TheAmishPirate

Breathless Dead

Dolce did not answer right away. It was a big thought, and it deserved due consideration, which was hard when every spare thought seemed to turn to how agonizingly slow they were advancing. Still, he thought, and still, he puzzled, but in the end, all he could do was shake his head. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t see how that matters.” Imperial politics? Future murder? He didn’t specify. “You have to do this, because Bella has her job, and so do you, and it’s the only way you have to getting all your friends back, or even seeing home again. I have to do this, because I have my job, and it’s the only way I can keep my friends. We don't have much of a choice, do we?”

She tucked them in an alcove to hide from an advancing patrol. Neither of them so much as breathed until the sound of boots was just a distant echo, no louder than their own heartbeats.

“...still.” He murmured. “I wish we could have met under better circumstances. The Princess speaks well of you, and I think her judgement has been sound thus far.” He offered up a little smile that couldn’t quite banish the regret misting in his eyes.

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

Vasilia will commit to conceding nothing, least of all this seemingly-restrained act of the Thunderer’s ‘benevolence.’ Gift! Really! Knowing her, she was probably lurking in one of these lockers, waiting for the proper moment to burst forth and receive Vasilia’s weeping, awestruck gratitude. Any moment now! Get ready! Here it comes!

Anyyyyyyyyy moment now!

...well! Were she not so pressed for time, she would throw open every last locker until she found her generous patron and, and, she’d let her know personally what the great ruler of Olympus could rescue her from next! The top culprit may well shock her!

A dim, wearied voice of reason reminded her Demeter was no longer harrying her so directly. Which was a point in Zeus’ favor, all things considered.

Which, well. Yes. But. She distinctly remembered only having the one pistol before, which would have matched perfectly to her current repertoire of usable arms, had Zeus not been so blindingly obsessed with the aesthetic qualities of a matching brace of pistols. So. Perhaps it’s all a wash.

The lockers were, ultimately, not spared her coming. Many were slung open far faster than was traditionally acceptable, until she found one stocked full of weaponry in potentia. From here, she selected two short spear hafts, and along with the last remnants of her once-proud jacket, they made for a makeshift sling. Though perhaps 'half a straitjacket' would have been the better term. She expected the battle before her to stay grounded only as a temporary measure, and of the options available, fixing her bad arm tight to her side was the least painful.

The rest of her gear, she donned with haste. The glaive, collapsed at her belt. The musket, slung across her back. One pistol, in its holster. The other, clutched in her right hand. Nowhere else to put it. Nowhere else to go but forward.

With feet beyond the grip of gravity, she loped down the last hallways of the Anemoi, bounding though the loading dock, off the deck, the wall, the ceiling, back again, back again, onwards and forward!

Hold fast, crew of the Plousios! Your Captain fast returns!

[As Vasilia is racing to return to Dolce's side, she now rolls with Hope.]

Breathless Dead

“She can’t kill you! All she can use is violence! Take care-!”

Dolce’s warning echoed down the long corridor behind them. Would that he do anything more to help, but that would rather defeat the point of getting him away from the Master, wouldn’t it? The best thing he could now was be as unobtrusive a burden as possible, and let Mynx spirit him away someplace safer.

Yes. Yes, that was. All he could do, for now.

“...thank you. Again.” All he moved was his mouth. He was just a lump of soft cloud, no sudden movements to throw her off. No loud voices to spoil any schemes. “Terribly sorry that we couldn’t meet under better circumstances.”

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

An arm shattered. A thousand fiery needles blistering her skin. One of her best coats in tatters. Only a thin shirt offering token resistance to a legion of biting plants. No weapons. No gear. No one coming to save her.

None of it mattered. Not really, anyway.

Demeter was against them. This was all a divine ambush. She’d meant to stop them here. She knew what name to give Artemis’ assassins. Her work had started the Yakolov’s engines, when they should have remained silent. The cannon must be firing. Aimed for Redana. Alexa and her Dolce would be in danger too. What kind, she couldn’t say. As bad as the knife at her hip. As bad as a time cannon.

And Demeter. Couldn’t. Kill her.

What more did she need to know?

One step. From a dead stop. Lift the foot. Move the foot. Set it down again. A plan of three parts. The first, she paid for in sweat and shouting. The second, ah! The distance! Her limbs were iron and her body couldn’t hold, hold it in its socket, it would fall, and she would fall, but not if she chose to fall first. Forward. Push off. Throw her weight and catch herself at the last and it’s done. The first step was done.

Two steps. But not from a dead stop. Not from a dead body. Two becomes three. Three becomes five. And more! And more! And again! And her feet hit the deck with a booming of thunder! Laughing is so far above her current capabilities. Her mouth shows too many teeth to smile either. So all her heart pours from her eyes, blazing, alight, shining like twin suns! Burning plant and animal alike! Look upon her, if you dare! If you can!

“I think.” She spoke, in a voice not quite her own. “There may be a third option to consider.”

Fellowship: The Heart

At the Aquarium!

“Um. Excuse me?”

Jackdaw’s quavering voice stepped between the three of them, and instantly regretted its life choices.

“I, yes, I know, I’m interrupting, but, there’s not also another Ailee and Lucien running around, is there?”

She gulped. Just a gulp! How was it the loudest noise in the entire room?!

“We, kind of have a lot going on already today, see...”

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

At the Tent!

“Ugh. This is just typical, Ailee.” Jackdaw sighed, shaking her arm furiously to try and dislodge a frustratingly determined mouse. “The first time we’ve seen each other in ages, and you go and spoil the moment. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say we weren’t even friends anymore.”

“Oh! Wait!” She smacked her forehead. “I do know better!”

The bolas whirled ‘round her ankles, tying tighter and tighter and stop. Frozen. Suspended in midair by a scowling Rebuke. “Tch. That makes one of us here who does.” The glyphs on her coat blazed to life, swirling around her fur before lifting away entirely to fill the air around her. Pages upon pages, books upon books, dreams upon dreams shed from her body, and still the Names that filled the tent could be counted on one hand. With fingers to spare.

“I got you a present, Leelee! Be a good girl now, and share with the class!”

And the word was regret.

A million million familiar whispers flooded the tent; rust-red, hungering, and more than enough to drown two mice.

Enjoy!

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.]