Tatterdemalion

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

“We are protecting love,” the maid says, simply. “Always.” There is steel in her resolve, and passion enough for a heartblade. She would die before she allowed intruders into the Mansion, and consider it nothing more than the duty that love is owed. As would the maids in the room beyond. As would, well, at least some of the maids throughout the Mansion.

When the Order of the Aurora contracts, they contract as hard as diamond. That the two of you were allowed this close was a tactical error on their part, and they do not intend to make that mistake again – not easily. Not here. Not when the stakes are so high.

If Heron were slumbering in the heart of the Stacks, would not each and every one of you do the same? Wouldn’t you keep her secret then, as you keep her secret now? Look at her again. Look at the maids beyond, trying not to be caught peering into the room. Do you recognize yourselves in the mirror?

“You will have no barriers to exit,” the Serigalamu maid says, even as Kalentia’s tablet pings.

On it, an unfamiliar handle, and a heartfelt message:
>[moreofamorsel]
>If you can save Eclair – from the Civils, from Timtam, from herself…
>Please. I’ll pay anything. I’ll make sure you can get in.

---

Eclair Espoir!

You do not see, I think, the way that Mayzie plays with a curl of her hair. You do not see the way that she looks away, self-conscious, unsure of how many layers of herself you have penetrated, unsure how many layers she has to be penetrated in the first place. Oh, there is something of my camp in her, my darling: she is a creature of masks and dreams and beautiful illusions.

“You’ll need a new disguise,” she says, primly, chin in the air. “I can’t have the most wanted woman in Thellamie dragging me down to Civil prison with her.” And, yes, Hazel, she did have to specify the most wanted woman – but this isn’t even the part about you, so sit back down. And, yes, Civil prison does involve tea and biscuits and lectures about the need to work together as a society, but while you’re squirming upside-down, so do your best to avoid it. As fetching as you’d look with a serious expression, attempting to convey the seriousness with which teatime is meant to be treated.

By the time you look over at her – once you’re done, of course, of course, you need time to type, no ability to get distracted by another task until you’re finished – then you’ll see her hard at work, already sketching, trying to transform your black-and-whites into a truly durable disguise. This is a way for her to express what her words cannot. I hope that you appreciate it properly.

Take a String on her, if you would. Tangle her up in it, until the two of you cannot break free.

---

Hazel Valentine Fletcher!

She does not hold you down and stab you. She could, you know. It wouldn’t even be particularly difficult. A whistle and she’d have more guards in here. An order and Juniper would be dragged out, and if Olesya ever wanted to see her again, she’d have to pin your arms while the Khatun showed you the shape of her wicked heart. And she’d carve into your feelings, your dreams, your very heart, until it hurt to think, it hurt to breathe, it hurt to be wanted but not for yourself, it hurt to be carved and cut into a good boy.

It would be the magic of the Stars against the magic of one particular Fallen Star, true. But she would have an advantage here, where it is swelteringly hot, where she rules by strength, where the Stars cannot see you. She knows a rite that would send you tumbling down into… well, you would call it Hell. The prison of a fallen Star, where there is fire and darkness and fury forever.

But sometimes she wants to win fairly. She wants to win, oh, she needs to win. She will do anything, anything, to win, Hazel. But if she has to toss you down into Hell immediately to win, that would be unbecoming of a Khatun. It would be an acknowledgement that you are more than a pretty little trophy.

And what a trophy you will be, on the wedding day with her daughter. You will give her good grandsons and strong granddaughters. You will give them your silly flushed cheeks and your adorable voice, and if she were young and endlessly powerful again, she would be the one competing for you, to own you, to make you proof that she can have whatever she wants, that life is a series of hunts for what one’s heart desires, that the strong rule and the weak obey, that she decides who is predator and who is prey. But she is old now. And she will not let time take her achievements and undo them.

You will give her a dynasty.

Is that not attractive enough?

“Carpets. Well. I’m sure that Olesya can arrange something if you are attempting that reversal psychology, Cutie.” She says it with a Capital. Because she is a huntress, and having the right bait is important, and seeing the look on your face when she uses Yaz’s name for you as a knife…

That’s its own victory. And that’s enough for her.

For now.

---

Yuki!

Purnima does not give this more than a moment of consideration.

“But if anyone else tries to make my statue,” she says, with an airy wave of her hand, with a squeeze of her coils, already envisioning it in her thoughts, how golden it will be, how it will be the centerpiece of Crevas, how it will immortalize her forever, how even if the Outside were to rush in and drown the world in subjectivity her statue, her statue, would be the last one that stood when even the Nails were drowned and Sayanastia could celebrate a victory without joy over that hated thing, Existence, and she would lie in her own arms and, oh, she would miss your statue when it went, probably, but the true tragedy would be the loss of one Purnima Karn-Pana…

“They might not get it right!”

Breathless Dead

Redana Claudius, Princess of Tellus, Alpha of the Silver Divers, looks up into her mother’s monstrous face. Behind her she can feel the tension of Bella’s body, a bowstring pulled taut under impossible pressures. Before her she can feel the heat, not just of the fires but of her mother’s judging gaze. The world is a plate being spun on the very tip of a knife.

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” she says. It’s a small, pathetic sentence, but its impossibility in a place like this is impossible to ignore.

How dare she?

How dare she be so small?

“Every connection is building! Every love is love, you, you, you dummy!” She takes Bella’s hand. She squeezes. The clammy skin under her fingers…

Where is the hate in that?

“Love tore a hole in the universe, and I’m sorry, but— what, does that mean we’re not supposed to love? Not supposed to care? If this is all there is, then I’m still picking my silly little goal and my silly little friends and my silly little wife anyway!”

Her voice is silly and small and cannot reach the farthest corners, but fire blossoms in the heart of it.

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

Frost.

Creeping up the windowpanes. Tracing the contours of the twisted room. Fringing the very edge of the teapot's spout. Spreading in spurts, in delicate fractals.

"She did not, because she would not. Eclair Espoir?" In her eyes. In her fingers. In her teeth. "Eclair Espoir would not. Would never. Not unless all we hold dear was at stake, and then she would come back to us." She does not say: and I would hold her, and stroke her back as she sobbed, and reassure her that she had done the right thing, and that there were simple chores waiting for her precise touch. But that is what she means, in her heart. It is only frozen on the outside.

When she exhales her breath is visible. Like a dragon's own.

"If you are going to lie to start a war, pick better ones. It would not do for the Champion of Thellamie to bring ruin and to destroy a place that has done her no wrong over such a flimsy, threadbare one."

---

Eclair Espoir!

She takes your hand, Eclair. Not sweetly, not slipping her fingers between yours, but so firmly that it digs your fingers against your palm around that too-solid hilt. She is frightened; she is furious. She is all her feelings, and no way to let them spill out properly.

"You! Idiot!" She sobs, shaking your hand. Keep the sword away from her. You have enough strength for that. I believe in you. "Did you think I would just buy a tower in the middle of a ruined city? Swoop in, and, and twist someone's arm until they sold? The Syzerpaws Memorial Tower!! That, that would be throwing it all away, and I thought you'd want, and anyway, the fastest way to get all those tents, all those groceries, all those rocks from Kel was just..."

She tries to make a gesture with her shoulders which says: if my palms were open, I'd be gesturing with them to suggest letting money fall out of my hands. But she's not very good at it. Her face says: how dare you be angry with me when I've already been angry at myself. Her fingers' shaking says: how dare you hurt yourself over me. How dare you how dare you how dare you.

"...what does money mean if I live every day in a broken city knowing that I didn't help all of them when I had the chance? Do you think I'd ever be able to look one of you in the eye ever again?! Do you??" She doesn't ask to be answered. She asks to be heard.

She stands. She draws.

Her heartblade is the color just before dawn, shivering in the shape of a long knife. Not the weapon of a duelist at all.

"Now put that awful thing away and duel me. And when I win," she says, willing victory into her unpracticed hands, "you will never do that again, Eclair."

---

Yuki!

Perfectly answered. You know, that must be why you met my daughters so early on your journey: you've been one of mine all along, for all those Kelish spots on your coat. To have a heart like that, that is.

Purnima takes her coffee with a ridiculous amount of cream and sugar. Sweet and spicy. And, yes, that means yours also has a kick to it. Do you cough when drinking spicy coffee, Yuki? I bet you do. I bet it's just the cutest, most adorable thing in all the world. You take coffee together, there in the Den of Evil, with the guards blushing outside.

"And when I am Queen of Crevas everything will be perfect and wonderful forever," she says, preening at herself. She's always doing this sort of thing when not in public: running fingers through her hair to catch tangles, rubbing at her scales to make sure one's not loose, looking at herself in the nearest shiny object to make sure there's no blemish that she hasn't caught before showing herself off to others. "I will make statues of myself that also double as fountains which also double as vendor machines, like on Yukisearth, and everyone will look up at me when they get their vended food and they will think to themselves: she is the most beautiful woman who has ever lived and my life is so much better now that the Karn-Pana family is in charge instead of the sanctimonious puffed-up Arjus. I will now go enjoy being twice as wealthy and four times as happy. And maybe you'll get a little statuette somewhere! And you'll be looking up at my statue so that everyone knows how lucky you were to pleasure me!"

Her smile is beatific, as if a fire demon were to suddenly experience bliss.

---

Hazel!

There is dead silence. Olesya is staring off into the flames, her body taut. Keli and Seli are holding their breath between them, afraid to so much as twitch an ear. In one of the braziers, there is the snap of coal falling apart, and a curl of smoke rises. The temperature is oppressive. The shawl around your shoulders is itching at every place where it touches your skin.

The Khatun laughs, the once. Her smile is yellow with age and tea stains. Yellow like the heart of the fire.

"Oh, this is a brave boy! You picked well!" She toasts the unseen stars with her teacup, tail swishing to the left, then to the right. "A brave prince with a clever voice. If I were half my age I would be rolling you up in a carpet myself!" She lowers the cup, sets it back in the saucer.

"But I am not," she says. "No need to be afraid," she says. "We will all do our best to help you choose," she says.

The teapot whistles. She does not flinch. Her eyes are on you.

She hungers.

Breathless Dead

"It was."

Ember stands straight at attention, helmet tucked under her arm, her knight's finery hidden under the heavy ceremonial cloak. Outside, the low rumble of munitions; the tea quakes in its cups. Her hair falls lank over one side of her face, leaving one green eye looking up at the dead empress. At her mother. At her Shogun.

"You were right that I wasn't ready, looking back," she admits, and it's a knife to her own ribs. The words collapse to the floor as soon as they leave her mouth. Do they even reach her mother? "I wasn't good enough," and it's like tearing out her own spine. She opens her mouth to admit what they both know - that she's not even worthy of being the heir - and she flinches away from it. It hurts too much. It hurts too much.

"I am here because of my allies," she continues, though her voice is frail, trembling. "The Starsong Privateers, who saw me across the underworld and beyond. The Order of Hermes, who taught me how ships work and how to ask questions of the universe. The Alcedi, who were brave and true and got me to the Lethe. Alexa, who stayed behind, who..." Her hand, which once held command seals, shakes. She forges on. "The Silver Divers, who welcomed me into their pack when I didn't even know myself. Mynx and Beautiful and Beljani, my sisters-in-law in moonlight. And Bella Hostilius Mosaic, herself... my wife. My huntress. My everything."

Her cheeks are wet. A mile distant, a war howl reverberates through helmet amplifiers. A mile distant, there is an explosion of butterflies.

"I'm useless," she says, "except that everyone's still following my dream. That's all. And that's why I had to go even if I wasn't... even if you didn't..."

Her voice gives out.

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

At first, the repulsion of the attack leads to another, more determined attack, which leads to yet another even more determined attack. After that, the maids switched to marching in and demanding a duel, which didn't work either. And the clever part, the very clever part about Tsane's plan here, is that it's part of the house. They don't want to carve it off, and they can't abide it being in such a state either.

So eventually, reluctantly, someone decides on diplomacy instead.

She's Serigalamu, this maid is, and she's what you would find if you looked up "statuesque" on your tablet's dictionary function. Her hair is silver and straight and neat; her gloves have no crease or rumple; her eyes are half-closed in a way that reads as superior and emotionally cold. Her eyeliner is so on point that it might stab you.

With her she brought peach schnapps. In a teapot, of course. She's not a barbarian.

"We are at an impasse," she says, pouring peach schnapps into a teacup decorated with an ivy pattern that twists and shifts when it's not being looked at. "You have stopped us from seizing you, but I do not think your trick will allow you to get out of the Manor. And if you were to, perhaps, jump through the window... well. We have strict rules about disturbing the rosebushes."

The rosebushes are certainly much taller and more imposing on the outside of the windows than the last time they were observed.

"We are willing to release you if you carry Heron a message from the Order: namely, that she is not welcome here. We are not a dungeon or lost tomb or labyrinth that she must solve in order to bring back treasures for her hoard; we are a dream of sorority and organization, and if Civelia thinks that she can fabricate a righteous quest to bring us to heel, she and her puppy are sadly mistaken." Her expression does not change; she betrays nothing. "We have done nothing but help the communities of Thellamie for generations; we attend to quests that Heron would never see. If we withdraw to garrison for a siege, there will be unnecessary suffering and untidiness all across Thellamie. Are our terms acceptable?"

---

Yuki!

How far are you going, darling? You're setting the tempo for your... dance. And the key for the instrumentation. And who leads and who follows.

Back when you first came here, called by the need of all Thellamie for a hero, you were too young to understand Thellamie beyond flirting and moments that made you blush, but now you are ready to appreciate just how the people of Crevas play - at least spoiled girls like this one, used to getting what she wants, doing as she pleases, using her wiles as - well, not so much a subtle weapon as a morningstar swung with impressive if not particularly accurate force.

She is cooler than you are, and she seeks your warmth; she is easily flattered, and she drinks flattery in like Azaza did (though she does not demand it, not yet, and she has not threatened to destroy you for failing to praise her beauty in the most superlative terms). She demands attention and rewards it with a firm grip on the hair, the ears, a possessive squeeze of her coils.

And if you make out with her, or even more than that, Sulochana will take it as a grave betrayal, and she will find out - if for no other reason than that Purnima will immediately brag about it.

But she's here. She's hot. She likes biting. And maybe you like being bitten.

So how far are you going? Far enough to break Sulochana's trust? Far enough to feel wanted and clever and competitive, properly competitive, and like you're in control of the situation? Far enough to feel like someone has you at the very center of their thoughts, that they need what you can give them?

Far enough to find out where she's sensitive?

Far enough for her to find out where you're sensitive?

---

Eclair Espoir!

She is defiant until the tear.

She puffed herself up before that, hot-cheeked and pouty-lipped and screwing up all her courage to the sticking point to keep looking you in the eye despite how every flick of her ear betrayed how intensely she was aware of your hand there by her head, cutting her off, so easily able to take her by the head. She was ready for heartblades at dawn before that, a stubbornness which would have lasted into the duel despite how incredibly out of her element she would have been.

But the tear? That disarms her at once. She deflates under your wrath and, worse, your suffering. She crumples just as you crumple, like a discarded rag. And she looks like the most distressed that a damsel has ever been. No princess could ever be so beautifully, achingly distraught, because no princess could fail to be composed in quite the same way.

"What does a dressmaking salon mean if it's in a ruined city?" she asks, and her voice breaks. "Did you want me to buy real estate on the cheap, a whole tower to myself, the New Mayzie Sighs Tower?" She could have. It would have been cutthroat, but she could have. But Mayzie Sighs would have lain awake in that empty, newly-purchased tower and been unable to sleep, or unable to get out of bed and eat, not when no one else in the city could.

---

Hazel!

There are much many fires in the vast tent of the Khatun.

Caught in lanterns. Blazing in braziers. Flickering on the tips of candles. Roaring in the hearths.

It's the size of a mansion, with false-hallways made of leather and fur, and everywhere fire, everywhere heat, everywhere light flickering across trophies: the heads of fantastical creatures, or their wings, or their claws, or their pincers.

The sluzhankas who guide you around? Just between you and me, each and every one of them challenged the Khatun. Each and every one of them lost. Each and every one of them had their bows broken, their sluzhankas freed, and their pride shattered and allowed to heal back crooked. They smoulder, too. The fire in their eyes is stifled and smoky.

The parlor is more of a den. It is heaped with knick-knacks: golden pots, silver spears, chests overflowing with furs, sparkling garnets set as the feathers of falcons, rugs from Kel, tapestries from Crevas, silks from Aestival, even tea sets from Vespergift. And at the center of it all, wiry and shawl-draped, is the Khatun.

She is old, Hazel. Old enough to be your grandmother. Old enough that her hands are defined by taut wrinkles. Old enough that her hair is silver braided on silver braided on silver. But her eyes are still strong, and there is no shaking in her, and she is as dangerous (in her way) as Aria Thendragon.

Not as dangerous as me. Not yet. And I hope not ever.

"He looks tame already," she says, as the tea warms up between the two of you. She is wearing stolen rings on her fingers - hard-won, she would say. "A fine Khagan, once he learns his place."

Beside you, Olesya shifts nervously and says nothing. She can't look at you. She can't look at her mother. She can't even look at Juniper - but you see the glance that the Khatun gives Juni. It's not a glance that suggests good things for Juni one day, and only the Khatun knows when that day will be.

The twins are, well, choosing to tactically retreat behind you as much as possible. Which is very clever of them. If you care about them, then controlling them is controlling you. And the Khatun is very good at control.

And here you are, sitting in a comically oversized fur shawl and a v-neck that is more like a v-chest, and also a tiara. It's the prettiest tiara that Olesya had, which the treacherous Juniper produced for you, and it's as dainty as you are. You do feel dainty right now, don't you, Hazel? The smallest person in the room, wearing clothes too big for him and a pretty, pretty tiara.

"I understand that there are contests. I am sure you understand already who will win them, Fletcher."

Breathless Dead

Redana does not hesitate to take that hand. She slips her fingers against Bella's palm as if it were a natural reaction: like a falling rock, like the failure of electricity, like the erosion of the Lethe. There was nothing else that could happen, unless a god were to step in and catch her by the wrist. But none does. None materializes. None lets their breath fall on her neck. None tells her that she is making a mistake.

Her mind is the surface of a moon, blasted and clean and bereft of life. The wind howls there, and it howls one name. There is a statue there but her back is turned to it. Her back is turned to her. Her back has been turned to her this whole time. What is there to say? What is there in acknowledging her but pain?

The options were simple. Come back in glory, or don't come back at all. It is impossible to face her, unnamed but increasingly undeniable, in anything less than triumph. Not after fleeing. Not after being disobedient, and impious, and a disgrace, and unworthy.

(She's only had the dream about coming back to the palace that was her home and finding another and better Redana already there once. Only once. But it's curled around her throat now. She can't speak that fear. She can't name it. Maybe that Redana who is not a disappointment is a shadow on that moon, beyond the touch of the sun. Maybe she is patient and waits with immaculate poise for a crown that will never come because you cannot succeed from a god unless they vacate the throne, and she is the sculpture of a flower in the sculpture of a vase, cold and nothing like her father at all.)

Redana walks with Bella, and it is very difficult to say which of them is supporting the other. It is Bella who leads and Redana who is dragged forward by love and fear. It is impossible now to deny what is coming. Her mind is the surface of a moon.

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

The ambush is in the tea parlor.

Perhaps the way that Ruthmoreness drooped when she heard that you were from the Hero of Ages should have been a clue. As, perhaps, the way that the Nagi maid smoothly led you into the tea parlor to await an audience with the High Table themselves should also have been.

The rain is gentle on the windows, which look out on several different possible landscapes (pick-your-own-vista). The hazelnut tea is poisoned: not lethally, but soporifically. This is meant to ensure that the dozen maid-knights hitting the room from three different doors will have ease in subduing you. The grooves on the wall? Meant for skateboarding tricks.

This is not so much a killzone as a capture zone. At what point do you realize this, and how do you try to hold out?

---

Eclair Espoir!

The answer is mumbled, but in the droop of the ears, the flush of the cheeks, the way she won't look you in the eye: in all these things, the answer is obvious. She didn't keep the money, and she doesn't want you to know that she didn't keep the money. Figuring out where it went? That will require digging. But as far as raising her own personal circumstances, your generous gift might have well have been tossed into a very big and very deep hole. (There are plenty of gorges in Kel here that would suffice.)

"Perhaps I didn't want to rely on charity," she lies, with a petulant toss of her head. "I worked my way through life, Eclair, and didn't need dragon mommies to treat me with sugar!"

It is a slight against the honor of your mistresses to let that one lie where it lands. Not even pretending that the words were caught in the bracing wind and tossed up into the sky will suffice in this moment, not when she is being like this.

---

Yuki!

She goes for your throat.

Her teeth are possessive; it will be a phenomenal bruise later. Maybe you'll have to greet Hazel at the ball (where, naturally, surely you will be going, if only to make sure that no one takes advantage of the poor innocent boy) wearing a very fancy turtleneck. Her muscles are strong, strong, strong, all around you, but she does not crush you. She is on the very edge of her self-control, but she still has it. Still has you.

When she leans back, ignoring her red-faced bodyguards trying to look anywhere that's not at the two of you, she's got the most self-assuredly smug look on her face. She thinks she's got you wrapped around her little finger, and you've just figured out the way to get her to provide you with what you need.

What do you need, incidentally? She's got resources, and can easily be tricked into deploying them, as long as she thinks she's seducing you rather than the other way around. (The fact that you are Sulochana's friend adds a dash of salaciousness to this that she is eating up, and also if Sulochana ever finds out about this she will hit the roof, as they say.)

"Good girl," she purrs at a tone that would almost assuredly destroy a deerboy. "See? Cooperation has its perks. Jomes!" ("Gemes, ma'am...") "Go and fetch us some coff-eh. And make sure one has some... chili to it." ("Yes, ma'am," he sighs, aware that he is going to break into a boarded-up restaurant to make coffee by hand.)

"Now," she says, still thinking that she's in perfect control of the situation, absolutely unaware that you can play her like a harp, "let's talk about outfits. Where will he be staring when I arrive to claim him? Up here, or down here?"

---

Hazel!

Olesya is distracted. It's obvious the whole time that Juniper is helping out Keli and Seli with their outfit change behind a screen in what is, I assure you, a very salacious affair. Chests are being pressed up against each other. Ear scritchies are being deployed mercilessly. Seduction and counter-seduction are being deployed furiously. There is a chorus of squeaks and gasps and muffled exclamations.

But Olesya isn't paying attention. She's staring into the coals, and your initial attempt to speak with her fizzles out into awkward silence. When she stands up, it is slow and careful and wow she's a lot taller than you huh? Could easily pick you up. Tuck you under one arm. Toss you over a shoulder. All sorts of ways she could carry you.

"My mother expects us," she says. That's all. She doesn't pick you up and walk you out the door immediately - you've got to wait for your sluzhankas, after all - but there's no hiding here. No trying to stay low and away from the Khatun.

You will be presented.

Breathless Dead

It gets into you, the army of it, the army of you, the wires singing up and down the blood. Did the Princess Redana, bereft of all memory, know precisely what she was getting into when she accepted Ceron's gift of battle and dominance and belonging? Of course she didn't. No one can know this in their brain, it goes right past and underneath it and all the thoughts are bobbing on the top of the mind like apples but nobody's interested in those, it's the wine of war that gluts them all, and Dionysus isn't so very far at all, are they? It gets into you and the thoughts are isolated and lonely things stamping bits of this into the memory, though perhaps the Lethe would shake them loose just as easily as the things that she had lost before, not even the shape of that bootprint or the flash of the cannons on the heights or the wail of the shells bursting into disorienting smoke and pellets and roaring, all of that could be washed away underneath the river's surface, all of that could be washed away, and it's not the important part anyhow, the important part is that she is aware of Bella struggling next to her and the swivel of the guns on the far ridge and the way Sagetip has a rifle to her shoulder and is providing counterfire and that's a bleeder shot and Redana interposes herself and it goes through one arm into the chest but she's not just Ceronian no she isn't she's missing the machines that would mend her perfectly but she's still standing, apply pressure, Goldie's got the patch kit out, and it's in her, and it's like being part of Beljani in a way, mustn't it be? Mustn't it? That she is the hand holding pressure on the wound and the hand unfolding the patch and the finger pulling the trigger and the satisfied huff of breath leaving Sagetip's nostrils and the hand of Arrowstalk waving them over to cover and she's the one who takes Bella by the arm and coaxes her along, like you would a child, her voice smooth and her teeth not chattering at all, see, there's hardly any bleeding getting past the patches now, and she'll be moving her fingers again like normal in just a moment, we're not playing hopscotch here but there's an echo of it one two three come along home how you looked so pretty in that apron hopping oh-so-seriously back in the very first month, that's how far back this memory goes, buried so deep that it takes artillery shells to tear it open, and it gets into you, shared in the blood, the blood that tells her that she could renegotiate her oaths with the goddess of the Silver Divers and force this shell-shocked assassin into a more favorable agreement, and she holds Bella tighter, closer, and lets the thought-impulse bleed into the mud, and there's a Thunderbolt who brought a fucking Thunderbolt or rather who impulsively tries to become Shogun using one at this time of day and she'd have gone down holding Bella to her chest and getting blood on her if Dyssia hadn't been an absolute sparrow going one two three and the Thunderbolt picks up a hillside and decides that it should be elsewhere in very small chunks and they're in the cover now, in the cover nicely, and it's Redana who takes a moment to brush Bella's hair back behind her ear because even if everything in her nerves is telling her to be the pack to be dissolved to take control to take a crown for the pack there's still an iron bar at her heart and it's the shape of a Shepherdess-to-be and she would never ever ever look away from the panic in Bella's eyes because that's an entire fucking battlefield in and of itself and it is there that she must not, must never, lose, and the war rushes around her anyway, and she knows rather than sees the next part of the path that she will die before she sees Bella lost on.

Return to Thellamie

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.