Tatterdemalion

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

The Knight of the Alder and the Elf

Spring is in the mild air
and sweetly breathes the breeze:
Kaheris rides her dappled mare
between the elm and alder trees.

The shadows dance between the boughs
and laughter fills the comely wood;
music lilts, no beast to rouse,
lest any one not call it good.

The maiden knight she rests a while
by the crossroad of Saint James,
and watches clouds pass single file
above the waters of the Thames.

Still she sits, as still as stone,
till not a hare would show its heels,
and out there comes, adrift, alone,
Jack'a'green playing his reels.

His beard is fine and pointed well
and gentle are his gleaming eyes;
his songs are ignorant of hell,
for fair he is, but not so wise.

His cloak is made of shaking leaves
and those quick boots are peeling bark;
he dances from the veiling trees
and makes merry as a meadow-lark.

Enrapt, the knight she watches him,
rude master of the wild glen,
and in his wrists and ankles slim
sees fit place to call her den.

Without a word she loosens mail,
lets armor fall from war-kissed skin;
her cloak it billows like a sail,
and now at last she's captured him.

She's caught him with a look, a glance,
a net she weaves with nimble feet;
she leaves without a thought her lance,
for only with force does it entreat.

They spend a year upon the hill,
tarrying as well they may,
and happy they'd be if there they still
sat and spoke and merry lay.

But the knight she has her duty true
and house to keep, and arms to bear,
so Jack'a'green she cunning woos
to make her home his summer lair.

For when the winds of winter howl
the Jack he must away to sleep,
and draw the heather as a cowl
about his head in troubled sleep.

And for a time they live and love
until ill fortune claims their bed,
and fire scores the roof above
and brings it down about their head.

But naught of this do either know,
while they laugh in summer's rain,
and feel the ancient earth below
and weave lily-leaf to be a train.

And of their daughter, half an elf,
bound seven years in skin of fawn,
the tale still unfolds itself
for time it marches ever on.

Of how she gained her fairy arms
we have no more the space to tell,
for the cock it cries varied alarms
and light in Eastern sky does swell.

Remember two, by love made one,
within the close embrace of trees;
upon the gentle slopes they run
and lose their fears by love's decrees.

The Panoply of Constance Half-Elven

• The mail is delicate, shaped like fish’s scales, and ripples queerly as she moves. It is something like silver, but firm as stone under a blow.
• Her tabard and gloves are a rich, deep black, and her riding-cloak is the delicate hue of the lavender on the hills. The coat of arms emblazoned on her tabard consists of silver branches beneath a white stag’s head, on a royal blue field. These are not her mothers’ arms, and neither are they registered in the lists. Fine thread links pale stones worked into the tabard as constellations: the bear, the wheel, the dragon.
• Her sword is white as starlight and cold as ice, and in the dark it gleams as if the noonday sun shone on it alone. RIMENAIL reads the rotten, flaking scabbard.
• Her bow is scorched, blackened wood, warm to the touch as if it had laid long in sunlight. Gold rings clasp it round tightly. It creaks alarmingly when bent, and every arrow loosed from its string catches fire at once. (This miracle has thus far been used primarily to start campfires.)
• She has a purse of queer dried and smoked fruit. The contents change from day to day. Sometimes there are little black squares, marvelously bittersweet.
• Finally, she is haunted by the monster that guarded her arms. It is something like a wolf and something like a rose-bush. She has named it Briar. It allows her to throw her arms around its neck, gentle as a dove, but growls and shakes its thornéd mane at any else who dare approach it.

Breathless Dead

Redana pulls Epistia close, one arm tight around the Servitor’s back, careful not to brush against the Thunderbolt. And for a moment, two exhausted princesses hold each other, covered in blood and spit and sweat, as the palace collapses around them.

“I wasn’t going to leave you behind,” she says, a feverish desperation in her voice. She made a promise. And she’s not, she can come back for her friends. For those who depend on her. For those who need her to be strong.

She looks up as the walls collapse, the storm tearing at her hair and ruined outfit, and looks desperately for... there. There she is, leaping and darting about effortlessly. (A chunk of masonry the size of a Ceronian bears down on Redana and Epistia, and Ares bats it carelessly into a shuttle, which explodes in midair, all hands lost.) “Bella!” She screams, and reaches, but her leg doesn’t move under her and Epistia is still sagging against her and all she can do is reach out, uselessly, as her lost friend bounds away.

“We have to go after her,” Redana says, brokenly. “We have to save her. I can’t leave her behind again...”

You don’t get to keep things you don’t value.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada!

The sound of Shamash’s laughter is uncomfortable. It’s wheezing electronica in good humor, but all it needs is a gentle push and it’d plummet down into unhinged mania. Like, this vibe is seriously unhealthy. Is this an Emperor’s New Clothes thing, like, where the Annunaki are desperately trying to convince themselves this giant wrecking ball is a stable genius?

“Don’t let Sister Ishtar hear you say that!” Their jovial backslap nearly knocks you off your feet. Luckily, the thews of Canada Taliv are dauntless! “She’d rip your spine out. What do you think, honored one?” Their attention falls on the Huntsman of Caphtor, heavy as lead. “Should I rip her spine out? Is that in fashion?”

“Whatever you deem worthy, Exalted One of the Higher Airs,” Asahel says bleakly. “As you will, so shall it be done.”

“I’ll take her eyes,” Shamash says, breezily. Have they forgotten you’re standing right there? “So she can’t look any more. Like we haven’t fought the Zhianku ever since they tried to hide their home from our sight. Like we don’t know when we’re looked at.”

They are one loose hinge away from absolutely unhinged. And everyone ignores it.

Shift your Dangerous down and your Mundane up, or reject their influence; their every word tells you that your only way out is by diverting them somehow, not fighting them head on.

***

Daisy!

You’re not supposed to be down here. And it’s a terrible idea, anyway. For all you know, that thing is actually some alien parasite and it’s planting bug eggs inside the Annunaki right now.

But what kind of space parasite can sing La Marseillaise?

“Hello?” Your strangled half-whisper is simultaneously way too loud and stupidly quiet. And what are you supposed to say, anyway? Hello, Miss Shadow Monster, if you’re eating Annunaki I have a LIST? Hello, Miss Freaky Alien, you don’t eat humans, right?

“If you’re down here,” you say at the dark, “I want to talk to you!”

***

Anathet!

It’s like your helpful explanations are slices of salami slapping against a brick wall as Tia roots through those memories of a happy date. She turns an interesting shade of burgundy and lets out a strangled psychic hiss that crescendos into an explosion of impossible broken angles and corrupted data. You almost manage to not look away. Almost.

Through the psychic buzz of Tia’s tantrum (and of course she’s gone, again, having stamped her foot and fragmented) you realize that the light levels are changing. The library shutters are closing! You grab at your rift generator, which happily throbs its “emergency reboot in progress” indicator.

Tia (accidentally?) alerted the Annunaki there was someone here, because you’d have to be a rock not to get the backwash of that psychic tantrum, and you’ve got maybe a minute before household janissaries start investigating the stacks. And you are definitely not supposed to be in here.

Breathless Dead

“BLL’HH!! Wssssh uurrr nnnnggghhhfff!”

Where did she learn to talk like that? Was it the servants? Or was she always like this behind her mistress’s back? Sneering once Dany’s back was turned, calling her a sl— a very inappropriate name once her back was turned?

Redana inches along on her good leg like a crawling worm. She flops over and scrabbles blindly in broken tiles. Her fingers slip and she hisses into the wet leather. Healing doesn’t come. Are all of her little soldiers under siege within her torn leg, fighting off invaders that want to burn her up from within? Or are they being somehow suppressed? Has she lost her father’s favor for her failure to be the leader that Bella needed?

There. Her wet fingers curl around a sturdy enough shard with a blunt enough handhold. She inserts it within the chain and twists, hard. The chains tighten agonizingly around her, but she keeps twisting.

They’ll give way before she does—

She fumbles it. She bleats something pathetic and frustrated as it slips out of her bloodied fingers, knocked ever so slightly askew by the touch of Hera.

She looks up into the face of the goddess she could never, ever please, no matter what she offered, beaten and helpless. What does she see there?

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Anathet!

[They are cruel. They are above. They will take you and break you into pieces.] Tia is agitated; you feel clay crack under your skin, hear the aftershock of a sharp retort. [I have to keep you safe,] she continues. [You are my friend.]

There is an undercurrent there. Possibly an unhealthy attachment. The kind of desperation that suggests you might be her only friend.

[You should hide under the city, where it’s safe, and—]

Oh, whoops. Her head tilts as she picks up on your recent associations with the undercity. [Who is Oumou?] If you didn’t know better, you’d say she sounds jealous.

(Oumou is the Malian bouncer who took you out for fried tofu. Two years your senior, her day job is animal husbandry in one of the Agricultural Blocks, and she used to work at a women and children’s center in Halcyon. She’s got a laugh that starts low and you’re not quite sure whether she’s interested in you or just intrigued by your audacity. She’s hard to read. How did the date go, by the way?)

***

Canada!

This is the most awkward parade float you have ever been on. You have an honor guard of janissaries that are mostly decorative; everybody here is very, very aware that the minute you spring into action, Shamash will be the one responding. So instead they’ve been assigned to glower at the back of your head so that Jezcha can feel like she’s been a big girl.

Another example of the awkward energy is the question of what, exactly, to do about your face. Shamash hasn’t commented on it, yet, but your incredible beauty is a thing of legend already, and you’re walking around veilless. So a compromise has been made and you are currently hidden from the city behind multiple fans and banners being held by a retinue under strict orders not to look at your face.

“When did they train you?” Shamash does not look down at you, standing at the prow of the massive chariot-themed parade float. But he does modulate his heavily-synthesized voice so that it doesn’t deafen you. “We thought we had kept the Zhianku out,” he adds, with a wave of his hand to the adoring cheers of the assembled Annunaki (themselves underneath umbrellas and elaborate tents, being fanned and served chilled drinks) and the Faithful (abasing themselves and praising Shamash in a dozen tongues, both alien and terrestrial). “Was it after our arrival?”

Probing. Looking for information. Or just making awkward small talk. The complicating factor is that you probably have no clue what a Zhianku is. Is the Cat a Zhianku? That totally makes sense, right?

***

Marianne!

Strange things happen in the half-relic of the Shamashi arena. The racetrack is the cultural center of this temple complex, but there’s no way that the High God will simply challenge Canada to a race. No, it’s going to be a beatdown. One that, for the sake of the human race, Canada Taliv must lose.

This is a place of avarice and hunger. Illicit deals are made here in the private boxes, and forbidden pleasures from across the stars are smoked. The Shamashi are overly helpful in assisting the Marduki in preparing the decrepit place for a proper gladiatorial spectacle, and you can taste their anxieties, their lies, their sins. But they are sins not within your purview to punish, by and large, save that they ignore the slaves who clean the stands and wipe down the stained seats and polish the stairs until they shine.

The game must be rigged, just to be sure that shield does not heroically doom humanity. Canada must be made to lose. And there are so many places where you may play here, yes, yes: the unattended power couplings, the labyrinth of half-abandoned tunnels, and the hidden stashes of strange fruits and crushed powders. This is your domain now, though the sun shines so bright at midday. The brighter the light, the darker the shadow, non?

Breathless Dead

And breathe.

Redana rolls on the cheaply tiled palace floor, taking desperate gulps of air through her nose. Breathing was difficult for a moment there, because there was fur in her nose. Sweaty, matted, drooly fur. And Bella’s hand was iron-firm, and really didn’t want her lifting her head to take a breath that wasn’t All Bella All The Time, and Bella herself was, was the opposite of iron-firm, because she was soft and yielding and enveloping like Poseidon’s waves, that must be what drowning felt like, soft and sweet and insistent, feeling each breath, in and out like the lapping tides, like the lapping tides.

Redana burns. Her nostrils flare. She strains sloppily against the chains, the ones that betrayed her and set Bella free, simply to strain and not lie there uselessly. She grinds against the leather set between her teeth and growls like a Servitor. Her shirt is falling to pieces, and the air is hot and wet on her skin, slick with sweat.

She’s failing them. She’s failing everyone. Bella and Vasilia and Epistia. She made promises! Let her keep them, please! Let her throw herself between the cats, take the blows she’s always been strong enough to take, because she can’t bear to see her captain and her (former) best friend fighting!

Zeus! Father! Why have you looked away? Is it because she let Bella tear out Jas’o’s throat, let her run wild off the leash? Is it because she failed some test? Or does your wife, her stepmother, hold you back by the wrist, by the throat? Do you struggle to breathe in her grasp, too? Does she envelop you like the sea so that your eyes are blind and your ears are deaf and your tongue is a cry of Hera, Hera, Hera?

Is your heart a wounded thing yearning for destruction, too?

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Anathet!

[No!! No!!] Tia screams the words inside your head, frantic. There is no way for her to bar your passage physically, so she compensates by trying to boil your brain. [They will kill you!! Not allowed!! Mine!!! This is mine!!!] She spreads her arms wide, opens her mouth in a silent scream, and her hair writhes like a nest of snakes. Fear and distress blind her (is that insensitive to say?) to what she's doing to you, and vaguely you hear discomfort from below: the psychic backwash is affecting the Annunaki, too.

Take a Powerful Blow, Anathet.

***

Canada!

A laser bolt pings off your vambrace. Jezcha ab-Marduk knows exactly one (1) response to what's happening right now and that's to draw a sidearm and shoot at you. You bat it away reflexively, as if the laser bolt was a naughty kitten, but then the janissaries see that as their cue and turn, muskets raised, heads lowered away from your searing light, and begin to open fire, too. You are very quickly the center of a storm of lasers, about a third of which come anywhere near you. But still, it's a hell of a barrage.

Then it stops, all of a sudden.

No, it doesn't. They're still firing. But the laser bolts are failing to cross that final distance. Space yawns in a sudden vast abyss as they approach you but are unable to reach you.

"DISARM."

Laser muskets clatter to the engraved platform, and even Jezcha flings her pistol, albeit in your direction. It spins uselessly in that forever approach. Shamash, Breaker of Horses, raises one gauntleted hand and snaps his fingers, and space resumes its normal dimensions all at once. Which means that all those lasers suddenly can hit their destination.

***

Marianne!

Canada's a big girl, she can handle some lasers and a pistol thrown at her head. No, watch this, the false god and the true. Watch as Shamash stomps forward in their ridiculous panoply, all gold and gilt. The anticipation coils around them, their own delight at seeing a worthy challenge, yes, yes! It is familiar, non? What can challenge a demiurge but a god?

"I was worried I would have to hunt you through the warrens," Shamash says with their false voice. What does it sound like underneath that head they have pulled over their own? "But here you are. The one from my dreams." What a fright they must have had, yes, yes! They must have summoned up all of their magi and charlatans and poets in order to interpret the dreams of that burning eye, laying bare their mouse-soul. "I accept your challenge, but this is unworthy of us."

They offer their hand, heedless of the gasping from the groveling Annunaki. "Come, Canada Taliv. I will drown you in wines. I will garrote you in garlands. Be my sacred offering, feasted and fattened."

Breathless Dead

“STTPH TKKNGG BGHHT MHHPH! Mmm rghhh hhrrrr!!”

Redana squirms in the chains wrapped around her, trying to work free, and Bella effortlessly shifts her in her arms and presses her tighter against her chest[1]. Claws dig ungently into her shoulder, saying: stay down, Princess. When did Bella get so strong? She always used to go so red in the face just thinking about helping with Olympic training. Oh, no, Dany, I can’t get sweaaatttyyy! Noooo, Dany, don’t put me in a headlock!! Noooooo, Dany, I don’t want to race even if I take off my high heels!!! How did she get this strong?

She glares helplessly over her shoulder (and Bella’s firm, flexed arm) at Alexa. Bella doesn’t believe in her. Mynx doesn’t believe in her. And not even Alexa, the brave and beautiful statue, believes in her. Instead, they all think she’s a silly little girl. Keep her quiet, talk over her muffled protests, ignore every time she’s told them all about her hope for mankind...

She can feel the hot, treacherous pressure in her eyes. Stop! Stop it! She’s not a naughty child getting lectured for sneaking out into the city, she is an adult who knows exactly what she’s getting herself into! Stop, no, stop crying, stop it, stop it...

***

”Mistress?”

Redana awkwardly shuffles deeper into the closet and takes a deep, sniffly breath through her nose. There’s nothing Bella can say that would make it any better. She hurts inside like Professor Mekhan took a hammer to her chest. Stupid, stupid, stupid! She’s so stupid! The names of battles and dominions and scientists boiled under her stylus, and now here she is. In the dark, where she can hurt as long as she wants.

Bella headbutts her shoulder with a shuffle of laces on all fours, gently purring. Redana helplessly wraps an arm around her and pulls her in close. Bella is hot and soft and the sound of her purring fills the world, louder than the unbecoming sniffles and gasps of her princess.

“When I’m sad, I know just what to do,” Bella sings, and it’s so pretty. Dany closes her throbbing eyes to listen to that famous soldiers’ song. “I take all of my pride and tell it to stand true! I set my feet and don’t retreat and make my heart stand strong; against me break the feeble waves...”

“...of that inconstant throng,” Redana finishes, her voice scratchy and not pretty at all. Not like Bella’s. Bella rubs her cheek against her Dany’s shoulder and purrs even louder.

“You can do anything,” Bella says, placing one hand on Dany’s. They’re both so hot, burning up together. “Just gather all your spirit in your chest and let it be your strength.”

“You’ve got more room for the spirit,” Redana weakly jokes, and starts giggling at Bella’s flustered sputter. Bella’s an early bloomer, but one day, Dany’s going to be just as impressive as her mother, she just knows it...

***

Redana closes her wet eyes and gathers up all of her spirit in her chest. She compresses it, makes it as hard and steady as stone. Against her break the waves of doubt and disbelief; she believes in herself, and that’s all that matters. “Y’rrr nghht,” she says proudly and incomprehensibly. “W’rrrr gnnnph tmmph ffffnnn’ Ghhhh fffhhhhrrr huuuuh lkkkkttt hhrrr nnnn’!”

She pushes herself back up, and Bella pulls her right back down, and she defiantly kicks her legs in the air. She’s not giving up! She is never giving up, Bella! And if you want to learn who taught her that, go look in a mirror!!

***

[1]: Oh blessed Muse, give me leave to one day retire to that sweet-scented valley, that cleft in the blessed mountains; there I will let my heart rest from its torments and lay down my wearied bones.
— Noa Nox, Sibyl-Poetess of Dramatta.

Breathless Dead

CRACK.

Redana's head is white noise. Underneath the bright white of that kerchief (and the darker white where it has already been absorbent) her cheeks are so flushed a hypothetical observer could see them from the other side of the room. She is staring at nothing in particular, her Auspex giving her garbage data about the room that might as well be a jammed transmission for all the sense it's making, and her shirt is threatening to make its escape, hiking up around her shivering shoulders.

Mynx just hit her. Mynx just hit her. And she can't raise her forearms to block off another blow and watch for an opening for a jab, throw the shapeshifter off balance. Mynx just hit her and she can't do anything about it. There's nothing for her to do, no way that she can figure out what to do, no way to escalate into wrestling where she'll win no matter what Mynx tries to turn into, they've tested that one out time and time again, all she can do is be. Be slapped. Be gagged. Be quiet.

CRACK.

Redana bends her knees and tries instinctively to bring them up defensively. There's little give, and that's because she's pulling Bella's shins up with her. It's a miracle she's able to raise them even an inch without leverage. But she can't stop Mynx from doing that again. Her writhing fingers hook onto Bella's and tug with frantic, panicked energy, like the blind giants of Nessus VII.

For a moment, a terrible sequence unfolds in front of her. If something goes wrong, if her gift fails her, if she waited too long and Mynx knocks her out with one of her venoms...

Gold to match her hair. An ornate collar and an outfit like the ones in the holonovels that Bella always 'accidentally cleared away' when she found them while cleaning Redana's quarters. Pouring the King a glass of wine, eyes downcast. Because if she looked up, she'd see everyone looking at her, and then she'd melt right through the floor. And then the King would put one arm around her waist and pull her in for a

for a

he'd kiss

ptah.

The spittle hits her cheek just below her eye and trickles down, cool against her burning skin. Every time she breathes in she can smell Bella. Bella's fur. Bella's mouth. She's burning up. She's becoming a sun. She's going to ignite and become another star, right here and now. The pressure inside her is intolerable. All her muscles are seizing up, and the gag over her lips, pushed up against her nose, is wet, and her cheek is wet, and the world is hot and wet and she squeezes Bella's fingers hard, hard, and her knees won't come up to protect her. She's defenseless.

She's making noise. It's, it's the muffling, the layering, that makes it sound desperate. She can't lift her eyes. Go, her nerves sing, go go go, run so you can be chased. Her every nerve demands that she run, wounded leg or no. And she can already imagine Mynx bringing her down, pouncing, with claws and purring--

CRACK.

Bella's good. Ha, funny, because Bella's been naaaaughty! But Mynx is calling her good. In that voice. Would it be such a bad thing if she held Redana's chin and said it? Good. Good prisoner. Good girl. Haha! Funny! It'd just be like Bella calling her a good student, a good athlete, her voice so alive and high and smiling.

But Bella never meant it, did she? She was another guard the whole time. She never meant it. So what does it matter if Mynx says it too? Maybe she wants Mynx to say it! And then after she hears it she can escape, she really can escape, she really truly will and she's taking everyone with her, she really can stand up to her Bella and her Mynx, and--

SLAM.

Mynx's attention isn't on her now. Mynx is distracted. And someone else is in the room and oh it's you it's the statue it's Alexa and she's not thinking again, she's just got to prove that she was lulling Mynx into a false sense of security and buying time the whole time until Alexa her awesome teammate showed up, she definitely does not need Alexa to sit on her and refuse to let her go anywhere exciting again, so it is time yes absolutely time to get! out! of! this!!

[Redana, Useless Lesbian, has rolled a 4 on Get Away.]

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Anathet!

[You must hide,] Tia thinks sternly at you, but you can feel the fear roiling underneath the surface. The kind of fear that causes people to lash out and panic. [You may be brave after They leave. Yes. That is when you may be brave. Not now. Not like this. I am not allowing you to be brave.] She crosses her arms and plants herself right in front of you.

"...the parade will be the First Regiment..." Aha! Yes! Your instincts were good: the Seneschal is hashing out the last of his plans for Shamash's triumph right here and now. Down in the bowl of the library, there are probably two or three of his peers, prepping and sending off their last-minute orders. If only you could pretend to be one of them! Or somehow sneak bad information in! But you're definitely not getting off any plans, clever or otherwise, with Tia being so overprotective. Who knows what she might do if you press her?

***

Team Mirrors!

The Sacred Field has been brought up from the depths of the Temple of Shamash, a vast circle of tempered brass and gold etched with holy geometries, and here the chariots make their final approaches. They, amusingly enough, resemble nothing more than George Lucas's podracers, with two tethered engines suspending a very dangerous energy field between them, crackling and lashing plasma, connected to an ornate car. Don't be fooled: they evaded missiles with ease and tore fighter jets out of the sky during the invasion.

There are two nobles here, along with their retinues, to welcome the High God: Asahel ab-Shamash, the Huntsman of Caphtor, and Jezcha ab-Marduk, here as a representative of her father. A full company of janissaries stand by as an honor guard. You arrive on the open hangar as Shamash's chariot touches down, and the Annunaki fall to their knees, shimmering shadows suddenly at half height. (Their retinues grovel on their faces.) The chariot's portal dilates, and Shamash unfolds from it.

They're eight fucking feet tall.

This is the first time either of you have seen one of the elusive High Gods, and it's a shock to realize that their superhuman depiction in Annunaki art might not just be artistic license. There isn't a hint of skin to be seen (and you can see them far too clearly, as if only a faint gauze separated you from them), just gleaming black and burning gold and a helmet shaped like a screaming horse. From every reflective surface nearby -- every tracking panel, every bowl of offered wine, every golden decoration on the banners of the city -- comes the sound of dying cavalry charges, or else of chariot engines shearing themselves apart. It's difficult to tell.

They are hesitant a moment, staring out at the assembly before them, but it's impossible to say whether they also stare at you. You can see the plaits of their helmet lashing in the backwash of the engines, the sway of the fleet keys upon their intricately graved breastplate, and the minutest twitch in the gauntleted hands, each one the size of your head, one at their side and one on the chariot.

They saw you once before, Canada. Was it a stupid, doomed plan to think that you could sneak up on them again? Does your nerve hold in that moment?

Their power is not like yours, Marianne. You can smell it. It is not even simply dead, it is other, alien. If this behemoth has any power in your land, it is the power of tools and devices and tricks. This "god" is not a deity here, even if it can see you, even if it can touch you. You belong here. It does not.