Anarion

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

The young man finishes stepping up to the front of his little group and looks you over. "You lack...names?" He's not sure. "I'm not really sure what you mean? Like...the cat doesn't have a name, it's just a hunting cat. Unless you mean you want to know the taxonomy and part names? In which case..." he gestures to a woman next to him dressed in that same garb with her hair cut short and wearing a pair of silver earrings that look like dewdrops. "We do usually travel with an animal husbandry expert." He doesn't say biologist which perhaps suggests a lack of a broader shared scientific community and accompanying pool of knowledge. He has told you, by his choice of words, that while the woman who travels with you could tell you much of the creatures you are dealing with, she would be sharing local knowledge and not broadly known, collected, organized knowledge.

He pauses, thinks "or do you mean our names? Or the name of the tunnel? Or, I mean, the tunnel doesn't have a name, but the tunnel network as a whole we call Waln't's run. Though it almost never comes up all the way to the surface so you won't find it here." "Also, the cat looks to have had its fill, so if you lay no claim to any of this, we could use most of these materials you've prepared."

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

A task is a form of meditation. A quiet respected by Ailee and by the snores of a drugged cat as you work your way through the body, the trove of data it represents, and the subtlety of turning that trove into new resources.

What breaks your meditation, then, is the changing world. The clink and clang of a…caravan perhaps? Nothing so grand as the armada of vehicles and beasts that had chased Sandrea. But following in the wake of a rock-breaking lizard are people. The people of the caves coming to explore a new tunnel that before had been hidden and now is widened enough to fit a beast pulling a cart. This too is a sort of lizard, but smaller than the one you and the cat encountered, with a heavier and more centrally set legs bred to pull a cart without being too skittish. Almost a mule of lizards.

Behind it, a simple wooden cart, mostly empty save for a few sacks and a toolbox. And with it, six people. Two handling the lizard, and four marching behind. A small expedition. They are dressed for cave travel. Light animal hide clothing that covers the elbows and knees to avoid scrapes. Lights on their belts. Small computers on two of them from your scans. Not networked, devices for local analysis and notes with all the data they need stored on them for use when surrounded by rock.

They stop once they all come into view. Unsure what to make of you. One of the ones in back steps forward, a young man who looks nervous but also like he is looking more at what everyone else expects of him than he is at you. “Hail…uh…traveler. Is this your kill?” He asks.

Return to Thellamie

A mask. Yuki obeyed quickly before, was treated to an awe-inspiring light show to marvel at, so at first she didn’t think of herself. But she has put on a mask. And she has read many a faerie story in her life about masks.

A mask isn’t just to hide, it’s a new self. The Yuki of a few moments ago had been set on spending the evening with her friend, Eclair. She had hoped to stay still, and learn how to grow her heart somehow. She had donned a maid’s outfit to get a soup-sized coffee through a crowd so she could play Watson to the detective.

But now she’s wearing a mask and the theater has started. Eclair was led away while declaring her strength even as the music started and Yuki was swept into the dance. She cannot follow into a confrontation with a Star. Not as she is now. Not as a masked maid, not as a dancer in the crowd.

But neither does her heart break in that moment. How could it, when she is wearing a mask over it? When she is whirling with the flowery dead and the tempo is speeding up so fast that her heartbeat can’t keep up and she can only keep her feet thanks to the balance offered by a tail.

This is a shadow ball lit in pearl by the shining heart of her friend. And so long as Eclair’s light holds and her truth holds (“a mask is recognizable as a mask) there is nothing to fear and no reason to fight the scene.

She laughs then and kicks with the chorus line of maids, her lace apron flaring up one two three with the waltz! And she twirls and finds herself arm in arm with Hazel Valentine Fletcher himself. And he is laughing and twirling and dressed as the Main Character to boot (to boots, based on how good his footwear is looking).

“Don’t ask how, silly boy” says the masked maid as she swings him and laughs like a madwoman. “We dance in the ball of a Star. There are a million hows. When it comes to magic, there’s only one question to ask.” She smiles then and giggles like a little girl who’s in on a secret. “Ask ‘why’”

She lifts him then into a twirl with her dancing the base and Hazel in the air. “You’re the child filled with starlight that everybody wants this time. And all the magic brought you here!” She holds him aloft with strong arms, made stronger by the mask and that ball and a kitty’s control of her own weight. “I…I’m just a maid twirling my friend. I don’t know why you got picked, or why you came here, or why a challenge between maid knights would start a masked ball. But you might! And if you don’t, try asking. You are the princess, after all.~”

She whips her head around so the spin won’t make her dizzy and holds the boy until her arms ache. Because she’s just a maid twirling the princess. The second her number ends, he’ll be swept away.

Return to Thellamie

Yuki moves quickly. She trusts Mayzie because Eclair trusts Mayzie, and she particularly trusts Mayzie's understanding of the Chrysanthemum. So she reaches into her pocket and slips her mask over her face and has just finished pulling it tight in the back when the lights go out.

For that instant, there's something enchanting about it. Yuki feels like she's in a mystery play or at least some kind of dinner theater experience. One almost expects a spotlight to appear near the door of the room and a masked phantom to stride forward, flinging a cape over her shoulder with the sort of confidence of a Kpop video.

And then, then the room is alight with pearly white light, shining forth from hundreds of motes and shards and strange little shapes like a field of glass sculptures each lit from within.

Yuki lets out a delighted gasp, and her hands creep onto the table so that she can lift herself up on tippy toes and lean forward to see over the heads of everyone present and catch every last bit of this unique piece of art with wide delighted eyes from behind her maid's mask.

She will be looking around the room taking it all in for whatever happens next.

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

Imagination is not the sine qua non of sapience, but it's one of the better traits. And taking apart this lizard is, in many ways the fount of imagination. Its body is a story written in genetics: a story of the sorts of people you once knew, and the way that their ideas and their idiosyncrasies developed when left to themselves for millennia.

This lizard is not a hunter: its ecology appears derived around devouring fungus, but its body contains elements of zinc and titanium in quantities that necessitate being part of its diet in substantial quantities. This creature can only sustain itself in an ecosystem where historically valuable and rare metallic elements are so commonplace that they suffuse the stationary growth of the region. Can you imagine the planning that went into making this work? The care in timing necessary to have a species like this become emplaced? Somebody probably uttered the word "synergy" at least once in a board room.

Trace radioactive elements, primarily some amount of curium are present in the creature. Curium is an odd thing to find, since as far as modern science was aware when you last checked, it could only be made synthetically (though was potentially stable in some isotopes once made in this manner, leading to its use in the Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity Mars rovers as a power source). This implies that there is some kind of intentional nuclear reaction occurring or that occurred in the environment. The time is impossible to place since the half-life of stable curium is in the tens of millions of years, so detecting whether this is floating around from something somebody did yesterday or a thousand years ago is a rounding error.

The poison is a powerful tranquilizer. This, at least, functions as you expect, it's just a very large and concentrated dose representing a substantial amount of resources expended by this creature to produce and maintain in such quantities. It raises some questions about the sorts of tools humans in the region might possess: a human who built a dart gun using these spines could fell another human with one shot almost instantly, and you've seen the effect on the region's great cats already.

Scales are extremely hard, capable of being used to cut or shape rock without chipping, not surprising given the heavy metals present in the body. The cat seemed to have little trouble, but what that's really saying is that the creatures here are evenly matched with each other but their baseline is extremely high capability to endure or manipulate their environment. This is the kind of thing that someone somewhere once sketched on a whiteboard to explain how they were going to find safety in an irradiated zone without thinking about the more subtle implications of a cave system with creatures whose bodies can break rock.

The creature was cold-blooded, which may explain why it was able to direct so much energy to things like the venom and scales. This implies easy access to places to rest, likely an underground heat source. Probably nuclear? Was this part of the breeding as well, to ensure that the creatures wouldn't spread out of the region? Give them incredible power, ensure they're dependent on a source of energy that can't easily be found elsewhere and would render them highly lethargic if they ever tunneled too far away from their designated zone? This one was close to the surface though. Maybe on the edge of its territory in that case?

Return to Thellamie

Initially, Yuki is hanging on Eclair's every word. This is like being somebody's Watson, or their Ritsuka Fujimaru, so her ears perk up and she sips her sake and makes very appreciative mhmmming sounds and punctuated exclamations. "Oh she purchased your pass?" "Oh gosh, I'd better not tell Aadya about that nickname *giggle*" "that's fascinating, I wonder why she needed to travel so much?" "Oh I never did ask her name, or how she ended up alone in the room, but Aadya might know since she questioned all the paladins, should I ask her?"

But as things are progressing and the throng is so enthralled, it is Yuki who notices that coffee isn't happening. And sometimes you just gotta make something happen yourself. So she pushes and squeezes and cat claws a little to get her way through the throng and into the bustle of the kitchens. And then she snatches the nearest white apron (a working outfit for both kitchen and service, with appropriate lace trim) and sets to work making the strongest cup of black coffee in the biggest cup she can find (it is a soup bowl) that she proceeds to drown in cream. She goes for the good stuff, as best she can tell. Beans from Aestival in what she understands to be a monsoon region from what she's heard of the area, which she learned on Earth is supposed to produce excellent coffee. They don't have the fancy electronics here, but they do have a very beautiful artisan press and plenty of boiling water already going, so it's only a matter of a few minutes to fill up the huge cup (soup bowl) with steaming black coffee, dump a whole pot of cream in the cup (soup bowl) and come bearing it out on the closest clean wooden tray she can find.

And, though her exit had been a push through the press, she finds that wearing a maid's apron and carrying a tray means that the crowd simply parts for her, bringing her back to Eclair's side with coffee in hand.

Which does bring her back to ask one last question she's been wondering about. "Does she have a reason that she never dyes her hair? Every time I've met her or heard about the real Timtam, it's been a description with a distinct orange curl of hair, and it seems to always pop out and ruin what would be otherwise perfect disguises. Especially with a huge dye order and everything, it's not like she was lacking the resources, y'know?"

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

There is a slow settling. The settling of satisfaction, and sleep, and also of poison. The distinction is minimal watched in practice. The cat is a little bit more lethargic than a good meal alone would offer, but not necessarily moreso than historical records would indicate the effects of blood loss would cause. Except that this cat has the sort of strange metallic internal ecology that would suggest that a small amount of blood loss would be easily supplemented and yet the lethargy of the wound is greater nevertheless.

It eats quickly, settles the body of the lizard away from the open path against a wall, and then decides to be especially brave after all that has happened and nuzzles you before it curls into a ball and falls asleep. Its wounded paw is nestled beneath its belly, and under its other paw, making for a slightly heavy lift to access properly.

Within the cave, the cat's labored snores rumble softly off the stone walls, laced with titanium. Below you, the sound is absorbed, audio readings indicating something like a heavy mixture of plant or fungal growth to mute the echoing sound. And deep below you, there electronic sensors make no sense as sharp electrical signals arch through the caverns from time to time.

You know there are people and beasts down there, but how they live is a mystery just barely scratched by a hunting cat now resting and drugged before you.

Return to Thellamie

"Oh my god, that crab is so good." Yuki takes a teeny tiny fork and pulls a whole chunk of crab leg out, which she unceremoniously dunks into butter and then drops in one bite.

"Mmmmm, oh gosh, I haven't had anything this good ever. This makes my aunt's crab boil look like amateur hour. And these are the leftovers?" Yuki shakes her head in wonderment.

Milling through the late night staff crowd has been the best part of the night. Well...no the best part of the night was training with Eclair, actually, but they're apples to oranges comparisons. Training was the gentle joy of taking in something new, learning, struggling, pressing against a challenge in a trusted and intimate space. This was electric, nearly manic. The energy of a huge group of people letting down their guards all at once, the massive release of tension of a job well done and the shared bond of everyone who did that job together and now gets to celebrate it. Eating at the ball was one of twenty different political games happening, but eating with the staff is an actual, honest to god, can't even complain if a hobbit makes a long speech party.

And Yuki was already down to her shift from earlier events, so all of this was not being a knight, or a captive, or a chosen one, it was just one of the girls dressed down after working the sauna mingling with the crowd. And mingling with someone who knows everyone. Mayzie's doing one of the things Yuki dreams of doing herself. That feeling of being intimate and close with everyone, of knowing how to move through the space, of being in the right place and everyone wanting you to be in that place, that's something Yuki wants. So getting to watch it firsthand, and enjoy, and try all the delicacies is something special.

Of course, she doesn't refuse when someone hand her a glass of sweet clear liquid that tastes faintly of strawberries, even after Mayzie points out it's alcoholic. Instead she grabs two more glasses and presses them into Mayzie's and Eclairs hands together.

"...To Vespergift, and to Thellamie, and all the small joys of good food and drink" she says and then toasts and downs her glass with a grin before grabbing a bowl of the tomato soup and liberally sprinkling in some chili powder.

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

There is a furious rush of claws and spines. It occurs at perceptible speed, in the sense that your ability to take in and process photons occurs at 120 times per second. And yet, there is a sense that as the fight occurs, time has suspended its normal rules. The giant lizard shakes and shivers and the muscles along its spine stretch and press. The cat tears with its teeth into the neck, lifts its great tail for balance, shakes a front paw and digs its claws into the back with its other front paw.

The lizard arches its back, spines stretching and kicks its legs, and all at once it shudders and collapses, and the cat comes down atop it. The cat, for its part, looks satisfied as it begins to dig at the lizard while eating. But it drags its left rear paw, and you can see three spines arched into the ankle.

There is quiet then, only the sound of the cat at work with its kill and the faint echoes of motion that tumble around into the tunnels beyond.

Tell us your approach to a wounded cat that is busy eating, to extract the spines and deal with any potential complications of the wound.

Beyari: a Tale of Colossi

Ailee flutters and flaps her way towards the cat, making a motion of mounting it with one leg and then spreading her dress to ride side-saddle. Being insubstantial, Ailee adds no weight or touch, so the cat feels nothing and this is merely a projection for her to look regal. As such, this is an entirely unfair way for her to travel.

But she seems to enjoy using it for thinking and maintains the projection as she puts a finger to her chin and looks up in a universal human gesture of consideration. "I mean like, I think my line was fairly populous. The old performers mention virtual assistants all the time and I was a virtual assistant, so there were probably lots of us if they were talking about it and like, not upsetting the fans, y'know? A VA wasn't AI, it was programmed with a limited set of functions, so it probably wasn't that expensive. I think my model was prolly expensive, maybe? You know, since I was tasked with managing a big high tech facility, so they woulda put a bunch of effort into customizing me and outfitting me with a lot more hardware than the average. What I am now...that's like literal centuries of looping on the same instructions while external conditions majorly changed and I took in tons of new data. That's unique, maybe? Or at least improbable, y'know? Like, maybe not unique, but improbable like owning a real masamune katana or something. Like, okay there's just not that many of them, so the situation where you'd get to touch one is really rare and then actually owning it is even more rare. But on top of that there's kind of some exclusivity where like, the number of those katanas that still exist is super tiny, so if you own one, that's one that nobody else in the world can own. I think my thing was like that, like there's only so many places that were complex enough for a VA to develop like I did and even of those not every one is gonna turn into something like me. So...so"

She stops rambling and shrugs, looking over at the cat, who has gone into a hunting pose. You don't have any sort of infrared scanner, so you quite literally can't see what the cat is looking at and Ailee is only broadcasting to you, so it's doubtful whatever is down the tunnel is broadcasting. But the cat has gone full stalk and is preparing a pounce on something further into the tunnel.

After a moment, it leaps into the darkness and there's a sudden yowl and a hiss as it turns into view wrestling on the back of a humongous white cave lizard easily bigger than a large horse that's trying to raise spines on its back as the cat works at its scales around the neck. The lizard isn't going to survive this, but it's a bit of an open question whether it can wound the cat before it goes down, at least with what little you've seen of this ecosystem.