?"
"Granted."
"It is precisely because we do not know that we cannot open a war on two fronts at this time, Brother Mason."
"We do not have a first front to begin with, Sister Emella. Despite the ill-conceived actions at last night's event, which the goddess was prevented from addressing due to Eclair Espoir's attack, the Khaganate is still under the guidance of the Church. Notably, no Khaganate member attempted to assault the Goddess last night."
"Counterpoint."
"Granted."
"Brother Mason, it is time for us to recognize that the western monasteries are at risk of being suborned by the Khaganate, if they have not already been. We will have time to reach out, formally make a complaint, and if necessary make disciplinary moves towards the Order of the Aurora if they are, in any organized way, involved in this event. The Golden Fawn's theft by Aestivali ashiqs is far more pressing, and we must face the fact that we may see open war between the Khaganate and the Aestivali High Council. We must make it clear that we disapprove in the strongest terms the disorder and misrule we saw last night at the feet of the very Goddess herself."
"Secretary, may I respond?"
"Granted. Brother Oli, you will then have the floor for the Highcrag Temples' delegation response to these issues."
"As the Goddess once said herself in the Third Incarnation, at times attempting to circumvent a coming event merely brings it to fruition..."

It's going to be like this for a while. The Kel haven't really made their rhetorical thrust yet (see Oli there, adjusting his spectacles and bouncing a little on his heels, eager to make the case that his delegation has agreed upon), but there's definitely a shearline through the assembled group on whether the Khaganate or the Order of the Aurora is the true threat that deserves to have Heron pointed at them. Do you happen to have any opinions on the matter yourself?

(Civelia is slowly disassembling the Sleepless Charm with her bare fingers. Motes of starlight float up and rest against her skin like reverse snowflakes. This is inefficient, entropic, and yet she seems to have something very deliberate in mind.)


Kalentia!

So this is a Lunarian, then.

Slight of frame. Willowy, even. Skin so pale that the intricate branching blue veins underneath it look like swirls in porcelain. The cut is all the more severe for contrast. Her severe bob of green-black hair was cut with absolute precision, but it's clear that she hasn't taken the helmet off to care for it in some time. Her fingers are long and slender. If Tsane were here she would likely be scribbling frantically, adding to the world's sum total of knowledge about these famous isolationists.

You, instead, are focused on the task of figuring out what sort of poultice would work on this injury that when she closes her fingers around your wrist, it's a complete surprise.

"Yaguka-omehi?" Her voice is weak and painfully aching with longing, but her eyes are bleary, right on the edge of waking and understanding. "oto-oloroametinakamato, oku-umetekiniqitoma..." The way she glides her thumb, gingerly, along your hand is the kind of thing that you were once super incredibly prepared for Heron to do to you.

And then her eyes open a little more, and a dark nictitating membrane flicks across them, and when it retracts she snatches her hand back like she suddenly realized that you were actually a goblin-bear made out of angry bees which were also Miaou-worshippers wreathed in the unholy fires of the underworld. Her cheeks flush indigo.

"...you are the mistaking of being before me," she says, hoarsely. "You are the, the, ika-tanatafekuixa, disallowing, unauthorization, the..."

If she gets overexcited then that is likely to make inflammation worse. As far as you know! Maybe their bodies are so different that it speeds the healing process! But down here, with the kind of people you're familiar with, that will make things worse if her heartrate and breathing spike like this.


Eclair!

Ruthmoreness being who she is, three things happen.

Firstly: the corner of the book's spine smacks her right in the middle of the forehead, sending her head back and the book straight up.
Secondly: Ruthmoreness's heels go out from under her and she sits down on the ground hard.
Thirdly: the book succumbs to the idea of weight and hits her right on the head again.

"Owwwww," she whimpers, rubbing at her forehead, even as with her other hand she fumbles it open. "Ma'am, I'm owed a forfeit for that." And that is... arguable! The sort of statement that would make other members of the Order, were they around, chime in either out loud or in their body language. On the one hand: you have acted in anger towards one of your fellow maids, knowing that once matters had left your hand, you were no longer in control of their trajectory. On the second hand: it is on Ruthmoreness, especially as a junior member and one only recently permitted to leave on missions, to have the necessary poise to catch the book out of midair. On the foot, it is unworthy to challenge a fellow maid in their weakness unless you are intending to assist in improvement.

She drops next to you in a clatter and shows you her strength in turn, her eyes wide and soft, her ears cocked just so, her smile crooked just the right way. "Won't you make it better, ma'am?" She holds up her bangs to show you exactly where you can perform the Ritual of Mending a Minor Hurt with your lips. She's well within her rights to claim that as a forfeit, if indeed her forfeit was rightful in the first place.

Out here, though, your comaids are not here to witness and weigh in. It is on you to uphold the standards of the Mansion. And it is up to you how you respond to her retort, which places you on the back foot in the Great Game. Certainly, you are a formidable piece, but if Ruthmoreness was not willing to make her plays where she saw the opportunity, she would not be in the Mansion to begin with.

To wit: you may give her that ritual kiss and a String, or you may spurn her and slide further into your own isolation.


Hazel!

"Oh, well, see?" Mel pouts as the Serigalamu touches his hat in apology. "Sorry for that. I'm Jaks--"

"OHOHOHOHOHO, do you not know who you see in front of you?!" Purnima Karn-Pana's voice bursts out over the crowd, and already the crowd's stirring into movement, trying to get out of the way of her... chariot?! Yes, a Nagi-designed chariot, pulled by three mismatched goblin-deer, each one with golden paint on their antlers. Long-suffering guards, at least one of which is definitely Gemes, follow in her wake. "That's right! Out of the way! I must be off to Aestival at once! Fear not, my loyal citizens, your compliance will be remembered when I come into my power and glory! Some of you will likely be fortunate enough to come to our wedding!"

She is. Definitely coming your way. You'll most likely have to Defy Disaster here one way or another, unless you want your little adventure to end in her coils. And you wouldn't want that, would you? Whether you want that or not, Amali is definitely prodding you with her foot, trying to get you to leap into action.
In Breathless Dead → 4 mos ago Forum: Tabletop Roleplay
This, too, is a magic spell. It's one of the ones that the scouts of Ceron know, but which most shed as quickly as they can once they are proper knights and can pretend that they have never staked their dignity on a ritual approach to warfare.

This one is called "Oops!" when it is not called "In Sheep's Clothing."

One scout behind enemy lines can drive them into confusion, turmoil, and logistical bleed using this approach, as long as they are willing to both hide themselves in the servile busyness of the Synnefo and leave a trail of messes behind them. Do you have any idea what one innocent bride, taking it upon herself to help whenever she sees some place to step in and provide assistance, can do if she is deliberately clumsy enough? Even with no one to watch, she must (in order to do this properly) exclaim in dismay whenever a line gets cut, someone is sent the wrong way with a nonsense missive, volatile explosives tumble out of a crate and block a corridor, on and on and on, a zig-zagging path cut towards Liquid Bronze leaking chaos in its wake.

What ridiculousness that she mixes up her suit jacket with a domestic servitor's plain apron! How could she possibly mix up sending a message up to the kitchens and tripping an evacuation alarm on multiple sublevels? How easily she ducks out of the way of patrols, squeezes past drones while carrying a tray of meat smothered in Liquid Bronze's Epic Boarbristle Barbecue Sauce with an apologetic air, and then fumbles the tray all over the ship's inner shrines- but not to worry, she'll make it to her darling eventually.

Once she's run out of disasters to cause, that is.
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