Tatterdemalion

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Piripiri!

The Laema plays a joke on everyone. It is not a nice joke. This is the joke: she has decided that you must be kept safe, and that the safest place to keep you until Ven returns is in Ven’s own chambers. It will enrage Ven, disappoint her own daughters, keeps you from going to find Azazuka, and means you have to spend the night (if not longer) in that miserable room.

It is a transitory room. It is the room of a young woman who both hoards possessions but does not much care for them beyond having them close to hand. It is tacky luxuries imported from Hell and then papered over a room that lies at the thin point between one side of the castle and the other.

Rain streaks down over the dusty panes of one window, clamped in place by old and rusted iron in the classical Kingdom style. It is dark, and cool, and the night beyond is silent and still. Green sunlight shines through the thick panes of the other window, and the distant chaos of Hell is a dull roar at the edge of your senses, the kind of thing that takes some time to acclimate to. Between the two is an overly plush bed somehow crammed in, despite all the exits being too small for it, hung with green curtains and covered with swirling, writhing labyrinth-sheets.

In this room, there are maps, crammed haphazardly into a lacquered box; in this room, there are two piles of clothes, the used and the unused; in this room, there are masks, and incense sticks, and shaman-pouches full of Hell’s trinkets.

In this room there is something like a black monkey with a hideous and arching claw on either hand, locked in a thing like a birdcage. Its bulging, oversized eyes have no lids. It has no mouth that you can see. It watches you with unwavering intensity, scratching something into a brass sheet with its nail and then returning to stillness with just enough irregularity that it is impossible to relax. Perhaps anything you do in here will be presented to Ven; perhaps anything you do in here will be presented to Ven’s masters; perhaps it is writing an aria intended for the revels of the Broken King’s tattered heart, and your paranoia is misplaced.

But isn’t it tempting to figure her out by proxy? To play a game with the demon scribe, to spy without being caught spying, to gather a picture of the fool before her return? It would at least distract you from that unearthly, far distant music— from the flutes, the drums, the pipes and bells, the harps and tambourines and horns— singing to drive off a silent, deadly, all-consuming wind— playing because silence is death and death is swift and because Whirling-in-Rags dances still through the winding black streets, his golden feet streaked with his blood, his yellowing robes swirling all about him as he loses himself in the ecstasy of motion which he shares with the Fivefold Wind whose sermon is the release of all those painful attachments to the world that she has lost and therefore were only and ever holding her back and in her depthless benevolence she will carve them from you too until you are free from existence—

Perhaps it is best to think about other things. Yes.

***

Kalaya!

Ven stiffens awkwardly as she is held, much like a cat that has been bowled over by an affectionate dog. There is little softness in her, particularly on one side of her body, hard as a sword. For a moment, there’s nothing in her face but confusion and distress— until realization, memory, uncertainty bloom. “Kal?”

Despite that, when you hug her again, exuberant, for a moment some of that hardness slips. Her nails dig against your shoulder; she leans into you like a ship hugs a cove in a storm. She looks down, lets your eyes get lost in her short hair, the way it curls at her jaw, the way it hides her own eyes in the dark.

“I had to leave the Kingdoms, Kal.” The words slip out of her like a dagger leaving its sheath. “To study. To find myself. There wasn’t any future for me here, not as a failed princess.” The dagger turns. It is not driven into you, but for a moment its sharpness is unmistakable. “Now I’m here. Pilgriming, obviously. Doing pilgrim things. Walking to some of the old shrines. Paying homage. Seeing what’s left for me.”

She wants to push you away. She chooses not to, again and again, because she wants to be held. Because she wants you to keep holding her more than she wants whatever else keeps making her tense up, keeps her from opening to you.

“I’m. I’m really lucky to see you,” she admits. “Just... please don’t tell anyone else, okay?”

She finally looks up at you, and her eyes are dark and large and perilous. That’s what you call places where you could drown: perilous. And that dagger of a voice keeps turning, keeps leveling its tip away from you, hard and sharp and trying so hard to be gentle with you.

“I don’t want people to know I came back,” she says. “Not unless it’s on my terms. Thus. You know. The hat. And the cloak.”

She pulls her cloak tighter against that unnaturally hard arm in unconscious self-consciousness. A veil, of sorts. Something she wants to hide, even from you.

***

Zhaojun!

The N’yari camp is typical for them: small, camouflaged, easily pulled up and relocated. They’re evidently early in a raid: their spoils include a few pigs, a couple of lockboxes into which clothes and coins and materials are sorted, and two girls who are both a little scared and a little excited, torn between embarrassment and curiosity and fear of the half-known. One girl sits in Machi’s lap during the strategy meeting, her linen-swaddled face buried into Machi’s neck, squirming in tantalized fluster as one hand kneads her rump with distracted feline rhythm.

“Now, I don’t just want the knight,” Machi dictates. “I want hidden treasure to bring back home, and I want to match up against the dragon girl again, my little kitten, just so she knows I defeated this knight.” She presumes that her new spirit will know innately who the dragon girl is; her rival-desire for the girl burns brightly. The dragon girl is strong and cunning and wonderfully unscrupulous; the dragon girl is her destined trophy, prize, and makeout partner, and Machi doesn’t just want the glory of bringing her home, she honestly thinks that she’ll be bringing the dragon girl home — that she’ll be doing right by both the dragon girl and her community by helping her discover she belongs among the N’yari.

In contrast, she just wants to dress up this knight in a cute maid outfit, force her sword-hands into mittens, and show her off at feasts as proof of Machi’s strength and prowess. Maybe dangle her from the chandelier in her family’s hall, for guests to bat at and spin around. Clearly, there is work to be done if Machi is to be convinced to be Kalaya’s nemesis, properly and completely.

***

Giriel!

“Ah, yes. The Prince.” The General begins to move again, restless, beginning a great arc that will eventually end with you surrounded on all sides. “An excellent protege. The dancer taught her etiquette and extended her protection when she was weak and unforged, and the sun gave her new flesh and lessons in statecraft, but I was the one who taught her the war. Swordplay, strategy, and liberation. She was cast down, and it is our privilege to make her a weapon, an agent for the front, to raise her again, just as our standard will rise over the rebels, the revolutionaries, the anarchists, the traitors.”

Pale fingers twist a pauldron into useless scrap, effortlessly. It is discarded into the heaving sea of trash.

“First she simply wanted her kingdom returned. It took time to convince her to be a uniter; we must maximize our beachhead. She’s still in the early stages of the campaign, introducing saboteurs to the occupation, suborning their defenses, facilitating our advances, delivering us traitors. Soon she will be ready to move on their regional hub, and we will raise her to glory, and their kings will kneel and lose their crowns, and she will make a throne of them, and stand on their throats.” He stops his rambling for a moment, and then turns to you, speaking almost conspiratorially.

“She has recently identified a vulnerable asset. The daughter of a revolutionary.” A god’s daughter, then. “When she acquires it, we shall see whether she gives it up to us or not. I will think less of her if she tries to hide it from me, or thinks to give it over to my brothers. But the joke is that I will take it. There are interrogations. There are disciplines. There are humiliations. There are punishments. I have my right. I will not be denied. There is a war to win.”

It would be unwise to point out that his motives are nakedly revenge that he cannot admit to himself, rather than being driven by any sort of tactical sense. Watch how his fingers twitch with their naked need to punish the gods and their children and their servants. Try not to imagine the deep pits, the oubliettes, the prisoners lost underneath the waves of this horrible sea, alive beyond the reach of time. Try very hard not to imagine the General deciding that you, too, are on their side.

(There is, of course, even in the demon city, the hope of reprieve. There is always the chance of being fished out by demon-thieves who scurry beneath Tichtokh’s notice, unearthed by the churn of the Waste, or even being traded away as a prize so that the General receives the concessions he needs for the neverending war. Small comfort for anyone sinking to their knees in the Waste, betrayed and handed over to face a litany of their crimes against the rightful ruler of the world.)

Peregrine makes the little noise, beside you. She doesn’t blurt it out, but if she doesn’t know who he’s talking about, she knows how she can find out, and she finds this interesting, perhaps interesting enough to distract her from Uusha’s need— at least until she gets the answers she wants.

“Now, go pick up your meat. Take it to Kingeater Castle. Their little joke on the front. There you’ll find my Ven. And if she thinks to hide it from me— I have my ways. She cannot keep it from me. But unbar the door, and I will remember.” Ah. So he wants you to call on him so he can intercede very directly.

Add that to the list of things you definitely should not do.

***

Han!

The little bud shivers and gives you tiny appreciative squeaks and breathlessly thanks you for saving her from such an awful fate. It would be fairly obvious how titillating, how both scary and enticing she finds it, for anyone who wasn’t busy brooding. Which, of course, means that it soars right past your head.

By the time she falls asleep, her head resting on your shoulder, her dainty body all tucked in next to you, you’re still running over those thoughts of Machi, over and over, and the difference between you. Machi is wild, selfish, and impetuous, and she thinks any cutie she sees is hers to kiss. And after sharing what the N’yari are like with the little bud? If you remind her of Machi, she’ll make some excuse to leave you. She’ll run away from the catkisser.

And that thought hurts, doesn’t it?

All you have to do is be the opposite of those things. Be safe and tame. Be selfless. Don’t do things without thinking them through very carefully. Don’t think of Crane scoffing and telling you that you’d never be those things. You have to prove that you’re nothing like Machi.

Drop your Feral to 0, and then tell us how you try to show Lotus that you’re a good girl over the course of your trip, and how you deal with unwanted heart flutters.

(For her part, she walks without complaint, but is easily distracted; she is constantly on the lookout for whatever she finds beautiful, which is often something quite ordinary. She is cheerful, and happy to share little songs, but drifts close to you and shrinks whenever someone passes by. And she watches you when she thinks you’re not looking, all her judgment hidden by her veil.)

Sunshards

There we go. That’s her girl. Look at those soft cheeks go all flushed just for her. Even tied up and barely dressed, Rose has Chen wrapped around her little finger, and what a rush that is.

Rose from the River’s helplessness is tempered, rather strongly, by her self-assurance. When she luxuriates in Chen’s flustered reaction, it’s from a much more centered place to stand than silly little Rose, and when she turns her head and looks, properly, at Yue— just there, as Yue points to the stands, as she’s limned by magic— there’s experience in her nod, an acknowledgement of how Yue has already grown, how (unlike the careless strength of Rose from the River herself) Yue has put in the work. Receive now the approval of the demon of the ancient world, bought and sold, yours to command if you dare. She is ancient, unflappable, and proud of her companions. A thousand blessings on the Way for carrying them into her life!

Then she is smacked on her curvy little rump and she squeaks and squirms and reacts, flustered and embarrassed, like a blushing girl just out of her village, and it’s only half an act. And maybe it’s Yue who sees (though perhaps without recognizing) the way that the formerly big and formerly scary shapeshifter melts into her performance, trying to sell to everyone (and most especially herself) that she’s in need of being rescued, that Chen is the heroine today and that Rose is the damsel in such blushy, jingly, tight distress!

Is it not said:
There is no weakness like that
of the mountain that shrugs free the sky;
there is no freedom like that
of the woman who chooses to close her eyes.

Breathless Dead

Outside of Redana’s light, Skotos is a little more present. The hair is rising on the back of their neck, even though they don’t spare a glance back at their pursuers. Indeed, in the depths of the hood, they smile. Fools. Fools! Skotos walks with the mighty Alexa, and therefore, there is nothing to fear.

(Redana had been somewhat preoccupied, and Alexa had been busy, and— between one thing and another, it turns out that Skotos is blissfully innocent of any withdrawal of Athena’s favor, just as it is likely Alexa wouldn’t know why, should the hood be pulled back, this Hermetic cultist looked a little bit like Redana if you squinted— the lank yellow hair, the girlish face. Though given that only Alexa knows Mynx’s game— besides Dolce— perhaps she’d figure a part of it out.)

Skotos follows Alexa, and their eagerness is almost palpable. Soon they will have the honor of witnessing how the glorious warrior defeats her foes. Who would not be allowed to want for such a thing? Who would not be allowed to thrill at the thought of witnessing Alexa’s strength, prowess and heroism in an Azura bazaar? Just like in the stories. Any moment now.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Han!

“Once, the world belonged to the dragons.”

It’s raining harder now, and you’re already soaked to the bone from falling in the river. So it’s just natural for the two of you to be huddled up underneath a copse of trees. The fire came easily to your fingers, and for once, you didn’t even have to hide it. And she actually clapped for you! And it probably wasn’t meant to be condescending!

The little brown fox has already vanished off into the night, being very busy carrying messages for the gods, but not before giving you a look. You’re not particularly adept yet at interpreting meaningful glances from the little brown foxes, but it probably meant: don’t screw this up, bud. As if it has any room for judging you after such ruthless betrayal!

But here you are, warming yourself by the fire, with the priestess snuggled up against your shoulder for warmth, listening to the snap of the fire and the soothing roar of the rain. (She’s pulled down her hood. Her hair is brilliant blue, the kind you only get near the coast. And her eyes are just. Wow. You know? So nice to look at. Framed perfectly by those glasses.) And she’s using the Storytelling Voice, the one that makes you want to curl up under a blanket and close your eyes and listen even after it looks like you’ve fallen asleep, like back when you were a little girl.

“After the War in Heaven, the dragons were given dominion over the world by the victorious gods. The gods thought that their possessiveness would make them good caretakers, their cunning would make them excellent judges, and their strength would defend the world against every threat: the fairies, the fallen Titans, the dead below, the far-flung stars, and the deep kings.”

She pauses a moment and lets the image sink in: the enemies of the world, met by tooth and claw and thunderous Essence. A vast shadow between them and the sun. The roar of terror, descending to the earth like lightning. Your heritage, however far distant.

“But what the gods did not consider is that there is no such thing as a society of dragons. The only way that they could interact with each other was by fighting to see who was stronger and who was weaker, to take from each other their prizes. And they would rather die than share a prize; and what is dominion over the whole world but the greatest prize of all?”

Does that stir something in your own heart, Han? A possessiveness? A desire to hold things fast and protect them? An ancient avarice that sought absolute and unquestioned power and majesty? Or is your heart (stone-heart, owned heart, smothered-heart) all too human, even still?

“They fought, and they lost, they all lost, and Royal Perilous simply lost the least, and so she gathered the riches of the world to her golden bed to sleep for a thousand years, and left the world to the descendants of the dragons.” She turns to look up at you, and fire dances in the reflection caught in her lenses. “The Thunder Dragon loved these lands, and when she died her scales each became a flower. And so, when the kingdoms need her protection most, her blood quickens in a child of the flowers. It is different for the Dominion,” she concludes. “The Mother of the Host still takes mates, when the urge strikes her, and their families become great and powerful— but still hers. Always hers, even now.”

The fire snaps and crackles. The sound of the rain seeps into your spine. Her face is so close to yours. It would be so easy to reach over and do something probably very regrettable. You’re supposed to be a hero, after all. Heroes don’t yank down veils and pull trusting priestesses into kisses, no matter how pretty they are.

“Your turn,” the little bud says. She looks away, very casually. “You obviously have a lot of... experience with the N’yari. What would have happened to— to us, if you weren’t there? It was the first time I’d ever... you know, met them. Are they really...?” She sneaks a glance at you, then back to the fire, the very picture of idle curiosity and little more.

This is definitely not an opportunity to Entice her by playing up your heroism and the perils of being captured by the N’yari. Certainly not. The very idea. So what if she might look at you like you saved her from certain doom?

***

Giriel!

“The sickle,” the General murmurs through his mandibles. “Yes. Excellent. Flower-cutting. Trophy-taking. Corn-reaping. Throat-slitting. An auspicious sign.” His voice curls around the two of you like serpents. Despite yourself, you find yourself walking closer. One step. Then two. The ground underfoot is shaky.

“What boon would you have of me, little augur?” You could reach out and touch that serene mask. The impossible body behind seems blurred and distant, as if you are trying to ignore that multitude of shoulders. “Speak your desire, before I send you to the little Prince, your commander on the front.” Not optimal, most likely; you’d have to convince the warlock unleashing the powers of Hell that you, a pair of mountain witches, were there to help— and who knows if your bodies would remain? Would Uusha come and check on the two of you, your breath slow and your inner furnace cold, your bodies waiting for your return?

“Tell him we want instruction,” Peregrine says, animated, but as if on the other side of a wall. “We should learn everything about his dolls.” But is that what you want? Or do you want Peregrine to stop meddling with the dead? Or do you want to see Cathak Agata again? Or do you want some other favor from one of the Lords of Hell? What bubbles up from your heart? Whatever you could wish for seems tantalizingly close, for what could a Lord of Hell not do in service to a wish?

(Answer it in the way you might hope. Do it without breaking the world in some small way. Hinder their own plans. Act against their own natures.)

***

Kalaya!

It’s difficult to overwhelm one of the N’yari. Generally, they tend to thrive when the fighting gets hot; they rely on their strength to overcome resistance. How incredible, then, is bowling over two N’yari in a single charge. Your sword sings in the dark; swords fall to the grass from stung hands. The traveler presses her advantage against the one remaining, and slips her broad sword into the gap between armor straps; she wets its tip. The three N’yari panic, and each one’s panic feeds on the other two, and they break and run, wounded and heedless of the swords left behind: a trophy worthy of a knight.

The traveler wipes the tip of her blade off on the grass. “Little villains,” she growls. Then: “Good swordplay. Thank you.” She reaches up to adjust her hat, slid back on her skull as she fought— and the moonish light shines on her for just a moment. Long enough to read her jaw, her nose, her cheeks. Even once the brim is pulled down low— it has to be her. It has to be Ven.

Unless you’re losing your wits, pining for lost love. Knights are always doing that sort of thing. Maybe she’s really just a traveler. Or maybe she’s a tree, and the N’yari were badgers you’ve scared senseless, and none of this is real. But the risk of it not being a feverish Venus dream is too great (which, again, is a very knightly thing to think).

What do you say to this long-lost princess, now dressed as a humble pilgrim? Even as you stand there, overcome by joy, she stops and considers you, standing like a fawn unsure whether to step forward or dart back, her uncertainty palpable. She does not recognize you, but her heart remembers you regardless. (And this, too, is the sort of thing that happens in a knightly romance.)

***

Zhaojun!

The happy growl that rumbles through Machi reverberates through you, as if you were a freshly-struck gong. She does not move her eyes from your face as she reaches up and covers your chopstick-wielding hand with her own, broad and earthy and warm, warm, warm. Her ears flick with intense interest.

“You are a spirit of the flowers, then,” she purrs, even as her warband mills closer all around. “So eager to serve, just like all their pretty girls. If I follow, sweet-addled thing, will I get to keep you, too?”

The desires of Machi of the Ōei are uncomplicated. When she sees a pretty girl, she wants to have them. To own them. To feel the rush of power from being able to reduce them to blushing, squeaking, yearning messes. It is like picking flowers, wearing them, and then replanting them before they can wilt— if a flower could understand it was being picked because it was both beautiful and helpless, if a flower could squirm and moan as one long-nailed finger ran teasingly across its petals, if a flower could be bid to cook and clean and bathe and provide entertainment. So not quite exactly like a flower.

But she is interested in strength. You have to be so careful with flowers. You can be rough with the strong; you can actually flex your muscles and strive against them, and every victory is sweeter, and every defeat simply encouragement to do better next time.

So she’s caught coming and going. She wants to see if this spirit of the lowlands is a flower for display, or a worthy challenger, and either way, her entire focus is on Zhaojun herself. Not the knight. Not the girl who spurned her tonight, who she intends to keep chasing. She is so wonderfully uncomplicated like that. She sees a pretty, interesting girl, and she wants to have them, one way or another.

Her tail curls around an ankle. Her muscles tense as she prepares to roll over, to reverse the hold, to see whether Zhaojun is stone or petals. She has to know, after all. But will Zhaojun, in the face of such desire, allow it? Or will she strive and strain and match her strength against Machi and win as the N’yari do, making a great show of it? Or will she slip a knife into the brigand’s heart by belittling, humiliating, and mocking her?

However it goes, Machi has won a String on her in turn.

***

Piripiri!

“She doesn’t mean it, you know,” one of the demon-maids hisses as they fit you in a long gown. This is not loose and revealing; this one is tight and yet concealing at the same time. The corset is achingly strict, but hidden under a broad belt of gold-and-green, with the grand Green Sun of Hell offset to your right. The lowest layer of skirt is enough to hobble you to tiny, demure steps, but the outermost layer, descending into a long train, is voluminous. The shoulders are so snug that you cannot lift your hands over your head, but they are lost in the long sleeves (and the stiflingly thick gloves). And a demon is dragging her fingernails up the back of your neck. “She wouldn’t tear it out. She just gets like that when she’s insulted by an ape.”

“She would,” says one of the attendants locking the high-heeled sandals on your feet (the locks then to be hidden underneath another layer of silk). “Not tearing it out, but she’d turn it to lead. Or steal your mouth.”

“Or, if we asked her nicely,” the first continues, “she’d let us stuff your mouth so, so full of our work, just to see your cheeks go red. Because you would, wouldn’t you? Silly mortal girls always get so embarrassed. It’s much more fun than lead tongues, which are terrible for kissing.”

“And we’d have to find other places to kiss you without a mouth,” a third says as she paints your nails in swirling white and black. She catches your eye and then does the lewdest lick of her lips. “So maybe you wouldn’t mind too much if we got you in trouble.”

“I love their legs,” the first croons. A tail’s end winds around your load-bearing ankle. “They’re so spindly and cute. Though this one is very spindly, isn’t she, girls? Look at how tight we got that corset.” She runs one thumb up the small of your back, lingering on each string.

“But quite pretty for one of the apes,” the third continues. “Maybe if we’re lucky, that fool Prince will take offense at this one, too. And we’ll get to undress her all over again.” She runs one hand up your calf, and while her eyes are lost in the fringe of her hat, that grin is as inviting as it is licentious.

The Laema snaps her tail like a whip, and all three fall sheepishly silent. “It is beneath my daughters to dally with it and its kind,” she hisses from where she sulks, looking through engraved tablets for inspiration. “Humiliating enough that we must let our works be wasted on them. Traitors, one and all.”

“We’re just tormenting her, mama! Every mortal girl is very tormented if you find the right compliment,” the first says, brightly, in a familiar sort of way. Even Hell has its daughters who learn early how to lie to get away with what they really want. “For example,” she adds, draping a heavy necklace over your shoulders, adding to the weight. “This mortal looks like she’s very good at lifting her skirts. Maybe we can ask her to give us a demonstration while we wait for her courter to come sweep her off her feet~”

“Every Prince needs a consort, after all,” the third adds, working her way up your front under the excuse of checking your corset. “And what’s a consort without... experience~?”

The Laema smoothly plucks that unfortunate third off you like a leech and tosses her into a wardrobe; the doors swing shut, the lock clicks, and muffled pounding and squealing emerges from inside, ominously dwindling down to still silence. The other two demons attending you very quickly clam up.

If the experience is making you even more firmly against Hell and all its works, mark a Condition out of sheer humiliation. If you see a little humanity in these daughters of Hell, conversely, give them a String. Then model the second dress for the Laema and prove to her you are elegant enough for the constricting, hobbling design.

Breathless Dead

In a moment that is only for themselves, Skotos may be found at the edge of one of the hangar bays, even while Redana praises the Alcedi Plover pilots, reminding them that their skill, their prowess, and their courage may be necessary should the Azura seek a display of force, or worse. All eyes are on the radiant princess, save for those of Skotos, who looks out upon the violet shroud of space.

Who is to say what they think? They are anonymous, after all, a mere shadow. From the rest of the hangar deck, they are nothing but a faint silhouette against the shining clouds, the color washed from their robes. There is no one to witness Skotos reaching down and wringing at their own robe in silent torment.

Redana has well-considered opinions on the Azura, built brick by brick from lessons on history, theology, statecraft, milhis, and naval strategy. Can you imagine a princess who simply wished for a place where dreams came true? Where there was adventure in abundance, where you could see a new wonder every day, where the worlds and the people were strange and decadent and perilous? Tellus provided everything: true civilization, more wonders than could be catalogued over a lifetime, wealth in such abundance that she could have demanded something new every day if she had the courage and imagination to do so, and strength. Such strength. Even now, she is like a monofilament thread cast into the void, unbreakable and perilous herself.

Who can say what Skotos thinks? Does anyone care? How difficult would it be for them to slip away, to become another shade in the shadow of towers? Redana would know. Redana would not let them. Redana alone always knows where her Skotos is. But even she could not speak concerning Skotos’s dreams, if dreams they have.

She could not tell whether they gazed overlong on Manaemede, if the avarice of the Magi is awake in their heart, if they wish to walk among the glories, to be perhaps the last to ever look upon the trophies and masterpieces of the Shah, perhaps to even steal away something to be their own, just so that not everything of the Shah would yet pass from memory and being. She could not tell whether in longing they looked upon Igorthian, imagining Plover duels through that half-formed skeleton of a fortress, even as the storm raged all around them, each moment a test of their determination and prowess. Not even whether they dream of walking long upon the shores of Salib, of reclining upon the sand, their yellow robes indistinguishable from the shining shores, and waiting patiently forever and a day until some miracle was theirs to behold: the survivor of a crash washing up upon the shore, pursued for the medallion she holds tight to her chest, or some princess whose chariot breaks down, the result of sabotage by her disloyal servants, or a noble warrior casting her saber into the water with a despairing cry— and then Skotos could be pleased, knowing themselves a part of that story. Perhaps— perhaps even— they could—

Thunderous applause, like the falling of warheads on the desolate Saliban plains. Skotos wavers like the dream at the edge of sleep, a figure half-remembered. Bloodless fingers can for a moment be seen digging deep into the folds of the robe. They sway in the throes of an unwitnessed agony, and almost reach out, as if to ask Olean to wait— please— she just—

Then they are gone. Redana sweeps from the hangar, basking in the praise of her vassals, and it is haunted no longer. And of the torment of Skotos, no sign remains. Thus, it never was.

Breathless Dead

Skotos does not share in the glory of Redana. Every sunbeam casts its shadow, after all, and here they are, off and to the left. If they were ambitious, they might be pained by how perfect, how effortless a princess Nero’s heir has become. They might compare themselves unfavorably to her; after all, surely the difference between her and them is that Skotos does not have the virtue and character to be like Redana. The universe is arrayed in hierarchy; the high ascend to their rightful places, and the low settle in their appropriate spheres.

This, then, is where Skotos belongs: lacking in charisma, dignity, presence, and honors. They are all but anonymous, a saffron robe and an all-shrouding hood. Beneath Redana, beneath Dolce, and most definitely beneath Bella, lost in the cosmos, drowned under shining waves.

The most that they are willing or required to influence proceedings is when they offer Alexa a glass of wine while Dolce speaks, mutely. Not because Skotos knows about Alexa’s new tongue, but simply because they have a tray of wine for the toast to the captain. Really, the wine is the notable thing here; Skotos is interchangeable with any other member of the cult, even with furniture if you’re not really paying attention.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Zhaojun!

“You are obviously a spirit of great power,” Machi says, her voice reverent. “You even talk in riddles like a sage.”

Then she smiles. It’s positively feral. “Which means when I defeat you and force you to grant my wishes, you’ll be able to bring our warband to glory!”

This is why comparative theology is an important subject.

The heavenly emissary will find herself assailed on all sides by both sweaty catgirls and desires of glory, adoration, love, plunder, physical striving, and victory. The uncomplicated but yearning desires of simple girls.

Their plan is simple: they mean to wrestle the emissary down and twist limbs until she concedes and agrees to grant their wishes. This might be a somewhat undignified way of being able to manipulate them all the more easily. It might also be a shame that the heart of the emissary cannot endure. Will it come to swords and firewands? Or will Zhaojun somehow outwrestle half a dozen baying N’yari?

***

Kalaya!

It is moon-dappled night and you cannot sleep.

You have encamped on the far side of the river that runs between Rose and Mount Fang. It is the quiet hours of the night; the rain is a gentle pitter-patter on the canvas over your head, and the insects sing in their orchestras. The cooking-fire is simmering low embers beneath its umbrella. The air is warm and wet all around you, though that’s hardly unusual. These are the Flower Kingdoms, after all.

You get up and slip out of the tent you are (by her request) sharing with the priestess, who teased you not to peek as she got ready for bed, and seemed perhaps a little disappointed that you didn’t. She is surely asleep. Not that you notice the glimmer of light beneath her lids as she watches you go.

A walk. That’s what you need. Your legs will still be sore come morning, but all of this destiny mess is going to crack your head in two if you don’t move. You walk in the muted silver light of the moon hidden behind the clouds, through pale shadows, trying to exorcise the confusion that swells in your heart like mist rising off the river.

Then you hear it: the clash of swords. Your sword is already in your hand, even before you draw close and realize that it is one traveler by night, hidden in cloak and straw hat, against three N’yari. The traveler weaves a net of steel around themselves, but even so, it is clear the N’yari will win this fight inevitably; the traveler must fight as hard as they can against three raiders lazily darting in and out. Go and even the odds.

***

Han!

The little bud stops to think. She really considers. But she’s still quick to come to her conclusion.

“No. No, I’m not going to change my mind. Unless you’re trying to tell me I’m not wanted, but I think you’d just say that if that’s what you meant. You’re very... earnest. Simple, even.” That... didn’t sound like she knew how that sounded. “Besides, that’s probably not true. If people see that you’re looking after a priestess, they’re more likely to excuse crass behavior outright or ask me to correct you, rather than being gossips about it, and— oh!! Hello!!”

A little brown fox darts out of the shadows and zooms over to the priestess, who kneels down and greets one of the messengers of the Sapphire Mother as if it’s a beloved family pet. She even takes its little paws in her hands!

“Mmhm? Really? Oh, thank you.” Yip! Yip yip! Arf! Tail wag! “Oh, while you’re here, what do you think of her? I think— mmhm! That’s what I thought, too. And she’s... oh, gosh!” She looks up at you and, even though it’s dark, you can feel the sparkliness. (And, conversely, Incredibly You Energy coming off the tattletale fox.) “Of course! How could I not realize? You’re a daughter of the Thunder Dragon! That’s why you’re so heroic!”

She lets her veil fall to one side so she can give that dumb brat fox kissies on its dirty muddy face, and then fusses it back into place. “Well, that settles it. I’ve always wanted to meet one of the dragon-blooded! Eee, this is so! So! Just so exciting!!”

***

Piripiri!

“Finally,” the Laema hisses, adjusting her bulk on the couch so that she can get a better look at you, “one of them with deeply-buried taste and sense. Though it should know to address its betters appropriately: it is to use my terrible Lord when speaking to the Prelapsarians. Still, we will forgive this lapse in decorum the once. Forget again and we will not be so generous.” Pointing out that discrete gender markers in address are in fashion these days would be a foolhardy thing to do.

One long scarlet nail the size (and sharpness) of a sword lifts your chin. “If we were to use other colors for it, we would draw from page-whites and boar-blacks. It might like gaudy colors like most of its kind, but that is because it is ignorant of sumptuary law. Blue is for Our Mother of Law, yellow for the Enlightened Dancer, silver for the Mirror-Copses, red for the Dreamer. But the Sky-Twister and the Unspoken Word allow for white and black for one of its station. And of course, anything can look good in our King’s colors.”

“Well, there she is.” The warlock marches through the attendants with the arrogance of someone who knows they are untouchable. The Laema withdraws her nail with a warning hiss, and you can look at— ah. She’s dressed for the road. And she stopped to gawk at you.

“You’re lucky, you know,” the warlock sneers. “I’ve got better fish to fry. The daughter of the Sapphire Mother thinks herself safe away from her mother’s arms. Don’t think she’ll keep you company here, though.” She reaches out and takes your chin between forefinger and thumb. “I intend to keep you close. How I’ll make you scream, you impudent little worm. I’ll burn the thoughts out of your worthless skull. When I’m done with you, you’ll be useless for anything that’s not serving the true Empress of the Kingdoms.”

(She’s posing. Posturing. Trying to work up something in herself as much as she’s trying to scare you. A real disciplinarian would be stern and precise, not looking like she’s a stupid impulse away from—)

She knots her fingers in your hair and pulls you in for a kiss. She’s sloppy, uses her teeth, is trying to prove something. She kisses like a demon. Perhaps she’s only had the chance to learn from them.

“Lots more of that when I come back for you,” she whispers into your lips. “As much as I want. Everything in these kingdoms is mine by right, after all.”

“Is it done?” The Laema sounds like she’s as impressed with the warlock as you are (which is to say, absolutely not at all). “Our commerce is over, Prince Ven of the Brass City, and your master’s credit will be charged. That is all.”

“No,” Ven says. “Not until I say you’re done.” That was a flash of anger in her eyes when the Laema pointed out, spitefully, that she’s beholden to others in Hell. For a moment that anger could have been directed at you, but it seems she’s decided to be petty and nasty right back. “I am not satisfied with this outfit. An old crone wouldn’t be caught dead wearing something this out of style. Tear it all off and make something that actually lives up to your reputation, rag-weaver.”

The Laema launches into an apoplectic fit of cursing in the First Language. It is extremely and uncomfortably comprehensible; the meaning and sensation of each curse, being forced to eat rotting meat and being stabbed in the spine by a lover and being whipped by the dogs of hell, is slamming into the back of your mind like a rock. Ven smirks, having won this stupid dominance dispute, and then “pats” you on the cheek just hard enough to sting. “I’ll see you when I come back, little bud. And that’s when your obedience training will really begin.”

And that’s when she miscalculates; she leaves you in the Laema’s care assuming that the Laema will be immediately paying attention to you and that her assistants wouldn’t help you cause mischief. Both of these, you of course realize, are incorrect assumptions; the Laema is incandescent and tearing through a chest of dresses with her nails (and the violence with which she does so is proof enough of the dangers of Hell), and the assistants are draping themselves over you and languidly complaining about having to get rid of all their hard work without actually getting started.

***

Giriel!

You are in a room deep within Uusha’s sanctum. Keep hold to that. You are in the candlelit dark. The air is stale. You are sitting on a firm stool.

It is just that your hearts have also slid through the door you opened to the Demon City, drawn by its gravity, and found yourself on the Wrack-waste. It is the detritus of ten thousand battlefields, heaped up upon themselves: broken weapons, bloodstained scraps of cloth, torn canvas tents, blackened spurs of wood. The wing of some magnificent flying ship juts out of a dune, its golden ornamentation corroded and rusting away, its feathers all plucked and torn. This is the birthing-place of the Wrack-dolls, assembled from all around you.

The General arrives. Tichtokh breaches the surface of the Waste like a centipede-whale. He is the size of a tower, hundred-handed, thousand-handed, each one clammy and pale, with too many fingers, each arm wrapped in bandages and quilted cloth and burnished leather, each arm jutting up against the one further along. Each hand has its part to play: supporting him as he rears up above the tarnished sea, grabbing at that which has reached the surface and examining it, weaving together tattered banners and ruptured breastplates and chipped spearheads. He wears a serene white mask, framed with coarse black hair; his mandibles churn, visible just underneath its rim. He brings it low, even as more and more of him catches up to where you stand. You are nearly as tall as the span between his lip and brow.

“Augurs! Oracles! Diviners! Prognosticators!” His voice is a fluting multitude, a legion of boys too young for the battlefield, lilting above the bray of trumpets and the beat of drums. “How goes the War? What are our victory-omens, our triumph-signs, our inevitabilities, our certainties?”

The General never accepted that he lost. Or, rather, he is the aspect of the Broken King that will never accept that defeat, complete and utter as it was. By turns deluded and shrewd, gregarious and apoplectic, as likely to conscript you and offer his munitions as to imprison you on suspicion of espionage, he is perilous— and you leave his presence only by his sufferance, as long as his attention is on you.

(Though that is not as long as might be feared. He is very busy. There is so much to be done. Armies to be sewn. Munitions to be inspected. Stratagems to consider. Fair-weather allies to beseech. Temporary setbacks to lament. Tunnels to burrow. Saboteurs to sentence.)

Without waiting for you to finish an answer, he cocks his head and exclaims: “Ha! From the thousand-seven-fifty-seventh front! Straight from the beachhead! Deliver, deliver! Bring your news from the front— unless you have brought us more traitors?”

Two hands brandish a blue rope, pulled taut between them. No, not a rope. The veils of priestesses of the Sapphire Court, knotted together. Too new to be old trophies.

The General accepts your String, Giriel. You should treat any further roll of 7 or 10 in the scene as being a 6 or a 9, respectively, for he will spend it then.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

“I will be yours,” Constance says. “We will forget knights and swords and violences. I will bring you down to the stones and the waters and we will lay down the wizard’s sword with the other offerings. You will not die. I will not let you die. But there will be things you must shed, to be mine.”

This was not the plan. To give her a true choice. To lay out a road they both could walk.

“Name and title and sword, my bear. Cross and blood and chalice, my heart. They are the weights around your neck. If you cling to them, they will bring you to the end: a sinner who meets her fate. Your faith and your martyr need your guilt, your destruction. If you choose life, you will need to become a new thing. A champion of the old ways, shameless and free. And deathless I will keep us, far from famine and far from the King, until Adam’s kin fade from Britain and we all awake again.”

Humanity demands you be punished, Robena. That is the weight, the calculation: why do you hide from me, Adam? Why do you cover yourself, Eve? Because of what you have done, you will labor, you will struggle, and you will know pain, and you will die. But the land and the blood and the wheel are older than the garden, and there are stranger apples off Britain’s shores.

“Cast them all off and take my hand, Robena. If you do not, you will die, and there will be nothing I can do to save you.”

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Constance makes the penitent knight wait. Perhaps not as long as she could have, for fear of losing her, but now that she has control of the moment again, she is loath to lose it carelessly. Her pale fingers drift in the ice-cold water.

“I do not play with the dead,” she intones, looking deep into the lights flickering on the water, pinpricks in the shadow. “And you are dead already, Sir Coilleghille. When you meet that axe, you will not get back up and gayly offer to meet it again in a year.”

She pauses. Her fingers break the surface of the water, and she lets them lie invitingly on the brim, instead. “If you meet that axe.”

She turns, and in that wan light her dress is a thing of scales ready to be shed. “You never asked for my help, Sir Coilleghille. Would you do so now? The dead can be cheated of their due, after all.”

Sunshards

Of course Rose knew from the moment that Keron said it that the wolf was her friend, Yue. Admittedly, up until that moment, Rose had been tilting her head just the littlest bit to see through her gold-beaded hair, just out of the corner of her eye, wondering why Yue’s girlfriend Hyra was coming out to fight for her. But the Countess would never be fooled by appearances! That meant that, somehow, amazingly, unbelievably, Yue was a wolf now! Maybe being a wolf was contagious. Many other sorts of curses were, when hearts got all tangled up and tied tight together. (She shivers and bites down on the showy knot in one of her silk scarves, tied between her full lips. For display, not use; Rose is demonstrating her self-control today.) But that meant that she’s besties with a fox and a wolf, which makes her such a lucky girl! They’re noble creatures, after all. Yes, even the wonderful wish-granting foxes, even if they are sneaky and tricky and get good girls in trouble sometimes!

Besides, now that she knows what she’s supposed to be looking for, peering between her braids all gleaming in the sunlight? Of course that’s Yue. Yue doesn’t care about being cool, the way princesses and monsters do, the way that Hyra does. Like Rose herself, Yue is blissfully willing to toss aside her dignity in order to be joyful. Watch the way that she dashes gleefully across the field, so quick that Rose can’t keep up and avoid getting in trouble at the same time! Instead of being caught moving her head, Rose stares carefully at Tianic and waits, and— there she goes!

(Something buried under silk sashes and perfumes stirs briefly, wiggles in its shining chains, and chuckles to itself. The first point to Yue the Sun Farmer. Well done. A blow only to defeat a Squire, but that in and of itself is incredible growth for a herder of sun-grazing sheeps.)

When Tianic hits Yue in the side with that broad sweep? Rose jerks her head up and lets out a garbled gasp! So teenie-tiny that doubtless Yue can’t even hear it, but Rose still feels the guiding smack of the crop against her lovely cheek for being caught at all. It hasn’t even left her rump before she’s dutifully back in position, as still as your average non-ambulatory piece of furniture, but don’t be fooled, she’s looking desperately out of the corner of her eye, and... Yue’s okay! Her veil flutters ever-so-slightly as she lets out the tiniest, most controlled sigh of relief, and the crop does not come down again, because it might have just been the wind, after all, and everyone is clapping so loudly, and Rose is doing such a good job keeping her back steady, even if she’s got her own cushion of sorts squished up against her knees.

But it’s just getting harder and harder. It’s taking all of her focus and determination to stay still and quiet, a pretty little trophy, because, oh, if she’d just been a little better or smarter or usefuller, then maybe the Countess would have let her cheer Yue on! If only she was dancing on the wall right now with the colors of Yue of the Terraced Lake and Squire Tianic of the Sky Castle fluttering from her sleeves, free to cry out and move, move, lose herself in the dance, step by step on that narrow arena wall, to let Yue know that she was appreciated! Her heart hammers against her knees, desperate to break free and wave at Yue and scream for her to win, or at the very least, to show the whole Sky Castle her very best!

Round and round and round Yue goes, having stolen her opponent’s sword, but that’s when there’s a gasp and the audience turns its attention, for just a moment, up! And Rose glances away from the perpendicular arena, just before the magical moment when Yue the Wolf becomes Yue the Sword Maiden, and just imagine how surprised she’ll be!

But that’s when Chen comes down. For her. For her. She feels Karon remove those feet from her back as if they’re happening on the other side of the Sunshards. Chen plummets through the air, dress swirling magnificently all about her, hair played with by the envious fingers of the wind, free in a way that little Rose could only dream of earning, and that for the better, because she would probably stumble right off that sword, and then where would she be?

Chen comes down before her helpless girlfriend, the picture of grace and poise, compared to which the whole world might as well be made entirely of a pack of wild Yues, exuberant and careless and happily clumsy. She reaches down and tilts Rose’s dainty chin up with one finger, the delicate silk of the veil pooling on Chen’s palm, and sees a slave-girl exploding with joy as radiant as the sun, as free as Yue down below in this moment to simply revel in the compliment, the attention, the yearning, the being wanted, and all the scenarios and ideas and guiltily desired betrayals go out of her silly little head all at once and all that is left is: ”CHNN!!!”

She belts out her girlfriend’s name at the top of her lungs, around that expensive and oversized knot, beaming and wide-eyed and smiling, helplessly smiling; not even Keron’s most terrible threats of discipline could stop her, not even she herself could stop the way her face melts into delight.

And then—

A candle finally snuffs out.

Chen gets to see that sudden awareness fill Rose’s eyes, gets to see those huge round dark circles narrow into slits, gets to see that joyous innocence get swallowed by centuries of experience and self-control and hurt and denial, and when Rose from the River looks her in the eye, it’s suddenly like a bird being hypnotized by a snake, isn’t it? All of that strength and power and attention suddenly focused to a razor point.

And Chen gets a front row seat to Rose from the River considering her position, considering changing her shape, considering bursting out of her pretty silks and ropes, considering becoming again that terrible monk of battle and war. Rose’s expression melts into sheepish half-irony, but she can’t hide the sincerity and desire underneath it: to get to stay Rose, simply Rose, for now, for as long as Chen will let her be.

She wiggles her shoulders to devastating effect, showing off how tightly her arms are bound behind her, how valiantly her top struggles to contain her, and widens her eyes quite deliberately, hamming it up, and that smile, if anything, is even sharper and freer because of the secret the two of them share.

“Chnn,” she moans. “Pllsss, savf muh, sayf yuuh Russ~” Yours. Yours. Are you paying attention, Chen? She’ll feel guilty for this later. She’ll struggle with the Way and how she wants, so much, to be allowed to swoon into your arms instead. But right now, she wants you, she wants to be yours, and as long as that’s true, she doesn’t care whether you win or lose. Might even sabotage you, if you let her. You look so cute wiggling and blushing, after all.

You’re allowed to blush right now, by the way, and stare, and shamelessly ogle. Encouraged, even. Why do you think she’s wiggling helplessly for you, silly girl? What’s a prize without being admired and shown off?

[Rose happily gives her girlfriend that String and then counter-volleys with an 11 Entice broadside right to the face.]