Tatterdemalion

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

The laughter bubbles out of you like water from a spring. You are, after all, a keeper and companion of cats; you are well acquainted with hungry and insistent animals climbing into your lap. At least donkeys don't have claws!

"Stop that," you say, grinning, lifting the donkey's head so that he doesn't eat your dress. But that keeps him away from his beloved carrot, and so he shoves his head further and further forward, complaining that you are heartless, that you are starving him, that you are wasting him away to skin and bones and that he will drop dead this very moment if he is not given his rightful carrot.

"Robena," you say, still laughing, "come and feed this poor dear his carrot before he eats me all up, too?"

Breathless Dead

She wakes up early, for once. Maybe it’s a dart from some mischievous spirit that wakes her up before dawn. Maybe it’s just her hot stomach complaining about last night’s fish. But she wakes up into a world of broken stillness.

Bella’s still here.

She’s curled up around a pillow, back to Redana, hair loose and messy. (The bun last night had been so precious. She should wear it more.) She’s having some sort of dream; her tail twitches, its tip smacking the lavender sheets, and little clogged growls escape her lips. Her precious fluffy triangles lie flat on her head.

Not knowing what she’s doing, almost dreaming herself, Redana scoots closer and drapes one arm around Bella, pulling her in closer. The growls diminish until they become little nasal purrs, and that ticklish little tail drapes itself over her ankle. And Redana lies there until her stomach settles and she falls asleep to the sound of ragged, soothing snores.

***

“GET OFF!”

Redana pushes back against the crushing weight of her... of Bella. It’s funny, isn’t it? She can’t do it. She can’t get the leverage to get Bella off. She’s weak and useless and stupid and— there. Bella arches her back for a moment, redistributing weight on Redana’s wrist, and Redana acts on instinct. Knees go up, ramming into Bella’s stomach; legs go out, and up, flipping her over. Pain sparks at her wrist and cheek where claws try to dig in.

Up on her feet, turn, back away. Bella’s going to pounce. Bella, the predator. Bella, the liar. Bella, who never really cared. Dany’s face is hot. It’s the sting of pain from those narrow scratches. That’s why her eyes are so hot. That’s why.

(I trusted you. From the first moment I saw you. I just wanted a friend. That’s all I ever wanted.)

“Wuh-watch me,” Dany stammers, almost naked, flushed, crying (stop it stop it stop it). And she flings herself away, because Bella can’t look at her any more, Bella isn’t allowed to be with her anymore, she shoves aside a fluttering of owls and forces open a door.

She does not know what is on the other side. But even if it flings her into Tartarus, it would be better than staying here. Let the Furies take her; they would be kinder.

[Princess Redana Claudius rolls snake eyes to Get Away.]

Fellowship: The Heart

Ailee!

King Dragon.

There's lots of different theories on what exactly the King is. The Oneiric theory is that he is the dream of all dragons; he is the beating heart of their drive for power, wealth, and control. The Progenitor theory is that he is the god that birthed the first dragons, imprisoned by a mighty hero of bygone ages for that crime. The Exemplar theory is that all dragons could be King Dragon if they pulled themselves up by their talons and really focused on being the biggest monster they can be.

This isn't King Dragon. Not really. The monster tearing down, down, down into the heart of the station to claim it for his own is just a projection. (The real King Dragon is buried deep, deep, in some infernal crevice, the weight of the Heart crushing on every side, as untold thousands of his cultists work to free him. They never will.) The problem is that King Dragon can still incinerate everybody. Except you. He wouldn't destroy an asset, after all. Not unless he was very, very angry.

[Mark damage.]

***

Jack--

Nope. You're Carinadir the Skill-handed. The name was buried in a book on Kobold folklore of the railways, a figure of terrible genesis and art. You made the Vermissian Line; your design made the tracks, made the trains, made even this station. Stand taller, stand prouder; when the Fool prances in, curl a lip and sneer. You are a genius. You are superior. The station is operating as designed. You always knew this would happen, and now this dragon thinks it can damage your handiwork?

Deep down, you're aware that Carinadir is fictional; that he is almost certainly a composite figure of the vast number of mystic architects and geomancers that designed this place. But if you blink, you will lose. If you lose, you will die, all of you. So rant. Sneer. Inform everyone exactly who they are dealing with. Halfwits! Bashibazouks! Barnacles! You are Carinadir, one of the Elder Race, and you will not let some overgrown vermin damage your designs.

Declare how it may be set to rights. You will be correct; or you will become correct. This place is malleable, after all. But be aware that you want this station to run. It is, after all, one of your masterpieces.

***

The Fool!

Well, well, well! It seems changing your nature is in fashion! Someone should have said! What if you have to go home and change?

But Carinadir's here. How do you feel about the Architect?

***

Coleman!

"Idiot!" Wolf scrabbles for control, trying to take Sasha, curled up with you in the cabin. "Can't hurt it!"

You've bought a little bit of time, but, honestly? From the sounds that are emerging from the burning, rubble-strewn room? Eventually you will run out of robots. It's an Angel, after all. Sasha can't handle it, and Wolf knows that; that's why she's trying to grab the controls before you get any more Smart Ideas.

Breathless Dead

”But it’s not like I’m going to die.”

Redana’s leg is the color of dying nebulas. The pillow underneath is the color of the night sky at dusk. The musty, ornate sheets are the color of deadly orchids blooming in the heart of a far-off jungle. Hades pauses his shuffling and raises an expressive eyebrow.

“You know what I mean,” Redana huffs, leaning her head back against the headboard, arms crossed, precious Paragon pill[1] in one loose fist. “It’s stopping me from healing, but... it’s not like it’s permanent, and I’m not going to die. Once we reach a planet with a medical suite, or even a doctor, we can do a reading. But nobody else on board is like me. Dolce is so soft, and Vasilia’s so reckless, and Galnius wouldn’t complain if we ordered her to march into a dragon’s mouth, and Bella...”

There’s a table in the lavishly appointed[2] cabin. There’s always empty chairs pulled up, and a bottle of something sweet on hand, in case the gods wish to have a word with the ship’s champion. Dolce might be in charge of placating them, but Redana is, in some ways, their lightning rod. When those so, so white cards are rapped against the table, the sound is that of knucklebones scattered on dry earth.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine, I really will.” She doesn’t get up. But she does take that pill (as precious as the heart of a star) and slip it back into her belt. “Even one might be the difference between life and death for a member of my crew, and doesn’t a princess know her responsibilities to her subjects? Besides, it’s not like I can go home and ask Mom for more.”

***

“Bella, no, stop, don’t you dare—!!”

Redana fights back like a wildcat, throwing her head back and forth, forcing Bella to exert more and more strength to hold her still. Maybe, maybe if she wrenched her head away and spat the pills out, they’d be salvageable, and both pills (both pills Bella what are you doing) wouldn’t be wasted on her leg, pills that could cheat Thanatos, literal miracles of technology primed and ready to burn through her and shine light in a dark place, she could save them for her friends, her crew, even her...

Bella’s hand is almost feverishly warm clamped over her face, fingers digging into her cheek, and the world smells like rotting grapes and the tang of sweat that wrestling oil was designed to hide. Every time she thinks she has leverage Bella rips it away, pushes her down harder, and she can’t do everything, she can’t fight back and stop herself from— there. It’s done. She swallowed them.

Then she arches, and buttons come undone in a shower.

The nanites spark in her blood. It starts in her heart and travels through her, electric, furious, almost too much (two pills, she shouldn’t have used both), hot and wet. She begins to sweat, uncontrollably, eyes shut as tight as she can manage. It drips from her leg, and hisses where it meets the marble tile. It pools beneath her, steaming, purple so dark it might as well be black, as Redana shakes and moans into Bella’s crushing grip, until she melts into whimpers, quick and high, through her nose. Shivers run through her like aftershocks, goosebumps rising on her clammy skin.

Light rises from her breastbone and passes through Bella. Above the servitor’s shoulderbones (it passed like a cool breeze on a balmy day and left shivers behind) the light unfolds into a perfect lotus. Then it fades until there is nothing left.

When Redana opens her eyes again, there is a surfacing fury there alien to the both of them. Redana has rarely been prompted to this sort of anger[3], and Bella...

Bella has never had this kind of anger directed at her.

Not even when they fought on Tellus and Bella was left behind. Not even when she killed Jas’o. Not even then.

[Princess Redana Claudius rolls a 6 trying to Overcome this peril.]

***

[1]: Paragon comes in a little grey pill
(a little grey pill? a little grey pill?)
and the little grey pill goes into your mouth like an offering
(offering~)
Then the little grey pill melts in your mouth without suffering
(suffering~)
and when the nanites spark, Apollo is ready to heal you, heal you.
(paragon, paragon)

[2]: by the standards of spacers. By Redana’s standards, this was Roughing It. The lamps were blackened with age, the bed was only large enough for two, and there was only one wardrobe!

[3]: barring the occasional argument-turned-screaming-match with her mother.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Lostwithiel. A sudden foreboding strikes you then, doesn't it, Constance? That somehow, this humble and good man (or so you must assume) will be drawn into the coming disaster if he goes there with his master of a mule. Nonsense, surely! You don't even know if he is headed for Lostwithiel, much less if he intends to stay there long. Yet it is impossible, once you take up that thought, to put it down again. So you look at him, intent eyes like still forest pools, your inner turmoil carefully hidden beneath your noble mien.

"The prayers are said, the fair complete, and we'll see what this year brings," you say, carefully. "And as for yourself, good man, how turns the Wheel of the seasons?"

It is your right to be recognized as a keeper of the Old Faith, after all, daughter of giants; and who would fail to recognize you? Who would fail to offer an account of their days, or then surrender some small thing or prayer or question that troubles them, some small and wonderful matter between the two of you, a burden to be lifted from them. So let us wait for an answer, and do your best not to get distracted by that mule still reaching for the carrot. (Will he get it? He must-- certainly he will-- won't he?)

Breathless Dead

Again. Again! She runs as fast and hard as she can, and Bella’s here first. Again.

“Stay back,” she croaks, desperate. Not for herself. Not because she’s scared of her Bella. But because she doesn’t want to hurt Bella, she doesn’t want to perform this play, she can’t break her kitten[1]. Not like Mother broke Molech. “I don’t want to hurt you, Bella.” Her words are so stupid! Wheezed, directed at the floor, they come off as false bravado, not a desperate plea to end the tragedy.

Then she looks up and there are ribbons. Very cute ribbons. They bounce when Bella shifts her weight. They’re on top of cute socks and there is a skirt swishing at eye level all full of lace, and it’s so wonderfully ridiculous that Bella would come out here like this, instead of in something practical, and— buttons. When she raises her head, the world is a swell of golden buttons.

It’s the Auspex that rouses her out of a reverie of round, golden, shining full moons, straining in their parade up and down the hidden mountains. The Auspex, which overlays a tiny cartoon Bella, staggering from foot to foot, purple bubbles rising from her head only to pop one by one as she waves a pinecone staff like a conductor leading a servitor orchestra. “Bella,” Redana gasps, “of all the times to be playing dipsomaniac[2]! With the Eleutherios[3] here?? You— you— sillyhead!”

She stands up to shake some sense into her little drunk kitten, only she doesn’t, because her leg decides not to be there for her, and now she’s clinging to those loose sleeves as she makes her way back down to the ground, hitting every button as she goes. Some of them even stay in place!

***

[1]: Golden eyes gleam in a pale face, her body crammed into one corner, and she looks so scared and she doesn’t have to be—

[2]: the Dipsomaniac is a common palace entertainment: take a Servitor, dress them in bells and purple and black, and have them drink wine meant for their betters. They are under the host’s protection for as long as they find the Dipsomaniac amusing.

[3]: ”We have all unmasked save you, master of the revels. Lay aside the wreath and the mirror, I pray you; the servants’ childish frenzy has grown tiresome to us...”
“I wear no mask.”
“No mask? No mask!”
— The Bloody Masque, written during the Third Sanctristry of Nossos.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

“That is old magic,” you murmur, half to yourself and half to her. “I have not done it. The journey among the dead. The old heroes would do it to bring things back; their beloved, or wonderful things, or bounty, or... well, what did you bring back? Knowledge, I think. And now you’ll have to share it, even the bitter knowledge.”

Then your head lifts, and you notice, as if waking from an afternoon slumber or if suddenly startled from reverie, the shaking of bells. It does not do to speak of such things where anyone can hear, after all.

Breathless Dead

Stamina is not in question. Neither is speed, neither is grace, neither is will. Redana Claudius trained for the Olympics, and under normal circumstances, not even the Owls of Athena could keep up. But this is not a normal battle[1] and this is not an Olympic track, under the lights and the eyes of the cheering crowd, sacrificial smoke lingering in the air as she opens the throttles of her heart and lets air cycle through the seven stations of the body. This is animal panic and pain and desperation not to be caught, even as every moment the Owls prove that they could, if they wanted, if she stopped being entertaining, if she proved herself exhausted, catch her. So she must not stop. She must not grow tired. She must have wings like eagles in the palace paintings, the eagles that only lived in the Imperial Menageries as art projects created by her mother's finest genetic weavers. She must be Artemis on the hunt, Hermes quick as thought, Zeus in her aspect as victor--

The claws shear through her belt, and she sheds another layer of her defenses, letting belt and tools fly behind her. There is no laughter. There is no chittering amusement. There is no mockery, save for the silent blows. They are herding her like a doe, but all she needs is a moment to break through the unseen net, a sign from on high. Until such miracle, she must simply run, and run, and not think. Thinking is impossible. Thinking will get her caught. Thinking is drowned out by the headache, throbbing, blinding, behind her eyes, as she exerts harder and harder, her skin dry and hot as she pushes hard; she is master, not water, her will is iron.

Her will is nothing. It is blind momentum that keeps her from falling onto her hands and knees and begging the Owls for a time out while she fumbles for a canteen. And there's no Bella here to cheer for her from the sidelines, white tail swishing with its beautiful pink bow while she claps her hands, cheering words lost in the engine churn of muscles and the breath ringing hot and furious in her head. No Bella at all.

Don't think.

Don't hurt.

You're not going to hurt her.

She can't have caught up. And she'll... don't think about that. Don't think about her. Don't think about being held by her. Being told you're coming home. But the thoughts that break through the surface of the froth are colder, crueler: long dreadlocks and long fangs, a Strategist's robe and a spear. And here a Claudius again. No. No. No.

Here, a vaulting leap, a ruined and twisted bridge shattered by starfall, but the leg buckles underneath her as the Queen's vengeance lances through her, throbbing, agonizing, and for a moment her stomach plummets as she looks down into the slit-brown waters, and then there's a hand around her wrist, cold and taloned, and the sudden stop threatens to pull the arm from her shoulder, but she's throwing herself into the pull, momentum sending her hurtling into the framework below once those sharp fingers suddenly release, and then she's moving, still moving, clambering like a golden-eared monkey hand over hand, and the shadows all around her both empty and full of threat, and if she shuts her eyes and lets herself move by instinct she's doing the bars, racing a complaining Bella whose tail drags on the sand behind her as her rounded black shoes dangle over the sand, and Watch

She misses a handhold and hits the duracrete rolling, vaults up on her palms, and crosses both hands in front of her chest to block the blow. Fight. Fight fight fight! Golden fire and silver shards! The three(?) leave one path open as they circle, and Redana howls as she pushes off her lame leg and launches herself between a thorn-hedge and once-gaudy brick, hearing (on purpose, they want her to know) the scrape of talons on the rooftops, her hair unfurling into a golden flag as her tie snaps, severed without her even seeing it.

A belt loop catches on a protruding branch of the hedge and she slams her head into the brick wall, stars exploding behind her eyes, the Auspex's data garbled as it jars, and the soft whisper of feathers behind her, and she throws herself forward and sheds her skin like a serpent, hits the pavement on her good knee and rolls forward, head tucked in, and keeps running, the pulsing purple veins in her leg starting to glow, to glow, to shine--

And then there are more Owls, there, too, arrayed with pike in the square, and so down she goes, down, hurtling into the darkness below the city through the open access hole, where there is no light, no light, nothing but the flash-sensories of her Auspex scanning through different wavelengths, dry as bone where once there was a great moving of unclean waters, and the Owls can see in the dark, why did she come down here, but if she just keeps running, just keeps running, she'll outrace even the mirror that shone with Bella's laughter. Even that, even so. Just become motion, transcend pain, pain is for the embodied and she is become motion itself, the force acting upon a body, and if she floats over her own shoulder, the pain becomes something known and disregarded, so run, run, Redana, run.

Run to a miracle.

***

[1] There is no such thing.

Breathless Dead

There is a crown of pain around her head. It throbs in time with the distant beat. Distant? Still loud, but not shaking her bones. The pitted, dilapidated stone is cool against her forehead, and that coolness staves off the urge to lie down until the world steadies. Her arm hangs limply by her side. Her fingers are still locked around a twisted ruin of metal; with her other hand, she scrabbles at her fingers, pulls them away until the smoking hilt clatters onto the ground.

“No,” she murmurs. What she means is: Bella isn’t Molech. What she means is: she isn’t Nero. What she means is: take this cup of bitter wine away from my lips. Please don’t make her drink. When she pushes her left hand into her sealed pocket, the comforting weight of the golden obols is gone; she has no offering left to make.

She crushes her eyelids shut and shakes like a cat about to bring forth hair. No. Control yourself, Dany. You are watched and witnessed. The gods move behind the curtains and the world bulges and thins where they walk...[1]

She lets out a ragged sob, and then straightens, chokes back more. They came here on a mission. A core, a map, a lead. If she can find it with Alexa...

The attack is sudden, without provocation. The claws kiss her skin sweetly, tearing through the durable weave of her spacer’s coat like it was woven of cobwebs and morning dew, and for a moment she thinks that Bella has come to kill her or— but no. Black feathers and silence. Kaeri[2]. The owls of Athena. See all, say little. Her sword arm chooses this moment to throb to agonizing life, hot needles and pitch, and the sound that comes out of her hoarse throat is animal. Her balance is off; she stumbles into another, there without the appearance of movement, and vicious talons press against her chest, feathers whispering against her throat. She tears free, undershirt tattered and spilling open, and hurtles forward with the panic of prey. Her arm bounces and fills her mind with white hot agony, too slow in its recovery; her legs move independent of her, Auspex pumping raw data into her nervous system to keep her footing as she flings herself outwards, away from the dance, away from her friend, away from her Bella, into a maze of war-blasted streets and desolate monuments.

And the Kaeri follow, silent, unseen, like the Hounds of Artemis baying at the heels of their former mistress.

***

[1] Somebody smart said this. Pseudo-Dionysus? Vermillion of Amas? Seven Righteous Flame of the Pentateuch? Who cares? They all came here, to this, the lid peeled back and away, seeing the monstrous stirring of divinity as a sailor clinging to driftwood sees the intimations of a whale close below. This is a shared experience state. This is shamanism.

[2]: for more information on their cultural exploitation points, optimal deployment strategies, and uses in conflict, see Annals of Athenian Victory: Vol. XXI, XXVI, XXXIII.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

It shouldn’t hurt. It really shouldn’t. You imagine these things so bright, so vivid, and even though you are wrong in so many particulars, you find delight in those dreams despite. But there is a bitterness to the taste, and as that gentle voice runs like a river to the sea, and beyond to France, and beyond to cities vaster than any that have ever been in this land, you feel... wrong.

“If that’s true,” you say, forcing yourself to laugh at the description of a fire-dancer, “why ever would you come back?” Ah. How dangerous. The words have already left your lips. “Why didn’t you stay...?”

Because now the mountains feel small, and the rivers mere rivulets. Because the marvels of Britain are small and grow smaller; because you are a daughter of giants, and you are small, and you are plain compared to dancing-girls and striped cats and cities the size of England...