Tatterdemalion

Sunshards

The road to Ys lights up in the twilight. Everybody’s got a light: the harsh LEDs of the Burrows, the warm flickering light of a lantern, sunstones in jars, and best of all, the light you only get spilling out of a food truck.

It’s to an okonomiyaki truck that Rose comes, accompanied by little Yue on her leash, and she’s so patient, isn’t she? She walks so slowly so that she doesn’t outpace Yue’s tiny, careful, jingling hops, feet together, fluffy pigtails and even fluffier tail bouncing as she practices her walkies. Well, her hoppies. Besides, it’s not just a cute show for everyone as they pass by in the gossamer light of twilight; it’s good footwork and coordination practice for swordfighting. And besides that, Yue’s got the perfect beanpole body for hopping without bouncing all over the place, like some dancing girls we could name.

So when Rose approaches the food truck, she waits for Yue to catch up and come into the light, so that the chef who’s flipping the patties on her grill with a couple of battered old spatulas, the honorable sidearms of the fry cook, can see how sparkly her eyelids are, how cute the flimsy little veil is going up and down with each hop, and how big the silly bell on her collar is. It’s so big, and round, and shiny, and even if she wasn’t on a leash, there’s no way that she could try to sneak off with stealthy hops wearing a bell like that!

Rose curtsies like she was born to do it, flowing like a wave. Then she playfully tugs on Yue’s leash, and the shepherdess… well, she tries her best, but with her hands all tied up behind her like that, it’s more of an adorable squat and butt wiggle, tail wagging behind her. Rose’s smile is a gentle reassurance that, yes, Yue did good. What a good girl.

“Octopus, please,” Rose says, and the cook (who has big, pudgy, cute arms) sprinkles a bunch of tentacles in the batter and slaps it on the grill, and then looks to Yue with a playful expectance. And Yue, pink, wide-eyed, mumbles into her gag. Rose helpfully steps in to translate: “She wants scritchies. She’s been a very good girl today.”

And the cook flips over a few patties so that she’s got the time to spare, turns the heat to low, and then comes back around to lean over the counter and get her short nails under Yue’s chin. “Good girl,” she says, and her voice is so husky it could pull a bobsled, her accent dredged right out of the mud of the Hante river. “You her owner?”

“This handmaiden,” Rose preens, “is merely bringing a queenly gift from Princess Chen of the Northern Wind, heir to the Crown of Ys, first among sword savants and saints, to the honored wolf-maiden, Hyra, who performed the princess a great service in the Sky Castle of Princess Jessic. This is one of the finest jewels the princess could offer.” Oh, Yue, between the dramatic praise talks and the fingers on the top of your head, you’re over the rainbow, aren’t you? Eyes fluttering and tail wagging and just melting into those ropes.

Now, we could talk about the presentation. About how intense Hyra looks for a moment, seeing her girlfriend all tied up like that, before she sees the wolf ears and the tail; how Rose does this low, low grovel, hands stretched out in front of her and butt up in the air, and treats Hyra like she’s a Countess; how Hyra scoops Yue up in her arms and orders Rose to leave in a growl that runs right through both dancing girls, and how Rose gets Very Controlled in her movements as she walks off.

How Hyra takes her time unwrapping her gift in the backseat of her car; how she makes that bell jingle; how she reassures Yue that nobody’s going to see them as long as Yue holds still, even while she gets down on the floorboards and unties Yue’s legs for spreading. How Hyra makes her pretty precious puppy howl, even though she’s the only one to hear.

But we both know that Yue’s going to treasure the moment she spends with Rose, sitting on the back step of a covered wagon, watching the sunset, as Rose helps Yue take a breather. A bottle of water recycled from an old wine bottle, with a bit of Khen cork that Rose has to pop open; her gag lying damp in her lap and her veil lowered so that she can lean forward and take adorably big bites out of the okonomiyaki, held up to her face on a fork; getting to snuggle up next to Rose and feel safe and cozy and just as pretty as a princess’s girlfriend. And it’s that moment that fills her up and makes her so warm and excited and supported that when she’s presented to Hyra, she’s even able to do her best attempt at sultry, batting her eyes like Rose would even through an industrial-sized blush and excited tail wags.

Because they’re friends now, and friends look out for each other. And you know what, Yue?

Rose is lucky to have a friend like you.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Fengye!

It’s almost too easy. Kalaya’s senseless bravery means that you’re off and away on the demon horse, fast as a whip, before either horse or owner can recognize each other. Doubtless she is going to die a heroic death battling against a warlock and one of Adorjan’s Daughters, but at the very least you can make her sacrifice worthwhile by saving the breathless priestess clinging to you like you’re the real hero.

Then the world strains and snaps. The Wyld, that unreality which surrounds all that is like an egg, presses close— and that weakens existence enough, here, for someone else to punch through.

You barely dodge the first one in the dark, not understanding what it is, simply that from the size of the air displacement it must be very, very large; you can feel something whipping past your cheek, a hair’s breath away, as the demon horse hugs one wall and becomes unnaturally thin.

Then it is past, and you could almost dismiss it as some demon trap that failed to catch you— but now the demon horse is hopping from stone to stone as something rises and falls on the floor. There is a hot breath of wind in here, and the music of Hell is louder and terribly, terribly present.

A door slams open to your right, and before you can stop it, the horse veers right so hard it nearly knocks you both off. You and the priestess both hunch low over its back as another huge something barrels through the door in the opposite direction, just over your heads.

And then you are in Malfeas again, riding over a frothing, storm-tossed sea of snapped spears, shattered shields, stained bandages, frayed ropes, cannon-scorched masonry, and rusted silver stirrups. Above and all around you Tikhtokh, the General of the Wrack-waste, plunges his countless arms into the sea.

“Ven,” he roars, in trumpet and pipe and drum, and the echo shakes your bones. “Where is your prize, Prince? Did you think to hide her from me?”

His information is out of date as long as the priestess doesn’t say a word. As long as you continue to escape his notice, he’ll tear down Kingeater Castle around Ven’s ears trying to find her. This might have Ramifications, but you will have saved this priestess everyone’s worried about, and tricked one of the mighty shards of the Broken King’s soul in the bargain. For all that you’re in a perilous place, you’re in no danger as long as she doesn’t squeak and alert him to the prize right under his nose.

Mark a Condition, too; this is getting stressful, isn’t it?

***

Vermillion Beast of Lanterns!

The girl picking herself up off the floor in the dark hallway is not Melody. No. You recognize her. It’s the kidnapper.

There’s a moment where the world holds its breath; a moment where you loom over her; a moment where you pause, in your glory, and shine; a moment in which her eyes widen and she begins to understand the enormity of her error.

Then two things happen at the same time: a huge, maggot-pale hand snaps out of the darkness and latches around her ankle, dragging her backwards, costing her coat buttons, as she screams and claws frantically at the stones underfoot, and the woman with her becomes arrows.

Many, many arrows.

Close your eyes, o glory of heaven, and let the heads break on the ridges, the stones and the irons and the brasses and the black glasses; let them seek your soft places even as you knock them aside like stinging gnats. To anyone else, this would be cause to surrender, to curl up in a ball and scream for mercy, here where the air itself cuts.

But this presents a problem for even you. The hiss of arrows in flight is deafening, you cannot risk opening your eyes for fear of losing one, and how can you fight a wind?

Must you fight a wind?

When the kidnapper is so close, ready to be chased, no matter where it takes you?

***

Kalaya!

The entire castle shakes. And that’s when the air comes alive with huge, grasping, groping fingers, unseen but felt where they displace the air. You’re not the person they’re looking for, but it’s still harrowing. Wherever you turn, there’s more: fingers as long as your arm, bristled with boarhair, the smell of molding cloth adding to the smell of dying roses, and a terrible roar that seems to fill the whole world.

You’re going to drive them back with your sword flashing, jabbing at fingers like a mouse with a needle, until you have breathing space. You’re going to hear a terrible roar and a sound like thousands of bowstrings being loosed from the other side of that door. You’re going to be left with the terrible choice of what to do next: to try and follow Fengye and hope they haven’t been attacked and caught by demons, to try to lead whatever this is on a wild fox chase up into the fresh air, or to open that door again out of a terrible curiosity to see what’s going on.

Take a Condition. The fighting will not be pleasant, not at all.

***

Piripiri!

“You know, little cosmopolitan,” and she definitely puts the stress on it to suggest that she knows absolutely everything that’s going on, “I should kill you. You’re not an enemy combatant, you’re a filching little thief and spy.” She pulls her arm tighter around your neck, dragging you along in an awkward position; your choices are simply to stagger along with her or to go limp and try not to black out, throat pricked frighteningly by her thorns.

For a moment, she lifts a hand as if to claw at your face, and then closes it into a fist again.

“But I’m a Knight of the Accord of Thorns,” she growls— no, not quite. Growling doesn’t quite convey the air of frustration, exhaustion, not at you but at herself, at her circumstances. “Defender of the weak. Giver of mercy. Even when I’m standing against enemies that will swallow whole everything I hold dear. So don’t fight, and I’ll make sure you’re given the chance to go stay with the Priestesses.”

Oh. Well. That suggests that a) she’s expecting you not to know about the supernatural prison beneath Lake Zenba (Azazuka certainly has the reference pass over her head) and b) she has connections with the House of Lapis Lazuli. It’s possible that she might have the backing of a… radical sect within the priestesshood, one more willing to see the Dominion ejected by force.

***

Giriel!

“You can’t let her do this,” the city girl pleads with you, under her breath, as Uusha drags along the dragon-blooded girl. “The Holly Knight is out of control! Everything she’s done has been dangerous and making it less likely we’re going to be able to stop this warlock, so do something, please!”

And there’s that, too: you’ve never been good at letting people down. On the one hand: Uusha. Strong, buff, devoted to this land. On the other: a distressed girl who reminds you of a lot of your petitioners, scared out of her wits by the violent, looming knight. (Not to mention she’s probably in a position to reward you handsomely after all this, based on her very posh accent.)

If you take decisive action against Uusha, even though she’s hot, if you take the reins and let her know you’re in charge from here on out, take a String on Azazuka and an XP for your troubles.

Breathless Dead

The lights are on, as they should be. The halls are empty, as they so often were. A skeleton crew kept the Princess’s Palace running, all the better to keep her safe. But now there is no one. No one except for her and the monster.

She scrambles down the slick stairs, and behind her is the sound of tearing paintings, shattering vases, overturning statues. She doesn’t turn around, but she still knows what’s underneath everything that the Nemean destroys: fur, matted and bloody, shuddering with each breath. The whole edifice, rotting, built on top of her.

Outside the windows, there’s a storm wracking Tellus, ELF flashes tearing through the bloody clouds, and beyond them all, a hand vast enough to kill a planet. Like that’s special. Poseidon could do worse than that with one of his cast-offs, and—

She turns a corner and stumbles into the clothes, which stick patchwork to her, burning on her skin like lashes: white silk gloves, sensible mary janes, a stained apron. Behind her, the bull-roar of the advancing fury, here to show her what’s down in the basement, a sight that will kill her and leave only the killer. With a desperate cry, she throws herself through a door, locks it behind her, feels it wince beneath her hands.

Then the strength leaves her and she crumples to the ground with a cry. It’s over. She’s failed. She failed Mynx. She failed Dolce and Vasilia and Alexa. And she failed—

“Bella!”

She doesn’t expect the hug. The heartbeat, so strong through the oversized nightshirt. The bubbly giggle. The arms, already strong, holding her so close that all she can do is cling in her misery. The smell of the perfume Mommy gave her for her birthday. Small hands doing their very best to be gentle and kind, stroking her hair, fingers sending streams of cool water down her throbbing spine.

“Did you have a bad dream again?” Redana asks. Her eyes are emeralds in the dark, where the stormlight catches them. “Come on. No bad dreams are allowed in Fort Hypnos!”

“I can’t,” she croaks. “I deserve this.”

“No, silly,” Redana says, and she meant it. She really meant it. “Nobody deserves bad dreams, especially not my best friend.” Redana reaches out and taps the bell, which rings once, and it makes her breathing slow and the pain go mute for a moment, listening to the sound. “I’ll always be here for you, I promise.”

The door splinters apart. The Nemean pulls Redana out of her arms and shakes the princess until she goes limp, then tosses her aside, and it’s just the two of them left. A window shatters, and the sound of battle exultant roars outside. And the Nemean reaches for her, to bring her to the rotten heart, and there to consume her, heart and hope and soul—

Don’t touch my daughter.

The eye opens, and then opens again.

Bella, fallen while playing tag in the cramped garden, stocking rolled down from her bloodied knee, and her Dany getting all fluttery inside when she kisses it better.

Bella, her eyes wide, barely maintaining her composure when she sees Princess Redana step out in her Hymn To Nike dress, the laurel wreath and the slit thigh.

Bella, drooling, asleep with her head on Dany’s shoulder, and Dany holding as still as she can so that she doesn’t wake her up, her face warm as she feels Bella’s weight slumped against her, embroidery forgotten in their laps.

Redana, practicing her speech as she modulates her clothes into the outfit of a daring space heroine: We’ll go see the stars. The stars, Bella!

Redana, laughing, without cruelty, just joy, as she scoops Cutie Princess Bellaphonika up in her arms, juggling her and her wooden sword as she kisses her warm cheek and feels her heart explode with the happiness of being the hero.

The hero takes the Nemean by the wrist and turns, and she draws the wand as she does, and with a flick of her wrist it is a could-have-been sword.

When she runs it through the Nemean’s heart, it becomes real, her blood dripping down the serpent-damascened blade, red on gold. The Nemean leans heavy on her, knees buckling, and with her own weight pushes herself onto the sword, down to the serpents wrapped about the hilt.

“I will never leave you,” the Nemean says, hands on the hero’s throat, slippery with gore. “Never. You can’t kill me. Weak, decadent, useless—“

“I dreamed you were a shepherdess, and I a forest nymph,” the hero sings, and the fingers tighten on her throat. The weight of the Nemean is incredible. She crumples to one knee, both hands on the hilt. “I dreamed myself a jeweler, and you my model dear. I dreamed… you were… a sailor…”

The Nemean’s threats become slurred, even as the lullaby falters. Lights dance in the back of the hero’s skull, but her eye won’t let her pass out, showing her everything: the ooze of thick blood down her wand’s blade, the sprays of blood raining down onto Tellus as Bella fights an army, the crumpled body of Princess Redana Claudius and all her innocence, the aplopexy of Dionysus’s daughter.

Then they crumple to the floor together.

But it’s not the Nemean who gets back up.

The Shepherdess scoops Redana off the floor and shushes her when she stirs. “It’s all right,” she says, and kisses Redana on the forehead. The princess smiles and nuzzles closer. “There’s nothing here you can’t defeat, dear heart. We’ve got so much to do tomorrow, but for now, sleep, dream. Then wake, act justly, love. When you’re ready to be me again— oh! How beautiful it’s going to be!”

She tucks the princess in. Redana snuggles up close to the snoring kitty and is out like a light before you can count to three.

And the Shepherdess, already fading like dreams under dawnlight, steps over the rotten mass of nihilistic violence bubbling on the carpet so she can watch her Bella fighting again in the skies of Tellus.

“I dreamed of us both, together and free.”

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

This is the most alert 3V has been the entire visit. She’s been animated, she’s been intent, she’s been thoughtful, but she’s awake and considering the discs like a dragon that’s just discovered a hole knocked in Fort Knox’s back wall.

“This wouldn’t be useful for me,” she says, very deliberately. “I don’t have the hardware or the technical expertise for it.” Even gloved, she keeps her hands behind her back, as if afraid of a careless touch. “However!” And here she shines, gives Ferris a sparkling smile. “I do know how to get in touch with people who do have the hardware and the technical expertise, I’m fairly sure. It’d be a stopgap, but making it even more of a later problem than this did. Does. You’re not the only person doing this kind of archival work, you know, but… this looks thorough. Not just games, but the infrastructure around them, the— holy shit.”

She’s seen it. The game. The game. The game so popular, so oversaturated, that nobody bothered to keep the original copies. A global case of “this has definitely already been done.” The game that was considered completely lost without hope of recovery ten years ago when a hard drive in Australia finally burnt out.

“You have Skyrim?”

Sunshards

There’s a certain type of story that everyone loves, Yue (and Kat, we can’t forget you). Everybody loves a story about a kind-hearted fool who does impossible things simply because she doesn’t know that they’re impossible. The girl who climbs up the glass mountain blindfolded because she thinks she’s walking home! The girl who spends all night in the haunted Burrow ruins and thinks she’s playing twenty questions with her bestie who’s already been apprehended by site security, and convinces them to let both girls go all on accident! The girl who has tea with the last sun and the moon all unsuspecting and tells them, no, I didn’t drop that silver sword or that gold sword!

The girl who lets out the huntress in Rose’s heart by short-circuiting her brain!

She was doing so well, too, trying to make herself small! Demure, treating every perfect parry and bit of footwork like it’s a quiet bit of handmaidening, like she’s the training robot helping you fence, except you put the thing on Expert by mistake and it’s not letting you get a hit in! Because she’s not just representing herself, no, she’s representing Princess Chen of the North Wind and how well-behaved her handmaiden must be!

But even there she couldn’t help but put an extra challenge in front of herself, because she really is very, very good. She’s been putting extra swish into her parries, trying to make her bracelets and her beads dance, and putting on a little show, because she really is a performer at heart, isn’t she? Even when she was a shapeshifting secret policepuppy, she was all about that moment when she let the disguise fall and got to see everyone react to her reveal. When she was a monk, she tried to turn being a conflicted and zealous monk into a performance, with the Princesses as her antagonists. And when she was Keron’s slave-girl, she turned that into a jaw-dropping performance. Even now, when she is scared of everybody seeing she’s still strong, she wants everybody to be watching her. To reassure her that they care about her. And that’s why your gift of utter flusterment is so valuable, dear Yue-and-Kat!

Because she can’t think about meeting Chen’s parents and hold back!

“We, that is, I,” Rose stammers, and her flourishes become a little more animated, and when she parries a blow she straight-up reverses the energy to send Yue stumbling back with all the power she’d hopped forward with, “I was hoping, she? Because I’ve never actually, Yin, she was, and before that— and besides, she’s known them for her whole life, and it’s not a handmaiden’s place to decide what— but we haven’t—“

Even in that floofy pair of trousers, being caught by one of her legs and sent flying is a hell of a thing. Bounce, bounce, scamper back up, Yue! Rose barely even stops to fret about you, she’s so busy fretting over what Chen’s parents are going to think!

”—I don’t think a lapsed monk is the sort of inconstant person our daughter should be fraternizing with—“
”—the outfit is tacky, what were you thinking, trying to ape our fashions without understanding the cultural context—“
”—and you haven’t been socialized properly, Yin made you into a man and you still haven’t learned how to really be a woman outside of Keron’s training, and that only makes silly girls good for one thing—“
”—you can keep her as a handmaiden and a toy but we really need to talk about arranging a marriage to one of your peers, sweetie—“
”—and, come to think of it, aren’t you a few thousand years too old for our daughter?”

She’s supposed to be swordfighting, so she swordfights (and starts methodically closing off escape avenues with big flourishes and footwork that’s about as dangerous as Hyra’s), but she’s sneaking glances over to Chen in the stands. Was this a mistake? Is she the sort of creature that’s allowed to be liked by mothers? What if she’s too strong? What if she’s too weak? What if she’s too sexual? What if she’s too rustic? What shape do they want her to be?

She sneaks a glance over to Chen, all doe-eyed and hiding her inner turmoil behind that veil she picked out just for herself, and oh, you think that’s the perfect time to go in for a butt smack, don’t even try to hide it. She knows you’re there not in her thinking brain but in her snake brain, and there’s no thinking as she:

1. grabs your wrist
2. sweeps your ankles out from under you
3. sends you down to the ground on your butt
4. falls on you like a wave on the Terraced Lake sweeping over a sandcastle on the shore, but with more butt on your stomach
5. flips you up into the air over her in one fluid movement
6. so she can bring you back down to the ground again and end up on top of you again
7. except this time she’s lying on top of you, all deceptively soft and smooth and big, big like the kind of snakes that swallow lambs whole and then go to sleep for a month to digest
8. with her sword underneath your chin with the sharp edge resting against your throat
9. and she’s heavy and her hips are pinning you against the ground and her veil’s brushing against your chin and you can hear her breathing, so steady, like that wasn’t even a workout for her
10. because she was created a very long time ago to be a creature that hunts silly girls
11. and ties them up and makes it so that they can’t even squeak and have to plead with their eyes
12. as she sends them to jail
13. and it’s really lucky for Cyanis that Chen made Rose let her go, because just imagine being picked up by the arms hemming in your arms with those elbows and knowing that the bondage was a very enjoyable formality for her

And then she wakes up and notices that she brought you from respectable duelist to pinned cutie in about as much time as it takes to fill up Kat’s bowl in the morning, and the embarrassment, the shame at being so big, being so much herself, just radiates off her in waves.

But then the applause starts. And you can feel it, like your hearts are right up next to each other, nuzzled so close. Rose from the River was so big and flashy and showy because she needed to convince everybody to respect her and the way she was trying to be safe for them. She wanted to show off how in control she was through the Way, how she’d definitely made the right choice of philosophies to help her rebound after having her heart break into so many pieces, how her decision to be a girl was just making her stronger but safer than ever. How you only would have to be afraid of her if you were doing things against the Way of All Happiness, and even then she’d really be fighting for your happiness too.

Rose wants to be loved. She wants people to look at her and double-take because she’s so pretty, and she’s embarrassed by wanting it. She wants Chen to lead her around and stand between everyone who might want to turn her into a weapon again, and she wants everybody to watch her and envy Chen for having such a hot and awesome girlfriend. And she wants people to see her swordfight and be delighted, not scared or jealous or scheming about how to make her into something she hated being again.

But she also sees the honest happiness spreading across your face, doesn’t she? And she feels your heart beating hard and fast, too, and she’s listening as hard as she can to what she’s getting from it. Can you tell her? Can you tell her how you feel about her now, and maybe, if you feel like it, when you stopped being afraid of her? Because she doesn’t know how she deserved it, even now.

So she follows the applause and scoops you up, spins you around, squishes you close to her and sashays over to where Chen is sitting, and sure, you’ve got your sword, but the most you could do with it is smack her thigh a little bit, and you can feel her heart racing with excitement, and you did it, Yue! You did it!

“Would you like your present now,” Rose says, showing you off to Chen, “or would you like me to put on more of a show, my— my Princess?” A ripple runs through the crowd, and if she had a tail, you just know that Rose would be wag wag wagging it. “Don’t worry,” she adds, with a little wiggle, “I’ll be sure to package the present for you~”

And when you open your mouth to add something, whoops, no you don’t! Rose’s hand smells good, like the kind of perfume you get from trees, and it’s big and firm and you can hardly get a squeak out through it, probably! Don’t worry about falling, her other arm’s got you around your arms and chest so safely.

“She might make a good present for your mothers, if you want to regift her,” Rose adds, and it’s a joke for the crowd and also a way of letting Chen know how much she’s scared of making a bad impression and she’s probably not serious, actually. After all, then she’d have to fight Hyra! Like a for serious fight! And she probably wouldn’t get anywhere trying to talk Hyra into being packaged up with you, but you can go ahead and think about that anyway! “After all, who wouldn’t want to have the cutest sun farmer from here to the Elevators as a handmaiden? Do you think she’ll look better in furs or as another dancing-girl~?”

[Questions hopefully answered, and another one (or maybe sneakily two) asked in return. Also, that one Yue string gets spent… to add 1 to an Entice, making it a 10, if Yue is at all into this, just maybe.]

Breathless Dead

Of course Redana’s heard Bella say those words before. They were playmates, after all. Saving Bella from felt snakes and blanket ropes was one of her favorite pastimes as a child. But she has never, ever, heard Bella ask for help. Not as long as she’s known Bella. It was always the other way around: is there anything you need, your highness? May I be of assistance, your highness? Please let this humble maid be of service, your highness. Can your… favorite little meowmeow… cheer you up, your highness?? Always giving. And whenever Redana tried, Bella would make such a fuss! No, you don’t have to do that! Please, let me take care of this for you! Dany, isn’t it, aren’t you supposed to be in the conservatory for music lessons?!

She’s never, ever, asked Redana for help. Not really. Not meant it. She was just playing along when she squirmed and begged her hero to come save her. But the hero always got the girl, and the hero always had a sword, and, wow, wouldn’t you know it, the hero’s gone now, and it’s just stupid little Redana left. And the minute she raises a hand against somebody, it’s going to turn into a thunderbolt on the way down and the laughter of joy-in-killing and the Nemean loosed to reave and kill as she pleases. So that’s “charge and suplex everyone” gone as a plan. Shut up. Shut up! She can’t hear herself think! What does Bella want? You to die. She said so. Give up. She wants to— oh! Oh!!

It’s what Skotia would do. And there’s nobody in the world she’d want to be more than Skotia right now.

She stands up, fists balled so tight that they’re bloodless. Her eye burns like the fires of the Party below, an azure hole in her head. The look on her face is anguish barely contained by resolve. She looks like a wrestler broken but unbeaten at the end of a match, the sweat on her skin almost close enough for the oil. She is small and hard and battered, the prow of a ship, an outcropping in the surf.

And she screams, her voice raw, trying to drown out the intoxicating song of surrender, for her Bella, for her pet, for the friend she wishes she’d been able to keep, if only the whole universe wasn’t wedged between them:

“Hey! Moron! She‘s in love with you, so shut up and listen to her!!”

There it is. It’s out. No use trying to hide it. Trying to pretend she might get kissed like Skotia did. He didn’t come with a cargo train’s worth of baggage and ownership and useless pining and so this is good, actually, this is good, she can go save the universe for the sake of ideals now, everybody getting to see the universe, every star in the sky a new horizon, and it’ll really be for everybody now, and conveniently Bella will still exist in the category of everybody, so she’ll still get it, too.

With Beautiful.

Who will treat her right, probably, if she learns to listen when Bella’s talking. So it’s fine. It’s fine, actually! It’ll be fine!

Let go and you won’t have to watch her take what you want, the Nemean whispers, using base cunning. They will never be allowed to be happy. There is only one punishment for disloyal vassals. Give in before they hurt you more. You don’t have to hurt ever again.

“Shut up,” she screams, again, at the Nemean, at Beautiful, at her own heart, at the world. She was poisoned today! She almost died today! She kissed her ex-best-friend a lot! By lying to her!! It would be really nice if somebody would shut up already!

Breathless Dead

“I’m not done yet,” Skotia says, with a venom-rawed throat, so quietly that maybe only a Praetor might hear his prayer. “Please.” But you only get saved once. You only get that kiss one time, no more than that. Don’t be greedy. The mask flakes underneath Beautiful’s regard and threatens to blow off his face; he desperately clings to it, pushes it against his face as if willing it to stay, to be the real face, to fill the hollow in her heart. But it’s already melting away.

The sound of him accepting this is a hollow, joyless laugh. Of course it ends this way. Don’t you know, Skotia? At the end of every story the wicked get their just reward, and all the lies are resolved.

He crumples to his knees like a fresh-birthed calf as the fire consumes him. But he keeps forcing the words out. All he is, all he could be, just tatters and a voice now, so he’ll use it even if it makes him feel like he’s got Bella scraping those talons down the inside of his throat, because some things are more important than a moment of comparatively less agony, and what Skotia says is:

“You wanted to die for her. Don’t.” He hunches his back like a wild animal, his hair flowing like molten gold across his shoulders. His shadow is long. His shadow is long. “Listen. I can’t be her hero anymore. I can’t. Masters don’t abandon their pets. Masters don’t abandon their pets.” The effort of existing forces black spittle from his lips, his hands pressed so hard against his face that the head he’s losing throbs and aches. “Don’t you dare!”

Then he’s gone, and maybe it is that Hades folds the shape of where a thing was into a neat jacket to drape over his arm, and maybe it isn’t, and it’s left to Aphrodite to pick up the pieces of the name after the party’s over.

Her shadow’s long. There’s an echo at the barest edge of hearing. Her shadow’s long. The air crackles with ozone and the smell of battle, sweat and blood and tears. She’s hunched over herself, naked and shaking, veins protruding on her neck and her arms as her muscles strain against each other.

And Redana Claudius screams at the monster threatening her Bella, screams like her Bella’s never heard, screams like she’s holding an axe by its head: “Avaunt!”

And the shadow doesn’t go away just because she screamed at it. But it doesn’t eat her whole, either. She holds it back for Skotia; she holds the whole world on her shoulder and doesn’t snap in half. That’s it, that’s the entire world, the weight of the Nemean telling her that Redana is violence, cruelty, abuser, useless, she’ll snap Bella’s neck and make it a mercy because at least then the pain will stop, let her in, let her IN, there’s nothing she can do that you wouldn’t do worse, Bella hates you, Bella deserves to hate you, Mynx hates you, Mynx deserves to hate you, Dolce hates you, Dolce deserves to hate you, don’t you get it, they all hate you, let go, let GO, stop hurting, stop hurting them, weak as your mother, weak as humans that abandoned their pets across the stars, and she’ll wipe it all clean as a mercy, she’ll crack Tellus in half because it’s there, she’ll kill them all for the challenge of it, and she’ll never stop to whine about how bad she feels, when a servant fails you you kill them, when a lover refuses you kill them, when a mother denies you kill her, and she’ll laugh and kill and make merry and do it all without the pain, because the pain’s the real enemy, Redana, the pain, the weakness, the doubt, and you’re too weak, aren’t you, too weak to commit, too weak to kill, too weak to fuck, too weak to live, so let her in, let her IN, let her in let her in let her in let her in

Why was dying for her the easy part?

It’s not even a word any more. It’s a noise. Animals make noises. Her face is wet. Don’t look at her. Please. Don’t make the Nemean’s job easier. Don’t remind her how little she deserves to exist. She can barely believe it herself.

”You have a life to go and live after tonight. And you should live it.”

”Don’t throw away the one good thing I get to do with my life.”

”Owners never owners never owners never owners never”

But she does. Bella said so. Skotia deserved to exist. And now he’s dead. So she’s got to keep fighting the monster for him. He gave her so much. So much. A kiss. A hold. A carry. Bella, for a moment, comforted. Bella, for a moment, holding her the way she always…

She can’t. For Skotia. And always, as always, from the first moment she looked up at the smog-choked sky and decided she was going to run and run until nobody could catch her—

For Bella.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Ven!

When you go down into the tunnels beneath the castle, it is with a torch held by a servant. Every other time before, it’s been a wrack-doll, but right at this second, well. You’re already making plans to shift your operational strategies, aren’t you?

Ordering the dolls to go and assault a major settlement, like Turtlehead, was cutting the knot. The only move you could make. They’re ultimately loyal to their creator, after all, and he’s… he won’t understand the play you’re making, but he’ll be distracted by the tactical strike against “supporters of insurrectionists.” See? You’ve got this. Everything is perfect. Everything is going to work. You’ve salvaged this.

Except as you approach the dungeon door, you find it open. Your heart skips a beat, even as Kalmanka, your ronin knight, whistles between her teeth in amusement. And you draw your sword…

***

Kalaya!

“Look, I’m an artist,” the demon says. “Commissions pay the bills.” Do demons even pay bills? Is Hell that cruel, that even the emanations of the Titans must pay rent to live on their backs? “So let me finish my job.”

“MMMMPH!!” The priestess says, wiggling behind the demon in the middle of a professional lighting set-up: lanterns, mirrors, candles, and prisms make her look like she’s on a mountaintop at noon, really bringing into sharp relief the way that her dress is scandalously torn, her hair’s starting to frizz, and the way her veil’s been lowered to show off the green-and-brass-colored scarves swaddling her face. Dangling from the ceiling by her wrists, she sways and squirms on tiptoe, desperately trying to get your attention, even as the artist-demon harrumphs through his baleen mustache and spreads his many (many) arms.

“I don’t even care what you humans want to do with the subject material afterwards! But this is my livelihood, so piss off and let me finish!”

***

Fengye!

You’re out of time. You made it here just to find there’s a jealous guardian, a spider-peacock of crushed dyes and mingled inks, and the way behind you is about to be blocked off. Even if Kalaya bullrushes through the artist, snaps his brushes and scatters his easel’s bones, there won’t be time to save the girl.

It was a good run, though, right? Really got to feel like a hero. Sure, the horse is almost certainly going to betray you when its mistress whistles for it, and you’ll be lucky if you end up tied back-to-back with the little priestess, and not just tossed into one of the deep pits down here, to fall for the rest of your life.

Unless you’ve got one more trick up your sleeve?

***

Giriel!

All the props for the wedding scene are back here. Fried pastries made of folded paper, stacked in ready-to-serve trays. Wreaths, also made of folded paper, that almost somehow seem like they could look better than the real things, once you brought them into the light and brushed the pervasive dust off. Venus-blue banners hanging from the ceiling of the (tunnel? passageway? backstage?): Long Life, Lasting Happiness, Bountiful Gardens. Dresses on mannequins that look almost like real people, in all their ruffles and rainbow colors. In the hands of one, a very conspicuously out-of-place umbrella.

All you have to do is wade through the props until you find the exit. Easy enough, and this trip backstage seems like it’s deserted right now, no bandar-logi to worry about. The only danger here is the kind you bring yourself.

Uusha does a spin in midair to build momentum. It’s beautiful; she controls her body with the grace of a predator, completely under her control as she kicks the barmaid in the side of the head.

***

Piripiri!

There are two ways to fight a daughter of dragons.

The first is to challenge them properly, to trust in your own method of channeling essence to overcome them. Bold, confident, and very dangerous.

The second is to stop them from channeling their essence in the first place. Never give them a moment to breathe, to reach for that power, to feel it flow through the stations of the body.

You can’t breathe; Uusha isn’t giving you that chance. When you try to get up, she’s there to knock you back down. When you try to cover your face, she punches you in the throat; when you try to cover your throat, she slams a fist against the side of your head and makes stars explode in your vision. She isn’t cruel, she’s not trying to kill you, and isn’t that a bleakly comforting thought?

She’s just going to pummel you until you can’t fight back. Smart of her. If you needed to restrain a daughter of dragons, and you didn’t have an opportunity to rely on drugs, you’d probably have to stoop to the same tactics. Unconsciousness opens her arms wide and invites you inside her bedrooms to sleep.

Then Azazuka tackles Uusha from behind and tries to get her in a bear hug. Silly girl. Uusha’s armor makes hugging her like hugging a holly bush; there’s no safe place to do it. Thorns dig into her soft skin as she takes two steps backwards, dragging Uusha off you before Uusha catches her heel on the floor, vaults over Azazuka’s head, forces the merchant’s daughter down to the floor with a squeak. Barely avoids goring her on those antlers.

Then she’s charging at you again, almost too fast to counter. But you bumped into one of the mannequins, didn’t you?

And now there’s a very familiar umbrella handle under your hand.

And you’ve got just enough time to let essence flow through your body in one savage inhalation of power. Fairy-essence, admittedly; this is not a particularly safe place to channel essence, to draw on power. But whatever the cost later, it’s yours now.

***

Han!

Oh, you’ve got a choice, don’t you? Not much of one (we all know what you’ll choose), but there it is, a choice nonetheless. Just in case we’re wrong. Just in case the dragon roars.

On your right, there’s a fight. The dragon blood in you thrills, because someone’s drawing in essence. A rival. You’ve never been acclimated to other dragon-blooded, after all. This feeling suddenly surfacing inside you is new: the challenge-lust, the desire to prove that you are the strong dragon. There’s a reason that only Scarlet remains of the true dragons that once ruled the earth.

Dragons do not have a society. Dragons only have dominance. And you know, instinctively, that you need to prove that you (yes, you) are the strongest. That this is your territory.

(Piripiri’s had training. Every dragon-blooded child goes through socialization, learning to keep that instinct on a leash, turn it into motivation to excel. But you, child of the mountains and the wild places, you’ve never practiced keeping this on a leash.)

But on your left? You hear, from a far distance, echoing, Melody. Trying uselessly to call for help with her mouth stuffed full, just like the first night you met her. There’s no way of telling how far she is, but if you run, if you break through everything in that direction, you’ll get to her eventually. And she needs her dragon.

Fight!

Rescue!

Dominate!

Hoard!

Your instincts writhe in your gut, burning away sleepiness and leaving dragon behind. Your blood burns, and for a moment you feel like you could let all that roiling essence out in a torrent of fire.

Go on. Let the dragon out. You know you want to.

Sunshards

When Yue challenges Rose, the new handmaiden is coming back from cards at Rahn’s place, which is to say, she’s coming back from that great big cat with the windows in the sides, almost like some sort of bus. It’s warm inside (like you’d expect), and the black rabbits vet everyone who tries to climb in for their Burrow bonafides. You gotta be somebody to get into Rahn’s— a leftover, an archeologist, a collector, a rube, or eye candy, because Rahn’s not just a Burrows demon, she’s also a disaster lesbian. When Rose tried to sneak in this time, Rahn hopped up on the sales counter on one side of the long damp room and wolf-whistled and applauded until everybody’s attention was on the pretty little handmaiden who just came in.

Of course, some of them just took it as Rahn being Rahn. She’s got a few screws loose; the treatments she took for the contamination in her blood, leftovers from cut corners in her production, were intense. You have to be patient with her, whether she’s in a high manic mood right now or in one of her sullen fits, gnawing her blackened fingernails down to the quick. That’s one of the unspoken rules of Rahn’s. Follow it or the rabbits will fucking get you.

So that’s why some of the guests here to look through Rahn’s antiques turned back to their business pretty quick: an architect in a pretty nice suit discussing tech with one of Jezara’s salukis, also in a pretty nice suit, with the hulking demon serving as one of their bodyguards playing with the bat on his shoulder; the bitter old man talking about his hunting and trapping during the first winters as he turns a 3D model of a tree over in his hands, and the black-eyed man listening with complete, vast and unearned gentleness; the brawny man with a massive hammer on his back, discussing repairs with a half-horse engineer and an imposing eagle-woman in a suit of High Burrows armor. They had their own business to attend to, after all. And a good thing, too. When Rose met those black eyes for a fleeting moment, she took them for a lightless planet, and shivered, knowing she wasn’t the most powerful being in the room.

That’s Rahn’s for you. It’s the kind of place where you can find peers if you’re a leftover super-soldier or a sword saint or an attempt to make a god.

She ends up at the card tables on the other side of the room, looking for approval from one of the regulars. One of the few people in the world she’s jealous of. And when The Duke saw her, they (no, leaning he today) gave her one of those dazzling smiles and told her to take a seat. And when she did, he asked her with mock seriousness to blow on his cards for good luck, those vivid green cat’s-eyes dancing (not literally, you have to specify with him) as he reached one hand around and gave one thigh a flattering squeeze that made Rose feel pretty and silly and enviable.

That’s not the only reason she’s jealous, the way that The Duke seems to effortlessly know what someone needs to be validated and encouraged. There’s also the way that his shapeshifting is a lot more sophisticated than hers; when he wants to lean female, she just flows. She can try out new bodies and styles like she’s trying on clothes, and that’s before she turns into technicolor canines or almost-perfect copies of people, keeping the eyes as a deliberate affectation. And there’s also the way that he shrugs off everybody’s expectations of what a Burrow relic should do with their life, and the smile that makes even Rose’s heart skip a beat, and the way he seems to know everybody who’s anybody. Even monsters have their role models.

“So who’s the lucky girl?” He asked, and everybody got to see Rose from the River, the Thorn Pilgrim, squirm and stammer and smile helplessly as he laid down his cards. And hardly anybody minded that he’d bluffed them out on two pair, not when Rose was playing with her hair and trying to explain, see, there’s this princess…

There even was a princess at the table! At least, a self-claimed princess: Rahnya (no relation), from a city without a name, far away, that had something to do with tigers. Very nice girl, somewhat sleepy. And there’s a warden-witch, too nice to hate, her blonde curls getting everywhere; and there’s Fayruz, wait, no, Dr. Fayruz now, she got her medical license recognized in Pasalkhen and she’s headed to Ys just in case someone needs the best damn medical care in the Nine Kingdoms (anything up to and including death’s door); and there’s Nova, who works for Kikil now, looking good with her shock of blue hair standing out against the Tesla jumpsuit; and even Sainbec, shirtless and more cat than ever, betting some of his outrageously gaudy rings against The Duke’s stake.

But that’s not what Rose is always going to remember from visiting Rahn’s again. No, it’s The Duke off-handedly mentioning that he always knew. And Rose asked: that I’d lose to a princess? And she let her hair down loose, all silver-and-black, and filled out her silver-and-black vest, and gave Rose a ladykiller of a look, and smiled: not the gaudy smile, not the completely self-assured smile, not the we-can-figure-this-out-without-resorting-to-violence smile, but the kindest, gentlest smile she had on tap.

“You know what I mean,” she said, and then touched her cards to Rose’s veil in a way that made her brain overheat. That’s The Duke for you. She could run her own kingdom if she was into that these days. But it’d be impossible to extricate the part of her that didn’t want that responsibility and still have The Duke, so here she is, playing hands in Rahn’s.

Which is why, when she’s ambushed on her way back, almost floating on air, her first reaction to being challenged to a duel is an unreasonable spike of fear. What if Yue is insulted that Rose won’t go all out? But what if Rose does go all out, in front of a crowd, no less, and then everybody knows about Princess Chen’s amazing swordwoman bodyguard who probably needs to be encouraged to work for them by putting Chen in peril? What if she’s too strong for this to last? What if, what if, what if? Does she even deserve to use this sword?

But that plea in Yue’s face is too precious, too earnest, to refuse. “All right,” she says, with a curtsey. “I am happy to serve,” she adds, with another little thrill. Then, to Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits, she bows and asks: “what are the rules?” Because if she has rules, she can stay within them. If she has rules, then she can be an ordinary sort of swordswoman, maybe even a cute one. If she’s allowed to be just an exceptional handmaiden, oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful? Not a weapon that any of these travelers would kill to possess, but just the best Rose that Chen could ask for?

Besides, everyone knows that foxes give out reasonable rules and requests. Everybody. No further questions about Rose and foxes are allowed at this time! None!!

She flicks her wrist in that special way— still got it!— and the sword becomes—

It’s a scimitar. A very Ysian scimitar. With a snowflake-patterned guard, and thorns worked up and down the blade. A sword for Chen’s Rose. Behind her veil, Rose bites her lip and lets out the tiniest squeak over how her own sword has betrayed her. How dare you, moon sword? This is a completely unjustified betrayal, and now she’s going to have to change her style completely!!

Breathless Dead

There’s more than one reason for the mask. How thoughtful of his modiste. It takes him longer than he would like to work it back on over his face, to hide the wound and the agony; his fingers are numb, slowly regaining enough feeling to hurt. But once he’s Bella’s hound again, his pain hidden (how appropriate!) he grits his teeth and forces himself to keep up.

That’s the role of the pet, after all, the one that Bella played for so long. Keep up, no matter how unfair the world gets, with a (rictus) smile on your face. That’s what Bella did for Redana, and that’s what he has to do for Bella. Otherwise, what’s the point? What’s the point of the pain? If there’s no point, then he’s just hurting like this for no reason and it would break him. So there has to be a meaning for the pain. And the meaning is that he has to hurt like she has hurt for her princess.

His half-dead fingers interlace with hers as she accepts his weight. Pets and owners. The loyalty they owe each other. Pets and owners, and the debts they inherit from the people they used to be. Does that mean she’s given up on Redana? Is the connection of pets and owners broken apart between them?

…well, good. Because Redana never deserved her Bella, anyway. And they’ve got a Beautiful to save. So don’t let that hurt too, Skotia. There’s enough poison searing your heart right now, you don’t need cigarette ash choking it shut. Besides, this is the farewell, isn’t it? Unless he really does go with her. Unless he lets Redana Claudius sail on in pursuit of a relayed dream.

Why does that thought hurt, too?

Bella’s fingers throb between Skotia’s, so strong he can feel them through the dull ache. Bella’s got a heart that won’t stop. And he never would have known, and Redana never would have known—

He squeezes her fingers, and he tries to give her the reassurance she’s been looking for for so, so long. That he sees her. That he’s sorry for breaking her heart. That he’s frightened of having to become a new person once he takes everything off. That he thought he was going to die and his last thought was Bella’s still in danger and he thought he was going to die knowing he’d failed her again.

So many things trying to squeeze their way out through his fingers as they help each other up the stairs.