Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

Redana shrugs off her coat and begins to modify it distractedly. She had made it more military in aspect, thinking Vasilia would want to project strength: epaulettes, braids, and a double row of buttons. The buttons stay, but her fingers smooth out the rest of her decorations back into the fabric. Instead... something more Hermetic. Bella would know what to put on there. A wing? A talon? The wand? The tablet? An eye, ringed in feathered orange, bright and stark on the dark synthfabric.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, and not just because they have the right to travel among the stars. The Auspex makes something breathtaking out of the throbbing furnaces and intricate fields, magnetic and otherwise, like an impossible butterfly pinned against the glittering stars. Of course Mother forced them out here to be her hands and eyes and ears. If something like that hung like a second moon over Tellus, it would always be an implicit challenge, even if the entire Ceronian fleet sat on their haunches by its side.

Then she closes her eyes and focuses. Everything’s been so... so unreal. Ever since Baradissar. Ever since Bella. Ever since she was touched by Dionysus who makes women mad. If he had touched her differently, what would she have done to Bella? If he hadn’t touched her at all, would she have given in and been taken home by her, in her fury, with her threats?

Was Dionysus on her side at all, or was the Mirrored-Mask simply touching a coin as it spun through the air to make it land on its side?

What’s important is that Alexa is on her side. What’s important is that the Starsong Privateers believe in her. And so she believes in them, too.

“Awaiting your orders, Captain,” she says. There is, unconscious, underneath, her mother speaking through her. She does not ask Vasilia if she may be of use; she simply asserts that her place is, in this moment, doing whatever she can to assist Vasilia. Confidence. She has to have confidence. Alexa deserves that, at least.

And Alexa deserves the gentle look that Redana shoots her way as the princess pulls on her remade jacket. One that says: you got this. One that says: I’m thinking of you, so don’t worry. One that says: you’re not alone, Alexa.

Fellowship: The Heart

”Now, at times, brothers in the Blood, a pilgrim will come crawling up to me and ask: why?

“Why?

“Why a carnival? We hold life everlasting, we hold the holy Transubstantiation, we are made pure by the Blood, and we run a sideshow and rides? Oh, tell me, Ringmaster, why do we have a riding wheel when ain’t nothing to look at but more of the Wound in the World all around? Where’s the castle, where’s the statues, where’s the seven thousand step temple?

“Well, I could tell you what I tell the pilgrims. I could tell you all that it’s because we’re called to be Life, and Life is ridiculous as much as it’s lethal— because, let’s face it, you and me are the only ones who get on the ride who won’t get off sooner rather than later! Yeah! Yeah, let me hear you, brothers! Whoop it up!

[pause for howling]

“So why shouldn’t we let our little operation be like the life of the uninitiate? Why shouldn’t we take our little grain of death and wrap it up in gaslight and grease paint and fried megagator? Why shouldn’t we tell the rest of the world the joke and laugh at them for not getting it?

“But let me lay the truth on you. That’s right, I’ll lay it on you righteous! That’s nothing but another hoop for them to jump through! Ain’t no choice in this!

“We hold the Dark Carnival, day and night, no matter how the Wound contracts around us, because it was here waiting when I got here. The lights were on, the sausages were hot, and I wondered who stepped away and left it running—

“But then I found the Grail, here, and it realized it don’t so much as matter if I don’t understand. We have got Eternity; and so this’ll be the last thing standing when all the other lights. go. out.”

***

The Dark Carnival smells of fried food and sugar-breath and dried blood.

The lights overhead are bright, bright enough to see by, but the cavern roof above (if this is a cavern) is nothing but a suggestion in the dark between the bulbs. And there is a crowd.

Some of the things that pass you are inhabitants of the Heart, almost-Angels. Some of the things that pass you are fellow delvers, looking for the exit, bristling when you get too chummy, as if you mean to take their supplies or their tickets. Some of the things that pass you are tall and cloaked and unfold spindly arms to play the Toss-a-Ball. And some, unfortunately, are clowns.

There is a conditional docility that lies upon them, saturates them, when they leer at you in greasy polka-dot aprons and lean casually against the posts of a ring toss. That you are safe, so long as you do not break the spell. If only you knew what was forbidden you! What in the Heart holds them back from the impossible, brutal violence promised in their bulging muscles and beetle-dark eyes, in their rows of teeth and their rust-brown nine-pins— and how you could avoid the forbidden secret that will cause them to tear you limb from limb, laughing and honking and praising the Holy Grail.

And you travel with a man who wants to become one.

“We’re going around in circles,” he says, confidently, “because we have not gone there.” He jabs his turkey leg at the massive red-and-burgundy Big Top that squats at the center of the labyrinth-carnival. From the food square, delineated by thin ribbons fluttering between posts, it seems deceptively easy to get to, as if five minutes (surely ten at most) would get you there. “The Grail knows. I am ready. I have witnessed the death of Wormwood Station; I have passed through the Stations, if you will forgive the joke. We must go there, comrades. And when my honor guard brings me before my apotheosis... then you will be allowed to leave. The signs are clear.”

Shrieks ring out above the tents. They coincide with the dreadful rattle of the Jet Courser, but correlation is not necessarily causation. Wolf continues to stuff coleslaw tins into her coat.

Fellowship: The Heart

To simplify, I will give you all a Boon.

Level Up.
Repair one (1) piece of Gear.
Heal one (1) Stat.

The Dark Carnival awaits.

Sunshards

“Oh, Chen,” Rose from the River purrs. One hand holds the princess’s jaw cupped in her palm, and she guides (gentle but insistent) that face to look up at hers. “Of course I will get away with it. Princess Qiu hunts me, Princess Yin would best me, but neither one of them has gotten the better of me yet. Do you know why?”

Rose guides Chen down onto her knees on the grass. One arm keeps her pulled in close to her firmness, but twisted just enough to the side that she can guide Chen’s wrists together. Around and through, around and through, making a crossed X harness of soft silk rope, as gentle on her skin as the last breath of twilight. “Because I am not your peer, little girl. I was older than the broken suns. I was born to outwit and harry those more cunning and desperate than you. I am Rose from the River, and you lost this fight the moment you drew your blade.”

One hand strokes hair out of Chen’s face, slow, sure. The wrists secure, Rose smears a strip of demon-binding tape over the rope in a band, securing it from the mischief of princesses. Chen is now helpless to undo the binding by herself. She drapes more rope over Chen’s arms, pulling them close, securing a knot above her elbows. “But you princesses... you always think that you are the most perfect and clever thing in existence, as long as Qiu is not in the room. You ridiculous little thing! Prancing about in your colorful silks, thinking yourself invincible!”

Rose uncoils the scarf from around Chen’s neck, ignoring any protests to the contrary, and drapes it around her own shoulders. Then she lays Chen down onto the grass, which tickles at her through the silk—

Ah. That would be the fingers of Rose from the River, surprisingly cold, running right up Chen’s spine, underneath her bright top. Her chuckle is wicked. Having thus distracted the Princess, she wraps her endearingly solid legs in coil upon coil, snug at ankle and knee. No escape save for hopping along. The Thorn Pilgrim idly considers making dear Chen do just that. It would be quite entertaining, after all.

“There will be no escape for you, Princess,” she hisses. It is like walking out onto a needle-thin peak and balancing on one foot, to say that. But she puts her weight upon the needle to overcome it. Chen is safe. Chen will be imprisoned, and then (after being told there is no escape, after being silenced, after being made helpless to save herself) she will be released. It is safe. This is safe. This is safe because Rose from the River has chosen to make it safe.

This is how the mountain did not end, but it is how the mountain should have ended. That is the promise of the world she now loves.

“You’re my trophy, little girl,” Rose says, securing knots with clever fingers, making sure the weight is distributed properly, that there is no painful pinch or dig. “I will challenge the likes of Jezara and Jessic and bring in tow a little pack-slave, a silenced mouse of a girl, wearing much less than this. You will be decoration for their Guards and Priests to gawk at while I topple thrones in the name of the transcendent Way. But, dressed like this, you must have always known that was your fate, no? Deep in your heart, you knew that one day your beauty would shine in my service.”

She pulls Chen back up to her knees and secures a small tie from wrists to ankles, slack enough to not grow uncomfortable, then wraps it, too, in that seal-tape. This done, she turns Chen around to face her, and holds up the scarf with an evil smirk.

“This is almost as lovely as you are,” she breathes. “How fitting that you should bring it to me.” One hand palms the folded fabric from her pack, even while she rubs the scarf against Chen’s face. “Do you have any last words, Chen, former heiress of Ys and Sourcefall~?”

But even as she gloats, our dear Thorn Pilgrim cannot hide the gentleness of her eyes. How strange, that the eyes of a serpent could so easily show affection and vulnerability— there, betrayed in her lowered lids, the shape of her brow, the way her eyes linger on Chen as if looking at a beloved child. That she is pampering, indulging the girl, giving her the very treatment she has dreamed of but cannot voice. That alone may betray her villainy to Chen, daughter of two crowns, unveiling it and leaving its compassion bare.

[Since Chen has the move “Help Me~~” she may take this information about Rose’s heart and identity, as well as 1 more XP.]

Sunshards

When Chen feels those strong arms wrap around her and looks up at the huntress, we must forgive her if her heart skips a beat. Rose from the River is, for a moment, naked intensity; her pupils bared slits, her nostrils flaring as her chest rises and falls against the back of Chen’s head, her fingers locked tight around the wrist of Chen’s sword hand. The Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade is half-sunken into the turf. For a moment, Chen may even worry that she is at risk of being eaten in wonderful and terrible ways. But then Rose from the River laughs, a low chuckle, rich and dark as river-mud, and allows her energy to bleed away and recirculate, changing into new forms.

Two new arms unfold from her body (how unfair that must seem!) and one new hand, which feels like smooth yet inhuman bark on Chen’s skin, cups the Princess’s chin. The other toys down Chen’s side, brushing with careful softness down those flimsy silks. And there is nowhere to hide from Rose’s eyes, which are watching carefully: do you like this, little Twinshard heiress? How fast does your heart beat in your chest? That fourth hand lifts from Chen’s side and then presses down on her chest, searching for that heartbeat.

“I am a follower of the Way,” she says, muzzling and dragging back the part of her that wants to mark her catch. Dear Thorn Pilgrim! How her own heart beats, holding the Princess so! “But I am obligated to help you, since you have asked for my assistance.” Her thumb brushes against Chen’s lip, and then gently opens her mouth, letting those helpless pants wash over her barkskin, still smoothing, still changing. “I will aid you in finding your path. But the first step is learning how to let go of your ambition and self-assurance, and I think...”

She leans in closer, her braids spilling over her shoulder, making a curtain for the two. A moment of privacy. Who would dare part that foliage? This close, the flowers in her hair smell like plum blossoms at the very end of winter. It’s sweet, almost intoxicating. “I think you desire my lessons, Princess Chen.” Her thumb presses down on that lip, ever so gently. “I think that you began this fight so that you would be here, even if you did not know it. And while I am not a member of the Black Snakes, I have learned pedagogy from their order.”

She shakes Chen’s wrist with a flick of her hand and the crystal blade falls from her grasp. It’s so close! She could reach out and grab it! But Rose giggles to herself, and lifts Chen off the ground as if Chen weighed no more than a pillow, grip firm but not painful. “Do wait just a moment, little Twinshard. I need my bag.” But instead of moving, she settles into place, one hand cupping Chen’s cheek, fingers resting on her lips, the other running through Chen’s hair, her original two distributing Chen’s weight evenly. Something slithers in the grass, off towards the bag. The smell of her is all around, and each can feel the beat of the other’s heart.

“There are eight million paths for you to take from the moment you wake up, Chen.” The dropping of the honorific is scandalous and overfamiliar, is it not? “Some, naturally, are better than others. For you to take a knife and stab your mother would be a very ill path, and perhaps for you to take up a brush and paint would be a much better one. But what to paint? How to go about the process? What to learn? Infinite variables. Infinite paths.”

The pack slowly begins dragging itself across the ground towards the two. Is that right? There’s hardly any way that Chen can turn her head to look.

“But there is a path that maximizes goodness and elides suffering. Our duty as moral beings is to search for it. To follow its footprints, to feel it tug at our heartstrings, to be willing to shed our vices and our attachments in order to walk where we are needed. We are called to surrender, Chen.”

The pack flops open next to Rose, and one of her braids brushes against a side pocket. Dark, soft ropes spill out, and a roll of demon-sealing tape, and... something folded carefully. Rose’s cheek touches Chen’s own.

“Allow me to offer three paths for us to walk, your radiance. On one, I will put you down and apologize for my audacity in daring to oppose you. Then we may go chase after Yue, and perhaps come to blows again when we have caught her. On another, you will surrender to me, the victor of our little game, and I will offer you further instruction in my faith and my protection from danger as we travel together.”

Her voice drops. One finger brushes between Chen’s teeth for just a moment. The fingers running through Chen’s hair tighten and tug her slowly but inexorably back. “Or, if you want to play as we travel together, all you need to do is tell me that you are a Princess and I will never get away with subjecting you to this indignity. That, simply. Do you understand?” Is that a note of excitement in her own voice? She does, after all, yearn to be the Adversary. How her heart beats like a drum on Chen’s back! Yes, it must be her hope that Chen chooses the third, yet... it is not entirely a selfish hope, is it?

“So how may I serve you, o mighty and revered Princess Chen of the Northern Wind, heir to the twin powers of Sourcefall and Ys?” And effortlessly she spins the power, positions herself as if she was a humble handmaiden, eager to help, despite the way she holds Chen in her embrace, her limbs like the branches of an oak, heavy and still and sheltering Chen from any storm.

[Rose from the River uses her one String immediately while offering Chen another. Chen may mark XP if she plays the damsel with Rose from the River. Rose’s choice from Chen’s Fight is, of course, to find an even stronger position holding Chen, from which she may offer Chen varied paths. I feel it would be spamming moves to Entice here, even if Rose is hammering Chen’s buttons.]

Breathless Dead

Redana sets the loose sheafs of paper down on the altar of Hermes with revenant care. She may still be fragile after what happened on Baradissar, her heart still weighed down with sorrow like lead, but she’s had enough energy to prepare this offering: her handwritten notes on the journey, her observations on the nebulas and the vagaries of Poseidon’s domain, complete with her careful, cramped sketches.

Feeling miserable and sluggish and vulnerable is one thing. Neglecting her responsibilities as a mediator between Olympus and her people is another. She has offered Artemis arrowheads hand-carved from scrap metal, inscribed with her holy insignia, in the hopes that it will blunt whatever offering Bella has made, and as for Hera...

For Hera, her shorn locks of golden hair, braided into grain-sheaves. Beauty and artistry and the kitchen, which is the heart of the home[1].

But this, for Hermes, whose mysteries she is being invited to study? This is special. “Messenger,” she says, head bowed. “Last Guide, Caduceus-bearer. I offer you observation and study, in the hope that you will find within some fortunate insight or information new to you. Please, ease our path and open our eyes to the wonder of the universe, if it should align with your transcendent understanding. In the name of the Threefold Magus, I beg you to accept.”

Then she remains, head bowed, listening to the sound of her heart, feeling the ache of her muscles, trying to quiet herself into something worthy of brief notice by the god of the Saffron Path.

***

[1]: don’t be fooled. Redana is under no illusions that the offering will be accepted. She still has to try. She won’t give her stepmother the opportunity to call her ungrateful.

Fellowship: The Heart

Deep within the bowels of the Heart, that terrible wound in the world, that prison of forgotten ruins, the air is still and hot around the bones of a dead city, bleached white and black. Walls lean. Streets lie crooked. The world yawns empty.

A wall sloughs open with a careless shrug. Dust spins and spirals. Groaning, rust-bloodied rails rise up out of the broken earth.

And Sasha screams out of the collapsing reality pocket faster than the Legendary ‘11, running down those comforting rails until Coleman manages to get his claws around the brake. Behind — at a safe distance, thank whatever gods can see this deep down — Wormwood Station implodes with a shriek and a damned wail.

Well. Nothing more to be done about that. There will be dire consequences for what has transpired, but most of them are the sort that you won’t have to worry about, since they’ll happen to other people. Really, if your name’s not Coleman, you don’t have much to worry about at all.

And here’s some real good news: you’re deeper. A lot deeper, actually. Too deep to think of going back up, not when the Heart’s core is so near. Pick yourselves up and carry on.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

“What a name,” you say with a smile, kneeling down to offer the hapless farmer a hand. You are stronger than you look, after all, a firm anchor to hold. “Wherever did she get it?”

Cath Palug has been an excellent traveling companion, now that Robena... you cannot hide it from yourself, you know. You took that woman, who deserved better from you, and you set her alight. You made her into a weapon, all because she begged to become one. And now she has ridden off, full of hot and raging blood, to attempt what you have dared, what no one has dared: to stand up to a king who has been rejected by the land.

She will be broken in the attempt. But what can you do, daughter of giants? You will not shame both her and yourself by begging her to stay, to be lesser for the rest of her days. You will not draw a sword and ride beside her, not without certain matters attended to first. It is not enough that the land has rejected him. The dead have spoken now, but what of the rivers? What of the keepers of the Wheel? What of oak and ash and thorn?

There is still more to be done, more wrath to arouse, before you may draw up a sword from the waters. Old, tarnished bronze, offered to the deep when the gods were young. Not for you any sword not consecrated by that surrender to the divine.

Yet, for Robena’a sake, whether she lives or she dies, you are surprised to find that you are ready to wake those who sleep and rouse those who are silent still. And, yes, for the sake of Cath Palug and her fool of an owner, that their harvest might be lean but enough. The cross makes many promises, but its cruelest is that death is a great joy. As if this scarecrow lying on his reeds, a deflated mass of bone and skin, would be a victory.

“Here is your box,” you say, closing his hands around it. “Take it with my blessing, but be warned: it came from unquiet ground. If it is not truly yours, it would be better for you to welcome an adder into your bed than take it home.”

Sunshards

Rose from the River does not advance as Chen withdraws. Rather, she falls into the stance she developed while traveling with Rabbit Running, blade in high guard at her shoulder, its hilt the same length as the gently curved blade. It is a stance for changing distances at speed, changing where she holds the blade to keep an opponent at arm’s reach or to suddenly come in within their guard. It has no name. Many things in this beautiful world do, to veil their novelty: names that match the aspect of the age, grand and dramatic and beautiful. This stance is just the one she learned from sparring with dear Rabbit. That’s all.

“I truly was a huntress, Princess,” she says; Chen has earned the honorific, for now. In this moment, footwork is all. She circles the Princess, waiting for the moment their blades meet again. Her heart groans in her chest like the oak in a high storm. "So I'm glad you're clever enough to believe it. But I was traveling with the cunning demoness, the Scales of Meaning herself, not because she bought my services, but because that was the path I found laid out for me. She happens to be looking for a girl. Yue the shepherdess, sought by monsters and princesses alike. My path leads to her, too. Though I do not know what I will do once I find her, I doubt that it will be compatible with what Scales means to do to her, or for that matter, what you might decide to do on a whim."

The Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade suddenly lashes out: one, two, three! Her blows are fluid, one leading into the next, a dizzying assault probing at Chen's defenses. With a huff, she disengages just as abruptly, returning to her guard. "You are a great clangorous thing of want, o most radiant princess, you and all the others. It is a skill your mothers hone in you until you are ready to cut the world into new shapes. But listen to me, as if I don't want, too!" Rose throws her head back and laughs, and then is already in motion to block a cheeky move from the Princess of the North Wind. She comes in close to punish that impudence, comes in hard, dares to push the Princess's sword to one side and come in close enough to hook a finger on that lovely red scarf. The tug brings Chen up on tiptoes, their swords shivering by their sides, like a naughty child being pulled close for reprimands.

"You started this fight, Princess. You wanted to save the Scales of Meaning herself from a monster; you wanted to dazzle her, bask in her adoration. And now that she is gone, you think you can sheathe your sword and leave me wanting?" Ah, there is Chen's sword, free at last; Rose from the River drops and moves like a willow-reed in the wind, passing underneath that shining crystal with a breath to spare, swaying upright outside of the guard. It takes all of her swiftness to bring her sword in place to redirect the backswing. "Am I beneath your notice? Will you not do me the satisfaction of winning honestly?" The air is broken ground between them, torn apart by strike and counter-strike, by the whirling of Rose's limbs. The blood in her runs quick and full to bursting of sunlight.

"Fight me to submission, Princess of the North Wind! Make me kneel, if you can! Do what even the Scales of Meaning herself could not, if you dare!" And in her laugh, a wild thing that spreads like vines, there is the truth: that she loves, despite herself, the dueling codes of the Princesses. This is why the Thorn Pilgrim is the princess of her school; this is why she dares to aspire to royalty. She defies the bearers of the shards both because it is her path and because it brings a frightening intensity to her smile. Rose from the River, in her heart, wants just as much as Chen does: she wants to be defeated, or to defeat, with equal passion; she wants to be at Chen's mercy, or to force Chen to swoon into hers, and she fights with her full skill because the space between the two outcomes is a zone of firelight and burning muscles she shaped for herself with her own arts.

"essan! essan! essan el-heloi!" And here's a truth, too, shiny and golden, unfolding in that battle-cry: that two futures war within Rose from the River. She tells herself that she wants peace and self-control, as any monk following the Way should; she tells herself that she wants to be a tool in the hand of her fate, the empty space in a ringing bell. But she so desperately hopes, too, that the Way will let her be a part of Chen's world: a contrarian part, the adversary that must be succumbed to or overcome, the shadow cast by those glorious shards, but a part nonetheless.

For who could see the world-within-a-world of Chen and her peers, truly see it, and not fall in love?

[Three questions answered. One tenet stepped over, with consequences to come. An enticement, if Chen is the kind of girl to be enticed by tugged scarves, challenges to take or surrender control, and unveiled passion, with a roll of 10. A question offered in return: Chen, what are your feelings towards princesses, those aspirants who claim title without right, those pretenders to royal glory?]

Breathless Dead

"Ah." Redana understands the saying; she might not have a head for statecraft, but she knows more than one might expect from a sheltered royal. "Well..."

What can she say? That she will never betray Alexa? Even if Alexa turns on her, turns on the adventure, tries to pick her up and take her back home? Even if Bell-- if somebody finds the codes that will turn Alexa into a killer bodyguard and takes command, forcing her and that mysterious somebody into a fight of command seals? Every promise she can think of seems like an invitation for the gods to take it and push her into it to prove her, to make her shine or break. "I'll do my best to juggle the shoe," she says, with a wry little smile. "You should have seen me and Bella playing off-the-ground back when we were kids," she says, and even though it hurts once it's out of her mouth, she couldn't stop the sneaky little thing from escaping! "I was really good at it, you know. So maybe we'll get all the way to Gaia and back before you get sick of me!"

She puffs herself up, and then dives into the crabs with a battle cry. Step aside, crustacean cossacks! Sure, she's over-exerting herself and will be a mess of aching muscles and congestion by the time they turn the tide[1], but to Hades with all that! She's got to show Alexa, and more importantly, prove to herself that when you work as a team, nothing[2] can stand in your way.

***

[1]: pun very much intended.

[2]: well, not nothing. There are still things that can defeat even teamwork. But if you believe that nothing can defeat it, you can defeat things that you very much could not have if you didn't have that faith, and when you come to the things that really no-fooling cannot be defeated, well, you already had a good run.