Thanqol

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

"I deserved that," said Canada Taliv.

Even crumpled on the ground she looks magnificent; a shadowy prince, all angles and bones as fine as china. She wears her veils obediently, dark and concealing - and in her crumpled fall, the revealed glimpses of her journal of scars tells the story as to why. There's a masculine handsomeness to her disarray, glimpses of muscles like wires, a provocation to embrace.

She believes what she says. Believes it enough to drown the primordial instinct to defend herself. She detaches herself in a swirl of fabric from the ground and now she's above Asterion again, and her neck curves smoothly so they're at eye level - to make it easier if the Bull wants to hit her again.

"But you're wrong," said Canada, violet eyes all that's visible behind her shrouds, so deep and dark they're almost black. "I'm not smarter than anything."

Do it. Hit her again.

[Rejecting Asterion's influence: 10
- Acting to prove her wrong and marking potential
- Shifting saviour up and superior down]

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

+You're under arrest,+ said Princess Adila as the handcuffs finally snapped into place.

You didn't think she forgot, did you?

+Queen Cascade, you are considered a flight risk so additional precautions have been taken,+ thought Adila, clicking the other end of the cuff around her own wrist. The chain linking the two glowed bright pink and vanished, leaving two matching bracelets around their wrists. +This is the Friendship Maintenance Bracelet, courtesy of Princess Hornet. Not only will it allow us to track each other down wherever we go but it will allow the instant transmission of messages across any distance. I will be checking in on you regularly and expect you to do the same. Your community service will -+

Adila wasn't able to hold the straight face any further and stuttered off into a damp giggle-sob noise. She buried her head under her wing for a moment, and little glowing words appeared above Alina's cuff: I love you both, so very much.

+Princess Kazelia, you're considered an accomplice to the notorious Princess Kyouko, so...+ she offered a second set of cuffs, the same as the first. +I mean...+ she had to take another moment to wipe her eyes. +Things won't be the same. I'll miss you. I already do. But... whatever the new normal looks like, I know that all of us will fight to make sure that we're all a part of it.+

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Princess Adila didn't know why she was crying. The ceremony hadn't even started yet, all she had to do was wait another few minutes and then nobody would notice because then everyone would be tearing up, but something inside her had collapsed. Every time she'd thought she'd grown, thought that she was strong, thought that she had figured things out this just happened again! Nonsense thoughts crashed through her head like boulders, trying to impose a pattern on this upwelling of feeling. Maybe it was because of the light, or the memories of having been here before. Maybe it was because she was jealous and wished that today was her day. Maybe it was because she missed her friends, the constant immediate presence of them rather than these occasional meetings and formal events. Maybe it was because there were all these people she knew by reputation, knew of rather than knew personally, hints at lives that she'd only touched in the most fleeting way.

It was a feeling that had been following her for weeks. A vague, unsteady pressure that wasn't so much a sense that things were wrong as much as they were different. Every stage of her life had been marked by a feeling like this - every time she'd had to move on from one part of herself to the next the feeling had haunted her and buried her in a similar melancholy. For a while she'd made her peace with it... she'd learned that the past and the present were always entangled, and through determination she could stitch those times together. Moving forwards didn't mean losing what you'd left behind. Each stage of her life was better than the one before. All those rational thoughts and patterns tried to apply order on her emotions, like an ice-cube tray trying to organize the ocean.

In her mind's failure to understand itself it began casting increasingly desperately around for the secret source of her emotions. Maybe this was because she'd gotten turned around twice while walking the Labyrinth to get here. Maybe it was because she'd forgotten to pack her toothbrush. Maybe it was someone's fault. Something like this couldn't come from nowhere, it was too big for that. She just needed to figure out what dumb thing was tripping up her dumb brain and making her unable to process this moment. It had to be something simple because these problems always seemed simple in retrospect.

Maybe she'd just been carrying these feelings inside her for so long and she had nowhere else to put them. Maybe she just had to cram them all in right here. Maybe she didn't know how to express how important everyone here was to her other than shattering into pieces in front of them.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. She might never hit upon the answer for this feeling, or she might have correctly identified it and then discarded it because the truth was no help at all in dealing with it. This wasn't a matter of being right or saying the right words, because no words could stop the tears. This wasn't a matter of strength, because even the softest of touches could hold her up and stop her from falling.

Fellowship: The Heart

[Overcome: 5, 6 +1: 12]

Scorched fragments of eel cascade down around Ailee like Jackdaw's last attempt to cook sushi. "You know, it's the darndest thing," said Ailee. "Petry Walzenheim attacked me with these exact same eels after I called the Lore of the Deeps trash magic for stupid babies." She raised a hand idly and a scorching daemon-fist snatched another eel out of the air, gripped it so hard the flames burned blue, and then genteely offered it up to Ailee who picked a piece up with chopsticks and ate it thoughtfully. "Didn't work out for her either," she clarified.

And, when you get down to it, is there really a practical difference?

Oh, there is a practical difference - this is why Ailee is the archmage and you're a shapeless voice asking poorly thought through rhetorical questions. See, if these are just natural animals following their instincts they'll obey even her off-the-cuff Words - but if they have been dispatched by a garbage elemental for the purpose of doing them harm she'll have to put a little more oomph into the magic.

So when Ailee declares the black word of WASTE with the sound of a burning dumpster in a desert, turning the water into a barren salt-flow as hostile to freshwater fish as the open air is, does she need to exert herself? Assuming it is so she will damage her Wisdom to power the magic.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

This... this Jasper understands.

Dances. Why does it seem like this girl is dancing? It's like nothing she's ever seen before but... there's rhythm to it. There's passion to it. There's knowledge and practice and instinct so deep that each of these motions carries its own music. She's seen devils dance before but this is something else entirely - cold and joyful and curious and revealing, like she's being peeled apart layer by layer. It's a dance that reveals more about the world than the dancer, but expresses the dancer's heart in that very curiosity.

She's never seen anything like it.

For the first time in her life she's speechless when asked a question. And then the questions keep coming! And each time she untangles her tongue enough to start saying something her head is yanked to the side and she's asked something else! Her thoughts and feelings are wrung from her in Ers and Ums and Eeps! Every time she tries to put on a brave face all it earns her is a tiny frown and an intensive ocular examination. But even through this total deconstruction, Jasper never once stops trying to hold the umbrella over Dulcinea's head no matter how much she appreciates the relief from the rain. Even here on the brink, the instinct to see other people safe and warm and dry takes priority.

And then there's a pause, and Jasper is half way through her first sentence before she realizes she hasn't been interrupted.

"I don't know what you mean by 'eating' -" she said, then froze as she remembered her manners. "I am Jasper Inkra, and I am - ah - a-tsnk!" she unsuccessfully attempted to hide a tiny sneeze in her shoulder. "Honour..." despite it being soaking wet her throat was somehow the opposite and resisted every word. "T-to - um..." she stared with watering eyes, trying her best to be strong. Her duty was to fight for the smiles of everyone, to fill the world with light and she couldn't let down this vivid stranger. "I've... I'm... are you the...?" Her teeth chattered away the last of the words, every part of her shaking except for the arm trying to hold the umbrella over Dulcinea.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Some relationships are frictionless - perfect unions of hearts, balanced and whole.

That is not the case for Princess Adila.

Her eyes lock with Princess Iron Star's and there's challenge in each. Devil eyes are dark enough for mirrors, dark enough that any weakness in the dragon's eyes will be plain to both of them. Muscles tense, poetry in anatomy. Iron Star shifts her weight to her back foot and as she does Adila's tail coils around her ankle. They both breathe the same breath as their bodies tense against each other through that tiny point of contact. Within that breath lingers a half-fantastical conversation - the snap of muscles, the crack of stone, the whirl and slam and pounding wildness of hearts roused...

Through the telepathy of physicality their minds project the dance through step after step. Such a thing is possible because there's only one factor that changes the outcome - determination. Iron Star's challenge is made in pride, pride that defies reason and reality. Dandy's response has its own pride too, of course, but it's supported by a ferocious love. The two of them engage each other and Adila is their medium.

This is their way. Each of the three princesses has a will of iron and will not be smothered. There's always tension and power shifts from moment to moment. They interact and react through these tiny physical and vocal cues - in public at least - to sense whose heart is the strongest in that moment. In this moment, it's Dandy. So with a steady blink the Devil quietly falls into line alongside the dragon. Adila's tail lingers for a moment and then unwraps from Iron Star's leg. Dandy is the alpha for now, and they will obey until the situation changes.

+Iron Star is right that we should be on guard, but not because of Princess Serpent,+ said Adila. Her thoughts are unhurried and unstressed - their secret rhythm is so ingrained to her now that these silent exchanges of power is as natural as posture. +I don't believe for a second that Princess Kyouko isn't plotting something - and she's been close to Shazari recently...+

She's kept her dress restrained; simple, flowing orange fabric curving into floral-patterned lace around the cuffs and hem - but with slashes of red lace bows along her left shoulder like claw-marks. Sleek and breezy and suited for sun and flight. Most notable, though, is her new badge. Embossed upon the empty plane of the former Watch's shield is a new symbol - a circle with arrows that could be a clock or a compass depending on how you looked at it. They were called the Guides now, and escorting travelers through the Labazaar was as good a reason as any to stay in contact with friends all over Hyperborea.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

The winds are broken. Howling frozen gales flow through the corridors of Argossa, the force of a hurricane squeezed into corridors and ball-rooms. Anything that can break does break. Splintered doors, toppled suits of armour, closets full of dresses and chests full of gemstones. They are spun and hurled like shot-puts, freezing even as they fly. Damp, icy mist pours out like smoke from a subterranean fire.

Step by step, Princess Adila advances.

Her wings are open wide and swept back, curving the wind around her body and the line of princesses that follow close behind in her shadow. She ducks her head and endures the blows of things blown loose by the breath of the World Seed where they slip through the magical and technological shields conjured by her friends. This is a battle of endurance, each step requires so much strength to make it's like she's climbing a sheer mountain.

But she has all the strength she needs, shielded here beneath her wings, warming and warmed by her heart.

Every night, the divine squirrel Ratatoskr gathers every star from the sky and hides them inside the Hollow of Argossa until the daylight comes. They were the first to freeze - crystal diamonds shining no light, little pin-pricks that form a small and shivering pile on the ground, perfect for picking up with eye-droppers and using as fashion accessories. Above them is the World Seed, and oh, how much it looks like the grandest of those diamonds - what a brilliant star it must have been, once.

But now it is dark and its light is cold.

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

Jasper Inkra is pretty sure she is dying.

The rain isn't coincidental - the rain is happening because that is what happens when the sun dies. The sky goes black and poison falls in shards of broken arrows and it sucks all the light and heat from her trembling body. The hollow feeling at her core that she identified before as the Lighthouse's curse has become increasingly intense, sending spasms of agony through her entire body. But worst of all has been the incomprehensible sensations that enter her face through her nose. Like the tempting colours of the Consuming Hells they torment her with desires she can't articulate or understand.

Strength has left her body. She's wracked with cramps. She can't stop making the sneeze-sound that Mila made before and every time she does it's awful. She's at once deliriously hot and freezing cold and she was right the first time and this is the Consuming Hells and it's awful and Mila is a devil and she lied to her and this is all part of her scheme to win the dance contest and she doesn't care any more and just wants to go home...

(To anyone looking at her it would be very plain that Jasper hasn't eaten for three days and is misdiagnosing starvation as a yozi plot)

The temperature over the past few days has been dropping like a stone - her arrival hit forty degrees and three days later it's less than nine. The town weatherman has been dropping all his christmas in july jokes and it's insufferable.

Fellowship: The Heart

"Ooooohhhhhhhhh," said Ailee turning about, one hand cupped around her mouth and the other waving in the air to face the witch-felid. "Your lame garbage elemental chickened out at the first glimpse of me. Where's your god now? Where's your god now?"

A flashback: Adorable young Ailee punching a fellow primary school student in order to steal their 'most graceful winner' medal.

"Coleman! Good on you for not playing dumb pagan games!" she said, walking over. "Honestly, I see so many grad students selling their souls for so much less than they're worth. Like, have you heard of self respect!? Are we going down that way?"

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Princess Adila stretched her wings and the sudden explosion of wind snuffed all of the lanterns in the great hall. Darkness rushed in but was caught half-formed, for she alone here now burned as her own spotlight. Orange and crimson and violet flames slashed along her form. Two little lights touched down onto her brow and when her eyes snapped open one was of silver fire and the other was of gold.

Strong legs tensed underneath her. Breath filled her lungs and she could feel the catch as it ignited inside her. Her tail swayed once, twice, like a ribbon in a breeze, and then fell entirely still.

And she moved.

It felt like dragonfire burned in every muscle. The floor shattered underneath her feet. Blinding white sparks hovered in her wake like the after-trails of fireworks. There was a crash, and a pillar shattered as Oberon's body was put through it, barely illuminated by the strobing light of alchemy. Chaotic eruptions of colour filled the black, each one the detonation of impact as talons and tail and wings struck Oberon from all sides. It was a battle in stop motion, each burning moment of violence visible only in the after-trails of the light that poured from Adila. This was the power of devils. This is what it took to dance with no restraints. Oberon had taken the strength of the grandmothers and the ability to endure this dance, but he had not thought to take their grace - and so, left-footed, he missed every step and paid for it with ringing blows.

It was not a pretty dance. It couldn't be when only one partner knew the steps and the other was too stubborn and foolish to learn.

And then, finally, Adila spread her wings and let free her burning breath. The hurricane of her wings dispersed and directed the flame in a wave, and from her it soared loose to fill every guttered lantern. Light came back into the hall all at once, revealing the wreckage she had left in her wake. The altar is in splinters. The seats are shards of stone. The wedding decorations are ruined. Rider banners burn like candles. And yet not a single spark has brushed a hair on the heads of her friends - they stand protected, each in a low burning heart-shaped ring of fire.

A princess must be graceful, after all.

With a final, contemptuous flick of the tail Adila sends Oberon sprawling at Kazelia's feet.

[Damaging Blood to unleash Adila's true strength]