Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

The final contest is the most difficult: to win, to rig, to excel effortlessly in. The Daughters of Ceron were able to ensure that their fashion show was far and away the best, the most impressive. What use the suit and impractical hat that the Pix picked out for him? How could anyone pick the rustic chef’s apron and shapeless hat that the Beri delegation picked? No one else was brave enough to do the synnefo’s makeup. Victory would surely fall to the Silver Divers.

Similarly, the tea ceremony was perfected by Ceron, and the shameless “maid cafe” that the Pix put on? Bah. Surely the Gravrail Lioness would see right through their silly curtseys and synchronized dance breaks. The tea ceremony was always theirs to win.

But at this point, Redana is forced to admit to herself: maybe the pack was just a little out of its depth when it came to the Great Plousios Bake-Off. At the very least, maybe they shouldn’t have let everyone in the pack be involved?

The Silver Divers’ workstation is a mess of wolves, scents and opinions. The clear hierarchies of the pack are breaking down in the face of arguments over how hard to knead dough, how long to leave the biscuits in the oven, and whose fault it was for leaving that jar of toppings so close to the edge. Battle is one thing, but baking is quite another.

At least they have one of the judges on-side already! Surely Dolce will do his part! But there’s four judges for this one, and two of them are surprises. And here the Silver Divers are, falling all over themselves at the final hurdle while the Pix make biscuits in the shapes of birds in flight.

This would all be easier if Gemini knew how to bake, and whose voice to prioritize to make a pretty cake. Ah, well. As some poet or other once said:

Bake by the right method and means;
do not let sloth weigh down your thoughts,
and neither use a disorderly recipe,
else chaos will abound and all things overturn.
Bake by the right method and means,
and you shall have a cake in harmony with all things.

Bella would know who said that, probably. She’s very clever. And she’ll be so proud of her princess when she discovers how well she’s played her part in Taurus’s wonderful plan~!

“…this is still too underbaked,” she sighs. On the other side of the workstation, knives are drawn over which citrus to use as an accent note.

Return to Thellamie

Eclair!

They still have the mural. Children, frozen in play: laughing, running, pouncing. Ribbons suspended in a still moment. The grass is green and yellow, and there are no trees. Unidentifiable smears and handprints exist all along the edges, the accumulation of generations.

They still have the long table, too. That's where you sit, surrounded by memories, and yet alone. A moment to catch your breath, a moment to breathe in an old air, a moment to feel small somewhere. A moment to check your messages, where your quarry has once again contacted you.

>[.tmtwo]
>I *knew* it was a gamble sending you to enjoy yourself somewhere.
>A fool's hope that you'd bend an inch.
>But you burned it down? What, did they use the wrong forks at dinner?
>Still, can't blame you too much~

Tablets struggle with taking pictures of things in motion. They fade into soft impressionism, the magic's best effort at capturing the quality of movement. So the picture that Timtam sends you is of herself(?), masked and wearing a nun's habit, making an impudent little Yukisearth V sign, framed by a tall cathedral (but not the sort you'd recognize, hard to say where it is).

And the cathedral is lit from within by those soft yellows and oranges shading into red, and about it shines that ruddy halo. Figures mill about in the background, silhouettes.

The figure of, supposedly, Timtam in that picture: she is not holding the tablet.

---

Handmaidens!

Rurik is not devoured! He is not squashed! He is not flung aside, or dashed against the floor, or swarmed by enemies!

And this is because Aria Thendragon hesitates, for a moment, and considers what he has said. Hate roils in her heart, but more than hate, too. If she continues, she will be destroyed at the hands of the Hero she despises. If she continues, she may yet shatter the weapon that has been made of herself. If she destroys all you gathered here, if she ensures that Heron arrives to the site of a bitter and sorrowful battle, then the Rot Star will be denied a weapon.

And their hate is concordant, but for a moment, the call of the void wars with the bitter spite in her heart.

And in that moment, a yell from up on the stairs: "Let her come, then! Take the Faun! Just pick him up and take him!"

The would-be conqueror, the doom of chivalry, the husk of a past life: she turns away from you as she would a game that she no longer delights in. She turns her damp bulk towards the Golden Faun, jaw opening to snap him up in a bite.

This is a mistake, to turn away from you. You cannot defeat her, but you can buy time, buy an opening for a miracle. Give it your everything, o you lingering bits of stardust. For Cair is, if I have this right, about to change the world.

---

Yuki!

You're not going to make it.

The Handmaidens who you met on the Road? They're doing their best. Olesnya? (Ugh, now you've got me doing it.) She's getting ready to jump onto a dragon's face to try and buy you just a little more time. Suli? She's cornered and doing her good girl best to protect Hazel, but she can't head towards you. And that dragon is still coming.

In the moment when you're sure that you won't be able to make it in time, when you miss a step and come crashing down on one knee, when you're sure that you won't be able to save Hazel and Suli and everyone who needs you- what do you cry out? What bursts out of you? These are, after all, sad cat hours. Do step up to the occasion.

---

Hazel!

The Khanum fights like she's button mashing, and it's working. The Nagi princess repeatedly intervenes, putting herself between you and her, but she can't protect you and herself. Each cut with that heartblade makes her cry out and sob through gritted teeth, and each one makes her just a little bit slower. She's graceful and elegant and she could force this brat to fight at her own tempo, could control the fight, if she didn't have to protect you.

"He even lights up!" Her blade of light cuts through Suli's arm at a shallow angle; not enough to disarm the princess, but enough for her to contract, to fail to push the advantage. "Give it to me! It's the perfect accessory! He'll be my favoritest favorite and I'll have a light-up boy to show off at conclave!" She keeps trying to flank around Sulochana, but the reach of that long spear and the way that Sulochana doubles back on herself, pushing back to buy you room and time, keeps her away for a moment longer each time. "Olly can have the dumb stinking dragon: I want that boy!"

(And the way she says it, it almost sounds like toy.)

The dragon is, I must remind you, almost upon you. And if that wasn't bad enough, Walking Elm is striding very purposefully down the stairs, cutting off your exit. And Yuki's stumbled on the stairs and is calling out to you, too far to sweep you up in her arms and growl at everyone to back off.

This is it. You're doomed. Surely nothing can save you now.

Breathless Dead

"Dolce!!" Ember is already by his side, fingers in his curls, helping him into an apologetic bow. (It doesn't yank at all, don't you worry, Dolce. This is a well-practiced and carefully trained Classical Head Guidance in the Howling Honey style. Just yield and let Ember show you what to do, the way that you've been yielding this whole time. You're doing such a good job of it.) She bows even lower, the absolute figure of Ceronian contrition.

"I'm terribly sorry, my lady," she says. (Nod nod, Dolce.) "We agreed he was going to say something along these lines, but only after we finished the Bake-Off! Oh! Now we will have to come up with some new gesture, some even grander expression of how humble his love is!" And it is, perhaps, the magic of Redana Claudius that she is entirely sincere when she says this. "Please, forgive us for disturbing the tranquility of the tea ceremony!" Head up, goofy smile, there we are, Dolce, now head back down. Oh! If we don't do this right, then surely our lovely Taurus and Gemini will be disappointed! And we have yet to thank them, too!

So do your best, Dolce! The two of you will just have to incorporate humble expressions of love brainstorming alongside the final dish design brainstorming! Now, perhaps Vasilly might realize something is off, since one team in this contest is coordinating so closely with the supposed prize, but can she resist the temptation of even more from her lamb-my-love, and how could she possibly resist the temptation of what will be baked for the two of them as the final contest? It will take all the baking prowess of Ceron[1] to meet her lofty expectations!

So do your best, Redana! And do your best, Dolce! Big smiles, wagging tails, and beams of sincerity! Sheepheart!

---

[1]: limited, but having one of the judges ensorcelled will really help with the final score.

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

With a crash like a falling tower, Aria Thendragon plunges down into the Chrysanthemum once more. Rurik had successfully handled the Rootwalkers, Eclair Espoir had managed to seal their way in, the Architect-Knight was soundly defeated: everything handled except for this titan of sodden wood and hate.

Even so, alone and still growing more roots to seal the empty spaces that Saynastia had gouged into her, she is more than a match for you. Any one of you. All of you together. The light in her eyes is what we in the business call fell.

"Broken puppets. Do you still dance to her tune?"

With a sweep of her tail, she clears space for herself. With a beat of her wings, a tempest roars through the building (but does not tear it down, not with the attention of a maid-knight of the Order of the Aurora still lingering here). She raises one paw to crush Injimo completely (who is, we must assume, stancing and getting ready to try and block).

And she howls as arrows strike her from both sides. From one, the great golden arrows of Yaz, the proprietress; from another, a veritable hail from Olesya, the Baygum. A brief reprieve from her multi-hit unblockable attacks. But she shall keep coming until her mistress calls her off; and Walking Elm has no reason to do any such thing. Not while she still has the Golden Fawn within reach.

---

Cutie!

It's raining indoors. All the water down at the roots of the Chrysanthemum has gone up, and is now spattering back down in a short, intense, bangs-in-your-eyes deluge. Somewhere down below, there is the roar of something great and awful and terrible.

The Princess of Crevas puts her fingertips to your lips, once she has pulled you back up onto your feet and into her embrace. "Hush," she says, and her fear and relief are shivering through her coils. "There will be enough time to, to talk, once we have you in safety, Hazel. Because, you see, then we will be abele--"

She blushes and puts her hand to her own mouth. The great speaker, a leader of serpents, stumbling over her own words as she looks at you. At you. Gold star for Cutie.

"Abel. Able. Yes, that's, I apologize, we're having a moment here and..."

The moment is ruined by Walking Elm pulling herself up to her full height. Sulochana, flustered and awkward, half-raises her spear, but we both know there's no way she's going to be able to protect you properly in time.

The water becomes ice. It becomes a solid sheet between you and Walking Elm, and though it spiderwebs with cracks when she punches it, you've gained a moment. A moment that Sulochana takes eagerly, desperately, slithering down along with you towards her cousin Magasha, who is calling up more water to support the wall with each sinuous flick of her tail and intricate gesture. But there's not enough water to do more than delay the Rot Star's emissary.

A Serigalamu huntress in starglasses is waiting down the stairs, and she flourishes a heartsaber gaudily. "Well, looks like you have my prize there, slithers. Mind handing him over?"

And you get, oh delight of delights, the experience of having one of the Nagi bodily put herself between you and danger. I mean, yet more danger. This place has become nothing but danger after danger, and all because you are here. Danger that this princess and her team are doing their best to get you out of, but danger nonetheless.

---

Yuki!

"Oh, goddess..."

A friend's hands lift you up, and you're pulled into a trembling hug by Sister Juniper of the Civil Church. It's probably the biggest hug she's ever given you, and she's a hugger already. Like she's trying to center both of you in this moment, as the world breaks apart on all sides.

"Olesya's buying us time." The words tumble out of her mouth. "Are you okay? Did that... charming young woman," she says, obviously correcting herself from other, more unfavorable words, "hurt you? She's... like that! A lot! Here, let me..."

And before you can say a word otherwise, she presses one hand against your chest. Warmth flows through you, and a certainty that things will be all right, if we can just get organized and work together. The bonds of the Civil Church. You can heal one of your Conditions here, as long as you give Civelia a String in turn.

Unrelatedly, there is very definitely a dragon down there.

---

Eclair!

All that? You're well out of it. Door's sealed and you are grinding down the streets of Vespergift, which are... well, a lot is happening out here. An evacuation, as coordinated by the Serigalamu huntresses and employees of the Chrysanthemum, some of the latter wearing borrowed coats to make impractical outfits more appropriate for the snow swirling down. This is worse than what happened in Crevas; back there, there wasn't this mad civilian dash for the Roads.

Back in Crevas, there weren't towers leaning at crazy angles from having dragons smash into them. There weren't people gingerly clambering down from broken walkways, or clambering up to fetch children and pets and prized possessions. And there wasn't a despair fallen on the entire city, a certainty that their worst nightmares had finally arrived.

Half of Vespergift will be flooding hotels in Kel by dinner. But your efforts have ensured that it won't be so bad that they can't come back and prepare to fight as hard as they can against the encroaching wood. I mean, assuming that Heron's Handmaidens don't fumble dealing with that dragon.

The worst thing that could happen right now is for someone to cause an awful panic. Someone like, say, the maid-knight who attacked Civelia (or so they say). You need to take a moment to hole up somewhere. Take stock of yourself. Check your messages. That sort of thing. Do you have a place in mind?

Breathless Dead

The tea is not the point. The tea is the vehicle.

The Princess Redana had very little patience for tea ceremonies, back on Tellus. Very little patience for most things, if we are being honest with ourselves, if they were not part of the eternal now, not something that allowed her to use the engine of her body, not part of her yearning to see and run and sail and reach. How did Hermes ever think her daughter would not desire to be on the move, on the run, chasing the horizon? Might as well have tried to tie down dawn.

As Ember, though, she learned. The Silver Divers, for all their hunger and ambition and predatory instincts, demand discipline. Any member of the pack that cannot tame their body in the service of the mind, in the service of the pack, is one that has failed.

Putting on a proper tea ceremony is about knowing the proper meanings and uses for everything. The color of the walls of the hut that they have erected around Vasilia and Dolce (a pink so faint that it is almost devoured), the flowers worked into Dolce’s hair (fresh plum blossoms steeped in their own scent, evoking Tranquility and Belonging), the number of breaths to hold before you pour (three, and don’t let your hand waver). It is slow, deliberate, and made to show perfect control of mood, body, and time.

The tea is not the point. The tea is the vehicle.

It is a variant stolen from a world three stops back. It spills elegantly from the mouth of the kettle, blue-green and bitter, the color of a sea. The color of the depths. The color of Poseidon’s fingernails. It does not so much as ripple as it is poured.

Goldie is on the harp, carefully plucking each string, her eyelids rich in luster. Sagetip’s flute is as faint as the color of the walls, a breath of wind to move through this place. And Redana pours as they play, not breathing as she pours, still and quiet in her heart.

Patient enough to do this right.

The third cup she pours for herself, and sips slowly as proof that she has not poisoned any part of this. (Not that this has stopped determined enough Ceronians from using these ceremonies as a gambit.) Her ears curl in slightly, just like her toes, and as she lowers the cup, her contented smile is the one point of failure. It is too happy, helpless in the face of her drink and the presence of her friends.

“Drink deep and well,” she sighs, eyes closed, joy radiating.

Return to Thellamie

Mayzie!

On Yukisworld they've got a story about a musician who was told he could bring his wife back from death, only he couldn't look back on his journey back through the Outside. Of course he did, because he'd missed her, see. And she melted back into everything unreal, into the dreams of slumbering not-dragons in their infinite coils.

You make the same mistake on your way out, taking a detour through the public-facing stairs to avoid the congestion of the evacuation. And as you emerge into chaos, you see Eclair Espoir, old friend and crush and enemy, who only has eyes for this Timtam, show the Architect-Knight herself about the cafe, putting her through her absolute paces.

It's the most beautiful damn thing you've ever seen, and the most beautiful damn woman who's ever walked the face of this town. Your ears, traitors that they are, wiggle.

You want, more than anything, to tear her out of that armor-- out of those frills-- and use that maid-knight's body as a canvas for your art, the art that you almost managed to convince yourself would never go anywhere. The Yukisworld designs.

---

Eclair Espoir!

Take a String on poor, absolutely besotted Mayzie Sighs, standing at the back of the cafe. Wrap it 'round her. Pull it tight.

And then lift your lovely chin and sniff the air. Fire! Here? Where there is so much wood? That is a safety hazard. And a cleaning frenzy is upon ye, is it not? Douse it! Surely there are pipes! Surely there is an entire hot springs complex downstairs! And surely you can smother out some magician's fire, likely by smothering out some magician.

Your honor demands nothing less. (And I'll toss this in, just as a bonus: that useless Paladin is downstairs, too~)

---

Handmaidens!

You're fine. Everything is fine. Why wouldn't everything be fine?

Steam swirls up maddened from the hot springs as this invasion pours out from the heart of the vast tree: another one of the Architect-Knight's own doors, likely. And on the other side, your own Stacks. A veritable garden burns as the steam rises in great gouts, the water hissing away as magical fire consumes the bathing area and the trendy cafes. Down here is the chaos of magical war, an echo of the great battles that brought down the homeland of the Avel centuries ago.

And through it wades a Paladin intent on securing the Public Safety, building steam as she goes (if you will forgive the pun). Aadya, the Rock Upon a Mountain, is here to fight her way through anyone who stands between her and closing that door. And in the swirling steam, everyone may as well be her foe.

---

Yuki!

"You don't know who I am?" She meets your axe with the bow, using it like some sort of exotic double-bladed sword. When she bares her teeth, semi-precious stones flash in your face. "Bitch, have you been lost in the Outside for the past forever?" She's good at slipping in, under your guard, hot and close and rough. "I'm the most important person here! Dig the earwax out of your triangles and listen up!"

The two of you careen into a wall and she manages to pin you with one arm, her body against yours, her starglasses crooked (and, thankfully, no baleful light behind them). Outside, dragons roar, battling across the skyline of Vespergift. Her breath is hot with a local specialty, similar to wassail on your world.

"I'm the Khanum, dumbass, and whatever you idiots are fighting over, I want it." There is love in that sentence: love towards herself, heaped up on her own head, shining with self-regard. "And then I'll show it off to Mommy and she'll know I'm a much better hunter than Ollie ever was." There's love there, too, before it turns to spite.

You make an attempt to break free, but she's got her leg under yours and she's spinning you into a drop on the stairs, which means you're tumbling right back down them as she races up, cackling, feckless and wild and free.

What sort of String does she take on you, out of curiosity? I mean, feel free to answer once you've come to a complete stop.

---

Cutie!

She kisses you again, and the smell of her is all around you, sweet as honey, sweet as sin, flowers blooming and pollen on the fur of bees. Her hair falls about you like a curtain. She is soft, inviting, and eager to devour. Eager to pour more of her magic into you, to leave your limbs trembling and your breath faint and your eyes fluttering.

The yank on your hair is sudden, sharp, startling. I'm certain that it elicits a gasp from you, that jolt when you're already feeling like the ground's all gone from underfoot. And that gasp, that grip in your curls, the shape of your mouth as it leaves you: these things are as intoxicating to her as she is to you. The smile that she gives you, the way her eyes widen, the way her grip tightens: these are the signs that she, too, is succumbing to desire. The beating heart of her is cracking through her carefully grown facade.

It has been a restraint this entire time for her not to hurt you. Not to hurt everyone. Because her job is just to bring you in, to feed you sap and honey, to make you succumb in order to advance the plans of a very sour star indeed. But that Rot Star? It can't help itself. Never could. Azaza tried to make the whole world worship her, but she was self-absorbed, obsessed with her own beauty, lashing out to make the world conform to the way she wanted it. And Miaou was just lashing out because she was hurting, and now she's sealed down beneath Kel, all shadow and flame.

But the Rot Star is aware of the world around it, and it hates the world. A slow, creeping, toxic hate. And it grew Walking Elm in its gardens and made her fair, for silly boys like you, and made her sweet, all the better to pretend she's that she's not as dangerous as the dragon.

She pulls your head back, inch by inch, and stares at the look on your face. The curve of your neck. In this moment, she has power over you, and she knows she can hurt you, and it is making her giddy, giddy, giddy.

Distracted.

"You don't get a say," she breathes, not blinking. She is grinding your back against the banister, pinching flesh against bone. Her other hand's fingers brush against your exposed throat. "Whatever made you think you had a say?" And she laughs, high and shrill and joyful as she digs her nails into your skin, drunken on victory.

And Princess Sulochana Arju shoves her heartspear through Walking Elm's chest and its forked head juts out an inch from your face and Walking Elm's grip on you loosens and you're flopping free and half through the banister and the Princess screams and flops against the banister and catches your wrist before you can lose your balance and go all the way tumbling out into empty space.

"Don't let go," the Nagi princess says, hair flopping into her eyes, hand clenched tight around you for fear of losing you. Beside her, Walking Elm is crumpled against the banister, making an awful hissing noise like no person should ever make. Her eyes are still locked on you.

Take your String on that poisonous woman. And once your fingers are working properly again, wrap them around Sulochana's wrist. She'll pull you up.

Breathless Dead

The walkway is not suspended in the air by ropes, nor by chains, nor by struts. It is held, perfectly still, by the Daughters of Ceron. They serve as the way up, too. Up into hands, little sheep: up onto shoulders, strut confidently from us onto our steady ground. The walkway itself is a figure-eight, an hourglass, a place to walk until walking is no longer required.

Behold your husband, Vasillia of the Grav-Rail! Take him in from a distance; know that he will strut down the walkway until you could reach out and pinch his cheek, should you so desire. Naturally, given his body shape and the demands of fashion, he is wearing a robe- but it is the details that matter! This robe is the sumptuous maroon of a courtier from Tellus, and the orange-gold thread woven subtly into the robe shifts as he moves, shimmering and evoking the kitchen-hearth that is his domain. From his belt hangs a purse and counterweight; the counterweight is the pale white of a void-monster's bones, carved into the shape of Hestia sitting upon a cloud. A fan, similarly, is designed to be tucked into the inner pocket.

Out with it, Dolce! Flash it, let it be shown! On its white silk is a noble sigil from a world far, far behind us now, one which will serve well enough as the emblem of the noblewoman who sits in judgment. Beneath it are the tools of the chef, crossed as noble arms--

And which tools are these again, proud and extremely comfortable Dolce? Do share with us as you walk, coming and going, letting your lovely wife see you so warm and cozy from all angles. Let her see how the robe complements your frame; let her see the fuzziness of the boots, which are still able to stand up to any dropped knife; and let her see the flower that has been pinned delicately to your curls. Let her see all this, Dolce, and let her know that Ceron shall most definitely win the Contest of Fashion!

Breathless Dead

She fought for this job, you know? Bullied her way right here, with her tools in her hands, and the burning determination to fulfill that which has been left undone. A task which yawns, enormously, across her past. And even if she cannot think of exactly why this must be done, she knows with certainty that she must do this. For Dolce. For Vasillia. For the journey.

The song that spills from her lips is slow, contenting, one she happened to hear back at the beginning of everything. Back when she, oh so briefly, rode with privateers. And she got to hear how they roared their excitement, how they tossed call and response back and forth across their ships, and, most importantly for this moment, how they wove their voices together to sing of the journey home, the sway of waves, the romantic tension of fighting alongside one another, and leaving all your fears, your disappointments, your regrets behind you.

Hold your head high!
Hold your head high!
We are alive!
We are alive!

The brush and the comb are as gentle as that song, but as insistent. These are the weapons with which she carves out Elysium. The drag of the brush through his curls, across his scalp, never tugging or pulling, just giving each one the proper bounce. The flick of the comb, the twist to accentuate those ringlets. They are scented with oils, and in their wake they leave softness, tenderness, and a certain sensitivity of the scalp.

For, say, when Ceronian nails drag up and down. Like this. While the song continues, promising peace and safety and joy among your comrades, your dearest friends, the people who chose to stand side by side with you.

And you hear that, Dolce?

The whole pack is singing along.

Let it fall, let it go.
Let it fall, let it go.
We are here, and we are now.
We are here, and we are now.

You carried so much for so long without complaint, once-Captain. You were trapped among enemies, forced to join in the hunt of your beautiful wife. Let it fall. Let it go. Let it fall. Let it go. We are here, and we are now.

All we got is us!
All we got is us!
The people who fight with us,
side by side with us,
we're all on the same ship home,
we're taking the same ship home.

And one day, Dolce, that will be true. That's a super Princess promise.

Return to Thellamie

Aadya!

It's no choice at all, really.

Even before you saw Juniper helping lead people away from the Chrysanthemum, across from the holy monastery of Vesper Victoria's, you knew that you had to get involved. So it's as you're making your way inside, using your bulk to work against the tide of people breathlessly yelping about dragons-- fire-- the trees coming to kill us all-- maid knights--

That's when the front of the Chrysanthemum explodes.

The beautiful murals, broken. The supporting beams, splintered. (One falls directly towards you; you catch it like a training weight.) The Serigalamu huntresses all about break down streets, herding fleeing customers and employees and the goblins of a petting zoo alike towards safety. (They didn't do that in Crevas. Something to note.)

When you run inside, you're accompanied by two other women: Juniper, her face pale, and a Serigalamu woman with a drawn heartsaber. Across the street, Sayanastia the Dark Dragon is pinned against a statue of herself by this city's worst nightmare. And across the city, bells are tolling: invasion. forest. our nightmare is here.

---

Cutie!

Back and forth! One and two and hop! The two of you dance across the platform, even as something unfortunate happens to Cousin It above. Everything is focus! You slip into the rhythm of evading her stabs, start reading her tells, because for all that she's a peril, she's not a spontaneous swordfighter. Like a video game opponent, she fights like someone with a preset list of moves. She's got the reach on you, but you are adapting admirably, and then she manages to fence you in, against a bit of remaining banister on these great big stairs, with quite a drop behind you, but you see the opening and you take it--

Her wicked weapon tumbles out of her grasp as you twist it away, and it descends to the floor. (Don't worry about it falling tip-down. That's fine. Probably.) And now, disarmed, having lost the battle, she...

Reaches up and pulls down your makeshift mask.

Time seems to slow. Behind her, you can see Yuki. You can see your would-be Nagi savior being helped up. You can hear something unfortunate continuing to happen to Cousin It.

She is cradling your chin and leaning in.

You wanted a hard choice, little Golden Fawn? Well, one way or another, you've got one, because here's what you can do:

• you can stab her in the ribs with your sword, without hesitation, just show Yuki that you're capable of actually stabbing someone, to protect yourself, stab someone who doesn't have a weapon, someone dangerous, her eyes full of light, her lips rich and full, OR
• you can let her kiss you.

Show us all who you are, Cutie.

---

Yuki!

So you stagger out of the wrecked cafe, exhausted, and notice a lot of things:

• the giant hole where the front of this building used to be, and the way that the wind's pulling chrysanthemums out from that great big tree in the center of this place, in a rather unnatural way
• the awful woman who gives you the bad vibes leaning in to give Cutie there a kiss
• the Serigalamu huntress in a gaudy tiger-striped one-piece bathing suit and starglasses who is pulling a heartbow back to her cheek, aiming at the both of them, that's right there's a new challenger here, taking aim from a lower and now mostly-abandoned turn on the stairs
• Pasenne heroically pulling Sulochana back up onto (for now) stable ground
• your friend Eclair grinding on the face(?) of Cousin It with her skateboard

I think you have plenty enough to be dealing with. Good luck, dear; you always do shine under pressure.

---

Eclair Espoir!

The Architect-Knight is a figure from ancient stories, a dependable henchman and lackey for Bad Queen Aria. Any story about plucky knights deserting from her ranks (including the ancestors of the Order of the Aurora, looking for something good and true to serve rather than the emptiness in Aria's heart) wouldn't be complete without their being suddenly fenced in by walls, by cells, forced to escape a prison-labyrinth being built up all around them. (Fortunately, almost all of these "dungeons" were demolished, and good riddance.)

She is a nightmare. She is unbreakable loyalty given to a monster. She has really let her hair go while she's been imprisoned.

And she is at the beginning of a combo chain.

Time to start cleaning up around here, isn't it?

---

Handmaidens!

Well. Hrm. That big tree there has become a very bad problem. Even with its roots sealed away, even with all of those paper talismans dangling from its branches, even with all of those iron bands around its trunk, somehow the poison of the Rot Star has entered into it. It's obviously starting to die, but it's releasing hundreds-- thousands?-- of blossoms into the city through the hole that was made when Sayanastia got bulldozed through the front wall. That is almost certainly Bad. But you're the Handmaidens of Heron! Which will make your impending failure to contain them even worse.

Also, you're getting a pinging from Kalentia in the group chat at the same time, because apparently she's in the middle of a collapsing dream-prison that had some sort of awful evil tree magic bloom at its heart, looking for her, and you all should watch out for Rootwalkers or things of that nature! It looks like a Fallen Star is making a big move, so be ready for that!!

Return to Thellamie

Yuki!

The terror of a bygone age in front of you takes her starglasses off for a moment. Behind them is light like sludge, like tears, like bile rising in a throat. Light that has curdled. Light that is capable of animating the bodies of the dead when laced with the flora that it is more closely attuned to.

O daughter of Yukisworld, the First Fallen made an elaborate system of magic because he was a fucking nerd. (Just ask Tsane.) He refracted his light into a dizzying series of essences, each one ripe with possibility, with secrets to discover, with unexpected edge cases and combo spells that not even he could have imagined. But each of us? We are peers to the magic of this world, and ours is alien to what our lost brother made down here. Even mine. One day, you might have the chance to really see that. But here's the magic of the Rot Star, the Poison Star, Spite themselves.

And for a moment, she looks lost.

"Why...?" It's a sigh out of floral psuedo-lungs. "I... there was... in the beginning there was... my knights..."

Then she focuses her attention back on you, and her rictus grin returns. "The why doesn't matter, squire," she hisses, and there's another voice underlying hers again. A wet, awful voice. She flicks out the arms of her starglasses and slides them back up her nose with her middle finger. "First comes the Wildwood. An empire of leaves and bones. Then, in the end, the mushrooms; and after them, nothing." She purrs that word like it's a pickup line (and that was her, not the wet voice rejoicing in leaves and bones).

She casually tosses a table your way, and your axe only barely cuts through it. Casual. She's relaxed about this, for all that getting nicked made her angry. She's not taking this seriously as a challenge, a duel, a battle against an equal. That's how you could do it (you realize, ducking another chair). She wants knights. She wants someone she could love to hate. She wants-

A roar echoes throughout the Chrysanthemum. Aria's head jerks up, and an awful laugh bubbles out of her. "So you're here, too. I'm allowed this. I'm allowed this!"

She turns and starts running. And once she's out of the cafe, that's when the wood starts growing out of her.

(You're still not satisfied? Well, her problem is that she's a corpse puppeted by starlight, with a personality so big that it still serves as the container of that light. You'd need to drain it out of her, then put your head together with Heron- or someone who's pored over her library- to fill it up with something else to sustain her, and even then you'd still have Bad Queen Aria to deal with, now free to pursue her goals to topple Thellamie free of a master. Or you could put her to rest.)

---

Cutie!

Ignore the dragon transformation behind your foe. (It's incredible, really. The speed of the growth, the way the branches curve like real ribs, the scary woman dangling from vines in the place where a real dragon would have a heart.) Her eyes are gold, her breath is sweet like apples, the way she sways is like the branches of a willow tree in the wind.

"Yes! Let's leave! Nobody needs to be hurt, just come with me!"

She reaches out, and somehow you manage not to take her hand. You rebuff her, in fact. (Politely, I'm sure. There's a good Cutie!) It doesn't matter whether it's just a step back or a defiant flourish of your Heartblade; it's enough that you, in this moment, reject her. Because she's dangerous and fake and you've got a Princess of Crevas fighting right behind you to protect you from people like her.

"Well." She sighs and draws her Heartblade, and it is thin and black and some sort of sap runs down the groove in the blade; the carpet hisses where a fat, sticky gobbet falls to the ground. "There is really no need to be difficult, is there?"

She lunges for your legs. You do not want to be pierced by that Heartblade, Cutie. It is very, very good at causing pain. The sap will spread in your veins and it will burn like ant bites and cramping muscles and you're not good enough to be here and you are never going to college. If she is the carrot (and I think we can all agree that carrots are vastly overrated as a root vegetable), that sword is the stick whittled down to a vicious needle.

Get stuck by that awful thing and you might just curl up into a whimpering ball for her to carry away.

---

Handmaidens!

It is an unfortunate truth that there is just enough glorious, showy empty air in the center of the Chrysanthemum, above and around that showstopping tree, for two dragons to have a battle- provided, of course, that they are quite willing to smash each other into either side of the spiraling helix staircases that run all the way up the sides of the tower. Or, for that matter, through the walls and into the cold winds outside.

But Aria (you know her, Yana, of course you know her, in your heart there is still a connection to this body, and you can feel the awful light that fills her up, and the weight of the bog that she wants to turn the world into, the petulant plan here at the end of all her clever plans of carefully orchestrated decay and collapse, long centuries past, but the light was never the source of the hate, that's all past life cringe married to the trauma of being killed) isn't much of a dragon, is she? A parody in glistening wood and flowering vines and white bones. But she's enough of a dragon to twist in the air and then flare her wings out, beating powerfully up towards her other self.

And here's the thing, darling Handmaidens: dragons are the bones of the world. The First Fallen convinced the slumbering coils of the dragons to be instead of roiling in not-existing. Which means that there's no room for two dragons here. Not in the too, too solid world. One needs to win.

Aria slams into the Dark Dragon like a kiss with fangs. Only room in a hive for one queen! Only room in Thellamie for one dream! And this sure isn't fair, two against one, given that the Rot Star's riding her veins, its light bursting against Yana's shadows, saying: you are small, and you are less than you were, and you will never have this glory again.

Heron would know what to do. But Heron's not here to figure out the option that a Paragon would choose.

---

Eclair!

You're as drunk as any kitty maid has ever been, here or anywhere else among the stars. But it's all sloshing about in your head. Your feet are certain and sure on the stairs, and that demands all the peerless focus of one of the members of the Order. You pass through the evacuation of the Chrysanthemum untouched, even as the pretty ladies and boys who work for smiles show off their training to make sure that no guest is getting left behind.

Your feet lead you, and they lead you-

Here.

Why are you here, a few steps to the left on this landing? Because, here, it leads into the backstage of a theater stage, to all the props, the costumes, the masks, because this is a Lunarian comedy that they're doing here, which isn't to say it's a comedy written by Lunarians but rather a comedy about Lunarians, and part of that is the exaggerated costumes, the over-elaborate dresses, the masks, the masks, each one hung up with care on the wall.

There's one missing.

She was here.

Eclair Espoir, do you dare take the space where there used to be a mask and put it over your own face?

Maybe this is the drink talking. But this is one of my temples. The magic trick makes new magic tricks, and this is one of them. You can catch a glimpse, here, if you act with holy irrationality. If you look out on the empty audience as Timtam would. If, for a moment, you are wearing the absence of her mask.

Either way, your armor settles comfortably onto your shoulders as you look at this empty space. Catches you up in a hug. It missed you, too. (I can say this here. Doesn't it make you almost believe it's better than being true?)

---

Yuki!

All the way back to you, sweetie. I'm not going to leave you dangling in the wind! Because Suli is the one dangling in the wind.

It's hard to get one of the Nagi to lose their, for a lack of a better word, footing. But Cousin It over there cheats with their magical hammer. A trapdoor with a slide leading right out into open air is just mean. You get to see Cousin It kick her right down into it, even as two dragons rage in the center of the tower.

And if I know anything about you, Yuki Edogawa, it's that you're not going to let your Sulochana fall. Not when you're watching her claw at empty air.