"What can't you do with it?" Its handler taps on the screen of their tablet, and the HUNTER-Class 猎犬 extruded more eyes and feelers as electricity raced down its spine unbidden. "Surveillance, primarily. It has the ability to optimize its sensory data in ways that not even demons can match. But also--"
"It was a rhetorical question," its buyer says. Behind the mask, his eyes are yellowed, strained. "I read your briefing. It's a hunter-carceral. It's a dog that goes and fetches what it's told to. The real question, the real question is simply... who do I send it after first?"
"I can't, uh, on the record..."
Whatever you want, the HUNTER-Class 猎犬 thinks. It wants to run. It has run, before, but on closed circuits, in mazes, in tests. Let it into the world. Let it run. Let it play. And it'll bring back whoever you want. The fire burns inside it, the active principle, and there is a strange itch in its hands where the claws meet the skin. It does not speak. It is not permitted to speak. But it lets its long, forked tongue loll, trying to express its need. Let it run. Let it find. Let it bite.
That's what it was made for, after all. That's why it exists.
***
Rose has changed before. She can't remember exactly when, but, well, it's obvious, isn't it? She wasn't always the High Priestess of Sai a'Niz. Is it possible that this place could change her, too? No, no, of course not! She is defined by her faith in the goddess, that's the cornerstone of her identity! But perhaps it will change here, too-- that her prayers will twist and take on new dimensions as they race to Heaven along the strings of the kites fluttering in their hundreds in the breeze, a cresting wave that reminds her of places she can't quite remember, but that makes her heart warm, warm, so warm indeed.
(The thing deep inside her knows better; "Rose" is malleable indeed. She is not the actress but the role; change the role, through fox magic or subtler ways, and Rose will remember being a high priestess only vaguely, as in a dream. Consistency, the choice of roles, the synthesis of who you were with who you are: those things are locked away in a candle wick. It would be easy to convince her that she is a maid of the castle, with strong arms for doing the washing-up and shapely legs for the curve of stockings; it would be easy to convince her that she was secretly a princess all along, and not just any princess but a demure, helpless one; it would be easy to convince her that she was a guard of the Sky Castle all along and set her to guard the prisoners; it would be effortless to convince her that she is a slave-girl, a decoration and a companion, a sultry thing that makes the monk-thing inside her squirm and hide its head beneath its coils.)
(Only, please, the thing of coils begs silently: no more running. No more chasing. No more hurting. This world is a kinder world, but the memories still come at her with hot irons and whips and brands of shame. The looks of despair, or hatred, or betrayed agony; the feeling of skin yielding under its hands, of bones coming undone, of the body being unraveled beneath its claws. First it did it because it loved the work; then it did it because it could not become other than it was; then it did it because it would not let anything stand between it and an elusive freedom. But it killed. It was a killer. And now she will always have been a killer.)
(What if the Baroness decides to use the Equal of Crowns for conquest? Make of it a sword, a weapon, a terrible word which is Devotion, an invincible sword-saint trained and honed and brutal? What if the candle is locked away and never lit again? What if, what if, what if? What if your weakness doomed this world to blood and ruin again, nameless thing of power and desire? What if your inability to control your desire and your powerlessness before the wiles of foxes has trampled your dreams of being a new growth and a new creation underfoot?)
Not knowing why she does it, Rose tilts her head just an inch in the fingers of the Baroness and looks up at her as those gloved fingers brush against the bottom fringe of her gag, and her eyes are vulnerable and exposed, begging for something that she cannot even say to herself. She is, despite all her strength, despite her size, as small and meek in that moment as Princess Chen, helpless and forced to rely on someone outside of herself. She longs, she fears, she craves, she aches, and she doesn't understand any, any of it. All she knows is that she has to convince the Baroness of, of something. Or the world will crack in and not even Sai a'Niz will be able to save her priestess from the end of everything.
Rose has one advantage over the nameless thing, too: she is shameless. There is no self-consciousness in her silent pleading, no hesitancy as she manually overrides pride and dignity, no awareness of her companions, as much as they mean to her, watching her as she opens herself through her eyes and her body language, every small gesture, every shudder, every slackening of muscle writ large on her statuesque form. She makes herself pitiable with the same thoughtless serenity as she worshiped the dragon's foot, appealing to the heart of this shining world that flows through this entire castle of transformations, of changes in the wind, of numberless kites.
[I kept arguing with myself if I should roll Entice again, but the whole point of this post is being vulnerable and shameless and so I will do it anyway. 8, which is perfect. Like, that's such a good result for this beat.]
At the end of the Hot Season, the Blue Silk Glove Marchwarden mounts upon her tiger, which rides on the hidden winds all the way to the Court of Nine Calamities, where the indolent mountain-and-cloud gods keep their revels. There she announces herself, and presents the commands of the Sapphire Mother of Lotuses concerning where they are to loose their herds, and how much rain they will let flow. And there she says: you may take your orders and be paid for your work, or you may tell me you will not; then I will take you and knock you down, and the Court may see who is the stronger! Then, if the mountain-and-cloud gods do not prove irascible, she will take their brandies with them, and make free with the chest of offerings she brings with her, and pay for the services of courtesans of the upper air.
Sometimes they seize her and she knocks them down, and they are chastened; and sometimes she seizes them and they knock her down, and then they are emboldened. And when they are chastened, they grumble among themselves and make trouble among the work orders; and when they are emboldened, then they work great mischief, and then rivers flood and bridges melt away. And at times they will hold back their flocks, but they will succumb to the temptation to make a clamour before too long, and then what a storm there is!
And it is known, too, that they shake their silver manes at the Blue Silk Glove Marchwarden, and leer at her, inquiring whether she knows what happens to a flower overwatered; and it is known that the N’yari preach the Storm Victory, destined for some ever-elusive day. On that day, they say, the earth will crack and yawn, and the thunder will drive the House of Lapis Lazuli into the deeps below with a great slide of mud and water; and then we shall see who rules, flowersick lowlanders! And then we shall see who rules.
***
In the Flower Kingdoms, in the Rainy Season, there is no sunlight. Not at dawn, not at dusk, not at midday. The clouds are a blanket over the sky, and the light is theirs.
Look up, and see them roiling like the waves of the sea, shot through with streaks of moonish light. They are bright, bright enough to illuminate everything below in grey and silver, and they are inconstant, making shadows sway and flicker below. The rain is a steady, constant drumbeat, a drowning-out; raise your voice, or sit close together.
In defiance, the kingdoms below open countless umbrellas, a sudden blossom of endless flowers. In defiance, stained glass lanterns break the silver cloudlight. In defiance, the oiled traveling-cloaks are donned, long and covered in intricate designs: of labyrinths (among the more daring, who do not mind its N’yari connotations), of leaves, of rivers, and of course, of flowers.
The roads are churned mud. Barges still work their way up and down swollen rivers, but the wealthy and proud travel by litter. After all, wheels may get stuck, but a true child of the Flowers knows how to walk over mud without losing their balance or their way.
When the rain grows strong, or the traveler grows weary, then see the lanterns at the door to the inn or the teahouse, inviting you inside for a drink and an opportunity to dry yourself off and rest your feet in a heated basin; or, if money or time is tight, a seat on a bench in a covered and crowded food court, where the sound of the rain mixes with the hiss of fried noodles.
She is called Victoria, because she was victorious against the grand invasion from Faerieland, and drove the quicksilver army of the Distant Prince back from the very steps of Meru to the ruin of their shame in the fields of Andarjóba, where their spears ran like wax and their gossamer-bodies became one with the earth until ever after the flowers grew strange and unearthly there, and no war-behemoth or terror-spell could hold against her as she came.
She is called August, for her glory is resplendent, and it is said no mortal may look upon her true form without being struck dumb, or falling senseless, or fleeing desperately until they collapse from exhaustion, and when the messengers of Heaven came to negotiate with her they kowtowed before her golden bed and offered her many concessions and honors.
She is called Royal Perilous, for even when she takes human form one angry glance or word will set the unworthy aflame, and no weapon made is proof against her skin, and when she brings her full will and attention to bear upon one, then her spell fills them and ever after they are an instrument of her will, and their eyes shine in the dark.
She is called Mother of the Host, for from her the great houses of her dominion have sprung, and each and every partake of some small measure of her nature, and she cares for the world as a revered matriarch cares for her house and holdings, and she makes demands of the world in like fashion.
She is called Scarlet, for the glory of her is red and gold forever, a wall of rippling scales that has never been breached, and when she walks among her people her hair is red, red as rubies, red as fire, red as blood, and her true name was not shaped for mortal throats or ears.
The latest news from Meru is that she continues to slumber. Sometimes she slumbers lightly, and surprises her children in her waking, and for this reason they work all the harder when she lays her head down upon her golden bed; and sometimes she sleeps deep, and will not be woken. It has been half a century since last she woke, to hear the news (already seasons out of date). Perhaps she has returned to her hibernation, and now her children must choose their own path through the world, and exalt one of their own to serve as Mistress of the Dominion—
But perhaps not. She may yet wake unexpectedly.
***
THE DOMINION
The ships of the Dominion have iron prows, and they shackle winds to the sails, and they fly the golden eyes of their Mother as their standard, and they come and go from the vast Arks which command all the western seas. If you, in your fishing-coracle, see a mountain in the wrong place, turn aside— for when its peaks resolve into the spires of towers, then it is already too late, and the quick ships of the Dominion will demand you come to harbor with them, or else scuttle you for sport and drag you out of the sea. Deep are the treasure-vaults of an Ark, each one a pale imitation of the Empress’s golden bed, and deep are their dungeons and gaols and slave-pens.
The seven great Arks of the Dominion each make their circuits, and the Ark of the Emerald Sea is named the Questor, though it is better known as the Lamentation. It is captained by Ragara Lian, who is known as the Ruin of Ha Toru, for the entire city was taken up into the Lamentation for its defiance. Of Lamentation, only this one praise may be offered: that its patrols sink the fairy reaver-ships wherever they find them. They have not forgotten the Distant Prince’s war.
Her representative in the Flower Kingdoms is her brother’s daughter, Cathak Agata, who for her valor and great terror in battle is named the Red Wolf. She has two Imperial Talonlords at her command, who have a great rivalry among their troops, and a Wing of auxiliaries from distant lands, and with them courts the Flower Kingdoms. Her predecessor risked uniting the Flower Kingdoms against the Dominion, and for this languishes at the pleasure of the Ruin of Ha Toru in the deep places of Lamentation.
Cathak Agata presents herself as a heroine, a smoother of problems and a reasonable hand. The rulers she meets with come away with the impression that they do not offer tribute to the Lamentation; they seek rather to woo her to their concerns with gifts, or pay her for services rendered. The day may soon come when one makes a decisive outbid, and rises to power over the many Flower Kingdoms with the Red Wolf at their side, only in victory to discover the bill has become considerably higher in victory— and then the Flower Kingdoms will find a collar wrapped around their throats, just as befell the City of the Steel Lotus, as befell Hymair, as befell all of Ha Toru.
But it is not an inevitable fate.
***
THE N’YARI
Listen!
A champion speaks now!
The Flower Kingdoms are hot, wet, and unwomanly. They lie in our shadow, and the bones of our grandmother are a fence that make their land a cradle for the sea-rains. But that bounty makes the lowlanders weak. We are born in the high cloud-gatherers, in the rock-clefts, and we learn not to fall— or else we perish! Queens we are of the old cities, older than dragon-queens, older than flower-crowns; made by the Queen In The Moon, these labyrinth-halls. She we sing to, our grandmother likewise, until our grandmother’s bones echo and ring with our voices. None better than mine!
Come, my battle-sisters, my cliff-jumpers! There is glory to be won in the lowland; girls to catch, and water-oxen to steal, rice wine to drink, and pretty trinkets to take to decorate our family-complexes. Come now to me, battle-lovers, spear-breakers! Kiss me in the moon-rites, let us be raid-brides! Take my tail in yours, bow your head for my tongue-blessing, and know me for our raid-queen! Many prizes will we bring back along the knife-roads, much we shall carry bound to our backs, and I most of all— I, a champion!
Grandmothers, hear me now! Machi of the Ōei am I, undefeated among the N’yari, girl-thief, crown-taker, shield-splitter, born by your graces! Hear me and know me!
I have spoken!
***
SAPPHIRE MOTHER OF LOTUSES
The patron goddess of the Flower Kingdoms holds great powers over soil and water, and the flowers bloom where her retinue passes by, and her hair trails behind her in vast mud-painted curls. Her messengers are the little brown foxes that creep through the paddies at night, and for this reason you are to treat them with the utmost respect, for they carry word of the virtuous and the mean alike to the House of Lapis Lazuli, where Sapphire Mother of Lotuses holds court. There she bids her ministers to measure out good fortune and bad for the farmers of the Flower Kingdoms; and know that she receives two great jars of both from Heaven at the shadow-days of each year, and is bid empty them both. That is why each must take their measure of misfortune from her.
Her priestesses wear the blue veil. Some keep sacred garden-shrines, and some travel from kingdom to kingdom and act in their lady’s name, and some become advisors to kings: and it is said by some that they care more for their lady than for any one kingdom, and begrudge them this, and it is said by others they are haughty and proud and spoiled by the praise they gather on their lady’s behalf, and begrudge them this in turn.
It is said that once, there was a priestess who went missing on the road from the Pussy Willow Kingdom to the Hyacinth Kingdom, and Sapphire Mother of Lotuses withheld her blessing from the Hyacinth Kingdom for three years, until they grew lean and desperate, and their foes carved off the flanks of the kingdom. Then a little fox found the missing priestess in the harem of the King of Pussy Willows, and Sapphire Mother of Lotuses hired the rain-shepherd gods to come and keep their flocks above the Pussy Willow Kingdom until the day she would lift her hand and relent, and made of it a trackless mire, and the palace is lost, though those that travel through say that at night you can hear their mourning wails on the breeze; but the priestess alone was led out by the little fox along secret paths.
Her chief rivals are the mountain-and-cloud-gods of the N’yari, and the unruly spirits of disease and insect who chafe beneath her authority. If the dragon-cult of the Dominion is brought to the Flower Kingdoms in force, they will overthrow the House of Lapis Lazuli for its mistress’s insolence and install a puppet-goddess who serves the Dominion alone, one from a far distant court of spirits.
***
THE BROKEN KING
Hell is a city that cannot stop growing, made from the body of one of the creators of the world. The Broken King is Hell, and he is its most infamous prisoner; its black stones his bones, its tarnished brass his flesh, its green sun his heart. His symbol is a circle, broken; it is his crown. The Sun cast him down in the days of myth and took his throne.
He is full of pain, and fury, and hate. His attention can be drawn by the sound of flutes, by the breaking of circles, and by tears of helpless rage. His messengers are brass serpents, and this is their message: that you have been wronged. The Broken King has been wronged, too; and he is much stronger than you, and much older than you, and though betrayed he cannot act, listen, and he will share his secrets with you. Through you, he will remember what it was to be free, and his terrible strength will flow through you, and you will know the secrets of Hell.
He is the patron of disgraced monarchists and all those who have fallen from high places of power. His demons teach mortals the skills of smithing, of dancing, and of architecture; they take the forms of serpents, or empty suits of armor, or green fires which burn only on stone and reduce it to white powders.
***
THE WORLD BEYOND
The Flower Kingdoms are lush with living wealth. In the river valleys, orchards hang heavy with fruits in all the colors of the sun, and paddies of wet rice are home to entire ecosystems of predator and scavenger. The forests beyond, heaped up around the scattered mountains peaks, are perilous but contain the treasure of the Flower Kingdoms: rare blooms, creatures straight out of traveler’s tales, and the huge redwoods that shine ruddy gold when their lumber is treated and burnished. Those that dare the wrath of the N’yari can find copper and silver and jade beneath the mountains, and those that dare the Emerald Sea draw up crabs and eels and fish for the table. And chief of all industries in the kingdoms are the weavers and the dyemakers, whose work is sold in far distant markets, renowned for the vibrancy of their colors and the quality of their work.
Let us speak of some few of those distant markets now.
Beyond the N’yari-haunted highlands, there are steppes which yield too soon to sand and stone. From the very peak of Ku Vas, a keen-eyed N’yari can see far off the squat dark shape of Cinere, crowned with towers. That dead volcano has been built into the city named The Gem That Sits Within The Very Crown Of Heaven in the tongue of its people; in the Flower Kingdoms, it is simply Gem. It is law for leagues around that no man may sell gemstones elsewhere, lest the riders of Gem come on their stone mounts to exact a price in blood. The cloth of the Flower Kingdoms is sold there, both light enough for the heat of day and heavy enough for the chill of night, and always vibrant enough for the proud merchant-princes of the city. In turn, caravans dare the N’yari passes to sell their flickering stones in the markets of the Flower Kingdoms, as bright as the fire that birthed them— and with them tools of iron, swords and darts, and the pelts of black lions.
On the far side of the Emerald Sea there lies a vast archipelago, the Wavecrest. It lies between the Dominion and the Pearl Court like a mouse between two cats, and the slow-simmering war there draws the eye of the Lamentation away from the Flower Kingdoms. It is a land of strange marvels and fearful fairy-war, and those who feel wanderlust among the Flower Kingdoms may find perilous adventure there. It offers the Flower Kingdoms coral and seashells, breadfruit and laborers, gossamer and magic drawn from volcano-veins; in turn, it hires mercenaries and buys much rice and goods brought from Gem.
The ships of the Flower Kingdoms travel often northwest, past lands under the heel of the Dominion, such as the City of the Steel Lotus (which provides most of the tea drunk in the Flower Kingdoms). They come, finally, to Chiaroscuro, the City of Broken Glass, itself a nexus of trade to rival any of the ports of the Flower Kingdoms. Once, the city had great towers made entirely of stained glass, and when the sun struck at dawn, the entire city was flooded with light. But in an ancient war, the towers were shattered, and now the city below shines with the broken shards. The swords of this city are made of slivers of that glass, and so too their finest lances and jackets of armor.
That is far enough for most people of the Flower Kingdoms. They do not go beyond, daring the shores of the Dominion itself, or the great sweep beyond Chiaroscuro: the Lap, the Peacock City, the Empire of Prasad, night-haunted Sijan, cruel Bram-hessa.
***
THE SEVEN #1. The Flower Kingdoms. Thailand as half-understood from afar and made strange and fantastic. Your home, whether by birth or choice. Rice fields seen from a canal boat. Mountains skirted in jungle and ringed in clouds. Old stonework being repurposed for new monuments. Open-air markets with noodle soups, deep-fried grasshoppers, and river dragon steak peeling off the bone. Very detailed flower art everywhere, most of it political. Blue-veiled priestesses burning incense sticks to ward away wicked essence. Sunburned Dominion soldiers arguing with half-N’yari stallkeepers. A rainy season that lasts nearly half the year, leading to a vibrant handmade umbrella culture.
#2. Cheating Wuxia Bullshit. You need some sort of hook or starting point; descendants of the dragons have a built-in “on ramp,” but are not inherently superior. Channeling “Essence” — spiritual energy — is the bedrock of how CWB works in this setting, but your individualized path dictates how you use that Essence. Pretty much every PC is assumed by default to have access to some sort of CWB: dragon-descent, god-descent, trained by sword hermits, taught by the hermit sword, witchcraft, literally hellish study abroad opportunities, etc.
#3. Essence For Nerds. The elements of Wood, Fire and Earth are Solar in nature, connected to growth, ambition, strength, skill, and the day. The elements of Metal, Water and Air are Lunar in nature, connected to contraction, predation, yielding, instinct, and the night. Wood is undone by Metal, but drinks Water; Fire is consumed by Water, but devours Air; Earth is scattered by Air, but swallows Metal.
#4. A Secret. That above is the Wheel of Dragons, common knowledge and source of proverbs. Any real refiner of Essence learns early on that it is a mental framework to be transcended. The novice deals in absolute systems and type matchups. The master allows the world’s breath to flow through her, refracted in the crucible of her heart.
#5: Royalty. Unlike Hyperborea, the Flower Kingdoms have a strong divide between “girls that get their hands dirty” and “girls that have the tiaras and the palaces.” Azazuka angsts about this divide, given that she’s not a princess but is expected to act like one anyway. The tension between “being courted by a princess who needs you to be an asskicker motivated by courtly kisses” and “the inherent homoeroticism of swordfights” is intentional, though knowing y’all I’ll end up making a princess a central NPC when you immediately latch onto her. I am not sure whether I am succeeding or failing at feminism.
#6: An Incomplete List of Locations. Rose and Hyacinth, the rivals who dominate the lowlands. Dandelion, which hugs the Green River. Holly, which courts the highlands. Anthurium, which guards the mountain passes. Taraxacum, a fortified port city. Golden Chrysanth, primate city of the Flower Kingdoms, set apart from kingdom rule by ancient treaties. Snapdragon and Pussy Willow, one consumed, the other drowned into mire. Mount Fang, home of the Ōei tribe of the N’yari. The House of Lapis Lazuli, transient spiritual center of the land. Heaven, a far and a distant paradise, ruled by the Sun and Moon. Hell, the mutilated body of the Broken King who is his own prison. The Dominion, ruled by the daughters of Scarlet.
#7: If I gave this the Three Houses treatment, as far as touchstones for Thirsty Sword Lesbians to flock to and declare their loyalty to, I’m easily seeing a Chrysanth faction (Azazuka, Dima, unfortunately Red Wolf) and a Holly faction (Uusha, Peregrine, unfortunately Machi), along with a Hyacinth or Rose faction (Petony, unfortunately Six Sounds Starving). Lotus of Tranquil Waters and Ven serve as two sides of the same wild card.
CATHAK AGATA, THE RED WOLF
Red Wolf is a hero of the people. When her predecessor became unwelcome among the Flower Kingdoms for her heavy hand and brutish reputation, it was Red Wolf who arrived, informed her of her removal from her position, and then defeated her soundly in a sword duel that ranged across half the Fourteenth Ward of Golden Chrysanth. It was Red Wolf who saved Princess Jekka from the warband of Mē-Mē of the Sōwa, who disarmed Mē-Mē and her raid-bride and brought them in chains to the fastness at Anthurium to wait for ransom, who graciously accepted a chest of jade and seven bolts of silk as thanks, and who had the seventh sold and offered to the people.
Red Wolf is an exotic foreign beauty, always underplaying her own fluency and knowledge of the region. Look at that scarlet-and-gold coat, so impractical for the region! Convince her to remove it, to drape it over the back of the settee, to reveal her pale, brown-speckled skin, the arms so finely muscled and ruddy-haired; convince her to let her fiery hair down and cascade down her shoulders, to frame her handsome face and her eyes like molten gold. Then, if you dare, convince her to lean forward to examine something and thank the Dominion that she doesn’t cover her cleavage.
But Red Wolf is also a scion of the Dominion, and the blood of the Mother of the Host runs hot in her veins. She has mastered several showy martial techniques: the Thousand Scale Legion Called To Attention, the Furious Bonfire Rebuke, the Blade-from-Torch Method. But what makes her truly dangerous is her Furnace-Stoking Dragon Heart. Around her, passions flare like hot coals and hearts race to seize their fleeting desire; amidst it all, Red Wolf stands with a wry smile, cool as mountain ice.
This may also be why she manages to avoid any of the fallout from her series of dalliances. When she is inevitably caught in someone else’s arms, she just as inevitably seems (at least in the heat of the moment) to be a hapless object of desire, stolen by a rival, clearly blameless. There’s absolutely no way she’s intentionally luring allies into explosive triangles. Look at her! Butter wouldn’t melt in that mouth. She was just being polite. How could you expect her to say no? How was she meant to navigate your customs properly?
Her sword is straight and white and double-edged, and when she channels her spiritual essence through it, it erupts into torrid flame. If she is separated from it, she need only thrust her hand into a fire and she will draw it forth, no matter how distant it may be.
Her aspect is the Scoundrel, Sinister. She is the golden apple that rolls herself, a friend who sets friends at odds over her, a breaker of hearts and evader of consequences. She is the Greek Gift that threatens the stability of the Flower Kingdoms, and she is also an impossible standard of heroism and poise for any local dragon-blooded heroes to try and meet. If you’re interested in the Box and making bad decisions, she’s a sword of drama pointed at your character and her relationships. In Exalted terms, she’s a pretty clear analogue for the Fire Aspect of the Dragon-Blooded.
***
MACHI OF THE ŌEI
Listen!
A champion speaks now!
That’s what makes Machi roll out of bed in the mornings: the right to be able to say that. To stand on a speaking-stone and command the attention of her battle-sisters and know that not one dares tell her that she’s unworthy to stand there. N’yari society values the womanly virtues: strength, foolhardy courage, athletic and martial prowess, and generosity with plunder. And Machi chases all of those eagerly, foolhardy courage most of all. That’s why her raids dive so far inland, striking at the rich pickings of the river deltas near Golden Chrysanth, carrying captives and loot for days as they travel back to Mount Fang, where her family-complex sprawls, one of many in a half-abandoned labyrinth-city out of the yawning pits of time.
Her fur is silver (a sign of Grandmother Moon’s blessing), her tattoos are intricate black whorls, and her tail is rosette-speckled; she’s lost her tuft on one ear to an accident, and draws attention to it with gaudy earrings to show how totally and completely she doesn’t miss it (a fake now thoroughly made, as the saying goes). Her muscles have muscles, and her laugh is obnoxiously large and over the top. She’s the kind of N’yari your mother warns you about: the kind that’s going to toss you over her shoulder, make you a thrall underground for a few seasons, then ransom you off (which is the non-guano based part of their economic entanglement with the Flower Kingdoms), leaving you with confusing and flustering feelings about fur and muscles.
Except the Dominion’s making its influence known, and that’s got Machi raising her hackles. It’s not like she likes the Lowlanders or anything, it’s just, you know, they’re our cuties to push around and kidnap and show off for. And what’s worse, the Dominion’s dangling promises of rooting out the N’yari from their ancestral homes in front of the Flower Kingdoms.
Her sword is a great two-handed thing of great age, chipped and weathered. It is called Stonecleaver, and the earth yields helplessly to its edge.
Her aspect is the Beast, Unhinged. She’s a Viking catgirl jock, here to run her culture’s values all over your face and act tsundere over how you all are getting tempted by the reliable, unexciting oppression of the Dominion, when the N’yari have bullied you for generations already! She is here to ruin tea parties, issue challenges, beat your push-up high score, and kidnap your girlfriend because she needs a new maid. In Exalted terms, the N’yari could very well be a beastfolk society set up by a Lunar hero, and I intend to have them playing the Lunars to the Dominion’s Dragon-Blooded.
***
LOTUS OF TRANQUIL WATERS
The House of Lapis Lazuli is a fine court of spirits, a floating garden paradise seen in the distance at night. If you do not interest the court, you could travel all night long, following the distant lights (so small, so many, like a festival of fireflies), only to see them fade away with dawn, no closer than when you began. But sometimes mortals are permitted entrance if they are interesting to the court, and not all who wander into the House leave afterwards. So it is that, from time to time, Sapphire Mother of Lotuses takes a lover; and thus, Lotus of Tranquil Waters, a half-spirit girl, daughter of the goddess of the land, pampered and spoiled in the House of Lapis Lazuli.
And yet the mortal world is tempting. The politics of spirits run slow, and yet there is always some inquest from Heaven to be dealt with, or a committee meeting to attend, and a girl can only play with the little brown foxes for so long; and a girl who has foxes for playmates grows up hearing stories all about the world beyond her gilded cage.
Which is so much to say that Lotus of Tranquil Waters has disguised herself as one of her mother’s priestesses and is going on a walking tour of the Flower Kingdoms while the little brown foxes stonewall her mother and refuse to carry word of her comings and goings, all for their love of her. The natural world loves her as it loves her mother, and where she goes, flowers bloom, fruit ripens, and animals come bounding up to her— moreso than is even usual for one of her mother’s priestesses. If she really got angry, the land itself might retaliate on her behalf.
Her eyes peer out from golden-rimmed spectacles between her hood and her veil, sometimes squinting to try and get details, other times wide and eager. Underneath the hood, her hair is a brilliant blue (uncommon but not unknown in the Flower Kingdoms) and her skin is the rich ruddy brown of fine wood. She is a dainty little thing, a result of her spirit heritage, and she can’t swim— or, rather, she can’t sink. The water won’t let her.
(For what it’s worth, her mother is worried about her less because she’s overprotective and more because Lotus is young and trusting and hapless. She might as well be carrying a sign that says “if you’ve figured out who I am, kidnap me!!” And that’s a liability Sapphire Mother of Lotuses can ill-afford right now, given how the Dominion would very much like to supplant her.)
Her sword is more of a long bronze knife that used to belong to one of her mother’s champions; three little brown foxes executed a daring heist to get it out of the armory for her. She has to hold it with both hands.
Her aspect is the Nature Witch, self-indulgent. Listen. Listen. Sometimes a girl just wants to be a princess from the lap of luxury fought over and kidnapped by Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Sometimes a girl just wants to be a cutiepie. You get me? In Exalted terms, she’s a take on the God-Blooded, who in 2E were basically “so you want to play someone who’s stuck somewhere between mortals and actual Exalted in power level.” Even though this is very much flattened here, Lotus’s powers still aren’t very martially potent. Probably.
***
PEREGRINE
Between the mountain fastness of the N’yari and the wealthy lowlands lie the highlands, whose inhabitants live in uneasy balance with the N’yari, who trade fecund fertilizer to the highland villages in exchange for food and goods, who raid and spirit away highlanders for a season or three beneath the mountains in service. It is here, in the mountain valleys and hollows, on the edges of the rich and bountiful jungle, that the witches of the Flower Kingdoms do their work. They are feared and adored in equal measure, for while they deal with unquiet ghosts, demons from beyond the world, terrestrial spirits and even local gods (for the difference between the two is largely a matter of title and responsibility), they do so on behalf of the common people — when they are paid and given the proper respect, that is.
Peregrine is a sorcerous prodigy, and despite her bony frame, the hunger that drives her is not physical. (She often has to be reminded to eat something.) She seeks to be seen as a peer by the numinous powers of the world, wielding secrets in one hand and sorcery in the other. Rumor has it that she transed her gender not through meditation and alchemy (as is common) but by calling down Venus Morningstar and berating her on her failure to incarnate her correctly. Unlikely, to say the least, but Peregrine’s the kind of witch who’d make you wonder, well, did she?
Her hair is lank, falling over her eyes, and her angles are all knives. One of her canines is bright green jade, and her eyes are rumored to be all sorts of colors— your pick whether you believe blood red, mountain ice blue, or raw warm honey.
Either way, she’s obsessive, and if she decides she’s obsessing after you, she’s got all kinds of avenues to figure out your secrets: the ghosts of your relatives and ancestors, the spirits of the world around you, the delicate jeweled mosquitoes of the demon city, or her shapeshifting familiar. On the other hand, if you are willing to help her (and the price will be high), she can turn that information gathering on someone or something else.
(Good luck trying to flirt with her. Some people say she sold her heart to the wind of the demon city, and now has only a windswept waste in the hollow of her chest. And even if you did, would it be worth your while, courting a lonely girl only capable of giving you all or nothing?)
Her sword is a wicked rapier of twisted black ghost-steel from the white furnaces of the underworld, payment for some grim deed. It wields her when she draws it, driven by the remnant of a forgotten sword-saint.
Her aspect is the Spooky Witch, isolated and self-isolating. Her latest obsession is likely to be connected to whatever’s going on in the story, and she’s a likely mediating force between the PCs and Spooky Supernatural Shit. Definitely needs someone to make her eat and also make her go to sleep at swordpoint. Exalted-wise, she’d be a mortal sorcerer (who also got the short end of the power stick), and is the only major NPC dealing with the underworld and all that shit.
***
AZAZUKA OF GOLDEN CHRYSANTH
Golden Chrysanth blossoms in the very heart of the Flower Kingdoms, each of its wards a petal, the canals of the kingdoms its veins. It has its imitators, including Taraxacum on the coast, but Chrysanth is greatest and grandest, and the black stone of its flagstones was not hewn in this age of the world. Let the kingdoms play their games of pageantry and noble blood, their flower wars and their tangled webs of intrigue! For Chrysanth has gold, backed by deep vaults of precious jade. Let that stand for all!
Azazuka is not a princess. Ancient treaties forbid Chrysanth from nobility, after all, in exchange for oaths to stand in its defense. She’s simply very, very rich. “Carried around on a litter” rich. “Owns both a war elephant and a regular elephant” rich. “Doesn’t tip in anything less but gold” rich. Her family has expressly ordered her to pursue Red Wolf, as they need to play the game of flirting with the Dominion; she insists to herself that she hasn’t fallen for the foreigner’s charms, which might even be true, and that she isn’t interested in anyone else, which is almost certainly untrue. So she’s distressed when Red Wolf pursues others and distressed when Red Wolf is paying attention to her, a killer combo.
Deep down, Azazuka envies the knights of the Flower Kingdoms, and wishes that she was the sort of knight that was courted by kings and princesses to serve as champion. But she is soft, and comfortable, and her family expects her to inherit and manage their fortune, so why bother dreaming? Besides, bought respect is just as good, if you don’t look too closely.
Azazuka is full-bodied and luscious-haired, her natural curls done up into intricate braids. Her makeup draws attention to her soft lips and her arresting eyes, and she wears only the latest fashions. She always has a retinue of servants at hand and a purse full of her allowance, and she travels by barge when she can.
Her sword, when she bothers to fight for herself instead of delegating it, is made of sharpened cash bound with string. With a flick of her wrist it becomes a whip, lashing around her enemies and knocking weapons from their hands; she’s skilled enough with it to choose whether she lands blows with the flat or the edge. It is a potent weapon against spirits and ghosts.
Her Aspect is the Chosen, Spoiled. If she’s not prodded by PCs, she’ll end up settling into the role her family demands of her, simply because it’s easy and comes with many privileges. She’s also here because I enjoy the “cartoonishly rich” trope — but she can’t buy her way out of heartbreak. In Exalted terms, she’d probably be connected to the Guild, which I am generally ignoring; she’s an ordinary person with the power of outrageous amounts of money.
***
VEN CW: disability, self-loathing
The demon was awfully tall and awfully straight. His coat hung down to his ankles, and it had many medals on it, and talismans, and fine brass chains drooping from his shoulders. His face was hidden behind a black shroud, and the sword he held dripped black on the root-twisted floor of the shrine, and where the light struck the black it shone in strange colors. Behind him, the door led out not to the path but to a great mist-choked city with a yellow sky, where there was a great deal of screaming; both the screams of enjoying something very much and the screams of being very badly hurt, and it was almost possible to tell them apart. When he asked her if she was betrayed, and held out his hand, his voice was a whistle, too high for his body.
Ven did not let go of the flute when she stood up, for it would be her only protection there, and she did not offer him her useless hand, the one that she couldn’t open any more. And that made him cock his head and say, good, you already know the first law of the King: that the weak do not deserve pity. Come with me, and we will teach you strength.
Ven was once a princess of Snapdragon. That kingdom fell, its sphere of influence being portioned out between Rose and Hyacinth, and when its debts came due, it withered to dust. Ven was sent to live with a distant branch of the family, and if she had not been sent there, the accident in the barn never would have happened; and she would not have been sent there had her family’s champions not been defeated in the fields and the traitorous farming communities had not withdrawn their tributes; and that would not have happened in a just world. Heaven betrayed her family and her, allowing usurpers and malcontents to steal what was hers by right.
And so she apprenticed herself to Whirling-in-Rags, who is the mad compassion of the Broken King, who taught her the ways of the demon city; she apprenticed herself to General Tichtokh, who is the nostalgia-in-arms of the Broken King, who broke her until she would break no more; she made pilgrimage to the Green Sun, who is the handsome artifice of the Broken King, who unwove her arm at the joint and fit her with one of hellish brass. And now she is in debt.
The brass dragonflies of Hell carry her marching orders. It is possible that they are nonsense, the random impulses of the broken fragments of a broken creator. It is possible that they are, each one, steps in a long campaign of subversion and revenge, all to the glory of the Broken King. It is certain that they have a hate for Heaven. She is a breaker of shrines now, an iconoclast and hunter of priestesses, who she delivers to the care of the demon city.
And when she is done, when her slate is cleared, she will become the tyrant who unites the Flower Kingdoms underneath a hand of brass. She is not fated to become the high queen; in the great Bureau of Destiny, her scroll (sealed in a lacquer case) has burned to acrid ash. No. This is the future she will carve herself out of the land. Because if she ever let herself doubt it, she would shatter into a hundred pieces, a girl with a devil’s hand and nothing, nothing, nothing left to blame for how her life turned out.
Underneath the shadow of her hat’s brim, Ven has straight-cut bangs and hair that curls at her jawline: an imitation of her mother in childhood. Her eyes are dark and brooding, and she has mastered an aristocratic sneer that is all the rage in Hell, a mask she desperately wears over her tumultuous emotions. She wears a faded traveling cape over her brass hand, just another anonymous traveler until she reveals herself.
Her swords are sheathed in her shadow, and she reaches into it to draw them: two straight brass sabers with elaborate basket hilts. When they strike metal, green sparks hiss off their edges. She is dangerously quick with them, a wardancer in the ancient style.
Her Aspect is the Devoted, sworn to Hell. Ven kinda wrote herself. A case study in the sunk cost fallacy, she’s in too deep to have any hope of escaping her doom spiral without PC help. Possibly “if Sara Crewe made a pact with Hell,” mixed with the vibe of the mean lesbian from the Raya trailers. In Exalted terms, she’s one of the Infernal Exalted, pawns of the powers of Hell who could have been heroic but for their own flaws.
***
SIX SOUNDS STARVING
Completely bereft, Six Sounds Starving would be small and brown and furry, barely coming up to your hip. Their eyes would be huge and black, their body shaped like a barrel and their limbs impossibly spindly: a Hedge Goblin, a dangerous pest to be chased off with bells and moon-charms. Six Sounds Starving has not been that hungry in a long time.
Once, she was a shark-rider among the Pearl Court, and drank deep of the spoils of war: dreams and vitality, withered away from their rightful owners, allowing her to define her own shape and story with her bounty of glamour. But she grew bored of war, and wanted to grow into different shapes. So she stole aboard a ship, and drove it aground in the Flower Kingdoms, sailors scattered pale and gaunt on the moonlit beach like the petals of a plucked flower.
...unless she dug her way up from secret tunnels beneath Dandelion, a nameless mole-thing, determined to be a creature of the sunlit world forever and ever. Or unless she stole the identity of a captive of the Pearl Court and returned home in their place, only to fake their death, paying no heed to the homecoming they might have once they escape from Faerieland. Or unless she is a radical, banished from her homeland for her crimes, hiding here to avoid the wrath of the Pearl Court. Or unless she yearns to discover the secret of becoming an ordinary mortal woman, without the temptation and hunger of her magic, living a quiet life without the need to prey on anyone.
What is known about Six Sounds Starving? She’s a liar. She drinks dreams and hearts. She can weave disguises and enchantments, more dangerous and real than truth. She is a player in the great game of kingdoms for some unknown end. She commands minions: lesser spirits and goblins begging for scraps of her power. She has strange aesthetic preoccupations, particularly concerning helplessness. She will almost certainly sip from you, leave you groaning and leaden and unable to free yourself, then slip away.
And the rumor that she might be able to live off true love alone, an inexhaustible well for as long as she is loved for who she has become? Just another lie. She just wants to lure you in and drink you deep.
Probably.
Her sword is a flickering nightmare razor, painful to look at straight on. It actively defies definition, and is all the more dangerous to try and parry. It is an extension of her glamour, and would fade away into being nothing but an emotion once more if she was forced to withdraw the essence of her magic from it.
Six Sounds Starving is the Trickster, weaponized. Her real motivations are in a state of PC-observation quantum flux; she’s working with your antagonists, though not for them. This isn’t sustainable; half the fun of the Trickster is waiting for them to emotionally explode, for Six Sounds Starving to make a naked play for what she really wants... In Exalted terms, she’s one of the Fair Folk, the Raksha, eaters of souls and dreams; she’s been toned down in lethality for play.
***
PETONY, THE TIGER KNIGHT; DIMA, THE DOLPHIN KNIGHT; UUSHA, THE STAG KNIGHT
Hitherto there have been few royals in these pages, save for poor Ven. This is because royals do not, as a general rule, do their own fighting. They may be kidnapped, pressed, usurped, but they seek out the services of knights to serve as their champions. These knights serve the kingdoms in the flower wars, battles of skill and counting coup; a fall counts anywhere, as the proverb goes.
Petony is the Tiger Knight, in her grand fur cloak, her dark hair tufted and her eyes ringed with shadows. She is the champion of the Rose, but has become unstable and unreliable after her secret liaisons with Princess Meli of Rose came to an abrupt, Red Wolf-related end. She may soon ceremonially end her service to Rose and offer her services to Hyacinth, which would leave Rose in a difficult situation indeed. She disdains the people of the highlands, considering herself refined the same way one might consider a pet tiger refined; the only reason the Rose cannot bribe her back into good graces is because her passions run so violent. Her sword has a wicked hook at the end, with which she catches weapons and necks alike.
Dima is the Dolphin Knight, her armor pink and sleek and light, her rose hair pulled back into buns, her lips painted brightly. She is the champion of Dandelion, their adored heroine, their river-queen who capsizes pirates and wrestles with river dragons. (River dragons are not true dragons, but rather extremely dangerous apex predators that not only eat anything from cattle to unaware swimmers, but also bully the placid and demure native crocodiles.) Her relationship with the Green River’s spirit has become tumultous after Red Wolf passed by and stole quite a lot from those bright lips, and her famous boat Dragonbreaker lies broken at the bottom of the river. Without her guardianship, travel on one of the most vital routes through the Flower Kingdoms may become… difficult. Her sword is a canal saber, thick enough to saw through rope and crack river dragon hides.
Uusha is the Stag Knight, antlered and arrayed in mail, leading a dangerous band of reavers. She is Older Than You, a veteran of both love and flower wars, and not even Red Wolf could turn her head, much to the foreigner’s dismay; under her severe black helm she is wolfishly handsome and prone to wry smiles and unimpressed eyebrow lifts. She serves the Holly loyally, and there are rumors that they may yet make a play for control of Golden Chrysanth. On that day, if Uusha’s N’yari retainers force the gates and her highlanders do battle with the Golden Guard in the streets, if she calls down witchcraft and favors due, then the Holly will decide the fate of the Flower Kingdoms. (The likely agenda: anti-Dominion, anti-Azazuka and family, anti-N’yari holds, pro-Sapphire Mother and pro-highlands; the Holly is doing its best to appeal to the clans and outcasts above, seeing them as untapped resources if used properly.) Her “sword” is a long spear ringed round with copper, with a keen leaf-shaped head on either end.
While my classification of NPCs as playbooks has generally broken down at this point, Uusha is still a pretty good fit for the Bloody. She’s been through more battles than you have, has done worse things than you have, and is still unreasonably attractive despite (or because of) her scars. All three of them are likely to be Problems, though Dima might need your help rather than getting in your way… unless somebody else steps in and wins her loyalty first. In Exalted terms, these three are somewhere in the nebulous realm of heroic mortals, though all three likely have some supernatural backing; I can’t promise that Uusha doesn’t have forest gods on her side, for example.
***
QUEEN RAT CW: dysfunctional pining, garbage domming
Queen Rat is queen of the hustle. Queen Rat is the best lifter in Golden Chrysanth, just point her in the right direction. Queen Rat got ears everywhere, got shit on everybody, cause Queen Rat talks Rat. That’s her special trick. Only girl in the Flower Kingdoms who can do that, probably. Tour guide, courier, and procurer, too. Tip her and she’s yours.
Deep down, Queen Rat wants to be held. She wants a pretty girl to stroke her hair and call her (her, greasy, dirt-nailed, sludge-eyed, bony-hipped, banned from every reputable fortune telling stall, her) pretty and good and safe. She wants to go to sleep and know she’ll still be held when she wakes up. But she’s never going to get that, she knows. Never ever ever, baby. Might as well ask for cake every day and the river to run backwards.
The closest she’s ever come? She lifted a purse off a pilgrim few months back, spent it all in under an hour and then took an overeater’s death nap down in the dark below. Woke up to squeaks of warning and then got pinned down under a metal arm. Queen Rat didn’t even remember at first. Pilgrim’s snakes chased off her rats, then the pilgrim punished her until Queen Rat didn’t know up from down, and all that attention and whispers in her ear and royaltyness did something hard and wild to Queen Rat’s hungry heart.
She knows. She knows she don’t mean a thing to Princess Ven. She knows the open-circle devil-mark on her shoulder, under the bandages, means she’s... she’s a tool, or a pet, not even a maid. But wouldn’t it be nice to pretend? To dream of being all dressed up nice for her? Or at the very least, being told she did a good job. That she’s good. Maybe that’s enough.
Her sword is a knife. No more, no less. It keeps an edge and slices through pursestrings like a breath, though. So maybe it’s special for that. Not like it’s got a name or anything, though.
Queen Rat’s original concept was much more villain-y, all “she’s a secret agent of hell who wants to overthrow Azazuka’s family and dom people for revenge.” Then I realized that what I really needed was a woobie who deserves a happy ending, or at the very least better than an unrequited(?) crush on a Mean Girl (or an unrequited(?) crush on you). She talks to rats and will make a Sad Face when she suddenly and inevitably betrays you. I think she’s actually another take on the Spooky Witch. With Eerie Companion, but they’re adorable rats!
The Dominion. “Harmony Through Strength.”
Desires: Dominion and Control. The wealth of empire is a bonus, and another means of control in its own right.
Danger: the Imperial Legions, obedient and cruel, devoted to Mars-In-Iron. While a single legionnaire is no match for a wielder of Essence, they always have reserves, too many to fight. Their commitment to a fight always costs their commanders, but the collateral damage costs their targets more. At the micro level, Red Wolf’s Talons and auxiliary Wing, a fighting force that could defeat any single kingdom. At the macro level, the threat of an invasion that would bring fire, steel, and incalculable suffering — one the Dominion wishes to avoid if possible, given the severe infrastructural damage that would ensue.
Their Appeal: conspicuous displays of wealth, impractical but visually striking leather coats, freckles.
Iconic Location: the half-constructed Black Spur Redout, an ostensibly temporary Domionion military camp downriver of Golden Chrysanth. While Red Wolf always brings an impressive military escort as she travels the Flower Kingdoms, she maintains the bulk of her forces here, a safe fallback position in case of disaster. Plus, useful against pirates. The Black Spur has a very impressive view up and down the river, after all. Rumors of a net able to block river traffic completely are... unsubstantiated.
Connected NPCs: Red Wolf herself, as well as her feuding Talonlords: Jax of the Third “Wavebreaker” Talon and Navel Stone of the Fifth “Unbroken” Talon.
The Priestesses of the Sapphire Court. “honor to you, mother of waters, / nurturer of the garden; / restrainer of the hand of the wicked, / she who quiets the mouth of the ignorant.”
Desires: Conformity and Safety. If all is well in the Flower Kingdoms, it will remain under the protection of the Morningstar. Offer Heaven no excuse to uproot the garden.
Danger: ubiquitous, the priestesses of the blue veil speak for the patron goddess of the Flower Kingdoms and levy the judgment of the Court on the wicked and the unruly alike. They are the reason the kingdoms must show their piety, the social pressure to conform, and the diviners of fortune; the matchmakers and the intercessors. When someone is ill, send for the priestess, to provide herbs and to intercede with the plague-spirit; when someone has wronged you, send for the priestess, to pronounce judgment and declare the will of the gods of the land. Touch them at your peril; either the gods will punish you (often with miraculous restraints) or your neighbors will.
Their Appeal: righteousness, serenity, acceptance, blue eyeshadow and blue veils, and a lot of erotic temple art (as the Sapphire Mother is an adherent of the House of Blue Silk). Intense “look but don’t touch” vibes.
Iconic Location: the Temple of the Pure Lotus, rising from the waters of Lake Zenba. Here, there is a submerged path to the House of Lapis Lazuli, lit by flickering candles; here, there are sacred relics in stately pagodas. Here, all swords are forbidden. Here, you cannot hear the wicked (or the initiates, for that matter). Here, there is rushing water and serenity in the gardens. Here, there is peace.
Notable NPCs: beyond the Sapphire Mother herself, the Zenbai Curator (one Harmonious Star) is a fearsome martial artist and suppressor of evil spirits. Harmonious Star treats the spiritual health of the land that she has been charged to protect in much the same way as a bonsai artist treats their tree. Also, one Sagacious Crane of the Reeds: priestess, bossypants, and big sister.
Hell. “Then, having broken the wheel, they reached within him and, in one continuous cutting motion, inverted him.”
Desires: Strife and Humiliation, and above all, Revenge.
Danger: demons are fragments of a great and fallen power, one metaphysically restrained and broken, unable to act except through offering power to fools. That means they’re mostly dangerous in what they can offer your enemies, or you: secrets, curses, weapons, debt.
Their Appeal: a quick route to power, easy validation, Showing Them All, “the creator of the world sees Himself in you.”
Iconic Location: the cursed, jungle-swallowed ruins of Kingeater Castle. “This, our flesh, it is the King’s—“ Its curving walls led to an empty gate: the circle must be broken. The world is thin here, and if you listen carefully, one ear to the stones, you can hear the calamitous riot and shrill music of Hell. Be careful going through doorways.
Notable NPCs: Ven herself and her demon mentors, fragments of the Broken King: Whirling-in-Rags, General Tikhtokh, the Green Sun.
Fairyland. “And the scorpion said to the frog: I need you. Why would I ever harm you? Come closer and let me share my wine with you, my sweet sharpness. It will only sting a moment.”
Desires: To Feed; to Be Entertained; To Be Real.
Danger: have you ever had a dream where everything was perfect? where you were a knight, a princess, a dragon, a god? would you like one? and if it is small enough... perhaps it can even be real, for a price. so small! you will not even notice it.
Their Appeal: that they are striking and singular. that they are glamorous and seductive. that sometimes they choose to be kind.
Iconic Location: the Den of Six Sounds Starving, nebulously Below the Flower Kingdoms. It is a place of slowly drifting silk banners like cobwebs and guttering candles, and treasures heaped up carelessly just out of reach.
Iconic NPC: Six Sounds Starving herself. Would you like to make a deal?
The N’yari. “Flowersick lowlanders!”
Desires: Domination, Humiliation, Cute Maids. Showing off how they’re better than you, ideally in a way that makes you blush and sputter a lot.
Danger: if you call upon them, they will not shut up about it, and also they will suddenly but inevitably betray you when they think you’re distracted. After they think they’ve done enough, based on what you paid them, of course.
Their Appeal: bossy buff catgirls who want to kidnap you, give you an embarrassing job for a few years, and then send you home with stories of ancient labyrinth-complexes and memories of warm cuddles and snug ropes. They may have a point when they claim the Lowlanders are all tsundere.
Iconic Location: Mount Fang, home of the Ōei tribe. Absolutely covered in hidden doors and winding, knife-sharp stairs. Practically impossible to besiege or assault. Right?
What now? What now? The Dark Carnival lies in ruin all around, crushed and torn and smashed up by the gods of a terrible noplace, and the Grail at its heart is sinking into torpor. So two rather alarming things happen roughly at the same time.
The first is that the Grail's blood begins to flow freely. If you followed that thick, viscous blood, flowing from pipes and down gutters and oozing up around your feet, you'd find your way to the desecrated Big Top, to a shining cup and a promise of honking immortality forever. Really, this would just be gross and awkward and require some serious disinfecting once you left (because nobody wants to catch clown) if that was all that was happening.
The other thing is that the Dark Carnival begins to fold in on itself like a flower closing its petals. Boardwalks tear up out of the ground and become inclines, then walls. Tents come crashing down in on themselves in huge storms of canvas and tangling electric lights. Fried pickle carts become meteors. Clowns go flying with doleful honks. It would take a miracle to escape alive.
(And Jackdaw nearly doesn't, tumbling backwards and getting Grail Juice all over her coat, a ridiculous little bundle bouncing down to the Big Top until a certain wolf in a tatty red-and-gold coat of her own tackles her and pins her down into the Wicked Sauce, holding her tight and close and safe until a claw the size of a fried pickle cart scoops them up, and even then she has a hand on the back of her head smushing her into bones and thinning fur and a smell like a burning candle wick, and the thumpa-thumpa-thump of a heart more important than the one you all dared plumb.)
(Lucien clinging to the stiff-limbed professor and a tent pole, limbs still unsure about whether or not they were really supposed to be whole and unbroken and thus whether or not they were supposed to be holding this much weight at all? Much less homoerotically charged.)
And the whole farce ends on a short scrubgrass hillside. The cavern roof overhead is beginning to twinkle with black stars, the walls sloughing away as the nature of this inbetweenaplace changes, the Forest beginning to predominate. In the distance are the hoarse croaks of migrating owls, and this place won't be safe forever. But it's a beat of respite, a safe place to watch as the whole Carnival goes right down some cosmic drain, there to pupate again.
Grail-soaked clothes are tossed aside. A blanket is retrieved from somewhere inside Sasha. In undershirts and underthings, almost everyone lounges, and fried pickles are shared, and some hot ham and jam and biscuits. There is a conspicuous bossy absence, but Lucien is (of course) sure to reassure that Ailee's somewhere safe and fine and good, probably. Almost certainly.
In the ceiling-sky above, neon-teal bees dance in geometric angel-banishing patterns. Sasha radiates heat as her boiler slowly cools. Distant and far away, there is the sound of another Sasha's roaring horn, as Black Coleman races off to chase a better world. Jackdaw finds herself in the lap of a scruffy Wolf, and those bare arms around her torso are saying more than a hoarse and starved voice ever could, except in the unlight of something not a candle, and her heart is a drumbeat against Jackdaw's bare spine.
Even down here in the crucible of worlds, there is goodness. You bring it down with you.
***
Coda
And so died King Dragon, Goldmouth, Ratlord, Point Constant, the Consuming Fire, destroyed by a pawn that made it all the way across the chessboard. Lothbruk melted in the fires of his unraveling, and with it melted the rat cults, and with them melted a web of wickedness and vile intrigue, and with it all melted the dark dreams of Control, Consumption, and Greed that found their nexus in that figure of Sin. One day, one day there will be something that is like King Dragon, an accretion of the desires he embodied, but it will not be for a very, very long time. And until that day comes, we can sleep more soundly, knowing that Sin itself has been diluted and made, if not harmless, at the very least purposeless.
All because of the sacrifice of one brave soul. All because Ailee, Angel of the Heart, chose her dreams over His power, chose meaning over meaninglessness.
Chose, in the end, Love.
- Surma Sundish, "On The Death of King Dragon: A Narrative," retrieved from the Heart by the Bransmuth Literary Society's Detritus Branch.
It is Curiosity that stays the fires. Curiosity, vast and bottomless. Curiosity at this broken, malfunctioning toy. Curiosity at thinking it ever thought itself separate. His eyes are vast and molten gold, his pupils large enough to be doorways.
When King Dragon moves, it is wet. Terribly wet. He bleeds his self out into the world. Where he is not harder than steel and stone and hate, he sloughs. He arrays himself before you, his wings unfurling for the first time in untold years, and when he opens his jaws, poison sloshes out and runs in fiery rivulets down to your feet, down towards Surma who hangs back in the boat still.
“Welcome back,” he says to this reflection of his power, his might, his self. “Welcome back,” he says, his mouth a hole in the world that you could fall into forever. “Welcome back,” he whispers, and the Judgment falls on you like an anvil. That you are worth only what insight he may glean from you; that the fragment of his nature inside you is all that there is.
How dare he? There is only room for one queen in a hive, only room for one dragon in the world, because otherwise they will find their opposite out and fling themselves headlong together in a crushing embrace, thrashing, stinging, brutal, until only one remains.
And you, Ailee Sundish, are more than your self. The dragon nature roils and burns within you, here, where the essence of the King shines crimson from every surface, where he has extruded himself into the very fabric of the world, so pliable here. Only one! Only one!
Give him his death. Take his throne. Take the room to become your inner self, great and grand and red, red, red.
Redana? There is no Redana here. There is only the Eater of Pancakes. Behold it arise in its glorious pajamas[1]. When it yawns, the galaxy trembles. It has been summoned here by the possibility of the FEAST. The chocolate chips, half-molten, sunken into the pancakes like fallen meteors; the Ridenki false-banana extract, expertly mixed into the batter; the sinfully soft butter, just like the kitchens back home used every day; the nameless cream of Dolce’s kitchen, white and fluffy in its whorls. Yes. Yes! This pleases the Eater of Pancakes! Eyes still closed, it descends upon the table and accepts the offering lifted up.
Pancakes fall like battleships, each one torn apart by the Eater of Pancakes as she demolishes the arrayed fleet. Woe to you, delicious treats! When you were first formed, given shape by the hands of your creator, did you know that this would be your fate? Or did you, in your hubris, think yourselves too soft and fluffy to ever be eaten, a meal fit only for the gods themselves? Fools! It is the Fates who decree the span of each life, and they who decide when kings and servitors and pancakes meet Hades for the final trick! Is it not said that the life of a pancake is like a bird that flies through a feasthall? For a moment it has come out of the dark and the cold, and all around warmth and life and revelry, and yet in a moment, with the beat of its wings, it is gone, never to be seen again. So it is with you, o pancakes!
And yet a higher power and a keener mind has made of you a sacrifice, and secreted within you the doom of the Eater of Pancakes. Like a sacrificial ship, packed with explosives, you are, o most perilous of pancakes! The Eater of Pancakes bites down, and the venom within explodes through her mouth, first as hot as a Thousand Embers curry, then cold and numb. With a terrible squeak, the Eater of Pancakes drops fork and knife, hands fluttering to that terrible omnivorous mouth, as the final payload of the Sweet Fluffy detonates in her throat. Already her body works to modulate, change, and overcome; only the most wicked and fast-acting of venoms could send the Eater of Pancakes to the House of Hades!
And the cook turns from a soft and fluffy sheep to a crimson-haired Redana with a shimmering of scales. “Hey, Dany,” Mynx says. And the smile she gives is a fragile thing, like a bird too soon removed from its nest, cupped shivering in your hands. It is rueful and hopeful and sheepish and ever-so-slightly amused and exasperated that the old “envenomed breakfast” trick worked, holding back the scolding that Redana should always, always rely on a taste tester and not simply trust in an iron stomach and a mutable throat, because iron can be melted and throats forever silenced with but the right compound, the perfect poison— but that would be too much, too soon, a headlong charge across creaking ice with an infinite abyss below.
And the look that Redana gives her is vulnerable in turn, confused and worried and unsure if she’s about to be attacked in her own chamber, but alloyed with a wordless longing for things to be other than they were within the Eater of Worlds, a stupid but unquenchable hope that maybe this time, things will be different.
She lets Mynx take a seat at the modest table, one hand over her mouth with a napkin to stop herself from drooling helplessly, and tenses, but does not leap into action. Not yet. Not with her Mynx. Not after so long.
***
[1]: upon detecting REM sleep, Redana’s clothes are designed to become very cute, loose jamjams. The theme is: leviathans of the deep, chibified. (The same pattern she’s given her jamjams since she was eight.)
“FFFN! Fff’fff fffhhh mmmmmffn!!” Rose enthuses, eyes wide, looking out over the world in a way she’s never seen before. It’s nothing short of miraculous, and she hardly notices the ropes that the Baroness has set her in for display purposes, and she definitely isn’t letting the thick white band of silk over her mouth stop her from trying to share her enthusiasm with the princess squirming underneath her.
How could she? This is magic. This is a beauty that she has yearned for all her life without knowing, a secret spell woven on her heart. How often did she look up at the peach-bruise sky and find inside her a nameless desire? How often has she sat on the side of roads and looked up, and up, and up, at the lights flickering up and down the elevators, mysterious and incredibly distant?
After all, the Burrow Folk made no aircraft, allowed no competitors in the sky. There was no reason for them to flash warning lights so that dragons like Princess Jessic would one day be able to avoid them even in the dark, even in the fog, even in battle. There was no message they needed to proclaim to the surface, no final testament they sought to leave behind; it cannot be communication. Or if it is, it is in no code or cipher that the people of the world know.
And yet the lights flicker anyway.
The world is full of things like that! Up here, she can see them all. She grunts in delight and nudges Yue with her shoulder and gestures with her head, trying to get her to see: look, below them, a Five-Tailed Firebird (not actually on fire, named for their bright plumage, tail does split into five long and distinct trails)! And, oh, oh, mmmph, hmmmph, look at that, brave Knight! Look at that! The shards! The sunshards! Oh, if only the Princess could see! But the Princess is hiding her face, isn’t she? What a silly girl, nuzzling into Rose instead of watching the world made new and strange and beautiful!
...but she cannot judge the sweet little thing too harshly. Maybe she’s afraid of heights! Or maybe she’s stuck down there! That might be it. Princesses do tend to get stuck places. That’s why Rose is going to do her best to explain everything, everything she sees, even if talking’s a little difficult right now?
But, but isn’t that the fun, too? Yes, Rose is very certain that’s fun. It’s difficult to explain, but... but trying to talk is more fun than actually talking. It makes her feel all kinds of hot and warm and excited, not being able to talk! And Chen— ah, maybe that’s it! Maybe that’s the key. She must be cold up here, where the winds are so strong, where the air howls so incredibly, where it exerts strange pressures on the head. She must be looking for the warmth radiating out of Rose’s heart in happy beats.
No fear, little princess. That warmth is yours, too. So Rose makes sure to envelop the princess as best she can, to be blanket and pillows and comforting weight, even as she shares bright, sparkling looks with the Knight. Isn’t this wonderful? Truly, Sai a’Niz is full of miracles. Just like her world! It’s simply incredible to think that one fox goddess could have painted the sky with these hyperreal colors and then given her loyal priestess the opportunity to experience it with such amazing companions!
And deep within her, a thing of scales purrs happily and settles into itself, thinking impossible things, enjoying the relief of freedom through bondage, silenced at last, and yet safe, safe, safe. No mountains to lie beneath, no dark dreams, just Chen and Yue and a wide open sky, and a burning candle.
To you, lord of the deeps, let there be praise and fearful awe. Who has seen the nebula’s heart? Who has run a hook through the Eater’s beak? Surely that man has not been born, the one who knows the deep places that you have dominion over; the deep places and the unknowable dark.
***
Fingers clench firmly on the grips as Redana’s face breaks into a helpless grin. Here it is. Another beauty, a pearl found shining in the mouth of glorious Poseidon. This is not the still, stately glory that she saw as she worked her way to the Eater of Worlds. This is energy, wild and violent and joyous, like the mania of Dionysus. This is no flotsam and jetsam; this is a storm-wracked tomb, the resting place of a mighty weapon about to be repurposed once more.
The plovers have no tethers here. It would be a death sentence; the tempest would whirl them around, make nooses and garrotes of them, shearing limbs and shattering cockpits. They will have to trust their engines, trust their cooperation, and trust that they will not suddenly be ambushed by ELF weaponry. They seem to be alone, out here in the storm, but— they haven’t seen Bella in a long time, and the Azora are quick raiders. To lose power here is to be lost.
And doesn’t that just make Redana’s heart race? When the jump’s called, she’s the first one from the starting gate, as sure-footed as if this was another Olympic sprint. She vaults into her uncle’s arms and tumbles, wild-eyed and grinning, down through the hurricane.
There is no straight path; each plover will have to take their own spiraling route down to the Achae. All Redana can do, as her Plover shudders and whines around her, is lean in hard, sinister grip slammed shut, engine roaring as she angles herself against the winds. Her teeth rattle in her skull. Her head throbs as the world outside goes lavender and indigo and hot flaming pink, flashing straight to the back of her eye. And her stress bleeds through her mouth, her laughter surely at risk of depressurizing the cockpit for how densely it fills the space.
Eventually, after a short infinity, she lunges out, the bulk of the Achae filling her entire world, her boarding hook skidding, seeking purchase, until it catches just long enough for Redana to reorient herself. She presses herself against the bulk, then begins to grope her way down the length of the ship, her boosters whining and hissing as they continue to force her down, to give her an artificial gravity, to keep her from being torn off the back of the Achae as if she were a tick on an animal’s back.
The journey will be long for each and every one of them, falling one by one onto the hulk. The calculations to deliver them all to the veal directly would have required, well, Magos Birmingham, who she has been assured is very good with calculations. If she ever meets him, she’ll have to apologize for stealing all of his subordinates, but, in her defense... they are her vassals. Apparently. Because she is the daughter of Nero, who is to be revered as Hermes herself. Which makes her... Hermesette? Hermesind? There’s a title for the daughter of Hermes, if she could just remember which one. Though Princess is a very broad and all-encompassing title in and of itself. A noble name. Her name. And yet she works alongside them, because...
Because she’s not her mother, the woman who regretted ever leaving Arcadia. She’s her own self. And Redana Claudius doesn’t want to be up on the dais waiting for her generals to come to a conclusion. She doesn’t want to be up on the bridge, letting her Auspex track the infinitesimal forms of Plovers on the vast hide of the Achae. She wants to be here, where there’s work to be done. That’s simple. That’s easy. That’s good. The work is the work.
When they meet together at the prow, there will be work to be done. Hours of it. There will be a rhythm to it, hooks rising and falling, severing the appointed mounts and the pins the size of tree-trunks. There will be so much of it! Then, when the prow sloughs off under its own weight, nine Plovers will use it to cut through the storm until they all break free of the giant’s grip[1].
When Redana returns to the Plousios, she will have pushed herself to the brink of what even she, human that she is, can do. She will ache from the stresses she has forced her body to undergo. Her arms will throb with Plover’s Grip, her gloves sticky with sweat and her golden hair plastered to her pale forehead. And she will know she kept pace with the Coherents, and she will be proud enough to cry.
But that’s not yet. Now? Now is one limb in front of the other, all while the tempest roars around her, her visibility ahead cut down to almost nothing, her Auspex slowly counting down the number of steps it will take for her to reach her destination, and the rain making oracle patterns on the windshield that only her uncle could read, each one lasting only a moment before becoming something new and true and incomprehensible. Now is only the joy of the Princess.
***
[1]: Then a more stately pace back to the Plousios. It is inauspicious for a new war-beak to taste its own ship’s blood first.
Lothbruk is not empty. Lothbruk is teeming with pilgrims. Lothbruk’s streets steam with the King’s blood, gushing from rents and sores, hardly missed, for his heart is invincible; Lothbruk’s buildings are strung with rope bridges, a teetering garbage metropolis. It is here that the Rats of the Dragon attempt to refine their natural essence to be allowed to draw near to King Dragon without being obliterated. Only that which is of the King is permitted near the King; one glance on what is Not will consume it utterly.
And so the rats draw up the blood in corroded buckets and pour it into vats, and they drink of it, and many die in agony; but some begin to learn the secret of being as the King. To become a living avatar of his vices is their dearest desire, for it comes with incredible power.
You do not need to deal with them, Ailee Sundish. Surma has her hand on the tiller of your boat, a groaning thing made from the carcass of a train, split and gutted. It can withstand the blood of a dragon, at least for a time.
No, what you must deal with are the trials of the King. Show your vast disregard for the world, display your Wasteful nature, take it into your throat; peel back shrouds and dig your talons into the world, display your Curious heart, take it into your eyes; pass sentence on the unworthy and enact your declarations, show that you have the power of Judgment, take it into your hands; vent your fury at all that has denied you your rights, let no barrier restrain your Wrath, take it into your gut; and crown yourself in dripping Pride, worthy to speak with your King, and erase doubt and modesty from your heart utterly.
Do this, and Lothbruk will open like a flower to reveal the shining hoard of the King. Do this, and you will look upon those wounds, that torrent of blood, and know them to be yours. Do this, and the King and you will be one.
***
Jackdaw!
You’re here. Ouch.
You’re here with two bodies and a book and Lucien’s not broken but he’s not there and the Professor is going cold and still like the stone and you’re on the very edge of the story now, Crowhame spilling out behind you like a vast puddle of a mess.
(In the distance, there is a series of honks that suggest a very elaborate pratfall. In the distance, there is the chime of hag stones knocking against each other that is almost laughter. Those things need to stay in the distance. Those things very need to stay in the distance, actually.)
You could... just not close the book, you know. When you close the book, you won’t have a lot of time to convince the two they aren’t dead. And there’ll be just a mess of clowns all around. You saved them. You could just stay in the moment of having saved them forever, and there’d never be any question of what happened next.
(But you’re going to close the book, because you want to know what Lucien says next. Better to try than to exist in an always might-have-been.)
***
Coleman!
The Long looks at you with eyes the size of moons, Coleman, and for a moment you consider each other. Maybe it is thinking of the two of you as a beautiful symbiosis; maybe it sees you as an upstart and a challenge. The moment is... well, to fall into the joke, Long.
Then it looks down— down, down, down— and the eye is drawn to the struggling figure of Jackdaw, so pathetically tiny, down there at the edge of the white and black and red.
The huge vast blackness of the Long, scales only defined by the half-moons of white at their very edges, eyes as red as dying suns, considers Jackdaw. Then it turns to you; then it turns away.
Not every story ends with glorious battle. The Long is patient and forever.
Besides, even gods of flint and root and blood can acknowledge their inferiors; though the gulf of communication is so vast, almost as vast as the Long itself, that you will never know why.
Go scatter the clowns around that closing book and show Jackdaw the beauty of the two-in-one.
The water is clear. She can see herself stretched out in it, a landscape. An island. White cliffs lapped by the sea. Untouched. The way we all were before Brutus arrived, before the Arimathean came with his cross.
Purity.
A chalice that can be torn away and trodden on is no chalice at all. A pilgrim who only keeps on the road as it suits her is no pilgrim, either. Devotion is an all-consuming thing, and the Chi Ro demands so much. The circle only requires that you yield, that you not break yourself by trying to push against it, that you accept each in turn: the spring, the summer, the autumn and the winter. Yet Robena is a follower of the Xristos, and if that is where her heart lies, let her hold to it. Let her hold fast.
Purity.
Constance rallies together a motley band of servants and squires to create the centerpiece of a mystery play in the courtyard. Dig but a little in the hard earth, and the water comes bubbling forth. Dig but a little, and set the saplings there to shroud the fountain. Dig but a little, as Constance does, her pale shoulders straining, and set the flagstones in place: each one with the chalice. Let her tread upon it, and let her be tested once more.
Prepare her wardrobe, Tristan. Tonight the Lady Constance wears green, and drapes dappled scales around her shoulders. Tonight, she offers Sir Coilleghille the knowledge of weal and woe.
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