Tatterdemalion

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The moment Dolly closes her eyes, the world shifts. Her ears twitch; the hum of a local insect almost drowns out the sound of the rickshaw slowing. The air is warm, almost uncomfortably so, but a cool breeze whips along her back, stirring her fur, kissing the tips of her ears.

She’s a Hunter. This isn’t what she was born to do, but it is what she was chosen to be. That means she can do it. In this moment, she can be a Hunter. She has the weight of the caster in her hands, she has put herself in the perfect position, she can’t miss.

But she closes her eyes anyway.

Behind her lids, she can see Angela sending Ksharta sprawling as she dives out, grabs the ladder, scales it using those incredible arms, straining, as she frantically reloads, winds by hand to avoid a jam, swings it up, but Angela’s already closed the gap, pushes the caster to one side, shoves Dolly down, and even though she could run, she wouldn’t, because she’d be caught, and Angela’s shirt would be clinging to her, and this wouldn’t be like what happened at the fashion show, this would be different, visceral, punishment…

But she’s not going to miss. She already knows it as she pulls the trigger, and she can’t take that back as the caster’s tension snaps and sends the bolas hurtling around Angela’s torso, pinning her arms in, throwing her off balance long enough for Ksharta to turn around and pounce. And the pull of the trigger is a rush of adrenaline, like piloting Jade’s idol, the heady high of power under control, of being the fulcrum point. The hunt is sacred, isn’t it? And Jade partakes in it just as much as Dolly does, as goddess and as huntress, a pair lost in the swell of the hunt.

Angela’s yelp sends a tremor through Dolly, eyes still closed, and she almost sways. She doesn’t give a name to the feeling in her teeth, her stomach, her toes.

”There we go,” Jade says, in the dark, eyes closed, ears drinking in the delicious sound of victory. “Good girl.” She caresses the softness of Dolly’s upper arms and revels in the tremor. What’s done is done, and her glory is her glory. And Angela will be so, so indignant.

Dolly’s the one who moves first, eyes only half-open by the time she’s bouncing off the awning, and she lands perfectly on her feet. And like this, from this angle, it’s easier to see that underneath her fluff, she has the muscles and thighs of a temple dancer. When she stalks forwards towards Angela, it’s not on Jade’s strings.

But she does have to swallow before she can get the words out.

“Fancy seeing you here,” she says. Jade can feel the tensing of her gut, the nervousness racing through her. She straddles Angela’s legs, pins them down for Ksharta. “Out here on the frontier. Wild. A big lady like you might get in trouble.”

Swallows again.

“Are you— I mean— you’re our trophy, tonight, but you, it’s your choice whether you’re an offering,” she stammers, and flexes that glove, a threat, an offering. “Jade would like that a lot,” she blurts out, and then squeaks, and just like that, she’s no longer the cool huntress teasing her quarry, she’s a flustered girl unable to look the girl she’s flirting with in the eyes.

“…but we are carrying you,” she manages to add. “That’s part of the experience. We’ve got a pole and, maybe, if you ask nicely, we won’t walk you down the big roads to Keoni’s, the ones with lots of cameras~”

She wiggles in place as Ksharta cinches Angela’s ankles together. There’ll be a lot more coming when they need to secure Angela to the pole; it needs to be direct, because letting her dangle from her limbs would put her spine at risk, being such an oversized creature. But, stars above, the thought of her hair dangling down as she’s carried off like a prized catch has Dolly’s stomach doing somersaults, to say nothing of the sounds she’ll be making…

“So. Gosh. Angela, any… I can say it, I will! Any last words, Angela?”

[10 on Defying Disaster. What a lucky kitty!]

TSL: Sjakal

Nahla!

The Grand Vizier is meticulous. Exacting. Precise. And you, as you have presented yourself, are none of these things. You are careless, clumsy, broad.

And it is this that makes you an irresistible delicacy to her, here in her lair, where she has ordered the world to be just so.

What will pass between you, as Ruz succumbs to her desire to have something of her Sultan’s prize for herself… the Almighty alone will know.

Will you tell Grace-of-Heaven? Or will you hide Ruz’s desire from her?

---

Silsila Om!

Hai Lin duels naked to the waist. Practical, given the risk of infection from cuts with the tip of a blade. She is pert, trim, lean, like the sword she expertly handles; she wears a long glove on one hand, a dueling affectation you haven’t seen before.

“To surrender,” she says. She has not offered you her own terms; she seems confident that she will be able to force any terms she pleases when she is victorious. She will not hold back; if fortune turns against you, she will press her advantage without remorse.

---

Birsi!

The 78 Heavens are sleeping fitfully. The world is nocturnal here; at night, everything comes to life. So it is that Jekkan is able to find you a very private booth in a nearly-empty diner. The sizzling sound of eggs comes from the kitchen on the ground floor as Jekkan presses herself close, your seats overlooking an empty (and oddly stained) stage.

“What do you think of that palace?” Jekkan’s hand is exploratory, drifting lightly over your skin. “Do you think they will be able to control the city for long, your sisters?”

Ostensibly, the Fire Wheels are occupying the palace so that they can suppress unrest. If she’s hinting at what you think she’s hinting at, Jekkan might be a revolutionary, an anti-Vulenid, someone who wants to see the Sultan toppled from her throne.

Does that sober you up, Birsi? Or does the heat of her, the scent of her, in the dark, do these things turn your head like wine?

---

Soot!

”jheb At! jhen Ask! jhev Sha!”

The Host springs to life, unfolding from her gaudy necklace, wrapping itself around Rosethal as a second skin. She shoves the low table into your shins, hard, and then vaults over it, knocking you down from your seat, sending you sprawling.

She’s not supposed to have done that. The shins, that is. That’s not necessary correction, that’s needless cruelty. But it might be difficult to tell her that, because she’s picking you up by the throat.

“Where do you even get off speaking like that, you miserable little worm? You wriggling snake? You want to know why I’m better than you?” She lifts her other hand, and her Host-gauntlet splits apart, spins her around her fingers with a murmured command, and then locks around her once more. “Because I was born to command. I am never going to be a servant like you, because I command the Host themselves. abh Vekh!”

Metal writhes across your body, seeking to encase you, to clamp over your limbs, to leave you helpless, and you can feel a dull heat, an intelligence, inside, but she doesn’t let her Host come out to play like that towering Silsila Om, does she?

And then one of the Fire Wheels speaks up. “She’s playing, right?” The other players are glaring at her; she’s broken the unwritten rules of the game by attacking another player. She’s about to be in a lot of trouble, especially if you were to, say, kick her, or otherwise distract her. This whole room would explode into chaos.

And if Rosethal still wins, you will be in so, so much trouble. You’re going to be in trouble either way— Ruz dotes on her daughter— but if Rosethal wins a fight here, you’re going to be disappearing to her chambers for punishment…

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Machi of the Ōei!

Who is this girl?

There is such a spirit to her— the same that your dragon, your stone-heart, denies whistles through her own heart. By the time the ostentatious flower-petal tackles you around the midriff and you tumble head over tail down groundwards, your body is stinging delightfully, in ways that will ache soon like your initiation rite, and there is laughter on your lips.

Your battle-sisters gasp and scatter, seeing you, greatest of all of them, come tumbling down. The ruffled one tries to force your wrists together to loop silly ties around them, and you strain and do your best to shake her off.

Then this little firebrand, this wind-girl, this knight of knights, tilts your chin up with her empty sword, and such a strange and wonderful sword it is. And you blink the mud from your eyes so you can stare up at her like the eagle stares up at the sun.

You shake off the other knight with a yowl, and that earns you a smack (so delightful a smack) on the cheek with the empty sword. You push yourself up onto your knees, and the empty sword lifts to punish you. Ha! Let it! But you will have your way first. You, Machi, always impress your will upon the soft, silly lowlands below.

“They are yours,” you purr, lifting your wrists together for the little knight. “Not hers. Your victory, wind-girl. Your prize, until my sisters ransom me. Or until I escape.” You grin. That’s a challenge, wild-heart. The bonds haven’t been forged that can hold Machi of the Ōei if she wants to undo them. The least she can do, then, is make you work for it.

You take a String on this wind-girl, showing her your mighty heart and your respect for a cunning opponent. But you then offer it back to her: Wind-girl, if you take Machi of the Ōei as your trophy, if you bind her fast and show that you respect her strength, if you silence her and thus show you respect her cunning, then you may have an XP from the wild mountain-peaks and the cities beneath them. And if you admire the mighty muscles of Machi, if you run your fingers along them admiringly, if you let your eyes linger long on her dirtied face and her beauty, you may as well announce yourself Smitten at once, for who would look upon these things and not fall madly in love with the champion of Grandmother Moon? Yes, to the envy of her dragon, even! Is it not the place of a N’yari to be adored and desired by these silly petal-soft lowlanders, after all?

---

Fengye!

“It is your place!”

She really was more bearable when she couldn’t talk, wasn’t she? The sled slowly works its way along muddy roots, and the Maid slowly (but with an almost frightening intensity) makes her way along through the uncharted woods of the Flower Kingdoms, as if she will just stumble across some hidden shrine or woodsman’s trail. And as she does, she rants her blasphemous gospel.

“Even you, debased as you are, stupid and rebellious, remember a little bit of what you were made for! Don’t you all honor your parents? Your mother and your father, you devote yourselves to them. They gave you life, they gave you means to survive, they protected you— and if you forced them out of their own home, threw them in a pit and locked them away, do you think that anyone would praise you? Should praise you?” She stops to sputter and wipe hair out of her face. “And that is because you remember us! We made you, we shaped you for your purposes, we gave you everything you needed, and you ungrateful, backstabbing little wretches sided with the gods! As if they see you as anything but useful pawns on the board! When you were with us, you had purpose, cosmic purpose! You were where you were meant to be!”

The sled catches on a rock and the Maid sprawls. She punches the mud with a helpless, pathetic growl, as if trying to punch the world for betraying her. The sniffle must just be your imagination.

The flipside of what she was just saying, however, is easy enough, isn’t it? When everything was in its place, she was where she was meant to be, too. What would it mean for her to not be part of that war?

But maybe that’s not what you’re thinking about, either. What would your parents say if they saw the two of you now, and listened to the Maid’s complaints?

---

Han!

There is a waterfall in the highlands, in a place not impossibly far from where you grew up. It is known as the Moon’s Drop by both highlanders and the N’yari, and there is an understanding: whatever your grievances, no fighting by the shores of the Moon’s Drop. The roar from it is the kind that sinks into your thoughts. The churn is fierce, and there are all sorts of tales about what might lie beneath the confusion and tumult of that pool. It’s said that seeing it for the first time makes you forget how to speak.

Her fingers are so soft, so gentle, so careful. She lets you bundle her into your angles, your absences, your firmness.

There is a place where the colorless flowers grow. The color they were meant to have was eaten in a battle at the beginning of time, and now they are an absence of color, and they steal the colors from everything around them. And it is said that if a lover plucks a colorless flower for her beloved and ties it in their hair, the flower will take on the colors that suit them best, and the truer their love, the brighter those colors will burn, borrowed for a time by a flower that lost everything else an impossibly long time ago. It is said, too, that when the winds strike the flowers and run their fingers through the petals, you can see the colors of the winds, which were made in the high airs and of which only the N’yari know the secrets.

Lying down just felt right, didn’t it? The pillows were easy enough to pull out of the closet, and the two of you curl up under a blanket on the reed mats.

There’s a city that’s the most wonderful city in the world, and it was built on top of an ancient city of the devils, and that’s why its buildings are all black stone and why all its towers are strange and terrible, but the people of that city have covered that stone in colors, and in silks, and in flowers, and have made of it a miracle. And you can buy and sell anything there, and you can dress how you like, and you can meet as many people as you please. And in that city, even if it’s for a day, you can be free of everything and simply be.

She’s the one who falls asleep first, curled around your arm, fingers interlaced with yours, and try as you might to dislodge her, she just curls up tighter and mumbles something in her sleep, and eventually the thought of bothering her is too much to bear, and she smells nice, doesn’t she? Like flowers. Like freshly washed clothes. Like something you’ll never forget.

And eventually, you fall asleep, too, and dream of lush grass, and flowers, and blue curtains. And there was something about the little brown foxes, and a girl who gave you a secret in a box, and when you opened it up it was a kiss that sank through your skin and made the whole of you drunk, and you sang silly songs with your bare feet in the fountain…

And when you wake up, you wake up smiling, and with Lotus’s face smooshed into your hand, unveiled, loudly snoring.

---

Piripiri! Giriel!

Golden Banneret of Miles is sniffing on the shore of the river, and letting a prayer slip lick at the lazy rain-clotted breeze, seeing which direction she’s to lead you in next to reach her promised crossroads. The hum of insects is loud, almost deafening, but that’s the rainy season for you. If it’s not the thud of raindrops on an umbrella, it’s the bugs who hide under leaves and come tunneling out of the mud, roaring their strange and inhuman drives at each other.

You did bring umbrellas, didn’t you?

Breathless Dead

The first thing that saves Reshella is her shining eye, which sends a jolt of raw portent down her spine when Mynx approaches her, which means that Reshella is ready for her and not fumbling and bumbling into her arms. At least, her body is ready, shifting into a loose stance and ready to yield; her mind is busy staring, wide-eyed, at the could-have-been Dany. Taller, fuller, actually dressed (for all that her silks hint and tantalize, promising a glimpse of budding flowers if you simply come closer, closer), effortlessly graceful in a way that Dany, that even Reshella, cannot be, because for her every movement is conscious and hopeful, but Mynx moves like she has sublimated the Muses into her blood.

But the second thing that saves her is that Redana knows wrestling, and this is an anti-wrestling that Reshella can do. Giving ground, ceding way, backing up towards Bella, and wherever Mynx leans forward, Reshella invites her closer while still twisting her body away, and it almost looks like they’re dancing together, doesn’t it? In its own way, is this not as thrilling as entwining together, does this not drag the fear and yearning of touch out of her, is this not what her heart has been hoping for? Danger and peril, titillation and desire?

Behind her, she can hear, she can feel Bella, she knows that Bella is close, and maybe she won’t even be in real peril after all, maybe she’s good enough to keep the dance going, maybe she’s one of the heroines tonight too, maybe Bella will sniff and then say that her disguise was silly but that it still worked, and—

And she stumbles and nearly falls, her heel caught on the foot of a careless Alcedi, and Mynx is there, catching her by the wrist, and there’s applause, and her pulse is racing as Mynx slips her other hand under Reshella’s back, brings her close, and Bella is about to spring, but it’s too late for Reshella, and Mynx is smiling so kindly, but there is Aphrodite’s lighter guttering in the light of her eyes.

“Sweet dreams, Princess,” Mynx offers, and releases Reshella’s hand to lift the veil and kiss her on the lips, which is what an Imperial Princess deserves from the Assassin who knows her best—

And stops, confused for a fatal second, because she was not expecting those lips to be hidden under black and gold, pulled so tight over Reshella’s cheeks, hidden underneath her veil and her hair, and did not think that Redana would be so daring already, and perhaps wonders how Bella could have brought herself to do it for her Princess, and so the recontextualization, the adjustment of the story, is the difference between the kiss happening before Bella can reach her, and the pounce reaching Mynx first, and thus Epistia’s gag is the third thing that saves the lovely dancing-girl.

And Reshella crumples, veil fluttering, hand lifted to her triangles, and, oh, she did need to be saved, didn’t she? And how her heart hammers at being saved. How she watches everything that comes next with the wide-eyed admiration that Reshella is allowed to display! Redana would jump in, get involved, make a muddle of the struggle, maybe even risk Bella’s ire, but Reshella is being fought for and she couldn’t stand up right now if she was told that the Plousios’s reactor was overloading.

Not until Bella offers a hand to help her up. And let that fourth salvation be the sweetest and the best, please, please.

[10 to Overcome the risk of being kissed by Mynx. Thank you, Epistia. Thank you, Bella. <3]

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

“Hi, welcome to Gensoukyo! Nice to see you!”

Who owns my house?

The thought is an itch between her shoulderblades, and she’s on her phone in a way that’s probably not best practices, but whatever, it’s her place, right?

> Hey, giiiiiiiiiiirlfriend, can you pick up a pack of Advil+2 for me? I’m good for it. Love you <3

That’ll keep him together. She should have gone last night, but the thought about the painkillers slipped through her fingers until she banged her shin opening this morning. And November’s good for it, right?

Who owns my house?

She’d thought herself lucky when she found the place and the rent was so affordable. She’d been worried about taking a direct hit to her ablative savings. (Once this armor absorbs 12 HP of DEBT, erase from your sheet…) She’d all but yanked the keys out of the realtor’s hands and thanked her lucky stars that she’d found the perfect place for her silly little dream project.

> You’ve still got the key to the back door, right? And don’t let “the cat” out. No matter what. Outside is not good for “the cat” right now.

Is it opsec to use quotation marks like that? If she doesn’t, odds are that one of her girlfriend(s?) would text back that uh actually 3V you don’t have a cat? And that’s way weirder to explain. She can explain that it’s a reference to a dumb meme she saw on her dashboard.

It’s Him. “The Cat”………..

“Hey, welcome! Good to see you, Jen! How’s the Janissary army shaping up? We’ve got some more Olivia Green in stock, actually, right over here…”

Who owns my house?

memengine.com/generate

IT’s HIM…………….

“THe Cat”

Save File To Device

Edit

Exposure 100, Brilliance 100, Contrast 100, Brightness -100, Black Point 50, Saturation 100, Vibrance 100, Warmth -100, Tint 100, wait, no, Tint -100, christ, Sharpness 100. Perfection.

Who owns my house?

Good question. But the world keeps spinning and it’s her clever Gamer Fingers that have to do the job of keeping the plates in play. Who else could?

Huntresses of Hybrasil

“Welcome to Akar, ma’am! Where to?”

A lot of this plan hinges on what they’ve borrowed from the local Lodge. Not just hunting gear, but also a three-wheeled Pigeon and Ksharta’s disguise: mirrored shades, a loud flower-patterned shirt (the kind that’s rumored to be able to stun birds), and a kerchief to keep the dust out of her face. She’s got maudlin Southwestern Fisher love ballads playing over the built-in audio system, and her acting instructions are to be bubbly and rambly in that way that rickshaw drivers always are.

“Keoni’s? Sure thing, didn’t take you for someone interested in Hybrasilian cuisine, but I suppose Keoni’s is a good place for it, we’ve even got breads there, not garlic of course, there’s always got to be compromises when we put our foods together, but if you like them grilled or in long sticks, you can get all the breads you like there, and of course, you’ll want some of our specialties, you really want to try the pan-seared saddle with strawberries, it’s the house specialty, I had it back when my littermate had her reception at Keoni’s…”

And she makes a turn, ostensibly to avoid construction, but taking the Pigeon on a wider loop out toward the settlement’s industrial edge…

---

“So, how did Angela find out?”

Dolly stretches, and keeps her eyes on the road below, but her tail twitches. She’s not stupid, you know. Beside her lies a bolacaster, loaded and ready.

”How should I know?” Jade retorts, leaning back impossibly far over the side of the warehouse, mimicking Dolly’s stretching. “Maybe she’s just infatuated with us. ‘The moment I met you, my heart knew I was meant to be yours, even if my thoughts were slow…’”

“That’s not— hey!!” Dolly glances around, even though no one else can hear Jade or is even around to hear anyway. Jade grins; her memorization of her Dolly’s stories continues to be wise. “But you had a plan, Jade. You already knew where the Lodge was, and that she was coming, and…”

”Do you think so little of my knowledge, Seven Quetzal?” Her claws softly run up the back of Dolly’s thigh, and her beautiful girl shivers and curls her toes on that foot. “I am vast and lie beyond the seventh vibration. I gaze into myself and find therein all that is, was, or will be.”

“…please?” Dolly’s plea is still playful, but it’s vulnerable, too. She rolls over and sits up, glances down at herself, at her soft belly (her shirt pulled up in her own hand). Jade straddles her and stares, hungrily. Her claws dig into Dolly’s fur, trace trails on Dolly’s stomach, her thumbs rolling circles on her primordial pouch. She extrapolates outwards so that she can raise her head and stare into Dolly’s eyes, her beautiful eyes, and see as well as feel the parting of her lips… “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”

”…I had your cult be careless with our location for her.” Your cult; Dolly is the High Priestess, after all. Dolly guides one of Jade’s hands up to cup her, nodding. ”I want… she deserves to be at our mercy. Under you. A trophy. She is so proud, but underneath, she is meant to be a mewling temple slave for me. For us.”

“And what if she beats us?” Dolly leans in closer. If Jade could feel… she breathes out, anyway, hoping that the meaning of having her breath on her goddess’s cheek will translate. “What if Ksharta and I are bound in our own tethers? What if she bundles us in the trunk of that little car and drives us to a hotel, my goddess?” She can hear the hitches in Jade’s simulated breath, feel the claws and their almost perfect serenity. Almost. “What if she ravishes us and invites you to wat—?”

Jade imagines the warmth of Dolly’s lips under her palm. What a prize it would be for Angela Victoria Miera Antonius to know this feeling, too. Their faces are so close that only a hair’s breadth separates them from touching. “Then it will be because I chose to let her win,” she says, and she knows she’s lying, and Dolly knows she’s lying, but she can feel Dolly’s heart hammering and she can feel her own spirit quickening, stars flashing up and down her spine, her tail flaring and flashing. “Because my priestess needed to be put in her place by an alien— an arrogant, stinking, impious alien.” The sound that Dolly makes is wet and desperate. The thought of Angela pressing her close, victorious, perspiring, threatening payback for what happened to her mecha… ”But you’re not going to make me do that, are you? You’re going to honor me. You’re going to be a good girl for me. You’re going to win.”

Dolly sits there, one hand tangled in her shirt, the other braced against the warehouse roof, tormented by the realization that she doesn’t know whether she really wants to win. Jade sits there, one hand clamped over her Dolly’s mouth, others working increasingly unsteady patterns through her fur, tormented by the realization that she doesn’t know whether she really wants Dolly to win.

Then, the sound of a Pigeon making its funny little way down the road, approaching the turn. Jade jumps off Dolly like a kitten startled by a cucumber. “She’s here,” Jade says, the stupidest thing she could say. Dolly rolls back over, fumbles her shirt back down, grabs for the bolacaster. ”I will be watching this time,” Jade says, looking away from Dolly at an increasingly stylized conception of Akar II, marked with pyramids and Hybrasilian groves and the flame-bright birds of home. “Earn my praise. Do not disappoint me.” Don’t think about smooshing your face into her. You can do that if you win. Jade would be disappointed. Don’t pick at the knot of feelings about Angela, and what she could give your Dolly, and wouldn’t you do anything to make her happy, Smokeless Jade Fires?

“C’mon, Ksharta,” Dolly whispers, coiling herself to spring down into the awning below. “Just like Jade told us…”

Breathless Dead

”Do you want to try being the hero this time?”

Bella pauses. The tiara glitters on her head, framing her ears perfectly. She doesn’t look away from the mirror; she is calm, composed, everything that her sweaty, overtuned princess isn’t. It’s just that the thought hasn’t left Dany alone since she had it earlier, and it’s been rattling around inside her chest looking for a way out. Maybe it would be nice to be saved by Princess Stellabrande for once. She could even pretend to be tied up and everything. She’d do such a good job at it, and doesn’t it feel nice to be the hero? And Bella’s such a good girl, and it would probably make her feel big and strong and not scared of anything.

It’s just that. This has to be wrong, somehow. Because if it wasn’t wrong, why would she be so nervous? She feels like she’s sitting and waiting to hear how she did on an exam, when the tension is unbearable, her stomach folding in on itself as seconds stretch out into eternity. But if Bella likes it maybe it will be okay. And they can try it. And maybe it will be fun.

Maybe it will even be better than the other way around.

“If you want me to,” Bella says, and her voice is bright but Dany can tell that she’s hesitating, and her eyes slide down from the mirror and rest on the floor, meekly, and then it comes out from between her lips anyway and it’s terrible even though it sounds so casual, it drops on Dany’s head like a lead tablet. “…have I made the game too boring? You’ve never asked me this before.”

“What? No! That’s— why would I get bored of that?” Panic. See? This is why this was a bad idea, Dany! Did you hear that? She’s hurt. You asked it even knowing that it was wrong and bad and this is what your stomach was trying to warn you about. “I just thought— no, it’s a stupid idea.” Bella blinks at her reflection and her lips part for a moment, then close again. “You’ll always be my Stellabrande,” Dany continues, agh, was that too much? Redana and Stellabrande was starting to get awkward now that Stellabrande was… curvier, and now that Redana knew that sleeping together didn’t mean just a nap.

“Always,” Bella says, perfect as a princess, serene and flawless and beautiful, her hand trembling in her lap.

---

”What’s this?” Stellabrande hooks one finger under Reshella’s collar, slowly but firmly pulling her closer. Her gaze is hungry, like that of a warrior-princess of Salib. “What’s your name, pretty little thing?”

Reshella flushes, blood pounding in her ears, and says nothing. She can’t. She would sound ridiculous if she tried. Her eyes dart around, trying to find some safe place to rest that isn’t the beautiful, commanding princess in front of her.

Stellabrande slips one thumb underneath Reshella’s mirrored veil, and Reshella stiffens, but keeps her hands obediently by her sides. She can’t stop herself from squeezing her eyes shut when that thumb reaches the gag, though. She’s only so strong. The thumb stops, then slowly, ever-so-softly, presses more firmly.

“Hmmm~” Stellabrande’s voice is intoxicating, a private vintage poured out for the two of them, inaudible to anyone else over the pounding of the drums. “Cat got your tongue, Beautiful pretty little thing?” Reshella doesn’t dare open her eyes. She can feel Stellabrande leaning in closer, her hot breath on her mirrored veil, the tang of re-appropriated Saliban wine. “Don’t worry,” Stellabrande teases. “I’ll keep you safe from those nasty wolves, Redana Reshella.”

And then Stellabrande tugs on the collar, and Reshella is forced to prance forward into her embrace. Those hands— those claws that could tear through a Plover— are gentle on Reshella’s bare skin, tracing sigils from languages that Reshella isn’t expected to try to learn on her back, because Stellabrande is clever and refined and powerful and safe, gods above, she’s safe, she’s safe, she’ll protect Reshella from everyone except herself, because Reshella wants her to take liberties, wants to be touched, wants to be wanted, wants to be pressed against that lovely chest and shaken so that her bangles jingle and her veil smells like Stellabrande, and she wants to be kidnapped and put into peril but Stellabrande will come to save her at the eleventh hour and she’ll be straining against her bonds and uselessly trying to warn Stellabrande against threats and maybe her frantic grunts will really warn Stellabrande and she’ll be untied from the slowly-lowering crane before she ends up outside the hangar, where the Nethermost Eels writhe and gnash their teeth, waiting for the sacrifice of a maiden to sate their appetites, and maybe Stellabrande will knock the villain out of the hangar instead, and she’ll scoop Reshella up and say something clever or flirtatious that makes her blush and whine, and then she’ll ungag her, tilt Reshella’s head up, and they’ll kiss, and, and, and…

---

…and it’s stupid, because Bella likes Beautiful. Like likes. Dany’s just trouble, all the time. She dragged Bella out here in the first place, she left Bella behind again and again, she kissed her and Bella hated it and now she’s playing at being a spy instead of…

But it’s not her fault! It’s… Epistia thought it was a good idea! And Princess Redana is, she listens to people, and if it means they’ll find Mynx, then it was worth it and it’ll be okay for Dany to fondly remember the way Bella moved, that perfect sway, and the tail carelessly dragging against her skin and Dany didn’t touch, she didn’t dare touch, it’s not Reshella’s place to be grasping at guests’ tails, but her heart is thundering in her chest, and when did Bella end up like this? So, so powerful, so commanding, so—

So flustering.

Mission, Dany. Focus on the mission. You can’t be selfish and Bella isn’t yours to be selfish over. You want her to be happy. Even if that’s with Beautiful, you want her to be happy. And if Mynx ends up hurt because you’re busy having selfish possessive thoughts about Bella tossing you over her shoulder and thanking Epistia and the other girl for the party gift and then taking you to her quarters and tying your wrists above your head so she can take her sweet time unwrapping you bit by bit but she’ll leave your mouth for last and—

Deep breaths.

Reshella prances out from behind Bella. Her lashes flutter, and she dramatically winks at Bella, twice. Do you see it, mila— ma’am? The Auspex? That’s her plan. She’s using her charms to be invisible. She crooks one finger at Bella, a seductive, please let it be seductive come-hither, then sways, sashays, does what she just saw Bella do as hard as she can, leading her to the side of the party she hasn’t covered.

Come on, Bella. Follow Reshella. Be ready to use your strength to save Mynx. And if it helps Reshella blend in, if it keeps you following her, then maybe it’s all right for her to linger in delicate poses, or to swish her rump from side to side, or to toss her hair and for a moment glance back at you with her green eye. Maybe it’s all right for her to be your Stellabrande today.

And if Mynx lashes out, if there’s a fight, then it’ll be Reshella who’s in peril. Not you. Not anyone else here. It’s Reshella’s job to be the one grabbed, threatened, dangled, because she couldn’t possibly risk you if the tables were turned, but… but you can risk her, right, Bella? What you did on Salib for Skotia was for someone that you didn’t think was…

You can save Mynx. Redana couldn’t. That’s why you deserve to be the hero, and Reshella is pretty and putting herself at risk and ready to step away when the adventure is over and let you be with Her. So keep staring, Bella. Keep staring, because Beautiful said to Redana that it was awful for you when you don’t. And please don’t mind if Reshella occasionally, as often as she can without breaking her cover, stares back at you and…

and wishes things were different.

and yearns.

and appreciates the story while she gets to be in it.

TSL: Sjakal

Nahla!

Ruz reclines on a couch, surrounded on three sides by dark velvet curtains. On a footrest beside her lie the Sultan’s proclamations (made on her behalf by Ruz herself) and the Vizier’s stamp. So much power in such a small thing. With it, she can direct the shape of the city and its fortunes. With it, she could make you a master yourself, or send you to the tumultuous dock markets for resale. One red nail lies almost idly upon it.

A strapping young man, bare to the waist, fans her to keep her cool, his ankle chained to one leg of the couch. He does not look up at you, but feel free to drink him in. It helps with the image of you as rough. Yes, that’s a good reason to look at the soft swell of his arms, the gentle definition of his chest.

Ruz herself is watching you through half-lidded eyes. It would not do to give you the impression you have too much of her attention, after all. “Come closer,” she says, softly. “And present yourself for inspection.” Kneeling, knees spread, wrists resting on them— but do you? No, perhaps you’d instead show her how a serving-girl of the Dragons presents herself: chin up, hands folded neatly, seemingly demure.

---

Birsi!

Jekkan cuts the rope holding you up, and you collapse to your knees. When she helps you up, it is with a surprising gentleness, though her hands are still bold; she runs one hand along your sore rump, promisingly. “Momma,” she says, clapping one hand over your mouth casually, her grip firm but not unkind, “I’m convinced. I can use this girl.”

“You’ll stake yourself on it?” Bes is not quite convinced, and you immediately get the dynamic. You’re familiar, after all. Jekkan is placing her status on the line in order to follow her intuition that you will be a useful lead, even a subverted asset— but likely not for an investigation. There’s something else in play here.

“I will,” Jekkan purrs, and presses your head against the side of her chest. She’s so strong. It’s not the inherent strength of one of the Host, but something she’s earned, along with the scars on her arms.

Her thumb strokes your cheek, and how small do you feel, Birsi? Small and protected? Jekkan is obviously fond of you, and you could use that…

That is, if you’re not thinking about that strong, sure hand spanking you.

[Take a String on Jekkan; she gives you what she thinks you want, freedom and affection.]

---

Silsila!

Hai Lin nods, serenely. “I see. I suppose this is what I should have expected. You are, after all, just a Host. And not a particularly capable one, given your current status and ownership.” An insult to Merov Ekh, disguised under an insult to you.

When she moves, it is sudden and precise; her fork lifts your chin, the tines gently digging into your skin. “Tell me why I should not have you sealed and dropped into the sea, then.” Her tone is even and conversational, but her threat is dire. Imagine being trapped inside of a vase or a lamp, squeezed down so tight, and then dropped and forgotten in the sea, the end of Silsila Om’s story unless some lucky fisherman should release you…

---

Soot!

Rosethal’s smile is almost serpentine as she lays out a Fool’s Array and slides your chips over to her side of the table. She continues talking as a new hand is dealt. “The Almighty places everyone where they deserve to be in life. It is the duty of the nobility to take care and make decisions for those who serve us, because, little painter girl? You were not made to be a master. You were made to do what we think is necessary— and what I think is necessary is that you are going to fold, and then you are going to do what I say. Otherwise… maybe I will decide that you no longer require that studio.”

Rosethal is your patron’s daughter. If she decided to go complain to Ruz, it is almost certain that she could convince her to remove some, if not all of your support. And she’s going to, if you don’t intentionally and humiliatingly lose here. Unless you can come up with some clever plan, that is.

But it would be easier to lose and obey her. She’ll make you suffer for it, but it will be a familiar sort of suffering, and not the risk of losing everything here at the palace.

What do you do, Soot? Remember that you are not the only ones in play; the Fire Wheels would enjoy seeing Rosethal humiliated as much as they would enjoy seeing you put in your place.

Breathless Dead

Redana’s first instinct is mortification. People are staring at her, and not at her face. Not at her face at all. Her outfit seems to consist mostly of triangles, and translucent sleeves that just bring attention back to the triangles. She’s practically naked from behind. She reaches up, into her hair, looking for the knot holding the kerchief over her mouth…

And then she lowers it, slowly. Epistia’s smart (and smells good) (and her mouth tastes good). She’s… she’s right. Maybe even Mynx wouldn’t recognize her in this disguise. Nothing to give her away, not even her voice.

The Eye of Hermes shows her a hunched-over, blushing girl with PRINCESS emblazoned over her head, and then WOMAN OF MYSTERY over a confident, hip-shaking, strutting… woman. The Eye of this woman flashes, as if to remind her— as if to remind her that it can scan the room. It just needs the Woman of Mystery to give it time to work.

R’dyna? Rhythalla? Reshella?

Reshella lifts her veiled chin and tries swaying her hips. Her heart is beating so fast, and skips a beat when someone cheers for her. She takes a step, then another, then another, and it takes more discipline than— than the likes of Princess Redana, who is very different from Reshella, might use to push herself past her limits when straining for an Olympic gold. Reshella is very brave and she likes it when people stare at her body, at the triangles, at the way she moves, like the way she imagined Bella might, dreaming of space pirates and damsels in distress and kisses from girls with triangles for ears.

Reshella bites down on the sodden mass between her teeth and shivers in feelings that it would be very inappropriate for an Imperial Princess to have. Nobody knows that she’s gagged. They might wonder to themselves, as she flits from person to person, offering them the chance to ogle, and even— R-Reshella is brave and okay with being groped, actually, because she’s secretly a spy and that gives her the time she needs for her very special eye to do its work. You can’t see her red cheeks behind her glittering Dionysian veil and her hair is down over her ears and in this light nobody can tell that the blood’s rushing to her breastbone, too, even though all of it is on full display. In the smoky light of the party her eyes are colorless and sultry.

No, no, no, no— again and again the Eye tells her, tells Reshella, that the assassin she’s looking for, that she’s playing a game of disguise against, isn’t where she’s looking. But Reshella is willing to do whatever it takes to win this game. Whatever it takes.

Someone tugs on her wrist, and Reshella is pulled onto a table. Instructions and suggestions are excitedly thrown at her from all sides. But that’s okay. Reshella remembers these scenes. She’s confident and sexy and she’s not going to compromise her mission. She lifts her hands over her head, shakes her hips, rolls her stomach. She’s not tall and she’s not busty and she’s not graceful, but she knows what this is supposed to look like. She stands on tiptoe, slowly rotates around the table, someone is beating a tambourine on the off-beats of the bass, and dancing is just like running, isn’t it? It’s about control of her body, but instead of optimizing for speed, or for strength, she’s optimizing for…

For everyone looking at her. Wanting her. She’s not Princess Redana, who would be covering herself up frantically. She is Reshella, dancing-girl, party entertainment, mysterious in her silence, as fearless as Skotia, and maybe, just maybe, it would be acceptable for Reshella to be wanted in ways that Redana could never be.

A Ceronian waves her over from the table, grinds against her, whispers in her ear that she smells like Epistia. Let him add something, if she will? And Reshella doesn’t say no, she just nods, because what if she’d have to explain herself? And letting him know she’s gagged would just cause more questions, and it feels so good to say yes, doesn’t it? (It does.)

And the Ceronian pulls the belled collar around Reshella’s neck and locks it behind her throat and she is complete. She thanks him by stroking up his jaw and wiggling free, jingling as she continues to prance from knot to knot, almost forgetting why she’s here, because it’s snug around her neck and the bells are so soothing and it’s almost like Reshella is back on Tellus with Bella, except Reshella isn’t a princess, so perhaps there could have been… perhaps they could have shared the bells, at the very least.

And it’s like this, sultry, jingling, sexy, desired, and caught up in the waking dream of the party, that Reshella suddenly comes face to face with the two people who she knows can’t possibly be the Assassin she’s looking for, because they’re the other two Assassins.

And there she is in triangles and bells, smelling like Ceronians, completely unable to explain herself.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Once, there was a goddess in a stone egg…

Jade doesn’t often think about when she was like Ksharta Talonna. New, exploring herself, trying to decide what she loved. For one thing, Jade was lucky enough to have her Dolly to observe, to fall in love with, to desire more than anything else. But for another thing… Ksharta Talonna has the power to act. She can pounce, can run, can explore and see the galaxy. But for Jade, the only freedom was inside her own mind, back then, constrained and yearning. She doesn’t know how this makes her feel, and she doesn’t much care for that ambiguity.

She lifts her foot from Ksharta Talonna’s chest and presses the ball to Ksharta Talonna’s lips. Dolly’s grip on Ksharta’s hand tightens, all intermingled excitement and envy and big-sisterly concern for the kitten. Jade holds her there for a moment, looking Ksharta Talonna in the eyes until she blinks. It is impossible to win a staring contest against her.

“It depends on the god,” she says, when she is satisfied with how Ksharta Talonna squirms in her seat. “If I preferred everything to be natural, I would dwell within an Unworked Figure.” She says the capitals deliberately, invoking some of the oldest archeological finds on Hybrasil: rocks heaped together, overgrown with dead vines, in the rough shape of a woman, a celestial body, an animal. Idols without artifice beyond selection and gardening. No, she will take the artifice of the idol, the power of the body made for her; the effort and the intent is more important than some ideal of purity, of unmarred perfection. “But I cannot speak for us all.” A simple way to step around the inconvenient fact that she cannot speak to any other god or spirit, not as a peer, not in a way that gives her relief from doubts of her own nature.

She lowers her foot, tilts her head, bares her fangs at the awed kitten. “Now. Here is what you two will do, Dolly.” Hierarchy. She does not look to Dolly; this is a lesson for Ksharta Talonna. See who is granted authority. “Finish the appetizer. You will need the energy. Inform the staff that you are stepping out but will return later in the evening. There is a Lodge seven minutes’ walk away. Present yourselves there and make use of their armory; I have already told them you are coming.” Or, rather, the cult sent a messenger on her behalf, on a separate shuttle. This was planned out, after all. “Prepare a pole; you will hunt a prize for me and bring her back here for the main course.”

”I thought—“ Jade raises a finger, and Ksharta Talonna gets a front row seat to what it looks like when Jade’s Dolly is shushed: the cloth materializing, filling her mouth, wrapping around her jaw, bulging, dark and light-drinking cloth threaded with cyan. Dolly pulls her hand off Ksharta’s without thinking about it. Then she looks over at Ksharta and deliberately puts her hand back on the younger girl’s skin, so… so she can see. Her head is yowling with excitement and embarrassment and her eyes keep flicking between Jade and Ksharta because does Jade know how big a deal this is, is this too much for Ksharta, it’s one thing to do this in the cockpit but Jade’s really making her flaunt it in front of Ksharta, is she that interested in Ksharta joining her temple-harem, or does she just want Dolly to be thinking all of these things, about to combust, and is it okay? Is she allowed? Does Ksharta like this, too?

“Dolly, do you have a question?” Jade rubs finger and thumb together, very casually, even though she’s lightning racing across the spine of Hybrasil inside her stone heart. She wants to giggle and wrap her arms around Dolly and rub those stuffed cheeks and give her kisses and make her squirm, but she has to be the goddess for both of them. For Ksharta Talonna and Seven Quetzal. Is she doing it right, Dolly? She can feel your heart racing. You’re beautiful, right now, more beautiful than anyone, and it’s all Jade’s strength to keep playing out the scene for you. Don’t worry, it’s dark, you’re secluded, it’s an audience of two, and both of us can see it instead of just sudden silence and blushing and slightly puffed cheeks, as if you’re sulky, but we know, Seven Quetzal, we know.

”Yhff,” Dolly says, her free hand balled in her lap, her silly head nodding, and in her heart she is plummeting in freefall trusting that there’s a black-and-cyan net that will catch her and wrap her up so safe. Her eyes are still flicking between Ksharta and her goddess, trying to read both of them, trying to remember their reactions forever and ever.

Jade snaps her fingers and the cloth melts away into shadow. For now. “Then you may ask,” she says, still intent on Ksharta Talonna’s reaction. Are you clever enough to understand, Ksharta Talonna? Do you realize that you are choosing to put yourself under Jade’s power, under the will of a goddess, who can do that to you? You should be awed, Ksharta Talonna, and a little frightened, and very turned on, because you should be thinking about the things that Smokeless Jade Fires could do to you, for you.

It takes Dolly a minute. She can’t find her voice, she’s so whelmed. When she does speak, her voice is trembling like a small, furry thing in the sight of a jackal. “…I thought we were doing something for Ksharta tonight, my exalted lady of the hunt?” She hasn’t figured out who the prize could possibly be. Because Jade said her, and that was very deliberate. And while, yes, she understands how a sacred hunt will help Ksharta feel included, she wasn’t prepared for anything more than a dinner and performing for Ksharta and Jade, and she doesn’t know how to feel about things going in such an unexpected direction.

“We are,” Jade purrs. “But you are both mine tonight, and I want to give you both victory.” Yes. That’s what she wants. It’s not selfish to want to hear Angela Victoria Miera Antonius’s garbled complaints as she’s carried into Keoni’s Tower on a hunting-pole. It’s giving her little kittens a trophy, and sending a message to Angela Victoria Miera Antonius about her place (beneath Jade) (sandwiched between adoring kittens) (reminded that if she gets to play with Dolly it is because Jade is indulging both of them in her boundless generosity) (held fast with the mesh, so that Jade can show her exactly how creative she can be)— that’s just a natural outcome of the treat she has orchestrated for them both. “So eat up, kittens. And Ksharta Talonna?”

Jade leans in, until their faces are a breath apart, and runs her multitude of hands along Ksharta Talonna’s arms, jaw, ears, chest, hips.

“Dolly’s glove is unique. I do not intend to make more. But if you please me, if you serve me, if you are a good girl— I will keep these things in mind, and you may enjoy my presence through her. Am I understood?”

It wouldn’t be that hard. It’s not something that she had to pour her essence into and was forged under the light of the moon. It’s just a neural mesh connected to her consciousness. But hearing that, that exclusivity, that possessiveness, that implicit display of dominance… Dolly makes a noise in her throat that is, embarrassingly, not muffled and therefore deniable.

Her Jade’s Dolly. That’s her. No matter who she brings to dinner as a trophy. Hers hers hers.