Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

The first time Redana heard the Nero verse, golden hair tucked into a bandana and mask pulled up to hide a rather distinctive face, her cheeks burned and she fell silent, listening to it ring out all around her, her pride pricked and prodded. How dare they talk about her Mommy like that! How dare they mock her subjects! She was sullen and dejected for the rest of the shift.

It took time for her to figure out what they meant. It was like a lightning-bolt striking her the day she realized that what that song meant was that they agreed with her. Kind of in a mean way, but the Coherents didn’t have much of a filter in a way that made her... well, relax, once she knew that not everything they said was calculated and intentional. That they said the first thing they thought of, and if that got a laugh and a “fuck you!” that wasn’t a challenge to duel but a mild rebuke or even an acknowledgment of, yes, I don’t mind what you said, but don’t think I won’t push back if you try to insult me.

Then she started to sing with them, in time with the hammers and the wrenches, the cabling and the scything. Her voice was made for operatic solos before an audience, but here, among the strange shapes of the Coherents, this neo-creed, this trans-crafted fellowship, it was one note among the many. And once she was there, she sang the verse about her mother loudest of all.

Because one day, they’ll be singing a verse about her, and she means for it to be a really, really good one.

(And Redana noticed more than they let on, too. Noticed how they closed ranks around her, didn’t let her get singled out when the Magi were looking, how they Knew that the human princess was looking to slum with them... but she kept her head down and didn’t complain, and they let her be one among the hundreds.

(Catch her, soot rings around her eyes from her goggles, glowing with exertion as she flops into bed without even undoing her ponytail, smiling her way into dreamless sleep. Catch her, delegating as much as she can to Iskarot, sneaking stamps of approval for the Order’s motions and resolutions on lunch breaks while around her, there is laughter and insult-contests and jokes about Nero snapping off Zeus’s swan[1] between her cold thighs.

(Catch her shouting back into the hubbub: “How long does it take a Coherent to install a bulkhead?” Catch the reply swelling all around her: “Depends on how often the Magi change their minds!”

(Catch the smile around her eyes, crinkling over the smoothness of her mask, one golden strand escaping to curl on her forehead, as she listens to Big Jenny talk about the movie she starred in[2]. Catch the moment of serene acceptance.)

***

[1]: long, stately, beautiful, and prone to causing catastrophes.

[2]: chan-barra-chan-barra-chan-barra-chan!!!

Breathless Dead

Redana’s instincts manage to kick in. A little belatedly, but still they kick, bucking like the engines of an old runabout. She stands up with a flourish and hands Acolyte Bian of the Fractal Goddess the blueprint she managed to get knocked out and ready for the meeting.

Bian inserts the blueprint into the Revelation Niche, and the surface of the wall it controls ripples into black and white, indenting where her pen pressed hard against the paper, until Redana’s handiwork is plain for all to see. It is the head of a star dragon; it is the deconstruction of a Hoplite into planes and angles. It is modular armor plating and an engine system inspired by putting her head together with Magos Theodorus of the Infinite Throttle. She has had Documentor Agatha annotate it in her precise, spidery notation, each piece of the design laid bare in clustered jumbles of letters, numbers and sigils. (She doesn’t know them yet. But she wants to.)

“If the Azora want us,” she says, into the semi-hush of whirring processors and the click of lenses, “they’ll have to catch us and pierce our hide first. Motion is the impossible miracle.[1] Let’s see the Tricorns handle this.” She crosses her arms and grins, and for a moment she is more like her mother than she could knowingly bear.

***

[1]: The Mysteries of Velocity, Winged Sandal Press: Magi Timatheo of the Gracious Message, The Anchorite of Diana, et al.

Sunshards

The ropes (thick, unyielding, joyful) melt away into... perhaps smoke. Yes. That is the sort of thing that other things melt into. Rose may use her mouth again; it is time for her to be able to speak. That is what Sai a’Niz commanded of her, after all.

When the Dragon shows up, you are to do exactly as you are told. And you are to say exactly as you are told. And obeying makes you so happy.

A shiver runs through Rose as she speaks, her voice dreamy and breathy and just this side of a moan. “In the name of the Goddess, I offer you these treasures, noble dragon: a helpless princess and the noble knight who tried to save her... and myself, the High Priestess of Omnibenevolent Sai a’Niz.” (Surely that is not a squeak from someone who is realizing that she was much cockier than she should have been, somewhere distant. Surely not. Goddesses do not squeak through the hands cupping their face, eyes peeking horrified through splayed fingers, tails constricting as if trying to shrink down out of sight. In a locked dungeon cell, something made of coils and scales and petals laughs huskily to herself.)

“Please spare them your wrath,” she continues, cupping the talon in her hands. Despite the dissimilar shapes... no, they’re nothing alike. These are the hands of a helpless woman giving herself over to a dragon. They’re not weapons and Rose is not dangerous at all. “Take us and tie us tighter and carry us off to your lair, where you will of course offer the Goddess a reward for her generous gifts: two precious cinnamon rolls and a silly, air-headed holy woman who does whatever she’s told.”

One command cleared, the next slams roughly into place. Clean the Princess’s foot? Which one? The one whose foot she’s holding. Not a cute, dainty... no, Princess Jessic is not dainty. She is large. Powerful. Strong. Beautiful.

She drags her hot tongue along the back of one powerful talon, not caring how her gag must have made her mouth so wet. That, that’s why... why she’s drooling. Yes. Built up by... by the things that the Goddess had told her she’d used. So many! Frilly and lacy and stretchy! Until her cheeks were stuffed and packed full! But now her mouth is magically empty, as the Goddess wills it, and what better use could she put it to?

Her world narrows, focused on the task at foot. How her fingers need to adjust, tilt the great claw, so that she can get every inch. How she needs to use her long, clever tongue just so. How she needs to nuzzle and pat her cheeks against the talons that could shatter stone with a simple flex, to make sure the princess’s noble foot is dried off, no matter what it might do to her own face. How a pressure and heat builds up inside her, even deeper than a simple positive reinforcement feedback loop made by a very clever and smart and talented Goddess.

The part where she smushes her face against the soft pad of the foot, for example, as she serves the “heel” of the dragon with her tongue: unnecessary, mortifying (for onlookers prone to embarrassment, which she’s sure describes... somebody she knows?), and possibly capable of making whatever lies imprisoned at the bottom of Rose’s heart thrash and shriek and gnaw at herself in helpless flustered frenzy. The sort of thing that powerful, self-conscious, and complicated monks would never lower themselves to doing; the kind of thing that makes Rose purr as she marks herself with a dragon’s scent and a high priestess’s shame.

Rose sits back on her haunches, cheeks a mess, hair (...”hair”?) beginning to frazzle, eyes half-lidded, shoulder straps frantically trying to hold on and not slip down uselessly, with eyes only for Princess Jessic. She lets her tongue loll out of her mouth as she sits, waiting for her next order, managing to only squirm a little bit with needy expectation.

Whatever it is, she’ll do it. For the sake of her Princess and Knight, and for the sake of the pressure throbbing in her chest, and for the glory of the Goddess.

Fellowship: The Heart

Ailee!

Surma’s laugh comes with a ridiculous snort in the tail. One moment she’s a mouse, the next she sounds like a piglet. And there’s not a trace of self-consciousness in it. She just is herself, loudly.

“You’re crazy and going to lose,” she says. “That much is obvious. But I got here by betting on dark horses and I’m not about to stop now. Besides, when you lose, you’ll need someone to pull you back up.” She doesn’t say that you’ll just dive back down. She doesn’t need to. That’s as easy to understand as her teasing.

“That being said, if you get phenomenal cosmic power down there, can I at least get the arm back out of the deal before you obliterate me with your laser eyes to hide the secret of your mortal origins? A girl deserves to go out whole and with no regrets, after all.” She glances at your chin(?) while she says that and arches an enigmatic eyebrow. Very confusing.

***

Jackdaw!

A shapeless name, a nameless shape, an empty cowl, black backwards footprints from where she twists herself all around to look back on her trail: these are the Jackdaw. The shape between two shapes, the optical illusion, the present-in-absence, the loss of words as they become slush on the tongue: these are the Jackdaw.

There is a standing-stone that was once a foolish man who wanted to be immortal. Crowhame knows immortality. It is the forever now. It is being your self always throbbing out into the world. The book that is the encapsulation of Crowhame lies pinned between stone fingers, and Crowhame flows out through it larger and larger like an inflating bladder-balloon, no, like the air that fills it, and the pages the thin skin, and the book the pinch-point.

There is a piece of meat that used to be a funny man in an extravagantly understated shirt. Its nerves are red flash-fires in a dying sack of broken bones and contusioned flesh. It is thrown down into the snow to wind down its clock to zero midnight, to cool and melt into the story of always here. Above it, something that also used to be a man grips ribs in huge taloned paw-hands and begins the terrible final wrench that will tear his own self apart.

Above you the Long unwinds, coil upon coil, and then snarfs down a huge tent like it’s devouring an egg. Maybe if everyone in the world is lucky, it was the one where that terrible Grail sat in state, black blood frothing from its lip, holy of holies, the clown-birth and the beginning of a replacement forever. As if there is any forever that is better than the heart of Crowhame.

***

Coleman!

Wolf has to be defended. Jackdaw needs time bought for her to do whatever the fresh hell she’s doing. And the world is a mosh pit full of clowns and crows and flung pies and little snakes and a giant snake that is eating the Big Top.

Sasha’s boiler is running hot, and she is groaning with the stress of restraining herself, not releasing the energy that is building up inside her.

Tell us how the Battle of the Dark Carnival was won. Tell us about Sasha’s whistle-roar. Tell us how she makes you proud.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

“It is not hate for the dead that I would bury at your grave, Sir Coilleghille,” Robena says, each word as deliberate as the steps of a stair. She stands, too, and faces Robena. Here, they can be peers. Her bloodless fingers rest on the gilded back of her chair.

“I will bury us there, Sir Coilleghille. Then we will see what the spring makes of our bed.”

She takes up the skull, conceals it once more in her sleeve, and makes to leave. There is a moment enough for a word more, before she passes through and the castle returns, resumes.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

“That’s right,” Constance says. Agreement! The test has been passed. There can be rejoicing! Let everyone come back in and let the true revels begin! “A creature of violence deserves nothing more. It was a thief and a murderer, sworn to no banner.” She strokes one long and pale finger down the length of the skull.

The clink of her spoon on the bottom of the soup-dish is too loud. She takes a dainty sip, and then sets the spoon back down into the soup.

“You should stay,” she says, still not looking at Robena. “What follows you will come in its own time, whether or not you are indoors and out. Catching the fox is worth a night here, at the very least; and maybe you can win a place at the table again tomorrow with your talents.”

She speaks with an understated authority; did she judge the hunt of the fox? Is this a judgment? Did she, perhaps, advise the lady of this castle on how to receive the mendicant knight? Perhaps it is because Constance is a river-daughter and a descendant of giants. Perhaps it is deeper sorcery.

But if that is the case, can you trust her, Robena? Surely you remember the look of horror emblazoned on her fair face when you sunk your axe deep into the king’s flesh, splitting muscle and splintering bone with one terrible blow. Why would she forgive you? Can she be expected to know what you have done this past year, if you do not tell her?

If she means you ill, if she thinks you a fox yourself, if she has not forgotten the way in which Pellinore crumpled beneath that dolorous blow, then it would be prudent to explain to her, to convince her that you have changed, you have atoned, you are going to make right—

Unless she has already forgiven you, and would look on you with pity and contempt for begging her pardon freely given.

She reveals nothing. So like her. Maddening, even. That she is so willfully reticent on how she truly feels, how she clings to her family’s past grandeur like a protective cloak, walking through the world so self-assured that she is in the right, that she has the right to pass judgment— if she truly is, and is not simply another guest of the castle, that is.

Constance gives away less than looking into the ice and the black waters below. Answer her, then, or challenge her, or plead with her, or shut yourself away and refuse her potential, hidden judgment. The choice, as ever, is yours. It has always been yours, Robena.

Sunshards

Rose, High Priestess of the benevolent goddess Sai a’Niz, has some very simple principles. If the mind is a chariot, then the reins have been loosed and the driver chained to the car as the horses of the heart run free.

The deepest, most central desire of her heart is to Be A Good Girl. Approval, acceptance, affirmation: she yearns for these like the cat yearns for the fresh-baked bread. When her goddess commanded her, speaking so clearly that it was as if the words were whispered directly into her ear, she obeyed without question. A Good Girl doesn’t have to worry about making decisions for herself, not when she has— when she has Sai a’Niz to make them for her.

The path before her is so easy and simple: kneel here and wait for the dragon. Until she arrives, feel the ropes constricting all around you, the ones that will fall off when it’s time for your line. You’re into gags, aren’t you? What a cute monk you are! Okay, you’re gagged, too. So gagged. It feels amazing. Until the dragon princess arrives, you can’t make a squeak. Your mouth is so full and so securely shut. Doesn’t it feel amazing? You should thank your goddess for being so nice. But you can’t tell her, so you’ll just have to think about how thankful you are super hard! And... be sure to watch the princess! She needs an audience, doesn’t she? She wants someone reverent and attentive to pay attention to her! And that brave knight, too! She needs an audience for all those dramatic winces and struggles!

Rose (just Rose, only Rose, a small name for a dainty flower) loves this. The commands of her radiant and helpful and super innocent goddess are good, and they feel good, and following orders feels good, and she melts into obedient bliss. She kneels, and she feels the tight ropes squeezing her and applying pressure all around her, and she knows she can’t make a sound through her bulging layers of scarves, and she watches the princess and acts as her audience, and it all feels so good that she wishes deep down that the dragon princess take her time.

(To all involved, princess and knight and wolf, Rose from the River kneels and smiles. There are cute and girlish ribbons woven in her hair, and her sleeves run from wrist to mid-upper arm, and her white dress, dripping with golden ornaments in the shape of fox tails, is caught about her midriff with an ornate, ostentatious clasp. The slits on either side reveal princess-crushing thighs. She kneels, and smiles, and shifts her weight oddly, always keeping her wrists and knees together. The smile is silly and sweet and blissfully happy, without any of Rose from the River’s self-consciousness or brooding or even her projected field of being in control and cool. It is completely without artifice or cunning. And the way she melted into it as Cyanis whispered in her ear, well...)

But Rose is also a girl who knows what she wants, and what she wants is girls. Pretty girls. Brave girls. Girls who will take care of her. Girls with dark hair and dark eyes and the prettiest laugh in the whole world, so unexpected and, for a moment, unburdened; girls whose fair skin dimples around rope, whose face and ears go flushed while being loyally and obediently observed. Girls with silly snortgiggles and messy blonde hair and valiant hearts; girls who deserve new experiences (and what is a High Priestess but a very new experience?) and to be pampered and flustered until they squeak. Girls girls girls girls girls.

Rose takes deep breaths into her extremely muffling gag. Her golden necklaces rise and fall like empires. Even if she has been commanded to be attentive and watch, there’s no rule that says she can’t be worth paying attention to, either. The slow drape of her eyelashes is worth all the silly words she could say, when directed at the Princess and the Knight. Please, Princess. Please, Knight. Enjoy looking at her as much as she enjoys looking at you.

Because Rose knows she wants to help. That’s why she’s here, after all. She might not remember how she got here, or if she’s ever done anything daring with a sword, but she knows she’s here so she can help the Princess and the Knight. And following her goddess’s orders is the best way for her to help them, so she’s going to do it! And the way it makes her feel warm, the way heat suffuses her, the knowledge that she’s helpless in her impossibly secure bondage... that’s just a bonus. Really. She wouldn’t lie to you. She’s a Good Girl.

So please, appreciate her! She’s doing all this for you! She remembers that much, after all! All for you, her shining stars, the second most important people in her life (and pay no attention to that whisper of heresy suggesting that maybe, just maybe, she might care more about them than the omnibenevolent Sai a’Niz...)

[Rose from the River slams down a 10 on an Entice. It’s aimed at Chen, but Yue is invited to join in~]

Breathless Dead

”Hey, Redana! Whatchu reading?”

Redana jolted, and not just because Mynx had fooled her right up until she opened her (Bella) mouth. The shapeshifter’s grin was wickedly playful, and Redana’s brain went into panic mode. She had a plan! She’d had a plan! All she was going to say was “studying for my Practical” and Bella would hum and then she’d either start asking questions about the battle (because Bella wasn’t allowed to join her for lessons, and always wanted to know more), or she’d remind Dany to get some water and stay hydrated before swish swishing away. But Mynx respected the boundaries of neither god nor princess when she was feeling impish, which made it all the more vital that she not come over and see what Dany was actually reading, hidden in her textbook. All Dany had to do was just tell Mynx she was busy prepping for the practicals. That was all she had to do. Just do that.

“Nothing,” Redana blurted out. “What are YOU doing here?” Inside her heart, she fell over like a toppled statue and imploded on herself.

Mynx hopped up onto the bed, twisted in midair, and hit the mattress so hard that pillows went everywhere, and in the process ended up with her pretty catgirl head bouncing on Dany’s chest as she took a look, and Dany couldn’t awkwardly slam the textbook shut fast enough, particularly because of the book that was inside the book.

“Purrincess,” Mynx said, doing her Silly Bella Voice, “why are you reading A Princess In Scales? Is it informational and edificational? Is it moralistically uplifting? Can you tell me what happens?” She looked up, smushing her ears(?) against Redana and stuck her tongue out in a blep.

“I just... you know, I... there’s some Azura strategies in here, and descriptions of their society, and it’s a lot more vivid than, well...” The block paragraphs were making her eyes glaze over. The graphs were worse. And the adventures of Myran of the Ceronians through Azura space, rescuing princesses and fighting janissaries and foiling the plots of wicked viziers and making love under blue-litten suns (whatever blue-litten meant), was a lot more engaging. In the story, the Azura were understandable: the good ones were all pretty and breathy and schemed against, while the bad ones were sinuous and cruel and condescending and in charge of all those schemes that Myran kept barreling right through, ruining elegant plans by being too honest to tempt and too brave to count the odds and too direct for them to plan for.

“I getcha,” Mynx said, winking. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Bella.”

“Won’t tell me what?” Bella asked, in the door frame, carrying some new sheets up from the laundry (as a favor to the servitors down there, because Bella was kind, too).

“Mew mew mew! Mew, mewmewmew?”

Bella stared for one moment at Mynx’s outrageous smile, and then (when Mynx took a breath to start again) threw the folded sheets overhand at Mynx (and Redana). Mynx slithered cackling out of the way, and Redana very much did not. Fortunately, they were coming undone by the time they smacked her in the face, drowning out Bella’s gasp of horror at her own impetuous sheet-throwing and Mynx’s hiccuping laughter.

***

New sketchbook. New schematics. New Redana. Sure, she’s tired and wired and grumpy, but all of that is drowned out to a vague irritation as she listens to Iskarot’s tirade. She’s got a plan. She’s got a plan. She’s going to Myran this.

The Plousios in her sketches is a juggernaut, a falling star with radiating vents and engine shunts and thrusting jets, fell-prowed and layered with plating. In design, it is something like a thunderbolt. It is a ship for a princess who never, ever wants to be held back again. Try and get in the way of this. Try to stop it as it is loosed from the bow. Get out of its way or be wrecked in its wake.

So what if she’s gutted the Plover launch bays? So what if the SP launchers are reduced to simple broadsides? One Plover and its royal pilot will be enough. One away team will be enough. This ship, this crew, they can’t and won’t be stopped. They’re going all the way to Gaia, no matter what gets in their way.

Redana raises a hand, because she’s got to know. “Magos,” she says, trying to balance both respect and commandfulness. “On Tellus, our information about the Azura is somewhat limited. Have any elements of the Hermetic Fleet[1] come into possession of, uh[4], new information?”

***

[1]: what a weird thing to say, even after being at ground zero of one of their paracausal weapons. What’s next? Dolce leading a fleet of war-chefs[2]?

[2]: Bella peeling away her cuteness and safety and kindness and leading killer owls to throw her in a miserable hole to stew all the way back home[3]?

[3]: stop stop stop don’t cry stop it you’re at a meeting for Oizys’ sake

[4]: tripped at the finish line. We were this close to greatness!

***

Plousios

Refurbished in Imperial Style. A Simple Design, easily repaired after damage, powered by the heart of a star.

An AIRSHIP capable of going anywhere, and a CRAWLER capable of handling any terrain in space.

CANNON 0
ENGINE +2
HULL +2
CREW +2
Notable Crew: [1 Choice, TBD]

Captain Vasilia must assign the members of her crew to Offices.

The Plousios has Five Gear Choices, only one of which Redana may select.
# Hardened Hull (Armor, 2-Use)
# -
# -
# -
# -
# -

Breathless Dead

Bella found her, because of course Bella found her. It was impossible to hide from Bella in a place that her best friend couldn’t sniff out. And that hurt, too.

Not because she wanted Bella not to find her, but because the two of them knew every single hiding place in the Princess’s Estate. There would never be more. All it took was for Bella to go through a process of elimination, one after another. No more mysteries, no more discoveries together, and they were even too big now to get into the air ducts.

So Bella found her there, curled up on the gantry in the garden, head on her knees, shoulder on the hard metal, impossible to see from below. Redana deliberately didn’t look up at her best friend, trying desperately to cling to her hurt instead of feeling like a silly girl with silly dreams.

Then Bella tucked in her skirts, shuffled down next to her, and fit herself into the small space between railing and princess. Her forehead hit the back of Redana’s head and stayed there, warm and unrelenting in its gentle pressure.

And then the purring started. A quiet rumble, like the engines of a starship, farther away than she’d ever see. The purr that made the warmth tingle through her body, the one that always made Bella look down and away, ears twitching.

“Will you always be with me?”

“Yes, my princess.”

“Do you promise? Really promise, Bella?”

“I promise.”

And Redana believed her, and that’s what broke everything.

***

Redana crumples her face against one hand and starts crying, because the softness isn’t right. Because it’s not her Bella, back when she was silly enough to think that Bella cared. Because she’s missing that embarrassed purr that should be there. Because Dolce feels like wool blankets and pillows (for hitting Bella with) and home, home, the home she can’t go back to anymore, the home she gave up everything to get away from, the home where she was safe in gentle illusions as long as she broke herself, over and over, in the arena of logistics and essays and memorization. The home where her prowess meant nothing but medals and trophies on display in an empty hall, and her deficiencies meant everything.

The home where none of her decisions meant anything, given up for a world where they meant everything.

“Fuck,” she says, almost incomprehensibly, as she pushes Dolce away, her other hand sunk into his floof. “Why did I think I was ready for this? Idiot.” That last, at least, is understandable, hissed with an uncharacteristic venom. But it’s clear, too, who she means.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Constance Ním, daughter of the Bristol Avon, looks long upon Sir Robena Coilleghille, the Bear Knight. Her eyes are dark as the fens, and betray just as many secrets. She does not flee through the open portal behind. The candles flicker in their sconces.

When she walks forward, her footfall leaves no sound, but far off there is the crunch of snow. When she pulls the chair back that she may be seated, the merest brush of her fingers sends it groaning and grinding. And when she sits next to Robena Coilleghille, her breath, too, that is silent for all that the knight can see the condensation on her lips.

Then she draws from her trailing sleeve the small, white bone, the yellowing teeth, impossibly already clean. She sets the skull of the fox on her plate, the sockets hollow and delicate, the teeth interlocking.

“Was it helpless when it died?”

She does not need to say too. She does not need to ask Robena if she drove her weapon into the fox’s back with a sickening crunch. She looks down at Robena’s broad, broad hand and does not touch the soup.