Tatterdemalion

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

[Storytime: 1/9
Adventure GET: 3/21
Up to Date: 1/15
Something To Deal With 1]

There's a train that runs from Horizon to Arcadia, and from here, we can see it go rumbling on by. I think it's better that there's no train station here. I mean, it's not exactly convenient that you have to take the bus or walk over the hill to get to Horizon, but that means the train's always like that: beautiful and far away, the orange of its windows a contrast against the grey of the sky. We didn't go underneath that tiny shrine, because there's no way both of us would have fit unless we squeezed together, and something about that idea sends fireworks right up my tail, so we didn't; I just folded up my lily pad and let her hold the dandelion's drooping head over mine so that both of us were getting a little wet, and I thanked her and said something silly about how I usually do empty my lily, but I was just lost in... and then I waved my hand at the world. And I think she understood, or at the very least she nodded and smiled at me and I got really hot against my wet clothes, which of course aren't so much drenched as temporarily inconvenienced by the rain, and I did throw on a coat as I was walking out, but it's not a rain coat, so it's much more wet than the rest of me, because it's something I threw on. At least the rain's good for the flowers in my crown, and it makes hair nice and shiny, though it's nowhere near as good as rubbing in some proper fish guts. It's a Fortitude thing; over in Horizon they use this really slimy shampoo, and there's all kinds of hair products you can get in Arcadia, but over here there's nothing as good for the outsides of a head than the insides of a fish. Anyway, we didn't really say anything important before the dandelion started to really droop and we had to make a mad dash for the tree down the road, laughing and shrieking a little, and now we're here, pulses thumping and smiles showing and listening as the rain decides to double down, and pretty soon it'll just be a curtain draped over the fields, and I turn my head and watch as the train goes by.

Is there anybody in there looking out? You don't need to answer, I'm just thinking out loud. It's the question that always pricks at me when I look at that train go by. It's so far away that even if someone was sitting with their head against the window, I wouldn't be able to pick them out from all the seats, and if someone was sitting with their cheek against the glass, feeling the coolness of the pane and the rumblethump of the wheels, they'd just see a tree gripping the earth with its roots, standing unremarkably next to this rice field, in a landscape more like a quilt of fields and gardens and houses and trees and little winding streets, settled over the earth like she's peeking out from under the quilt on a winter morning, thinking about how beautiful the swirling snow is outside, but how much warmer it is underneath the quilt. I don't know them and they don't know me, but if I happen to be looking at that train, and at the very same time they happen to be looking at the tree, maybe just for a moment there's a connection between us, and it's just as real even if we don't know about it. It's the not knowing that makes it special, actually. Rain trickles down onto the collar of my shirt and I shiver, before turning back to my new friend.

"So I'm Rinley," I say, pointing up at the ears. Twitch, twitch! "The Rinley. You know. But I haven't met you before! I mean, I saw you the other day, but I'm pretty sure that's the first time, and I know basically everybody in town, so that means I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't get to know you, too! I mean, can you really call yourself part of the community if you don't know me? So tell me your deal. Are you from Fortitude? Or did you move here? Is it your lungs? Or a family member's? The air here's really good for the lungs. I'm sure you or they will make a full recovery, even if it takes a little while. Or, are you, no, I don't think you're American," I add, really looking at her. She's pretty like an American, but she doesn't have that, you know, je ne sais eagle. "I'm Rinley," I blurt onto the end, even though I'd already said that. "What's your name? What are you doing out here? Do you like my umbrella? I like yours, even though it's drooping a lot. We can share mine once the rain settles down." My grip tightens on the stalk. I want to be her friend so bad. It's important! She's got that sense of importance and weight to her, that selectable menu option fuzz, and if we're friends it'll be cool to hang out together. I don't have a lot of friends friends, even if I know basically everybody, and why else would I want her to like me so much if I didn't want to be her friend?

Please like me, my heart blurts out to her heart. Please please please. I promise I'm cool and I'm good at telling stories and you're really pretty and I think I want to hold your hand. My heart's terrible at lying. If I knew what I was doing, I'd use my heart to tell her: I'm super cool and you should tell me everything interesting about you and listen to me when I talk, but you have to be really honest when you're speaking with your heart. And it's not like normal talking where you're hearing the words, it's more like... like being able to convey the meaning of what I want to say without having to use the words at all.

[Rinley pumps a heroic 4 Will into the Intention: win over the straw-haired girl. Also marking XP for Up to Date for grilling the straw-haired girl on her deal.]

Fellowship: The Heart

Raft Gang!

The thing about placid, still water is that it's horribly, horribly obvious when something breaches the surface for a moment. There's something in the water. And here you all are, halfway across, the Storm rumbling ominously in the distance, watching as fins and writhing tentacle-frills breach the water, coil after coil after coil following. Jackdaw: the word is pack. No, a swarm; that's what you call a group of eels. No, no, they're more sea serpents... but maybe they're very clever cephalopods, instead? You'd need a closer look to find the right word, and, unfortunately, it's looking like you're going to get one.

Is this the revenge of the Flood? Did she stir these eyeless things up from her depths? Or is this a depraved indifference, a decision not to lift a driftwood finger as the parasites in her waters seek to drag you down and devour your bones? And, when you get down to it, is there really a practical difference? The propulsion's clogging, and the waters all around you are writhing, and the boards Coleman put together are starting to buckle. Coleman: if you don't do something, and fast, you're going to be going down to meet the Flood a lot sooner than you'd like.

Then one makes a eight-foot vertical leap, clamps its jaws around Ailee, and begins to flop back into the water, lashing out with its toxic tentacle frill. Ailee: paralysis from exposure to toxins is certain within the next thirty seconds.

Lucien: things may be looking bad, but at least they can't come at you from all directions simultaneously, and they don't try to hamstring you while their friends try to peck your eyes out, so at least you're still doing better than if you'd tried to go into the Houses of Parliament.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Princess Adila of the Guides!

The throne room looks a lot better than it did the last time you were here, fighting the irrepressible Morgina Fang. Now it's a true masterpiece of Iluminan architecture once more, no longer warped and corroded by contact with the void. The delicate glass benches are specially designed for the occasion, and it's with a confident air that you become a cat-sized, cheerful child once more, the perfect size for sitting between your girlfriends and not accidentally crushing anything. You, of course, have the seats up at the front, next to the Royal Family.

There's the King, soon to be the Royal Mother, looking deliberately understated and humble; if you didn't recognize Isolde from the time you took down Eupheria together, you might have mistaken her for one of the attendants. Being in the spotlight was never Isolde's way, after all. She's here not just to celebrate her daughter's ascension, but to support her wife. Queen Halcyon looks stronger today than she has for a long time, but her hair is still silver before its time, and there is an air of fragility to her that makes her seem... almost like shining glass, a pane that refuses to yield to the storm.

When she yields the crown, it will be a great weight off her shoulders.

There's also several members of the Cavalerian royal family: Kaja, here as Jessamine's special someone, and Ninian, whose hair salon will get even more recognition as a result of doing Queen Halcyon's braids, and Azora, over in the corner speaking with the Royal Witch. Nobody needs to fear Alina going mad with power, because in the very unlikely event that were ever to happen, Diana would be there to stop her.

You have a moment before everyone takes their seats; who do you greet?

***

Princess Alina Cascade!

"Of course you are, your majesty," the most special cat in all of Hyperborea says. You swirl around and see her standing there in her Askaian best, her troubadour's jacket slung over one shoulder, a sprig of lavender in her hair. Her tail swishes excitedly as she looks you over, unable to hide a fond smile as she meets your eyes.

She reaches out with one hand, waiting for you to take it. To take her, and to let her escort you to the stage. (Eupheria sighs the delighted sigh of someone who is looking forward to grandkittens.) "The ceremony's about to start, my heart. I love you." She slips it in like it escaped from her heart before she could catch it, and her cheeks redden, but she doesn't look away.

***

Princess Kazelia Swiftlance!

Of course. There's only one person you could end up sitting next to.

Ourania!!!

"It's wonderful to see you, my faithful apprentice," she says, seemingly oblivious to the way that Kyouko is already sizing her up. The battle for Hyperborea proved to her that she needed to have a closer relationship with the many kingdoms, or at the very least, needed to have a herald and protege. Your mentor is radiant today; her dress only looks white at a distance, but like the opals burning on her breast, breaks into glorious rainbows when you draw closer. She is being given a healthy distance by most of the other guests, who see her (not unreasonably) as too cool to talk to. What if they stuck their foot in their mouth in front of the High Queen?

But you're glad that you were able to convince her to come. This is just another step in dispelling some of the grandeur that separates her from the subjects she adores from afar. What's your plan for helping her relax and break the ice in the afterparty (and, not coincidentally, get her to lower her defenses long enough for Kyouko to make her move)?

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea!

Epilogue: Here We Are In The Future.

Princess Alina Cascade!

"Are you sure you don't want pigtails? They'd frame your face perfectly," Eupheria says, pouting. The morning rain trickles down the panes of the window, the soft sunlight dappling on your face as you stare at yourself in the mirror. Princess Alina Cascade, for the last time. "Well, if you insist," she says with an expressive shrug, and sets to your hair with a brush and pins, moving so fluidly and energetically that you could almost imagine she still had four arms and proportions set only by her whim.

Outside, you can hear the Royal Orchestra playing in the newly reopened throne room. They're playing a folk tune: "The Princess in the Reeds," a lively reel that makes you remember the first royal ball you ever attended. And when did these tears arrive? Be careful! Euphie worked so hard on the winged eyeliner, your majesty!

***

Princess Kazelia Swiftlance!

You help your fiancée off of Shiva's back with the poise of a lancer, letting her lean into you as the rain kisses you both. Today she's wearing her finest kimono, her hair kept in a bun by a pin in the shape of a glasseye salmon, and slippers embroidered with the riotous petals of a garden in full bloom.

"Kazelia!" You're given hardly any time at all to react before Jessamine wraps you in an enthusiastic hug. The new Captain of the Guard has her hair in a smart bob now, and medals gleam on the pastel-pink sash hanging over her glass breastplate. "It's so good to see you! How's Rideria?" Oooh, she's a few names out of date-- what's the current name for the kingdom of the Riders?

***

Adila!

"Look," Dandelion says, putting her foot down with so much confidence that not even the preeminent princess of the Devils can ignore her, "If Black Serpent attacks the ceremony, then she's the biggest fool in all of Hyperborea. So you and Adila don't need to go on another patrol of the castle. If we don't get to our seats now, we might miss the beginning of the ceremony." And she's right, but that doesn't stop Iron Star Crushes The Strong from getting huffy.

Black Serpent Scorns Heaven's Light isn't the only threat still at large, but Hyperborea's safer today than it's been in years. Asteria Spite's finally cooling her heels in custody, after all. And Dandy's right that if Black Serpent tried to show up and do something dastardly, here, it would be a huge mistake.

You can relax and enjoy having both your girlfriends in the same place and not arguing with each other. Nobody's going to come crash this coronation.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Princesses!

Rita takes Alina's hand in hers, and flashes a brave grin that shows off her sharp little teeth. "That's a wonderful idea, Lina!" And the irrepressible joy bubbling up in her laugh is another sharp crack in the Seed. Diana gives a careful look and yells over the tempest to keep going!

"I... accept," Azora says, obviously taken aback, and lets her feet touch the floor. She stands, taken aback by the invitation, by the lack of blame despite everything she's done. As if moving in a dream, she comes closer to Kazelia, their hands brushing together, and another crack rings out, this one shivering across the entire length.

"I'm so proud of you, darling," Dandy says, her voice clarion over the storm, as she wraps her arms around Adila's neck. "You were so amazing when you showed Oberon how we dance in Hyperborea!" She raises a fist, and starts chanting: Hyper-borea, Hyper-borea, Hyper-borea. And it's silly, and more than a little ridiculous, but it's infectious: Hyper-borea, Hyper-borea, Hyper-borea! And Ourania's eyes flutter open, and she smiles and joins in the chant, as the Seed shivers and splinters and seems to be held together only by the bleak, cold light inside.

Rita von Catabas nuzzles up her girlfriend's neck and silences her melodious chant with a kiss, and the World Seed burns as bright as the North Star before it shatters with a deafening roar.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

[Storytime: 1/9
Adventure GET: 2/21]

Hold up! Maybe I missed it because it was on the last page, but you asked me who in my family is the best cat-speaker, and I just let that slide on by, a narrative hook unbitten! If I don’t fix that right here and now, nobody’s going to know anything about my family, and at that point I might as well just say that I’m an orphan who was raised by cats, and now when witches plague the streets of Fortitude, I pull on my cat mask and take to the streets as Catmaiden, a grizzled vigilante shrine maiden who adopts orphaned rats and broods on the roofs about how both my parents were stolen by birds. But don’t worry, only Mom was stolen by a bird.

I think my dad used to be the best, but these days he’s a little... you know? He travels a lot on business and doesn’t leave the house a lot in this time-space continuum. Sometimes I run into him in the kitchen. I don’t usually see the cats around.

My older siblings are both Claimed by rat gods. Kuroma is King Death, who passes by night, whose sword is naked, who reaps where he does not sow; he is the statue crumbling in the wilderness that says “—EED MY WO—“ on it and the cart full of tiny rat bodies and the lights all turned out. He eats like he’s still a teenager and sleeps in until noon and sulks around, usually, and he’s not so much good at talking to cats as he is an oversized lazy tom, you know? Wait, not lazy. Well, kinda? But in that “I have lots of energy but no pressing need to use it” way of a cat melting into the sofa cushions.

Caroline is the Dread Witch of the Far Roofs, and she’s the best cat-speaker, because she can actually have conversations with the cats. Technically all the cats of Fortitude have sworn fealty to her to act as her minions, but that works maybe twelve percent of the time? Cats aren’t good at things like remembering orders or guarding prisoners or even paying attention. But she’s their Baba Yaga, their cackling broomstick hag, except don’t tell her I used the h-word okay? She gets really mad because she’s not even thirty yet. It’s her job to be the dangerous witch they visit because they need a prophecy, or to steal a treasure, or to prove that they’re brave, and she hardly ever actually kills one, and even then...

Look, it’s always an accident, okay? The Witchness comes unhinged inside her, and she locks herself in her room with ice cream and Shelley the tortoiseshell for days after. She’s not evil. She’s a grounding rod for a god.

Hang on, you might say, squinting suspiciously at me, Rinley, if both your big siblings are hosts for dread and powerful rat gods, why aren’t you, like, Eater-of-candles or the Rice Fox? And you ask that because you’re not using your brain, silly! I’m Rinley. I’m already walking a road, and at the end of it, I’m immortal and forever until crows forget how to say words, after somebody like Dulcy actually builds a nuclear weapon and kills everybody.

And today, if this is a Rinley story, Rinley decided to walk outside with an umbrella made of a giant lily pad because she was sitting inside, leading around the Admiral and Phoebe with the feather-on-a-string, when suddenly the urge to walk picked her up and put the feather on the cat tower and shoved her feet into her sandals and pushed her outside where she took a breath of the air which was cool and much more real than the cloyingly sweet air of her home, and that’s not to say she doesn’t like it, and contrariwise it’s always a bit of a shock, like there should be a depressurization chamber in the middle that she’s skipped, some room where she can turn a dial and raise the ambient levels of reality and objectivity until she’s ready to be in Fortitude, but it’s better this way because she keeps some of that sweet incense soaked into her shirt and coiled around her belt and kissed into her hair and it lets her bring just a little bit of her home into sleepy old Fortitude, to push things just over that line into the way they should be.

That’s my explanation for where I am right now. I was walking, and now I’m not. There is a lily pad that’s crumpling and rusting under the rain tucked into my shoulder, and the circle of runoff is getting smaller and smaller all around me, and very soon now I am going to get an object lesson in why more people don’t use lily pads as umbrellas. I really should get up and duck underneath the overhang of that tiny roadside shrine, the one with the tiny stone statues in iconic form, with the red aprons tied around their waists, as I figure out some way to not get soaked, such as digging a tunnel (no good, I’d dig into Big Lake) or knitting all the aprons into a new umbrella (but then I’d have to make new ones or suffer their curse, slowly turning into another stone statue, shrinking and becoming firmer every day until I’m found, a tiny weather-worm statue, lying in the middle of the road) or even waiting it out (but then I’d have to figure out something to do while waiting out the storm). But I don’t. I can’t get up.

My skin is prickling and pleasantly chill. I’m squatting by the side of a man-made lake, watching as the water droplets hammer down between the growing stalks of rice, and my mind’s a lake being drummed into stillness by rain, and my butt’s sitting on my haunches with my tail wrapped around me and my breath’s all slow, my chest rising, falling, rising, and I feel half a statue right now already, and the sky’s grey and the water’s grey and I’m going grey to match them in my heart, a cool slate grey like the eyes of a studly sword hero with a quiet voice, and the sound of the rain falling is a curtain of beads swaying in a summer breeze, and there are frogs croaking their lovesongs out of sight and birds croaking and I’m silent and still and the run-off from the lily pad is nearly at my knees now.

Maybe I’ll go look for someone later but I think that happens after I get wet, which happens a moment from now, five million years from now, an age of the world from now. And maybe you’ll wag your finger at me and say, Rinley, you’re supposed to be connecting with these important people, take a point of the Isolation issue, and honestly, fair, but just because this story is about me and my friends doesn’t mean moments like this don’t still happen, and this is the moment I have right here and now, and I need this moment alone with just the sound of the world around me and the chill prick prick prickling at my skin and the emotion which doesn’t have a name, which denies naming, the emotion of places and experiences which are uncontainable in a little box of understanding, the three-in-the-morning feeling, the feeling of being a Yatskaya, and right now I’m as much Yatskaya as I am Rinley, and I am quiet and I let the world fill my empty places and it’s important, it’s necessary that this be alone, at least until the lily pad collapses, because being empty in the world is different when you’re holding hands with someone; it stops you from becoming a statue, an empty pitcher, a little idol wrapped in a red apron sitting soaked by the side of a rice field.

But I also think probably somebody sees the lily pad dump water on my head.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Kazelia!

There is a moment where it feels that everything is over. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? Your father, defeated for all time, never to hurt your world again. But it’s not enough to stop him from continuing harm; you have to mend what has been broken, too. And it is at this moment that Argossa begins to crack.

At your feet, polluted magic begins to leak through the cracking bark, ice-cold and fierce. Great wounds begin to open in its sides, threatening to pour this poison into the sea, to drown the world in his last act of foolish spite and arrogance.

What artifact has he placed deep in Argossa to pollute her heart?

***

Adila!

The smaller branches overhead begin to splinter and fall in great splinters of stone and crystal, still large enough to seriously hurt anyone caught underneath them; lanterns, smashed to the ground, start catching the wedding decorations alight.

You lead your friends back down into Argossa, where great gouts of wicked magic burst from walls and hang like a miasma in the air— but at least you’re less likely to be crushed to death. Ourania, freed by Alina and Rita, hangs on the shoulders of Dandy, who has her in a fireman’s carry.

As you delve through the palace, which is shaking itself apart, Azora Howl takes the magic swirling all around you and redirects it; she’s making everything around you more turbulent and dangerous in the name of clearing a small path for everyone. Kazelia, too, helps— but Azora is clearly very comfortable commanding and redirecting this kind of magic.

You remember anxiously patrolling through this palace, unable to trust Ourania. Where do you find the artifact?

***

Alina!

“We’ll have our wedding in your castle,” Rita says, half walking with you, half holding you. “But the reception at my family’s castle. And, and everyone is going to be invited! It’ll be a celebration, not just of us, but of Hyperborea!”

“Let’s focus on surviving, first.” You jump, startled and guilty, as Diana emerges from the storm of magic swirling all around. She’s had your lights for all of, what, an hour? At least some of that unconscious? And she’s already figured out how to make a hazmag coat and closed helmet out of them.

“The ramifications of losing Argossa alone,” she says, her voice clipped and angry. “Not to mention the attacks in Feloria, Jedad, Ilumina...”

She might be being bitter, but also... she has a point. Happily ever after may have to wait until you’ve worked even more, even harder, to fix things.

What price needs to be paid to stop the artifact from hurting Argossa any more?

Fellowship: The Heart

Coleman!

The Flood reaches out and caresses your jaw with one rotten hand, and where scales and wood meet, the wood flakes away. For a moment, you are driftwood floating on the tide; you are a stone being smoothed by the current, washing away the words etched into you in memorial; you are love poetry surrendered to the water. Then the tide recedes, and you realize that, for one reason or another, you're still alive. And you only seem to be missing a little bit of yourself. A memory or two, but you'll be run over before you can tell where the holes are.

"This is the only time I offer," she says. "When you come to me again, I will take you both together, if you ask." And the way that she says it... she invites you to imagine yourself colonized, brutalized, or otherwise consumed by the powers of the Heart, dragging yourself and a dying Sasha along, and finding yourself at the shores of a still river. Her arms are wide and her heart is cruelly caring and she is so certain that you will eventually find forgetting yourself in the deep more palatable than your fate.

She recedes, wading to her knees in the water, and then--

It's like a magic eye puzzle (not that you'd recognize that; you'd have to ask Jackdaw). What was the Flood's merest fingernail is now just trash floating on the water; here, a spur of wood, there, teeth and gold.

The crossing has just become extremely ominous. But, again... the other path is through the Houses of Parliament. And she seemed like her vengeance would be like the flick of a hippo's tail, rather than the death roll of a crocodile with its prey in its jaws.

***

Lucien!

She wants you, too.

Not like she wants the train egg (a terribly cursed turn of phrase, still). But when she cast her gaze over you, she held your eyes for a moment with those cloudy pearls. But for all that you may have done regretful things, there's still more to be seen. Isn't that right? There's drinks to be emptied and sights to ogle and somebody needs to keep the mouse from dooming herself.

***

Ailee!

This power is a cowardly punk who got so huffy over not making out(?) with Coleman that she immediately collapsed into trash parts and if you don't cross her while making rude gestures you're going to explode. Screw "maybe not going over the power Coleman just offended/turned down and looking for a safer route," if she tries anything on the crossing you could probably blow her apart just by looking at her angrily.

***

Jackdaw!

What preparations need to be double-and-triple-checked on Coleman's lovely raft? Because it's amazing, yes, especially with the limited supplies he had to hand, but there's always something worth worrying about, and where oh where are you going to perch? And maybe you should leave sooner rather than later, what with the way the locals are giving you all the stink eye after you managed to make their god appear and then immediately swan off back into the water.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

“Oh, Dulcy!” I close my eyes and shake my head, astonished at how gullible my bestie can be. “Don’t tell me you actually believe in ‘nuclear weapons’!” Yes, I do the finger quotes. “Because, first of all, if they’re real, why has nobody ever made one? Second of all, even if somebody did make one, probably in the Bleak Academy, nobody in their right mind would ever use it! You have got to get your head out of those conspiracy theories, girl!”

But she’s got a point about my remote theory. Why didn’t I consider the tiara? It’s perfect! Witches love tiaras. Wait, no, that’s magical girls. I was a magical girl once! My name was Rinley Lovebell, and I had the magical power of heart! Together, me and my friends defeated the shoggoth of Neo Tokyo 7 through superior firepower! Then they started licking themselves and lying in sunbeams. It turned out all my friends were cats! And the shoggoth was a cucumber. Since then, I’ve never eaten cucumbers. What if it wants revenge?

Huh wait we’re doing graphs? Yeah! I know all about graphs! Autographs, graphite pencils, and mimeographs! “Okay,” I say, with a thumbs up, “But you’re providing the pencils! The cats keep stealing mine.”

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Ourania!

“Your radiance, I am appalled at the state of these bindings.” Underneath you, Argossa trembles. You remember when you came to this place, this beautiful jewel; the memories are a thin and welcome skim over a deep ocean of pain. Far away, you tremble, shake, slip for the first time in centuries. Water trickles away into the black from cracks in your wall, islands tilt and flood, and magic bleeds around you. If Hyperborea survives, it will be lesser in some small way because you failed, here at the very end. And it is the beauty of the world you protect that it will forgive you.

How your head towered over the mountains full of dragons and crystals! How the devils offered you gifts! Jewels and silks and bouquets and other silly things. All they needed to offer were the epic mushroom quatrains of the lachrymose poets of Deep Hollow, and the smiles on the faces of gardeners in lush Feloria; you were caught, as if bound, by the light shining through fountains in Ilumina, and the serpentine dances of the nomads of Jedad, and the lazy sunbathing of the cats of Askaia. You hold this world in your coils for love, the greatest invention of devilkind.

Around you, the Garthim go still, and the fox princess shifts you in her arms. You are limp, your head nestled in her shoulder, your train trailing behind her as your heels bob inches from the ground. Your nerves are alight with pain, but you don’t let yourself worry about that. You are being held by one of the foxes of Konkon, your old rivals, your fondest foes, and you know that she will do her best to treat your agony, and that your little princesses will save the day. They are so brave. You are so proud of them.

You feel Oberon coming before Kyouko does. You try to warn her, but your cry is garbled and weak. He grabs her by the scruff; her grip around you tightens by instinct, stopping her from using her clever tricks to escape. You wish you could tell her to leave you behind, please, just get to safety.

Oberon tears you out of her arms; you hit the ground, and the pain bursts through your thoughts. You scream, and only through tears see him fling the fox skywards, hurtling to her doom miles and miles away.

You’re so sorry, Kyouko.

Oberon drags you to the edge, fist knotted in your dress, and hauls you upright. You can see the princesses behind him, converging tightly, but hesitant to strike while he has you in such a dangerous position. (And if they knew that your death throes would crush and drown this world in blind agony...)

“You know,” he says, between rough kisses to your neck, your jaw, leaving bruises where he bites, “this will be the soonest I’ve ever lost a wife. I’m sorry, my love.” And while he doesn’t fool you...

You can tell that he’s managed to fool himself.

[HEART OF IRON: Jessamine’s attack automatically fails, and Alina must relive her pain and choose to pay a price, stand down, or attack him now.]