[b]Eclair, o, Darling Eclair![/b]

Here's a gift for you: tonight, Mayzie's heartblade is a pin. It is properly sized for her hand, and it has ribbons streaming from its globe of a handguard, and it is every color that your hair has even been, coruscating up and down its wicked, jabbing point. And she is leveling it at the hoard coming against you, uselessly, adoringly, in the hopes that she might somehow buy you another moment.

She reaches for your hand, but stops herself at the last moment, as she realizes: she cannot weigh you down. Whatever you do next, you do [i]with[/i] her, but she will not cling. She cannot demand you stay by her side.

She can only hope that she will deserve to stand there with you at the end.

[hr]
[b]Injimo![/b]

The tsundere has just pulled out a heartpin which she doesn't know how to effectively use. Now, I know, and you know, that there isn't a weapon that's been invented on this little world of ours which you don't know how to use, and more importantly, which you don't know [i]how to teach someone how to use.[/i]

Three's better than one when it comes to solving a problem of this size, you know. Even if you feel like you've caused it. Even if you're alone. Even if you can't admit you deserve better.

And doesn't her courage remind you of someone?

[hr]
[b]Yuki![/b]

Juniper has [i]fantasies.[/i] You know. She keeps brushing up against them in conversation and then using too many exclamation marks when she swears up and down that she's just trying to tell you how wonderful the huntresses of the plains are. She wants to be [i]claimed[/i] by her big muscle wolf mommy, and she'd be dizzy with delight to be tied up and thrown into peril just like, um. You know. [i]Somebody.[/i] Who is [i]very cleverly[/i] evading the hunt [i]and you don't get to ask me how.[/i] I need to keep some secrets, you know!

But it's [i]wrong[/i] for her to be here, weighed down with chains which writhe like serpents, in a room which is dark and hot and dry and [i]heavy.[/i] A room full of shadows which drink light. A room full of whispers which wind about her throat.

She doesn't even look up as you enter the room. The weight of the chains on her shoulders is too great, and the hiss of hate is too loud. Her hair hangs limp and, looking at how she sits, she reminds you of nothing more than a discarded doll.

This is the heart of the Khatun. Not in a literal stab-and-she-dies sense, but this is what came out of it to confine an [i]unwanted complication.[/i]

"...oh, it's worse in here now," the guard breathes from somewhere impossibly vast behind you.

And then there's the shake of a tambourine. There's the clap of two hands. There's an irreverent little laugh. And there's a swirl of colors, too rich for the darkness to devour.

There is a way through. Trust in my daughters to be your liferaft when you dive in.

[hr]
[b]Hazel![/b]

So here's what you can do, bright little boy clinging to the ebb of his stolen light: you can lose, and keep her attention, and feel like you did such a good job, and eventually you will be saved by Yuki on her way out, and you'll be twitterpated and everyone will coo at you and say that you did the best that you could.

[i]Or. You. Can. Win.[/i]

In this moment, you suddenly see it: the thrust, the flinging into her arms, the way you'll knock her down. You'll have won your first heartblade duel ever, and then suddenly you'll be in charge of what happens next. She could still call for help. She could struggle back to her feet despite the overwhelming shock of being stabbed with your heart. Suddenly it'll be [i]your[/i] turn to distress someone.

Can you do it? Or do you flinch and stay the safe and easy boy?