TheAmishPirate

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Lotus. Filling the air. Lotus. Clutching her shoulder and pressing into her. Lotus. Breathing in her ear, hitching on every heartbeat. The edges of her voice curling and moaning. Climbing. Neck. To cheek. To. To! Lotus!!

Isn’t here anymore.

Lotus. She knew. Lotus. Couldn’t miss the way Han jumped, when all she did was thank her rescuer. Lotus. Who was so nice to everyone, even dumb rocks from the Highlands. Greedy, stupid rocks, who wanted to take and take and take someone they shouldn’t ever dream of touching.

Lotus. Took her advice, after all. Got away from the nasty dragon, before she did something they’d all regret.

Is as far as she gets, before a pair of hands pulls her free, and she knows it’s Emli before she even looks, and can’t remember why that might be odd.

“Don’t wanna.” Her growl doesn’t pretend at teeth. “Go ask her yourself.”

“Do you want me to go find her? When she wants to be alone?”

Han doesn’t answer that. Doesn’t have to, when she stubbornly turns from Emli’s questioning gaze, hides a sour frown.

“Besides.” Emli runs her thumb over the back of Han’s hand, squeezing soothingly. “I want to hear you tell it. I want you to tell me about her. Everything about her. Please?”

Lashes flutter over wide, eager eyes. A gale mighty enough to topple a dragon.

“Fine. Whatever. It’s not like I got that much to tell. Most of the time I knew her, she was pretending to be a priestess anyway, so most of that’s just out the window now. The whole de-” Oh. Oh she just. By a. Oh. “D-demigod. Thing. That’s new. Don’t know crap about that. I guess she still needs to go to some temple or whatever, the, uh, y’know, Two Hundred Gates Temple? She hasn’t said she doesn’t actually need to go, so, we’re going. And I’m going, because I said I would, and being a demigod or whatever doesn’t change that. I told her I would, so, yeah.”

“Uhuh?”

“Besides, you’ve seen her, she’s got no chance of making it there on her own. We’re on the second or third kidnapping already. She’s, just, look at her!” She gestures at the Lotus-shaped absence. “She’d get knocked down by a stiff breeze! And apologize for being in the breeze’s way! And after that she’d give everything in her pockets to the first person who asked because they told her they needed it and she wouldn’t think twice about it. She’s too-!” Sweet. Caring. Honest. Precious. “Nice. She’s too damn nice for her own good.”

She lets out a heavy sigh. Her free hand rubs at her eyes. “I don’t get how she does it. She shouldn’t be…no, that’s just it. She shouldn’t be. S’not possible. It’s like, everything everywhere that’s soft and warm things got mushed up into one girl. She shouldn’t be real. That’s - wait, hang on, demigod. Okay, yes, that explains it. She’s the demigod of, of….soft. And, good. Like, she’s always warm. Her hands. Her eyes. Her. Smile. She smiles all the damn time, have you seen her? And her whole face, it just, her nose squishes, and her eyes - okay, yes, you’ve seen them, right? There’s something in there. Right?”

“Uhhuh!”

“I knew it! There’s some demigod thing that makes them sparkle. And they’re so big. You can’t, okay, it’s not fair, with the glasses. And the hair. And. Her. Uh, f-face, is.” Ha ha ha wow does it get hot this time of year or what? “It’s, I like, I mean, it’s good the way her…face…is. Because. O-of the.” Ha ha ha wow is every word here the worst word she’s ever said or what? “Parts of. Face. And, way they all, together, make a face, and. A-all the, rest, is, is…”

Her heart thunders in her ears, all but drowning out the whisper of her own voice.

“...s’pretty.”

“Mmhmm?”

“She’s pretty, alright?! I don’t stare at her or nothing, I don’t have to to know that.”

“Of course you don’t.”

“If she wears something, it’s beautiful. If she does something, it’s graceful. Her face, a-and, she moves, and, I can’t-”

She dropped her head to the table so hard the teacups jumped in their saucers. She groaned into the wood, sending ripples through the tea, groaning for all that she can’t.

“I gotta get her to the temple. I don’t care who I gotta fight to do it, I just gotta. She deserves it. She deserves way way way more than that. But.” Bonk. Bonk. Bonk, against the table. “...I just promised her the temple. S’all she asked for. So. I’ll get her the damn temple.”

Silence. Time, to properly behold the pile of words she just dumped out for all the world to see. There they are. Exposed. Instead of locked up deep, deep inside her, where nobody would ever have to know, or hear, or tell her what she already knows. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid-!

“N’why am I telling you all this? Why do you care?!” She groans, long and loud and sharp as talons. Just looking at the slave girl sends her already red face to new depths of color. “I don’t get you! I don’t get why you…!” She gestured uselessly at her hand “Any of this! Why you keep doing this! Why I keep letting you do this! You’re Dominion! I-”

I’m your enemy.

That’s right, Emli. You’re Dominion.

I can’t stand you.

The ones who’re here to steal her home. The people who care the least for highland peasants.

I hate you.

She can’t say any of it.

She tries. She opens her mouth. The words are there, on the tip of her tongue, for all the world to see. Or maybe just a pretty slave-girl to see. She digs deep, deep into her dragon’s heart, to pull out the fiery coal that’s always been there, except this time her hands come back empty. No flames. No fangs. Just a girl, confused and burning, not strong enough to pull her hand free from yours.

Breathless Dead

The totality of nature waits on a tiny, filthy lump of wool. To spare, or to devour.

“I have. Been given a lot.” More than he asked for. Or what he asked for was more than he ever realized. Years, he’s spent, thinking of what he’s been given. “It’s been hard to say if I deserved any of it. Just.” A wet, sickly cough wracks his frame. Her face blurs. “Just a chef, after all.”

She did not ask him to leave quickly; yet another mercy. He needs both his arms to raise himself upright. A moment, please, for the world to settle down. “Now, though,” he rasps, in-between gasps of air. “I think, it was a little unfair, yes? To everybody. Myself. And to you.” Could he have really hidden his heart so thoroughly, that you did not actually know him? Did you grant your gifts with anything less than his life in your hands? “Suppose it was never really a matter of deserving, after all. I have this. I am this. It’s a matter, then, of what I do with it.”

At last, he moves. Clutching scraps of shattered armor for leverage, he half-turns, half-rolls, and the Lady of Spring is before him. The face of his wife stares back at him, reflected in the blades of her hedge trimmers. His own face, too, growing clearer with each moment he stalls. This, then, is to stand before a goddess. Before the turning of seasons. The end that is beginning that never shall end. Life-giver. Tyrant. Bully.

Dolce looks up. And past her.

“I am told, we have already defied expectations.” His hand rises, shaking, clenched. Not a fist. A presentation. Of a band of gold, where the blood of two runs as one. Shining, amidst a cloud of cigarette smoke. “Aphrodite. Love took us this far. Do you permit a universe where it will take us no farther?”

Breathless Dead

Wake up, little sheep. The moon is gone. The dream is past. Wake, to the lingering memory of her blood.

He is up first, as usual. She is still sleeping. She could not sleep. Her eyes drink in the clouded light like she is dying of thirst. They dart past the shade in the shape of her husband. Her mouth opens. Screams that are not screams, only chunks of feeling breaking off from a raging storm. It would be better if she were silent. It would be better if she screamed.

But she’s alive.

His hand gropes blindly across his armor, and closes around a tuft of wool, nearly torn off in the fight. He pulls. Stillness, amidst a sickening pop as something in his shoulder gives way first. He pulls. Without leverage. Without tools. Without any sign that is close, or far, or hopeless. He pulls. The last thread snaps and he falls across her chest, clutching his prize. Not done yet. Not yet.

Arm over arm. Breath by breath. He crawls across her. Finds, in a sea of blood and ruin, one cut. Narrow. A centimeter deep. To this, he presses the wool, and in place of strength he lays his weight upon it.

It’s okay. It’s okay, Vas. He’s here. He’s still here. Even when you couldn’t see him, he never left your side.

Even now, when he lies between a goddess and her prize.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

It isn’t so simple as reaching out and taking a dragon by the neck. Lotus’ chair squeaks as she pushes it back, and it’s the loudest noise she makes as she rises and passes around the table. She is too small to reach. She must get closer. Close enough to see the damage. Close enough to touch. Close enough to. To…

“Uhhh, why would I? It’s not anything serious. It’ll go away in a few days. Doesn’t. Really need…”

Han flicks her eyes up. Up. That’s where her eyes are. That’s where to look. Don’t pay attention to the splash of red at the edge of her vision, a shining jewel set in gold. Don’t cross the edge from smooth, flawless skin to someplace new. Don’t land where all is soft, and full, and warm. Don’t sink into a red so deep she cannot see the bottom.

“I heal pretty fast. You don’t gotta do any. Sorta. Priestess…thing.”

Glistening. Catching the lights above as a sweet voice flows like honey. Watch them dance and play, shaping around each passing word. Welcoming the sound. Gently, so gently, sending it on its way. To her. For her. They meet, and part, and every beautiful thing she’s ever known was shadow and dust next to their mystery.

“H-hadn’t really see you, much. So. Not. Chances, to.”

Priestesses are to be seen, never touched. Demigods are priestesses times the biggest number she can think of. But words mean nothing now. Her own thoughts mean nothing now. Inside, she is nothing more than screaming, howling, clawing at her shame. A burning weight forces her down. All the strength in the world cannot lift her eyes. She cannot breathe. Stop. Stop. She’s unveiled. She sees you. She’s right here. She knows. Stop it. Don’t. Not her. You can’t. Don’t. Stop. Stop. Is this what you want? Is this what you want?!

“Ugh. Just. Hold on-!”

She grabs the hem of her sleeveless robe and with a sharp jerk tears off a strip of cloth. The jagged edge frays, the whole thing is much too long, but it’ll work. It’ll work, dammit.

With both hands, she reaches past Lotus’ shoulders, brushes back her hair, and ties a fumbling knot behind her head. Nothing fancy. Over and under and through and pull. Pull, until the gentlest pressure holds it in place. The length of opaque silk rests atop Lotus’ ears, perches on the very tip of her nose. It hangs down, hiding the lower half of her face. With each breath, it flutters. In, and out. Away, and back.

Lotus must think she’s being some kind of honorable. A makeshift veil, to protect a demigod’s modesty, torn from the only fabric she had to hand. She’ll feel Han’s fingers adjust the cloth against her temples, smooth out the wrinkles, and she’ll think her nice.

Her thumb presses into her lips. It sinks into soft warmth. The barest hint of friction tugs at her skin as she traces across them.

Lotus freezes where she stands. Later, she’ll think it an accident.

“There. Better.” She sits back. Withdraws her tingling hand. “You, uh, said something about helping?”

Wrong, bud. All wrong.

This veil’s not for you. It’s for her. A dragon. A greedy, ugly, beast who can’t control herself. Barely better than your stupid host. Hide yourself away. You don’t want to be hers. You can’t be hers. The day you see her for who she truly is, see her burn the world in her hunger, will be the last day she ever sees you.

Hold fast, little veil. Don’t tear just yet.

please.

[Han is Smitten with Lotus, finally. She accepts Lotus’ help, but first must do something about her mouth. Han takes two Strings on Lotus, clears Frightened. Lotus takes a String on Han. Emli takes two Strings on Lotus, and three on Han.]

Breathless Dead

Zeus passes. Demeter is left alone to her business. Paused in rebuke, but bitter, much too bitter to stay her hand. Vasilia can go nowhere. She has waited long enough. She expected satisfaction long ago. Her continued existence is an insult, a denial of her vision. Would it still be Demeter’s garden if even one weed was permitted to flourish?

In a moment, she will settle her mind.

“Oh, Lady Demeter,”

But before that, he speaks. Again.

“You are engaged in mighty works this day. I do not…presume that I can be counted as a distraction. My…my apologies, then, are only those of poor timing. But the…worse insult would be to remain silent.”

Hadn’t he left? Hadn’t she told him to leave? So difficult, to remember something so small…

“As you have said, you did give the task of Vasilia’s death over to your niece, Artemis…and I must recall to you:”

The vines shuddered, and turned a sickly, withered brown.

“The hunt is not yet finished.”

[Vasilia has Protection from a Location stat via the Anathema.]

Breathless Dead

Decline the eyes. Permit no change in posture. Zeus’ pronouncement against Dolce’s wife passes unimpeded through him and - by a tilt of his head - proceeds to the Lady Demeter. “It is…as the Thunderer says.” A good servant speaks when it is to the interest of their masters. A good servant offers no explanation, where none is asked for. “Shall your pronouncement stand?”

Do you, o Maiden of Spring, wish to contradict the Queen of Olympus? To her face?

But of course, your will is yours. Act, speak, as you see fit. He stands not at all, but least of all not in your way. Small. Inoffensive. Gone, for all purposes that mattered.

Breathless Dead

The vines retreat, depositing the remnants of a sheep onto the desert sand.

Off you go.

Still. And quiet. Soft. And broken. Beside him, a shuddering mass of vines. His ears ring too loudly for him to hear her cries. Between them, a space of sand and flowers. He does not cross it. The distance does not shrink. Too small. Too soft. Before him, a goddess, terrible in wrath. In her hand are torments beyond counting or comprehension. Her gaze falls around him. Too small. Too inoffensive. Gone, for all purposes that mattered.

He does not plea for mercy. He does not permit a sound. With every jerking, shaking twitch of his arm, his body ignites anew. He bites back every voice of pain, and they rip through his heart in their desperation to escape. Slowly. Carefully. He cannot disturb her. He cannot disturb his work. He is small. He is inoffensive. The only sign of his presence is that which he intentionally leaves. In the sand, traced in a trembling finger, a bloody thunderbolt.

A little zap. A tribute of lightning, just enough to send a wisp of smoke skyward.

“Zeus…” His voice is dry, rasping, desperate. It reaches Demeter’s ears only in passing. “The right of offense…is yours. Are you…upset? Has my wife…insulted you so?”

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Han stops stirring. Flicks the spoon dry with a violent snap of her wrist. “Wouldn’t that just be rottin’ convenient.” Her eyes flash. “Like when she tied us up - tied a priestess up - and threw us all naked in the brig. Or when she put us in chains and marched us gods only know how far through the jungle with legionnaires taking smacks at us when they got bored. Or how about this?” She yanked her robe down to the collarbone. An angry, forked welt still stood out against her skin, encircling her neck. “They see us come out of a portal to hell, only me and Uusha get shot, and the actual demons get off without a scratch?!”

Days of pampering, of spoiling, of tender, loving care had only covered up the white hot spark deep in her chest. Now, it burned, bright and free.

“Bud. C’mon. For someone who runs as tight a ship as she does, how’re there so many ‘misunderstandings?’ Why does she get off clean every time? Why do they always work out exactly how she’d want them to?” She looks Lotus square in the eye. Holds her gaze, in the awkward silence that follows.

“...well?”

(The fire in her voice falters. All that heat, and none of it directed across the table. A demand shrinks to a question.

Please, Lotus. Tell her you see what she’s saying. Tell her you don’t think she’s crazy, or paranoid, or confused, or just doesn’t get it. Don’t push her aside for a comfortable lie. Not you. Not after all you’ve been through together. Please.

Can’t you trust her over Red Wolf?)

Breathless Dead

The stars lie smoldering where they fell, in crumpled heaps against the bulk of the Anemoi. See, if you can, the red smear along the black prow where Vasilia rolled, before coming to rest in a deep divot; a memory of a meteorite obliterated on the journey here. The travel across a few hundred yards of desert wounded them far graver than a few hundred thousand miles of Poisidon’s void. There they lay, ripe and ready for the picking. Ready for XIII. Blood drips down around her, falling the long, long way to the sand below, as it pools out of reach of their rails.

The lioness, first. Crack the shell of sand and debris. Drink the juicy center within. The sheep can’t run far, now. All that’s left to see is which will be bigger: the crater when she takes off, or the crater when she lands?
CRRRACKKKK

She drives Vasilia into the hull, the metal buckling beneath her, until she finishes what the void started. Up. Up. Up. Floor after floor crumbling on impact, until the fifth deck finally proves too much. Until she finally comes to a halt in a ruined heap. At the new entrance to the Anemoi, XIII crouches low, and waits. Listens. Listens for that heartbeat, so frantic, so fragile. How much more, little one? How much more? You must not burst on her now. Not before she’s had her treat.

She does not even look as the weighted line sails past her shoulder. Not this time. No escape this time!!! Her ears caught you the moment you pulled yourself off the hull, little sheep. She felt the air stir as you sailed into position. To save Va-sil-a, and not yourself. You cannot hide a thing from her. She is not playing. She is a good girl. She is the hunt! You are her prey! She plucks the wire from the wind and pulls, savagely, without ever wondering why the wire, this time, was stripped bare.

Dolce shifts his ravaged body. A connection is made. A charge that once flickered in the depths of his armor finds a path. Down a wire. Up a claw. And through an assassin. A pale excuse for lightning, but even imitators can have teeth. Not enough to wound her. Not enough to stop her from pulling him close. Not enough to move her spiked heel out of the way, before it runs through his stomach.

But enough to scramble her nerves. Enough to hold her in place for the space of a few breaths.

Vasilia lifts her head. A waterfall of bloodied sand flows from behind her, discharged at the last to cushion the impact. “They gave you divine armor,” she coughs, bile and blood. “To withstand your own hits.” Her arm trembles, and her glaive rises. “For insurance against shrapnel.” A knot of shattered ship rises with it, a massive chunk of hull plating for a hammerhead. “And because you’re too wired to take a punch.”

The rail screams. Vasilia is gone. Through the holes in the ship she punched with her own body, she falls. With the rail carrying her weight to the fullest, she falls. Twisting, winding up, gravity pulling a body she can no longer move, she falls. Straight to her. Straight above her, at the last. Sparks dance between them. They fly from the Deodekoi’s twitching armor, muscles straining to obey. Straining to move her somewhere, anywhere, out of this hole, away from the strike that fills her entire world.

Too late.

A hull-clad hammer strikes the Deodekoi. Holy armor flies off its feet. The cat within follows a split-second later. Red-hot brands that had merely brushed, now press in. Hard.

And.

Vasilia.

Falls.

The Anemoi above her. The desert below. Pivoting. The sun at the center of a galaxy, drawing a meteor around her, with which to strike down the instrument of the gods themselves. To her right, the piles of SP rounds. To stun, to incapacitate, to spare, to make her someone else’s problem, to let her go, to let her go, to let her go. To her left, the high explosives. To go supernova. To burn brighter than ever before. To kill. Impossibly, in the end, to win.

Behind her, Dolce. Falling limp. Falling silent.

She freezes.

XIII falls.

The meteor burns through the atmosphere at terminal velocity. The heat ignites the poisoned shells moments before impact.

A thousand miles away, an explosion. Here, so close, so terribly close, her body wraps around Dolce’s. A glaive drops. Fingers grip wool.

eyes

flutter

c l o s e d

[Rolling to Finish with Grace. 2 + 6 + 2 = 10. Damaging Wisdom to pay a price.]

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

“No thanks. I already ate.”

Seriously, Emli, you didn’t have to bring up a plate of those snappy little cookies too. Yeah, yeah, glare at her all you want, she’s still gonna put the honey in Lotus’ tea herself. Give yourself a break sometime, huh?

“The hell’ve you got to apologize for?” She growls, the spoon never once clinking against the cup as she stirs. (More sweet than is proper. Not so sweet it drowns out the taste entirely. Exactly how she likes it.) “You didn’t make her do anything, bud. She came at you cause she wanted to, the bi-” She grunts, tasting fire. “-g jerk.”