“I have to go home,” you say, Constance, as much to yourself as to Merlin. There the sword waits, undrawn, hidden well. Because now you know, don’t you? All this time, you thought that you were nothing more than its caretaker. That one day you would return it to Merlin’s care, that if anyone were to choose the wielder, it would be him.
But it’s you. It’s always been you. The weight of your responsibility crushes your shoulders like the Sicilian mountain. Excalibur, in this moment, does not seem to you a prize but a terrible burden. Who would take it up? The matchless blade, the blessed scabbard? You think of Robena and then mistrust yourself. She is strong, but does she have the inner strength to bear that blade? Has she been made unsuitable for Britain by her travel abroad? Would that weight destroy her like you fear it would?
No, there is only one way to settle this, isn’t there?
There must be, as always, a contest. A challenge. A rescue. And a terrible foe. One that only the pure-hearted champion could defeat.
“No,” you say, to both of you. “I need to find a dragon.”
Rose from the River skids on grass. Only her sense of touch remains fully hers; she feels how her heel digs into the earth, how she leaves a strip behind her as she comes to a hard stop. Without thought, the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade, still sheathed in its staff-shape, cracks right through Will0 WZP’s head; the lack of feedback means that she has no choice but to lean into the motion, to flip heels over head and land crouched low. Only then does she realize that she has been assailed by a sales-sprite. Of all the misfortune!
If she was a great sage, then perhaps she could meditate here until Will0 timed out. But then her Chen, which is to say, the Princess that she had defeated in battle and who had been temporarily removed from her care, which was in and of itself a temporary state, and not something that should make her want to scream at Will0 to get out of her way, would be sold off to a fox, and the fox would send her elsewhere, and likely as not great mischief would be done. But here is an enemy that cannot be fought with force of arms, one that steals perception and offers to sell it back to you at high price. How, by the jewel and the thunder, is she to overcome this demon of offers and deals?
The perfume is sticky. It makes Rose’s bark-smoothed skin prickle with unease. It reminds her of places she has been before: throbbing nightclubs, ultraviolet back rooms, urine-marbled restrooms. The sugary quality makes her teeth ache. It completely drowns out the scents that she has grown for herself with care. And, worse? Will0 makes the robe work. It is Vantasblack with gold accents, abstract designs interlocking at the sleeves and the placket, hugging her upper body tightly before spreading in a halo around her legs, one silver stilletto barely visible. It is wealth and good taste, and the good life which could be hers, all she needs to do is become her own boss and become a part of the Family!
(It would not particularly matter to Will0 which Family it was: the ones that sold miracle cures, the ones that sold weapons, or the ones that sold insurance and its breaches. What matters is that for a meager upfront cost and with a go-getting attitude that saw people around her as marks, she too could end up helplessly entwined in debt, moving product just to keep her head above water. Marie Ojixa explained that to her at length at the Sagegrass, so serious behind her thick glasses, speaking just loudly enough to be heard over the thump-and-boom of the music.)
(Later she’d cracked Marie’s glasses in the fight in her apartment, leaving Marie squinting tearfully as the HUNTER-Class 猎犬 wrapped its adhesive-secreting tentacles around her and pulled her into a cruel, hopeless embrace. Eighty years at an Incarceration Center and Production Facility for sedition, breach of contract, and propagation of terroristic anti-capitalist philosophy.)
No. The only way out is through. What is her pride, that she should cling to it?
“I need Foxes Near Me and route mapping,” Rose from the River says, rising to look Will0 WZP in the phantom eyes. “In return for two ninety-minute Ownership credit chits.” She flicks her wrist, and behold! Two of the iron coins, favors in material form. “Scales of Meaning, unfortunately, cannot afford two revelations and an epiphany, which, as you certainly know, is the current competitive price for my long-term service contract. However, I would be delighted to offer her a one-day free trial in my Secrets of the Black Serpents(trademark) meditation wellness therapy course if she wants to branch out into the market.” She talks shop patter exactly like she drank it in during infiltration. “Again, this is a limited time offer; we can only afford to offer two ninety-minute chits for the next forty-five seconds, so be sure to pick up this deal before it closes!!” That was… too much like Will0. And Rose has no way of knowing if anyone is nearby to have heard the way she just chirped. Please, by the axis point, let nobody have witnessed her Saleswoman Smile.
The weight makes a tiny bunny hop. The axolotl standing next to you blinks. There is a moment of embarrassed stillness.
“Well,” the clown says, clearing his raspy throat, “I guess I was wrong. That’ll be a ticket, little lady.”
No! Do not submit! Maybe you just had a sweaty grip on the hammer! You very definitely have got this.
***
Lucien!
There are indeed fried pickles. And you’re getting closer, now, ambling along with the Professor. The electric lights all about flicker, and the wood of the stalls creak. There’s something about this place, you know? Like it’s rattling along on momentum just before everything falls apart.
“Before we get into the metaphysics, boy,” the Professor says, ambling with a deliberately careless stride that the clowns around effortlessly display, “I’m curious as to what you think of this. The Heart itself, you could say. What do you think its true nature is?”
***
Jackdaw!
Oh, Jackdaw. Sweet, lovable Jackdaw. That is an excellent question, you know. Where in the Dark Carnival could possibly be safe?
The Merry-go-round? Used in dark rituals. Have you been counting the number of animals and the number of riders? No, you’re not risking that eldritch nightmare.
The Jet Courser? Are you mad? You’ll probably be decapitated, or slip out of the restraints and get flung from the top of an arc, or choke on said restraints! Absolutely not!
Everywhere you turn there’s some new horror just barely submerged beneath the surface, and... hold on. What’s that over there? A house of mirrors, you say? Notice how the clowns give it such a wide berth. Like anything else here, it’s likely got some strange enchanted nature, but the more you consider it, the more it feels like a refuge.
As for getting Wolf there, well, Wolf is currently very animatedly motivated by securing more food for herself and keeping herself safe. If you just pointed out the clownlessness of the house of mirrors and made some intimation that food might be inside, she’d beat you to it.
***
Coleman!
Trouble, trouble, boil and bubble, fryer hiss and Heart rumble.
Before clowns can start approaching you to Have a Word about the train, you’re approached by someone you didn’t expect. Or something? It has no head, but eyes peer out of the thick black fur of its “chest.” It is holding a balloon in one thick and meaty paw. The balloon is red.
“How dare you show your face here, Conductor? After everything you did? I’d know your train anywhere, even if you’re trying to hide it in that strange frame.” Its voice is like the creak of old wood, and its breath is like a pack of wet dogs. It clenches its other paw into a fist the size of your head. “I will be avenged for my pod, Black Coleman.”
so the thing is that the heart sometimes has temporal anomalies and hiccups and that’s just the sort of thing you learn to avoid if at all possible you know but the Blemmyae are a bunch of reclusive bio-craftsmen and you’ve never even met one before and you don’t know if it’s packing a portable plague or a gun-tongue or if it’s just going to pick you up and throttle you with those arms like some great ape and the clowns are watching with great interest oh no
Okay, Redana. What would a hero do? For a moment, she tenses, imagining drawing her sword and fighting off these arrogant hermetics. Except that she’s a hermetic, too, and also they’re all tethered to a MRU, and also her sword was shattered by the touch of Dionysus. She’s unarmed, on the same side as these soldiers, and also if she tried to do something stupid just to save a damsel in distress, she’d just end up squirming and helpless next to the Alced girl.
So instead she hoists the Alced up, trying not to stare at the sun gleaming off turquoise plumage. “By your leave, Magister,” she says to Iskarot deferentially. “I will share with her the joy of the Order!” With a nod from Iskarot (though perhaps a grudging one?) she carries the struggling girl further down the beach, until she feels she’s no longer in earshot. She’s still observed, though. The beach is very exposed, and Lady Artemis has been invoked.
“Are you all right?” Redana asks, one arm gripping her bucking feet close. “I’ve only been with the Order a short time, but hurting people isn’t part of our way. We’re about exploration, and discovery, and... you could see the universe if you joined us, and see places that are just as amazing as this! Although your world is truly beautiful, so I can understand why you wouldn’t want to leave, and from the looks of it, they got a bit overzealous. If I untie you, will you try to kick me and run for it? Because I will catch you. I am very fast. And even if I’ve had a lot more experience being tied up than tying people up, lately, I’ll figure it out! And then you won’t get to find out some of my real secrets.”
[Redana rolls an 8 on Speaking Softly. She’ll forgo the three question buffet in exchange for one answered interestingly and brattily: what can the Alced girl tell Redana about the Order’s presence on Ridenki, particularly as to why they’re kidnapping new acolytes?]
Nails slam into wood with such violence that sheep, sudden-spooked, bleat plaintively. Rose from the River needs no hammer. Between nails she chisels the words of her jewel mantra into the air. aum shantae aum. aum shantae aum. aum shantae nemo padhome aum.
Princess Chen trusted her. And the greatest good for the harmony of all things demands that this task be completed before pursuit. It is necessary that this road remain open; leaving it undone just because she can imagine those dark, pleading eyes staring at her through the rear window of a car now long gone? Just because she can feel her flesh straining with the desire to bloom into a terrible new form, many-limbed and many-jawed, a monster to equal anything that the Watchman has ever fought? Just because Rose from the River wants to feel good about herself, wants to pick up the girl and hear the sigh of relief into that scarf as Chen nuzzles into her arms?
There is work to be done.
The last nail sinks deep; too deep. She reaches behind the fence and bends the tip back in a neat curve. There. Now no sheep will find itself caught or bloodied by her carelessness. She stands, ignoring the thanks from those left behind in the car’s wake. She does not have time to accept the thanks for her work.
Up on the fence, on the pads of her feet. From there to the lower branches of a tree leaning over the flock. Up. Thank you, old one; your branches are strong. aum shantae aum. She moves in sudden shocking bursts, much like a cat, until she is perched on the very top of the tree for the space of a breath. Her weight focuses down to the size of a pin, and the trunk groans beneath her as she balances. Then, only then, she leaps.
Her braids stream behind her as she soars in an arc, trousers billowing, her blade held out to her side undrawn. And she looks out over hill and valley and forest, looks at the car on the winding single-lane road, looks at brake lights as small as puncture wounds, looks to the turn-off where the car will ascend into the sun-dappled wood. Going to find foxes, ha! And if you cannot give them a monster, a Princess is fine enough. Where were you when there was the work left undone?
Rose from the River reaches the apex, and she breathes out. In that moment of weightlessness, she makes herself empty, a vessel to be filled, and lets the wind twist her where it will. Then she falls like the sudden bolt of lightning which strides across the sky.
She hits the ground running. Still on two legs, but running all the same. Running because she has the momentum and she must move, because it is all she can do not to drop to all fours and lope faster, because her bare feet are sure and nimble on the grass, because her heart is an engine that churns and roils and can only barely be constrained and directed. Her self resides in the fire but does not burn; it radiates light to the eight corners of her heart. She sits within herself and observes her own unaware grace, her sensation of motion in the moment that does not begin or end.
Chen, little Twinshard-heir, Rose from the River makes for your destination. You are not her first and dearest responsibility; not yet. But when she finds the one who took you, then you will see the anger of an ancient huntress, for as it is said:
The birds are disturbed in their motion, the clouds above roil and churn. Better to throw oneself into the hungry earth than awaken the pious woman’s wrath.
And yet, perhaps it will be longer still, for though Rose from the River may take a more direct route than the car may, still she may have more perils on her path. The Way does not protect its disciples from the ebb and swell of the world around them; it merely calls upon them to do better, to achieve more by more noble means, and to make the path to harmony smoother for the feet of all. Bold Thorn Pilgrim! Where shall those bare feet take you, hurtling as fast as you may?
[Rose from the River trusts in the Way to make her path short, seeking to perform the amazing feat of arriving at the fox before the car and its passengers can. However, she rolls a 5 with Spirit, claiming her second XP and allowing for a Downbeat.]
That is not quite correct. Redana has imagined the sea before. The sea is vast and still and contains both wonders and horrors within its depths; it is a motif in the Pelagic Hymns. In her imagination it is dark and colorless, water piled upon water, and Poseidon keeps all that lies below. There are horses that live in it. And her mother took the sea and reclaimed its depths, filtered the waters in great supply-vats until they ran sweet, turned the hidden places of Poseidon into more residential space, and sacrificed something unspeakable to Poseidon so that the skies above would not drown Tellus in retaliation. The sea once was; then it was remembered in song; and now it is here and she was wrong, she was so wrong, because the sea shines.
It’s like the sun is leaking and light lies slick on the water, unwilling to come close to the shore, because that’s where Poseidon’s horses are. She can see them now; she has that much imagination. The tossing manes, the rushing hooves, the leap and the break and the charge. And then there’s nothing left and the water runs back down leaving the sand black with absorbency, black as the shadows in that one poorly-lit bathhouse near the gymnasium, black as Bella’s hair. Then the charge back up, foaming, ferocious, coming almost up to where she stands in her tall boots.
Her chest is ever so slightly tight, and it hits her after a few more waves that this is why poets are always saying beauty leaves one breathless. It’s as if her body knows just as much as she does that this moment is special, that the processes of her must still until she can be sufficiently quiet, until she can remember this moment until she’s three hundred: the light-spill and the horse-foam and the roar, roar, roar, like the breath of Leviathan, which is a metaphor she now understands, too[1]. Like she can feel its breath on her skin. Like she stands before something alive in a way that resplendent multicolored space is not, for all that it is the art of the gods, for all that she loves it. The sea is not space; the cat is not the painting.
And when she looks up! When she stares at the clouds, actual discrete clouds, it makes her feel as if they are standing very still and she is moving beneath them instead, as if she is watching the rotation of this planet in real time. And between them, empty blue, and how is it that she does not take a step forward and tumble forever into it? It seems more present and fearful, a more certain place to drown than the ever-moving waves. Perhaps that is why Poseidon rules all seas.
Iskarot will need to try to get her attention three separate times; she is lost in worship. Poseidon, horizon-strider, earth-breaker, glory be to you, who knows what lies beneath the deep places of the waters. You who delight in the armored hosts, the silver-scaled armies; you who tamed Leviathan and made the waters salt. To you I sing, keeper of what is known not.
***
[1]: like the best metaphors, Leviathan is entirely real. But don’t tell Redana that yet. She is very proud of her discoveries in literary criticism today.
Your grandmother. You remember her as she was, unbidden: tall and unbent, unbowing. Watch the thread as it runs between her fingers. She is always working this magic in one form or another. She changes things from one form to another: flax to thread, thread to cloth, cloth to wonderful things. She does not tell you her secrets; you learn them through observation, with red fingers and long afternoons without words. She changes other things, too: beneath her house is a cellar, and not everything in the barrels came from the wood and the fen. Your grandmother! The sudden blue of her eyes, like the sky after a storm; the heavy curls of her golden hair; the set of her lips like the fold in stone. If she were here, she would be treating with this man as an equal, reputation or no.
But what you learned of the sword, you learned in the shapes of the silences.
"...your disguise is excellent," you say, and you cannot entirely hide the flush of embarrassment. "I come all this way to look for you, and here you are by the side of the road. And Cath..." Your eyes flick to the innocent-looking cat, licking one paw as if it is the most natural thing in the world to be doing. Ah. Now here's a beast of legend indeed. "Well. Well! Go on, get up," you say, your childhood accent slipping into the words, lilting light. "We have things to talk about, you and I. Kings and crowns and visions."
"I'll be fine," Redana says, and she almost manages to whisper it. And she means it! Despite all the things that have happened to her thus far on this voyage, she still believes that she will be fine; that she will not need Alexa looming over her; that she doesn't need a bodyguard as much as she needs someone who believes in her. Her sincerity is painful, isn't it? And yet, it is precious. Something that refuses to die despite someone's best efforts to snuff it out.
She wants Alexa to know she's not going to cling to her. And more than that, she needs Alexa to know that she won't be slighted; that she does feel she can take care of herself, and she will, she really will this time, honest. How can anyone say no to that face?
Rose from the River bristles suddenly. “Foxes! Wishes! Ha!” Her cheeks are darker than dark, her flowers are blooming in delicate purples all up and down her braids, and she very deliberately does not look at him. “Do you think I can let myself be distracted? There is so much to do, so much that should be done! Do you think that little princess will see herself where she needs to be on her own? So that I can go and ask a fox for something I could do for myself?”
She is not lying, not precisely, but she is betraying herself. She has had dealings with foxes before, and she knows that she will be tempted to be vulnerable around them, and allow them to take liberties with her, and she knows, too, that she is not supposed to be going and playing with fluffy-tailed tricksters. She needs to get Chen somewhere important, she needs to find Yue the shepherdess, she needs nails to finish this fence, she…
No! She is not going to go from indulgence to indulgence! When she straightens up, it is with flashing and furious eyes. Furious, that she should be so revealed. Furious, that she does not want to follow the subtle nudges of the Way because she is distracted by memories of a fox. Furious, that she gave him the opportunity and he failed her test anyway.
“If you owe me, Watchman,” she says, as dangerous as a cobra’s flared hood, with a voice as level as a sword’s edge, “then you can give me the nails to fix this, and then go hopalong with your master to go and wish for fox-treasures. Of course you know that it’ll come from someone else’s hands, don’t you? And that the fox will go and sing their pretty song to half of the Nine Kingdoms until someone wishes for that treasure to come to them instead? It’s a rare fox that’s got an inch of kindness in her tails! And what do you mean for an offering, hmm?”
The question coils in the air. There are few options left to the god. He can tuck his tail between his legs and run, if he still has some humility clinging to him. Or he can answer her implicit challenge, send her nails from the barrel of his gun, to see if she can snatch each one out of the air or if he will manage to pin her humble tank-top to the boards of the fence. Or he can suggest to his master that here is a prize that a fox would give heaps of gold and jewels for.
She’s all tangled up in guilt, see. To help her into her vices requires taking her culpability out of it, sneaking it behind her back when she’s pretending not to look. She hasn’t been a good enough monk, has she? Not a bit. So here she is, trying to be better, trying to be good for everyone and to show them the proper walk of the Way, but one hint of a fox’s brush promising her even more enjoyable distractions and she’s gone bristly as a boar and dark as a plum.
Now, if only he had a Princess to dangle in front of her. But she’s got the one already, and another on the way. All Princessed up, and in a direction that’s not on his way. No, the only way to get her to indulge is to toss her in the trunk of that car.
***
“It’s not hard to tell you’re security,” the fox says to him with the same cocky sort of look that half the princesses— no, Princesses. There’s a difference in how it’s written and how it’s said. But half the Princesses have that arrogant, knowing look on lockdown, like they have all the answers already. Like they’ve seen everything before them and dismissed any possible danger with a floof and a fluff, and for all that this world doesn’t have many dangers left, it still feels presumptuous to him. He sighs, looking her up and down; she’s all frills and lilac lace, the bustle of her ballgown hiding the number of her tails. Ruddy orange-brown ears poke out of her coiffed hair, and when they are straight up, they peek just above his head; he suspects heels. He is a tower looking over the ebb and flow of the party, and here comes a fox to pull his eyes away, like he isn’t trained to thread sensory data.
“Whatever gives you that impression?” Probably the suit. It is a very carefully chosen indigo, a suggestion of color that will become darker than black when his Lady flares her heart. The contrast with his alabaster skin and white-gold hair is pleasing to her, and First of the Radiants lives to please her, in any way that she desires. He is the sword that fits perfectly in her hand; he is the sanctified monster that she keeps on a holy leash.
“You’re so stiff,” she purrs. The look he gives her is flat. The worst pickup line he’s heard in… no. Posture. Ah. Maybe he is. But isn’t a knight supposed to be at the ready? The festivities are loud and garish. Ysian dancers dominate the ballroom, half-dressed and gyrating to the beat of drums and flutes from a dozen different cultures. An obvious distraction from Ysel. Princess Ysel. The real challenge of the evening will be watching for her move: where her soldiers will storm the ballroom, where they will attempt to cut off exits, the shortest path that he can take to Yin to defend her while she casts Ysel down and defeats the army by cutting off the head. And thinking about his posture is going to distract him. But the perfect knight has to be able to show courtesy. Another test. One he will pass. He will earn this.
“You will have to forgive my ignorance,” he says, arching an eyebrow. “What, exactly, do you foxes… do?” The implication is vicious enough. I am a trusted knight, a Handmaiden, who is on a path to become the Countess of the Radiant Lands. You are a fuzzy little trickster and I see through you, even if I don’t know the specifics. There’s a dizzying amount to learn about this new world, after all, and foxes weren’t quite at the top of the list. And, like clockwork, the fox (vixen?) puts one hand (paw?) on her chest and gives him a dramatically offended look.
“Why, you don’t know?” By Yin’s elbow, a dancer comes perhaps too close; a shadow lingers just a moment too long at a window; the maddening whirl demands more and more processing as the drums swell. “We grant wishes. Whatever the heart wants most. And since you are a very special someone indeed, I might be persuaded to give you a free sample.” The lure is transparent. His eyes flutter up for a moment in exasperation.
“So if I were to tell you that my heart’s deepest desire is to be ready to defend my Lady Yin? Surely there isn’t anything you can give me that I don’t already have.” He does have it all. Shining armor. Squires. The love of a Princess. Anything he wants is at his disposal, as Yin’s consort-in-training. Through her generosity, he could have pearls, white rings, a cape in furs and cloth-of-gold, jewels; if he expresses dissatisfaction with anything, she will order it removed and changed for him, and that is why he does not express dissatisfaction with anything. That and that there is nothing to be dissatisfied with, yes. Yes.
On the bandstand, an electric sitar begins to play, jaunty and full of bounce, played by a heavy young woman with golden bangles and a broad grin. A Baron, and one of some repute, if the wild cheering is any indication. The noise is enough that no one can hear the whisper of the fox, as she leans into his shoulder, fingers taking his hand and squeezing, not maliciously, but with some strangely overfamiliar tenderness. Perhaps he has misjudged her, he thinks for just a moment; she is not attempting to distract him, but rather she is the sort of wild fool who thinks that she can seduce the chosen of Princess Yin, perfect and radiant, the Anahata of the Radiant Mercy School, the auspicious ruler chosen by Heaven. Then he hears her whisper: “I know why you won’t let yourself look at the dancers.”
He should say something. He can’t. His throat just isn’t working. She has him by the hand. Everything, the whole of it, there was nothing dangerous in here expect for her all along. She’s tempting him. Leading him out into open air. He can’t. He shouldn’t. What would Yin say? What would Yin say about what, exactly? What does he think she’s offering him? What does she think he wants? Maybe she thinks he’s guilty of a wandering eye. She’s going to flash her navel at him and offer to let him collar her. He can say no to that. If that’s all. He knows he is owned. He is pure in that he is only used by one. She has taught him so much. What is the fox offering?
“Come with me,” she says, laying out her trap so neatly. And he doesn’t know yet if it’s one that he can escape. He shouldn’t take that step. It won’t be what he is eagerly terrified it is. Then the traitor-thought envelops him like a serpent: if it is not a trap that can catch him, then he will seize the fox that thought herself clever and present her to Yin as a gift. Perhaps some time as a songbird will make the fox eager to sing about her employers. Following her is the clever thing to do. It’s not wrong. He can make it right.
But he is half-blind as she leads him by the hand, so obsessed with the fear that he will be seen and marked that he only slowly realizes that she has indeed taken him backstage. There are no stagehands; did she arrange this, or is it simply luck? There are rooms set aside for Barons here, and it is to one that she draws him. The room is dark; she only opens the door a crack and pulls him inside, slamming it shut behind them. He flexes and takes her wrist in his hand, ready to fight both her and whoever she has with her, ready to take her by the ears and beg for mercy. He is a fine knight, but he was born a better hunter.
Then, with a wave of her hand, the soft lighting flickers on. It is shadowy, low, and makes the narrow room seem like it could contain multitudes. And the amethysts drink in that light. His grip tightens but now he is holding onto her for support. He’s going to fall over. His heart is throbbing, almost painful. It’s impossible and frightening because of how much he wants. He’s not supposed to want. He’s supposed to be what she needs him to be. She saved him. “I can’t,” he stammers. His ears pulse with heat.
“You can,” the fox says. “I know wishes. And your heart sings in the empty places you deny yourself, because if you let yourself want things, you’d risk wanting things that she doesn’t want. Isn’t that right?” Her fingers slip down his chest, and buttons come undone as smoothly as if she’d cut them with a knife, an impossible magic.
It isn’t until she comes to his belt that he blurts out, again, cheeks ruddy with betraying fire, “I can’t. I won’t…”
The slim trousers snake down his legs. The fox stops and cocks her head.
“Oh,” she says, and he can hear the suppressed laughter. It hurts. He tries to push her back.
“I’m not going to be a joke, fox--”
She lays one finger on his lips.
“You’re not going to be.” She cups him, pushes Yin’s delight back against his legs. “Trust your Auntie Sa-chan. I promise you that you will look just like you always wanted. Not a joke. Not a billboard.” So she’s seen those, too. Down in the Burrows. “I am a fox, darling. And we work in wishes. And you don’t want to be laughed at.” She guides him to step into some unusually thick undergarments, and when she pulls them up to his hips, he’s flat, not sexless as he once was but… “You want to be beautiful.” She smiles, like she’s sharing a joke between the two of them. “And we can’t have your Princess hogging all the beauty for herself, now, can we?”
She guides him over to the mannequin. The thin silk is the color of spring flowers, lavender and vervain. He’s uselessly thinking that over and over as she helps him into it. Lavender and vervain and plum-flowers. It whispers against his smooth skin, loose and revealing, decorative. As if he was just another of the dancers offering a distraction. Just a decoration. And that’s not how he thinks of, of the Princesses, but… but he wants to think it of the dancers. Because he wants to be one of them. He always has, from the first time he saw them in this soft and gentle new world, because they are something delicate and lovely and kept close, because they are beloved but objectified, and he’s never been allowed to simply be the figure of want, all eyes on him. Except that’s not quite right, is it? He’s Yin’s trophy. But the shape is wrong. His shape is wrong. And this… this is right. It makes him feel almost right.
He knows he can’t become this. There are other shapes that are worrying at him. A Way, still here, still believed in despite all he did to stamp it out. Something older and truer than him. Much is called to those to whom is given much. And while the cult surrounding his Princess is wrong, laughably wrong, it is their intepretation and not… but he does not think about it. He lets himself believe, if only for a moment, that this is who he can be.
Finally she reveals her tails, so many of them, and each one is curled around a brush, a comb, a palette. He obediently closes his eyes and lets her drape spring over his lids, scatter stars in his lashes, dust his high cheeks with life, bring crushed plum to his lips. His stomach twists with delight as she gathers his pale hair.
When she guides him in front of the mirror and tells him to open his eyes, it is the bravest thing he has done since he awoke in this age. And when he does, it does not matter that he is tall, it does not matter that the silk lies flat on his chest, it does not matter that he is still in this form Yin breathed into him. He is radiant. The way he toys nervously with his fingers, the shy glance through glittering lashes, these things just make him feel more right. Happier. His hair lies in a tail draped against his neck, caught up with a jade barette, and amethysts radiate from his slim collar to his low neckline, caught on invisible threads, looking as if they are simply part of him, as if he is a princess’s doll. The billowing trousers are low on his hips, scandalously so, and a deep violet gem flashes in his navel.
“May I?” It is the first question that the fox-- that Sa-chan has offered him in some time. He should be worried about Yin. He should thank her for his… for this. He should leave and go and help her, doubtless under attack by Ysel’s ruffians, or soon to be. But the silk in her hands is the thickest that he would wear, perfect for hiding his lips, his nose, his chin, drawing all eyes to his eyes. He nods, still not trusting his voice, and she sets the loops carefully about his ears. He shivers and suddenly feels as if he is going to cry. And he can’t! He would ruin his eyeliner, not to say anything about his lashes!
So he stares and he stares and he turns from side to side and admires the slimness, the leanness, the way he is turned into a delectable sylph of a… of a dancer. If he walked out there right now, would they know? Would they see him? Or would they see a boyish young woman doing her best to draw attention to her femininity? Would he… he wouldn’t know the first thing about how to dance. He didn’t let himself watch. He’d end up shaking his ass in circles as everyone laughed at him. Better to stay here. Safe.
“Usually, I don’t do this for free,” Sa-chan says to him. “And I haven’t. I was paid quite a bit to draw off Yin’s bodyguard, you know. But that’s as much as I was paid for; you can still go and be the hero, if you want.” He turns, stupid, off-balance again, and finds her offering the hilt of his sword, thin and wicked silver. But when he reaches out on instinct, she lifts it ever-so-slightly out of reach. “You can, but you don’t have to.”
She meets his eyes, and there is a… there is a kindness there, hidden behind the glee at her own cleverness. One that says that she is happy at his happiness. That she did this for money and her own satisfaction and her own caprice, but that she is not quite done granting wishes, either.
And in the face of what she is offering, he cannot be strong and noble and chivalrous. He cannot take the blade and shove her aside and charge out like some sort of battle-dancer. Because she is giving him the choice to choose the dream he’d kept hidden and close tight inside of him. And he does not know if it is programming that makes his body light and airy, and he does not know if he is doing a right thing or a wrong thing, and all he knows is that he would regret it every day if he did anything else.
First of the Radiants offers her wrists to Sa-chan, who smiles like only a fox can.
“Good girl.”
And when the Radiant Knights arrive, they will take hours to find their redeemed captain, because none of them think that releasing the squirming, helpless dancers backstage is a priority when they have a captain and a Princess alike to save. And they will assume that he was hidden among the dancers so that they would not find him for a long time, and they will be very right; and they will assume that this was why First of the Radiants was dressed so, and they will be very wrong.
The last piece is the eyepatch. It suggests motive for joining the Order: if you’re missing one anyway, why go through regrowth therapy when you have the perfect opportunity to get an upgrade? The strap breaks the silhouette of her green bangs, and the skull-molded cap sits perfectly from the bridge of her nose to the corner of the socket, hiding that unnatural blue. Nobody will give her a second look; she’s just a spunky little acolyte here to fetch and carry and transcribe for her master.
“To the end, follow the Path,” she says, bowing with one arm crossed over her chest. “Your will be done, Navicularius Saeculāris.” Captain, not of the Order. It is amazing what little bits manage to stick in her head, isn’t it?
There might actually be a chance she manages to stay incognito, as long as Iskarot can keep an eye on her and nobody pleads for heroic assistance within earshot and also someone distracts Hera. Which is unlikely, but tantalizingly possible.
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