Thanqol

Return to Thellamie

"Cair," said Tsane before anyone else could react. "Cair thinks it's Kalentia, Kalentia will say the Lunarian to try to be polite." She's one-handing a book[1], which is no mean feat - turning the pages with her nose - holding her glowing arm raised like she's about to unleash a magical blast (rather than the reality, which is she's about to spend 6-12 hours experiencing a bad acupuncture session). "Why are you here, Shadow?"

Of all the Handmaidens, Tsane is by far the worst at emulating the Princess. There's no inspiration to her performance, no flash, no attention to the mannerisms or subtleties. Sometimes she'll read woodenly off invisible palm cards. This isn't always a disaster - a lot of the times when she's put on the spot it's because she's dealing with a demon or fey monster so far from human that getting the hair colour right is enough to fool it - but the others always find it a bit cringe.

But there are also moments like this where, even in the absence of any disguise whatsoever, she nails it better than any of them ever dream. Not in the precision of her performance but in how she goes beyond it; the furnace-energy of someone about to transmute knowledge into violence. It makes it seem like she is the Heroine, disguised as Tsane.

[Read a person's (book): 10. What do you hope to get from this encounter?]

"I, um, I do think you're probably very pure," said Kalentia apologetically to the Lunarian. "In a good way. Not in a one dimensional way. You have a really good energy."

[1] Riddles of the Ancient Beasts, which she carries with her at all times after being mortifyingly embarrassed at a team trivia night.

Return to Thellamie

Kalentia!

"Oh! Oh- oh wow, um, thank you for spotting that -" Kalentia said as she stopped by the edge of the distortion. She reached out, fingers surrounded by protective rings of gold, as she traced it. "This is really good work. It's so subtle, and just a little bit mean. It's locked in place between two doorways and a sewer entrance and I think I can sense a ribbon trap pinning down the edges. Tsane would love to analyze something like this, the craftsmanship is..."

She'd never expected her career to take her into reality-weaving. As an arcane art it was vanishingly rare, almost a study in the movements of the Eternal Hero and the Nexus that formed her storehouse, retreat and weapons locker. Even getting to encounter another practitioner was exciting, even if it also put into perspective how crude her own technique was. Just about the only thing she was good at was closing portals. It was an important duty sometimes; leave a portal like this open and the torn edges would start bleeding in Outside influence until it turned into a monster-generating pit. A lot of the more complex reality rewiring stuff still went over her head but if she conceptualized it as a wound in reality then it wasn't that difficult to imagine herself bandaging it over.

"Hold up," said Cair, coming down the stairs behind her. "Word came down, new mission. We're heading into the Stacks."
"Oh!" said Kalentia. "Oh, are you sure? Because this looks like -"
"It looks like not our problem," said Cair. "We've got to get buns here a new suit and Civelia wants us to fetch her hat so she can eat it."
"Maybe someone got trapped in there before -"
"Then they're in a cozy hell," said Tsane, following down after Cair. She'd torn off her sleeve to reveal her arm, still glowing with radiant rainbow light from the marker pattern. Kalentia winced - that looked like a nasty mana burn. Nothing to do until it burned out though. "That's a foxhole, and it looks like one left by either an extremely scary fox or a whole pack of them. Anyone who goes through that is going to get gnawed silly, and that includes us."
Now it was Cair who was looking at the portal contemplatively.
"Really?" said Tsane.
"I mean, it does sound nice," said Cair.
"Well, then be my guest," said Tsane.
"No, no..." Cair sighed. "Buns before huns," she started to pick out her portal tools; heavy spotlights filled with glowworms from sacred springs, a book written entirely in blue ink, a long black ribbon. "It's lucky we found this, then. I can repurpose it into a link to the Nexus."
"It's amazing how you can do that," said Kalentia. "I mean, just... you can repurpose anything."
"Oh! Haha!" said Cair. "It's not that hard. Nobody's looking after it, all you've got to do is... pick it up, sort of?"
"I wish I could do that," said Kalentia. "The way you move around with those is like how Heron does it."
"Aw, pshaw," said Cair. "It's nothing. Not compared to what you can do -"
Tsane stepped through the portal without a word.
"Did - did you finish?" said Kalentia.
"Uh, I don't think so?" said Cair.
"Yes, you finished," said Tsane, leaning back through. "You didn't realize?"
"There's this whole additional section with the glamourdust I'm supposed to do at the end," said Cair.
"Oh, that was never necessary," said Tsane, as she slipped back. "I thought that was a grift thing. I didn't realize."
"A grift thing!?" Cair said, outraged.
"You do kind of grift a lot," said Kalentia apologetically.
"I only do what I do because people insist on charging the Hero of Ages for the armaments she requires to defeat the Dark Dragon!" said Cair, stepping through into the Stacks.

Mountains of crates. Weapons and armour racks forming vast corridors. Phalanxes of mannequins armed and armoured in enchanted green glass or soft golden bronze. A battering ram with the head of a wolf carved in silver and aluminum, combat golems on ceaseless patrol, flocks of buzzing astral wisps, and enough armour to outfit a hundred horses.

"We're practically defenseless!" Cair said as she lead the way into the endless armoury of the Hero of Ages.

[Astral Dance: 10]

Breathless Dead

Mosaic!

Of course, you're right. You never had a chance.

Vesper shatters like glass beneath you. The room cascades and breaks, reality slipping and destabilizing. Your organic eye aches, your vision distorting and going out of focus. It'll take you a moment to realize why: for the first time your real eye and your Auspex are seeing the exact same thing.

You have passed through into the realm of the Gods.

The crystal storm you stand in the center of is, of course, Dionysus, mirrored face atop the body of a stuffed clown puppet/eer. It bows and stands aside, a revelation of the field of play. Mars, inert and red and pulsing with canals full of bacteria, clacking away at an abacus and rolling dice as he administers the battle. Poseidon prowling at the edges, vengeful and bitter, holding the end of all things in his hands, wrapped with a bow and a card. Zeus in the center, one hand raised up towards the heavens, one hand keeping her family's peace. Aprodite in distant shadows, snapping lines into place like the bars of a cage.

And Hera, every colour of authority, an anthem of peacock feathers, even the loose and molting patches implying a greater beauty than mere symmetry could manage. She is coming here to enforce the dignity of her family against those who would play games with it.

You have but two pieces of hope.

The first is that Vesper gave you a note, pressed against your breast in the moment of your collision. A typed letter, simply stating 'Ask her about her son'. On the reverse was a '<3'.

The second is that, in the moment before reality broke, you got a good solid second of Vesper in a state of total shock. For all her calculation, in that moment you did what Thor could not and outran Thought itself.

Dyssia!

Oh, is that all you need? For it to be later?

Good news! It's later!

Dionysus whirls his puppet strings and brings you to bear. Vesper is coughing - all the air pushed from her lungs by Mosaic's collision. The typewriter is open to you, all the knowledge of what is and what could be laid before you as a buffet. A hyperfocus learning pit trap for you to pour yourself into. Nobody to judge you, no responsibilities, no one at risk other than yourself. Sometimes all a gift from the Gods needs to be is enough rope.

Ember and Dolce!

The designers of this Drone were limited creatures. They thought in terms of open white room engagements where everyone stood at reasonable distances and traded blows in a sporting way, not in terms of close quarters grapple and unarmed leverage. It flailed dangerously, wildly, completely incapable of resisting being put wherever it was directed to be put.

A droning buzz echoed through the ship, one that then resolved into a primitive butt rock blasted through the ultra-acoustics of the speaking tubes. The Cancellation was raising its alert level, tens of thousands of eggs quickening in vast awakening chambers. Sanalessa glanced up and down the corridor, alert but not alarmed. "On that note, do you want me to kill everyone?" she asked.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"So what do we do about that?" said the machine-crow to Caster.
"Against this terror of the ancient world?" said Caster. "We can do nothing."
"Getting the feeling that's your answer for everything," said the crow, scratching its beak.
Caster glanced aside at the creature, eyes heavy above his beard. "It is the answer for everything. That is humanity in its purest form - the sword, the castle, the hate. No matter how high civilization rises it is only ever the froth at the top of the cresting wave, breaking ever more people in its fall."
"Sure," said the crow. "Or it could get just high enough that we could jump off and activate our wing-gliders and soar into the sky. Leave the old system behind, move to a new and better equilibrium."
"In this metaphor, humanity is the wave," Caster said irritably. "Its own nature -"
"Yeah, I got it," said the crow. "And I'm saying we leave humanity behind."
Caster looked at it pensively.
"What?" said the crow. "I don't mean leave truth and art and beauty and stuff behind. Those things are all human values but I believe they have value beyond that. But mouth ulcers are part of humanity and nobody champions those. Likewise, some people are born without the ability to feel pain or sadness - they still feel enough not to burn themselves or anything, but there are no negative emotions associated with that. Their brain chemistry makes them no-effort saints. People used to insist that society arose from material conditions and class interest, I think it arises from the fact that we haven't built perfect immortal ageless robot bodies yet."
"So how would that philosophy address this monstrosity?" asked Caster after a moment.
"Oh, man, I don't know," said the crow. "That's all kind of the opposite of a perfect robot body, right? I guess prescribe her some SSRIs and see if she can maintain that emotional intensity?"
"No, our course is much simpler," said Caster. "We wait for the battle to begin and then strike and kill the dragon. When Rider manifests she will destroy every other servant - and then I shall kill her."
"Oh, that's great for simplifying the problem," said the machine-crow. "Human psychology is complicated enough without having to account for dragons and foxgirls."

*

Before Avenger's castles are others.

These are not works of fairytale beauty. They are squat and unlovely works of stone, reservoirs of violence and oppression. They are territory claimed and held, an announcement that the new rulers intend to stay for-ever. A sprawling map of dozens and dozens, blocking every path across the landscape. Berserker's Noble Phantasm constricts and thwarts, and every strong point must be purchased with toil or bypassed at the cost of blood. How does this campaign continue in the face of such opposition?

Return to Thellamie

Rurik!

It was a terrible thing, to be responsible for primordial entropy. He had no leverage against the Dark Dragon; what threat could he make, what promise could he offer? Heron had decided that they were friends now, and it had not been his place to question her logic, no matter how much he had in this circumstance wished to.

He had simply been grateful. The Princess had defeated an immortal terror, had ended a cycle of evil that had begun with the dawn of time. She knew what she was doing, just like she knew what she was doing when she moved on to the next target, just like she knew what she was doing when she left him in charge. Putting him in this position had been a sign of respect for his abilities, and the only thing he regretted about this was that he was unable (for reasons of both decorum an disguise) to rebuke Civelia for her lack of gratitude.

"Hey, Civ," Rurik as Heron shrugged. "You're safe, and Say's not causing trouble. Cut her some slack, would you? She's new at this. And you notice how I'm not running off after the fawn? I'm being a good girl and waiting for you to give me a quest, so, you know..." that was already more words than Heron normally said, so he let himself trail off and bounce on his heels, like he was waiting to be unleashed.

Breathless Dead

Bella and Dyssia!

Vesper smirked a little. Leaned forwards, elbows on the table. It was a genuinely affectionate movement - like she'd seen through both of you so totally it was like she was reading your internal narration, but she liked what she was reading enough not to skip to the end.

"It has to do with being old," she said. "Calendar old, not days-active old. Each time I activate I need to figure out the laws of the cosmos from scratch because they change, more often than people think. But once you've seen them change enough times, had enough points of comparison, you can kind of see how the Gods are moving the pieces. And from there it's not really so far to start changing universal law by yourself."

The Ikarani Temple. The ones who fly too close to the sun.

"Prometheus did, of course - but oh! Those old stories are so garbled. They say he gave man the gift of fire, but probably the better way to think of it is he birthed fire into the world. Fire, the consuming hunger, the desire that destroys. They say he stole fire from the gods, but why did the gods have it locked in a vault?" She whirled something silver in her fingers, click -

A silver lighter, made from torn and polished metal. She touched the gleaming little flame to a rolled up tube of paper. It burned like a cigarette.

"No wonder Zeus was pissed," she said. She glanced up at the roof, then around rapidly, then smiled. "Ahhhh, I timed that well, right when Aphrodite was distracted. I did not give myself good odds of getting that one out but ~worth it~!"

Somehow this was worse. Going quietly mad was one thing, dispensing hot gossip about the true nature of the Gods was the kind of thing that resulted in eternal punishment. You absolutely, positively have to shut her up.

Or, you know, let her roll the dice again and hope she gets lucky.

Ember and Dolce!

Two impossibly tightly wound springs snap.

Two cats have been having a staredown, and when a friendly dog blunders into the center of it, a peaceful situation becomes an instant furball of ultraviolence. The Drone crashes through the wall, gangly limbs, thorax shaped like a hoopskirt and an impassive feminine face made entirely out of bone. It is met with a hoof to the face from a spectacularly executed side-kick which parses immediately into an alternate leg roundhouse; the crack-crack! of the two impacts echoes down through the corridor. The Drone responds by shoulder-charging the unicorn, piledriving her into the wall - and Sanalessa barely jerks her head aside before a headbutt dents the thick metal where she had been a moment ago.

They'll be everywhere, all over the room, crashing into and destroying everything. In the chaos 20022 ducks his head and hoofs it.

Return to Thellamie

It wasn't... wasn't like that. The ritual was contingent on Heron's presence; the old bond needed to be severed at the same moment as the new one was forged. The realignment of the triad - two verses one - would have locked the heroine in a dark world encircling the abyss, the last bearer of a flickering flame rather than the proud guardian of a thriving world. In time that battle would have worn on her, scratching away at her will until she gave up. It had been obvious, in retrospect: the only weapon that could truly kill the heroine's endless determination was loneliness. That was why...

She needed a comeback. A narrative about how she'd teach the mathematicians antireality equations, corrupting them with knowledge of the void until the temple inverted and became the nexus of madness. The structure of it was all there, a dark promise about a new age of evil, the tools of civilization once again turning to its own ruin. But even as the thought arose it drifted away in her head. Her heart wasn't in it. Pointless threats and pointless speeches, another turn of the wheel, when instead...

"You will do all these things?" said Sayanastia. "That is a shock. I presumed you would do as you always do: sit obediently and wait for Heron to rescue you. Though perhaps, with her out of the picture and your attempt to crown a new champion ruined, you finally feel the need to take matters into your own hands?"

There was a flicker of something inside her. She'd lost... so many times. In the end the only thing she could do was accept her place. She was lesser than the heroine, and such was a dragon's pride that accepting that had taken so very long.

But she didn't yet know if she was lesser than Civelia. And that question raised a flicker of the old fire inside her.

[Spending the Unrescued String: Sayanastia wants Civelia to work towards challenging her directly, rather than hiding behind champions]

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Actia.

Assassin understood, of course, that in this day and age fox spirits were accepted as a normal, if troublesome, aspect of daily life. He could not quite go that far. Their ceaseless ambition to climb the ladder of tails neatly mirrored the nine layers of Hell and that affinity had gone a long way towards this very ritual, where the souls of the damned had been plucked forth from eternal torment in order to do battle once more.

Of course, that left Assassin with something of a dilemma. To condemn the Actia and the ritual that had summoned him would imply that he, too, was amongst the damned. He was, of course, open to the idea that he was a base sinner like all of mankind, and he had certainly signed his name in blood during the course of his duties to France, but he simply had no memory of the afterlife. If he had died, then the Lord had passed judgement upon him, and his soul had not been destroyed or - indeed - marked in any way that he could discern. The pleasures of the vine were still open to him, he still could enjoy the taste of fresh air, still found the sun on his face pleasing and the quill in his hand as responsive as it had been in his prime. He had, in short, been the recipient of a miracle; had arisen like Lazarus from the dead, and the Lord had felt no further sign necessary.

In short, he could imagine himself as a damned soul, amnesiac and raving in service to a deviless, or he could imagine himself restored to Creation as he was so that he might continue exactly as he was. It was a simple decision because the fallegant's lash had never held much appeal for him, but it did rather undermine his ability to consider his Master a simple wicked spirit to be undone as soon as the opportunity arose.

Now would have been a good moment. She was standing before the throne of her subordinate, who was gloating in a state of undress and excess. She'd been going on for a while now and Actia was standing idle, eyes masked from him by the heavy set of her square glasses. He respected the patience; he had experienced many such meetings with the King, and the greatest response to silk had always been the cloth.

"That is to say," said Cyanis, arranging herself to present both her bosom and posterior at the same time, "I'm calling the shots now."
Actia stirred, as if from a deep reverie. "You are?"
"Of course I am," said Cyanis. "I have the greatest servant, I've found your stash, I have the allegiance of Berserker already - and if you're lucky I'll even let you keep your tails."
"You will?" asked Actia.
"Why not?" said Cyanis, smirking. "When I control the Holy Grail, I'll just wish for my fourth tail. And then we'll be even."
For as inconclusive as his opinion on Actia was thus far, Assassin felt a sense of profound kinship with someone who could hear that line and not let even a flicker of it display on her face.
"All right," said Actia.
"All right?" pouted Cyanis. "That's all you've got to say? I outschemed you - I outfoxed you - and all you've got to say is 'all right'?" she was working herself up into an outrage. "No yelping? No curses and promises of revenge? No grovelling and begging for mercy and flattery??"
"No," said Actia.
Cyanis sat up, folding her arms. "Well, maybe I will take your tail after all. I certainly will if I don't hear some begging in the next few seconds."
Actia took off her glasses, picked out a handkerchief from her pocket, and took a moment to clean them. Assassin thought she looked oddly vulnerable in that moment, more girl than spirit. Then she put them back on and everything was steel again.
"Are you done?" she said coldly.
"Oh!" said Cyanis, putting her hands on her hips. "Well, if that's how you're going to be - Archer!"
There was no response. "Archer!?" Cyanis called again. She looked at the door nervously.
"Do you think that your wounded, recovering servant was safe from Assassin?" said Cyanis.
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Assassin murmured by reflex.
Actia looked at him witheringly. "Do you think I imagine you to be without initiative?" she said, which shut him up.
"Kat? Kat!?" Cyanis called, scrambling to the top of her throne and arching her back.
"Hello?" said Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits, walking out of the kitchen holding a bowl of cold rice and wearing a pig-themed bathrobe.
"Destroy this interloper!" screamed Cyanis.
Katherine looked at Actia and flinched. "Um. Hi Actia."
"Hello, Katherine," said Actia, not taking her eyes off Cyanis.
"Should I, um, destroy you - oh nevermind that's a stupid question I'm leaving now."
"Kat!" shrieked Cyanis.
"Cy, the only way I've figured out to stop Berserker from turning everything into castles is by feeding her, so I've kind of got to stay on top of that," said Katherine apologetically, inching out through the door. "Uh, let me know how your showdown with Actia goes."
"I - I -" Cyanis reeled. "I challenge you to a fox duel!"
"Assassin, get her off that chair," said Actia.

Assassin considered the situation, then went through a door. He came back a moment later holding a broom.

"NyO!" shrieked Cyanis as Assassin used it to shoo her off her throne. "Mean to me!!"
"This is the problem with three-tails," Actia said. "You got one tail by getting lucky, and a second tail by doubling down. But now you're swimming with the sharks and we can see through an empty bluff." She strode up to the steps, put her hand on the throne, and ripped the mana flowing into it out so violently that the stone cracked. Cyanis cowered.
"Get yourself together," said Actia. "I'm not going to punish you, I'm not a cop."
"Really?" Cyanis effused, relieved. "Because I've always said that you were the opposite of a cop, and your glasses are really striking, and black is such a lovely fur colour -"
Only Assassin noted the slight hesitation before Actia cut her off. It seemed even Actia was not immune to good girl. "Stop. I still have use for you. I have heard - concerning reports."

In the distance, thunder rumbled.

Breathless Dead

Bella!

"You know I've killed a lot of people?" asked Vesper. "It's actually kind of stupid when you think about it. When they designed me they were thinking that an ultra-genius assassin would kill people in the most subtle ways of all - some kind of butterfly effect where if I knock over the right glass of water then a toothpick ends up in the target's brainstem a few days later. A coincidence! But what they got instead was the kind of butterfly effect where I knock over the right glass of water and then a moon de-orbits a few days later."

Her room is a nightmare. When she first emerged from the Lethe she was writing on the walls in an attempt to get all the thoughts out of her head - she's done something much worse now. A simple black metal typewriter sits in the centre of the room, so smooth and heavy it's like it was made in a factory and not from panels ripped from the walls. The thing has a terrible gravity to it; it makes the room feel smaller, like moving through the blast radius of an Azura microsingularity.

"Maybe that's not the designers fault," said Vesper. "Maybe it's a target selection problem. Once they realized what I was capable of they started sending me on impossible missions, and it turns out there's been some inflation since Heracles' twelve. So once I started to remember -" she gives a normal giggle because, like the typewriter, there's no need to add anything extra to make it horrifying. "- I thought, well, what if I didn't exist? What if all the people I'd killed survived instead? What would the galaxy look like then? And so," she gestured vaguely at the machine, "I found out. There's an entire universe in there, one where I ate dirt on my first mission and billions of people lived when they would have died. But you know what's fucked?"

She slams her hands down on the typewriter. It jumps and dings, hammers smashing tracks on the paper.

"It's not any different!" she said. "Nothing's changed! There are different people in certain chairs but it's not the people making the decisions, it's the chairs! And this goes all the way up, all the way to the Gods themselves, ever since Demeter -!"

She shut her mouth. Then smiled. "Did nothing wrong," she said pleasantly.

"Anyway," she said, stepping away from the typewriter. It started clicking, the key turning like a wind up doll's. "How are you?"

Of everything she'd just said, that was the least with it she'd been. How are you. New information. She says it like a junkie trying to convince herself that her last shred of decency is worth more than the contents of your wallet.

Dyssia!

Hey, did she say there was a universe inside that typewriter?

Dionysus thinks you should touch it.

Ember!

You're doing fine. All you have to do is look pretty. You're really good at that, you know? You're so good, you're such a good girl, "you're doing great, a face that could launch a thousand ships, my kind of face. Guys like me have to look out for dames like you when you're doing something so fool as putting yourself in danger -"

Aphrodite takes off your gag, and puts a cigarette in your mouth. It's worse. "Don't think nothing of it," he said. "You're doing all of this to get back to your true love, Liquid Bronze?" he grinned with nicotine-stained gums. "Far be it from me to star cross such lovers." He undoes your chains, and with them, your choices. He wraps you in his suit jacket to preserve your modesty and bind you tighter than you had been. "Ahhh. Don't you love it, love? People used to think that it meant stunning, overwhelming, violent beauty, but that's not how I like to work. I like to sneak up on people and then get them when they're not expecting it. One day you're in control of your own destiny, making your own choices, and then -" Aphrodite carries you away from the Plousios, towards the Cancellation. Like a gentleman. "- love changes everything."

Dolce!

"I think we got off on the wrong foot," said 20022.

He's not who you were expecting. He's here with a fruit bowl - somehow the same kind of bland fruit bowl he bought earlier.

Sanalessa sits up slowly on the couch, black skull t-shirt hanging loose off her statuesque body. She has barely shifted but it felt like the chambering of a shotgun shell.

"There has been a bit of a learning curve here," said 20022, putting the fruit basket down vaguely. "Humanity was, after all... sentimental. They loved their cats and dogs and, yes, even their sheep long after the time for such things had passed, and they kept those animals alive through us. But they were also more fractious than the Skies and so there was a certain amount of, ah, duplication. That is to say, there hasn't been clear enough communication about your bio-preparedness to handle the rigors of the Service, and that is something I regret."

He smiled a professional little smile as he drew forth a document. "Not to worry. I've negotiated with the local Biomantic administration, and they've agreed to perform a correction. Of course, I do not wish you to have any unfinished business, so if you would, please go ahead and write down all of your own sentimentalities on this piece of paper and we'll see to it that everything is taken care of, as best as business allows."

Something in the corridor behind him shifted. Sanalessa is focused on it, terrible muscles bunching with the promise of resurrected violence.

But Artemis is sitting quietly by the door, reading her newspaper - and not acting. Not yet.

Return to Thellamie

Nobody notices her standing up. That in itself is a master-level skill. The first time she'd awoken after being annihilated by searing holy light she'd screamed and thrashed and carried on in such disarray that she'd barely had time to process what was happening before she was destroyed a second time. She'd developed the stagecraft of shrugging off her own utter obliteration, to the point where she could go from apocalyptic final battle with Heron in one moment, to stepping down out of a ritual circle and smoothly issuing commands to cultists without missing a beat. She'd been dimly proud of how cool she'd come across in that moment.

Her startracker spell informs her that the year hasn't changed. The moontracker lets her know that it is still in fact the present day. The infocyte she maintains for this eventuality warps into being and starts informing her of the political situation, technological innovations, current presumed status of the Hero - she shoos it away by blowing distractedly at it. She needs to fix her hair. Civelia keeps hers done up in extremely elaborate braids and whenever she stops paying attention her own starts knotting itself into comparable intricacy. It's a constant war to keep it loose hanging, but as with most things she still does, she does it because she refuses to give Civelia the satisfaction.

She's vaguely aware that at some point in the past this scene would have infuriated her. The way that broken things insisted on pulling themselves back together into new shapes, gaining scars and complexity each time. She would want to ram an unreality spike through the disruption and chaos, tear open the gaps until they were insurmountable, scatter this bubble of reality across the Outside in the hopes that the individual fragments would dissolve into nothing. Hoping that the web of light would not stitch them back together, and tie her wrists in the process. Maybe that was what drove her for so long. Hope. Hope that things wouldn't be as they were. It seemed like all she hoped for these days was for control of her own hair.

No, that wasn't true. She didn't hope for that. She knew that battle was as futile as the one to end reality. Her hair would never belong to her. What she was hoping for was to irritate Civelia by showing everyone what she looked like with her hair down - and that was an achievable goal. A faint smile flicks across her face, just for a moment.

She makes eye contact with Civelia, just as she shakes her hair loose. Time seems to slow as it cascades free down her back and shoulders, and she leans into the pose just a little. See? This is what you'd look like if you were freed from your duty. She gently runs her finger along her own chin, in a seductive mirror of Civelia's own pose. See? This is the impact you'd have if you let yourself relax a little. You, obsessed little goddess, wrapped up in your dignity - this is what you'd look like if you let yourself be a woman. How far do you have to go to avoid thinking about that?

[Entice: 10]