TheAmishPirate

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Bud? Bud. Do you see the fire? It’s a nice fire. Big enough for two. She built it that way, you know. Could’ve made it all small and smokeless but nope! It’s big and blazing and crackling away. And look! See how many trees they’ve got to hide under? Absolutely spoiled for shelter. There are so, so many places you could sit right now, and any of them are fine. Honest. She won’t be broken up if you sit anywhere else. You don’t have to. Um. Sit with her. But - okay. Alright. Yes, you’re wriggling closer. That’s. Your choice? Right? You’re...choosing to curl up beside her, like she’s the only shelter you have from the storm.

What in the mother’s own name is she supposed to do with that?!

...is what she’d say, if the thought didn’t keep slipping straight through her fingers. She shifts against the tree, feels the priestess nestle up closer, but before her surprise turns to panic it has to contend with that voice. More than rain, more than the scent of flowers, it fills the air to bursting and falls all about her. Don’t you know? It whispers. Haven’t you heard? This is the time for stories. Here is the place of rest. Stay. Be still awhile. You are safe, little one. What worry can survive such an assault? Fear falls away, and all that’s left is warmth. Of the fire, of a pretty little priestess by her side, of a world gone still with her still in it.

The Thunder Dragon. Maybe she ought to have paid more attention to the legends, in hindsight. But in her defense, how was she supposed to connect the dots on her own? A Thunder Dragon, whose scales became flowers, and whose daughters breathe fire? What?! How did that make any sense? The rest though…a hero, here to save the Kingdoms in their hour of need. A daughter of dragons, mighty and powerful. One would would not let anyone take what was rightfully hers.

A hard-beaten heart, wounded from a long and trying day, takes in these treasures and perches proudly atop them. A hero. Saviour of the Kingdoms. Mighty! Powerful! Don’t take her stuff! Her stuff. Hers…

She didn’t remember turning to look. Or, deciding to. One moment, there was a story. The next, there was her. Bright blue hair, framing glasses, framing painted shadows, framing long lashes, framing rich, earthy, sparkling brown eyes. Her silk veil flutters in the wind, whispering suggestions of jaw and lips beneath. People that, wow, like that couldn’t really exist. Impossible, for them to exist this. Close. So close, to her. For her. Trusting, and snuggling, and admiring with eyes bright and shining, and she chose her. Her.

Would she choose to draw even closer?

Would she…

The priestess turns to the fire. Han turns to the fire, sharply, and her faces turns to fire. Would she what, Han? What exactly would she?! With her! And! Well! What?! Get it together already! You don’t just go thinking like that about somebody you just met. You don’t even know her name! She’s just a lost little priestess who needed a bodyguard, and recognized talent when she saw it. Don’t go reading anything else into it like, like some kind of creep. What are you, desperate?

(Yes.)

Anyway. Han clears her throat. Stares long into the fire, letting it cast her face into deep, blush-concealing shadow. Her voice isn’t as pretty or as fancy as some, but you don’t travel as much as her without learning how to tell a good story. And of the N’yari, she has stories to tell.

“Far away, on the very edges of the Flower Kingdom, in the heights of the Highlands, stands Mount Fang. If you could climb the sheer cliffs, stand against the howling winds, and plow through the waist-deep snow, you might stand atop the peaks. But you will not be able to escape the tribe of the Oei. Their eyes can track a butterfly through a typhoon at midnight. They can leap over a house in a single bound. And the smallest of them can throw a soldier - in full gear - over their shoulder like it was nothing.”

She says, with the confidence of one who’s seen it happen. Multiple times.

“They come down from their mountain lairs to raid the Flower Kingdoms. They love gold, and jewels, and spices, but most of all?” A knowing glance, to her captive audience. “They love pretty girls. Anyone who catches their fancy, they bind, and gag, and carry off to their mountain, and that will be the last sunlight they see for months. Maybe even years. Unless the N’yari decide to take their pets for a walk.” Which was something she hadn’t seen for herself, and with any luck, she never would. “Once you’re under the mountain, you belong to the N’yari. They’d have had you cooking, cleaning, entertaining, whatever strikes their fancy and whatever they’re too lazy to do themselves. If you’re good, they might dress you up in their frilliest outfits for a uniform. If you’re bad, they might just do it anyway. Or maybe they’ll tie you so tightly that you can’t move a muscle, and make you promise a hundred times over not to make anymore ‘silly mistakes.’ All while they sit on you and tickle your face with their tail. Anything to make you never forget; you belong to them, now.”

Memories spring unbidden to mind without the soothing guard of a priestess’ voice. A ghost of a taste dances on her tongue. Han draws within herself, just a bit tighter.

“Escape is impossible. No one but the Oei know the ways through their twisting caverns. Your sentence is up when they get bored of you. One day, without warning, they tie you up from head to toe, carry you back to the Highlands, and drop you off somewhere you can hobble back to a village. All the while they watch from the trees. One last show, before they go.” Bitterness. Anger. Spat into the air, and stabbed to her own heart. “They raid the Highlands because we’re easy pickings. Because no Kingdom keeps enough trouble here to challenge them. So. I make my own trouble. For any N’yari that thinks they can mess with my home and get away with it. If they want new maids to play with?”

Her eyes narrow to burning slits.

“They’ll have to take ‘em from me.”

[Rolling to Entice with stories of bravery and binding: 3 + 5 - 3 = 5. The XP race continues….]

Breathless Dead

The Plousious’ contingent stands as a unified spectrum of cautious, faded blue. The gesture of ignorant foreigners who, nevertheless, strive to meet the customs of their host. The Order representatives carry their color as yet another shield, blending the new color with their old symbols in a way that both marks them as members of the crew, and further obscures their markings of rank. Standing aside from them, Coherents proudly display their blue hides and matching augmentations. A grand gesture, diminished somewhat by the several more ostentatious modifications that had been soundly vetoed. And at the center of them all, a little sheep, dressed the brightest of them all but still respectfully below the satrap, and a guard of honor around him. At his right hand, a lioness, politely glaring at the senator before him.

Out of all the wonders of this court, Vasilia standing at his right threatened to upset his balance every time he noticed. It was good they’d practiced beforehand, or else he might have lost his wits at the first hurdle. But his own words came to mind readily, for a Captain ought to take their own orders seriously: Senator Thist sought to entangle them. So, he would not engage.

Instead, he turns to a servant, the very one who’d shown them into the satrap’s chambers. “Pardon me, but could you tell me what she’s talking about?” he asks, making no effort to hide his conversation or its contents. “‘Scout’...is that what you would call a starship? Is she speaking of the Plousious?”

A good servant took care when answering a guest’s question, lest they complicate the business of the Master. The worst questions were the ones where you could discern no malice, and thus, the machinations you found yourself in were far more perilous than you could even imagine. But the best sorts of questions were the ones where you could discern no malice, for the question was simple, and the asker was curious, and no guile could possibly exist here.

To the servant, Dolce asks as he always liked to be asked; with refreshing honesty, and simple curiosity.

[Triggering Heroes of the People to auto-hit a Speak Softly, asking: What can they tell us about the incident Senator Thist is going on about?]

Breathless Dead

In the end, the moment had passed without incident. The crew accepted his words as the words of a Captain. The meeting had immediately gone to questions of logistics, command structure, the hundreds of points of minutia necessary for a ship to fly painlessly. No complaints were lodged with his choice of words, posture, tone, length of eye contact with any one individual in the audience, plan, or even choice of coat. His desire had been achieved. He was Captain.

Victory ought to have felt a little less like a dishrag, wrung twelve times over.

A teacup wreathed in steam enters the dimmest peripheries of his awareness. Mynx was likely still close to hand. Somewhere. He hopes she understood the noise he made was meant to express a gratitude; the most grateful grunt he could muster. Words, he might not ever speak again.

Except that he would, in time. Captain was not a destination, after all, but a journey, and one he needed to walk a little further still. Past the Endless Azure Skies, drawing ever-closer to the Rift. Perhaps, if the gods truly did favor his ascent, the Azura would know more than they of the perils ahead. They might offer some fresh insight into its terrible workings, of how a ship and its crew might wisely choose their path through. And if he were truly blessed? He rested a hand gingerly on his chest.

Perhaps that might help him to navigate the aching in his own heart, too.

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

The Endless Azure Skies. The once-mighty jewel of an empire, fallen to ruin, the last vestiges of its power and people locked in an eternal battle for supremacy over the scraps.

To journey so far, and find yourself right back where you started. Was it a time to laugh, or to cry?

Mere weeks ago, she would’ve derided the lot of them for fools, let every sight pass unseen, and be off the moment they were able to. Today, she would do even better; no one expected an egg-carrier of the Magos to go much of anywhere, so no one would order her anywhere, and here is where she would stay. On board the ship. With a perpetually discomforting relic.

But to journey so far, and find yourself right back where you started...

Perhaps the streets of the Azuran empire would teach her what the road to her estate, to the arena, to the favorite places in the vast plains she once visited looked like. Could the warriors of the grav-rail tell her how she felt the day she first saw the perplexing scroll of alien forms in her family’s vault? Would a queen to this fallen empire be her best chance at finding her past, to grant her a wish for a future?

Vasilia would never know, as an egg-carrier of the Magos. But if she wanted to be a little more than that, she had a sacrifice to make, and an apology to deliver. One that would be far, far more uncomfortable than mystery relic eggs.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

The turning of days comes to an end. Another year passes the great and the small alike. The emissaries of Heaven are already on their way, and nothing will slow the steady tread of their starry oxen. No machination of demon, divine, mortal, or anyone in-between can hope to change the hour of their arrival. They will come to the house of the Sapphire Mother, with two grand carts, bearing in them two jeweled eggs, or two earthen jugs, or a chest of stone and a chest of jewels, or a silver cloud and a golden cloud, depending on who tells the story. The Sapphire Mother will open her storehouses, and accept the new year’s fortunes. If her houses be not empty, then they will burst, and all will be thrown into chaos as ill and good fortune flood the land.

The wise say it is for this reason that all must quietly accept their lot from the Sapphire Mother, for it is to spare us all a far worse disaster that some must suffer. The wise might also say that it’s not actually the end of the year yet, but given how wrong they were on the first point Han sees no reason to believe them on the second. How else is she to explain the mountain of bad luck crushing her voice into a quiet moan? In fact, that stupid fox is probably the one who delivered it all! The jerk! How dare you look so pleased with yourself! No, don’t kiss the rascal, bud! Gah!

She still has a chance. The night’s dark. The priestess has no lantern, and is completely distracted with fox kissies. Up to the treetops. Leap to the open sky. Get out of binding range. Don’t return to the earth until this place is a distant memory. Find a new village to live in. Forget everything she had in her old place, it’s dead to her now. No, wait, she didn’t give her a name yet. No way to track her down. Daughter of the Thunder Dragon? Weird priestess nonsense. Unless Machi ever said her name? (warmth. drowning in her. hers. her stone-heart) Nope. No way to tell. Can’t risk it. Dead to her. Wait hang on did she say exciting? Heroic? Always wanted to?!

What?!

Here she makes her second-worst mistake: Instead of leaping out of her life forever, Han takes another look at the little priestess. She lets herself hear the wonder in her voice, see the delight turning her fingers silly as she fumbles with her veil, instead of the perilous threat her heart screams must, must be there. No matter how hard she looks, all her fears catch a glimpse of is the terrifying possibility that she herself might be the cause of all this. And her worst mistake?

Deciding to open her mouth.

“Uhhhhhhhh. Yeah. That’s right. One of the dragon-blooded. Guess I’m just lucky to have met you. First. Instead of all the other dragon-blooded running around, because there’s so many of us.” Oh gods above below and sideways what was she saying. Why was she saying. This is the worst and dumbest she has ever been. “Good. Good. Glad you’ve thought about it. You shouldn’t go rushing into things without thinking, or else you’re going to get yourself in trouble.” Gee, Han! What a great idea! Thinking. Who’d have thought?! “Now that that’s all settled, we should make camp for the night. And.” Han. Han. What are you doing. “And you can tell me everything you’ve heard about dragon-blooded.”

No, wait, actually, that’s good. That’s a good idea. Get her talking, see what she knows. See what she expects. If she’s going to be travelling with a priestess, Han can’t afford any mistakes. She’s going to be an ordinary, simple dragon-blooded girl, escorting a priestess to a faraway temple, which everybody knows is the last thing an angry guardian spirit at large would be doing.

Breathless Dead

The moment arrives for the Captain to speak. Dolce recognizes it well. How many times had they met, in the days prior? That first glance, when he’d realized a meeting must be called. The long hours before a mirror, seeing a tidy uniform instead of his favorite vest. The constant, electric presence, keeping him awake to read one more chapter, one more page. They’d struck an uneasy truce, and were it not for that he’d be asleep this very moment. Miracle of miracles, they’d found some common ground to work around. After all, he knew how to deliver a report in a clear, steady voice, no matter the situation he faced. He knew how to address a room, without looking at anyone in particular. If his voice slipped, he would carry on without blinking, and no one would realize he’d never meant to say it quite that way in the first place.

Captain Dolce faces the assembly. A fragile peace bends. But does not break.

“As her Highness has said,” his soft voice fills the room, not one tick louder than it needed to be. “We do not know what we sail into. We do not know who presently holds the Endless Azure Skies, nor how they will receive ships passing through their territory. But what we do not know cannot change what we do know: Our destination is farther still. Our business is not with the Azura. Our goal, then, is peace. If the gods smile on us, we will be welcomed as honored guests, and all who meet us will be blessed.”

“Thus, our own course set, the decision then must rest with the Azura, and we must be ready for their answer. If they seek to entangle us, we must politely decline. If they seek to threaten us, our hearts must be steadfast. If they seek to bar our way, we must find the path through. But we must not make their decision for them, or else the consequences will rightly fall on our own heads.”

“I do not mean to suggest it will be easy. But.” Here, he lets himself look. Look upon the many grand and wondrous souls who’ve come together for this voyage. So many, from so many impossible places, all under one roof, for one purpose, sharing in a dream and a life together. He, at the head of it all. Who could have imagined it? “If I speak of difficulty, I speak it out of the faith that such a company will rise above it.”

Then, he waits. He has spoken his turn. He has prepared all he could. He has offered all that is proper and good. Now, he must let there be reply, and let his fate be what it may. So he waits. And a lioness in the company waits, feeling nothing of her burden when compared to the anguished coal buried deep in her chest.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Why would she be thinking of those sorts of stories?! They’re dumb! And completely wrong! The priestesses are all radiant serenity, the day can always be saved with good vibes and holding hands, and the only really bad things happen to the people who treat the priestess badly. Who would waste their time with crap like that?

(The best ones are when the priestess realizes the terrible roars are actually cries of pain. They approach the weary monster, armed only with kindness and soothing holy water. They speak a soft, gentle tongue that no one has dared to use with them before. They will wait, as long as it takes, for the monster to curiously snuffle their outstretched hand. The first touch. And their walls come crumbling down-)

A-anyway. Two Hundred Gates Temple. Never been, but yeah, she’s heard of it. Supposed to be not bad, if you like that kind of thing. And don’t mind adding a good pile of days to your journey, when hers ought to have been over tomorrow. What a pain, leaving for another trip when she’s already imagining the feel of a real bed again. A roof over her head. And yet.

When was the last time somebody’d thanked her? For anything? Not like she needed it or anything, but. Still, how long? When was the last time someone left a perfectly good barge behind to chase after her, in the driving rain, with half an umbrella, when she’d busted up the other half? All her thoughts had already begun to tread the same, bitter grooves in her heart, with nothing but a black, lonely night to look forward to. And yet.

I wanted to. Thank you.

“Listen, bud...” The growl’s gone out of her voice. Now it’s as cold and hard as the icy rain. Take heed, little priestess, of the wisdom of beasts. “I’m flattered, really, but you gotta know it’s not gonna be that easy. You’re gonna get what you saw tonight, every day, and there’s nothing your veil’s gonna do about it. Maybe it’ll be N’yari. Maybe the people on the street. Definitely your sisters, if we’re unlucky enough to run into them. Now, maybe I can get you there through all that, maybe I can’t, but you gotta know that some of that trouble’s gonna rub off on you, if you have me along.”

“You wanna change your mind? That’s your call, and I can respect that. Get your butt back to the river, catch that barge, and there’ll be no hard feelings. But if you wanna tag along,” Her hand shot up, cutting off the eager nodding before it could start. “Think. Really think about it, and make your choice. I’m not gonna have you regretting it.”

Can’t you see, bud? This is just the same mistake all over again. Please. Learn your lesson. Wise up. And get back to the barge.

Breathless Dead

A miracle. No other word came close, by miles.

Dionysus foiled. No hands lost. No damage of consequence to the Plousius. Mynx, untouched. Redana, safe and sleeping, her dear heart battered, but still beating.

A miracle. Wrought, in some small part, by his own hands.

Dolce eyes wrinkle in an enormous smile, even as frightful tears leaked from the corners. “Well done. Well done. I promised her she wouldn’t, and she hasn’t. Thank goodness. Well, well done.” He wipes at his cheeks. Pats them dry. Misses a little. Finds his chin. Over-corrects. That’s wool, now. Oh dear. Oh, dear...

The bridge went far away and slowly sideways. On the other end of the universe, a wobbling bleat.

Then, merciful silence.

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

So Iskarot did know how to flatter a person. The old softie. A flicker of warmth lit her face. “What do you know? I suppose I did something right after all.” She raises her bowl to her guest. “To survival, evading self-destruction, and being worth it.” And she meant it. At least half of it, anyway. A good record by her standards. As to the rest: A work in progress? A performance yet to be bought? Another lie for the pile?

She'd sort it out later. There was victory coleslaw to enjoy.

“I must say, to the first two points.” She continues between mouthfuls. Since when did the Order of Hermes bother with cooking secrets? She’d have to tell Dolce. “If I have to sit alone in my room for another day, striving to reach competence with basic food preparation, I will critically jeopardize someone’s survival. Possibly my own? I plan to play it by ear.” Did she need to stab her chopsticks into her bowl so forcefully? Absolutely. The need was dire. “Please. Please tell me you know of something I can do with myself that doesn’t run afoul of Zeus.”

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Han works the knots in a bubble of silence. Where she goes, the quiet follows. Where she leaves, the whispers start. Never to her face, oh no. Goddess forbid someone should say an unkind word and ruin the mood, right? Much better to blame someone behind their back, where you can be as brave as you think you are.

Whatever. She doesn’t have anything to say to them anyway. She has...other things to think about.

The Priestess. She hasn’t said a word to her since the N’yari left, and it’s the smartest move she’s made all evening. Do y’get it, bud? Do y’see why you should’ve left her alone? Now you know; next time you see the toughest girl in the room keeping to herself, you return the favor. That’s nature’s way of telling you somebody’s trouble, and all the best intentions in the world can’t save you from what’ll happen. (She thought she was being careful. She thought she remembered where it fell. All the same, the Priestess holds a shattered handle.)

The trip home. No umbrella. No hat. No poncho. No problem. Not like she was getting any wetter. It was getting late, but so what? Not like she had a carriage to catch. (Not like anybody was waiting on her.) She’d get there when she got there, alright? Things happened on the road. That’s how it was.

Machi. Machi. Stupid, stupid, Machi.

What were you thinking?! Did you seriously expect her to just, just swoon to pieces, because. Because! She wasn’t. Gonna. That wasn’t gonna happen. It wasn’t gonna _ever _ happen. And you’d have to be an absolute rockhead to think otherwise. And now. (Her chest feels. Light. Lighter than it should. Wrong, now. It remembers the weight, the pressure, the warmth. It may never forget.) Shut up. (A blur. A dizzying, blazing blur. Both of them. Impossible, to pick a moment right now, and not get lost in them all.) Shut up! (She meant it. She meant it. She meant it. She meant it all, and more. All of it.) Shut! Up!!!

“Sometime today, catkisser.”

Han blinks into the iron face of a scowling bridesmaid. Did she just- “You wanna run that by me again?”

“I said. Sometime today. Catkisser.”

Oh. Now there’s some backbone.

“Please.” Another sits nearby, massaging her sore wrists. “Don’t make a scene. We don’t want any more trouble.”

“Any more trouble, huh?” Han barely turns to her, and she wilts immediately. “Is that what you think’s gonna happen? One wrong move, and I pick up where the N’yari left off?”

The bound girl sniffs. “Don’t shout so much, I can still smell the cat on your breath.”

And that’s when the silence hits her. Nobody’s whispering anymore. No one makes a sound. They stare at her, or around her, all their attentions orbiting her, and she sees the expectation in their wide eyes and too-tense limbs. Nobody knows what’s about to happen. But everybody suspects they know.

They’re wondering who will come to save them the second time.

Han rises, and carries the bound bridesmaid with her. No one breathes. “Here.” She tosses her into the lap of her companion. “You in a rush? Do it yourself.” A chorus of indignant oaths strike at her back; she ignores them. (Others are already rushing to help. To soothe her. To glare in solidarity at the unbelievably rude Highland thug.) She binds her sword anew, slings it over her back, and in a single leap clears the stream to the riverbank.

Who needed a stupid boat anyway? She had two good feet. She could walk. It wasn’t that far. She wasn’t that wet. Her arm didn’t ache that much.

She didn’t need any of them.

She didn’t need anyone.

[Marking Angry.]

Breathless Dead

Miscalculation. Error in judgement. Thinking too much. Thinking too little. Mistake. Wrong. He’s done it wrong. All wrong. All wrong.

He says nothing. The only sounds he makes are the bleating cries she beats out of him. Shameful, to beg now. To be so stupid as to think that begging could change anything. The worthwhile sheep accepts the truth silently. The black sheep needs punishment. When the punishment ends, there will be no black sheep. There is nothing more to it. When the punishment ends. There will be no black sheep. Nothing more to it. When the punishment. Ends. No more black sheep. Nothing more needs. When the. Punishment ends. There will be no punishment. The black sheep. Ends the black. Nothing. More. Ends. Ends...

A lost lamb lies crumpled on the bridge of a cruiser, a long, long ways from his home. The Master has not given him leave to rise, or leave to go. He is permitted to partake of the air, provided he does so quietly, without crying. All else is forbidden, without the word of the Master. A good sheep stays where he is told. A black sheep needs punishment. There is nothing more to it.

The lamb tips over against the hull. One hoof finds purchase on the deck. Slowly, he disobeys.

It mattered little, whether it was possible to evade punishment. A Captain did their duty.

“You aren’t going to kill me.” His hand falls heavy on the instruments for leverage. Heedless of broken glass. Still, he rises.

“You didn’t kill Mynx. You didn’t kill me. You...aren’t going to kill me.” His hooves stomp defiance above the screaming chaos. His ears ache terribly at the loudest steps he’s ever taken. Still, he rises.

“Mynx could not harm a friend to their face. Whoever told you that you could do worse was...was a terrible liar. You. Aren’t going to kill me.” Closer. He expects the blow to fall at any moment, and he must get closer. The full weight of a princess in wrath...no, a friend, lost in darkness, will bear down on him, and still, he rises.

Mynx will need all the opening he can give her.

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

“Rice is a trial of the gods, given to us to punish hubris.” Vasilia snapped. “A grain so diabolical an appliance had to be invented specifically to defeat it, and yet even this mechanically engineered bane falls to pieces if you don’t posses the precise secret ratios.” Ratios which she might have a better shot at learning if someone hadn’t hidden the rice cooker, Hestia.

“...it’s news to me too.” She pushed bits of coleslaw about with a single chopstick, forming a larger and larger glob, before starting all over again. “That I could live with...less. I’ve been ‘relevant’ my entire life, I’d no idea what was going to happen if I just. Stopped. If I’d even keep going.” Would she have, if Hestia hadn’t been there to promise her a future? A dangerous thought. One she preferred not to dwell on. “All the same, you give me too much credit. Can you call it acceptance, if the alternative means death? If I’m merely doing what I must to survive? Am I just walking this long, slow road because it’s the path that lets me win in the end?”

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Han looks her dead in the eyes. She opens herself wide, and lets Machi’s longing gaze pour into her. No distraction. No hiding. And on any other day, Machi might have realized what was coming. But today is the first day she has ever kissed her stone-heart, and she could not recall even the rules of Highland fighting, ingrained in her by a lifetime of practice. For in the Highlands, when you stab someone in the back? When you hit them where it really hurts? You have the common blasted decency to look them in the eyes when you do it.

A decision crosses the space between them, faster than even regret. Leverage crumbles. Legs coil. And a champion goes sailing into the river before the pain could fully register.

(We regret to inform you that Han’s Special Time has. Experienced some unforeseen delays.)

When Machi emerges, it is not as a flailing kitten. It is not as a soaked cat, scrabbling at the deck. She _erupts_ from the river in a great spray of water that sets the barge rocking. And Han nearly tips it over, exploding off the bridge with an umbrella gripped in each hand. In the air they meet! Machi catches the kick! She shatters the umbrella! And the second whirls down on her back and spikes her to the water. A barbed rain of splinters hangs frozen in the air. Again they strike. Again, a champion falls!

“Yield!” Han roars, punching and righting the swaying deck as she lands. “Yield already, you, you! Stinkhead!” She breaks another umbrella over her knee, banging the two jagged lengths of wood together, sounding her challenge to the very heavens.

[Rolling to Fight: 3 + 3 + 3 = 9. Han takes a superior position, and gains a String on Machi. Machi gets to pick an option in return.]