[b]Hazelikins and Yuki...![/b]

A wagon winds through the borderlands of the Khaganate. Let us focus our attention up front, to where a handsome young man is guiding two goblin-stags along the windswept plains, and where a shining young fawn is sitting next to a former heroine, free to speak, to ask the wind what they will, to consider what ending this all shall come to soon enough.

Up front! Let's focus there, please! Not in the back where COMPLETELY NORMAL noises are happening! Keli's going to be coming up there to snuggle up by Hazel soon enough, mark my... just mark it!! It's going to happen!! There's only so much shibari they can demonstrate before they get bored, I swear!!

[hr]
[b]Handmaidens![/b]

One by one you find yourselves in Kel.

It is cold there in the early morning, when the wind whips through the narrow streets, when the warmth of this mountainside nation is locked up tight indoors. The cobbles underfoot are all different shapes and sizes, but they fit together like a perfect puzzle - for this is Kel, where the mines run deep, where crystals shine, and where spires and towers jut out from cliffsides. Kel, where the Goddess first took a breath and looked up at the dancing stars. Kel, where mystics and decadents get drunk on stargazing, where architects hone their craft, where starglasses are worn even at night.

One by one you find yourselves in Kel, alone at first, but doubtlessly drawn together. Bereft of the dark dragon, you still find yourselves drawn - by chance, almost - towards the Ceveline, that labyrinthine monastery-of-monasteries, that sprawling complex spilled across two mountainsides. The starlight flickers eerie on the polished streets.

[hr]
[b]Eclair![/b]

I'm sure the cleaning isn't a compulsion.

It's just that when the Idiot gave you gasping directions to a side-gate in the Ceveline, to a small apartment in the paladin's complex, well, I'm sure that you decided you had enough of a disguise to pass through. And you had Mayzie right there, too, slipping her shoulder underneath the Idiot's other arm.

But she hadn't even properly cleaned in the place before she left. She's still got bowls stacked up next to the sink (or, well, had). She's left bits of exercise equipment scattered across the floor. She let small items build up behind her couch. What else could any knight of the Aurora be doing, as Mayzie sits by the Idiot's bed and strokes the head of the small, sassy lost child?