[b]Teahouse Ceremony![/b]

Mayzie's doing her very best to take notes, Eclair, but... well, can you blame her for being a little distracted? And not just by your dizzying display of deductive dprowess, or by the cup of tea lightly steaming at her elbow. For this world of ours is undergirded by certain pillars, and one of these is:

[b]The goddess sustains the world, and when she is in danger, the Hero comes to save her.[/b]

She's always been nervous, hasn't she? More concerned with danger than what might be won by daring it. And now she finds herself, like any denizen of Thellamie would, tumbling into a pit without a trusted trampoline at the bottom. [i]We are on our own.[/i]

"...but that can't be right," she says, and what she means is: [i]tell me that we're going to be okay.[/i] Her voice is strained, and her grip on her notebook is tight.

But Aadya, the Rock upon a Mountain, narrows her eyes. She's a hunter after truth, too. "...then it's up to us to save her. All of us."

[hr]
[b]Quest![/b]

I suppose it's impossible for me to [i]not[/i] be a hot mom when I am called upon to beguile, trick and seduce. (The other one, on the other hand? She'd throw a tantrum that every huntress in that place wasn't bowing to her already! Dazzling, psh.) And I [i]do[/i] appreciate the slack in the ankle ropes. That'll just about give them all a fair fight.

Because, after all... I am a star.

A fallen one, certainly. But one nonetheless.

You can feel it, can't you, Hazel? How your light seeps out into the grass, how it makes the grass seem to whisper [i]chase me chase me chase me,[/i] how an entire castle of huntresses surges out after me without giving you so much as a second glance? When there's a prize like [i]this[/i] on the table, who cares about the scraps?

...well, hm.

Okay, so.

That one with the eyepatch? The Kel paladin jacket heavily customized and patched up? The capacity to pull a [i]very big[/i] heartsword out of her heart? The one still standing at the gate, smoking? Um. Well. She's... she must be one of the Khatun's khans. The kind who doesn't run, but sets her hounds after the prey.

You're going to have to stop her because, even with my light all about us, if she gets her hands on me... well, we'll have to cut to a different scene entirely!! This one will end up Patreon-only!

(That's the right reference, isn't it, Yuki?)