TheAmishPirate

Breathless Dead

Dolce politely shuts up until she was finished, as per her request. A spark of hope, warm and invigorating, grows in his chest until his whole face is alight with it. “Understood. You save the Princess, I evade the Master, and the cycle is broken beyond repair.” Simple! Marvelous! Wasn’t it a miracle, to have things work out so well? He dips his head to Mynx, for who else could this be? “Thank you for your assistance. I will stay alive to the best of my abilities.”

And, please, forgive him the indiscretion? He knew what a dangerous game they were playing, and how perilously important every second was, but, let him stop you? Let him take your hand? For just a moment? “Pardon, may I ask; if I am next in the cycle, and my Captain after me, then..." Just a moment, just a moment longer. It’s, there’s so much, he’s trying the best he can to understand, but he needed to know for certain. “...will she be safe, so long as I am safe?”

[Auto-success on Speak Softly. Dolce wants to know if his wife is going to be okay.]

**********************

She can’t see.

Where are they? How long have they been walking? Had she gone the wrong way? When is it safe to breathe? What is she going to lose next? Will she tell her? Will she tell her? Will she tell her? Will she tell her? Will she tell her? Will she tell?

She can hear.

Arms don’t make those noises. They make them once, then they stop being arms. Now it is heavy flesh and shattered bone, whose only purpose is pain. Demeter doesn’t stop talking. The words come in the wrong order. Or are they missing? Did she miss something? Her voice. Screaming. Again. And again. And again.

She can feel.

Agony to move. Worse to move on purpose. Demeter’s hands. Always, they are there, through every break she piles on. They are there, and their touch is life, vibrant life, and no wound can dull beneath them. One more crack. The world lurches. Spins. Stops. One foot, stinging, planted square on the ground, trembling with the effort.

She knows.

If her knees touch the deck, she will not get up again. She will lie here, lost, and Demeter will break every bone in her body, and her mind besides, and leave her in anguish until her pets come to put her out of her misery.

And she knows.

Demeter is not going to kill her. Not now. The only way she dies here is if her knees touch the deck.

Absent of faith and absent of confidence, an ember of defiance burns bright in her heart, and will not be snuffed out. With her one good arm she grips tight the arrowhead tucked away in her coat until it tears through the fabric and presses into her skin. She beats her screams into prayers, and fires them full-draw at the goddess who ought to have warned her. Who ought to be by her side now. Who answers the call of those devoted to seeing the job done.

Unless Artemis, too, cannot see.

[Damaging Courage, paying a price for Working Alone: Vasilia has lost the use of her left arm. Rolling to Look Closely: 6 + 2 + 0 = 8. Question: Why does Demeter want her dead, without doing the job herself?]

Breathless Dead

The trick was, you had to look and listen without really looking or listening at anything. Your eyes would see and your ears would hear, but you weren’t really doing either. You’re there, but not there, ready to come back when called, and all the memories (well, the ones that made sense) would be waiting in a pile for you when got there.

Today, Dolce was called back to the kitchen by the departure of the gods and the entry of a familiar face. “Alexa!” Thank goodness, he’d left her in such a state. Artemis had assured him she’d be safe, but, still! There was a long way between dead and safe, and he hoped she hadn’t fallen too deeply in the divide. Except...

He titled his head, eyes full of quiet concern. “Alexa, what’s happened to Princess Epestia?”

************

She wished every moth were a knife. She wished the scarf would pull tight around her throat. She wished Demeter would stop beating around the bush and start ripping arms out of sockets for fertilizer or whatever it was she did with her free time.

Tear her apart or leave her alone, just don’t keep dragging her back to the present.

“Given up so easily on the murder, have we?” There’s no banter. Only bitter weariness. “Suppose that makes two of us tired of...” Vasilia trailed off, Demeter’s clever fingers feeling the tangle of words lodged in her heart.

Tired.

Gods. She was so tired.

Fellowship: The Heart

In a Quiet Aquarium

Jackdaw rose to her feet, unsteady. She might’ve even managed to look insulted, if she hadn’t taken the entire bundle of blanket with her.

“Um. Sir? That’s...an offer, but...”

A pair of weary eyes stared out from the tangle.

“But I don’t think you can add what I’m missing.”

She looked, questioning, back and forth to Wolf and a hallway leading deeper into the inky depths of the aquarium. Her budget of words hadn’t run out, but she had none she could spend here.

***

In the Middle of a Storm

“The word is irony.”

The rain, the thunder, for all their practice they did not possess mastery of their old voices, and so, they deferred to her, fading respectfully into the background.

“A state of affairs, or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects, and is often amusing as a result.”

With each step closer to the pit, light swirled lazily from ink to ink. Power danced in the air as easily as a bored student twirling a pencil between their fingers.

“Also, a literary technique, originally used in tragedy, by which the full significance of a character’s words or actions are clear to the audience or reader, although unknown to the character.”

She stopped, ten paces from the two mice. The markings on her face glowed a sickly green, hurling shadows across her too-sweet grin.

“Oh Leelee?~”

One step to cross the distance. One word to wrap that emerald coat tight around Ailee’s throat. One step to drive an iron knee into her stomach.

“E-nun-cee-ate.”

Breathless Dead

Dolce’s heart sank to his hooves.

How the pen got into his hand, he couldn’t say. If it was his hand at all. The words spilled out too fast, too wild to be his work. A wonder, an eccentric of incredible craftsmanship must have taken the place of his arm, and it could hear the words welling up inside of him before he even had a chance to think them. And speaking was simply out of the question. So it was that another form materialized in front of him, and he pushed it forward to Artemis.

A formal request for the status, health, and well-being of (1) Redana Honorius Claudius. With an acceptable number of errors for one who may have just lost a dear friend.

****************************************************

Security is the luxury of those who already have power.

She makes her deposit in blood and heartache. By the risk of a dagger, wrapped and knotted in dense fabric, her stock rises. At a high price, she purchases a chance. Just the one, that some things might be well by day’s end.

She finds enough left over for a scarf from Bella’s wardrobe, which she wraps tight around her neck.

Her business done, her heart emptied, she retreats into the darkened hallway. The first mouse that crosses her path will find a fearsome lion, with their master’s clothes and a growling voice, politely asking where her weapons have gone.

[Vasilia will be Speaking Softly for this, if possible. Will figure out the Protection stat later.]

Fellowship: The Heart

The lump of fox shrank even smaller in Coleman’s arms.

“Um. If you’re talking...before, that is,” she shuffled in search of a comfortable position that constantly eluded her. “Wolf and I went off alone. We’d been, mostly she’d been, having some snacks before that. All of us got here earlier today?” Was that the right answer? Was that at all helpful? For anything? “I-I’ll be fine here, you were in the middle of something, it’s, it doesn’t, please, I don’t want to keep you longer...”

Breathless Dead

Her back was exposed. One simple toss, and she could plant the blade square between her shoulders. But that would involve letting go of the knife. So she sat. She hissed. And she said nothing.

Alone in the Praetor’s bedchamber, Vasilia took to the long task of freeing herself.

It was bitter work. The knife did not want to fiddle with pins and tumblers. It hungered for her blood, and the slightest lapse in concentration was opportunity enough to feed. Soon her jacket bore dozens of tiny slashes, and her unprotected hands were sprinkled with cuts. She had to move slowly. Deliberately. Tell her racing heart to just, just calm itself, for a moment while she worked, and maybe they’d both be out of this within the week-

Screeching. Metal rending in two. And in the same moment, an angry bleeding slice across her hand.

Vasilia growled, a rush of choice expletives all crushing together in a single, agonized cry. She sacrificed another length of sleeve to wrap around her hand in a loose bandage; a mercy she found a patch not soiled by sap or wine. As she held the dressing tight against her wound, her eyes pierced through the walls, following the rabid monster outside, and words finally spilled out of her in a molten stream.

“Shut up, you. Just...just shut. Up. As if you have anything to howl about! Spoiled, rotten, miserable little thing! They should have left you to starve in whatever dump they found you in! Gods know it’d have made the galaxy a better place.” Could Bella even hear her, over all the racket? The thought never once crossed her mind. “This is all you’re good at! It’s all you’ll ever be good at, and anyone would be a fool to believe otherwise! Pile on all the airs and fancy clothes you like; it’ll never change anything, you...waste!”

She squeezed her hand tight, tighter, until her eyes screwed shut with pain, and bitter tears flowed freely down her cheeks.

************************************************************************************

Oh dear.

Whyever would someone be hunting him? Of all the people here? He’d thought he’d just been foolish in his attempts to follow Demeter, been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but this rang quite a bit more serious than that. This was personal. Which, again, made hardly any sense at all. He’d not been so crass as to give his name out, nor had he done much more than attend to his Captain. And speaking of, he didn’t have time for this! She was waiting for him! He musn’t delay! How he wished Artemis had developed a return service for this sort of thing; it would make clearing all this up so much easier.

Still. Hunt or no hunt, mistake or deadly serious, he still had a job to do. And he would see it through.

First thing’s first though; he jotted down a quick note to the pile of chefs recovering from their ordeal, apologizing for the trouble he’d put them through, and recommending they keep their heads down for the foreseeable future. With that taken care of, he carefully wrote out a detailed letter stating his name, station, location, date of birth, age, marital status, generational number in lieu of nearest relative, and a polite inquiry for any public records on active hunts related to his person. This he left by a single, burning candle, along with a little bit of trail rations he saved for just such an emergency. Artemis did enjoy her practical snacks, the kind you could eat on the go. Or during your requisite five-minute breaks.

[Rolling to Speak Softly with Artemis: 4 + 5 + 1 = 10. What can she tell me about this hunt?]

Breathless Dead

The rescue comes. But did it come soon enough?

Her neck is ruined. Burning spots of red stand out against sickly, blotchy bruises, shaped by hands neither human nor servitor. Sap lives in her fur now, clumped and sticky and worked in so deep it may never come out again. She lifts a hand to rub at her throat, and there is nothing familiar in the motion. As the eye of the storm imitates stillness, torn in equal measure by winds of all directions, so too would a fool mistake the restraint for composure.

She doesn’t speak. She gasps - ragged, ugly breaths - and perhaps that is the only sound she will make now.

But ah! Fear no longer, Captain of the Starsong! Here is your hero! Shining with the glory of battle, clothed in resplendence and victory. Mighty of arms, powerful and terrible in wrath upon her foes. Does not the sight of her soothe your hurt? Can you not feel your heart grow calm in her shadow? What could possibly hurt you in the care of the Empress’ hand?

She reaches out, shaking with the effort...

...and her hand closes on the hilt of the knife, still embedded in the mattress.

*************************************************************************

Dolce cannot stop.

If he holds the ingredients in his hands, long enough for his stomach to realize what he’s holding, all will be lost. The moment he picks it up, he throws it in a high arc across the kitchen to land safely in a cookpot. What did he throw? He couldn’t begin to say. He was too busy somersaulting over countertops to his next destination. Where was he going next? An excellent question, he’d get to that in a few minutes, he was busy now. Go here, then there, then back over there, that was his job, and he had to do it, and he couldn’t ever stop.

Please, everyone. Please. He knows it’s hard, but hold on just a little while longer. He’ll be done soon. He’s going as fast as he can. It hurts, oh, how it hurts, the emptiness, trying to eat you up from the inside unless you eat first. He knows it hurts. Believe him, he knows. Please, trust him. Stay strong. Stay alive, please.

See, see, he’ll use what he has. He won’t make any more trips. What does he have? A bottle of it doesn’t matter put it all in. Some packets of he’s not thinking about that he’s too busy putting that in too. Stirring. Stirring. Just keep stirring, Dolce. Almost there. A little while longer. Almost there.

Gods. The emptiness.

Just...a little...a little longer...

His mouth fills with a heavenly flavor. Rich, sweet, dense and chewy, a little hard in places, no, hold on, that’s a spoon. Why’s there a spoon in his mouth? He looked down his nose and saw the rest of a long stirring spoon sticking out of his mouth, gripped tightly in both hands. All about him, he had the sensation of a crowd, of bustling activity, but perhaps, a growing calm? Or perhaps that was just the work of...well, whatever it was he was chewing. Quite nice though. He thought he ought to keep chewing, spoon or no spoon, and the rest of him agreed it was a fantastic idea. Everything else, he could sort out in a moment.

[Dolce makes it in the nick of time, rolling Overcome w/Grace at 7. Paying a price of his Vigor drinks, marking that off his sheet.]

Breathless Dead

All crowds have flows to them, you know. Everybody’s going somewhere. Lots of them are going to the same somewheres. Others, they’re going in the same direction for a little bit, and everyone fell into a little line that snakes its way through the oncoming rush. In ones and twos and threes and many. If you keep your eyes open, you can see it. The ebbs and flows of a hundred souls milling about, following the rules nobody’s really bothered to write down, but everybody seems to know anyway.

Kitchens were rarely crowded places, but you never knew what sort of events you might be entertaining for.

Dolce flitted through the crowd at an unhurried pace, yet a pace that never seemed to falter. Wherever he turned, there was always a gap, or a fresh flow of Hermetics all parting the sea around them, or a rare bit of open space. Without stopping, he followed after the Lady Demeter, no matter how he wished he could stop and rescue a few plates. He breathed a quiet prayer for whoever was on kitchens today, that they could get off with only a little warning.

*********************************************************************

Vasilia buries a scowl in her wine glass, yet left her eyes smiling.

“Hmph. Little yourself, short stuff.”

She takes a sip. Paused. Then another, to confirm if she’d tasted that correctly, but no, quite right the first time; rubbish. The worst sort of bad wine. A wine too strong, at least you didn’t have to taste it for very long. A wine too weak, you had all the time (and glasses) to appreciate how terrible it was.

Vasilia furrows her brow thoughtfully, pretending to truly contemplate the beverage in her hand, all while she furiously contemplates everything surrounding the beverage in her hand. Terrible choice to impress a guest. Not a punishment or a joke, or else Bella’d have given herself something better. Her eye had turned soft as she drank, so clearly she didn’t realize it was awful. But not an hour ago, Bella had picked a marvelous vintage from a whole lineup of top-shelf wines, so clearly it wasn’t a matter of bad taste. She had deliberately selected ditchwater wine to share with an honored guest, rather than any of the better vintages she had at the ready, and this had to mean something but for the life of her Vasila couldn’t begin to guess what.

Thank the fates Bella dropped her glass when she did, and dashed the mystery straight out of her.

At once, she too is alert. Through the room, through the air, no spacer worth their salt could miss the feeling of engines kicking up. Certainly...no, hold that thought, multiple engines?! “That’s not our-”

It’s all she has time to say before death comes for her.

She fights you, even though she has to know she’s already lost. There’s no leverage for her legs. She’s only got the one arm. The last of her breath is pulled from her lungs in jagged spurts as bones creak beneath your fingers. But she fights. With the one arm you’ve left her, she punches and pushes and rakes every inch of you she can reach. And though she cannot speak for screaming, her eyes cry out that she cannot die like this. Not like this. Not...not like…

The air rushes back with a choking gasp, and for a moment all her thoughts are on filling her lungs as quickly as possible. She lies there, limp, hand still clutching your shoulder and

“Ah-!”

Her whole body tenses under you. The gasps are shorter. Faster. No room for words. But you know the tongue she speaks. You feel her claws through your jacket, tightening as you feast. Taste her pulse on your teeth, racing, bursting, so near, so fast, so fast. And still you demand more of her.

Were you not satisfied with this, Praetor? Did you need to steal away the moment her heart needed to be heard too? See her now, beneath your palm. All that’s left is the eyes. This isn’t the brave, defiant Captain. This isn’t the dancing socialite with the silver voice. She’s just...her. A lioness you held in your arms, and now hold at your mercy. Flushed. Confused.

Hurt.

You never even learned her name, did you?

You walk away, and miss how all melts into indignation, blazing fury directed squarely at your retreating back. Of all the-! Exactly when did she say she was your territory to mark, or could you only hear the wine talking?! Brute! Drunkard! Sloppy, miserable, wretched-!

In an act of supreme defiance, Vasilia raised her head above the baseboard to spy out Bella’s visitor.

Fellowship: The Heart

The word is scrutiny.

She doesn’t meet his eyes. Hasn’t, not once, since they came here. Wrapped in her blanket, Wolf hovering protectively over her shoulder, she presented as little as possible; two paws emerging from a tangled heap of fabric, and the barest hint of a snout peeking from beneath a pulled-up hood. He can’t even see her bite her lip, pained, as she nodded. “S-sure. Yeah.” Her voice emerged just long enough to get the words in, before darting back into the dark and silence.

Of course it was him. It wouldn’t have been Ailee, or Lucien, or a particularly soft pit she could fall into for the rest of her life. It’d be Coleman she’d find first. Otherwise it might be fair, for once. She wouldn’t have to let him carry her worthless hide one more time. She wouldn’t have to hear her name in that voice of his; deep enough to hold any problem, and warm enough for the rest of you. But no. She didn’t get fair. She got to taste all the wonderful joy a good friend had to offer, before he took it away forever. One more time, so it’d be _fresh_ when he found out.

Jackdaw weighed the fried monstrosity in her hand, and all the better foxes who wouldn’t put such filth in their mouths.

Small bites. Small bites.

Breathless Dead

Captain Vasilia of the Plousios could not close her eyes. She couldn’t keep track of their position at all, not in this blasted dark, but so long as her eyes were open she could at least guess. How many turns, how many degrees? How long down each hallway? Dolce might have managed it, but every moment her thoughts lingered on him was like placing her bare hands on a burning stove. So she lies still. She breathes. And she keeps her eyes open.

A door slides open with a flash of blinding light, and her heart skips a perilous beat against Bella’s chest.

A bed. She’s been hurled onto a bed. And not the kind surrounded by new and creative ways to slowly dismember a prisoner while keeping them alive to scream. A normal, exquisite, rather large bed, in a rather large bedroom. Of course it is. Was. A bedroom. Didn’t she know that if Bella had wanted to tear her apart, she’d have a cheering audience back on the Hermetic’s ship? There was no sense, no sense at all to take her all the way out here for such a purpose. She knew that for a fact, and had known it for a fact, and Bella certainly knew she knew, for the ‘Praetor’ possessed no tools or intimate proximity that could’ve possibly clued her in otherwise. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha.

...a tad empty for a Praetor’s bedroom, now that she looks at it. Then again, Bella was no ordinary Praetor, was she?

“You know, I could ask you much the same question.” She stretches out, arching her back until the chains run taught as a bowstring, groaning in satisfaction as wearied muscles surrender and loosen. The sheets delight her fur; soft and crisp and free of any whiff of the ocean. (And hasn’t her life taken a dark turn when that was a blessing to appreciate.) Did she have to get up now? Couldn’t she savor this magnificent bed a few minutes more? She’d nearly nodded off in your arms on the way over here. It’s only fair to let her enjoy the accommodations. “For once, I’m inclined to believe you didn’t come here for Redana.” Was it just you, or did she put some extra emphasis on that name? “And while I’d be flattered to think you’d come all this way just to see me, there are more efficient ways of getting a girl’s attention. Not that I mind the effort.~” She lifted herself to a sitting position. Slowly, careful of the chains, lidded eyes twinkling in quiet amusement. “Why are you here, Bella? Why indeed...”

A pause. Teetering on the brink of a final, dangerous answer.

“Ah. But you have been on your best behavior, haven’t you?” Thoughtful. Privately contemplative. Still loud enough for Bella to hear anyway. All games aside - well, most games aside - it was an...improvement, over their last encounter. She might even go so far as to say that Bella had performed her part admirably well. Birmingham in the dark, the two of them alone, no reason for undue suspicion, and all without any prior planning or practice?

Her jaw set in a flash of frustration. Dammit all, had she been dealing with the shapeshifter this whole time? At least part of the time, surely? Impossible, that Bella - Bella! Of all people! - could have pulled this off on her own. If she had, then...then! Well, then what a shame for the myriad of other disqualifying factors. Talent like that shouldn’t be wasted on Tellus.

“Yes...I suppose so...” She breathes, and this musing truly was for her alone. With a slight nod, she graciously accepts the offered cup. “Very well. I take it you saw the enormous time cannon on your way here?”

She takes a light sip, awaiting Bella’s response. Tell us, what vintage have you selected for your honored guest, Praetor?