“Why? Why?” The tip of Dolly’s tail curls as she performs for Jade (who sits perched on top of Angela’s pole, smug as can be) — and, in a more immediate extent, for the onlookers crowding around the entrance to the feast hall, curious and intrigued Hybrasilians (and more than a couple of Terenians, and even a Zaldarian). “Because she is our sacred quarry! This is none other than—“
Angela tries to interrupt, furiously, awkwardly glaring up at the crowd. But Dolly can tell that there’s something more there, some of the same excitement she would feel in Angela’s position, and, besides, Jade is right behind her, watching her, purring regally.
“Angela Victoria Miera Antonius herself, who dared to challenge my patron goddess, Smokeless Jade Fires, who rides in the idol of her own self! Angela was very rude, yes she was, ai, ai! She thought herself very clever, coming here to hunt us — but here she is, witness to my goddess’s power, suffering her proper punishment! And that is why you should let us in with her please.”
The door warden (whose fur is dark and lovely) makes an indecisive noise in their throat. “And what does she have to say about all this?”
“Well?” Dolly half-turns and cups Angela’s cheek with her glove. “Am I telling the truth, Angela?” Jade runs several hands up and down Angela’s front, right where she found the Terenian most receptive. “Don’t keep my priestess waiting,” Jade purrs, then tugs at one of Angela Victoria Miera Antonius’s ears with her teeth.
And the squirming, mumbling, glareful girl on the pole nods her head, which sees her given a reward scritch on the back of her head from a cooing Dolly, who is herself starting to blush, very aware of the fact that everyone’s watching her as much as they’re watching Angela.
”Good girl,” Jade says, and darts in like a snake to kiss Dolly on the lips. Dolly’s fluster intensifies, but it might take a clever eye to discern how she reacts. A clever eye armed with stories about a goddess who claims to be very immanent in an unusual way, say.
It was a concert, actually. Not FAEWYL-D; the world doesn’t line up so exactly. d’Aulnoy in December, actually. They’d bonded over their hands.
There’s a distinct difference, at the end of the day, between someone who chose to upgrade her body because it was the next step in her career (and, to be honest, a bit of youthful from the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, as it goes) and someone who had to have full limb replacement done as a kid. Euna didn’t let that worry her, though, as far as 3V could tell. And Euna was really good at showing her how to exercise her hands (but not in a sexual way, get your minds out of the gutter).
She swings by the gym to exercise every so often, and to chill with Euna, who is most definitely one of her fav peoples on all of Aevum. Tomorrow. She’ll roll by tomorrow. Ask, out of professional curiosity. This is a thought she can afford to explore at her own pace, after all.
Girlfriend!
“There are many distinct evolutionary branches of Draculas.” 3V is so incredibly serious. Ignore the smile. “The flying heads evolved in tropical jungles out of a need to conserve energy. Smaller body means less risk of passing out bloodlessly and not waking up before dawn. Did you know that not all Draculas are even animals? Watermelon Draculas. Pumpkin Draculas. Sadly, no one ever seems to use the rich vein of Pumpkin Dracula imagery around Halloween. It’s all superheroes.”
Oh no. Oh no what is this. Is this a Scions of Zalmaxis starter kit she is sliding out of a display. Is this a bunch of Dacians with sickles led by Blood God Draculas, who also have giant snakes which might be dragonish if you look at them right. Why, so it is.
What is the use of having a girlfriend if not to encourage her to make an occasional Enrichment Purchase? Besides, funds acquired this way can be earmarked for dates later. But mostly?
3V just really likes it when people nerd out over mythology and miniatures games.
Dany stands up. She brushes herself down, tugs on her shirt. Her heart is hollow; her stomach is plummeting through the decks of the Plousios until it comes to rest in the swirling colors of her uncle’s waves.
Bella is standing so stiff. You could use her to build a bulwark, a pillar, a wall. Part of the ship, constantly staring out, never looking back at anyone. At Dany.
You fucked up, princess.
There’s so many things you could say. You could try to explain. Tell her that you don’t hate her. That she confuses you. That you are terrified of how you keep hurting her. That you wanted to tear the galaxy apart when you thought she was dead. How sorry you are for kissing her without permission. How you can’t drag her through the fucking grey forever of the Lethe, which scares you so fucking much, thoughts drifting away until your head’s empty, and then, impossibly, your limbs and body drifting away until it’s only your head bobbing on the waves, like Orpheus still singing, when you imagine it, when you feel the scream of it building up inside of you. How you want to keep her safe. How sorry you are about the closet. How sorry you are for locking her in the dark. How sorry you are that you can’t turn back around and go home.
You reach out to her back. Your fingers rebel and curl back again against your palm. Your tongue is cleft to the top of your mouth. Why is something cleft when it’s together and when it’s separated? Why are you cleft?
Beljani is watching. You glance over at her. Your eyes sting hot. Why is that worse? Why is it worse when she’s watching, and not saying anything, and it hurts, it hurts that someone has to see this. Someone else. Someone here to judge you. Someone who knows how you’ve failed.
What about you, Bella? Do you care about me or do you hate me? The thought digs its claws into you, too. Is it just old servitor chains in your head that stop you from tearing me open? You chased me so far, you didn’t kill me, you broke open out of those awful bones and I held you and we stopped Sagakhan and you ran away after I thought you were dead, I thought you died, I’ve had to live with that more than once, and it tears me up, my heart, my liver, my veins, my brain, my bones—
That’s what you think.
Your eyes are angry hot. The Auspex won’t let you look away, though. It never does. It tells you how Bella shifts, how she shakes, how she digs her claws—
And you move.
Dany moves.
She catches Bella’s hand.
Pries her fingers open.
The slick fingers.
“Don’t,” Dany sobs.
That’s all she can say.
Don’t hurt yourself.
Please.
Not because of me. Not because of Mynx. Not because of anybody.
Don’t don’t don’t don’t please don’t.
Another order.
Is that all you know how to do, Dany?
“Please.”
You’re holding her hand. Isn’t this what you wanted? Your heart throbs with the terror, the tension, the scream of fucking up and the need for her to stop hurting herself. But what if it’s you, Redana? What if being around you (fake, pretender, nothing) is what hurts her? What if she needs to be free with Beautiful, who can use that mind of hers in ways that Dany can’t and never could—
Beautiful.
“Beautiful.”
She can find anybody.
“She, she can find anybody. All we have to do is tell her. All—“
We?
“…I’m going to ask her to help,” Dany says, awkwardly pulling her fingers free. There’s still blood on them. “You… I’d like it if you came. You know her better than I do. I just.”
Stop talking.
Redana clenches her (hot. wet.) fingers into a fist and does the most awkward stupid little bow, like she’s in the presence of royalty, and then she turns on her heel and starts walking before she can explode and she’s not going to turn around, because that would be ruining the whole point that Bella can choose, and Beljani is watching, and how would that look, seeing if she’s going to chase after like a, like a pet, and—
Dany looks back anyway, because she’s not strong enough, and she can’t bear not knowing. She has to see. Just like Orpheus. Her face is pathetically hopeful. Vulnerable.
The sound of water is everywhere: rising, falling, rushing through rivulets, choking on moss. The work of Demeter has not been kind to the marvelous channels that nurture the gardens of the halls of the Plousios. Green sprouts defiantly between the tiles, clings to the walls, hangs from the arms of statues. Above, lamps like captured stars hang in inverted pyramids, and all is an endless day.
The triangles and Ceronian gift are both gone. Not thrown away; folded and hidden in her marvelous closet, so neat, so dainty, while Bella hung around outside. She’s back in practical, form-fitting leathers, straps, tool-and-swordbelt, a kerchief for a splash of color. Her hair is pulled back, and it does nothing to hide her face as she looks at and doesn’t really see her surroundings. Clues. She’s supposed to be looking for clues.
“Thanks,” she says, and then coughs, awkwardly. Bella is a towering, brooding silence of contempt. And why wouldn’t she be? After how useless she was, how ridiculous. “Was that— the sort of thing you trained for? Saving me?” Because, right, Bella’s an Assassin, too. All that time just pretending to be a maid.
Could Assassins and Princesses kiss? Not that there would be kisses. But if Beautiful wasn’t in the picture, would that, because Assassins have power, and— no, she’s still hampered by that law inside of her, the one that tells her to panic when Dany’s not around. If anything, the most she could do if things went bad was to put Dany on a leash and. and. mmf. Bad Dany. No thinkies.
No, keep thinkies. There’s something important. Something that’s not clicking. You almost had it.
“All this time, I thought it was just Mynx looking out after me. Protecting me from the Admiralty. Why would I need more than one bodyguard? But you’re really strong. How did you have time to train when you also had to hang out with me and clean and—“
There’s the thought. Grab it. Don’t let it go. Let it out as a gasp, instead.
“Oh, Bella. I wasn’t thinking! If I go across… Iskarot told me that you have to stay with me or it’ll be bad for you.” Worse than bad. Don’t think about Bella tearing at herself. Don’t. “We can fix that. We still have time. There’s people on board who could help take that away, so you don’t have to keep following me. Then you can do what you want.” Who you want. The face of Beautiful springs to mind unbidden. “So don’t worry. Okay?”
And you can stay down here in the underworld, with your lover, until Dany finds a way to help everyone up and out of the pit. Until she does what her mother hoped she’d never do.
Because that part of the story is wrong, isn’t it? Nero-Hermes wouldn’t have sent her to the Lethe. She never meant for Redana to be here. It all fits together. Redana was supposed to be the one who stayed behind, if Mommy needed to carry the message herself. And she’s come too far to turn around and go back, especially because what if running away makes Mommy think she’s not and never will be ready to look after all of humanity?
No. This is just the way it has to be. For everyone, for humanity, for the servitors, for Hades, Dany’s going to have to cross the Lethe and take the message to—
To Persephone. Who else could it be for? And then she’ll get her wish, and she’ll break open that door and let everyone out, and she’ll set them all free— Bella and Beautiful, Beljani and Epistia, Vasilia and Dolce, Alexa and Lacedo, and even Nero. Everybody will be free, and they’ll have another chance to fix everything.
And that’s a dream so big that she doesn’t have room to worry about what will happen to her, either during or after the quest.
”Smokeless Jade Fires says to drink. It’s no fun if you pass out.”
A bit of water trickles down Angela’s front as Dolly lifts the glass to her (full, dark, lovely) lips and tilts it. Drink or be humiliated; Jade loves her wicked choices. Over in the corner of the room, Ksharta adjusts the climate control, changing it away from its default of cool and temperate. Tonight, they are on the belt of Hybrasil: hot, clinging, still.
This is the first reprieve she has granted Angela Victoria Miera Antonius all night. First, the defeated alien was marched triumphantly to Keoni’s, with Dolly’s tail stroking her face the whole way. How Dolly’s heart raced whenever they passed someone! How she steeled herself whenever they stared!
And how Angela Victoria Miera Antonius grunted and struggled and flushed!
But they stuck to the Hybrasilian side of town, which meant that Dolly’s trappings of a sacred hunt were recognized, and besides, the denizens of Akar II had seen for themselves the footage of her complete and total victory over the Barn Owl (what a ridiculous name!), which meant that no matter how she yelled, making her ridiculous and lovely noises, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius was simply stared at, and worse, smiled knowingly at.
What other outcome could there have been?
By the time she was seated between a nuzzling, overly familiar Ksharta and Dolly over dinner, perhaps Angela Victoria Miera Antonius was beginning to understand her role as Jade’s trophy. Or perhaps she thought that the entirety of Hybrasil was in on the scheme to humiliate her.
”See? Of course Smokeless Jade Fires was right. There was room for a paw sock, too.”
Dolly keeps one hand clamped over Angela’s mouth as the strong, hot-cheeked woman thrashes and grunts, breathing hard through her nose. Ksharta’s tail is bushing; she doesn’t bother putting her trousers back on, but tugs self-consciously at the hem of her top, her feet now mismatched. “Good girl,” Dolly breathes, trying not to melt into a puddle, lifting the flower-patterned gag. She swaps them out, hand and band, with Jade guiding her hands, pulling the cloth firmly in place.
“You’re welcome,” she adds, her voice rising into a flustered squeak on the last syllable. “Our Lady hopes you enjoy her gifts. Our gi, gi, giftsss~”
Angela Victoria Miera Antonius is marched on her knees to the glove laid out on the floor, until she is resting them on the memory circuits directly. Dolly sinks to her knees and gestures for Ksharta to do the same. Poor Ksharta. She did enjoy dinner, but the doubt is nagging at her, the idea that Jade didn’t do anything about being insulted. Your patience will be rewarded, kitten.
Jade whispers into both their ears. That’s all. And Ksharta and Dolly both reach over, then pause, uncertain, staring at each other across Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. A whisper encourages them, tells them she didn’t say to stop—
And together, the two little darlings tear Angela’s top open, and the walls collapse.
Like flimsy cardboard, carelessly knocked over; they dissolve into swirls of smoke, just like the floor. Dolly bites down on a startled squeak; Ksharta doesn’t.
The dark stone walls of Jade’s temple loom over them, lit by guttering torches. In front of them, the idol sits enthroned, flanked by lesser idols in the guardian stance. At her feet lie golden offerings and jade totems, enough to buy an entire colony. There is no glove under their knees, only a stone bar that they are all shackled to, shackled together.
Jade steps out in front of them. Which is to say, she presents her smaller form in front of them, dressed as a victorious hunt-queen, decked in trophies. She is also the idols. She is also the many-handed, many-tailed shadow looming behind them. She takes a moment to consider them: Ksharta Talonna, wide-eyed, slack-jawed, gobsmacked by what she’s gotten herself into. Angela Victoria Miera Antonius, puff-cheeked, exposed, looking around and trying to convince herself that this is just a simulation. And Dolly, her Dolly, her eyes shining with hope.
It is impossible for Jade to feel nervous about her performance. She is a goddess. She is invincible, inexorable, all-powerful. She lingers, looking into Dolly’s eyes, feeling the weight of her expectations, because she chooses to. If it were otherwise, everything would fall apart. So it is not. She is in control, and Dolly will love this.
”You are mine,” Jade says, and it comes from both her mouths, and the echo of the idol’s voice fills the room. At this pronouncement, metal clamps tightly around her neck, a familiar feeling. The enclosed bell dangling from the front is oversized, and chimes at the slightest shift of her balance— and next to her, both Ksharta and Angela start jingling and jangling in surprise.
“I would have you look more pleasing,” Jade says. How will she— the sudden heat gives her an answer. Angela bellows and Ksharta screams, more in surprise than anything, but Dolly just tenses up and lets her clothes burn up and away, and the heat is gone as soon as it arrived.
Then, a flutter of wings, and small bright-feathered birds land on her, spreading their wings, stiffening into her new clothes. Beside her, Angela is surrounded in pink-red smoke that becomes something gauzy, something you could tear with a careless claw, something that doesn’t cover her chest at all. The only part of it thick enough to hide anything is the part draped over her lower face, covering the gag in a way that makes Dolly’s ears prick up. Ksharta, like Dolly, gets the birds, but hers are fire-feathered, yellow and orange and red and blue for her headdress.
“Oh,” Ksharta squeaks, running her hands over the feathers, wide-eyed, her smile shocked in delight. “I never thought you could actually—“
Jade smiles at her, all fangs and unnaturally bright eyes. ”You are not permitted to speak.” Dolly opens her mouth expectantly, and is rewarded by Jade’s hands, from behind, stuffing her mouth, rubbing her cheeks possessively, smothering her face in tight softness. Her eyelids flutter and she lets out a well-muffled moan as her arms are pulled behind her and lashed snug. Beside her, Angela mumbles defiantly, her face-covering dimpled by the thickness of her gag beneath it, and Ksharta whimpers, almost overwhelmed.
But you’re going to take care of her, right, Jade? Please.
Jade stops to caress Ksharta Talonna’s cheek, lifting her head to look up at the goddess who is choosing to give her attention. “Good girl,” she says. The purr rumbling out of her idol is tuned to the frequencies of a nursing mother; Angela Victoria Miera Antonius will likely feel it as just a vibration, but both Ksharta Talonna and her Dolly will be flooded with pleasant endorphins. She lingers on Ksharta Talonna until the kitten starts instinctively nuzzling her face into Jade’s hand, slumping in her phantom ropes. “You are a delight, Ksharta Talonna,” she adds, and from behind, one of her mouths drags a tongue along Ksharta Talonna’s throat. “Especially like this.”
She turns, runs one talon along Angela’s hidden chin. “As for you. Yes, I was right. You’re right where you belong, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. On your knees, silenced, exposed, and beautiful. One of the finer trophies my high priestess has won for me. But…”
Her voice drops. The echo of a knife being dragged across stone undergirds her words as she hisses. “You have insulted me. And for that, I choose to punish you, trophy of trophies. We will see who is the whore and who is the sham, pathetic little princess.”
Jade pushes Dolly sideways, and Dolly lets herself be pushed, helplessly purring as the goddess’s presence permeates her, even as her ear and part of her face come to rest against something soft, and warm, and wet. Jade snaps her fingers, and a mirror rises from the floor, showing: her, in the finery of a goddess’s bride; Ksharta, a divine concubine; and between them, exotic, alien, sweating in the temple heat, helpless to stop herself from having her chest smooshed between two purring Hybrasillians, Angela.
And behind them, stylized temple art, a hundred hands, a hundred tails, a hundred jaws, a hundred eyes. Smokeless Jade Fires in her Spirit-Quelling Aspect, deliberately unreal. Then, as a cloud, it descends on them, and they can see the hands that grope them, the jaws that loll, the dripping things that rub up against their bare backs.
Then— a minute later? five, ten minutes later? a year later?— the monster behind them solidifies into, simply, Smokeless Jade Fires, plumed and pelted like one of the Old Queens, back in the earliest days of Hybrasil.
”And now, my prizes,” Jade says, firmly grasping Dolly by a handful of hair, guiding her down until her bride, her favorite, is doubled over, rump up in the air, trembling with excitement and need, lifting her tail, looking at herself and her playmates in the mirror through the side of her face that’s not pressed against the comparatively cool stone of the temple floor, ready for her collar’s bell to echo off the walls. ”You are going to take turns.”
But Dolly gets to go first. And Dolly will get to go last. Whenever that is. Jade, after all, has plenty of time, infinite stamina, and a message to send to both Angela Victoria Miera Antonius and Ksharta Talonna.
To surrender to a goddess is to be shown glories as wonderful as she can imagine.
The Maid trips. It’s a flailing, undignified trip, and the noise she makes while she goes down is ridiculous. She lies on the ground a moment longer than really might be called for, wriggling and muttering to herself and drumming her feet on the ground.
When she rises, she refuses to look you in the eyes. Her cheeks are flushed, and her energy is like a crow that is considering whether it must fly away from an approaching traveler. “I do not need your admiration,” she hisses. “Idiot! Fool! Witlack! My tenacity is as overwhelming, as potent as the rest of me! You have no right over me, as if I were some new creation spun out of formless chaos!” She scuffs one foot on the ground and works an errant lock of hair back behind her ear, apparently lecturing the trees somewhere off by the side of your head.
And just like that, things start clicking into place. The person she is now wars against the leviathan in her past, and compliments, honeyed poison, and saying things quite unbecoming of both of you will give you power over her.
It puts you at terrible risk, spiritually. Especially if you forget that she is a devil, once a tyrant of tyrants. But consider also how enjoyable it would be to wind her around your little finger. Maybe the noises she would make would even be worth the risk to your soul…
Kalaya!
Petony checks the knots on the impressively tied (and purring) N’yari warrior herself, before giving her a mighty smack on the rear to get her moving (which elicits a muffled— not a growl, more of a squeal). “That was excellent not-swordplay,” she says, grinning, following behind the (intentionally slowing down?) catgirl. “Who taught you how to fight like that? Clever and dirty— just like me!”
Who did teach you, Kalaya? Or was this spur-of-the-moment, the inspiration of some small god who favored your thoughts? Tell her some of how you trained to become a knight of the Flower Kingdoms.
(And, just as importantly: do you lead Machi on a leash, or do you take Petony’s place in encouraging her to keep moving with smacks to her rump? Either way, the N’yari warrior will appreciate it, I promise. You’ve won that right.)
Lotus!
You are such a bad girl.
What were you expecting? For Han to roll on top of you? For Han to wake you up with kisses? For Han to say that she has a clever plan for smuggling you out, but you’ll need a change of clothes, so that you can stammer and blush when you see your disguise, but it’s the only way, and Han will dress up too, just a pair of sensual performers on their way to Golden Chrysanth, and maybe Han would do feats of strength to match your feats of…
Your indulgent fantasy fizzles in the face of not having a particular talent. Feats of walking on water, maybe, but that would blow your cover, and who would pay to see that, anyway? And why would you need to dress in revealing outfits to walk on water? It makes no internal sense.
You wanted to wriggle up against Han and drape one arm back up and over her head, her hair, and bring the strong, pretty, thoughtful, kind, amazing girl in for selfish awful kisses you don’t deserve. But you knew that you didn’t deserve them, especially after how you stole one from her on the barge, and so you made a prim little noise and slipped out of bed, which was the most difficult thing in the whole entire world and you deserve a prize. A tribute, maybe. “Didn’t try to force kisses out of someone who didn’t want to kiss her.”
…on second thought, skip the tribute. Skip breakfast. Skip everything. You don’t have the strength to insist on her leaving you behind, like you deserve, and so you selfishly accept her help…
Climbing out the window??
Piripiri! Giriel!
With one step, you are on one side of the river. With the next, you are on the other. The Golden Banneret hums Homecoming, a traditional children’s song in Hymair— we’ll hang wreaths from the windows, when we’re home, when we’re home. we’ll sweep out the corners, when we’re home, when we’re home…
She turns her face up to the sky, to the sunlight shining through the clouds, and feels joy at being down here in the world with the two of you.
There are children on the ship, now. Their feathers are still coming in, pushing out of soft downy hair, and they are gangly and loud and full of energy, racing up and down the refurbished decks, playing games, and they love the Imperial Princess. So she can’t say no, sometimes, when they ask her to play.
This game is similar to discus, but there are teams, and the disc soars and spins and flutters on strange wings, and the fledglings madly scamper and shove and laugh as they try to pass it up and down one of the grand halls.
Then Amer shoves Malethi down and out of the way of the disc, and Malethi lands badly, and Amer’s war-whoop is drowned out by the rising noise coming out of Malethi, hurt and confusedly indignant and in need of help.
Dany races over, and the fledglings part for her as Malethi stumbles up, holding their head and wailing, and Dany says something nonsense like, hey, are you all right? And she doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know how she can help. Maybe she needs to be the Shepherdess and make Malethi better??
But then, a click of the tongue that quiets everyone. One of the Alcedi matriarchs has risen from where she sits with her sisters by one of the fountains. She pats her knees, and Malethi stumble-runs over to her, wrapping their arms around the matriarch, who strokes their head and begins to say…
Redana wraps her arms around Bella and pulls her in, tight. Her old friend struggles, but incoherently, like a crab that’s been hurt and doesn’t understand you’re taking it to safety. Redana doesn’t let go. She can’t let go. And when she pulls one hand back to fumble with her gag, Bella doesn’t wrench herself free. (The packing drops wetly onto her thighs.)
She squeezes. She is here. She doesn’t, can’t know about the way that the smell of her skin is smothering the blood, diluting the poison on Bella’s tongue. She is here, and she is strong, and when Bella slumps and lets her weight fall on Redana, it’s nothing to hold her up. She can do it. It’s okay. She’s here.
One hand drifts to Bella’s side, presses against her ribs, by her heart. “Do you hear that?” Redana’s breath is a sigh. Gentle. Soft. Like wings. “It’s the sea inside you. The waves are rolling in and out. In. Breathe with it. The waves are coming in. Out. The waves are washing out. When they come, they’re crested with the prows. In. When they go, they’re taking all we left. Out. It never, never stops. In. Listen, and you’ll hear it. Out. We all are part of the sea. In. And the sea is a part of us. Out. You’re alive and you’re here. In. And I’m alive, and I’m here. Out.”
Bella’s heartbeat is… slower. Steadier. Dany licks her lips, suddenly dry. “You did a good job,” she says. “You didn’t— you wouldn’t have. You wouldn’t have, Bella. You’re not a monster.” Then, ridiculous, tumbling out: “And if you are a monster, you’re our monster, and I was a monster, too, and I didn’t hurt Mynx. You won’t hurt her. And we’re going to find her, and get her to stop, and then…”
She swallows. Her voice cracks, just a little bit. Be a good girl, Dany. Be strong for Bella. “And then you can take them home,” she says, like Hercules holding up the sky. Her grip on Bella tightens. “You and Mynx and Beautiful and everyone. I’m not going to make you come with me. I promise. And you can take care of Mynx, and you can be with B-Beautiful, and I’ll get across, and when I get to Gaia I’ll ask Hades… I was going to ask him to make Mom let everyone go, but that’s stupid, isn’t it?”
Her hand drifts down to Bella’s, wraps around her fingers, squeezes. “I’m going to ask him to set everyone free. The Alcedi and the Kaeri and every single Assassin and everyone back home. So that you don’t have to go Rampant and the servitors won’t want to serve and so that we can all see the stars together, and I’ll come back, I promise, I promise.”
She rests her head against Bella and tries not to cry and fails, because her cheeks are wet. “Not even Lethe could make me forget you,” she swears.
She shouldn’t laugh. Really, she shouldn’t. But the spray bottle tickles the part of her heart that loves ridiculousness.
“I picked the job,” she says, and she means it. Despite the moonlighting, the motorcycling, the reporting (who owns my house?), she picked this because it seemed the happiest way to keep her savings from nosediving. All she really wants these days is enough to get by, and some good times.
“But ouija? That’s roleplaying without the dice. Or is calculating the probabilities of dice rolls too close to your job?“
By the way, complete and actual coincidence, 3V’s got a new 3D-printed centerpiece display to advertise Inheritance. Níðhöggr, wings outstretched, antlers majestic, perched on one of Yggdrasil’s gnawed roots. Not the version she beat her head against back when she played Mythos, but she likes this one.
“Dolly, listen very carefully. This is what you’re going to say, and this is how you’re going to say it.” Jade takes Dolly’s free hand by the wrist, pushes her fingers together, gleeful. She tilts Dolly’s chin up imperiously even as she pushes Dolly forward, clamps Dolly’s bare palm over Angela Victoria Miera Antonius’s mouth, and shivers to feel the warmth of those lips on Dolly’s skin.
”You talk too much,” Dolly says, acting like the villainess from A Weft In The Yarn, one evil laugh away from complete camp. It’s adorable how she can’t act. She’s just so sincere, so aware of her own performance that it’s tripping her up. And even Angela can probably tell. ”You sound much cuter like this. We enjoyed listening to your pathetic, garbled, helpless complaints on our way back from our hunt.” Keep your grip firm but not tight, Dolly, no matter how she squirms. ”You’re so cute, in fact, that we’ll give you one chance. If you beg us in your best simper, Princess, to let you go… we’ll do it? We’ll do it! We’ll unwrap you at the end of our walk. If you sound pathetic enough.” There is your out, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. A small bit of amusement for a goddess. A disappointment, but… important. Dolly would be disappointed in her if she pushed this gorgeous, indignant, helpless warrior too far without an out.
(Please don’t, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. Give Jade her satisfaction. Show the goddess you want to worship. Be feisty, be a fire, make your noises, the ones that make Jade’s immaterial breath hitch in her throat like a stone. How magnificent you will look, your mouth swaddled in Hybrasil cloth. All the better for when Dolly leaves nips all up and down your neck. All the better for when you meet a goddess.)
”If you say anything else— if you bluster, if you sneer, if you defy us— we will treat you like you deserve for humiliating Dolly—!!” Dolly’s tail swishes in the dust and her voice trails up into a high squeak. Jade strokes her fingers down Dolly’s throat: down, girl, down. Present strength for your goddess. ”We will carry you as our trophy, again, and you will sing the hymns of Smokeless Jade Fires. Your voice is so beautiful for that.” The villainess slips for a moment; Dolly’s register is instead sincere, a compliment. Jade’s teeth nip at her ear, tug teasingly. Stay in character, love.
“Lift your hand. Now stroke it down, like this. Lift your fingers here, at the swell of her chest, drag your claws just a moment longer— good girl. Good girl. Ksharta Talonna is watching you, too.” The word serves as Dolly’s string; she glances back over at Ksharta, a victorious huntress, and Jade feels Dolly’s flustered excitement when she locks eyes with the kitten.
But beneath her, panting, catching her breath, is Angela Victoria Miera Antonius. What a prize. What a trophy. What a wild mare. Jade licks her lips, and awaits to see how the battle of hearts unfolds. Will you fight, Princess? Or will you grovel and beg for an end to the game?
[11 on an Entice, if Angela is interested in what Jade is offering, which is being gagged by a cute Hybrasilian who thinks that your voice is pretty, and then being thoroughly appreciated by a goddess.]
She shouldn’t have heard those words. Even now that the party is becoming more still, silent, save for the gentle creak of branches, Mynx’s whisper should have been too low, too hushed, too easy to overlook as Reshella panicked and tried to figure out some way to help Bella, grabbing at a nearby cushion just to have something to hand. But she does. And the words are barbed, and catch her by the heart, and pull Redana back out.
Lethe. The river of forgetting, marking the very edge of the underworld. In her mind it is grey, frothing, empty, vast. (Of course she knows it. For all her struggles, the deeds of the Gods have always come easily to her.) The implications of what Mynx is saying are so terrible, so awful, that her mind circles them like a ship succumbing to a whirlpool.
That if she is right, then everyone is dead already. Is that what it means? We are the breathless dead. But, no. Jas’o died. She has seen death already. So Mynx has to be wrong. (But what if she is not?) Maybe she got it mixed up. Maybe they’re descending into the underworld. Silly, mischievous Mynx! (But she would never. Not about something like this.) Am I dead? (I am not dead. And even if I am dead, I still have to help Bella. Living or dead, it doesn’t matter.)
She grips the cushion tight. If she could say something, she doesn’t even know what she would say. Mynx knows when she’s lying. She doesn’t know if she could accept everyone leaving. She doesn’t know if she could bear to make everyone follow her. Dolce, Vasilly, Alexa… Bella…
Bella, it hurt because she assumed you’d want to come with her. Maybe this time, if she comes to the edge of that awful river, if she doesn’t expect anyone else to come, if she can even find the courage to cross…
Her words would be useless even if she could use them. Her heart doesn’t know anything. All she understands is that she cannot, will not let Mynx turn Bella into one of these waiting trees. Bella would be so scared! She doesn’t want to be a tree! And it would be putting her back in that closet, taking the choice away from her, and you can’t, Mynx, you can’t! You can’t make everyone sleep their way through Lethe! How would they even go back? No one on board is ready! And what if Lethe eats the memories of trees, too? And what if nobody forgives her afterwards? And what if you can’t turn them back? What if you forget you made them into trees? What if Bella is leaves and flowers forever? What if she never gets to eat Dolce’s cooking again, or exercise with Vasilia, or see how Alexa will grow, and can Alexa even become a tree?
And in the name of every what if, every fear, and all the desperation in her body, Redana takes the cushion in both hands, each one at a corner, swings it back over her shoulder, and smacks Mynx in the face as if she were playing polo, so hard that the cushion explodes into feathers, and out of that explosion rears up—
A monster who Redana wants to save, too. But she’s got nothing. No dumb words, no arms and armor, nothing except her body, which is locking in place as if she, too, were a tree.
But she’s not going to run away from Bella. Not even if Mynx became a dragon to match Sagakhan. She’d stand here in her triangles and her gauzy silk and she’d just put up her fists and bop the dragon once on the nose before being eaten.
Whatever Mynx makes of herself, it can’t be scarier than Lethe. It can’t be worse than feeding Bella and Dolce and Vasilia and Alexa to those grey waters. And it can’t be worse than Redana leaving Bella behind again, again, again.
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