Tatterdemalion

Breathless Dead

"EmberrrRRRRRR!!"

Dany does a frame-perfect pout and footstomp as Ember hoists herself up onto the counter to watch. Her hair is lank and still sticking to her scalp in places; her ears droop and her smile is weak. But she is here, because this deserves to be witnessed. She lies on her belly, head on her hands, feet tucked neatly over her hips, and watches: the kneading of the dough, the leaning on the crutch, the way that this Bella handles the dough with something like care and something like violence.

"We did it all for you, you know," she says, eventually, ignoring Dany's small hands insistently trying to slide her off the counter. "The running. To the stars. We wanted to give you something that was better than this, something you couldn't even dream of. Something bigger than croissants, even."

In her memory she is biting into a fresh pastry on an unusually sharp morning, memorizing how many people take which intersections as she chews, and the part of her that is not watching as a spy is flaring her nostrils to catch the scent of the hot tea wafting up from the mug, all white and molded like wool, a series of bumps easy to let the fingers slip into. In her memory she is seeking the company of Dolce even when she cannot remember him with anything but her heart.

"The croissant would have been easier, huh?" She's talking out loud, but in the way that a scout does. Drawing out. Watching. Tail thumping against her own thighs. "Because there's room for croissants in the world that's inside your heart here, right?" Watch the face. Watch the tell. Learn. Don't let your eye list out everything there is to know. Just practice seeing. Open your eyes and then open them again.

There's not room in the world of Bella-Whoever-She-Is, the one who scared Dany, for Bella-as-she-was to get a pastry like this, is there?

Get to the top and take the crown. Get to the top and kick the ladder down. Get to the top and become your wife's mom.

There's probably some sort of therapist back on Tellus who would have a banner day with that one.

She finally flops off the counter, forcing Dany to jump back - which she does. Even small Dany is more athletic than most people expect of her. She stares up at the ceiling, at the lights, at Dolce blocking part of the lights. "...I wanted a world where everyone could decide to make a croissant if they wanted. Does that...? Never mind." No sense in hammering it in. But, still. Good to say out loud.

Especially since Dany's here, too. You never know what you might be able to actually teach yourself here and there.

Return to Thellamie

Aadya, the Rock upon a Mountain!

I'm not sure that you're sure yet why you ordered your sisters-in-arms out. It takes time for a thought to get going in your head, darling, but once it picks up speed...

The three of you. Alone, in this warm mist. Your skin prickles underneath your armor, and it yearns to be removed. But not yet. Your duty is not discharged yet. You've faced more uncomfortable things than this in the monastery where you trained as a girl, so close to starlight that it would have driven you giddy with light if you'd taken your starglasses off, so high up that the air was as clear and sharp as a glass knife. This is nothing. You have a duty to fulfill.

"Yuki," you say, squatting low, looking at the supine heroine of Vespergift in your bestie's arms. "I need you to explain what's going on. Please."

You're so close to things making sense. You can almost taste the certainty, the victory, the euphoria of knowing that you have done your job and that you are a good girl. You just need it to be the right victory. Or none of it will matter. A hollow triumph is nothing. Not for the Rock upon a Mountain.

---

Eclair Espoir!

You can be involved with Yuki and Aadya as you please, or continue to be a sniffly mess, but I would like for you to know that somewhere, out there, Mayzie is looking for you. It felt important to tell you right here and now, miss.

---

Handmaidens!

Here it is, laid out plain in between two bountiful darlings:

It is clear that Olesya, Baygum of the Khaganate, is not herself tonight. She is reckless and foolhardy and wearing a pink dress with frills. She is bursting into rooms to manhandle and kiss silly boys. She is making foolish decisions, hurtling herself towards Hazel Valentine Fletcher over and over again.

Look to love. But not love of him, yah?

Her heart belongs to a Civil who went west and got roped up into the dominance games of the Khaganate: Sister Juniper. And have you not heard that there is strife, Handmaidens of the Hero of Ages? A clash increasingly obvious between the Khatun and Civelia for the heart of Thellamie. And here is a boy who she would have for her daughter, and here is a Civil who has forgotten her place.

They are afraid, though they mask it behind laughter and sharp looks and tosses of their hair. They are afraid that if Olesya fails in winning Hazel tonight, then Juniper will never be seen again. Maybe that will be the case anyhow. Maybe the idea of Juniper will be used to string Olesya along into marriage with a deerboy she does not love, save in that she wants to protect him and keep him safe, but the reality of Juniper - the laughter, the silly gasps, the overeager desire to help - will be gone.

If they can find and save Juniper tonight, then they can change the fate of Thellamie. That's why they need a true-blue hero on their side, Handmaidens. That's why they're about ready to pick Rurik up and shake him by the ankles until a Heron falls out, too. Do you think they'll reach that point?

---

Hazel!

There is a gasp. There is a roar of applause (from everyone still brave enough to be in attendance, which is more than you might think). Because, upheld on the hands of the Khaganate, Olesya spins you, my dear little Hazel, around and around, your feet swinging over their heads, each turn bringing you closer up against her, each turn bringing you ever more crushingly close into her arms.

And you can feel her heart beat to the beat of the drums. Oh, what a shame that you came here with someone. But while you're here in her arms, she'll make the most of the night like she's going to die young.

Or someone will, at any rate.

She cups your chin and forces your head back, no, pushes all of you into a swoon, and then she's got an arm under your knees and she's swinging you up into her arms again, cradling you, keeping you close, keeping you hers in the midst of the whole room.

"You're... like a princess..." she manages. And you can tell, Hazel. Oh, how you can tell. Out of everything she's ever said to you, this might be the truest, the one she means the most. And if she has to win you, well, perhaps that's the first step. Seeing how your eyes sparkle and how your knees are tucked up under her arm as she jumps up into the air, does kicks that would split a lesser woman in half, and then lands on a pyramid of huntresses.

Pretending, for the space of a dance, that you might be her princess.

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

There is an intensity that my girls can have, and I know you recognize it, because it is the same intensity that is within your heart, Rurik. I know the beachside where you grew up, the colors of the jeweled sands that burned bright in the morning sun, and I know how you turned your head away from the window to practice. To pursue your dream.

"Seli, I think-"
"He is asking for-"
"Specifics, yah?"

Oh, you, you Seneschal - you are double kabedon'd into a wall, in a move that would leave any fair maiden or silly boy breathless. Amethysts and emeralds, glittering under the low light of the Chrysanthemum's outer reaches - are they not the fairest treasures to come out of Aestival in this age?

"We mean-"
"To save-"
"An innocent."
"We mean-"
"To end-"
"A war."
"We mean-"
"To call-"
"The Hero."
"We mean-"
"No more-"
"No less."
"And if-"
"You will-"
"Not serve."
"We will-"
"Do what-"
"We must."
"Tell Heron that we must take the Stacks-"
"Or make a deal with the tree."
"I would not like that, yah?"
"No, Keli, not at all."
"But a maiden's heart is on the line."
"A maiden's life is on the line."

When they say this to you, Rurik, it is in the same way that you told yourself that you would one day serve Heron herself. It is an alignment of the self along a course of action that they will not be turned from. They are beautiful, and they are clever, and they will do anything tonight to achieve their ends. Even dealing with Walking Elm if Heron cannot help them.

---

Eclair Espoir!

In the arms of Yuki Edogawa, you see three things with crystal clarity.

You see the Paladins rushing in, led by the Idiot Chariot herself, all armor and starglasses indoors and burly bravado. There isn't enough room; they clog the doorway. They would throw down their lives to defend an innocent here and now, tonight, even if Aria Thendragon were to come to finish the job. But that is not what is asked of them in this moment. They cannot defend against someone like Timtam.

You see Timtam, with her back to the wall-mounted tablet which is taking sketches of the scene every twelve heartbeats, slip a mask out of her Civil's habit. It is a mask depicting Noon, all delight at a challenge, all agrin at having something to pit herself against. She presses it against her face, from brow to chin.

You see the smoke bomb which has fallen from her sleeve.

When it goes off, there is a scream - the scream of a terrified Civil. When it goes off, there is roiling smoke in your nostrils and in your eyes and in your ears. When it goes off, the Paladins stagger about, trying to get their hands on someone. And not too very long after it goes off, Timtam uses you as a springboard to get through the skylight.

When the smoke clears, Timtam is gone.

So is Civelia.

Take a Condition, dear. I'm sorry that it always seems to end up like this.

---

Yuki!

You feel the tension and the terror in Eclair Espoir. It's familiar, after all.

You feel, rather than see, what the smoke bomb going off does to her. It's like holding a trembling, terrified kitten in your arms.

You feel her racing heartbeat under your hand.

You feel someone jump off of her, and how she crumples back into your embrace. How she shakes. How she weeps.

And it's like being back in Thellamie the first time around, isn't it? When she didn't have any way to marshal her mutinous thoughts, when she couldn't think in a straight line without meandering, fretting, concentrating on the things she could organize. She was more than an Infinity Plus One Sword that needed to be repaired, back then - she was your friend. She needed your help.

She needs your help. Then and now are the same moment.

---

Hazel!

There is quite a bit of applause. For her. For you. But that doesn't matter to Princess Sulochana of Crevas, not as she rests her cheek against the hollow of your throat. You can feel the heat of her breath tickling against your chest as she pants in exertion, in excitement, in delight. It would be effortless for her to bite in this moment.

To mark you as hers.

She wants to do that.

Not to break the skin, of course, but to bruise. To claim. To make it so that everyone here tonight who looks at you knows that you belong to her. And she wants this because of what she has seen of you - what you, brave little Hazel, have revealed to her. And then she wants to coil around you and hold you tight and keep you safe from every other contestant for your hand. She wants to bring you expensive presents that, to her, are ordinary presents, just because the luster of this necklace made her think of your eyes, or because she heard that you liked a certain art piece and thought it would look nice in your room.

She shines in starlight, and for that moment, the two of you are the most real things in the room. No one can look away. No one can deny how you shine, and how she reflects your light. You shine a spotlight on her metaphysically, Hazel Valentine Fletcher. And I daresay everyone who looks at her, right now, takes a String on her for it. You have shown who she is.

And then the drumbeat falls heavy from the orchestra.

And then the Serigalamu flood the dance floor.

It's like being back in Crevas, isn't it? When you had to run? When they pursued, and no one could stand in their way?

But to their furs they have added rattling charms and bells. When they stomp their feet and their anklets rattle, it is in time to the drummers who have commandeered the orchestra pit. When they throw their heads back and set their bells trembling, their howls echo off the roof.

Under the watchful eye of the Khatun, Olesya strides towards you, level with you, each step held up by half a dozen huntresses. She is wearing a mask. Across the wood, bold colors in angular lines: this is a war-mask. This is a promise. This is a threat.

She offers her hand to you as the pack orbits around her like stars wheeling across the sky. This is, in fact, what they are doing. If you knew the deep mysticism of Thellamie, you would recognize that each and every Serigalamu dancer is a star; you would see the constellations they make as they shake and stamp and howl. Olesya is, in this moment, symbolic of the very stars who ordained this for you.

She reaches her hand out to receive you. To take her turn at the dance.

She does not want to dance with you.

She must dance with you.

The Khatun commands. All obey.

Breathless Dead

Olympians above, she’d just been a child.

The thought swims out of the swamp of Ember’s cognition. It’s followed up by the flailing splashes of “was I just a kid back then, too” and “oh Father am I now old enough to think about how young we were?” Not to say that the Princess Redana thinks of herself as An Eternal 17-Year-Old Maiden, but the markers and signifiers of age, the victories of maturing, are difficult to track on an odyssey like this. It’s one thing to look at Dany, tossing grapes up into the air for Ember to catch with a snap of her jaws, and go: well, yes, she is baby. But I am the same person that I have always been. One day I will certainly be Old, that’s inevitable, but I’m very clearly still just myself.

And then Bella walks in, a teenager again, and the gulf between then and now yawns like a chasm.

A grape hits Ember square on the nose. Dany squeaks and fumbles, trying to recover it.

It is also becoming clear to Ember that it’s up to her to overcome Bella in her multitude of forms. Unless any other Redanas would like to show themselves?

…

…

Shepherdess, maybe?

…

…

She graciously accepts both the necessity that it is time for her to step up and be the bestest girl (at the same time that she accepts a melon chunk from Dany, one of the nice orange ones). After all, the alternatives consisted of:
- Dany (unthinkable)
- Bella Fragment Chef (unthinkable)
- Dolce

…now, hold on, says a tempting thought in the back of her head. What was that bit about Dolce? Not that we could get him to sit on Bella, that would be fatal for the poor man, but…

…it just might work. And its chances of working were roughly about equal with the chances of her taking Bella(s) on without a nap, a mug of coffee, and expert medical intervention, and also without the entirety of the Silver Divers backing her up.

“Hey, Bella?” Her voice sounds crusty. Apollo shine on her. “Got a question. Can you tell Dany here what you’ve always wanted to eat most in the whole wide world?

“…also I would like some of the wonderberry popcorn once you’re done.”

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

Oh, Rurik. Dear, sweet Rurik. I am truly in awe of your memorizational abilities. But, perhaps, not in your sense of when and what to share. Some of the coded information in those genealogies — the choice of organization, the nicknames, the substitutions — would be dangerous if it got into the hands of someone like Walking Elm.

For that is the way of Aestival, yah? Nothing as it seems, especially the ridiculousness. The jokes are more than just part of the patter. Hidden in the names of those genealogies are keys to all sorts of wonderful goodies in the Stacks.

Which makes it all the more galling for me that Seli interrupts. Without even properly writing it down, even! Girl, do you know how desperately the High Council of Garnet desires the secrets hidden in “DRAGON PRINCESS, DRAGON PRINCESS II, DRAGON PRINCES”? Evidently not. This is quite lowering your score.

“Golden Years,” she says, placing her hands on his shoulders with uncharacteristic seriousness. “When I said I needed Heron—“

“We really do need her,” Keli continues. The brief swish of tail on tail would likely put the shiver up the spine of a younger man. “I promise, it’s impressive!”
“But we have to save a damsel in distress before the stroke of midnight—“
“If not before.”
“She’s impatient, yah?”
“Thank starlight Olly convinced her—“
“Not to have our heads—“
“As trophies, iyaah!”
“Which is why—“
“We must have Heron!”

---

Eclair Espoir!

Naturally, coming through the front entrance to the sauna is too perilous. That’s guarded, after all. And this is clearly not a time for delays or distractions.

Fortunately, there is an unobtrusive skylight. The sauna in question is a single-room cabin, the height of confidentiality, with Crevasi stained glass allowing light through but maintaining a veil of privacy. It is through this window that you make your entrance.

And through the haze of the Goodnight Special comes Timtam, on you before you’re even able to hit the ground. A flick of the hand and she has her fan, and all the passion of her heart is bound wickedly within it.

“Good evening, darling,” she purrs, hemming you in, not going for a decisive kill but also not yet turning to deal with the Heroine of Crevas, who is wiping at the floor in a simple shift. “Whatever could the Mystery Builder be doing, sneaking in here without an invitation? To finish the job, perhaps?”

And then she giggles, and it’s cute. It’s, dare I say, brat. Maybe it’s yet another of her wicked tools to knock you off balance (remember the firecrackers, don’t let those leave your memory), but… it sounds like she’s having fun.

---

Yuki Edogawa!

Fighting is often very untidy. Except, you know, when it’s a hot bit of foreplay, or when it’s being done with acceptable precision. Your friend Eclair Espoir was very good at knowing the difference.

Just reminding you of her. You know. For no particular reason.

---

Hazel!

I regret to inform you that Sulochana can hardly help herself. You feel yourself being pushed off that precipice, being pushed down, to where following Sulochana’s orders will be effortless and delightful. Because you want that, don’t you? You do want to obey.

What a good boy she’s got in her coils.

But before she can shove you into the Silly Zone, there is a polite little cough at her elbow, and a handsome boy happens to be standing there. “Ma’am,” Alcideo says with a smile and a half-bow, “here with a reminder that the ball is for dancing. I know he’s cute, but it would be a waste to leave this ballroom unused, wouldn’t it?”

The coils loosen. You have to find your own feet (don’t worry, Alcideo is there with a hand to cling to). She’s mortified, aware once again that everyone’s watching, and that her reputation is likely in tatters. But she gamely takes your hands and says:

“…would you. Would you like me to show you how we dance in Crevas? You’ll need to be able to keep up…”

Your feet are floating. She means to lead you through a shimmying Crevasi dance, all tummy sways and tail thumps (you can replicate them with a stomp of your hoof, if you like). If you don’t like it, she will be defeated here, and it will be a defeat that it is difficult to recover from.

Do you like it? Will you let her pick you up into the air over her head for the last pose?

Breathless Dead

Ember of the Silver Divers grips the bowl with one hand and brings it back to her lips. Her throat is wet with spillage, but she keeps sipping anyway. There's more than enough. The lovely sheep/innkeeper/captain will see to that in between looking after a terrified child clinging to a protective blanket.

There's still an echo of warmth to the blanket when it's looked at. Strange how these things are. Strange how she can still remember things that she'd forgotten then, there on Beri. Not strange at all how the terror of the Lethe is more dreadful on its far side, when you've had the opportunity to see how much of you there is to lose.

She licks her lips with a dry tongue.

"We should watch more serious films," she opines to the lobby. She's squinting even in the low light; the dull shine off the golden ornaments still stabs her eyes like a knife. That's a gruesome thought. Eyes. Brr. Losing one and having it replaced was bad enough back then. They're real bitches to regrow, too. New limbs are child's play in comparison. "Like, historical dramas? Subtitled Azura knight crime thrillers?"

She tries to think of more, but hits the wall of experience: historical dramas and foreign crime thrillers were the few reels that the Silver Divers greedily hung onto. Presumably there are more genres in the world. Like romances. Though the historical dramas did tend to have passionate blazing romances. But what about movies about maids and cooks and ordinary Ceronian scouts having adorable meetings involving bicycles?

She takes another sip. Dany is frowning at her, as if by disapproval alone she can force Ember to admit to wanting to watch more Batrachomyomachia sequels. Joke's on her. Ember has been trained never to break under interrogation. Even sexy interrogation. Which, let's be honest, is not forthcoming, given that Dany is a little girl and Dolce is, well, a very nice round chap who inexplicably has a lioness all over him.

This has been a distinctly unsexy adventure. This whole thing inside of Bella's heart. For a woman so passionate, so shameless in getting what she wants, it seems that no one has been seeing any love in here. Desire, certainly. Hooked and jagged and razor-sharp. But not love. What does that mean for her? What does that mean for their marriage?

An eye falls on the blanket that Dany holds tight to her chest. Well. From the way that she holds it, from the way that warmth opens its petals in Ember's chest, maybe there was a little bit of love left. But still! Come on, Mosaic! Is this because Ember did silly voices while bottoming? She's a trained infiltrator! She can't help it! You could have had little a maid sex farce, as a treat?!

"Can you do the wonderberry swirl popcorn?" Dany looks up at Dolce with wounded hope. Poor man. How's he going to explain to her that only Bella knows the recipe for wonderberry swirl? Well, her and Mynx. But her popcorn always came with an extra bit of spice. Mithridates' Seasoning. Toxin-immune by thirteen or your money back!

"Maybe there are films about bicycles," Ember says, not letting her light-stabbed eyes close. She'll be ready. Just a moment longer. More water, if you would, waiter? Waiter, there seems to be some wool in my bowl. Well, don't say it so loudly, all the Bellas will be wanting some...

Return to Thellamie

Yuki!

The attendant mirrors you, dear. She's hovering above Civelia but not touching her, for all that her fingers tremble. Her attention is split between the both of you: goddess and former heroine.

"Those are good and noble goals," she breathes. Her tail brushes up against yours. She finally finds the volition to brush one thumb against Civelia's cheek. "I applaud them. I emulate them. Go in peace, my dear."

She makes a Civil gesture to steady you, to give you confidence in the true meaning of civilization, and you feel... orderly. Organization-minded, for a moment. Possessed of a desire to make things clean and neat. Everything in its place. And that's almost but not quite the same - but it's not as if you have much exposure to Civil magic, is it?

She takes a String on you and inadvertently spends it immediately: if you go out and act in a way that is maidish, you may mark XP, and it will feel incredibly fulfilling. We're talking shivers down your spine and warmth in your heart fulfillment.

---

Eclair Espoir!

What were you thinking?

I mean, not that I need to know. But I would wager a night's winnings that you're asking yourself that as you maneuver your way through the crowd, which is watching some barbaric Crevas domination ritual play out over that nice young man. Well, you did warn him, so you can hardly be blamed for focusing on navigating by rote and considering what courage or folly possessed you.

You haven't looked back, have you? Brave heart, you can't look back. You'll run into someone.

But someone else intends to run into you.

The Architect-Knight interposes herself in the path of the Mystery Builder. Two famous in the arts of construction, but one is a beautiful maid in disguise, and the other is a massive, hirsute woman out of time, suspended for centuries in the cells of Heron the Hero. There are ribbons tied in the endless curtains of her hair, and lace gloves have been forced onto her hands.

"Here is heedless / haughty-heaping
Builder bowling / bankers back,
Having hardly / harkened hither
To my trials / taken, tanked."

Which is so much to say that she's sore that you had the audacity to show her up. You've got to maneuver around her without her succumbing to the temptation to add some new walls to the ballroom.

---

Handmaidens!

"You work with the hero, yah?"

One of you has gotten ambushed by two lovely foxgirls, one on either side. They've had a transformation of their own to equal that of Hazel Valentine Fletcher. Their silks shimmer in multiple colors where the light hits them, their jewelry is studded with the many, many jewels of their homeland, and they smell of seduction. But their wings are sharp against their lashes and their shadow is bright and ready for war.

"We're going to want her help tonight," Seli says, slipping an arm around the fortunate handmaiden who's been cornered in one of the side passages. "There'll be glory!"
"Heroism!"
"Daring battle!"
"The reunion of lovers!"
"The punishment of lovers!"
"ara ara, we'll just have to~"
"Yah, we will~"
"But we need-"
"The mighty-"
"Heron!"

Keli swishes a hip into devastating contact. "So do go fetch our cousin, yah?"

---

Purnima Karn-Pana!

In retrospect what really gets you is the need for your victory to be glorious. Only the best opponent would do, naturally. Someone so talented, so dreadful, so beautiful, that your crushing and absolute victory would be all the grander and more striking. And that's where the knife pries open the heart, and that's where the light comes in.

"Don't think you'll win him just because you're drop-dead gorgeous," you sneer. The crowd laughs at her, devastatingly. "You think you can hold him with these smooth, firm arms?" You toss your hair at the very idea, rubbing your forehead against hers. Everyone's backing you up, even if she's towering. "He's mine, and when you see me with him, you'll be so jealous that you're not here, getting kissed, by me, like--"

In retrospect this is the only thing that could have happened. She is awful and the worst and you have to show him. You have to show him that you'll kiss him sloppy like this. This is what it looks like to win. The gasps? Your triumph. The snap of tablet shutters? Immortalizing the moment. You hardly even need to grip him as firmly any more. Is she wearing a new perfume? The fiend. How dare she look so incredibly, phenomenally seductive in order to win the heart of this deerboy?

You break away. She's probably twice as breathless as you. Gosh, when did your tail get so silly? "And now," you pant, your lips covered in her perfection, "it's only a matter of time before I win." You giggle in a very commanding and confident way and then slither into a refreshment table because you can't take your eyes off her.

This is how you win.

He'll be over any moment to congratulate you on how brave and cool and sexy you are, because even if Sulochana is even braver and cooler and sexier, you're still the best. This makes perfect sense.

Maybe you need to kiss her again to show dominance.

---

Hazel!

You're in Sulochana's coils. A bright red, blushing, trying to hide her face Sulochana. A Sulochana squeezing all around you like she would a teddy bear. This would be a perfect time for you to distract yourself from the solid minute of Nagi makeouts that you were right in the middle of, the soft bouncy middle of, by being charming and asking her to dance.

Are you any more composed than she is, in this moment? When she's won and you are hers, before the sight of all of Vespergift, at least for this long moment where it's just the two of you under the spotlight? (Up on the balcony, an undead warlord seethes over how her moment has been taken by some noodle of a girl.)

also you'd better do it quick before purnima tries for a second round

you know

if you don't want a second round

just saying, darling

Breathless Dead

Redana...

has no more tears. Those ducts were squeezed dry. Wrung out and licked clean.

Her tongue is too large in her mouth. Her body is not her body. She is aware of the throb in the temples, the leaden weight of the limbs, the burning ache in the chest, but after a body has been disassembled and reassembled enough times, it ceases to be a singular unit. It is a collection of sensations, all of them desperate and panicked and alien.

She stares up at the flute, hollow-eyed. Her arms are too long. She is desperate for water. And the Bella she remembers has died a hundred times, after killing her a hundred times. She can still feel the pinprick of those needy claws on every inch of her skin. Enough pain makes an animal of the body, and those words are pain enough for an ocean.

less cruel. less cruel. less cruel.

Bella's Creature stands up on legs that are not her own and shambles forward to kill the final person in the room so she can make the words stop.

---

Dany...

applies pressure to the wound like she can press blood back into her dearest friend. Her hair hangs about her head and mixes with the tears and snot. There is nothing random about her desperation not to lose Bella, to do something with her hands that can make everything better. Can take something out of this awful, hellish moment and make it not the end of the story.

"I don't see," she admits through wet lips. "I never saw. She should have punished me, not you, me, not you... it's my fault, Bella..."

Her fault. All of this is her fault. From the box to the monster to the queen. She didn't know the right things to do. She didn't know the right things to feel. She never has. But Bella's always known. Hasn't she?

"Don't leave me, Bella," she begs. "I want you to stay forever and ever."

---

Ember...

has no one to show off to. But she still does the most pathetic little hair toss and smiles like she's going to throw up. Her body is so heavy it feels like she should be cracking through the floor. Even if there's no one here, though, she's still competing. Competing to impress the pack. Competing to impress Mosaic.

It is too hot and heavy for her to make a joke about silly puppies. It keeps looping in her head, bouncing off the sides of her skull, nonsense syllables: si-ly pu-si-lly pi sill-py sillee puppee siply puply. Of course a silly puppy won't give uppupupupyy. On the hill, head down, eyes looking up Mosaic's stomach to her hungry grin above twin mountains and a valley. Silly puppy doesn't silly up puppy. Not disapuppyment. Not for her. Not for the pack. Not for Berrypuberry. siplipuppbly.

On a moonlit hill, among white flowers, nails capable of breaking mountains digging into her scalp: "Silly puppy. Don't you ever give up?"

nevergibsuppy.

Return to Thellamie

Handmaidens!

Aria Thendragon was a proud woman in her day. Her glory burned so, so brightly, as bright as the thousands of candles that lit her halls. Prior to her war with Heron, she had been a queen, she had ruled the Avel and the Kel with false justice, and she had built castle after castle across Thellamie. There was no reason for her not to be proud, even in that disguise. Perhaps she even forgot, sometimes, that she was ruling in order to undermine the reality of Thellamie and ultimately plunge it back into dissolution and slumbering dragons.

To have that taken away from her by some Mystery Heroine absconding with the spotlight? That would be difficult enough for her to bear even if she did not have the bitter spite of a Fallen Star oozing like sludge in her veins.

"Minion," she growls at Cair, staring down balefully at Hazel Valentine Fletcher, "with me. I must prepare panoply."

Let some other blushing maiden take the lead! She must be dressposted. You know what's popular these days, right? You're in the fashion group chats, probably.

---

Yuki!

Civelia lies in state down in one of the saunas, commandeered for purpose by the Civils. Her chest rises and falls shallowly, and dark veins run through her marble skin. Her eyes are closed and her lips are parted ever-so-slightly. There is an uncomfortable voyeurism to seeing her like this, isn't there? To see how almost peaceful she is.

Outside, Paladins, big and burly and quiet to hide how much they're fretting. (Aadya got you through, and is grilling them over what went down.) Inside, a Civil herbalist fusses with the coals in the center of the sauna, finding just the right herbs and incenses to burn--

No, she's tossed some on the coals and looms over you now. "Miss," she says, politely, "the goddess needs her rest. We'll have her right as rain soon enough."

The word rain left her mouth like a sigh. An orange curl hangs, a little messy, a little bouncy, out of her habit. Steam mists up from the coals, sweet and warm and tingling against the skin.

"...but I must admit that I am curious. What does the goddess mean to you, Miss Edogawa?"

---

Hazel!

Your eyes meet. How could they not?

Hers are dark and ringed with kohl, but there is a fire inside them. Princess Sulochana of Crevas drinks you in, and a dark color rises to her olive cheeks. She is still, her tassels and bangles at rest as she savors the moment of looking upon you, of how you look in this moment, and there is no one else, just the two of you. Just here. Just now.

Which is why you are not prepared for being swept up into the arms and bosom of Purnima Karn-Pana. Her perfume hits like a wagon. Her powerful midriff also hits like a wagon. Her smugness also hits like a wagon. The world is suddenly cut off by the waves of her dark hair.

"It won't be hard to avoid a worse performance! Ballrooms, bah- everyone knows that it's Crevas who knows how to dance properly!" Her belly undulates against you, as she scoops you up--

And then you are aware of a second Nagi pressed up against your back. "We should be dancing in order of rank," the Princess Sulochana says, grabbing your wrist possessively. Her forehead is already pressed against Purnima's in a dominance display. Your feet are off the ground, but don't worry: you are in no danger of falling. Not with Purnima in front of you and Sulochana behind.

Just like the fantasies you have never dared to write down, Cutie~

---

Eclair Espoir!

And the Nagi have already swallowed him up in their coils. Tsk, tsk. And after you tried so hard.

Ah, and here's Mayzie bustling up with two flutes of lavender champagne in her hands, beaming so hard that it's a wonder her head doesn't fall off. "That was- you- incredible," she enthuses, pressing one flute into your hands, her eyes sparkling with The Emotion That Dare Not Speak Its Name.

You can take a String on her if you linger here, in this moment, with her. With the champagne. With the adoration of the party.

But.

But but but.

Somewhere, ever so faintly, in the air, beyond the squabbling Nagi and the lavender hitting your nose and the color in Mayzie's cheeks as she sips an expensive vintage, diluted by distance to the degree that it takes time to convince yourself that it is not a trick of nostalgia...

Someone, close by, is burning the Goodnight Special. Designed to lull Morning, Noon and Evening into a pleasant half-slumber when they are too close to waking. Designed to lull exhausted members of the Order into the sweetest dreams. An expensive and secret blend. Not the sort of thing to be found here...

Breathless Dead

Skotia...

is gone.

---

Redana...

suffers. Refusing to fight only goes so far, and one woman against a hundred terror-fueled maids?

She will get back up over and over and over. Thank you for leaving her eyes, at least. No matter what else is clawed to shreds, oh-so-briefly. No matter what else is torn out of her and regrown. How else is she to experience an unending battle? To endure torment without end?

---

Ember...

walks through the darkness with her eyes closed. Ears at attention. Nose sniffing. Barefoot on the tiles.

And there is nothing. Rich, sumptuous nothing. Forever. Silence, except for the echoes. No scent, a complete absence of information. Nothing to report, nothing to scheme, nothing to learn. She walks into no walls. She stubs her toe on no tables. Nothing, nothing, nothing: the darkness of the Anemoi is total. The bounds of the universe stretch on forever.

---

Dany...

takes Bella's hand and looks up at this woman so much like her mother. So extravagant, so commanding, willing to change the shape of the world with a command and a wave of her hand. Willing to ignore the fear in Bella's eyes. Willing to shut people away in boxes until they're needed, if they ever are.

"No." Her face scrunches up, and she stands straight and scared. "You're scaring her." A useless statement of fact. A javelin thrown right at one's own feet. "And, and she's right about the monster, and, and... you're not making either of us go into the Box. Ever." Her face is a blotchy mess of tears and snot and terror, and her grip on Bella's fingers is the desperate cling of we-go-together.

A woodpecker strikes at a tree in a drumbeat. A butterfly touches the flowers in an erratic waltz. A breeze carries petals across the lawn.

"Put it away. Nobody ever goes back into the Box ever again."