[b]Piripiri![/b]

The warlock is short.

It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust to the light and get a good look at her. She is looking over you with an appraising eye. The hand curled under her chin is flesh and blood; the one cupping her elbow is made of ornate green-stained brass, from fingertip to bare shoulder. From the old burn scars visible there, the fitting was not a pleasant process.

“Well,” she says, finally. Her smile is a knife. “It looks like the rat actually brought me something worthwhile. If it isn’t one of the spoiled merchant brats. The sort of girl that thinks money is a substitute for lineage.”

Azazuka’s spirited attempts at insults continue even when the warlock grabs her by the curls and viciously yanks her head back. “I wonder how much your family will contribute to the Work, thinking I’ll give you back. Thinking that I will have a place for those traitors and cowards in the kingdom to come.”

She considers Azazuka, red-faced, drool bubbling on her gag as she tries to pull her hair free, spirited and braver than you might have expected. Her voice drops, a ragged hoarseness at the edges. “But I might find a place for [i]you,[/i]” she says, trying and failing to keep her voice steady. “Every queen needs a pet, after all.”

She shoves Azazuka down onto the tiles, hard, and steps on her. There’s a sadistic glee in her grin as Azazuka writhes under her foot, the sort of nastiness that you might recognize from your school days: a subject of bullying now come into power, drunk on it. “Faithless. Honorless. Arrogant. Pathetic. I’ll make you learn your [i]place.[/i]”

Then she pulls back, takes a ragged breath, and composes herself. “And what is [i]this[/i] one,” she asks, looking at you as Azazuka tries and fails to get back up onto her knees. “A guard? A suitor? A sycophant?” She lets her eyes drift up and down your half-dressed body. “A whore?”

She squats, cups your cheek with her brass hand, traces the ball between your lips with her thumb. “Plain,” she concludes. “Unimportant. [i]Disposable.[/i]”

Do you gather information, scion of Hymair, do you read into the bitterness of her eyes and the eagerness of her cruelty? Or do you show her true nobility, entice her with a look of intriguing defiance?

***

[b]Kalaya![/b]

The priestess approaches you on quiet feet, turning her umbrella’s handle in slender fingers. Her shoulders are bare and smooth; her eyes are painted with subtle violet. She considers you before she speaks, and her voice is a soft and smoldering whisper.

“My Mistress is here to advise you, Kalaya-[i]Phraya[/i]. The Flower Kingdoms are in turmoil, and Heaven means to set them into right order. You are to be the instrument of our will. Together, we will do wonderful things. But— as my Mistress bids— we must begin with the Peacock-star. An act of daring, something that will exalt your name.”

When she finally meets your eyes, her eyes are dark and lovely and hard to look away from; the contrast with her bright, expensive veil is even more striking. There are few secrets to that sort of gaze.

Kalaya-[i]Phraya,[/i] as you consider her words, you are yourself evaluated by that even gaze, by this [i]beautiful, enchanting, just-your-type[/i] priestess? Sure, you might have been thinking about that Snapdragon princess, but if you keep looking at the priestess, you really should keep looking at her, doesn’t she look like her, too?

Like her but fully blossomed, even. Better than you could have dreamed. [i]Or perhaps exactly as you could have dreamed, little ditz. Is there anything in your heart but dreams of heroism? Iron and Salt, are we going to have to do a rescue romance?[/i]

Kalaya-[i]Phraya[/i], how could Victorious Vixen of Violets act, or change herself, in order to make you [i]Smitten[/i] with her? [i]And don’t worry about saying it out loud. Your heart squeals like a squeezed songbird. Enough to make a girl... thirsty.[/i]

***

[b]Zhaojun![/b]

There is a [i]surefire[/i] way to make sure Victorious Vixen of Violets wins the heart of Kalaya-[i]Phraya[/i] and wins glory enough to swell her ego. Oldest trick in the book.

Kalaya needs to save Victorious Vixen from peril. It needs to be terrible peril, but the sort that can be controlled by Heaven’s strings: no demons or fairies need apply. Kalaya needs to be seen doing this by onlookers who can sing her praises. And, of course, there must be a contingency plan in case Kalaya falters.

This much would be clear before the eye of the goddess. So, too, would be the ease with which these two knights could be maneuvered: like pieces on a Gateway board.

Now, the real question is what sort of peril? Wild animals are a classic, easily warded from causing risk, but perhaps anything smaller than an elephant stampede would just be too [i]ordinary.[/i] The local moon-touched barbarians, perhaps, would make for an excellent choice; one could play on the extant animosities in order to increase Kalaya’s own glory, if a suitable champion was met and defeated in battle, a squirming Vixen tossed over one shoulder the entire time. Consider also the Dominion, beloved by Mars; seeing Venus’s champion overcome them in the name of love would be a thrill, would it not? One would need to falsify evidence and have her arrested for crimes against the local Embassy, of course, or arrange for her to catch the eye of the local Dominion emissary.

Whatever must be done, surely Victorious Vixen of Violets will understand the necessity. She is, after all, the perfect student, submissive to her Mistress’s will, and [i]not[/i] likely to act on pique. Even if her role requires her to be paraded to a gallows so that Kalaya can knock down the hangman at the last moment, well, of [i]course[/i] she would meekly place her faith in her Mistress.

She can, in fact, be taken as such a dependable asset that there is no reason to inform her of any plans until they are already in motion.

***

[b]Giriel![/b]

With hot, angry, flustered tears in his eyes, Kayl turns and flings himself into the dark, sure-footed as a goat, running away from something too big and fearful for him. He’s gone and away soon enough. You did your part for him.

Well done.

Uusha lowers her hand and rests it (possessively?) on your shoulder. “Not hollowed out by fire yet,” she concedes. “Come with us, Honored Sister. There’s work to be done.”

The choice isn’t really between accepting or politely declining. If you refuse, do you really think Uusha will just let you leave? But if you challenge her to fight, even though she’d fight you one on one... she’s [i]Uusha.[/i]

Do you really think you can fight your way through her to keep your promise? Or perhaps not. You are a witch, after all, and Peregrine is lost in thought; you might be able to call upon the dead or the forest gods. Or perhaps you will stretch that promise long, say to yourself: I will come, Agata, but you will have to wait.

***

[b]Han![/b]

Machi has left herself vulnerable. Not wide open, not her— but she’s expecting you to squirm and fight for leverage and try to roll on top of her, or get her in some sort of lock.

Which means you can sucker punch her right in the kitty bitties and when she flinches, that’s when you get your legs under her and flip her over the side. After that? You’ll have to stop her from climbing back on board the barge, and you have just the tools to use: grab a couple of umbrellas and fend her off with them until she gives up and claws her way back onto the shore. Sure, you might have to break a couple, but what’s a broken umbrella or two, right?

Then use the umbrellas to get Hanaha and Kigi off the barge, taunt the N’yari to keep their attention, grab the priestess, and leg it. If you know anything about Machi (though you definitely know less than you thought you did, apparently, as new avenues of Machi knowing have suddenly revealed themselves), she’ll leave the barge alone to chase the two of you, and she’ll have to call off pursuit eventually or risk being caught out by a knight’s retinue.

Then the wedding party will just need to wait until someone struggles loose or another barge drifts downriver. And, Mother be praised, there’s even the faint glimmer of lanterns far upriver that suggests another might be on its way.

Now all you need to do is look possessive, warm, heavy, needy Machi in her (surprisingly tender) eyes and give her a haymaker to the tits so hard that every gal on the barge is going to flinch in sympathy. Get on that, kitten!