Tatterdemalion

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Ven!

Your masters cannot exist in the world.

If the General attempted to march out in his glory into the Flower Kingdoms, the world would reject him utterly. This is the secret of demonology, the reason that the great lords and ladies of Hell need you. Even a pact would not suffice for someone as great as he; the earth would burn him, the air deny him, the flows of essence divert themselves around him, and when he fell not even the mushroom would eat his wretched body. This is what it means to be a splinter of the Broken King. It means you can never go back. It means that your entire war is meaningless, but you’ll never admit it.

But Kingeater Castle is a place where the world bleeds into Hell. It does not play by the same rules. You knew that when you took possession of it; it meant that you were at the peak of your power here, that you could call upon your masters’ legions and servants almost effortlessly.

But it also means that the General (why did the bitter old bastard choose now? why now?) can act here more directly. And he chooses to ruin everything.

He takes Kingeater Castle by its foundations, by its walls and its parapets and its angles, and he pulls.

The sound of an entire castle being pulled into Hell is indescribable. If you were forced, you would say it was wet. Uncomfortably wet, hideously grating, and loud enough to make your ears ring—

And it collapses all around you. You are swept on a wave of broken violence and the trash of death as towers crumble into the Wrack-waste, as your schemes crumble because of a monster with the patience of a child.

And he’ll blame you for making him lash out. He’ll subject you to court-martial and punishment. You’ll have to hope that the Green Sun and Whirling-in-Rags care to save you from the same fate as all the priestesses you sent here, buried under the waste in their cells.

A wave crests and sends you tumbling, tumbling, back down into Kalaya’s arms; you painfully end up in a trough in the sea, pinned underneath her, and she’s staring down at you, you, you warlock.

Your eyes are hot pinpricks of pain.

“Get! Off! Me!” You scream at her, even as the sea writhes beneath you, tries to pull you under; one of your feet is already caught under the crush. “You— you stupid bitch!”

Why does she have to see you like this? Why couldn’t she just leave you alone? Why are you crying? Why do you hurt? Why do you hurt? Why do you hurt?

You dig your nails into her arm, because you are sinking. You dig your nails into her arm, because you hate her. You dig your nails into her arm, because she’s in your way. You dig your nails into her arm, because she won’t let go of you.

***

Han!

Melody screams.

It’s the kind of high terror that you’ve never heard from her before, and hopefully never will again. She screams as she runs, stumbling, frantic, across the thrashing waves of a sea of trash, trying not to be crushed by falling stone. And behind her, the ugliest demon you’ve ever seen swings its attention over to her.

It’s the biggest fucking thing you’ve ever seen in your life, like a millipede that chews its way through mountains, draped in a patchwork soldier’s regalia with a thousand sleeves. It wears a serene white mask even larger than you, and thick hairy insect mouth parts are thrashing, just visible beneath it as he bellows in a chorus of voices: “Traitor! Collaborator! Revolutionary! Blasphemer!”

A blue rope lashes out and catches Melody around her chest, knocking her on her cute little butt, and it begins dragging her back towards it over that terrible sea, tearing her blue silks as she sobs in terror.

And you, in the air, in your element: you are resplendent. You do not know that it is impossible to win a battle against such a foe; and therefore, for you and you alone, it might not be.

***

Piripiri!

Uusha is a whirlwind of violence.

All around you, on this sea which threatens to drag you under if you stay still, Wrack-dolls are bursting forth from the waves, shambling towards you, and all around you they find themselves flung aside, arms ruptured, legs severed. In one hand she has her great double-ended spear, which she treats as if it were as light as a ribboned wand; how strong she must be, how capable. In her other she has your umbrella, which she uses to fend off grasping hands with sickening cracks of their, for lack of a better term, exoskeletons. It is possible she could fight any of your teachers to a standstill; it is even possible that she could overcome them.

This is very important, because it means you have your hands free to catch the snake falling from the sky: the daughter of the Laema, thrashing helplessly in her bondage, landing perfectly in your arms. Her hair clings to her skull, her scales slick and her chest heaving, as she looks around with panic and confusion. Apparently she wasn’t found after your escape. How lucky for her that the ropes suspending her were severed in the fall and she’s not being dragged down to the bottom of the waste!

…you could easily hide that you collaborated with a demon to escape, you know. If you dropped her and let the Wrack-waste swallow her. There will be awkward questions from everyone: the witch, Uusha, Azazuka. And you don’t even know her name.

The demoness, daughter of a power of Hell, born into a world that has no love for mortal kind, shivers just like a human in your arms, and nuzzles into you instinctively, like a submissive looking for reassurance from her mistress.

***

Giriel!

“GRAAAAAAAAAAH!”

The noble girl breaks an already broken spear over the head of a Wrack-doll, sending it tumbling down a wave, but then the equal and opposite resistance sends her stumbling back, landing on her rump by your feet, and there’s still more wading through the Waste towards you.

Well, here you are. Again. But this time, it’s in the flesh, which makes everything so much more dangerous. You didn’t have to worry about keeping your weight fleeting on the surface of this rubbish heap, or dodging falling rubble, or dealing with an army of angry dolls who want to drag you down beneath the waves.

And you could run, you could dance your way across the silver waste for five days and find yourself back home, but Uusha and the Hymairean are nowhere to be seen in the chaos. This is the worst of your challenges yet: do you have the strength to face it?

***

Fengye!

You can see it all, even as the demon horse bucks beneath you, torn between its rider and the whistle of its owner, who will come to find the horse if it tarries. You can see the dragon, curling on herself in the sky; you can see the priestess, who panicked and ran when the sky opened up and began to rain down stone, now caught by the General; you can see the knight and the warlock, beginning to sink beneath the Wrack-waste; you can see others, too, catching snakes from the sky and fighting off the Wrack-dolls and dodging collapsing towers.

You have the view of a commander, and you have the scepter. You may, in your role as the General’s aide-de-camp, give any order and it will be carried out by his host, so long as he does not countermand it. All the authority of the General is in your hands, so long as his suspicion is not aroused, and all power save that necessary to stop someone from being crushed by a collapsing castle turned inside-out.

What do you do, Fengye, in this fleeting moment of power?

Sunshards

The Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade flashes into Rose’s hands, but it does not become a sword. Instead it is a long, pale staff, a tool first of defense. And this is how Rose fights: with a swirl of her hips and a spin of the staff, fending off the hurricane with stave-butt and footwork, yielding ground.

It would be easier if she met power with power. All of these perilous blades, torn aside, scattered to form a wasteland around the two of them. It would be easy to redirect every one of them into the earth, to dig long scores through the streets of Ys, to disarm the Secrets of the Stance decisively. But that’s not how our dear Rosebud fights.

The storm is all around her and she diverts it only slightly, like a spur jutting from the surface of a stream; the storm is contained about her, and the space of safety grows claustrophobic and tight, inconstant and flickering. She sways reedlike, becomes the water that trickles through the gaps, silver staff flashing beneath her dark fingers. But she can’t do anything more, or won’t do anything more. She remains passive, acted upon, like water, which molds itself into new shapes.

“Love is nowhere it is sought,” Rose murmurs, her voice as delicate as a hope, her breath only faintly stirring her veil. “Dig up the mountains, dive in the rivers, count through a hoard, but you will not find so much as a speck of love. It cannot be bought or sold, has no mass or volume, and defies the one who goes looking.”

Yin, her face lighting up as he makes adjustments, as he sharpens his cheeks and lids his eyes, as he makes his hair as fair as gold. Yin, snapping at him, furious that he would dare to pick her up, bring her in for the kiss he thought she wanted— but only on her terms, with her dignity, at her time.

A sword flickers through her silk, kissing her side with that wicked edge, and the noise that is squeezed out of her is one that she learned from Yue. The space grows tighter all around her; she is backed up to the very throne of the Pyre. She wriggles like a maiden trapped as silk is slashed, ties undone, her top giving way on one shoulder. But that’s enough to distract the Secrets of the Stance for a moment, just a moment, unable to tear her eyes away from the firm muscle and the softness revealed by her plunging top.

And the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade raps her knuckles hard enough to make even her, the wrath and rage of a demon queen, hiss through her teeth. And Rose twirls, her slashed belt trailing like a tail, and hems in the Secrets of the Stance with one, two, three— now those black blades are trying to knock that shivering sliver of moonlight aside, keep Rose from driving it somewhere soft.

“It comes like catastrophe out of clear skies; it tumbles to your feet in a flutter of scarf and silk. It disarms you, blade by blade, until you are helpless.” Clack! Crack! Clang! Two swords bounce where they hit the ground. Rose sets her staff and lifts herself up, throws one billowing leg over the shoulder of Secrets from the Stance, flips her head over heels while sliding down its length, and Secrets from the Stance bounces, too.

But then she sets her feet under her and flings herself at Rose again, and Rose is on the ground fending off those wicked edges, one, two, three, each one met by the length which does not yield underneath them. What could hope to change the sword fallen from the inconstant moon except for its own heart?

What could hope to change Rose, but her own?

“Then you are caught in a net.” Rose sweeps one leg out, forces Secrets of the Stance to hop up and put all of her weight on the staff, all the better to send her up and over Rose’s head, already turned to face her when she hits the ground, just enough time to get up on one knee. “But the net clings to you, grows with you; when it catches on a nail, you cry out as it digs into you, but for its sake, not your own. Then one day you find it is not a net but the finest gown.”

Her parries are executed with the sort of precision that even Chen, the prodigy of swordplay, might be impressed by. Each blow is met as if the handmaiden were attempting to 100% a rhythm game unearthed from the deep places of the world. And in her fury, Secrets of the Stance pushes harder, and that is all the opening Rose needs. She twists, spins upright, knocks two more swords away, and in that moment both know: the opening is there. Rose may bring her staff down on the head of Secrets of the Stance with a terrible crack, and it will not be the staff that yields, and Secrets of the Stance will deserve it.

Rose lets the opening pass; she steps back, her footfall as dainty as if she were stepping across a lake on the heads of lotus blossoms, and she bows dangerously low given the state of her precious outfit, the Conciliatory Ice-Star Blade held out to one side.

“Love came upon me like a thief in the night; it took my path, my quest, my dignity, and used them to line its own pockets; it bound me fast and locked a collar at my throat. Love has taken everything from me, and I am its helpless slave. It has turned me from a tool of universal beneficence willing to sacrifice my own happiness for the sake of all existence to a selfish creature whose whole world is a laugh, a smile, a choice repeated every heartbeat. If you are unwilling to surrender these things likewise, if you value your dignity and power over the smiling joy of the beloved, then small wonder Love eludes you no matter what you tear apart to find it. Look then in the atom, if you like, if you will not surrender yourself.”

Rose straightens, and holds the staff out in front of her, set firmly on the ground, and lets the wind set her ornaments to gentle chiming. And under her veil, she smiles, trusting in the Rosebud that Chen sees.

[Rose rolls a 6. Instead of acting with Daring to boost it to an 8, she acts with Grace, and spends her String on Secrets from the Stance immediately to add one to the roll. She chooses to inflict a Condition by refusing violence against Secrets from the Stance, and creates an opportunity for an ally— who, she does not yet know. Secrets from the Stance chooses an option against her in turn.]

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

The crowdfunding is the easy part. Download the screenshots, get a really good picture of Persephone, make her the new face of the regular donation drive. Hey, really hate to bother you, but…

We’re committed to being the only journalists who’ll get right in the line of danger to get you the truth, but…

Any little you can give really helps. And we appreciate it so, so much. Thank you.

You learn a little bit about what a good begging post looks like when you’re a celebrity, even a minor one. 3V, please. Can we get 1000 retweets for my boy Jackson? 3V, please. Shoutout for Megan Nbana, she’s fighting and being so strong but she needs a little help. 3V, please. We’re trying to get out and move in together, but we need a little help. 3V, please.

(It’s one reason she’s involved. You listen long enough, you either go numb or you have to do something. Maybe it’s not dismantling healthcare singlehandedly, but it’s something.)

But there’s only so much time she can waste on that. Okay, not waste, it’s objectively a better use of her time, but the entire time that terror’s rearing in the back of her head. Fucking Proverbs! Ha ha fucking ha! Cowards! You string twenty-seven people along, each of them thinking they’ve got a shot— well, no, not WhiteEagle44, but that’s just some internet comedian’s banter, imitating her, taunting him like Bugs Bunny and the bull, doing their best to make him regret the weird lumpy potato of a dick he sent a 3D print code for. And Novembers, but they don’t count, she knows she’s definitely being ribbed by those clever chucklefucks before she even opens their messages.

Options: just delete it. Delete everything. Leave twenty-six people (the ones who got past the “collecting cringe for the montage” stage) ghosted. Then hide underneath a desk until she’s convinced none of them will try to doxx her. Or, worse, they might try to reach out via social media, ask what they did, beg her to explain, refer to conversations she’s got no context for, and—

She relaxes her jaw. She relaxes her jaw. The red diodes on the sides of her hands fade and blink out.

Options, continued. She tries to get to know them. Maybe there’s actually someone… you know, somebody who isn’t star-struck, and doesn’t expect her to move in with them after three dates, and who’s better than variable-speed fingers with precision inputs and a phone on incognito, and isn’t hiding all of their red flags until she’s in too deep, and who won’t figure out that she’s a futureless has-been doing nothing but chasing interesting diversions, and—

Absolutely not. That leaves the need to write a message to each one, explaining (without the sterility of a form letter) the situation, how very sorry she is that their chains got pulled, and that she hopes they’ll have better luck with their other matches. Let her do the job the spineless motherfuckers flaked on.

…later. That’s a later job. She’s got to get back to Aevum, can’t juggle that and travel. And then she’ll need to keep on top of the donation drive and handle November’s sitch and set up a special event of some sort for the cafe next week and turn her interview into a published article and keep the archival experts in the loop and, really, it might be a bit, but that’s fine, actually, as long as she intends to let everyone down easy (for which she will need all of her attention and intelligence) it can’t hurt to let it simmer a day or two. It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. She can fix their fuck-up and go back to being perfectly fine and happy as a permanent bachelorette.

She’s fine.

***

“Well! Good to hear from you, Yellow!! You’re lucky I got my hands on this, I nearly didn’t (long story, I’ll tell you the whole thing later!!) but! Yeah! Let’s get Thai at the Thai Go in Laozi, up in your neck of the woods! Not a date, don’t worry (tell Blue that she is hilarious!)!”

Sunshards

Finally, Rose finds herself in the middle of the tableau she had watched from afar, on a dark hillside, on a night both not so long ago and unfathomably long ago. Rose stands beneath the regard of that woven-wire mask, in the middle of that crowd of attention, wearing the outfit of her dreams. And if all she had to hold onto was the promise that all would be well if she closed her eyes and trusted in the quiet voice of the Way leading her to the greatest happiness for all people, she would be doomed. You can’t hold universal happiness in your arms; you can’t imagine its smile, the way it hums to itself when it thinks no one is listening, the sparkle in its eyes when it talks about wanting to be a snow leopard. All you can do is tear yourself in half between the guilt of having desires and the fulfillment dangled in front of you. Rose from the River, Pilgrim of the Way, would be terrified of how badly she wanted to be forced to watch a city fall while being told how she was too pathetic to save it, displayed as a humiliated pet by a strength even she could yield herself to.

But little Rosepetal wants something even more. She wants to hear the relief in her Princess’s voice when the city is saved. She wants to be reassured that Chen never once thought of commanding her to be an unstoppable demon warrior. And if she’s going to be humiliated into the dirt, she wants Chen to do it and then cuddle with her afterwards.

So for Chen’s sake, and for the sake of the Pyre herself, Rose steps forward, despite the pull of the digital shackles telling her to go into standby, pinching and squeezing the parts of her bones that haven’t changed enough yet. Yes, for the sake of the Pyre, who can’t find an ocean big enough to fill the hole inside her, and so Qiu holds her by the emptiness and won’t let her go.

“I was not happy,” she says. “I was controlled and so I was not happy. I broke free, and I was not happy. I had a hollow place inside me that I could not fill with my own hands.”

Her hands, gentle, soft, take the hand of the Scales of Meaning, and the hand of Secrets of the Stance, and between the two she kneels, and the soft shivering squeeze she gives to both of them is her gift to them. Her body aches and roars for her to stop. But this is also a way that she can be strong.

Strong enough to hold her Chen safe, and not be feared for it.

“You are unhappy, my Leaseholder. And none of your hands can fill the hole which Qiu holds you fast by. I have tried feasting, I have tried fasting, I have tried following orders, I have tried to carve myself into an acceptable shape. Nothing satisfied my aching. Not until I was loved.”

It will not work. But what else can she do? It is better to do something that is right than to rage, or yield to despair, or bargain.

“My love saw me and loved me for my strength and for my weakness. When she looks at me, she doesn’t see a weapon or a monster; she sees a woman. The woman I want to be. She thinks I can do anything, but also that she can make me small and helpless with a touch, a word, a promise. And the way she wants me fills me up and makes me whole,” Rose says, and her voice is soft and sincere and not boastful at all. Would Scales of Meaning even recognize her now?

“My love is small and tired and loves this city. Every part of it. It is her childhood, her mother’s joy, and her hope to stand against Qiu.” She knows what she has to say. For her Chen. For her love. She has to be good for Chen. “Destroying this city will not make you happy. Following Qiu will not make you happy. Only the love of another, freely given.”

And she offers the Pyre her hand.

“Let me help you find it.”

[Rose attempts to Emotionally Support the Pyres of Meaning, but her lingering guilt makes it a 7, thank you Annie. The Pyre has to choose: if they validate Chen’s love, Rose marks XP; if they deny it, Rose takes a string on them.]

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

In the depths of the Forest Sauvage there is an old, tumble-down ruin. On either side of the moss-choked walls, there runs a river, cold and clear and singing even in the deeps of winter, and this river winds its way to a wide lake, mist-shrouded, reed-fringed. On the far side of the lake there is Bywater, whose people take to the water in coracles with nets; but there are fish within that they have not caught, nor can they. On the side that abuts the forest, there is a place marked by a circle of stones standing on their ends, each one the height of a man, little more. Each is placed so that their crown marks a star and a day; each is faded and worn by the rain and the wind. They stand lonesome.

A ways, a ways, there is a cottage; thatch-roofed, stone-walled, surrounded by a wild garden, by fruiting trees that spring up in orchards, by bees and their hives. The windows are shut, the door likewise; the girl who opens them in the morning is Beth Hooper, here for the season. The three cats have to be fed, after all: Tybalt, Palug, and the third who refuses a name, big and heavy and insistent on her dominion over the cottage. The bees have to be tended. The garden must be weeded. It would not do for the Lady of the Lake to come back and find her affairs out of order. All year she was here, after her outing last winter, and it was Brigid who saw to the house then. The Lady's got business across Britain, she does, in far-flung places; why else would she leave her perfect little house?

And on the Bristol Avon, there's a lady with her hair loose on her shoulders, and she's on her own coracle with her own oar. And she's got a fair sword naked in her lap, and she's not wearing samite. That's for queens. Constance Nim, daughter of the Bristol Avon, is no queen; she is a fixed point waiting for a wandering knight to return. And she no longer can carry this sword, terrible and wonderful and heavy enough to slip beneath the water. That was the old way, with the swords of bronze, and her mother still remembers.

It's heavier still when she lifts it. As if it doesn't want to go. But she throws it as hard as she can, and before it can strike the water, there comes an arm and an hand above the water to meet it, and catch it, and so shake it thrice and brandish it, and then to vanish away both hand and sword in the water, and there's our Constance left behind with nothing for it but to row against the current, to row home and tend to her cats, to guard what she can against the dying days of Uther and know the spring's on its way again.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Han!

You bite down on something terrible, and it yields under your jaw. How could it not? You could bite through the mast of a real sea-ship when you are so suffused with Essence. There is a horrible echoing scream, and the kidnapper is released, only to be caught up by a dragon.

There is a wild panic in her eyes as she rolls over, mostly tangled in her cloak, sword half-drawn. She’s helpless. You are power, strength, rage. And now you get to make her squeal about where your little priestess is.

But first, doesn’t she deserve to be small and scared? Doesn’t she deserve to be punished for everything she put you through?

***

Kalaya!

There is a dragon in the room. It is standing over Ven. It throbs and burns with power, with essence flow unlike anything you’ve ever seen. It is not the dragon from your storybooks, to be revered as an ancestress, or the dragon of the Dominion, ancient and greedy and so, so distant. It is here and it is alive and it is an animal, and it is going to kill Ven.

Are you a knight, or aren’t you?

***

Piripiri!

Uusha shoves you onto the ground. Hard. For a moment, your head rings where you hit the ground. Then the hiss fills your ears.

The room is furious with arrows. Burning arrows, ricocheting arrows, howling wind arrows. And Uusha has just put herself between you and it. Arms crossed before her, feet set, head lowered, she takes to the task of protecting the three of you without complaint. Did she even think about it?

***

Giriel!

And four winds birthed the Mother of Loss, and one was the grinding-wind, and one was the brilliant-wind, and one was the promise-wind, and one was the arrow-wind. And of these only the arrow-wind will kill, with a thousand darts, or with the arrows of Yes and No, or with a long knife, as she chooses.

Kalmanka, the Arrow-Wind. She can be ten thousand arrows, or she can be a needle; she can be a black wolf, a silver swan, or a woman wearing a scale-coat of arrowheads. If Ven has called upon her, she is digging herself very deep in debt.

But worst of all is that Kalmanka holds the arrows of Yes and No in her quiver-soul, with which she may inflame passions or shatter them. No sorcerer may command her to use the one without accepting that she will also use the other as she wills, and often to their doom. She could turn [Uusha] into a sobbing berserker, or leave you with nothing but cold ash where your regard for her was.

***

Fengye!

There! The General roars, a hoarse and chorused bellow, and jerks back a mangled hand from the sea. Something on the other side got him fierce. He rears up and out of his sleeves spill dolls, hundreds of them, jerking broken shattered empty uniforms and breastplates, who walk as best they can on top of the sea of waste. Whoever is on the other side (which is to say, likely Kalaya) is about to be dragged into battle with a demon army. Could even she claw her way out of that kind of host?

If he pulls too much harder, incidentally, he risks doing damage to the world itself. The kind that will fester until its effects on the Flower Kingdoms are impossible for Heaven to ignore. It would ruin a beachhead for Hell, but the effects on the Flower Kingdoms would be… deleterious, in the short run.

The ideal ending for all of this is for the General to be distracted long enough for someone enterprising to contact the priestesses of the Sapphire Mother to exorcise this place as thoroughly as they can, at great expense.

He could be distracted, perhaps, with a truly audacious lie. Or with whoever this Ven is. Or— no, you wouldn’t hand over this cutie, you’re not that cold.

Breathless Dead

Once, Redana ruined an art project. It’s important that an empress be talented at everything, after all! She sat back after spending hours working on the canvas, making clumsy figures, her anatomy wretched, her command of space in the scene hardly there, but she’d made it and it was hers. Wouldn’t you know that it was the moment her Mommy fought Molech? And then she knocked over the basin at the side of her work table, and the muddy paintwater spread, and spread, and spread, and where it touched everything was ruined, and she watched as something she’d poured her heart into was undone, and even if Bella said it was her fault for not removing the basin at once, Redana knew that it was all her fault.

As above, so below. As before, so now. As mother, as daughter.

And no wonder she’d been yearning all her life. And no wonder her mother shut all of her beloved humanity in that walled garden. And no wonder she’d been forbidden to leave, to come out here, to fall in love with a ruined universe. Before her, the stain spreads, blotting out colors, details, treasures, languages, mothers, daughters, futures. And the worst part of all is that this has all been seen before; is that her mother remembers, and she can hear her voice now, and it is a small, brown, brittle voice, without any of the bombast or pride she recognizes, simply the elevated register of someone reciting poetry meant to be memorized:

”Next those from Asterom and Melonian Orphidaeus, ruled by the Twin Kings, sons of Ares who the fair queen Astelia bore the mighty god, for they loved him and all his sport in defiance of Molech. Then the Phoecians, who sang to make Apollo weep, daughters of great-hearted Iphero, who held Cyprusa and rocky Pythan, Alena and Panopsus; the dwellers of Anomene and Hyrapolis, who sang their ships from the living coral; those from Lisbea by the clouds of Sephisus, who hid their reavers within those shining storms. Next the Lokirans…”

She’s sorry. But no amount of being sorry will make her mommy stop. Her memory continues, relentless, because to relent would be to forget, to allow that awful blot one final victory. To let everyone who tumbled down in their millions into Hades be forgotten one last time.

And so Redana curls up, and sobs herself hoarse, trying not to listen, incapable of not listening, of not understanding, of not seeing flashes in her mind’s eye: Iphero’s mottled fur, the precise color of the Anomen corals, the trophies of the Sephisean reavers. And later she’ll have time for the existential revelations, to grapple with her relationship to Iskarot, to look at her own face and see the shape of Hermes— but right now, all that is required of her is to witness. And so that is all that she can do.

That’s all her mother could do.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

When she was small, Vesna insisted on bringing pajamas everywhere she went. Clothes, all the time, everywhere! Clothes were the hallmark of civilization; clothes separated us from the barbarian and the beast! It was travel that slowly weaned her from the habit; if every bit of space in the bag counts, ditching the clothes that aren’t for public wear is just common sense. By this point in her life, the one concession to being in someone else’s house is that when she slips under the covers, she’s still wearing her sports bra. (A spare; of course you bring a change of underwear to climbing a mountain.)

She lies there, in the unfathomable dark, and keeps staring up at the sky, at the stars, through a skylight. Maybe it’s because of a life spent staring at screens, but the frame of the window seems to impart some extra meaning to the stars. The shape she imposes on it is all in her mind, but even now she can see it: the hunter with his shining belt and his bow, immortal until people forget why he’s named Orion at all, until they stop being able to see the shape. And he ran and he ran and he ran until she grew tired.

Eventually, she pulls the thick comforter over her head. Her hand sneaks out of the covers and grabs her phone where she left it on the nightstand. It’s on as soon as her fingers touch it; a perk of her hands, used in lieu of a regular password. And in the dark of the dark, there is light.

Another perk of the hands: her thumbs can go as fast as her thoughts. She’s not at her phone’s maximum input processing, but she pushes it harder than most people can. No need to worry about carpel tunnel here. So it’s a bit of casual work to shoot off a couple of emails and make a few OurSpaces posts to see who’d be available to help with archival. It’s only after that that she scans through her emails, sorting valuables from the detritus and chaff that everybody gets: newsletters you’ll never unsubscribe from, sales notifications that you’ll also never unsubscribe from, requests from old fans, requests from weird fans, and Did You Know November Posted This Photo (Please Follow The Link Because We Want You Lured Onto Our App)?!

What’s the gold this time? There’s always something interesting: an old friend reaching out, a crowdfunding announcement, or a sale actually worth the time it takes to scan it.

Sunshards

The city is doomed.

That’s the plain and simple of it, laid out for Rose in terms that she can see, even if Chen can’t. Yue definitely doesn’t see the moving pieces here: Yin’s Radiants, shining, glorious, arrayed in their invincible armors, even as their former allies fought desperately to stop them, but it won’t work, First of the Radiants trained them, he did it too well, all for the conditional love of someone who wanted him to be static for her, a stone to lean against, a statue to display. The Pyre of Meaning, burning, burning, and she could fight Scales of Meaning to a standstill but not every one of her sisters, and when she realized Yue was on the field there would be a confrontation and there’s only two ways that goes, and how’s Hyra supposed to keep her safe from that? And Qiu, arrogant, correct, the thought of her smirk sending terror down Rose’s spine, the pitying glance, the “oh. how cute.”

Everything is fallen apart and the Way’s withholding itself from her, she can’t feel it flowing through her, she’s too thick and heavy with love and desire and fear, and what is she supposed to do?

They’ll tie her up and show her the coffin and this time it’ll be worse because back then she didn’t care about anyone they were all pawns or fuel or enemies and she struggled for the sake of freedom but they’ll shut her up and she’ll never ever ever see Chen or Yue or Hyra or Cyanis ever ever ever again stuck in the nightmares again for another eternity—

The Way isn’t here for her. But Chen is. Rosepetal follows because the alternative is falling apart, a helpless little coward on the edge of the battlefield, feeling the walls of the coffin close in all around her. She follows and she turns the fear into a kind of dirty fuel, enough to make her feet strong and her legs powerful for leaps and she doesn’t care how silly she looks being strong while dressed for softness, and her sword is a staff in her hands.

Crack! Crack! Anyone who even tries to come close to the blazing star shooting across the battlefield has something else to think about very quickly, and while she’s not here to put people in the ground she’s only barely holding back. Assault Ribbons are swatted out of the sky, spears held by peasant conscripts are shattered below the heads, and in the center of it Rose moves like the sort of creature she’s trying not to be.

But she has to keep up. She has to be the kind of monster that Chen will value. And so she spins that staff so fast that it hums a warning-song, and every crack is the percussion, every fall a thunderbolt, every rap against the earth enough to shake it.

The Way isn’t here for her. She chose the misery of desire, instead. So all she can do is follow Chen, her heart on a leash, and repay her for every tenderness she offered the Equal Of Crowns.

Stand before her, Pyre! Bar her way, Yin! Try to stop Chen, you hordes! Rose will dance with you instead, buy Chen a sky to fly in, even if it’s a fight that even Rose cannot win. It will be enough to lose slowly enough for her—

And to hope that, maybe this time, when they bury her, Chen won’t stop until she breaks the coffin open with her own dainty, gentle hands. That maybe she’s been good enough that one of her friends won’t let her stay down in the dark to outlive them all. That somebody will care enough for Rosepetal to save her, where they didn’t care to save the HUNTER-Class 猎犬.

Breathless Dead

“This is embarrassing,” the naked princess says, sheepishly. “I think there was some sort of— I think she’s a little bit dead right now?” The boxing stance is natural to her; she balls up her fists and takes a counterpose. “And she’s out of control. Or was. Is? She’s only mostly dead, but I don’t exactly remember, there was a fight— but what’s important is that Bella is doing all of this for you. She told me. In detail. So even if I could turn into a blood-drunk barbarian queen right now, I wouldn’t, because I am not going to kill you.”

She darts. Her body might be breaking down, slowly failing her, but her courage roars in her chest like a lion. Between the stones she goes, going in for a heroic tackle. If she can just pin down Beautiful’s arms, then it should be easy enough for Bella to get over here, right?

Beautiful lets out a quizzical sound as she sidesteps and pins Redana against the railing, one hand twisted up behind her back. Her witty rejoinder is drowned out by the sound in Redana’s ears, the roaring of her heart. She tries to twist away, get a leg under Beautiful, restrain her for Bella. And she really, really tries! She super does! But it’s very difficult to wrestle with someone who knows everything you’re going to do before you even get around to doing it!

Chalk it up to how strung-out Beautiful is right now that Redana even has a chance fighting against her, that she’s not pinned down and forced to watch Beautiful dig that shining blue eye out of her head. She keeps getting up every time she’s knocked down, like a puppy that refuses to be removed from a lap, and with similar effect, except—

Well, all of Beautiful’s attention is on her, right? On the princess who wasn’t even supposed to be here. On the girl so pumped full of venom still, it’s a wonder she’s standing up! On Redana, who can’t let herself fade away and stop being her terrible, miserable self when Bella’s depending on her to save Beautiful somehow.

Maybe that’s why things go the way they do, right here: because Redana gets flung to the floor, and even as Beautiful sighs and shifts her stance, she scrambles back up and flings herself at Beautiful’s stomach, only to end up in a headlock, and Beautiful reaches for the eye only to flinch back just in time because, biting, Redana, really? That’s not respectable wrestling!

But Redana’s here to win, even if it’s literally impossible. Because giving up would mean letting Bella down again, and she’s going to delay that for as long as she can. Don’t think about the conversation where Bella tells her to come back. Don’t think about Bella kissing Beautiful. Don’t think. Just elbow Beautiful in the stomach and keep trying to win!

Win the Gold for Bella, Dany!

[Redana manages to squeak out a 7 to Keep Beautiful Busy with this ridiculous, irrepressible girl.]