[b]Kalaya![/b] “Where are we going? Rot and ruin, that’s what you want to know?” Petony runs one hand through her hair, snarling almost like a tiger. “[i]Princess,[/i] you are going back home to your mommy and daddy. Uusha won’t kill a royal brat, especially if you get married off soon. And that will be the end of that.” She thinks that you’ve failed. That you aren’t, or can’t be, a knight. Partly reflexive contempt, partly still caring about you; she’s not shoveling compost when she brings up the fact that Princess Kalaya Na would be safe from Uusha’s wrath. Uusha takes her oaths seriously, after all. “Now get some sleep. Tomorrow we’re heading back to Lily, and it’s your choice [i]how[/i] you head back.” Marching alongside her, or dangling from a pole carried by her squires, is the implicit threat. If you don’t want to be marched back to Lily and have your parents be told a tale of treachery and betrayal and failure, you had better either stand up to Petony or try to sneak out in the middle of the early morning. [hr] [b]Zhaojun![/b] Maybe it’s the rakshasa, far-off, spitefully lashing out. Maybe it’s one of their ironclad laws of time, enforced by a last flick of her tail. Maybe it’s just that a fox is a creature of betrayal, even envenomed ones. Can you see them? The hot pink paws, burning, burning, lining up at the edge of your mask? Tilt, tilt, turn; remember how they set all those fields afire? And that’s why the goddess of these lands has all those little brown foxes. Your mask falls into the mud, and Fengye, suddenly vulnerable, suddenly bereft of your power, is tackled by a screaming demon maid who, flailing, slaps her in the face hard enough to send her head reeling. “I’m the Sword!” Her battle cry is a pathetic little howl. “[i]I’m[/i] the Sword!” [hr] [b]Naji’s Tale[/b] “My mother drew me out of a dream, wriggling, trying to dig into that comforting fantasy with my teeth to avoid the reality of being born. She had need of another pair of hands with which to work her satins, thread her needles, trim her furs, bead her necklaces, polish her buckles, darn her lace, cut her linens, tan her skins, and arrange her models, and so, I. “I am— was— a weapon in a war. I was—“ (And here she speaks a word in the First Language which conveys the sensation of being one arrow in one quiver in a vast armory, finely-pointed and well-fletched, but useless outside of its purpose: to be set to the string, to be drawn, to be loosed, to sink into flesh and hold fast there, to feel the hot life’s blood run down along your grooves; and yet to know that you are disposable for this purpose, barely cared about beyond your use, one of innumerable darts lying in wait for the War.) “Not one of the soldiers that [i]She[/i]— the other one— the one diminished— not one of her dolls, or her war-engines, or her shrikes. Not swords and armies. My mother made me because everything you make here is wrong, and she wants to mend it where she is able, and part of her thinks that if she does it enough, then she will be able to fix the world itself, and you will understand that you were made to be ruled by the Prelapsarians, and part of her thinks that she can never succeed, so all she can do is to impose her dreams on all of you out of spite. And because she is a thing of spite, so am I; but I spite her by wanting to have forbidden things of this world, girls and their sighs, mine to have and fashion as I like. “But she! [i]She![/i] Witch, she is—!! She confuses, toys with, undoes me; she imperils me and saves me. She refuses to toss me aside now that my purpose is done, but she is not, will not be [i]mine.[/i] [i]Give her to me![/i] I mean, I mean, no, that is what I mean. I want her attention, I want her heart, I want to assail her and be undone, I want to fight a war of dresses with her, I want what is perverse and I will want her until I want to not want her. “I am afraid of this world, which hates me because it hates my mother; I am afraid of how I will want to hurt her once I have her; I am afraid of touching the bars of my cage and being scalded away into nothing. You have ghosts, you have underworlds— but those are postcedent, indecent, not meant for us. When I die I will return to my mother in one form or another; she will draw something like me out of a dream, because she has need of more hands to do her neverending work. “How do I make her love me? [i]Should[/i] I make her love me? If she abandons me I will be devoured by this world, or by my own mother, or by the ache in my heart for her. I am afraid. Please help me. [i]Please[/i] help me.” [hr] [b]Piripiri![/b] Emli tugs against the ropes and tries her best to push herself against you, to find physical comfort, her hair disheveled, her little gasps desperate and afraid. “Pwfah,” she says, and coughs, and licks her lips, and then— “I’m so sorry, I thought— it was the strong girl, Han! I thought the Lady Lotus was having a bad dream, so I came in to ask if she needed help, and, and!!” She rests her head on your shoulder and bursts into shuddering sobs and sniffles, as the terror of her ordeal unwinds itself. It’s not half bad, actually. She’s trying very hard to lie to you! But that’s already been accounted for. You know that she cares about Han and Lotus, and she thinks she’s doing the best thing she can for them (and, at least a little bit, for herself). How you deal with that, well, that’s up to you. [hr] [b]Han![/b] “Oh, [i]walking,[/i] is it?” Her eye drifts past you for a moment, and there is a not-quite-so-distant squeak, as of someone caught appreciating Arms. “Well, of [i]course[/i] whatever you’re doing is none of my business, particularly if you’re spreading the joy of our Sapphire Mother, but I just think, as your sister, you can do better than, well, is she [i]really[/i] a priestess, in a veil like that, or did you ask her to wear it…?” That’s right. She thinks that Lotus (sweet, pretty Lotus) might be a traveling entertainer, swapping kisses and company for money! That’s why she’s getting all up in your grill: she thinks you’re wasting family money set aside for your travel expenses! You know what you should do? You should tell her that actually Lotus is a demigod in disguise and she picked you as her bodyguard. [i]That[/i] would show her. How big her eyes would get! And you would have Won The Argument and would look so amazingly cool and spectacular. You even get a shiny XP if you do that. You don’t even have to yell it, seeing as you’re both in each other’s umbrella space. Just go ahead. Tell her. What’s the harm?