Tatterdemalion

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Handmaidens!

"Yes!" Ruthmoreness says, at the same time that one of her flankers smoothly interjects with "That will hardly be necessary."

Ruthmoreness gives the interrupting maid a devastated cutie look, but this Nagi maid raises herself higher, her tail swaying.

"Now is not a pleasant time to be visiting," the Nagi says, moving her hands as if playing with an Avel's cradle. "We're very sorry. Perhaps next season. The mess we are cleaning is... sssssshameful."

"Butlookither," Ruthmoreness says, wrapping one arm around Tsane's shoulders, and inadvertently Tsane's neck in the process. "Wouldn't she look absolutely darling in an apron? Absolutely? Entirely? Don't leave me hanging like this, Bethanie!"

Bethanie's eyes are deep; the noise she makes in her throat is a relaxing subvocalization. There is iron sternness underneath the need to be courteous and accommodating.

---

Yuki!

Welcome to the DEN OF EVIL.

The Den of Evil is a hotel room that Purnima has commandeered for herself, the owners having fled during the evacuation. She has the key, somehow, and so she has exploded her belongings all over the walls.

Busts for storing jewelry and wraps on. Mirrors safely covered by curtains. A lounging couch (interior). Tapestries depicting the glories and good taste of the Karn-Pana family. Gold. Everywhere gold. Gold chains, gold dresses, gold teacups. There is no such thing as being too gaudy, not for this intimidating scion of the Karn-Panas.

And around you, coils tighten, if you were wondering why I called her intimidating.

"Firstly: what can I lure him with? Do I need to win him over financially, or with seduction~? Or do I dangle you in front of him and offer to let you go? I mean, not that I would, you're such a lovely bargaining chip against Sulochana, but do tell me if that would be an effective first step to taming him."

She's too imperious, too focused on Hazel, to Get you properly (as Hazel would say), but you do notice it, right? The fact that she's wearing that rich perfume? It's like "pumpkin spice" turned elegant. Between you and me, and you do have to answer this question, does Hazel like pumpkin spice more than you do?

---

Hazel!

PUMPKIN SPICE OPINIONS: GO.

Oh, you want to know about my daughters first? Fine. But you do have to answer about "pumpkin spice" or you will be in big trouble, mister. You will never see the light of day.

My daughters wish to walk the line between dignity and seduction. They're well aware that whatever outfit you put them in will be humiliating, certainly, but they can use that to their advantage with their Feminine Wiles. Olesya is playing a dangerous game putting you in charge of these two irrepressible beauties.

That being said, the veils are... well, there's a reason they're so popular in Aestival. Not a reason that you get to know yet, but I'm sure that you have theories. They're important to my little dears, and while they can handle teasing (perhaps even better than you can), they will smother you (sexily) if you treat that gauzy silk casually.

Seli will do it vindictively, incidentally, and Keli will do it while pouting and acting as if you drove her to this (which, honestly, you would have).

But also don't you dare do some boring dress with an apron and headscarves. That's weak, Hazel. And you and I both know that you can handle a little bit of... daring.

---

Eclair Espoir!

"I need a full explanation," Mayzie complains as the two of you scamper, as best as possible, away from the burning cafe.

She was swooning! She was at total swoon! She fumbled the doorhandle and a paladin had to get it for her and guide her out! Her brain had stopped braining!

And then she noticed your wig askew and, well, we both know that Mayzie is a very smart girl.

She stomps through the snow. Stomp stomp stomp! Crunch crunch crunch! Huff huff huff!

Behind the two of you, a particularly ambitious firework soars into heaven, reaching for the stars themselves.

"Because you knew I was there, didn't you? Why else would you pick that place?"

Let the chill run down your spine as you remember that you didn't pick.

Breathless Dead

Once upon a time there was a little princess of a lonely planet named Tellus.

One night, she was wandering the halls of her subpalace complex, a village built for one inhabitant and her maids, who were secretly fearful assassins in the service of Artemis in disguise. But on such a night as this, she is alone, and she is the moon slipping from shadow to shadow.

And in such and such a room, one hung with tapestries and chandeliers and clockwork fencing automatons that always need a little too much winding to be useful, she happened across a very sad woman.

This woman was wearing a massive fur cloak over her shoulders, and black armor designed to keep a seal when fighting in the void, and held a helmet in her hands, and she was crying. So the little princess hopped up and took a seat next to her and asked: "Why are you crying, miss?"

"I'm descending into Tartarus," this woman said. She had very fuzzy ears like the little princess's favoritest favorite maid, and teeth like that maid, too. Her eyes were blue and green. "I have to sit here and watch my wife get broken and pieced back together by some tyrant who's turned her head like wine, and, and she's really into it, and every part of my biomantic upgrading makes me want to kneel and thank that awful, awful woman for doing that to Bella! What's gotten into her? Is she reacting strangely to the pheromones?"

The little princess nodded very intently. "Like the Hypno Baron of Axum Prime."

The woman, who was very wolfy, said: "Like the Hypno Baron of Axum Prime, exactly."

"Well," the little princess said, holding her forefinger and thumb up to her chin sagely, "in circumstances like that, trying to shock them out of it is the worstest of worst ideas. It'll scramble your wife's brain like eggs!"

"So, so, right, you were supposed to..."

"To stick with them and guide them out of the nefarious hypnotic wiles!"

"May I give you a hug?" And because this woman seemed very, very sad indeed, even with her tail starting to wag, the little princess gave her a very, very big hug, one proof against the very saddest of sad days.

---

A click of the tongue. A shift in command scent. A step forward.

And half a dozen of the Silver Divers are surrounding their tutelary deity, Bella-Mosaic. In their front is Princess-Alpha Ember, one hand on her sword's hilt, shaking with the effort of keeping her spine straight and her knees unbent.

"Lead the way," she says, trying and failing to keep her fury completely under wraps, positioning herself right between her wife and the Shogun of Nemesis.

Because what you do is you stick with them.

You stick with her.

No matter what.

Breathless Dead

Agony tears itself out of Redana's throat. She grabs her sword arm with her other, digs her claws in until blood trickles down the bones of her wrist, and she

obeys.

Her eyes are wide in her face. Her fangs are bared, the noise of her suffering flowing between them like spittle.

Isn't this the wrong way around? Isn't she the one who should be humiliated for being the princess, the alpha, the daughter of Ceron in the presence of the Shogun herself? Isn't she the one who should throw off her ceremonial coat and yield herself to the fire? Why does Bella have to suffer? Why does Bella have to suffer? Why does Bella always have to be the one who suffers, always and every time, while Redana stands untouched and unpunished and unable to protect her?

This was supposed to be different!

Blood delicately dots her heavy-duty, void-proofed spacer's boots. The laces are thirsty.

The noise is pressed out of her lungs. Dionysus throbs at her temples. She meets the Shogun's eyes, and she

obeys.

No interference.

No drawing of her sword, leveling its tip at the Shogun's breast.

No grab at Bella's arm, pulling her back up off the floor.

She trembles like a tree about to split apart, like a wave about to break, and she

obeys.

But she can't find words.

No more words.

Return to Thellamie

Erika Fullbright!

I'm terribly sorry for what happens, and then what happens, and for what happens after that.

What happens first is that the agonistes flings Timtam over a railing. The mendacious maid grabs onto a chandelier made of Kelish crystal and starts it spinning, which adds to the velocity of the fireworks that are tumbling out of her pockets, already lit. Perhaps a detective such as yourself would realize, immediately, that she must have tried to light one to get out of the situation, all smoke and bang and already heading for a window, but that the fuse caught more, and they're tumbling down amongst a bunch of Paladins.

What happens second is that the cafe fills with smoke in Crevassi colors, impossibly rich and vivid, and loud, sharp cracks and bangs and howls. These are the primo fireworks, as they say, and they are turning this place into the sort of chaos that simply destroys detective work.

What happens third is that Mayzie, instinctively, pulls you towards her, pulls you down the stairs, pulls you away from sensory overload until she hits the banister (yes, I'm afraid we're back to banister-based perils, my dear) and starts to tip over based on momentum alone, and she's too surprised to even let out a squeak as her feet leave the ground.

Can you defy disaster here and save the girl, or will you break once more?

---

Handmaidens!

"Best damn eggs ever," the Knight of the Aurora (one Ruthmoreness O'Tara) reads off the burnished bronze tablet that she has been handed. "Tasted of Determination and also Walnuts." She makes the classic Face of Impressedment, all pursed lips and raised eyebrows.

It's raining. Which is to say, of course it's raining. It's always raining here, on the edge between existence and nothing at all, and the wind is warm and damp, and the light is currently green with a tinge of purple. The light's all around, suffusing the air, and the wind's all around, suffusing the light, and the rain comes down like kisses from a cloud-tossed sky.

You're in the first Courtyard, which is on the other side of the first door, despite the lack of any indication that the room beyond would be a large and well-swept courtyard open to the sky, given how clearly the exterior of the Mansion was just a vast but ordinary and definitely roofed house. There are more maid-knights here, skateboards on their backs, hands on their very ordinary weaponry. Dangerous women. Not to be trifled with.

"Well, I'm convinced!" Ruthmoreness says brightly. The two maid-knights behind her give each other a Look which indicates that they may put it to a vote, and Ruthmoreness would likely not get her way if it comes to a vote. Which is very much not the sort of reception that Morning promised you when you put your entire arm in her mouth in order to Provide Eggs.

---

Yuki!

There it is.

The flash of uncertainty, so small that only someone looking very carefully indeed would ever spot it. A flicker of the eyes, a hesitation of the lips. But then she looks down too far, into the gorget as polished as a mirror, and she smiles in self-satisfaction (such familiar self-satisfaction) and plumps her hair with one hand (and you've seen gestures like that before). The doubt slips back under the smugness like a damsel tossed off a ship with weights around her ankles.

One of her guards gets his halberd over your head and pulls it back, pinning you against him with the bright, sparking light of his heartblade threatening to sink into you. To bludgeon your very dreaming heart into submission. Only a grasp on one of his wrists is keeping you from disaster.

"Give up already, you ridiculous creature! Every moment you waste with futile defiance of me, Purnima Karn-Pasha, is a moment that some Serigalamu hussy gets to rub herself all over my Golden Fawn! I had him first, you know! Before the stars anointed him! And now everyone is trying to steal my dear deer boy!"

---

Hazel!

It is very, very easy for Olesya to hold two squirming, lovely girls in her arms. Barely an inconvenience. (Imagine how difficult it would be to escape her grasp, if she decided to hold you fast.) One might even suspect her of deliberately flexing in front of you as Seli rails at, one must guess, all huntresses and all deerboys who refuse to demand the release of two innocent performers, and while Keli pulls out the frantic, helpless fluttering of the lashes. Goodness, they are really quite muffled, aren't they? And very securely constrained. (Imagine if you gave Olesya a reason to catch you.)

"Now, you could keep their gaudy diaphanous street wear," Juniper says, next to you, and then lets out a giddy little titter that suggests she's another flex of those muscles away from chewing on a handkerchief's corner and wagging her tail so furiously as to achieve liftoff. "Or you can pick out something new for them. We've got some tunics and aprons, like mine, perhaps? Or just the aprons? Oh, but there's also some metal bikinis that would be perfect for a moment like this. You could even... perhaps..." she says, lost in the sauce, "unveil them~"

The twins look at her in horror, then back to you. Seli would like you to know that she will get you and make you regret every single choice you've ever made about sluzhanka fashion, and Keli is clearly, from the way her ears flick, thinking about being undressed in front of you, and worse, unveiled, and I promise you, her revenge will be even worse.

But you have the power. It has been thrust upon you. And Olesya is very big and very strong and watching you to see what you choose.

Breathless Dead

Bella, she taps into her palm in a warcode. Over and over and over again. She owes her loyalty to Bella. To Mosaic of Beri. To her wife. I love Bella. Bella. Bella.

Bend, howl her knees. Around her, the Silver Divers surrender. How can they not? The gravity of the Shogun is everything. There are only two possible responses: to submit or to challenge.

And yet, impossibly, Redana chooses a third. With her helmet in the crook of one arm, the fingers of her other hand tapping as if the mantra is the only thing keeping her alive, she stands in the presence of the Shogun. She is small, true. And she is stiff, aware of every shadow, aware that she is attracting the attention of the superior of all superiors.

Her coat is heavy; she cannot move. Her sword is useless by her side. This is not something as glorious as picking up Beri and flinging it, true. It is much easier to stand still, after all. And yet it is, to her still-determined heart, as if the universe is weighing down on her shoulders. Submit. Yield. Submit. Surrender. Beg for her praise. Beg for her love. Beg for her attention. Submit. Assimilate.

When Bella touches the Shogun, the noise that comes out of her throat is small and pathetic and needy. The noise of a little girl, lost and irrationally betrayed. That her Bella is not standing side by side, is not giving her the strength to do anything beyond standing against the impossible pressure of obeying the Shogun herself, is...

Is human. Not a perfect demigoddess who is going to save the day and show Redana the way forward.

Bella. Bella. I love Bella. Bella. Bella.

Return to Thellamie

Erika Fullbright!

"What under the stars is going on up there?" the waitress complains, halfway up the stairs at the same time that you are halfway down. She is huffy, she is bristly-tailed, she is wearing just the most darling waitress uniform, and she happens to actually properly look at you at the same time that you properly look at her.

Mayzie Sighs, balancing a tray on one hand, can be seen seeing past the disguise in real time (as Yuki would say). She's got a pen tucked behind one ear! She's got a miniskirt and stockings with a darling checkerboard design! And she's about to either blurt out that Eclair Espoir is here to a cafe full of warrior-nuns and paladins, or she'll push past you and end up blundering into the duel that's happening up there, and frankly, both of those Aestivali strike me as the sort who would use her as an Avel shield.

You have to do something to save her! And you! From imminent disaster! And not get distracted by the shade of lipstick she's got on! It's a very fetching violet!!

---

Handmaidens!

Morning rolls over, letting out an agonized hiss as she accidentally drives the cursed blade deeper into herself. But she plops her head right in front of Injimo, and that's more important to her than anything. Her hot breath tastes faintly of cinnamon and honey. [you need to feed me that. or i'm never ever ever going to remember it when this dream ends! please, mighty paladin, not!heron!]

The way she opens her mouth is vulnerability. Her tongue is the pink of peonies. She must devour this, representationally, to make it so much a part of herself that it won't drift away when she fades away completely and returns to being herself, sleeping in the Mansion of the Aurora. Why do you think maids are so good at cooking? (And, yes, she'll remember parts of what happened, but she wants to be sure. She needs to be sure.)

[feed me.]

---

Yuki!

"Ohohohohohohoho!!!"

Purnima Karn-Pana is sunning herself on multiple cafe tables that have been pushed together, drinking a cocktail (at this hour of the morning, even) out of a cup which has a little umbrella in it. Her smile is malevolent and self-assured and punchable. Oh, how punchable it is.

"I'll answer that, boys," she says, flicking her tail as you desperately duck under being slammed in the face with the haft of a heartblade (which would do simply awful things to your ability to think coherently for a while). "They're my retainers, they're attacking me because I told them to, and they don't have mirrors, you silly thing, you credulous outlander, though... perhaps it wouldn't be too bad for me to be able to look at myself more often..."

She slurps through a straw contemplatively, and then pushes her starglasses up. "Now be a good girl and get kidnapped, will you? We've got a lot of interrogating you about the weaknesses and tameability of the Golden Fawn to get through, and the longer you dawdle trying to fight, like you aren't hopelessly outnumbered, the more time those scruffy huntresses will have trying to teach him how to bark and do tricks, and you don't want that, do you?"

So here's a question, Yuki. How could Purnima get you to come along quietly and give her advice? I mean, almost certainly not money, but surely there's some sort of price in your heart that she might be able to make a stab at...

---

Hazel!

Keli shoots up like a jack-in-the-box and wobbles in front of you for a moment, just long enough for you to see the secure knots of the Serigalamu worked tightly all about her, trapping her silks even closer to her generous frame, and then Seli bucks from underneath and Keli comes crashing down right on top of you. (Not because she's top-heavy, mind you. Perish the thought.)

"These two were looking to kidnap you themselves," Juniper says with an air of smug satisfaction (somewhere on the other side of perfume and softness). "If we hadn't stopped them, you'd probably be on auction to the highest bidder somewhere in Emerald right now. Don't you appreciate the irony?"

Do you think that's true, o dearest darlingest Hazel? That these two could possibly mean you any harm at all? Certainly not. If they were nefarious at all, then how come Keli is humming apologies to you and fluttering her eyes while wiggling her way into a more comfortable position, in ways that likely remind you of the first time you met? Checkmate, Juniper.

Breathless Dead

Redana should say that killing never solves the problem. She really should! She might hold the lives of all who live in her hands[1], but all she can see is the Master of Assassins before her. She remembers, and no Lethe protects her from, Bella trapped in that awful armor.

They hadn’t killed her. But could she have? Would she have? If she had the thunderbolt, if she was Mars, if she was the Shogun…

It fills her vision, and she nearly leads the Plousios astray; some part of its perfect exterior will be ground off and, then, immediately replaced by upset birds. The lightning whines under the strain of being held taut, of being restrained for the sake of a moment’s mercy.

“I… I…”

She is a child, forcing herself to read and reread texts of strategy and political theory, paragraph by repeated paragraph, sentence by repeated sentence, phrase by repeated phrase. She is a novice in the pack, forced to perform and punished repeatedly for her failures.

“Not yet,” Ember says, and her fingers shake for a moment. She is not just herself. She is the Silver Divers, too. She is all of them, joined in the love of Gemini. Her voice has the wryness of Taurus, the way she holds her hand is all Bella. “We’re still wrestling with our instructors, and I think some of us still show potential.”

---

[1]: which is a situation that does not come around very often at all, so one so rarely gets the chance to practice what the right answer should be.

Return to Thellamie

Yuki!

It's on your way to go see Sulochana, post-Aadya, that the ambush happens. Aadya's off following up a lead and doing her part with the reconstruction of the Chrysanthemum, and here you are in a part of town that's mostly deserted, off the major arteries of repair for the time being. That's when the Nagi strike.

The first one slithers from the shadows on your left with a long forked spear, and while you're reacting to that, a second is already coming around behind you with a sort of curved halberd for a heartblade. They're wearing armor in the segmented Crevas style, and they are coming at you hard.

The glint of faint northern sun off the decorative gorget of the first one- for a moment, it's like light bouncing off a mirror. You've had this fight before, and you won that time through luck and pluck and friends beside you. Not now. Not here. Now it's just whatever you've managed to hone yourself into back on Yukisearth.

---

Erika Fullbright!

It's the agonistes that flips the table, which means it's towards you, cards tumbling like rain. It's the huntress who reflexively interposes herself and catches the table, arms straining as she stops it from smooshing you into your seat. The telltale sharp ring of heartblade on heartblade, well, rings out on the other side; someone slams into it and makes the huntress strain, too busy with physical exertion to decide whether she should just drop it on your legs.

"Never trust a maid, yah?" This is a cramped space, which means that the sound of the fight on the other side of the table - and I mean quite literally the other side - is as much bodies as heartblades, hammering each other as they lock up for position. "No one plays Osorio Scarlett for the fool!"

"Whatever happened to professional courtesy?" Timtam's snappy when she's angry, no matter her disguise. "At least give me an opportunity to explain--"

The sound of a headbutt going through beads is unmistakable, as is the sound of a knee slamming Osorio Scarlett right in the fork. You're running out of time to figure out what to do in this cramped little space, crammed up against a probable enemy who hasn't figured out what to do yet, and a roiling foxgirl spat is raging on the other side.

Also, this establishment does have cookies. It's important to me that you know that. Rest assured that you might still be able to snag one, depending on how all this shakes out...

---

Hazel!

Juniper giggles and can't help herself. She very much can't. She ruffles your hair without mercy or reprieve. The great rufflening is upon you, boy.

"Oh, you are just precious! No wonder the stars decided to bring you along. Don't you think so, Olesya? So earnest," she says, playfully deepening her voice in a way that suggests she's attempting boyness, "so kind! Maybe we should have tried to just keep you as a sluzhanka and fought off anyone who tried to steal you~!" The effect of the whole is like getting simultaneously talked up and talked down by a big sister.

"Protect them," Olesya interrupts. "Tease them. The old laws." Her tone suggests that this is, in fact, extremely serious. You must protect them. You must tease them. You must, in short, be strong and also confident. These are very definitely two things that you can be, don't you think? Two expectations that will settle on your shoulders with ease and not crush you immediately.

"As for comfort, well, they have pillows," Juniper says in a way that very much suggests which pillows she is talking about, and how they are not providing support for heads. She jingles a ring of keys that was on her belt, swirls them along with a show-offy flourish, and hands one key in particular to you. "Go ahead," she says, with the enthusiasm that is the mark of any good Aestivali and definitely is not, whatever anyone says, 'wicked glee.' "It's a rite of passage every huntress goes through, if she doesn't go to the trouble of hunting down her own..."

---

Handmaidens!

Morning thrashes and collapses like a dying serpent, tail bringing down entire pillars, perfect sword plunged into the soft spot between two scales. The floor cracks. The roof sags. The smell of ginger is overwhelming and everywhere at once. Finally, she comes to a stop, rolled over on her back, sword tilted to one side: the side closer to Injimo.

[that was amazing and i am going to figure out how to counterplay that] Morning says, lifting her head. Her tail is already shivering out of existence, but these dreams of a sleeping dragon go slowly when they go. [so the skating, i get that bit, but the triple jump into a corkscrew thrust?? who taught you that, not!heron??]

Her grin is red and joyous. Her delight is literally infectious here and now, as she unravels, as somewhere Morning twitches in her sleep and lets loose a happy exhale through her nostrils. Joy floods the room, the joy of finding someone who beat you and now you have to figure out how to beat them.

More to the point, a token from her, given freely, would open the doors to the Mansion immediately. Get Injimo an apron and a skateboard straight away. She might have to explain herself, but it's one hell of an opening move, socially.

Breathless Dead

The Princess Redana Claudius of Tellus rides through the void. Ember of the Silver Divers listens to the words of Zeus Progenitrix, the only sound in a silent world. The wind that beats her with exhilarating blows, that threatens to tear her helmet away, is utterly silent. The intoxicating ripple of the forests, as if all were part of some larger organism stirring into life, plays before her without so much as a whisper. Behind her, on a cable not too dissimilar from a Plover's, stretches the storm-tossed Plousios. And beneath her ripples the polychromatic rubbery hide of her horse. Its wings catch the wind and send the two flying, and in her wake she drops beacons, points to tack to, lanterns in offering to Poseidon.

Do not let us be the ones drowned tonight, Uncle, she murmurs. But still her glorious Deus Pater speaks, and it's impossible not to pay attention to what your parent is saying, particularly if they might ask you a pointed question at the end of it, and it will look so bad if you were goofing off and trying to get that old blowhard lightshow to give you treats instead. So as she soars, and as she charts the route that will take the Plousios safely through, she continues to speak words that truly only Zeus can hear.

If one new ending is possible, she mouths into the roiling storm, why not another? Or another? Do we have to be satisfied that there's only two choices, this or that? Do I have to be satisfied?

She grips tight with her thighs, for all that she's buckled down into the saddle. Every bit helps, and the physical sensation grounds her, reminds her that she doesn't have to get lost in the labyrinth of possibilities. If she asks that question and is not careful, then she will forget why she is going to Gaia at all, why she is braving this storm, why she needs to bring her friends to the very end of all ends. She will be dizzy with thoughts of who she was and who she had become; of Bella and the shedding of aprons and lace; of how far she had brought Dolce and Vasilly; and, oh, Alexa.

She hopes that you are happy, Alexa.

She hopes that when she opens up the sky again, you will still be happy.

Maybe only they've got it so far, but what matters is that a difference is possible, and that means... anything can be. That was true back when I was there, back home, and it's true out here, and aren't you giddy with it?

The voidhorse tucks in its wings and dives. Smaller debris, and she doesn't want to think too terribly about the source. Small enough that it will simply yield before the Plousios's transformed might, but big enough to crush her if she were incautious; small debris the size of big debris, then.

I don't know that you have to apologize to me. Dyssia might have words with you, I think. But you know what I want and what it's always been: to not know what the future holds either. Does that make me too much like you?

Perhaps this goes unanswered. Redana's got a lot to concentrate just now, anyway, leaving a trail through peril and into different, new peril. And she wouldn't go back to Tellus for anything.

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

[oh heron did that!!]

It works, in a sense. In a larger sense, it does not work: it does not cause this dream to shatter and melt away, to be met again in some other place, at some other time. But the violence with which she snaps back, careening head over tail, swatting at Injimo with that tail as if flailing and falling helplessly, all this stems from the way that the arrow shatters on her head. And she is laughing, convulsions running along her body, as she lands on all fours on the ground- squats- lets her tail finish coming down like coils of rope- and then leaps at Injimo again.

[but you're heron and not!heron, which means heron must have finally, finally, figured it out! i didn't tell her! i would have remembered that! don't tell me, heron, i'll figure it out on my own!]

She wiggles from paw to paw like a cat, snaps her jaws in feints, grins wider and wider, her pearlescent eyes widening without any pupil to give them focus. Her tail wraps around ginger-stalks and brings them toppling down towards both of you; the air is thick and stinging with ginger-spores. She is giddy with motion.

[and you get it don't you? there's no thinking in fighting! in motion! in questing!][ She bounds up and makes of herself a circle, a ring, and then slams her tail down at where Injimo, a moment ago, was. [you've just got to go go go sweep sweep sweep run run run fight fight fight!]

She is full of joy; there is no defeating her by force of arms, save that you tire her out. Show superior stamina in how you move your body. Meet each exhortation towards action with an equal and opposite obedience. This is the way of the warrior-maid; will you prove their equal? (As for the opening, well, it is possible for a friend to slip past her, or to trade places with you- but who could hope to outlast her?)

---

Erika!

"Perhaps I like crassness from time to time," Timtam says, her inflection a perfect imitation of Noon's flirtations. "There's something delectable in seeing an innocent young thing desperately squirm as she tries to catch up with someone older and more experienced." She drags a nail across the table slowly, invitingly...

And then you, little Erika, are interrupted from further solicitations from this wicked cardsharp by the arrival of two more players. One is a big, scruffy Serigalamu huntress, her bandoliers decorated with goblin-fangs, her presence even larger than she is. This is the one who sits right next to you and uses that presence to hem you in, keep you from the door, bring you ever closer to Timtam. Stretches as a pretext to put one arm around your shoulders with the sort of swaggering grin that one expects from high-performing huntresses who wrestle with dreaming dragons.

The other is thin, like a knife for opening envelopes. Her mask glitters with crushed jewels from Aestival's coast, and her coat is swirled in the colors of Crevas. A red cloak, a golden sash, a charm dangling at her wrist: an agonistes, a wicked swashbuckling hired sword. Her makeup is muted, uncharacteristically so, but that is an illusion approached with great care.

If you do not have some sort of plan, this will be a three-against-one sort of game, and those are foregone conclusions. You do have some sort of clever plan to overcome collaboration, don't you, Erika? You're not doomed to spill all of the beans, are you, Erika? Some sort of alternative bet, more creative way of cheating, or a wicked faculty at cards hitherto unseen would all be useful in this moment.

---

Yuki!

Maybe this is one of the reasons that you were so drawn to the Paladins of Kel: they are very, very good at hugs. Or at least Aadya is. She is the rock atop a mountain, after all, and when she holds you, she feels like the entire mountain, with roots that must reach beneath the whole city. But she is not cold. Not even the post-workout cooldown can make her feel cold; if she is a mountain, she is rich with veins of hot, molten ore, the kind that cause mine disasters up in the peaks of Kel.

She doesn't use words to cup your head. She can't make an apology matter using her words, so she envelops you in a body like an avalanche, like being buried in snow, and in the snow there is quiet and peace and room to sniffle without the whole cafe seeing (though the waitress has graciously decided to avoid your table to give you this moment). And she rumbles: a low, comforting, deep rumble. It's common superstition in Kel that this rumble has healing properties, and though it might all just be the placebo effect of it all, that doesn't stop the warm shivers, the tension melting, the sense of one-day-you-will-be-whole.

This is her apology for hurting you, for pushing too hard, for not knowing what to do. Do you accept it? Give her a String, if so.

---

Hazel!

"Oh, but you're about to!" The padlock on the chest jumps and rattles as Juniper weaves eggs and sausage onto a fork. "That's part of your unique social standing here. Now, you're obviously not going to go and earn rank by wrestling with some savage goblin or fighting the mirrorfolk!" It's a blithe assertion, but one that might sting. Obviously not. Just look at you, Hazel. You do not have a wrestling bone in your body. "But if Negodincia had her way, you'd be just another prize, a hot boy to show off and lead around on a leash."

She holds up the fork, offering it as a bite.

"And after all the chores you doubtless were made to do at the Chrysanthemum, without proper compensation," as if being Encouraged was not compensation-- and do you blurt something out about that? "I think Yuki wouldn't want you being made to do all of her chores, the spoiled rotten thing."

"Careful," Olesya rumbles. "...I'm the one who's supposed to say that."

"Oh~ do forgive me~"

"She is, though. Spoiled." A huff, a lowering of the ears, a squaring of the shoulders. Responsibility with that capital R.

"As you say, my lady," Juniper trills, tail flopping about on the floor happily. "We are doing a great big game of pretend, Hazel. And the game involves you being the equal of women who wrestle goblin-elephants to exhaustion, while not having any of the accomplishments that they have. So having your own sluzhankas, infamous women gifted to you by a baygum, shields you with her accomplishment of catching them." Another forkful offered. "As will making your own shield here. It won't hold up well to a heartblade, but what does? But it will turn aside a goblin's horn or tusk, and that's what matters."

She beams. "Okay, your turn. Go ahead and ask. I know you're dying to know more~"