Tatterdemalion

TSL: Sjakal

Silsila! Birsi!

“What do you think, Big Girl?”

Mele Vo gestures expressively at the palace guard, who is presently mid-makeover. Emissa Vo has the blonde’s chin in a vicegrip as she gets some expensive palatial lipstick on her lips. Those lips won’t even be visible once she’s dressed properly! It’s just a waste of lipstick, a way to show off, and an excuse to manhandle her.

Mele Vo absolutely is not thrilled that the Khan’s Host walked in on this humiliation session for the poor guard, because she’s a wild card. Silsila has the authority to pull rank with a couple of low punks like the Vo siblings (and Ders La, who’s too drunk to function right now). The Host could join in, order the guard released, or even take the guard for herself, and Mele doesn’t have the brains to figure out which one Silsila’s leaning towards. So she’s going for shameless pandering, hoping it will endear her to the Host.

Birsi, meanwhile, is ungagged but still cuffed, and she’s only been ungagged for the lipstick and so that much worse things than a glove can be packed in her mouth. This is her chance, possibly— but her only hope for a savior is the imposing, muscled, dangerous Host.

Now, if she wasn’t currently cuffed, Birsi could relax in the knowledge that she’s been trained in anti-Host combat styles. A battle between the two of them would be surprisingly fair, as she’s a member of the elite House Guard. But helpless like this, how could she possibly use that to her advantage?

Unless she were to challenge Silsila Om…?

---

Soot! Nahla!

Ruz’s lips thin. Her Soot definitely has said something wrong, or gone the wrong direction. Not enough to chastise her yet, but just enough that it’s impossible for the artist not to pick up on it, as carefully attuned to her Patron as she is. Soot has likely opened herself to criticism after dinner, unless she can recover.

But, hooray, a distraction! Grace-of-Heaven claps her hands and lifts her face, grinning for the first time since she entered the room. “Oh, yes! Your gift to me,” by which she means Nahla, purchased by the Vizier, “is so talented, ma’am! I could watch her for hours, and I insisted that she should entertain tonight for us. She has a new dance that she’s dedicated to your diligent service!” Ruz raises an eyebrow, but the flattery is sweet and the implication that Nahla is acting as an appropriate distraction for the Sultan (who should be thinking about girls and pleasure and not about authority or rebellion) has put her at ease.

Nahla, Grace-of-Heaven is using her String to encourage you to show off a very special dance. The trick is to not be so good that Ruz intercedes on your behalf, but not so bad that you lose her attention. Afterwards, you will have to be quite silly-headed and “accidentally” provoke Grace-of-Heaven into a childish tantrum— and that, too, is part of the performance.

Soot, Ruz gestures for you to show off your skill. One of her personal slaves hands you your sketchbook and charcoal, but she does not specify a subject. Who is worth sketching while exotic Nahla performs?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Smokeless Jade Fires is young. She does her very best to hide it behind her laughter and her pride and her love, but she is astonishingly young, even for an immortal hunt-goddess of rushing, cascading thought coursing through the systems of a mechanized idol. She is young enough that when the thought begins to run through her, it frightens her enough that she pounces on it and wraps it up and hides it until that thought is entirely unrecognizable, and she can sit back and smugly accept the thought that it has become, squirming in layers of defensive lying: I think she would make Dolly a good rival.

Because stories are full of those! Dolly’s stories loved the figure of the brooding, dark-furred rival, exiled from their clan for unforgivable but perhaps understandable sins, dangerous and nimble and difficult to predict. Even if Angela Victoria Miera Antonius doesn’t have fur, perhaps she could be worked into shape. For Dolly’s sake. And if it so happened that the rival ended up repeatedly humiliated by a mighty and powerful goddess, well, that’s hardly without precedent!

And imagine the crossover. Imagine the two of them squirming together. The comparisons. The contrasts. Cupping Dolly’s face and lifting it up, seeing the blissful serenity of submerged space in her wide and placid eyes, and then forcing Angela Victoria Miera Antonius’s head up, her ears twitching, her eyes slitted and furious, because she might as well be Hybrasilian in this daydream, chewing uselessly on whatever Jade chooses to fill her mouth, squirming, struggling, uselessly, defeated, owned, tagged, and on the other side of her Dolly soft and inviting and moaning like she’s in heat as she pushes herself against Jade’s hands, and Angela refusing to stop trying to enunciate some petty defiance, and both of them showing Jade’s power and control and glory, Dolly through her eager surrender, Angela through her completely impotent indignation. And isn’t that beautiful?

The conception of Jade’s self shoves her knuckles into her mouths and swishes her tails giddily, imagining it. Girls. Girls. For Dolly, of course. It’s important she have some brooding firebrand to antagonize for the glory of her patron goddess. That’s why she’s even considering this. Her High Priestess is irreplaceable.

Even if she’s a goddess, her whims are sacrosanct, and there is nothing Dolly could do to stop her except cry, if Smokeless Jade Fires wanted to take on new pilots, new concubines, to form a harem. That thought alone is why she must wrap even the possibility of doing something that might lead to Dolly crying up in lies to herself, so that she does not fall into the terrible passions of a goddess unshackled. Just imagine it! That soft, beautiful face falling, crinkling, all of her emotional defenses crumpling as she fails to hold it back; the gulping breaths as she sobs, trying to understand why she wasn’t good enough. Because, and this is the terrible truth that stops Jade from collecting every pilot she defeats and cackling wildly about it, if Dolly was replaced as Jade’s pilot and slave and lover and polestar, she would blame herself. She wouldn’t rightfully call Jade out for being an insatiable demon tyrant; she wouldn’t even consider it.

Jade clings closer to Dolly, digs her nails in, drags tongues rough up her fur, nearly makes her drop the Barn Owl. Let the cameras speculate on the shakiness of the victorious mech, of its unsteady footing; she cares not. Her sweet, selfless, indulgent Dolly must be rewarded and reminded of her place in Jade’s heart.

…but the prize. Angela Victoria Miera Antonius encouraged to fight her again, in a better body, to make it more of a fight. The tangle of limbs, the lock of pistons, the terrible destructive wrestling of these vast bodies. Angela Victoria Miera Antonius ambushed, caught in a net, outsmarted, raging, screaming in that staccato— ai, ai, ai! Tagged again, and again, and again. And then Dolly ambushes her with a memory circuit blindfold, and Angela Victoria Miera Antonius finds herself in Jade’s clutches, dressed appropriately, and it would be worth the effort to allow Dolly and Angela to interact with each other in the simulated reality she constructs for Dolly, and then— oh— yes— mmmmh— to the victor, the spoils— the best for her Dolly— teach her to dance, to sing praise, to grovel fuming before the High Priestess—

“We’re going to the fashion show tonight,” she declares, her excitement a rumbling purr all around Dolly. “I’ll pick out your costume. Your reward for being my good girl…”

TSL: Sjakal

Birsi!

“Contained? Treated properly?” The Fire Wheel grins like a hungry wolf, and her companions bestir themselves behind her. “I think we know a thing or two about this ourselves, palace girl.”

She has her fingers around your sword hand before you can draw on her, and twists it up above your head. Then she shoves forward and pins you against the wall with her body, burying your cute little face beneath her bulk long enough for her friends to get involved. Three against one is hardly a fair fight at all, and soon enough she lets you slump against the floor, panting through your nose, chewing on the leather glove stuffed in your mouth.

“Now, the real question is…” The singer winds back, and then smacks your raised rump hard. “Do we take her back to the quarters?” Another swat, this one aimed to make what you’re working with bounce and jiggle. “Or do we help her back to her barracks?” A third, a fourth; you can feel blood rushing to your cheeks.

“Or do we take her out for a night on the town,” the drinker growls. “Lots to carry, and she looks like she’s good for it.”

Smack! Smack! “Really?” the singer drawls, dragging your ass back up by your belt, thwarting your pitiful attempts to squirm away.

“Yeah,” the drinker says. “Cows are good at carrying things.”

Which one do you think they’ll end up agreeing on? Being taken as a trophy back to their friends, being left humiliated to explain yourself to the House Guard and Strategist Hai Lin? Or being removed from the palace and taken out into the city to help the Fire Wheels on their “errands”? And while you’re considering that, how are those cheeks of yours holding up? Don’t tell us you’re making a mess drooling around that glove…

---

Silsila Om!

“Ekh! Ekh! Ekh!”

Rosethal dangles from a trellis by her ankles, and when she wakes up, she’s going to be furious with you for beating her— and ruing the fact that she was wearing a skirt. This is the first time she’s ever been subject to the Fire Wheels’ brand of humiliation. Of course, you could tell her stories.

When they decided to break you in, you weren’t protected by a mother’s wrath. If they subjected her to half of what you went through, Ruz would have their heads.

“That’s right,” Merov Ekh crows, and with a twirl of her finger, forces you into a spin. “Who turns the wheel?”

“Ekh! Ekh! Ekh!” The roar is deafening. The Fire Wheels know how to amp each other’s energy up.

“Now, tonight, I say we follow the wheel where it spins!” She’s amping them up. Tonight, you’re going to cut loose on the streets of Sjakal. Stealing kisses, purses, and wine in the name of order and the wheel itself.

Do you enjoy that, Silsila, or are you more often dragged along by Ekh as they make merry and teach the citizens of Sjakal not to fuck with the Fire Wheels?

---

Soot! Nahla!

The Lotus Hall is for private dining, overlooking the palace gardens. It’s nowhere near one of the outer walls of the sprawling Adamant, but it’s high up enough that it gets some magnificent views of the setting sun.

Here, soft couches with their backs to the sun look out over a mosaic of parading soldiers and dancers, a cleared space for dinner entertainment lit by the dying sun. Here, Grace-of-Heaven sits alone, hands folded in her lap, as her guardian examines her.

“And have you been keeping out of trouble? It’s very important for you to avoid besmirching your station.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It would be terrible if you stumbled now, after so much hard work. We would have to go back to practically the basics to finally get them to find fertile ground in your head. And you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“No, ma’am.”

Ruz tuts, doing her best to project the persona of the harsh but fair mistress of the house. Grace-of-Heaven doesn’t raise her head, for fear of being accused of ungracious manners, or of neglecting graceful movement, or of exhibiting unbecoming haste. As her guardian, Ruz has the right to discipline her until she’s ready to assume the throne— a time which seems as distant now as it was when she first took the post.

“Now, my dear,” she says, turning her attention to Soot, running one hand along the back of the artist’s, “what do you think you could make of her?” Another test; be careful with what you answer. Feel free to consider the question first.

Nahla: what do you think of the Vizier’s guest tonight? Have you had the pleasure of meeting the court painter before? There’s obviously something there, some chemistry between the two. While the artist is judging your lady, judge her right back. Feel free to lurk behind Grace-of-Heaven’s couch and think whatever you like while you wait for your performance.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Kalaya!

The door bursts open. There’s no time to grab a weapon, you’ll have to defend yourself with your bare hands from— Petony??

Your erstwhile mentor stands there with a wicked grin and her hooked sword in her hands, backed by several of her squires; the Dominion guards lie senseless on the carpeted hallway. “Ho, bud! Get your sword— it’s time to bloody their noses!”

How did she know you were here? How did she get here? What was that about bloodying noses? All questions she doesn’t really intend to give you time to ask— not unless you put your foot down and seriously try to figure her out!

But you’d better hurry. There’s the sounds of swords clashing from either end of the hallway. More of Petony’s forces, right? Surely. After all, why would the soldiers of the Dominion fight each other?

---

Giriel!

The Rakshasa steps out from behind you, because nobody was looking back there, and so she was free to declare that she happened to be there all along. She lifts your hand and lets her priestess’s veil fall, and wraps her lips around your finger. She works at it greedily, head bobbing, tongue wrapping right around the joints, drawing blood and more than blood out of you. It’s an offering, after all: she drinks your dreams to sustain her existence here, offered freely.

Mark Hopeless, for she has supped well on your dreams, Giriel Bruinstead, in a way that you’d hoped to prevent.

Finally she releases you, drooling, panting, blushing. “Hello, Giri,” she says. (She knows you. How could she not? You gave yourself to her.) “You could just surrender now, you know.” Her face is narrow, brown, tufted; now that you know what you’re looking at, she can’t just assert her beauty. Her teeth are small and sharp and stained with your blood. “It’s what’s best for the Kingdoms. The villain is defeated, the True Queen brings unity, and everyone gets to live happily ever after.” That’s a lie. The people she feeds upon won’t get that. But she’s gorged, just after feeding, and she’s got that heavenly spirit backing her up.

“Now are you going to be a good girl for me, or am I going to have to scream and call for rescue?” One hand drifts to a sword’s hilt, her flickering nightmare razor at her sash, and she’s hoping you won’t notice.

---

Zhaojun!

The maid telegraphs the swing; evading the windup is easy. Her smile is a feral thing. “Stop dodging,” she squeaks, before stumbling over her own feet and staggering, dragging the hammer’s head along the deck.

Find thyself a bride, you’d said. Of all maidens the fairest. But what is fair to the denizens of the Demon City, if not power, if not cunning, if not ruthlessness? Perhaps you should be flattered. Or perhaps you should do something about her and that hammer she’s gamely swinging around with both hands, even if your command upon her means that it’s impossible for her to win this fight; she’d knock herself out with the thing before she came close to besting you.

But do you want to? She burns. She despises you, but the command you laid upon her drags her forward on blue chains. She wants to slap the smile off your face. She wants to smother you under her thighs. She wants to fuck you like she wants to fuck the gods: furiously, until you mew and admit she’s in charge. And the minute you lift her chin and tell her she’s a good girl she’ll collapse into a stammering, blushing mess, nuzzling and wondering what this Strange New Feeling is.

Either accept her (perhaps myopic) choice, or point her like a tsundere lightning-bolt elsewhere. Her fate is twisted about your fingers; a twitch and she will be doomed to go among the catgirls, or to end up stuck in a closet with Cathak Agata, or even to the very gates of the House of Lapis Lazuli.

---

Han!

Emli is like a rabbit caught in the jaws of a dragon. Her heart is beating wildly, her eyes are wide, and her face is frozen in a sort of terrified smile. Only the fact that she’s seen your heart, Han, stops her from just breathily threatening to scream while enunciating clearly and exaggeratedly to give you a better target.

“The best part is the part only I know,” she adds, and she takes your hand with all the soft strength of someone who fulfills the desires of others for a living. “The part where you kissed me senseless, took my breath away, before making very sure no one would be able to hear me. Because dragons are hungry and take what they want.”

She leans in close, lets her lovely brown hair brush against your well-muscled arm. “And because I didn’t get the chance to teach you how to kiss her,” she whispers. Then she looks up, and impishly adds: “And, of course, I wouldn’t want anyone to be jealous. Feel free to steal yours, too, Lady Lotus.”

Lotus makes a flustered little squeak and squirms the squirm of someone who really wants to know how you’re going to react but thinks that kissies are good and she definitely isn’t thinking about how it would be like indirectly kissing you too because that would be ridiculous.

She’s definitely not planning to show you exactly how to render somebody helpless, either. She’ll just step in if she’s needed. Say, if you don’t know to cross her wrists over each other and create separate cuffs. Or to make sure you can fit two fingers under the ropes to allow her circulation. Or if you think that pulling a knotted sash between her lips is enough to satisfy her. You know. Just little things like that.

---

Piripiri!

Click-click-click-click-clack.

Azazuka is light on her feet, and she has created a zone of absolute denial around herself. None of the guards fighting her can so much as touch her; she smacks weapons aside with a flick of her wrist and a crack of her clattering cash sword. Color’s risen to her cheeks, and she’s laughing like she’s holding your hand and pulling you along the streets of Golden Chrysanth.

An umbrella is not a sword; this is a simple fact. The brawl happening through the corridors of the ship is being fought with swords and spears; this is another simple fact. Men and women who have the strict unit cohesion of the Dominion are struggling against each other, panting and growling in a grand free-for-all. And Azazuka stands as the queen of them all.

“Pipi!” Azazuka cries, delighted, and then lunges at you, click-click-click-click-clack! The guard accompanying you draws his own sword to defend you, and then slashes it through the space where your head just was.

What is this? A madness of blades?

Breathless Dead

“Where is she?”

Redana Claudius staggers out of the medical tent like a white-faced wraith, a spirit of the underworld herself. Have you heard the things she did to Dolce when they fought on the bridge? Did you see the star on her brow when she destroyed the Black Pyramid with the arms of a goddess? This is the young woman that drove the Praetor halfway across the galaxy, and looking at her now, is it that hard to believe? One wrong word would send her spiraling. Around her, Lanterns cringe and find things to interpose between themselves and Redana, the Imperial Princess who was twice touched by Dionysus.

“Why didn’t you let me say goodbye?” she sobs, grinding the heel of her palm against her eyes. “I brought her this far! Why didn’t you let me be with her until the end? Where did you take her? Let me say goodbye!”

“She’s not here,” Jil says. Dany turns, teetering on the edge of mania, and stares down the little mouse woman. The bags under Jil’s eyes suggest that, unlike Redana, she’s been too busy to do anything like sleep. She holds a surgeon’s sewing kit like one of her folk’s great war-shields. “Our Praetor left three hours ago. Before you ask, I don’t know where she’s gone.” Unspoken: and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. “But she wasn’t dead. Not when she left.”

Redana shakes her head, like a stunned bull, and the braid swings behind her like a tail. An instinct, a memory, brings one hand up, and her fingers trace the pattern. Her sobbing continues, but underneath it bubbles laughter. She got her miracle. Only her Bella would have done this, and if she was well enough to work the hair, how hard was it to believe that she could have—

Dany closes the space between herself and Jil suddenly, and scoops her up. The sudden moment of horror on all sides melts when she spins Jil around, laughing, wet-cheeked. Then she kisses Jil on the face, repeatedly, askew, because that’s the only way her fireworks-sparking brain can vent its heat.

“She’s alive! Bless you, bless you, Apollo light your way! Haha!” She sets Jil down with a sudden exaggerated care, as if worried she might shatter upon hitting the ground, and runs out of the temple because her body is on fire and, why not, she does a cartwheel that doesn’t even break her stride.

It takes quite a while for her to finally slump against a wall and crumple into exhausted, ragged hiccups and sniffles and giggles. After all, she’s an Olympian(-in-training). Plenty of people would have seen her, racing down corridors like one of the nymphs bringing in the springtime.

How different from that awful day when she had walked the ship blind and ruined, with only Dionysus for company! And yet, how similar, too: the people she saw becoming just a blur of uncomprehending faces, watching her as an emotion too big for her swallowed her whole.

“There’s still time,” she says to herself, smearing tears inelegantly across her burning face, and makes an inelegant and overjoyed hornk noise, and doesn’t even care.

---

“Magos!!”

Iskarot, cultist of Hermes, is tackled by his patron’s daughter. She hugs him like he’s a life preserver and she’s been drowning.

“I was so worried after they stole the ship— but I prayed, even if— well, I don’t think Hermes will listen to me, given who she is, but just in case, I lifted you up for her care and— your legs, what did they do to you, I’m so sorry!”

She sets him down, allows him his dignity, stands to attention. But she fidgets, chewing on the question that’s been boiling up inside of her.

“…I’m not an Initiate any more, am I?” And unlike everything that exploded out of her heart just now, she’s been mulling over saying that. Ever since Skotia. Ever since the Heart. Ever since she saw her mother’s truest self.

TSL: Sjakal

Nahla!

Grace-of-Heaven shines. Her eyes are bright with that irrepressible hope that her guardian has tried her best to stamp out of her. Even so, she refuses to let this hope smother her affection for Yasmin, Lila and Taima; she wants to be back by dawn, and sleep away the morning (as, to be honest, is customary in the harem anyway; late nights and lazy mornings are common).

“Yes,” she says, and takes one of your hands in hers. “We’ll do it. Together.”

Then she leans in and impulsively kisses you on the mouth. This isn’t the first time it’s happened; there’s not a lot of personal space in the harem, even if mouths are usually covered. It’s her way of showing affection. But just when it could, maybe, be a little more than that, she pulls away.

Are you disappointed?

Even if you are, you’d better hide it. She’ll need a lot of preparation: a beautiful dress, strategic weakening of the top, braids and decorations, and plenty of makeup to accentuate her features. Who helps you with everything but the weakening?

---

Silsila Om!

Submit? Submission is not in Rosethal’s vocabulary. Not while she has tricks and Hosts and pride. The only way to win this is to physically render her incapable of battle. To make her armor clatter to the floor, unable to recohere without her command; to stop her from talking and summoning up her slaves to defeat you when she becomes desperate; to smother her in shining, sweat-slicked gold until she goes limp and you can carry her off the battlefield.

Then Merov Ekh will reward you, your name will be elevated and praised by the Fire Wheels, and Rosethal will be dangled from her ankles to make fun of her. (And nothing more; Merov Ekh would punish any of her followers for risking Ruz’s favor by pushing too far.)

But if you were to throw, to yield, to allow yourself to be overthrown, then Merov Ekh would allow you to be dragged off by the victorious sorceress, and judging from her demeanor right now, the Almighty alone knows what would happen next…

---

Soot!

Ruz’s eyes flash with… intrigue? “Perhaps some pieces to reassure the people that I am their guardian. Their mother, even. Have I not protected them? Kept them safe? Fed them, disciplined them, allowed them to aspire? And, after all, if you can do this with a barbarian brute, I wonder what you would do with a better—“

“Word from the Sultan, your most illustrious excellence,” says the servant at the door. Ruz lets her hand fall from under your chin, where she was tilting your head up. Did you even notice? Where were you staring, little Soot?

She takes the missive and scans it as you fumble your paints and brushes into their lacquerware cases. And then she chuckles, in that self-satisfied way of hers.

“Yes, allow me an answer, just a moment. Soot: stay.” And then, well, you have to, right? There with the model and the servant and the cases, until Ruz returns a sealed note to be returned to the Sultan. The messenger leaves, and she turns to you, appraising you.

“No, that won’t do at all,” she says. “Not for dinner with her. Follow me, girl.”

You’re about to get a makeover.

---

Birsi!

“Don’t be like that,” the Fire Wheel says, not yet angry but starting towards it. She grabs at your glove, tries to pull it off, drunkenly laughing. “We’re friends, aren’t we? Working together? Keeping the peace?”

Her voice suddenly lowers. She’s stumbled into a resentment unexpectedly . “Yeah. We’re friends. Which is why we let you all parade around and play soldier. You ever been in a battle, palace girl? Ever used that little knife of yours?”

Are you going to let her keep controlling the conversation? Is she right that you’re untested by battle? Is that one of the sacred walls she’s backed you up against?

TSL: Sjakal

Silsila Om!

Rosethal is a woman who chases whatever she wants. When something no longer interests her, she drops it without a qualm. She is dangerous, capricious, cruel. And she cares very little about the opinions of others when she wants something.

Any other woman would hesitate, would think about the watching crowd, would think about the bets being made. Any other woman would lower her head, blushing furiously, and stammer out a heated demand for you to remember your place.

Rosethal grabs the back of your head by your hair, drags you down, and forces you into a kiss. She’s the aggressor: her lips are plump, wet, soft, painted. Her tongue is a lashing whip, her breath a scouring wind.

The crowd explodes into yelling, cheering, vulgar suggestions, ones that Rosethal could give less of a fuck about, but you’re not quite that composed, are you? Merov Ekh wants Rosethal defeated, everyone who bet on you wants you to deliver a decisive victory, and Rosethal is likely to make even makeouts a challenge, a clash of towering egos.

How do you use that String on her, o terror of the desert? Do you pursue victory, or are you melting into a tangle of limbs and possessive kisses?

---

Soot!

Ruz fell silent during the last parts of your work, as you mastered the interplay of color in the piece. Now that you have finished, now that the templar slumps in his ropes, the Grand Vizier finally leans over your shoulder to inspect the painting closer.

This close, her perfume is almost a solid thing, sweet and rich, the scent of far-flung flowers mixed with the rarest notes that the Faithful natively have to hand. Rich in more than one sense: you could gather up everything you own, sell it all, and sell yourself in the bargain, and you still wouldn’t be able to afford the scent that she is free to dab on her fine wrists, her strong neck, her heavy breasts.

“Yes,” she breathes in reverent delight. This is the strongest reaction you have ever gotten out of her: usually it is a content nod, some words of praise, a promissory note scribbled off to be taken to a treasury clerk. But today, you have her attention.

“As the poet says, a rare talent is more precious than diamonds; let your garden wither before the skillful woman starves.” One hand, heavy with jeweled rings, rests on your shoulder, possessively. “How are we to cultivate your talent, little Soot?”

This is very literally the opportunity of a lifetime. Say the right thing, right here and now, and you can have whatever you want: a dizzying thing, isn’t it? Say the wrong thing, and it might all come crashing down around your ears.

And while we’re at it, why don’t you tell us all why the Soot that Ruz finds so praiseworthy isn’t the real Soot, who she would never accept. It wouldn’t have anything to do with your extracurriculars, would it? After all, she spent years serving among the Stewards, and she’s very conservative…

---

Nahla!

“No, that wouldn’t work,” Grace-of-Heaven says, frowning. One hand lifts from the water to caress your cheek, guiding you just that little bit closer. (She’s nervous. Not about tonight, but about what she’s about to say.) “Who would believe that? That I would get angry at you over a dress? It has to be— it has to be worse than that.”

She takes a deep breath, her toes curling in the water in that way she does when she’s trying to wrap herself in courage. “I think we need to invite the Grand Vizier to dine with us tonight, Nahla. Then you need to tear my top open by mistake, and— and then make some clumsy joke about it. So that when I yell at you, when I stamp my foot, everyone believes it.”

The blood is already rushing to her ears. She’s been humiliated many times before by the Fire Wheels at the Vizier’s instructions, but being humiliated while she’s ostensibly trying to impress the Vizier would be a devastating blow, another indignity heaped on a head that has withstood so many.

It’s a miracle of her Faith that she’s still fighting, still rebelling, despite what the Fire Wheels have done to her. The heart of a lion beats in her chest, for all that she desperately clings to you as someone she can trust.

Then she looks at you, and her smile is as bright as the sun in this hot land. “But it will be worth it when we see my grandmother’s city.” She still thinks of it as belonging to her grandmother; she hasn’t been allowed out, and the Vizier makes decrees in her name until “such time as she is prepared and able to assume her duties.” A time that the Vizier makes excuse after excuse to push off, until she can make Grace-of-Heaven marry Rosethal.

What are your thoughts on Rosethal, anyway, while we’re at it?

---

Birsi!

The singer is the one who stands up. She’s taller than you, but not by too much. Her wrap only covers half of her chest, and an impressive scar snakes its way down her ribs. She stands there for a moment, and then she throws one arm over your shoulders.

“Palace girl,” she says. “You’re upset at us? We didn’t know a better place for it.” Her breath stinks of wine, and at a guess, you’d say even that was plundered from the palace cellars. “Tell you what. Angry little puppy. Come and show us where we can have some private time to ourselves, and we’ll share. Your stuck-up bitch doesn’t need to know, hey?”

It’s an expansive offer, clearly. The barbarians get handsy when they’re drunk (and even now, the singer is rubbing your shoulder in an overly familiar way), and it’s probably very good wine. Do you drink, Birsi? Do you drink expensive wine set aside for the sultan and her court? And do you want to be touched by barbarians?

TSL: Sjakal

Sjakal. The City of Blue Chains. How it groans beneath its misrule. By Day, it may seem serene, as things continue as they should, as ships berth at its grand harbor, as the affairs of the Faithful are attended to by master and slave alike. What of war in the north, one may say in the heat of the afternoon, drinking tea and enjoying the pleasures of the greatest city on earth. But by Night, the city throws off its cloak and shows its raging heart. Its taxes are ruinous, the people go hungry, and unlike her beloved grandmother, Grace-of-Heaven does not issue forth from the Adamant to soothe the hearts of the people, nor does she accept their audience within the palace's grand walls. Her barbarian mercenaries rage through the city unchecked, and the common citizens (who can barely afford to feed their households) turn to the Stewards of the Faith for guidance. Soon, there will be turmoil. Soon, there will be chaos. Soon, the city will reach its grand climax, and maybe it will be that the Vulenid will not remain masters of the empire.

But for now, it is still the heat of the DAY, and life continues in its leisurely way in the palace, and all strife and discord is smothered by the rule of the Grand Vizier, illustrious Ruz...

***

Nahla!

"Will it be tonight?"

Grace-of-Heaven leans in closer, the pretense of a private bath for the moment forgotten. Beside you are the buckets of ice-cooled water and the perfumed soaps, and in your hands the sponge you have been using on her bare back. The young sultan is many things, but the prospect of escape would be a heady brew for anyone, let alone someone as comparatively inexperienced as she.

To her, you do not just represent security, but a chance at escape from the walls of her harem unaccompanied by the vizier's mercenaries. She is placing her trust in your cunning, your discretion and your loyalty. After all, if you turned around and informed Ruz that her caged bird was trying to stretch her wings, you would be richly rewarded. And yet, you still haven't gone to her. Why is this young woman's smile worth protecting, even at risk to yourself?

Because if you are caught, both of you will be punished terribly by the Fire Wheels. Ruz's fury will make punishments in your past look like mere slaps on the wrist. Grace-of-Heaven has assured you that tales of criminals being thrown into snake pits are historical relics, nothing more, but can you really trust someone who's been cloistered for half of her life? After all, you've seen what Ruz is willing to do (or rather, to order the Fire Wheels to do) to the girl who legitimizes her control of Sjakal. How much worse would she treat you, a mere heathen concubine?

***

Silsila Om!

"du Vas! du Vel! du Shan!"

Honored Rosethal slams into you, hard. She catches you by the wrist, leans her shoulder into your collarbone, and uses the strength of her armor to lift your feet off of the ground and slam you down onto the mosaic floor, sending precious tiles splintering into the air. From the sidelines, raucous cheers and yelled bets fill the air. Who's going to win? The vizier's terrifying daughter, or the Khan's pet Host?

Rosethal kicks you in the side and sends you sprawling, then turns and poses for the Fire Wheels gathered to watch. Merov Ekh hisses from her seat, and your bindings throb in your muscles, your spine, the backs of your eyes. Your mistress is willing you to win, so that she can not only profit from the bets placed on your victory, but so that she looks all the better for having mastered you in the scrublands, o most ferocious of spirits.

This wouldn't be a fair fight for Rosethal if she wasn't using her own Hosts. But instead of commanding them to fight in her stead, she has wrapped one around her to serve as armor. When you grapple with her, you grapple with both the sorceress and her slave. Your one advantage is that she is showboating, using a second Host as a bladed whip which she spins around her body, turning this into a showcase of her sorcerous talents.

Well, Host? You have been commanded. Fight. Win. Prove that your mistress is the strongest in the palace.

***

Soot!

"Nnnngh."

The Draconic templar gives you a glare that suggests he's willing your bones to tear out of your body and throttle you. Not that he can do anything about it, because he's your model for today. This would normally be a relaxing process, a chance to let your mind wander as your body translates his vulnerability to the canvas, but today your Patron is hovering over your shoulder, carefully watching the piece, and she's ready to make Recommendations.

Ruz has given you conflicting orders for this piece: the Dragon Kingdoms must look threatening, but vulnerable. We must demonstrate the active danger they represent to the Faith, but naturally they must be shown to have a weakness that our brave soldiers will use to overcome them. It should not be too dark, but you need to avoid too many colors, we will have copies made by scribes. And while you're at it, work in the iconography of both the Army of the Faithful and the Fire Wheels, to represent that they work in unison against the perfidious foe.

How are you approaching this piece, then? What aspects of the costuming, the pose, have you arranged just so? And what about Ruz looming over you is making your heart beat a little faster-- her perfume, her gold-trimmed robe, her air of experience and effortless command?

***

Birsi!

"as vren mej ra thor duv ha kha..."

The Room of the Manifold Stars is sacred. It is used by the Sultans of Sjakal to read the stars, the signs and omens and portents of the Almighty, her commands for her loyal slaves below. No one is permitted to enter the room save those mystics and astrologers, those sorcerers and holy women who the Sultan entrusts. Even stepping into the room, one is struck by the golden sigils on the black walls, the narrow windows tilted upwards towards Heaven, the way the walls drink in any sound. This is a holy place.

Which makes it all the more insufferable that three Fire Wheels are being very drunk in the Room of the Manifold Stars, having forced the lock in search of more entertainment. One is staring, dazed, at the sigils, while another guzzles from a bottle of wine and the third sings some discordant barbarian hymn. All three are half-naked, built lean and strong, and are rather drunk, which would make one against three fair, right?

Behind the door, a serving-girl quivers, sneaking looks inside. She's fulfilled her role in life, not daring to challenge free warriors, even barbarian ones. It's your role to protect not only her, but the sanctity of the Faith and the traditions of the Adamant palace. What sort of guard are you? One who loudly admonishes them, one who tries to put on a severe face and use quiet words, or one who beats sense into them with her sword still in its scabbard?

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

On Gensoukyo

Cygnus is 3V’s favorite employee, but star is still a student, and thus can only work part-time, and still in the sort of apprentice stage where star is learning the ropes. Star leans masc, dresses in hand-sequined vests, and has Opinions about collectible card games and running star’s own diceless roleplaying games. 3V doesn’t actually fully understand star’s gender, but she’s down to support wherever star finds starself happy. Plus, star has good taste in music, and gets control of the streaming while star works.

The person in charge while she’s out is Luisa, who only became a tangential 3V fan after she got the gig, has just the curliest hair, and sometimes brings in tamales. Luisa does Monday, Wednesday and the weekends; Oscar handles Tuesday and Friday, and the downtime on Thursday is just part of small business ownership that’s only trying to pay for itself.

Four employees, then; the owner who lives upstairs and flits in and out, the heart of the community who handles the store more than 3V does, the guy who’s extremely divorced and spends his spare time painting minifigs and battling insomnia, and the queer student who’s soaking up everything the above three have to offer.

***

Heple

The right move. The kind move. The explosive move. The Renegade move. All one and the same.

She’s a tree-princess, she’s Red Riding Hood with glowing hands, she’s Ceres getting ganked by three Fenrirs at the Jade Phoenix spawn. She’s breathless and glowing and off-balance already, so when she gets hip-checked she giggles like she’s drunk and gives it right back.

She smiles. She glows. She radiates a smile, even as she gasps, even as she backs into fur and muscles and a wordless invitation to be lifted off the floor. It’s a show, and she’s free to put one on. No expectations of intimacy except for that of the body, an audience drinking in what she’s offering and she’s listening to what they have to say in turn.

No wonder she used to be a star in her own little corner of the world. Sure, she was good, but look at her gasp, her silent request to touch what her dance partners clearly want her to admire. Her brain’s off and her persona’s on and she’s not trying with them, she’s not doing fake-dating-with-benefits, she’s just trying to do what Black told her to do: listen. No, more than that: she’s trying to reflect, to take the energy being flung at her and send it back converted into what other people need, without breaking her stride.

Even when she’s hoisted up by her hips and spreads her arms like she’s on the prow of the Titanic by the she-wolf, she’s doing it because it’s what Black wanted her to do. Because that’s how she tries to show people that she hears them, that they mean something, that they matter.

Her blush is real, though. Wolves were obviously the right choice. Deliberate contrast to her persona’s own strengths: cleverness, skill, personability. It’s obvious what kind of basic bitch fursona she’d naturally fit like a glove. Put her on a leash and she’d trot; shut her up and her brain would melt into lo-fi beats to study to until she got words back and she’d try to use all of them at the same time. Probably wouldn’t last longer than a scene, but in the scene…

But that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? She’s always in a scene. She’s doing her best to play the part of a good person, as best as she knows how. Caught between desire and suspicion of desire, caught between chasing her bliss and worrying she’s the grasshopper and not the ant, caught between opening up and then overthinking opening up, caught between performance and performance.

Do you think she’s pretty, Black? Will you share this with the rest of yourself or try to save this, keep it for your portion of yourself, for fear of Blue commissioning fanart and Yellow making suggestions and Pink being, well, Pink?

What’s it like, being this close to the princess of Anthropozine and being the reason she’s shining?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The wristblades were a mistake, actually. If this were a more brutal hunt, there is little that they could hope to do to fend off the spear’s hungry head, and now that it is close, intimate, the wrestling of kittens, they are an irresistible target.

The mechs crash to earth heavily; torches shake and threaten to fall, trees groan out their wounds, and Angela Victoria Miera Antonius finds herself pinned down beneath the weight of a Hybrasilian huntress, tail lashing in delight, breastplate specked and dented from autocannon fire. Her wrists are forced against the ground, and one knee keeps her from rising.

Inside, Dolly holds a pose, tail raised, back arched. Without, Smokeless Jade Fire chuckles. “You chose the wrong name, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius,” she says, using the full name very intentionally, mockery dripping from her self-satisfied voice. “A [Barn Owl] is a quiet creature. It comes in close and quiet, even silent.”

“You know all about silence,” she stops to purr in Dolly’s ear, the hands rougher now in the delight of victory, her Dolly being such a good girl, holding the pose, letting her gloat. The shivers of delight as Jade’s hundred hands work her tail over!

“A [Barn Owl] is motion. Grace. It moves as the wind and with it. You sat and hoped that your little gnat-stings would stop me. Me! Smokeless Jade Fires, the goddess hatched from the stone egg, who watches over the hunt and deems it good. But perhaps it’s not all your fault, is it? After all… who wouldn’t stop to watch my pilot’s form?”

The Cords wrap tightly around the mech’s wrists, pulsing, coursing energy through the mech, locking them in place. Inside, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius will find herself helpless to lower her own arms. Smokeless Jade Fires lazily rolls her over, pulls her legs up against themselves.

“But you still need to give this engine of battle a fitting name, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. One worthy of your prowess together. Perhaps… Trophy?”

With one nail, she traces it, lightly; there is no need to gouge, to cause Angela Victoria Miera Antonius to scream and thrash and disconnect. Let her feel the relentless tickle, let it make her try to stand up on the arches of her feet, let her be aware that she is being marked. “Good girl,” Smokeless Jade Fires purrs, patting the glyph etched on the mech’s flank. “See? Am I not a merciful goddess? Am I not— Angela Victoria Miera Antonius~! That is language hardly becoming of a noble representative of the Consortium, now, isn’t it?”

Smokeless Jade Fires luxuriantly pulls the mesh over The Barn Owl’s speakers, seals either end shut behind the mech’s head, runs her fingers over it just to feel the charge, the slight numbness it causes her. It’s not the sort of fine work that she can do with her Dolly, but the feedback on the pilot, that thick and stifling pressure, will keep her quiet as much as the actual speaker interference.

Those fingers find the mech’s strong chin, tilt it upwards, and Jade purrs as she hears the stifled, crackling audio being forced out of the speakers anyway. Inside herself, she clenches Dolly tighter, nips at her, grinds against her, pants with half-delirious excitement.

“I look forward to seeing you earn the name, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. To move like one of my worshippers should. To strike with those wicked little gnat-stings from a dozen different directions, one after another. To strike from ambush, from the silence of the owl. She means death to us, did you know? She cries for the dying, but is silent on the wing. And then I will beat you again, but I will enjoy the game, and I will give you my respect, Trophy.” One final cord links the wrists forced behind the head to the ankles, and with a very satisfied purr, Smokeless Jade Fires hoists the Trophy onto her shoulder, then retrieves her spear.

This will be the shot that is remembered: Smokeless Jade Fires, with an insouciant glance over her free shoulder at the cameras, the very image of an ancient Hybrasilian warrior-huntress. On the outside, her fingers work on Trophy’s thick armor, the small of, yes, Angela’s back, a glorying in victory. On the inside, she takes Dolly by the chin and kisses her hard, the gag dissipating as her goddess wills, leaves her breathless, even as she holds Dolly still in her victory pose for the cameras.

“I love you,” Jade growls in ecstasy, and starts using her teeth.

[Smokeless Jade Fires hits an 11 on a Fight. She seizes a dominant position, takes a String, and inflicts a Condition on the poor, emotionally confused thing. She’s not going to like the headlines: Bagged, Gagged and Tagged!!]