[b]Zhaojun![/b] Zhaojun laughs. She laughs and laughs and laughs. Her eye, revealed where the mask has shattered, is startlingly blue. Like the sea. Like the sky. Like the robes of Venus. Her hair is wilder now. Her robes gossamer-purple. But still she remains Zhaojun, Broken. “Once there was, once there was not,” she says... [right][i]An enemy of Creation who sought to destroy this land. Maybe it was the Broken King. Maybe it was the traitor, Neptune. Maybe it was me. He took all the little foxes. In those days they were red, red, red. So red. Incarnadine. He took the foxes, all of them. He tied torches to their tails. He set them loose and watched them run. Trying to escape from the fire. They set fire to the world. But then the rains came. They churned the earth into mud. All the little foxes rolled in it. That’s why they’re all brown now— And black, where their tails burned.[/i][/right] (The story’s wrong. The little foxes are not red. The little foxes are not brown. They are a hot lambent pink, and their teeth are needles, and they are the fire that they carry. They multiply inside the body, one become a hundred become a thousand. The rakshasa has set the fires, her teeth both flint and steel. Now the pink foxes squat at the crossroads of the heart and chew holes in proclamations and dig up buried and forbidden thoughts, though whose— that is not to be told yet.) “Shall I tell you another?” The placid expression on Zhaojun’s mask is somehow now mocking, despite not having changed at all. “I shall tell you another. Once there was, once there was not a diarchic maiden who walked into a trap. When asked why, she said: because I am governed by desire, and I desire to be as I am.” ([i]Be we and be free![/i]) Zhaojun draws her flickering nightmare razor from between her fingers, möbius-edged. It is barely extant in the dark. “You knew me,” she asserts. “And you chose this,” she asserts. The razor glides smoothly against an exposed neck, separated from throbbing fox pandemonium by the thinness of a sash of fine silk. “You are two-in-one, each so desperate to surrender. I have led you here from the moment you donned each other. You never had a choice.” *** [b]Kalaya![/b] “If there’s one thing I can say about the Red Wolf,” Petony says, “it’s that she’s a terrible judge of character.” The rain’s gotten heavy. You were able to smother the unnatural flames with wood, choking them out on what should have been fuel. Now you’re drying off on the long porch, having been soaked in the battle and the toil afterwards. Still, Petony seems pleased by you, still willing to follow your impetuous lead; it’s her thoughts that have her frowning. “She puts her trust in unworthy women. A woman like her is easily tricked, easily used. No wonder her commanders act so cruelly in her name. No wonder she is tricked by lying princesses.” She breathes in deeply from her pipe and blows out a smoke ring. “There’s no solution. If we send them howling back to the Lamentation, they’ll just come back with orders to kill; the Red Wolf’s got her hounds restrained as much as she can. Do you think the likes of Rose and Hyacinth will be able to stand up to them? Now, Holly. Maybe Holly.” When she breathes, the smoke pours out of her nostrils like a dragon. “Maybe not. It was easy when it was the Despots, back when you were still in diapers. Then we knew where we stood; and Uusha danced through their stone-horses and cracked their legs, and little Dima hounded them up and down the rivers, and then there were Leeli and Amara who were [i]our[/i] teachers. And then there were Vika and Kesh and Nuumel, and...” She grows quiet for a moment. Her eyes smolder. “And they’ve laid down their swords, or turned them against each other, and who’s left to stand up to the iron and the fire? Me? You really think we could have beaten them, little petal? Them who have the blessing of Red Mars?” That’s important. The Accord of Thorns is blessed by Venus Morningstar, who makes battle into sport and love into war, who wants champions to defend what is good and peaceful in this world. But the Imperial Legions are blessed by Mars, who is interested in conflict, the shedding of blood, and the dominance of strength. Mars shines over the Imperial Mountain, it is said, and the scales of the Scarlet Empress gleam with that star’s light. If you were to come to blows, you would be echoing a celestial argument of philosophy; and Mars has the upper hand in open battle. Venus knows hearth and home and heart, and thus these things are held dear in the Flower Kingdoms, but can they really overcome hardened killers? Possibly. Even starlight flickers. But impetuous Petony seems on the low ebb of her swing, shoulders bare of her tigercloak, which hangs over the kettle-fire to dry. And when she looks to you, it is with the tired hope of someone who remembers being your age. *** [b]Han![/b] A stray curl drifts on the surface of the river. If it had any use as a mirror in the low light, the rain has warped it; you are just a silhouette enveloped by a larger silhouette. Your blood rushes in your ears; under the world-swallowing sound of Machi’s purring, you can hear Hanahan and Kigi cheering for their champion, and the supportive(?) noises coming from the little priestess. You feel, more than hear, her stamping her feet on the deck. It’s something to think about instead of the way Machi has you pinned to the railing and has one arm pulled tight over your neck. She pushes you lower and lower, but never unbalances you, makes you feel like you’re going to be flipped into the river. Your head dunked, maybe, but then she’d pull it right back up. She’s not going to let you go that easily. Not tonight. Her tongue is rough and wet and hot where she drags it against your ear. Even knowing that this is decently restrained for a N’yari (she’d be shoving that tongue in your mouth if she was trying to [i]aggressively[/i] flirt) doesn’t stop it from coming across as [i]possessive[/i]. A surge of incredibly not flustered and actually incredibly composed energy runs through you, and you manage to squirm to one side; Machi’s hip slams into the railing next to you, rocking the barge, eliciting a muffled cacophony from your fellow passengers: shrieks of fear that the two of you are going to tip the boat over. With all of your might, you grab at Machi, and you make a valiant attempt at throwing her over your shoulder. It’s like attempting to toss a mountain. One foot sweeps your legs out from under you, and your knees hit the deck hard, and Machi topples down with you, and the deck comes up very fast. By the time the temple bells stop ringing in your head, Machi’s got one of your arms wrenched up behind your back and her chest (absurdly warm and fluffy and pillowy) enveloping the back of your head. From underneath Kitty Tofu Hell you manage to get a glimpse of the little bud, squirming in Hanaha’s lap, still wearing your hat, trying so very hard to say something that’s probably “Han, you idiot, are you throwing this match?” That’s definitely it. That’s why she’s wriggling her shoulders and leaning forwards for emphasis, unable to take her eyes off you. “You are not a flower,” Machi says, and you can [i]feel[/i] the powerful rumble resonating through your head as you scrabble on the slick deck for leverage. “You are [i]stone:[/i] hard, strong, [i]beautiful[/i].” “Tell her about her hair,” Kigi sing-songs, running her claws through her new pet’s hair while he moans helplessly. “Your hair is the fire that once burned in the heart of Aunt Je-he-rakusa,” Machi growls, twisting your wrist back into a position that you are definitely not limber enough for even when you’re not banged up. “I will pile it up in lowlander gold and make it your crown, and gift you combs of white stone for brushing it.” She runs her fingers (with the arm pinned under your neck) through it, and not roughly, even as she threatens to push your hips through the deck. How is she this [i]heavy?[/i] At least Machi stopping to paw at your hair has given you another chance to try and wriggle out. You are going to wriggle out, right? You’re not going to succumb to the promise of being carried back to the mountains by Big Strong Girl Who Has Many Weird Compliments And A Very Warm Mouth, right? Look at the little bud there— how can you let her down? If you don’t assert yourself, she’s going to end up your [i]wedding present,[/i] in a teenie tiny apron and a headdress of semiprecious stones, trussed up on top of a pile of looted treasures! *** [b]Piripiri![/b] Azazuka lays her hand on yours. She’s so careless about it, and she’s not even looking at you, but. It’s her hand. On top of yours. Big and soft and warm, even through your gloves. “That sounds wonderful,” she sighs, but then: “But now you’re here. Safe from lava and fairies and other such distressing things.” She sounds... dismayed. “You don’t need to worry,” she adds. “[i]No[/i] danger ever comes to Golden Chrysanth. The princesses may squabble, the N’yari might reave, but our moat and our walls keep us safe. The most you will ever have to worry about are stray fireworks or mercantile ‘wars.’” As a student of espionage, it’s trivial to gauge her. It’s not as if she’s particularly good at hiding it (unless she’s much cannier than you, which cannot be discounted as a possibility). She has no idea what real danger is like, but longs for it anyway. If a river dragon breached or the rat urchin pulled up to a pirate sloop, she’d be as delighted as a child on their birthday. Do you encourage this longing, or tamp it down? *** [b]Giriel![/b] From the moment you hear the bow being pulled across the strings, you know. You deny it to yourself and press onward into the dark, following the song to wake the dead, but the knowing piles up inside you until you make a turn along an overgrown trail and see her, crowned in moonlight and gentle rain, playing her erhu: Peregrine. Around her are N’yari who do not move like N’yari, attending to the graves; and around her sway the shades of the dead, called up slowly and with care. The road to her is down, into a ravine, and then back up, winding around the side of the hill. And, knowing Peregrine, you will need to touch her to even have a hope of getting her attention when she is in the middle of a rite. You don’t need to be next to her to know that her eyes will be closed and her lips parted, deaf to all but the song. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” She looms out of the dark so suddenly, a figure of such terror, that Kayl screams and crumples, his legs failing him. It’s hard to blame him. Her verdigrised armor was shaped by forest gods, curling and snaking about her over-long limbs, and her helmet extends into a long muzzle, locked in a boar-tusked smile. The horns bend inwards before splintering into a mess of prongs, curved and sharp, just like the nails of her gauntlets. In the low light, the eye sockets of her helm are dark pits, revealing nothing. “Have you come as an exorcist, Honored Sister?” Uusha, the Stag Knight, asks, her voice rough and wry, reminiscent of the forest gods themselves. “Or have you come to join the [i]work[/i]?”