Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

She fought for this job, you know? Bullied her way right here, with her tools in her hands, and the burning determination to fulfill that which has been left undone. A task which yawns, enormously, across her past. And even if she cannot think of exactly why this must be done, she knows with certainty that she must do this. For Dolce. For Vasillia. For the journey.

The song that spills from her lips is slow, contenting, one she happened to hear back at the beginning of everything. Back when she, oh so briefly, rode with privateers. And she got to hear how they roared their excitement, how they tossed call and response back and forth across their ships, and, most importantly for this moment, how they wove their voices together to sing of the journey home, the sway of waves, the romantic tension of fighting alongside one another, and leaving all your fears, your disappointments, your regrets behind you.

Hold your head high!
Hold your head high!
We are alive!
We are alive!

The brush and the comb are as gentle as that song, but as insistent. These are the weapons with which she carves out Elysium. The drag of the brush through his curls, across his scalp, never tugging or pulling, just giving each one the proper bounce. The flick of the comb, the twist to accentuate those ringlets. They are scented with oils, and in their wake they leave softness, tenderness, and a certain sensitivity of the scalp.

For, say, when Ceronian nails drag up and down. Like this. While the song continues, promising peace and safety and joy among your comrades, your dearest friends, the people who chose to stand side by side with you.

And you hear that, Dolce?

The whole pack is singing along.

Let it fall, let it go.
Let it fall, let it go.
We are here, and we are now.
We are here, and we are now.

You carried so much for so long without complaint, once-Captain. You were trapped among enemies, forced to join in the hunt of your beautiful wife. Let it fall. Let it go. Let it fall. Let it go. We are here, and we are now.

All we got is us!
All we got is us!
The people who fight with us,
side by side with us,
we're all on the same ship home,
we're taking the same ship home.

And one day, Dolce, that will be true. That's a super Princess promise.

Return to Thellamie

Aadya!

It's no choice at all, really.

Even before you saw Juniper helping lead people away from the Chrysanthemum, across from the holy monastery of Vesper Victoria's, you knew that you had to get involved. So it's as you're making your way inside, using your bulk to work against the tide of people breathlessly yelping about dragons-- fire-- the trees coming to kill us all-- maid knights--

That's when the front of the Chrysanthemum explodes.

The beautiful murals, broken. The supporting beams, splintered. (One falls directly towards you; you catch it like a training weight.) The Serigalamu huntresses all about break down streets, herding fleeing customers and employees and the goblins of a petting zoo alike towards safety. (They didn't do that in Crevas. Something to note.)

When you run inside, you're accompanied by two other women: Juniper, her face pale, and a Serigalamu woman with a drawn heartsaber. Across the street, Sayanastia the Dark Dragon is pinned against a statue of herself by this city's worst nightmare. And across the city, bells are tolling: invasion. forest. our nightmare is here.

---

Cutie!

Back and forth! One and two and hop! The two of you dance across the platform, even as something unfortunate happens to Cousin It above. Everything is focus! You slip into the rhythm of evading her stabs, start reading her tells, because for all that she's a peril, she's not a spontaneous swordfighter. Like a video game opponent, she fights like someone with a preset list of moves. She's got the reach on you, but you are adapting admirably, and then she manages to fence you in, against a bit of remaining banister on these great big stairs, with quite a drop behind you, but you see the opening and you take it--

Her wicked weapon tumbles out of her grasp as you twist it away, and it descends to the floor. (Don't worry about it falling tip-down. That's fine. Probably.) And now, disarmed, having lost the battle, she...

Reaches up and pulls down your makeshift mask.

Time seems to slow. Behind her, you can see Yuki. You can see your would-be Nagi savior being helped up. You can hear something unfortunate continuing to happen to Cousin It.

She is cradling your chin and leaning in.

You wanted a hard choice, little Golden Fawn? Well, one way or another, you've got one, because here's what you can do:

• you can stab her in the ribs with your sword, without hesitation, just show Yuki that you're capable of actually stabbing someone, to protect yourself, stab someone who doesn't have a weapon, someone dangerous, her eyes full of light, her lips rich and full, OR
• you can let her kiss you.

Show us all who you are, Cutie.

---

Yuki!

So you stagger out of the wrecked cafe, exhausted, and notice a lot of things:

• the giant hole where the front of this building used to be, and the way that the wind's pulling chrysanthemums out from that great big tree in the center of this place, in a rather unnatural way
• the awful woman who gives you the bad vibes leaning in to give Cutie there a kiss
• the Serigalamu huntress in a gaudy tiger-striped one-piece bathing suit and starglasses who is pulling a heartbow back to her cheek, aiming at the both of them, that's right there's a new challenger here, taking aim from a lower and now mostly-abandoned turn on the stairs
• Pasenne heroically pulling Sulochana back up onto (for now) stable ground
• your friend Eclair grinding on the face(?) of Cousin It with her skateboard

I think you have plenty enough to be dealing with. Good luck, dear; you always do shine under pressure.

---

Eclair Espoir!

The Architect-Knight is a figure from ancient stories, a dependable henchman and lackey for Bad Queen Aria. Any story about plucky knights deserting from her ranks (including the ancestors of the Order of the Aurora, looking for something good and true to serve rather than the emptiness in Aria's heart) wouldn't be complete without their being suddenly fenced in by walls, by cells, forced to escape a prison-labyrinth being built up all around them. (Fortunately, almost all of these "dungeons" were demolished, and good riddance.)

She is a nightmare. She is unbreakable loyalty given to a monster. She has really let her hair go while she's been imprisoned.

And she is at the beginning of a combo chain.

Time to start cleaning up around here, isn't it?

---

Handmaidens!

Well. Hrm. That big tree there has become a very bad problem. Even with its roots sealed away, even with all of those paper talismans dangling from its branches, even with all of those iron bands around its trunk, somehow the poison of the Rot Star has entered into it. It's obviously starting to die, but it's releasing hundreds-- thousands?-- of blossoms into the city through the hole that was made when Sayanastia got bulldozed through the front wall. That is almost certainly Bad. But you're the Handmaidens of Heron! Which will make your impending failure to contain them even worse.

Also, you're getting a pinging from Kalentia in the group chat at the same time, because apparently she's in the middle of a collapsing dream-prison that had some sort of awful evil tree magic bloom at its heart, looking for her, and you all should watch out for Rootwalkers or things of that nature! It looks like a Fallen Star is making a big move, so be ready for that!!

Return to Thellamie

Yuki!

The terror of a bygone age in front of you takes her starglasses off for a moment. Behind them is light like sludge, like tears, like bile rising in a throat. Light that has curdled. Light that is capable of animating the bodies of the dead when laced with the flora that it is more closely attuned to.

O daughter of Yukisworld, the First Fallen made an elaborate system of magic because he was a fucking nerd. (Just ask Tsane.) He refracted his light into a dizzying series of essences, each one ripe with possibility, with secrets to discover, with unexpected edge cases and combo spells that not even he could have imagined. But each of us? We are peers to the magic of this world, and ours is alien to what our lost brother made down here. Even mine. One day, you might have the chance to really see that. But here's the magic of the Rot Star, the Poison Star, Spite themselves.

And for a moment, she looks lost.

"Why...?" It's a sigh out of floral psuedo-lungs. "I... there was... in the beginning there was... my knights..."

Then she focuses her attention back on you, and her rictus grin returns. "The why doesn't matter, squire," she hisses, and there's another voice underlying hers again. A wet, awful voice. She flicks out the arms of her starglasses and slides them back up her nose with her middle finger. "First comes the Wildwood. An empire of leaves and bones. Then, in the end, the mushrooms; and after them, nothing." She purrs that word like it's a pickup line (and that was her, not the wet voice rejoicing in leaves and bones).

She casually tosses a table your way, and your axe only barely cuts through it. Casual. She's relaxed about this, for all that getting nicked made her angry. She's not taking this seriously as a challenge, a duel, a battle against an equal. That's how you could do it (you realize, ducking another chair). She wants knights. She wants someone she could love to hate. She wants-

A roar echoes throughout the Chrysanthemum. Aria's head jerks up, and an awful laugh bubbles out of her. "So you're here, too. I'm allowed this. I'm allowed this!"

She turns and starts running. And once she's out of the cafe, that's when the wood starts growing out of her.

(You're still not satisfied? Well, her problem is that she's a corpse puppeted by starlight, with a personality so big that it still serves as the container of that light. You'd need to drain it out of her, then put your head together with Heron- or someone who's pored over her library- to fill it up with something else to sustain her, and even then you'd still have Bad Queen Aria to deal with, now free to pursue her goals to topple Thellamie free of a master. Or you could put her to rest.)

---

Cutie!

Ignore the dragon transformation behind your foe. (It's incredible, really. The speed of the growth, the way the branches curve like real ribs, the scary woman dangling from vines in the place where a real dragon would have a heart.) Her eyes are gold, her breath is sweet like apples, the way she sways is like the branches of a willow tree in the wind.

"Yes! Let's leave! Nobody needs to be hurt, just come with me!"

She reaches out, and somehow you manage not to take her hand. You rebuff her, in fact. (Politely, I'm sure. There's a good Cutie!) It doesn't matter whether it's just a step back or a defiant flourish of your Heartblade; it's enough that you, in this moment, reject her. Because she's dangerous and fake and you've got a Princess of Crevas fighting right behind you to protect you from people like her.

"Well." She sighs and draws her Heartblade, and it is thin and black and some sort of sap runs down the groove in the blade; the carpet hisses where a fat, sticky gobbet falls to the ground. "There is really no need to be difficult, is there?"

She lunges for your legs. You do not want to be pierced by that Heartblade, Cutie. It is very, very good at causing pain. The sap will spread in your veins and it will burn like ant bites and cramping muscles and you're not good enough to be here and you are never going to college. If she is the carrot (and I think we can all agree that carrots are vastly overrated as a root vegetable), that sword is the stick whittled down to a vicious needle.

Get stuck by that awful thing and you might just curl up into a whimpering ball for her to carry away.

---

Handmaidens!

It is an unfortunate truth that there is just enough glorious, showy empty air in the center of the Chrysanthemum, above and around that showstopping tree, for two dragons to have a battle- provided, of course, that they are quite willing to smash each other into either side of the spiraling helix staircases that run all the way up the sides of the tower. Or, for that matter, through the walls and into the cold winds outside.

But Aria (you know her, Yana, of course you know her, in your heart there is still a connection to this body, and you can feel the awful light that fills her up, and the weight of the bog that she wants to turn the world into, the petulant plan here at the end of all her clever plans of carefully orchestrated decay and collapse, long centuries past, but the light was never the source of the hate, that's all past life cringe married to the trauma of being killed) isn't much of a dragon, is she? A parody in glistening wood and flowering vines and white bones. But she's enough of a dragon to twist in the air and then flare her wings out, beating powerfully up towards her other self.

And here's the thing, darling Handmaidens: dragons are the bones of the world. The First Fallen convinced the slumbering coils of the dragons to be instead of roiling in not-existing. Which means that there's no room for two dragons here. Not in the too, too solid world. One needs to win.

Aria slams into the Dark Dragon like a kiss with fangs. Only room in a hive for one queen! Only room in Thellamie for one dream! And this sure isn't fair, two against one, given that the Rot Star's riding her veins, its light bursting against Yana's shadows, saying: you are small, and you are less than you were, and you will never have this glory again.

Heron would know what to do. But Heron's not here to figure out the option that a Paragon would choose.

---

Eclair!

You're as drunk as any kitty maid has ever been, here or anywhere else among the stars. But it's all sloshing about in your head. Your feet are certain and sure on the stairs, and that demands all the peerless focus of one of the members of the Order. You pass through the evacuation of the Chrysanthemum untouched, even as the pretty ladies and boys who work for smiles show off their training to make sure that no guest is getting left behind.

Your feet lead you, and they lead you-

Here.

Why are you here, a few steps to the left on this landing? Because, here, it leads into the backstage of a theater stage, to all the props, the costumes, the masks, because this is a Lunarian comedy that they're doing here, which isn't to say it's a comedy written by Lunarians but rather a comedy about Lunarians, and part of that is the exaggerated costumes, the over-elaborate dresses, the masks, the masks, each one hung up with care on the wall.

There's one missing.

She was here.

Eclair Espoir, do you dare take the space where there used to be a mask and put it over your own face?

Maybe this is the drink talking. But this is one of my temples. The magic trick makes new magic tricks, and this is one of them. You can catch a glimpse, here, if you act with holy irrationality. If you look out on the empty audience as Timtam would. If, for a moment, you are wearing the absence of her mask.

Either way, your armor settles comfortably onto your shoulders as you look at this empty space. Catches you up in a hug. It missed you, too. (I can say this here. Doesn't it make you almost believe it's better than being true?)

---

Yuki!

All the way back to you, sweetie. I'm not going to leave you dangling in the wind! Because Suli is the one dangling in the wind.

It's hard to get one of the Nagi to lose their, for a lack of a better word, footing. But Cousin It over there cheats with their magical hammer. A trapdoor with a slide leading right out into open air is just mean. You get to see Cousin It kick her right down into it, even as two dragons rage in the center of the tower.

And if I know anything about you, Yuki Edogawa, it's that you're not going to let your Sulochana fall. Not when you're watching her claw at empty air.

Breathless Dead

Ember holds a collar in her hands, and she is stiff as a statue.

C'mon. Be a good girl. Put it on. There's something misfiring here between her arms and her brain, between her hormones being played like a harp and the way her arms just won't move. And that misfire, that jam, is...

"...Bella said this is okay, right?" It's hot and hard to think, and the crush is on all sides, the joy of Ceron is being part of the pack, but her arms just aren't moving. "Because, she, Mosaic, she's the only one who gets to..."

That's untrue, isn't it, Dany? You get into all sorts of scrapes. Tumble up and down the scoreboard, end up in peril and doom, change from face to face like drama masks, but down at the bottom of them all there's you. And you're married.

"I'm your sister-in-law," Gemini breathes sweetly in her ear. "I'm practically doing it for her."

"Okay," Ember says, eyelids heavy. "But can you put her name on here? Weave it in the, the collar, or etch it on the tag, or..."

Gemini takes it from her. Ember's arms fall like her training weights are tied to them. All around her are the sound of bells, of bells, she was wearing a bell and that made all bells beautiful, Bell-a Bell-a Bell-a, and when they find that lost world nobody and nothing's gonna keep them from finding a home, Bell-a Bell-a Bell-a with a jangling mood and a beautiful face, softer now, lovely always, Bella who came for her, Bella who married her, Bella who refused to break...

Gemini shows her the nametag, etched with a claw, the name of the one woman she belongs to, and Redana throws her arms around Gemini and hugs her, tail thwacking all around, giddy with the relief of everything settling into place in her head. Now she can stumble back down from rule. Now she can be praised for her qualities and not judged for failing to measure up. Now she can be a very special member of this pack:

The one who has BELLAS at her throat, and a small silver bell hung there.

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

I do regret to inform you that, given your circumstances, you'll be able to freeze all of the Rootwalkers in the room, but if you don't do it from outside the room (say, inside the tearoom where Injimo is having so much fun), then you'll end up freezing yourselves, too. (This isn't fatal, thankfully; can you believe that in Yukisworld, people can't survive being frozen in an ice crystal if you have warm blankets and tea ready after the crystal's shattered? It truly is a bleak place.)

But it would be best practices to clamber down into the tearoom, pump the room full of ice essence, and in the process seal the door shut with more ice. Then you'll only have to handle the assassin, catch the Architect-Knight, and enter the Stacks by another route! Simplicity itself.

---

Yuki!

"Don't use your name," Walking Elm says from behind you, her voice still high and cheerful. As sweet as poisoned honey. "That's not information they need yet~!"

Aria clutches at her throat. For a moment, it's illuminated from within; starlight flecks her lips like blood. Things that are not muscles shift under her skin. Then she draws her lips back into a crazed smile, all for you.

"You are brave. A knight. I used to have knights like you." Her voice is a hoarse whisper, the roar gone. She pushes her starglasses back up her face, hunches down low. Her tail drags across the floor. "Heroes! I hate heroes." That word there, it reverberated with a second voice, one that is slick with mud and hate.

She comes at you like a comet. You sidestep, flick your axe out, and she slams into it, keeps coming. She catches you by the throat, smashes through the thin wooden wall of the cafe. You wrench free and careen into tables, smashing abandoned plates and teacups on your way down. But she doesn't press her advantage, she doesn't leap on you and give you a bad end, all claws and teeth and the sweet smell of death. She clutches at her face and cackles, hair spilling out between her fingers.

"What do they call you? The Rootfelling Knight? The Lumberjack-Knight? All the great knights have a title. Oh, what I would have made of you back then!"

Take a String on her; she imagines you among her court and its chains on her heart stir. (She thought she could inhabit a role and avoid contamination by the world, as if it would not enclose itself around her- right, Yana?) She is also giving you what she thinks you want: honorable combat between a knight and a monster.

Your throat aches. You are lying in broken porcelain. Take a Condition, too. You are facing Aria Thendragon, though you haven't gotten her name yet. You are fighting the champion of a Fallen Star, a dragon of rotting wood and light and command. Fighting her, in any context, is a very good way to pile up Conditions.

---

Cutie!

See, even I remembered this time!

Anyway, Yuki just got bull-rushed through the cafe window by that scary lady. No read on which of them is getting out of there. You'd really hope for it to be Yuki, but...

Alcideo doesn't say a word. He does do a duelist's salute with his heartblade (you never asked him if he could fight, did you), and he puts his trust in you.

Take a String on Alcideo. Go ahead. It's yours for the taking.

The snake-princess starts slithering in the other direction, heading upwards, just because the whole press of people is going down- and then she's stopped by a hammer slamming down onto the stairs, and a sudden wall bursting up out of the floor underneath that hammer, and then, oh, and then?

Cousin It from your Addams Family comes crashing down on top of the wall, except she's got bare arms, both of which grab the hammer and heft it up.

Dear damosel / death-delighting;
invasion I incited, / an influx of idiots
wood-worked / without will,
but bitches / my back do break.

"The Handmaidens harry me hence, hard-treating me. Come, carry this callow--" She breaks off, swings the hammer, shatters a heart-arrow the size of a bloody ballista-bolt (see, now she's got me doing it). On the other stair of the Chrysanthemum's helix, Yaz nocks another arrow. The Chrysanthemum is not helpless.

"So much violence, Hazel~" Walking Elm is following you, arms outstretched welcomingly. "What a fuss~ Why don't you come with me and I'll make sure both of these knights fix everything they've broken!" She smiles and it's radiant and perfect and you're holding your breath, aren't you?

"...ugh, my head," the Nagi princess groans, holding one wrist up to it. Her breath is coming hot and quick and her cheeks are flushed. You can feel the warmth in her shifting scales. You are holding your breath and not getting turned on at an unfortunate moment, aren't you? "What... are you... doing...?"

"Finding a happy solution for everybody," Walking Elm says, and the sun is behind her now, throwing her face into shadow. Above the two of you, another one of Yaz's shafts splinters into jagged shards of magic which fade away harmlessly. "I don't want to have to hurt anyone, believe me!"

And it sounds so much like she means it. She's a very good actress, after all.

---

Eclair!

"Everyone," one of the chefs says, banging on a pot with a ladle in order to get attention, and it's just misfortune that you're the closer one to that noise, isn't it? "We've just received word that we need to evacuate the building! The stairwells are unsafe, so if you'll all follow me through the staff entrance?"

Mayzie looks from the chef to you and then back to the chef and then back to you. "Come on," she hisses, standing up. "Now's our chance to get away from this mess, Miss Logic!" She's still got your notebook, and in this moment she's split as to whether to stay or to go whether you will or no.

If you had a String on her, you could pull it. But there are ways and means to get that sort of String in a moment like this, aren't there?

The floor beneath all of you trembles. Somewhere down below, there is yelling and the sound of smashed tableware. The sort of thing that every member of the Order instantly attunes to and itches to fix, isn't that right?

Breathless Dead

Now, the Princess Redana would have gaped uselessly at this. Come, we can admit it. Her sense of justice would have been pricked, and her indignation would have swamped her in sputtering, blushing, and an insistence that that was deeply unfair! It would have taken a looming maid behind her to actually make her insistence that the universe should be fair, should play by rules, should involve everyone working together to a common aim.

Ember smiles beatifically. "Why, that's so clever, Plunder~!" She makes a hand signal to her wolves and then slides down the coils right into Plundering Fang's arms, still smiling. "Much more clever than I would expect from you, honestly! Did a thought finally get into that silly little head of yours?" She tilts her head in an impudent way, showing the flash of her neck, and then smacks the rump of her old tormentor while exuding Challenge. But when Plundering Fang's arms tense around her, she's already snaking out, dancing a few steps back. She sticks out her tongue.

"Or am I wrong? Did Mistress Bella Mosaic give you tips on fashion after you begged her so politely, wagging your tail, sitting on command and showing her how well you can bark? That must have been her idea! Oh, you naughty little thing, using your lustful body in order to get plans from our patron demigoddess!"

Plundering Fang lunges, but Princess-Alpha Ember is already doing a backflip, the sort that she'd practiced over and over again on Tellus. She lands nimbly and dances back, rump waggling, teeth on display, knowing full well that Plundering Fang never chases somebody alone.

Behind Plunder, Goldie is already wrapping a soft, comfy blindfold over Dolce's eyes, while Flickear gives him scritchies right above the ear and tells him that he's doing a great job. Bereft of sight, the gentleness and omnipresence of Ember's followers will certainly be all that the Synnefo can focus on, even in the coils of the serpent (who, once Fang's drawn off, will also be blindfolded~!).

[3 on Keeping Her Busy.]

Breathless Dead

“Your fuzzy ass is not measuring him.”

“Embi—“ Here Plundering Fang hesitates, months of arduous training swinging down like a rapidly descending paw. “Miss Ember, we are clearly in our rights. It’s in the rules the sheep gave us. We are allowed to make measurements for his outfit.”

“Where’s her ruler, then? In her tits?”

“She is the ruler. Look closer at her scale patterns, if you would. Ma’am.”

“…well. Huh. I mean. Isn’t that inefficient?”

“baaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”

“I am assured that it’s a classic Azura method of measuring for tailoring.”

Ember taps her foot, crosses her arms, frowns. This would be so much easier if she could just tackle Plundering Fang and have a no-holds-barred wrestling match over Dolce. Have a real brawl of it!

But that would be disqualifying. That’s in the rules, too. No roughhousing, no howling, and no pouncing. (Goddesses only know whether he just walked right into those coils, then.)

Inspiration strikes the Princess Redana, who’s ready to add seamstressing to her long, long list of talents. “Well, don’t mind me,” she says, clambering onto the coils of the serpentess, situating herself between the sorceress (who’d cast quite a spell on her a few adventures back) and the hapless Starsong Privateer.

“Heya, Dolce!” She grins, heedless of the interesting bruises still lingering on her neck and shoulders. (Not that bruises were uncommon among the Daughters of Ceron, but practically anyone would have had these heal by now. Toxins have a way of lingering.) “I’m thinking: admiral hat. Hold still and let me get the circumference?”

Her loyalists are already clambering onto the Azura in order to surround the sheep on all sides. Protectively. Very closely. And Plundering Fang’s remaining friends are doing the same thing, and there’s definitely not enough room for everyone, but they’ll pack in close around the sheep anyway, giving him awkwardly false headpats and complimenting his curls…

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

So, I’ll give you a little bit of context for the Architect-Knight. I’m sure Tsane already has this on lockdown, but bear with me.

The Dark Chivalric Period (characterized by the reign of Queen Aria, who was the Dark Dragon in disguise, as you well know) was a period of strange adventure and Outside-based prosperity. (You may here note that the Khaganate’s aims and methods are strongly modeled off the DCP.) The Architect-Knight was Aria’s right-hand woman (and, yes, more than that), and the series of quests that ultimately gained her that hammer were one of the great triumphs of Aria’s Questing economic policy.

It was also a trap laid by a wicked and vengeful intellect. The hammer’s architectural marvels, the accelerated way in which it constructs and breaks down doors and walls and pillars, all rely on weakening the fabric of created reality. Each one is a facsimile of true creation, a hollow shell over what should truly exist. Aria had hoped to one day make the world hopelessly dependent on the Architect-Knight’s craft, only to tear it all down in a moment.

This is why the Stacks are uniquely vulnerable to her, as something mired in unreality.

Anyway, I’m sure this won’t be a problem. Keep fending off the Rootwalkers, who would very much like to follow the Architect-Knight through the door she’s made, swarming into the Chrysanthemum (which is, you may remember, sacred to Heron).

If Kalentia was here, she’d be very useful— which, of course, must be why she is not here.

---

Eclair Espoir!

Mayzie jumps a little, a flush coming to her cheeks as she flicks her stylus out of sketching-mode and into shorthand-mode (which is, of course, another wickedly sharp reminder of childhood). She slides behind a turned-over table, but then proceeds to poke her head out so often that she might as well be completely out in the open. As if she can’t decide between safety and adventure, for all that she’d claim she’s made that decision.

The crowd has largely done the same; many of them seem to be under the impression that this is a very entertaining floor show, up to and including the Rootwalker that just tumbled down through the door in the ceiling. Unwholesome, untidy things, those; the Order of the Aurora helped stem the tide when they flooded the homehubs of the Avel.

Any minute now, someone’s going to notice that a real Rootwalker is actually here. And that more are trying to fight their way through this very awkward door. And that Vespergift’s worst nightmare is coming to pass.

---

Yuki!

Anka Arju-Wajz, who is playing the part of Suli’s agonistes here, has also drawn her heartblade in order to cover the downed woman. A threat is on her lips; her tail lashes with agitation at the danger, the peril, the thrill in that roar. She is a dangerous, athletically capable, and talented woman.

This, and the ancient bans that still bind Aria Thendragon, save her life. For the ancient queen does not fling her at terminal speeds across the Chrysanthemum, but merely sends her ragdolling into open air; Anka twists and tumbles down several stories, eventually hitting the water with her limbs tucked in and her head lifted.

"Pathetic,” she rumbles. Talons limned with the light of her heart push smoothly through her skin. "You lost already, Elm. Now it’s my turn.”

Magasha calls up fire from the jewels she wears, but is distracted from commanding it by the table that Aria rams into her stomach. Fire descends like snow onto the crowd as Magasha flails her way down the stairs, who are stampeding up and down the staircase away from this scene.

Timatheo tries to get around her, quick as a shade, and she sweeps a leg low to catch him at the knees, then breaks a chair casually over his back.

This leaves Pasenne, quaking, rattling, staring her down as this monster rolls her neck. Pasenne might buy you a moment more to run away with Hazel. You bought you and Suli and Hazel that much time, after all.

She came along because you vouched for her.

(But also, read on.)

---

Cutie!

The Nagi who’s seized you turns to flee, and then finds the tip of a thin— one might even say dainty— heartblade at her breastbone.

“I must insist that you release my associate,” Alcideo says, and only the pulse at his neck betrays that his coolness is just a facade. “Let’s not have any unpleasantness; Management is already on their way.”

He’s got this the wrong way around (hasn’t he?). He’s trying to save you from being saved (but do you want to go with her?). He’s distracting Yuki at a moment where she’s distracted by the woman whose voice is bass-boosted and the fire falling out of the air, and he’s so focused on protecting you that he’s putting himself in danger.

If he ran now, he’d be safe.

Breathless Dead

Redana almost hisses at Bella that she’s going to screw this up. This is… how can she possibly be expected to follow up that? That dismantling of Mynx’s walls, keystone by keystone, questions that must have been considered ever since she came back to herself on this side of the Lethe: how is the brash, energetic, foolhardy princess of Tellus going to follow up bringing Mynx safely to ground? How can she possibly be entrusted with this?

But Bella has entrusted her with this. That fact is undeniable. There’s no squirming out from under that! If Mynx tries to rebuild herself now, she’ll break strange, won’t she? Like a tree with crooked branches. (Now there is a memory.) Bella gave her this, and it has to be because Bella knows that only Dany can bring Mynx safely down.

“I? I! Am! Yes!” Ember throws her head back and laughs like only a Ceronian alpha can, the mocking laugh of glorious victory. “You’re all ours tonight— you know that, right? Answer!”

“Y-yes!” The gasp— there’s something of Redana there, of a squirming and flustered princess. It’s difficult not to look away bashfully when presented with yourself, you know? But this isn’t Redana. The gasp is in the process of becoming something new.

“Look at both of us. You might think you know us, but we’ve both changed so much from those days in the garden. The person you’re pretending to be right now doesn’t exist any more. Does she?”

“…no?” She’s lost, starting to drift. There’s empty air under her feet, and she needs a wolf to catch her.

“So the masks you have are obsolete. The Bella you could be is out of date. So is the Redana. There’s no more need to pretend to be those girls, is there?”

“No…”

“There’s no more need to hide yourself. You’re going to be a good girl,” the Ceronian princess rumbles in a way that is all the more sincere for how important it is to her. “And you are going to let all those ancient masks drop so we can see the beauty underneath, aren’t you? Answer!”

A nod. A growl. A squeak. “Yes!! Yes!!!”

“Because there’s no need for bodyguards anymore, not when I look like…”

Her vest hits the floor, followed by her bandolier, followed by her bra.

“This.” Gaze upon the body of an athlete, a scout, a warrior, o Toxicrene! Scent her, know how her corded muscles would feel, and let your eyes trace the augmentations to her teeth. She is not the princess of Tellus any more: she would be able to fend off assassins herself. And she would be quite capable of tying a silly little Toxicrene in knots.

“So we’ve no need for a bodyguard any more, right?” She stretches theatrically, flexes her arms, smiles in self-satisfaction.

“No more…”

“Which means that you are bound instead to be yourself. Bella will demand it, won’t she? Answer!”

“Yes! She will!”

“And you and I both know what she’s like when she’s like this. I don’t see any way out of it. You’re doomed, Mynx. Doomed to deal with Bella here until she’s satisfied, and part of her satisfaction…”

The Ceronian princess throws her arms around the Toxicrene, giving her a faceful of hot breath, glistening teeth, and a tight grip. Forehead to forehead, who the princess was and who the princess became.

“Will be tossing you to me. I fought my way up from the bottom of the pack, and I will not spare you any mercy, girl.” Need and Lust and Amusement soak into Mynx’s skin. “Now. Are you ready to be one of the priceless treasures of Ceron, just as you are, no title and no mask?”

“Please, yes…”

“Even knowing how much I know about lusty Ceronian pirates and what they do to the beautiful ladies in their clutches~?” Her tail betrays her excitement at getting to play this role for a night, at flipping the tables around.

The look that Mynx gives her is too much. Redana bites, growling, tail wagging, digging her nails into Mynx’s fiendishly soft skin— and then pulls back, panting, grinning, a wicked creature only barely held at bay by the fact that Bella is staring at the two of them, has her on a leash of loyalty, and it’s not yet time to let the Hound of Mosaic loose.

“Yes. Or. No,” Ember growls, eyes hot.

“Zeus’s sake, yes!”

“Last one. Did you know that the Princess thought of you as a friend the whole time she grew with you?”

“…no,” the Toxicrene admits.

“Well, now you know. And now,” Dany leers, “you’ve one more question to answer. Here, since it’s probably slipped your silly little mind— let me help.”

No talking. Not a single word. Just the body. The pirate queen works that ruined dress back between Mynx’s lips and circles behind her, clamps one palm over her mouth, presses her body against Mynx’s back, and lets out a growl straight from a romance novel. “Now. Answer her…”

Return to Thellamie

Mayzie!

You duck into the midst of the melee before you really think about what you are doing. Your thoughts haven’t bothered trying to catch up, to explain that the reason you’re even working at the Chrysanthemum is because you can’t say no to an opportunity to help, because you can’t say no to a friend who needs you, because you’ve got to keep paying the rent, and how envious you are of Eclair leaving all this behind, how she left you behind— all this to say that you are acting on instinct and you will be angry at Eclair later for making this demand of you and not understanding why you would duck underneath a blow from a fighting woman in order to grab Eclair’s tablet and skid across the floor.

You get a round of applause and whistles from the crowd, who, like idiots, are assuming that this is some sort of incredible new experience from the Chrysanthemum. To be fair to them, Yaz has been funding pop-up scenes with actors in the corridors, but to be unfair to them, you are under no obligation to be fair. Idiots! Buffoons!

You uncouple the stylus from the tablet. Words are hard when you’re this worked up, so in your freehand you start stream-of-consciousnessing this. These two idiots are fighting. Why are they fighting? Probably because Eclair is a wanted criminal. She probably attacked the goddess because this Timtam dared her to or something. They’re still doing fight things. This Handmaiden should have a better outfit.

Outfit. Yes. Something with lots of tassels that flow from the sleeves. Make her look like a hawk, like a soaring dragon, and cut the skirt into sections that would flow around her like this…

There’s room enough in the notepad program for you to start sketching. You definitely are going to miss writing some of this down.

---

Yuki!

The noise behind you is a roar. It rattles the floorboards. It is a physical feeling of sound, wet and overwhelming and furious. You have done something which you should not have done.

Luckily, the Fellowship of the Deerboy is going to buy you time. Time to get close to this woman who’s…

Radiant?

---

Hazel!

She drinks your light, this woman. It soaks into her, makes her skin radiant where the lantern lights shine down on her, and with a delighted groan she accepts what you have given her. Her grip is so tight.

“Pure,” she murmurs, giddily. “Pure and bright and soaked. Your light is beautiful, Golden Faun, and it is striving, growing, shaking, verdant light.”

When she laughs, you can hear an echo of your laugh inside of it.

“Come with me,” she pleads, turning her full attention onto you like a hot lamp above butter. She is sweet and rich and floral, and she is full of wonder and joy and life. “I will show you fields of flowers— arboreal wonderlands— the end of death— I will make you the King of Thellamie— together we will transform this world~!”

“I don’t think so,” Princess Sulochana Arju says, wrapping her coils around you protectively and holding a heartblade to this woman’s chin.

Hooray! You have been saved(?).