Tatterdemalion

Fellowship: The Heart

Lucien!

The sight is awe-inspiring. Or dreadful. One of the two. There is another whirlpool, far, far below: the roaring of water tells you that much. The stairs themselves are deeply, deeply unsafe: slick, viciously sharp spurs of dark black rock, draped in mildewing carpet and pocked by chunks of broken masonry fallen from the ceiling.

The good news is that it’s easily vast enough to fit the train larva(?) inside, if Coleman doesn’t mind a tight squeeze. The bad news is that it is also vast enough for that monster to follow behind you. The worst news is that anyone who tries running down here is just begging to have their skull split open. Slow and steady is the only way to go: but, again, that means you might as well walk back outside and rub yourself down in butter for the appetite of whatever that thing is.

***

Ailee!

You’ve already figured out how this conversation is going to go in your head. “Well, I never,” Professor Hamptonshire will say. “That’s quite unbecoming of a young lady,” he’ll add, his patronizing pride pricked. “I actually need your help,” he’ll say, “But I’ll do what I can with my silly clown tricks to distract the monster after I tell you the way out.”

You have made the one fatal mistake of forgetting that he has been learning how to be a clown. And the clowns have lots and lots of things to say about the holy meaning of rage.

Smack, goes his fist in your face. Crack, goes the bat over your head, while you stagger back. Crack, it goes again over your shoulders, shoving a nail somewhere tender.

“SHUT UP,” he froths. “YOU PATHETIC LITTLE SHREW. I’VE FORGOTTEN MORE THAN YOU WILL EVER KNOW.”

“...I have, haven’t I?” He turns melancholy again, and philosophically rams his oversized shoe into your solar plexus with a pathetic squeak. “No, man up, Hamptonshire. Sacrifices must be made. Now, forgive an old man,” he says, turning to Jackdaw: “I seem to have misplaced your name, young lady.”

Take damage, and be aware that can happen again.

***

Coleman!

Oh fuck, it’s a clown.

Wait, no, it’s a seeker of the Grail. Still bad. Maybe even worse, if they’re overcompensating.

Clowns are terrible passengers. They’ll laugh while beating you to death with a gaudily painted hammer if you piss them off, and once the bloodlust hits it starts spreading non-stop, until you’ve got an entire congregation ripping arms off train staff and honking their damn noses.

The only reason to even give them a hand is that their Ringmaster, a monster of a holy roller (several thousand years old, doesn’t look a day over thirty-five), is both very generous with his friends and very, very vindictive with anybody who pisses him off. Remember the Vladislav?

Yeah. Exactly.

Help them out, and they’ll be a pain, but if they don’t get themselves killed, the Ringmaster will remember. Kill them, and fail (seriously, clowns are like cockroaches) and that will be remembered, too. So if you mean to kill them, make damn sure they’re dead.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada!

“You never do stop, do you? Idiot.” Her voice drips painful contempt; it is possible she means it. (It is possible she does not.) For a moment, you worry that her nails will draw blood, will trace strange glyphs in red on your skin. Then her hand retracts.

“Count to ten, then run to your room and do not stop. Do not let me find you sneaking around after curfew again.” Okay, look at the positive side: she probably just told you how to avoid the guard patrol, and she also told you not to get caught sneaking around, which she probably totally knows isn’t the same thing as telling you not to sneak around. Think positive!

Tirzah ab-Marduk of the House of Blue Stone (but not for much longer, not with her Inquisitorial trials fast approaching) melts into the shadows, leaving you alone in the low light of night in the House. Alone.

Mark Insecure, as she takes Influence over you and tries to shift your Savior/Superior, which cannot be done. You cannot be more of a senseless martyr.

***

Étoile!

The Inqusitor is handed a small square of white linen by her Lynx, which she unfolds in front of you. The simple veil is completely unadorned, completely opaque and unflattering, about as fashionable as a tighty-whitey, and try very hard not to think about that connection any more than you already have as she loops it over your head, lets it hide your face, acting with silent dignity.

“Janissaries. Escort this innocent home.” Yes! She’s letting you go! “It is no sin to be assaulted by the wicked, as long as you refuse their lies.” She steps behind you, and you hear the sizzling of live-wire lashes. (No, your shoulders and spine say, instantly tensing up, please, not one of those, you asked for anything else, you’ll pass out—) The links of your shackles fall to the ground, hissing, and you slump forward onto your, well, your front, sobbing in relief as the lashes of her scourge retract into her gauntlet.

The Lynxes help you up as the Inquisitor steps out of the circle of dim light around you. “I promise,” she says, and she means it, “You need not fear. I will protect you from chaos.” Then, silence and night and her absence, and you can barely stand out of the aftershocks of terror and the dread of her voice. (She meant it. You could have had cotton stuffed in your ears and you’d be able to tell. She believes.)

Then you are squeezed. Between the thong and the trousers’ waistline.

“Don’t worry, little pet,” the male says, still squeezing and kneading. “We’ll take you home safe and sound, and our little jokes will stay between us, yes?” He’s deliberately trying to keep you flustered and off-balance and meek so that you’ll agree to whatever he wants, and luckily, what he wants is for you to keep your mouth shut, play along with their harassment all the way home, and absolutely under no circumstances to tell your Lady.

He very much wants you to stay off-balance and terrorized and squeaking so that you do not realize that there is a very high chance that if Tamytha decides to take insult to the treatment of her dear, sweet handmaiden, his ass will be in the deepest shit, and you in fact have him over a barrel.

***

Anathet!

It’s difficult, but you manage to figure out why as she slaps you in the face with a feeling of [gratitude; the feeling of unwarranted grace, like being forgiven for knocking someone down] (At least it’s not hammering into you any more. Baby steps!) She’s not like you. You are centered and present; you are vast and certain as an iceberg. Or at the very least an ice cube. But a big one. She is water, moving wherever her own consciousness drifts; if you are an iceberg, she is the salt-sea. She needs to be anchored. She needs something to cling to, so that she can give voice.

Maybe a name. Or a talisman special to her. Or meditation lessons. Being her anchor, offering to be a stable point for her, would be dangerous (and risk changing both of you, like water changes the shape of the ice and is displaced in turn) but you can do it right here and now. Or you can do things slow and safe.

As for the danger? She is the salt sea all around. She is being very careful and considerate. If she wanted to crush you like a bug, you have the definite feeling she could. She might lose coherence doing it, in fact, she probably would, but she could. As easily as you could close your fist.

If your sensei were here, he would tell you that no compassionate act is ever truly wasted; that kindness, when given, enriches the cosmos. That some may act out of deliberate cruelty, but that we should first always find where someone is hurting and try to help them mend.

Reach out. Connect. Help her understand you so that she can understand herself.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

[Storytime: 3/9 (+1 here)
Adventure GET: 5/21
Up to Date: 1/15
Something To Deal With 2]

Okay, back it up one cherry-picking minute. I’m Rinley Yatskaya. I can sniff out the joy in someone’s heart when they sing its song, and you know what? Sessily puts her whole heart into her dancing! I’d rather have Sessily as my dance partner than a dozen handsome boys with perfect rhythm, so there! And that is why we’re doing this together as Scheherazade and Dinazad, Warrior Princesses!

(Caroline told me their stories to help me get to sleep when I was little and missed Mom. Two sisters with an unbreakable bond, fighting ghuls and evil viziers and creepy old magicians, all told in flashback as Scheherazade won them a stay of execution every night from the wicked King Boney! I don’t think we ever got all the way to the thousand and first night, but that’s okay. I think it’s better that we never ended them. If I close my eyes, I’m in King Boney’s underwater castle, with Dinazad dangling over the lobster pit, and another story to tell...)

The only problem is trying to figure out what the perfect costuming choices are, and how to get Dulcinea to help us with our animatronic giant snake (specifically, the part where it doesn’t exist yet), so we’re digging through the stacks at Party Warhouse (the E fell down years ago) trying to find some jackets that would look right with paste jewels glued on, but secretly? I’m trying to find the perfect gift for Dulcinea to bribe her! I can always use a clean hankie as a veil, but an animatronic snake is essential for “Follow: 1001 Visions Adventure,” and I need my number to be perfect.

Because I made sure to leave flyers all over the shrine, especially plastered on the coffee maker and the wall outside Caroline’s room. With the date circled. She’s totally going to come out of her room and leave the shrine, for once, even if she does it cradling a cup of coffee and wearing an evilish witchy robe over her tank top. She’s going to get to see me do something cool. A celebration of bedtime stories and sisterhood and giant snakes!!

That’s why I am going to find the perfect Dulcinea bribe. It will be flawless, and Dulcineaey, and I will have the only one, and she will throw herself around my ankles and beg me, Rinley Yatskaya, to give it to her, and I’ll look down and say, “After you build the giant snake.” And then I’ll laugh like this: nyahaha, nyahaha, nyahahahaha!!!

[Will 2 + Dulcinea Bond 1 = Intention 3 to find the Perfect Dulcinea Bribe in the stacks at Party Warhouse.]

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada!

“I am already saved,” Tirzah says, her tone just as impossible to read: quietly gloating, or quietly resigned, or stating a simple fact. “And I saved you. But there is a way that you can help me.”

Her finger hooks your collar, tugs you closer. For a moment, you’re back then, when everything still didn’t make sense but “Tanya Gold” had chosen you, her lips on yours. But there are veils between you now, and not just physical ones. “It is very difficult for me, now that Canada has come back. Tirzah, they say to me, Tirzah, tell us about her. How did she survive? How can we stop her mind control? How can we find her? I am the expert on her, you know.”

She’s different than the Tanya you remember. Tirzah has different teeth, long and straight and pale under her veils. (That crooked front tooth was designed; it was grown from the gums by magic science and then adjusted with drills and styluses. You didn’t see her for days after the surgery to replace them with “proper” teeth while she recovered.) She should be wearing sunglasses and jorts, her skin blotched like a treasure map, not these stupid slinky see-through dresses that show off skin like bronze, smooth and unblemished and uncanny. Just another reminder she’s an alien.

“I think that it was a mistake for her to come back,” she says, and is that a tightness in her voice. “And that whoever helped her hide might be regretting it.” Her nails are light on your skin, for now. There is a great deal of control in her fingers. “So I would be interested in hearing your thoughts, as a slave to their better. Why do you think Canada risks everything she has been given by this fool?”

(It’s her. She’s the fool. She’s the one who hid you, who helped you, who knows who you are. Who could tell the Inquisitors who you are at any time.)

***

Étoile!

“Twenty shavings says she took it off herself,” the Janissary says to his companion. They have expertly taken control of the situation: now that one stands on either side of you, waiting for the arrival of the chain-clippers (after their commanding officer ordered them not to try shooting them off with a laser-musket, because you were obviously an expensive house-slave and needed all your fingers), you are not a revolutionary sign screaming defiance at the Annunaki, but a Bad Girl who is being punished by display in Six Wave Commons. The loss of your veil is to shame you, obviously, and in conjunction with the lashes is to show what happens when you are Bad and step out of line. And the lack of jacket is because the Annunaki don’t care about toplessness and assume all their slaves stop caring, too.

These Lynxes, evidently, still care. A lot.

“They’re animals,” the other one hisses gleefully. (Like she’s not an oversized serval herself. The hypocrisy!) “No self-control.”

A tail bats in your face. Ack! Hair! Up your nose! “Imagine owning this one,” the male growls. “Having her wake you up for morning drill! Whoops, lost her veil again... let’s look for it in the showers!”

They laugh. That tail is pressed firmly against your lips. Your back hurts. The light is pale and weak, designed for curfew hours. You can barely see the tiles in your shadow. A shiver runs through that tail from base to tip. Gross.

“Oh, human, don’t be silly! If there’s no milk in the rations, I’ll show you where to get more!” The female makes noises. Mouth noises. That damn tail is curling lasciviously against your jaw while the male cackles. Shut up! People are trying to sleep while he’s yakking it up at your expense! What if they open their windows and look out to see what woke them up? More eyes to stare at the little tableau under lamplight. And even if they don’t, slaving away another day without even the comfort of sleep is miserable.

“Don’t worry your silly little face,” the male says, his tail finally leaving your mouth, but working dangerously down your chin and neck towards that tight little band. “I’d teach you all kinds of things you could do without a veil, little slut—“

“Hssst!” The female’s tail fluffs up and smacks you in the cheek. “Great one coming!”

The two Janissaries stand at attention, tails nowhere near you, and now you hear it: clack, clack, clack. Annunaki sandals, impractically heeled. And then one of your worst nightmares looms out of the dim light of night.

The Inquisitor squats down to look you in the face. She’s wearing impractically skimpy armor, made of a silvery metal you can’t quite place, over a bodysuit of swirling, sickly color: bruise-like purples and greens and reds. Her veil is gaudy, purple and black and gold, but her eyes are grey and steady and they’re drinking you in. Be the mask. Play your part. She decides whether you go free or need to be re-educated. Or disappeared.

“She stinks of the demon,” another Lynx says, looming in the dark behind the Inquisitor. “It’s the slave that Ma-Ri-Ann stole.”

“Hmm.” There are wheels turning, delicate and fine like lacework, behind those steady eyes. “Why here.” It’s not really a question. “Marking territory, or perhaps a distraction. It’s difficult to say, yet.”

She reaches out and caresses your cheek. (She’s allowed.) Underneath the cold metal of her gauntlet, her bodysuit feels you, writhing like a worm, clammy and hungry. It wants you. It wants to eat you. Maybe those are the same thing.

“Confess,” she commands you.

***

Anathet!

[love, the deep and enduring love of holding a stuffed animal that you’ve owned your whole life]

The black-eyed girl sinks her ghostly fingers into the rich black soil and smiles. She radiates that love at this: gardening, earth, growing. Then she concentrates and thinks an image at you.

It’s ferns, growing rich and wild. You can hear the insects chirping. You can feel the humidity crushing you. You can see the ferns coiling around a ruined Annunaki outpost as it slowly decays and the sun flickers in the flashing sky. You can taste mud and sunlight, the way that a fern would, the exact way. You can smell the release of gasses from the stinking mud and the rich, subtle scent of ferns uncurling. The shadows yawn and uncurl and the world fragments—

Then you’re back, the sensory information cutting off. It took a moment for something so rich and info-packed and... dangerous. At the end. She was barely keeping control, wasn’t she? She could only avoid overwhelming you with wrongness for so long.

She curls her arms over her knees and scoots closer, like a skittish wild animal.

Breathless Dead

Princess Redana has had context for everything thus far: parley with a god, a daring feat of piloting, the discovery of a paradise inside a beast caster than worlds. All of that was understandable; all of that fit inside her understanding of the cosmos. There is no context for a brainsquid, and so her brain tries to provide one: is it a Servitor made in octopoid form, or a child of the gods, or a creature of the ecosystem tamed by the Ceronians? She latches on to the title: Assistant Secretaries might still be outside her experience, but she knows of them. So she offers a nod of acknowledgement, not offering insult by either ignoring the introduction or treating the Assistant Secretary as an equal[1].

“A pleasure, Assistant Secretary,” she says, and for a moment her voice is her mother’s, centuries past, her diction elevated and her inflection precise. The effect is uncanny. She doesn’t have the walk down, though, that stride that eats distance and sets her apart from the unworthy masses. She’s too eager, head forward, sneaking glances at the undulating Servitor(?). “If you don’t mind me saying so, that’s an... well, it’s kind of an unusual department.” Here it comes, the magic words: “Tell me more!”

***

[1]: if you treat the Assistant Secretary as an equal, you bestow more expectations on them than they have accepted, and expect them to know more than they do and make decisions they have no authority to make. If they have to explain that they are unable to meet your expectations, the shame will destroy them. Therefore: never treat a bureaucrat with unearned rank.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

[Storytime: 2/9
Adventure GET: 4/21
Up to Date: 1/15
Something To Deal With 1]

I flash my most winning grin at the people in the room, the ginger and the spirit. “See? She just needs a minute and she’ll be fine. Besides, what horror story doesn’t have a moment of personal trauma? It’s what makes it horror. And, hey, at least neither of us got our faces stolen... yet...”

Outside, the rain’s starting to lose its power, isn’t it? Puddles lie like lazy cats, reflecting the marbled greys of the sky, and in here, everything’s dark (because someone turned off the lights) but there’s the warm smell of cooked eggs, and warm air coming in under the door, and I’m sure that by the time I start tucking in to my omelette, everything’s going to be okay. We’ll all laugh about this later.

Right?

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

More On Aliens

The High Gods themselves are... well. They’re probably like the Annunaki, but they project their own conceptions of themselves so forcefully that it’s hard to think about them clearly. Ishtar is the Queen of Heaven, undeniable and irresistible; Marduk is the General, terrifying and vicious. Though individual recollections differ, they’re usually described like members of the Annunaki: bronze-skinned and dark-haired, tall and willowy, bedecked in gold and silks. It’s just that they’re also ten feet tall and heavily armored and could crush you like a bug while you cower at their feet.

Shrikes are terrifying. Seven feet tall with an impressive wingspan, they would be difficult to fight, what with their arsenal of weapons and nigh-impervious armor plating, even if they weren’t upgraded with thaumatech to be inhumanly strong and agile. They never give up on a mission once they have their orders, they sometimes work in teams, and the only good thing about them is that they’re hideously expensive and time-consuming to make, each one worth more than some planets. It’s estimated that the occupation only has thirty Shrikes to keep the entire planet in line. (Well. Maybe not the only good thing. Everybody’s heard the friend-of-a-friend story of running into a Shrike while unveiled, and simply having them haltingly, clumsily laugh and then just advise the criminal not to get caught again.)

The Thornbacks are bad news. They’re put-upon personal assistants, skilled artisans, and taskmasters, and there’s nothing your average Thornback likes more than venting stress by punching down. They have more in common with cacti than any mammal, and have wizened little faces, gangly limbs covered in spurs and spikes, and fingers with far too many joints in them. Most of them are a deep, glossy black, and they commonly wear either thorn-pinned scarves or loose robes, depending on their owner’s preferences.

Djinn are the Annunaki answer to AI, and because the Annunaki are terrible, that answer is to imprison a dispersed energy consciousness in a magnetized lead vessel, only letting it partially phase out to serve as an interface. They’re capable of doing complex thaumaturgic calculations on the fly and memorizing practically anything for brief periods, but they frequently have to dump their memory, given how they are plied with the wines of magnetism into a haze of vapid laughter and geniality.

Salamanders are four-armed, reptilian bombshells, if you’re into dating outside of your species. They’re very sinuous. They’re also a warning for humanity, having forgotten the name of their own planet and the history of their species entirely. Most of them want to keep their heads down and avoid trouble, but there’s always one or two enchanted by Earth and willing to share their knowledge of how to get by...

Lynxes are feline aliens, graceful and swift, used as hunters and messengers and dancers by the Annunaki. Shrikes are too important to use on minor troublemakers, so most insurgent cells instead have to worry about Lynx trackers. More than one would-be revolutionary has found themselves dragged into a dark alley for interrogation by hunters with ungentle claws and fangs. (And more than one has, in turn, been saved by canny use of perfume bombs. Sufficiently pungent odors give them crippling migraines.)

Trolls are huge, multi-limbed silicon-based creatures used as guards, construction workers and shock troops by the Annunaki, in each case relying on their ability to carry out orders implicitly. Rumor has it that the last Troll Queen is secured in the vaults of Babylon, each one of her eggs removed by handlers before they can hatch, and that for her sake no Troll will ever disobey orders.

Macaws are small, brightly-plumed flightless avians, now finding themselves directly competing with humans for “who’s the cutest?” About half the height of a human, with brilliant feathers, they’re useful as singers, messengers and decoration, as well as household staff, and most of them are pretty quietly bitter that humans are both good at those things and close enough to Annunaki in appearance to be favored.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Anathet!

You are the transportation for Canada. Without your ability to open portals, you would find it much more difficult to sneak in and out of one of the most heavily guarded palaces in all of Caphtor. Opening the portals to come back is always a little nerve-wracking, isn’t it? Wondering if today, someone will be in the wrong spot in the wrong time, if you’ll be seen, discovered, revealed.

But tonight, there is no one. And now, you are alone. Above, the night sky shimmers through the soft haze of Caphtor’s environmental shielding; it’s raining outside, but no rain was scheduled for tonight, so if you can squint, you can see the distant flickers of raindrops burning away to nothing above the tallest spires. The breeze is dry and cool as it winds through the branches.

The gardens you now call home are opulent. There’s really no other word. The Annunaki take and take and take, and one thing they take are the lushest and most beautiful flowers and plants from every world they conquer. With a rasp of many leathery wings, tiny Bats flutter to and fro, pollinating and drinking deeply of dew.

At night, the gardens shine with bioluminescence, indigo and sapphire and violet, with the path under your feet burning vivid as opals. You can’t let your guard down completely— the gardens are open at all hours of day and night— but as long as you are attentive, you have little risk of discovery. There are few eyes painted here for Caphtor to see through.

The footsteps of the black-eyed girl are silent. She’s... different. Less substantial. You feel the ebb and flow of her thoughts, an acidic sea lapping at your toes, deliberately not overwhelming you with immersion in something so alien and strange.

Frogs (Earth frogs, real ones) croak in the pond. They’ve established a good place for themselves in the patchwork, hellish ecosystem of the gardens: eating insects from halfway across the galaxy with all the absurd stateliness only a frog can perfect. That’s where the two of you stop to talk.

***

Canada!

“You’re up late.”

God! Does she have to do that? Your heart rate jumped up to approximately seven million miles an hour with I’m caught before your heart kicked in with a sigh of longing. Even now, as you turn to face her, you’re still dealing with the physical effects of having fight-or-flight rammed directly into your veins.

Tirzah wears a blindfold. Back when you were traveling together, she spun you a sob story about how she was born blind, and now... well, now you don’t know if that’s true. It’s possible she really can see, and she only wears it because she’s trained in Ammun Vah, the art of seeing without sight, her senses so keenly attuned that she comes off as almost prescient. She can hear lies, smell fear, and fight in absolute darkness.

But it’s also possible that she was blinded, by accident or by intention, to make her the weapon she is. She always smiled when you described things to her, her fingers entwined in yours, her head on your shoulder, as you sat in a dingy diner or out under the stars you didn’t know she came from.

And that is a whole pile of worms on its own. Annunaki don’t fuck their slaves, thank goodness; it’s not just that you’re incompatible when it comes to reproduction, but that it would be lowering themselves on the Great Chain, which is a big no-no. Unthinkable, even. They prefer to ogle you and use your humiliation and debasement to get in the mood.

But, again, and this is very important as she silently walks towards you in the deserted corridor, a floor away from your bunk: Tirzah is very confusing and sends a lot of mixed signals. Maybe it’s you trying to cling onto your childish dreams of marrying her in Paris. Maybe it’s her, twisting you around her little finger and making you her weapon to bring down the resistance from within. Or, maybe (her smooth fingers cup your hip) she wants to slide down that Great Chain like it was a greased fireman’s pole.

“I wonder, why shouldn’t I tell Auntie Rose that you’re sneaking around?” Oof. Straight to “I’m going to tell your manager,” thanks, Tirzah. Well, your manager’s manager: that harsh Thornback works most closely with the domestic staff, relying on the Head Armorer to deal with the likes of you. “I think you should make it worth my while,” she says, spreading her fingers on your collarbone.

See? Mixed. Signals.

***

Ètoile!

So, let’s hear it straight: just how petulant and petty was Marianne in arranging you just so to be found, completely innocent, completely in need of salvation, to be picked up and given pats and ushered back home after a quick interrogation, in which of course you would be just a useless, overdramatic mess?

(You do not know, yet, that there is an Inquisitor here already. Perhaps that would not make a difference to you; perhaps it would make you quail.)

Out with it! When that red tide, that incandescent rage receded, in what condition, in what locale, did little helpless Ètoile find herself, knowing that she had done this to herself, that you have no one to blame but yourself?

Fellowship: The Heart

Lucien!

The flying stick (which, at this size, is more like a clacks pole, if we're being honest) slams into the monster's outstretched limb, knocking its aim aside. The retort of its discharge is deafening, and you are showered with fluttering bits of ruined spine and paper as it gouges a hole in the already ruined bookshelves. Boom, boom! You got to stare death in the face, haha! Isn't that moment when you realize you're still alive... isn't it exhilarating?

And if it's not, if you're trying not to curl up in a ball and cry, what's keeping you here in the fray, rather than running as far as you can and scraping your way back up to the surface?

***

Coleman!

Amalgamation! It is both a threat and a necessity. You've seen it yourself on the trains, when nails turn to brass and Engineers become more engine than man. The powers at play within the Heart are so vast that they impress themselves on the inhabitants like a pattern into wet clay. Each of you have your own defenses against it, if you're intelligent, though Ailee's defense is "I'm already claimed, suckers." She might even be able to do the opposite: to impress herself on King Dragon. If anybody could, it would be her.

Careful! Watch the claw!

You'll have to do that, too. To get Sasha to hatch properly in Terminus. It'll be much more, ah, equal than most cases. You'll become more like her; she'll awaken fully and become a little more like you. That's why you've been chosen for this honor. You won't flinch when you reach the end of the line.

As for something hidden? Ah, there it is! You've figured out the location of the Descent; a thin place, where you can lower yourself into a deeper region of the Heart. The problem is that it's down a side stairwell, one that the Wreck's cannons just blew open, and the smell of rot and decay's wafting up from it. You're going to have to dare the wrath of the Flood one more time... but it's not the end of the world! You've got options!

Speaking of options, the Wreck's hunkering down, withdrawing into its shell. The harder you attack, the more you risk setting off a very, very bad explosion. Putrid powder is scattered all around, and the slightest thing could set it off. Really, it's lucky Lucien didn't land that pie dead on.

***

Ailee!

"Well said, Miss Sundish! You always did have the pragmatic edge needed for real work." Squeak, squeak, squeak. The saddest sight in the world comes ambling up to you, the slap of his oversized shoes on the puddles comical and distressing in equal measure. Professor Hamptonshire, your former advisor, lost to the Heart and his own obsessions.

He's clean-shaven for the first time in decades, the better for slathering on the face-paint. What little hair he has remaining has been fluffed up and curled in neon blue, and he wears the traditional armor of the Grail-Questant, smeared in the wicked paints of the Dark Carnival. His eyes are watery brown, floating in those sharp diamonds, and in his hand he has a nail-studded bat. "It's just a shame you never followed my arguments to their conclusion."

Hamptonshire's all consumed with death anxiety, see. The word immortality hooked in his spine, making him ignore the counter-arguments to seeking the Grail: the Ship of Heaven (if you replace something piece by piece, when does it stop being the original?) and the fact that immortality in the depths of the Heart is worse than dying up above. The fool threw away the chance to pursue real power because he lost all the hair on top of his head and started needing to walk with a cane. And, to his credit, it looks like he hardly needs the cane anymore, not after pursuing the Fools' Mysteries all this time.

***

Jackdaw!

You never turned in your final paper on Comparative Alchemy in Hamptonshire's class, due to his suddenly closing his office and selling everything he owned in order to fund a descent into the Heart. But you've still got it in your collection, somewhere. You should make him grade it! But, then again, was it really worth grading in the first place? Surely you've learned more on the subject! Except that now that you're on the spot, your head's empty. Oh no! This is just like the nightmares!

Except for the hideous monster over there. Weirdly, that wasn't in the nightmares. Or, well, it might be more accurate to say it's not in your nightmares yet!

Breathless Dead

When the gods stand against you, there are but three paths you may walk: the path of harmony, the path of renunciation, or the path of wisdom.
- Kyllos, The Dialogues

***

Aphrodite! Of course Redana knows better than to disrespect any of the gods, but her education focused mostly on “how to invoke Aphrodite for blessings in political marriages” and “the proper ceremonies to request the love of one’s subjects.” If she had read more of the right sort of books, she would be a lot more scared than she is now; she would be more likely to consider, even if only for a moment, the path of wisdom[1].

But Aphrodite is toothless, she thinks. He is almost silly, a crooning singer who touches hearts and lifts spirits, patron of the cosmetologist and the cosmetic surgical kit, and of course she does not want to offend him, but it should be simple enough to walk in harmony, present herself as a suitor, and delight him enough so that he lets her walk away with Epistia. What could go wrong?

“Thank you, both of you,” Redana says, clapping her hands together twice and bowing her head. “May you be wreathed in honor, as befits your dignity. I will heed your wisdom as I court the hand of the princess.” There! Are you not pleased, Aphrodite? We shall put on a show[2]! Redana will walk your labyrinth until she comes to its center[3].

Far-off mortar fire and the toppling of trees catches her attention: the pursuit is here. She flinches, guilty, pained. Knowing that it is her fault that violence has come here is a knife in her heart, and further proof that she cannot escalate the godly conflict. Every distant crash of splintered timber twists in her.

“There is no time to lose,” she adds, fervently. “I’m very sorry to ask, but can one of you please take me to her? The sooner I win her, the less hurt my enemies can cause this wonderful place.”

***

[1]: give up on your plans and walk away.

[2]: to renounce Aphrodite is to be heartless; is to steel yourself and let no kindness or sympathy sway you. To walk under Athena’s shield in such matters is to take what is yours by cold stratagem, the mathematics of battery fire, overwhelming force and spoil. It is to Redana’s credit that she does not even consider this.

[3]: Redana has not thought this far ahead yet.