[i]"So what should I do with it?"

"What can't you do with it?" Its handler taps on the screen of their tablet, and the HUNTER-Class 猎犬 extruded more eyes and feelers as electricity raced down its spine unbidden. "Surveillance, primarily. It has the ability to optimize its sensory data in ways that not even demons can match. But also--"

"It was a rhetorical question," its buyer says. Behind the mask, his eyes are yellowed, strained. "I read your briefing. It's a hunter-carceral. It's a dog that goes and fetches what it's told to. The real question, the [b]real[/b] question is simply... who do I send it after first?"

"I can't, uh, on the record..."

Whatever you want, the HUNTER-Class 猎犬 thinks. It wants to run. It has run, before, but on closed circuits, in mazes, in tests. Let it into the world. Let it run. Let it play. And it'll bring back whoever you want. The fire burns inside it, the active principle, and there is a strange itch in its hands where the claws meet the skin. It does not speak. It is not permitted to speak. But it lets its long, forked tongue loll, trying to express its need. Let it run. Let it find. Let it [b]bite[/b].

That's what it was made for, after all. That's why it exists.[/i]

***

Rose has changed before. She can't remember exactly when, but, well, it's obvious, isn't it? She wasn't always the High Priestess of Sai a'Niz. Is it possible that this place could change her, too? No, no, of course not! She is [i]defined[/i] by her faith in the goddess, that's the cornerstone of her identity! But perhaps it will change here, too-- that her prayers will twist and take on new dimensions as they race to Heaven along the strings of the kites fluttering in their hundreds in the breeze, a cresting wave that reminds her of places she can't quite remember, but that makes her heart warm, warm, so warm indeed.

(The thing deep inside her knows better; "Rose" is malleable indeed. She is not the actress but the role; change the role, through fox magic or subtler ways, and Rose will remember being a high priestess only vaguely, as in a dream. Consistency, the choice of roles, the synthesis of who you were with who you are: those things are locked away in a candle wick. It would be easy to convince her that she is a maid of the castle, with strong arms for doing the washing-up and shapely legs for the curve of stockings; it would be easy to convince her that she was secretly a princess all along, and not just any princess but a demure, helpless one; it would be easy to convince her that she was a guard of the Sky Castle all along and set her to guard the prisoners; it would be effortless to convince her that she is a slave-girl, a decoration and a companion, a sultry thing that makes the monk-thing inside her squirm and hide its head beneath its coils.)

(Only, please, the thing of coils begs silently: no more running. No more chasing. No more hurting. This world is a kinder world, but the memories still come at her with hot irons and whips and brands of shame. The looks of despair, or hatred, or betrayed agony; the feeling of skin yielding under its hands, of bones coming undone, of the body being unraveled beneath its claws. First it did it because it loved the work; then it did it because it could not become other than it was; then it did it because it would not let anything stand between it and an elusive freedom. But it killed. It was a killer. And now she will always have been a killer.)

(What if the Baroness decides to use the Equal of Crowns for conquest? Make of it a sword, a weapon, a terrible word which is Devotion, an invincible sword-saint trained and honed and brutal? What if the candle is locked away and never lit again? What if, what if, what if? What if your weakness doomed this world to blood and ruin again, nameless thing of power and desire? What if your inability to control your desire and your powerlessness before the wiles of foxes has trampled your dreams of being a new growth and a new creation underfoot?)

Not knowing why she does it, Rose tilts her head just an inch in the fingers of the Baroness and looks up at her as those gloved fingers brush against the bottom fringe of her gag, and her eyes are vulnerable and exposed, begging for something that she cannot even say to herself. She is, despite all her strength, despite her size, as small and meek in that moment as Princess Chen, helpless and forced to rely on someone outside of herself. She longs, she fears, she craves, she aches, and she doesn't understand any, any of it. All she knows is that she has to convince the Baroness of, of [i]something[/i]. Or the world will crack in and not even Sai a'Niz will be able to save her priestess from the end of everything.

Rose has one advantage over the nameless thing, too: she is [i]shameless[/i]. There is no self-consciousness in her silent pleading, no hesitancy as she manually overrides pride and dignity, no awareness of her companions, as much as they mean to her, watching her as she opens herself through her eyes and her body language, every small gesture, every shudder, every slackening of muscle writ large on her statuesque form. She makes herself pitiable with the same thoughtless serenity as she worshiped the dragon's foot, appealing to the heart of this shining world that flows through this entire castle of transformations, of changes in the wind, of numberless kites.

[I kept arguing with myself if I should roll Entice again, but the whole point of this post is being vulnerable and shameless and so I will do it anyway. 8, which is perfect. Like, that's such a good result for this beat.]