Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

Look, three things are halfway salvaging this. There are three factors in play which make it so that it is theoretically possible that the Toxicrene will look up and see a ravenous, unleashed Ceronian ready to punish her at Bella’s command.

Firstly, as mentioned before: Redana looks at Mynx and sees someone a lot like she used to be, which means that her experience right now is that she is imagining what it would be like to be in Mynx’s place, which is why she is ramrod-straight, ears at attention, fixated and intent. And why her tail is trying to fly away.

Secondly, though: she is aware that this is of vital importance to her Bella, her wife. Memories of Mynx have come swimming back, along with the sorts of things she did in order to try and catch Mynx before. If she doesn’t sell the fantasy, if she can’t keep Mynx off-balance, then everything falls apart, the assassins are lost, and the grand adventure falls apart in the featureless dark between blue stars. She cannot break. She cannot corpse. She cannot give Mynx reason to start reasoning again. Not with Bella doing such a fine job.

Thirdly, she can smell Bella from where she stands. The desire on her face is not faked. The twitch of drool at the corner of a lip, the intensity of her eyes, the tension in her muscles: all of these are quite vividly real in the eyes of the Toxicrene. It’s just that they’re not directed at her. But in the heat of the moment, that’s so hard to judge, isn’t it?

Backed by the pack that so effortlessly defeated the pseudoprincess, Ember must look like the terror of worlds and palaces alike. She is adorned in finery which fails to cover her straining muscles, her shining eyes, the way her leg flexes as if to pounce for but a moment. She is a pirate and a queen of pirates, and she bares her teeth and bites the air on cue.

And we all know what pirates would do to princesses— don’t we, Mynx?

Return to Thellamie

Silence fills the barrow. A tense silence, the kind produced by women considering a hundred horror stories from their childhood, weighing them on the mental scales, and coming to the conclusion that while they absolutely cannot start a fight, there's no need to say it out loud, just in case not saying it somehow produces an advantage in this knifematch of wits.

"So where are you headed?" Juniper asks, as Olesya casually cleans under her fingernails with a skinning knife.

"Nowhere much," Seli says, as Keli carefully considers at what point knockout powder mixed into wine becomes an attack, supernaturally speaking.

---

Cair!

The undead are gardeners.

Which isn't a complete surprise. The ones that are most intact have flowers sprouting from rents in their flesh, their scent sickly-sweet. The skeletons are more obviously puppets of vine systems, fruits rattling in their ribcages like organs. The light of the Poison Star glimmers in empty eye sockets. And everywhere, they are pulling up flooring and putting in earth. They pull treasures off shelves and use them to dig furrows; they let seeds fall through fingerbones in their wake.

At least they aren't sprouting with unnatural speed. Yet. But this is a concerted invasion and attempted subversion of the Stacks, and Heron, once again, just to underline this, isn't here. If you've got a bedroom or an alchemy lab or something of the sort, you might want to do some quick cleaning before it's full of plant-based renovations.

---

Kalentia!

The veil lifts, and on the other side is a devastatingly beautiful woman. The contrast between her black hair and her white skin is so vivid that it makes the backdrop of a Lunarian mansion look tawdry. Her lips are as red as the first primordial redness that was squeezed free from Sayanastia's jaws. Her teeth might as well be polished jet, and her eyebrows are elegant brushstrokes.

Her eyes are mirrors, reflecting your face in jagged facets.

"Yes," she says. "I am approval, directed towards this signing of a contract. You are concordance, our colors similarly aligned appropriate to the maturation of fortune. I am anticipation, directed towards the fulfillment of all contractual obligations." She cuts the air open with the flick of a wrist, the opening of a fan.

Behind her, the Lunarian looks like she's dead. Her heart's torn out of her chest, seeing this again, and she hasn't realized that she's (emotionally) bleeding out all over the floor. No, wait. This is the Outside. There is literal blood trickling down the joints of her perfect emerald-green armor, staining the pink of her robes a dark, unwholesome red.

---

Eclair!

"You Maid-Knights have such weird ways of going out on dates," Mayzie grouses. With one hand, she doodles on a napkin; with the other, she swishes around the sake for this course before downing it in one shot. "Like, when I take someone out on a date, I usually like to be around them. That's the entire point, right?" She stares at you, as if daring you to say something. There's really nothing to be said, though, and that seems to irritate her more, that you didn't know the thing that's supposed to be said here.

"If I. If I had a girlfriend that was willing to drop that sort of cash? On me? And then she just disappeared and let me eat alone? Well, okay, I'd still eat- oh my god that's the soup course."

The rich scent of goblin-crab soup fills the booth, and Mayzie eagerly accepts it, not even waiting to get it on the table before she's raised it up to her lips to start sipping the broth. It's hot, it's goblin-crab, the meat's in a perfect rainbow of colors, and you get the third course sake along with this.

Do you think she's got a point, Eclair?

Do you let yourself imagine, for a moment, Timtam looking you in the eyes as she lowers the bowl demurely from her lips?

---

Yuki!

"--Cafe la Faune?"

A snippet. Just a moment. The right words at just the right time, as you're heading out to actually, properly, do a search. You come to a stop so hard that Suli nearly bowls you over and has to steady you on your feet with her tail. You look over a railing and see several people talking on the ground floor.

A young Kel woman in a bunny suit is giving directions (only partially audible now) to two people. One's tall, wearing a gown that has every single color of autumn somewhere in its swirls, her curls bursting out of the red scarf hanging over her face, while the other...

A shiver runs down your spine, watching this woman crack her neck in a way that's just a little bit the wrong way. She's wearing a fashionable Kel suit, the kind with buttons all down the front, but for some garish reason she's cut a hole in the front to let an entire bouquet of flowers peek out (which is tasteless, even in the Chrysanthemum, where flowers are very carefully regulated - just imagine if those were real!). She's got golden-rimmed starglasses hiding her eyes, and she's got her large hands stuffed in her pockets.

The yakuza vibes are smothering.

One petal floats down from her bouquet and curls, just a little bit, in the organic way that fake petals don't usually do.

The tall lady bends down, and for a moment the view of the Kel woman is blocked. Then the two are continuing on up the stairs, leaving the Kel woman to sway on her feet slightly, cheeks flushed... eyes glazed over.

But before you can continue, on the landing in front of you an entire opera audience starts pouring out, and while the employees are doing their best to keep people moving, it's still going to be hard going through the crowd.

---

Cutie! Perfectly Safe Cutie! Nothing To Worry About!

"I'm amazed that nobody's tried to actually catch you," Alcideo says, while rubbing a perfect circle in that ear. There's two meanings to that. He's so clever, isn't he? One conversation for you, another for anyone else who might be sneakily listening. "You're doing such a good job, you know. Like, back when I was starting out, I was lucky if I got tips at all. But then again I was just the Coat Guy. You can imagine how often people notice the Coat Guy."

"Did the diner back home have drink service? I used to do that. I can do a mean mixer, but nowadays people want to see more of me than my forearms, haha." His laugh is as rich as chocolate. "Don't worry about a thing, Cutie," he adds, a little quieter, his smile extremely genuine. Genuine enough to melt that chocolate. "You're doing good. And you'll see Yaz right after shift's over for encouragement."

That should really have a capital E. Encouragement. For some employees, it's remedial training. For others, it's a reward. And for you, given half an hour of Yaz's undivided attention after a shift (except for the attention she needs to look over Alcideo's shorthand notes on how you're doing), it's definitely a reward, isn't it?

Just gotta handle the dinner rush and then Yaz will personally tell you that you are a good boy, because Alcideo can see that you are a good boy, can see how seriously you take this, can see how you've got a knack for this. Maybe you'll be able to ask her for long riding trousers or something tonight.

Everything is fine.

Breathless Dead

Well, firstly, like, you have to understand, there's differences, right? Sure, admittedly Mynx looks like Redana's memories of herself, only all manhandled by a bunch of uncouth Ceronian braves and tossed to Bella, likely to be imprisoned and brought back to Tellus by the Praetor, and Bella back then probably would have insisted on securing the prisoner personally, working through her complicated feelings of desire and resentment with every restraint, every unnecessary humiliation, every article of clothing removed to ensure that Dany wasn't hiding anything she could use to escape, ending the runaway princess's dreams of adventure with lock and key and well-secured muffling, and maybe by the time they'd gotten back to Tellus Mommy would have decided that actually Bella made a better princess than Dany did and that she was changing their places so that Dany was the maid and Bella was the princess, and Bella would probably need to make sure she was on a short leash just so that she wouldn't try to escape, and, and Bella would have Notes on her wardrobe and the need to make sure she wasn't hiding anything, and then after several months of tension Bella would kiss her so hard that it bruised, and they'd tumble into bed and Bella would start telling her that all that time she wished that she had permission to touch her oblivious brat of a princess like this, and aren't you being so loud, princess, didn't you learn that a good maid is thoughtful and demure and holds her tongue, and...

Sorry, what was the question?

Right, so. As Ember, Redana's already incredible imperial physique was funneled into being a perfect Ceronian knight. She looks like the princess's sister: a little taller, a little leaner, sharper of tooth. There is a distinction between the person she was and the person she became. And usually this is where you'd say "and it's impossible to tell where that change began," but it's absolutely when she crossed the Lethe and joined the daughters of Ceron. If she never had, she'd be like Mynx now: small, fair-skinned enough for her blush to be radiant, panting, (poisonous) drool beading on the lips she can't reach, squirming as if that will save her from Bella, not when she's in Bella's clutches, Bella never lets go once you're there, she'll toy with you and grip you tighter and all that wicked huntressness will come out in a way that's so, so hot, and come to think of it this is probably a balancing of the scales over what happened in the depths of the Eater of Worlds, so it's okay that her tail is thwap thwap thwapping against the back of her own thighs, bared by her Ceron-Pattern Tactical Shorts, it's obviously just because she's proud that she caught the Princess and is going to get headpats and Bella will do that thing with the ear and she'll just have to stay upright with knees turned to jelly in front of her pack and...

Oh shoot Bella's looking at her now.

"We," she says, and her voice cracks into a squeak, and she overcorrects downwards. "We, uh. The Princess is ours." What is she doing. "As you ordered." Why is this doing it for you, Dany. "Made sure not to, uh. Rough her up. Too much." The head is right here, Bella, with the associated triangles. It is so ready for headpats, Bella. And an evil laugh maybe?? Possibly?? For her??

(Not that that's going to happen. She's only interested in Mynx because she's needed for the plan. There is no chance that she is going to be distracted by sexy impromptu "captured-the-princess" roleplay. Get your head in the godsdamned game, Redana. And stop wagging your tail clean off your thighs.)

Breathless Dead

We hunt.

We are not the Assassins, not the perfect killers shaped like one death. None of us contains that inside of ourselves, and that's why we don't burn out and die after the perfect climax of that one death. No. We are Ceron. We are nothing when we are alone, but when we are together.

Oh, when we are together.

The Assassins are brittle. They shatter. We are like a school of fish; we scatter and then reform. We reformed around Bitemark; we reformed around Bella-Mosaic's hand; we reformed around her Ember; we reformed around her ship. We take new forms, new shapes, new plans, new deaths; none of us is as perfect as all of us.

It takes us days to prepare for this one. We gather our panoply around us: our own maps of the ship, our Princess Alpha's knowledge of the side passages and the worker's tunnels, our nets and our syringes and our wooden paddles. The Summerkind swarm and the Pix nervously try to scout our meetings. We silence them, overwhelm them, imprison them; there will be no chattering of silly vulpine voices warning the quarry.

When it begins, it is almost silent. We move in our teams, clearing deck by deck, tunnel by tunnel, room by room. We come together in knots around the prey of Beri and Piximander; we study their scents and their reactions and the taste of their lips, and then we release them. There will be no hiding from us, not in the herd, not in the bones of the ship. Our best engineers are drumming and listening for the spaces in the echoes; no hidden chamber will remain so. No secret ally will remain so. No disguise will remain so. We do not rest until we find a weakness; we do not rest until the pack is satiated.

We are Ceron, and we are the thousandfold conquerors.

We hunt.

Return to Thellamie

The air is full of small noises, but none of them are speech. The groan is everywhere. Even stone moans like a maiden when it is gripped tightly, possessively enough.

Stones tumble forward. Branches, leaves, flowers, skulls turn towards the commotion. Through it steps a mass of wild, tangled hair holding a massive long-handled hammer, kept in pristine condition for her hands again.

She strides confidently through the vine-choked streets, bare feet sure on the root-buckled tiles. She does not turn her head to the left or to the right, not even as jaws clatter like the trilling of birds. White fingerbones scrape against bark; everywhere there is an unclean light.

She is awaited at Chivalgard. Even though the roof is now a tangled nest of branches, she walks half in now and half in then.

Her Queen is even waiting for her on the throne. There is a mass of flowers at her breastbone like a bouquet pinned to her tabard. Her hair hangs lank like moss. Her eyes burn.

The Architect-Knight sinks to one knee, hammer held half an inch over the root-broken floor. Behind the Queen another woman takes one step forward, her hair all thick fragrant curls, her skin of ebony, her ears blooming on her head. The silk of her dress hangs in folds that do not hide her shaped curves.

“We thank you for your assistance,” Walking Elm says, her breath perfumed with honey and flowers that do not die. “We are so looking forward to working alongside you. We will remember and reward you when we are in our queendom, forever and forever, forest without end. And may it be so, and let it be so.”

“You heard the lady. Arise, my loyal Architect.” The pitcher-lungs contract, forcing air out between Queen Aria’s teeth. Her claws, still as hard as diamonds, scratch on the armrests of the throne. “We’ve got a fucking door to build.”

“Language,” Walking Elm says, as mild as parsley, and boops Aria Thendragon on the nose.

---

Poor Befuddled Bemused Bamboozled Hazel!

The good news is that your clothes were put in a chest which you got to make your own tumbler code for, along with your tablet and all the other important things you have.

The exciting news is that you have booty shorts with golden sequins.

Cafe la Faune is staffed primarily by pretty boys, and girls who are enjoying presenting themselves as pretty boys, and all of them with fake golden antlers on their heads. It’s a pop-up cafe, which means it is wildly in demand, and you are hustling to keep up.

Take trays to tables. Arrange the plates just so. Light the dessert that is meant to be lit on fire on fire. Pose for photographs (and guests keep tucking money for this into your clothes??). You’ve seen Ouran, probably. You know what the deal is.

Anyway, you’re on break, which means you can take a seat in the actually quite nice employee lounge just off the kitchen, and—

“Hey, you’re doing great out there,” Alcideo says with a grin. He reaches to you and gives you headpats, just like Yaz promised he would, and it feels magical, just like Yaz told you it would. (He’s timing his breaks with yours, which is, I promise, already employee gossip.) “This can’t be your first time doing this, right?”

---

Yuki!

Scroll up. Go right ahead. Reread that bit where I told Eclair all about the Chrysanthemum, and then reread Hazel’s just for kicks.

You’re enjoying the spa. Steam rises from the stones, and Sulochana shivers in delight as she drapes her tail across your lap.

“And you’re sure you haven’t heard anything more from him?” She stretches like a cat. She really, truly does intend to help you find Hazel, but you’re staying at the Chrysanthemum, and you’ve just got to stay in character, and she needs this. This moment where she is at peace, and full of enjoyment, and here with you.

Pasenne is pressed up on the other side, her serpentine hip rubbing against you, as she ladles out another cup of water onto the stones. She’s more confident than she’s been the whole trip, eyes closed, tail swaying circle eights as she, too, basks in the warmth.

On the other side of the private spa, Timatheo is lounging like butter, a towel heroically clinging to his narrow hips. Magasha does not have any sort of towel, and is slowly sinking deeper into the Nagi couch provided. But Anka Arju-Wajz is standing outside at the door, keeping watch for… well, ostensibly assassins, but also for the off chance that someone might have word of the Golden Faun here.

Suli doesn’t want you to get up, but she could stay here innocently for hours. And you’d clear a Need if you linger and enjoy yourself when you should be out searching for Hazel…

---

Handmaiden Team Vespergift!

The problem (which is going to take you enough time to catch up with everybody else’s timeline, so on and so forth) is that Vesper Victoria’s is stuffed full of side quests.

The cathedral’s archives on maid-knights and how to handle them are woefully mishandled in categorization. The wards against misfortune are undercharged because someone rerouted all the mystic squares to kill any trace of a plant in the building. The Paladins are having a bodybuilding contest that they refuse to postpone. And on top of all of that, you’re getting weird fragmented messages from Cair. Some sort of code? Interference in the Stacks? It is a mystery.

---

Cair!

The doorway’s fortified with vines now, even if you could get to it, and the undead are seemingly endless.

It’s a pretty simple magic, just a devastatingly effective one. The light of a Fallen Star is suffused into the walking dead, supported by a living plant network which provides them with strength and compensates for missing body parts. And an entire dead city’s worth of them is pouring into the Stacks.

This super definitely isn’t your fault though, probably.

---

Kalentia!

Nothing says “medical kidnapping” like being pulled into the Outside. The real Outside. The Outside that is cobbling together your memories of home with the Lunarian’s own: white paper walls, red lanterns, curtains carefully frozen in a windy sigh, murmurs from behind closed doors.

At least you’ll be able to cobble together a temporary suit of armor for her if the Mirrorfolk do not get you. Maybe they won’t drag you into the deep dreaming of dragons like Tsane once told you they would. Maybe they’ll just tie you up and mildly distress you if you impress memories of your past deeply enough upon them. And, hey, the Hero’s Shadow is still here somewhere; they totally wouldn’t let anything too terrible happen to you as you stumble through a nightmare maze of nostalgia. Probably.

---

Eclair!

“Maid-knights. Bah.”

Your gaze swings off the blushing, stammering brunette in the corner of the sauna (match retreat of interviewee scoot for scoot) to the young woman switching out the Morning Tea cart for the Elevensies cart.

She’s got glossy black hair, all tied up with a floppy bow. She’s wearing a deliberately maid-like outfit herself, though the skirts back home aren’t nearly so bouncy. And she’s familiar: short for her age, resting witch face, almost good enough to blend into the background with a quiet sardonic murmur.

Ignore the girl who’s twirling her hair around her finger and displacing water every time she takes a breath, squirming with the force of what was, previously, your attention. You’ve just recognized Mayzie Sighs: orphan, flower fetishist, former friend before you set out into the Outside. And you can see the wheels turning right underneath her triangles, too.

The trick isn’t figuring out if she knows things. She’d have solved the investigation by now if she was on the case. The trick is getting her to reveal whether she’s secretly in league with Timtam in order to destroy your life because when she said it was okay that you ate her lemon bun that one time it really meant that she wasn’t okay and she’s been planning her elaborate revenge this entire time, or whether she’s just sour over you leaving.

You know. Low stakes.

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??