[b]Machi of the Ōei![/b]

Who [i]is[/i] this girl?

There is such a [i]spirit[/i] to her— the same that your dragon, your stone-heart, denies whistles through her own heart. By the time the ostentatious flower-petal tackles you around the midriff and you tumble head over tail down groundwards, your body is stinging delightfully, in ways that will ache soon like your initiation rite, and there is laughter on your lips.

Your battle-sisters gasp and scatter, seeing you, greatest of all of them, come tumbling down. The ruffled one tries to force your wrists together to loop silly ties around them, and you strain and do your best to shake her off.

Then this little firebrand, this wind-girl, this knight of knights, tilts your chin up with her empty sword, and such a strange and wonderful sword it is. And you blink the mud from your eyes so you can stare up at her like the eagle stares up at the sun.

You shake off the other knight with a yowl, and that earns you a smack (so delightful a smack) on the cheek with the empty sword. You push yourself up onto your knees, and the empty sword lifts to punish you. Ha! Let it! But you will have your way first. You, Machi, always impress your will upon the soft, silly lowlands below.

“They are [i]yours,[/i]” you purr, lifting your wrists together for the little knight. “Not hers. Your victory, wind-girl. Your prize, until my sisters ransom me. Or until I escape.” You grin. That’s a challenge, wild-heart. The bonds haven’t been forged that can hold Machi of the Ōei if she wants to undo them. The least she can do, then, is make you work for it.

You take a String on this wind-girl, showing her your mighty heart and your respect for a cunning opponent. But you then offer it back to her: Wind-girl, if you take Machi of the Ōei as your trophy, if you bind her fast and show that you respect her strength, if you silence her and thus show you respect her cunning, then you may have an XP from the wild mountain-peaks and the cities beneath them. And if you admire the mighty muscles of Machi, if you run your fingers along them admiringly, if you let your eyes linger long on her dirtied face and her beauty, you may as well announce yourself Smitten at once, for who would look upon these things and not fall madly in love with the champion of Grandmother Moon? Yes, to the envy of her dragon, even! Is it not the place of a N’yari to be adored and desired by these silly petal-soft lowlanders, after all?

[hr]

[b]Fengye![/b]

“It is your place!”

She really was more bearable when she couldn’t talk, wasn’t she? The sled slowly works its way along muddy roots, and the Maid slowly (but with an almost frightening intensity) makes her way along through the uncharted woods of the Flower Kingdoms, as if she will just stumble across some hidden shrine or woodsman’s trail. And as she does, she rants her blasphemous gospel.

“Even you, debased as you are, stupid and rebellious, remember a little bit of what you were made for! Don’t you all honor your parents? Your mother and your father, you devote yourselves to them. They gave you life, they gave you means to survive, they protected you— and if you forced them out of their own home, threw them in a pit and locked them away, do you think that anyone would praise you? Should praise you?” She stops to sputter and wipe hair out of her face. “And that is because you remember [i]us![/i] We made you, we shaped you for your purposes, we gave you everything you needed, and you ungrateful, backstabbing little wretches sided with the gods! As if they see you as anything but useful pawns on the board! When you were with us, you had purpose, [i]cosmic[/i] purpose! You were where you were meant to be!”

The sled catches on a rock and the Maid sprawls. She punches the mud with a helpless, pathetic growl, as if trying to punch the world for betraying her. The sniffle must just be your imagination.

The flipside of what she was just saying, however, is easy enough, isn’t it? When everything was in its place, she was where she was meant to be, too. What would it mean for her to not be part of that war?

But maybe that’s not what you’re thinking about, either. What would your parents say if they saw the two of you now, and listened to the Maid’s complaints?

[hr]

[b]Han![/b]

There is a waterfall in the highlands, in a place not impossibly far from where you grew up. It is known as the Moon’s Drop by both highlanders and the N’yari, and there is an understanding: whatever your grievances, no fighting by the shores of the Moon’s Drop. The roar from it is the kind that sinks into your thoughts. The churn is fierce, and there are all sorts of tales about what might lie beneath the confusion and tumult of that pool. It’s said that seeing it for the first time makes you forget how to speak.

Her fingers are so soft, so gentle, so careful. She lets you bundle her into your angles, your absences, your firmness.

There is a place where the colorless flowers grow. The color they were meant to have was eaten in a battle at the beginning of time, and now they are an absence of color, and they steal the colors from everything around them. And it is said that if a lover plucks a colorless flower for her beloved and ties it in their hair, the flower will take on the colors that suit them best, and the truer their love, the brighter those colors will burn, borrowed for a time by a flower that lost everything else an impossibly long time ago. It is said, too, that when the winds strike the flowers and run their fingers through the petals, you can see the colors of the winds, which were made in the high airs and of which only the N’yari know the secrets.

Lying down just felt right, didn’t it? The pillows were easy enough to pull out of the closet, and the two of you curl up under a blanket on the reed mats.

There’s a city that’s the most wonderful city in the world, and it was built on top of an ancient city of the devils, and that’s why its buildings are all black stone and why all its towers are strange and terrible, but the people of that city have covered that stone in colors, and in silks, and in flowers, and have made of it a miracle. And you can buy and sell anything there, and you can dress how you like, and you can meet as many people as you please. And in that city, even if it’s for a day, you can be free of everything and simply be.

She’s the one who falls asleep first, curled around your arm, fingers interlaced with yours, and try as you might to dislodge her, she just curls up tighter and mumbles something in her sleep, and eventually the thought of bothering her is too much to bear, and she smells nice, doesn’t she? Like flowers. Like freshly washed clothes. Like something you’ll never forget.

And eventually, you fall asleep, too, and dream of lush grass, and flowers, and blue curtains. And there was something about the little brown foxes, and a girl who gave you a secret in a box, and when you opened it up it was a kiss that sank through your skin and made the whole of you drunk, and you sang silly songs with your bare feet in the fountain…

And when you wake up, you wake up smiling, and with Lotus’s face smooshed into your hand, unveiled, loudly snoring.

[hr]

[b]Piripiri! Giriel![/b]

Golden Banneret of Miles is sniffing on the shore of the river, and letting a prayer slip lick at the lazy rain-clotted breeze, seeing which direction she’s to lead you in next to reach her promised crossroads. The hum of insects is loud, almost deafening, but that’s the rainy season for you. If it’s not the thud of raindrops on an umbrella, it’s the bugs who hide under leaves and come tunneling out of the mud, roaring their strange and inhuman drives at each other.

You did bring umbrellas, didn’t you?