[b]Alina![/b]

Diana breathes easily. There is a rosy flush to her cheeks, and every part of her is more vivid, more [i]unreal[/i], as if a master painter had prepared the finest paints in all of Ilumina to depict her, in your arms. There is no doubt now. She will live.

Maybe she won’t ever forgive you. Maybe she’ll wake up and tell you that you only saved her to salve your own conscience, and that she will never trust you again, you lying, selfish princess.

But you can live with that. Because she’ll be alive. And that’s what matters.

When you look up, through a crack in the fetid black shells that surround you, your eyes meet Ourania’s. Her eyes are wet, and full of pride in you. And if she could speak, she would say something like: [i]even now, after all these centuries, I can be moved by the heart of a princess. Isn’t that marvelous? Isn’t that wonderful?[/i]

What do you say to her, while it is just the two of you, in the heart of occupied territory, as you do your best to breathe through your mouth and not touch any of the still, waiting, hungry constructs around you?

***

[b]Kyouko![/b]

The Garthim hunt by sensing magic. To this end, you have been leading them on a merry chase, tossing your smoke bombs one way and your lively coils another, seeking out the weak point: Prince Cassian Fleet.

[hider=Cassian][b]Interference[/b] — you can’t [i]Get Away[/i] while Cassian has his attention on you.

[b]Heart of a Healer[/b] — Damage this stat to restore all stats of a Threat in scene.

[b]Amulet of Sarcosis[/b] — Cassian controls the Garthim, and keeps them from rampaging across Argossa trying to eat everything magical. Everything.

[b]Weenie[/b] — damage one of Cassian’s stats and he’ll immediately wet his pants and try to scamper out of the scene by the most direct route.[/hider]
You have a very particular set of skills. Unfortunately (and this is your greatest weakness, the curse of your arts, never to be revealed to an outsider), you must declare your intention to woo and marry Cassian for your skills to work on him at all. And you haven’t quite worked up the courage to do something that hideously gross.

So. While your girlfriend is menaced by her father... what do you do, Kyouko of the Apricot Clan?

***

[b]Adila![/b]

“I’m so glad you asked!” Hornet chirps delightedly, her tail’s fluffy tip wagging. “It is an Unstoppable Bazaar Organizer, and it’s going to make everything neat, and put up signs and labels so that nobody gets lost, and make the streets wider so that people stop shoving me, and assign loud zones where people can be loud if they want to be, so that I don’t have to go there!”

The famous Souk of Ropes is pulled down, a knotted and tangled mess of black market stalls and hideouts dangling between three spires. There are quite a few screams as the Organizer begins feeding ropes and black marketeers into its Automatic Sorters.

“And once it’s done,” she says, almost wistfully, her manic energy suddenly petering out, “everyone will see how much better it is and want to be my friend because I [i]helped.[/i]”

That’s... true. Pretty much every one of Hornet’s inventions was designed to help people, even if sometimes you have to turn your head and squint to figure out where she started from and how she ended up with a giant scorpion that makes people invisible by stinging them.

(“Thank you,” Tashanna says, laughing, squatting on her haunches to look Hornet in the eye. Hornet is marveling at the precise curve of Tashanna’s winged eyeliner. “Truth be told, it takes quite a bit of time to put on every day, but that’s the price of beauty!” She laughs and ruffles Hornet’s hair, not noticing the infinitesimal way that Hornet tenses up, dimly aware she’s being patronized. “If only we all got to be invisible now and then!”)

Hornet’s looking up at you through her goggles, her tiny body nestled up to you. “Can I make anything for you, Best Friend?”

***

[b]Jessamine![/b]

Shiva knickers testily as you shift your weight. You have Rita cupped in one arm, check. Dandy has her arms wrapped around your waist, check. Azora is secured side-saddle on Shiva’s rump by bands of dark magic, check.

“Okay, girl,” you whisper in her ear. “Let’s go save Kazelia.”

Immediately Shiva’s shining glass wings flare out, and with a gallop and a few strong beats, she soars up from the roots of Argossa.

Maybe Oberon will figure out you’re coming, but that’s a risk you have to take. The stairway up is impossible to avoid detection on, and you don’t have [i]time[/i] to climb for days. You soar up on the back of the fastest pegasus in Hyperborea, silently pleading for your sister to be all right...