[b]Giriel![/b]

“You know,” Peregrine says, off-handedly. “The one they’re supposed to be angry at. The foreigner.” Peregrine: too busy to learn even Cathak Agata’s nickname. “Demons,” she adds, abruptly, vaulting nimbly over your question. “Tell me more. Clade?” That is, what common ancestor titan. “Malfeas?” That is, the Broken King. Not a name to be used lightly at all; Peregrine has it on a leash, the same way she uses the names of gods. “Cecelyne? Adorjan?” The Mother of Deserts, who is the King’s robe. The Fivefold Wind, who is the King’s breath. “...Qaf?” A crooked smile; she resonates with the Endless Mountain, driven like a spear through the Broken King, and has been known to call up its Hollow-sages to argue theology.

But of course it is the King. The other Titans would leave different signs and spoors, and it is the King who resonates best with the hearts of the people of the Flower Kingdoms. The Mother of Deserts may have her cults in Gem, dressed in silver veils, and the Fivefold Wind may have her cultists race up and down abandoned towers in far Chiaroscuro, but the Broken King reigns here.

Of course you will confirm this, and things will unfold from there; Peregrine has been unleashed on something Interesting. If it is to placate her witch, of course Uusha will consent to calling up demons, binding them fast, and bidding them answer, in the depths of Uusha’s mountain den. Will you take part, Giriel?

Will you parlay with demons as Peregrine wraps song and will tighter and tighter about them? If so, tell us what it is like to prepare, and roll to Call or Commune, as you like— depending on how far you push. One is simpler, the other more elaborate a working, with greater risk and reward.

***

[b]Kalaya![/b]

“Watch yourself, bud,” Petony growls, embarrassment leading easily to anger. “You have a lot to learn about being a knight, after all. When Heaven provides a beautiful girl in need of protection, it is wrong [i]not[/i] to admire her. You insult her, otherwise, and not content with that, you insult [i]me[/i] as well.”

She steps close, bristling. “So go ahead, Kalaya-[i]phraya[/i],” she says, over the priestess’s feeble attempts to defuse the situation. “Make your apologies and there won’t be any need for me to teach you respect for your elders and for the lovely little flowers of the world.”

***

[b]Zhaojun![/b]

The wind-spirits do indeed take the messenger of Heaven to her destination. They simply succumb to their desire first, and that is why the journey there is undertaken both at incredible speed and in a slowly-tightening gyre, lashing round and round the Flower Kingdoms beneath the silver-streaked clouds. The leopard beneath her pumps its hips furiously, at every moment threatening to unseat her, to send her toppling below, a fall to be feared for its lack of dignity more than any injury.

Lights and lanterns flash by like bolts of lightning. Faces frozen in the moment of seeing, then overlaid by the sight of hundreds more. Farmers in the fields; soldiers on the march; a festival of lanterns in a prelapsarian city; a daughter of a god chasing after a daughter of dragons; witches gossiping in the mountains, speaking names of old power; the Chosen One arguing with that other fool knight; a jungle that the leopards shy away from, stinking of Hell’s old fires.

The tighter Zhaojun clings, the louder and more delighted Jenny Tosstrees laughs; the louder her laughter, the faster her leopard streaks through the high airs; the faster they go, the tighter Zhaojun clings fast. But somehow Jenny is still limber enough to turn in her seat, take Zhaojun by the chin, and steal a kiss from that stone mask, smearing blue lipstick on the white stone—

And then she melts into mist and lets Zhaojun tumble into the mud in front of Machi of the Ōei, who— bedraggled, bedrenched, and frustrated— is making good time back to her hidden camp. Spooked, the N’yari go for their swords while making impressive jumps backwards, hunching and hissing to seem larger and scarier than this newcomer.

“You picked a bad time to fall out of that tree, lowlander,” Machi growls. Her warband, not yet knowing who they deal with, begin to circle around, cutting off avenues of escape, getting ready to pounce.

***

[b]Han![/b]

You walk alone. The rain picks up, becoming leopard’s teeth— you know, when it feels like each drop was tossed down from on high to hit you, personally. Your shoulders hunch, which does nothing to protect the back of your neck, and you instinctively make for a copse of trees, dark on black, which will give you a moment of shelter from the rain in their lee. Everything is soaked; your skin is almost burning hot against your clothes. The air is stiflingly humid, and there is no respite. You might as well be swimming in the river. And there’s no Machi here to laugh and challenge you to a race to those trees and pull you into the foliage once you get there and peel you out of your clothes so that you can try vainly to use her fur as a towel. You are alone. And you always will be. Because you push everybody away, because you know the truth: you do not deserve to be loved.

Someone touches your shoulder. You shake it off, spin around, ready to make them [i]regret[/i] trying to—

It’s the priestess. Holding half an umbrella, awkwardly. Heaving and trembling from having to run to catch up to you (or the fear that she was about to get clocked, don’t forget that).

“Thank you,” she blurts out. “I didn’t say it. And I wanted to. Thank you. For saving— us. And.” She stands there a moment. Shuffles from foot to foot. The [i]And[/i] hangs in the air. The tension builds.

“I’m going to the Two Hundred Gates Temple,” she finally admits, unable to look you in the eye. It’s a long detour out of your way. “If you happen to be traveling in that direction, and you don’t mind the company? It’s just that— anything could happen out here. And you fought off an entire raiding party of the savage N’yari, and... well. I’d rather your company than theirs, if you’d have me.”

She. She wants to travel with you. Probably because you’re strong and just protected her, but. After everything you said to her. After Machi kissed you. After her umbrella got broken. And she still wants to go with you?

(Try not to think about the “priestess secures a promise of protection from a monster and then tames them through virtue, spiritual lessons and seductive bondage” genre of stories. That is not what should be springing to mind. Thinking about yourself as a monster in that sort of situation— and besides, you would never— and just because that’s always what the monster thinks to themselves at the beginning before they learn their place— and anyway this little bud couldn’t seductively tie up someone if her job depended on it, definitely!!)

***

[b]Piripiri![/b]

The world in the courtyard is dull, dark green. The leaves are too glossy on the vines that sprout all over the stonework; the rain falls from a bright grey sky, framed on all sides by trees leaning over the walls. You remain in the Flower Kingdoms, though you cannot say where. You have not, perhaps, heard the grim stories of Kingeater Castle.

The courtyard is a mosaic of stones. There once was a gate on one side of the courtyard, but now there is only crumbling stone and empty air. It is too obvious for an escape right now, into a thick and perilous jungle; there are tigers and worse than tigers in the wild places of the Flower Kingdoms, and the path from the gate is quickly swallowed by verdancy. You must know where you are going, from a place like this.

On the other side of the courtyard is a vast circular door. It is shut. Shadows pass behind it, and a sickly green-yellow light plays underneath it when you do not look straight on it. You kneel in the rain and wait, still accompanied by the still soldiers of Hell.

This whole place is... soaked. It has drunk deeply of Hell’s Essence and now is drenched as deeply as a washcloth. Things scrape behind the walls, laughter rings out as if from distant rooms, and the sounds of the jungle all around are muted and dull. And you kneel at the center, at the nexus point of the walls’ attention, and it makes you sweat cold and hard. A lesser woman would begin to panic. But you have been trained. You know how to wait.

Something that is like a small green snake at a glance slithers across the courtyard, knocks on the door with its head. The door creaks open from the other side, and for a moment discordant music blares loud and hot and sharp, and the sounds of battle and hatred and desire, and the yellow-green light stabs its way into the world. The serpent slithers through. The door swings shut, but the light lingers. The light of Hell’s mad green sun. The air is sharp and acrid, like firewand powder.

Some time later, the door opens again. The Laema passes through with her attendants, who none of them bear legs, each and every one with a different scaled tail, each and every one with a different bead-curtained hat, and amongst them all comes the Laema, who like many demons insists that creation bear her marks; that the degenerate ideals and beauties of the world be elevated by her touch. Her robes drag on the ground in a dozen subtle shades of gold; her hair is bound in a vast headdress-wheel, each lock wound about the irregular spokes of a false sun. Her lips are a gash of red and her eyes flicker like Hell’s green fires.

“Disgusting,” she says, as her attendants erect: wardrobes of silver wood, chests of brass, measuring-sashes of gossamer, needles of iron, mirrors of copper, and a great couch for the Laema’s vast coils. “Drab. Muted. Ashamed of itself. Even worse than Whirling-in-Rags’ little pet; at least it attempted something with color. Left to their own devices, they never fail to disappoint.”

Tell us about what the Laema has failed to understand about your clothes and their meaning as she orders them incinerated and has you fitted for fire-blackened brass and sheer green silk, has your hair pulled into a bun and your face painted with green bands on white cheeks, your teeth made black with charcoal, your eyes ringed with the names of the Laema as a signature.

And, if you dare, you will have time enough after the teeth painting to speak: to ask her something, or to flatter her, or to spite her.