Tatterdemalion

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Haman ab-Marduk!

The breeze you ordered comes wafting over the garden wall, curling about your guests as they applaud the esoteric that you got for the garden. It is appropriately exotic. The Macaw chanter and Lynx musicians standing by one of the fountains begin their own performance, performing the Twenty-Seventh Prayer of Celebration. It, in turn, is appropriately familiar and soothing. The entire garden moves like a well-oiled mechanism, and this is just as it should be. You appreciate it when everything does what it is supposed to. When things do not work as they should, you are unfortunately forced to press the issue. It's such a bother.

A successful party like this, tastefully restrained, appropriately indulgent, adds to your reputation. Naturally, you are the Seneschal of Caphtor. Of course you are. Why wouldn't you be? You proved yourself in the Hymissian Reach against the foes of the High Gods, fearsome but ultimately pathetic devils and unholy beasts, leading first a company, then a legion, then an entire Expeditionary Force. You secured spoils and broke every weapon that was arrayed against you in the name of the High Gods. Your promotion to civic administration was deserved, as was your rise through the ranks.

You even had three children, one of whom was actually promising. The most the other two can offer is not disappointing you. Not shaming you. You're not meant to break them, after all. Not unless the Inquisitors are circling.

You take a sip of your black wine and breathe through your nose. Yes. All is as it should be.

"My lord," the Thornback hisses apologetically. Your gaze drifts down to it. Your execrable wife's favorite. Maybe that alone makes it worth breaking. You arch a perfect brow and say nothing so viciously that it digs its talons into its own palms. "You have a visitor awaiting your pleasure in the Eightfold Nave. The honored and esteemed Asahel ab-Shamash of the House of White Steel offers his congratulations on this, the celebration of your incomparable daughter's upcoming examinations, and bade me insist on a moment of your time."

You press your drink into its hands and stride away without a word. Asahel. Now what does the Huntsman want with you? He knows you are busy tonight, and he knows better than to waste your time. He is not the first Huntsman of Caphtor you have seen during your administration, and he has wisely kept his distance.

When you enter the Nave, he is pacing in his ridiculous flight-jacket and boots, his veil close-fit to his face. "Haman," he says, with undue familiarity. There is sweat beading on his forehead. "They're coming here."

You take a breath. Your fingers curl. He will regret every word he has just spoken by this time tomorrow. "Slow down," you bid him. "I fear your wits must be addled by the high airs. Take a seat. I will call for drinks."

"No time," Asahel says. "They sent word by courier, they want a hunt prepared for them, suitable accommodations, we will need to advance their feast days--"

The blood turns to ice in your veins. You reach out and take Asahel by the breast, fixing him with the furious eyes that made your soldiers quail and advance time and again from the trenches. "Asahel. What did you overindulge in?"

He wordlessly hands you what he should have offered you from the first: the tablet, golden and gleaming. The commandments, each one carved perfectly. The seal of Shamash, the Breaker of Horses, who turns the stars in their wheels.

For the first time in centuries, one of the High Gods descends upon the unworthy from the heights of Babylon.

Breathless Dead

When Bella turns, Redana is already looking at her. And the expression on her face is horrified. One hand covers her mouth; her eyes are wide with shock; her every nerve is frozen and taut. She is prey.

She knows, indistinctly, that Bella was, is a trained bodyguard, a last line of defense for the greatest prize of the Empire. But she has never seen anyone die at Bella’s claws before. Never. Never ever! Bella Oystershell Meowmeow is a fussy little maid who’s always worrying and fixing her lady’s hair and blushing whenever someone makes an off-color joke and does a silly little trot in place when she’s flustered!

And watching that calm attentiveness, that worried twist of her lips, that demure lowering of her lids, slip back onto her face is sickening. Redana’s stomach plummets as if someone kicked her legs out from under her. Everything. Everything she thought she knew about her Bella was a lie.

Was she trained before she ever hopped into that box? How long has she been pretending to be her lady’s friend? Her best friend? How many lies has she told her princess, if she can kill someone and then put on the mask of meekness? Was their whole friendship a lie?

That’s why she didn’t want to let you leave.

No. No no no. Bella can tell something’s wrong. Redana can’t get purchase in the mud, can’t get up on her feet, not with one leg now completely numb. Her scramble backwards is ungainly, panicked, her fear palpable. Let her face a dozen hydras, or a legion of thinking machines, or a void dragon, just please don’t make her face the monster in front of her.

She can’t hurt Bella.

And she doesn’t know, can’t know, whether Bella won’t hurt her. For her own good. Jas’o is a crumpled mess and he was an ass and deserved punishment—

Zeus, father, was this the punishment for Jas’o’s hubris? Bella your thunderbolt? The words won’t come out of her mud-clogged throat. All she can do is gurgle and crack her elbow on a rock as the ground slips out from under her again.

Weak. Vulnerable. Pathetic.

Breathless Dead

“Justice is what the gods demand![1] We might not understand them, but Laxarus[2] teaches us that the gods abhor injustice! At the end of every story, Olympus brings the scale of Themis[3] to rights, and the wicked will fall,” Redana does not say. She thinks it really, really hard! Bella would be so proud of how that semester of Moral Philosophy rubbed off on her!

What she actually says is “Blrmphl hkklkh grrhhhk.” There is mud in her mouth. There is mud on the Auspex. There is mud up her nose. Her fingers scrabble angrily at the boot but find no laces, no purchase. Her limbs flail like serpents, even the one scored by forbidden science.

How dare he? Here, now? How dare he when she just needs a chance to catch her breath? The Nemean will not come; the strain would kill them both. Bella? Aren’t you coming back?

Her fingers fumble through the incantation to summon Alexa, and... nothing. The seal beneath her skin remains inert. So she does need to do the chant. What a way to find out. She can hold her breath a very, very long time, but it’s still making her unpleasantly light-headed. She’ll be as weak as a kitten when Jas’o claps her in chains and drags her up to be carried back to Odoacer as a trophy...

***

[1]: ”But remind me, Thesaa. If justice exists outside the person of the gods, should we not worship it? For surely only that which is most powerful is deserving of worship, and a justice such as yours must be more powerful than the gods, if they abide by it. And if it does not exist outside them, then is justice merely the will of the gods in their judgment? If that is so, why does any one who lives bother to address the gods in the name of justice? Do they think that the gods will change their minds if we act like persistent beggars who keep pace with them as they go about their business?”
— The Testament of the First Teacher, retrieved from the Palatial Library of Atlas

[2]: Laxarus, The Comedy and The Tragedy (abridged edition, printed in Ka’anshou)

[3]: ”To Themis, the fumigation of frankincense and attar. Illustrious Themis Ouranopaide, be invoked. First flower of Gaia, virgin of many ramparts! From your hand we learned the first rites of prayer; from your lips came the first prophecy of what might be, should all align. You make the offering proper and the sacrifice just. Be present in this place, Themis Ouranopaide, and regard us with your shining thoughts.”
— The Ant-Rite of Hermes, translated from High Binharic, II.1-13.

Breathless Dead

”Don’t look at me like that, Bella. Shhhh. The King of Stones and I have a plan, and we’re going to save Tellus. Ow! Quit it! Bella, this is for you! I’m going to save you and everybody else, whether or not you want to come with me, now stop! squirming! and get! in! the! closet!”

***

“Bella!” The name tears her throat open as if made from splintered glass. “Stay, please!”

But she’s gone. Redana pushes herself up onto her palms and looks up at Jas’o. Being abandoned by Bella a second time hurts just as much as the first.

(Except it’s not, right? She’ll be back. She has a clever plan. She’s sneaking on board Jas’o’s shuttle, or preparing to grab him from behind and pull his weapon from his hand, to smack his neck and make him choke and gasp for air while she brushes down her ridiculous new dress and says something like, “You’re lucky no harm came to Her Highness,” with a sniff and a flick of her tail. She can’t have left. She’ll always come back. Even if she’s angry. She wouldn’t leave. She wouldn’t.)

“I’ll give you one more chance to surrender,” she says, blinking rain out of her eyes. Why did Mom have to ban secondary eyelids? “My cause is just. You don’t have a chance.”

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Anathet!

“See that you do,” Auntie Rose hisses after a long and deliberately ominous pause. “I expect nothing but the best work from you after the trouble you have caused this household, girl.” By which she means the trouble you’ve caused her. She is the household. She has worked since she was a sapling to be here. Her pride and anger are entwined, and both are thorned.

Then you are dismissed with a wave of a bony, many-ringed hand, and are free to write. What is your magnum opus, your masterpiece, your tale of Annunaki superiority and human folly?

***

Canada!

By the time you’re finished, having been off on your adventures all night long (and you’ll be sleepwalking exhausted through inventory check today), the main hall looks a tiny bit neater and less ruined. Or maybe you’ve just learned to look at it a different way.

The Cat allows herself the indulgence of rubbing up against your leg, once. “There we are, my girl. Sharpened and tempered. Be a knife that cuts through everything on its way to the heart of the sun! Tear open the world and force your way through! It’s your last chance to be happy.”

[She offers you one more label shift before you fall through the mirror: +Danger, -Mundane.]

In the mirror, you look taller. More like yourself. You look like you’re ready to take on the Golden Snake of Calcutta again, and knock out all of its teeth with one punch. All that’s missing is Asterion to whoop for you, Variance to cluck her tongue, and Tirzah to laugh and say: I didn’t see it, do it again! Funny how she must have known a lot more about what was going on than she let on.

***

Étoile!

The rifle’s barrel rests cold against your forehead. (At this distance, it will be very, very dangerous.) And in that moment, you cast yourself to fate. You’ve done all that you can without tearing Marianne free, for all that she might rage inside you. All you can do is trust in your cards and hope your poker face will carry you through as you simper and giggle.

And then Jezcha cracks. The rifle lowers, drifting down until it points between your knees. And she guffaws.

“Tammie, your pet is so stupid!” She pets your head with all the smothering inelegance of someone who never bothered to learn gentleness. You giggle and nuzzle that hand with a dazzling smile, even though it feels like she’s going to mess up your hair and knock you off balance. “I was wrong!”

Wait, what?

“What?” Your Lady sounds absolutely shocked.

“There’s no way she knew what she was doing,” Jezcha says, squishing your cheeks together. “No you didn’t, widdle dirtbrains! You just need to be kept out of trouble so you don’t make the big mean gun accidentally discharge! You want Miss Jezcha to take goooood care of you, don’t you? Don’t you, little zu?”

You screw your courage to the sticking place, do your best to give her a dazzling smile with your eyes, and oink happily like a space pig for Jezcha.

“Pull the ropes off my useless sister,” Jezcha tells her Macaw. “I’ve got a much better toy now.”

Fellowship: The Heart

Team Train!

In the world above, there exists a certain island that is dreaded by experienced sailors. It is ringed with jagged rocks, which have been the death of many a fine vessel, and on this island live the Sirens. A common misconception is that they are seductive, luring sailors to their doom with quivering bosoms and honeyed bower-songs. The truth is that their songs offer explanation. Come here, they sing, and we will tell you why. We will reveal the movements of the wheels that turn the world; we will pull back the veil and show you the figures of the gods, great and terrible. We will tell you the future by revelation of the past; we will make everything make sense. Everything that happened to you happened for a reason. Come listen. Come listen.

The things that roost here, at the point of Descent, are not sirens. They are antisirens.

Look at one. Marvel at its burnished skin and its three fine feathered heads, singing in harmony about the freedom of forgetting. About your secret shames and your painful regrets. About all the things that chased you down here. Forget, they sing: forget. The world is meaningless and cruel, and the only way to survive is to forget. Knowledge brings suffering. Forget. Forget.

Then you look away, and—

What were you looking at?

There are bones caught in nets that rattle on the edges of this massive whirlpool, this cosmic drain. They are not bleached, but moldy and cracked, as if something with long beaks sucked the marrow out, and...

Was there a way down?

Look again.

There’s a... a thing. Made up of stone things. Leading to... you know, it’s long and stringy. That thing. Which could go down. Down. Down. Drown.

What were you looking at? Why do your ears hurt? Why are you crying? Why are you still alive? Living hurts. Remembering hurts. Nothing matters, nothing has a reason, and nothing never shatters.

Antisirens

Song of Forgetting — um, there’s a move, I think, and it lets you Get Away? If you had that, you couldn’t use it. Not while they sing. Who? Who what? Why are you here?

Weakness — there’s a thing, and it hurts them, drives them away, but does that matter? What are they, anyway? You can’t remember. You looked away.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

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

So, Dulcey! You’re coming down Apricot Lane (which, ridiculously, is lined with peach trees) when you see a girl up in the air, teetering precariously as she reaches up for a fresh, juicy peach juuuuust out of reach. She’s got to be just so tall. Too bad you can’t see her legs behind the hedge, because, wow! Those would be some legs, right? Real stunners!

Then she happens to notice you and she gasps! Like a real gosh-to-goodness gasp! Not like someone caught stealing peaches but like somebody who’s recognized you! “I think I see Dulcinea,” she squeaks, and up from her legs floats your favorite voice in the whole wide world: “See? I told you this was a good idea!”

She careens out around the hedge at high speeds, shrieking and trying not to lose her balance, and it is revealed that, in fact, Sessily is sitting on my shapely shoulders! “Heya, Dulcy! If you climb up onto Sessily, we can get to the really high peaches!”

“Rinley,” Sessily squeaks, “weren’t we going to give her the present?” And I gasp and hit my fist into my palm, even as Sessily sways unsteadily.

“That’s right! Dulci! I’ve got the best present in the whole world for you, the kind of thing that would fit perfectly with what you’re wearing,” I say, willing the words to be true. Maybe a splash of bright glittery pink is exactly what all that black needs. “But! You’ll only get it after you make us a giant snake!”

“Doesn’t that make it a bribe?”

“No, it’s a present! She’ll freely get it after she freely makes us the snake for the performance!” This is sound logic. Probably the most logicful logic that you’ve ever heard in your life!

This is the part where you drop everything and beg for the chance to help us. When you’re ready. Just go ahead.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada!

You painstakingly match mirror shards to frames. It’s like a danger puzzle. The Cat insists that there’s a way to look at glass and know where it belongs. You haven’t learned it yet, so there’s a lot of slapping your hand involved.

“I had to train. I had to learn.” Her eyes gleam as she watches you reach for another shard; you go unsmacked. “No kitten is born knowing how to hunt.”

Later, the rats have cannons, and strong opinions about becoming food. You hunker down behind a makeshift barricade while the Cat dares them to fire at her, her wickedly sharp teeth gleaming.

“Hunger! No one who is satisfied with the world as it is can ever fight. It will not arrange itself for you, Canada! When you let hunger spur you on, then you may change the world to your liking.”

Today, the secrets are drawn in violet ink on the wings of butterflies. You must act with deliberate care to avoid crushing them when you catch them in your hands. The Cat eats each one after reading the wings.

“They succumbed to the hunger that does not stop. A throne is a cage, mon ami. They gorge themselves and grow hungrier. What a waste.”

A flick of an elegant tail. The crunch of butterfly bones(?) under white teeth.

“The more you gain, the more vigilant you must be to see that it is not taken from you. But you already know that, don’t you? Cherchez la femme!”

***

Anathet!

The click of chitin on a marble desk. Your own chair is uncomfortable, cramped, and hard, all by design. The office is choking with floral scents and incense, and you’re quite thankful how much of it your veil keeps out.

“I recall entrusting you with a duty,” Auntie Rose says, her raspy whisper dripping with menace. Her eyes are hard as coals. “Pray tell, why were you found at a den of ill repute in the places below? Are you not enjoying your privilege of direct service?”

At least you likely managed to save the bar! After you revealed your ownership, getting you home very quickly became a priority. And, hey, you’ve still got a date, as long as Auntie Rose doesn’t ground you! Or worse.

(And maybe even then, if you’re clever and lucky.)

***

Tamytha!

You ache. You are dizzy, and the ropes bite where they suspend you from the pole. You want to wake up and find this was all a dream. But here you are, left as bait for the savage humans so that Jezcha can get her trophies. Your head lolls bonelessly as your blood goes thin and you drift in and out of sense.

“Ohmygosh and goodness!”

You lift your head, mouth dry. “Little star, run,” you rasp, but even you can barely hear it. Your heart tightens in your chest as she (bedraggled, frightened— what did they do to her?) runs forward with your pistol. Oh, oh! No, lamassie, you silly little thing! You close your eyes and flinch, unable to watch Jezcha shoot her again.

There is firing and screaming. And... your little star keeps screaming. And then she’s here, she’s here, how could all those shots have missed? What is Jezcha playing at? But she’s here and trying to undo those painful knots pressing into you with all the strength of gravity.

“Lamassie,” you manage to force out between dry lips, “you’re such, such, such a good girl.” Then you look up, and see Jezcha advancing, rifle raised to her shoulder, aimed at your little pet. You scream a warning for all that it hurts your throat, nudge her with your knee, and she turns just as Jezcha fires.

It barely misses both of you, embedding itself in the pole inches from your feet. And Jezcha already has another shot in the chamber.

“How dare you,” your sister roars at your pet. Another shot, this one firing wide in her fury. “I’ll have you shut up in the Houses of Correction forever!”

If she catches your lamassie, she will hand your beloved pet over to the Inquisitors and you’ll never get to see her again. She’ll be punished and taught her place and given to somebody else. Your stomach twists.

“Please, please,” you beg, but you know better than to ask anything of Jezcha. “Run, lamassie!” But lamassie tugs desperately at the central suspension knot, and you tumble down into her arms, nearly knocking her to the ground. Which...

Which has given Jezcha time to line up another shot.

Breathless Dead

“Mmmn mmfffr!!” Bella has a firm grip. Her fingers grip Redana’s cheek and jaw snugly, stifling further response as she lectures her princess on what’s going on. And of course, Redana realizes with a sinking heart: of course Odoacer is going rogue. She’s not stupid: she’s seen (some of) what the Admiral has tried to do. She knows she’s supposedly a prize. Well, the joke’s on the Admiral: she has no intention of being a damsel in distress today.

She grabs Bella’s wrist and pries her hand free, having figured out that just shaking her head was getting her held tighter. (The hand relents, but rests against her jaw and throat stubbornly, threatening to silence her again. Is Bella still sore over how Dany had to make sure she wouldn’t call for Mynx?)

“Then help me,” Redana pleads. “Together, we can do anything!” Even to her, it sounds desperate and childish, an echo of their games. “We can run away,” she yields, as Bella vaults an overturned cart, “but with Epistia, and Alexa, and Vasilia and Dolce! You’ll love Dolce, he’s so sweet and soft and...“

Aphrodite’s slender fingers undo a button, already twisted on its side and half slipped free by Bella’s exertion, and Redana glances down. Soft. Bella is soft. Not just her fur, which is silky and so good for running fingers through, but. Every step sends a ripple through her. Color rises to Redana’s cheeks as she stares, wide-eyed, thoughts arrested.

Bella’s buds strain against that soaked top, shockingly dark and firm. Why is the sound of her heart reverberating in her skull? She’s bathed with Bella before, she’s always treated her pet with respect and never treated her like a, like a concubine, or a trophy, she’s her best friend so stop staring and why does her mouth suddenly feel so empty? Why is that a sensation her flushed, hot body chooses to focus on?

“Hold on,” Bella says, and before Redana can react they’re already jumping from a high place down onto a lower street, and Bella’s hand is on the back of her head pulling her close and tight and the world is, for a moment...

Soft.

Breathless Dead

The command seal is livid black and red breaking the cream of her skin, spread over the back of her hand. It is fully subdermal now, a twisted and delicate thing of Protohermaic script in gleaming metal. Redana has no idea how long she has until her theft of it is discovered. Maybe the wardens are already on their way.

“See this?” She pulls her glove down and Bella recoils, her tail stiff and her eyes wide. “It’s a command seal. I can use it to tell the statue at the door to help us steal a ship! She’ll take us to the hangars, and then we’ll go see the stars. The stars, Bella! Imagine how many wonders we could see out there, how many new friends we could meet—“

Redana ignores the warning until it’s too late: the way that Bella’s ears lay flat on her skull, the sick and frightened smile that isn’t matched in her eyes, the tensing of her fingers. She’s just too excited. The crack of Bella’s palm on her cheek tears the words away, leaves her ear ringing.

For a moment the two stare at each other. Redana holds her blemished hand to her cheek, her mind a whirl. The Auspex highlights in shimmering orange the pressure points of Bella’s body for a painful, non-lethal takedown; she misses the way that Bella’s eyes flick wildly between the red mark on her cheek and the hand that planted it there.

“Take that, that thing out,” Bella finally hisses. “We are going to put it back and pretend nothing happened.” She isn’t clear what she means by that, exactly. The Auspex pops up a little picture of a frantically beating heart. So many distractions! Her cheek is still throbbing; Bella put her hips into the swing.

“Bella, please, we don’t have time for this!” In her mind the wardens are already at the door, waved in by the statue of Athena, here to help with removing the seal and assisting her to her room, where she is to stay until her mother arrives. Why can’t Bella see that? An adorably stylized princess presses her thumb against the flashing orange spot until the servitor slumps over with zzzs over her head. Another slams an open palm against the base of her perfectly fluffy ears and then presses two fingers against her jaw until the struggling stops. Redana closes her eyes as tight as she can but the horrible images keep coming.

When she opens her eyes, Bella is framed perfectly in the doorway, her tail lashing, her chest heaving. “The Empress said to keep you safe,” her Bella says, crumpling and kneading her apron. “Even from yourself...”

***

“You scaredy-cat!”

Redana hauls herself up using a bell strap as a handhold. She looks terrible. Her hair tie has given up the ghost, her breath is shallow, and her pallor makes her look like she’s put on her paint for the Festival of the Honorable Dead. But she’s not stopping. Her grip is firm and her mismatched eyes are steady.

“I made a promise, Bella! We have to go back!” Her boot hits a corner as Bella ducks into a side street and she bites down on the scream, burying her face into Bella’s neck for a moment. She still smells like home. She always smells like home. “Bella, please,” she sobs in frustration: at her body, at her servitor, at Jas’o. “We don’t have time for this...”