Anarion

Return to Thellamie

"I...I don't know how to grow my heart like that." Yuki's answer is barely above a whisper, and a tear touches the corner of one eye, but does not fall. She does not cry, not here. She just doesn't know where to go yet.

"I feel like...I had an aunt back home who would make big meals and all the family would show up all the time. But I don't know how to cook and I...back home I don't think my generation is ever going to be able to afford big houses like she had until she dies and passes it on to someone. And...and I never really thought about why everyone shows up anyway and now that I do I'm not sure that it's just that the food is good and the space is nice, even though it isn't not those things either." Yuki gets all tangled up in her sentence and pauses, staring at her redrawn heartblade, her axe that she balances horizontally in her two hands. She doesn't pull at it, just stares, brow furrowed and eyes deep in thought.

"Maybe...you'll have to show me. What blade I became? I don't think I can see it. When I look at this axe, now, it doesn't feel like I've become anything more than what it is. And all I hear is that rot dragon asking me if I'm some kind of lumberjack knight."

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

War

It's shockingly easy to clear up the space, thanks to the fire you started, and assuming that you are not concerned with putting the fire out. If you are concerned with putting the fire out or any effects on the local ecology, then please scratch out "easy" and replace it with "horrendously difficult, actually." But, going on the assumption that the fire isn't an issue for you, the fact that you've changed sides, shot a marauder and generally made the space inhospitable for people who were trying to carry out a raid means that anybody who still had a mount has gotten as many allies as they can fit on that mount and then withdrawn from the battlefield towards the east.

Your new allies, the leader of whom has introduced herself has Qiyun Woo of the Peoples who follow Sandrea (roughly translated) currently have a tactical interest in relocating away from the fire to assess their supplies and casualties. You do not yet know their operational objectives, but can discern that security from your previous comrades is likely high on their list, making you a potentially valuable source of intelligence (although your former allies did not share the location of their primary camp with you, only their nearby outpost located on the cliffs east of your current location at the southern edge of the deep valley cleft into the region by the earthquake in the past. They determined that this was likely secure due to the cliff protecting their backs and neither you nor they have familiarity with the hunting giant cliff lizards yet.

You are, of course, free to determine what to volunteer to your allies. If it's little, then you can describe your focus as you accompany them roughly southwest along the coast to regroup.

Harvest
Once you begin following the cat, it begins moving and clearly has a route for you, heading almost due south away from the fire. You might expect this to simply be an instinctual escape path (and it is at least not parallel to the path that War is taking, causing the two of you to diverge in location). However, that expectation would be underestimating the great hunting cats of modernity. Where it actually takes you is into a fairly well-camouflaged cave network, leading down and branching in multiple directions. It doesn't go far, at least for the moment, but it clearly views the caves, full of damp moss and fungi as they are, as a safe place from the fire and a refuge for it.

"I...think this might be where the traders come from sometimes" Ailee says, though she sounds hesitant. Maybe a best guess. If she's right, that would mean that these caves would take you into the Wal'nt tunnels somehow, cutting back around to the north underneath the fire.

Return to Thellamie

The scene is a sudden shower of sparkly rainbow fireworks, accompanied by no sound at all save for the thump of air caused by the annoyed flicking of a leopard's bushy tail.

Yuki sighs and pulls her heart axe out again, slowly and carefully, as she stands by the window and looks out at the snow. She pulls upon it, and it seems to thin in the center and almost stretch like someone blowing glass, but then it shatters again into a thousand rainbow sparks that vanish into the air.

"Damn it!" she says, putting a hand on the glass and taking a break. "When you said that the whole trick is reimagining your heart, I really did think it would be easy. Oh, all I have to do is imagine my heart manifesting into two pieces. But that sounds like a broken heart, and I've never really had a broken heart. High school flings don't count and when I try to think of how I felt breaking up with my last girlfriend all I get is this shower of sparks anyway. I was kind of hoping that it was gonna be like the Matrix and if I could just understand the right reality, then I could do whatever with it. But you weren't kidding when you said I could learn the trick but I wouldn't be able to do it, huh?"

Yuki sighs and rubs her head back and forth against the cool glass. It felt so nice feeling the cool, solid window against her fluffy ears. One of the coolest parts of being in Thellamie was having these way more sensitive kitty ears and the feeling of the glass against them was incredibly soothing. Maybe this is why cats back home always headbutted people back and forth.

"What does it even mean that the natural shape of my heart is a big axe instead of something more subtle and finesse oriented? Why can't I pick? Or why didn't it just change automatically when I trained on a thin sword and my whole body got comfortable with those motions? Why doesn't wanting something new with all my heart do the trick? Heartblades are really picky about which kind of heart they take account of is all I'm saying!"

She's not whining, really. She's just a little tired and there's something about trying this that makes her heart itself feel like it's getting a bit stretched out. She's not even sure if that was good or not, maybe it meant she was on the right track. Yuki picks up her head and looks over at her old friend supervising her and what she hopes is her new friend sipping hot cocoa. "Can you tell me what it's like for you, Eclair? Like, when you first learned to do this, to change up your heartblade to different forms, what were the feelings that let you change your heart this way?"

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

Qiyun Woo
"Sorry to say, but I have no idea what that is and I doubt I have the authority to grant it to you."

Small talk helps you aim. Your rifle does not have five rounds though, you have two, and you aren't sure if you should offer the opportunity to reload. So you banter while you load up your two shots, check the sight, check the barrel, and ensure the quality of your gun.

"Not to mention, who gave you that objective? Are you annexing uh...California you said, for yourself? For somebody else? Kind of a strange objective for someone riding into the frontline of battle too, if you ask me. In the books I read, that sort of thing is usually the job of some big planner or village chief, right?"

You line up your first shot. Aim. Miss just a hair to the right, about where one of the bullets from the fan fire already landed. Probably the wind from the fire, that's stronger than you're used to and that can affect a bullet.

"Well, anyway, since you added to the conditions after we agreed, I assume that means I get to as well. So, if I win, you quit your side and join mine, and I might even get you a better pistol."

You toss your head once, feel the wind blow your hair and the strain in your neck finally start to ease up. Adjust, recenter, and...there it is, right there. You already know as you pull the trigger. Dead center through the ring of the robot's shots.

"So, you got a name?"

Ailee
"I uh, dunno. Probably not? But it's, like, here and not running away from the fire. Which I think is weird behavior for cats? I mean, like, I don't have a lot of data points for fires and cats directly. But everybody who used to talk about cats was like pretty adamant that cats run away from danger and get somewhere high up and this one is sticking around us instead. Maybe it wants you to go with it?"

Return to Thellamie

Yuki giggles. Once. One time, single giggle. This is the most terrible slip up she has ever made. She cannot let on that she's imagining the two girls in front of her in a yuri manga trying to split an ice cream sundae at a food court and growing increasingly distressed as they each try to give the biggest piece to the other one and the sundae is melting and they're both blushing and...no. Everyone present here would die of embarrassment if they knew what Yuki was thinking about right now and that giggle was the greatest betrayal of her life, actually.

She clears her throat and dutifully listens to Eclair, and her ears definitely did not twitch nervously. Who even decided that cool cat ears would just twitch nervously on their own, what the heck?! "Y-yes, of course. It's just a short sword lesson, I wanted to learn how to split up my heartblade into different shapes and Ec-the mystery builder (get a hold of yourself Yuki) said she could teach me the principles really fast and then I can practice on my own. You're more than welcome, the room we were promised is from Sulochana, princess of Crevas, so I'm sure it's very spacious and has more than one couch in it, like basically guaranteed."

A pause. She's not quite sure what to say next. "S-so, um, please consider this my formal invitation to join us in our hotel room safe from the uh...rigors of the golden ball. For whatever...um...planning you might need."

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

Qiyun Woo

You wipe sweat from your brow and brush your hair back for whatever avail it might offer you. The fires set in the terrain are making the air thick and hazy and it is hard to think straight. You are, however, a pretty good thinker. You hold up your weapon, a relatively simple semi-automatic rifle. The kind of equipment that can be serviced with any materials on hand and stay functional, which you know how to use like your own hand and for which you are a renowned shot. "I'd like to set the terms as shooting, but not at each other! We can both agree to try and hit a target and whoever gets the best shot with five rounds fired is the victor."

You look around. There are fewer targets than you'd like, and the fire makes the air shimmer. But, there are plenty of trees, some that stand out. "There, in Sandrea's trail, there's a big tree with a hanging frond that's about equidistant from both of us. We'll aim for the center of that frond, whoever gets the closest out of five shots wins. And uh...concedes the...er...uh...gets bragging rights for winning the duel."

You still have no idea what you're dueling for and the robot did not add to this point, so you think maybe the best thing is to just tell the robot that it is a very good robot if it bests you at marksmanship and then leave quickly with your caravan.

Ailee
You decide that words of sympathy probably aren't the right thing for someone going through an identity crisis that might also involve perceiving in multiple places at once. So you go for gentle fairy shimmer sounds while projecting yourself hovering nearby sympathetically, your hair blowing slightly in the wind being kicked up by the fires for that extra bit of physicality. That's kind of nice, right? Like, within your limited sphere of influence, you can offer your new companion something as close to a sympathetic arm as you can manage in your current state.

After a moment though, it occurs to you that you have a much better sympathy option, which is to look around for your cat friend, who jumped off Sandrea before her cliff jump and is in the nearby forests on the other side of you from the fire, but still lingering nearby the two of you. "Oh hey, um, there's that cat you fed who's still here. You're the one who can walk and touch things, so you should probably, like, make sure it's okay right?"

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

Qiyun Woo

Is this good? You're...not sure. Like, objectively it's very bad. The primal ape part of your brain is screaming at you aaaah fire run away!!!!. But you now have the sense that if this robot really wanted you dead, you'd already be dead and that ignoring it is the worst possible thing you can do, so specific fear tells primal fear to shove it and kicks it into the corner for a panic nightmare later. Also, the part of you that's a level-headed commander and feels the social obligation for every other person here thinks that maybe this is actually good because none of your people are hurt by the fire and nobody is being shot at anymore.

Okay, deep breath. Ugh, deep breaths hurt and you desperately wish you were ten years younger. Youth really is wasted on the young, especially in a nomadic lifestyle. You know that sometimes the cave folk will accept people from your tribe as retirees if they come with enough of a tribute to not be a burden on their new community. But you really are supposed to make it at least ten more years before you do that. Also at least one more hour, so suck it up, deep breath.

"Um...okay. I'll duel you. I'm...not really sure you got the objective right, or what California is, or what we're dueling for but most importantly, can we make it first blood or first to surrender and not a duel to the death please?"

Ailee
"WHAT THE BLEEEP!" You could have said fuck, there is nothing in particular that would prevent you from saying fuck here, and you know the word perfectly well, but you've always liked the vibe of the cuter streamers who don't say naughty words, and it's funny because of the reference to extremely old world styles of media censorship, so you said the word "bleep" out loud instead. "I was gonna say we have to follow Sandrea and make sure she's okay, but now we have to make sure we're okay! Yo, beekeeper bot, what gives? I'm getting crazy weird readings off that bot that shot all the lasers, same as you. Is there like a 1000 year doomsday clock that somebody just happened to set like three years before the major disaster that sunk the whole coastline?"

Return to Thellamie

"Oh yeah, that makes sense, there's lots of stuff where the idea isn't that hard, but the execution is. Like learning a proper fencing riposte, you're working on a straight line so the idea of maintaining momentum from a parry is extremely simple but then it turns out that, like, you have muscles in your wrists and your arms and your legs that you just never use that way in normal life and so you have to build all of them up properly before you can get your body to do the thing that you think you understand with your head."

Yuki nods, and her ears bob happily. This is great. Talking shop is fun and there's some spirit in Eclair talking about this that makes Yuki's heart hurt less, and she just wants to...to focus.

Like, maybe Purnima Karn-Pana wasn't the right choice earlier. She doesn't regret trying to find something in the snake girl, there's still hope there, but it took like a week of "captivity" and a fling that she knows is grating at Suli's heart just to get a tiny glimmer of something from Purnima. Makes you wonder if she had made the best use of her time in Thellamie is all. But...no don't think about that, focus on Eclair. She nods along, flexes her own arms and wrists where she had worked so hard to build up her fencing memory, so different with a light foil than a huge axe. This...this is catching up with an old friend, and a special one at that.

Since Yuki is nattering on by herself, she barely notices before Eclair walks into this other girl apparently named Mayzie. She mentally kicks herself for not watching where either of them were going before doing her own double take at the fact that Eclair wasn't watching where she was going. Maybe things weren't that much better.

"Mayzie? Oh, do you know the mystery builder?" she asks smoothly. "She was just showing me through the hallways, after she helped save me from an assassin who...er...wait is that a state secret or anything? Um...haha, well, never mind, I'm sure Thellamie balls are filled with assassins doing all sorts of um...assassiny things. Anyway, the mystery builder was going to teach me a new technique to better defend myself and my charges as a knight. It sounds like you two know each other too! Well, my name's Yuki Edogawa. I was operating under a secret identity too but I got...uh kidnapped...yeah kidnapped for a little bit and was announced under my real name at the ball tonight so y'know, that's just how it is." Yuki holds out her hand for a warm handshake. "Pleasure to meet you, though! How do you two know each other?"

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

Qiyun Woo

You carefully consider your options. The robot has stopped, which is good. You are not certain what will happen if you shoot it further, and you are not particularly expert at robotics. Indeed, among your people, who are specialized at agriculture and manufacturing sturdy mobile equipment, the fact that you roughly know what robotics is puts you in the upper half. So you don't think anybody else with a gun now is going to do any better than you either. Negotiations seems desirable in this situation. That said, the robot is crazy and maybe that's worth pointing out.

"Are you crazy? If I step out from the barricades to duel you, one of your buddies there will shoot me or stab me in the back! What in the volcano dragon's underbelly do they even want with us? If it's food and gear, tell them to stop shooting, the price of it can't be worth multiple lives!"

Return to Thellamie

Sulochana should never take up poker. Her face is like gazing at one of those ancient bath mosaics that captures the major stories of a saint's life. Just piece after piece laid out so clearly in a nice clear line, each piece of the story in a perfect frieze.

It's a pity that the story she was telling was so pained. Not even wrong. Just...she yearned so hard. Like Aadya yearned so hard. Like Juni...no actually Juni used to yearn like that but she found something else and now all her yearning was narrowed and different and that was really beautiful. But Suli hadn't gotten there. She might, she might find that special something with Hazel, and Yuki wanted to support her. But then Suli also wanted to be selfish and greedy and the feeling of her need overwhelmed a moment that was supposed to be for Yuki, sent her mind hurtling into its own set of contemplations.

But then, most of the time, Yuki's a much better poker player than Suli is. She's a dexterous girl, too, and she'd done the classic vulnerable girl pool shark routine right out of the gate until everyone in her high school knew not to mess with her (or found it funny to let it happen to someone new) so she understood the feeling Suli was feeling. It wasn't wrong either, and well, there's only so much a vulnerable girl can take before she decides that she's not going to get what she wants and gets back to playing the game.

Lucky for Yuki then that the moment of kitten cuddles and snake snuggles passed so quickly like the beautiful dream it was. And Eclair's not the only one putting her mask back on. There would be time later to talk about Eclair's heart. The heart that Yuki had seen. The heart that screamed in pain in the middle of what should have been the coolest duel in the universe. But you don't rip the heart out of someone who just put on a mask. And there would be time later. Yuki would find the time. That's the conclusion. She's going to force time to her will and will make the time. She will make the time to get Purnima Karn-Pana somewhere better, and she'll find the time to help Suli get where she needs to be, and when Aadya crashes out, she'll land somewhere and Yuki will find her and comfort her. And at the end...well...it will work out or it won't and she'll just have to see how it goes.

Her tail flicks exactly once, sharp and prim. "Yes, sword lessons in a hotel room. We'll have to let the ball sort itself out because I am not passing up this opportunity for sword lessons. I need to do something different with my heart blade. The axe is great, but I need defense, and something faster, and I saw the Khatun draw a dagger from a heartbow and it was magical. I didn't come to Thellamie to NOT learn how to draw out a heart knife on command."

She turns to Suli and grins and it is a genuine grin that hits her eyes because the key to a good poker face is to really feel what you're selling. It's a genuine grin, it's real and it's kind and this is Yuki, it's just not all of Yuki because the other part of her that cried for Aadya is too tired to keep crying out for something she's not going to get right now. "Thank you for coming Suli. It means more than you'll know. And...take my word for it that the Mystery Builder whose identity nobody knows is not a criminal and is not a threat to Civelia or the faun or, I think, anybody except maybe one person, but that's a secret." She gives her cutest wink, and follows that up with a quick hug for Suli before she gathers up her silver dress in her arms and beckons all three of them to exit, leaving the sauna cool and empty.