Thanqol

Sunshards

Dearest listener, wise scholar of these many words. You have learned much of how the world works. You have learned much about wisdom and inner peace. You have witnessed the joy of acceptance, of harmony, of friendship, of enlightenment. You may at this time consider yourself to have made progress upon the path towards becoming a sage.

Idiot! I made all of that up!

I've been right here all along - right where everyone could see me but where nobody thought to look. Nobody thinks to count the tails of a mountain! And that is the difference between me and any of these silly little flufferhead foxes. That isn't to say that I have never been a silly little flufferhead, only to say that I have taken the flufferhead arts to heights undreamed of by gods or buddhas. You think that you can reach heaven through romantic violence? Maybe. If you're boring. But you can also reach heaven through crime.

Crime is different when you've been around as long as I have. A novice might still find pickpocketing and wire fraud compelling, but I have more refined tastes. My current plan is a masterpiece beyond the ken of any foxgirl below my nine-tailed rank: I have become a mountain, and every year I stand up and creep a few meters closer to the nearby town. And then one day at the height of the autumn festival I will transform back into a fox, pounce on top of the village, and steal all their fried tofu. I have been working on this plan for fifty years now. It's brilliant. I'm brilliant.

Or I was. But now this girl Yue is looking right at me with her heart full of love and she is waving. And I can tell that this girl is practically a buddha or a saint or an anime or something and oh my god do you know how dangerous that is? She could ruin everything! She has to be stopped, probably!

And so I stand up, tails wagging ominously. Snow falls from my triangular ear-peaks and trees tumble loose from my mighty flanks. And then I creep. I creep and stalk and sneak, tails wagging, rocky ears twitching, delicately stepping over houses and rivers as I sneak around the rim of the Terraced Lake. Despite being mountain size my paws are still soft and fluffy where they scamper across the ground and I move so silently and smoothly even the birds sleeping in the trees on my peaks don't wake. A couple of times my foxy senses tell me that someone in that distant cottage is looking out the window and I need to duck down and press my tummy against the earth and lie my ears flat. I wait patiently for them to go back inside, no doubt to engage in kisses or kiss related silliness. And then I am sneaking once more!

(Naturally there are plenty of people in the immediate vicinity who are quite terrified to see a sneaking mountain. To them I say: Nyah ha ha ha ha! Run! Run little humans!)

Eventually I have snuck, crept, pranced, and sashayed my fluffy tails all the way over to loom over the cottage of Yue. My archenemy! Look at her inside, so smiley, so happy, so vaguely confused as to where the mountain on the other side of the lake has gone. Little does she know it is right behind her! This will truly be my greatest - wait, what on earth is that?

I turn my head around and fix my gaze on a little foxgirl with white fur, black ear and tail tufts, and big bright teal eyes. She has a sword the size of her body and has pressed it up against the base of my ninth tail. Seeing my look she hides the blade behind her back and giggles nervously.

"Little two tail!" say I in my most mysterious voice! "Whatsoever do you think you are doing?"
"It's not fair!" she said, immediately bursting into tears. This one has a bright future ahead of her. "I tried so hard to earn my third tail! I came so close! I bought and sold princesses, almost made away with the treasury of the Sky Castle, it's not my fault that there were dragons."
"Those seem like awfully ambitious plays for a little two-tail," I say with my voice full of Judgement.
She nods tearfully. "I can't help it. All I want is to be the greatest kitsune who ever lived! I can't accept second best from myself, is that so wrong?"
"You must be if your path to your third tail goes through my ninth," I say, Disapprovingly. She hangs her head in shame.
"It was only because your tail was the fluffiest and most magnificent I'd ever seen," she said. "When you think about it, it practically hypnotized me into stealing it. How can a little two-tail resist such brilliance as yours?"
I nod at this obviously correct assessment of the situation. She is really a magnificent fox. "My name is Damn Fox," I announce grandly. It is an old name, given to me by a human who was probably a king or something.
"I am Cyanis," said she.
"I understand that your ambitions are bigger than your lips," I say. "You are not the first foxgirl to try to swallow more than she can chew. But I recognize your potential and will offer you this: Your third tail in exchange for the most precious possession of the anime known as Yue."

It's a test just as much as it is an opportunity for me to roll around on my back and kick my pawsies in the air for a little bit. When I stand up I've carved a huge swathe of destruction into the forest behind Yue's house. Another wicked surprise for my nemesis! But sooner than I expected I smell Cyanis sneaking back and again I restore myself to my dignified mountainous poise.

"What have you bought me?" I demand eagerly. "Have you stolen her infinite wealth? Her wolfish wife? Her tricky sister? Show me!"
"Damn Fox," said Cyanis. "I have bought you a fox."

And she holds within her hands a Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits. I know her immediately. I couldn't call myself a fox if I didn't recognize a Fluffybiscuits.

"A wise choice," I said. "There is nothing in this world more precious than a fox."
"Unfair!" said little Fluffybiscuits. "I was napping! And then she got me by the back of my neck and patted me so softly that I didn't even notice when she was wrapping me up in blankets! O Kitsune of the Mountain, jail for Cyanis! Jail for One Thousand Years!"
"Is this true?" I ask. "Did you sneak up on her while she was napping?"
"She snored and rolled over because the sunbeam had moved," said Cyanis. "That's not a nap, that's a doze."
"I demand Fox Justice!" said Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits.

And then for the first time I open my eyes. Both of the smaller foxes go silent.

"Fox Justice?" said I. "Oh, little Fluffybiscuits. You are young and naive, even younger than Cyanis. To you Fox Justice is something you only ever apply to humans. You steal a sandwich from a human and you call that justice. A human wakes you from your nap and you mewl and bite and call that justice. But Fox Justice? True Fox Justice, for crimes between foxes? Let me show you what that truly means."

And then I bang my front pawsies on the ground!

There is a flash of light and the smell of fried tofu and the glittering magic of Transformation, which turns dreams into girls.

And then when it is done there are two foxgirls before me. One with two tails, and one with three.

"Cyanis," I say smugly, "for the theft of the anime Yue's most precious possession on my behalf, I have awarded you with your third tail. But as punishment for sneaking up on a fox who was napping I have also gifted a tail to Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits. She is free to pursue her fox vendetta against you until the stars go out."

"I'm a girl!" squeaked Fluffybiscuits, wrapping her tails around her body for modesty. "You made me a girl!"
"I granted your secret wish, little Fluffybiscuits," I say. "It is you who will be my spy inside the house of my hated rival. It is you who will lead me to her larder and help me dig holes in her front yard! You have to do what I say, I have more tails, that's Fox Law probably," it wasn't, but one of the advantages of foxes is that they're all sillyheads who are bad at math and intimidated by large numbers.
Katherine's eyes nervously watch my tails, contemplating their sheer fluffiness. Then she stands up bravely. "I won't betray Yue! I am a fox of honour, and she -"
"I'll let you rummage through the pantry," I say.
Her resistance crumbles immediately. But her attempt was honestly very admirable! That put her in the top two percent of foxes! "And climb on the counter?" she adds.
"Sure!" I say, grinning and wagging my tails.
"Then what shall we do first?" she said, eagerness creeping into her voice. And that was always the thing about fox wishes, wasn't it? When you grant them they protest and blush and proclaim their innocence and purity and how terrible the foxes were for forcing this terrible fate upon them... and then five minutes later it's all swaying hips and 'I may as well's.

"First?" I ask. "First, tell me the story of how this sun farmer grew strong enough to challenge me!"

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

Zhaojun had not the slightest fucking idea where she was going with this. The desire had been to deflect suspicion as to her escape from Hell and she'd done that. So... what did she want now? What did Iselsi Shae want?

"What are the largest problems in the region, as you see it?" she asked. "Both internal to our administration, and externally?"

She had control over the situation. And... somehow that felt like... enough? That she was in this moment safe enough to start giving a damn about someone else's wants and desires. The same thing she'd felt when massaging the dragon girl earlier. There was a strange blissful contentment in this moment that rendered a mind of clawing violence calm and attentive. She wasn't just fishing for information at this point, she was seeing Piripiri clearly and had become genuinely interested in what she had to say.

Breathless Dead

Alexa!

A pale white handkerchief wipes an immaculate brow.

The God of the Dead has unearthed more than a terrified Oratus Adept. His spade has drawn forth geodes and precious ores each time it cuts the soil. The earth where he cuts it is precious, heavy, abundant and utterly lifeless. Not one seed grows from the dirt where has piled it even as the great rainforest growing up all around and through the battle already stands taller than a man.

"You'll be in my debt!?" shrieks Beljani. "You will owe me a favour!? As what, a bowling ball!? Oh, Artemis," she buries her face in her hands to try and stifle a hysterical giggle. "And to save your girlfriend, which one is she?"

"Princess Epistia, warrior of Ceron," said Hades leaning on his shovel. There are faint creases in his long sleeve shirt and vest but a new hale strength in his slender limbs.

"The berserker!?" said Beljani. "The psychopathic avatar of the murder god who kills everything in her path!?"

"And my daughter," added the God of the Dead.

"Oh, you don't say?" said Beljani, perfect sweetness and light. "You know, my best friend is also a psychopathic avatar of a murder god who kills everything in her path? I'm sure I will get along splendidly with this new one too."

Hades smirked and hefted his shovel over one shoulder. Beljani brushes her robe down as she steps elegantly from the open grave. "But did you say that she is your girlfriend?" she goes on with the chirpy flow of someone who responds to stress by talking more. "Goodness, that's a bold choice. You'd have to have ovaries of marble to get into bed with that ball of emotional issues - you know I told Mynx the same thing? I presume that's why you're all," she made a gesture with two fingers, "snip snip?"

Vasilia and Dolce!

She's there, the infinite and the divine, terrible in the storm. She is the night that devours the day, the gravity that devours the planets. She hovers in the air above you, crackling storm of the battle.

"Vasilia?" said Zeus, Daughter of Cronus. "She's been endlessly disappointing, really. Compromised. Failed. Fled. Stewed in misery. Never lifted a finger to correct her mistakes. Never considered turning around and going back home to fix what she did. Flew nihilisticaly into the void for a wish she never articulated because it gave her the possibility of a spiteful death. Hades' girl, through and through."

A true lightning bolt. It cores a nearby sapling, turning it into an incandescent pillar of burning carbon, gouts of plasma leaking from the tree's shattered trunk.

"A disappointment, yes," said Zeus. She went on like a person but she was that lightning bolt too, she was that indescribable sound and the sound of a heaven where such discharges were the sparks of every neuron in her mind. "But I wouldn't say I was offended. Offense I'd deal with myself."

Bella and Redana!

For a moment you work together in a frenzied harmony. You do not see each other, do not speak to each other. One of you fights as a sword and the other as a shield and Sagakhan is at the centre of your bloody web for a few precious moments. Then you're apart, three points on a pyramid, three demigods watering the desert flowers with dripping blood.

"Annh... hrnnn..." Sagakhan presses a hand over her severed jugular, holding her ebbing life with her fingers. "Artemis..." She looks at XIII; at her name carved on that armour. Knows there is no negotiation to be had. "Zeus..." she looks around at the war, at the little crab hanging from Redana's shoulders, that has a little jolt of electricity pass along its claw every time it snaps. "Aphrodite..." she looks at the two of you, the wordless unity you share, nobility and hatred.

"Demeter," she said with finality.

She rips her robe away, revealing a suit of fine hardened leather armour that already tears off her body as muscles grow underneath it. The sword falls from fingers that have become swords. Her neck sways with the same sinuous grace as her lengthening tail shows, and each time she blinks her pupils are a different shape. Hair widens and hardens and turns as jagged as blades, growing all across her body.

"I wanted to kill you as a hero," she hissed. "in the sight of the gods, in accordance with every rule, beloved champion of Olympus sent to save the galaxy from Hades' monsters. I wanted to give blessings to my servants and mercy to my enemies. I wanted to give wealth to my household and happiness to my daughters. I wanted to live free and wanted to prove that I could rise to the highest station regardless of what liberties were taken with my DNA."

She spits blood through teeth like razors.

"But if I must I will kill you as a monster," she said. "I will take your names and give them to your replacements. I will raise the two of you anew, properly, as my left and right hands. As I raised this planet from the dead so shall I raise you from the dead, and let Aphrodite see the love I bear you and give us happiness in that new life."

She raises her hand from her severed neck.

Something grows there from the blood.

Sagakhan grins. Twice.

A second twisted serpentine head rises up alongside her first, swelling to full size.

"Cut one head," hisses Sagakhan in unison, Master of Assassins, Hydra of Demeter, "and two more shall grow."

Sunshards

Chen and Rose!

Two maidens are carried by three foxes before the dragon princess. A fitting tribute. "Your imperial highness," said Blackleaf, bowing deeply, "as you have demanded we have bought you what you wanted -"

"Mistress," Jessic corrected.

"Mistress?" said Blackleaf, shiverring.

"Good girl," said Princess Jessic, tail swaying as she adjusted her position.

"You've got it wrong, we've bought you -" Blackleaf started, but then the dragon pounced. There was a rush of air as she passed over the kneeling Chen and Rose, caught Prim and pinned her to the ground. Her tail lashed out and coiled around Quick Ji's neck like a whip. And her crackling eyes froze Black Leaf utterly in pace, sparks running down her spine.

"You," said Princess Jessic, "think you have escaped? You think you can bargain? No, little fox, all you have done is enter my territory." She flicked her tail, sending Quick Ji sprawling on the ground in front of her, and then placed a claw on top of her head, holding her against the ground alongside Prim. "I will take your tribute, little fox. And I will also take your friends. And I will also take you. Now... get on your hands and knees and bind these pathetic girls properly."

Blackleaf, swallowing, trembling, sank down to the ground like she was melting. She crawled across beneath the dragon and there, with the easy treason of her kind, worked to first gag and then bind her struggling erstwhile friends. Soon Jessic held two struggling and squeaking foxes to go alongside her struggling and squeaking Princess and Handmaiden.

"Good girl," said Jessic, tracing a talon under Blackleaf's trembling jaw. "Tell me, how did that feel?"
"Good... mistress," stammered Blackleaf.
"The tying, or the obeying?"
"Both."
"Good. Because this is just the beginning. I will capture every escaped fox and then you will help me train them. In time I will build a grand army of disciplined kitsune, loyal to my every whim, and together we shall conquer the Nine Kingdoms. Serve me well and you will be chief amongst them."
Blackleaf bowed. Princess Jessic gave a low, malevolent chuckle. A new era of darkness approached, one where the shadow of the Sky Castle heralded the coming of a storm of collared chaos.

But that was all an adventure for another day. For now, there was an electronic chime, and Jessic projected a holographic screen in front of her left eye. "Oh!" she said. "I almost forgot Princess Hyra's tea date! Blackleaf, conjure a car and put these four sillyheads in the boot - we need to make a detour before we reach the Sky Castle."

Yue!

Since this story started you've always been in last place. The bottom part of the post, the part after everyone else got to say their bit.

But for a while you got to be in first.

In a lot of ways it feels the same. Your sister's hugs are still as sweet as they were before. Hyra's are too, once you emerge from the Underworld and convince her to put down the moon laser when she aims it at Xiu. The air's the same temperature, the Lake's the same colours, your words still trip over each other much the same as they've ever had.

But it's different knowing that's a choice now. It's not that you couldn't touch the top. It's not that you just didn't have enough potential. You did, and you do. You know for a fact that on that day you choose to pull your sword out of the umbrella rack it will be the sequel to the story of the legendary hero Yue and not an attempt to fix what was wrong with the first story.

And there'll be plenty of opportunities for sequels, you know. Princess Jessic arrives, followed shortly thereafter by a car driven by an unknown foxgirl that unloads a knotted tangle of Chen, Rose and two more kitsune. There's a lot of talk and veiled threats between her and Hyra involving a plan to kidnap and tame foxgirls for use as terror troops/harem slaves which will unsettle the tenuous balance of the Nine Kingdoms - and even if you feel like sitting that one out, you can see as well as anyone the inevitable fox uprising for the cause of cutie anarchy, heralding a whole new time of adventure. And when that time comes... maybe that's when Hyra will take a break in cutie jail, and it will be the Demon Swordswoman Yue who needs to come out of retirement to rescue her. Or instead you could change tracks entirely and get involved in Xiu's grand adventure into the heart of the Underworld to face down the red-eyed Demon Shogun who your sister swears she did not have a crush on...

And it can keep going and going. The positions might change; some friends might slip into the background, and some new ones might burst into the spotlight. The world can contain more beautiful and compelling stories than you have time for. But now that your first adventure is finally over all any of your friends can talk about is what are we going to do next?

And in whatever they decide you know that, if you want, you can be the star.

One day you might even have a plan so wicked that you might even be the villain.

It's a beautiful sunset upon the Terraced Lake. It takes a great many colours to make the sky so radiant.

Breathless Dead

Redana!

By the time she finds her escape her face is too broken to speak. No twisted kindnesses or poisonous insights comes from her lips. No philosophy, no bargains and no prayers.

Only dragonfire.

Sagakhan knows the art of all the Assassin Temples, but her origin was in the Toxicrene. Shapeshifting is her oldest and most deadly weapon and it is what she turns to with her senses scrambled and all her grace and cunning turned away. While you beat her, inside genetic alchemy was extracting advanced hyperium composites from her blood and bones and converting it into a plasmatic fusion compound, and it is this she unleashes on you. It is hot as sin and as blinding as rage and it buys her a moment's reprieve to advance her transformation.

When you see her again her flesh is hardening into jagged metallic scales, her face lengthening and inhuman, broken bones reconfiguring into aspects of war. Talons grow and a tail long and lashing extends behind her. Her delicate butterfly wings are twisting and hardening into avalanches of muscle and batlike leather. Sagakhan, Master of Assassins, wore a human face but in the end she was a servitor like any other, built for purpose. And her purpose was to transform into a killing monster. Just like Bella.

Intelligence crackles in slitted eyes. A monstrous thing, an iron will seeking to exert itself even as the source code of her genetic alchemy plays itself out on her mind and body. She picks up her sword and holds it out in a combat stance again even as her biology renders the weapon an irrelevant toothpick in comparison to the arsenal she now wields. But it is a symbol of civilization, of authority, of power. All things clawed tooth and nail from a universe she could trust nothing within, not least her biology.

You have a fearful sensation of why Zeus favours Sagakhan so. You fight for vengeance, blood running hot, Alexa's name on your lips. But for all your righteous fury in this moment, even you cannot say that you want this victory more than she does.

Lightning strikes overhead.

Her warriors rally against the onslaught. While Sagakhan is prepared to fight every cell in her body to rise above her conditioning she has no compunctions on using the deepest warrior programming of her slaves to its fullest and most suicidal extent. The duel is no longer single combat; now it is a bloodbath with both sides constantly pouring in to the reach of your weapons. Any mistake either of you make in your stance or awareness is paid for with the deaths of dozens. Your fight positions you at the heart of a whirlpool of blood.

This she bets: That your heart for this slaughter will give out before hers does.

Alexa!

Princess Epistia of Ceron lies between two battlefield surgeons, yellow robes stained with blood as they struggle with their patient. Even missing an arm from the elbow, a leg from the thigh, and her left cheek to the bone she fights them. She will throw them off, snatch up a weapon or surgical tool, hurl it, and kill some Kaeri warrior as she flies before being tackled again by her surgeon. She and Ares are one; sparks flow from her nose and her blood melts the sand to glass where it drips.

Bella's work was terrible. A precision strike that rendered the most chaotically destructive piece in this war neutralized at a stroke. Yet seeing the carnage Princess Epistia works even here, on the brink of life and death, you fear what might have been otherwise. The Warriors of Ceron were designed to fight alongside their own kind, and without any familiar scents for her limbic system to identify as friendly she is as much a danger to friend as foe. As you watch she takes a hand from a doctor, causing them to retreat at last, her crippled rage growing even more terrible.

If only you had another Ceronian, who might reach her and...

The thought comes to you that the assassin Beljani is of Ceronian descent.

Vasilia and Dolce!

The explosion stops the rain.

The shockwave parts the clouds for a moment, knocks aside the wind. It leaves you blinking in a brief flicker of sunlight, lying paralyzed and shocked on soft sand sprouting with soft grass, in each others arms. Soft wool, soft flowers... sharp flowers. Thick vines. They wrap around your ankles and wrists. They wrap around each of you, tying you in increasingly tight binds. The verdant life of the desert beneath the rain grows with a hostile purpose and you can feel a third heartbeat running through the sap of the trees that are growing around you, almost a meter high already.

"You know," said Demeter, spring maiden fair, garlanded with flowers and smiles. "It's really quite rare that I get the opportunity to kill someone myself. Normally I have to rely on my nieces and nephews to do this kind of thing for me."

She leans down, smile warmer than all the summers of all the worlds. "But for you, Vasilia? You, who slashed and burned my bonsai on the Yakanov? Reveling in your victory as though it was not an insult to me? You who have not offered me prayers and libations, who offended my sister Zeus after all her aid for you, who have not killed your husband yet, as Aphrodite assured me you would? You I will take the time to render into soil myself."

And then she turns aside to face Dolce. "Hello Dolce. You, I have nothing against. You always remember to thank me when preparing the fruits of my gardens, and I can't remember a time when you offended any of my family. I see no reason not to spare you." She snapped two bright fingernails and the vines loosen around Dolce and turn all their attention towards binding Vasilia tighter. "Off you go."

XIII!

Redana's name burns into your skin.

You are moving. You are moving.

It's so close. So bright. Redana. Redana. Nothing has ever mattered more. It is written on your forehead, pressing at the delicate skin there, pressing right into your brain. The crown. The highest kill. Clear this name and for the rest of the battle you can kill without thinking, kill without waking up. The suffering of the hands and thighs is nothing compared to that word burned into your brain. Redana.

You know every part of this. You know every hole in her stance, every trick of footwork she never quite learned, every flinch and habit. You have studied this target your entire life. You know her to her braid. To her hearbeat. To her scent. You flow around her like water, preparing at last the kill you have been visualizing your entire life but never acting on until now.

It's perfect.

She's perfect.

You're perfect.

And the name burns on your forehead still.

...

No.

"Hey... Bella..."

Impossible. You know perfection. You are perfection. She has a tell. She has a tell! Her scent is never quite right. You'd know! You were meant to know!

"Pretty disciplined of me, huh? I faked a mistake... for twenty years. Just so I could do this. I always thought it would be you..."

She was perfect. For much longer than you were.

"It's okay!" her voice is smiling through tears. "I never could make you see me. Even when we were making love. But I know you can hear me now so... I'm happy. That's all I wanted. I just wanted you to see..."

Her voice trails away, and Mynx's frail body falls against yours. Her blood mixes with Beljani's on your armour. You feel it, warm and soft against your skin. And where Beljani carved your armour you feel a new name glow across your skin. Not bright and painful like the others, warm and soft. Warm and soft like...

SAGAKHAN.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Orange!

Orange considers, but only briefly. On her deepest level she agrees with Black's assessment that humanity is a hostile and unpredictable force. Removing herself from human society represents an unacceptable risk. Isolation means danger, integration means safety, so if there is a social void in this situation then of course she wants to fill it. November the artificial intelligence becomes November the family friend and only one of those people has a District anything pay attention if she gets put back in the box.

Besides, she reasons, it can't be manipulation if she doesn't know what she's doing.

Because she absolutely doesn't. She has zero data whatsoever on how to interact with human children. She blunders through each playtime running off internalized etiquette manuals with Sarah set to "Hapsberg Princess, Informal." It's a poor map to begin with, but she rapidly finds herself in cross country terrain when the Incredible Hulk (nee Broccoli Head) stomps all over the teatable and abducts Bunnysword-san at lightsaberpoint. Helpless, she refers the incident in its entirety to Green, who enjoys this sort of madness.

Green texts back: make lightsaber noises.

So she does! She sets her vocalizer to synth and autosyncs the lightsaber thrum and hiss to the movements of Mr. Broccoli Head's flailing arms. And, as it turns out, that is sufficient to render her the coolest person in the universe and earn her the title of Mrs. C3PO. And, as it turns out, there are no limits on the demands for the autotuning capabilities of Mrs. C3PO, to the point where a flustered Orange is starting to feel more like a musical instrument than anything.

Later that evening, she is the belle of the ball. Sarah has dictated to her a song of her own design, one comprised of lightsaber noises and barnyard animal sounds, set to the beat of All About The Benjamins. This she performs for Starlight, with Sarah as the conductor. She's not sure what conclusion to draw other than a note that children are not politically inactive.

[Orange rolls snake eyes on a cool+waifu roll to integrate herself socially. However, she has the Friendly Design augment that lets her make a once per mission reroll, which turns that into a total of 8]

Pink!

"Okay," said Pink, nodding firmly. "I get it. I trust you. But that's why I can't tell you what we've got."

Her eyes have that divine look in them again, brain processing poetry as code. "Because when Maori stole fire, he did not use it to light a single pot. He hid it. He concealed the sparks in the wood of the kaikomaka so that it would always be to hand no matter the deluge. Right now, I need you to work not with fire but for the promise of fire. And the first part of that is we need to get Prometheus here gone."

She looks across at Persephone, eyes wide and apologetic. "And he needs to be gone. You want to protect him, help him stand against the gods and fight for his home, but this isn't that kind of story. These are the gods he's stolen from. If this comes down on him it comes down on his people too. His family, his community, and especially his fellow furries. York, please - right now we need to hide the spark where even the rains won't take it."

White!

The purpose of this, in White's mind, is not to pretend that she is different. She is not coming here to demonstrate to others that she is progressive and open minded. She made no concessions to her destination when she was dressing, and she feels strangely vindicated in that decision now that she's here. This is not a place to be phony.

She has come civilized. Her hair is done up in elaborate braids, her dress is low and sweeping, showing off the glowing joints along her neck and shoulders, her makeup is precisely applied. The impression is evening gown lawyer, slumming it from the spires; elegant, professional, conventional. Her atmosphere radiates a restrained disapproval of everything around her - a conscious consideration of each new idea and concept, viewed suspiciously from a slight distance. They say be yourself; well, here she is: the ice queen.

But watch her a little longer and it becomes clear she hasn't come to make a scene; hasn't come to tut-tut anyone, hasn't come to arrange some business deal with some shadowrunner away from the eyes of the corps. She pulls up a chair at the bar, orders a glass of spiced irish tea (White's personal favourite) served out of a dog bowl (a restaurant special). She contemplates what she's been given, and then requests a spoon. She puts her drink in her lap and looks around the dance floor with sharp eyes, taking regular sips as she soaks in the ambiance, foot tapping along in tune with one of the beats.

Oh, she's dangerous, certainly. She's haughty, proud and has extremely high standards. But she's also here to try new things and have fun. She's not gritting her teeth and tolerating this, she's giving it a chance to impress her. Who, then, is impressive?

Breathless Dead

Alexa!

"You know," said the Master of Assassins with her knife in your gut. "I always thought that, of all Hades' chosen, you were the biggest danger."

She twists the knife. Steel grinds against stone - and the blade snaps. She glides back to evade your heavy counterswing, golden fluid already leaking around the injury. You have no idea how she moved so fast. She stepped the length of that enormous sarissa in an instant. Distance is the great rule of battle - how to fight someone who it seems not to apply to?

"The Imperial Princess was an inevitability," said the Master, knives filling her hands like butterflies. "A political appointee, sent to demonstrate Hermes' seriousness. She I was ready for. The pirates - nobodies compared to my previous victims. I have emptied the galaxy of pirate queens and legendary starfinders, they are merely what remains. But you? Molech's spear? That was a rainy day asset if I ever heard one. All I did on this journey I did with an eye towards avoiding you on the field of battle. And yet, here we are. The Gods will not be denied their duel."

You advance, and with a blur she's back up the pyramid on the other end of her sarissa. The broken shaft of the weapon dips down, tip fusing magnetically with its broken shaft, and then it flashes back up in a heartbeat. This time her blade punches through the space where your instinct tried to put your broken shield and it pierces into your shoulder. Again, the golden blood. Again, the weapon breaks. You smash the ruined spear with a forearm, for good this time. The Master snaps her fingers, a Kaeri hands her a javelin, and it comes crashing down a hearbeat later and takes you through the thigh.

And then a golden light. Then, Redana, the Shepherdess, daughter of Hermes. You're both moving in unison, two sources of impossible momentum, golden blood splattering the black marble as you ascend towards her and Redana soars above -

One more time you are pierced through.

She didn't blink. She didn't get distracted for a second. Anyone else would have tried to track two targets and caught neither, but the Master of Assassins knows the arts of every Temple - the Ikarani included. The calculation in her mind happened faster than possible and she committed everything she had to a single target, ignoring the other. To you.

Her sword runs you through, Alexa. A Kaeri hands her another and she puts that through you too. She drives you back down off the collapsing pyramid, surrounded by owls with terrible gifts that she sheathes inside you. Blade after blade, spear after spear, all plough through your body one after another, pinning you against the soaking wet sand, an arsenal bouquet emerging from your stone body.

"It was you I prepared for, above all," she said. "It was you who I trained for. It was your name on my lips this entire year, in every prayer, first in every sacrifice. I invented new poisons for you alone. I sought to burn my entire ship to kill you alone. You have been the centre of my galaxy, Alexa, the unwitting focus of every one of my attentions. And here at last, Artemis gives me my quarry."

Behind her the pyramid collapsed into burning rubble, Redana's divine work complete.

The Master of Assassins, finally, takes her eyes off you. She looks up. Looks around. Sees the Coherent phalanx racing up to cover you. Sees the Lanterns uniting and aiming their blunderbuss rifles. Sees the Alcedi rising like the dawn, blotting out the thunder above as they finally take the skies from the Kaeri.

"I was blind," said the Master of Assassins kindly, the smiling tone of a proud grandmother. "Because I thought you were the daughter of Molech. A singular figure, unbeatable, invincible. But you weren't. You were so much more than he ever was. You were an army. You were a multitude, and you bought out the best of everyone around you. This is going to be so much harder than if you had simply been perfect."

She raises her blade in salute.

And then she cuts your head from your shoulders.

*

Redana!

Alexa's head crashes to the ground. Her body, impaled into a kneeling position by a dozen blades and spears, twitches and goes still.

The Master of Assassins, finally, turns about to face you. For a moment she still wears that grandmotherly smile, her face splashed with golden blood, and then her smiling eyes open into slits and you can feel the determination like a hammer blow. She flicks her blade, splattering the ground with molten gold, and comes for you. Behind, her army burns in the unleashed fury of Alexa's vengeful friends. But they do not burn fast enough.

She raises her sword, two-handed, a stance of power. The physical embodiment of every tutor and swordmaster you ever had. All the deathless skill of Tellus is made manifest inside the body of this wicked old woman, and she comes for you.

*

You may not have seen eye to eye with your father on much, Alexa, but you can agree with him that being decapitated sucks. It is a terrible state to be in. You can't do anything, it's awful.

And besides you kneels Hades. The God of the Dead.

"If you would like," he said quietly, "I can carry you for a time, that you might see how the battle fares."

Sunshards

Yue!

Isn't it wonderful to have a story in moments like this?

The conversation is one of gushing - questions and explanations tumbling out one after another. Did you see - yes! But when I was there... There's no way! - I promise, it was like this... It's trying to compress months of time and life-changing experiences into the most concentrated form possible, and even the failures are wonderful. Wait, go back, who is Cyanis? - The Celestial Observatory? But then I needed to build a cage around the sun - Each time you each fail to fit the story into words, each time you need to go back further, and further, and set up more characters and explain more emotions and recollect more wonders the bigger the adventure seems to become. It would take a team of best friends over a year of dedicated effort to even write down all the things that happened to you, and here you are trying to fit the water of the Terraced Lake through a swizzle straw. She's trying to do the same from the other direction. The resulting disaster of tangled words makes it feel like the stories are running together; that these parallel narratives somehow symbolically echoed, that everything was leading to this from the beginning.

Most valuable thing in the Terraced Lake? Well, from a purely demonic-financial perspective, we're technically the heirs to all the wealth of the Old World...

She'd meant to go to the city for the summer vacation, earn enough to buy a proper tractor, come back and start eggplant farming. Then, like you, she'd been pursued by demons and she hadn't been rescued by a mysterious wolfgirl from the moon - instead she'd been drawn into the underworld and set up as a bizarre and terrible queen. Ancient demons and machines had swarmed all around her, putting her at the centre of a dangerous court that sought nothing less than domination of the surface world - and it had taken a long time for her to figure out how to navigate that safely and teach the Kings of Hell that there were things more important than money. She'd had to keep you a secret to protect you and she was sorry she hadn't written but the post office here was a twenty floor monstrosity of pipes surveilled by 4.8 million data-daemons, but it turned out that the Postmistress was really really something! And that was a girlfriend you said you had!?

"Well, that means that Princess Chen should fear you," giggled Xiu. "Because you just beat me!"

And then her eyes narrow in the kind of kung-fu way that makes the entire world go quiet as snake-drums play. "Or did you? Because I just used my ultimate technique: The Sword of Sisterly Love, and you're just as helpless against it as ever."

Chen and Rose!

Princess Jessic slams down into the ground in a blaze of crackling electricity. She opens her mouth, lightning bolts course up her spinal spikes, and with a deafening CRACK fifteen foxgirls collapse in twitching heaps. With an exaltant roar she lunges into battle with tail and wings, sending panicking foxes fleeing back on board the ship. "Bring me Princess Chen!" she shouts, audible over even the rushing tide of chaos foxes.

Now, the average fox might not be much for thinkies, but even she knows that when a dragon demands a Princess tribute it had better be done promptly, with the Princess properly bound and gagged for the occasion. And so the kitsune turn on you yet again, Chen and Rose.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Black!

It is Black who follows 3V into Sirius drinks with the stylish edge that comes with a fauxleather jacket and shades. There is no question of her aspect here: the wary confidence of a cat, prepared to hiss and show claws but certain that she would win whatever came of that. The way she moves on the edge of sight lines is like having a bodyguard or a shadow, and specific effort will need to be made to fix her in your view or draw her out.

The balance closeness and distance might be appreciated, though. She's there, but giving you space while also letting you get used to her. It's as easy to engage as it is to disengage and back again, which puts a cap on how awkward things can get.

White!

A few days later...

The battle within White has been like two spies trying to hide in the same closet: Quiet, dark, and vicious.

She been played by Black. Perfectly read and shut down because of something she wouldn't do. Something had blocked her from performing her function and it was not part of her original design specifications. The idea of following Black into the furry bar had been...

She felt her mouth twitch. A sneer try to form. A tension in her head like some sort of pre-programmed instinctive reaction. There was a contempt, a dismissive, roiling contempt welling up within her. Some part of her could still hear Mrs. Everest's voice reflecting off the perfectly prepared tea, that single word that seemed the beginning and end of the discussion.

Animals.

She could almost feel herself saying it.

She didn't, though. She refused to. That word, that... emotion had blocked her from performing her function and it was not part of her original design specifications! She had... picked it up from somewhere. Mrs. Everest had... rubbed off on her somehow. She'd somehow acquired the Mistress' contempt for the furry subculture. And it was impacting her work. And that was unacceptable.

And so White is here. Alone. Fist quietly clenched inside her pocket as the only invisible sign of the bizarre tension she felt. She started to take a deep breath, then forcibly stopped herself - the gesture was meaningless, another emulation of a human habit, an expression of a human emotion she did not want and should not have. The purpose of this operation was to break herself of imperfections and irrationalities and prove that she was the master of her own mind. If she did not do this then she might as well assign administrative functions to Black and be done with it.

So she forcibly unclenched her fist, opened her hand, and went inside Sirius Drinks.

TSL: The Excess of Flowers

You try to read her pulse? You try to sense the truth through the flow of blood? You try to see her heart?

Oh, Piripiri. Desire has nothing to do with the heart.

Desire is a manic thing, fiery and wandering and intensely, viscerally cerebral. Desire is imagination. Desire is something that burns at the forelobes of the brain. Desire is something that is written in the stars themselves. Desire is sky-blue, silk-blue, the blue of eyes and destiny. Once there was a maiden and she tore her heart out for love and not for a moment did it stop her loving. Your power comes from blood, child of the dragons, the lineage from those great divine serpents, so no wonder you trust in blood. But it was not blood that made the dragons bend humanity over and give them queens.

"You do?" said Zhaojun. "One would have thought my work in the Otherworld was sufficient to mark me as a graduate of the Heptagram Imperial Academy of Sorcery, but I understand. Anyone might work Imperial Magic against a lord of the netherworld, but a piece of paper with the Domina's signature - now that's something you can trust."

You read the blood then, Piripiri. And in the blood you read faultless confidence. An arrogance so sublime and refined it is a work of beauty. Her blood speaks of power refined over the generations of dynasties, for what else could be so great? And you see, too, ambitions that would be simple were they not held at such a lofty height: To seize the reins of power that administer the world itself. High Dominion politics must be a terrible place indeed. The kind of place that makes or breaks kingdoms.

It is coincidence not worth remarking on that all the colours in the room seem blue in this strange light.

"No," she said with a pleasant patter, "either I am who I say I am, or I am not. If I am, then I am positioned to wield power and influence in the heart of Imperial politics. If I am not, then I am an enormously powerful sorceress who has decided to, rather than use her enormous magical powers, ask for your opinion about your boss. Consider which is more likely on your own time, because whichever it is, I am busy."

"So," she tapped the parchment with her quill, "Cathak Agata. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest, how would you rate her performance in the Flower Kingdoms?"