Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

It is inhumane to keep an echo in a cage too small for it. Echoes, after all, are creatures of wide spaces, grand vistas, imperial opera houses. They aren’t made to be crammed into a ballroom one after another, until they’re biting and clawing at everyone, too distraught to be safe. The ear, overwhelmed, rebels; the breakdown in communication causes riots in the feverish brain, even for those looking down and away from the arcing, spitting ELF lines. Even so, in the midst of the chaos, the Alcedi make a ring of death around their princess, proof against any mortal assault.

A shame, then, that Bella no longer may be counted as a mortal foe. She is become a thing that no spear may pierce, and around her there is ruin and catastrophe, and death without intention. The spear-ring breaks when a pillar collapses around them, struggling to reform, and as Redana calmly calls out orders that cannot be properly heard over the tumult, a stone table is sent carelessly end-over-end, hurtling towards her at desperate speeds. Not, of course, that Bella intended such a thing to happen; she simply did not care to see what happened to the table she tossed aside.

The table smashes through the far wall and into the corridors beyond. Redana lies on the floor, wreath fallen almost carelessly past her head.

Skotia lies on top of her.

“You’re being played, your highness,” he breathes in her ear, the dulcet words cutting through the chaos like the spear after it leaves the fingertips. “The Imperial Assassin, Sagakhan— she plays a dangerous game.” Nuance, pared down into words with their desperation cloaked by chivalry. “The flame is roses and the smoke is briars.”

He half-heaves himself up, leaning on one elbow. He leaves a dark, wet stain on the side of that beautiful white dress. Haven’t you noticed it’s dangerous in here?

“I’ve got her,” he mouths carefully, knowing it’s understood. “Save yourself.” Then there is an arm hooking under his shoulder and he is tossed aside by an Alcedi veteran, landing roughly in the remains of a mural. The Imperial Princess accepts a hand to help her to her feet as her retinue closes ranks around her once more.

It remains to be seen whether Redana will accept the command of a handsome stranger; it remains to be seen whether she, alone, recognizes him. Or perhaps, once she is in the dark, and she hears the snap of the growing flames, only then will she know the remembered eyes, the taut voice, the hair falling loose at his jaw.

And it remains to be seen how Skotia can possibly fulfill his oath without dying in the process, as Bella gives full throat to her rage.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

What’s the purpose of grilling someone over a messenger client when you’re going to meet up anyway? That’s the sort of courtesy that you extend to a friend, not to someone you’re meeting for business. Different registers, different modes and different codes. Besides, showing up without having done any reading into Ferris’s e-footprint would have been rude. Slapdash. “Explain to me everything that I should have figured out on my own time, so I can waste at least half of the time we have together.” Ych. No, thank you. (The comma there might not be grammatically correct, but it’s a comfort to place.)

[Rolling for Investigation, barely scratching an 8. Fortunately, you have to match rather than beat target numbers in HWI.]

You know, the hardest part of the investigation was figuring out how to talk to her without sounding like an overenthusiastic activist on her first social media account. Either that, or someone who’s given up hope already. How does the saying go? Take it easy, but take it? That’s got to be the trick. Someone who understands but isn’t here to chat her ear off. A messenger, not a vizier; a support, not a carry.

When she feels like she’s reached some sort of tipping point, some sort of watershed where she’s running downhill in the opposite direction, 3V lets herself in with the casualness of a cat that knows it is allowed to come and go as it pleases. (And all places are alike to me. / Now I will go out again and listen to the dark voices.) The sliding door catches a bit, squeaks.

“Well! You’ve got a bit of a view from up here,” Vesna says. (Not the first acknowledgment she’s made of Ferris. There was an inclination of the head, a gesture of the fingers— I’ll be there in a moment. Ferris has got to understand the importance, right? How does she stay here and not have the weight of it crush her?) “Thank you so much for the invitation to come out here! It really is something, isn’t it? The whole of it, the view and the climb and the poetry.”

She still has terrible posture when she’s trying to get comfortable, socially. She leans forward on the seat opposite Ferris, sunglasses perched precariously on her forehead, elbows on her knees. “So! Mind if I record? I can switch over to long scratch, but you’ll have to slow down for me. I really should have questions, but I don’t want to tell you where you’re going with this, especially since you sent the first email! I’m all ears, then! Virtual or otherwise.”

The long scratch (she knows already that Ferris absolutely is going to ask her for it) is going to be bad. She’ll be lucky if she can decipher it later. But she’s done the research already, knows well enough to ask and well enough to have a pulp-paper spiral ring in one pocket with a chewed-cap blue sitting neatly down the spine. Like a real reporter, even. Look at me now!

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

3V feels the necessity of this being important with a sensation like her bones trying painlessly to push their way out through her skin. It’s as if the importance this mountain, this view demands has made itself suddenly known inside of her and everything else is being displaced, like tipping a fridge into a bathtub. Because if this isn’t important, then the effort of bringing all this up here was wasted, and (even more importantly) 3V herself would have proven herself to have no ability to appreciate something that generation after generation was moved by, would have let a world of virtual mountains and skyscrapers and designed-not-emergent environments cauterize her sensitivity to a really, really big rock.

So she walks back and forth, rocks on her heels, and tries her very absolute hardest to let this feeling have some time to breathe for her. To follow that slight stirring of meaning, scrambling and scrabbling after it, hand outstretched. Metaphorically. Mostly her hands are in the pockets of her Nice Coat. Sunglasses and a faux-fur ruff are unusual accruements for a modern shaman-heroine, but she’d like to think she makes them work.

The hike’s part of it. An inextricable part of it. You’ve got to have a journey, says the motorcycle-psychopomp of Aevum. (Aevum! Aevum! Aevum whose soul is electricity and banks, whose poverty is the specter of genius! That’s a grisly connection to be making, isn’t it? And honestly not the most accurate one. Molech’s not the city, but an idea. An egregore, and not the kind you farm midgame.) That’s part of the weight and necessity for meaning to be found here, because the journey adds its own hunger to it.

Ah, but this is all so pretentious, isn’t it? Like her high school poetry journal, all tarot and gods and glass cities on the moons of Jupiter, just far enough away that she could make the argument they’re not seen because the telescopes look right through them. Before she got big into a different sort of consolidated legendarium. Anyway, that’s why the thought of writing poetry about this flits through her for just a moment before being dismissed with a shrug.

She skirts the poem instead, and stares into the vast world stretching out above, and don’t you worry, she’ll go knock and get herself let in soon enough. It’s really up to her host whether she, used to her isolation and yet yearning for a connection, is interested in coming outside and interrupting Vesna trying to let this moment breathe her breaths, or trusts her well enough to wait until 3V’s felt it pass and gets itchy to move on. Meditation’s nothing if there’s not constant motion and meaning-creation to let the animal mind chase until everything becomes a white heat.

Breathless Dead

Skotia takes a moment to recover from that kiss. How could he not? It stole his breath, his sense, and his composure all at once. His lip throbs a one-two beat, an ache that sends his mind reeling. Bella is strong, fierce, and possessive. No small wonder that the loss of the imperial princess hurt her so much; she is desperate to hold onto the things she has.

The hiss of ozone makes old memories stir in his head, and for a moment his blue eye is cold as ice as it sketches the paths of lightning. The Ianuspater does not judge Skotia the way that it would judge Redana Claudius, and so its impression of the room is different. After all, Skotia is an agent of love— and that is what unfolds for him. The red strings, the tapestry of desires and needs and bindings that hold everyone here.

Skotia, the dark stranger, marked by the maid of Tellus, sees as no one else here can. He sees not just the clash of arms but the hearts that beat underneath each blow. He sees the great well of gravity that Bella has become, and knows he is tumbling fast into it. And he sees clearly the shape of the war of assassins, for they too work in desire…

[Miraculously, Skotia managed a 10 on Look Closely. So tell us about the war of assassins, and how it could hurt or help Skotia’s quest to make amends, about what secret lies hidden or askew in this scene, and— if you have the time— of Princess Redana and what she will do next.]

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Piripiri!

Now comes the wait. The message will have to be relayed to the Red Wolf, after all, and perhaps she will not be available immediately: after all, you have used the white lotus. What is more interesting, however, is how Azazuka watches you carry out this rite.

“You’re sending a signal, aren’t you?” She’s clever, but not sharp or clued in enough to know who. You may want to give yourself plausible deniability, to obfuscate the connection between you and the Red Wolf, the handsome face of the Dominion.

Or did you choose to do this beside her on purpose? Were you, perhaps, whether you knew or not, intending to show off a little? Certainly she seems more interested, leaning closer; is it not enough for you to be a duelist and a merchant, but also a daughter of dragons, a worker of little miracles?

How exciting you must be, heroine! How better to win a girl’s heart?

Oh, perhaps you will argue: I needed to make sure she is not in trouble. Or perhaps you will say: it is not right for the weak to fend for themselves. Maybe even: she is my gift to the Red Wolf, and I do not want to misplace her.

But she is looking at you, daughter of Hymair, and perhaps you do not recognize the danger that you are in: the danger of being entirely too winning for your own good. For when has Azazuka ever seen a thing and been denied it, save for that which was deemed too dangerous for her? And how could she ever think of you, her savior, as dangerous?

***

Giriel!

The leaves resolve, for a moment, into the form of a high tower, caught as it crumbles. Disaster. Ruin. Woe. Everything about this is going to go wrong— even for Ven.

Another sign: now the tower is a banner. War. Soldiers. The Dominion, possibly— but you know that it is much more likely to be the General.

A third sign: the petals of the red dahlia mixed with the snapdragon: in its darker meaning, then. Deception, lies, betrayal. What else do you expect from the Broken King? The way the stems lie together, there in the center: cross-purposes.

Put them all together: Ven, herself, is doomed to betrayal, or means to betray. The General— ah. You remember, now. He knows Ven has a prize (the daughter of a revolutionary, some god of the Flower Kingdoms) and means to seize it, seize her, whether Ven offers or no. Perhaps Ven knows and means to betray her Hellish master over the matter of a simple priestess, but it is more likely that Ven simply hopes to keep the priestess away from Hell for her own reasons— and will not succeed.

If you do not save Melody of Silver Bells, Melody will find herself one way or another trapped beneath that sea of war’s flotsam and jetsam to suffer. But Ven does not want to give Melody up, does not intend for Melody’s veil to join that twisted blue rope wrung between the General’s fingers. That might save her from the worst of Han’s fury, then.

Sunshards

Rose from the River falls, but (in a strange reversal of her battle with half of a castle and a naginata-wielding dragon) she does so gracefully. She hops from coin to coin, ruby to sapphire to statue, as if there was nothing at all unusual about the sight, as if she did so every day of the week and twice on Sundays. Her skirt is blown quite up by the wind, but she barely pays it any mind— and, besides, if you’re looking, aren’t those legs worth seeing in all their glory, anyway?

Her serenity is a fitting counterpoint to the wildly flailing, bucking, squirming fox trying to figure out both how to survive the fall (her current plan being “convince somebody to stop me from falling”) and how to grab as much of the treasure tumbling all around her as possible.

Whoosh! Scoop! Squish! Cyanis is picked up and cradled like the most beautiful of princesses by a silenced, smug monk. Her muffled pleas to be untied are met with a boop on her cutie nose and an intensifying of Rose’s smugness. Look at where your pursuit of vain riches and double-triple-trucie-crossies got you, little wish-thief! Smooshed up against the soft silks and firm body of Rose from the River, and the two of you definitely have some discussions to have about, oh, tricking a poor mind-locked girl into aiding and abetting fox crimes, heartlessly throwing her underneath a Countess-shaped bus (not that you have ever seen one, little fox), and attempting to escape your cutie jail sentence.

But then Rose from the River is distracted by a beautiful, perfect kiss. The sort that makes her press Cyanis’s face into paradise to be smothered while she half melts like a squeeing handmaiden. They did it! They really did it! Looking at the two, Rose from the River knows that she no longer has to worry about protecting Yue the Sun Farmer, even if she’s worth more money than the entire world could scrape together. Hyra has Yue well in hand, and if there were ever two girls who deserved to have adventure together, it was those two.

Which means that, really, her part in this adventure should be over. She should sling Cyanis over one shoulder, inform Yue of her windfall, and continue on her way. Unless something wonderful were to happen to her in turn, the sort of thing that would keep her away from her Devotion to the Way, if only for a little longer; a reason to delay Cyanis’s cutie jailing and her own pilgrimage across this beautiful and ever-surprising world. Something to keep her in this story— or someone.

Chen, darling? That’s your cue.

[Rose from the River finally uses her Gallant Rescue to take a string on Cyanis, having Defied Disaster with Grace and scored a hot, hot 11.]

Breathless Dead

Picture Skotia, held in the arms of the Praetor. Picture his golden mask, perched on his nose, its eyes flushed hot pink, its fringe drifting down his neck like a pretty silk veil, changed from a confident disguise to something demure and humiliating with one careful talon. Picture the way he holds himself to avoid flashing the flesh of his well-shaped thigh, or worse, the delicate lace, the bow now half undone by a probing thumb, knowing that Bella could nudge him open with careless ease, fingers pressed to his lips. Imagine the adoring, wondering look in his mismatched eyes, how he stares up at Bella as if he had known her all his life, had known her as simply Bella the maid, Bella the pet, and suddenly sees her as Bella the woman, Bella the Praetor, Bella Triumphant.

And even so, Skotia hesitates. He does not blurt out fealty, but considers Bella for longer than she would likely care to be considered. Aphrodite’s eyes, on the pair, are hot coals, hotter than the stub of his cigarette. In a moment like this, words have meaning. Oaths that cannot be broken are made in moments like this.

Imagine being seen for who you are, the song goes. Imagine being accepted anyway. Imagine being chosen, over and over again. Imagine being given a second chance.

“I belonged to you the moment our eyes met,” he concludes, finally. “And if the Rift slipped between our arms, I’d still be yours for as long as it took us to cross. Because I am yours until you release me, my Praetor.” And he does stand on tiptoe, and the fringe of his mask is such a thin thing between the heat of his lips and Bella’s neck, and he mouths her name like a hymn. Bella.

(And it is not a promise to follow, and it is not a promise to obey, but it is a promise to belong. Let his wife weep, let his dogs howl; he will never be free of Bella. But consider—)

“But I have competition,” he continues, as the Praetor’s hand explores the hidden places of his back. “Or so the rumor goes, from that privateer ship. When the Imperial Princess had word you were dead on some Hermetic wreck, she fell to pieces. She sang to Eleuthereus and had to be restrained, or she would have made her whole ship your funeral offering. Now that you are here alive, she likely means to kidnap you and keep you on her ship so she does not risk losing you again. Forgive me for waiting to tell you. I… I wanted you to want me, first. No. Needed you.”

He looks up with a vulnerable lift of his neck, like a submissive little kitten, and waits for his punishment. And there’s more than one kind, isn’t there? Her iron talons pressing against his throat until she has cut off his breath and holds his lungs in thrall. A bitter word, a refusal to ever love the princess who abandoned her again, confirmation that Redana never meant anything to her but a ward to be resented. Or, worse, a longing cry, a boy forgotten, a wailing collapse at the Princess’s feet—

Because that’s your game, isn’t it, Skotia? That’s how you’re playing the Praetor. The terrible clarity of Aphrodite suffuses you. If the Praetor condemns the Princess, then you are damned in turn, born in immaculate conception from her roots; if you seduce her, you carry out a long and cruel betrayal. If the Praetor adores the Princess, who you once were and are no longer, then you will be damned in turn, punished in Tartarus as you deserve, a mirror of Bella’s past as you watch and serve and long for her love.

But if the Praetor is conflicted, if she is torn, if your words roll over her in waves, then maybe, just maybe, you can make everything right. You can perform a miracle tonight. Redana Claudius, perfected, better than she ever was or could have been, will continue her quest to save humanity. Praetor Bella will continue the chase of someone she could have cared for, if things had been different. And with her—

A second chance. No crown to come between you. The dreams you once had, entrusted to someone who deserves them more. The girl who suffered for the person you once were, now soothed, now worshipped, now allowed to be wanted. An apology carried out every morning and every night, a secret plea for forgiveness. A service from a servant who was never destined to rule.

The name you were given tonight will not last forever. You will need a new one. Maybe, if you are lucky, it will be Princess. A joke and a power play and a gender and a comfort all in one. If you sail between Scylla and Charybdis. If there is a chance she might accept you and your need that Redana Claudius was never allowed to express, most of all by herself.

Picture Skotia, placing his heart in Bella’s talons, frightened by his own plan, but unwilling to step away from it under the eyes and name of Aphrodite. Picture Skotia, ready to be unwrapped, his hidden lace whispering against his skin, his heart shining full of the power of a mean girl. Picture Skotia, throwing his whole being into a desperate plan without thinking about it, again, because his heart won’t fit in his chest and he doesn’t know any other way to live than following it where it pulls on his leash.

Picture the places where Skotia fits perfectly in his Bella’s arms.

Breathless Dead

The music comes from something descended, distantly, from a gramophone. It is a huge thing of turning gears, and from it issues forth music from a thousand years ago. An orchestra would be a security risk; a record cannot be a disguise, a trap or a traitor. So they are alone, the three of them: Xanthippe, Redana, and her Bella.

One-two-three, one-two-three, the waltz demands, unwilling to be patient enough for Dany to be careful, marching her forward relentlessly. One-two-three, one-two-three, and Bella must allow herself to be a mannequin, because the Imperial Princess must lead: on the battlefield, in the polis, and on the dance floor. Her duty is to be limp and pliable, to follow the movements of the princess without question, to be silent and never, ever offer a hint. No matter how distressed Redana might get, no matter how Xanthippe snapped at the princess, Bella is to exist for the benefit of her mistress. That’s what it means to be a good girl.

Skotia is not an excellent dancer, but he is an eager partner. He follows Bella’s footsteps smoothly, picking up every small cue that the Praetor provides; when he hesitates, he allows her to take control and show him where he needs to go. When dipped, he lets one hand brush against the floor ever-so-slightly, and the flash of his neck begs to be bitten, to be bruised, to be marked.

“I’m glad you’re here to show me what to do,” he murmurs. “Truth be told, I never was particularly good at it. Not like you.”

”—because I expect great things from you, your highness,” Xanthippe says, with cloying sweetness. “Now, go get a drink. A young girl’s head needs water to turn the wheels of the mills of the mind.”

Redana slinks over to the pitcher of water, head bowed, wearing that same look of slightly hurt frustration she gets whenever she’s bashing her head against something that refuses to budge. If it was about speed, she could do it; if it was about tossing Bella up in the air, she could do that too. If it was about making up whatever she wanted, well, she and Bella had already had their own dance parties, in this very room, jerking around and wiggling, laughing, as the strings on the record played something jaunty and bouncy. But dancing isn’t about fun. Dancing is about sending a message. It speaks to nobility, a life of leisure, absolute control of mental faculties and physical prowess, and a steady poker face— all things Redana lacks.

The ice clinks in the pitcher; Redana doesn’t see Xanthippe put her hand on Bella’s arm and squeeze hard, doesn’t hear her whisper: “And as for you, slut, stop distracting her highness! Hold your upper body still and do not look her in the eyes again…”

“—and as I climbed,” Skotia says, eyes dancing quicker than his feet as the music goes slow and stately, “I decided to lie down on the slope. I didn’t even need a blanket; the grass underfoot was so soft that sinking into it felt like I was already in Elysium. So I propped up my head and stared down into the sweet-scented valley between, and considered myself, perhaps, the most fortunate young man in the world.”

They sway together, slowly, even as the Azura around them twine their bodies in elegant spirals; bereft of such lower bodies, all they can do is press close together.

“And that’s when I had the sudden urge to taste the grass,” he says, and rests his head against her. His heart, beating so fast and hard, knocks politely against her ribs. “I couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like in my mouth— but what mountain climber hasn’t ever had a thought like that?”

His hand drifts lower and, for one daring moment, squeezes, lifts one cheek ever so slightly— and when he glances up, it’s both to be sure he’s allowed and to dare her to punish his impudence.

The trick is to imagine that her feet belong to somebody else, isn’t it?

That the pain belongs to someone else. When Redana is done, she can slip out of her heels and groan and sit down. But someone needs to refill the pitcher, doesn’t she? And someone needs to wind the great organ that spits out songs from ghosts long-gone, and someone needs to take dinner out of the oven, and someone needs to see Xanthippe to the exit and signal Alexa to let her out, that the chamber is locked and sealed behind Xanthippe, once the instructor of dancing has finished telling Bella what a useless little whore she is, and someone needs to not daydream about locking her in the chamber and walking away on feet like knives, no, waltzing away, and someone needs to do it with a smile and a curtsey, and someone needs to do it all fast, and her reward at the end of the day is getting to unbuckle the shoes from her numb feet.

And if she does it all right, her reward is that, alone, her princess wonders what’s wrong with her if her feet are pinched and sore in a way that’s so very different from running on the track, but her Bella doesn’t feel it at all. What is she doing wrong? Is she broken? She can’t be, but what if she is? What if Hera spoke to Terpsichore so that her feet would always hurt while dancing? What if she was going to make a fool of herself at the ball for her thirteenth birthday, and in front of Odoacer of all people?

When the music (does not stop but instead becomes a low and all-encompassing hum that is the spine of the world), Skotia remains pressed to Bella for a moment, willing himself to remember this when he is no longer confident and daring, when the clock strikes midnight and all his magic leaves him: that he was allowed to hold Bella in his arms like this, and she’d never know that he was ever anyone different.

In the moment between songs, when some couples choose to leave and more, many more, join the dance, Skotia holds to Bella as if afraid that she will toss him aside, unworthy, bad at dancing, a brat who takes liberties beyond what she invited. He holds her as if he is drowning and she is the whole wide color-clogged sea.

“Will you allow me another, Praetor?” he asks, simply.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Zhaojun!

That is too far. You realize it almost at once. The malevolence of the Green Sun is almost palpable. He will tell you things. Such things. He will reveal secrets which will ruin you. He will sing to you of the glory of the dawn of the world and you will stumble, blinded by its wonders, through a world that you no longer recognize. What will it be like? Perhaps it will be a blessing.

In a hidden forest in a cleft in the earth in a ruined pleasure-garden in a ruined kingdom in a ruined age there is a lake and the name of the lake is Mnemosyne and those that bathe themselves in the waters of Mnemosyne pass through into a world whole in a kingdom whole in a pleasure-garden whole in a grand mountain in an egg of meaning and they that enter into this world dress themselves in it and make of it a blindfold and they eat the dust of the earth and think it a feast and do not starve and they drink the rain and think it casks of wine and they do not thirst and all around them is a beauty and a shining and a story in which they are important and beloved and perfect forever and ever so here is the question Zhaojun which is the real world of those who bathe in the waters of Mnemosyne?

This is what the Green Sun means to do to you. His words will make themselves your Mnemosyne and erase all understanding of what is because you will know only what was; you will see the King stride from horizon to horizon, you will see the Judge write the laws of being into the souls of all who live, you will see the River ring round the world with its seven torments which barred the fair folk from entry. You will know the world to be right, because the hierarchy is upheld; you will know the world to be right because you are ruled by the creators.

And the little pink foxes in your blood grab at your spine and your nerves and your ankles and they make you run because they fear oblivion even more than you do, and you flail helplessly but you can't get away, your feet slide on the polished black stone as you draw closer to the Green Sun, and you can feel the heat that radiates off of him begin to suffuse you--

"Master!"

Some demon, some imp, some creature of the palace of the Green Sun bounds into the room, and for a moment, just that barest moment, his attention is not on you. It lifts from your shoulders like a shroud and you are gone, your mind a blind white-hot panic, witch abandoned, answers forgotten, the seething unreality in your blood urging you on. There is no cohesion in what you see; colors spin and sway and the connections between object and meaning, motion and result, name and being break down. Run, run, run! No good to us like that! Run, run, run! Your story doesn't end here!

You throw open a door and tumble down a flight of stairs that goes on forever and ever and ever and you're never going to reach the end of it.

Reality comes back to you slowly. You're being rained on. You're back where you started, and your disguise is gone, and it's starting to rain hard. (No, harder than that. Harder than rain should be able to fall. Hard enough to sting and turn the world into shimmering silver in all directions.) The witch is gone. You're full of jitters, for some reason, a brain full of sparks and a nervous energy that isn't abating. Everything that just happened is a whirlwind of impressions, like paint smeared over canvas by a child.

Tell us of the state that Kalaya finds you in, and how you draw her in, even in the midst of the driving rain.

***

Giriel!

The sky opens up. The gods, too, have come to the conclusion that they were embarrassed by what happened, and are settling it by spurring the clouds harder and harder. Right after Kalaya slipped out, unnoticed until this new (and bedraggled) girl pointed her out, that's when the deluge began. A famous can't-see-your-hands-in-front-of-your-face deluge, a Flower Kingdom special. If she's thinking clearly, she'll duck inside somewhere else-- but she's not, is she? And little use running out after her, not when it's pouring this hard.

Petony does not care about this. Petony is up to her feet and charging out after her charge, and-- well, now it's twice as awkward, because her retinue's not going out into that weather. That's knightly business, it is. So that means that you're, well, essentially in charge of this situation. What do you take from this news of demon-summoning? Do you carry out a divination to see the path forward?

Sunshards

There is one person in the room that Rose from the River dances for. One person who she is trying to distract, one person who finds Rose flickering around her, impossibly light on her feet for someone so large. Of course it is Chen, her little sweet Princess, the only one who accepts her for who she is, over and over again.

She did not fear Rose from the River, monster of the Burrows. She did not judge Rose, helpless damsel in distress. She chose Rose from the River, teasing and playful and voracious, and it’s for her that Rose from the River fights. Once again, the old story plays out: a monk has been seduced away from her duties for the love of a Princess. And now Rose from the River dances for Chen, who deserves to see Rose from the River’s skill at arms (in more than one sense), but not devoted towards victory, simply towards the dance, the display, the beauty.

Her sword moves and seems to tug her along after; when she tosses it across the room, one of her mossy braids sings along with it, wrapped tight about the hilt, and she follows on the balls of her feet, as if the sword is merely an afterthought, each sweep of her legs an excuse to draw all eyes to them, until she effortlessly slides the sword out of some pillar or tile where it has sunken so deep that Jessic herself could hardly pull it out. Where she goes, Keron’s minions scatter and dive for cover; lying face-down on the ground, they cannot be knocked from their feet by an explosion of stone or a scything leg.

One plucky young woman almost manages to grab Rose from the River’s bound wrists. Almost. When Rose from the River leans back into those outstretched arms, her momentum turning her into a collapsing mountain, she realizes too late the gravity of her error. Rose from the River falls hard enough to knock the wind out of the poor girl, crushed beneath a falling heavenly pillar, and uses her as a handrest to cartwheel back up to her feet, landing neatly where her sword lies so that she may kick it up into her hand and disarm a dozen guards with one massive sweep that she follows like wind after the storm.

For a moment, it seems as if she will repeat the fall of the cloud-bearing pillar on her little Chen, rocking on her heels, threatening to stumble and flatten the littlest sword saint, but one branch-hand reaches out as she reaches perfect equilibrium and runs a thumb along Chen’s jaw as if it were the edge of a sword. Then she passes through the space where Chen fights, her body flowing through wherever Chen is not, a great shadow of mountains briefly blotting out the light over her head, and then she is through and spinning, leaping, twisting in midair, landing low with one leg sweeping around to carry her momentum through.

Then she leaps, and hooks one leg around Jessic’s mighty throat, continues the momentum upwards, hooks both mighty limbs around the scaled neck, and squeezes— not cruelly, just enough to convey the message. She leans forward, emphasizing the way the fingers of her bound hands flutter and curl helplessly, and presses her gagged lips to the top of Jessic’s head— and her eyes are only for Chen as she does so, wide and playful and delightedly impish, counting coup on a Princess who thinks herself invincible, and someone should make her kneel later and teach her a lesson about her place~

Braids curl around one horn, thighs clench tighter, and the celestial pillar of the peach garden topples to earth once more, bringing with it a confused and very decisively stopped dragon. Claws scrape across the tiles as she goes, a tail lashing furiously, but all the same Jessic ends up on her side, with Rose from the River smoothly ending up straddling her throat.

And that’s when she, wicked she, handmaiden she, squirms. Dragon Jessic may be, but she has a maiden’s heart all the same, and Rose’s performance is the sort to bring trains of thought screeching to a halt in a fiery multi-locomotive pileup, a damsel craving salvation from a fire-breathing beast and helplessly putting her shoulders into the thrashing from side to side, putting as much volume as she can into emphasizing how completely unable she is to say anything intelligible, and if you’re watching the rise and fall of empires, you’re not watching the sword she’s juggling to keep away anyone looking to “save” either damsel or dragon.

What an actress! She wanted to be in those trashy pulp novels, and the freedom to be director and lead actress and stunt coordinator all in one is what Cyanis and Chen granted her in Rose from the River and the Tyrant of the Sky Castle!! (A working title, likely to be available from any reputable fox publisher any day now, possibly with a cover where she’s got Jessic’s tail wrapped around her torso and fearsome claws pushing her scarf-swaddled face away from a certain dashing raven-haired princess.)

[Rose from the River Fights! Her condition cancels out her Daring, leaving her with a sweet 10. She’s earning a third string on Chen, creating an opportunity for Chen to duel Keron without interference, and seizing a superior position on top of Jessic~]