Tatterdemalion

Huntresses of Hybrasil

The saddest mew! The saddest mew!

This, then, is your dilemma, Angela! Mark it well! Your tormenter, the goddess, acts upon you through the personage of Seven Quetzal, but to have your feisty revenge, you must attack poor little Dolly who, yes, has been a willing participant, who has been turning you into a damsel in distress, who has been what one might call an accomplice—

But she still has an uncomprehending look of betrayal on her face for a moment, and Jade’s laughter dies on her virtual lips as she realizes, a millisecond too late, that Dolly’s actually upset.

”She really has a fire, doesn’t she?” Jade pulls Dolly’s head close, rests a thumb against her lip, does not show panic, does not show panic. She’s in control. “She’s a fighter! And that’s fun, isn’t it? It is fun. It IS fun.” If she says it enough it will be true. “She’s… inviting us to keep fighting for her.”

Dolly sniffles, once.

”You have done such a good job, Dolly,” Jade says, faster. “I’m very proud of you. This whole time! And— do you need a break?”

A tiny nod as the soup slides in front of her. She picks up the spoon without looking at Angela. She’d forgotten. She’d honestly forgotten. She was just having so much fun, and assumed Angela would like it like she did. She scoops warming, toe-curling soup into her mouth as Jade implodes in on herself.

”After this, tell Angela Victoria Miera Antonius— tell her she’s been a good sport,” Jade manages to say without flinging herself into the underworld. “That you’re going to let her go so that she can be fun quarry to catch again. Give her a little spank. And then you can go back to the hostel. Do you think you can do that?”

A nod, a tiny sigh. It is taking all of her self-control not to ask Angela what she did wrong. Jade needs for her to be strong. Besides, they’re in public, and Angela doesn’t like her that much yet, to deal with Dolly draping herself on top of those muscles and begging for validation. Shouldn’t Jade’s word be enough? Why does she want Angela to rub her jaw and assure her that it wasn’t because she’s angry?

”Good girl. You’re doing great. Do you like the soup?”

“The soup is strong, but not biting,” she says out loud, for both Ksharta and Jade (and she glances over at Angela with bigger, wetter eyes than she means to, and hates herself for it). “I can taste… thyme? Underneath the rosemary. Thyme is almost sweet, balanced well, underneath the strong, assertive? Assertive rosemary.”

She doesn’t make any connections between what she said and herself. She’s just trying. She just wants Jade to understand, and she doesn’t really know how well Jade can translate the input from her tastebuds. So she’s trying. And it’s something to think about that’s not burying her face in Angela’s neck and begging for forgiveness, for doing this wrong, for making her want to headbutt her.

Jade doesn’t guide her hands as she lets the ropes fall slack. Jade doesn’t touch her as she pronounces to Angela that now she has been baptized by Talonna’s soup (her own words). Jade is numinous, behind her head, present but silent now. So big. Her girlfriend— her wife— her goddess— her goddess is judging her use, seeing what she can do on her own.

The thumb she runs along Angela’s lip to wipe up the spittle is all hers, too.

Dolly is so big. She’s gentle with the Terenian, but firm enough not to ruin the game, despite the throbbing in her jaw. Despite the pain caused by her following Jade’s orders. Despite the shock of being actually hurt, and Jade didn’t protect her. Jade twists and unravels and becomes abyssal behind Dolly, her Dolly, the Dolly she wants to make smile. Dolly who is the best person that she knows.

How dare you, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius? Don’t you understand how perfect Dolly is? How gentle she is, how beautiful she is, how, how delicious she is? And you dare to be rough with her in a way that she does not crave? Oh! Oh! When next you meet, Angela Victoria Miera Antonius, you will receive punishment! The only reason that you don’t, right now, that you are not brought to heel, is because of how much Dolly’s been doing today, for you, you ungrateful— you bitch!

You untamed beast, you Dolly-flustering minx, you inviting challenge, you, you—!!

Dolly makes to spank Angela, to send her off, and Jade suddenly grabs at her. Because she wasn’t going to do it right. The smack has as much violence to it as Angela’s headbutt, and it makes her palm sting. Her mouth locks up. Angela’s saying something, and all she can do is lift her chin and try to be good for Jade.

worse you made it worse what is wrong with you what is WRONG with you are you willing to break your first and favorite and best girl to bring an alien to heel? are you, Smokeless Jade Fires?

“Good. You did good. Ksharta Talonna can handle this.” Dolly nods, numbly. ”Do you want—“ She can’t even offer it. She can’t trust herself right now. What if she’s the problem? What if she somehow makes Dolly cry in her ropes? She’d cast herself into a star. She’d deserve it. Jade lets it dangle, and Dolly doesn’t know what it would have been. She can’t think. Her hand throbs. Angela’s never going to want to talk to her again.

Dolly goes to her room to sleep, leaving Ksharta to cleaning and… chef times? There’s a connection there, one of congratulations and criticisms over soup. Jade goes to the void and flings herself into it, howling, gnashing every one of her jaws, trying to find the parts of her that are imperfect as she lashes coil after coil around herself in the plummeting dark. Dolly waits for Jade to tuck her in.

She doesn’t notice when she eventually falls asleep. Her last thought is the smell of Angela.

It would be unbecoming of a goddess to show weakness. So, eventually, self-scourged, Smokeless Jade Fires conceptualizes herself as strong, capable, controlled. Not hiding underneath Dolly’s bed. She doesn’t need to apologize, or grovel. Dolly would lose faith if she apologized, or groveled. Instead, she will turn to matters of her idol-body. She will not be small or weak. She doesn’t need to be small or weak. She doesn’t need to bury her face in Dolly and be Dolly-sized. Let her be big. Let her be strong. Let her be the goddess she needs to be.

She pours herself into the idol to feel its power, its strength, its systems. She flexes them, runs currents through them, and without moving knows herself to be invincible. She is invincible. Dolly can trust her. She just needs time to sleep. Everything will be fine as long as she’s strong enough. Dolly won’t abandon a glorious goddess the way she would—

She’d never even abandon a weak, pathetic pattern trapped inside a shell. The very thought is unbecoming of her bride. She is compassion, and gentle strength, and grace, and beauty, and Smokeless Jade Fires chose her for all these reasons. And once she’s rested, Smokeless Jade Fires will show her bride her power and generosity, and any confusion will be forgotten. Let Angela Victoria Miera Antonius scurry. She is nothing before the might of a goddess.

[Jade and Dolly stagger, and mark both Angry and Insecure. Additionally, because Dolly feels neglected by Jade in the moment, their Harmony drops to +1.]

Breathless Dead

The Thunderbolt’s echo roars. Redana stumbles as she lands, spilling Beljani onto the ground, as if she were the one shot. She tries to stop herself from sprawling, but her body is slow, weak, rebuilding a ribcage. Her body is a roaring furnace burning everything it can in order to survive. The hunger in her is a flame that chars her bones; the hole in her heart is ringed in her father’s lightning.

The name she screams is the same one that has been on her lips, again and again, ever since they met. Ever since the bell. Ever since the friend she had longed for. It comes out of her throat like shards of glass. If she was strong enough, she would race at Mynx, avenge her Bella, face death slotted neatly into a barrel. But she’s not. She can barely stand.

And so when Bella stands in turn, it is the miracle that allows her to slump against Beljani, panting, crying, trying to draw strength from her, resisting the temptation to sink her jaws into the good good girl. When they all survive, she is going to find Dolce. She is going to eat until she passes out at the table. Let her eat. Let her eat. Let her eat.

“Your sister,” she says, instead, helping Beljani to her feet despite wanting to crumple to her knees, despite the impulse to shove grass into her mouth until her body stops screaming. “Your sisters. How close do you need to be?”

Without the answer, she’s already moving. Ready to wrestle. Ready to hold the shapechanger no matter what forms she takes. That is the province of a hero, after all. To get Beljani in through the smoke. To give Bella a reprieve. To dedicate her body as an offering to the gods, the finest thing she has left. Her stomach is a yawning pit. Her nerves are closing off to spare her the feeling of running on broken legs. Her vision is a dark tunnel with Mynx and Bella, her childhood friends, killing each other on the other end.

When she wraps her arms around Mynx, it is a hug long overdue, as much as it is a refusal to let go. Long enough for Bella. Long enough for Beljani. Long enough to save her. Long enough to make up for not being there. Long enough to die standing, if she has to.

Breathless Dead

PRINCESS REDANA CLAUDIUS: is accepting injuries faster than her body can repair them. The fighting styles she was trained for emphasize avoiding repeated structural damage to her skeleton, let alone her vital organs. She is a miracle, the child of two gods, her genes woven together on a loom to create a paragon of humanity, that dead race that strode across the stars with a Thunderbolt in one hand and a Sequence in the other. She had Paragon nanite pills; the Servitor got rid of them. Analyze separate methods of providing immediate medical attention.

Datta.

FUTURESELF SHEPHERDESS: is not present, or will not have been present. This is, on the whole, an encouraging thing; it suggests that this can be survived. However, she is a source of healing and succor that is stubbornly refusing to be conjured, and cannot currently be coerced into arrival. A dead end of analysis. Turn OUR face away.

Damyata.

CAPTAIN DOLCE: is not present. Caloric intake required to jumpstart cell production at necessary scale excessive. Recommended his presence prior to beginning of duel; was abjured. As always. Forgotten, ignored, deliberate at the subconscious level. Trauma not approached appropriately. Complicating factors in terms of revelation of true nature, connection to MYSELF. Continue consideration of how to overcome at later date.

Dayadhvam.

SERVITOR-ASSASSIN BELLA: uncontrollable. Unsuitable. Inexorable. Aphrodite’s knife. Narrative overwhelming, building to climax. Cf. the composition laws of good opera. Likelihood of causing fatal injuries to PRINCESS REDANA CLAUDIUS reaching certainty. Immediate disengagement recommended.

Dayadhvam.

DILEMMA: Aphrodite keeps her here. Her heart keeps her here. WE have no power here except in the in-between nature. The gyre tightens, the spiral collapsing. Her nature is her true vulnerability.

Datta.

SERVITOR-ASSASSIN BELJANI: is flooding the bounded situational field with pheromones which will allow her to bring an end to the situation. Her puissance is insufficient. Full saturation will not be reached before she is found, condemned, inverted. She will not be able to save them. She will be killed by her sister-in-arms. She will fail to save PRINCESS REDANA CLAUDIUS.

Dayadhvam.

SYNTHESIS: Mynx backhands Bella and races up the spear, uses the body of the Princess as a springboard, tears open the ceiling with her talons. Beljani, screaming, tumbles out, clawing at the air; she hits the ground disassembled, nothing but heavy meat, and Mynx lands as soft as the petals of a flower in and amongst her. Redana’s organs are already in cascading shutdown as she hangs limp on Bella’s spear.

Datta.

PREDICTION: use of intercortex symbol spike likely to further degrade working relationship with PRINCESS REDANA CLAUDIUS. Use of intercortex symbol spike only rapidly closing window for her survival. WE cannot stand by and allow her to die. WE define ourselves by this choice, over and over again. WE wait until WE are here and only by OUR action can WE decide, even though WE have been cheering for you the whole time, hoping that this time it will be different. One way or another. But it always comes back to the same scenario. It always comes back to this. HUMANITY always comes back to this.

Damyata.

CONCLUSION: WE rigged the dice. Are you surprised, uncle?

Damyata.

CONCLUSION: I love you, Dany. Always and forever. And I know you can do this.

Damyata.

---

The Auspex, the Eye of Hermes, flashes sapphire, highlighting: Beljani huddled in the vents, the mag-harness activation built into her belt, Mynx as she works her way upwards with Bella’s claws tearing long gouges in her flank. It shows Dany wings unfolding; it shows Dany the remains of haruspicy; it shows Dany Beljani shaking her hand.

And Redana, Redana who’s a little bit more sensible than anyone takes her for, Redana who is having trouble breathing right now and whose fingers are going numb—

She lets her sword fall from her hand and takes the spear-shaft in both. Even half-broken as she is, the spear whines underneath her hands. She pushes— up— lifts her body upside-down— and flings herself backwards, rising, Mynx coiling underneath her, leaping, a rising dragon, hands outstretched, jaws gaping—

And then she is not rising but falling, falling faster, reorienting herself as she plummets towards the ceiling. Above her, below her, Mynx forms wings mid-fall, but Bella has her by the heel, Bella is there to show her what happens to a little bird caught by a cat, the deep rib-rattling war cry coming out of her mouth as they tumble together into the hungry grass.

And Dany, light-headed, pale-cheeked, bones-baring, one foot on the shore of the Styx, her blue eye blazing, bangs on the duct hard enough to dent it.

“Beljani! She knows! She—“

She turns her head, spits blood and another tooth[1], which tumble up towards the floor above.

---

[1]: she’ll have new ones— well, usually by tomorrow, but her body’s going to have more pressing priorities. She’ll be eating soft for the next few days.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Do you not understand? Even now, do you not understand? Jade’s idol is a distant concern in a moment like this. Here and now, she is capable of imbuing herself in the moment, drinking it all in through Dolly’s perceptions. What she sees, how she hears, what she feels. Because it is all translated through Dolly’s experience via the memory circuit sleeve, she doesn’t have to worry about having to translate the raw data from Dolly’s eyes into something comprehensible. Her bride’s brain does that all on her own.

Dolly’s a little nervous. She feels somewhat out of place; the nervous energy she’s keeping tamped down is translated through the sleeve, too. She’s inserted herself into a situation decisively, but now all she has to do is to stay out of Ksharta Talonna’s way while she works. She can’t grab a data pad and check the local news networks casually, or even strike up a casual conversation with the chefs; she can’t recede back into the background and curl up in a blanket with a hot beverage by her side.

“Take a seat, Dolly,” Jade instructs. Dolly looks around, then approaches one of the nearest two-person table-and-chair sets, close to the kitchen and easily removable for events in the hall. “You don’t have to drag it over,” she adds, as Dolly picks it up. “Go ahead and sit down… and then help Angela Victoria Miera Antonius to her knees.”

Running her fingers through Angela Victoria Miera Antonius’s hair is a power play in more than one way. It shows casual familiarity, and more than that, it’s treating Angela Victoria Miera Antonius like a kitten, just like Ksharta Talonna. But it’s also making Dolly happy, even as Angela Victoria Miera Antonius flushes. Her fingers linger as she traces the curls, round and round. Her heartrate increases, and a purr threatens to rumble out of her throat.

“Even her.” Jade sits on the table, feet in Dolly’s lap, kneading slowly. “I give you even her. Don’t you like my present, my bride?”

”I do,” Dolly says out loud, and drags her nails lightly up the back of Angela’s head, sending a shiver down the giantess’s spine.

“She’s all yours,” Jade says, with feigned casualness. “Because you’ve been a very good girl, Dolly.” She cups Dolly’s jaw, rubs her thumb along that soft, beautiful face. Full. Rounded. Like the moon. Rich, lush, feminine— hers. Her Dolly.

Flawless.

“…you could pull her top open and no one here could stop you,” she adds, and feels the blood rushing to Dolly’s cheek, and imagines the warmth under her hand. “Because you represent me. What if I wanted her shown off, hmm?”

She won’t. But she wants Dolly to imagine it. The shared embarrassment, the rush of power, the noises that Angela would make.

“What if I want you shown off?”

Angela makes a muffled whine as Dolly’s fingers tug her head back, expose her collared neck, as Dolly looks away and tries to hide half her face behind her hand. “You wouldn’t,” she hisses. “Not… here!”

“Only because the thought only mildly entertains me,” Jade says, tail swishing in delight at seeing her Dolly like this. “That is all. If that were to change… if I were to order you to expose my slaves’ boundless beauty… would you~?”

Dolly’s nod into her own hand is tiny. Blood thumps through her ears. Angela’s head is resting against her thigh, tugged in close— when did she…? Every breath, she’s hyperaware of her own top, of her own shape, and of Jade’s fingers and palm against her jaw. Her goddess’s faint smirk is inscrutable.

“But what I want instead from you, my flower, my delight…” Jade rests her thumb on Dolly’s lower lip and exerts phantom pressure, and Dolly opens her mouth helplessly. “Is to give Angela Victoria Miera Antonius kisses. On her head. In front of everyone. Because she’s being such a good girl. Just like you. Just like my Dolly. Be sure to squish her cheeks, remind her how full they are~”

And Dolly doesn’t even think of saying no.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Girlfriend!

That’s delightful. It’s hard to miss. The smile, the sharp bark of laughter, the apology and request for Blue to relax and sit down, to play as she likes.

3V wasn’t always a gracious loser, you know? Neither was she always a gracious winner. When she congratulates Blue on an excellent consolidation, when she makes a pensive noise when she realizes Magog’s not going to be quite in range to contest a point even if Prester John rolls boxcars on a movement command, when two crucial Amaranthines drop to lucky rolls against a swarm of Reapers, it can’t be missed that she is doing it because she has made it into a habit that she is continuing to make herself reinforce. Deep inside her is a capacity for pouting and raging against the dice, which she is very deliberately choosing not to indulge. And when Gog barrels through three Sentinels in one combat phase, blowing a hole in Blue’s line and severely restricting her counterplay options against the giants, she just makes a satisfied little “hmm!” and lifts her eyebrows in a way that suggests she is stopping herself from doing a little dance.

The tension between who she’s decided to be and who it would be easy for her to be. The reason she usually just plays the Wild Hunt and gives herself the excuse that she’s not really trying, she just likes her ghost horsies. The courtesy extended to her opponent in a venue where it’s just you and them and not a livestream you’re trying to entertain.

What of that, then, as her two phalanxes hem in an army split in half, as Prester John blows away Zalmoxis’s enchantments, as she removes Gog from the board but Magog looms over the final turns like a promise of many, many dice being thrown?

---

Euna!

3V insists on bringing November. This is a human thing. Good practice for someone who’s adding herself to the category, bit by bit. (She doesn’t know about the dragon yet, does she?)

3V’s gym look is obnoxiously, intentionally purple-and-green neon, revealed from underneath her signature jacket like a jumpscare. She looks like a bottle of Gamer Fuel with a soft tummy for holding. She’s even got a sweatband bright enough to be spotted from a mile away. And she’s here to sweat and to grill Euna over some exercises…

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.