Tatterdemalion

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Kalaya!

If only Giriel were here. She could explain to you that Hell has no such master plan. The Broken King is the geography of Hell, broken and flayed; his lesser selves bring his pain to the world because it is their nature. The General sought to establish a beachhead, but dragged Kingeater Castle back into Hell out of spiteful lust for a prize. Now it remains to be seen whether the Green Sun or Whirling-in-Rags who becomes ascendant in the games of Hell.

But Dima is not a scholar of such things, and neither is Petony, and Machi is absolutely not, even if she could offer advice. “What of Hell? Do you suspect them of— oh! Oh, you mean for us to summon up something dark and terrible to defeat? To bind away some enemy for a hundred years? Yes, that would do! Some dark spirit of polluting waters!” The prospect seems to lift her spirits, just as she lifts her chin. “But who could provide us with the means of calling forth such an enemy? One of the witches?”

“Uusha’s supposed to have a witch that she works with,” Petony mumbles. “Peregrine. Not like she’d be interested in helping us, though.”

“But if she doesn’t know you’re involved, perhaps I could go find her,” Dima says, completely innocent of how badly you have messed up. It’s just an accidental stabbing, how bad could it really be?

---

Fengye!

The N’yari rather aggressively responds to the scritchies. It’s all you can do to stay upright, to avoid being bowled over completely by her. She smells like the mountain wilderness, and she is so strong that she could pick you up with one hand if she wanted to.

But she doesn’t want to. Not yet. And as a result, you get a front-row seat to the Maid being bent over the front of her makeshift sled. Oh, how she wiggles! Oh, how she complains! Oh, how she glances back at you, awkwardly, over her shoulder, as her skirt is flipped up. But she does not beg. Some sliver of pride prevents her from begging her Cutie for mercy.

Zhaojun really knew what she was doing, by and by. The Maid is in possession of a succulent, heavenly peach, wrapped in dainty Dominion lace. And it is in your power to stop it from being bruised by barbarian palms. Which makes withholding that mercy all the more intoxicating, no?

And, unless you raise a finger, they will leash her, let her hair loose, undo her buttons and her ties, and give her love bites up and down that perfect neck; they will bring her to the point where she does incoherently beg for you to save her, to do something, to stop them from squeezing and spanking and making her feel small and helpless.

And then they will turn their attention on you. You may have a String on Jazumi, but you will have to use it deftly, or else suffer a similar fate.

---

Lotus!

Alright.

You’re “alright.”

You are “alright.”

Haha. Ha. Ha.

That’s how she thinks of you. Alright. Nice to be around. You know, if she has to.

And she squeezes you. As a friend. And she stops touching you as soon as she can. And you can’t help yourself, you selfish little brat; you lean into that squeeze, even after she lets go, and you close your eyes, wishing that she thought you were worth more than that. That you were more than just alright.

Then a trickle of warning shivers down your spine, and you push away. “Han,” you say. “Something’s— something’s wrong.”

---

Piripiri! Giriel!

You have the tactical advantage, such as it is. You are in the thick of the trees, on a slope overlooking the two. The demigod is alarmed, but she hasn’t seen you yet; doubtless she felt the wake of the Banneret’s forceful skipping from moment to moment. If she wanted to, if she knew how, there are many ways that she could punish you for arriving like this— but she is young and lovestruck and sheltered.

Now is your chance to strike.

TSL: Sjakal

Nahla!

“If you do well,” Ruz says, suddenly, sitting forward, “then perhaps you might be released from her service. When she marries my daughter. Doubtless she will not have the time to take care of you.”

She offers you a heavy-ringed hand, and guides you through her room with care. Is she, perhaps, besotten? With you? Enough to treat you like a precious item, like one among the many that this dragon of a woman has filled her chambers with?

Perhaps you were simply that impressive.

“Take whatever you like from here,” she adds, just before you can go. “As a reward.” She gestures expansively at her rich study; there are so many treasures here that it is impossible to gauge any as being better or worse. This sapphire? That orb of interlinked chains? This elegant dagger? That coil of lavender rope?

And when you do finally leave, it shall come to pass that you meet Ruz’s court painter in the halls of the palace.

---

Silsila Om!

“Then do so,” Hai Lin says, with a faint smile. Provoking you to do that was her plan all along! Or a back-up plan? Who’s to say with her. “Go bring me back my girl, Host.”

Do you take orders from the likes of her? How do you handle being thus bamboozled?

---

Birsi!

“One chain may break,” she retorts. “But in enough numbers, even dragons may be bound. And the Vulenids will. The arc of destiny bends towards it.”

This sounds as if it is personal for her. As if there is a hidden pain that spurs her on. What do you make of that, disguised guardswoman?

---

Soot!

Rosethal is unable to let her curse upon you, treacherous harlot, escape her lips— not before she is seized by the Fire Wheels. Do you slip away while their attention is on her, or do you watch while they turn her into a writhing, fuming, glaring package?

Regardless— when you do slip away, it shall come to pass that you meet the Sultan’s harem girl, Nahla, in the halls of the palace.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

”Dolly, tell them…”

“Let her work,” Dolly says, Angela in tow. Her tail curls around Angela’s bound knees as she seemingly carelessly holds her leash. Just like Jade holds hers. It’s all part of her life now, isn’t it?

Back at university, she never would have dared to do this. She would have, at most, cheered Ksharta on from the table. Jade doesn’t get social convention. Not really. She doesn’t see any of the hesitation between wishing you could do something and doing it. So here she is, with her captured Terenian, trying to give the cooks a properly imperious look. Jade tilts her chin just a little higher, for the right look. There.

“Ksharta Talonna is honoring you with showing you how to heat up your dishes,” she continues, quailing just a little bit underneath the looks she’s getting. “Respect her, for she has the attention of the goddess Smokeless Jade Fires.” Then, because she is not Jade, she adds: “Besides, I’m sure you can teach her something, too. I don’t do much cooking myself, not like all of you do, but I’m familiar with agriculture, and sharing techniques has been how we maintain best practices in that field. Growing plants, cooking meat, there’s not that big of a difference, right?”

She does a big stage shrug and accepts the laughter at her expense. If they’re laughing at her, they’re not getting in Ksharta’s way. That’s how it works, right? She’s the silly one, but that lets Ksharta contrast herself, prove that she really does know what she’s doing. Right? Oh, unless. Oh no. Unless being associated with her damages Ksharta’s credibility, instead? Her ears flatten as she tries to read the mood.

Breathless Dead

Only in the first contact does she manage to blindly lash out and drag the length of her broken sword along Mynx’s coils. Blind from seeing too much; her eye superimposes entire universes of meaning on the world as it tries to reconnect through a severed nerve. Smears of nebula-color in shining arcs and namelessly perfect shapes; the coils of Mynx as ink, as sculpture, as a tattoo on the skin of the world, which tears at her sword’s edge. It is not unlike being drugged; it is not unlike drinking with Dionysus. What she sees is so meaningful that it has become meaningless.

Sound guides her. Mynx’s vocalizations, so far from human, lacking any real cords which to pluck, because these things are unnecessary, because Mynx is streamlined, she is Demeter’s arrow, and what is an arrow except a shaft and a head, and when Mynx swings her head around and unfolds her jaws, the teeth curving down the inside of her throat are Hades’ mandala, and Dany feels the breath and the tension of her coils and is already moving before her thoughts can escape that mandala, before Bella grabs at a goring horn and snaps it off jagged.

But the second, the third; Mynx is faster, Mynx knows her better than she knows herself, Mynx is everywhere that her broken blade is not. Mynx’s tail knocks her from her feet and when it lands on her again, smashes her hip half in. Trying to grab her scales slices her hand open, and the grass strains to meet that precious blood dripping down.

She staggers up, limps, clings to her sword’s hilt like it’s a lifeline. She is not afraid. Not like Skotos feared Thist. Why isn’t she afraid? There is a hole in her where it should be, and it overflows with light and blood, and she trails both behind her as she sees the shape of what she needs to do.

She lunges and paints a red line across Bella’s throat, which sprouts into horn and ivory, and even as Bella kicks her knee in, she reverses her grip on the hilt—

And Mynx is there. Mynx cannot be anywhere else. Even like this, she advances where she should withdraw, she lets loose a wordless howl from deep inside of her, and Redana cannot say whether it is bloodlust or fury. All Dany knows is to strike. A hit; a palpable hit.

This, then, this lands. And the only question remaining is whether Bella can see it, too. The question of whether they can stand up against each other is no question at all. If it opens Mynx’s guard, one way or another, they will stand up against each other. Dany strikes her own chest and roars her own challenge to them both, that she can keep her broken feet beneath her, that she fights like her parents, that she can take it. That she deserves it, that they deserve it, that the boil must be lanced hot and sharp and clean.

And if the roar is a word, if there is a shape to it, it is: Avaunt!

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Fengye!

The Maid puffs herself up. It’s almost inspiring, knowing how completely outclassed she is. “I know not what you are,” she hisses, petulantly. “But you may count yourselves in my service. Lash yourselves to my slehehehed~!”

Her voice cracks into a squeak like that of a bat frantically fluttering away. It’s not because of the flexing, advancing N’yari, but because of the curse that Zhaojun laid upon her. Even her voice betrays her. But the N’yari don’t know that. And, in a way, isn’t it heroic that she tries to stand her ground? It’s just that her body flinches, and she takes a step back, and her heel slips out from under her, and the N’yari pounce.

“Cutie!! Cutie!! Help me!! Hellllmmmffffgl!!!”

You know, Zhaojun really outdid herself. That’s some excellent cheek capacity the Maid is being assisted in displaying, and she’s drumming her feet on the ground like she was born for it. She has tumbled straight from her glimmer of dominance to giving you pleading looks as she squirms underneath two N’yari intent on turning her into a helpless, hopping prize.

The third— Jazumi, the younger sister of Machi, the N’yari that Zhaojun had plans for— drapes herself over your lap, purring. “Was this loudmouth—“ (“llmmmfff???”) “Bothering you, little lady?” Her invasion of your personal space is the opposite of the Maid’s; she is all languid insolence and a lazy grin, seeing you as having absolutely no way to stop yourself from sharing the Maid’s fate. Though you may want to bring up your leg before she tries making you pull the sled.

Unless you have something even better up your sleeve?

If it takes you a moment to drag your attention away from the Maid, don’t worry. It’s only natural to be speechless when around the raid-sisters of Grandmother Moon and their ways of handling a loudmouthed brat.

---

Han!

“I do think somebody from a Highland town could compete with anyone from my mother’s house,” Lotus says, looking at you. “Even if you were to…”

She rubs her shoulder up against you. Probably for warmth. Probably because she’s trying to hide under your umbrella. Not because she’s trying to stoke your hearth and set your heart racing.

“Go N’yari. On someone.”

She takes a step in front of you, then turns on you and stands in your way. Her fingertips brush against your front. They might as well be a wall that you’ve just run into. Because you can’t run her over or shove past her. Not her. Not Lotus. Not the little priestess you’ve already caused so much trouble for.

“I don’t think you could do that,” she adds, super incredibly off-handedly. This is a thought that just happened to strike her. Obviously. “A little kitty-cat like you. Meow.” She lets that linger a moment, her expression hidden by her makeshift veil. “What would that even look like? You, going N’yari? I’d only believe that if you showed me.”

She leans in, closer, her eyes traveling up your neck, almost close enough for you to lift her veil, almost close enough to kiss—

Then the fingertips become her palm and she pushes herself back.

“What am I saying?” She laughs nervously. “Not that I. You don’t need to. What would that even? Meow! Haha!”

---

Lotus!

Meow. Meow. You said meow out loud to the hero who’s too good for you. Twice. While trying to seduce her. Selfishly.

Go find the nearest mountain peak and fling yourself off it for your crimes. And then everyone will think it was tragic and no one will ever have to know you tried to get a beautiful strong heroic dragon girl to indulge your wanton desires by saying meow at her.

(And stop being so happy that she likes girls!! You are not necessarily included in the girls that she likes!!)

---

Kalaya!

“But where could I even start? What deed could I do to show my love how much she means— how much she meant to me, before my heart failed us both? What deed is worth doing for her? She doesn’t want me to toss in N’yari, so we can’t use yours—“ (Machi growls at this, and strains against her bindings, obviously wanting to wrestle Dima into submission.) “But what else is there for us to do? I can’t drive out the Dominion single-handedly, especially not after everything we shared, and what else threatens our land?”

The awkward pause suggests that this is not, in fact, a rhetorical question. She’s not wrong that the Dominion is the second most obvious target for heroics. But there’s an even bigger one, one that you might have briefly stopped.

What is to be done about Hell, after all?

---

Giriel! Piripiri!

“Oh, let me just go inside and get my sister,” Sagacious Crane says. “She’s running around with a priestess who really should have known better, the poor dear. You’ll have to help me with her, Giri, you simply must. Han’s going to give her such ideas.” She sighs the longsuffering sigh of the wise older sister, despairing at how her ruffian of a younger sister never heeds sage wisdom.

Of course, once she forces the door to Han’s room open, she’ll be quite shocked to discover they ran out— in the middle of the night— Han doubtless leading her into the woods to— and of course sharing the Sapphire Mother’s love is important but she can’t very well let a novice handle Han, now can she— and the yielding mud will point you in the right direction— and at that point it’ll be almost impossible to be rid of her.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

“Up over the table. Come on, Dolly, there’s a good girl.” Really, Dolly, there’s no reason to be hesitant. Your goddess has got you, and she’s not going to let you put a foot wrong or tip the table over, and everyone should be paying attention to you anyway. Still, oddly, it takes a smack for her to scramble properly, and is that Angela Victoria Miera Antonius laughing? Why would she be laughing? Dolly is the very picture of grace. And going around the table would have been too slow, and— oh, good girl, what a landing, right next to Ksharta Talonna!

”L-let me,” Dolly stammers, offering an arm to guide Ksharta up from her seat. There are a lot of stares, a lot of staring, why did she have to go over the table, Jade? Sure, it’s nice to be the center of attention but it’s also so, so—

Jade tugs her leash hard.

The important thing is guiding Dolly to tilt her chin up. Getting the kiss is the goal, after all. Dolly doesn’t wrap her arms around Ksharta Talonna on instinct, instead being a silly thing and bracing herself against the seat (what, doesn’t she trust her goddess?) but the kiss was aimed correctly. Mouths have come into contact. Now her horny little slave girls will melt into a kiss for all to see.

It’s so awkward. Oh gosh. Jade. Jade! Their mouths are on each other, and neither of them are sure what to do about it, and Dolly tries to say something but Ksharta tries to turn it into a kiss, and then Ksharta tries to say something but Dolly’s responding, and it’s wet and messy and Jade’s got a hand on the back of her head, and the embarrassment is throbbing through her hard, and if you’d just asked, Jade!!

Dolly and Ksharta Talonna fumble it, but Dolly’s hot for it. The adrenaline is coursing through her, and a familiar heat warms Jade’s bones delightfully. She purrs contentedly and plays with Dolly’s leash, winding it around some of her fingers.

“I’ll…… won’t leave you alone? Can’t have anything happening to you. D-dear.” She’s still up in the girl’s face. It would be very easy to kiss her again. Properly. “We should take Angela with us, though,” she adds. She can’t look Ksharta in the eyes. Her mouth is so. It’s. And she. Would it be so bad?

Fuck it.

Dolly presses herself up against Ksharta, pinning her for everyone to see, and kisses her again. Properly. As apology. Because she wants to. And because Jade giggles and strokes her behind her ears. And she hopes, too late, that Ksharta can handle being this shameless in public like she can, soaking it up, a naughty little sponge for Jade to torment by forcing her to be bolder than she could ever be herself— except she was the one who decided to kiss Ksharta again.

Look who was right about everything and is the most intelligent and wise and generous goddess ever. What wonderful entertainment her two girls are. How envious everyone else is of their special bond. How Angela Victoria Miera Antonius must be squirming in her seat wishing she was squished between them. Aren’t you glad you obeyed, dearest Dolly?

All of this, she does for you, after all.

”Now let’s go tell those chefs how to cook,” Dolly says, coming up for air, loud and blushing and grinning. “I’ll help Angela up, I’ll be right behind you, pounce on them good!!”

[Dolly and Jade manage a 6 to comfort Ksharta, which, as we all know, is a hit, because Jade is infallible and Ksharta is just like her Dolly, and the chefs will understand completely that they are in the wrong and they should listen to Dolly’s special kiss friend.]

Breathless Dead

What if I kill her?

It’s a dull roar of a thought thudding in Redana’s head as she comes to guard. Bella looms in front of her like a nebula, like the rainbows of the sea, vast and enveloping and dangerous. In her dark waters there are sharks and pearls, and Redana dives into her like a Plover with a cut tether. No, not right— she’s not bleeding power. It thrums in her as her fingers find the familiar grip, tear the blade’s tip through the air as she tests the balance and the weight that she already knows.

She’s been here before, after all. It’s just that Bella is much grander than her usual choices of partner. Much more dangerous, too. Like a nebula. Like the rainbows of the sea.

At the start, the Auspex tries to read Bella. It suggests probable arcs, tries to calculate the strength of her arm, then comes to the immediate conclusion that Redana needs to stop letting her hit their sword. Red flares of warning racing through her skull. But it’s been on edge since Aphrodite lit his cigarette. Even her mother’s eye can be surprised; even it doesn’t know everything. It didn’t know what Aphrodite had done, after all, or it had buried that knowledge so deep inside itself that Dany was never meant to access it. Not until her mother decided she was ready. Or, perhaps, not until Nero Claudius was honest with herself.

Redana Claudius leans into the clash of swords. She strains her own muscles against Bella, stares into her face, grins without knowing exactly why. Her body’s smarter than she is. Her body knows, her body learns, her body—

Knows the punch is coming when Bella grabs the sword. She’s already half-turned. The kick was a surprise, though. When she hits the far wall, the wall isn’t the only thing that cracks. For a moment she is a marionette with cut strings, slumping as her nerves scream and flail, cut. Then they reroute, rejoin, reset—

The sword buries itself into her to the hilt. The world is a shriek. The world is the Spear firing again and again and again. The world is nerves come back online just to be overwhelmed. The world is Bella panting bloody-mouthed screaming howling monstrous. The world is surrender. The world is a black pyramid inverted. The world is the hungry grass underneath her body waiting for her to succumb.

The world is the feeling of a hilt under her palm. That, she knows. That, she can do. She can draw a sword. Ignore— ignore— the sound, the long sucking wetness, the throb of sensation. Draw a red sword. Draw a sword for Mynx.

She takes it two-handed as she charges again, and the noise coming out of her mouth is nothing she learned on Tellus. It is a dead echo of the Nemean, and is it so hard to believe that they are the same person? For all that Dany is smaller, and lesser, and kinder— she is the same metal, for all that she is a different cast.

An obvious feint, a thrust caught by the blade again, and this time Bella squeezes and twists and her claws bleed against a sword made by humanity, made to endure, made to be unbreakable, and on the one side are the claws of Bella, the holy monster, the leviathan, the bloody-handed, and on the other is the simple sword-arm of a god’s daughter, who strains and screams—

And the clap of the sword’s breaking is a thunderstroke, and she is already reversing it, and Bella breaks her jaw for it, backhands her so hard that her neck nearly snaps, but the half-a-sword comes away red, from rib to chin.

And then it is diving into the storm. Flashes of sensation, of light and dark, of the red of dying stars. Battle roars within her, the drum-beat of Ares, discordant, the roiling chaos of the deep, and she bites the dragon’s neck, the thing of claws and fangs and hair to wrench. And what if I kill her is drowned under the diving-love, the thing that lies on the other side of pain, the song that is being crushed out of her mouth by Bella’s arms.

Bella’s blood is on her lips. Her Auspex is white noise, calculating her odds of survival, useless, useless. All she needs to know is the fall. All she needs to know is descending along a curtain, and on its far side moves a lioness huge and terrible. All she needs to know is the sword in her hand, the sword which is another part of her hand, the sword that Bella’s muscles grind against as Dany twists it.

Dany makes a noise, the words before language, and what it means is you are beautiful. And then the noise rises into the shriek of bones buckling underneath Bella’s embrace.

Beneath them, their waters intermingle.

Breathless Dead

This time? Dany shuts up. And more than that, she listens.

She listens to the smartest person on the ship tell her that she’s the center of these assassins, and she doesn’t jump to the assumption that she’s just being told what she needs to hear for the plan to work. She suddenly feels like it. Like she— small, stubborn, pining, feckless, hopeful— might be the anchor that these four girls need to not be washed away. Even after all her failures, all her best intentions, all her running… that if she is strong for these huntresses of empire, that she can safeguard them from the storm.

She listens as Bella, this new Bella, this Bella that was always hidden under propriety and lace, apologizes. And she needed that apology. And she didn’t know how much she needed that apology. It drives through her like a thunderbolt. It cleaves her apart.

And all she can do is to cling tighter to both of them, no, to the three of them, to Beljani who looked after Bella, to Beljani who deserves to be here, and she hugs indiscriminately. She hugs like someone who was starved of hugs growing up in a big, empty, echoing palace. And she cries like the Alephus and the Peneus are rushing through her, her uncle’s waters, roaring and sweeping away everything, the petty jealousy, the fear of losing, the fear of being judged, the slap on the cheek and the stolen kisses and everything that tried to keep them apart, drowned in the deluge of tears that burst from her.

But she stays strong, and she stays as tall as she can, and she holds Bella up and buries the tears in her hair, and she pulls Beautiful and Beljani closer, until every heartbeat shakes through the four of them, four rods bound together and not easily broken.

I love you, she says, in every way but words. Let her body say it. I love you, Beautiful, for seeing me with your violet eyes and finding the right word, the right action, the right moment. I love you, Beljani, for being a good girl and taking such good care of Bella. I love you, Bella, despite everything, because I can’t help it, because you’re the most beautiful girl in the galaxy and you were with me when we were wild and alone, and nothing you can do can hurt more than the fear of losing you.

I love you, I love you, I love you.

And even if love is our enemy, we must love all the more[1].

---

[1]: The Aesthetes, author unknown.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Jade isn’t the one who puts Dolly’s hand on Ksharta’s. The comforting squeeze? All our girl. The smile? The kind that melted Jade’s heart when the goddess was breaking out of her egg.

“Not really,” she says, bashful but owning it. “Not before I met Jade, and not, well, like this. Not after, I mean. Angela’s my first real nemesis, the cute kind who will end up defeated and joining us eventually, shh, yes you will, and you are…”

New. Like me. Cute. Proof that Jade isn’t just trying to turn me on when she talks about— talks about? Oh, she did more than just talking. Memories of last night flood Dolly, whose toes curl under the table. Very, very definitely more than just talking, teasing, making her squeal. No, she. She did it. She did the thing. Until all three of them were sweaty and mewling and leaning against each other, and Jade chuckled and ran her talons through their hair and called them cute, sweet, precious, and oh-so-fuckable.

”Aren’t you going to finish that thought? She’s hanging on your every word, high priestess~”

“…you’re our first, um. The first girl we. We do have a cult but they don’t.” She’s telegraphing embarrassment furiously. “You and Angela, really, we. It was the first time she. Shared me. And you. The thing is.”

She stops and takes a drink of water and tries very hard to ignore the smug chuckle from Angela. As if you’re any better! You’re just doing that because you think it’ll, it’ll! And it’s working! She is so very super aware that you intend to turn the tables, and Jade thinks it’s cute how you think you can try, but you’re… you’re interesting, too, Angela, it’s not just Jade who sees something in you.

“Welcome to the harem,” Dolly says, finally, and shines a smile so earnest that it should be illegal. “As the goddess’s high priestess, it’s my honor to invite you to submit to her glory. And as just, you know, me… I want to fight both of you again. Jade knows we’ll win, but I think you’ll make us work for it. And when we win… if you ask nicely… you can join me in submitting to her will~”

Her voice gets huskier than even she’s really aware. Nobody is looking at Jade’s face, which is good, because it’s hard to maintain an air of effortless dignity when you’re shivering happily. And if Ksharta and Angela see Dolly, for a moment, as someone who’s not just Jade’s mouthpiece but someone who’s so into Jade that it loops around and becomes hot, especially when she’s inviting you to join in with what she’s got, well, who could blame them?

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Gensoukyo!

“For Casual? I’m running the Wild Hunt,” 3V says, sitting backwards in her chair like a hip youth counselor, watching Red work with a blissful look on her face. She knows what it’s like to have her mind and hands work in tandem like that, too. It’s beautiful. She’s beautiful. “Their playstyle varies hard based on whether you’re doing Choosers of the Slain, which actually has a chance against Zalmoxis, or the Tiend, which gets hard countered. Naturally, I run Tiend. Your Sentinels are a pain in the ass to abduct from the board, your Reapers bog down my elves, and eventually I risk running out of charge opportunities and getting swarmed. But, c’mon, I have to go with my man Herne over Odin for my general.”

Both models actually kick all the ass. Herne’s doing the whole deer skull and antlers for a head thing, with armor that looks fantastic with her autumnal red-and-bronze scheme, while Odin looks like a pissed-off Gandalf on an eight-legged horse. Both have phenomenal spears, which is (probably) not a euphemism.

“But, like, if I’m playing seriously? Sit tight…”

The case she takes down from the apartment is shining metal. From the careful niches inside emerge two giants made of whirling, chained stones; a massive three-horned dragon with a howdah on its back; soldiers with the heads of dogs, with faces in their chests, with ram’s horns, with a cyclops’ eye, all dressed as hoplites with weapons and shields made out of giant gems; finally, the general himself, in elaborate brocaded robes and miter, surrounded on the howdah by his inhuman harem.

“The Amaranthines of Prester John. Elite infantry backing up Gog and Magog, and one of the best commanders in the game with a full array of miracles. They don’t have cavalry, but they don’t need cavalry, because Prester John can spend command points like the water he’s turning to wine, and even though he’s a high-priority target, good luck dropping the Odontotyrannus. Big monsters, glamorous infantry, and gorgeous concubines: what’s not to love? If we actually had tournaments here, these bad boys could sweep. Though it’d end up a John vs. Zalmoxis race to see if Zalmoxis could disrupt the phalanx and giants faster than John can get them back into position, and whether John can dispel Zalmoxis’s enchantments fast enough to get Gog and Magog smashing Sentinels. I think I’d still have the edge, but…”