Tatterdemalion

Return to Thellamie

Eclair Espoir!

Oh, darling. You’re in one of the premier houses of pleasure in all of Thellamie, you’ve got a full pass, and you’ve got girls tripping over themselves to try and win a tip and a smile.

You get to tell us how you relax when you have the time, the means, and ample assistance. And you get to tell us if your iron will is beguiled into forgetting, if only for a moment, the troubles that weigh upon your shoulders.

Yuki would likely have been suspicious (and even Hazel started to suspect) if this were the Golden Lotus. But that doesn’t mean anything to you, so forget I said anything. Go ahead. Take the time that was purchased for you.

---

Yuki!

The rich scent of wine fills the barrow as Pasenne pours. Sulochana offers a glass to Heron first of anyone, hoping that this will be appreciated. It fits her cover, too, to curry favor like this.

---

Hazel!

“Auntie was right,” she rumbles, pinning you to the floor with a glance. Try to focus, and you’ll notice glimpses through the smoke that suggest she’s a notably Avel Nagi, all fuzzy triangles and shaggy sideburns, and her voice has a similar lilt to the local accent. Is it a lilt when it’s already so low? “He’s desperate.”

She leans down on her desk, resting her elbows, almost bringing herself down to your level. Almost. “Here’s my first gift, Hazel Valentine Fletcher: you’re going to sit down and not talk.”

And you might think that sounds ominous and villainous, but let me assure you: those italics up there? That’s when her voice drips with the spiced honey of Crevas. A coil slips beneath your legs as the strength goes out of them, and you’re lifted to a nice seat right in front of the desk, in front of the sweet smoke, in front of those glittering eyes.

“Now. We could make you a guest, but you would stick out like a broken scale, and more than that— you’d fret, wouldn’t you? Auntie tells me that you are polite and helpful.” From across half of Thellamie, Amali says something in agreement. “And you wouldn’t know where to put your eyes, would you? Let alone your hands. We usually see boys like you being dragged in by friends, sitting so neatly with their hands in their laps, squirming and just waiting to go home away from the threat of Heron’s gift to us all. They’re tough nuts to crack, unless you know the right way to handle them.”

A nail lifts your chin. Another nail traces your cheek. “But put them in a pretty little outfit, give them a job to do, and all those worried little thoughts just melt away. And you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Hazel Valentine Fletcher? Little Hazy.” Her chuckle comes from somewhere deep down in those coils. No talking now. Don’t forget.

“You want to serve. And the Chrysanthemum accommodates those who want to serve as much as it accompanies those who want to be served. Until this whole mess is taken care of outside. You can hide in here, in plain sight, and I promise that you will be told what to do, and you will be praised for it.”

No need to turn around and see Alcideo blushing. Or Amali looking very satisfied, for that matter. No need to look away from Yaz and what’s she’s offering. It’s not exactly seeing all of Thellamie, but all of Thellamie will come to you, and you’ll be safe until I need you next. Just sink into those eyes in the smoke, those eyes so delighted at finding a natural.

“Now. I will let you talk. A little. When you are done, I will let you know. Does your heart want to work for us, Hazy? Would you like to help the men and women who come here to have a wonderful visit? Would you like to be looked at and wanted without being hunted?”

---

Kalentia!

The hammer blows reverberate through multiple levels of the Stacks. Boxes tumble down; careful dioramas collapse. Then there is silence.

A flower pokes up through the floor tiles some distance away and blooms unnaturally quickly. It is as silent as the roots that slither between the walls.

The Hero’s Shadow lifts themselves up onto their haunches. Their eyes are mirrors, but they seem darker now. “You are the most a Princess,” they say, amiably. “This is perilous.” That purr in their throat suggests that the peril is dangerously interesting. “Where do you think the Warrior is? That is perilous.”

Breathless Dead

Behold! Just as when she first met Bella, Dany has brought out a tablet and stylus for taking notes[1]. The tablet reads, presently, as follows:

• induct her into the pack
• use drugs
• weed??
• ultimate riddle no we need her to not think
• dionysus's wine (how get??)
• headpats from pack
• dionysus's weed
• gas mask (custom filters)
• give her a pet to look after (cute as possible)
• cooling system for blood
• use dice to make decisions for plan?
• cooling vents in neck
• ask Dad how she would handle this
• wait is Dad here like Dad back home????
• douse her in really cold water
• backup brains
• board game night (cat letter, adoption alley, not mysterio)
• board games while smoking weed
• tempt her in...

"The trouble's with all her thoughts," she says. She knows a little of what that's like, but nothing like Vesper must, or how Bella must, for that matter. "So we blunt them. Cloud her thoughts, cool her brain, erase her train of thought, help her feel and experience and be without building on those thoughts. That'll work until we can gain some favor from the gods to free her from that weight."

Whatever that favor is, she doesn't know. She did not make it through THE BOOK OF INEXORABLE DEATH, VOL I-IV[2]. She doesn't know how assassins function, how to switch them on and off[3], how to stop them from meeting a grisly fate. All she's got is a pack that knows how tactical subspace works, a half-baked plan involving Dionysus's party supplies and every board game she can get her hands on, and a heart that aches seeing Bella like this[4]. But all of her, all her enthusiasm and love and desire to make things right: all are at Bella's disposal.

---

[1]: in between dispensing medicinal headpats, running her hand firmly and lovingly across Bella's glossy hair and sensitive ears, and applying kisses directly to the affected zone.

[2]: Bella may or may not have distracted her from this one intentionally. But the truth of that is on the other side of Lethe.

[3]: though she does know how to turn one assassin on.

[4]: beneath a chest that really turns one assassin on.

Return to Thellamie

Eclair!

Three attendants converge on the two of you, with the kind of sublimated nervous energy that one gets in a service job. But that doesn't matter to the two of you, does it? Not with that danger in the air, just waiting to ignite. She's raised her starglasses now, all the better to give you a half-incredulous, half-insolent look.

"Morning, Noon and Evening, huh? I'd call them has-beens, but that would im-ply that they ever were important. My mom's gonna hunt your mommies down, you know. Drag them kicking and whining into reality, turn them into cute little sluzhankas, and keep them as trophies in her yurt. So if you don't want to join them: get out of my face, bitch."

Behind her, a woman in a sequined western crop top and a diamond-studded collar is crossing her arms, shaking her head, and mouthing: I am so sorry please don't fight her I am SO sorry. An attendant in an Aestivali bathing outfit is taking those catering boxes off your hands. You are being invited to an exclusive fish dinner since you are today's lucky winner, ma'am, if you'll just come this way?

And her smile just keeps getting wider as she stares you dead in the eyes. Daring you to start something.

---

Hazel!

"Cutie will do," Amali says, giving you the kind of Look that might put the fear of Me into you. You know, the sort that says that you have been quite decisively outfoxed. "Good to see you're on the cutting edge, Alci. I said to myself, I said: if anyone's going to be leading the Golden Fawn Cabaret, it'll be Alcideo."

"Aww, shucks, Miss A, Yaz just tapped me for it, that's all," he says with a familiarly self-deprecating wave of the hand. As if a boy like this could feel the same embarrassment of praise as you do. But it's impossible to say that he's faking it, so what even gives??

"Yes, well, I don't doubt that Yaz will be putting our Cutie here right under your wings. Keep him out of trouble with the Girls, will you? I promised his dear mama that he'd be safe here until the tea's no longer simmering." She winks, and Alcideo nods with (mock?) solemnity.

"Of course. Don't you worry about a thing, Cutie. People will be so busy looking at your horns and your chest that they won't be paying attention to your face, and the tips should be really good while this whole hunt for the Golden Fawn's going on. If you can dance that's great, but if not we'll just get you on drinks."

The lift comes to a stop and opens up on an opulently decorated room, even by the standards of this place. Lots of marble and gold and more dark wood, and oh boy Amali's got you by one arm and Alcideo's got you by the other, and you are being led across the room. Which, you might notice, is definitely not empty, there's several desks and several people in much more sensible clothing dealing with some sort of pneumatic tube system, and it looks like they've been integrating tablets into their system because they'll take messages from the tube system and read it at their desk before tapping away on a tablet with a stylus, and that's something to focus on instead of the elaborate screens that you're being dragged to.

"You mind if I go first?" Alcideo is saying. "I'll be right in and out."

"You should come in with us," Amali says, firmly, "seeing as she'll want to hand Cutie here your way."

And then the three of you weave between the screens - to the right and then to the left - and you're in an office with one hell of a view. Wall-to-wall windows, with just a little bit of gutter down into the floor, show the giant tree down below, and the steam rising from the baths, and multiple levels of brightly-decorated entertainment halls, and gosh it's a long way down, hope you don't get weird around heights.

Or around big women curled around a specialty Nagi couch, wearing a fur-lined silk blouse, tapping on a tablet while holding a long smoking pipe in one hand, eyes gleaming in the smoke, taking up at least a good eighty percent of the room because even coiled up around the couch her tail just keeps going and going and going, and when she looks up at you it's like being pinned to the screen behind you with the intensity of her eyes, gold and black like a solar eclipse.

"Amali, darling." Her voice is so low and powerful that you can feel it in your bones as much as you can hear it. "And 'Deo, good, good. Just the people I needed to see." She sets the stylus down with a definitive click and then crooks her finger. At you. Very definitely at you. "Let's see what Auntie's sent us. There's a good boy."

---

Kalentia!

While Cair repairs that armor, you're dealing with the double whammy that your patient is hyperresponsive to dark magic and is also depressed as hell. The way that she is sinking into herself and crumpling into the hot tub because there's nothing for her to do, nothing for her to grapple with, nothing for herself to throw herself into so that she doesn't think about her circumstances, is likely very familiar. It's a textbook case of chronic heroism burning out when there's nothing to hero about.

Your quest: get her mind off it, and also the person she's missing, in a way that doesn't risk her flopping face-first into the pool and succumbing to the sickness that's drawn to her like a magnet while she's outside of her suit.

---

Yuki!

"W-what my guard here means is that we're going to be returning to Aestival after we've taken the waters in Vespergift. Being part of that intolerable ruckus in Crevas was, ah, jangling. For my nerves. But I know as well as you, o Hero, that once Sulochana Arju gets her hands on the Golden Fawn and the Crown of Light, all of these troubles will be melting away like snow. You do support her claim, don't you? Not those barbarous Khaganate hunters?"

You might be unsubtle, dear, but your friend is similarly unsubtle, and poor Pasenne is practically tripping over her own coils as she sets out plates on the cyclopean stone table and starts pouring drinks from a bottle of Crevas wine. The three of you would look dreadfully suspicious to anyone with the acumen of, say, Eclair Espoir. But perhaps the Hero of Ages herself won't notice, despite the fact that she's probably got lifetimes of noticing when things are Going On up her poofy silk sleeves?

Breathless Dead

Dany sits up in a flounce of white lace, seriously considering the scene before them: Liquid Brone, the Summerkind, the shrine to Hera, Bella herself. Each one gets considered two to three times, her ears cocked quizzically. Wheels turn in her head, interlocking gears ticking away.

She points to Liquid Bronze. “I was sure that the Empress of the Endless Azure Skies was going to be marrying me to her daughter, actually. And I’d be wearing a lot less. There’d be at least three ancient Swordmasters guarding me, which you would have to take on, and—“

The princess sputters as she is thwacked in the face with her own wedding bouquet. An unrepentant Bella glares at her with an air that suggests she would have at least *considered* leaving her princess to those three ancient Swordmasters. Even so, Redana’s smile is irrepressible.

“I don’t care,” she says, and places her hand on Bella’s. It is soft. Warm. Her palm rests on those talons like a blanket, safe and warm. “My life was a straight line before I left, wasn’t it? That’s why I left. Out here, we can go in any direction we like. A princess can love her maid. A demigodess can love a scout. Anything is possible out here, anything. The only questions are what we want to do and who can try to stop us— and once we get to Gaia? Once Hades blesses us? Once we’ve made things right? Who in the entire fuck is going to be able to stop us then?!”

Her mismatched eyes are full of fire and delight, and she clutches tighter, smiles wider. Not for nothing is she at risk of being another of Dionysus’s favorites, driven mad by love and the wine-dark void.

“It doesn’t matter, as long as I have you, you have me, and we have the freedom to go where we want, do what we want, love like we want, and help who we want! And once we get to Gaia, we’ll open up the Skies to everyone.”

She doesn’t have a plan. She doesn’t have a carefully-worded wish. She doesn’t know what galactic society is going to look like once chains are shattered and the dead are alive once more. All she has is the fire in her eyes and ears that are willing to listen.

“And we will live happily ever after,” she promises, suddenly as serious as a child. “I promise. Every day I will make it come true. Now, let’s hurry up and make a list of everything we’re going to do together — we’ve only got forever to figure it out!!”

And, so saying, the Princess of dead Tellus throws herself into the arms of her lover, giggling in an irrepressible joy.

Outside, for at least half of forever, a glittering and clever serpent swims back and forth across the vast gulf of space, scales glittering in the light of frozen suns.

Return to Thellamie

Eclair!

The chrysanthemum is a plant that prefers the ground: bushes and carefully shaped miniature “trees.” And yet here, in the center of the Chrysanthemum, there is a vast chrysanthemum tree, an ever-blooming rainbow of intricate petals. Naturally, iron bands are sealed around the titanic trunk in a dozen places, and Civil paper talismans dangle from innumerable branches; this wonder of a bygone age must not be the door through which evil enters into the city.

Steam wafts up from the roots, intermingled with giddy laughter and immodest sighs. Down below is the bath complex: spas, saunas, hot tubs, massage parlors, poolside dining, an entire aquarium, and a shrine to Heron of the Hot Springs.

Let the eye be pulled up by the double helix of the two sloping passageways that rise, floor by floor, into the heights of the Chrysanthemum. Here are more restaurants, here there are theaters, here there are private rooms, here there are parlors for esteemed guests, here there is a petting zoo with attached cafe, until finally one is staring up at the stained glass ceiling of this complex.

This atrium here is scarlet and gold, and so are many of the chrysanthemums that are painted on the walls and the pillars, carefully sculpted into tamed trees on pedestals, and which bloom irrepressibly on the branches of that vast tree. Guests track in snow, but it soon melts away. This is radiant, vibrant, lusty summer in full artifice.

Here, too, the dance of attendants and guests begins. There is, naturally, an initial hesitation to approach you among many of the attendants— for you are a member of the Order, and no few of them are themselves dressed as rather impractical maids. One might assume camaraderie, but the truth is that many such maids are self-conscious when confronted with the reality. Consider an actor pretending to be a dragon coming face-to-face with one of Noon’s wild dreams, and you will understand.

“Hey, slut.” This is when a third party interrupts the dance of attendants and guests by walking up and placing half a dozen catering boxes in your arms. Said third party is a Serigalamu girl wearing starglasses and a fur bikini, vivid yellow and black. An impressive series of chains and studs dangle from her ears, and various angular tattoos reminiscent of teeth are on full display. She is Younger Than You, and notably has a series of Kel braces (notable for being made out of semi-precious stones) on her teeth. “Take this shit up to my room and get it frigid, okay? And, Civvvv, are you dressed for repressed freaks or what?”

She smacks you on the rump with the kind of enthusiasm commonly used to encourage beasts of burden.

---

Hazel!

All that description Eclair just got above? That’s guest-facing. You are instead in the labyrinth inside of the walls, behind the glitzy facade of the Chrysanthemum. It’s well-built but all for purpose, all black wood and glowing crystal lanterns and stairs and counterweight lifts and staff, the majority of whom are proudly wearing rather impractical outfits.

Amali leads you down several corridors, waving cheerfully to various girls she recognizes, encouraging a boy(??) in a tight sequin dress and glittery makeup to “break a leg,” and generally acting like she’s got a spring in her step and an encyclopedic knowledge of this place. Eventually you end up at a locked lift, which she unlocks with a key before flipping a sort of toggle on one side of the lift before—

“Oh, Amali, hold up, would you?” An Avel boy bounds onto the lift, grinning. Several things are immediately apparent:
- He’s about a year older than you
- He looks like he does gymnastics
- He’s wearing a leotard that might put you in mind of the Olympics
- That is definitely several difficult colors of lipstick on his cheek and collarbone
- And also he is wearing an oversized collar and glitzy golden horns

“Thanks,” he says, taking a deep breath that just shows off that v-neck. “Yaz has got to know that we’re getting run off our feet out there! This is the biggest draw for the cabaret since the time we had the Twins doing that audience-participation show— and, hey, nice to meet you!” He offers you his hand. “Alcideo. Those antlers look really nice, and between you and me you don’t look half bad yourself, but if you’re interested in taking some shifts we probably want to brighten them up a bit. Wait, hold on— I didn’t get your name? Unless you just want me to call you cute, which I can do!”

His grin is dazzling.

---

Yuki!

Your first meal’s with a Civil, actually— one who’s headed back to Kel after having a big meeting with the goddess Civelia. She’s convinced that the Paladins are going to step in against the Khatun soon, and fortunately Suli’s there with you to do most of the talking to sell that she’s from Aestival’s minority Nagi population, headed north after the disastrous Queen of Light ceremony (though you do have to dial her back a bit, her frustration being a little too real).

Most of the meals you have on your way to Vespergift are like that, oddly enough— a lot of Kel, mostly Civils and construction workers and a very chatty gem salesman— but the last one’s the special one, because that’s when Heron Tiserian her own self enters the barrow to dine with you and Suli and Pasenne, flanked by two of her Handmaidens.

---

Rurik!

As you may have noticed, that’s your cue. The ritual of sacred hospitality and shared food on the Roads is one of the oldest in Thellamie, a central part of the world’s commerce and transportation, and something which should be taken very seriously.

The roles: one Heron and two Handmaidens. (Any other members of the Handmaidens in attendance will be dining in a separate barrow with different travelers.)
The food: enough for a light meal, likely reflecting Heron’s notorious habit of pulling random items out of the Food Bag.
The audience: two Nagi of Aestival, a merchant and debtor, and one young warrior from Kel.

Enjoy.

---

Cair!

So you told somebody that the Architect-Knight is loose in the Stacks, right?

You’re likely working on repairing that suit, and Kalentia’s likely keeping that Lunarian in quarantine until you’re finished; what’s certain is that you do have the material you needed. Because the Architect-Knight pulled it off a shelf for you before she continued stalking through the Stacks, searching for her hammer, somehow convinced (as far as you could tell through the rhyming) that you are In Cahoots and working together to bring down hated Heron, hurtful harlot.

So who’s in the loop, Cair??

Return to Thellamie

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?

Breathless Dead

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.

Return to Thellamie

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.

Return to Thellamie

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.

Breathless Dead

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!]