Tatterdemalion

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

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

It’s fantastic!!! Oh, my gosh, watching Sessily in action is like watching a baby kitten fumbling around as it learns to use its legs! Everything’s new and wonderful and when it ends up doing a cartwheel on accident everything is adorable and pweshus and aaaaah!!! I’m barely getting any done because I keep getting distracted watching her put her whole heart into shopping, letting it outstrip her coordination and grace in favor of giving 110% right here and now!

Other people might say, oh, Rinley, isn’t it even better when you’re really good at something? And, yeah, it’s cool. But just because it’s clumsy doesn’t mean it isn’t heartfelt. And sometimes, it means it’s moreso. That your passion and love are bigger than your skill and you don’t even care.

I am on the side of finger painting on the walls. I am on the side of kids playing the piano as hard as they can. I am on the side of people crashing their bikes and cringy poetry and scratchy voices as your throat gives out. I am on the side of the heart, which permits no barrier. I am on the side of love.

After all, eventually that kid might grow up and learn skill, but it’s really hard to learn passion. Some people might say it’s impossible, but I know better. Nothing’s impossible if you put your heart to it.

Such as finding the objectively perfect Dulcinea bribe by putting my hand down on it while I’m watching Sessily and wagging my tail so hard I’m knocking things over, too, much to the distress of the employee (1, singular).

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada!

There is a shadow at the heart of the sun. Look closer. There is a city in the heart of the sun. It is a thing of dreadful spires and terrible want. Look closer. It is a gnarled hand grasping outwards, each tower a finger. It is a terrible black that defines itself against that which it occludes. Look closer.

There are five thrones. They are seated there. Your eye waters. There are five thrones and five shadows.

Make Your Choice

Look Upon The Bull-headed God
He is twisting the limbs off of something. Maybe it is an insect.

Look Upon The Lion-headed Goddess
It is possible that she is simply scratching herself, one leg thrown over the arm of the chair as she yawns.

Look Upon The Vulture-headed God
His beak pokes out of his all-concealing robes as he surrounds himself in language that burns.

Look Upon The Horse-headed God
Their head is sunken into their hands, their shoulders shaking as they sob with laughter.

Look Upon The Hyena-headed Goddess
She winds cloth around a struggling head, meticulously slow, excruciatingly tight.

***

Anathet!

You send the idiot flying into a table, with a little more force than you meant. Which is bad, because there were some sullen Salamanders drinking at that table. And Salamanders may drink soporifics, but that just makes them crankier when it’s disrupted.

They come boiling out at you, tails lashing and many arms flexing, and you need to do something about what’s going on, now! Show the bouncer that you’re a big girl, that you can handle yourself, that you’re not about to cry! She’s already on the move, halfway to you, so you only have a moment to really, really make an impression!

Or stand there and get a fist the size of your head to the face. That works too.

***

Étoile!

Tamytha’s veiled smile is relieved and shaky, and her eyes are so soft and dark and lovely, you could melt into them. “Thank you for handling the wildlife,” she says, sweetly. “Let’s... let’s find a place where we can sit and consider our hunting strategies.”

You lead her over to an abandoned restaurant that once advertised American Frontier Foods, entering first and scanning it for traps. From there, it’s easy enough to help her up the stairs to the outdoor eating area, where threadbare umbrellas still offer some shade from the sun.

“I wish we’d brought a Lynx,” she says, crumpling into a metal chair. “I shouldn’t expect you to do the tracking, even if you are a native. You don’t have the nose for it.”

She reaches out and boops you right on the veiled nose with a gentle giggle. “Even if you are my precious little lamassie! Would you like to use your sniffer to find treats for Lady, hmmm?” There’s so much affection in her voice, even if it is innocently condescending.

Fellowship: The Heart

Lucien!

“What ho, a bit of civilization down here, what?” The clown agreeably pumps your hand. “Between you and me, this is a right ghastly place. I have all sorts of theories on why the true source of immortality is down here, and why it desires the fulfillment, no, the exaltation of passion. It is not just a rite of passage, it is a crucible, a prison for gods like itself. Only those who are willing to shed their restraining ego deserve paradise, which is internal irregardless of the external factors— why do you think we associate clowns with joy, with celebration of existence, with a numinous dread?”

Numinous dread is right; clowns are infamous for being unhinged and violent down here. You saw that with his response to Ailee, and while that’s cowed him for now, the more he “ascends” into immortality, the more likely he is to try and force a rematch. Traveling with him is like traveling with a growing bear: very useful until you realize it’s gotten big enough to rip your arm off. Double that if you ever visit the infamous Dark Carnival, of which you have only heard whispers.

“I wanted Grail lore,” he adds, swinging into melancholy again. “But now Miss Sundish has riled the local god. Every place in the Heart is under the dominion of one Power or another, you know, even if it is a distant feudalism. This place will be nigh uninhabitable soon enough. Do you think she would mind dreadfully if I were to bring my donkey along?”

If you were to convince him that he would get closer to understanding the Grail by tearing that thing’s head off, he’d do it. Especially if you convinced him Ailee would appreciate it. On the other hand, that might not kill it, but nobody appreciates a head being torn off.

***

Team Sasha!

It is a battle for the ages, which mostly means it’s adrenaline-packed and you spend most of it trying not to die or accidentally set off all that gunpowder.

Walls are torn open. Stalactites fall from the ceiling. Bookshelves collapse. This place is close to falling apart: stay much longer and the whole thing might collapse into the Flood.

That would be a Bad Thing, by the way.

Breathless Dead

The Nemean looks at Bella over her shoulder. Her green eye is the impossible verdancy of a sun-blessed jungle, piercing and bright. As if one glance turns all she looks upon to glass.

Then she takes her axe and slams it down into the ground. The explosion of power sends turf showering up into the air, splitting the earth with jagged fractures. She sets one boot upon the axe’s head (one of them, that is) and turns to face the awestruck servitor. Beneath her armor, decorative and embellished, shining like sunlit gold, she wears a full-body aketon as sheer as silk and tight as her skin, shining with the subtle colors of the storm-toss’d void. It conceals everything; it reveals everything.

”Don’t get your pretty tail in a twist, little concubine!” The look she gives Bella is too unsubtle and hungry to come anywhere close to sensual. ”Your princess lies dreaming of this battle on the couch of the Moirae, where I make my home! There will be time enough after this battle for you to be ravished well and excellent before her safe return! So says Redana Chrysopelex!”[1]

One of the dead Ceronians flings a spear straight and true at her shoulder, and the shaft groans in its flight as it is sped along on winged feet to its home. The spearhead shatters into eight hundred and four shards when it touches her, and the splintered shaft cartwheels into the grass.

The Nemean does not so much as flinch. Instead, she employs an eyebrow. It is a very expressive eyebrow. Then she tears the axe up out of the grass, spins it once, and then just barely bats away a savage blow from the Ceronian queen. Too barely. She’s showboating. And if she dies, Redana might be stuck in the House of the Moirae[2] forever!

Something has to be done.

***

[1]: The Golden-Helmed One.

[2]: also known as Conceptual Space, the Seventh Dimension, or the Quantum Tomb, depending on your school of thought.

Breathless Dead

The pain is impossible. It would be wrong to call it indescribable: it is her nerves burning like the lightning-stroke that splits the tree, it is the blindness that turns the world white and her auspex's information stream into scrambled nonsense, as it tries to inform her exactly how badly the nerves of her leg have been corrupted, spiked, undone. This is a weapon made to kill humans. This is a weapon intended to draw out and prolong the death, to send the foe to the embrace of Hades piece by piece.

She gets up, her leg collapses underneath her, the next swipe tears out the auspex— no.
She goes for her sword, the queen breaks the bones of her wrist underneath a cruel heel— no.
She cries out for help, sobbing, and the queen tears her throat open, makes a red flower— no.

Redana succumbs to her pain, instead, and falls deeper. The world folds around her, and there is the sharp smell of ozone. There is a sound that is something like a thunderbolt and something like Hades shuffling a deck of cards. Is this yours, the Princess? Watch, I tap it, and it is the Warrior. It is the Nemean. This child of Nero was never locked in a gilded cage; no, she must have been taken by secret arts and delivered into the hands of her father, suckled at the teat of her caprine great-nurse, trained by both centaurs and titans.

The amount of energy that is required to turn a possibility's shadow into a superimposition... it is truly divine. Only by the grace of the gods could such a thing be done.

When the Nemean rises from the grass, she stinks of storm-tossed skies and sweat. It is difficult to tell where her mane of shining gold ends and her lionskin cloak begins. Where Redana has an auspex, the Nemean has empty night and the light of a dying star forever caught in its last gasp. The razorwhip's next stroke wraps harmlessly around the haft of the axe that could have killed Typhon. As the Nemean unfolds, she towers over all, taller even than the statue of Pallas Athena on the green below.

"REJOICE!" Her voice is a thunderclap. "The gods have sent their response, little wolf! Are you not delighted?"

The razorwhip lashes out again, and the Nemean moves more nimbly than she has any right to. She is not yet injured, after all. How could she be? A moment ago she only existed as a might-have-been. Her knee-high boots tear a groove in the wet grass, and she barks a wild laugh, a war-laugh, a berserk-laugh. "Come, let us dance! Did you not wish to spit in my father's eye? I shall do, and do, and do for you!"

Her backhand swing carves through three Ceronians at once, so cleanly that it takes a moment for them to realize they must fall in pieces to the grass; the thunder that follows knocks down another six, sends the queen skidding back with her bracers held before her face. "Sword-day! Red-day! Hahaha! Come, come, come for the Nemean!" She opens her guard deliberately, her grin wild, daring the Queen to strike at her, a free blow, provided she can stand its return. "Come for Redana Chrysopelex!"

***

[Marking damage to Blood and necrotic damage to Grace. That's a 7 on Keeping Her Busy, however.]

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Étoile!

Oh, you silly little thing! You're not going to kill them, don't you worry. Unless you tranquilize someone and then they fall off a high place and crack their head open on the desolate pavement but, haha, don't think about that! If you think about that, if you think about how both you and your target are putting on an elaborate act on behalf of the Annunaki, that you're not so different from the teenagers who used to work here putting on a show for visiting tourists, you might just let out a tiny adorable scream. No, no, it's much better to think: where would someone hide in this place? And, more importantly, where are you comfortable leading Tamytha?

The tunnels are right out. They're exposed, now, the careful veil that Mickey Mouse drew over them dilapidated or grown too wild. The close quarters, the many doors, the darkness: no, no, no! That's likely where Jezcha and her friends will be playing, too, rooting out those who think they might be able to creep down as far below as they can and hide. Or, worse, those who want to count coup. Surely not all of those chosen to be prey meekly accept their fate...

That thought is why you hug the left side of the Main Street and avoid staying out in the open too long. That, and the sun is so exhausting for your Lady! You hook left and continue into Frontierland. Ah, there! A flash of motion! Someone darts inside the Haunted Manor-- or perhaps it was simply one of the many wild ducks that roam free here?

Speaking of wild ducks, a sharp squeak from behind you alerts you to the fact that several of them have taken offense with Tamytha coming too close; they are batting their wings and honking loudly, and poor Tamytha doesn't seem to know what to do about them! It's your time to shine, little star!!

***

Anathet!

The bouncer steps aside, letting you march victoriously forward. Then she holds out her hand and you run right into it, and, wow. Uh. She's really strong. "I'll be keeping an eye on you," she says, and it's really hard to tell whether that's a threat or flirting, but she's definitely amused at your determination, and, gosh, wouldn't it be nice if somebody actually took you seriously for once?

Inside, there's a giant novelty freezer in the shape of a predator from the Lynxes' home planet, huge and hulking, behind the bar. And inside that is the white gold wrapped in chocolate. All you have to do is walk up to that big, scary-looking German behind the bar, with the bouncer watching you, and impress her. Er. Impress him, and hand over your savings. The ones that nobody here, absolutely nobody here, would try to palm off you while you weren't looking, and--

You're tripped halfway to the bar. "Awww, hey there," a smarmy young man says. "Sorry about that, let me help you up..."

He's totally going to try to pick your pocket, and the bouncer's totally watching to see what you do, and you're pretty sure you just scuffed your palm on the rough floor, and your robes are billowing around you, uuuugh. You have to show off! Prove that you're tough enough to hang with the lowest of the low! And that you don't need the bouncer to come and save you!! And in fact that you are very cool and she should totally hang with you once her shift ends!!

***

Canada!

This is the first time you've seen the sun here.

It writhes in orange-gold light in the sour black sky, high above the telescope's vast lens. There is a shadow in the heart of the sun, but it's impossible to look at directly. The telescope is pointed directly at that heart. There are seven slots all around the eyepiece, which is dark and clouded.

The Cat is waiting for you, sitting beside the telescope, licking her paw. She looks up when you walk up the stairs into the dusty, long-deserted observatory, but does not smile. "Acceptable performance," she says, crisply. "Now place the jewels in their stations. It is the only way for you to see."

The telescope is a huge, brassy thing, over-engineered and dusty with age. There are probably a hundred lenses inside of it, as evidenced by the many wheels and dials on its sides. Luckily, the Cat's probably already handled the calibration: all you need to do is set the jewels in the slots and trust her. Look. Stare at the shadow in the heart of the sun like an eagle.

The closer you come, the more weight hangs on you. Destiny or dread, one or the other. Once you look, there will be no going back.

Breathless Dead

"The populace of this planet [Nemi] have a quaint custom, passed down from their forebears; there, Zeus founded an apple tree, with gilt branches and gilt leaves. Around the boughs of this tree was wrapped Nemesis in the form of a Python, blind and lethal. And for three miles around no thing might grow, but was poisoned root and leaf; and no stone could be placed upon another, but would shiver themselves into shards. And the Rex [king] of this planet is held to speak with the voice of the gods, and at their word is the fate of nations decided.

And any who seek the title are bade to seek out this tree, and climb upon the sun-bleached bones of all who have come before and been found unworthy by the fangs of Nemesis; and then, to seize firmly one bough of this tree, and if the gods are with them, then the branch will cleave from its mother like the daughter who is given to her suitor's hand. They are then to carry this bough before the Rex, and cast it at the monarch's feet, still bearing fruit.

Then they are to fight until only one remains alive, and whosoever lives shall be the Rex; and in the case of mutual destruction, the people of this planet shall mourn for thirty days; then they shall send those youths whose coming of age was on the day of ruin, and one by one they shall be sent to meet the jaws of Nemesis.

- Sullust, The Histories.

***

No. No! Redana's hands fly to her mouth to stifle a cry. No! This is a horror. Her muscles clench involuntarily, her instincts telling her to run, to flee, or to strike the queen down where she stands. She swallows it down, but it is all of her discipline, her self-control, not to satisfy the mania that Phobos, daughter of Ares, stirs within her. Thanks be to Athena, quencher of passions; thanks be to Zeus, who holds the chains that bind both guest and host.

She stands, stiff, feeling the blood pumping through her neck and forehead as the queen advances in a passion. She means to say something pleasant despite herself, to weakly thank her hostess for her hospitality, but what tumbles out instead is simply: "What have you done?" She advances, a fallen fragment of sunlight against an oncoming storm, trembling. "I worried I brought something terrible to this place, but the rot was already here! How dare you stay here! You have a duty!" Phobos cups her fingers shut into a fist. "If you have any honor left, Rex Asebeia, then ostracize yourself!"

How dare she? How dare she? The duties of the monarch are clear! The pursuit of the common good, the mediation with the gods on behalf of the nation... even if Redana disagreed with her mother's stagnant quarantine of humankind, even she would expel herself from Tellus if the gods had made such omens clear, wouldn't she? No, she can't even imagine her mother clinging to her marble throne, watching the skies darken and the earth crack under the hooves of Poseidon Enosichthon, spitting defiance at the heavens the way that Molech did at the fall of the Atlas Cultural Sphere. But it is a self-fulfilling doom; if the queen of Ceron has fallen so far, then of course, of course she gathers her strength about her and tries to spit in the eye of Zeus Olympios. A woman in such a state might do anything.

Ice trickles down her spine. A woman in such a state might do anything. She is freed of the bans laid upon all beings, the ancient laws set by Zeus Aegiduchos over all who strive, for having broken one she is damned, and refusing repentance, may do as she pleases. It is forbidden for her to raise a hand against Redana, just as it is forbidden for Redana to raise a hand against her, but only Redana remains bound. It is forbidden for Epistia to take her mother's life, but...

Redana takes one step to the left, putting herself between mother and daughter. Her throat closes up and the world narrows. The mist's kisses trickle down her neck and she does not flinch. If she lashes out, if she does anything to respond to whatever violence the damned queen may choose to inflict, she is condemned in turn, but... but there are no laws concerning where one may stand. That is given to everyone to choose freely. And right here? Right now?

Redana stands between mother and daughter, and forces her fingers to splay, to not become a treacherous fist. She mouths something, but not even she knows what is trying to come out, and there is no breath in her, not any more. All that is left is the way she grinds her heel against the grass and refuses to look away.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada!

The Cat regards you for a long moment. Her tail lashes dangerously. Her shining eyes are steady on you, like the lights of an oncoming ghost-train. Goudan, behind you, quails and offers you no comforting hand.

“I have killed before,” she says, scraping her claws against the tiles. There is a short shower of sparks. (Is it your imagination that they fall into mirror shards and vanish?) “One has to eat, after all.” (Because it was her job? Or— oh, right. Because she’s a cat.) “And I will not say that your inclination to pacifism is not admirable. But there are things in this world that will not roll over and play dead because you ask them nicely. There are things that want to hurt you, Canada, and everyone you care about. They are wicked.”

She comes to a decision. She is very good at that. “If you wish to be cured of your precious cowardice, if you wish to be shown the truth, meet me in the Sealed Tower. Bring seven flawless jewels.” Then with a flick of her tail she is gone.

“I think you should go,” Goudan says. “Like, look at it this way, right? Either you go and she convinces you to kick ass sometimes, or she shows you her big show and you decide to stick to your guns which you’re not gonna shoot. Either way... I think you’d be happier, Cannie.”

And there’s the kicker: both of them want you to be the best you you can be. This is just how they know how to express it.

***

Anathet!

BAM!

The door to Johann’s slams open. Like most of the doors down here, it’s hinged, not powered by Caphtor; the force with which it hits the dented metal wall is enough to make you jump. Then a man lunges out at you.

Wait, no, correction, now that you’ve dived out of the way: he was thrown out at you. Oh, gosh. People actually do that here? That’s, like, the sort of thing that happens in movies. The guy is a crumpled, whimpering mess on the stairs, one of his hands held at a very uncomfortable angle.

“Don’t bother coming back,” the bouncer(?) says. Her voice is low and raspy, and her knuckles are bloody. “Shithead.”

Then she notices you, tucked up against the wall in your oversized hat and robes, and squats down to eye level to get a better look at you. It only takes her a moment to make up her mind.

“You shouldn’t be down here, honey,” she says in a Talking To A Lost Kid voice, her hands on her thighs. (Thighs that, not to be insensitive to Mr. Shithead, could kill a man.) “Are you lost? I can show you how to get to the Complex.” Her accent is as thick as Marianne’s, and about as, uh, potent.

Did I mention her hair? Like, everybody who’s not an asshole knows you don’t touch people’s hair without their permission, but it’s like a dark halo around her head, framed perfectly in the doorway. Behind her is loud rock-and-roll and laughter and smoke. You definitely have time to scamper back up those stairs if you’re scared.

***

Étoile!

Tamytha is wearing what passes for athletic wear among Annunaki nobility: a wispy veil with a weighted hem, her hair pulled back into an elegant bun (by someone’s clever fingers), a tight shoulderless top showing off her (lack of) muscle, and a long loincloth similar in style to your own, revealing glimpses of priceless false-scorpion silk drinking in the light. She looks gangly, even for an Annunaki, like a scarecrow or a movie monster, all too-long too-thin arms. But when she takes that goblet and drinks through the straw (Annunaki straw technology is very advanced, naturally) she can’t help but let the corners of her mouth curl up.

(Annunaki emote more with their faces than you’d expect. The trick is that they get the veils you can see through; you don’t. You’re not pretty enough.)

The gratitude. The way she cups both hands around it like a dork. The wind flashing you a peek of those wickedly dark shorties. It’s enough to make a girl’s heart all twitterpated, isn’t it?

“Thank you, little star,” she says, handing the goblet back to you and taking the sidearm. It’s meant to hang a little impractically from her belt, you see. “Did you ever come here? If you did, I’ll let you lead. You’d know all the best places to hide, after all.” And she smiles at you like you’re the only girl in the whole wide world.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada!

The Cat’s steady neon eyes are inscrutable, but the withering silence is almost palpable. You have disappointed her, Canada. Her bap of judgment is fierce when it finally comes.

She takes Influence over you (and thus, through the law of contagion, Variance also takes Influence, giving you Potential).

“Victory requires many interlocking factors coming into alignment, but you cannot win unless you decide to win, or someone else decides for you. Lose in your heart and you’ve already lost, and I don’t back a losing prospect. So why are you wasting my time, Canada?”

Goudan gives a low whistle and sits his shaggy butt down on the fountain next to you. “I mean, I’m still down for strength practice if you are, Cannie.”

“You can play with weights if you want,” the Cat says, her lip curling up in a sneer, “But I will bid you aideu.” She drops down and begins a stately, intent walk away from you. Leaving you as a lost cause.

***

Anathet!

The Annunaki do not buy. For that matter, they do not sell. Their economy is a vast web of theocratic obligation running on favors and agreements. They have no coins and no prices.

However, they understand that there are circumstances in which it might be useful for there to be some sort of measurement for exactly how indebted one might be to another, or how one might sum up the value of their possessions. So they permit the minting of Obligations by the Scales, an elite council of Thornbacks housed in Babylon itself.

You do not get to handle an Obligation. You might be worth an Obligation. (It’s rumored that Ètoile was worth three.) You have a pocket full of Slivers, little glossy tabs with a hole in one end for stringing on a line, rewards for exemplary service which may be redeemed at any official establishment in the markets below.

Most markets sell in bulk: food from the hydroponics and livestock blocks, textiles woven on massive industrial looms, and blocks of whatever material might be required. They are not for you, but are for stewards and handmaidens buying supplies at the demand of their family.

(Up above, there are no markets. There are art shows. There are exhibits. All the wheels of infrastructure and industry turn below, unseen and unregarded.)

So you go to a souk. They’re markets for those who live down here, those who are not allowed to see the sun. They’re company stores and red light districts and dingy noodle shops. They’re portable stalls set up by entrepreneurs coming off a twelve-hour shift in the hydroponics to sell hand-carved furniture made from rejected materials. They’re black market deals going on in the cramped corridors between apartment complexes.

When the Annunaki come down here, it is with purpose. They can be sorted into two sorts: the armored ones and the armored ones. The armored ones are ab-Marduki officers keeping the peace with a squad of janissaries or ab-Ereshkigali looming out of the shadows like evil sadist Batmen. The unarmored ones are ab-Enkiji or ab-Ishtari who need more experimental subjects from a deniable source, or ab-Shamashi working on keeping the machinery running alongside the ab-Enkiji. (Or, sometimes, daring youths “slumming it” after curfew.)

Here are the desperate, the hopeless, the forgotten. Here are the revolutionaries, the snitches, the loyalists. Here, the Thornbacks rule as their masters’ proxies.

Here, you see signs, most of them pictorial, advertising: food, company, clothing, pulp picture-books, decoration, furniture, tattoos. Here you see the ever-present Eyes of Caphtor, but one or two of them are vandalized, painted over, made unusable for the Djinn’s purposes of data mining.

Here is cyberpunk by way of Robert E. Howard.

Are you satisfied with a simple shaved ice, flavored with explosively sweet fruits from the Macaws’ home planet, sold by a human whose operation is squeezed between two stalls? Or do you want a rich, creamy sorbet served in the inner court of a Complex marked with the sigil of the House of Yellow Feathers? Or perhaps you want to duck down inside Johann’s and slam down all of your Slivers for one precious, endangered ice cream sandwich.

Maybe not that last one. You’re not tough enough to play at that bar.

***

Étoile!

Your hand is held. You are given a thankful glance from Tamytha, and Jezcha groans and starts to call you some very rude things, except, oh, look! You’re already landing! How lucky.

“This was one of their greatest festival halls, you know,” Jezcha says as you exit. She carries a sleek rifle slung over one shoulder; your Lady carries a dainty little sidearm, and you carry her long-range rifle. You’re porter, rifle stand, and moral support all in one. “And now we hunt them through it. Ha! It’s almost funny how pathetic it looks. Like a child’s attempt to paint the Temple of Ishtar.”

Disneyland Paris has seen better days. Days when, just for example, “feral” humans weren’t released inside to be hunted for sport. (You know, while the Annunaki probably do not, that the “ferals” are carefully coached. If it takes them too long to be captured, they’ll be punished. If it’s too easy, they’ll be punished. And if the Annunaki hunting them die, they die too.)

“Scared, Tamytha? You should be.” Jezcha laughs and waves over another group of hunters, friends of hers. You have a bad feeling about how she said that...

Breathless Dead

“That’s amazing,” Redana breathes. She stares in delighted awe at the princess, beaming like a fool. “You’re using a farming implement as a weapon? What am I saying, of course that makes sense, your father used to be worshipped as a god of the harvest on Ceron, taking on his iconography is a fantastic way to honor him! Your style isn’t like anything I’m familiar with, it’s not even Ceronian, did you pick it up from the Assistant Secretary? I know his people weren’t valiant, but his fluid motion seems to be an inspiration, I think. Have you tried using sickles as a sidearm? I think, with their moon-shaped edge—“

There’s another crash far below, and Redana sobers. Her smile fades and is replaced with determination as she collects herself and then drops to one knee, lowering her head. She looks more like a disheveled sailor than an Imperial princess, but when she speaks, it’s with a natural gravitas.

“Your royal highness, I implore you to suffer my presence in the name of my father, Zeus Xenios, the hospitable one. I am Princess Redana Claudius of Tellus, bound by sacred oath to the service of your father, Hades Rusor, to whom all things return. I have pledged myself to win a smile from you.”

She offers her hand, still knelt at Epistia’s feet. “And I know nothing better for a smile than to see the shining stars and the billowing of the waves. You have lived a life here in paradise, but if you are like me, you cannot bear a cage long. You want to know what lies beyond the jaws of the leviathan we abide within, this very moment. If it would please you... come with me. Take my hand, and it is yours.”

A soft breeze dusts her golden hair with radiant droplets of water, reflecting the light of the caged sun. Her face is noble, crowned with her father’s blessing, and yet carefully vulnerable. Her lips are parted, ever so slightly, and her coat clings to her frame. To see her in this moment is to be struck by the god’s son, the merry archer who carries the darts of gold and lead[1], whose wings carry him careless wheresoever he will.

“We don’t have much time,” she adds, quietly. “The longer I’m here, the more danger I bring to your doorstep. I’m sorry. But please. Come with me.”

***

[1]: the first of Eros’s arrows inspires furious desire and longing, stirring the heart into sudden fire; the second fills the unfortunate with fear and revulsion, and the desire to flee. It is said, too, that Eros is blind, and cannot distinguish one from the other; but that may just be a foolish story. The gods do as they will. It is not for us to declare our understanding of the will of Aphrodite’s child.

***

[Redana is Talking Sense, but she only achieves an 11 if she has touched Epistia’s desires and maidenly heart. It’s an 8, if instead her words are judged on their reason; Epistia’s ability to squeeze a favor out of Redana depends entirely on how hard and fast she falls for her.]