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((OK, what’s Keris’s assumed starting point for when she’s prepared to get home. How strong does she want Atiya to be before she tries the trip across the Desert?))
((Hmm. Well, they’ll be going in the Baisha, which is nice and comfortable and well-protected, and she’s keen to see Sasi. So not long, really, since the stress of the trip isn’t a factor and she can spend the whole time caring for Atiya in a nice warm room in between bouts of chasing the twins as they try to investigate parts of the ship they’re not allowed in.))

The sight of the Baisha is not entirely sweet for Keris. Lord Ligier’s orb is a nagging reminder of the debts she owes him - and how he expects repayment.

She leans over the side, and sighs. Her children are all back. Asarin accompanied them, and Keris asked a favour of Lilunu to help her sensitive ally feel appreciated and respected. In the meantime, she has to decide what she’s doing with them.
“Rathan,” she starts, since he’ll likely be the easiest. “Do you want to stay out as we go back to Creation, or are you feeling like going back to the Sea with Oula?” He comes up behind her, wrapping his hair around her shoulders.
“What would be easier for you, mama?” he asks.

“It’s been lovely having you with me,” she admits. “But I’m getting a little lonely in there, and I could use my Amulet back. Plus, Calesco could probably use someone to vent to.”

“Vent to?” he asks, raising his fine eyebrows.

“She and Kuha...”

Keris pauses. “Well, Oula was there. She can explain. But yes, Calesco’s far from happy and could probably use a sibling or two. Which,” she adds, “is why I’d like you to go back too, Eko.”

Eko spreads her hands in shock and outrage. But Mama promised she could stay with Asarin until Calibration, she fumes.

“I promised no such thing,” Keris says. “I said you could stay with her a little longer. Which you have. And your little sister needs your support.”

This is so unfair, especially after everything Eko has done for her! She’s so underappreciated, Eko indicates with a flick of her hair. From the goodness of her heart - and getting a broken arm in the process - she went and got Mama the way to pay for her new baby! And what does she get for that? Oh, hi new baby, she waves at Atiya. But yes! What does she get from that? She gets packed away and sent back home!

Keris sighs. Her eldest is always most annoying when she kind of has a point.

“Thank you, Eko,” she says, half sincere and have exasperated. “Really. You really have been helpful, and I’m very grateful to you for helping with Atiya. But while there will be a point where I invite you out into Creation to play, that point isn’t now. Besides, the Ruin is missing you.”

Eko pouts, but a bit more sadly. But she wants to hang around with her new friend and do each other’s hair and kill monsters and overthrow other lords of Hell and try on pretty dresses and go to dances, she whines.

“I’m not saying you can’t ever,” says Keris patiently. “But I’ve been missing Haneyl for months, and I want all of my babies together for a while. Maybe next year you can have an internship with Asarin the way Haneyl has had with Sasi.”

Eko wobbles her hand. Is this really worth a favour to get to stay out, she asks herself.

Keris raises an eyebrow. “Eko,” she says warningly. “If you call in that favour now, your odds on another one in the future start dropping. And Calesco is sad and heartbroken, don’t you want to go hug her and cheer her up?”

This is outrageous, Eko blusters. The use of threats and blackmail and extortion to stop a poor innocent girl from using a favour to spend time around her best friend!

“Oh, shut up, Eko,” Rathan yawns. “This is boring and it’s gone on long enough. And Mama’s already snuck a hair tendril around your sleeve, so if you try to run, she’ll just suck you in.”

Betrayal, Eko exclaims, throwing her arms out widely.

“Yes, yes,” Keris sighs. “Now, in.” She tugs, and Eko unravels into sulkily complaining ribbons that twine around and into Keris’s hair until they’re all gone.

Keris offers a hand to Rathan. “You too? Oula went back in a little before you arrived - she has a surprise waiting for you. Possibly several surprises.”

Rathan scratches his chin. “As long as I’m not missing any nice goodbye dinners or presents from Lady Lilunu,” he says with a casual shrug. “Then fine.”

“You’re not that I know of,” says Keris. She hugs him, stretching up on tiptoe and pulling him down a little to get her arms over his shoulders. “Thank you so much, darling,” she murmurs. “You were invaluable on this trip. The whole time - in Baisha, in Terema, in Malra. I couldn’t have done it without you. You were perfect, and I am so, so proud of you.”
Rathan hums happily. “Yes, I was, and I am perfect,” he says, with a flick of his hair. Keris giggles, and pulls him in gently, sending him off to the Sea and whatever surprise beyond her tattoos Oula has waiting in his moon-palace.
Then she turns to Vali and Zanara.

“So then,” she says. “You two. I assume you want to stay out and come to Saata and help me there?”

Vali cracks his knuckles. “Yeah!”

Nara flutters his butterfly wings up to perch on one of the ledges. “Yes, mama.”

“Alright, well then we need things to anchor you both. Zanara, I guess you want the-”

Keris hasn’t even finished the sentence before Nara has grabbed the Amulet Rathan left behind, and she chuckles indulgently. “So that leaves Vali. Great as the red-jade dragon armour is, it’s a bit bulky to wear all the time. But I think I have some hearthstone bracers from Yamal’s tomb; would those suit you?”

Vali scratches his head. “Guess so,” he says. “If something else works better, I guess we’ll find out.”

“I’ll dig them up on the way, then. Now, Mehuni and Neride are getting the Baisha ready to depart, so while we wait for that, you two can meet your newest little sister properly.”

Vali reaches out with a big finger, and hovers over Atiya’s face hesitantly. “She’s so tiny,” he says. “And she looks so ill.”

“The way we made her... it was difficult,” Keris admits. “She’s premature - born too soon. Her lungs aren’t strong enough to breathe well yet, and she’s not got much resistance to illness. Even less than most babies.” She kisses the crown of Atiya’s head tenderly. “I hope it won’t hurt her health as she grows up, but... it might.”

Vali’s jawline tenses. “She’s going to get strong,” he promises. “I’ll help her and keep her safe until she’s strong enough that she doesn’t need me. She’s going to fight every bit of hurting and illness she gets and she’s going to win!”

Nara’s eyes widen. “Are you sure you want to prom-” he begins.

“Yes!”

Keris knows exactly how seriously Vali takes his promises. She blinks in shock for a moment, and then smiles and leans down to kiss her son on the forehead.

“Good boy,” she says. “You’re going to be such a good big brother for her, I can tell. While we’re travelling I’ll tell you about how to help look after her, okay?”

Vali nods. “Yes.” He looks Keris in the eye, his tawny orange eyes bright. “You told me that I needed to be a good big brother for Kali and Ogin, and Atiya needs me even more. I’ll keep them all safe and teach them things.”

Hugging her son again, Keris allows herself a moment of pride and comfort before throwing herself back into preparations for the trip.

---

Lilunu of course makes sure she’s well provisioned - and gives Zanara in person a gorgeous little set of paints that Keris is more than a little jealous of.

Captain Neride is... less pleased to see Keris, or rather less pleased that Keris has shown up after half a year of leaving her sitting in port with nothing to do. She considers it an affront to her dignity, Keris decides by a day into the trip. The Helmsman... doesn’t care, and the Priest is, as usual, inscrutable.

Of course, Keris has things to hide from him.

((Cog + Subterfuge to decieve him about Vali and Zanara, announce charms in use too))
((Hahaaa, fuck, using Carmine Mantled Emissary, Beauty Over Truth and Haar-Hidden Dealings to throw a +3 external penalty up, cloud any suspicion from Keris’s past actions and make Keris’s very much deliberate efforts to keep the Priest away from her children seem totally justified.
3+5+2 stunt+8 Kimmy ExD {secrets, kept with guile}=20. 12 sux.))

Keris makes sure to keep her children - all of her children - well away from the Priest for the entire journey; resorting to Rathan’s innocent light when her excuses and arbitrary refusals start to stretch thin. She enlists Zanara and Vali to help, and even Kali and Ogin seem to understand the need to be quiet and not launch escape attempts when the blue-fire-robed-thing is nearby.
Keris thinks it’s enough. Hopes, at least. She's fairly sure she’s got away with it. The stalking figure seems content that she’s simply paying attention to her purpose and her tasks - and has some dry words to that effect.
In the mean time, Keris has to split her time between caring for Atiya and keeping the extremely excitable twins under control. And by day three, Vali is also starting to be a problem as he’s feeling confined by the ship.

“Two more days, darlings,” Keris repeats, until the words lose meaning in her ears and she wants to throttle something. “Just two more days and then we’ll be out in Creation.” She enlists Vali to try and repair some of the Shogunate armour she took from Eshtock, on the grounds that it’s at least something for him to do and she took a fair amount of it. The twins are rather harder to keep contained - and on the Calesco front, there’s been only worrying silence.

She does manage to stop in at the quarters of her mortal entourage - Piu, Xasan and the Tairan girls - at least once a day to see how they’re doing and lay Rathan-haloed words of reassurance down where necessary. And, occasionally, to enlist help in keeping Kali from running wild when Atiya needs all of her attention.

It’s honestly a relief when they surface in the South West, in a sargasso-laden sea under a bright blue sky. The heat and the humidity wash over everyone as Keris leads travel-weary people out onto deck to get some fresh air and sunlight. Atiya needs it - she’s jaundiced.

“Still better than the desert and all that sand,” Xasan says, pulling off his boots and sprawling out on the still-wet deck. “This is nice, Keris.”

“I know,” moans Keris, sprawled out on deck and almost purring in the fresh air and the salt smell. “Gods, I want to go swimming.” She eyes the ocean water longingly, but sighs and returns her attention to Atiya, smoothing some more sun-guard ointment over her delicate skin. “We’re not far from An Teng here - maybe four hundred miles, uh... that way.” She assesses the distant hovering peak of the Imperial Mountain with a glance and then sticks a hair tendril out at right angles to it.

“And then that way,” she adds, another hair tendril gesturing directly away from the needle-like spire above the Centrewards horizon, “is Saata, if you keep going for fifteen hundred miles or so and slip between Nightfall and whatsitsname; the one that looks like a bit like a frog on the maps.”

With a flop, Ogin collapses down onto the wet-but-warm hull, and spreads his arms and tails out. He coos and looks like he’s going to sleep.

“Gin! Gin!” Kali points down at him and how his smock is already drenched. “Mama, Gin wet!”

“Yes, he is!” Keris coos. “That’s because this is the sea, little feather. It’s a big wet. A big, big wet. Like a river, but instead of going just one way it goes everywhere!” She stretches out her hair to demonstrate.

“And look! The sun is all bright and warm here! Isn’t that nicer than freezing cold and snow?”

Kali squirms around on Keris, looking over the water, and even squints up at the sun. “‘ellow!” she declares, pointing at the sun. “No gree’!”

“No, this is a Ney sun, not a Ligier sun,” Keris says, not voicing an opinion on which she prefers. “You can growl at this one if you want, baby.”

“Grr,” Kali says obediently. Then her daughter grins at Keris, and spontaneously kisses her on the nose. “Sun!” she says happily. “Sun sun sun sun!”

It seems Kali missed sunlight in the Baisha. She doesn’t seem to care much whether it’s Creation’s sun or Hell’s. But then again, she does draw from both solar and infernal natures.

Keris enjoys the kisses and affection from her daughter until with a pop and a squawk they’re replaced with pecks, and then uses a couple of hair tendrils to fly Kali around in figure-of-eights as she flaps her stubby little wings and carols gleefully.

Atiya, meanwhile, gets a careful hair-veil that lets enough sunlight through to help with her jaundice but not enough that she risks overheating, and Ogin gets gently stroked and some tail-combing while he’s too sleepy to squirm away from it.

Blissfully occupied with her children, Keris sits on the deck of her demonic flagship as it bobs among the sparkling blue waves, listening with half an ear to the activities of her shipboard companions.

Eventually, though, she’s dallied for long enough.

“Iris?” she says lightly. “I need you to carry a message for me, darling. Actually, wait, no. Let’s keep you a surprise.” The little dragon quirks her head at Keris and seems to shrug, settling back on her hand as Keris sends Rounen off instead with a message to Sasi that they’ve arrived back in Creation and are on their way.

A few commands to Neride and the Helmsman have them taking a covert route towards Sasi’s country house, and Keris reluctantly retreats back inside the Baisha, out of the sun for the few hours it will take for them to get there. She grins when she emerges. Someone has dredged the channel since the last time she visited Sasi’s country estate, sailing up the river - and yes, when she gets there around sunset, she finds there’s a hidden submerged dock that’s still got the clean lines of fresh-cut stone.

“Aaaaand we’re here,” she says. “Uncle, if you could take Kali and Ogin? And Rounen, stay close, I may need to hand Atiya to you for a moment when I throw myself at Sasi. Vali, Zanara, come on. Haneyl will be there with her, and I know you’re both eager to jump on her and talk up a storm.”

Keris ascends a hidden staircase, and slides the door open. Ears perking up, she hears that Sasi isn’t in the house - and neither is Haneyl.

When she remarks that, Zana immediately grins. “Let’s go rummage through Hanny’s bedroom and see what she’s managed to pick up,” she says.

“Don’t-” she starts, but it’s too late. With a sigh, she reclaims the twins from Xasan and follows, hoping to at least avert some of the damage. A nod to Rounen has him stay back to organise everyone in the more publicly accessible areas of the house and see about finding some food after their long trip.

“Hmm,” Zana says critically, thumbs hooked into her sash as she strolls the corridors. “Well, I mean, it could be less pretty, but I don’t think much of the colour scheme here. And the architecture is way too straight and bleh.” She grins. “Although this,” she says, sprinting over to a collection of miniature trees, “this is Hanny’s work. It’s great. She’s clearly been trying to bring more life to the place. And,” she perks up, sniffing the air, “that means that Hanny’s room is probably... this way!”

Keris isn’t sure what logic Zanara is using, but she gets there in one or two goes.

“Hanny is going to put plants along the places she goes the most,” Zana says with a shrug as she kneels by a double pair of doors, picking the lock with her hair. “She’ll make plant corridors where she sees the most. Bet you a talent that this is her room.”

Keris doesn’t need to bet, of course - she can smell her daughter’s spent a lot of time here. The fact that there’s probably thirty different kinds of plant - including ones that only grow in the Swamp - on the other side is a bit of a clue. And there’s other hints, too.

Zana gets the lock open, and swings the doors open. “Oooh, pretty,” she says approvingly.

And it is pretty. Haneyl has taken the Tengese look of the room, and layered on aspects of the Realm and of Nexus and the Swamp in it. Of course there are plants everywhere - little bonsai trees she’s working on and has placed around (probably so she can have snacks if she wakes up, looking at the size of the apples growing from the small trees). They’re all either blossoming or bearing fruit.

There’s paintings on the wall - a mix of fine Tengese collections and some things Keris recognises as being her daughter’s own hand, and a balcony that’s a jungle in minature, with plants channeling rainwater from the roof’s gutters into a storage plant that’s flooded a dammed off area.

Of course, Keris smiles as she rifles through Haneyl’s walk-in closet, her daughter has apparently amassed a truly impressive wardrobe in a few months. Some of them are unfamiliar and are probably gifts from Sasi, but a good number were clearly woven herself. Those ones have Zana the happiest.

“This is great!” Zana says, spreading her arms wide. “She’s not wasted her time! Oooh, this weaving is so thin! She has to show me how to do it!”

Haneyl’s bed is of course massive - big enough for four, and full of plumped up pillows and soft throws. There’s more plants growing on her bedside table - tea, coffee, Maiden’s Tea...

Keris stalls, twitches slightly, moves on, stalls again, moves back, and picks up the plant pot.

“Wh-why is this here?” she chuckles, another faint twitch crossing her face. “Why does Haneyl have Maiden’s Tea on her bedside table? She hasn’t said anything about a boyfriend in her tenday messages!”

“Huh?” says Zana, who’s still rifling through her sister’s wardrobe and has started pulling down some garments and trying them on. They don’t fit, of course, and not just for height. “Blue Hells, Hanny’s boobs must be huge now. Way bigger than yours, Keris.” She presses the dress against Keris. “This wouldn’t fit you, with how much loose fabric there is on you when this is clearly so cut to be figure hugging.”

“...” says Keris. “Right! Okay then! We are leaving Haneyl’s bedroom now! Because if we are here when she gets back, there will be screaming and fire instead of hugging and questions!” She shoves the... honestly, it’s not even a very good dress, it’s... it... the cut is...

... anyway, Keris shoves the blasted thing back in the drawer and drags Zanara back out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her and relocking it with a hair tendril.

She then realises she’s still holding the Maiden’s Tea, and almost drops it in her haste to shove it onto a hall table.

“Aww,” Zana whines. “What’s the big idea, Keris? I was going to find her diary once I’d finished checking her clothes!”

Keris glances back towards the room speculatively... and then remembers the Maiden’s Tea again, and imagine what might be in that diary. “Haha,” she laughs with a shudder. “No. Nope. Not happening. We are going downstairs, and you can help me cook something that’ll bowl Haneyl over with how good it tastes and make her really impressed.”

It’s then that Keris hears a familiar song - a Nexan one from the streets. Well, from the music halls, in fact, drifting in from a long way away. When she focuses on that, though, not only can she hear the sound of someone with shears, but the song has Haneyl’s heat in it.

Oh, of course. The sun is still up, but it’s cooled down. She’s probably out in the gardens. This is Haneyl, after all.

“Ah,” she says knowingly. “She is here after all. Just out in the gardens. Come on; let’s go and say hello.”

Sweeping downstairs, Keris collects Vali and Xasan, leaving Rounen with the mortal girls, and leads her little parade out into the beautiful jungle that Haneyl has made of Sasi’s country house grounds. She presses a finger to her lips as they approach, winking at Vali to get him in on surprising his sister.

Away from the noise of the household, Keris can also hear Aiko’s laughter - and if Aiko’s there in that shaded veranda, then Sasi is also there, quietly reading notes while a servant reads a story to her daughter. They’re closer than Haneyl, who’s down by the river’s edge.

Keris’s eyes light up as she sees her love, and she carefully hands off the twins to Xasan and Atiya, very gently, to Vali.

It’s sort of adorable seeing him so intently focus on supporting her head right.

Then, with a kiss for all five of her babies and a conspiratorial grin, Keris sneaks into the veranda and leans against a pillar a little way behind Sasi. She checks her clothes quickly - the Harbourite dress, all reds and yellows and browns, with her hair up in a set of interwoven ponytails and her arms and shoulders bared.

She takes a deep breath, nervous butterflies dancing round her belly. And then she speaks.

“Hey there, stranger,” Keris says lightly. “Long time no see.”

((And yes, that was a Ney entrance.))
((He left an impression~))

“You know, dear,” Sasi says, turning a page in her book with a crisp sound, “that might have actually surprised me if I hadn’t felt you enter my personal space.”

Keris feels the unseen butterfly-kisses of her senses running up and down her skin. “Well, look at you. As beautiful as ever. And you’ve had the babies. And picked up... something in your arm.” Sasi tuts sadly. “I can’t leave you alone for any time, can I? Obviously you’ve got into all kinds of wild adventures and probably had your children in some kind of backend place and left me worrying sick.” She still hasn’t looked at Keris, adding archly. “And all you spare me is a ‘hey there, stranger’? No romantic declarations of eternal love?”

Keris pouts, dances around the seat and seats herself across Sasi’s lap, snatching the book up and out of the way with a hair-bookmark at Sasi’s place.

“I missed you every single day,” she murmurs, flexing her arms as she drapes them around Sasi’s shoulders. “I thought of you over and over, I looked forward to seeing you again for months. There were so many times I wanted you there with me, to share what I’d found with you or show off what I’d done for your approval, or just so you could be brilliant and perfect and you.”

She looks up into Sasi’s eyes, batting her own forlornly. “If I don’t seem serious about how good it is to see you again, my love, it’s only because I think my voice would break if I tried to put the depth of it into words.”

Sasi smiles at that, meeting Keris’s gaze with her iridescent eyes, which twinkle. “Now that’s more like it,” she says. “Well-met by twilight, my demonic princess. Returned from your far off hellish lands to ravish me and corrupt my mind with wicked things?”

“Oh, so many. But first, my gorgeous sorceress-queen, I have some very special people for you to meet. Come on out, now!”

Her little group trickles into the veranda, and Keris beams, sliding off Sasi’s lap to hug Vali and recover her infants. “This is Vali; Haneyl’s brother, and these are- where’s Zanara?”

“Snuck off to surprise Haneyl before you could so she’d be the first thing Hanny saw,” Vali informs her. “She waited about two seconds after you left before going. I’d’ve gone too, but I had Atiya.”

“...” says Keris, and sighs. There may be a subvocal mutter of “brats” in there, not that she’s telling.

“Anyway,” she picks back up, trying to salvage the moment. “This is Vali, who takes you as a parent just as Haneyl does. Zanara you’ve met, and these are Kali and Ogin, my twins. Who... were, yes, born on a freezing cold mountainside in rural Taira. It was awful, and everything you told me about birthing Aiko was lies.”

She’s smiling as she says it - or at least only pouting playfully - so there’s no sting to the words. “Then this is my little Atiya, the baby of the family, and my uncle Xasan. He...”

Her face flickers for a moment, closing with grief before reverting to the happy smile as she refocuses on Sasi. “He was my mother’s brother,” she finishes. “I found him in Taira - along with...!” Reeling herself in, Keris clears her throat. “Ah, well, that’s a story for later. It’s kind of long. Darlings?”

She plops herself back on the seat beside Sasi, gesturing Vali closer and directing her attention to the twins. “This is Sasimana. Sa-si. Mama loves her very very much, and you can always trust her. Isn’t she pretty? Say hello!”

Ogin, of course, doesn’t say a thing. He just stares at Sasi with his cool silver eyes.

His sister has no such constraints. “Si!” she chirrups. “Si!”

“Ahem!” a little voice demands. It’s Aiko, thick brows furrowed, head poking out from behind the wicker chair she’s sat on. Her emerald eyes are narrowed as she glares at Keris. “You are all loud. This is my reading time and mama is going to make me go to bed soon!”

Her jet black hair - the same colour as Atiya’s - is cut neatly into a little princess-like hime cut. Her skin, though, has changed - it’s faded from the inhuman black she was the last time Keris saw her. She’s still darker than her father and her lips remain as black as ever, but she can pass much more normally as a human girl. Keris wonders whether it was something Sasi did, or some reaction to sunlight.

Her attempt to be a dignified young lady is of course ruined when Sasi sweeps her up with a grunt, and carries her daughter to meet the newcomers. “Aiko, this is Keris! You’ve been waiting for her to come back. And look, she’s brought her children along so you’ll have lots of people to play with! You like Keris, don’t you?”

“Do not!” Aiko is a scowly little toddler. “Only Rou-Rou.”

Keris is, for perhaps the first time, actually charmed. Somehow, Aiko being able to talk instead of just scream and interrupt her time with Sasi - her being a tiny person instead of a loud ruiner-of-evenings - makes her adorable even when she’s being sulky.

“It’s lovely to see you again, Aiko,” Keris greets her with a smile. “I actually have a present for you if you want - all the way from the other side of Creation! And Rounen is here too, and he has lots of stories saved up from where we went travelling together.”

Aiko pouts. “Better be good stories,” she informs Keris seriously.

Vali sidles up to her. “Are you really a dragon?” he asks.

Aiko glares at him. “Huh?”

“I’m one too. Dragons are the best.”

Keris feels Iris squirm out of her arm, swimming through the air as a two-dimensional shape. The little tattoo-dragon nods seriously at that, and Aiko’s eyes go wide, then there’s a blush on her dark skin as she smiles widely. “Look, mama!” she squeals. “It’s so pretty!”

“Ah, yes,” says Keris sheepishly. “I forgot our last introduction. This is Iris.” She lifts her tattooed hand and lets the many-part dragon play about her fingers, slipping onto her skin and then launching back off it again to curl around Aiko’s shoulders and offer up her occult flame of Yozi essence for Aiko’s attention. Aiko lets out a high pitched squeal that has Sasi almost leaping into action, but then it turns into giggles and they realise that Iris is licking Aiko’s neck.

Sasi, of course, leans in towards Iris in a way that Keris has only seen before a few times. Something has grabbed Sasi by the curiosity.

“Fascinating,” Sasi breathes. “A creature - ink and flesh and skin - made of blended Yozi powers. It’s living in your arm? And,” she reaches out, “look at it, it’s like a moving image that... ow!”

Iris has bitten Sasi in the finger. She retreats back to her protective position around Aiko’s neck.

“That’s not a demon,” Sasi says firmly. “Demons can’t attack me.”

“She’s...” Keris starts, then thinks better of it. “Lilunu was involved,” she says instead. “I’ll tell you the whole story somewhere private. And, uh. then the story that came after it, which is just as interesting but which may make you groan at me.”

Sasi licks her finger. “Ow,” she says, rubbing it. “Is this the kind of story that means I’m going to need a stiff drink to calm my nerves, or is this the kind of story where you’re talking about something you did that make me think you’d probably had too many stiff drinks to start with?”

Keris considers the question for a moment.

“... yes,” she decides. “Both of those things. Anyway! Vali! I think Haneyl and Zanara are wrapping up, so come over and meet your... other mother?” She glances at Sasi to check her reaction to the description. “... ah, before you start wrestling with your sister and bragging about the dragon armour. Which, please don’t do, or she’ll want a set as well.”

Vali perks up. “Oh yeah, Aiko’d look great in dragon armour!”

“You got your hands on dragon armour?” Sasi asks at the same time. “And no. Just... no.”

“Why not?” Aiko demands, on the grounds that it sounds like a present.

“It’s too big for you, darling,” Keris puts in. “Way too big. My size. And it’s also very heavy. But...” A flick of her fingers produces a little morsel saved from Malra - a few blocks of chocolate. “You can have this. Your mama might recognise what it is, if you haven’t had it before.”

While Aiko gets to work on the chocolate - which she likes a lot - Sasi takes in Vali. Seeing the two of them together, the kinship is more obvious. There’s something about the shape of the eyes and the stubborn jawline, even if their colouration couldn’t be more different.

“I mean, hi,” Vali contributes. “I dunno what Hanny sees the big deal as being. I guess you’re pretty. But since Aiko’s another sister, I’ll keep her safe too. But I mean, Atiya’s all small and ill so she really needs my safe-helping more than Aiko.”

Sasi blinks, and looks to Keris for help.

“Atiya is premature,” Keris explains, her mood dampening a little. “Vali promised to look after her and help her get strong and tough and not ill or frail anymore. He takes being a big brother and looking after his little siblings seriously.” She smiles proudly at him.

“And if Hanny’s been a pain, I’ll just punch her in the face for you,” Vali offers generously. “She’s a big sister. She doesn’t need to be protected like the little ones.”

Keris is watching and sees the little flicker on Sasi’s face. It’s not just amusement; that’s what she hides it with. It’s a little bit of honest temptation. “I’ll bear that in mind,” Sasi says. “And on that note, Keris, walk with me alone for a bit. I just want to talk to you about Haneyl for a bit so you know what to expect.”

“Right,” Keris says, slightly uneasily. She hands Atiya back over to Vali and lets Xasan take the twins. Her uncle hasn’t said anything yet - he’s been watching Sasi; taking the measure of this woman his niece is besotted with.

That can wait, though. For the moment, Keris gives Sasi another hug and a kiss as they stand, and lets herself be led off into the garden, away from where Haneyl and Zanara are.

Sasi leans in to kiss Keris. “I really have missed you, dear,” she says, after coming up for air. “And you are looking much happier than you were when I left for Calibration. Motherhood suits you - and finding an uncle too?” There’s a softness in Sasi’s eyes. “It’s a wonderful thing to be surrounded by one’s family.”

“An uncle, a brother, a sister-in-law cousin and a niece,” Keris beams. “The others are on their way by ship - I didn’t want to take them through Hell. And... yes.” A blissful smile splits her face. “They’re perfect. My perfect little babies. I didn’t know I could love anything this much...”

She sniffs, tearing up a little at the feelings and hugging herself, spinning on a heel with glee. “Oh, and there’s been so much, love. I don’t even know where to start... though,” she adds in a faintly peeved tone. “On the side of what’s happened here, I’d quite like to know why Haneyl has Maiden’s Tea on her bedside table.”

“Because any girl should always have some close to hand,” Sasi says casually. “You can’t trust men to want to take it.” She pauses. “Although yes. I suppose it was sort of inevitable. She’s my daughter and your daughter, and your greed on top of it all. Haneyl has quite the appetite.”

“...” says Keris. Her expression speaks volumes. “Um. What... what do you mean by that? Because she didn’t say anything about a boyfriend in her letters...”

“Well, I wouldn’t say she has a boyfriend, exactly,” Sasi says, sitting down on a bench below lemon trees. “I suppose her most stable relationships are either with her maid, or a handsome young man who’s one of the gardeners.” She raises her hands placatingly. “Don’t worry, I made sure to pick a pretty girl from a Yozi cult who liked girls to be Haneyl’s handmaid.”

“... most... stable?” Keris croaks, not wanting to know and yet not able to stop herself asking.

“This is, ah, where the controversy comes in, and the little,” Sasi makes a tiny separation between her fingers, “issue might arise. She is, ah, not welcome at court anymore in An Teng, and I had to pull some strings. She’s, ah, effectively under house arrest in my household due to certain...” Sasi looks for words, “... indiscretions. And the Tengese are so tiresome with their lack of understanding of the human heart, I don’t exactly blame Haneyl for falling afoul of some of their more boring standards. But I do think it would be better for you to take her home with you to Saata, at least until the scandal dies down.”

Keris is silent for a moment, processing that.

“Sasi,” she says, at length. “What in the fuck did she do?”

The story comes out, with Sasi showing very little shame - and even some approval.

So, it appeared that Haneyl had fairly quickly taken up with her handmaid and one of the gardeners - with Sasi’s encouragement as she viewed them as good ‘training’ and ‘practice’.

That had apparently seemingly only whetted her appetites, and once Sasi introduced her to the Tengese social scene as a young debutante her horizons had broadened. Her conquests then had included a young nobleman who was part of one of Sasi’s cults, and a young countess with an older husband who had excellent gardens on her land and Haneyl and her had been ‘discussing botany’ at length.

“I did warn her away from Viscount Sukhothaya,” Sasi says firmly. “I know she wanted to get into his private library, but I put a stop to that. He’s too old for her.”

The... drama had happened, though, when Haneyl had made her grand entrance at one of the greater parties of the season, and over the course of the night seduced both Prince Prawat, the third son of Prince Laxander of the Shore Lands, and his fiancee, an heiress and the great niece of the prince of the Middle Lands.

“Both separately, and together,” Sasi notes, a faint smile on her lips. “Of course, ah, the problems started when the three of them were caught and the Tengese got rather upset. And also rather desperate to keep things quiet, because the wedding is scheduled for next season and Tengese nobles aren’t meant to be intimate before their wedding, especially not with another unmarried foreign woman about their age present.”

There is a long silence after she finishes speaking. Eventually, Keris makes a strangled noise.

“I...” she stutters. “I... I...”

“You should probably keep an eye on Vali,” Sasi advises casually. “In a few years - or at least when he’s aged as much as a human would, he’ll probably be as passionate. He’s still a little boy now, but both of us have generous hearts and like the finer things in life. Our children do take after both of us.”

“I said teach her!” Keris bursts out, finally overcoming paralysis at the idea of having this conversation about Vali. “Not... not let her sleep her way through... she’s not even old enough to start... does she even love any of them?” Her hair cringes and twitches as she shies away from, yet can’t actually forget, all that she’s learned about her daughter’s sexual exploits in the past few minutes. And the fact that her daughter’s other parent seems fully aware of them and actively approving of parts, which... Keris can’t even begin to parse. She doesn’t want to know what Haneyl does in her bedroom with other people, and isn’t comfortable with it happening at all - especially one-off flings. Rathan and Oula are at least deeply in love.

Sasi looks confused; even hurt. “She won’t learn if she doesn’t practice. And Keris, dear, she’s a teenager - at least mentally. She needs time to work out what - and who - she wants in life. So I made sure she was introduced to people about her own age who wouldn’t mind experimentation with a beautiful foreign girl with divine blood. And kept her safe from the Viscount.” She smiles. “I have scolded her about seducing the prince and his fiancee - and punished her - but I am rather impressed too. Both the prince and the heiress have spoken in her favour.

Keris makes another strangled noise, squeezes her eyes shut, and takes a deep breath.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay. I don’t want to... to ruin our reunion by arguing. And I really don’t want to know about my daughter’s... gahh. Don’t want to know. Don’t want to know at all.” She shudders. “We’ll just... revisit this later.” She hugs Sasi again, and kisses the corner of her mouth. “I love you. Always. Even... always.”

Sasi kisses her cheeks. “You are adorable when you blush,” she says. She glances at the setting sun. “Tonight I’ll make those cheeks even redder,” she purrs.

Taking Keris’s arm, she walks her towards the riverside. “Oh, another thing about Haneyl,” she adds. “Something you hopefully won’t be upset by. It turns out she tans. Very heavily.”

Keris’s eyebrows quirk. “Yeah? Huh. Alright then.” Her ears quirk, and she rolls her eyes. “It sounds like she found Vali. Or he found her. They’re wrestling. Looks like I’ll be the last to see my little girl again. Come on.”

Keris’s little girl really isn’t so little. She’s put on even more height, and more than a little weight. She’s still shorter than Sasi, but only by a bit - and her curves have filled out. Her bright green eyes sparkle in the dusk, hinting at the inner fire within.

And Sasi was right to note that Haneyl tans. She’s no longer ash pale; she’s only a few shades lighter than Keris herself. Combined with her silvery-grey hair and her bright eyes, it makes her even more striking. Keris can immediately see how the brown-eyed, golden-skinned, dark-haired Tengese fell for her. She must have stood out among all the other young noblewomen.

She’s even moving with more grace and maturity, even as she side-steps her brother’s roughhousing, delivering playful slaps to the top of his head with a smirk. She’s only dressed for gardening in a backless top and a belted-in skirt, but she’s almost managing to look like a lady.

“Haneyl,” Keris... okay, fine, it’s a sob. But a joyful sob! She flies forward and wraps herself around her little girl... who... is no longer so little. She stands considerably higher than Keris now.

“... all my babies are growing up too tall,” Keris complains, from somewhere in the region of Haneyl’s chest. “Kali, Ogin! Promise you’ll never grow taller than mama!”

To her left arm, Haneyl is almost scalding hot to the touch, and there’s a constant squirming below - teeth, eyes, new organs of all kinds. Her skin isn’t soft - it’s like sandpaper or sharkskin, trying to tear or sear off the top layer of flesh. Keris isn’t surprised. She knows what her daughter is at her heart. And that’s not all of who she is.

“Oh, mama,” Haneyl says - and even her voice is a little deeper, more womanly. Keris can hear the cracking within as she tries to avoid slipping out of her pretended High Realm accent into her real Nexan. “Look at you. Where did you get that dress? It’s gorgeous! And apparently I have three new little brothers and sisters and a great uncle and a cousin, aunt and uncle.” Haneyl glowers. “And Zanara says my name belongs to my cousin so I need to change my name.”

“Please do not get into a fight with your three-year-old mortal cousin over your names being similar,” Keris groans, laughing. “It wouldn’t be very fair. She’s a toddler, and you’re a deva lord. And oh, look at you!” She spins around, hair rushing out. “You’re beautiful! And yes, yes, come meet your new siblings and your great-uncle.”

Bringing the twirling to a halt, Keris plants two big kisses on Haneyl’s cheeks and leads her over to Xasan and the twins. “Haneyl, this is Xasan, my mother’s brother. Well, half-brother. Kind of. It’s complicated. And this is Kali, and this is Ogin. Say hello, babies! This is your big sister Haneyl!”

With a “Hanny!” Kali throws herself at her big sister.

“Aren’t you an adorable little thing?” Haneyl tells Kali, rubbing noses. She tests her jaw. “She’s got teeth coming in. I’ve got some jerky in a pocket somewhere. Should I give her some so she has something to chew on that isn’t people?”

“Om nom nom!” Kali shouts, shamelessly enjoying being the centre of attention.

“Om nom nom,” Haneyl agrees. “And...”

Ogin is shyer, hiding his face.

“Oh, is he shy?” she asks.

That gets an outraged “Excuse me!” shouted from Aiko’s chair. “Haneyl! It is reading time! Stop interrupting it!”

Haneyl adjusts Kali’s position on her hip - holding her with practice, Keris notes - and nods to Aiko. “Are you sure you don’t want to meet and play with my little sister, Aiko? Both of you are my little sisters.”

“She’s just a baby!” Aiko insists. “I’m not! I’m reading books! Like an adult!”

“You’re being read to,” Sasi points out. “But you’re trying, aren’t you, darling?”

“You keep on interrupting my reading and that means I can’t follow what’s going on and I don’t want to talk to her,” she jabs a finger at Kali, “because she’s just a baby and can’t talk and doesn’t know what’s going on.”

Kali glares back. “Grr ba blah blah ‘ko!” she argues back, and then blows a raspberry.

“Jerky would be good, yes. Though speaking of food, for you,” Keris adds, “I have some chocolate from Malra; in the highlands of Taira. Think you can work out how to make more if I give you the samples I kept for you?” A few more brown squares appear like magic in her hair. “I made sure to keep some for you when I got given it.”

Haneyl looks away from the growing argument between Aiko and Kali and frowns. “Well, of course I’ll find a way eventually.” She takes one with her hair, and pops it in her mouth. “I’ll need more, of course,” she says quickly.

“Of course,” Keris smiles. “And Aiko? How about I get Rounen to come out of the house and say hello? He’s grown up a bit and matured, so he looks different, but he’s still Rou-Rou.”

Aiko considers this. “Only if it doesn’t count towards bedtime!”

Sasi sighs, picking her daughter up. “This is the problem with infusing knowledge into a little girl so she can tell me what she wants and have things explained to her,” she says, with a fond if weary smile. “I’m getting a five year old’s bedtime arguments early. You’re still very little, Aiko. You should be going to bed early.”

“But I’m not tired!”

“Yes you are, you’re tired and grumpy.” Sasi pauses deliberately. “Now, on the other hand, since it’s a super special occasion and Aunty Keris is back from travelling and might even have presents for you, I think you can stay up a little later. But only if you play nice with Ogin and Kali. How about that?”

“Okay!”

“Then we have a deal. And we keep to our deals, don’t we?”

“Uh huh!”

Not like stupid mama, Eko grumbles from within Keris’s head.

“Iris,” Keris hums, bringing her hand up as if to let a bird land on her wrist. “Could you go and get Rounen from the house for me?”

The little dragon launches herself from Keris’s skin again and flies off - and Keris startles a little as Iris goes out of sight for the first time that isn’t aided by sorcery, at the revelation that she can still see where Iris is. Or... no. No, she realises. The view she’s seeing is the view through Iris’s many-coloured eyes.

“... how very interesting,” she murmurs to herself, watching second-hand as Iris darts into the house, loops thrice around Rounen and then flutters towards the door with a beckoning flick of her tail. “I bet that’ll come in handy.”

“What will, dear?” Sasi asks. “And I was going to move this inside. The kitchens should have dinner ready, I think we’ll want to get the small children settled and ready for bed even if they’re not going to go now, and of course, Haneyl gets tetchy if she gets hungry.”

“Mother!” Haneyl protests, blushing.

“Haneyl, dear, everyone knows it. It’s who you are.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t say no to food,” Haneyl says, trying to sound as high class as possible.

“Wonderful. Now, since you’re a big girl, Aiko, you can help me pick the best room for the babies...”

As this is a place that Sasi lives in, the food here is a mix of Tengese and Realm cuisine. That helps Xasan somewhat, who’s very dubious at the sight of all this strange food and who finds the Tengese things altogether too hot for his taste buds.

Aiko, Kali and Ogin all find him desperately gasping for water to be hilarious.

Haneyl is - surprisingly - late, but it all makes sense when she descends having clearly quickly washed and changed from her gardening clothes into a formal Tengese figure-hugging white dress.

“I see you’ve been rummaging through my things,” she says quite sharply to Zana.

Zana tries her best to look outraged, but Haneyl’s not having any of it.

“She didn’t get far before I hauled her out again,” Keris puts in, amused. “And argh, I’d forgotten how hot Tengese food was. Rounen doesn’t do as much of my cooking now.”

“In my defence, ma’am, I’m quite caught up with trying to handle your legendary ineptitude with filing,” Rounen says, delicately eating with a spoon the hot chilli sauce that’s meant to be a flavouring for rice. “And of course, administering my area of the Princess’s lands.”

“... I’m not... there aren’t legends about me,” Keris mutters, blushing. “Anyway, I wasn’t complaining, even if I miss you being my chef. Just... mentioning it.” Belatedly, she realises that she hasn’t actually introduced the new Rounen to people.

“That’s the evolution of Haneyl’s keruby that you mentioned?” Sasi says, leaning in. “Fascinating.”

Haneyl is also leaning in, with just as much curiosity but a rather more predatory gleam in her eyes. “Oh my, yes, he is fascinating,” she breathes. “I am very pleased that my adorable little keruby can grow up into handsome young men like that. I’ll have to see everything he can do. Later, of course.”

Aiko looks around in confusion. “Rou Rou?” she asks, thick brows furrowed. “But... he’s not on fire! Be on fire, Rou Rou!”

“Um,” says Keris, looking nervously at Haneyl. “Elly and Saji are nearly there, too. I think the only thing holding them back is they haven’t been around you much - Oula matured because she spent so much time around Rathan in Taira, and... Vela was with Calesco when he grew up. Saji’s aspected to your fire, I think, and Elly’s leaning more towards your plant and hunger side. Rounen got the humanity.”

“Vela?” Haneyl asks. “Whose is that? Did someone beat me? Or has Rathan managed to get two maturations?”

Rounen waves at Aiko. “Hello, Aiko. Yes, I’ve grown up. So have you! I’m surprised you remember me! Now you’re a little lady and you’re talking!”

Aiko preens. “I wouldn’t forget you! You did fun things with fire! And read me stories! And were a plant!” She sniffs. “You’re boring now,” she accuses.

“Hurt. Hurt. You’re hurting my feelings, Aiko,” Rounen says, smiling faintly. “How can I get your forgiveness?”

“Stories,” Aiko decides.

“She’s easy to keep happy,” Sasi says softly to Rounen with a smile of her own.

Keris smiles too. “Yes. And no, Haneyl. Vela... Vela was one of Calesco’s mezkeruby. He matured... very recently. Just before we left for Creation. It, uh... I’d rather not talk about it, honestly. Besides, we have more important things to talk about! How have you been doing at Sasi’s finishing school? What have you learned?” She leans forward, smiling easily. “Tell me everything.”

There’s a smirk on Haneyl’s lips. “Everything?” she asks. “Are you sure? And I think you owe me more. Like why you’re showing the snake’s feathers in your hair. I thought they were decorations at first, but I don’t like the idea of it getting a say in things.”

“... maybe not everything,” Keris agrees, cringing. “And Pekhijira and I came to an understanding. She’s me, and I’m her, and I had a dream in Terema that made me remember that. I’m a lot more in touch with her now - and I can use some of her gifts.”

She pauses. “Speaking of which,” she adds in an aside to Sasi, “I’m pretty sure her sense of touch is as good as yours, so I’ll be, uh, showing you that later. So we can compare.”

Haneyl pours herself and Keris more wine, and sits back, swirling the glass with practiced ease. “Sasimana is quite the slavedriver,” she informs Keris, “and when I told her that I’d tell you how she can be, she laughed and said it was a complement.”

“And it is,” Sasi says gently. “I like to think I raise my children with the best traditions of the Realm.”

Apparently including Dynastic sexual morals, thinks Keris, in comparison to which cats look prudish. But she doesn’t voice the thought.

“Well then, how about a story for a story?” she asks instead. “You run me through the things you’ve learned and the adventures you’ve had here, and I’ll tell you about Eshtock, Baisha, Terema and Malra. And... well, maybe not the Street of Golden Lanterns.” She glances at Aiko. “That might have to wait until it’s just me and Sasi, since it’s part of the Iris story.”

Haneyl gets started recounting what she’s been up to. Which apparently includes multiple private tutors, massive amounts of set reading, not being allowed to go to the gardens until she’s finished the work for the morning, and Sasi being a merciless slave driver when it comes to matters of etiquette and discipline.

“Indeed,” Sasi says, not contradicting a single thing.

After a month or two of brutal slavedriving, Sasi seemed to consider Haneyl up to speed enough to start involving her in social matters. That saw her introduction on the local social scene - Keris winces at that - and making sure she was present for Sasi’s cult affairs. At first she was just watching unseen, spying on people and stealing things, but later on that saw her being “summoned” as a demon for operations that Sasi didn’t want to risk leaking intelligence back to Hell.

“I am apparently excellent for delegating matters to,” Haneyl says smugly.

“To stop her getting too pompous, I would say that she has a pronounced habit towards... creative improvisation,” Sasi says a little more sharply. “If left alone for too long, she tends to complicate things.” She smiles warmly at Keris. “But then again, she is your daughter.”

Keris picks up the uncomfortable noises from Xasan as Haneyl and Sasi talk shop about cult organisation and manipulation.

“Well, speaking of creative improvisation,” she puts in before her uncle gets too unsettled, “Guess who pulled one over on Lookshy and Thorns at the same time, and got paid four times for it in the bargain?”

Sasi sits back. “Rounen,” she says. “Definitely Rounen.”

“... correct!” says Keris, laughing and rolling with it. “I was personally in awe of how he out-organised them both. It was stunning. But yes, there are some bits I can’t tell you of that one, so would you prefer that story, or,” she grins, “how I found my birthplace and settled my debts there? Because that’s where I met Xasan, so he can help tell that one.”

“I think so,” Haneyl says. “I mean, if I have relatives, I should know more about them.” Haneyl looks over at Kali and Ogin, who have been shifted over to a cradle where they doze in each other’s arms. “And those two are adorable,” she says warmly.

“Atiya, too,” Keris points out, shifting her youngest on her lap. Little Atiya dropped off to sleep even earlier than the twins - which Keris hopes means that the sun and salt air are doing her some good, and she’s resting and getting healthier.

“So, after my work in Eshtock, Orange Blossom gave me the details of where Baisha was, and we set off for it - Kuha, Rounen, Cissidy and me. There was a temple we stopped at along the way; set in the godsmark of this giant face carved into a mountain, and one of the nuns there was from Baisha too, so she pointed us the rest of the way in return for taking a letter to her parents. But when we got there, we found the gate guarded...”

Keris paints the tale vividly, pulling Xasan in at the point Ali introduced them to describe how she’d shown up and what the scuffle with the Vakotans had looked like, along with growing back his hand and the fight with the naib. Rounen interjects a few times too, though Keris is fairly sure Sasi at least notices the slightly frosty tones Keris uses when Kuha enters the story.

The meal goes on late into the night, and before desserts - “Fruits that Haneyl’s been growing - she’s been a real help there” Sasi says in a none-too-quiet whisper - there’s a pause to allow the mothers to put their children to bed. Atiya is staying with Keris because she’s not willing to let her out of her sight, but the twins need their rest and so does Aiko.

Xasan scoops up Kali while Keris takes Ogin. Sasi tells Haneyl where in the house the babies have a place prepared, and she leads them through the oil-lamp-lit corridors.

“You’ve been very quiet, great-uncle,” Haneyl says softly, green eyes glowing a faint green for a moment. “And more than a little scowly at times. Do I not meet your approval? Or is it Sasimana you dislike?”

Xasan harumphs. “You’re not very much like your sister. A little more like your brother.”

Haneyl chuckles. “From your tone, you’re talking about Rathan and Calesco. You’re not talking about the twins - or probably Vali or Zanara. I am like the twins, though.” She smiles broadly, showing a few more teeth than a human would. “We’re all adorable.”

“Believe me, Haneyl is every bit as much my daughter as Calesco,” Keris says. “Just in different ways.”

Haneyl puts one hand on her hip. “Let me guess. Is it perhaps because I’m much more open about my feelings than Calesco, and don’t stop people thinking ill of me, unlike Rathan?” She leans forwards, her eyes nearly at the same level as her great uncle. They’re both so tall compared to Keris. “Or just that I embrace culture and nobility,” there’s a little smirk as she says ‘embrace’, “while Rathan coasts by on natural talent and Calesco is a sulk who deliberately shuns the civilised standards of behaviour?

She rests one hand on her chest. “And perhaps seeing this beautiful young woman with an affinity for the aristocracy gets your hackles up, my dear great uncle?”

“Haneyl,” Keris says warningly. “Being prickly about being scowled at is one thing; deliberately needling people is another.”

“But Mama, I really want to know,” Haneyl protests, then sighs. “And yes, perhaps I am a little bit annoyed at being told I’m not welcome in An Teng so I’m perhaps taking it out on others. But I get the feeling from Uncle Xasan that he’s intimidated by me.”

Xasan frowns. “Not intimidated. Just... wary.” He catches Keris’s glance. “She’s much more... demonic than the others.”

“He really doesn’t like it when my eyes glow,” Haneyl informs her mother.

“It’s the same colour as that terrible never-setting sun in Hell,” Xasan says with a shudder. “And she - and your... your... Sasimana - they do things with wicked cults and the like.” He lowers his voice. “You didn’t say anything about that, Keris.”

“Honestly; I kind of forgot,” Keris admits. “I mean, I didn’t forget forget, but I’ve never really been involved in Sasi’s work with cults, and I only ever made two. And one of those was a way to attack one of the Realm-friendly families in the Shore Lands, while the other was basically an excuse to get the misbegotten an island of their own, because the Tengese were abusing them horribly. Cult-building for the sake of having cults...”

She shrugs. “For most of my time in An Teng, I wasn’t good enough at charming people to do it, and I never saw the point. Still don’t, in a lot of ways.”

“Anyway,” she finishes, shaking her head. “Haneyl’s fire is similar to Ligier’s, yes, but Rathan’s light is a bit like the Red Moon in Hell - you just never saw that. It doesn’t mean they’re exactly the same; they’re still their own people.”

Xasan backs away awkwardly. “You’re... not even going to try to excuse that?” he says, face wrinkling up, clutching Kali protectively. “Demon cults... Keris, they’re bad!”

Haneyl harrumphs. “I don’t go telling you whoever you worship is bad,” she says. “Even though they probably are.”

“Uncle...” Keris sighs. “I don’t... urgh. Look, I’ve met a bunch of demon lords. I’m even friends with one or two - mostly Asarin, who barely cares about Creation at all and has no interest in claiming lands here. They’re not human, no, and all of them are crazy by human standards in one way or another, and a lot of them are terrible and awful and callous. But honestly? I haven’t seen many who are worse than a human with that much power could be.”

She spreads her hands. “We even just saw an example! Seriously, what’s the difference between a cult to Sondok and the flesh-markets owned by the princes of the Guild, where everyone worships the dinar and sells people like me or... or papa, to fill the pockets of the fat merchant-lord running the place? Because the biggest difference I can see is that Sondok’s cults get attacked by Immaculates when they’re found, and the Guild slavers get invited to high-class parties. Demon cults can be awful, yeah, but not much worse than what humans manage all on their own. And Sasi doesn’t make the kind of cults that feed people like meat into a grinder, anyway.”

((Per + Pres, and that is running into a bunch of stuff of his. All Keris’s lies and putting off telling the truth about some things to him are soooooooort of biting her now))
((poot))
((Though didn’t she tell him a bunch of the truth of what she did?))
((She’s always been lying/misleading/prevaricating about things as far as I’m aware. Some people take “being lied to with technically true statements” poorly. And Rathan and Calesco don’t really set the expectations right for how Haneyl can be, especially when she’s been talking shop about being a demon lord for cultists. :p ))
((I mean, there was that bit where she was distraught and spilled Literally Everything that happened in Taira. But, hmm. Yeah, I guess that was just her stuff, not Sasi’s.))
((Yeah, that was my assumption. Keris wasn’t being very “Infernal” there, and Sasi and Haneyl are rather more... um, classically “evil cult leader” and “demon”. Also, Xasan had only just got used to the idea that Keris had a fling with Ney and now finds she’s got this weird demonic family with a demonic cult leader noble.))
((‘Cause class stuff is coming up here too - Sasi and Haneyl code as noble, especially to Xasan, while Ney just coded as a Harbourite asshole.))
((I mean, Ney was a Harbourite asshole. :V))
((Fair enough then! 4+5+2 Eternal Matriarch+2 stunt+9 Kimmy ExD+3 “Hurting is Easy, Caring is Hard”=25. Keris will... actually not use BOT, even though it might bite her, because she’s trying to be honest with Xasan here. Aaaand... 15 successes! Not bad. Hopefully enough to overcome his contrary Principles.))

Xasan scowls. “I don’t like it,” he says darkly, but he doesn’t act.

“I know,” says Keris sadly. And that seems to be the end of that.

They put the babies to bed and head back for dessert. Now the babies are out of the way, voices can be slightly louder, and Zana is doing everything she can to be the centre of attention - including pestering Sasi to find where she keeps her musical instruments so she can entertain everyone.

“So, Rounen,” Haneyl says, leaning over towards him, “I am fascinated in how you’ve changed. Are you enjoying your new status?”

“Yes, your highness,” he says politely.

“Oh, no, no,” Haneyl says, “you can call me Princess Haneyl. Or just Princess.” She smiles. “Did you decide to look Tengese-Dynastic, or did it just happen?”

“I’m not entirely sure, your- Princess Haneyl.”

“Well, I like it a lot. Don’t change.” She takes a slightly larger bite of melon than is perhaps proper, tongue darting out to lick her lips clean.

“You know,” says Keris, on the basis that Rounen may be in need of rescuing from her daughter, “Sasi was interested, but I don’t think you gave me your opinion of Iris, Haneyl.” She flicks her fingers, letting the little tattoo-dragon spring off them and flit about in the middle of the rough circle the group has fallen into. “She’s Lilunu’s work, you know. Zanara helped her with the ink and I formed the canvas, but Iris is mostly her child.”

Vali grins. “She’s almost as awesome as me and you, Hanny.”

Haneyl sighs. “Is it because she’s-”

“Because she’s a dragon!” Vali exclaims.

“You’re such a baby.”

“Am not!” Vali crosses his arms. “We’re also awesome and we’re dragons too!”

Haneyl shudders. “I’m only one seventh dragon,” she mutters.

“Well, cool, I’m better than you because I’m all dragon!” Vali says, orange eyes bright.

“... little brat.”

“Ahem,” Sasi says, and Haneyl sits straight up.

“Anyway, as for Iris...”

“She’s a dragon ‘cause Lilunu loves dragons ‘cause all her souls are dragons too,” Vali exclaims, and Sasi’s eyebrows flute up at that.

Shit, thinks Keris.

“Vali, Lilunu doesn’t like people talking about that,” she says. “She only told me because she trusts me a lot. Please keep it a secret and let her and them decide who to tell?”

“Keris, dear,” Sasi says mildly, “I might suggest that you need to perhaps take a bit of care with Vali in Saata. It is technically a satrapy and Immaculate, after all.”

“I mean, the Immaculate Dragons are pretty cool,” Vali opines. “I mean, the Immaculate people at least have got the idea that dragons are awesome right. Also, dragonblooded, ‘cause they’re all like ‘woosh’ and then they wreck things.”

Sasi actually shudders at that. “That’s a... a unique position,” she says weakly. “A… uh. A theologically novel one.”

“Why? I think it’s just common sense. Of course having dragon-blood makes you pretty awesome.” He grins. “I bet dragonblooded can turn into dragons really. They’re prob’bly just not trying hard enough.”

“I see. Please don’t preach it to any Immaculate monks.”

“I’ll... be sure to keep an eye on him,” Keris agrees. “And I don’t suppose you could quietly forget that little bit you just heard, could you?”

“Which bit would that be?” Sasi asks.

“The bit about all of Lilunu’s souls being...” Vali begins, before Haneyl tosses a melon rind at his face. “Hey!”

“Idiot! She was... gods, you’re really so dumb.”

“Wanna fight?” Vali growls, lightning sparking around him.

Keris ignores the developing tussle in favour of kissing Sasi on the lips and whispering a thank-you.

“So...” she murmurs. “I have a few other things from my travels, as it happens. One in particular you’ll want to see - something Orange Blossom was very keen to get her hands on, if I’d been willing to let her. A scrying crystal that whispers what others are saying about its owner.”

She smiles lazily. “I’ll probably be keeping it, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t loan it to a certain gorgeous sorceress to make use of now and then - or just study to figure out how it works. Care for a look?”

“Vali! Hanny! Stop fighting! You are ruining my concert!” Zana screams at them, and extravagantly bursts into tears.

“Yes, I think people are probably getting tired,” Sasi whispers back. “I mean, you’re probably all adjusting back to Creation time after spending time in Malfeas.”

Amusingly, Keris notes that Xasan is watching the incipient three-way Zana-Haneyl-Vali argument with less wariness. Probably because right now they’re being a bunch of siblings.

“You may be right,” Keris acknowledges. “Alright, everybody! Time for some well-earned rest, in comfortable beds that aren’t the bunks on the Baisha.” Which, while not entirely awful, are certainly not as pleasant as the kind of furniture Sasi has no doubt put in place for her country home. Keris looks down at Atiya, and purses her lips.

“I’ll summon a szulo to look after her and leave a Gale to supervise,” she says after some thought. “That should be enough to keep her safe - and one of them can come get me if I’m needed. Though I should warn you that we’re going to wake up to Kali and Ogin bouncing on me; no matter how hard you try to keep them from getting in. I haven’t found a crib yet that can hold them.”

“It’s after sunset,” Sasi points out. “The szulo will have to come tomorrow - just a Gale tonight.”

“Mmph.” Keris grimaces... but capitulates. “Fine. And I have been looking forward to being with you again.”

“I was worried you’d have gone off and found some exotic beautiful ladies to keep you happy,” Sasi says archly. “And then not shared them with me!”

“No foreign ladies for me - though, ah, you remember that bitch of a Lunar who stole my plate in Nexus? I ran into her again, by accident. She’s still annoying. But fair’s fair, I think I kind of screwed her out of what she was in Saha for, so I won that round.” Keris smirks proudly. “Chalk another win for me up on the Eshtock board.”

“Well, let’s get people off to bed, and then you and I can get comfortable in my new bed,” Sasi whispers.

Keris makes a Gale to care for Atiya, then helps her settle her into her room.

“You know, you’re getting the fun side of things,” the Gale complains. “She’s going to wake in an hour or two.”

Keris can see that her other self isn’t actually as complaining as she acts. The fragment of herself she spun off shivers as she brushes Atiya’s brow. Keris’s love for her tiny fragile baby is her reason to exist and she feels it.

Then she goes to tuck in her other children and make sure they’re off to bed. Vali basically just flops onto his bedroll and is basically fast asleep, while Zanara gets a bedtime song and some words about not redecorating Sasi’s house in the night.

Keris lingers with Haneyl, at the threshold to her room. Away from her siblings, Haneyl is looking a little more emotional.

“I have missed you, mama,” she says, her eyes damp.

“I missed you so much, love,” Keris assures her. “There were so many times I wanted you there to show you things - like Malek’s plant-manse, or the Ever-Fire Gardens of Malra, or Orange Blossom’s place so you could have turned your nose up at it with me.”

She embraces her daughter again, her hair’s reach making up for her height deficiency. “It’s really good to be able to hug you again. And I’m so proud of how much you’ve grown up! My little princess isn’t so little anymore.”

Haneyl - showing off - lifts her mother up. Keris can feel that while Haneyl is shaped more like Sasi, she’s got her own muscle hidden under the softness. A thorn for a rose.

“I’m not actually heading straight to bed,” Haneyl admits. “I’m going out to check on some night-blooming flowers I’m trying to grow on the north side of the island, and then I have a bath waiting for me.” She smiles smugly. “And a girl, too.”

Keris winces. “Please spare me the details of your bed partners,” she begs. “I got enough of that with Rathan and Oula. I’m glad you’re happy, but I really don’t want to know more than that.”

“Aww,” Haneyl says, putting Keris down. “But you’ve got someone waiting for you too.” She leans against her door. “Now, shoo. Mother’s probably getting dressed up nice for you. Don’t keep her up all night,” and she grins, showing too many teeth, “and you might like a little something I taught her.”

Quirking a curious eyebrow, Keris kisses her daughter on both cheeks, gives her another hug and lets her go off back to the gardens.

Then, with a few adjustments to her tiger-dress, she makes her way to Sasi’s room.

“Don’t come in yet!” Sasi calls out, and Keris feels the unseen brush of her hands. She can hear the whispering of cloth within, and she grins. Mark one point for Haneyl, right?

Eventually she’s allowed in, and Keris finds a charmingly deshabille Sasimana waiting for her on the bed, artistically sprawled out. She’s taken the chance to adjust her hair, wash her face in rosewater, and change into a delicate black demonsilk negligee.

“Who is this stranger, intruding upon my boudoir?” Sasi asks, in a feigned Nexan accent.

It’s a pretty terrible attempt at one. The High Realm syllables shine through her try, making her sound Lookshyian at best.

“Oh, a dreadful, wicked thief,” Keris grins. “Here to steal everything you have. Clothes, purity... heart.” She blows a kiss. “I’d tell you not to scream, but I fear it’d be pointless.”

“Oh no, the horror, my precious purity,” Sasi says in a voice of utmost honesty and sincerity. “But I was saving myself for marriage.”

That lasts about five seconds, before she snorts and breaks out laughing, completely ruining her careful posing.

“I didn’t say what purity,” Keris says piously. “I’m sure I can find something new to introduce you to. Of course,” she adds silkily, moving closer and eyeing Sasi up and down, “it may take lots and... lots of trial and error. But as a dedicated thief of principles,” she walks her fingers up Sasi’s arm, “I’m willing to go the distance.”

Sasi wipes her eyes. “Oh, you. I love the dress, by the way. It suits you. I’d look washed out if I tried to wear those colours, but you can make it work.”

Keris spins gleefully. “Right? It’s Harbourite - highlander. My mother’s people! So it’s designed for me! I met a man from the same sort of area who had a gigantic...” she pauses for a second, smirking, “... wardrobe. Helped myself to this from it. Uh, and also another in the same style, but that one kind of got... mauled.”

“Oh my. So it wasn’t a pretty lady you met. It was a handsome man with a large collection of dresses.” Sasi rolls her eyes. “Did you also plunder his virtue, my thief of hearts?”

That gets a hesitation, and an uncharacteristic shy nervousness. “Um... k-kind of? I mean, I was missing you so much, and I felt lonely... I love you more, though! So much more.”

Sasi looks at Keris over her pale lashes. “Keris, dear, seriously.” She pats the bed beside her. “Come on, let’s have an adult talk.”

Pouting a little at the implication that adult talking is something abnormal from her, Keris sits. Her hair, accompanied by insecure hissing at the back of her mind, curls around Sasi’s waist and shoulders and clings.

Sasi kisses her. “I do not care if you have men on the side,” she says. “You love me. I know you love me. If I was blind, I’d know you love me just by the way you sounded when you saw me again for the first time in months.” She touches Keris’s chest. “We can’t control what our hearts do. If you were lonely without me and fooled around with a man, I’m happy for you. Really, genuinely happy.” She kisses Keris again. “I’d be the worst hypocrite if I demanded you save yourself for me. And I wouldn’t impose that on you. Sex is fun, Keris. Have fun.”

Keris blinks tentatively up at her, searching for trust and faith in the love they share in the subtle microtells she’s so familiar with, but hasn’t heard for so long.

For once, Sasi is being honest - and that makes her so much easier to read even if Keris can’t help but feel that she’s not as convincing as normal.

((Keris picks up on Sasi’s 4-dot Principle of ‘A Love of Self-Indulgence’ - that she loves it, not just in herself, but also in others.))

Sasi really does have the morals of the common house cat, a nasty little bit of Keris thinks. It sounds like Calesco. She’s indulgent, and likes to see others indulge. She gives her love a watery smile, dismissing the faint unease the sentiment stirs deep down in favour of relief and joy.

“Well...” she drawls, “I may have gotten him to finally shut up a few times while I was in bed with him. So I had fun twice over.” Darting forward, she nips at Sasi’s lower lip. “Still, I bet we can beat what I did with him, if we try.”

“Hee. I’m sure we can.” Sasi rolls onto her side, looking Keris in the eye. “How long are you going to be staying around here, my love? Before heading back to Saata? Because I’ve missed you - and maybe a bit of me wants to introduce you to the Tengese court looking as beautiful as you do now. So all the lords and ladies can be jealous.”

Keris purses her lips. “I really do need to be getting back,” she muses. “But I think I’ll at least wait for Atiya to be a bit healthier. She’s premature by the date Little River started showing, too, so it won’t be surprising that I stayed away longer to make sure she was healthier.” A sly smile crosses her face. “And it might be useful to debut Cinnamon here, as long as nobody remembers Lady Sareh’s companion from a few years back.”

“Cinnamon?” Sasi asks. “That spice is well known here, Keris. It grows in the far South West natively.”

“Oh, I don’t mean the spice,” Keris says smugly. “I mean the courtesan; Tenné Cinnamon.” She flashes a wicked smirk at Sasi’s raised eyebrow. “Like a lot of good ideas, it all started with a way to piss off Orange Blossom...”

Divesting herself of her dress in a slow, languid striptease, Keris explains the origin of her Cinnamon identity, the amount of fun she had using it to needle Orange Blossom, and how she put it to use in Malra. It’s great fun to see Sasi’s attention waver between what she’s saying and what her shoulders and upper arms are doing.

“... and using her as a high-class entertainer here - or in Saata - would let me get at all the pirate lords there, not just the Hui Cha. ‘Cause she’d be a neutral party in the politics, see?”

Sasi blinks. “Keris, please,” she says plaintively. “Talking business while acting like you’re ready for pleasure makes things very, very hard for me.” She pinches her brow. “I do think that’ll be good for you. You won’t be able to do everything you want to as a land-locked Tengese woman. Plus,” and Sasi smiles lavishly, “the Tengese get so boring to look at after a while, but no one looks quite like you. You’ll have exotic value on Saata.” She reaches out with unseen hands, and brushes Keris’s side. “But what’s this here? A scar? And a big one. Someone hurt you badly. I felt it when you showed up, but I didn’t want to upset Haneyl by making a fuss about it. Keris, my love, what happened?”

Keris’s sultry demeanour melts away, and she looks down. Her hands come up unconsciously to wrap around herself, one of them tracing the line where the Maryam-yidak’s jaws had bitten deep. That same soul is in Atiya now, she thinks briefly. She’s happy it’s not wrathful and twisted and murderous anymore, but... she’s not entirely comfortable thinking about it.

Sasi is expecting an answer, she realises, and bites her lip.

“Mama...” she murmurs quietly, trailing off for a moment as she tries to find words. “... Mama didn’t want Lethe. She fought.”

“Oh.” Sasi doesn’t say a thing for a while, but instead reaches over to brush Keris’s side. “It’s just… I’ve never really seen you hurt before. Not like that. I can feel the scar tissue, going deep.” There’s fear in her eyes; fear that has the snake crooning in Keris’s eyes. “How close was it?”

Leaning into her love, Keris lets her head rest on Sasi’s shoulder. “Not... not that close,” she says. “It... I wasn’t outmatched, like I was with Rosseah’s yidak in Nexus. It’s just... this one was what mine was born from. It fought like me.” She sniffs. “It didn’t last long after I went snake, but before that... it caught me by surprise. Both times I fought it.” She cranes her head to look up at Sasi without moving away from her warmth. “I’m good at doing that to things that are stronger than I am. I... guess she was where I got it from.”

Sasi sniffs, and wraps her arms around Keris. “Don’t scare me like that,” she whispers, hugging the smaller woman close. “I know I should have… should have found some demon lord I could have bound to keep you safe, or… or something.” She shivers. “I’d never go back to the Realm if I could avoid it - and my mother is part of why,” she says, voice barely a whisper.

Keris cuddles her back, pulling her composure back together and twining hair-tendrils around Sasi’s shins that wind and curl upwards until they’re wrapped around her thighs as well. “Don’t worry so much,” she whispers. “Like I said, she went down in seconds after I got serious. Anything that could press me when I’m fighting all out wouldn’t be phased by a demon lord, and if I found anything I thought could, I’d just run instead of trying to stand my ground.”

She runs her hands up Sasi’s back, feeling the decadent texture of her negligee. “Now, back on more enjoyable matters,” she croons, “Haneyl said something about a present she taught you?”

“Trust her to want to brag to you about that sort of thing,” Sasi says, slowly peeling back her negligee. “Sorry for… for ruining the mood. Nearly. Let’s just put those things out of mind. And I’ll give you something more fun to think about.”

She leans over, and kisses the fingers of Keris’s left hand.

The touch is strange for Keris - there’s soft, warm, oozing stickiness to Sasi’s mouth, but sandy grit as well and underneath a crystalline smoothness. Those flavours dominate - underneath are lesser ones, including a tackiness that feels like clotting blood.

((Hellish blend - dominant aspects are TED, SWLIHN, Cecelyne, detects a minor Ellogean aspect))

“Why don’t you help me out of this, and I’ll show you,” she whispers.

Iris lifts her head up, brushing her face against Sasi’s lips, and Keris strokes her crest. “Go watch over the twins for me, darling,” she tells her little dragon-tattoo. “Sasi and I are going to be very busy with adult things for a while, and you’re still a baby dragon.”

Keris uses the trick she found she had to make sure Iris actually leaves - and last she checked, the ink dragon was curling up by the twins’ feet and/or tails like a family cat would.

Then she stops really paying attention, because the view in front of her is much more interesting. Silk pools on the bed as Sasi leans in, lips pressed against Keris’s, her warmth up against Keris’s chest.

“Dragons, I’ve missed you,” Sasi whispers. “Every day.”

She shifts, pushing a thigh between Keris’s legs, rubbing against her. Keris squeaks - and squeals again when she feels the kisses against her inner thighs. Sasi smiles, lips still locked, but her tongue pushes out of her mouth to explore Keris’s. It’s much longer than it was before.

Keris squeaks. “What... wait... no. No! Really?” She’s positively eager by the end. “You can do the...” She opens a mouth on her palm questioningly.

Sasi leans back, tucking her tongue back in. “Keris,” she whispers, “I’ve spent months eating some of the best food I’ve ever had, and bonding with our daughter. I always have loved food. I’ve put on weight since Haneyl moved in. She hasn’t just been learning from me. I’ve been learning from her.”

She licks Keris’s lips. “I really like your taste. You’re delicious. I don’t know why I didn’t learn to do this before.”

Beaming, Keris leans down. “Well, if I taste so good, I think it’s only fair that I throw you a banquet.”

There’s only a tiny sliver of moon in the sky when Sasi disentangles herself from Keris and walks over to the balcony, throwing the shutters wide. In the already hot nights of An Teng, she doesn’t bother with a nightgown.

“Sasi!” Keris whines. “No, come back to bed~”

“It’s hours until the dawn,” Sasi says. “Come on, love. Drape yourself over me. There’s something I want you to see.”

Grumbling, Keris drags herself out of bed and winds herself around Sasi, offering a tempting distraction by kissing up her lover’s neck as far as she can reach. Sasi returns the kisses.

“If you’re going to be staying for a few weeks, we can probably finish getting the marriage set up for your Hui Cha pirate lord,” she observes. “And use the chance to take a little trip down there together, just the two of us. I will miss being able to use Haneyl as a babysitter.”

“She’s been getting along with Aiko, then?” Keris murmurs, distracted by all the pale, kissable skin on display. “S’good. What did you want to show me?”

Sasi takes Keris by the hand, and carefully guides her until she’s leaning on the balcony, legs spread. Her hand snakes lower, playing with Keris. “Look at the garden,” she whispers into Keris’s ear.

Keris looks again, and her eyes widen - and not just because of what Sasi is doing with her fingers. In darkness of the night, she can see flowers; flowers glowing like pale flame, in greens and whites and golds. Haneyl’s favourite colours.

Sasi gets behind Keris, leaning forwards and embracing her from behind. “I thought we could admire our daughter’s green thumb,” she breathes into Keris’s ear. “Look at the sight.”

“It’s beautiful,” Keris whispers. She smiles tearfully. “She’s beautiful.”

Her eyes swing to Sasi. “You’re beautiful,” she murmurs lovingly.

“It really is,” Sasi agrees. “And so are you.” She cups Keris’s chin from behind with wet fingers. “Look at the traitor-Moon, hiding her face because she knows you’re more beautiful than her. But she’s still peeking. Because she can’t keep her eyes off you.”

Keris blushes. “You make me feel that way,” she admits. “Whenever you look at me.”

Sasi kisses her fiercely. “Just for that,” she says, “I’m going to make you scream. Let the moon watch. Maybe she’ll learn something.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Keris wakes before Sasi. That much hasn’t changed. She checks on the twins, and finds that they’re missing, having somehow escaped the sleeping Iris who opens one eye when Keris looks in.

Fortunately, she finds that they escaped to Vali’s room, and she finds Kali and Ogin snuggled in with their big brother. Kali is sprawled across his chest, while Ogin is hugging onto an arm.

Ogin opens one eye sleepily as Keris pokes her head in the door. “I’m hungry,” he says clearly.

... Xasan may have had just the tiniest littlest bit of a point, Keris thinks. It’s a bit disconcerting to hear him speak like a boy years older.

It’s only a faint feeling, though, under the fondness. “Well then, we better feed you, shouldn’t we?” she says, picking him up a dropping a kiss on his temple. “Come on, moonbeam. Did you have a good sleep with Vali?”
Ogin considers the question. “He’s warm to sleep on,” he says, after a significant pause. Keris cuddles him, basking in his warmth and the little beat of his heart and his baby scent.
“My clever boy,” she murmurs, and sets about getting him fed and clothed for the day. Kali is still snoozing, and Keris let her stay that way for the moment. Sleeping Kali is a great deal easier to wrangle than awake Kali.

The house slowly wakes up. A mussed and groggy Haneyl stumbles downstairs in search of coffee and food, and given one of Haneyl’s big joys in life is cooking, she promptly kicks the servants out of the kitchen and makes food for everyone. Including the servants.

The servants seem entirely used to this.

“Breakfast is,” Haneyl yawns, one big strand of hair sticking up on end, “served. The fruit is all grown by me. You’re welcome.”

“My brilliant daughter,” Keris praises, pleased. She has Atiya in her arms, nursing, and has relinquished Kali and Ogin to the tabletop, where they’re crawling around and peering into every cup and mug. She’s not sure what they’re looking for, but Ogin seems satisfied with whatever he’s seeing and Kali is moving in lockstep with him and not dashing around screaming excitedly, so she’s willing to leave them to it.

“Oh, Haneyl!” Keris says, a memory sparked by the way Kali is crawling around as if she’s a kitten despite being a little girl. “You asked me to get something for Kalaska? Well, among other things, I just so happened to rescue a rather pretty Shogunate painting of a fox pack in a Second Age city from Eshtock - the only one that survived in the art gallery I found there. Dulmea has it stored somewhere; do you think she’d like it?”

Haneyl’s face falls, and she glances over at Zanara and Vali. “Probably, if it’s got a fox on it,” she says with a seemingly carefree manner. “I’ll want to talk to you about that later, though.”

Vali doesn’t notice anything, because he’s too busy stuffing his face with melon. Zanara does, though. Nara is half orange and half blue today, with four arms, and he rests his chin in two of them as he stares at Haneyl. “What aren’t you mentioning?” he asks, voice soft.

Keris frowns slightly, and gives a slow nod. “I have some time right after breakfast,” she offers. “I’ll have Dulmea bring it out and you can look it over to see if it’s good enough. In private, so we don’t spoil the surprise.”

“I want to be there,” Nara says. He smiles easily. “For the art. And the secrets, but mostly the art, right?”

“Me! Me too!” Kali chirps up, having garnered that something is happening and possibly that there might be presents or honey involved.

“Haneyl?” Keris asks. “Is it a private mama-only thing you want to talk about, or can Zanara and the twins hear it?”

Haneyl shoots a filthy glare at Nara. “This is just a thing about art, mama,” she says. “Of course Zanara can be there for looking at the art thing, as long as she promises not to ‘make it better’ or ruin Kalaska’s present.” She reaches out, and ruffles Kali’s hair. “And you’re always welcome. Can she have a little bit of beef, mama?”

Keris had been meaning to ask about that. Beef is not traditionally part of a Tengese breakfast. Haneyl is being rather unorthodox about it, but she and Vali seem to like it.

“Make sure it’s tender, and only feed it to her in scraps,” says Keris. “She’s not so good on swallowing big pieces yet. But yes. She likes it rare - not raw, but close.” Reaching out with a hair tendril, she tickles under Kali’s chin. “Don’t you, kitten? Say ‘ahh’ for big sister Haneyl! She has food for you!”

“Grah!” Kali replies happily, snapping her teeth and crawling over to Haneyl’s plate. “Rah rah raaarh!”

“Mama, of course it’s tender,” Haneyl says, sounding shocked. “Do you think I’d overcook food? And... no, Kali, don’t eat my finger. I can bite back better than you, little girl.” She demonstrates by her nail peeling back and snapping hidden teeth at Kali.

Kali of course takes that as a challenge and snaps on her finger.

Vali falls off his chair laughing.

Keris can’t suppress a snort of her own, even as she tickles Kali’s ears and gets her to snap at the hair instead of Haneyl’s now-bleeding appendage. “Kali, what did we say about biting people?” she says warningly. “No biting. Bad girl. Say sorry to Hanny, or no beef.”

“‘Ry,” Kali says, with a beaming grin. She clearly feels that she showed that finger not to challenge her biting.

Haneyl sighs. “Vali, you’ve corrupted her!” she accuses.

“Yep!”

“In fairness, I’m pretty sure she’d have done that before meeting Vali, too,” Keris points out. “But yes, go ahead and feed her. I’ll work on making those apologies a bit more sincere later. Ogin, sweetie, what have you found there? Grape juice? You want some of that?”
Ogin dips a tail in the juice, and licks it. He tilts his head, then nods. Keris sets him up with a little cup, and breakfast totters on. Sasi, she knows, won’t be seen until somewhere south of noon unless she has pressing business to attend to, which means that she’s safe to spend an hour or two extracting the painting of the foxes rummaging through bins from where Dulmea had it stored and show it off to Haneyl in the gardens.
“So?” she asks. “Think it makes the cut? Ah!” She pulls it back from a questing finger. “This is Kalaska’s present, Zanara. No eating it.”

Nara looks sweet and innocent. “I wouldn’t even think of-”

Haneyl cuffs him over the back of the head. “No!” she says warningly. “And I think it’s very sweet. It’s so... real looking.”
That’s enough to set Nara off on speculating how the Shogunate made it. Keris indulges him for a few minutes, yielding the painting to Haneyl and drawing her youngest soul up onto her lap as they debate brush patterns and respectively make and deny the case for whether wax fixing might have been involved.
They could examine the painting closer to find out, of course. But the debate is half the fun.

Once they’ve more or less settled the question, Keris turns back to Haneyl, wrapping her arms loosely around Nara and allowing kitten-Kali to climb up her hair from behind. “So,” she says. “You had something else to mention?”

“Of course not,” Haneyl says blithely. “I just wanted to make sure it was something she’d like.” She looks Keris in the eye, not blinking.

“Hmm. Fair enough then. I’ll pass it along to Sasi when she wakes up.” Keris slides it back into her hair. “Now! Sasi showed me your garden last night, and I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure some of the brighter beds were ones I saw crops growing in. Have you been tweaking food plants? Show me, show me!”

She glances over to Zanara, banking on them not wanting to wade through mud and listen to gardening talk even if they see what she’s doing. “Zanara, mind staying here and keeping an eye on the twins? And maybe introduce them to fingerpainting, if it’ll get Kali to sit still.”

Nara reaches out and grabs her wrist with a hand. “Just make sure you tell me all about the thing Hanny doesn’t want me to know about,” he says sweetly. “I’ll keep them entertained!”

Keris smiles. “If there’s anything you need to know, I’ll make sure you know,” she replies, extracting Kali from her braid and plopping her onto his before following Haneyl into the foliage.

Haneyl heads up to the north end of the island in the river, into the long marsh grass, without a care for the buzzing mosquitoes or the barbed plants. She emerges beside some old overgrown stone - the remnants of a jetty, Keris thinks. “Let’s get to work trimming some of these growths,” Haneyl says. “I’ve been trying to make sure this flowers. I think it’d be a lovely place for mother to hold dinner parties on a boat, if I just adjust things a little.”

She hands Keris one of the machetes she brought along, and they get to work clearing things.

“You know,” she says, after a while, “you’ll have to promise not to tell Zanara. Or make a big fuss about it in a way that’ll upset Sasimana.”

“Well, that definitely sounds promising,” Keris says, grimacing. She thoughtfully slashes at branches and saplings for a few moments. “You think it’s likely I’ll make a fuss and accept Sasi, then. And I don’t like upsetting her, which means it’s something bad enough or that I feel strongly enough about that I’d do it anyway. And it’s related to Kalaska.”

She rubs her nose, wondering if maybe Ney rubbed off on her a bit more than she’d thought. “Hmm. Okay. I’ll promise that... I won’t take any action until tomorrow, including telling anybody else. How’s that? And I’ll hear you out first so you have a chance to calm me down.”

Haneyl swallows, and sits down on the jetty, letting her legs dip into the water. She sits back, her green jade earrings gleaming in the light. Keris recognises them - they were her gift to Sasi, the ones with the power over crops - and so they must be what are anchoring Haneyl to the world.

“You know mother isn’t a happy person in many ways,” she begins.

“... I like to think I make her happier,” Keris cautiously replies, which isn’t an answer and yet is all too much of one.

Dipping her hand in the water, Haneyl sighs. “We... I mean, me and my brothers and sisters, you love us all, right? Even when I was little and you screamed at me about that place I made where I was trying to be like Lilunu, I... you love us.” She wraps a hair strand around Keris’s waist. “You act silly sometimes, but you’re at peace with the idea that being ludicrously rich and well fed and all those things is wonderful, right? Even if Calesco gets on my back about wanting to give things away, you like what I like.”

“Yes. Of course I do.” Keris frowns, confused, as the conversation turns away from where she’d expected it to go. “Is this... are you worried Calesco’s been talking to me about you while we’ve been away? Because believe me, she saved most of her verbal arrows for a mix of what I was doing and who I was doing it to.”

Haneyl sighs again. “Mother isn’t the same,” she says softly. “She doesn’t like a lot of herself. She can’t stand her version of Dulmea. I can hear the scorn in her voice when she talks about him. And that means her entire soul dream is smaller than my tree. I think she has seven souls in there - her po too, it doesn’t stay hidden in the fog - and Kalaska hates most of them and they hate her and they all hate and fear the po and Mother doesn’t like that she has Kalaska because she hates being scared.”

Keris’s arm pauses about ten words into the explanation, and she stands still for a while, staring at a sapling that’s been temporarily spared death as she processes.

Insects hum in the marsh grass. Birds chirp in the trees. There’s a plop as a fish leaps out of the water near the jetty and splashes back down into the water with a fresh meal of mosquito or mayfly.

“You’re saying,” says Keris after a while, “that Kalaska’s trapped in a small house with other souls that... Sasi favours more. Who bully her.” She pauses for a moment. “And the po is in there with them. Which is as strong as Sasi is, and they’re... still not even demon lords, because she can’t summon them.”

“I don’t even know if she favours them more,” Haneyl says softly. “I, uh. Sort of get the impression that Moneha, for example, is all linked into her issues with her mother. And, uh. She was spending a lot of time with Seresa because she was missing you. A lot of time. Bedroom time.” She pauses. “Just remember that mother’s souls aren’t her children,” she adds quickly. “She doesn’t even think of Kalaska as her daughter. She just looks mostly like mother did as a child. Which is, I think, some of the reason she doesn’t like her.” She hugs Keris closer. “I’m really glad you gave me such a happy and free childhood,” she says, biting a lip. “Mother seems to have been very sad in hers.”

Keris hugs her instinctively, still far away. Her own childhood had been far from happy, she thinks. But doesn’t say it.

“Happiness is a gift we give our children,” she says. “Okay. Okay. So... okay.” She bites her lip, feeling herself tremble. She feels... weird. Her heart is beating faster, and strange flutters are bouncing around her gut. Tension coils cold tendrils around her upper arms and shoulders. Her fingertips itch, and her hands clench automatically. She’s not sure what name to put to it.

“I did promise,” she says, still staring at the sapling. “What... what do you think I should do?”

“I don’t know,” Haneyl admits, blushing. “I might be a beautiful young woman, but remember, I’m not yet two. Incidentally, don’t forget my birthday. But the point is, I’ve never had to handle something like this before. And you always look after me when I’m upset. Eventually.”

Keris presses kisses to her cheeks. “Okay. I’ll... I guess I’ll talk to Sasi. Prod her into uplifting her souls so she can summon them. Maybe... maybe see if she can expand her Domain the way I expanded mine; that would give them all more space. And let her move bigger things in and out; she’ll like that.”

“I don’t think she’s ever going to get on with the agata in her,” Haneyl opines. “Kalaska says he’s a fighter, like a cataphract. Mother doesn’t respect that.” She looks at Keris. “I did talk with mother a lot about how I shape the Swamp and how my tree works. And I sent notes on that to Kalaska. Maybe she can make her own tree without needing a central Dulmea-tower.”

Keris narrows her eyes, thinking. “Or... hmm. I did a lot of work on the nature of the coadjutor. I probably understand them better than anyone who isn’t Lilunu and the others involved in creating them. I wonder if it would be possible to, mm, replace him? With a demon better suited to her?”

She purses her lips, then blanches as she realises what she’s saying. “Oh. But, uh, wow, that would be... really illegal. Though I guess no more so than stealing Dulmea was... hmm. I’ll think about it.”

“... you did what?” Haneyl demands.

“... ah. Yeah.” Keris clears her throat. “So... remember what we said about not making a fuss about things in a way that will upset Sasi? I’m going to need you to make that kind of promise now, except instead of ‘making a fuss’, it’s ‘telling her at all’. Things got... complicated, when I found my home village in Taira.”

Haneyl looks at her mother judgmentally. “The Yozis have been very good to you. And they did make the world in the first place,” she says to Keris. “The Unquestionable are meant to be in Heaven, not the usurper gods. They’re going to win in the end - and me and you are going to do very, very nicely out of this.” She smiles at Keris with bright, almost feverish eyes. “I’ve been drawing up plans for how we’re going to own the whole Far South West, mama.”
Keris is reminded that she’s left Haneyl alone with Sasi for half a year. And Sasi is nothing if not convincing. She winces internally, and gnaws a hair tendril.
“Do you remember that spell I designed?” she asks. “The one to put coadjutors in my Gales. Orabilis took credit for it, you remember? He also threatened to kill me if I learned any more than what he felt I was permitted to know. And, well, the stuff I told him I knew, he said brushed right up against that line. And I didn’t tell him everything.”

She strokes Haneyl’s cheek. “The first rule I ever learned in Nexus was this: always have a way out. Stealing Dulmea and keeping it secret doesn’t mean I’m not still working for them. It just means I’m guarding my back from someone like Iasestus or the Blue Glass Maiden deciding to knife it. My spell lets me command people I’ve placed demons in, Haneyl. Ligier and Lilunu are trustworthy - but not all the Unquestionable are like them.”

((Per + Pres))
((Oh Keris. This kind of quiet, corruptive sowing of doubt is what she’s built for. 4+5+2 stunt+9 Kimmy ExD {undercurrents of distrust}=20, popping Beauty Over Truth. 13 sux, 12 on the BOT roll.))

Her daughter hums. “I suppose that makes sense,” she says. “I mean, yeah. Lilunu is so beautiful and clever and Ligier is the same and they’re the ones who matter really. Just don’t blow this sweet deal we’ve got going on right now.”

“Of course not. Though, something to think about,” Keris adds idly. “The second rule I learned? Know who you’re dealing with. Ligier and Lilunu follow through on their promises, but if Orabilis took the spell... what makes you think we’d do so very nicely out of any deals with him?”

((Goddamn, this would be a good time to have that charm that made social attacks linger and repeat themselves in dreams as people think back to the words uneasily.))

That gets her back up. “Hey, I remember that deal,” Haneyl counters. “You agreed to provide him with the spell in return for getting able to use his libraries and being allowed to work in the nearly illegal bit. And you worked really hard and invented it, so now we can use it - well, you can use it, but mother’s started me on sorcery lessons so I’ll certainly be able to use it too in a year or two!”

“That’s brilliant, baby!” Keris enthuses, letting it go. There’s no point digging in deeper and pointing out how Orabilis took credit for the idea - it would just make Haneyl suspicious and maybe remind her of Rathan’s grudge-holding.

Which isn’t to say that Keris isn’t holding a grudge. But it’s best to stay light and airy and not look like she’s attacking the Unquestionable directly. Not yet. Sasi’s had two and a half seasons to work on Haneyl, and bulling into that headfirst will accomplish nothing but making her root herself more deeply. Planting the idea of the Unquestionable not following through and dispensing their promised rewards... that’s something Haneyl will think over some more, later. And that’ll be more effective at making her start to doubt than any amount of appealing to conscience and compassion.

“How far have you got so far?” Keris asks, squeezing Haneyl’s hands proudly. “Oh, is she teaching you her Devonian logic? With all the Silurian notation? If you’re finding that hard, don’t worry, I hated it too. But I do have a spell you’ll love when you finish learning - it lets me make vehicles out of plants! Boats and carriages and even airships. I used it a fair bit in Taira.”

Haneyl pouts. “She says it’s natural to find it hard,” she says. “I just need to work harder and I’ll get it! And I’m better at maths than you anyway! I’ll learn to cast like she can! And that boat spell sounds really really amazing! Show me, show me!”

“Alright, alright,” Keris laughs. “What do you want? A little leisure boat? I need something jade to anchor it in, though.” She tilts her head and grins. “I bet Sasi has something. She’s still asleep. We could go relieve her of something small for a few hours and I could give you a lesson on how I cast things, out on the water. Make it a picnic, even!”

Smirking, Haneyl crosses her arms. “I’m not lazy like Rathan,” she says. “Of course I’d accept more lessons. He’ll be so jealous when I’m a sorceress and he’s not!”

Keris takes things easy for a few days while they re-acclimatise to Creation’s sun. It’s nice to sit around in the warm and look after her children - and Aiko, too, when Sasi has to go.

Of course, she enjoys the entertainment Sasi makes for her. Part of Sasi’s day to day life seems to be going to an inordinate number of parties, and she takes Keris to some of them as a guest.

((Per + Politics, Diff 3, stunt what you’re trying to do at them - i think you mentioned bringing Cinnamon into public view))
((Keris is being exotic and foreign, but not too foreign - her manners are always perfect and any fads she introduces are non-rule-breaking, her stories flatter the Tengese, etc. She’s using Flowering the Fairer Face, and occasionally supplementing it with Attention-Holding Grace and Beauty-Over-Truth in limited amounts so as not to overplay her hand. I’m assuming that Sasi will be helping her avoid any Realm attention.
4+1+3 Exotic Beauty+2 stunt+5 Kimmy ExD {playful waves of beauty, charm and poise}=15. 11 sux, lol.))

She’s initially nervous, but as she is now - hair intricately styled and decorated with feathers and fine ornaments, wearing an assortment of dresses in Nexan and Harborite fashions, her face painted with makeup and her manners perfect - there seems to be nobody who remembers the brief, fairly reclusive lover of a merchant princess some years ago.

So, growing bolder, Keris has fun with it. She sweeps into parties in glittering splendour and turns heads all over the room. She speaks of the Scavenger Lands and of Taira, of the Northwest and of Harbourhead. She flirts and flatters and favours the Tengese nobles who are drawn to her.

And of course, despite her foreign dress and mien, her manners and bearing are impeccable. Despite her vivid stories of exotic far-off lands, she always seems to phrase them to flatter the Tengese. And despite her flirtatious, sultry air, she never quite oversteps propriety. Yes, she’s a foreign beauty from the other side of Creation - but she’s one who brings spice and perfume to the Golden Lands without offense and while still letting them feel themselves superior.

“You did wonderfully,” Sasi tells her after one of these gatherings. She smiles, wrapping her arms around Keris’s waist and sweeping her into a low kiss. “I remember how you were when we first met,” she says, when they come back up for air. “You’d never have been able to sweep them off their feet like that - or play at being a beautiful and risque foreigner.”

Keris beams smugly. “Well, I did most everything Cinnamon-style in Taira. It was good practice. Ooo, did I tell you about how I helped Xasan kill the naib?”

“Yes, darling,” Sasi says patiently, having been given that recounting at least thrice. Keris kisses her again, still beaming.

“Well, you can see how I got so good at it, then. Oh, and speaking of beautiful things, how is Kalaska liking her painting?” She’s been making an effort to bring the girl up slightly more often - not enough to be suspicious, but hopefully enough to keep her in Sasi’s thoughts in a positive sort of way. “Has she hung it up somewhere to admire?”

Sasi smiles at her. “She adores it,” she says. “She’s hung it up in her bedroom. I think she’s about as bad with foxes as Vali is with dragons. The floor in there is covered with the glass foxes I use for messenger spells.”

“Oh my,” Keris chuckles. “You should look into learning how to let her and the others out. Rathan and Calesco were really helpful in Taira. Oh, or grow your inner world like I did, to give her more space for her pets. I bet you could get some use out of the way it lets you move bigger things in and out.”

“I would like to learn that sort of thing - but Keris, dear, remember that we learn things in very different ways. Haneyl tried to talk to me about growing plants and trees, but the way she shapes your soul dream seems entirely intuitive and unlearned.” She runs her hand along Keris’s thigh. “She is very much your daughter.”

“I suppose,” sighs Keris. “It’s annoying how it’s hard to talk sorcery with you. We need someone who can understand things both ways. Rathan, maybe, if and when he learns to cast. Or one of your souls.”

“Life as a sorcerer is always a little lonely,” Sasi says, looking out at the night. Night birds sing and the reeds rustle. “Other people don’t understand the choices we make - and we all make different choices.” She snuggles up to Keris, resting her head on top of Keris’s. “That reminds me - how is your study of the Saphire Circle going?”

“... oh. Yes.”

Keris clears her throat.

“I, uh. I actually... achieved it. In Malra. So... very successfully, I guess?” She tries a careless laugh, which withers and dies at the memory of that night.

Sasi kisses her. “Oh. No wonder you seemed a little different.” She doesn’t ask anything further, though.

Keris clings to her for a while, feeling that strange sensation again as she thinks of Kalaska. Worry, perhaps? She shakes it off.

“How, um... how are the marriage plans going? I mean to take the Hui Cha this year, so another blue sea master in my corner will be very helpful.”

“The negotiations have largely concluded at my end,” Sasi says. “The girl is a little older - her parents are still reluctant, but their debts are pressing. You’ll need to seal the deal at the other end - and likely make sure the wedding is suitably lavish and respectable if we’re planning to make the family our respectable link between your pirates and Tengese society. After a performance like that at court, though, I think you’re capable of it.”

“Naturally. Oh, that reminds me.” Keris wrinkles her nose. “I have... let me see... a lot of precious gems from Malra, along with a fair amount of silver and other crap from Taira in general. And an obnoxious amount still banked in Hell, but I can ignore that until Calibration; it’s the stuff from Malra I need to get banked and turned into usable money here.” She runs a hand through her hair. “Urgh. I hate the pawning-things part. Could you do that for me? And... mm, I’m going to need a place in Saata. Probably better to have it sooner than later, too. Plus checking up on the Gullites.” She chews her lip thoughtfully. “So much to do.”

“Hmm. Well, it’s too late for that tonight,” Sasi says. “I’ve just spent the evening with my girlfriend breaking the hearts of men and women at court, and my heart itself feels all fluttery. We can talk about the money tomorrow. For now, I think there’s a better use I could put your mouth to.”

---

The next morning - okay, it’s just before noon really - Sasi and Keris head through to one of Sasi’s studies. Sasi sits down in a very padded chair, adjusting her soft white gown, and pours wine for the two of them.

“So, what are you looking to launder? And how much?”

“Um...” Keris reaches into her hair, having prepared a box for the gems she’d stolen from the naib overnight, and removes one of them. “Most are uncut, but if I finish them... quite a lot. As in... really quite a lot. Probably enough that I shouldn’t launder them all at once, because I’ve got enough potential here to fund several fairly big purchases.”

Sasi plucks one out with her mind-hands and leviates it up, angling it this way and the other while examining it with conjoured vari-coloured light. “Very nice,” she says. “A fine garnet, this one.” Another one joins it, orbiting around. “And this isn’t truly a gem, but it’s an excellent amber. Hmm.”

She picks up more and more of the gems, orbiting them around one another in a complicated shape. “I can make use of some of these in my own spells, or as bribes for nobles. But there really isn’t the market for them here in An Teng and too many questions would be asked if you’re not very, very careful. Most gems here are mined in the High Lands, and questions will be asked of their origin and whether the taxes have been paid - especially if they’re uncuts.”

She reached out, and plucks out a diamond from its orbit. “The best place to sell these in the South West would have been Buk Moi, but... well, it’s gone now. In its place, it might well be Saata. Plenty of gems from the Far South West pass through there. But I can’t take the time out to make the deals there.” She looks at Keris. “I can take some of these off your hands - and I’ll pay in silver and jade. But most, you should really sell in Saata.” She leans back. “Haneyl really does have an eye for profit,” she adds.

“Hmm. She’s chafing, confined to the house. Do you think she’s...” Keris searches briefly for a word, “... experienced enough for us to send her to Saata ahead of me? To build up some funds with a few of the gems and see about buying a residence?”

She pauses, frowning. “Or... two residences. Mmm. Damn. Little River and Cinnamon are going to need different ones. Irritating. Though... I might be able to get one out of whatshisname; the one who... Dulmea, wasn’t one of the blue sea masters in debt or something? He probably still has some properties. Maybe I could work something out where he generously gave Little River an estate and I generously gifted a friend with some rare and beautiful gems.”

“You could send your Rounen with her,” Sasi suggests. “He seems to have shaped himself into being the sober, responsible, boring assistant you need to make sure you don’t go running off after distractions.” She’s smiling when she says it, though.

“Yes, but I like Rounen. I’m not sure I want to subject him to the way she was eyeing him like a rich steak.” Keris is grinning as she says it, but not entirely joking. “I think as soon as I summon Elly or Saji for her - or as soon as she goes back to the Swamp - they’ll mature too. It terrified me when Rounen did. I thought he was dying at first. And then... seven days, and the whole time he looked like a shrivelled, wilted corpse.” She shivers. “Not pleasant.”

Something occurs to her, and she cocks her head. “Have you learned to make your own demons? It might be that starting to make their own breeds is what helped push my souls to demon lord status. And they’re useful and interesting - the keruby especially, since they were the first breed from me.”

Sasi shakes her head. “Again, Keris,” she says, a hint of irritation in her voice, “I’ve tried. I have really tried. I watched Haneyl make all kinds of demons, but it’s intuitive for her and her explanations are usually just full of gardening metaphors.” She pouts. “I still don’t understand how writing a story about a sziromkerub makes it come into being.”

Keris bites her lip, thinking.

“What demon species do you know best?” she asks. “Probably... agatae, maybe? You use them a lot. It doesn’t matter which, but can you... does your, your Devonian casting have to way to sort of... describe them?” She waves a hand vaguely.

“Like how I could draw a picture of a horse and show how all its muscles attach to its skeleton and where its organs go and how it gets pregnant and how the foal grows and that sort of thing? Or how I’d note down the essence-melody of a spirit and how that describes its nature and the flavour of its power and what it can do?”

“I’ve tried that, Keris,” Sasi says, and yes, she’s definitely irked now. “And describing the composite essential forms of a being is much, much more complicated than the intuitive method that both you and Haneyl seem to make work for you. Not all of us are savant prodigies at demonology. Some of us have to work very hard to memorise things.”

Also, Eko points out in Keris’s head, it was Eko who worked out how to do it first. So there, horrible mean mama.

“No, but that’s what I mean,” Keris defends. “You said you had to give up on copying me and just build your inner world from scratch, piece by piece, designing the whole thing yourself instead of just letting it form. It’s probably the same here; how we do it won’t help...”

She shakes her head. “And... yeah, you probably already knew this, so just... I’m sorry.” Wrapping her arms around Sasi, she kisses her lover’s cheek. “I’m sure you’ll get it.”

“Mmm,” Sasi says, leaning in. “Well, yes. Is there anything else beyond the gems that I might have an interest in? I’ll give you a fair price for them.”

Keris runs mental feathers across her treasure trove, and grins.

“Well,” she croons, purest glee lighting up inside her, “there were some particular gems you’d like. But I’m afraid I won’t sell you them outright - only loan you them for a while, in a season or so.” A twist of hair, and the collar with the adamant jewels appears in her hand, along with a giggle she can’t quite suppress. “Aren’t they lovely?”

Sasi’s eyes widen. “Oh Keris, that’s beautiful. First Age Solar Deliberative artisanal work, by the look of it. That’s... how do you find so many gorgeous things?”

“Well, in this case, by breaking into a heavily guarded Solar fortress-pyramid and sneaking past a secondary layer of alarm wards into the secret antechamber behind a tapestry in the uppermost trophy-museum that was full of sentinel-automata,” Keris boasts. “Though this little prize was easily the best thing in there. The idiot naib can’t have known what it really was, or he’d never have left it so lightly guarded.”

She smirks. “I, on the other hand, clocked its real worth in seconds. And made off with it without tripping anything. And then broke into his innermost sanctum and stole from that, too. And then went snake and busted my way out.”

The quicksilver smugness in her veins purrs at the memory, and her smirk turns positively vicious with self-satisfaction.

((Oh Keris. Never actually got rid of that EH Principle.))

“You, dear, are a born thief of all kinds of precious things. Like wonders of the high first age. And,” Sasi smiles, “my heart.”

Keris leans up to kiss her deeply for a long, wonderful moment. “Easily the most precious thing I’ve ever laid my hands on,” she whispers lovingly. “I doubt I could find any treasure to equal it, even if I scoured Creation.”

“You say the nicest things,” Sasi says with a smile, sliding her thigh between Keris’s legs. She shifts a little. “The nicest things.” Then she pulls back, with a nasty little smirk that draws a whine from Keris’s lips. “Remind me to thank you for them later. I’ll look through the gems, and we’ll speak at lunch.”
“Make sure it's a thorough thank-you,” Keris singsongs, tucking the collar away with a hint of glee. Sasi obviously hasn't noticed the gems are anything more - she'll have to show them off again in a few months and tease her lover about missing the sorcerous lore within. Leaving Sasi to the gems, she turns her efforts to finding Haneyl, out in the gardens. She finds her lounging by the pool, wearing a broad brimmed hat, dark glasses, and only the bare minimum otherwise. There's a very large drinking bowl of fruit juice and a plate of apples next to her, which she is having as a small pre-lunch snack.
And of course, she’s positioned herself so she can watch the shirtless gardeners working on the terrace below.

“Enjoying yourself on the grounds, since you can’t enjoy yourself off them?” Keris asks knowingly, coming up and settling herself beside her daughter.

“Trying to even out my tan,” Haneyl says with a sigh. “It was awful the first few days. I looked like I’d dipped my arms and face in brown dye. I had no idea I’d react like that to the yellow sun.”

“You don’t mind it, though?” Keris asks with a note of worry. “I think you look beautiful, but that might just be pride talking.” She reaches over with a hair tendril and tweaks Haneyl’s nose playfully. “You were practically a cutting of your mother when you were all pale. Now you’re much more clearly my daughter as well.”

Haneyl shrugs, and rolls over onto her front, slipping off her breastband. There’s a line of paler flesh there on her now-exposed back. “I was really freaking out at first, mama,” she admits, “but it’s been months now. I’m used to it. And the Tengese really like the way I look. It’s exotic.”

“Yes, they like me, too,” Keris says happily. “Still, I bet you’re starting to feel like you’re outgrowing your pot here, since you can’t go out. What would you say if I offered you a chance to sink your roots into new soil? Somewhere that won’t care about any little scandals that happened over here.”

Haneyl’s eyes glow green as she looks over the top of her dark glasses. “I’m listening.”

“Well, you know I’ll be moving back to Saata soon - but I want to wait until Atiya is ready to travel. And yet when I do move there, I’d like a residence ready, as well as some funds. Either for Little River or Cinnamon - or maybe both. Now, I can’t be in both places at once... or rather I can, but a Gale wouldn’t be enough there and I’m not willing to leave Atiya without my medical skills.”

Keris smiles slowly. “But it occurred to me that I do have a young, brilliant prodigy who can pass as, say, a niece or cousin of Little River who has more Realm blood, who knows how to handle money, and who’s been taught to handle herself in society by an expert. Who could probably go there ahead of me with a parcel of valuable gems and turn them into a place to live, a foundation to build on and a solid cover story.”

Haneyl clasps her hands together. “Oh, mama. I’d love to. Saata looked wonderful when I was staring at it through your eyes, and mother’s trained me well for managing things and being a lady. Tell me what you want and I’ll get it done.” She pauses. “Though I probably shouldn’t be a relative of Little River,” she adds. “I don’t think I should be trapped into being a Tengese woman. They have so little freedom. I’ll buy something myself and then I can rent it to Little River - I’ll just be her landlady.”

Keris quirks an eyebrow. “Well, being related to Little River would let you pretend to be Dragonblooded,” she notes. “Or... hmm. We could instead have you be a cousin to Cinnamon. You have the looks for it - and that would let you pretend to be godblooded.” She taps her chin thoughtfully. “We’ll see. I’ll get back to you with what exactly I need tomorrow - and I might have you take Rounen with you to help. He’s an excellent assistant.”

Haneyl rolls back onto her back and stretches out, muscles shifting under her softer frame. “Hmm. I’ll probably need at least two anyaglos if I’m going to be carrying anything heavy.” She grins. “I’m a big girl, mama, and ribbon-horses are made for skinny sorts. I don’t want to have to swim the rest of the way. And I’ll need to take at least two trunks of clothing and other such things if I’m going to be being a rich lady. Probably safer with three or four angyalos. And I’ll want to bring some friends. Elly and Saji, so I can give them orders about how to handle my lands while I’m busy.”

Rolling her eyes, Keris nods. “Yes yes, you can have a small herd. We’ll get Sasi to help come up with a good cover for you that can connect you to Cinnamon.” She taps her daughter on the nose again. “Just don’t get distracted, okay?”

“Oh mama,” Haneyl says, green eyes glinting, “don’t think so little of me. This is our first chance to own a real place in Creation. An actual house that no one gets to take away from us. We’ve never, ever had that before.” There’s steel in her voice. “Ever.”

“No,” Keris says softly. “We haven’t. So this one is going to be really good, and the one Little River will get from the Hui Cha will be glorious. Ah!”

She raises a finger. “That reminds me. There’s a blue sea master... Lucky Wolf, I think? He’s in debt, or something, so I’m thinking Little River might generously give him a valuable set of gems or something and he might respectfully offer her one of his estates - he has to have a few - and that arrangement will see him in a better financial position, and in return he’ll fall in line when I assume leadership.”

Her hair rustles, feathers sliding over one another as she runs one over her lips thoughtfully. “So... don’t make any moves or approach him, but see if you can scope out what he owns and find out if there’s anything we can buy for more than it’s worth to clear up his money troubles and get Little River an estate and his loyalty. Something conveniently placed relative to Cinnamon’s place, but not so close as to be suspicious.”

“If I have time, I’ll break into his countinghouse and look through his papers,” Haneyl says smugly. “Paper likes me. It knows it’s made from plants.”
That gets a laugh from her mother, and they fall back into basking and light conversation for the remainder of the afternoon, throwing idle ideas back and forth about what the residence will need and exactly how many people it will need to house. In fact, Keris was up late enough and it’s still some time until lunch, so she chooses to have a nap. She’s been avoiding dealing with some of the things in her soul. Especially her worry over Vela - his actions and nature as a starlight maturation of the mezkerub he was, Calesco’s grief over what he represents, and whatever reaction Eko might have to him on top of that. So perhaps it’s no surprise that she emerges on the border between Ruin and Meadows, where the rust-red dirt and yellowish prairie start to thicken and darken to dark soil, green Meadowgrass and bubbling tarpits.
It is something of a surprise, however, that she arrives in the middle of a dust storm blowing in from further spinwards. A dust storm that a troupe of sugar-bandits have apparently decided to use as cover for a raid.

How grand, Keris thinks as she sputters and tries to claw sand out of her eyes and hair.

The slopes of the borderlands here are scraggly dark grass growing on sandy red soil. The caves that are common in both the Meadows and the Ruin seem rarer here - perhaps because the wind tends to block the entrances.

And so the result is that a sugar bandit szelkerub slips and slides down a sandy slope, smashing into Keris and bouncing off. Though she superficially looks cute, she’s got embroidery on her arm ribbons and two vicious knives at her belt. And lacerations that bleed red fibres from the black cloth, scarring her face.

She’s running. Fleeing. From the Meadows.

Oh dear, thinks Keris.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. “Here, look, I’m the All-Queen. What’s going on?” Calesco’s people, last she heard, did not have many soldiers or fighters. Which means she may have found Vela; whatever exactly he’s become.

They’re cheating, the szelkerub gestures irately. How dare they! That’s not how the game goes! The raiders have to try to get as much sugar as possible and the defenders have to try to hide it! They’re not allowed to fight back or cut people or show really scary things!

“I think the game may have changed,” Keris murmurs. “Where’s the scary thing who cut you? Which way is he?”

Prob’bly still at the wood things, doing stuff to the ones who couldn’t get away, the szelkerub indicates, before resuming her fleeing.

Keris heads that way, worry churning in her gut. She does find Vela there. He’s found some clothes at least; a white loose garment which has a black handprint stain above his heart. And what he has is a number of tar-covered szelkeruby, tied up in ropes and dangling from branches, He’s taken away their knives and coated them in tar, and watches with a blissfully innocent smile on his face as they struggle to escape.

“Vela,” she asks, voice both concerned and warning. “What are you doing?”

He turns his head one hundred and eighty degrees to catch her eye. “Tarring the bullies. They torment the innocent ones to steal sugar. So I think we will tar them, and leave them here until someone who cares for them lets them down. We will feed them sugar, blood and water so they do not starve, but they cannot leave until someone cares for them enough to release them.” He smiles a wide, wide smile. “Or they become mezkeruby, of course. That will be their fresh start.”

Keris opens her mouth, and then closes it, hesitating. She tries not to interfere in the day-to-day running of her Empire, except to make sure that all her citizens have certain rights - and this doesn’t violate any of them, as well as not being quite as cruel as she’d feared. None of them are being harmed, just... held. “And if a group of szelkeruby came to try and free them?” she asks. “Would they be freely allowed to? Or would they have to risk being tarred themselves?”

His smile doesn’t waver. “It depends whether they’re criminals and bullies too. I have spoken with Princess Calesco. She feels that this has gone on long enough. I have helped her draw up a law code, and posted it publicly along the border on both sides.”

“... very well,” Keris says, unnerved enough by that full half-twist to his neck to back down. “Then if you’ll direct me to your lady, I’ll leave you to your... duties. Magistrate Vela.”

“Magistrate. yes. I like that. Now if you-”

There’s a splash of tarry water as someone silently stomps behind Keris.

What is the meaning of this, Eko demands, marching past Keris. Her finger is pointed at the scene before her; her entire expression vibrates with shock and outrage.

Very quietly, Keris swears under her breath.

“Maybe we should go see Calesco instead of having this out here?” she suggests to her furious daughter. “Also wait, you’ve been in here for more than a week, how have you not...”

She pauses.

“... wait, are you angry about the tarring or that one of Calesco’s mezkeruby matured? And if it’s the latter, did you... did you forget it happened so you could be outraged again?” She glanced at Vela questioningly.

Definitely about the fact that her little sister cheated and got one of hers to evolve first, Eko snaps. She doesn’t care about szelkeruby hanging from trees. It’s their fault for being silly enough to get caught, and honestly it’s kind of funny. But that! That thing that used to be a mezkerub isn’t funny at all!

“You’ve been in here more than a week, how have you not... urgh.” Keris palms her face. “Vela, how many times has she turned up and been outraged at your existence?”

“This is the fourth time,” he says, smiling. “I think she enjoys it.”

Liar, Eko snaps with a rude gesture. This is an outrage!

“You really need to find some way of recording things outside your own memory,” Keris advises her. “Look, at least don’t forget it this time, then?”

Eko flops down, spreading her arms out. Why won’t those stupid idiots evolve, she sulks, pointing at the dangling szelkeruby with her feet. She invented the keruby! Why aren’t her ones doing it! It’s not fair! Not fair! Not fair!

This goes on for a while as Eko throws a tantrum.

“Maybe they’re... saving the best till last?” Keris suggests tentatively.
She knows almost immediately that it was the wrong thing to say, as Eko’s tantrum takes on a theme about how mama is horrible and cruel and makes fun of Eko.
“Oh, honey...”

Keris crouches down and strokes Eko’s hair. “Come on. Come visit Calesco with me. You can complain to her, if you like. Or ask her how she did it.”

Eko burrows her face in Keris’s neck. Sure, her hunched shoulders seem to say.

Calesco is back in her full mourning clothing - in fact, it’s thicker than usual. She’s working on a small vegetable garden outside her cave, singing plants into being.

She pauses when she sees her mother and sister. “Oh,” she says bluntly. “It’s you two. I don’t want to talk to either of you very much.”

Well, Eko counters, she doesn’t want to talk to Calesco either. She just found out her little sister betrayed her and evolved her keruby and didn’t even tell Eko!

“I told you. Three times. Go away, Eko.”

“How are you feeling?” Keris asks gently. “Vela told me you and he went over a code of laws. His punishments don’t seem cruel. And he’s keeping the border safer for your people.”

“How do you think I’m feeling?” Calesco says bitterly. “My first love cheated on me and never loved me in the first place, my big sister is being a huge bitch-”

Hey, Eko gestures. That’s mean!

“- about the fact one of my sweet little keruby suffered a lot and became something I never wanted for them, and my other big sister is the same kind of harlot as Kuha. And you’re being soft on her about it.” She spits the last words.

Keris could defend Haneyl’s nature as being different from Calesco, or explain why she’s trying to stay out of her affairs, or try to cheer her up about Vela not being as cruel and cutting as she’d feared he would be.

Instead she just nods sadly.

“I’m sorry you’re hurting,” Keris says. “Is there any way I can make you feel better? Besides going away or yelling at Haneyl? I’ll leave if you want me to, but if there’s anything else...”

Calesco spreads her wings, black as the sky above her. “Honestly, I don’t want to talk to either of you very much,” she says. “I think I’ll go visit Rathan. He, at least, understands me. And sympathises. And agrees that I’m right about Kuha.” And with that said, she kicks off, a dark shape in the night’s sky, flying towards the red moon.

What’s gotten into her, Eko ponders, shaking her head sadly.

“Kuha sort of broke her heart,” Keris sighs, and relates the bare bones of the tale.

“... and you know how Rathan is about things being fair and paying back in kind. I’m not surprised he sympathises with her. She got a lot closer to him on the trip; they don’t hate each other now,” she finishes. “Ugh, what a mess.”

Eko sighs. Calesco clings to her unhappiness like her tar clings to everything in it, she indicates, poking a tar pool with a stick. She’s not going to let go of it easily. Eko looks at her mother. She doesn’t want her darling little sister to be unhappy, but, Eko shrugs, love is a bird in the hand. If you try to hold onto it when it wants to go, you’ll crush its fragile bones.

“I know,” says Keris sadly. “But finding out it never thought you a nest at all can’t help but hurt, and Calesco can’t shake off that kind of pain like you or I.”

Eko pulls a face. She’s really bored, she indicates. Her little sister is a grump, Rathan is being loud with Oula so it’s super embarrassing being in the same direction as him, and her stupid keruby aren’t evolving unlike everyone else’s. She pulls her hair. She needs something to do.

“You know, I got some adamants in Taira,” Keris says casually. “They have spell-matrices coded into them. Some sort of projecting thing, I think. But they can’t project anymore, so I’m stuck working out what’s in them by listening to what’s been carved into their insides and deciphering it. They’re adamant, so your touch wouldn’t damage them - and it’s sorcery; all complicated and headachey. Do you think you could take a look at them when Sasi gives them back at lunch?”

Eko flops down again. She’d do anything for something to make her less bored, she huffs. She’s probably forgetting that she knows about Vela because she’s just so bored.

She raises her head to glare at Keris. Mama should have left her with Asarin, she pouts.

“I’m sorry, sweetest,” Keris sighs. “Maybe after Calibration, okay? Why do you want to stay with her so much? I mean, fun and running around and stabbing things, obviously. But is there something else in it too?”

She gives her daughter a searching look. It’s a shot in the dark, but it’s an educated guess, not an entirely blind one. “Have you worked out something clever that you’re doing this in aid of?”

Asarin is fun and she’s someone not related to Eko and her land is huge and there’s space to run for hours and hours and see new things, Eko gestures, deliberately not answering the question. Eko didn’t know how much fun it was being somewhere else until she finally got out and realised how tiny this world is.
“... we’ll ask her about hosting you when we see her at Calibration, then,” Keris decides. If Eko isn’t going to share, she can wait for the year’s end. She's shaken awake before she can talk more with Eko, though. She finds her three Tairan girls here - Fatima having shaken her awake.
“Sorry, lady,” she says, dipping her head, “but Lady Sasimana sent us to find you because it’s lunch soon.”

“Who are these?” Haneyl asks, looking over the top of her glasses with an evaluating eye. “They’re sort of cute.” Her eyes linger on Kashma, and she takes a deliberate deep breath, sticking her chest out. “Surely we don’t have to go to lunch immediately. Come on, sit.”

Kerid does have to admit they look a lot better than they did when she picked them up. They’re fully healed, and dressed in good quality yet simple clothing. The horrible burn scar that would have ruined Fatima’s looks forever is like it never existed, and Heba’s hands show no sign of ever being broken.

“Haneyl, these are Kashma, Fatima and Heba,” she introduces. “Calesco rescued them in Taira, and they travelled with us for a while before deciding to come with us to the southwest. Girls, this is Haneyl; Rathan and Calesco’s sister.”

She tugs on Haneyl’s hand gently. “A quick word, Haneyl?” Leaning in, she drops her voice low enough that the girls can’t hear. “They don’t know everything,” she murmurs. “Avoid the more dangerous topics, please, and don’t come on too strong. It would be cruel to frighten them.”

Haneyl sighs. “Tell me these things ahead of time, mama,” she retorts. She wriggles until she’s more comfortable, and gestures over to one of the other seats. “Come on, sit down,” she says. “Yes, I’m Calesco’s half-sister. I can see you’re thinking we don’t look much alike.”

Fatima - who’s always been the bravest of the three - hesitantly sits on the offered chair. “You’re... not worried that there are men down there working in the gardens?” she asks Haneyl softly. “What if they see your body?”

Haneyl bites back what she clearly wanted to say. “It’s the culture here in An Teng,” she says. “Wealthy women can do this - probably because it’s just so hot and humid. The men down there would suffer horrible consequences if they approached me without permission.”

Fatima groans. “Urgh, the heat and the humidity is awful. I can’t believe it’s still only Wood. It’s worse than the height of Fire.”

“Well, if you want, I can help you find something that fits you better,” Haneyl offers. “I am a weaver myself. I made everything I’m wearing, apart from the glasses.” She pauses in her gloating. “Of course, that would mean more normally,” she says, with a casual shrug.

“She’s as fine a weaver as I am,” Keris puts in. Praise always makes Haneyl happy, especially when it’s fully justified. “And I know you’ve seen the dresses I’ve made - for you and for myself. She may even be able to sew some little magic into them to help you deal with the heat and humidity... hmm. Or maybe necklaces?” She plucks a silvery feather from her hair and brushes her fingers along it; Iris coiling off them to give the barbs a curious lick. “Well, I’ll look into it. Thank you for reminding me.”

The conversation is interrupted by a gurgling sound from Haneyl’s stomach. She blushes bright red. “I think we should go to lunch,” she says quickly, picking up her breastband and putting it back on.

Heba cocks her head. “What is that? It’s got structure in it. It cups the breasts, rather than just binding them to the chest.”

“A Realm design,” Haneyl says casually, rising to pick up a very light and thin cotton robe, which she loosely belts. “They use copper wires or whalebone for the support, but I use cultivated bamboo. It’s meant for people like me.” She glances over at the girls. “You, the oldest one...”

“Heba.”

“Yes, you could probably do with one, but the other girls don’t need it so much. Talk to me and I’ll see about fitting you.”

Keris eyes the thing and glances down assessingly. “Not much point in me having one,” she grumbles. “And I’m bigger than usual at the moment, from nursing. Tch. Well, I’d just have to fumble it off every time Atiya needed feeding, so... pssh.” She flaps a hand dismissively and stalks ahead, trying not to look put out. From the quiet giggling behind her, she doesn’t quite succeed.

For once, Haneyl is not cooking - because she spent the morning sunbathing and talking with Keris - and so the food isn’t up to the standards of ‘personally cooked by a demon lord who really likes her food’. Still, it’s a satisfactory rice dish with spicy bean curd and mushroom.

Keris notices - even while Zana babbles at her about statues and finding her an embroidery teacher - that Kuha and Piu are sitting together and seem to be closer. After a thought, that actually makes sense. Piu is someone who has no real connection to Calesco and... well, the others have been sort of shunning Kuha. Which is... well, Keris has mixed feelings about it, but it’s probably best that Vali hasn’t bulled in to either try to make her love Calesco again or some other terrible plan.

She grins, and looks over at Vali, who’s taken over the job of helping feed Aiko plain rice while telling her stories about the Spires.

She’s still not... pleased, exactly, with Kuha. That numbness is still filling up the fondness she used to have. But she’s barely spoken to her since... since, and Piu deserves her attention too. So after promising Zana lessons in embroidery as soon as they can be conveniently arranged, she shifts around the table to Piu’s other side and ruffles her hair, offering Kuha a cordial smile over her head.

“How are you handling the heat?” she asks. It’s a safe topic, and one Piu doubtless has opinions on. “I was cursing the gods of humidity by the end of my first day here, when I first arrived.”

Piu shrugs. “I was living in your fancy home for years, lady,” she says. “That was always hot outside. And in some parts of inside. It’s not so bad here. It’s by the river. It’s almost like some well nobby bit over in Bastion or summin’.”

“Or Cinnabar,” Keris agrees. “We’re going to have to teach you Firetongue, though, if you’re going to be my understudy. You and Kuha can share lessons.”

“Urgh, another language,” Piu whines. “I swear, everyone should just speak proper like they did back home. My tongue still feels like it’s trying to tie itself in knots when I speak that stuff Mehuni’s stupid people made us speak.”

“Get used to it,” Kuha says glumly. “There’s another language everywhere. I know three so far and I bet Kerishyra’s not going to stop at four.”

“I might!” Keris protests. “Though... I guess Watertongue would be useful if I start heading north to trade with the Western island chains. And I really need to get around to learning High Realm one of these days so I know what Sasi’s talking about and can eavesdrop on Realm traders without having to run everything through Haneyl for a translation... okay fine, you might have a point.”

“Told you so,” Kuha says. Her eyes drift over to Rounen, who’s fastidously eating small amounts of rice with chopsticks with a cloth he brought to the table tied around his neck so he doesn’t get anything on his clothes. “So how long are we going to be here, Kerishyra? I feel like I haven’t flown in ages. But I’ve scouted out the island and mapped the area from what I can see and there are villages around here. So you will probably not want me on Cissidy.”

“I think,” says Keris, “it is time for us to start looking for long-term options for you. How do you feel about looking over the birds in this region and seeing which ones we can alter to be riding-size? Albatrosses might be good for long-range scouting. Or sea eagles, maybe? Testolagh owes me a flight corps, and I want to at least start looking into setting something up to receive them.”

Kuha pulls a wryful face. “I’ve probably gone soft with Cissidy,” she admits. “It’s so much easier to handle a mount when it can talk to you. Compared to Cissidy, owls are dumb. Honestly they’re kind of dumb anyway. Their eyes are so big they don’t have much space for a brain.” She pauses. “So if you want a flying thing of once-twigs, we should find a bird that is not as stupid as owls. They will be easier to train too.”

“And you can train the smaller breed; the normal-size ones, too,” Keris agrees. “Alright, I’ll get you some books about what sea birds are in this region and once you’ve picked out a few we can go catch some for you to get to know. I’ll trust your expertise on deciding which we’ll use as our base to grow and mould into a steed.”

Kuha tries to smile, but there’s worry in her eyes, and more than a little awkwardness. She clearly wants to say something more, but doesn’t.

Piu notices nothing. “Training giant birds to fly?” she asks. “We tried keeping pigeons once, but they escaped. But Yelm...” she pauses, pursing her lips, “he found a way to get cheap glue from the market an’ then you could put glue sticks out and some grain and catch the wild pigeons when they went for it!”

Keris laughs. It’s a little choked. “Yeah,” she says, wiping an eye with a sleeve. “Yeah, I remember that trick. Ra- someone I used to know, he wanted to train them to go for people’s faces and steal food. Never really worked.”

“Yeah. And Firewander birds ain’t good for eating too if they look at all weird,” Piu says with the air of an expert. “That’s why if we weren’t too hungry, we’d kill the bird and put it out for the cats and dogs and eat them instead when they went to try to get a free meal.”

Sasi, at the head of the table, is looking slightly green at this. “This is... fascinating, really,” she says. “But Keris, dear, perhaps this isn’t the place to talk about it.”

“It ain’t the place to talk about food?” Piu asks, frowning.

“Sasi doesn’t like hearing about street life,” Keris tells her, patting her hand. “She’s never been there, so it upsets her a bit. Don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong. But it might be better to move onto something else for a bit. Like, say, dancing lessons?”

That draws Piu’s attention. It also draws Zana’s, who literally knocks her chair over in her enthusiasm to hear about it.

“So, as Cinnamon I’m going to be an entertainer,” Keris says. “Haneyl,” she nods over at her, “might be helping with the business side as a cousin or some such. But any great performer needs understudies. So, Zana will no doubt insist-”

“Yes!” cheers Zana. “I’ll do it I’ll do it I’ll do it! I’ll be the best and everyone will look at me and...”

“And Piu will also be one,” Keris gently but firmly continues. “Which means we need to get your dancing skills up a little higher so you’re as good as you possibly can be, and teach you how to pretend you’re from high society and get all of the rich Bags eating out of your hand. Zanara? Would you mind giving Piu some lessons to bring her up to the right level? She’s got plenty of talent, and I know she’ll give you her full attention and work her hardest to develop it.”

Zana’s mismatched eyes are bright. “One on one lessons? Her just paying attention to me?” she says, sounding delighted. “And both me-us and him-us can teach her? And can we make her prettier too?”

“No alterations,” Keris says. “Lilunu said, remember? First Piu needs to develop her natural talent as far as it will go. Only then can we start thinking about - if she wants one - a magical tattoo or something to bring her up further. But otherwise yes. If Piu wants those lessons?” She glances to her side to check Piu’s reaction.

“I mean, I guess.” Piu looks at Zana, and sighs. “That fire dance she did was super pretty. Like the best harlots at the festivals. I’d like to be able to dance like that.”

“Wonderful,” Keris nods happily. “Hmm. As for the girls...”

She debates, briefly, sending them off with Haneyl to Saata. In some ways it might help - it won’t take long for Haneyl to acquire a property, and helping around it will give them something to do. But no. They’re still too shy and uncertain, and Haneyl is... Haneyl.

“Well then,” Keris says instead, ruffling Piu’s hair again and moving around to sit beside her love. “Sasi, we spoke about sending Haneyl ahead to Saata, and she seems very, very eager. Let’s talk details, shall we?”

---

There’s a hint of salt in the air on the day of Haneyl’s departure, the winds blowing in from the shore up the river estuary. It’s a reminder that the ocean is always there, waiting - and it’s well into Earth; hurricane season. Elly, Saji and Rounen are gathered around the small anyaglo herd getting ready to depart.

“... and be careful, watch the horizon for storms and let no ships see you,” Keris is telling her daughter tearfully. “Be sure not to get on the wrong side of House Sinasana - avoid them if you can. Oh... maybe I should send a Gale with you? Or... well, no, you have Rounen, but... oh, I’ve only had you a week or so and now you’re flying off again.” She hugs her daughter again, sniffling.

Haneyl flicks her hair. “Mama,” she says, “almost no one is going to be be able to get at me on the way there. Mortals aren’t going to be able to see us, and everyone else can’t catch us. A Gale will just make us more visible. And I can do this. If something goes wrong - and it won’t - we can just return back to your dream world. I’m in no danger.”

Keris kisses her on both cheeks and pulls her down to drop one on her forehead. “Fine, but I’m still going to worry,” she says firmly. “And we need to see about teaching you Sorcery so you can keep me updated by Messenger.” She glances over to see how Sasi is taking their daughter’s departure.

Sasi for her part wraps Haneyl up in a hug. “Remember to write,” she orders Haneyl. “I’ve set up a man in the docks you can send mail to on the trading routes. I know I won’t get the messages for months, but it’ll make me feel better. And as soon as you set up someone, I’ll be able to write back. And of course, I’ll expect you to come back at least once a season. You’ve got those ribbon horses, so you can travel quickly. My home is always open to you.”

Haneyl nods. “I’ll make you proud, mother,” she says, her eyes getting teary.

“And,” Sasi says, passing over a pouch, “here’s a little something for you. There are bankers in Saata who’ll accept these credit notes. I want you to be living properly! Not in some hovel! There are standards you have to maintain! I’d die of embarrassment if someone thought my daughter was living in a slum!”

“And remember you’re picking out a home for me as well as you,” Keris puts in. “I trust your taste, so I expect to be impressed when I get there.”

“Of course, of course.” Haneyl pats one of the bags strapped to an angyalo. “We spent those evenings talking about minimum sizes and locations and so on. I’m not going to forget it.”

“Of course Haneyl will do that for you,” Elly says. She really does look older, Keris notes. She’s the size of an eleven or twelve year old, and she’s starting to get curves - and she’s plump to start with.

“Yeah, whatever,” Saji says. She’s still tiny and child-like, but her fire is as bright as Keris noticed before.

“I also have a copy,” Rounen contributes. “Don’t worry, ma’am. I’ll be there to remind her of your needs.”

There is a certain look in Haneyl’s eyes that indicates she’s thinking of her own needs vis a vis Rounen. “Of course, of course,” she says airily. “Trust me, mama. I’ll make sure there’s plenty of room for the babies and everything is comfortable. And we'll have a rooftop garden that no one can peer into. That’s important. Our family needs our privacy.”

“Leave room to expand downwards, too,” Keris throws over her shoulder, hugging Rounen briefly. “Will you be alright?” she asks him quietly. “I’ve got no worries that you’ll see everything sorted out perfectly, but Haneyl can be a bit... overwhelming. Remember that you’re my aide, alright? You can stand up to me when you need to, and the same goes for her.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine, ma’am,” Rounen says. “I knew her when we were little, after all. She’s basically a childhood friend. And this is an important job I can do for you that,” he puffs up his chest, “you can only really trust me with.”

Keris smiles proudly at him. “And with you going along, I can sleep easy knowing it’s in good hands. Keep notes on what you do there so I know what I’m walking into when I get back, and good luck.”

“Of course, ma’am.” He saddles up, and waits patiently as Haneyl says goodbye to her siblings, and a crying Aiko who doesn’t want Hanny to go and leave her all alone and other extravagant excuses that Aiko’s inventing for why Haneyl can’t go.

It’s actually kind of touching for Keris to watch. Aiko has clearly bonded with her big half-sister, but her display is a reminder that she’s a lot younger than her mental age and while Haneyl is there she’s progressed from a crying baby to someone who speaks like they’re five or so.

The twins are less torn up about it; Kali not really understanding and Ogin giving his big sister a solemn little wave. Atiya, carefully shaded from the sun and kept cool in the humid heat of the morning, is asleep.
Keris drifts over to where Aiko’s tears are reaching their peak as Rounen checks over the baggage and Haneyl swings herself up onto her ribbon-horse steed. With only a little fumbling, it’s easy enough to let kitten-Kali use her elbow as a perch from which to purr and rub her head against Aiko’s cheek. Aiko wraps her arms around Kali’s neck, and smushes her face into the tiger cub. Fortunately for Keris, Kali doesn’t take this badly. Maybe it’s because she can see the other girl is upset, and Kali doesn’t like that. Instead, she just gives Aiko a lick from chin to brow, that seems to interrupt the tears out of sheer shock.
“You can stroke her, if you like,” Keris offers quietly. “She likes that, and she’ll purr more.”
Ogin flops out of her hands bonelessly, trusting her hair to catch him, and then tugs on it until she swings him round to investigate his sister’s new discovery himself. Between them, her twins manage to quieten down Aiko, and as the angyalos rise up, shedding ribbons, Keris and Sasi coax the babies into waving goodbye to Haneyl.
“You know,” Sasi says very softly, “I fear we might have only delayed the tantrums until you take Kali and Ogin away.”

“Hopefully not,” Keris whispers back. “But we can see if we can find a way around it when that day comes. A kerub friend, maybe?”

“Hmm. Maybe. Haney did offer to make her a sziromkerub, but I wasn’t sure that was a good idea.”

“No? They’re sweet little things, for the most part. Only mezkeruby and Zanara’s clay-cherubs are less active.”

“Yes, but the one time she made one, it depopulated several of my fish ponds and ate all the cats,” Sasi says back.

“Ah.” Keris chuckles. “Well, maybe a clay-cherub, then. They’re sedate little things, and they mostly care about looking pretty and playing with different types of art. And they can cook almost as well as sziromkeruby. No maturations yet, either, so you don’t need to worry about it growing up for a while.”

“I don’t know.” Sasi sighs. “I might just look to finding her some human playmates. She needs to learn how to deal with humans - ah, but she’ll find children her age boring while children she can talk with will find her very small and strange.”

Keris hums thoughtfully. “A tutoring program?” she suggests. “If there are any families you can trust, you could bring them up to her level. Though... I suppose that might be hard for them to conceal.” She bites her lip. “Well, it still might be worth thinking about. And of course I’ll bring Kali and Ogin over for playdates whenever I can.”

“Of course, of course.” Sasi smiles. “It’s much easier having another mother around. That was... one of the downsides of where my husband lived when I was having mine before.”

“Where... did you live?” Keris asks tentatively. “You don’t speak much about Before. Though, uh, if you don’t want to tell me that’s fine, of course.”

“Oh, one of the satrapies along the southern coast. East of the Lap, but west of Chiaroscuro,” Sasi says vaguely. “Those satrapies aren’t like the northern ones - the local petty princes and warlords are allowed to rule themselves. My husband’s role was to stop them warring with each other and made sure they paid their tribute on time. Which... well, was honestly my job most of the time.”

Keris huffs a quiet laugh. “There’s an irony. My Lionesses are taking a route along the Southern coast to get here. My family might put in to resupply in or around that area.”

She sighs. “Gods, I can’t wait until Ali and Zanyira are here. I swore I’d get them to the Southwest, and some days I feel like going out and meeting them... urgh, but no. I swore I’d get them homes here, so it’s more important to make sure they have something waiting for them on this end. And... while I’m on that point, I should ask your advice about Xasan.”

“Go ahead.” Sasi looks up. “Well, inside. Come on, my little dragon, you and Kali and Ogin can go play with blocks.”

Once they’ve set the children to playing - or at least Aiko methodically sorting the blocks by colour while Kali gnaws on a stuffed animal and Ogin watches Aiko’s patterns with wide silver eyes - Sasi tilts her head. “So what about your uncle?”

“He’s not happy with the cult stuff,” Keris sighs, leaning forward and putting her head in her hands. “He accepted Hell’s aid when I gave him his hand back - said the gods had done nothing for him and his vengeance. And I had a bit of a breakdown and spilled everything that happened in Malra to him, so he knows what kind of person I am and what I do.”

She grimaces, looking up. “But the cults - and you, and to some extent Haneyl... he’s not comfortable with it. Not to mention the girls still don’t know anything - they were moon-worshippers, and they think Calesco is a goddess of some sort. I don’t want them all inducted into Yozi cults and full-on worship, but... I’d really like for them to at least know the truth about what I am and who I work for, and be okay with it. This many secrets from people I’m close to is exhausting, even for me.”

Sasi leans back against the wall. “I’m not sure there is a way,” she says with a hint of sadness. “Keris, dear, keeping secrets is how we live. It’s what we are. Openness is a privilege for those who aren’t chosen by the true makers of this world.”

Keris remembers something Testolagh said once; that Sasi clings to the Dragon more than he’d like. She’s seeing that now.

“Xasan is family, though,” Keris complains. “And the girls are going to work for me. I mean, I don’t mean to tell them everything, but...” She sighs. “I dunno. It’s hard, Sasi.” She leans against her lover’s shoulder. “It wasn’t meant to be hard.”

“Doing the right thing demands sacrifice,” Sasi says, a hard note in her voice.

“I know,” Keris sighs. “I just... wish it didn’t have to apply to the people we love.”

“Me too,” Sasi says, wrapping her arms around Keris as they watch their children play.

---

Atiya is putting weight on quickly as Keris makes sure she gets plenty of sun and that she’s fed and rested. This mansion on an island in a Tengese river is a good place for a baby who needs quiet and comfort - much better than almost-noisy, always-bright Hell - and Keris has Sasi here to help her with her youngest daughter.

And other things are going on. Sasi has always been a better Infernalist than Keris, and she taught her sorcery in the first place. Keris returns to her first teacher to learn how to summon and bind demon lords. Sasimana has a rather large library of occult texts and demonic secrets, hidden away, and Keris spends many a hard-working evening down there with her girlfriend.

((What anchor are you looking for? With Sasi’s library, you can basically learn anything that’s “Hellish”.))
((Probably the same one as for First Circle Summoning - her Infamy/Backing as someone with authority over demons.))
((Do note that as a CCS spell, it needs a 3-rated background.))
((... ah yes. Hmm. Then... sigh. Quite possibly her Mentor rating. She calls on her teacher Lilunu, who speaks for the Yozis, to send her student what help she needs.))
((Mmm, yes, she can certainly get one that invokes the demon princes to bind their souls.))
((Hee. And that means Iris spreads her wings dramatically and Keris’s left arm twinges and feels the nature of the incoming demon lord as she summons it.))

Of course, such things come with a cost. Sasi might phrase the things she asks Keris to do as ‘things to get the Priest down in the ship off your back’, but Keris knows Sasi well enough to know that she’s benefitting from the thefts and murders she has her carry out. Most of them aren’t challenging - stealing papers, making sure Realm agents of the magistrate die in their sleep - but there is one challenging one.

Count Vrasi is holding a grand ball towards the end of the season, and Sasi wants him dead in scandalous circumstances at his grand party. His estate is up in the Middle Lands, among countless peach groves, and he’s a well-known hedonist whose parties attract the rather edgier kind of Tengese noble. From what Sasi says, he stumbled into something that she really, really doesn’t want him to know from cultists of hers who attended one of his parties. He needs to be silenced - and more than that, discredited.

((Pool depends on Keris’s technique for murder, Diff 9, charm use can lower it.))
((Hmm. He’s a hedonistic degenerate who leans towards the edgier sort of party?))
((Yes - but seemingly not at all interested in Sasi’s lures.))
((Hmm. Then Keris will set things up so that he’s found in the stables by some of the more gossipy servants, with signs of having taken more alcohol and/or recreational drugs than usual, his ribs caved in by a stallion kick and his pants around his ankles. And use Passing Off Blame to, uh. Have them draw their own conclusions.))
((OK, Phys + Subterfuge, Diff reduced to 6 by POB. Stunt as you wish.))
((5+5+3 EH-boosted stunt+3 Mendaciloquent Maverick+5 Kimmy ExSux {spiteful suffering, shameful truths, disturbing art}=16. 9+5=14 sux.))

Nothing discredits a man quite like a scandal, and so in the choice between madness and humiliation, Keris picks the latter. She scouts out the man’s estate - and feels the sour, cold stirrings of envy bloom as she takes in his properties - as she devises her plan.

It’s no great effort to kill him, getting him alone as a flirtatious attendant at his party and unceremoniously caving his chest in with a fist to his ribs. Dragging him to the stables unseen is only a little harder - and there, she funnels rather more alcohol into his stomach and bloodstream, splashes a little around his robes and stains traces of stimulants around his mouth and nose.

Then she undresses him enough to make it look like he came in with certain intentions, and lays him out behind a stallion’s stall, leaving the door open with the horse facing the other way. After a moment’s thought, she lets the bottle of wine fall and smash on the ground as if dropped.

Then she ghosts out, quietly nudges a couple of the more gossipy servants in the right general direction, and sits back to watch the chaos unfold.

((POB roll: 3+5+3 stunt+4 Kimmy ExSux=11. 4+4=8 sux.))
((gonna be pretty hard to investigate))
((oh keris))

Keris is pleased with her night’s work - and so is Dulmea. She makes Keris one of her finer teas, and praises her for such an elegant little scheme.
And the envious murder seems to turn a little key in Keris’s mind. In the oilslicks in the waters of the Isles, Keris starts to see the desires of others reflected in silvery scum. Zanara seems happy with that too. She returns to Sasi happily, riding the high of glorious victory and bragging about the artfulness of the kill. He’ll be discredited and shamed for this - and indeed possibly shunned by his family, with the oh-so-pretty estate and extensive stables broken up or distanced from him.
---

The weeks pass by, and Atiya grows and grows. She can feed on her own now, and she’s a healthier colour. Her lungs are still weak, but she doesn’t wheeze in the same way. Not all the time, at least.

And Vali, for his part, is starting to get impatient. Sasi asks Keris several times to stop him making booms when he starts jogging, and he starts mutinously muttering about going off to see how Haneyl’s doing.

It’s probably time to move on.

“Sasi, my love,” she sighs wistfully one night as they’re recovering from mutual pleasure. “I... I think it’s time for me to go. Atiya is doing better, and Haneyl will have gotten up to who knows what, and Vali’s impatient...”

She shifts closer, hugging Sasi’s arm. “I don’t want to run off and leave you. But it’s time I get back to Saata and move forward with my plans.”

Sasi sighs. “It’s been nice to have you here, but at least you’re not on the other side of the world this time. We’ll be able to see each other more.” She kisses Keris. “I’ll come visit you when you have a home. I’ve heard a lot of Saata, that den of decadence and pirates and corruption.”

“I know,” Keris purrs happily. “Isn’t it great? I feel right at home there.”

“Oh, you,” Sasi says fondly.

Gathering up her children, her uncle and her wards takes up much of the next day, but before long they’re back on the Baisha, ready to sail off for the Isle of Gulls. Keris embraces Sasi fiercely on the dock, kissing her until she’s breathless.

“I will visit you,” she promises. “Often. And you must meet my brother and his family when they arrive.”

“Well,” Sasi says when she gets her breath back, “are you sure they won’t be shocked by my disreputable ways? That I’m leading you into sin and vice?”

“Oh, I’m sure you can make a good first impression,” Keris purrs. “Anyway, Zany saw you in my sketchbook and thought you were gorgeous. Proving,” she adds smugly, “that she has eyes.”

She kneels down to Aiko. “I’ll miss you too, young lady,” she says. “And when Haneyl works out how to make chocolate, I’ll make sure to send you some, if you want. Does that sound good?”

The little girl isn’t happy, but Keris overheard Sasi talk to her about not embarrassing herself and she’s trying her best not to cry - even if her new playmates are leaving. “‘s,” she says.

“And when I visit Sasi, I’ll be sure to bring Kali and Ogin so you can teach them new games to play and show them how clever you are,” Keris promises. “Do you think you can be a good example for them?”

Aiko mutely nods, bottom lip wobbling. Ogin slithers down from Keris, and wraps her up in a big hug, kissing her on the brow. That just turns on the floodgates of tears.

“Oh dear,” Sasi says. “I think someone’s tired and will need a nap after that.” She smiles. “I hope this isn’t her first crush.”

Keris picks Ogin back up and kisses him on the forehead. “His father was very charming,” she agrees, smiling sadly. “Rathan got it from him, so maybe Ogin will turn out the same way.”

She takes a deep breath.

“I’ll miss you,” she confesses. “Even though I won’t be as far away. Do... do you want to keep my painting? It’s wasted on the Baisha, and... it might make you feel better to have it.”

“I couldn’t take something like that away from you,” Sasi says, hand going to her mouth.

“How would you be taking it from me?” Keris asks, her mouth curving up even as her eyes go watery. “It’s part of me, and being with you is exactly where every part of me wants to be. I can’t think of any better place for it than with you.”

“Oh, if you say so...” Sasi says, “then I’d love to.”

Keris has it brought out - her offer wasn’t quite as spontaneous as it had seemed - and leaves it gently in Sasi’s care; covered over to avoid the sun.

“Well then,” she breathes, stepping back onto the Baisha’s deck. “Goodbye, my love.”

“I love you,” Sasi calls out, picking up Aiko with a grunt and lifting her up so she can see Keris and co off.

Keris waves, as her flagship slides out of the dock, and keeps waving long after the pier and the people on it and the manor have disappeared out of sight down the river.

Then, with a sigh, she goes inside to settle her children and wait for their next stop.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The Memory of Baisha cuts its way through the clear waters of the South West like a knife. Within it, its hellish sun-engine unleashes terrible forces, only contained by the black metal that shields its core.

“My lady,” says Captain Neride, looking back at the owner of this vessel who sits sprawled out on her command throne, playing a counting game with the feet and tails of her young twins, “the listeners can hear ships overhead. Sailing ships, heavily laden. You wished to be notified of such things.”

Keris’s eyebrow rises, and she pauses at four with a tail in one hand and a little hand in the other. “Interesting,” she hums. “How many?”

“Five vessels, my lady. A three master, two two-masters, and two small ships.”

Tattooed fingers shift to drum on the arm of the brass throne. After a moment’s thought, Keris stands, depositing the twins on the empty seat.

“Do we know whose they are?” she asks. “If not, I’ll go out and have a look. Oh, and bring us around to pace them; this is worth a short detour for.”

“We don’t believe they’re Realm,” Neride says, holding her arms behind her back. “There’s no sound of jade on the ships and the listeners say the hulls are shaped differently to the Realm vessels we’ve encountered before.”

Keris smiles.

“Well then,” she decides happily. “A nice opportunity to add to my fleet. I’ll take a quick look to make sure they’re not Hui Cha ships, and if not we can surface and claim them.”

She pauses. “I’ll be settled in Saata for the next while,” she tells Neride. “But I mean for the Baisha to stay on the move, scouting south down the coast and hitting targets of opportunity. I’ll give you a full set of orders and priorities in a few days, but you’ll be operating with a fair degree of independence. Will you need anything you don’t already have for that kind of work?”

“What of fuel and our operational bases?” asks the snake-like demon, bluntly.

After a moment’s thought, Keris nods. “You won’t be staying out there indefinitely. The first trip will first be a scouting expedition to find islands like the one we used during our season of piracy - natural harbours, sheltered bayous; places we can exploit. There are enough hearthstones for a month or so of that.

“Once we know where they are, I can supply a demon lord and architects who can handle the construction of a network of bases - which I can come out personally to hide and empower with the Great Mother’s gifts.”

Neride nods. “Finally. What you hired me for. I’ll order us brought about.”

Keris leaves the babies with Vali and her Gale, and leaves out the airlock, rising up to the surface.

It’s a scorching hot day up on the surface. Heat haze shimmers over the water. Under the blazing sun, Keris spots five black ships.

She also sees that Neride’s report was not quite accurate. The vessels aren’t junks - not like Realm ones. She’s seen similar ones to these black ships in Saata, though. They stink of death and mud, and polished skulls hang from their masts like fruit.

It’s a Zu Tak fleet - not one of their raft-forts that are sometimes as large as a small island, but the ‘three master’ is a number of vessels lashed together, with war canoes stacked up on the deck ready to be deployed, escorted by four smaller ships.

The Zu Tak are cannibalistic death-worshipping drug-addicted raiders, and Keris has absolutely no hesitation in darting back down to the Baisha and signalling through the viewing window to attack. She externalises and slides into her armour on the outside deck as it rises upwards through the water. Her Helmsman, she sees with glee, has aimed them right for the middle of the small fleet; the prow spike cutting towards one of the small guard-ships.

((What’s your objective here? What are you seeking to do?))
((Keris has signalled Neride to launch a hard raid - which is “kill the entire crew, claim all treasure, destruction of the ships is an acceptable loss”, as opposed to a soft raid where taking the ships intact is a priority rather than a pleasant bonus. She’s not as bothered about taking these comparatively lower-quality war barges and outrigger canoes as she would be more sophisticated vessels.))
((But she’s an opportunist and she’s quite happy to get rid of some death-worshipping cannibals and claim some treasure in one smooth naval engagement.))
((Oh, though - does Keris detect any notably strong Dead things on the ships?))
((Nothing exceptional. There’s quite a few Dead on the largest ship - below decks, near the oars - but they’re all sort of pathetic to Keris’s firey senses (E1-3).))
((Cool. Then ATTACK!))
((Cog + Command for Keris sneak attack vs their Reaction + Awareness.))
((... can she have Neride command the attack? In fact, isn’t Neride commanding the attack?))
((Yes, but this also incorporates the tactical use of Keris and her orders she passed in to see if she hits them unaware, or whether they notice the shiny ship.))
((Ah, cool. Then 3+0+2 Dread Pirate+2 stunt+3 Malfeas ExD=10. 8 sux! But srsly keris buy some command.))
((lol, I was actually hoping you’d run into the fact that they got 4 successes on 5 dice.))
((but alas))
It’s brutal, cruel, and mean. And very, very quick. The Baisha all but surfaces right into the middle of the Zu Tak war barge and breaks its back. Green fire surfaces from its side from algarel-throwers, and then as it sails away from the sinking barge Neride orders the harpoon-ballista to anchor onto the other ships. Keris contributes by cutting down the sails of the other ships and cutting apart the canoes that launch. It’s less than ten minutes, all told, before the clear waters are ablaze with patches of algarel and there’s black smoke rising from the sinking ships. The Baisha is untouched, with at most some soot on its hull. Clad in silver armour and panting lightly, Keris bounces on her heels in satisfaction.
“Well, that was easy,” she says happily. “And none of the Dead escaped. What did we get? Did we lose anything to the seabed?”

“Lost a few to the ghosts,” one of the blood apes grunts, adjusting his eyepatch. He’s stolen a hat from one of the Zu Tak, who probably themselves stole it from someone else given it’s not their style. It looks Tengese, like what the rice-farmers wear. “Got some captives. Priest wants them. Also got their supplies. Fresh meat an’ water. Some furs. And bags o’herbs and stuff. Summ’one said they’d be valuable.”
“Hmm. Show me.” If the captives are just Zu Tak cannibals, the Priest can have them, unless there are any young children or pregnant mothers there - which Keris is inclined to doubt. She’s more interested in the herbs; the alchemist in her perking up at the prospect of new materials. The captives are all fighting men - or at least teenagers - hopped up on drugs.
By contrast, the herbs are probably a mix of their own stash and things that they want to sell to others. She doesn’t recognise any of them, but just by tasting them she can tell that they’ve got all kinds of pharmaceutical properties. Stimulants, anti-coagulants, anything you care to mention. They’re probably native to the Weeping Fen.

“Do as you want with them,” Keris absently tells the Priest, waving a hand as she sorts through the herbs with interest. “Just keep it confined to the shrine, please. And Neride, resume course to Saata, if you would.”

She can make a gift of these to Haneyl. No doubt she’ll be able to cultivate them, and Keris will have some new plant stock to play with. Excellent.

“And now...” she sighs as she tucks them away and surveys the empty throne. “To find out where the twins have gone.”

---

A few days later they’re approaching the Isle of Gulls, the sunset setting blood red over the west.
There’s been a change of the set-up. Coral is growing around the waters, in the Metagaos-influenced waters she set up as a trap. There’s a washed up ship there, snarled up in mangrove trees that are growing from the coral. Keris flits out of the ship again to check on it, nodding in approval of the mangroves - they’ll protect the shore and disguise the fact that the island is inhabited. Climbing up onto it, she scopes out the deck and cabins, rifling through what’s left and scanning for bodies or emblems to identify where the ship was from and how long it’s been here. And whether there’s anything left to loot.She’s not sure what happened here. But now she looks inside, she can see there was a fire onboard, that seems to have consumed the evidence. Shrugging, she has the Baisha settle outside the coral while she checks in on the island. The idea of sailing up in a little flower-boat comes to mind, but... ach, no, the dragon armour is still her only way to anchor that spell. Swearing quickly, Keris makes a note to get her hands on a jade ring or something - she should have asked Sasi for one, she thinks.
Still, in lieu of that, she swims up to the island and dons her disguise of Riyaah MuHiitiyah - not a huge change, but enough to look more like goddess than moral. Ghosting up the beach stealthily, she takes in what the misbegotten have been doing with their new home before revealing herself; heart in her throat and hoping they’re well.

The misbegotten here seem to be thriving. The Isle of Gulls now looks like a Tengese coastal village, and they’ve built new structures from wood and stone and whitewashed them.

Keris grins at the sight of the stone statues of herself by the pier. Someone - probably a child - has dropped a ring of plaited flowers over her statue’s head.

The waterfront is alive at sunset, with fishermen sorting their catches and men drinking in the teahouse. But they all fall silent as they realise she’s here, and in twos and threes prostrate themselves before her.

“My people,” she smiles. “How fare you? Where is my priestess, Darling Yellow? Show me to her.”

There’s a silence. The kind of silence when no one is quite sure what to say.

“Goddess,” a woman murmurs. “She... she died a few months ago. When we came for morning prayers, she was sitting before the altar. We thought she was meditating at first. It was only later one of the flower gods told us she was dead.”

((... oh, Keris. :c))

It’s like a knife to Keris's heart. Like a punch to her gut. It sucks all the air out of her from shock, and might actually feel worse than the pain of being savaged by the yidak in Malra. Keris hadn’t realised the old priestess as worked her way so deep into her heart, but nonetheless she actually staggers back a step at the words; Calescoid pain and love reverberating through her. Tears begin to trickle down her face; the shadow-guise making them smell of brine and mangrove fruit.

“Dead...” she breathes in a heartbroken whisper, and it’s Keris saying it, not Riyaah MuHiitiyah - the lie forgotten in the shock of grief. Her voice cracks on the word. “I face down two of the Greater Dead and win, only to find that death has taken my priestess from...”

She cuts off abruptly, remembering herself. Remembering who she is at the moment. But... no, she didn’t reveal anything that would break her cover. If anything, part of her behind the looming grief points out, it’s a valid cover story for where she’s been and why she didn’t know already.

It’s an effort. But she composes herself.

“Show... show me her memorial,” she says quietly. “And her successor.”

There is a little graveyard on the hillside. Darling Yellow isn't the first to have died here, but it’s still empty here, in among the trees. They’re building little family shrines in the Tengese way, with niches for the ashes of the deceased.

Here rests Darling Yellow, in a little clay urn.

The goddess - beautiful, unearthly, with hair like blood and a dress of flowers and mangrove roots - approaches the little urn. She kneels, head bowed, for a long moment before standing again.

“Was her passing peaceful?” she asks the reverent attendants. “Were her last days happy? I have been far from this island, working against the monstrous Dead.” She looks in grief at the ashes of her priestess. “I should have returned sooner. I would have, had I known.”

But she’s not Saturn, she thinks miserably. She didn’t know. A death of old age is one she can’t accurately predict - and she’d thought Darling Yellow still had a few years left in her, on this peaceful little isle.

“As far as we can tell, she just... didn’t wake up from meditation one morning, lady,” one of the attendants says. “She seemed well until the end.”

Keris musters a sad smile. “Good,” she says. “I am glad she had the peace I promised her.” A breath. “Where is her successor? Who leads you now, and attends my shrine?”

“It is One Leaf,” the attendant says. “She is in the shrine now. The gods on this isle are... vocal.”
“They are my servants,” Keris replies with a flicker of damp amusement. “They often are.” She’s shown to the shrine - which has been improved on like all the rest of the structures here - and takes the opportunity during the walk to glance down at her somewhat-battered fleet in the harbour. Everything still seems in place, and there’s a surprise waiting for Keris in the shrine. The new priestess is praying there, but sprawled out on the altar - and wearing a rather short robe that shows long legs and bare feet - is a woman with Tengese features, bright red hair, and green eyes. Embers glow in her hair on top of flower petals. But there’s also something domestic about her, almost maternal despite her youth.
She’s smirking as she listens to the prayers, chin propped up on her hands and a very smug smile on her lips.

The newcomer is weaker than Keris - but stronger than a kerub. And yet she feels like Haneyl - but not just Haneyl. There’s also something divine about her.

((E3, Haneylish-Divine hybrid essence))
((... huh. So one of the sziromkeruby got pushed to mature, and beefed up on cult essence. Interesting. Does she read as a dragon aide, or is she a unique divine sziromkerub maturation?))

Keris enters the shrine, and all eyes turn to her. Riyaah MuHiitiyah, in all her glory, is unmistakable.

She, in turn, examines the spirit lying on the altar. Obviously one of the sziromkeruby she left here, and with similarities to Rounen’s new form looks... but divine essence, and embers in her hair. Is she looking at a dragon aide with the backing of a cult, or... is this some new and different divine maturation of a petal-cherub?

Oh. Keris sees what happened. The god-like layer is just a surface thing. Clothing worn over the top.

Knowing sziromkeruby as she does - and knowing her daughter and herself if she had to really admit it - she suspects that this dragon aide stole a god’s power in some way. And made herself into a temporary goddess or something.

((lol))

“I would speak to my servant alone, priestess,” she says quietly. “And then to you, also.”

One Leaf leaves, and the dragon aide pouts, rolling her eyes. “Couldn’t you have waited?” she asks. “I was enjoying that.”

“I’m sure you’ll have more time to be worshipped when I leave again,” Keris says. Part of her wants to smack the spirit around the head for her presumption, part of her notes that a dragon aide will make for a capable, fairly loyal and intelligent subordinate and point of contact here... and okay, most of her is reluctantly amused by her creation’s initiative.

“Who did the divine mantle come from?” she asks, keeping her voice low as she stalks up to the altar. “And what are you calling yourself to them? Congratulations on becoming the local goddess of the island, by the way. Good initiative, as long as you’re still a servant of Riyaah MuHiitiyah.”

Rounen likes to be praised and for his decisions and actions to be validated. Keris guesses this dragon aide is no different. Her aide likes to be rewarded, too - she’ll have to think of something to keep this one loyal.

The dragon aide dusts herself down, crossing her legs as she sits up on the altar. “Can’t you remember me, Keris?” she asks, sounding hurt. “I’m Molian. You summoned me to look after these people. Well, I did that. And then I grew up. And this goddess showed up about two weeks ago, and was very, very rude. She called me and the others a very. very bad word.” She smiles, but she’s obviously covering remembered pain. “She’s gone now. And I took her robe. It fits me nicely.”

She claps her hands together. “I also took her home. Do you want to see it? It lets me in and I can do her paperwork. In fact, I’ve cleared her backlog almost entirely. She wasn’t really doing her job.”

Keris narrows her eyes. “Good. Well done on disposing of her, Molian. Did she say where she came from?” She purses her lips, considering. “Bishop Molian, I think. You deserve a title for your actions. And yes, show me your home.”

Molian struts out, leading Keris towards the town centre. She chatters as she does - mentioning things about everyone she sees heading home as the sun sets. She - and maybe all the sziromkeruby here - do seem to be keeping track of who’s who.

Her new house is in the market square, by the statue of Keris that serves as the centre. Molian throws open doors that weren’t there before, and leads Keris into a smallish set of rooms, closing the doors behind her.

She can tell that sziromkeruby frequent here. Quite apart from the fact there are lots of books and paper trees growing, there’s also an entire room set aside to being a kitchen where a gaggle are standing around arguing over fish stew.

Keris showing up produces some “Wow”s, some greetings, and a redoubled argument about what they’re going to serve the All-Queen.

Molian, however, leads Keris through into a smaller room with an ornate writing desk that she sprawls out on. “I’m a hearth goddess,” she says smugly. “I read her papers. She was meant to be looking after the misbegotten, but it took her seasons to realise they were missing. Now I’m doing her job and I’ve cleared all her paperwork, look! The desk is all clear! Did I do well?”

“Hah!” Keris applauds. “You did! This is wonderful work, Molian. Was she the goddess only of the Gullites, or of the other misbegotten still back in An Teng?”

“She’s a goddess of cast-out hearths, but not the goddess. I’m a goddess of the First Rank now! But I answer to Ma Ren, Goddess of Misbegotten Homes, who’s a goddess of the Second Rank!” Molian says promptly. “I’m not sure if she’s even reading my reports. And I think she reports to the Warden of the Misbegotten, who’s also of the Second Rank.”

Keris purses her lips. “Interesting,” she muses. “Very interesting. Stay here for now, Molian... but see if you can gather some information on your superiors. We’ll want to move carefully so that Heaven doesn’t notice and come down here spouting cruel and horrible accusations... but within the next year or two we may be able to get you promoted to Ma Ren’s spot, and fill this office with one of your siblings. And perhaps even promote you again from there.” She smiles invitingly. “Would you like to climb the chain of rank like that?”

“Of course!” Molian says, green eyes bright. “I’m a much better goddess than her. How dare she call me a demon!” and there is is, the way Keris can see her slitted eyes, the second row of teeth. She’s breathing deeply, and the fires in her hair are surging. She exhales. “But I am a goddess, after all. And I’m going to show the others,” she nods to the other room, “how to transcend and become like me.”

“Well then, hearth-goddess Molian,” Keris smiles. “Well done. And now for...”

She sighs, sadness returning as her thoughts turn to the priestess - and thus the absence of Darling Yellow. “I’ll be coming at some point in another identity to claim my ships - setting up an alliance between my goddess face and my Tengese one. The story will be that Little River helped Riyaah MuHiitiyah fight off and destroy a pair of Greater Dead who were threatening another part of her territory. I’ll tell One Leaf and I’m sure you can handle it when I arrive in my Tengese face to collect them.”

Molian shivers with pleasure at the way Keris is tasking her with direct responsibility. “Of course, Keris,” she says, perched on her desk. “Anything else only I can do for you?”

“One thing,” Keris nods. “I saw the ship out on the coral - who was it, and what happened? I bet you’re already keeping records of any foreign contact with the island, but in future I’ll have them collected at regular intervals so I know what’s happening here.”

She should probably, she realises, create some kind of courier-demon. Something that can carry messages at speed, for those subordinates of hers who need to send small physical things or who can’t use Infallible Messengers. She puts the thought at the back of her mind to simmer.

“Oh, that? That was months ago. Before I grew up. They were bad men, Keris. We,” she gestures over to the other room, “we heard them talking after we swam over to see if they had any nice things on board. So we set the ship on fire. They tried to get away. The sharks got them.”

Keris nods. “You defended the island. Exactly what I left you here for. Thrice well done, then, and I’ll make medals for you and your siblings as rewards. Now...” she sighs. “Let’s get this talk with One Leaf over and done with.”

One Leaf is... well, she’s fine enough, Keris supposes. But she’s not Darling Yellow. She’s just not the same. She’s a self-taught street preacher and wise woman, but she’s not the determined former nun that Keris had looked up to.

It’s fine.

She sighs, and goes back to the ship. She’ll need to think what to do here before she heads to Saata.

---

“Well, well, well,” Dulmea says in a reserved tone that night, while Keris feeds Ogin. “That was... interesting, was it not, child?”

“She was my first priestess,” Keris says in a small voice. Here in her chambers, in privacy, she huddles close around her children, Atiya held by a pair of hair-tendrils with her head in the crook of Keris’s shoulder and Kali kneading at her thighs in worry from her position in her mother’s lap.

“The first person who believed in me,” Keris continues. Her tone is quiet and lost and hurt. “Who trusted me to provide for her. She... she put her faith in me. A-and now she’s gone.” A sniff. “She’s gone and it was p-peaceful so she won’t have left a g-ghost, b-but she’s gone through Lethe and now I’ll never see her again. She was my first, mama. And I wasn’t even there.”

Tears brim as she thinks back to the last time she saw her priestess. Just before she left for the Althing, at the end of last year. She’d shown them the island... Darling Yellow had wept for joy. She’d introduced the sziromkeruby and stomach bottle bugs... and her brilliant, dedicated priestess had recognised the latter as the demons they were, and promised to watch them for her goddess.

“‘Live happily, and with my blessings’,” Keris sniffs. Her lip trembles. “That’s what I said to her. The... the last thing I ever said to her. That’s... that’s good. For her to remember as the last thing. But it wasn’t a proper goodbye.”

“Oh, child,” Dulmea says sadly. “Death is always hard. But she got the quiet, peaceful death that many demons only dream of. I would not have thought that you would have preferred that she linger.”

“I know,” Keris agrees, blinking rapidly from how her eyes won’t stop watering. “I’m glad it was peaceful. I’m glad she was happy. I just... I wish she could have lasted long enough for me to be there with her. One last time.”

Dulmea doesn’t say anything, just leaving Keris in peace while Ogin suckles. In the peacefulness, Keris finds herself drifting asleep after her exhausting day.

She opens her eyes in the gnarled wood at the edge of the Swamp and the Meadows. The trees here are tall and block out the moon. This time, though, she can see figures moving in the woods. Little figures, their eyes burning bright, as they hunt the peaceful creatuers that stray over the border from the Meadows.

The trees here are fortified treehouses, inhabited by sziromkeruby and other Haneylish demons. Keris knows Elly’s lair is somewhere around here, but she’s with Haneyl now.
Her ears perk up as she hears a melancholy song drifting over the tar pits and hillocks of the Meadows. Sniffing a little as the song tugs at her bruised heartstrings, she follows the sound - belatedly keeping low as she remembers Calesco probably doesn’t want to see her right now.
Calesco is sitting not so far from the border, glaring at the Swamp. And specifically at the sziromkeruby tree forts. And sziromkeruby cooking pits.

She’s also glaring at some of her mezkeruby, who - from Keris’s eavesdropping - have apparently been selling honey and sugar to the sziromkeruby in return for trade goods. Which Calesco does not approve of.

After a brief scuffle, melancholy wins out over hesitation, and Keris trudges up to sit down next to her. Calesco sees her coming, of course, but either she’s cooled off enough to tolerate Keris again or is too invested in her glaring contest with the border to fly off in a huff.

Keris can see the moment Calesco notices the teartracks on her mother’s face, though. It’s subtle, but there’s surprise there, as Keris crosses the last metre or two and sits down on her right.

“So, this time we’re going to talk about what I care about first. And why Haneyl’s stupid keruby are corrupting mine and tricking them into selling them things by giving them worthless things, just so they can honey-roast my creatures,” Calesco says, but her heart isn’t in it. She sighs. “What is it, mama? Misery shared is misery increased, after all.”

“Darling Yellow died,” Keris says. And somehow stating it out loud like that, so bluntly, brings the pain of it crashing back. She bursts into tears again - quiet, shuddering sniffles, as she chokes out the details of when and how.

“Oh, mama,” Calesco says, sighing as she rests her head on her shoulder. “Love hurts, doesn’t it?”

Keris nods, leaning into her daughter and enjoying the contact for a while.

“I... I was wondering,” she says. “If you’d like to stay with them for a while. Away from... her. And, well. M-me. Spend some time somewhere peaceful with people you can help.”

Calesco slumps down. “So you want to get rid of me,” she says darkly.

“No!” Keris gasps. “No, baby. If you want to stay here I want you here.” She pulls Calesco closer with an arm around her, pressing her cheek against Calesco’s temple. “I would miss you as much as Haneyl. But you... you seem miserable here. And I feel like maybe it’s because you need space. And something to do that’s just peaceful and good.”

Turning slightly, she kisses Calesco on the forehead. “It’s your choice. I’d like you to stay with me. But if you want to... to take some time to yourself, and heal... the Isle of Gulls is close enough to Saata that you could come back easily, or I could pick you up. And it’s safe, and it’s thriving, and it’s... a reminder that good things are possible.”

Calesco sighs, staring down at her gloved hands. “It’s... true,” she says reluctantly. “There... there were good times outside.” She pauses. “But you’re only going to summon me just before you leave, and she stays away from me. Unless you want me to be Rathan and her to be Oula.”

She lets the image sink in.

“Also. One more thing.”

“What?” Keris asks, heart in her throat.

“Make that fucking snake give me back my bow,” she hisses.

“Ah,” Keris says. “Right. Yes. I’ll... go deal with that now.”

---

Keris stays around until the next new moon, making sure to help things out, explore the area, and make sure that the land is stable.

And technically speaking, Atiya is the rightful queen of these people. It’s a good place for her to rest and grow a little more.

((Which was the charm you wanted to learn? You have time to learn it now.))
((Well-Reputed Grotto? Heh. Which is fitting for being learnt in a secret place like this.))

“Hey, mama,” Vali says one day. “So, me an’ Zanara talked. We should use the time to work on practice-building a palace place for you. Where we can stay! And stuff!”

“... I did ask Oula to design me a seabed docking point for the Baisha that I could connect to somewhere on land,” Keris muses. “Back in Taira, when she was having trouble with her new nature. Hang on, let me see if she finished the designs.”

Vali glares at Keris. “I can’t breath underwater, mum,” he says.

“I can,” Zanara contributes, “but I don’t want to have to lift rocks and stuff. That’s Vali’s job.”

“Some of my crew from the Baisha are fine underwater, though,” Keris points out. “And we’ll still have the land half of the plans, which is the bit you can work on making. Oh, and Zanara can help me make a shrine to me to go inside it!”

“I mean, I guess,” Vali says. He doesn’t sound very enthusiastic.

“Yeah, I’m down with that!” Zanara says much more happily. “Shoo, mama. Go get the stuff off Oula.”

Oula is happy to see Keris when she pops in, and looking very good in a pink and red version of Keris’s tiger dress that’s been cut to expose her entire back and arms.

“I have to use glue to keep this on,” she says ruefully to Keris, “but Rathan likes it a lot.” She sorts through the scrolls in her chambers. “I might need to talk with Zanara about this and I can help for a day or two if you summon me out,” she says, tapping her teeth with the plans, “but you’ll have to do something for me too.”

“Everyone seems to have things for me to do for them,” Keris complains good-naturedly. “What happened to being the All-Queen?” She smiles. “Alright, what do you want?”

“Egie hatched yesterday,” Oula says, staring up at the moon from her island. “He’s the second and he’s like me. I want him out of here. He keeps on trying to give his heart to Rathan, and I can’t allow that. Take him somewhere else. Let him give it to Haneyl or Calesco if he wants, but he needs to keep away from my Rathan.” She whirls and her red irises are knife-like slits.

Keris purses her lips. “I’m not sure...” she begins. Then smiles. “Actually,” she changes her mind as Molian comes to mind, “I know someone who might match quite well with him. Alright, niece. I’ll summon him tonight. But there will be others, and I can’t summon all of them out of your way, so you need to think of a way to get them to exchange hearts among the citizens instead of offering them all to Rathan.” She pauses. “A way that isn’t murder,” she adds.

“Look,” Oula says bluntly, “aunty, things will work better when there are more adults around. Right now, there’s not enough.”

“Not my fault!” Keris protests. “But yeah, fine, I’ll see to it. Now, gimme those plans.”

It looks pretty solid, after Keris looks it over with Zanara, and it certainly gives Vali something to do until the new moon. Keris appreciates that. He’s not quite as hyperactive as Eko, but he needs things to keep him entertained.

And then comes the new moon.

Keris advises Kuha to take Cissidy and go on a night flight with some of the gulls she’s been using the time to train, so as to see how they do in the dark. Then she prepares for her first act of Sapphire Sorcery. The sky is dark above her as she waits for the right moment; no moon visible amidst the stars as the sun’s light fades.

As the daystar crosses the horizon, Keris summons her power and holds her left arm high.

“In Lilunu’s name I call you,” she intones. “By the mark she made on me I summon you. In your own name I open the way for you. Come now, oh Midnight Whisper, oh Veiled Star! Come now, Eighth Soul of mine! Come to me, Calesco!”

Sensation explodes through her arm - not pain, exactly, just the rushing surging flare of essence. Iris rears off her skin, wings spreading wide, mouth opening in a sibilant cry. Her eyes blaze with rainbow hues and her occult flame flares for a moment to the height of a man.

A black oval splits the world. It opens like teeth. And Calesco steps through, veiled and with her hands folded in front of her. She looks demure. Placid, even.

It’s a lie, Keris is sure.

“Well, look at you,” Calesco says to Iris. “You’re a sweet little thing, aren’t you?”

Iris nods, and crawls onto Calesco to writhe around on her skin.

“That was easier than having to fly out through a hole in the sky,” Calesco informs Keris. She takes a deep breath. “It’s nice to breathe in the air with my own lungs.”

Keris can’t answer, as she’s breathing hard and clutching her upper arm. Her eyes are wide. If Emerald Sorcery kicks like a mule, she thinks a little hysterically, Sapphire moves like a fully-loaded clipper - slower, but with vastly more mass and force behind it. The difference isn’t additive. It’s not even multiplicative. It feels more like orders of magnitude.

The Adamant Circle, she can only imagine, must feel like Hellish layers colliding with every casting.

“Y-yeah,” she gasps, right hand spasming slightly on her tingling left arm. “Yeah, just... gimme a minute. Whoa. Hoa. Wow. That was... something else.”

Iris raises up her head from Calesco’s body, and heads over to Keris. She licks her face.

“It’s okay,” Keris reassures her, petting the odd-feeling head of separate-floating two-dimensional parts. “Didn’t hurt at all. Just... Makers, that must be what a valley feels like when an avalanche goes through it.”

((Hee. I really do like that reaction and analogy.))

Keris takes Calesco to introduce her to... well, her two new subordinates, she guesses. And the younger keruby, of course. But Molian and Egie are the ones clearly in charge.

She’s not sure if child keruby are made to be subservient to the older ones, or they just sort of defer to the fact they’re willing to do boring things.

Keris finds the two grown keruby sitting on the hillside, watching the post-sunset sky. Molian is sprawled out, lying on Egie’s lap, while he braids her hair. They’re being very sweet together since she took his heart. It sits in a little box on her hip that Keris made for her.

“Princess Calesco,” Molian says, wide-eyed. “Why are you-”

“I’m watching over this place, at least for a month or two,” Calesco says. She swallows. “I need the locals to worship me as...” she looks to Keris for direction.

“You might be able to take on Riyaah MuHiitiyah’s mantle directly,” Keris suggests. “If you could play the role, it’ll be useful later on. Or you can be an immediate, high-ranking subordinate of hers, or an allied goddess. I’d prefer the first so as not to split their worship up too much, but it’s up to you.” She frowns. “Only issue with being her directly is not being able to heal like she can - but that’s a miracle, and a rare one. Not one they need much nowadays, either.”

Calesco smiles, and her shadow ripples over her, taking on an appearance that nearly looks identical to Keris’s own divine appearance. Nearly. Not quite. But she thinks it’ll be close enough.

“Do you give me permission to subsume this lie?” she asks.

“I do,” Keris says formally. “As the bearer of Riyaah MuHiitiyah’s mantle, I give you, Calesco, leave to wear it as you see fit, as a shield and cloak against the harshness of Creation.”

She takes Keris’s hand, and it tingles. “Well, we’ll see how this goes,” Calesco says, with a deep breath.

---

Keris leaves the next day. She doesn’t want to risk Calesco seeing Kuha.

“So,” Zana says, lying back on Keris’s bed as she lets Ogin clamber over her. “What now, Keris?”

“Now, Saata,” Keris says firmly. “Atiya is strong enough to handle it, and Haneyl’s been there more than long enough to get us lodgings. And on that note, Zanara, I’m going to need your help with something.”

Ogin sits on Zana’s chest. “Your eyes are not the same colour they were yesterday,” he says, after long and careful consideration.

“Yep! I get bored,” Zana agrees. “What do you want, Keris?”

“Calesco’s lies are great for one-offs,” Keris says slowly, tickling Kali behind the ear and rocking Atiya gently. “But for long-term, permanent things they’re a pain to maintain and renew all the time. And they’re fallible. Little River is a face I’m going to be using regularly for ages. It needs to be something that can’t be picked up as a shadow stretched over skin; something I can shift to and from that’s a real physical change.”

She takes a deep breath. “I need to fleshcraft myself a second face and hide it under my skin, along with a way to change between the two at will. The best person to help me with that is you.”

Zana scratches her head. “I mean, if they can see your colour, they’ll know what you are even if you change your face,” she says bluntly. “Only Cally can scrub away colour with blackness.”

“I know,” says Keris. “But I can get an artifact to hide that. I think I have one - the necklace I got from Malra. Another face will cost less than using shadows, and be the same every time I use it so I don’t need to remember details as much.”

She wrinkles her nose. “If I’m flaring my soul I’ll need to use the shadows. But for everyday, a second face is better.”

“Well, I mean, if I’m the only one who can help you,” Zana says, trying to sound like it’s a great imposition and failing, “I guess I can make you some prettier makeup on the trip to Saata.”

---

The broken statues at Saata’s gateway loom above Keris, after several days of travel. She left the Baisha behind to travel ahead, because she doesn’t have a docking place for a giant demon-wrought ship. It’d draw attention.

Saata is always noisy, always bustling, and there’s always food for sale near the docks. Keris crawls out from under a peer, vanishes up onto a roof, and drops down the other side perfectly dry.
((What’s she wearing, what does she look like, and how is she presenting herself? And what’s she doing, too?))
Wearing Little River’s face - a shadow-guise, since she may be called upon to show her Aspect markings in this first return - Keris breathes in deep, taking in the sights and sounds of Saata. She’s wearing travelling clothes of admittedly fine quality - cotton shalwar and a tight-fitting top, with sturdy sharkskin boots. A bright mangrove flower is tucked behind one ear, and a silver dragonfly hairpiece rests above the other.

In her arms, she holds an infant babe.

((She’s brought Atiya - partly because she needs her for the cover, partly because she wants to get her settled into Haneyl’s townhouse rather than leaving her back on the Baisha and mostly because she’s not willing to let her out of sight. She’s dressing well and as though she’s come back from a period of adventuring, with a couple of pretty tokens to mark her alliance with Riyaah MuHiitiyah.))

The first question is how on earth she finds Haneyl in the chaos and merchantile avarice of Saata.

“And whether she’s managed to get herself in trouble again,” Rathan quips from inside her head.

“I could just send her a messenger,” Keris muses. “But honestly, it’s Haneyl. I’ll listen in on the local gossip, and I’ll bet you half a dinar that she’ll have made enough waves for me to find her.” She sighs. “I should probably visit Little Bird and Pale Branch, too. Tell them I’m back. But that can come after I’ve got Atiya settled.”

((Reaction + Politics, Diff 3 to track down your wayward daughter))
((5+1+2 Coadj+2 stunt=10. 4 sux.))

Atiya complicates things a little, because Keris cannot and will not take her still-fragile infant daughter to any bars. But teahouses are just as good for gossip, and let her take the weight off her feet while she listens in on the gossip and accepts compliments.

It’s easy enough to redirect any unsolicited congratulations over her newborn daughter into a casual admission of having been away from Saata for the birth - and from there, it’s only natural to playfully ask what she’s missed.

Fortunately, Haneyl’s distinctive appearance works in her favour. Mention of a beautiful green-eyed woman with grey hair and dark skin draws Keris’s attention, and she finds out that the woman in question recently purchased an entire apartment-block on the edge of the Yellow District.

“Odds are, she’s some merchant princess who came into a nasty shock when she found out how expensive the estates out in the country are,” opines one woman. “I see that place - it ain’t cheap, but it’s not in the classiest district. Too close to where the students live.”

Keris has a rather different perspective. Her daughter, she is willing to bet, is looking to enrol in a Saatan university. Which could either be a very good idea, or a very bad one, depending on how it’s handled. Still. A full apartment block is certainly workable as a home.

Bringing the conversation to a close after a little more small talk and gathering up Atiya, she makes her way towards her new residence.

The block is one of the old Shogunate structures that exist on Saata, or at least part of one. What remains of the original building is two storeys high, but there’s another, more modern structure built on top of the existing one. By the looks of things, it’s a ring-shaped building, built around an inner courtyard. Keris peeks through the gates, and grins.
Yes, Haneyl is certainly here. The inner courtyard is already a jungle, and there are plants sprawling up the inner walls. The rest of the building needs much more work, though - and there’s signs of extensive and crudely patched up fire damage in parts of the building. Keris slips in without anyone seeing, and follows her ears to figure out where her daughter is. Hopefully she’s home.
It’s not Haneyl she finds. It’s Rounen who’s up on one of the rooftop terraces, sitting under a parasol and working on accounts. The vines twine over new wooden struts, forming a roof here, and the white stone of the newer structures has clearly been scrubbed clean.

He looks up from his work. “Ma’am,” he says, seemingly without a hint of surprise. “I presume you were delayed by waiting for the new moon?”

“Yes,” Keris agrees. “I left Calesco on the Isle of Gulls. Dar-” She breaks off, takes a breath, and forces herself to continue. “Darling Yellow died peacefully, a few months ago. I stayed for a while to make sure they were thriving and she chose to stay on there and take some time to herself.”

She glances around. “This is a very nice place. And it’ll be even nicer once Vali fixes up some of the stonework. How much did it set Haneyl back, with you helping her?”

“Less than you might think.” Rounen smiled. “The princess is quite tight fisted, and also broke into the former owner’s house, wove her tendrils into his flesh, and... ahem, acquired certain of his debts so he was forced into a fast sale.” He pauses. “It is not as fine as some of the other places we saw,” he admits, “but she feels it has potential given it quite close to the Daimyo-and-Yellow market, when rennovated. And also because it is called the Seventh’s Rise.”

Keris snorts. “I can see why that would appeal, yes. And she also wants to go to university, right? We’re near the student residences.”

“I don’t believe so.” Rounen leans back, shielding his eyes with a hand. “I think she’s had enough education for the moment after two seasons of Sasimana. She wanted this place for proximity to the market - and the foods and spices sold wholesale from across the region. She likes the way people assume she’s a merchant princess.”

“Hmm,” is Keris’s only comment. That may be the case now, but she still suspects university will tempt Haneyl eventually - especially if she decides the teachers there will be less exacting than Sasi. She’s as greedy for knowledge as she is for anything else - and Keris has heard stories about student life that will probably attract Haneyl like a... well, like a Haneyl to food.

“Where is she now?” she asks instead of voicing this. “And do I have a room set up here?”

Rounen presses his hands together. “Yes, ma’am. Rooms have been set up in the more habitable part of the structure, although on my advice she has hired no servants yet. We can’t be sure of their loyalty, but this does make things rather less comfortable than they could be. As for where my princess is, she is...” he pauses, “stealing books from certain healers. But now you’re here, we probably won’t need them!”

“Are either of you injured?” Keris’s voice is sharper, now. “Did you need healing knowledge? Or does she just want to know in case?”

Rounen bites his lip. “Uh, ma’am, on the night of the new moon, Saji caught fire and burned to ash, and Elly collapsed and rotted into leafmould. My princess has been frantic with worry ever since. I... I have tried to advise her that I believe they are also maturing to adulthood - shocking though it might be that either of them could grow up, but...” he raises, pacing over to the balcony to look over the city. “Well. It is not the same as myself, Oula or Vela and those were the ones in your notes.”

“Ohhh...” Keris winces. “Okay, yes. That’s not good. Where are they?”

Rounen heads over to the other side, and points down into the central courtyard. “Elly disintegrated down there, while I shovelled Saji’s ashes into one of the fireplaces just to make sure they weren’t blown away.”

Keris checks on Atiya again - still sleeping, good - and has Rounen show her both of Haneyl’s friends. She can see how it must have been terrifying. Rounen had been a shrivelled, dry, papery carcass during his transformation, but Elly is just a wet pile of rotting mulch, and Saji’s ashes are still faintly burning; pale white flames flickering lower over the yellowish dust that fills the fireplace.

Happily, when Keris takes stock of their essence, things look rather better - and when she brushes each one with her left hand, they look better still.

((6 sux on sensory roll for IEI and TDH.))

She can taste that they are what Rounen lacks, compared to a sziromkerub. Elly’s mulch is hungry, gnawing and bloody, while Saji’s ashes surge and glare and want to burn the world.

By the time Keris is done, there’s the sound of the gate slamming open and Haneyl appears. She doesn’t look very princess-y right now. She hasn’t been eating enough, and her eyes are wild.

“Haneyl,” Keris greets her, tenderly passing Atiya to Rounen and opening her arms. “Come here, darling. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Haneyl throws herself into her arms. “I don’t need your reassurance, stupid,” she mumbles, leaning down into Keris’s shoulder. “I know everything is going to be all right. Why wouldn’t it be? They’re my friends. If they weren’t, they’d be failures.”

“And they’re not,” Keris reassures her. “Which is why they’re both moving towards the other two aspects of your nature. Their essences are getting stronger, just like Rounen’s did. One week from the full moon, they’ll come back. You’ll see.”

“Well, duh.” Keris can feel Haneyl’s muscle, no longer covered by the fat. All her fancy low-cut dresses she got while at Sasi’s place won’t fit her anymore. It comes as a surprise to Keris. but when underfed, Haneyl is shaped like a taller her. “I don’t need your reassurance.”

“Well... you get it anyway,” Keris says firmly. “And well done on this place. It’s very nice - and it’ll be even nicer after some renovations. And I hear you got it for a shockingly low sum, hmm?”

“Of course I did.” Haneyl doesn’t lift her head. “It’s mine, after all. Mama, I want a cult. Full of people loyal to me. I want servants, too. I wanted to make some demons but I knew you’d shout at me if people saw demons in this new place, but I don’t have anyone to run my baths and I can’t even make a hot spring like I could at home. I’m having to go to public baths...”

Keris recognises that tone. It sounds like Sasi when she’s feeling upset about having to ‘slum it’.

“Easy, easy,” she soothes. “You’ve been very brave tolerating it here all on your own. We’ll get some servants and make this a nicer place to live, and we’ll see about getting you a cult of your own, too. And, you might be pleased to hear what one of your sziromkeruby has been doing for you.”

Rounen seems to have noticed the state Haneyl is in, because he’s there, easing her off Keris’s shoulder. “Come on, my... Haneyl, let’s show ma’am to her rooms and then she can go and fetch the others while I take you out for some food. You’ve just been working so hard to get everything ready so you’re hungry.”

“You’re paying,” Haneyl mumbles instantly.

“Of course I am.” He looks at Keris. “Anything else, ma’am?”

“No, thank you Rounen,” she says. “That will be all. I’ll start work on your symbol of office once I’m back at my silver forge, if you’ve decided on what you’d like.”

“Yes, ma’am. Now, if you’ll just follow me...”

---

The rooms are up in the newer buildings built on the old Shogunate structures - “They were using the halls below for cloth-weaving, so they’ve gutted them,” Rounen explains - and they’re far from as luxurious as Sasi’s place or the Baisha. Still Keris can see Rounen’s hand in how he’s methodically bought everyone she listed as essentials for the babies, and the walls are whitewashed and clean.

Keris thanks him, and sees the two of them off. She has been trying to hide any sign of how she can smell Haneyl on Rounen and Rounen on Haneyl. And they’re certainly not acting like Rathan and Oula, or even Molian and Egie.

Rocking Atiya gently so as not to wake her up, she settles her baby’s head against her shoulder and looks out of the window.

“Well then,” she murmurs. “Here we are, baby girl. Our new home, for the moment.

Atiya doesn’t reply. Obviously. But she’s not struggling for every breath anymore, and her quiet breathing is soothing.

“It’ll need some touching up,” Keris admits. “But I really do think it’ll be beautiful once we’ve done so. And if the halls below us are already gutted and opened up, we can turn them into stage halls and performance rooms, hmm?”

She chews a hair tendril and - after a quick consultation with a couple of landmarks she can see and her mental map of Saata - glances roughly northeast. “Ali and the Lionesses are still on their way,” she says softly. “I’ll need room for them when they get here. This place won’t be big enough, apartment building or no - not for three or four hundred of them... mm. I’ll need an estate. But, eh. I was going to get one for Little River anyway, wasn’t I?”

Atiya snuffles softly, turning her head slightly in towards Keris’s neck. She’s stronger now than she was, but the pressure is still so very light; her weight on Keris’s collarbone so very small.

“Well then,” Keris breathes. “In that case I better get a move on and introduce you to your future subjects, hadn’t I?”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The grand meeting hall of the blue sea masters is a lavish structure in the centre of the Yellow Point neighbourhood. Not that anyone there would call it that; the district’s name is Memory of a Golden Land to the Tengese here. The white stone here is built into something that to Keris brings to mind one of the palaces she saw back when she first lived in An Teng. Those structures, however, were ancient beyond belief.

By contrast, Thrice-Blessed Citadel By Water is new enough that the stone hasn’t been weathered and the fresh paint stands out. It reeks of money. New money.

The hall where the blue sea masters meet is deep inside the citadel, and it has no windows. It’s stifling hot in this place of fine blue and yellow silk banners, and the air is thick with the perfumed smoke of the cigars and hash that these old men smoke.

They want to see her - Little River Hui Cha, their dragon in the nest, returned after a prolonged absence. One much longer than she was meant to have.

Little River is shown in. She isn’t happy. Atiya was invited too, but she’s had to leave her daughter in the care of other women. There is no way the little girl’s sensitive lungs will like this smoky room, and the men don’t really seem to want a little baby in there.

The six men are in here, their chairs arranged to surround the supplicant. Keris bows to each of them in turn, taking them in.

In his early middle years, Red Leaf is a gaunt man whose skin is stretched tight over his bones. His lips are almost always puckered, like he’s always got half a lemon in his mouth. His sword at his hip is well-made, but unadorned, and Keris can see that his right arm is more developed than his left. He’s likely still a fine swordsman. He dresses more plainly than many of the others, but everything he wears is solid and well-made, and more than that, cut with an eye to mobility and comfort. Red Leaf is one of the younger men on the council, and neither he nor his wife were born to money – he was one of Jade Fox’s captains who clawed his way up with the patronage of the old man, and in many ways he seems to consider himself the man’s protégé – and rightful heir. But there are the whispers about him – he’s a vain main whose jade earrings and rings show his tastes, and more than that, he’s cruel. A fine match for his wife, who was vicious enough to serve on the ships after her first husband died.

Peaceful Wave, by contrast, is as fat and bloated as his rival is gaunt. His father was a great captain, and he married well. That money seems to feed his vices. To Keris’s trained eye he doesn’t look well – he’s young, but he has gout and his breath wheezes. Still, he’s not kept onto his position just through nepotism; he might not be the hero of the Hui Cha his father was, but he’s a solid commander with a sizable trading fleet. Indeed, his lack of heroism has only increased his wealth – he’s focussed much more on the spice trade than on gallant heroism on the high seas. His jacket and cap are dyed with expensive purple and blue dyes from the far south, and each finger has a ring with a different coloured gemstone. Keris can hear the chime of protective spells and wardings from each of them.

Keris’s attention drifts to Strong Ox, Pale Branch’s husband. The old man has a slightly fancier chair than everyone else, and while on paper the blue sea masters are equal, he’s the first among equals. Or at least he was. He’s nearly bald, and his wispy white beard reaches his groin. And in all his splendour and gold-trimmed robes, the man himself is shrivelled and dry, like fruit left out in the sun. He’s dozing in his throne-like chair, dribbling slightly on his collar, and even when he was awake he just seemed confused.

Keris remembers Jade Fox from the time they met before, and he nodded to her with guarded respect. He certainly seems to be a figure of stability and calm on the council, giving off a patrician-like air that’s only somewhat ruined by his old scars and tattoos. He dresses like a Tengese noble, with a colourful under-robe but a sober brown jacket over the top, and he keeps the old ways too – no fancy embroideries or the like shown in public. Keris had flagged him as a conservative when she first met him, and seeing him compared to his peers only makes that more clear. He’s a stabilising influence – but she’s a force of instability who wants to ‘corrupt’ them. And who certainly wants to claw out a role for a woman to sit among these ranks.

Look at the surface, and all one sees of Sea Eagle is a grandfatherly old man with wispy white hair. He doesn’t look like a vicious lord of the Hui Cha triad. His robes are fine, but slightly worn and the shades of blue between his trousers and his overjacket don’t quite match. Ah, but in his eyes, there’s something mercurial, something you can better see if you know the rumours about him. He’s the one who took the unconventional path to his seat in this room, the one who studied with the priests of Saata in all manners of subjects and married into wealth and killed his brother-in-law for his fleet. He’s the unpredictable one, the gambler, the one who wagers big and enough of his bets pay off that he can cover the debts. The rumours from the women Keris hangs with say that there’s more women in his fleets than anyone else’s - but also that he hates anyone who isn’t Tengese, and no one knows why.

Last, and definitely least, is Lucky Wolf Hui Cha - whose parents dared the Fates by naming him that and found that those cruel ladies have no sense of humour. His fleets are tattered remnants of what they were when he inherited them, and he’s an old man, gripping on to his life’s work with salt-stained fingers. His fine many-coloured silks are thin and threadbare, and his jewellery has pewter and brass mixed into it. The girls down at the tea-shop seem almost sorry for the old man - he’s a good leader to his men and incredibly loyal and forgiving compared to some of the others. Haneyl’s analysis, though, is much less generous - he’s loyal to a fault, rash, and worse has an inflated opinion of his own skill. In her words, he was born into fortune and he’s lost it through stupidity.

These are the lords of the Hui Cha, the masters of the blue sea, and they want to see her. To know what she has been doing. To see if she has betrayed her oaths to them.

Little River walks into the room like the tide drawing in - peaceful, unhurried and without spectacle, but unstoppable in its own quiet way, and with the memory of tidal waves in every gentle lap of surf on sand.

Rathan’s light haloes her invisibly; a shield against their judgement that holds off the emotional impact of her late arrival back in Saata. Zanara’s petals hide her thorns, allowing her to effortlessly hold to custom and know what they expect from her.

And the mercury in her blood glints like the silver in the Isles. Whispering to her that all she need do is reflect their selves, and she’ll know what price might buy them each.

“Lords,” she greets the sextet with a bow. “I’m glad to have returned.”

((Keris is walking in with Carmine Mantled Emissary and Flowering the Fairer Face active and Heartwood’s Patronage ready to go.))
((Roll to activate thine effects.))
((CME: 4+1+2 stunt+5 Kimmy ExD {beauty, charm, poise}+4 CME autosux=12. 6+4=10 sux. They rationalise, brush over or simply forget things that would negatively impact their judgement of her.
FtFF: 5+1+2 Coadj+2 stunt+4 FtFF autosux=10. 7+4=11 sux, hah, wow. Yeah, she can read them like large-print books. With illustrative pictures.))
((Oh, and WWOF is cheap enough that she probably never turns it off, so I’ll ping ‘em with that too. 5+5+2 stunt+2 Coadj=14; 8 sux.))

These men, these rich men, they expect respect from her. They expect her to kowtow and show her neck and do what they want - and they’re each watching for their so-called allies to try to get their hooks into her. They want her to like them, and to be scared of them, and to obey them.

The old man Sea Eagle sits back in his chair with a chuckle, chin propped on his hand. “You came back. The sudden appearance - and disappearance - of a dragon born to our beloved homeland worried us. Yes, yes, it did.”

“Where were you?” the fat Peaceful Wave says, piggish eyes narrowed.

((Heartwood's Patronage costs 5m, 1wp a pop, so it’s not a passive thing she can just use on them in turn, just fyi.))
((Yes, I know - that’s why I said she knows she can do it, but isn’t popping it on all of them right now.))

Little River’s face is a mask, her thoughts all but impenetrable behind it. “As I said when I left, my daughter’s dragon blood needed a place of strong essence to nurture it,” she says. “For the first few months, I was meditating on my heritage and acting to ensure her health, when she came. But apparently the Pale Mistress wasn’t content to leave me there in peace. Two of the Greater Dead appeared in the region. I was forced to battle them - and they both now lie slain. But the strain brought my Atiya into the world early. I had to stay away longer than I would have liked, until she was well enough to travel.”

((Per + Politics to lieeeeeee, lie lie))
((Technically not lying! Well, not exactly lying. Borderline lying at most.))
((4+1+3 Mendaciloquent Maverick+2 stunt+5 Kimmy ExD {secrets kept with guile, shameful truths}=15. 8 sux, and the Difficulty to accurately read her motives is further increased by 4 from FtFF.))

That takes the edge off the tension in this sweltering, smoke-filled room where the haze lies heavy on the room, and after a few more questions - testing her answers, checking things out - things seem to lighten up.

Strong Ox starts snoring in his chair, and Red Leaf looks at Keris, lean, almost hollow face watchful. “And what will you do now, Little River? Go back to your forge?” He smiles, his expression slightly rictus on his emaciated face. “That’s not a healthy place for a young sick baby.”

Jade Fox raises a hand. “Careful, Red Leaf. That’s woman’s business there. Not to be interfered with.”

“I did not fight the Dead alone,” Keris replies blandly. “A goddess helped me - or I helped her - and she pledged an alliance in return for my aid. She mentioned she might gift me with a boon in thanks.” She smiles quietly. “I think gaining the Hui Cha another divine patron might occupy my time nicely.”

((Establishing and solidifying an alliance with a new goddess... actually is very much woman’s work, and is something that they’ll probably approve of if I’m remembering Tengese social mores correctly. They’re pretty whatever-they-can-get in terms of worship, and women are the ones connected to the land and the spiritual stuff.))
((Yes.))

Keris sees the gleam in Sea Eagle’s eyes at that, though Jade Fox grumbles. “Talk to the priestesses and priests before coming to any agreement,” he says. “Don’t get us in hock to anything with suspicious motives.”

“A goddess of what?” Red Leaf asks, eyes hungry - yet also suspicious.

“The ocean, the wind and the mangroves that guard the shore,” Keris replies smoothly. “Her name is Riyaah MuHiitiyah. She was eager to be generous - hungry, I suspect, for more worship. We can make good use of that.”

“An ocean goddess?”

“Yes, that’s fine!” Lucky Wolf blurts out. “Go straight ahead and-”

“And do not rashly risk angering the gods or any of the other spirits who bless us,” Jade Fox says firmly. “Such a god should bless all, brothers. Not be greedily grabbed for just one.”

There’s a rumbling, but no one seems to want to contradict such words. At least in public.

And once that’s happened, the crime lords seem content to exchange a few pleasantries and snipe at one another.

Rathan yawns as they make barbed comments. “They’re so useless,” he says. “It’s hardly difficult to have them think well of you. Each of them just wants you as a weapon. Well, apart from that Jade Fox. He seems to have bigger plans. Or... smaller. Different sized plans.”

‘Mmm,’ Keris thinks, following the discussion. ‘They all have their issues. But Strong Ox will be mine once Pale Branch is, and I can get Jade Fox and Lucky Wolf in my corner easily enough with a couple of deals. It’s the other three that are going to be tricky.’

She watches the men speak, keeping up her polite mask. ‘I may have to kill one of them,’ she thinks. ‘As a show to the others, once I’m ready to take over officially. If I have five of them in my corner, I can let the last one be an example. Peaceful Wave is a prosperous merchant-lord, and I can probably get him through his health... so that means either Red Leaf or Sea Eagle. The ruthless pair.’

There’s a doubtful pause from Rathan, and Keris considers who she’s talking about.

‘The more overtly ruthless pair, then,’ she amends. ‘The cruel ones. I guess it’ll come down to which one I can control better, and get rid of more easily.’

She can hear Rathan’s smile.

The argument of the men has woken Strong Ox, who bangs on the arm of his chair with his withered arms. “Silence! Silence all!” he wheezes. “Have you no respect! I was sleeping!”

Peaceful Wave grins foolishly. “Just a lively debate.”

“Well, debate elsewhere! Why are we all here in this hot room!” He crosses his arms and pouts like a child. “Pale Branch! Where is Pale Branch? I want to go home!”

It would almost be childlike, if this wasn’t a cruel and vicious crime lord who’s killed so many over his life - some in person, others more casually ordered.

That’s enough for the end of the meeting, and the crime bosses disperse, to talk to one another or go back to their bodyguards. The tension in the air is thick.

From the outside, Pale Branch enters flanked by bodyguards, dressed in layer upon layer of alternating blue and white diaphanous silk that shushes like the sea as she walks. Her eyes light up as she sees Little River. “What is it, my husband?”

“I want to go home!” he insists. “It’s hot in here! And I’m hungry!”

Keris gives Pale Branch a respectful nod - not subtle or surreptitious or hidden; just a perfectly expected gesture of respect to the wife of a blue sea master from a rising dragon of the Hui Cha.
If her hand happens to brush against the wrist she once sliced open and held to the other woman’s, that’s not something anyone would take as meaningful. But Pale Branch’s eyes glint nonetheless at Little River’s smile. She smiles back. “I see you’ve lost all that weight from the pregnancy,” she says to Little River. “Lucky you. You look glowing.”
“Thank you,” Keris says, flattered. “Though my poor Atiya came early, so she’s still weak and frail. She’s beautiful though, all the same. We must share tea and a meal at some point soon, so that you can meet her.”

She claps her hands together. “Well, I will be heading home with my husband, so you could come with me.” She smiles to Keris in a way that reminds Keris that Pale Branch is a vicious mafia princess, not some noblewoman. “These men should do their men’s things, but women should get to see each other’s new babies.”

“Yes.” Keris returns the smile. “Let me fetch Atiya, then, and we can spend the afternoon talking of children.”

There’s a look in Red Leaf’s eyes at that, but he can hardly get in the way of the way Pale Branch has framed things. If it was one of the men, yes - but everyone knows Strong Ox is senile. There are advantages to Tengese social mores.

Keris collects Atiya, who fortunately slept through the meeting. She sneezes at how her mother smells of smoke, however.

“You’ll have to follow behind,” Pale Branch says as they emerge into the heat and bright light of Saata. “I have to make sure my husband gets rest.”

“Pale Branch, Pale Branch!”

Her expression twists in annoyance, but she composes it and goes to coo over her husband as the two of them climb into their palanquin and Keris walks with the Hui Cha bodyguards. It’s a strange sight - these hulking muscled triad thugs and one small woman carrying a baby.
By the time they travel the distance to Strong Ox’s townhouse, Atiya is tired and wet and Keris has to take her aside to clean her up while Pale Branch takes her husband upside. She comes back down while Keris is cleaning Atiya up with the help of one of the maids. Rocking her baby and shushing her tenderly, stroking her cheeks and the black fuzz of her hair, Keris soothes her quiet fussing from the discomfort, dries and changes her into a warm, clean blanket, and rearranges both it and her jacket so that Atiya can have skin contact as she rests against Keris’s chest. She dismisses the maid with a nod, swaying gently for Atiya’s benefit.
“Well then,” she sighs. “I’m sorry for my long absence. But your little medical problem is one I’m now equipped to fix. Atiya can have a playmate, given a couple of night’s work. And your other problem...”

She feels the quicksilver in her blood ripple as she looks at Pale Branch. Really, looks at her, holding a mirror up to her soul and reflecting it into Keris’s view.

((Heartwood’s Patronage. 4+1+2 stunt+5 Kimmy ExD {discerning eye, brokering deals, demands payment}=12. 5 sux; minus half Pale Branch’s [Per+Pol].))

Oh, Keris barely needs Zanara’s eyes to see what drives Pale Branch. She wants to keep control of all of her husband’s wealth, and she’ll do anything to get it - and anything for the one who gets her it. The child, that’s just a way to do it as the mother of his heir.

Pale Branch sends out her maid, and makes sure the room is empty. “You see how frail he is?” she asks rhetorically. “His mind is going and his heart could stop any moment. My time is running out. I swear, if he drops dead, I’ll send a hundred men to murder that bitch and say she poisoned him.”

“Don’t worry,” Keris soothes. “If the worst comes to the worst, I can probably get you with child just using some samples from his body. But as it is, I’ll find a way to get at him tonight and give him enough of a healing to keep him alive a little longer. And... heh.”

She smirks. “Once you announce you’re pregnant, we can get her out of the way and discredit her at the same time. It won’t even be a lie to say that she was trying to deny him an heir by taking rash action against you out of jealousy. You’ll look all the better by comparison.”

“Yeah. Yeah. That’s good, that’s good.” Pale Branch nervously rubs her hands together, then forces herself to smile. “But come on, let’s see the little one. She’s so small! And Atiya, you say? What a strange old-fashioned name. It’s like something from one of those ancient plays.”

Keris shifts her beautiful baby girl to let Pale Branch see her. “I couldn’t decide on a name until I saw her, and then it just came to me. She feels like an old soul, you know? There’s a sort of nobility to her.” She laughs. “Or maybe that’s just me seeing through the eyes of a doting mother. Here, you can stroke her hair if you’re careful - she’s more fragile than most babies because of how she was born early.”

Pale Branch leans in, with her long-painted nails, and nimbly works Atiya’s fingers. “Look at her nails! They’re so tiny!” She cups her head with the other hand. “Do you know if she’s... like you?”

“No way to tell yet,” Keris says ruefully. “But I’m hopeful. Her blood is strong, and... well, I got a fair bit of essence into her before the Dead attacked.” Her hand flies to her mouth, artful in her shock at letting a detail slip. “Oh, but I didn’t explain that yet, did I?”

“No, you didn’t.” She lets go of Atiya. “Come, come, let’s go to the roof.”

From the roof, the noise of Saata is everywhere. The voices Keris hears all around are mostly Tengese, but it’s a constant roar in the background of tens of thousands of souls engaging in the vices of this city - and always the sound of the docks and the shipyards.

“The first part of the pregnancy went well,” she says, staring out towards the sea. “I meditated on my heritage, treated myself right to strengthen her essence, all that. But then ill fate struck. A pair of the Greater Dead struck the region. I was forced to fight them alongside a goddess who’d been courting an alliance, and while we won and slew them both... the strain brought Atiya on early.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes. She was painfully premature when she was born. That’s why I had to stay away so long - waiting for her to be well enough to travel.” Keris sighs morosely. “At least the goddess forged an alliance with me. And said she had gifts to offer if I chose to encourage her worship. I’ll be pursuing that for the next season or so, I think.”

“You seem to have so much fun.” Pale Branch sprawls out on a wicker bench. “Ah, your dragon blood frees you from the rules other women have to live by.”

“I seem to recall us saying we’d change that, if I took over,” Keris smiles. “And now I can get started on holding up my side of that bargain. If you’re still willing to hold to yours...”

She kisses Atiya’s head and flashes Pale Branch a grin. “Then maybe little Atiya can grow up with us as an example of how she can shrug off those restrictions, hmm?”

“Hah, yes.”

---

It takes some time for Keris to get settled back in Saata, especially when she’s worrying about the twins. And also about Vali and Zanara on the Baisha when the Priest is there. She sends orders to Neride to approach the coast of Shuu Mua - away from the eyes of any customs officers so she can collect her.

“Now, ma’am,” Rounen asks over breakfast, “we will need to talk about the plans for renovating this place. I am afraid we are going to need human labourers - too many questions will be asked of demons. And this place must remain above suspicion.”

Haneyl huffs, feet up on the table. “So annoying! I suppose we could rent a smaller secondary place for everyone who can’t hide what they are to live in while work is happening here.” She pouts, viciously cramming a wrap into her mouth. “Stupid humans,” she says with a full mouth.

“Look into that,” Keris agrees. “And one or both of you can come with me unseen when I talk to Lucky Wolf to see if I can get an estate off him. For renovations...”

She chews her lip thoughtfully. “Spread the work out a bit. This place has no direct ties to the Hui Cha, and nor does Cinnamon, so we don’t want to play favourites with the workers. Haneyl, do you know if there are any cellars? Especially bricked-up or flooded ones. We can have the crews leave those alone and renovate them ourselves in secret.”

Haneyl nods. “The roots are growing down past old stone. I don’t know how many layers there are down there, but there’s at least one. But they’re all collapsed and filled in with earth. I mean,” she rests one hand on her chest, “I could just burn it out, but that might cause subsidence and I paid a lot of money for this place, mama! I don’t want it collapsing!”

Keris cracks her knuckles. “Perfect. Don’t worry, we’ll leave it for now and do it carefully and slowly after the renovations. With Vali helping to reinforce the walls and floors. But it’s good that we have them. So, short-term goals, I need the rest of us off the Baisha, you to find us short-term lodgings while the work is going on, Zanara to help me plan out what this place will look like and Rounen to organise a work crew to do it.” She leans over to plant a kiss on Haneyl’s cheek. “I know you’ll have no more trouble than you had with this.”

“Anywhere in particular you’d like this place?” Haneyl checks. “Because I’m not renting. I’m buying. I still have enough money from mother’s gift that I think it’s a good idea to have a fallback place.” Haneyl’s eyes narrow, her Nexan accent thickens. “Never have just one den,” she says bitterly.

((On your Saata Map, whereish is the current place?))
((So, the current place is in Saata proper, in the university district, not too far from the Daimyo-and-Yellow. Which is not on the map. But it’s not waterside - it’s just in the city. I need a better map of Saata and its districts.))

“Good girl,” Keris smiles approvingly. “Hmm. Somewhere closer to water, I think. If you can find another place with cellars - especially flooded ones - I can make a little tunnel out into the bay.”

“Do you want it to be in the Tengese district for Little River, or will it be one of my things?” Haneyl smiles. “Because if it’s for Little River, I’ll add it to your bill.”

“Wicked little thing.” Keris grins at her, unable to hide her amusement. “I get no respect from my babies. None at all. Hmm... yeah, put it in Memory of a Golden Land, then. Little River needs a place to stay until she can talk to Lucky Wolf.”

“All right.” Haneyl taps her face with root-like fingers. “I’ll go make myself look Tengese and see what I can get.” She grabs Rounen by the arm. “He can be my darling husband, because the Tengese can be so boorish about single women. And I won’t have to burn off anyone’s face if they start showing me unwanted attention.”

“Of course, my princess,” Rounen says, smoothing out his rumpled sleeve. “All the attention you desire is strictly wanted, no?”

She flicks him on the nose. “Don’t think too highly of yourself,” Haneyl chides. “I’ve had better.”

Keris cringes. “Haneyl,” she complains. “Please don’t make me listen to things about your... um... partners? It was bad enough travelling in close quarters with Rathan and Oula for weeks.”

Haneyl rolls her eyes. “Fine,” she says. “Anything else you want done by me, because I’m the best around?”

Standing and leaning over, Keris kisses her on the forehead. “Decide what you want for your birthday,” she says. “It’s coming up in a couple of months, and I don’t doubt you’ll have a list.”

“Mama!” Haneyl seems outraged. “Of course I do! And I heard you got Calesco a super powerful magical bow, so it needs to be at least as good as that!”

---

As it so happens, the tides and travel lines up so that Keris is away collecting the others from Shuu Mua on the day that’s seven days past the new moon. Kali and Ogin are delighted to see their mama again and the childcare gale is delighted to get them and Vali away from the ship.

However, as they fly in low and fast on angyalos, Keris sees fire rising above the city. Of course, she’s no stranger to that.

But this smoky orange fire, of all the worst luck, is coming from her damn building.

“Fuck,” she says, almost calmly. Then, with a lot more vehemence; “fuck! That’s my house! Shit...”

She glances down at the twins and then across to the other anyaglos. “Shit shit shit! Fine, Vali, Xasan, take the twins and find a rooftop to wait on. Girls, Zanara, stay with them.”

Passing the twins off to her uncle and son with her hair and making absolutely sure they’re secure before letting go, Keris swings herself off Cissidy and lands running; bolting across the rooftops to the burning building with a litany of muttered curses.

She sees Rounen down the front, giving snappy orders to people standing around and reinforcing them with coins. He’s managed to get a bucket chain going, spreading water around.

And then there’s a flare of green up top, and she’s drawn to that. Skipping up, Keris sees in more detail that the fire is localised to one part of the building. Where she saw Saji was left, in fact.

Oh.

Haneyl is up there - clothes falling to ashes and soot, streaked and sweaty as she strides through the fire - and she’s there, setting more things on fire. But it’s not accidental or circumstantial. She’s fighting fire with fire, using her own green flame to burn away everything flammable and isolate the fire of Creation.

And next to her, billowing, blooming, a monstrous figure of yellow flame the size of a tyrant lizard, hiding in the fire.

“Haneyl!” Keris yells, dropping in beside her. “What’s going on? Saji?”

“You didn’t warn me that keruby growing up did this sort of thing!” Haneyl snaps as she burns away a wooden staircase. “And yes! Saji just whoomped alight!”

“I’m really sorry, Hanny!” says the giant flame-lizard-thing, sounding morose. “It just sort of happened.”

“Just stay standing on stone and don’t touch anything that isn’t stone!” Haneyl snaps over the roar of the fire.

“Hold still,” Keris snaps, and reaches out with her left arm. She brushes the yellow flame; trusting in her steel-hard skin to protect her. Rounen has a transformation between his normal self and the draconic shape with teeth and slit eyes. Oula can turn herself into a dolphin and back. Whatever Saji is now, there must be a way for her to not be a tyrant lizard made of fire.

All Keris has to do is find it, and hope her guess isn’t wrong.

Saji doesn’t burn Keris’s left hand, although the rest of her body feels drawn-thin by the flame. Iris coos, and wriggles out and onto Saji, a patch of darkness in the flame. She’s a naughty dragon; playing while Keris is trying to work.

But she thinks she can feel the... the shape of Saji. She’s running out of fuel already. This flame form is not something she can sustain. Which means either she’s going to die soon, or - hopefully - there’s something else she can collapse into.
It’d be really bad if she died. Maybe there’s a... a lantern or something she can trap the flame in. Haneyl would be devastated about losing her friend. Keris thinks very, very hard for a moment, quirking her ears to make sure that nobody sounds suspicious about the hints of green among the flames and that the rest of her group is still on-
... the rest of her group.

“Saji,” she says urgently. “Do you think you could possess someone?” Kuha still has the demon-hosting tattoos, she remembers. They’re set up for Calesco, but there’s enough space in the ink-mudra that Saji’s comparative lack of power should let her overcome the contradictory design. And once she’s in, Keris can adjust it to suit her.

“Do you think you can hide your flames inside a person?” she repeats, fierce with haste. “If they were willing?”

“Um.” Saji tilts her vast head. “I dunno. I think I might burn them? ‘Cause I’m on fire. And that’d be really sad!”

She pauses. “I mean, you’re really strong! I could try it on you!”

Keris hesitates for only a moment. Her very blood is toxic. But Maryam had been able to possess her without harm. Then again, Maryam had been her mother... but isn’t Saji one of her descendants?

... would she be helpless again; taken over by a stronger will? The thought sends icy chills down her spine, despite the heat, and dread pools thick and ugly in her stomach.

((Rolling Principles: caring about Haneyl vs trauma-born fear of possession.
... 2 sux each. Lol. In that case, related Principles swing it - and Compassion is the highest relevant one.))

The thought of having her flesh taken away from her - and ripped apart from within again - makes Keris physically shake. But... it would be dangerous, to let anyone else try this. She has the best chance of surviving it. And she doesn’t want Saji to die.

Calesco, she thinks, would want her to face her fears for Saji’s sake.

“Do it,” Keris says before she can think better of her decision, and steps forward into the flames.

The yellow flame comes apart from its giant form, flowing towards Keris. It surges into Keris’s nostrils and mouth, and there’s a moment of scalding pain. But only a moment - the heat fades quickly to a hot drink. It’s not comfortable, and Keris feels an almost overwhelming urge to exhale and force this invader out of her body.

She resists. Barely.

And then Saji is all in, and Keris lifts her hand. She doesn’t feel any different. She can feel Saji’s presence in her, that heat of Haneyl, but that’s all it is.

“I think it worked?” a voice says in Keris’s head. No, not in her head - a voice echoing inside her body, heard from the inside.

It did. And Keris is overcome with a sudden urge to laugh, so she does, tears coming as she giggles with the overwhelming glee of success.

“What’s so funny?” the irritable Haneyl demands. “At least she’s not adding to the fire anymore. What’s funny about that?”

“I don’t... hee,” she giggles helplessly. “I’m just really glad that worked.” Wrapping her arms around Haneyl, Keris hums happily and nuzzles her. “I’m really happy you won’t be sad now,” she sniffs, the overwhelming happiness turning to almost heartbursting love for her daughter. “I love you, sweetheart. You know that, right?”

“I’m kind of... whoa.” Haneyl glances at Keris, then her eyes linger. “Your eyes are... you’ve got her fire in the black bits. Just in the centre. Like little stars.”

Keris is unspeakably amused by that image, and starts giggling uncontrollably again. “I think...” she gasps out between the laughter, “I think she’s, um, making my emotions b-bigger. Like how you feel things more when you’re all fiery!”

Haneyl holds blackened fingers to her temples. “Well, I think I’ve got as much cleared as I can. Let’s get out of here. I need clothes, and... well, I’m just glad you took Atiya with you to pick up the others.” She backs away from the fire, peeling off the ruined clothes and tossing them into the flames as her skin fades to match the background. “I’ll go check the area to see if there’s any risk of the fire spreading, then find something to wear. Can you see if Elly has appeared yet?”

Keris masters the giggles, puts on a very serious expression and tilts her head to listen for her.

She’s still down in the garden, and there’s the sounds of... something coming from where her body fell apart. Or maybe underground just under it. She sounds like she’s hatching. Or doing whatever she’s doing

Leaving Haneyl to her search, Keris hops down to the pile of rotting mulch, crouches down next to it, and makes conversation with Saji while she waits.

“What does it feel like in there?” she murmurs. “Can you feel my Domain? My other souls? Can you see what I can?”

“I think I’m just in your body,” Saji says, after shouting a bit and trying to see if Dulmea responds. “I mean, I don’t know if you’re hearing her talk back. I’m sure she’s saying nice things, though!”

“I’m not saying nice things,” Dulmea says dryly.

“Neither am I,” Firisutu agrees. “It is just like the keruby to catch fire in ways that destroy your possessions. They are a self-centred breed.”

Keris doesn’t listen much to their grousing, though. She’s listening to what’s under the mulch. And she thinks she can hear a woman’s body. Elly has been growing down here. Like a root. Or a-

Her thoughts are interrupted as a ghost-white human hand rams its way through the earth, spraying dirt over Keris’s front. The nails are long and almost clawlike, and the arm it’s attached to is strong despite its slenderness.

Keris looks mournfully down at her charred, dirt-smeared top and sighs. Things were much easier when she had her Amulet.

‘Dulmea, remind me to work out a way of not losing so many clothes?’ she asks. She makes no move to help Elly as she claws her way out. The newly born deva isn’t showing any signs of struggling, so Keris just watches and takes in the taste of her essence carefully.

Even through the layers of smeared mud and leaf mould, Keris can see that Elly’s milk-white skin is the same colour as her former petals, and her hair is the same pale green as her hair. Rounen can pass as human - Elly will stand out in the street.

“Look at her showing off,” Saji grumbles.

And there’s a shock to Keris when her features become more obvious. Rounen looks sort of Tengese with Realm blood. Elly doesn’t look like that. Elly has some Realm-like features, yes.

But the others remind her of Eko. And by Eko, Keris really means Adorjan.

Well. Um. She did use to be a szelkerub - and one of the very early ones who Eko made herself.

Elly stretches out her legs, sitting on the ground. Her stomach grumbles. “Flesh,” she says. Her voice is mid-toned, and soft. “Not vines or petals. That doesn’t make - ah!”

The reason for that is very clear. as thorns and petals burst through her skin, and she rolls over onto all fours, bones cracking.

“Hungry,” she says in that same soft female voice, even as she grows and shifts, her human skin tearing to reveal the flowers and thorns underneath.

“Crap,” says Keris, and has to force down a far-too-strong wave of panic - which only gets worse as she reacts to how it's being unnaturally amplified. “F-food!” she forces out, a sick feeling starting to form in her gut at the way Saji's presence is warping her moods by force. “I can get you food! This way!”

They’d had a reasonably full pantry, courtesy of Haneyl. A fair amount of it is charred now, but it’ll do for a hungry Haneylian... crocodile-canine thing? Elly’s alternate form looks like a swamp dragon and a wolf had a baby the size of a horse made entirely out of flowers and thorns and teeth.

Whatever, Keris thinks, trying to hold off the dizzying curiosity and not quite succeeding. She keeps it down to just some intense staring, though. Closer examination of these two can come after Elly is fed and the building is no longer on fire.

Elly wolfs it down, tearing into it with a sound like a blender. She doesn’t change back.

A wisp of yellow fire seeps out of Keris’s nose. It’s unpleasantly hot.

“Oh, for goodness sake, put your flowers on the inside,” says Saji. “We all used to have them. Just ‘cause you kept them doesn’t make them impressive or nothing. Go pretend to be human and stop being such a drama queen, yeah?”

“You.” Elly says, voice soft. “So you’re also-”

“There’s no also about it, Smelly,” Saji says. “I’m Hanny’s fire, so I’m the best. You and Rou have to pretend to be human. So go on. fold your flowers back inside and we can go meet up with Hanny and co.”

“You are insufferable,” Elly says, but there’s a cracking of bones and she shifts from being a quadruped to a biped again, clawed paws becoming long-nailed hands, as her white flowers merge together to become milk-white skin. She meets Keris’s gaze with two green eyes that stayed the same in both her forms. “Lead on, then. I suppose it doesn’t matter much whether I have clothes or not.” She gets up. She’s almost as tall as Haneyl, and she’s solidly built. Her green hair is filthy, but surprisingly short - even if it is prehensile with how she adjusts its set. “We’re all women here. Lead on, my queen.”

It isn’t the same note as how Rounen says it. Rounen says it like a human says to a queen. Elly here sounds, despite her soft voice, like a predator acknowledging a superior predator. She hasn’t argued with Keris, either. Just obeyed.

((Did Haneyl get the new place in Memory of a Golden Land during that week?))
((Yes.))

Dragging a palm down her face as frustration swells and anxiety swirls... Makers, she’s not had Saji in her for ten minutes and Keris already wants her out. Having her emotions fed and magnified like this is exhausting.

She shakes herself, throwing that thought out. She’ll deal with it for however long she needs to. For now, she has a still-burning apartment block that they were admittedly going to renovate anyway, which needs to be put out. She has a group of people who she needs to get across town and cram into their fallback residence. And she has to find some clothes for Elly, because despite her words it very much does matter if she’s going to be walking around in public - even at night.

“Fine,” she groans. “This way, then. Let’s find Haneyl and work out what to do with all this.”

---

Keris tracks her daughter down to a nearby bathhouse. It’s quite predictable and lucky. Haneyl is almost obsessive about keeping clean, and it’s passed down to her keruby, The Swamp is full of hot springs and the bathhouses built around them.

Plus, it does mean there’s a good excuse for why Elly has no clothes. And she can steal clothes on the way out.

Haneyl is floating in one of the smaller side chambers, but her eyes light up at the sight of Elly.

“Well, look at you,” she almost purrs. “You’ve turned out nicely.”

Elly smiles, dropping to all fours, and showing the back of her neck as she kneels. “Yes, my princess,” she says in her soft voice.

“Elly, we’re old friends. You can still call me Princess Haneyl. Now, get in the bath with me and we can scrub that dirt off you.”

“Princess Haneyl, I can-”

“I’m doing it. I’m not letting you walk around dirty.” Elly drops into the water next to Haneyl, who positions herself behind Elly, leaning on her. “It’s so good to have you back. You made me worry and I can’t forgive you for that! Now, mama, how are you feeling? Is Saji hurting you?”
Keris doesn’t feel all right. She’s feeling as emotional as the babies make her, and hot like she’s running a fever. “I’ll manage for the moment,” she says with a hint of strain. “But as soon as possible I want to fly over to Shuu Mua, find a patch of bare rock and have a better look at them both.”
She’s trying hard not to think about Saji’s fire in her eyes, in her heart - about how Saji’s presence is forcing things on her mind and feelings that aren’t hers. Every time she thinks about it, the panic starts to well up and she has to breathe out hurriedly and switch to another thought track, or else risk a panic spiral. Even with Eko's help in cutting the anxiety away when it starts to surge, there's a squirming feel of steadily-growing unease at how the thing riding in her flesh is forcing her to act in ways and feel emotions that aren't hers.

“W-we need to get everyone to the fallback house, finish putting the fire out and then go,” she adds. “Tonight. I don’t want to delay this.”

The bathhouse is roofless, with only canvas awnings to keep the rain off, and there’s a nest of sleeping parakeets up there with bright green feathers. Haneyl sees them, and her eyes narrow.

“Saji.”

“Yep, Hanny!”

“Can you possess one of those green birds? So you have a place to stay that isn’t in mama?” Haneyl seems to tolerate ‘Hanny’ from Saji, presumably because that’s just how she is.

“Uh... I can try. Open your mouth!”

Keris feels the heat well up from within, and it’s opening her mouth or burning her lips. Saji surges out, in a wave of dry heat that Keris swears scorches her eyebrows, and then flows up into the parakeet.

Its eyes snap open, burning yellow.

“Yep!” it - Saji - says. “Doesn’t feel the same, but I’m more in here.” She flutters down, perching in Haneyl’s hair. “I... uh, think I sort of set its mind on fire, but it’s just a bird. It wasn’t thinking very strong thoughts.”

Haneyl grins, resting her head on Elly’s back. “Feeling better, mama?” she checks. “No side effects?”

Keris sags back down into the water. “Oh. Oh, that’s... so much better. So much.” She shivers. “No offence, Saji. I just... don’t have good memories of being possessed.”

“Sorry!” Saji chirrups, spreading her wings. “I just needed somewhere to stay for a bit. But I prefer being a bird. I couldn’t really move in you. Oh, Hanny, I can probably go in a chell or some kinda weird body thing you make for me when we get home.”

Haneyl pauses in her washing of Elly. “Hmm, yes,” she says, eyes going unfocussed for a moment. “But later. Mama, you can leave me to steal clothes and meet up with Rounen if you’re going home to the other place. I can see to things here.” She looks up past the awning. “Looks like a storm is coming, so that’ll make sure the fire is under control. But you’ll want to make sure the babies are under cover.”

“Right. I’ll get the others home, then.” Keris leans over to kiss both of her daughter’s cheeks. “You did really well today,” she tells Haneyl. “Responded fast, kept anyone from noticing, used your fire in a smart way to limit the damage. I’m proud of you.”

“Of course you are,” Haneyl says. “Now, shoo. See to the babies.”

---
Keris’s apartment building in the Tengese quarter is... respectable. Very respectable. It’s facing onto a small square where there’s a market every day, and it’s whitewashed stone. Technically speaking Little River only rents a few rooms on one floor, but actually Haneyl owns the whole building. As a result, there’s rooms here for her family and followers. Getting everyone there is a task, but she manages it without being seen or anything else catching fire. Vali and Zanara get rooms next to her own, Xasan gets his own, Piu and Kuha share another and the Tairan girls have a third.
With everyone settled, Keris draws her babies into bed with her, holds them close and falls gratefully and deeply asleep.

Her dreams are unsettled. For once she’s not in her Domain; they’re normal dreams - or rather, nightmares. Her body isn’t her own; tugged and pulled this way and that like a puppet. Her emotions surge and swell; foreign feelings forced on her by outside influences. Sibilant words whisper to her, indistinct but carrying the horrible certainty that they’ll twist her mind and memories.

She wakes suddenly, with a hiss. And finds, to her surprise, that she’s not the first one up.
Tucked against her side, Ogin looks up at his mother from where he’s examining Atiya; cradled on her chest and still fast asleep. One of his tails is tracing along the side of Atiya’s impossibly tiny foot, with its minuscule, perfectly-formed little toes. His eyes reflect the fraction of moon in the sky, shining an inhuman silver. “It’s still dark, mother,” he says, after a long pause.
“That’s right, baby,” Keris agrees. Talking to Ogin is always... odd. He’s so articulate for his age - which is a sign of how brilliant and clever he is! But it somehow makes him a bit of a cipher. She’s never as sure of what he’s thinking as she is with Kali.

Still, in this case she can guess. “Were you looking at Atiya?” she asks, shifting to let him crawl up on top of her too. “You can touch her if you want. Here.” Gently, gently, she guides his hand to rest on Atiya’s back, where he can feel the faint beat of her heart and the second-hand warmth she’s stolen from Keris by being snuggled up to her all night.

He crawls closer to her. It’s a real reminder of how much bigger he is than her. Kali’s caught up with him - she was smaller when they were born - but Ogin and Atiya don’t look like their birth dates are as close as they really are.

“She coughs,” he contributes, letting his hand rest there. “She is small.”

“She’s...” Keris starts, and pauses, considering. Ogin is clever for his age, but ‘premature’ is probably too complicated for him. “She was born too soon,” she says instead. “So she’s not as big or strong as you and Kali.” She strokes his tails affectionately, grinning as they wrap around her fingers on reflex.

“Are we going to be loud and shout at each other?” Ogin wonders, his eyes a mystery as he runs one chubby finger along Atiya’s back.

Keris lets her breath out in something that’s not quite a huff of laughter. “No, moonbeam. Rathan and Calesco - and Haneyl and Vali - all want different things. That’s why they fight. But you and Kali work together for things, and if you look after Atiya she’ll always like you.”

“Zanara and Vali fight,” Ogin says. “Zanara said that Vali was a bully who was stealing her paint and he called her a selfish pig and said he was more fun when he was a boy. And Haneyl and Zanara fight because Zanara took Haneyl’s clothes.”

Keris is reminded that her son is very observant and has, despite how young he is, apparently memorised the arguments between his siblings that he’s seen.

“Fighting and saying mean things doesn’t mean they don’t love each other,” says Keris after a moment. She can’t think of any way to explain the inevitable conflicts that come from separate parts of a soul hierarchy to him, and honestly it’s not really relevant to what he’s asking.

“But I promise, moonbeam, if you never want to fight with Kali or Atiya then nothing says you ever have to. And then you can show your big brothers and sisters how much less shouting you three have to do.”

Ogin considers this duly, little face screwed up in concentration. “I think we’ll fight,” he raises one tiny hand, fingers held close together, “a little bit. Not too much. But enough that things are fun. The others fighting are fun to watch, when they’re not being too loud.”

Keris chuckles. Ney springs to mind, involuntarily, and she grins. “A little bit of fighting can be fun, can’t it? As long as it’s not too much.” She ruffles his hair fondly. “My clever boy.”

Though with her mind on Ney and the memory of Haneyl’s fear over Elly and Saji, it occurs to her... she’d just disappeared, hadn’t she? She’d left him Akhmi, but not much else. Maybe she should send him a dream. Just to let him know she was safely home and whatnot. Stop him worrying.

... maaaaybe taunt him a little about the theft.

Lying back and letting Iris raise herself off her arm to play with Ogin, Keris considers her options and enjoys her babies’ company.

---

Next morning, Keris and a certain subset of her family members gather for a council of war slash Haneyl-cooked breakfast. That is to say, she takes her family members who can be useful for her scheming, and then also the babies and some other demons and...

Well, there’s a lot of people on the roof that Haneyl’s taken over.

Rounen clears his throat. “My princess has called you all here to eat, but mostly for long-term planning. As it is early in Wood, while my queen’s family is arriving at the end of this season, it is important that...”

“Oh, put a sock in it, everyone knows it’s important,” Saji shouts at him, yellow flame surrounding the parakeet’s head.

Elly is taking the chance to eat everything she can before the other two get to it. Her hand goes too close to something Haneyl had her eyes on, and Haneyl raises one eyebrow. Elly moves back, inclining her head.

“Yes,” Haneyl says. “I mean, my building in the University district is going to need work, so I’m going to want Rounen for that and no doubt mama is also going to want him. So we need to clear these things out.”

“I wanna go around the markets!” Nara contributes.

“Okay, everyone quiet!” Keris calls, banging the table. Kali babbles happily and starts pounding the table in imitation with her chubby little fists, giggling hysterically.

... Keris leaves her to it.

“First of all we need to work out jobs, and match them to people, right?” Keris asks. Nobody disputes this, so she continues. “Starting with the apartment block in the university district that... okay, you know what? The... uh... the dance hall. We’re calling it the dance hall for the moment, since it’ll be Cinnamon’s place and that’s easier to say.”

She cracks her knuckles. “So. The dance hall. Haneyl - and, yeah, Rounen - need to hire people to rebuild it and supervise and all that stuff. We also need to work out what it’s gonna look like - Zanara? You up for helping me with that?”

Nara smiles. “Of course!”

“I don’t have infinite money and we can’t make raw materials out of nothing here,” Haneyl says quickly. “So no, you can’t cover it in opals.”

Nara pulls a face. “But it’s meant to be pretty!” he argues.

“Not when I’m paying for it,” Haneyl counts.

He screws up his face. “Mama...” he begins.

“We’ll work it out,” she promises. “It’ll take a while to rebuild the walls and stuff before things start getting decorated, so we can take our time.” She claps. “So! That’s one thing down. Uh... Vali! What are you thinking of doing?”

Vali nods solidly. “Keeping the babies safe!” he says, chopping his hand into the table and making it leap. And also sending a spoon flying off to hit the wall behind him. “Also,” he glances over towards the atmosphere-blued bulk of Shuu Mua. “Probably go up there. Take a look around. Fight bandits. Find neat rocks. Stuff like that.”

Keris snaps her fingers. “Ah! Yeah, that’s a good plan, actually. I was thinking of making a little hidden town or something on the mainland - not the coast, I mean, like, fairly deep in where nobody could find it. Somewhere safe and protected that I can put people who, uh... I don’t want to get hurt.” She frowns, vaguely feeling like something was wrong with that sentiment, and then shrugs.

“Anyway, Shuu Mua has a bunch of Wyld zones, and I know from Sasi and Ligier that there’s a way to hammer chaos-places into being real places that look like whatever you want. So I could use that to make a nice defensible valley. Could you and uncle Xasan look for somewhere like that?”

She glances across at her uncle, smiling shyly. “You were the one who told me about how the fortresses in Taira meant the valleys were really safe, so... it seems like something you’d know about,” she explains. “You’re the expert, and all.”

Xasan frowns. “Keris,” he says bluntly, “I can have a try, but I’m not a young man and I’m not going anywhere near some goblin-filled warren. And those mountains over there are massive. Even at my best, I wouldn’t have wanted to go up places like that. They look as bad as some hills south of Perswha where we lost good men to the mutants up there.”

“That’s what ribbon-horses are for, uncle,” says Keris patiently. “You can take Cissidy! She’ll like the running, and she’s pretty level-headed. And if you’re in the air, nothing can get at you, and you can just look at where the Wyld zones are and not go into them.”

She pauses. “Also, if anything tries to hurt either of you, Vali will probably explode it with punches. Though,” she wags a finger at Vali, “no taking risks, okay? Bandits and wyld mutants are fine, but strong raksha that could hurt you aren’t. And listen to Xasan.”

“Ma’am,” Rounen points out, “didn’t you stumble into a wyld zone accidentally last time you went up into those mountains?”

Rounen, Keris realises, is a fussy traitor who always has to get the last word in.

She glares at him. “That... urgh. You suck. Anyway, I broke out of there again! With Vali’s powers! So he can probably do it too.” She pouts and adds in a mutter, “also Xasan probably has a better sense of direction than I do, so he wouldn’t get lost in the first place.”

Elly taps her index fingers together. “Maybe Xasan should focus on hiring guides and seeing what the existing map-level of the area is like. I could come for some time too. I would like to hunt in those woods.” She glances sideways to Haneyl. “I will inspect the wildlife and fauna for you. We will need supply lines and crops if the queen wishes to build a lair in those mountains.”

Keris nods happily. “That would work. Oh, and Vali? I’ll be getting an estate for Little River at some point, so I’ll want you after that to add some sneaky underground extras to it. Same with the dance hall, once the renovations are finished.”

“Yeah.” Vali seems happy with that. “I don’t mind spending some time here, but living all my time here sounds like living in the City with Dulmea watching me all the time.” He shudders. “No thanks.”

Keris refrains from commenting on that, and turns to Zanara. “Okay, so you’ll be helping me design the dance hall - and also my estate, I guess. Are you going to keep giving Piu dance lessons, too? And maybe Saji, if Haneyl can make her a humanish body.”

Nara nods, putting his spider-like legs up on the table. “Yep! And another thing! Hanny said that she might see if she can get her-me some kind of reputation as an elite clothes-maker for-”

“Zanara!” Haneyl snaps.

“What?”

“That was meant to be a... a thing that we didn’t need to bother mama about!”

“A clothes-maker?” Keris raises an eyebrow. “It sounds like a good idea, as long as you have something to disguise your...” she eyes the spider legs, “... differences. Why would it bother me?”

“Because she’s doing it because she wants money to-”

“Shuddit!”

Keris turns slowly to regard her elder daughter. “Haneyl?” she asks gently. “Is there something you need? You can tell me if you’re lacking anything, you know. I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

Haneyl flinches away, then crosses her arms. “I told you I wanted a cult,” she mutters. “And this city is full of temples. They won’t notice another shrine being built.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Keris shifts over to hug her. “I mean...” She shoots a faintly guilty glance at Xasan. “You... probably would be a better goddess than most of the other ones people worship. You certainly wouldn’t let anyone go hungry, and you like your people to be the best. Can you wait until we’ve got the dance hall fixed up so Sasi can visit and give us some advice, though? I have a few plans it might work with.”

((Per + Pres, trying to persuade her to delay her Greed))
((4+5+3 Eternal Matriarch+2 stunt+9 Kimmy ExD {thinks she is fair, charm}=23, playing to her Principle for Sasi and using Hidden Depths Temptress to enhance. 10x2=20 sux.))
((Bwaa haa, success-doubler-fu.))

Haneyl has never been a gracious loser, and even with Sasi’s training the best she can manage is a pout. “Fine,” she grumbles. “But only so I can get mother’s advice. She’d know better than you.”

“She would,” Keris nods, happy to agree with this. “So, you’ll be working on the dance hall. Can I also ask you to try and cultivate me a herb garden? I have a bunch of samples from the Northwest, from Malek, from the Zu Tak, the chocolate from Ney... all of them have uses in alchemy or medicine or food, and some of them are used to growing in the cold or on mountains or whatever. Do you think you can either set up special greenhouses for them all or convince them to grow in this climate?”

“No.” Haneyl sits back in her chair. “I have other things to do. And something like that is a very, very expensive project.” Her eyes gleam green, flickering. “Coolhouses like that would need... well, glass is expensive, and more than that, so would the air hearthstones I’d need. Mama, are you even thinking of the running costs? And as for coaxing plants to grow like that - well, I could do it back home, but something tells me they wouldn’t like me spreading my power and tearing a block apart.”

“Hanny!” Nara whines.

“No! I know you think it would be pretty, but what I need here is money. Money and more than that, a secure income. So we don’t have to rely on smuggled things from Hell which risk us getting caught and losing all the things I’m going to get here.” Haneyl crosses her arms. “And that’s that.”

“Mama!” Nara immediately appeals to Keris.

“Don’t Mama her! She’s listening to you and Eko and being all flighty and spreading herself super-thin. What we should be focussing on is getting the dance hall up and running, getting a secure income, and getting mama into the Hui Cha so she can get us a mansion. And we need the income so we can pay for the mansion, which won’t just be a one-off payment!”

Vali yawns. He’s paying no attention to this, and is instead mock-wrestling over a wooden spoon with Ogin.

((Keris’s greed and love of art are clashing internally. The love of art is trying to push her to these grand projects.))
((Oh, Keris. Heh. That was my intent, yes.))

Keris chews a hair tendril with a hangdog expression. “It’s just... like you said, this is going to be our place. A proper home. The first one we’ve ever had. I want it to be perfect.”

“It’s going to take years to cultivate,” Haneyl says pitilessly. “And you’re going to have to focus hard on your Hui Cha cover identity and get control of the triads. Because that’s your job. For Ligier and Lilunu. So you can focus on that, I’ll look after Zanara and focus on getting the dance place up and running so we can start making money off it, and Vali can...” she clearly pauses and says something other than her first intent, “... Vali can be differently useful and scout out the larger island.”

She pauses.

“After all, mama,” she says, “there’s some snow right on the top of those mountains. If you want cold weather plants, see if they grow up there first before you start planning to have to keep on buying airstones.”

This combination of invoking control of the Hui Cha and promising mountaintop coldhouses mollifies Keris enough to get a sigh of agreement, though she’s still morose about the amount of work she’ll have to do.

“Fine,” she mopes. “I’ll do the planning for the dance hall and stuff with Zanara, but for the most part I’ll focus on winning over the blue sea masters. Which,” she adds, perking up a bit. “Means I get to go heal Strong Ox of what his horrible sister did to him so that Pale Branch can have a baby of her own!” Bending down, she drops a kiss on Atiya’s forehead, then another two on Kali and Ogin.

Kali grins, wearing one of the empty cups as a hat, and kisses Keris back.

Unfortunately, it was not an empty cup when she put it on her head, and thus Keris has a juice-soaked baby on her hands. She sighs, and goes to clean her up. Kali is sticky and already attracting flies.

As she rinses her daughter off in a barrel of water that she had the foresight to get specifically for this purpose, there’s a stomp in her head. It’s Eko. She sounds like she’s in a bad mood again.

“I did have an idea for you,” Keris murmurs to her before she can start complaining. “When I mentioned Sasi. But I’d have to ask her first, so don’t take it as a given!”

Betrayed! Betrayed by another one of her little sisters, Eko gestures melodramatically, because she’s clearly been holding it in and isn’t going to be dissuaded. Clearly it’s all Haneyl’s fault! She’s so cruelly stealing Eko’s evolutions! She now has three different kinds of grown-up keruby, and Elly is even stealing Eko’s looks! Betrayed, she gestures again for emphasis.

“Well,” Keris replies, forging ahead with her idea. “Firstly, Elly probably looks like you because she’s one of the ones you made - so it’s more like your workwomanship is showing through. And second, maybe you could work out how to encourage your keruby to evolve by helping Sasi make her own? Like I said, she’d have to agree... but Haneyl couldn’t help her work out how to make her own demons. Do you think you could do better at explaining it to her?”

Well, duh, Eko immediately answers with a perking up of her head. She is massively clevererer than Haneyl. So no doubt she could solve the teeny tiny problem that Sasi is having. Also, show Sasi how the keruby are the bestest best demons ever. And... she sighs, leaning her brow against the glass of the window, her presence close enough to Keris to whisper - if the concept makes sense - well...

... she wants mama to be happy, and mama is sad-angry at Sasi because of Kalaska and Sasi is sad-scared-wound up like Calesco but worse so she wants Sasi to be happy so mama is happy. But don’t tell Haneyl. Or Dulmea.

“I’m right here,” Dulmea observes, putting down her tea with a clink.

Then grandma shouldn’t tell Dulmea either, Eko adds wisely.

((... I really do adore Eko.))
(( She is the comic relief, even when she’s a slightly tragic figure.))

“I... I know,” whispers Keris. “I haven’t decided what to do ab- wait, angry?”

That fluttery, trembling, nauseous feeling is back at the thought of Kalaska. Keris glances down at her hands, which have curled into fists again, and her hair, which has wound itself into tight knots and is lashing from side to side.

... oh.

She... she really is. She’s angry at Sasi. She’s angry that she’d leave a little child like Kalaska in a home like that and not see how she was hurting. She’s angry that Sasi would avoid the issue and neglect Kalaska just because she doesn’t like that part of herself. She’s...

She cuts that train of thought off, wide-eyed and shaking. She’s angry. She’s angry at Sasi, and that scares her, because... because what if shouting at Sasi makes her lover hate her? Or... or worse, what if she gets too angry and hurts Sasi? Like in the nightmare! Sasi’s not a fighter! She can’t defend herself if Keris... i-if Keris gets s-so angry that she loses sight of things a-and hurts the people she loves and...

Curling up around a sticky Kali, Keris wraps her hair around herself and trembles, her breathing fast and shallow.

Kali looks up, head tilted, and pats mama’s cheek with one hand. “Mama?” she asks, reaching up with her other hand and turning Keris’s head so she’s looking at her. “Bad?”

“I-I-I,” Keris stutters. “N-no, little feather. Mama’s j-just...”

Her throat locks up before she can finish - not that she had any idea of what she was going to say - and she buries her face in Kali’s warmth, feeling the slightly-inhuman heat of her and the softness of her little fingers on Keris’s cheek, inhaling the spicy, sweet, soft baby smell of her. An idle thought has her sense of touch magnify and intensify, and Kali’s fumbling touches become immeasurably more calming. Soothing music filters into her awareness; Dulmea focusing on the most reassuring melodies she can play.

After a few moments of just... breathing, Keris feels capable of speech again.

“It’s okay, sweetie,” she murmurs. “Mama just got scared of nothing for a bit. Thank you for petting me.” She kisses Kali on the cheek and turns her attention back to Eko and Dulmea. “Sorry,” she murmurs ashamedly.

Eko sighs. Mama carries burdens with her that Eko doesn’t. But mama has to carry them or else she’d be like Eko and Eko wouldn’t have her brothers and sisters. So mama has to be unhappy sometimes so she isn’t carried away by whatever breeze comes her way. And Eko can live like that, but it has its own problems, and mama can’t. Kali can’t be carried on every last wind.

“My goodness,” Dulmea says, slightly surprised. “That was very... un-Eko-like.”

Yep, Eko agrees, she’ll probably be feeling better in a while and won’t have to think these sad thoughts anymore.

“Much as I am loathe to say it, Eko is... Eko is right,” Dulmea says reluctantly. “This is why Ney was good for you. The way he could hurt you was only physical. And you can deal with that. Sasimana is more complicated.”

“... yeah,” Keris sniffs. “I still love her, though. And. Well. I’ll send him an ‘I’m okay’ dream tonight.”

She gulps, regaining some composure. “But that’s not what we were talking about. If, uh... if you’re happy to go help Sasi, I’ll send her a Messenger to ask if she’s okay with it. With Iris, I guess.” She taps the little dragon on the nose. “You up to visit Sasi?”

Iris lifts her head off Keris’s hand, smoothly moves her neck to dodge Kali’s instinctive pounce, and gives Keris the best quizzical expression a tattoo-dragon can. As far as Keris can tell, she seems to think Keris is missing something obvious.

“Well as much as I’d like to visit her, it’d be pretty pointless to swim all the way to An Teng just to tal-” starts Keris.

And cuts off, as the world dissolves and reforms around her.

Keris is not a woman anymore. She is pigment made of blood and bile. She is canvas made of skin and hair. She is a painting of a woman, made of a woman. She looks out with flat eyes from a flat world.

It’s dark in the place she’s looking into. Keris’s eyes dilate as she adjusts to the gloom, and then it strikes her. She knows this place.

It’s Sasi’s bedroom.

Iris appears in front of Keris’s vision, a two-dimensional dragon moving through three dimensions. She tilts her head, watching Keris’s eyes track her, and then nods definitely.

Then she flies over and nuzzles the pale shape on the black silk sheets. And when she doesn’t move, gently chomps onto her ear.

“Mmm,” Sasi groans. “No, no, Aiko, it’s sleeping time now. Mama needs to sleep.”

“Um,” says Keris, in confusion. She’s pretty sure what just happened, but the ‘why’ is taking a bit longer to catch up.

“No, Keris, I’m trying to...” Things eventually seem to work their way through Sasi’s head, and she sits bolt upright, throwing off her thin covers. “Keris?! And... Iris... let go of my ear, you wretched thing!”

Iris flies away, and exhales a cloud of many coloured flame that looks like a smiling face before dissipating.

“So... I’m my painting?” Keris tries. “Well, obviously I’m my painting, but I’m... in my painting now? I was thinking of talking to you and... then I was here.”

She frowns. “Huh. Lilunu said it was magical. Could I do this the whole time? Why didn’t I... oh, right. It was on the Baisha the whole time. And I... never really thought about talking to the Priest or Neride.”

There’s a short pause, as Keris considers her new discovery and Sasi... wakes up more, presumably.

“Hang on,” says Keris, breaking the silence in offended tones. “Does that mean I could have seen you and talked to you whenever I wanted the whole time I was in Taira if I’d just given you my painting at Calibration?”

Sasi stalks up to Keris. She sleeps naked, but that just means she’s a ghost-pale shape in the gloom and thus easier for Keris to see. “I’m not sure,” she says. She glares at Iris. “Maybe it’s something to do with that pest. How did she even get to An Teng?”

Sasi does not appear to appreciate being woken up by being bitten in the ear. At least by Iris. She hasn’t minded it a few times from Keris.

“Well, she lives on my skin,” Keris says reasonably. “And this is my skin. Isn’t she on me in the painting? I mean, when I’m not in it.” She tries to look at her arm, which proves remarkably difficulty in two dimensions. “I guess she can go from my skin to here about as easily as she can go from my arm to my head. Or possibly I brought her with me. Um... sorry for waking you?” she adds belatedly.

“I... think I’ll forgive it. Just this once.” Sasi smiles, and steps a little closer, until she’s just a finger’s width from the painting. “And you’re stuck in here?” she asks. “You can’t do what she’s doing and step out of it?”

Keris tries. Keris fails.

“Looks like a no,” she says with a rueful smile. Which immediately switches to lascivious. “Or believe me, you’d be back on that bed right now, and a lot happier about forgiving me.”

“Ah,” Sasi says, “but you can see and hear. But can you feel?” she asks, running one finger along the forearm of painting-Keris.

The startled breath that Keris draws in, and the way her eyes get very wide, indicate the answer is ‘yes’.

“Well, isn’t that a thing?” Sasi says with a smile, leaning in to press herself up against the painting, lips against Keris’s. “I did always think that there had to be some reason Lilunu made the artwork you in every way, as beautiful as you are.”

Keris rather forgets, over the next few minutes or so, what her reason for ending up here had been. She can vaguely sense her body, too, still cleaning up Kali absentmindedly and getting her redressed.

Unfortunately, that means things have to stop before they get really interesting.

“Hang on hang on hang on,” she babbles, gasping and blushing. I-I... um... I’m with K-Kali at the moment, s-so... while we’re d-definitely continuing this later t-tonight, no more for just this moment. I, um...”

She tries to pull her composure back together - Sasi has to be cheating somehow to know so many places that feel so good on her - and remember why she came.

“Oh, right,” she recalls. “Um, I had a thought I was g-going to send you a Messenger about later. But I can just ask you now?” She’s trying to keep her attention fixed on Sasi’s face as she says it, and failing. Visibly, if Sasi’s smirk is anything to go by.

Sasi leans back, just slightly. just enough that she isn’t touching, but Keris can feel her warmth. “Oh?” she says, lips curled up.

“I, um...” Keris stutters. No! No, she will not be distracted by her lover’s... teasing... smug... gorgeousness! “W-we were working out what we were going to be doing for the season - and Eko is annoyed since Saji and Elly matured. It occurred to me that she might be able to help you work out a way to make your own demons,” she says. “She’s the one who made the keruby in the first place, after all. Before I made anything, even. And she’s smart, and she likes you, and she’s usually better-behaved when she’s got a complicated project to work on. Also she’s only a bit less lethal than me, so she can keep you safe.”

Sasi takes a step back to consider this. “Keris, darling, I’m not your childcare,” she says. “Haneyl was one thing. I have met Eko before - and unlike Haneyl, she can’t pass for human during most of the year.” She pauses. “Although I have to admit, there is the advantage that she wouldn’t have troublesome affairs.” She blinks. “And that little white-and-green kerub I met last year has grown up? Like Rounen? He seemed very useful.”

“Differently,” says Keris. “Elly went the route of Haneyl’s hunger. She’s a thorn-wolf-crocodile thing when she doesn’t look human, and a lot more... predatory. And Saji, uh...”

She coughs awkwardly. “Saji sort of turned into a tyrant lizard made of fire and nearly burned down our new tower block,” she admits. “But it was fine once we worked out she could possess people so as not to be a fire-tyrant-lizard. Uh, well, fine once we worked that out and then she got out of me and into a parakeet. Not sure what she does yet, besides stoke my emotions when I was hosting her.”

“I... see,” Sasi says brow furrowing. “Hmm. I do have to say, having demons loyal only to me would be useful. I’m just not sure if... well, like I said, I met Eko. I’m not sure I can trust her to behave. And not ruin my cover.”

Keris winces. “Well, yes. She’s generally controllable while you’re awake and with her, but if you have to leave or sleep she... gets her own ideas. But she is usually better-behaved when she’s concentrating on a problem she finds interesting! She gets bored easily and doesn’t like staying still, is all. And she likes you and looks up to you - and she behaved for Testolagh. Also...”

Her mouth twists. “She wants something. I don’t know what, exactly, but she was really intent on staying with Asarin, and she wants to hang around you a lot too. She’s worked something out - probably related to her keruby maturing - and she thinks being around you or Asarin will help with it.”

She shrugs. “I’m not saying keep her for a season, but... a short research project or two? She’d appreciate the chance to get out even if it were only for a few days, I think. And she really is brilliant. As smart as you are. Just think of what you could learn if you worked together!”

Sasi frowns. “I suppose we can try it out for a little bit. After all, I can banish her if things don’t work out. But Keris, I do have a lot to do. Haneyl at least could contribute something, but we can’t just keep doing this.”

She sounds a bit stressed, although this is Sasi and she may be faking it.

“You don’t have to,” Keris rushes to say. “I mean, she’s... not exactly happy in my Domain, but she can stay there. I just thought she could help you. Not just with your own demons, but maybe expanding your inner world so it’s not so small in there anymore.” She pauses, weighing up what she wants to say and flinching away from the part of her that wants to shout. Though... maybe shouting like this is the best time? She can’t hurt Sasi from a painting, after all.

... it might still make Sasi hate her, though.

“I think you might be less stressed if your souls had more space,” she risks tentatively. “They’re parts of you, and I know the All-Makers hate being locked in Hell because they’re so cramped in there. And I got more stressed and upset when my inner world shrunk in Taira.”

Sasi rubs her nose, stretching. “I... like I said, we can give it a try. If she’s on her best behaviour. I might have to ask you for some help with some matters because I’m always, always busy, but,” she blinks heavily. “Not too soon until Calibration,” she says. “A chance to unwind.”

“I’ll have a good report to make this year,” Keris says gently. “With Orange Blossom giving me a glowing account for what I did in Taira and taking the Hui Cha means Southwestern trade will follow. You’re my superior, so that’ll make you look good.”

She smiles proudly. “I’ll make sure to have those proud pirate lords eating out of my hand by Fire. Though I may have to kill one of them when I take over.”

Sasi smiles at that, and leans in, kissing Keris on the lips. “I like that. Yes, we can give Eko a go. And on that note, I’m going to bed. It’s far too early to be up.” She pauses. “Don’t you dare say that I could get more done if I got up earlier!”

“Actually,” says Keris impishly, “my body just finished changing Kali, and she’s playing with her siblings under Vali’s supervision. I’m in private.” She grins. “So instead of things, let’s talk about people you could be doing.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

((OK, some offscreen resolutions. Firstly, roll me Cog + Bureaucracy + Green-Eyed Merchant 1 = 8 dice for Haneyl’s efforts at rebuilding. She’s doing nothing out of the ordinary and she has the Resources to enable it, so it’s Diff 1 passive, but someone is trying to shake her down in the process so it’s contested with 4 dice. 1 contesting success.))
((Oooo, that greedy little fucker! Well, pah. They’re just human. And Haneyl’s 5 successes is proof that she, as a demon lady, is clearly superior and the better merchant-princess. Hmmph! *flips hair*))

It’s early in Ruling Wood when Keris decides to take Atiya out for a walk and see how big sister Haneyl is doing with the work. It’s a hot and muggy day, and it feels like rain is coming soon. It rains most days in Saata in Wood.

But right now, the white stone buildings are drying from yesterday’s rain and green and yellow parakeets are perching on the roofs, squawking raucously. There’s steam in the air, and the smell of Saatan street cooking. There’s a festival going on in the next street over as they let off firecrackers to praise a wind god, and this evening they’ll be lighting paper lanterns down at the docks for a fertility goddess. Keris definitely plans to be there, because one of the famous dancers, Oliana Green-Eyes, will be dancing for her there.

She hasn’t seen Xasan or Vali in weeks. They - and Elly, too - are off over in the distance-blued bulk of Shuu Mua to the north. She wonders what they’re up to. And Eko is off, too. Three days ago, Keris had a very enjoyable day with Sasi and then a rather more fraught night as she summoned her eldest daughter and bound her to this world.

She... uh, hasn’t had any “OK, I can’t take this!” messages from Sasi yet. It’s probably, hopefully, going well.

But here and now she’s checking on Haneyl, and the girl herself isn’t at the site. Who is, however, is Rounen, who’s dressed lightly and watching from a raised wooden tower as men lift stone into place and rebuild part of the upper floors of her - well, Haneyl’s, her daughter insists - building.

“Rounen,” she greets him happily. “Good morning. Things look like they’re going well here. You’ve had no problems?”

Rounen runs his hands through his turquoise hair. “Some, ma’am, some,” he says. “Many of the workers are linked to some of the lower-level Saatan gangs, I’m sorry to say. They tried to, ah, renegotiate with Princess Haneyl. To increase the price. Dramatically. And made various dark insinuations as to what would happen if their price wasn’t met.”

“Oh dear.” Keris looks concerned for a moment, stroking Atiya’s hair and shifting her slightly on her shoulder. “What did she do to them?”

Rounen smiles, a little brittlely. “She wanted to set them all on fire. It took both me and Prince Zanara to remind her that an excess of fire had caused this problem in the first place, and setting her workers on fire would only cause problems.” He shakes his head. “She was not best pleased by my interference in bringing this to the Prince. I... well, ma’am, suffice to say that she has been a little. Volatile. And perhaps we can leave it at that.

He clears his throat.

“Anyway, after that, she and Princess Zanara went and had a talk with certain leaders in the gang, and they appear to have moderated their demands with few to no injuries. Although Princess Zanara was very smug about things that I felt best not to enquire further about.”

“... I see,” says Keris dubiously. “Well, if you have the names of the gangs in question we can deal with them later. And I’ll talk to her and see if I can calm her down. Thank you for holding her back from killing anyone; I agree that’s for the best.”

She breathes in, happily savouring the salt air and the mingled scents of the city as she eyes the structure. “So, apart from idiot gang members; you’ve been handling the rebuilding well. What’s your estimate on when the building will be finished enough for us to get started on the decorations?”

“Well, you can see the progress,” Rounen said, spreading his hand out towards the structure. “As of the moment, they’re rebuilding the second floor. I want to get the roof finished before monsoon season really hits. And after that, I suspect we’ll need to dry it out before we can start with much of the interior decorating. I am afraid, ma’am, that Saata has a real problem with rot if water gets into bits of buildings. The wood just falls apart. It’s why they build everything out of stone if they can.”

“Mmm.” Keris wrinkles her nose. “And varnish only helps as long as things stay intact, without getting burnt or broken. Annoying. Though we might be able to speed up the drying-out somehow.”

She sighs. “Well, it’s still excellent work. Do you think we can have it finished by Fire? I’d prefer not to have our new leisure house open on or around Calibration; that’s the kind of thing that can give a place bad luck.”

“Hmm. By current plans, the full work won’t be done until next year, ma’am,” Rounen says promptly. “Yes, I want to get the roof finished before the monsoon, but remember, large areas of the building were hollowed out when they used it as a textile workshop. We have many layers of floors to build inside. We’ll have liveable areas before then, but,” he blushes, “with all due respect, ma’am, a construction site is not where I thought you would want to live. It would be a trifle loud.”

Keris laughs. “You know me so well,” she teases. “Yes, I’m already looking for another place - a proper estate this time, rather than a townhouse. And for Little River and Atiya, not Cinnamon and her twins. Speaking of which,” she adds, shifting her daughter around to let her squint at the shock of turquoise hair atop a fuzzy not-mama-shape. “Say hello, Atiya! This is Rounen! Rou-Rou! Isn’t he clever?” She glances up at Rounen with a smile. “She’s mostly breathing normally now, and I think she’s starting to focus on things. Though she might be having trouble with colour. Time will tell.”

((Atiya is at this point about four months old, or about one month past her due date for developmental milestones.))

Rounen smiles at the baby girl, and takes her in his arms. He has done this a lot. In fact, there was one alarming bit where someone saw him with her and thought he was her father. After all, he does look Tengese...

“Yes, ma’am. Hello again, Atiya. I haven’t seen you in a while. You’ve gotten much bigger, haven’t you?”

She doesn’t really respond, but does turn her face and open her mouth. And then sneezes. It’s a tiny high pitched noise.

“Well, if it isn’t my delinquent mother and adorable baby sister,” Haneyl says, scaling the ladder up to the tower three rungs at a time. She has food. Of course she has food. “They were doing some really nice cinnamon-and-cardamom flavoured fried dough things over at the festival,” she says, traces of grease around her mouth. “I only bought one back for Rounen, but I suppose you two can share it.”

She offers it to Keris, as Rounen has his arms full.

Keris takes it gratefully, breaking it in half and savouring one piece before trading the other to Rounen for her daughter. “We came to visit and see how well you’ve been making a name for yourself in business,” she smiles. “Atiya’s very impressed with her big sister. And I’m happy to hear you dealt with your workforce problem without burning anyone to death. Well done.”

“Hmmph!” Haneyl flips her hair. “No thanks to that traitor!”

“Me, princess?” Rounen asks mildly.

“Yes, you! You and Zana and Nara! Insubordinate dog!”

“Surely I am equally obliged to follow their orders as yours, as you are both royalty.”

“See, it’s that smart mouth of yours that meant I made you sleep in your own bed for three whole days!” Haneyl fumes. “And it would have been longer if I didn’t have that mouth well trained.” Rounen turns bright red, averting his eyes from Keris, and Haneyl grins like a predator. “And if you didn’t look adorable when you get embarrassed.”

Keris blushes too. “Ahem. Y-yes, can we not?” She kisses Atiya’s temple. “Innocent young ears here.”

Haneyl clasps her hands together, and does an extravagant mock curtsey. “Oh, dearest apologies, little sister. How could I talk about such things? Now, mama, how did your efforts to get Strong Ox’s shrivelled dick working again go? You said you were going to give that a try last time we met up for coffee.”

((Cog + Occult medical roll for Keris, trying to cure a Crippling effect. That means she needs to Self-Seed the old man and do Diff 5 internal surgery, which is a 15 hour operation. In addition, she’s going to need to work out a way to let it happen and get into position, or otherwise somehow do it sneakily which will require other rolls.))
((Okay, so FWT lets her cut that down to 45 minutes. What’s the over/under on her just sneaking into his home in the night and doing it while he’s in bed?))
((With Pale Branch’s tacit agreement, she needs a Diff 3 Reaction + Subterfuge.))
((Yeah, okay, she can pretty easily pull that off. Heh. Is Maiden’s Tea close enough to the northeastern plants she knows that her herbal knowledge would help here? : P))
((Yes.))
((Stealthystealthy roll: 5+5+3 Silver Willow+2 stunt=15. 8 sux.
Fixin’ cripplin’ roll: 3+5+3 Frozen Florist+2 stunt+8 Kimmy ExD {endlessly giving, patronage and kindness are real, demands payment}=21. 10 sux.))

“Oh, that all went well,” Keris replies blithely. It had been easy, really. She’d snuck into the old lord’s estate - barely even needing Pale Branch’s tacit permission - in the clothes of one of the servant staff; drifting through the halls and doing a few minor chores on her way to the main bedroom. She’d actually surprised the other woman when she’d lowered her hood and shown her face, and Pale Branch had then left her alone with her husband for the hour or so she’d needed to worm tendrils into his flesh and leech out the poisons.

That part had gone fantastically. Maiden’s Tea grew all over Creation, even the far northeast, and it had been one of the drugs known to the owlriders, albeit not one terribly important to the brews that kept them small. Still, Keris had studied it anyway, and the sterility and damage left by overly high concentrations of it wasn’t that different to the ways that foxglove residue and other floral toxins built up in the bodies of Kuha’s kin.

“Very well indeed,” she adds, smirking faintly as she remembers the little grey tumour she’d planted under Strong Ox’s heart. Planted... and not removed. He’s all but senile, and so childish that it’s unlikely to raise any red flags in his behaviour - and it’s a useful little bit of insurance, as well as a potential way to get rid of him when the time comes for Pale Branch to take over in truth.

Haneyl gives Keris a hug. “Oh, good,” she says happily, before getting more serious. “You’ll need to be careful. This isn’t the most difficult part. I’ve been keeping an ear out among the students when I go spying on them.”

“Drinking with them and getting them to buy you food,” Rounen murmurs.

“I will send you back to your own bed, don’t think I won’t!” Haneyl snaps, and then clears her throat. “When gathering information, Pretty Peacock is... well, she’s one of the richest women on the island. I’m really impressed by what I’ve heard of her. She’s the big player in the Hui Cha insurance works. Do you realise how much money she must have to do that - and how much she must earn from it? And she can give much better rates because she can discount her brother’s ships - and really any other Hui Cha ones - from attacking her clients.

Haneyl shakes her head. “I don’t think you’ve been entirely looking in the right place for power in the Hui Cha, mama,” she says. “From my point of view, Pretty Peacock as good as rules it. Me and Zana reckon she’s richer than any two blue sea masters. Rich enough she can just... hire them to protect her clients. And I think she’ll fight to the death to not lose the fact she effectively controls a seat at the table. She can’t get one because she’s a woman, but she uses her brother as a mouthpiece to,” she glances at Rounen, “influence the men and stop them fucking everything up.”

“Mmm. Thing is, though, if she’s that powerful already, she’s not going to want to give it up,” Keris points out. “Any of it. And yeah, I could get around that by... forceful convincing, but she’s used to power and wealth so she’ll always see me as the interloper. The one who came in and took over. And she’s the kind of woman who’d feed her own brother an overdose of Maiden’s Tea to sterilise him, which does not make me feel happy about trusting her with my back.”

She shrugs. “Whereas with Pale Branch, I’ve got someone who thinks like me, who has an equal claim on Strong Ox, and who’ll see me as the one who helped her up to that level. Though... hmm. You have a point about Pretty Peacock’s wealth. I’ll need to make sure I don’t lose that, one way or another. Can you look into where it would go if she died? I’m not going to move on her soon, but it’d be useful to know for planning.”

Haneyl rolls her eyes. “To her daughter, of course,” she says. “It’s land-based wealth and she’s Tengese. Therefore, the insurance business and all her investments and the property she owns here and on other islands passes down the female line. Men just keep ships, ‘travelling goods’, and ‘wealth from war’. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. From my point of view, sure, the men are pretty flowers, but the women here are the roots and the trunk. They can just grow more men. The men would be nothing without the bits the triads do that isn’t piracy.”

Keris pouts. “Piracy is more fun, though,” she mutters under her breath. “But yes, I’d guessed that. I mean in more detail. Just one daughter, or does she have some younger ones who wouldn’t inherit? And what’s the girl like? That sort of thing.” She gives Haneyl an encouraging smile. “I’m sure your ‘information gathering’ is up to the task.”

“I suppose I can take a look, but I’m kind of busy here,” Haneyl grumbles. “Anyway, I need to head off again. I’m having lunch with Zanara and Piu. Actually, you should come with me too. See them, see how things are, that’ll be nice.”

“What about me?” Rounen asks plaintively.

“You can starve, you treacherous dog,” Haneyl says.

Keris raises an eyebrow at the banter, glancing between her daughter and her aide. Is this just more of Haneyl’s playful haughtiness, or is she still harbouring a grudge for not getting to cut loose on the workers who’d tried to extort more money out of her?

“This is disgusting,” Dulmea grumbles in Keris’s head. “And it’s all your fault. She’s acting just like you did with your Ney, so she gets it from you.”

“I don’t act like that with Ney!” Keris denies immediately. It’s true, too. There’s more smugness and gloating and empty-circle games in how she interacts with Ney. The dream she’d sent off to him had been particularly heavy on the first two. “Anyway, I think it’s sweet. As long as she doesn’t start giving me details again.”

“She will,” Dulmea says morosely.

---

With Haneyl and Rounen occupied with the rebuilding, Keris turns her attention back to her own task for the season - getting more of the blue sea masters under her sway. With artful subtlety and elegance, she arranges to meet Lucky Wolf in a pleasant but private restaurant for a little chat.

She has things to talk about with the poorest of the blue sea masters; beset by hard times as he is.

He shows up with his bodyguards; big neckless men who look like brick walls, half fat and half muscle. He’s an older man, and Keris notices that his garments are fine but worn. His fine many-coloured silks are thin and threadbare, and his jewellery has pewter and brass mixed into it.

Still, he’s still a lord of the Hui Cha, still a blue sea master, and the Tengese staff at the restaurant bow and scrap as he shuffles into the private room and takes off his many-coloured scarves, hanging them over the back of his chair. “So. You wanted to meet with me, girl,” he says, pulling out a pack of cigars. He offers one to Little River and lights his own.

Little River declines the cigar gracefully - “Atiya’s lungs are still a little weak for the smoke,” she says, shifting her sleeping daughter to her lap and resolving to keep an eye out for Lucky Wolf’s own cigar causing her problems. Eyeing him from behind the Tengese dragon’s face, Keris relaxes her mindset and lets the information pour in.

((Okay, so Keris is using FtFF to eye up what he expects from her in terms of reactions and motives, WWOF to see if he envies her and what he takes the most pride in, and HP to get his price. Oh, and... can she use PoEU to guess at how much he’s worth? Value of a good or service... his service? Hmm, maybe not. Your call. She has FtFF and BOT running.))

Ah, this old man clings onto what he has. He might not envy Keris, but the fact he’s a blue sea master means everything to him.

((WWOF tells her his thing is his Status 5 (Hui Cha).))

And he's wary. Keris after all was using flim-flam distractions to get him here without any of the other lords knowing of their meeting. He’s watching for betrayal for her - and half-expects her to go for a knife or admit she’s working for his rivals.

He reminds her of some of those old coves back in Nexus - old pickpockets and muggers with too many enemies and stiff legs who’re twitchy because they’re not sure they can run for it.

But, ah, in the gleaming of her eyes she can feel that burning desire in him, the heavy metal weight on his soul that’ll lead him wherever it goes. He’d do anything for someone who could rebuild his fleet, that thing that means he’s a blue sea master.
((His price is “rebuild his fleet to be worthy of a blue sea master”.))
((Heheheh.))
“I did want to meet with you, yes,” she acknowledges. “Now that I’m back with the Hui Cha to stay, I should get to know the leaders of our fleets.” The acknowledgement of him as a blue sea master is a minor thing, but it’ll still warm him to her. “And from what I hear, your men are loyal and think highly of you.”

Haloed in Rathan’s light and the flowering petals of Zanara’s social jungle, Keris is safe from the malice of others. But she knows both from observation and the instinctive knowledge of taboo and culture that she can’t just come out and offer him a lump sum that will help restore his fleet in return for an estate. She needs to ease into it - and make him think it’s in part his own idea.

“Hmm. We should talk more. Over drinks, and food. It is not good to do too much too early on. Meals should be savoured,” he says. “Is that not so, Hui Cha Little River?” he asks, clapping to call for the servers.

He speaks with them - they clearly know him well - and he makes sure to order drinks and food for his bodyguards, both the ones in this room and the ones who are waiting in the main room.

“And,” he concludes, “serve well and quickly, and your fine owners will know my thanks.”

“Yes, my lord,” the server says, gratefully accepting the coin he presses into her hands.

“You’re generous,” she notes, settling the little blanket-wrapped Atiya-bundle into a nest of cushions on the seat beside her. They make a little small talk as drinks are served and the first course comes out, and Keris waits for the pause as the first set of plates are cleared away to bring up her first point.

“So,” she says. “Hui Cha Lucky Wolf. You were interested in Riyaah MuHiitiyah, when I spoke of her in front of the council of lords.”

“Any man would wish for the favour of the gods,” the old man says.

“Of course,” Little River agrees with a dip of her head. “And I am working on making a relationship with her, beyond the gifts she granted me for my aid against the Dead. Well, that and looking for a more permanent home for Atiya to grow up in,” she adds, motioning towards the baby and keeping an ear on her breathing.

“Ah yes. The home is, of course, a woman’s duty - while a man’s life is beyond it, winning fortune for his family upon the high seas. I’ve never concerned myself much with such womanly things,” the old man says, rather pompously.

“Though, speaking of fortune,” careful, thinks Keris, careful; she needs to hit ‘sympathetic’ without going into ‘pitying’ or getting his back up, “the gods have not been kind to you of late, have they? Maybe that can change, going forward.”

“We can but pray,” he says, even as his eyes narrow fractionally.

“Perhaps,” Keris says. “Perhaps a little more than pray. It saddens me to see divine favour turned against our people, and I feel I should give back to the Hui Cha for taking me in.”

She pauses, considering. If she makes some show of giving something to each of the blue sea masters - she can probably spin her aid with the marriage as her ‘gift’ to Jade Fox - then it should be enough of a justification that it won’t be seen as making an alliance with any one of them, but rather a respectful display of loyalty. And then anything they give her - like, for instance, an estate to live on - will just be taking care of a valued new member of the family.

((Just running that past her FtFF knowledge of Hui Cha taboos and formalities.))

It’ll be complicated, The blue sea masters are, after all, violent and cruel men who have never got where they are by following all the rules all the time. And so much of it is based on what isn’t said.

And of course, the blue sea masters are used to getting gifts all the time. People don’t deny them things. She need to make sure she has some weight in her corner so it’s a gift rather than tribute.

“I mentioned the goddess rewarded me for my aid,” she says silkily. “Two of the Greater Dead combined were a threat beyond her power alone, and my help tipped the scales. Her domain is the wind and waves, and the mangrove swamps that mark the shore. Many valuable things are lost there.” She shrugs; a rippling motion. “I am a mother with a vulnerable baby, though. An estate would have been a better gift than gems - but that, she couldn’t give.”

“Ah, women’s things,” he says, attention passing to his drink. “If you want to know about such things, talk to a woman. You should dine at my estate some time. I’m sure my wife would love to see your daughter.”

“I would be glad to,” agrees Keris. That, she suspects, is as close as she’s going to get to an acceptance from this man. The deal itself will be made with his wife. “And in the meantime, you can tell me of some of your victories at sea.”

The lunch passes and Keris uses her powers of multi-tasking to chat with Rathan while Dulmea does the listening to the man’s talking. It’s nice to spend time with her son. And of course, she still says all the right things.

((Per + Pres to see the effects on him of the meeting))
((4+5+3 Falling Petals+2 stunt+4 Kimmy ExSux {beauty, charm, talent for temptation}=14. 6+4=10.))

They part on good terms, and Keris can see that he trusts her more - he thinks she’s trying to suck up to him, but he expects that.

‘That’s the soft-touch well underway,’ she notes as she leaves. ‘I need to placate Jade Fox a bit with the Tengese-side arrangements, and then do something to remind them that I’m dangerous. Maybe arranging to get my ships redone and passed off as new builds. Suddenly having a fleet will be a shock to their system and remind them I can’t be walked all over.’

“I... thought you were going to gift the ships to that stupid man as his price,” Rathan observes from Keris’s head. “Tell him the goddess showed you where they were washed up, take him there, secure your deal away from prying eyes?”

‘I was considering it,’ Keris admits. ‘And I can still do so tonight, after getting some more information from his wife. But I’m not sure I want to make him that powerful. My full fleet would put him at the top of the blue sea masters... and Haneyl has a point. He did lose his last one. The gems I took from Malra are enough to fund the rebuilding of his fortunes, and they’re... safer, I think, to trust him with.’

Rathan grins. “Well, then, mama,” he says, “who says he needs all the ships, right? He just needs enough to be an equal to the others.”

‘... you have a point,’ muses Keris. ‘And I could move them away from the Isle of Gulls fairly easily. Hmm. You know ships better than I do; can you work out how many of the smaller junks I’d have to give him to put him back up to par? Not the large ones, though - we’re keeping the four- and five-master for ourselves, once we get them repaired. Or rebuilt, in the five-master’s case.’

“Hmm. If we can get a look at the records, me and Oulie and some of the others can prob’bly put something together,” Rathan says thoughtfully. “But it’ll need to be done quickly. It’s almost the Season of Fire, and that’s hurricane season. We don’t want to lose these ships getting them into his hands, right?”

‘Definitely not,’ Keris agrees. ‘Alright, see if you can get that ready for me by tonight, and if not I’ll just be vague about exactly how many washed-up ships the goddess told me of. We’ll see if we can get him moving in the next week or two, all quiet-like and sneaky.’

“Right, mama. That was nice. I like our talks.” Rathan coughs. “By the way, I’m having a banquet and Oulie is hosting this evening, so if you’re not doing anything, you’re more than welcome to attend.”

‘I’d love to,’ Keris agrees happily. ‘Up on your moon, or an island somewhere?’

“Oh, Oulie is hosting, like I said, so she’s holding it in her duchy.” Rathan yawns. “It’s nice and quiet at the moment. Just me, Dulmea and that silly monkey of yours. It’s amazing how things are when you don’t have Eko trying to throw ribbons over your moon.”

‘Hopefully she’s not causing too much trouble for Sasi,’ Keris thinks, amused. ‘I’ll check in via portrait tomorrow, maybe. Just to see how they’re doing.’

“Mmm. See you this evening, mama,” Rathan says.

A few days later, late one evening as rain beats heavily on the roof and Keris lies in her bedroom with her babies, she gets a message. It’s an invite from Graceful Petal, Lucky Wolf’s wife, to come to his estate to dine. Keris reads the message and thinks about it.

Ogin uses the chance to clamber up into her lap, and takes the paper in both hands, staring at it with wide silver eyes.

“Hello moonbeam,” she murmurs, giving him a cuddle. “What’s your sister up to?”

Ogin considers this, turning the paper around in his hands several times. “I’m not an adult yet,” he says deliberately. “I can’t hear the words that adults can.”

((... what languages do the twins know, come to think of it? What do they use with Keris?))
((Well, they know what Keris chose to teach them. They probably use a mix of Nexan Rivertongue and Old Realm, as that’s mostly what Keris and their siblings use))

“Do you want to learn to read?” Keris asks, mostly rhetorically. “I suppose we can start you on learning, then. Let’s get some sand trays to draw the shapes in, shall we?”

Ogin frowns. “But will that help me hear the words from the paper?” he asks. “They use special words that only old people can hear. I can’t hear them. When do you learn how to hear them?”

Keris smiles, and kisses his cheeks. It’s adorable when he shows how little he still knows. Though he sometimes gets huffy about having things explained to him. Her little moonbeam seems to prefer picking things up himself to having to ask how they work and displaying ignorance.

“The paper-words are things you see, not hear,” she explains. “You see the shapes on it? Each of them is tied to a sound, and if you know what shapes mean what sounds, you can tell what words they mean. The word-shapes are writing, and when you look at them and see what they mean, that’s reading.”

Ogin crosses his arms. “Mama,” he says seriously. “Things you see don’t make sounds. Things you hear make sounds.”

“But if you see a picture of a bird singing, you can imagine what it sounds like in your head,” Keris cunningly points out. “This is just a way of going ‘this shape is tied to this sound’. Like this,” she taps a word on the paper, ‘means ‘dinner’. And I know that, and other people know that, so if I can’t go talk to them I can send them a bit of paper with this shape and some others on it and they’ll know it means I want them to come to dinner.”

Ogin frowns like his life depends on it, brows furrowed in an adorable little expression of concentration. Before he can ask any more questions, though, Kali’s voice drifts through from the next room, where she had been napping. Or at least had meant to be napping.

“Mama! Mama! San, San!”

“Oh?” Keris rolls up onto her feet, letting Ogin clamber up onto her shoulder as she goes to see what her daughter wants. “Uncle Xasan?” she calls ahead. “Are you back?”

Now that she knows what to listen for, he’s outside and coming up the street, limping and being half-carried by Elly and Vali. He hasn’t got here yet. Her daughter has ears that are... impressively sharp.

When Keris heads down to help him, he scowls at her. “It’s fine. Just broke my foot,” he says angrily. “Stupid pathway slipped under me.”

((So, Xasan only got 2 successes on his Diff 3 action. So he failed, but failed forwards and broke his foot. They’ve got some mapping done, but haven’t really done anything other than some basic scouting now that he’s injured.))

“Bad luck,” Keris agrees as an excited Kali determinedly pulls herself along Keris’s hair to get close enough to fling herself at her great-uncle. “Let me take a look at it and get you walking again. Did you see much of the island?”

Xasan growls. “Not much. The land there - it’s so damn vertical. Up and down, up and down. It took us days to go a mile or two.”

“It’s like the Spires,” Vali agrees. “Well, not quite. But there’s so much of it. The world’s real big, mum.”

“Where is Princess Haneyl?” Elly enquires. “Both you and her will like some of the feathers and claws from toothbirds that tried to eat me.”

“Haneyl’s been busy with the rebuilding of the dance hall - you can find her later tonight, I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you,” Keris says. “Vali, Xasan, I’m guessing you want to go back out once you’re healed up? Take a couple of ribbon-horses to help you with the ups and downs.” She grimaces. “It’s really that bad? I mean, I knew there were plateaus and canyons and a lot of cliffs, but...”

Xasan makes a disgusted noise. “It’s like the land is a wet parchment someone crumpled up and barely unfolded,” he says. “I haven’t seen anything like it before.” He glances over at Elly. “And she isn’t wrong. Seems there’s sicklebirds everywhere. We got far enough that we could see a plateau that seemed smoother and there were farms up on it. Probably only ten miles away from where we got to, but it would have been weeks to get there for any of us. In the heat and with mosquitos everywhere. I swear, Keris, if you want a hidden city, you could get one there easy. The problem would be getting to and from it.”

“And yeah, we’re not going straight back out,” Vali says. “The ground’s like home, but it’s as hot and humid as the Swamp. It’s like me and Hanny got together to make a place.”

“I quite liked it,” Elly observes.

“‘Course you did,” Vali retorts. “Me, it was getting too hot for.”

Keris purses her lips. “This is... good, honestly. If it’s that vertical, then we can fly out into the centre and make a place that’s all but impossible to get an army into. Then just use canvaswings and ribbon-horses - or tunnels - for any movements in and out.”

She hums thoughtfully. “And I still have the thing from Eshtock. It was doing something with the climate there; I’d be willing to bet anything I could get it to do something here. Fix the weather over our valley to exactly how we want it - maybe even control it on command.”

Keris spends the rest of the evening seeing to her uncle - and treating the fungal infection in his wound that seems to be overcoming even the regeneration she granted him. By the time she’s managed to put a hyperactive Kali who’s fussing over an injured San to bed, she’s exhausted.

She’s also had to simply tell Haneyl to go and take Elly out to the baths as a cheap trick to get the two of them out the house, because she wants sleep. And she’s not going to get sleep if she has to listen to the two of them in the bedroom.

So by the time she’s got into bed - and changed Atiya again - she’s exhausted. She sinks into true sleep, and then she dreams.

She dreams of a black isle where midnight gulls fly, and tar rains from a star-speckled sky.

Blinking, she looks around, trying to place where she is in the Meadows... and then realises, and smiles.

“Hello Calesco,” she says happily. “It’s lovely to hear from you. Are you well?”

Calesco drops down from one of the trees as a panther, and then her form flows up into her more normal form. She’s wearing a Realm kimono again, in a slightly lighter shade of grey, and maybe that’s a good sign.

“A little better, I think, mama,” she says, still pacing like a cat as she approaches Keris.

Moving forwards to meet her halfway, Keris gives her a hug. “That’s good to hear. How have you and the Gullites been? We had a little trouble with one of the buildings Haneyl built, uh... sort of burning down when Elly and Saji matured in it, but we were going to have to tear out most of the lower floors and redo them anyway.”

Calesco smooths down her kimono, and perches on a rock. “It’s been quiet. Peaceful,” she says. “There’s a reason my lands are as they are. I don’t like big cities, mama. The Isle of Gulls is about the right size. Small enough for everyone to know everyone else.”

“Little villages. Like Baisha,” Keris agrees, taking a seat next to her and slipping her hand into her daughter’s. “I can see the appeal. What have you been doing with your time, then? Archery? Is your bow still straining your shoulder?” She tries to resist the urge to fuss. Much.

Calesco smiles at that. “Bees,” she says. “They didn’t have any beekeepers. Or any bees. I flew off and found some wild bees on another island and introduced them.”

“Oh, clever,” Keris praises. “I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll have to get some for wherever I end up living in Saata. And whatever town I build in Shuu Mua.”

“How is everyone?” Calesco asks. “How are the babies? Is Atiya doing well in that unhealthy city?”

“Atiya is doing much better,” Keris reassures her. “She’s past her due date now, and she’s breathing more easily and starting to focus on things. She might be having trouble with colour, or it might just be that she’s lagging behind a little and only picks up on things with a lot of contrast - I’ll have to wait to find out. Kali and Ogin are doing well, too - I’m going to start trying to teach Ogin to read soon. Probably by getting some bigger books and reading to him while he can see the words.” She pauses thoughtfully. “Kali will probably not be interested in the learning part,” she admits. “But I hope she’ll like being read to anyway.”

“She’ll probably chew on the books,” Calesco says with a smile. “You know, like Haneyl.”

“Hey now!” Keris protests, nudging her. “Haneyl wouldn’t chew on books. Other things, sure, but not the books.” She grins. “She seems to be happy enough playing merchant-princess and supervising the rebuilding. Some of the workers tried to shake her down for more money, but Rounen and Zanara stopped her killing any of them. And Vali’s been happily exploring Shuu Mua. I think we can build something safe and peaceful there, if we put it deep enough in the interior. The terrain makes it virtually impassable - weeks of effort to go miles, without flight.”

Calesco perks up at that. “That’s good,” she says, but slumps down again. “I feel sometimes that the world is so corrupt and wicked that all we can do is make little places that are safe from it,” she says sadly.

“Well, if we start with the little places, they can get bigger,” Keris says, hugging her again. “Oh, that reminds me. I might be coming by to pick up some of the smaller ships from the harbour. And possibly to ask you to play Riyaah MuHiitiyah for one of the blue sea masters. He’s a fairly good man, as pirate lords go - looks after his men, fair-handed, generous to those who work for him - but he’s fallen on hard times recently. So I’m going to ‘gift’ him with something, and hopefully wrangle his support and an estate out of him in return.”

Calesco crosses her arms. “You’re not letting the pirates find out about this place,” she says firmly.

“Nope,” agrees Keris smugly. “That’s why I’ll be coming over to pick the ships up first. I’m thinking the goddess can have told Little River where certain ships were wrecked or lost or abandoned - since the wind and waves and mangroves are part of her domain. Then I just need to leave them in out-of-the-way places the Hui Cha can get to, and he can pick them up.”

Calesco nods. “Maybe you could leave them all on one of your fake islands made with Haneyl’s plants,” she suggests.

“Yeah... hmm. Good one,” Keris acknowledges. “How’ve you been handling Molian, by the way? Is she getting on your nerves? Though, heh,” she grins. “I bet she appreciates the honey.”

Calesco sighs. “She’s like Haneyl, but less... Haneyl,” she explains. “She’s conceited and vain, and...” she sighs again. “She is pretty. And her thing with Egie is beautiful. They really do care for each other. It’s... it’s not fair.” She hugs her knees, staring up at the sunless sky. “How’s Kuha?” she mutters.

“... she’s well,” Keris says carefully. “She’s been working with seabirds, looking through different breeds and seeing how they respond to training. There’s been a lot of swearing about how dumb they are compared to anyaglos.”

“Hah. Yes.” Calesco sniffles. “I’m... I’m glad she’s... she’s fine.”

Keris shifts to draw her into a proper hug, and pets her hair as she sniffles.

“Have any more of my sweet innocent ones turned into monsters like me?” Calesco asks softly.

“None that I know of,” Keris says softly. “And they’re pretty noticeable. Oh, and Eko’s out with Sasi, since the last new moon.”

That produces a soft chuckle. “Have you decided to hurt Sasi, then?” she asks. “Because she likes everything in its right place and Eko... have you ever seen how she leaves things in one of her caves?”

“I’m hoping she’ll behave,” Keris says, wincing. “She’s helping Sasi work out how to make citizens of her own, and that’s a complicated enough problem that it should keep her from getting bored. And she likes Sasi. She behaved herself for Testolagh, too.”

“She always has her own ideas,” Calesco says morosely. “She’s up to something. I know my sister.”

“Oh, definitely. I think it’s the same thing she wanted from spending time with Asarin. But whatever it is, she wants it enough that I think she might behave in order to get it,” Keris points out.

“Anyway, enough about Eko. Tell me about your hives. How many islands did you have to search to find a strain of wild bees that weren’t solitary?”
The time with Calesco is nice, and Keris wakes up... um. Well, shortly after midnight when Atiya wakes up crying, and sets off Kali who also bursts into tears, who sets off Ogin. A good half hour is so is spent consoling them all, cuddling all three to her as she tries to work out what set Atiya off and soothe the twins. Motherhood is hard, alas.
Keris has a disturbed night with grouchy babies and Ogin refusing to lie down and sleep. She doesn’t need this. She has to be in her forge tomorrow in the morning to get some work down, and then this evening she has dinner out in the country planned. And she needs to pick out clothes and dress up Atiya for that and she’s going to be tired and argh!

It’s a tired Little River who’s working in the forge the next morning, trying to catch up with work orders that have piled up. She has orders from all the blue sea masters, and needs to choose who to prioritise.

Since she’s made inroads on three of them already, it’s best not to alienate the others. Sighing, she moves Sea Eagle’s orders to the top of the pile and begins work, grumbling sullenly under her breath as she goes. Apprentices, she decides. She needs to train some apprentices who can do this sort of work for her; the kind that needs skill but is still within mortal reach.

Yet another thing to add to her To Do list. Sigh.

In the noise of the forge, Keris has wax in her ears while she works. It’s for that reason that she misses she has an onlooker until she turns around to put some fresh silver bars in for heating.

It’s a flat-faced woman with dark skin and tightly curled black hair. She’s wearing many layers of thin silks, as is the style for the wealthy here, and through the silks Keris can see the white jade dragon tattoo that curls around one leg and up onto her back and neck. Her eyes are dark, and her nails are painted red. There’s a certain mischievous sly look to her expression; she’s the sort of woman who gets called ‘vivacious’ rather than conventionally beautiful.

And under all that, there’s more strength than a mortal and the hardness of granite.

((Earth aspected, E4))

Keris jolts, and is moderately thankful that the bars she’s holding were going into the furnace rather than coming out of it. Signing for the woman to wait a moment, she pulls open the thick metal door, arranges them under the baking heat, and swings it shut again. Then she tips a sandglass over, checks everything is at a stopping point, and motions for the Dragonblood to follow her outside.

“Hello,” she says cautiously. “I’m Hui Cha Little River. What brings you to my forge?”

The other woman chuckles. “Sinasana Ba-le,” she says, curling her hand up - and Little River only realises after a bit that she’s offering her hand. The other woman might dress finely, but she has callouses on her palms and fingers. “I suppose I’m just seeing the... scenery in this neighbourhood.”

Oh. Keris has heard of her. She was born to one of the Raraan Ge families - the Baltoo, invested heavily in the opiate trade - and would have inherited as their diluted dragon blood bred true in her. But she eloped with Sinasana Colira, grandson of House Sinasana’s matriarch, without her family’s permission. It was quite a scandal - but of course, the Sinasana are untouchable to a family with no Terrestrials, even a wealthy one.

Shaking her hand, Keris nods. “A pleasure to meet you. Are you here for me, or to have a look at my forge?”

“Oh, both, both,” the other woman says with a wicked smile. “You’ve been hiding away from our illustrious society, you know. I had to track you down and show up here. If you came to parties, I could have just drifted into you as if it was an accident.” She giggles. “But then again, this way I get to see your workshop. I love to see people working in metal. I haven’t played around with silver much myself, but gold is very friendly for that sort of thing.”

“I’ve done a little with gold, but I do prefer silver,” Keris says, smiling as she falls into shop talk. “It’s better at purifying, and it likes the subtler magics more than gold does. Though I’ll admit not having to worry about tarnishing would be nice. What do you prefer to work with? Gold? Or some of the stronger metals?”

“Gold is for play. What I really like,” Ba-le says, leaning against the wall, “is engraving jadesteel. Now that’s a challenge - and hard on your tools, too.”

“Ah, now you’re just teasing me,” sighs Keris. “I don’t have the funds to work with materials that valuable. Not yet, at least. Still, engraving is one of my strengths, even if I’m used to softer metals. What do you use for it? Pure jade tools?”

Ba-le laughs in a slightly patronising way. “Oh well, that’s what you get for being with the Hui Cha. If you ever want to join the winning side, we’re open to adoption. It takes special tools, yes. All kinds.” She deliberately doesn’t say what she has. “I’ve been having some luck with shark-goddess skin for polishing, too.”

“I can imagine,” Keris murmurs, opening herself up to the other woman and letting her pride speak for her.

((WWOF to see what she’s proudest of.))

She’s not the sort to be jealous of Keris - not yet, at least. And for all that she gloats about her tools and her crafting skill, what she’s actually proud of is her quick mind.

((Not jealous. Proudest of her Reaction 5))

As quick a thinker as Keris herself is, Keris realises. Interesting. She leans back. “Well, I’m happy enough in Memory of a Golden Land. But you have a point about the parties. I might have to start spending time with people in Saata beyond my fellow Hui Cha.”

“Oh, there’s plenty of us around here. It’s one of the nice things about being on Saata.” She grins. “And if you’re looking for a husband, this is probably the best place if you want some Dragonblooded dick,” she adds wickedly.

Keris blushes - not entirely genuinely, but there’s a certain amount of truth under the exaggeration - and waves her off. “Please, don’t be so crude! And... well, perhaps. There’s so much to do, finding time to meet people is... difficult.”

“You have to make time for these things,” Ba-le says. “You can’t let those squalid little Hui Cha gangsters stop you enjoying life.” She flashes white teeth, and Keris is reminded that she was born a Raraan Ge princess - or whatever the term is for the scions of the pirate-nobility descended from the Blue Monkey Shogunate. “Perhaps you could visit me and my husband some time. If you want an excuse to your gangsters, we could easily afford a few pieces of good quality silverwork!”

Inwardly, there’s a rapid consideration. On the one hand, Ba-le is prejudiced towards the Hui Cha, a Sinasana Dragonblood who could be genuinely dangerous in a way that Pretty Peacock or the blue sea masters never could, and is definitely trying to poach Little River for the ruling family of Saata.

... on the other hand... she’s a brilliant smith who can no doubt actually keep up when Keris talks metalworking, cheerful and friendly with the same edge of interesting viciousness as Pale Branch, and something more closely approaching a peer than the mortals of this island.

And it’s better to keep an eye on threats than snub them or let them run around behind your back.

“I happen to be one of those Hui Cha ‘gangsters’,” Keris points out, archly but with a playful lilt to her frown. “But it is a tempting offer. Would I get a peek at your workshop, if I visited?” She smiles. “I might bring my little Atiya along to say hello, too.”

“Maybe, maybe,” Ba-le says, fending her off. “Oh, and do bring your daughter. How old is she? I didn’t hear you had a child.”

“I’m not surprised. She’s... well, she’s about four months old now, but she was born early. So she’s about a month past her due date. And I couldn’t bring her back to Saata for a while after the birth; she was too frail to travel.”

Keris eyes the woman as she speaks. Either that was a good guess at Atiya’s gender, or she’s lying about not having known.

“Aww. Well, bring her along.” There’s a little smile. “If it isn’t too presumptuous, we really have to give a birthing gift to you and her as a sign of our - I hope - friendship.”

((She is - Keris doesn’t know whether it’s deliberate or not - hitting Keris in the Greed))
((Keris isn’t going to contest that; she is perfectly happy to accept gifts. : P))

“Well, I’m not going to say no to a new friend.” Keris smiles, and holds out a hand to shake. “I’d be delighted to come by when you have the time.”

Ba-le smiles. “Wonderful.” She turns giving Keris full sight of the white jade dragon tattoo on her back, but twists her head back. “And I must know where you got that tattoo,” she adds. “Mine is larger, but which artist enchanted yours with such power?”

Keris glances down at her arm, where Iris is partly reared up and staring in fascination at the fellow dragon on Ba-le’s skin.

Damn, she thinks. Well, that just means that Iris will have to be a Little River thing rather than a Cinnamon thing. Not a major problem, just something to remember once Cinnamon makes her debut.

“Ah, well,” she says in answer to the question. “That would be telling, now wouldn’t it?” Stroking Iris’s head, she lets her familiar leap off her skin and fly around to perch on Ba-le’s back, one claw cupping her little occult flame, the separate pieces of her nose nudging the white jade curiously. “This is Iris. And I’m afraid you’ll have to get much further into my good graces to learn the story behind her.”

“Oh, aren’t you a funny little thing,” Ba-le says, reaching out to pet Iris’s head. “Do you want my tattoo to be your girlfriend?” She smiles at Keris. “And I look forwards to finding the name of your artist. I’ve been looking to get a new one done and one that could do that would be perfect!”

“I suppose we’ll see, won’t we?” Keris smiles.

---

It is the next Sunday when Keris’s dinner with Lucky Wolf is arranged. The weather is not auspicious. Heavy tropical clouds cover Saata and hammer down their thunder and lightning. It is a reminder and a taste of the typhoon season that is almost here.

At least Lucky Wolf sent a carriage to collect Little River and her daughter. It will keep the rain off them both as it rattles its way down south, out of the city and into the only partly tamed lands where the pirate-princes buy their estates. Lucky Wolf’s palace is in a surprisingly expensive place for a man who is so in debt that he is forced to mix brass in with his gold rings.

How wealthy must he have been when he bought it? Did it drive him into debt? And if so, why hasn’t he sold it?

Of course, Keris muses as she heads south and checks her make-up again, she isn’t travelling quite alone. The carriage is a little heavier than it should be. There’s a Haneyl on the roof, and an Elly too, sitting there immaterial and letting the rain fall through them. Haneyl insisted on accompanying her mother, to take a look at this place and its surrounding areas.

She’s dressed up for the occasion, in a beautiful ornate sarong. Rathan and Dulmea are watching from behind her eyes as she looks out at the semi-wild lands in this part of Saata. It’s not the untameable trackless wilderness of Shuu Mua, but she’s still a little surprised to see that it hasn’t been put to use on this busy island.

Then again, the pirate lords who own estates here like their privacy. Perhaps it’s not surprising after all.

They certainly do. The road running south even has berms of earth built up around it where the old ruins that cover the wild parts of the island don’t obscure the view. The Sinasana lords must have done that to stop their pirates feuding over who’s spying.

But the placement of the gates and the off-roads are surprisingly regular. Yes, the Sinasana must have cut up the southern parts of their island and sold off bit of land after land to the highest bidder. This isn’t truly wild. This is a money-spinner for the Cadet House.

Eventually they reach the right gate - guarded by Hui Cha thugs who huddle under their watchpost - and head down the road, rattling towards the coast.

Away from the road, there’s been some clearance of the forest and mining of the white stone from the buildings. There’s even what Keris recognises as old - as opposed to ancient - ruins of what was probably a village. Oh, that makes sense, she thinks. Yes. The Sinasana must have cleared out the local peasants when they sold off the land to pirate-lords.

And then she clears a hulking, shattered remnant of some great Shogunate structure, and arrives at the true estate of Lucky Wolf. There’s a wall here, a second one of low white stone that couldn’t hold off an army and was clearly built for aesthetics - yet inside it, trees are starting to grow and things are getting overgrown.

And past it, there’s a rocky rise that leads up to Lucky Wolf’s compound, built up on a strangely circular hill where the waves dash against. Lucky Wolf’s mansion is the size of Baisha, a many-winged central complex that clearly hasn’t been repainted in too long, surrounded by what is almost a village in its own right of smaller buildings. There’s farms here, that are ill-maintained, and there’s blocky structures that look defensible and sound half-empty. All the buildings are connected by roofed, wall-less corridors that allow the inhabitants to move between the structures without being rained on.

Haneyl’s whisper comes down from up above. “We’re getting off now,” she says, as the carriage pauses at the gate to the compound. “See you later, mama.”

The carriage bounces on its axels as the two demons slip away into the rainy late afternoon - and Little River is driven up into the covered area., where Lucky Wolf is waiting for her.

“Time to blow his tacky robe off,” Rathan says softly.

Little River exits the carriage with the poise of a princess and the deadly grace of a killer. Her sarong is a royal blue to match the wavecrests in her dark hair, adorned with silver pieces of her own design. She gives Lucky Wolf a carefully calibrated dip of respect; enough to be courteous without a hint of submission or obsequiousness.

“Welcome to my grand palace, sister of the Hui Cha,” the old man says, back stiff. He gestures, and his men form up to escort him and Keris back inside. “Come. My wife expects you.”

Ah, she can feel his touchiness. He expects respect, and should she ask questions about why he’s greeting his own guests, then he will not take it well.

Where are his servants? This estate seems half-empty. There are few lights on in the windows, and she can hear that one of the wings of the house has only rats and birds living in it.

“I’m grateful for your invitation, brother and lord,” she replies, following him without further comment.

At least he is not so penured that close to the entry hall, he cannot make an impression of wealth. There are many lavish things of the Far South West here - tiger skin rugs, hardwood furniture, trophies galore on the walls taken from tribes - even a grand tyrant lizard skeleton, wired up and in grand place in the main hall.

But the furniture is too sparse, and it’s worn. And there are places where clearly once things of greater value sat, and they are now gone, likely sold off.

Graceful Petal, his wife, greets Little River in a room that’s painted a disgusting shade of mustard-yellow, with worn crimson carpets. She’s an elderly lady, the same age as her husband, with thick frown lines and wrinkles that her layer upon layers of makeup cannot cover up. Her nails are long and painted black, but Keris notices the writing callouses on her fingers that suggest she’s no stranger to a pen.

And the look in her eyes when she sees Keris. It’s a mix of wariness, fear, and hope.

“Greetings, younger sister, and welcome to my home. My arms are open to you, and your daughter,” she says, spreading her arms.

Ah, Keris sees, she expects a kiss on each cheek, and a respectful kiss on the hand from a younger woman - a social inferior, too.

Rapid calculation takes place as Keris approaches her. She could keep to courtesy, play the inferior role... or take a bolder stance, and subtly declare herself an equal. Her offer will probably be enough to back it up... but will it turn them off before she can make it?

No, she decides. Better to play at politeness for now, and reveal her real strength as a surprise. After all, she already made that very same transformation when she showed herself to be Dragonblooded. It’s something Little River is known for.

Shifting Atiya as she steps into the old woman’s embrace, Keris kisses her on both cheeks, raises her hand to kiss that too, and shows a hint of cheek by gently pressing Graceful Petal’s fingers to Atiya’s lips as if her daughter, too, were honouring her status.

“My thanks for welcoming us into your home, honoured sister,” she smiles. “My daughter here is Atiya.”
“What a beautiful girl - and with such an old-fashioned name,” Graceful Petal says. “Come. Let us leave my husband to his affairs and talk of women’s things.” Keris eyes this elderly woman up as she dips her head and follows, not fooled for a moment into thinking she’s harmless because of her age. Graceful Petal is a pirate lady every bit as much as Pale Branch or Keris herself, and if she wasn’t dangerous she wouldn’t still be here. The question is how she’s dangerous... and what she wants.
The narrowing of the old woman’s eyes is word enough. She thinks Atiya’s name is... pretentious. A name of the old nobility of An Teng, given to a child. The act of a mother who thinks too highly of herself.

Ah, but she’s off-balance, and that means that Keris gets a glimpse of what’s underneath. She’d do anything for someone who get her out of debt to - Keris’s eyes widen - well well, Pretty Peacock. And more than that, there’s envy in those old eyes. Yes, she’s jealous of Little River; young, beautiful, chosen by the Dragons. And what she takes pride in is the fact she’s the one holding what remains of their trading empire and fleets together.

((Envies Keris, Bur 2 +3 speciality Money-Grubbing Seabird Style, specialising in finding any way you can to make money - a “scavenger” management style. Note that her price isn’t quite the same thing as her husband. He wants his fleet back and his status secured again - she wants their debts to Pretty Peacock cleared.))
((Sadly, murdering Pretty Peacock probably just means those debts get passed on to her daughter. Stupid inheritance fouling up perfectly good murder schemes.))
((Yep. And that implies that if Pretty Peacock has that kind of debt over their heads, then that woman has her strings in what they do and say in the Hui Cha councils too.))

Keris hums inwardly with interest, but doesn’t voice her newfound knowledge. Instead she follows Graceful Petal as they leave the public areas for a more feminine retreat where they can speak of women’s matters. Like deals, and bargains.

Ah, the women’s space is a little softer, a little more luxurious, a little better than these tired worn halls. It makes sense. If her hand is on the purse, she’ll save better things for herself - and of course, the women here hold the purses on land.

“Sit, girl,” Graceful Petal says, settling herself down in an overstuffed high backed chair after she carefully lights three oil lamps. It’s not enough for the room, and leaves it dim, shadows dancing over her face. Her old, pale-makeup-caked face shifts. “What might a friend of yours do for you?” she asks.

Inelegant, but maybe she’s desperate.

“It’s beautiful out here, on the southern shore,” Keris says; careful not to reference the manor directly and risk it coming off as a backhanded jab at its state. “I have a residence in the city, of course, but it’s so loud there, and privacy is hard to come by. Someone who helped me come by an estate on this side of the island would be a true friend indeed.”

She strokes Atiya’s hair tenderly. “And there are things I might share with my friends.”

“Oh?” Graceful Petal doesn’t even hide her interest. “I’m sorry, but I hadn’t heard you had come into such wealth. I thought you were a - graceful, skilled - silversmith, and though your talent is already famous among our family, I would not think you could compare with the princes of this isle.” She looks Keris in the eye. “And as one sister to another, be wary of the loans of Pretty Peacock. One talent swiftly becomes ten, no matter how sweetly she talks.”

“Oh, believe me, I’ve already heard of her,” Little River says. “As it happens, I did come into... well, a number of boons recently. Atiya’s frailty was the cost, and I would trade them in a heartbeat for her health... but I cannot, and so I have them. While I was away from the island for the birth, my preparations were interrupted by a pair of the Greater Dead. I aided a goddess in slaying them, though it brought the birth on early... and she rewarded me for my help.”

She leans back in her chair, a subtle smile playing over her lips. “A certain degree of wealth she gave me, that is true... though likely not enough to challenge the princes of this isle, I will agree. But she also gifted me something perhaps more precious - and more of interest to your husband.”

“Ah,” the old woman says dryly. “So you’ve come into money recently.” Her smile is fake. “How fortunate.”

“Fortune should be spread, should it not?” asks Little River. “I don’t like to see a woman like Pretty Peacock sink her talons into others among the blue sea masters. And just as important as money, elder sister... ships.”

Graceful Petal glances at a candle clock. “I believe we still have an hour or so until the servants will call us for the meal,” she says carefully. “Perhaps... we can talk about offers.”

((OK, this is a Per + Bur bargaining thing, and Keris should try to make her case - and state OOC what she wants out of this bargain, what she expects to give, and what the maximum she’s willing to give is.))
((... heh. PoEU, how much would Graceful Petal value clearing her debts with Pretty Peacock? Hee. That makes for a very effective way of sounding out how much people owe, as long as Keris knows they’re in debt.))
((High end Resources 5 - from the rumours Haneyl has picked up and what Keris has seen here, she suspects that Lucky Wolf’s thing is basically floating in debt rather than water, to the extent that they owe more than the value of this mansion - and yet they’re too proud to even sell it to bring down the debt. Especially Lucky Wolf, because even if he doesn’t have a proper fleet, he has a mansion of a pirate prince... even if he can’t afford it.))
((Hmm. Interesting.))
((So, OOC, Keris’s maximum offer is enough single-mast 15-metre and double-mask 20-metre junks, of which she has nine and seven respectively, to bring Lucky Wolf’s fleet back up to par with the other blue sea masters, along with a one-time “gift” of gemstones whose value is roughly equal to their debts to Pretty Peacock. She’s not going to mention that she can magically grab both of their loyalties with that, so she’s going to want fair recompense for what is genuinely a considerable expense on her part - that’s a notable fraction of both her fleet and her funds. A southern-island estate will cover one of them, but for the other she’s going to want something of equivalent strategic value - such as support in taking over the Hui Cha, and a strong say in what his newly restored fleet does.))
((Rathan has presumably told her how many ships that’s likely to be, and while she’s going to vaguely hint that she may know the locations of more, she’s not going to admit to anything.))
((OK, so roll me Per + Pres for bargaining, contested by her Per + Bureau, and Keris is at +2 autosuccesses from PoEU.))

“The goddess’s name is Riyaah MuHiitiyah,” Little River divulges over the course of their cautious negotiation. “A spirit of the wind and waves and mangroves. When ships are lost at sea without their crews and drift into the swamps, they enter her domain. And of course, she has little use for them, or their cargo. She has made me aware of certain locations - Realm ships; strong junks made for ocean travel. They would need to be refitted and disguised, of course... but they could still do much for an ailing fleet. Or the gems and silver and other such wealth they were carrying might clear away a debt. Perhaps even both.”

She folds her hands on her lap, Atiya nestled in the crook of her arm. “Of course, those gifts belonged to the goddess. She asked for worship when I accepted them - and furthermore, I bled for them against monsters of the Underworld. My daughter was born too early as the price for that victory, with costs to her help. I would not give them up for nothing.”

((4+5+3 Prince of Hell {Little River is in fact a scary bitch who can kill Greater Dead monsters}+2 stunt+2 PoEU autosux x2 Hidden Depths Temptress=14. Lol, (10+2)x2=24 sux.))

In the face of the tidal wave of Keris’s presence and the fact that she’s offering everything her and her husband want, Graceful Petal doesn’t stand a chance. She heads out, to talk to her husband, and Keris can hear her making Keris’s own case to Lucky Wolf.

She has her. Hook, line and sinker.

Keris sighs. “And I know you’re there,” she says.

“You’re overpaying for this place,” Haneyl says sulkily, from behind Keris’s ear. “I’ve looked around. It’s been neglected for five, maybe ten years. And then there’s the fees you’ll need to pay to the Sinasana since they make you pay to transfer these houses and...”

“I know,” Keris murmurs. “But I get both of them in the bargain. They’ll be loyal to me - truly, genuinely loyal. They’ll support me when I take over the Hui Cha. And that means I’m not really selling the ships. I’m buying crews for them. I’ll still have a say in where they go, what they do - and you just saw how easily handled they are; any say works out to be a deciding one. The wealth they bring in will fill the coffers of the Hui Cha, and soon enough those will be my coffers.”

She shrugs. “The gems for the estate; yes, that’s overpaying. The gems for the estate, the lord, the lady and a way to get my ships refitted and brought into service instead of lying at anchor - as well as worship for Riyaah MuHiitiyah on top of that...”

She grimaces. “Well, I’m still not entirely happy about giving them up. But I can live with it.”

“Hmmph,” Haneyl mutters. Keris barely hears her leave, but her daughter isn’t happy at all.

Well, hopefully she’ll cheer up later when she has a mansion to live in.

And of course, Lucky Wolf has to come through and Little River talks to him about the goddess and he smiles, actually smiles, and breaks out the good Tengese wines and everything is cheered up.

---

And a few weeks later, she and Lucky Wolf are on a boat heading out east, towards an island that didn’t exist until Keris spun hair and blood into a mass of vegetation growing out of a sandbank.

The sweltering sun beats down on the ship, and the sails flap in the breeze. Lucky Wolf stares at the island with wide greedy eyes.

“All my years,” he breathes, lost in the sight of the washed-up ships that Keris had the Gullites sail and abandon here. “All my years this island was here, and I never knew! I never saw it, and I’ve sailed here a hundred times!”

“The goddess is mighty indeed,” Little River agrees. “And- look there!”

She’d arranged this with Calesco too. Not a true meeting, not yet - but a glimpse of divinity; a sign. Riyaah MuHiitiyah stands on the deck of the largest ship - a twenty-metre long double-master. Her hair is a curtain of blood, her fingers are roots, her features Tengese and her dress a thing of woven seaweed and bright mangrove flowers.

She looks at them and meets their eyes. Meets Keris’s eyes.

Then the angle of their approach brings the forward mast between them and her for a moment, and she is gone.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It is on the first of Falling Wood when Keris moves into her new house. The sale went through quickly, because Lucky Wolf needed the money, and the old man has decamped to his townhouse.

Leaving the stripped-bare and degraded country estate to Little River.

She stands at the entrance way, holding Atiya and looking over her lands. She owns everything up to the wall that wraps her estate, and more on top of that. There are Shogunate ruins here, fields, buildings for her staff, more than enough space to hold her family and the Lionesses on top of that.

And the labourers who live here and work the overgrown fields aren’t gone. They’re tied to the land, even if their numbers are clearly depleted, and while Lucky Wolf has moved out, these labourers are renting and have their own contracts with him. Which have now passed to Keris.

Zanara, standing next to Keris, hugs Iris like a girl would a pet cat, and sighs happily. “This is nice,” she says. “A mess, but it’s a canvas for us to paint on. Ooo! Ooo! Bagsie a room looking out to sea!”

Vali scowls. “Nuh uh! You can’t do that! Oh yeah, mum, gonna make a bunch of friends to live here too.”

“Yeah, me too! And I can!” Zana says.

“Alright, alright, hang on,” says Keris. “First, I need to make sure all the labourers here are loyal to me. And can be trusted.”

She sighs, putting her hands on her hips and looking around. It could be grand, this place. It will be grand.

But there’s a lot left to do before that point. “Let me make friends with the people already here before you start making your own, Vali, yeah? And then we can start rebuilding.”

Zana salutes Keris mockingly. “Right! I’ll be a cute little girl and ask them things and find the spies that were totally put here to spy on Lucky Wolf! Give me a moment to change my hair colour and I... hey, Iris, can you be a cat?”

Iris looks up at her, and spreads her paws. She exhales a question mark of flame.

“Well, people will look at me in a not good way if I have an ink dragon, but not if I have a cat!”

Iris shakes her head.

“Okay, so no, Iris can’t be a cat! Vali, hold her! I need to be the prettiest little Tengese girl that everyone trusts and loves and stuff and junk,” Zana says.

Keris briefly debates whether Zanara is entirely trustworthy in this, and concludes after a moment’s thought that she’ll probably get more amusement out of foiling Lucky Wolf than causing trouble for Keris. Especially since she wants to keep this place and rebuild it.

“Fair enough,” she agrees. “Talk the locals into trusting me, then. Vali and I will take a walk around and see what we should work on first.”

Vali scratches her chin. “Uh, who are we to Little River?” he asks. “‘Cause I can’t look Tengese and Zana, you aren’t gonna be like that all the time ‘cause you’d get bored. And same about the girls and Uncle and Kuha and stuff. And Ogin and Kali I guess, too. I mean, you might’ve explained this all already. I prob’bly wasn’t paying attention.”

“That would be why we need the people here loyal to us,” says Keris. “We have to keep us and Little River a bit apart in town, because you’re right; they aren’t really connected. But this place is private enough that if we get all the locals onto our side, we can take the masks off unless people are visiting. We can’t really handle a long con here, not without them cooperating and keeping our secrets, so we need them to be loyal enough to want to.”

((So, hmm, can Keris basically put Zanara as her diplomat FFtF/HP soul onto making a... well, basically a cult, here.))
((Because for “winning long-term loyalty” they’re probably competitive with if not better than Rathan there.))

Zana raises her hand instantly. “Oh, I’m a poor orphan girl abandoned at the docks,” she says. “My father was a drunk and my mother was one of the girls in the brothels and they both hated me and beat me, and I was left on the street to live on my own. I started off living in the piers and on rooftops, but there was a nice monk who took me in. Well, I thought he was nice, but he was actually a slave trader working for the Steel Dragon society! Well, I ran away from him, and then pretended to be the long-lost daughter of a noble family, but then they found out I was lying and tried to kill me! And then when Little River was on the docks one day, she saw how steady my hands were when I was painting on a wall and you took me in as a ward and now you’re teaching me to be a silver smith. I like Little River, but I still don’t entirely trust her because,” she wipes her eyes, “everyone in my life I thought trusted me has betrayed me!”

Vali rolls his eyes. “Draaaaaaaama queen.”

((9 successes on her Cog + Expression tragic backstory. It doesn’t work on Vali because he has a big brother Principle and thus it resists the brattishness of little sisters.))
((oh my god zana you melodramatic little shit))
((Now, what impact does that story have on Keris, especially the bits that rub a little too close? :p ))

Keris, by contrast, flinches a little. “B-beat you?” she stutters, feeling unaccountably hurt. She knows that it’s just a story; no different from the multiple-choice pasts and faces she herself has donned and doffed at a whim. But still, the mention of Zana’s mother hating her and beating her...

“I wouldn’t,” she says, very maturely and levelly in a voice that definitely isn’t a whimper at all. “I would never hurt you like that. You know that, don’t you?”

“Pfft. You’re not that ugly,” Zana says with a shrug. “Now, I gotta go sew myself up something to wear as your ward, and then change my looks so I can be an adorable little waif and stuff! Oh, but Little River, please please please don’t beat me because... b-because I was born at Calibration and I’ve turned out strange because half my hair is white and that’s why my mother kicked me out and also my eyes are different colours!”

“... okay,” admits Keris, only flinching a little at the mention of beating, “that’s actually clever as hell. And a good explanation for- oh, you little fiend. If anyone gets freaked out at how you’re odd, they won’t just blame it on that - your story will make them feel bad and guilty for blaming it on that.”

She narrows her eyes at her youngest soul, and grins. “Wicked little thing,” she compliments. “That’s a beautiful idea.”

Zana stands up on tip-toes and kisses Keris. “Precisely, aunty!” She grins. “Also, don’t think you’re getting away with not letting me in your shop! This way you have to keep me with you!”

She skips off, and Vali rolls his eyes again. “She’s such a brat,” he tells Iris.

Iris considers, and shrugs.

“Well, yeah, I know she made you, but she’s still a brat.”

“Given Iris’s tendencies, I think having helped create her is proof she’s a brat,” Keris puts in. “But she’s a delightful brat when she’s pointed at other people. Come on, let’s see what kind of condition the stairs and basements are in, then go up to the roof for a better view of the estate. I’m already thinking we’re gonna need to do a few things to the wall when we have the time and resources. And a bunch of wings of the manor have been sitting empty for ages, so they’ll need renewing.”

“Yeah, sure thing mum,” Vali says happily. “Can I hold Atiya?” He scratches his chin. “Plus, you know, the hill this place is built on is super circular. It’s probably rubble or an old building or something. And down there, you can see all the foundations and stuff.” He holds out his arms to take Atiya. “I bet this whole place used to be a city once. There’s probably filled in basements all over the place.”

“Plenty of fun, then, eh?” Keris grins at him with a wink. “And yes, you can. She’s breathing a lot better now - the sea air’s been good for her lungs. Here you go... got her?”

Vali nods, carefully supporting his little sister’s head as he cradles her.

“Alright then. Let’s go survey us a First Age foundation, then!”

((What should Keris roll for making a critical evaluation of the estate, the ruins, the foundations and so on with Vali’s help?))
((It’s going to be an extended project to do this stuff, but she can spend a morning on it, rolling me (lower of Cog and Reaction) + Occult for surveying))
((3+5+2 stunt=10. 4 sux for the initial pass.))

The morning passes and Keris is pretty sure Vali’s initial assessment was correct. No wonder the fields here don’t do well. They’re a thin layer of topsoil on rubble and foundations of ancient buildings. She thinks the well near the centre of the fields is built on an ancient foundation at the centre of some plaza - or maybe even a grand hall.

“Hmm,” she murmurs as they’re looking out at the lands they have within the wall from the roof of the manor. “I mean, it’s useful having a whole underground complex, once we dig everything out and drain it and connect it up. But long-term I might see if Haneyl can do something about the fields. Thicker topsoil, maybe?” She hums thoughtfully. “Well, it can wait a few years. Think we can get a nice little forge set up for Ali before the end of the month?”

“I mean, I was gonna make one anyway, mum,” Vali says, hands dirty as he roots through the soil. “If they don’t got one already, we’ll need somewhere that can make nails and stuff like that rather than having to go into Saata to buy ‘em.”

“Yeah, but we wanna make it extra good for your uncle,” Keris says happily. “And his family. Are you looking forward to meeting your cousin? Or,” she adds with a vein of amusement, “seeing Haneyl meet her?”

“I mean, she’s a baby cousin, so she’s basically a little sister,” Vali says seriously. “You’re gonna run me tired with so many babies to protect, mum.”

“It’s worth it, though,” says Keris, smiling fondly at how responsible and protective he is. “When they grow up big and strong and fierce and brilliant, it’ll be more than worth it.”

Keris’s first week in her new house is a blur. She has babies to look after, and a house to make safe for them. Her new mansion is too big for the people she has here. It’s a house for tens - hundreds - of staff, and even degraded as it is, Lucky Wolf had far more employees and bodyguards and thugs living here than Keris does.

It feels almost like she’s camping out in a ruin.

She doesn’t have staff. She doesn’t have someone to take care of things like making sure food is bought and carted out for everyone. Her mansion is mostly unfurnished, and Lucky Wolf sold off his stocks of supplies - as was his right.

“It’s so unfair,” Zana sulks. “In Hell you got Mehuni, but here there’s no one for that kinda stuff!”

Zana is wearing her new face and is sprawled out on some of the furniture that Keris and Vali have put together. She looks Tengese, but touched by something unnatural. The left side of her body is albino - pale skin, pale blue eye, white hair - while the right side is a normal golden-skinned, black-haired, brown-eyed Tengese girl. She definitely draws attention when she wanders among the village, talking to people and spying on them.

And she’s certainly been spying. She thinks she’s identified at least three renters who are reporting to other people. She says that as a centipede-boy, the other her has been creeping into their houses and looking for hidden writing material and things they might be making reports with, and listening to their chats.

“So what’s the plan? Deck ‘em?” Vali asks.

Zana rolls her eyes. “No, of course not! We gotta wait until we find them all. And then we gotta see if we actually want to remove them. We might want to use them to feed reports to our enemies.”

“Hmm,” Dulmea says approvingly. “Well, she is my daughter. And she’s right. You need someone you can trust to manage this place. I suppose you could call Rounen back for that, but I suspect you’d need to fight Haneyl for that.”

“What else’s on the to-do list?” Vali ponders, petting Kali who’s sitting in his lap and purring up a storm. Ogin’s on the ground in front of him, playing with painted wooden blocks Vali made for him. “‘Cause I’m kinda bored of making furniture.”

“I’ll see if there are any other dragon aides in my Domain who have Rounen’s approval,” Keris decides. “This place probably needs a full-time majordomo anyway; Rounen is my aide and adjutant. That’ll be enough to get things a little more organised. From there we need to start with restoration and getting this place ready for the Lionesses.”

She threads her fingers together and leans her chin on them, tangling her hair tendrils together in mimicry and pursing her lips in a soft, silent whistle. “That’s the other thing we need to start thinking about. Ali, Zany and Nandi’s whole mercenary force will be here in about a month. Maybe as soon as the full moon, maybe as late as a couple of weeks into Rising Fire - I could go out and see where they are if I had time, but I don’t. So I need the estate in a fit state to house them - which isn’t too much of a problem since they can just set up their own camp on my land - and a plan for how to justify inviting them to live with me to the rest of the Hui Cha.”

“Just do it,” Vali contributes with a shrug.

“Yeah!” Kali agrees. She probably doesn’t know what they’re talking about, but she likes making contributions.

“Oh no no no, Vali, adults are talking.”

“Zana, you’re my baby sister.”

“Am not! It’s him-me who’s your baby brother! I’m your half-aunt! It’s-oof! Keris! Vali threw a pillow at my face!”

Dulmea sighs. “I’m not sure a dragon aide is necessarily the best choice,” she says. “They look a little bit too much like Dragonblooded - and they’re not part of the Hui Cha. I think you need to find someone you can make loyal to you from the Hui Cha who has connections and isn’t another outsider.”

Keris hums. “I mean, ideally I need a loyal, respectable member of the Hui Cha who can do what dragon aides do,” she mourns. “Maybe via the Wave-and-Fire Rite. But that’ll take time, and finding a willing coadjutor, so... yeah, I suppose I’ll have to try hiring instead.”

She rubs at her nose. “Okay then! Vali. You’re going to start clearing out the underground areas. Please try to keep it as quiet as possible. We want a safe set of cellars where we can keep things we don’t want visitors or work crews seeing. Anything interesting you find down there, show it to me and unless it’s super-valuable you can do whatever you want with it. It’s a Shogunate foundation, so there might be some interesting machines or tools.”

Vali nods. “Got it.” He sighs. “Plus, because I don’t want to make you mad at me and make me go home, I bet you’re gonna ban me from making some friends for it. Right?”

Keris considers. “Two friends, if you promise they’ll follow the same rules,” she allows. “Your keruby are good at fixing things, so they can help you out.”

“I mean, I can’t promise for them,” Vali says, crossing his arms. “That’d be wrong!”

“No, but you can promise you’ll ask them to and do your best to convince them,” Keris says. “And if they don’t want to, I can put them back in the Spires and we can see if there are any others who are willing to promise to it. Are there any friends you want me to summon who you think would go for it?”

Vali scratches his hair. “Yeah, I guess I can think of some people,” he said.

“We can do that come nightfall, then,” Keris nods. “Zanara, Dulmea? How to justify hosting the Lionesses? Something like, mmm... wanting to make sure the new mercenary force has a positive view of the Hui Cha, and also scout what they’re capable of? Even Sea Eagle might let up on the hate for non-Tengese for pragmatism’s sake.”

Zana runs her hands through her hair. “So, hmm. I mean, I guess, how long are you planning to keep them here. They’ve been travelling for a bunch of time so they probably want to rest up for a bit, but what about finding jobs for them in Saata? Or, like, sending them to go take over some small island which has something valuable? I mean, Haneyl would tell you they won’t make you any money when they’re sitting around eating your food.”

Dulmea hums a melody. “The Hui Cha and their bigotry is becoming more and more of a problem. Would they believe you if you told them that your Harbourhead women were just renting land because you need the money?”

“Believe me, I’m going to work on it,” Keris mutters. “Honestly... yeah, they probably would. Haneyl’s not entirely wrong; I spent more of my funds than I’d have liked to bail out Lucky Wolf. Gonna have to watch him to make sure he doesn’t lose that much money again; however he lost it the first time.”

Steepling her fingers, she thinks back to Nandi’s forces. “Let’s see... I’m gonna have to do surgery to heal all of her crippled women anyway; that was part of our bargain,” she muses. “So they’ll probably want a period of light work while I do that. I might be able to play it as, hmm... Little River offering them some land for rent because she needs the money and claiming that it’s to put them on good terms with the Hui Cha and get a look at what kind of threat they are in case we ever come up against them.”

She considers for a moment longer. “Yeah, I think that’ll work. The other lords will see through the justification and go ‘hah, it’s because she’s running low on money’ and think they’ve solved it, but they’ll also hopefully agree that my ‘excuse’ does hold water and that knowing about a four-hundred-strong mercenary force that’s just moved into the region is useful. And I might be able to use them as a labour force to help refurbish parts of the estate in the bargain.”

Zana grins. “And you can use the chance to in-doc-trin-ate them,” she sings.

“Well, obviously.” Keris smirks. “It won’t be their whole force, but it’ll be a pretty big chunk of it who are loyal to me. And that means Nandi has a lot of voices saying ‘stay with her; we want to work for her’ when she’s making leadership decisions.”

“Oh,” Vali contributes, “and prob’bly you can get at least ten or twenty of them working for Hanny. She probably needs thugs and stuff, and she isn’t Hui Cha.” He grins. “And then she has to pay you for that.”

“Hah. Yes,” Keris grins. “That’ll be fun. And whenever I bring Cinnamon into Saata, I can build her up to the right level and then have her hire them on permanent retainer as her bodyguards.”

Whatever sinister conspiracy might have been going on is interrupted by Kali waking up and hearing a rat, and then sprinting off. But it was a productive meeting.

Keris nods to Fatima as she brings her troublemaking daughter back. The three Tairan girls have taken up a role as her maids and seem happy enough here. They’re country girls, after all, so they know their way around tools - and they’re being fed every day.

“Oh, by the way,” she says in passing to Keris. “I had a look around the fields, like you asked.”

“Ah, good,” Keris says, accepting a wailing, desolate, rat-less Kali back and tickling her feet to get her to stop fussing over the malicious escape of her rodent prey. “How did you find them?”

Fatima pulls a face. “They’re awful,” she says vehemently. “The soil is thin, full of rubble, and where it’s not a thin layer over rock it’s swampy. You couldn’t grow anything worthwhile here. No wheat, no rye, no saffron! Useless worthless lowland soil!”

“Damn,” Keris says. “I was afraid of that.” She drums her fingers on her knee, smiling fondly as Kali forgets her sobbing fit in favour of grasping at Iris with her tiny little hands. “Haneyl’s busy in the city at the moment, but next year I can probably pull her back here and have her spend a month or so on the fields. She’ll be able to drain the swampy ground and break up the rubble, though the rock underneath will be harder. Still, better than nothing.”

“I’m not even sure you could grow saffron here,” Fatima says firmly. “It wants loose, low density, well-drained clay soils. This is boggy or stony. And urgh, it’s so humid here. You need dry summers for a good harvest. Drying the saffron here would be a nightmare.”

“Malek did something to make saffron threads grow in other flowers, though. I bet I could get them growing in poppies with a bit of effort,” muses Keris. “Two products for the price of one, hah. Alright, thank you Fatima. I’ll think about what to do with the fields here. Have the locals been giving you or your sisters any trouble?”

Fatima winces. “We can’t really talk to them,” she admits. “I mean, you taught us the language, but their accent is very hard. And the men are scary. I’ve seen Zana going out and skipping around and just talking to everyone. I don’t know how she does it!”

“I’m not sure Zana understands the meaning of ‘fear’,” Keris says dryly. “And she’s one of my children, so attacking her isn’t likely to go well for whoever does it. Anyway, in a month or so my brother’s family will get here, so you’ll have some nicer company. Zanyira will like you, I think. Though fair warning; she’ll probably rope you into babysitting my niece.”

The other woman - girl, really - smiles, and tickles Kali. “The babies are exhausting, but at least they’re an easy part of the job,” she says. “Not like cleaning this place. You know we found a room where the floor was just covered in wine stains, everywhere!”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Keris sighs. “Once I’m not overloaded with work and the estate is more liveable and everything has settled down, we need to sit down and have a talk about your future. Think it over, would you? If you want to train to be head of staff in one of the residences I get under other identities, or learn a trade like silversmithing, or become a priestess for Calesco or whatever... you have options, okay? Teaching isn’t hard to arrange, and we might be pulling a too-big boat with too-few tethers right now, but once we get things moving it’ll move smoother and we’ll have more time for other things.”

Fatima curtseys. “Thank you, my lady. As you say, we shall see.” Her smile is sad. “May the moon bring you fortune.”

“And you,” Keris returns, turning her attention back to Kali as she leaves. Slumping back in the comfortable armchair, she heaves a long, exhausted sigh. She should probably let the girls in on a little more of her nature at some point - certainly if they’re going to spend time around her souls, or Zany. Who also needs to be told about her ties to Hell, since she doubts Ali’s let on about that during the journey.

Urgh. So much to do. And letting people in on the ‘Anathema’ thing always makes her stomach churn to contemplate. Sasi makes it look easy to get people worshipping demons for a thrill, and somehow never has them freak out and call down a Wyld Hunt. Keris isn’t quite so confident.

That night, Keris makes sure her babies are tucked away safe and sound with a Gale to watch over them and Iris sleeping in Zanara’s (messy) bedroom, then sneaks away down to the shoreline. Unfortunately, the one thing she might have asked for more here was a beach. What she has instead is a rocky shoreline made of the remnants of long-forgotten buildings. The waves wash up against skeletal structures of white stone, painted silvery by the half moon.

She can’t help but imagine what this must have been like, once upon a time.

Then with a swan dive, she’s into the deeper water offshore, looking at the sunken remnants of buildings under layers of sand and gravel and thick seaweed. She lies back, and thinks of her love.

Once again she is a painting. Sasi is here. She was afraid she would be missing her again. Her beloved is lying naked on her silk sheets, sprawled out. It is not a seduction, though. She’s reading a book by moonlight with a bottle of wine by her bedside table, and her posture is chosen more for comfort than attractiveness.

“Hello, my love,” Keris greets her warmly. “This is a lovely sight to come in to.”

Sasi freezes up, and hastily rearranges herself. “You should warn me when you’re showing up,” she grumbles. “How long were you there?”

“Only just got here, honest!” Keris promises. “Though now that you mention it, maybe I should’ve stayed quiet and watched for a while. You’re a beautiful sight.” She grins teasingly. “Would you really begrudge me the simple joy of seeing you?”

“As you well know,” Sasi retorts, “there’s a difference between a night alone with a book and a bottle of wine, and one which has a visit from my girlfriend in it.” She rises, lighting oil lamps - for Keris’s benefit, not hers - and the room is no longer so gloomy. Sasi sits back down on the bed, legs curled up.

“You know, looking after Eko is incredibly stressful,” she observes. Sasi pauses deliberately. “My hair has turned grey because of it.”

“Oh no!” Keris gasps. “And it was so beautiful before! But don’t worry, my darling. I think you’re utterly gorgeous like this.” She punctuates her flirting with a blown kiss, and giggles.

“In all seriousness, though, how’s she been?” she adds as her smile fades a little. “I know from experience that’s she’s, uh... a handful. I was banking on the fact that she behaves more for you than she does with me, but if it’s proving too much effort keeping an eye on her...”

Sasi presses her hands together. “A handful is right,” she says ruefully. “But I hadn’t seen before how a lot of it is because she’s possibly the most intelligent person I’ve ever met, in sheer raw untamed brilliance. It’s part of the problem, honestly. I have to pause while I think through some of her explanations - and then she gets bored.” She sighs. “She spent all of yesterday working on something that turned out to be the... the smallest szelkerub she could make. It’s toddler sized, and can barely walk - only run. She made it for Aiko.”

“That’s Eko for you,” Keris agrees ruefully. “I only channel her in flashes of insight. She’s like that all the time. Though it’s cute that she made a friend for Aiko. Did it go down well?”

“I think she concluded Aiko needed someone to talk to, so... made a mute ribbon demon,” Sasi says, with a sigh. “But Aiko has very much clung onto Prita - what Eko called her. She,” Sasi winces, “she’s very much been missing Haneyl, Ogin and Kali. So I’m letting her keep her for now - though if she starts being a danger to my daughter, I’ll send the demon back to you.” She refills her glass of wine, drinking heavily from it. “How have you been? We haven’t talked in a while. Messengers are so much effort when this is an option.”

“Urgh. Urgh,” groans Keris. “Things have been... hectic. Very, very hectic.” She runs a hand down her painted face. “Okay, so I told you about the fire, and Haneyl’s been dealing with the rebuilding there. While she was busy with that, I went to target Hui Cha Lucky Wolf with an offer...”

Glad to have someone to talk to, Keris recounts an abbreviated summary of the past month or so - Sinasana Be-la’s veiled offer of friendship-rivalry, her dealings with Lucky Wolf, the explorations of Shuu Mua and the preparations for the arrival of the Lionesses in a month or so.

“... and I’ll also speak to Jade Fox before then and confirm that all the arrangements for the marriage have been made,” she finishes. “I’ll be offering to fund and host the wedding, so I want at least part of my land set up for a grand wedding before I do that. Urgh. I know this won’t last forever and that once I’ve finished the refurbishing and setup it’ll get easier, but I still can’t wait for the waves to settle and give me some more free time.”

Sasi rises, approaching the painting, and kisses it on the lips. “Oh, dear,” she says softly. “You’ve gone from nothing of this nature to too much. I suppose you’re just learning. Has Haneyl been helpful, at least?”

“Haneyl has been a gem,” Keris says fervently. “Apart from the bit where she nearly set a bunch of her labourers on fire. And in all fairness; they were asking for it by trying to extort her out of more money and making comments about how easily her building could have an accident and burn down again.” She reads Sasi’s expression and shakes her head quickly. “It’s okay; Rounen stopped her before anyone died. Or got horrible burns or bite marks. But yes, bar the occasional outbreak of temper she’s been very helpful.”

“That’s lovely,” Sasi says, with her own sigh of relief. She looks Keris in the eyes, then leans against the painting. “She - and Eko - are very willing to resort to violence. It reminds me a bit of how you were when we first met. Back when you were a little feral thing. You’ve grown up.”

“Now now, I’m still willing to resort to violence,” Keris says proudly. “I’m probably going to end up killing Red Leaf or Sea Eagle when I make my takeover official. I’ve just got other tools as well now.”

She lets the smile break out and beams at her lover, giving her an appreciative up-and-down. “You are being very mean, leaning against me like that when I can’t reach out and touch you. I feel unbearably teased.”

“I am?” Sasi asks, her tone that of girlish ingénue. “Oh, and you wouldn’t believe what Eko said when she saw this painting. The mouth on that girl!”

“Yes, I’m sure she turned the air blue,” Keris responds dryly. “Oh, wait, do you mean she worked out what it does? Hah! She’s known about it since it was painted - yeah, I’ll bet she was pissed about not realising how it worked.” She chuckles. “That must have been entertaining to watch. It’s not often she misses things, and she doesn’t like it when it happens.”

Sasi snuggles up to the painting, pressed up against it. “She asked if I’d been inside you yet, then turned bright red, and ran away,” Sasi breathes.

Then she presses through Keris, sinking into it. She’s no longer in the room. Sasi is gone. She can’t hear her, she can’t feel her, she can’t...

Keris feels soft hands against her back. “Turn around, my love,” Sasi whispers into her ear.

Keris yelps, spins, and gasps; her eyes very wide.

((What do you want the sanctum to look like? You should probably describe it - and what Keris looks like in here.))
((hang on, giggling too hard at Eko’s accidental innuendo.))
((poor eko))
((poor, poor eko : P))

She stands on a warm shore at the edge of a sparkling lake. The half moon hangs in the night sky above them; silvery light tinting the golden sand to bright electrum and highlighting the water that would be shockingly clear blue by day. The scene is one of tranquillity and wonder; a border-place between land and water that matches the lakeside Lilunu had painted her on.

But where that had been Kimberyian water and a Conventicle beach under the skies of Hell and the light of the green sun; this vista reflects where Keris is now. The skies and terrain of Creation. Some gut instinct - perhaps born from the way that this painting is her and she is it - tells her that the background will always reflect what realm she’s in. Should she ever set foot in Heaven, her image would no doubt stand on the edge of some divine lake, and who knows what would light the skies above her.

But the surroundings aren’t important, because Keris is naked; a perfect copy of her flesh-and-blood body in every detail with her anima burning behind her. And in front of her is Sasi. Likewise naked. Looking at her hungrily - and so, so beautiful now that she’s right there where Keris can touch her.

“Well,” says Keris, feeling a blush rise to her cheeks as she reacts, as always, to her love’s proximity. Elation, love and a shocked sort of shyness all twine around each other and trip up her words. “Um. H-hi.”

Sasi smirks. “Well, would you look at that? It can’t be your first time, because I fit in perfectly.”

Keris groans; half at the terrible pun and half in second-hand mortification for her daughter. “Poor Eko,” she murmurs - though not without a hint of amusement. “Still, I think this is my first time trying this position,” she adds with a flash of a grin. “While you look right at home. Maybe you should show me how it works.”

Sasi, for her part, cruelly and meanly walks away from Keris. She feels Sasi’s mind-hands brush over her, and sees sand dance and shift as Sasi feels out this place. “You do so like worlds within you,” Sasi murmurs, approaching the water’s edge and perching on a rock as she dips her feet in. “And you didn’t know about this place? Does it connect up to your soul?”

“I don’t think so. I mean, there aren’t any keruby in it, and they get everywhere,” shrugs Keris, following in a way that... alright, it might be a little like a besotted puppy. “Hang on...”

She cocks her head as she sits down beside Sasi and sends out a thought-pulse, similar to how she estimates the size of her domain and feels the wheel of its Directional essences. The echo comes back almost instantly.

“Nope,” she concludes. “Also, wow, this place is small. Smaller than my inner world was when it was just Dulmea’s neighbourhood. This feels like when the Old City blew up and the core of my Domain collapsed down to just her Tower. The size of a large manor, maybe. I think it’s just this lake and the beaches round it. Maybe the far shore as well? I can see it, I just dunno if we can get there.”

She eyes the lake suspiciously. If she were going to put a Cloud-Wall border into this painting, she’d probably do something like making it so that no amount of swimming could get someone further than halfway across the lake. But she can try that later, when she isn’t leaning into the warmth and softness of a naked Sasi.

((Oh Keris. Speaking from her experience there, and forgetting how small Sasi’s domain is.))

Sasi guides her down, until Keris’s head is resting on her lap. “This is nice,” she says, kicking her feet in the warm water. “More than that. This is wonderful. Just me and you. No crying babies. No nasty little ear-biting dragons. Unquestionable Lilunu is mighty indeed to make something like this.” She runs her fingers through Keris’s hair, brushing against her scalp.

“Mmm. We’ll have to make it something regular,” Keris purrs happily, arching into the touch. “Every week, or something.”

“I get so tired sometimes, Keris,” Sasi says softly. “Never enough time for myself.”

Reaching up, Keris returns the touch, tracing her hand along Sasi’s forehead, her cheek, her lips. “You work too hard,” she murmurs. “You shouldn’t have to take so much onto yourself. With me in Saata it’s basically just you for the whole of An Teng - Deveh’s useless at best and more of a problem than a help at worst. S’not fair for you to have to do so much. You deserve to relax and be pampered and given luxuries to enjoy yourself.”

“I do,” Sasi groans, her hands drifting from Keris’s head to her chest. “But we’re the priests of the Yozis, Keris; their exarchs in Creation. They made this world. To serve them is the highest joy and privilege. They gave me everything, my love. They gave me you. And Testolagh. And from that I have Aiko and Haneyl. The Realm would destroy all of that. All of you. You’ll only be safe when An Teng serves its true masters and when the Realm can’t touch us.”

Keris hides her discomfort under humour. “I wouldn’t say highest joy,” she hums, turning her head slightly to press her lips to Sasi’s stomach. “I can think of quite a few things right now that’d give me more joy and feel more privileged.”

A hair tendril loops around Sasi’s hands, pulling them insistently back to Keris’s hair. “But yeah, I know. You won’t hear me speaking anything against Lilunu or Ligier or the Shashalme or... well, I guess I’d have liked it if Orabilis could’ve let me see just a few more texts from his libraries.” She wrinkles her nose. “S’really annoying when you think you’re onto something and then the Eye goes ‘nope; not allowed to read anymore!’ And if Deveh’s anything to go by, I can’t say I like Iasestus much either. Serving is one thing; but being a hollowed-out Pyre-slave isn’t my idea of a good time.”

She nudges her head back into Sasi’s hands sleepily. “Mmm... still,” she adds around a yawn. “Our patrons are good ones. Best bosses I’ve ever had.”

((Shifting the tone away from srsness with some flirty humour, and then making a couple of careful prods at Sasi’s curiosity and control freak aspects to point out how certain Unquestionable are opposed to them - without actually questioning the 3CDs so much as just complaining a little about them being the rules that she has to follow.))
((Per + Politics sneakiness.))
((4+1+3 Social Saboteur+2 stunt+5 Kimmy ExD {undercurrents of distrust and dissent, striking once and holding back while afflicted victims weaken, elegant practicality}=15. 11 sux.))

Sasi leans in and kisses her. “Well, with limited time, we can always help more the ones who...” she shudders, “aren’t the sort of people Deveh would like. You’re right. Some of them clearly aren’t thinking of the greater picture. I do,” she giggles, “tend to be a little creative with the orders that are clearly one Unquestionable acting against another.”

She shifts, laying Keris down on the warm sand and moving so she’s straddling Keris. “We should go to more parties together next time we’re in Hell,” she says. “Some of the more... wild ones. Maybe go to the Street of Golden Lanterns together, just you and me.”

“Mmm. As long as we don’t let Lilunu find out,” Keris chuckles; her hands moving to Sasi’s hips. “Last time didn’t end well.”

“Oh, her coming along wouldn’t be something I’d want. Not unless she wanted to join in what I’m planning to do to you when we’re there,” Sasi says sweetly. She chuckles. “I wouldn’t say no. She’s Unquestionable. And gorgeous.”

“Nuh uh,” Keris mutters, having finished sneakily weaving her hair behind Sasi’s head. “Not sharing you with my mentor. Mine.”

And with that said, she pulls Sasi down for more enjoyable activities.

---

It’s hard to tell the passage of time in this place. Time doesn’t feel... real in this painted world. But Keris guesses it’s about an hour or two later when she finds herself lying on the sand in a world made from her flesh and blood and paint, her lover asleep in her arms.

She wonders if any of the sand sticking to both of them will be carried back to the real world.

Sasi is fast asleep. She looks softer when she’s asleep. Gentler, more innocent. And she frowns less. Or... not quite frowns. But all the little muscles that keep her face controlled relax. There’s so much less tension in her.

Of course, Keris helped relax a lot of that tension.

“Hey, mama,” Rathan says in her head. “Are you busy... oh!”

Keris manages, with great effort, to not squawk or startle in a way that would wake Sasi up. Which admittedly wasn’t much of a possibility, because Sasi sleeps like a log, but still.

‘R-Rathan!’ she manages inwardly, turning her face determinedly away from her naked lover. ‘Uh... p-pretend you didn’t see that. But she’s asleep, so I can talk. What is it?’

She can hear the luminescent blush. “Um. Not much. N-not... uh. Give me a moment.” She hears him walk out of the room, close the door, then open it again and walk back to the viewing window.

“Hi, mama. Are you busy? I hope I’m not disturbing you,” he says clearly, with an embarrassed cough.

‘Hello darling,’ Keris responds with a faint snicker. ‘I’m with Sasi at the moment, but she’s asleep, so I can talk,’ She suppresses - barely - the urge to point out how many times she caught more of him and Oula than she’d wanted to during the trip through Taira. It’s still mortifying to have him walk in on her like this, but at least there’s some amusement to be had alongside the awkwardness.

“Not much. I just... well, I got a report from someone that they’ve found something like one of the chrysalis-pearls in a sweep of the shores of the Undersea. We’ve picked up a few more of them. Oula doesn’t seem happy about it. Not sure why. But this one isn’t a pearl. It’s a rough mass of ice and horn. I think... I think it’s probably a different kind of adult kerub. You don’t have to come see it now, but you might want to look at it tomorrow or something.”

‘Hmm. Interesting. I will, yes. Any word on who went into it?’

Rathan nods. “Yes, mama. It was Viscount Mele. One of my best friends. He used to be a sziromkerub - one of the ones Haneyl made - but he came to work for me and then realised how much better I was. He still likes books a lot, though, so he’s also lord of my libraries. I hope he gets better soon. He’s the only one who can handle those sziromkeruby he has working for him.”

‘Well, hopefully he’ll be an overnighter like Oula was, then,’ Keris says. ‘The longer ones have taken a month, right? And a few that are taking longer than that?’

“Yeah.” Rathan sighs. “I asked Eko just before she left because she was staring at the pearls and she said she probably thought that Haneyl’s ones were always going to be seven days because she loves sevens, but mine were probably going to be one of something. So one day, one month or one year.” He scowls. “She said it was because I’m lazy, because she’s mean.”

‘Well that’s just silly of her,’ says Keris. ‘It’s because you’re a moon. Moonrise to moonrise, moon phase to moon phase, and Calibration to Calibration. The three cycles the moon moves in.’

Rathan perks up. “So she was wrong?” he asks happily.

‘She was wrong about that, yes,’ Keris reassures him. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing what Mele’s new form is like tomorrow.’

“Cool. Cool.” Rathan coughs. “Um. Should I go now?”

‘That might be an idea, yes,’ agrees Keris kindly. ‘And in future, consider putting something on the door when you’re with Oula to stop it happening in reverse.’

“Yeah. Yeah. Um. See you tomorrow, mum. I’m going to... uh. Not mention this to Oula so she doesn’t get jealous. So don’t mention it to her either.”

‘Whatever you say, darling,’ Keris thinks, and retracts her attention from her inner world, back to... uh... her other inner world.

... this is going to get confusing, she can tell.

She stares up at the star-speckled sky, the warmth of her girlfriend in her arms, and smiles. It’s at moments like this when she remembers how good she has everything.

Really, when you think about it, five years ago she was homeless, living in a squat in Nexus. She just bought a mansion. Legitimately! With money she legitimately stole from the sun-chosen lord of an entire country!

Madness. Utter madness. But wonderful at the same time.

Sasi snuffles in her sleep, wrapping her arms tighter around Keris. She murmurs something in Old Realm, something that Keris isn’t paying attention to.

Then she says something else. “No,” she whispers in accented Old Realm. “No, no, I will not sit next to that cruel, jaded sociopath! And you’re stupid if you think that’s a good idea. I don’t care if that’s the seat I’m meant to have now that Thrice-Shining Aleno is dead. I won’t sit next to her!”

“...” says Keris. “Um. Sasi?”

She pauses. That accent jogs a memory, and it takes her a second to place it. When she does, her eyes widen and her volume rises.

“Salina?”

“This is awful,” Sasi - if it is Sasi - mutters. “This is what they’ve done to my parties. I wanted to... they had a purpose! They were meant to be fun. People were meant to get together and we were meant to not stand at attention and all of us were meant to be equal and...” she mumbles away, incoherent until she chirps up, “No, I’m not drinking too much this early in the night, shut up! I just need a l’ddle pick-me-up...”

“Oh gods, of course you had Lilunu’s alcohol tolerance,” Keris mutters. “What is it with me and really powerful, really nice mentor figures who can’t hold their booze for love or money?”

She pauses, remembering the third powerful figure who’s taught her things, and then shakes off that line of thought as far too disturbing to continue.

Shaking Sasi’s shoulder gently - and then rather harder after remembering that while it might be Salina in there mentally it’s still Sasi’s body regardless - she tries to rouse her. “Sasi? Sasi! Come on, wake up, rise and shine, see the pretty painted moonlight...”

Sasi opens her eyes, and there’s a terrible moment when there’s someone else looking out. Then she blinks and focuses on Keris. “What is it, love?” she asks. “I...” she yawns, “... just needed a nap.” She kisses Keris. “You wear me out.” She kisses her again.

“... nothing important,” Keris says after a moment’s pause. “Apparently one of Rathan’s keruby is maturing into something that isn’t like Oula. I’ll take a look later and tell you what I find.” She wraps her arms around Sasi as best she can. “Go back to sleep if you’re still tired. I’ll stay here and hold you.”

Sasi smiles, but there’s a look of pain in her eyes. “I don’t get this from anyone else. People don’t want to hold me when I sleep,” she says weakly. “Well, apart from Testolagh. He’s such a long way away. I... miss him. Like I missed you. And like I miss...” she trails off. “I love you,” she says awkwardly. “I... I don’t deserve you.”

She’s not crying. But she’s not crying because she can’t cry real tears.

Very seriously, Keris cradles Sasi’s face between her hands, looks her in the eye, and kisses her firmly.

“You deserve everything,” she says, with gentle, unstoppable conviction. “And far, far better than what you have now. I love you, and nothing you can do will stop me loving you, and I will always, always be here for you.”

((Per+Pres: 4+5+1 Firebrand Demagogue+3 stunt {TLA}+9 Kimmy ExD {patronage and kindness are real, endlessly giving, beauty}+3 “Sasi” Principle autosux=22. 11+3=14 sux - and I forgot earlier that Keris subtracts her Compassion rating from her TLA-loves when socialing them, so that’s -4 to Sasi’s MDV.))

Sasi kisses her fiercely. “I love you,” she tells Keris when she comes up for air. “I do. I do.” She sob-giggles. “I’ll need to see if I can get a bed in here. I’m sure we’ve both got sand where it shouldn’t go. And this is my real body. What time is it?”

“Uh... judging from the angle of the moon and the clocks I can see... no idea,” Keris says. “Pop outside and find out?”

“Mmm. But I’m comfy now.” Sasi wriggles into her, and kisses her again. “Maybe just a bit more fun. Then I’ll need to go check on Aiko and make sure she’s sleeping properly.” She sighs, hugging Keris closely. “Maybe I should just let her sleep in my bed. But I have guests enough that it’d disrupt her routine to be sleeping somewhere else when I have company...”

“A little more fun, then,” Keris purrs, wrapping her hair around her. “I can agree with that.”

---

At the start of the next week, Keris makes the trip back to Saata proper. She can’t spend all her time in her mansion - she needs money! - and she has silverwork orders to catch up on.

But first she takes the chance to have tea with Little Bird, who shows up to the tea house in a lovely gold-trimmed yellow robe that must have cost a considerable amount. Keris knows the other woman always has her finger on the pulse and she’s someone who gets things done.

“So, I heard you came into a fortune?” the other woman says, lighting incense on the table. “Oh, don’t act surprised. The rumours are everywhere. How could you afford Lucky Wolf’s house?”

“I fought two of the Greater Dead alongside a goddess, and she rewarded me,” Little River replies; something complicated and pained and proud passing across her face. “Though there’s more to it than that, of course. I’m a little surprised that story hasn’t spread. It’s why Atiya was born early, and why I had to stay away so long until she was healthy enough to travel.”

“But still, a whole mansion? Even if it was Lucky Wolf’s... I heard he had debts so he was probably looking to part with it, but still...” Little Bird shakes her head. “And how is your daughter? I suppose the air is better for her out there than here.”

“She’s improving,” sighs Keris. “But I’m not sure she’ll ever be as healthy as other children her age. And the mansion is...”

Her lips tighten slightly. “Well, there’s some work to do there,” she says with strained brightness. “You know how it is when people move into a new residence. Even under the best of conditions, there’ll be things to change for simple differences in tastes.”

“Oh my, yes.” Little Bird eyes her up. “How are you finding it?” she asks reasonably. “You weren’t born into money, so you’re probably not used to it.”

Keris is learning the social rules of the Hui Cha in earnest now; tutored every time she goes out by the expectations and thoughts of those around her. There’s a formality to these tea-and-coffee-house chats, and far more business than she’d thought is done here; over pretty little tables and hot strong drinks.
Keris sips at her tea and eyes Little Bird evaluatively. She hasn’t forgotten that it was this woman who was sent to bring her into the triads in the first place. Oh, it seems she’s looking for two levels of things here. Keris thinks she’s after information - she’s always after information, she’s that kind of woman - but she also suspects Little Bird is looking for personal profit. She’s one of the Hui Cha’s brokers, yes, but she’s low ranking enough that she goes to interview a new recruit. You don’t see Pretty Peacock doing that.
And Little River is a rising star now. And she clearly has money. Money enough to afford even a decaying mansion - and contacts to make a deal with Lucky Wolf, who’s infamously proud.

“It’s been... a learning experience,” Keris says carefully. “Between my silverwork, looking after Atiya and moving into a new estate, I’m being stretched thin - and there’s no good help to take any of the load off me.”

She slants a meaningful look at Little Bird over her cup as she takes another sip. The woman is a professional mediator; connecting people who want jobs done with people who want jobs to do is how she makes her living.

There’s a glimmer of envy in her - not much, but there’s something there in the pricking of Keris’s eyes. And Keris is right - she prides herself in who she knows, which seems to spread through Saata.

((Low level envy principle towards Keris 1-2 dots. And she prides herself in her Contacts 3.))

“As the saying goes, ‘the path to fortune is easier with friends’,” Little Bird says.

“True, true.” Keris leans forward. “Are you such a friend, I wonder?”

“I could be. I could be. It all depends on what you’d need. I could probably find a friend of mine all kinds of useful people.” The woman smiles, deep red lip paint perfectly framing her mouth. “I know people.”

“Be careful with this one, child,” Dulmea says. “You should get hooks into her beforehand, let her think it’s her idea to work for you directly rather than just putting you in contact. Perhaps a gift to chain her with obligation - or one of Haneyl’s fleshseeds.”

“Perhaps we can talk more about it later, then?” Keris smiles back, already considering a range of possible gifts. “Once I’ve taken stock of what I need.”

“It is seldom good to rush these things,” Little Bird agrees. “Now, another coffee?”

A few days later, Keris is sitting in a coffee-house with Haneyl and Zana. They have a private booth - one that Haneyl apparently has been using as her office and main working place when she meets with people for her business work. Zana is just enjoying the strange looks she gets in her half-albino Tengese form.

She tells them about the progress with her mansion and how they’ve managed to get some living quarters properly furnished - thanking Haneyl for the help in finding a rug-seller - and then moves onto the topic of Little Bird.

“So, you’ve secured the deal, mama?” Haneyl asks.

“Oh yes,” Keris says smugly. She swirls her coffee, appreciating her time with her daughters (and Zana is her daughter, no matter what she claims). “I’ve made her a gorgeous amulet. She hangs it around her neck. Every time she looks at it, I worm deeper into her heart. She’s going to be mine.”

Haneyl and Zana both look equally delighted at that. “Yes,” Haneyl breathes. “Wonderful.”

Zana, if anything, then beams wider. “Sooooo,” she says smugly, “is it time to get her to swear her loyalty and paint it into her flesh?”

That gets her glares from both Haneyl and Keris. “Do what?” Haneyl asks.

“Oh right, didn’t I tell you how absolutely amazing I am?” Zana wraps both hands around her cup. “So, I was playing around with people and thinking about how to make sure they obey us. And then I realised - wait! All we need to do is get them to say they’ll obey us, swear loyalty, and then wrap that up in ink or flesh and etch it into them. It’s so pretty! So very pretty!”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Haneyl objects.

Oh, but it does. To Keris, it immediately does. And she grins in delight at what it means.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

It’s at the end of Falling Wood when Keris finds herself with Rounen to review her current progress. By which she means, making him do all the hard writing that she doesn’t want to do. That’s what he’s useful for - and he’s delighted to do so.

She doesn’t even think about the fact that she is now unfortunately aware that Rounen has some weird triangle thing going on with Haneyl and Elly - especially given he and Elly don’t seem to like each other. But are still sleeping together. She shudders. That was all her fault for coming around to check how her daughter was doing in the evening.

Of course, she’s feeling quite happy and loved too. Being able to see Sasi every night is doing wonders for her mood.

She blinks, as she realises that Rounen is waiting for her to begin. “Ma’am?” he asks. “I asked you to describe your current status with the Hui Cha.”

“Right! Right, yes.” She clears her throat. “So, things are going well. I cured Strong Ox’s impotence, so Pale Branch is probably pregnant by now - and an heir will get her a strong claim over his wealth when he dies. She’s not bound to me in the same way Lucky Wolf is, but I’m giving her what she wants and we can mark her down as being pretty firmly in my corner. I’ll need to get rid of Pretty Peacock to push her all the way in, but I was going to do that anyway. And she’s totally on-board with taking over the triads and giving women a better voice at the high levels.”

She cracks her knuckles. “Lucky Wolf and his wife are mine. I basically singlehandedly pulled them out of bankruptcy and ruin, and gave them each their heart’s desire. When I make my play for leadership of the Hui Cha, I’ll have backing from that corner as well - he’ll support me so long as it doesn’t damage his pride, which means all I have to do is make a thing of being the official leader but still trusting my blue sea masters to blah blah blah whatever; we’re good there.”

“Jade Fox, now...” Keris blows out a breath that inflates her cheeks for a moment. “Sasi’s had the An Teng side of things ready for a while now. I’ve been delaying tying it up because, bluntly, I need to generously offer to host the wedding for him. And for that, I need somewhere that’ll look good to host it. But the estate I got from Lucky Wolf is kind of a ruin. He’s been trying to marry into the Tengese nobility for years, so a delay of a few months won’t have hurt things too badly - especially since he’s a stuck-up who’ll be pleased at how I’m, urgh, ‘stepping back and taking a more traditionally feminine role’ with all the money stuff I’ve been doing. Call him a work-in-progress that I need to make a move on soon.”

She frowns. “Aaaaand then there’s the other three. I haven’t done much to any of them yet, but I’m guessing I can get Peaceful Wave whenever I need to through vice or healing or getting rid of Red Leaf. Him or Sea Eagle I’m going to have to kill, and whichever one I don’t is gonna be my biggest problem, which... might be made harder by how I’ve left them until last. But, bonus, I can probably use killing one to intimidate the other into not challenging me directly, when I get that far.”

Rounen writes almost as fast as she talks, in his clean, flowing hand that’s a lovely thing to read compared to Keris’s own sometimes messy scribblings. “Are you sure she’s already pregnant, ma’am?” he checks. “By my understanding, I didn’t believe it was so reliable.”

He pauses.

“And Princess Zanara has been making quite a big deal about something she taught you and bragging about it endlessly. What did she do?”

“Well, if she isn’t she will be soon!” Keris huffs. “But yeah, fair point. I’ll visit her to check and offer some herbs to make a pregnancy more likely. And, hah. Zanara worked out a wonderful little trick. If I get someone to swear loyalty to me, I can ink it into their flesh and seal it there. If they try to go against me after, it’ll hurt them - and keep hurting, no matter what they do to try and soothe it, unless they gouge it out or cut it off. A nice little stinger to go with my honey.”

“Very well,” Rounen says, making further notes. “Please continue.”

After an hour, Keris rises to stretch, pacing over to the windows to stare out to sea. Outside, it is dark, with only the stars to light the sky. The moon hasn’t risen yet, and even if it had, it would only be a sliver in the sky. The waves crash against the white stone ruins that make up her coastline, and the building wind makes the jungle croak and moan with its force.

“What is it, ma’am?” Rounen asks.

“It’s the new moon soon,” she murmurs. “Ali and Zany and the Lionesses are due. I’m... not sure what I’m going to say to Ali. How... how do I explain...”

She gestures vaguely, encompassing everything that happened in Malra after they parted ways.

“I’m sure you’ll find a way, ma’am,” Rounen says sycophantically. “And Xasan will be able to help too.”

“Here’s hoping it’ll be a help,” murmurs Keris with a sigh. She shakes off the bleak mood, folding her arms behind her and staring out of the floor-to-ceiling glass at the jungle coastline. The dim lights in the room and the clear starlight renders her an amorphous silhouette against the backdrop of the natural vista; her hair writhing and coiling around her as she thinks.

“How go the renovations to the dance hall and the estate?” she asks. “Are there any areas where we can host a wedding in the near future, or should I try to push for a long engagement?”

((why yes I am taking that anime-villain setpiece and running with it; why do you ask?))

“I don’t believe we’ll be anywhere near ready until at least the new year,” Rounen says, after checking some of his other notes. “I might suggest that we might wish to hold the wedding in An Teng if you wish it to be done rapidly. Perhaps Lady Sasimana could arrange for certain respected individuals in Tengese society to be there, to provide Jade Fox with the desired ego boost? But then again, that might risk that,” he shudders, “they might whisper something about an upstart pirate that he might here. But on the other hand, his son is marrying the girl of this family, yes? By the Tengese thing, isn’t the son marrying into nobility and joining her family?”

A blood-red braid lashes out at a fruit bowl on a low table, spearing clean through an apple and coming back with it spitted. Another pair of hair-tendrils wind around it like snakes; peel and flesh disappearing under latticed rows of teeth.

“Sasi has a lot on her plate,” Keris says meditatively. “And calling in favours to populate the guest list - as well as running interference so he doesn’t come away with his ego bruised - would stress her. I’ve already left her handling Eko for a month, and that’s as far as I’m willing to push her generosity. No, hmm... if I’m going to ask something like that of her, I’d want to pay for it with something that’ll reduce her workload. And I’m not sure I have the time for something like that, so close to Calibration.”

The last of the apple core disappears, and the whip-fast braid spears a second, along with a small mango. “Maybe Cinnamon could make an appearance at the wedding?” Keris muses. “She won over some of the nobility before leaving ‘to tour other parts of the Anarchy’, so that might draw in a few.” She chews her lip thoughtfully. “Might have to play it carefully around Jade Fox, though.”

“Well, I think given the necessity to hold off until the new year, a little more waiting won’t matter,” Rounen says thoughtfully. “If I might say so, ma’am, my notes do make a point that the family considered the girl a little on the young side. As long as the wedding has a date set, I dare say he’ll stay happy enough. Especially if you can butter him up some other way.”

“Hmm. Yes, alright. I’ll talk to him at the next opportunity and regale him with how everything is set up, and make sure to get a date arranged for the wedding by the year’s end.” Keris hums thoughtfully. “And I’ll see if I can be there when the bride and groom are introduced. See if I can’t smooth the way to them falling in love, you know?”

Rounen shakes his head. “It’s so inconvenient, this arranged marriage business,” he says. “I’m surprised you can tolerate it - you certainly don’t have any time for it.”

Keris turns, wrinkling her nose in distaste, then smiles at him. “It’s annoying, yes,” she agrees with a soft huff of laughter. “And if there’s one thing I’m not looking forward to when I take over, it’s the fact that they’ll pressure me to get married. Maybe I’ll be able to wave the dragon’s blood as a flag and argue that no mortal man could keep up with me... but maybe not. Which would be a pain. I don’t want a husband.”

She pauses.

“Not even Ney,” she adds defensively. Rounen isn’t giving her a Look, or even a look that indicates the presence of a concealed Look, but she feels nonetheless as though he has the air of someone suggesting that a Look could happen, should certain annoying goat-herding spymasters be brought up.

... crap, now he is giving her a Look. Maybe she’d been imagining it a moment ago.

Rounen smiles dryly. “Perhaps you could get Lady Sasimana to cut her hair, wear chest bindings, and affect a deep voice,” he suggests. “And perhaps a false moustache might finish the display.”

She glares at him. “Hush, you,” she says. “And don’t you dare mention that to her. He’s still slumming it with Mr Giant Gold Ego-Affirming Pyramid back in Malra, and that’s that.”

Spinning back around to face the window with a ‘hmph’, she looks out at the coast and the shallow, rocky fields of her estate for a while, before a thought occurs.

“... huh. Hey, Rounen... you remember the manses we found out west of Shuu Mua, about this time last year?”

Rounen blushes. “My notes are a little... uh, patchy from back then,” he says. “I was rather bored back then so I was a little,” he coughs, “creative with some of my stories.”

“You were the one who spotted the one in the divine court,” she teases. “I’ll allow you a little fanciful writing on that score. But it’s the other one I’m thinking of - the one out in the ocean. It was inactive and covered in... gods, probably metres of dried bird shit. Which isn’t pretty or proud or something my pirate lords would want to sully their hands with... but I know plants, and guano like that is magic as fertiliser. A little of it here would boost our crop yield - and the rest would be worth almost its weight in silver. If we can put someone on harvesting it, we’d have an income stream.”

Rounen pauses, steepling his fingers. “Hmm. Ma’am, if I might suggest, we might find someone who makes a business of such things, and then take them over?”

Keris cocks her head, considering that. Then grins.

“You know, Be-la was saying that it’s about time I start going out and getting involved in more than just the Hui Cha parts of the city,” she notes, amused. “A good idea, Rounen. A very good idea. Yes, I think that will do quite nicely.”

Rounen shuffles his papers. “Wonderful, ma’am. I,” he coughs, “I might also add that you might look for Elly’s assistance in this. She’s very... greedy. In both senses. And good at acquiring things to sate her greed.”

There’s a brief moment before Keris catches what he’s not saying, and cringes a little.

“I’ll take that in mind, Rounen,” she says. “Thank you.”

The next day, Keris heads into Saata again, leaving a Gale to look after her children. It’s nice that it’s a quick little jog for her, while everyone else thinks she’s in her mansion.

She shows up at where her apartment block is, and heads up to the penthouse, which Haneyl is staying in. She clambers in through the window, and is confronted by an already-dressed Elly who’s just unpacking fresh bread that she’s clearly bought when it’s straight out of the oven.

Elly goes to snarl at her, sees who it is and immediately drops to one knee, showing Keris the back of her neck. “My queen,” she says softly, green hair falling around her milk-white face.

“Hello Ellyssivera,” Keris says, preening at the instant respect and submission. “I have a task for you. A very, very profitable one.”

“Yes, my queen,” she says. She pauses. “What do you require my help with? And will you be staying for breakfast?”

“I will, yes.” Keris is definitely enjoying this. Not that Rounen isn’t great to work with! But something about the lack of any backtalk rubs her po the right way. She can hear happy hissing in her hindbrain at how Elly so clearly knows and understands her place.

“Before I explain; fetch Haneyl,” she says. “She should hear this too, and while she’ll probably be too busy with the reconstruction to take part, she might want to keep an eye on things from Saata.”

Elly rises, and heads through to the bedroom. A loud Haneylish “Mmmawake!” swiftly follows, and a mussed, naked, and having-a-very-bad-hair-day Haneyl shambles out.

She blinks at Keris with pale green eyes. “This is too early for you to be so awake, mama,” she says, before flopping forwards onto one of the overly cushioned couches.

“My princess. What do you wish to eat?” Elly checks.

“Stuff,” Haneyl mumbles. “Should have some of the stuff from yesterday left. In the cool room.”

“Well, well, well, isn’t that familiar?” Dulmea says cattily. “How much she takes after Princess Sasimana.”

Keris gives her daughter a few minutes to get herself together and devour a plateful, and when that doesn’t prove sufficient to rouse her to wakefulness, she steps in with something that will.

“Money,” Keris says. “Lots of. Free for the taking. Only needs some shipping and a corporate takeover. Interested?”

“Mmmph.” Haneyl glowers. “Yeah. I guess.”

Elly swiftly moves in. “Princess Haneyl is just feeling a little burned out, my queen,” she says. “She will no doubt be feeling more up to it in a day or two. She has just been working very hard and needs a few days to refuel.”

“Yeah. That,” Haneyl says, yawning. She’s shedding ash from her roots-gnarled hair. “Elly, go do what mama wants. I’m having a me day.”

“Oh, honey,” Keris moves in to hug Haneyl gently. “You’ve been working so hard. I’m proud of you. Have a nice relaxing time to stoke your fires again, okay?”

Planting a kiss on an ashy temple, she turns back to Elly. “So then. Back around this time last year, I scouted out the oceans west of us; beyond Shuu Mua, and found two manses out there. One of them was inactive and covered in dried guano. The caked-on layers are metres thick, and worth their weight in silver as fertiliser. Find and acquire me a business that specialises in dealing with such things, and which can get it from somewhere on the western coast of Shuu Mua to here discretely.”

She tips Elly’s chin up, looking her in the eye. “The guano is a steady income stream that will pay very well for as long as it takes to remove and sell it all. The manse, if I can get it reconnected, is a beautifully-positioned naval base, shielded from Saata by the bulk of the mainland, that allows access to the rest of the Anarchy west of us. We need to keep its location dead secret; emphasis on dead. Our people - by which I mean from the Domain; maybe Vali’s keruby since they won’t care about the smell - only.”

Elly’s green eyes flicker from left to right, as if she’s tracking unseen prey. “Yes. I see, my queen. There are two options. We could either sell it in the Daimyo & Yellow, or find some lord who needs it and come up with a contract. You are right to believe it would be better to sell it in the Daimyo & Yellow, I think.” She nods. “There are plenty of haulage traders. I believe we can do this. Though I think we would want to make an arrangement with one of the smaller lords on the coast to set up a warehouse there. I presume we will be using a loyal ship to transport it to the destination?”

Keris marvels a little at how Elly has come alive when talking about this. She was shy as a little girl, and she’s soft-spoken in a dangerous way as a woman, but now her nostrils are flaring and her muscles are corded in her neck. It’s like she’s about to kill something.

“I still have a small fleet at the Isle of Gulls,” Keris says. “We can either refit one of the larger junks from there, or just compel the loyalty of a captain. I can brand oaths in the flesh of those who swear service to me, if needed.”

“That will serve for that transportation, my queen,” Elly agrees. She smiles shyly, calming down. “I like it. It’s profit, but without much risk. Which face will you want the profits linked to?”

((... god, I really love that line. The casualness of having many fake identities just so perfectly sums up Keris, and it’s also villainous as fuck.))

“Little River,” Keris says. “Which makes things trickier - I don’t want her having ties to Haneyl beyond renting property from a brilliant, wealthy, successful landowner.” She grins at Haneyl, hoping the compliments will cheer her up a little. “So it needs to go through channels that she can be seen using. Plus side; she has a perfect reason for doing it - she’s been out and about in the seas for the better part of a year while pregnant, so it’s easy for her to say she found the place while travelling.”

Elly frowns, hands busy as she works on preparing more food. “A little more complicated, but still doable.” She nods. “I cannot pass as Tengese, at least without some reshaping, but if we need to hunt this prey, I surrender myself to your hands. It is,” she coughs, “easy for me to shed changes to my human form, we have found. They are gone if I take my true form and then regrow my skin. It is of no concern if you want me to look Tengese.”

“Useful trick,” Keris nods. “Very well then. I’ll work with you to come up with a fitting disguise, and you can hunt an easy prey worth a lord’s feast. And since it’ll be your project to organise and run, I’ll let you take a slice of the profits to please your princess.”

“As you wish, my queen,” Elly says, licking her lips. Her tongue is long - inhumanly long - and red. “I can taste the profit already.”

---

((OK, roll me 12 dice, Diff 3, for Elly’s efforts))
((8 sux! Whoo! Legendary threshold, lol.))

Elly is incredibly easy to sculpt - and not at all human below the skin. The whole monstrous wolf-crocodile is folded up in there, and all Keris has to do is repaint her petal-like skin.

And of course, it’s so easy to pick the right clothes for someone when you can adjust their colours. Keris picks out the silks and yellows and browns of a Tengese trader for Elly.

“Hug! Kiss!” Haneyl demands before they can leave, which Elly dutifully offers. Keris looks away, then Elly follows her out.

“My queen, Princess Haneyl has made sure I know certain bulk traders because we intend to have smuggling as an option. I believe I know of one who is more honest, for this. Please, I do not wish to offend you, but for this you are my client and I will not call you by your title,” Elly says, bowing, palms on her thighs as she bends perfectly at the waist.

“I’m not at odds with secrecy, Ellyssivera,” Keris smiles, shifting with a ripple of flesh into her other skin. Her hair feels dull and lifeless like this; motionless and far too short. But it’s a necessary thing to live with. “Call me Little River. Both of us know the truth.”

“Yes, my queen,” she says with a soft smile.

For all the melodrama, it’s over surprisingly quickly. Elly leads Keris through the busy streets of Saata, into a small set of offices near the docks.

There’s a man called Liu Cao there, who apparently does haulage across the Anarchy. He’s a man in his fifties, with some Realm blood somewhere in him, and he’s blunt and to the point. “What’re ye looking to carry?” he asks.

“Dried guano,” Little River replies. “As fertiliser. Lots of it.”

“Hmm.” He calls over a scribe, who’s carrying an abacus. “Volume and frequency?”

Elly takes over there, talking about how her client Little River has found a potential source of it, and then brutally haggles Liu Cao down price-wise from his initial cost-per-volume-per-distance prices to something considerably lower. Keris can hear the whisper of the waves for how much something is worth, but Elly seems to have the same talent and numbers come to her in a way they don’t for Keris. They leave with a contract signed - and payment is on delivery, so there’s nothing up front.

Gods, Keris can’t help but think. She could have done with an Elly back when she was fencing loot on the streets.

“My queen?” Elly asks. “You are pleased?”

“Very pleased,” Keris smiles. “Now, back to the penthouse and our maps.”

A little while later, Keris has a beautiful silk map of Shuu Mua and the local seas spread out across a table, and is pouring over the marked winds and currents with glee.

“Here,” she eventually decides, after almost half an hour of consultation with Dulmea about the course she’d taken from the first tower. “Somewhere at or about here - it’ll be easy enough to spot once you’re close enough. So that puts it... eight hundred miles almost directly west of Saata, across the island. Ten hours by anyaglo. With a good current and fair winds, going around the island by ship instead of over it by ribbon-horse...”

She screws up her face, thinking hard. “... two weeks?” she ventures. “Something like that, anyway. So that just leaves us with the question of where we put our warehouse for the pickup. I trust you can handle that part?”

“I’m sure that between myself, Princess Haneyl, and,” she pulls a face, “Rounen, we can work this out. When the Princess is feeling herself again, we can take a trip to one of these places and barter for the land rights. Maybe she’ll feel better; new things to see, new things to eat.”

“Here’s hoping. And you know...” Keris adds lightly, “Rounen was the one who suggested your name in particular for this. I’ll be glad to tell him that he wasn’t wrong to put faith in your bargaining skills.”

Elly sniffs. “Well, at least he’s good for something,” she says archly. “Beyond squealing when I put...”

“Elly!” Haneyl calls through from the bedroom. “I want a book!”

Elly rises. “Yes, my princess.”

“And cuddles! I want you to get me a book and then cuddle me! I’m sore and achy and it sucks!”

There’s a very brief moment, while Keris’s mind is still in the ‘I don’t want to know’ flinch reflex, when she thinks back to how she’d felt at times during the pregnancy and very nearly has a panic attack.

Then she remembers that of all her children, Haneyl is by far the most equipped to tell whether or not she’s pregnant - having been the one to notice Keris’s children in the first place - and that the only reason she doesn’t hold the title of “least likely to get pregnant” with all the Maiden’s Tea she grows is because her sisters are Eko and Calesco.

So all in all, that was a totally unnecessary jolt of adrenaline that’s still coursing through her system. Fantastic.

“I’ll be heading back to my estate, then,” she says, rising and heading for the window. “Give Haneyl an extra hug for me, and tell her I’ll be back in town officially soon. I have a pirate lord to speak to.”

Elly bows. “Do not think ill of her. She’s always unhappy when her time of the month coincides with one of her down-swings,” she says softly. “She’ll probably be back to normal in a few days.”

“I understand,” Keris says. “And I could never think ill of her for this. Give her my love.”

She slips out of the window, and is gone.

There’s a rustle in her head as she grabs some lunch from a street vendor. “Hey, mama,” Rathan says. “How are things?”

“Things,” Keris says in self-satisfied tones, “are going quite nicely indeed. I’m making good ground on getting the Hui Cha under my thumb, and just worked out a very profitable shipping dea- oh! Yes, I almost forgot! Did Mele hatch yet?”

“Not yet, mama. That was part of what I wanted to talk about. It’s going to be soon, if it’s a month. A week or so. I’ve had them return his cocoon-thing to the Undersea, in case taking it out slowed the process down.”

“Hmm. Here’s hoping, then. Have Oula’s tattoos given you any ideas what he’ll look like?”

“Pale, I think.” Rathan sniffs. “Paler than me. And larger horns than Oulie. And that’s another thing, mama. Do... do you need Oulie’s help for anything?”

Ah, thinks Keris. So that’s it. Rathan’s in need of a break.

“As it happens,” she says lightly, “I have come into ownership of a very large, very run-down estate that needs a lot of work done on it. And even if it was in perfect condition, the style isn’t quite to my taste so there are things I’d want to change. A talented architect would be quite useful to me, if you were willing to let her come help for a while.”

“Oh, no, I really hate to see her go, but if you need her, I really can’t say no to you, mama,” Rathan says, all in one rush. He pauses. “Not that I don’t love her,” he adds hastily. “I just... I just need some time away from her. She’s just so active. And she’s travelling all around the land and wants me to come along and she’s somehow learned to cry on command and that’s not fair because that’s my trick!”

Keris tries, she really does, but she can’t quite suppress a snort of laughter.

“You poor thing,” she manages once she’s got herself back under control. “Using your own tricks against you. However have you been coping?”

“It’s been hard,” Rathan says, without a trace of irony.

Biting her lip in amusement, Keris forces the edges of her mouth downward. “Well then, I’ll summon her tonight,” she says. “Thank you for your noble sacrifice in letting me employ her help with my estate. I love you, darling.”

“Thank you, mama,” he says.

---

Oula is happy to see her mentor - and just as happy to see Zanara. “Hello, prince,” she tells Nara, who’s sketching Keris’s summoning circle when she steps through the portal from the Sea. “How are things?”

Nara grins, showing a gap in his teeth. “They’re good! We’re having lots of fun! And she-we discovered a new trick!”

“That’s good.” Oula turns to face Keris. “Rathan mentioned you were interested in the coast, and also making things in your manor?”

“I have a niiiice big estate that’s horribly run down,” Keris nods. “It’s down among the southern coastal jungle bits and needs a lot of tender loving care. But if we can get it up to par, it’ll be a beautiful, elegant fortress. And the coastline is rugged enough that with a bit of help, they’ll never find the underwater docks we can make even if they go looking for them.”

“Excellent. I’ll take a look in the morning. And my room, aunty?” She smiles. “We’re not in a barge anymore, and I am a duchess.”

Thankfully, Keris had thought ahead. “You have a nice big one all to yourself, which you can use whenever you’re here and Rathan isn’t, since I don’t doubt you’ll be staying in his whenever possible,” she says. “The girls have settled in nicely as house staff; please try not to terrify them.”

“Oh, Aunty,” Oula says, smiling to share in the joke. “Why would I? There’s nothing bad between us. And,” her silver pupils go to pinpricks, “they’re not a threat right now.”

Keris sighs tolerantly, and hugs her. “Just be good,” she orders. “And stay low-key. Zanara’s doing good work, but until I’m totally certain we’ve rooted out every spy the other blue sea masters have put here and stolen them all, I’d rather limit the number of obviously non-Tengese people seen wandering around my estate. If you want to explore the local coast, though, you have my blessings. I haven’t had the time to have a good proper swim around out there yet.”

“As you wish, Aunty,” Oula says dutifully, and heads out. Nara works away with charcoal on his paper, leaving Keris to think.

“The adult keruby are seemingly calmer than the child ones,” Firisutu observes, “but that is a lie. You’re collecting quite a few of them, aren’t you? What do you see in them, your majesty.”

“They all have their skills and focuses,” Keris thinks idly. “Even you can’t deny that they’re good at what they do. And most of them can pass for human. That’s useful, when I want to stay low-key.”

She wanders up to one of the high-ceilinged rooms on the south wing that overlooks the coast, and hops up the wall and into a hammock strung up near the ceiling where nobody without superhuman athletism could get at it. Lying back in the kordroma-spun silk, she twirls a lock of hair around her finger.

“The Gullites are doing well under Calesco,” she thinks. “I’m renovating the estate, I’ve got a steady income stream set up with the guano and next year when I’ve got the locals’ loyalty and she can work freely I can set Haneyl to improve the soil in the fields here. Two in six of the Hui Cha lords are mine, and I can start reeling in a third when I go back to the city in a few days. But... ach. There’s still more to do. Always is, it seems.”

“That is your duty, as Creator,” Firisutu reminds her. “You must do right by that which you make.” He sighs melodically. “Even the keruby.”

That night, Keris has strange dreams as she lies in bed, snuggled up with all three of her adorable little babies making a shell of softness around her. She’s not in the Domain - not quite. But then again she is a creature of Hell and the new moon is a time when Creation is weaker.

In her dreams, she’s curled up in a pile of blankets in some kind of carriage. She can hear the creaking of wood and movement, at least. Or... maybe it’s not a carriage. The rocking sway feels almost like being carried, and the sound... reminds her more of the rumble of the waterwheel at the forge in Baisha. Someone’s cooking something, too, and the smell of grilled lamb and saffron sends her back to her childhood.

The wind is howling outside of wherever she is, but that doesn’t matter. They’re going somewhere to meet her brother and cousin and cute little niece and welcome them to their new home, just like she promised months ago. She’s safe and she’s warm, and she can hear szulok around her - a dozen of the felid apes at least, crooning to little keruby in their two-tone voices or else helping whoever’s cooking with the meal. It’ll be a big one, dream-Keris thinks blearily, unwilling to open her eyes and wake up. Big enough to feed... mmm... the whole family. A big meal... all... together...

The rest is hazy blackness and vague feelings of comfort and warmth.

---

The next day, Keris heads back to Saata, and gets some work done in her forge while the city cleans up and recovers from hangovers from the new moon festival.

And the next day, she’s dressing up nicely before she heads out to Jade Fox’s estate.

She takes a pair of chunky silver rings with her for the lord, and with Oula and Vali watching the twins she brings along a fleshwoven Gale as a maid to look after Atiya while she talks to the pirate lord. Oula has promised to try and convince Ogin of the merits of the written word.

Keris wishes her luck, and keeps her expectations low. She certainly hasn’t made much progress on that front. Her little boy is remarkably stubborn when he wants to be.

Jade Fox’s townhouse - so to speak - in Yellow Point stands out now Keris has more experience with Saatan prices. It’s not an apartment like Keris’s - he has a wall around it, and gardens. It’s like a smaller version of his country estate, the one she’s already seen.

She’s greeted by the women of the household, who offer her water, help her get the dust of Saata off her robes, and coo over Atiya. The little girl is focussing better, but Keris is very much feeling the difference between Atiya’s rate of development and the inhuman development of the twins.

She indulges their cooing, tells a few stories of how frail Atiya was at first and how far she’s come, and accepts a drink along with the usual pleasantries and small talk. Little River is the very soul of decorum, with impeccable manners - and if she’s a little mysterious about what business dealings have brought her into the money to refurbish her estate, well. That’s only prudent of her, as a woman of the Hui Cha should be where matters of finance are concerned.

And then it’s time to see Jade Fox, in all his plain-overrobed, staid, boring him-ness.

Keris can’t help but feel that the voice in her head that’s making that commentary on one of the Blue Sea Masters sounds like Zana. It’s definitely what she would be saying if she was here.

The two of them kneel on either side of a low table, on rush mats. It’s started raining gently outside, but the screen doors are open to bring the cooler air in and the scent of the gardens., and so the sound of falling water is everywhere.

“I must congratulate you on your fortune. The gods act in mysterious ways, and to smile on someone is,” Jade Fox smiles, his scars creasing up, “an act of most uncommon generosity on their parts.”

“One goddess in particular,” Little River notes with a smile. “And while it was generous, I’d say it wasn’t unearned, either. Still, that is in the past - and my blessing was only one act. The rest I have invested and worked for.”

She makes civil small talk for a while, gracefully following the formalities that this conservative man so values. Offering him the rings as a gift, she takes the chance to size him up in her heartblood’s reflections. Keris is fairly sure of what secret desire she’ll find coiled around Jade Fox’s heart, but she wants to confirm it and be sure.

Keris sees it in the reflection in his eyes. Oh, he wants to be respectable in the eyes of Tengese society. That’s what he wants. Someone who can offer that will buy him.

((He wants respectability in the eyes of proper Tengese society.))

After an appropriate amount of time has passed with small talk, she brings the conversation around to her travels while pregnant.

“As it happens,” Little River says calmly in response to a question about what she’d been filling her time away with, “before the unpleasantness with the Dead, I did stumble across a chance to get in touch with a few people I knew back in An Teng. Too many doors are closed to me there to go back, but I still have a few contacts - and they were a lot more willing to help now that I’m Exalted.”

She smiles. “In short, I can very soon introduce your son to the eldest daughter of the Joyful Wave family - a coastal viscounty far from the Dragon’s Teeth. Their lands have been hard-done by from a bad storm two years ago, and with the aid of my contacts they’re quite willing to meet and discuss an marriage. Though the girl in question is only sixteen, so a longer engagement might be wise - to ensure propriety is met and the young couple are comfortable together.”

He nods. “I know. I have already been in contact with them by letters.” He frowns. “Such a strange number of people you know, for someone who claimed to flee An Teng in shame.” He pauses for a moment, then smiles. “But I welcome the chance. Stone Fox is a strapping young man - and his poor wife died a month after they married, when scarlet fever hit. He has been mourning her long enough, I say!”

((... ha ha ha, he botched his Investigation roll to try to read if Keris is hiding something.))
((Lol))

“When they feel ready to wed, I would be pleased to help arrange for the wedding,” Little River offers smoothly. “Either here in Saata - I’m sure I can find a worthy venue - or perhaps back in An Teng.” Keris allows faint concern to crease her face. “It would be delicate...” she murmurs, “but he is marrying into nobility, after all. It would be proper for it to take place on mainland Tengese soil, upon the land her family is bound to.”

There’s an approving nod from Jade Fox. “Yes. A proper marriage in An Teng. I will be sad to see him go, but... well, I hope my new in-laws will be amenable to trade.” He smiles. “And I would certainly appreciate your assistance in the proper silverwork. My wife is very impressed with the necklace you made her. She says you are most skilled.”

“I have been considering a workshop,” Little River muses. “A larger one than my current forge, with space for other masters, and some journeymen and apprentices to train. I’ve discovered I can teach, with my powers, and silver warding amulets are valuable things. If the Hui Cha controlled a reliable means of making high-quality ones, that would give us an edge over our rival fleets.”

“Hmm.” He strokes his beard, as thunder rolls outside. “I think that would be an excellent use of your skills. I would like to offer my help in setting up such an enterprise.”
Keris smiles lightly, though she’s grinning under the mask. Jade Fox isn’t as hard to read as he thinks he is - and she can tell that he likes the idea she’s proposed more than he’s letting on. It’s the usual unspoken way the Hui Cha does things. He’s offering his help, but there are strings attached. His help means giving him a stake in how things go, making sure to prioritise him as a client. And yes, he expects it to calm her down and keep her busy, too. So she doesn’t go around making trouble.
Part of her - the serpentine part that coils around her treasures and hisses at anything that comes near them - wanted to reject his offer and the barbed hook of control hidden within it.

But, honestly? When she’s going to hook him in turn, with a much more subtle line? There’s no real harm in letting him help her set up another income stream and take some of the burden of organisation and contracts off her hands, even if he takes part of it and gets priority on jobs. And if it means he thinks he has a measure of influence over her, that’s a little less he’ll balk when the time comes for her to take over the triads.

Little River smiles winningly at the pirate lord sitting across the table from her.

“I would be most grateful for your aid,” she tells him. “Great things will surely come of it.”

All in all, Keris had to consider when she headed back to her townhouse - in a palanquin so generously loaned by Jade Fox - things were going well. They were progressing. She had things under control.

And she managed to keep that idea in her head, right until her family showed up.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

In the early hours of the fourth of Rising Fire, Keris is woken by three wailing babies. The first thing she realises when she opens her eyes is that her room is lit up with bright green. A bright, Hellish green.

There is a sun floating over the table. No, it’s not a sun, she realises as she blinks the tears out of her eyes. It’s Ligier’s brass and crystal orb, floating above her desk, covered in burning bright words.

KERIS it reads when she groggily crawls out of bed, rocking three babies who are making their displeasure known at the top of their lungs.

YOU ARE TO GO TO TRIUMPHANT AIR, BY MY WILL. THE REALM MAGISTRATE HAS SEIZED AN ICON SACRED TO ME FROM ONE OF MY CULTS. THE ICON MUST BE RECLAIMED FROM THE DYNASTS, OR DESTROYED IN ITS ENTIRETY IF IT CANNOT BE SAVED. DANADU MARA WAS THE HEAD OF MY CULT. HE IS UNDER SUSPICION. EXTRACT HIM, OR TERMINATE HIM IF HE HAS TALKED. HE KNOWS TOO MUCH ABOUT CULTS ACROSS THE ANARCHY.

SO SPEAKS LIGIER
After Keris reads it, the words cease to glow, and the orb sinks back down to the table. Keris is left in the pre-dawn darkness, holding three distraught babies. She stands there considering this development for some time.
“... fuck,” she says at length. “Now? Really?”

Then a wailing Kali sinks tiny little talons into her arm, and things become a hectic mess of soothing her children and waking the household up and preparing.

Triumphant Air, she thinks as she darts around from task to task. Triumphant Air. She knows a little about it from Sasi - up north, old volcanic island, Realm naval base. Sasi had described it as the actual Dynastic power in the Anarchy, contrasted to the tightly contained pleasure-centre for visiting patricians that the satrapy of An Teng made for, or the dirty, barely-acknowledged pirate hub of Saata that was ruled by a house too common and low for the Realm to do more than accept its tithes at arm’s length.

... which is useful, certainly, but not nearly as much as Keris would prefer to know about the place. And she has a feeling that going to Sasi for advice by Messenger or portrait, even if she could afford to wait for her lover to wake up all the way, would not go down well with Ligier. This is a private mission. He’ll want her to do it herself.

“Rounen!” she calls sharply. “I need everything you have on Triumphant Air, now!”

Rounen - unflappable and disgustingly awake - is there, with papers in hand.

“Ma’am, it is the primary naval base of the Realm Navy in the northern Anarchy,” he says, shuffling through his notes. “The three squadrons that patrol the region operate out of it. There’s also an Immaculate temple - Sasimana’s notes indicate the abbess is young but a hardliner from the Realm. Triumphant Air is famed for its hot springs and its graceful basalt towers, although its role in the sugar trade has collapsed over the past few decades as larger plantations to the south took over. It used to be a major trade hub during the days of the Blue Monkey Shogunate, but Saata has taken much of the role it once had.”

“Ffffff-” Keris hisses. “Immaculate hardliner, right. There’s a magistrate there too?”

A horrible suspicion falls over her. “Oh. Oh fuck. Please don’t tell me it’s the same magistrate as that Earth Aspect back in An Teng. The one with that utter bitch of a Fire Aspect among his friends. Whatshisname...”

She snaps her fingers a couple of times, searching, until Dulmea supplies her with what she’s looking for. “Nellens Niramono! Urgh, gods, it probably is. Even if he’s not there in person, it’ll have been him who took the damn thing. And his fucking friends will probably be guarding it, with my luck.”

Behind Keris’s back, her hair makes throttling motions around the neck of an imaginary Dragonblood.

Rounen searches through his notes. “I can’t say, ma’am,” he observes. “My apologies. Now, I believe you will wish to go there alone, yes? And certainly not as Little River. Perhaps Tenné Cinnamon - she does have a certain amount of fame in An Teng, and you can have the excuse that you were going for the hot springs...”

“No,” Keris cuts him off. “No, I won’t be going as either, I think. Or at all, publically. This is going to be an off-the-books mission by water. Sneak in, do the job, get out. Preferably without anyone knowing I was there. If I have a public face in the area at the time, that’s just a potential trail for them to follow.”

She bares her teeth. “Shit. I’m going to need to leave soon. Today, probably. Ach, and with Ali and the others due to arrive within the next couple of weeks.” She chews a hair tendril. “At least it’ll probably be a fairly quick mission. Succeed or fail, I doubt it’ll take longer than a day or two once I’m there.”

Rounen makes a few notes. “Very well, ma’am. Then I believe we will need one of your extrusions to hold down the fort - or if more prowess might be needed, I suppose Princess Haneyl or Princess Calesco could pass as you...”

“A Gale should do, I think,” Keris says. “Haneyl has a lot of work to do, and Calesco is still recovering. And doesn’t know the Hui Cha that well. I’ve seen Jade Fox already, so there shouldn’t be too much to do. If needs be, I can just pretend Atiya’s come down with a cough and seclude myself until I get back.”

“As you wish.” Rounen wrinkles his nose. “Now, since there is no chance of me getting back to sleep until the children are settled again, is there anything you wish prepared before you set off?”

Keris purses her lips. “I don’t think we’ll need it, but... make a small room back at the estate ready for a guest. Short-term stay. I may be coming back with someone, and if I do they’ll need somewhere to go unnoticed for a little while before leaving again. Somewhere nobody will notice them, mind. And before that, find me a map that’ll help me get to Triumphant Air.”

“Right away, ma’am,” Rounen says, heading off and leaving Keris to say goodbye to her babies.

Ogin tilts his head at her expression, and pats a still-tearful Kali on the arm. Gold and silver eyes both stare at her. Then, “Huuuuuuuuuuug!” insists Kali. “Hug!”

Keris scoops both of them up and spins them around, holding them close in her arms and nuzzling them lovingly. “My babies,” she whispers. “Mama will miss you very very much while she’s away, okay? Even if she’ll still be here. So be good for the mama that’s here, and send kisses to the mama who isn’t! I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

Atiya gets a gentler goodbye, too young still to understand what’s happening. Keris tucks her into the crook of her shoulder and lets her rest there for a moment; skin against skin, stroking her hair tenderly.

“Be strong, my precious little princess,” she murmurs, pressing a soft kiss to her smooth little cheek. “Let your brother and sister look after you. And stay safe.”

“Tiya!” contributes Kali, her nose running. Ogin, for his part, squirms along Keris’s hair to hang upside down in front of her eyes, staring at her intensely.

Then he yawns.

Keris puts the babies back to sleep, breathes out a Gale to look after them, and then she’s collecting her resources from Rounen and headed out. One real advantage of her new home, she thinks as she dives off the cliffs, is she’s straight out into the water.
Then she’s speeding up again, looping around Saata - past the still blaring noise and light of the city - and past the hook of Shuu Mua and headed north. Rounen helpfully provided her with a map, and she follows it as best she can. “North” isn’t too hard, if she looks for the Imperial Mountain and makes sure to point herself diagonally to the left of it, and there are a few islands she can use as rough landmarks.
Also the ships. The ships help a lot, as she starts getting closer and can afford to slow down to the achingly boring pace of the junks and follow them in.

The sun is past its zenith before Keris gets to Triumphant Air. They say the island looks like a crab and it’s highly volcanic - or at least Rounen’s notes did. Keris can’t see the crab in more than the broadest terms, but she can recognise the volcanism. Neatly stepped terraces line the interior of the caldera, dotted with farming villages that huddle within the many natural magma tunnels that riddle the island. The exterior is more wild, with bamboo forests and natural hot springs interspersed with the estates of smaller landowners and the holdings of freedmen.

There are two major cities in the natural harbour. One clearly must be the Imperial naval base. Nowhere else would have so many red-sailed ships and such heavy, blocky, fortified construction. Someone sat down and carefully designed this place to protect the ships and be proof against raiders, and they did their job well. The other, therefore, must be the capital, Rising Steam. Keris admires it from a distance, head above the water as she paddles. The basalt spires and carefully carven geometrical architecture reminds her of the Spires somewhat - Vali would like the way it looks, even if it’s tamer than he’d like. It looks like the city was once bigger from the worn-down stumps surrounding it. And - Keris frowns - all the buildings look fancy and nobby. There are no slums, no poor places - every building looks prosperous and healthy.

She’s here to find two things; an icon sacred to Ligier and a cultist named Danadu Mara. It... would be helpful if Ligier had given her a description of either. But he didn’t, so she’s going to have to play it by ear. On the plus side, he said that Mara was under suspicion, not that he’d already been taken in by the Immaculates. It’s been ten days since that information was good, but it’s possible he’s not yet in a cell under an Realm fortress, and if she can find him he’ll be able to give her a better description of what else she’s looking for.

With that in mind, Keris dons the guise of a man aging out of his middle years and advances. Cautiously. Agenete is suddenly fresh and raw in her memory, and she has no intention of being caught out like she was there by lack of official papers and whatnot. For the moment she lurks and listens to the talk of the town, seeking opportunities to ask a few quiet questions.

((Per + Investigation))
((Dammit. I miss Ney.))
((... I cannot believe I just said that.))
((And am in fact vaguely horrified that the words came out of my mouth. :P))

The town might look beautiful, but Keris finds where the dirt is hidden. It’s underground. Literally. The rich and middle classes have these ancient basalt towers, but the poor live in caves and houses build in the magma tubes under the city, and that’s where Keris gets talking.

It’s gloomy down here, with smoky whale-fat lanterns and the occasional crack letting light in. The air smells of cooked fish, rice, and marijuana smoke. And the lower classes aren’t happy. So the story goes, but a magistrate showed up out of nowhere, arrested a bunch of nobles with the help of the temple, and now he’s bullied the satrap into all kinds of onerous requirements that are slowing trade to a stop. He seems to think - so the story goes - that someone’s trying to escape his hunt. And because of that, there are all kinds of travellers who are stuck here, so the city and smaller towns are crammed to full. The only way out is personal inspection by the magistrate and he’s a busy man. As a result, there are Tengese traders, weirdos from Nightfall Isle, a crazy pack of women with black skin and shaved heads, and even some tyrant-lizard cultists who no one wants to go near!

“Danadu Mara?” says a woman selling seaweed wraps when Keris pauses to buy something. “He’s one of the Danadu landowners. Their taxes are something fierce, my sister says.”

“Is their land worth it, at least?” Keris jokes, angling the conversation to find out exactly where they’re situated. But part of her mind is hanging back, circling around one of the other points she’s heard.

A crazy pack of women with black skin and shaved heads, huh? That sounds uncomfortably like a group she knows. And while there’s nothing on her family that the Realm would care about, she’s not sure how well their story will bear up if the magistrate pays close attention.

Double fuck, Keris thinks, and adds another task to her to-do list.

“Well enough,” she says.

“Mara, yeah, I’ve heard of him,” chips in the Tengese-looking woman on the next stall over, selling meat dumplings. “Feckless layabout, that’s the story. Throws parties all the time, travels a lot, don’t know the value of money.”

“Well now, that sounds like something a man could turn a profit out of,” Keris says, letting greedy interest shine through the false face she wears. “Where d’you think I could find him, if I wanted to try and convince him to spend some of those riches he’s so free with?”

The Tengese woman looks Keris up and down, taking her - or, rather, her male garb - into account. “You’re not local. I don’t know what your landowners are like, but ours don’t even want to see us.” She gestures around. “This is where they put us. Down in the magma tubes. Land with sunlight’s too pricy for the likes of us.”

“I’m not, no,” Keris agrees. “Stuck here by the trade bans, so I’m looking for things to pass the time and make up some money with. We don’t have tunnels back home.” She snorts. “Some things are the same everywhere, though. Lords hoarding all the good land for themselves.”

“You said it,” the woman agrees. “So, if you’re looking for something to do, why not try our meat buns? Caramelised chicken and chilli’ll put a pep in your step!”

Keris happily pays up - and she actually does pay; these aren’t the kind of people she steals from - and then heads upwards. It’s not the best of leads, but a feckless decadent layabout on Danadu land should be easy enough to find, if she shifts to a richer-looking lie and asks around about events and parties.

And from what it sounds like, he hasn’t been taken into custody - or at least it’s not been made public if he has. People would be talking, like they’ve been talking about the other nobles who were arrested. If he’s still free, it’s probably down to the reputation he’s spread as a self-indulgent member of the idle rich. Someone like that isn’t a threat - and certainly wouldn’t be easily suspected of being a demon-worshipping cult leader with connections to Hellish worship across the whole Anarchy.
The chaos in the nobility here is a thing to behold. They’re scared. Retreating to their estates, not going to parties - yes, the magistrate has them terrified. This Ragara Midari is a dangerous man, willing to upset the local landowners - and patrol the streets with marines from the Navy. Sensing an opportunity, Keris listens in on a few conversations between the marines. The grunts on the streets won’t know anything of worth, but they’ll give her a sense of what the attitude of the magistrate’s forces are, and perhaps let one or two things slip about the direction of the Realm’s efforts. The two women are tired and hot. It’s not rained yet today, so in their armour they’re baking and they’re also bitching about how they can’t take their sleeves off.
That’s about all Keris can gather, and most of it is from body language and attitude, because they have the bad manners to speak in Low Realm in front of her. Which she doesn’t speak.

Flipping them a rude gesture from a nearby alley that they don’t see due to Keris blending into the shadows like a ghost, she sulkily resumes her search for Danadu Mara. If she can just find his home, that will be a good start. There’s a fair chance he’s hiding there like the rest of the terrified nobility here. And if not, it’ll at least give her some leads.

By the late afternoon, as the sun creeps slowly towards the mountain, Keris has found Mara’s estate. It’s up on one of the little terraced areas, surrounded by farms and bamboo, and has a blocky basalt wall around it.

It also has watchers. Watchers not from the inside. People watching it from outside - two marines in a shelter, people in a nearby village who have telescopes that there’s no way they could afford normally. The magistrate must have set a watch on the estate.

Grimacing, Keris watches the watchers; listening in on them and hoping that they, at least, have the decency to speak in something she understands.

... okay, so it’s not likely the marines will. She can still hope. And scope out their set-up before going in, so she knows what angles they’re watching from.

((Cog + Command, Diff 3))
((3+0+2 stunt, really missing Ney here, urgh. Hmm... I don’t want to waste motes here. I guess I’ll chance it and just accept the lack of info if I fail. 5 dice... 3 sux! Nice. ^_^))

Keris grins. It’s a shell game. Which is the person spying on him? The obvious marines? The spies in the village?
Well, Keris knows these kinds of games. She looks up the mountainside, up to where the Immaculate temple is and - ah, there, the glint of the sun on glass. Of course. There’s a monk or a nun up there, patient and careful and probably meticulous, watching everyone who comes and goes. She cracks her knuckles and combs out her hair, plans forming in her mind. Taking out the watchers would be a crude tactic. Better would be disguising him with a new face and smuggling him out. Two servants going out on a boring errand - carrying empty wine barrels away to be reused, perhaps - won’t raise eyebrows.
But first, she has to get in unseen and corner him somewhere private. And find out if he’s talked, though the watchers lead her to doubt it.

Dulmea hums. “Will you go in as a princess of Hell, once you corner him?” she enquires. “Perhaps a cultist who fears you and owes you his life - and you can get that grasp on him - would be very useful.”

“You could just kill him and say it was too risky to get him out and you thought he talked,” Rathan says with a yawn. “Less effort.”

“I’ll see what he’s like and how difficult getting him out is likely to be, first,” Keris thinks. “But yes, I think a combination of ‘scary hell princess with the personal favour of Ligier’ and ‘here to rescue you from the Realm and their many, many horrible ways to force information out of you’ should work.”

“And now I expect you’re going to go back to a different settlement, perhaps find somewhere to sleep, and then show up again at his place at night,” Dulmea says dryly. “Because going somewhere during the day makes your skin creep.”

“Now we’re going to go check whether those dark-skinned crazy women are my Lionesses,” Keris corrects her. “But yes, we’ll wait for nightfall to move in on him. It’ll be easier to slip in unnoticed and get him out of there.”

Fortunately, the rumours of the crazy black-skinned all-female band are easy to follow, and Keris tracks them down the coach to a fishing village that is practically overflowing. One of the local landowners has apparently said “fuck that” to preserving the natural beauty of their landscape when money is to be made from the people trapped on the island, and a small village by the sea is now practically a brand new town made of green-wood houses and hauled-in boats overturned and made into roofs. Some of the people here are living in simple tents made from sail canvas pitched over masts hammered into the ground.

It doesn’t smell great. Keris suspects they’re having a problem with disease here. Anyone would, so many people crammed into such little space.
Howler monkeys gibber out in the bamboo as Keris stalks the muddy streets, a late afternoon rainstorm slashing down like tiny pebbles. Thunder booms out in the blackened sky. And there, up ahead, is a food stall clearly run by a Harbourite woman. And there, more and more traces of her mother’s people. Reverting to her normal appearance and a kebaya-sarong, Keris wraps a shawl over her braids where they spill down her back and tugs it up into a sun hood up to cover her distinctive hair. Then she heads in the direction where the Harbourites seem to be the most concentrating.
There’s an order to this part of the rain-streaked camp - refugee-camp, almost - that there isn’t to the rest. The dark-skinned women who fill these streets - eating under canvas, sewing torn clothes, in some cases caring for babies - have an order here. When two of them get into a screaming argument about whose turn it is to do some chore and fists fly, an older woman is there to bash heads together.

She’s following a noise - the sound of a hammer on metal. And there, outside a bamboo and canvas tent-hut, is her brother - working on short boot-nails while a Harbourite woman works on fixing a broken boot-sole.

There’s a little more white on his temples, and he’s put on a little weight. But it’s him.

She hesitates. This is actually scarier than showing herself to Sasi, because with Sasi she was sure of a warm reception. Ali... Ali takes after papa. He doesn’t like adventure or risk. And he’s travelled halfway across the world on her say-so over the past eight months. Who knows what he’s seen and done? Maybe... maybe he won’t...

A faint pressure on her finger draws her attention downwards. Iris is nipping at her, looking up in confusion. Keris breathes in, breathes out, strokes her little dragon’s head, and puts her feet forward.
“Ali?” she calls softly as she approaches. He looks up, and flinches in shock.
“Keris?” he almost whispers, laying down the nailhead he’s cold-shaping. “You’re... you’re here?”

She takes a few quick steps forward and throws her arm around him, hugging tight. “It’s good to see you,” she breathes out in a rush. “So good, you have no idea. You’re alright? Zany and Hanilyia are okay? The journey wasn’t too hard?”

Ali shakes his head. “You are a madwoman,” he informs her. “Dragged all across the world, so many different places, ship after ship... we got attacked by pirates twice! And I find you’re here already?!”

Keris shrugs. “Believe me, you took the safer route. The paths I take to travel across the world so fast go outside of it, and back in again. Besides, I had to get here before you so I could set things up for you to arrive.” She frowns. “Though I’ll admit I didn’t bank on you getting stuck at a Realm naval base under a trade lockdown. How long have you been here?”

Ali looks around in disgust. “Three weeks,” he grumbles. “Getting rained on. And I’ve heard from some of the girls who’ve picked up some of the local language that it’ll be hard getting ships in Fire, given it’s typhoon season and all.”

“Yeah,” Keris sighs. “The year’s-end storms are a bitch down here. But, ach,” she shakes her head and claps. “We shouldn’t just be standing around talking. Show me to Zanyira and Hany! My niece needs a hug, and I’ve got something pretty to show... uh...”

She trails off, looking at her bare left arm. Then at Ali. Oh. Damn. “... her,” she finishes, suppressing the urge to scold Iris for sliding off her skin to explore Ali’s like that.

... then again, Iris is an insatiably curious little creature, and feeling flesh that was almost like Keris’s must have been a temptation she couldn’t resist. Urgh. Fine. Keris supposes she’ll let this one slide, as long as Iris doesn’t pop up and terrify Ali too much when she gets bored of doing loop-the-loops between his shoulderblades. Presumably she’s excited at having so much more space than is available on Keris’s slender frame.

Her brother looks at her, wondering what the matter is, but shakes his head. He says a few quiet words to the shoemender beside him, then heads into the hut where Zany - her hair cut as short as the Harbourite women, which makes her look delicate and almost elfin - is cooking along with another woman. Hany is in the corner, playing some game which involves a lot of giggling with another child with similar skin-colour to Keris and Ali.

Zany looks up, catches her husband’s eye and smiles at him. The smile vanishes in shock when she sees who’s following him in.

Keris sweeps over and draws her into a hug, too. “It’s good to see you,” she says fervently. “I’m so glad you made it here alright.”

Zany laughs, lifting up her cousin. She’s fared better than her husband in the travelling - she’s actually put on muscle, and is not the still-weak-from-being-bedridden woman she was. “Finally you showed up. I can’t believe it! Travel all the way across the world and get stuck here just before the finish line!” she says. “You look well - and so thin! Where are the babies?”

“At home in Saata, well looked after,” Keris assures her. “And probably causing their minders all manner of stress, but Vali can handle getting chewed on a little. And you! You look incredible! The journey did you some real good, I see.”

Zany rubs her cropped hair sheepishly. “Well, I was bored on the ship so wound up getting involved in their training,” she says sheepishly. “They made jokes about how I needed to be stronger because my daughter is one-quarter Harbourite and so she’d be able to snap me in two when she gets older if I wasn’t. And suns bless, I always used to wonder why Harbourite women had short hair, but if it’s anything there like here no wonder they cut it! It’s so hot and humid!”

“I’d say you get used to it, but you don’t.” At least not without it being part of your nature, Keris thinks to the tune of a smug hiss from the back of her mind. “I can probably make you a pretty silver amulet that’ll help, though. And speaking of my niece...”

“Yes! Hany!” Zany sweeps her daughter up, pulling her away from her playmate to some protests. “No, no, baby girl, no, look who it is! It’s Aunty Keris!”

Hany stares at her. “Where’s all her hair? Did she cut it like you? Mama cut her hair. She didn’t ask me before doing it!”

Keris laughs. “Don’t worry, I’ve still got my hair. See?” She flips her hood down and frees a tendril from her shawl. Her feathers chime together softly as she uses it to wave to the little girl.

“Are you a bird, Aunty Keris?” Hany demands.

“... maybe?” Zany frowns. “Can you turn into a bird, Keris? Because that would be wonderful!”

“Please don’t,” Ali says weakly.

“I can’t turn into a bird,” Keris says. “But! You remember I told you about your cousins, Hany? My babies, who I had inside me when you last saw me? Well, I had them while I was looking for your grandparents, and one of your cousins can turn into a bird.” She pauses. “And has a terrible habit of doing it at dinner time,” she adds with an eyeroll. “Which did not make feeding her before she was on solids an easy task.”

Hany screws up her face. “That’s not faaaaaaaaaaaaair!” she wails. “I wanna be a bird! I wanna I wanna I wanna!”

“Oh dear. I’m cooking, Ali, see to her,” Zany says. Ali hugs and picks up the tantruming toddler. “Keris, come on, help me with this. This is Aaden, by the way,” she adds, gesturing to the woman who’s helping her. “Aaden, this is my cousin and sister-in-law, Keris. We’re next door and she has a little boy so things are easier if we cook together and let the children play. So how long are we going to be here, Keris?”

“The trade ban’s in place because the magistrate is cracking down hard on cult activity,” Keris says. “That... may well change soon, if he goes haring off after another target, but if it doesn’t we may have a problem. Smuggling three people out, I could do. Three hundred would prove... trickier. And I didn’t bring anyone else with me who could help organise it.”

Zany pulls a face. “Bleargh. Things weren’t so bad, the chance to be off a ship for a bit. But right now things are very cramped and not too clean. Me and Ali can cope, but if things get bad I might ask you to get Hany off. She’s already been ill from dirty water. She’s not as tough as an adult.”

Keris grimaces. “I’ll see to it, if it comes to that. But I won’t be able to stay long. I have some other business here that I’ll need to take care of, and then head back to Saata and make sure everything is set up for you to arrive. I can take her with me then, if need be. Maybe you and Ali too, if your absence wouldn’t be noticed.”

“So you can’t stay for dinner?” Zany says sadly. “Oh well. I can’t stop you with your magical bird powers and your wriggly hair. Good luck with whatever bird things you have to do!”
It is very hard to tell when Zany is being serious. Keris vaguely recalls that was always a trait of hers. “I can manage dinner, I think,” she grins. “My bird things can wait until nightfall. And I need to retrieve my little friend from Ali before I go.”
Dinner is simple and honestly smaller than it should be. They’re not starving here, but food is limited. Still, Zany is delighted when Iris makes an appearance and the little dragon seems fascinated by Keris’s cousin’s green eyes. She tries to make her own flame-eyes green, but can’t hold it for more than a few breaths. Keris tells some stories to Hany about her new cousins and in particular Hany finds the revelation that she can have both a cousin and a kitty at the same time to be mind-blowing.

Keris is affectionate and tolerant and avoids the question of what her “other business” on Triumphant Air is. As well as the fact that it’s the real reason she’s here, and that she didn’t actually come here for her family or indeed know they were here until she arrived and found out by fluke.

It seems like it would make the meal awkward. And also raise inconvenient questions about what she did come here for, which she wouldn’t be able to answer.

She also avoids questions about what she did in Taira after they parted, delaying her answers until they’re settled in their new home on Saata. But that’s for entirely different reasons.

No, Keris keeps the topics of conversation light, and spends her time planning while others talk. Cissidy can probably hold Ali and Zany, at least over short distances. And Keris can carry Hany if she runs on the water. She could probably slip them out at night and get a distance of a few islands; then summon another anyaglo... but for the damn cultist she’s here to extract. She’s not putting both groups where they can get wind of each other; that’s a recipe for disaster.

Which means either two separate extractions, or giving the magistrate a reason to think his last target has flown the coup and escaped the city. Having Mara simply disappear won’t necessarily do that - Ragara Midari seems like the kind of man who might assume he’d just gone to ground, and leave enough forces to maintain the quarantine on shipping and scour the island’s hiding places. He’d have to be reasonably sure that the cult leader he’s searching for has genuinely fled, and that there’s no more worth in keeping the harbour gates chained up.

It’s still raining by the time Keris finishes up with her family, but the sun is down. The night here is hot, humid, and wet - and dark. Very dark. The thick clouds are blotting out the sliver of moon and the stars.

With her eyes helping less, Keris can hear the island below her as she returns to the estate of the man she’s looking for. She can hear the hiss of steam in the depths, and she gets momentarily distracted by the heated warmth of a natural hot spring that’s bubbling up. This is a beautiful island, in its own way. Haneyl and Vali would probably both love it here.

Of course, she’d never let them anywhere near a Realm and Immaculate place like this.
Under cover of darkness, she makes her infiltration attempt on the house, quite aware of the hidden onlookers. Who are still there. Still watching. But while they watch, but they don’t see. Mara’s estate is surrounded by bamboo, which readily bends aside for Keris without a sound. Like the leopard and the owl and the river dragon, she approaches her prey silent and unnoticed; blending perfectly into the jungle until she gets to the wall, and slipping over it with ease as a cloud momentarily blocks the light of the moon.
Then it’s into a woven lie of servant’s garb to infiltrate the estate; just one of Mara’s staff among many.

The rural estate reminds Keris vaguely of Sasi’s country estate in An Teng, though it is obviously smaller and less pretty and worse in every way possible. It’s a collection of low wooden buildings connected by covered walkways, with heavy shutters to protect the house from the frequent storms. No one is out this late in this weather if they can avoid it, as thunder booms yet again overhead, and Keris slips in through the servant’s quarters, drying herself off before silently stalking through the beeswax-smelling polished wooden floors and flimsy paper walls. She doesn’t need a candle, and she moves into the more expensive parts of the house, picking her way through the structure until...

... ah ha. There are hollow places under the structure. More of those magma tubes, no doubt. She wonders if the magistrate knows about them. Maybe he does. Someone willing to fake-out a watch like that is likely the sort of man who wouldn’t do anything if he knows about your secret escape route and way in and out of the mansion.

But she instead follows the sound to where a man is still awake, working by candlelight in a study which - unlike most of the house - has glass windows. There are many candles alight here, placed on every surface, to give an almost constant golden glow. Outside, the landscape is periodically lit by flashes of lightning, illuminating the terraced slopes down to the shoreline.

The man himself - she sees, peeking through a slit in the door - is in his early thirties, but dresses like a younger man. There’s ink on his fingers as he works on a letter, and he wears cotton wraps around his forearms to protect his silk gown from the same fate. He’s got clear Realm blood, mixed in with a more Tengese appearance. His brush flows as he writes and writes.

((Do the windows give an angle to the watchers?))
((He’s facing away from the mountain, so certainly not the Immaculates.))
((Hmm.))

Keris opens the door and slips inside.

“Danadu Mara?” she asks softly.

He starts, one hand going to the sheathed sword on his desk. “Who are you?!” he demands when he sees she isn’t one of his servants.

Keris gives him the same unimpressed look she gives to Kali when she throws a tantrum about not being allowed to chase rats into the spaces under the floorboards. “Our lord sent me here,” she says, her voice still low. “Where can speak in privacy? There are at least three groups watching the estate, and this room has too many windows for my liking.”

“What lord is that? The satrap?” His hand doesn’t leave his sword.

((Read Motivation, diff 4))
((5+1+2 Coadj+2 stunt=10. 11 successes, holy shit. Three tens, and only two dice that weren’t successes.))
Keris purses her lips slightly and narrows her eyes. So much for the hope that Ligier had let his cultist know she was coming in a similar way to how he’d given orders to her. So then, that makes this difficult. She’s not only going to have to extract the man, she’s going to have to convince him to come first. She lets the silence hang for a moment as she considers him, making no move from her position by the door. He’s lying, of course. She can see it. He’s keeping up a brave facade, but he’s terrified that this is some fake-out trick to get him to blurt things out. And from the way he bears himself, it wouldn’t be the first time.
“I speak of Ligier,” she says, lifting a hang in a casual motion to prevent her lips being read through the window by any unnaturally observant onlookers. “The Green Sun, crown prince of Hell, the greatest craftsman alive and the rightful lord and ruler of all. Show me to a place where we can speak freely, and I will show you his favour, so that you know you can trust me.”

He licks his lips. “I know of no such thing,” he says loudly. “Are you threatening me to come with you?”

Keris tilts her head and checks again for hidden listeners, while evaluating him with more ephemeral senses. Either he’s been flipped and this is a trap for her, with some concealed ambush waiting that he’s talking to... or far more likely, he’s covering his ass in fear that there might be enemies listening. After all, he doesn’t have hearing like hers. In which case, her answer is simple.

Keris smiles, chillingly. “For the purposes of this conversation, yes,” she says pleasantly. “I am. Now take me to a more private room, or I will drag you out of this door and find one myself. You have no choice in this.”
She reads him as she speaks. Evaluates what he expects from her. What he values. Oh, this man is a political animal indeed, and proud of it. He might pretend to be a wastrel, but he’s a keen monster of innuendo, threats, and subtle ploys. And he’s expecting her to threaten him and keep up his pretence - and then, if she’s telling him the truth, to make all his problems go away.
((He has Politics 3 + 3 dot style))

She raises an imperious eyebrow. “Well?” she asks impatiently. “Or do my knives need to come out and convince you further?”

He leads her down to his cellars - cooler, hewn from volcanic rock - and then a barrel of wine turns out to be a hidden tunnel into the magma tubes. It’s dark in here - pitch black. The only light is the candle he bought with him. But he knows the way, and leads her to a hidden grotto, where there are residual traces of fires and quartz glitters in the walls.

“Who... or what... are you?” he asks, face lit from below by the single flame in here. “And why do you speak His name?”

By way of answer, Keris lets the burning green brand on her forehead light up in an empty ring of Ligier’s fire.

“I stand among the highest ranks of his servants,” she says, the soft, low tone from upstairs replaced by imperious force. “Blessed by his fire and tasked with carrying out his will directly. I am a princess of the Green Sun, Danadu Mara, and my lord sent me here to extract you if you were faithful... or to kill you, should I find you had betrayed him.”

((Per + Expression, 2 dot stunt for being a dramatic bitch.))
((4+5+3 Prince(ss) of Hell Style+2 stunt=14. 11 sux, lawl.))

The man flinches back with a squeak. “One of the Wretched,” he gasps. “An anathema, one who has taken the power of the gods! So it is true and it is possible!”

Keris’s eyes narrow sharply.

“‘Wretched’?” she echoes in a tone that is superficially pleasant in the same way that the light reflecting off a knifeblade can look pretty. “‘Anathema’? Is this how you address a princess of lord Ligier’s domain? A peer of Hell sent to judge your loyalties and be your salvation or your death?”

“W-well... th-that is what the... the dreadful, heretical, evil, self-righteous curs of the Im-m-maculates call you,” he stammers. “If I h-have offended, my... your holiness, I... I wish to only m-make amends.” His words are falling over themselves, and he seems on the verge of fainting.

Keris folds her arms. “Will you swear your fealty to me, and to lord Ligier through me?” she demands. “Will you prove beyond doubt that you have not broken your faith; that you hold your oaths and loyalties true?”

He clasps his shaking hands together, down in these basalt caves. The sickly green of Keris’s brand paints his plump features and makes them look even queasier. “Of c-course! I haven’t talked to the m-m-magistrate! I know he’s watching me! And it wasn’t even my fault! He somehow knew to r-raid one of our caves and took the icon. The Immaculates st-stoned my cousin, because it was hidden in her estate. They suspect me - but that madwoman abbess doesn’t know for sure or I’d be dead, and the magistrate is still investigating. In s-some ways he’s scarier. It was that f-fucking alchemist he followed, I’m s-sure of it!”

Keris reaches forward and catches his wrist, pulling it towards her and pressing a thumb to the outside of his forearm. Her thumb teases into his flesh, reshaping and tinting it, and when she lifts it a moment later there is a thumb-sized mark there. A tattoo of a green eye carved on a stone throne, high enough on his arm that long sleeves will easily cover it. The sort of thing that might just be a meaningless piece of art, if someone without knowledge of demonic iconography saw it. But they both know the truth.

“So you have sworn,” says Keris. “And in your oath, I will trust. Now. Tell me of this icon.”

He talks. He damn near well sings. It’s an emerald statue, he says, something granted to the cult by a potent demon who one of their forefathers met at sea. A forearm-sized emerald of a handsome man with a ring of arms fanning out behind them. They’d kept it in a hidden temple under his cousin’s land, until the magistrate came and rooted them out and the Immaculates stoned, burned, drowned, and otherwise slew the cultists they found. And he blames the alchemist from An Teng for bringing this trouble to their door. The magistrate killed him himself, so they can’t even get revenge on this man who swore blind that he’d found a way to steal the power of the gods once again.

“The alchemist,” Keris prompts. “This man from An Teng who was your people’s doom. Tell me about him. He thought to steal the power of the gods?”

Mara nods. “Yes. He had his potions and his rituals and his formulae. He had found p-power, yes.. It seemed to work. We agreed to shelter him in return for his teachings and some of his texts, but the magistrate followed him here.”

“Hmm.” She cracks her knuckles. “Did he have a family name? A group, or a school he learned from? This affront should not go unpunished.”

He swallows. “No, I do not know. He was Tengese, or at least had their look, and said he was called Third Duck, but I do not believe that was his name.” He pauses. “If his books would help you...” he suggests, “... then I would willingly give them to you when I am saved from this dark fate.”

Keris considers this for a moment longer, and then nods. “Very well. Let’s talk about you, then. Since you remain loyal, my mission is to extract you, and not to kill you. The magistrate is suspicious enough of you that staying here is no longer an option. What contacts do you have who can shelter you once we’ve left?”

He shivers. “There are people... others I know. But... he will come for me. If I run... he tracked the alchemist. And my connections and my wealth...” Hugging his arms around himself, he asks, “Can’t you pin the blame on someone else? Make it look like they were framing me?”

She purses her lips again, keeping her smile inside. “You ask a lot,” she says, with the air of someone willing to be convinced. “Whoever it was would have to be killed trying to escape capture. They have ways to tell truth from lies when men protest their innocence. And to frame another noble well enough to fool the eyes of the Realm is more difficult than simply retrieving one from within their reach.”

“I can d-do more for you here,” he suggests, trying to hold himself together. “I’m a man of power and influence. I know p-people. Even if I have to leave to go travelling to let the suspicion die down, w-wouldn’t it be more useful to have someone loyal to you on Triumphant Air? This is the Realm’s naval base - and I have contacts among people who sell to the Navy. And House Danadu has allegiance to Tepet, but they’re weak now. The satrap here isn’t even dragon-chosen, and they’ve adopted the Cadet House and taken most of them off the island. Who’s left - one senile old woman living up in her sorcerer’s tower, and,” he nods, “Lilina Timkul - and everyone in the know is fully aware that Joni Timkul is a cuckold and all his children are the satrap’s bastards. Yes, I know that sort of thing. Things I can do for you here!”

Stroking her chin, Keris lets the silence hang in the air for juuuuust long enough that he starts to sweat.

And then she smiles, slowly.

“That is valuable,” she agrees, letting the mercury in her blood reflect his heart. “You know much about the rest of the Anarchy too, no doubt. Tell me, then. Who on Triumphant Air would the traitor-dragon of Earth believe to be a servant of our lord, who has reason to want you unjustly ruined? Who would you have fall in your place, that the Realm’s spies and monks would believe?”

((HP on his greatest desire, which I figure at this point has a high chance of being ‘save me and let me keep my wealth’.))
((Roll it, Diff 3 - reduced by how desperate he is, lol :p ))
((Hee hee. 4+1+2 stunt+3 Kimmy ExD {talent for temptation, darkest desires}=10. 6 sux.))
((Yeah, saving him and his wealth is his price right now.))

Oh, he has a suggestion. Yes he does. Leidang Xu, a retired Navy officer who owns a sizable estate next to Mana. Yes, he says as he lays things out, they might not want to believe a pensioned off Navy veteran would do this, but the two of them have bickered over land for five years now and both of them have lawsuits before the satrap right now. If Keris blamed this woman, she’d certainly have motive to try to take him down as that would win her the case - and likely secure her more of his land.

She turns the target over in her head, examining the con from different angles. It’ll be tricky to pull off, and she’ll have to get the magistrate to think it was his own investigation that rooted out the evidence she’ll plant... but it seems possible. Yes, definitely possible.

“In that case, Danadu Mara,” she smiles, “I believe we have a deal.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The dawn chorus is singing on Triumphant Air. The sound of the call to prayers from the Immaculate monastery is audible from where it rises over the bamboo forests and sugarcane of the slopes. Sounds are starting to come from the villages and towns on this volcanic island, as the animals wake the farmers. Even this early in the day, it’s already hot - it’s going to be scorching by midday.

A demonic anathema hears the pure voice of a nun calling her fellows to prayer, and smiles to herself. She spoke more with Danadu Mara over the course of the night. She knows more things about Leidang Xu, a woman who once sailed to the furthest reaches of the Anarchy with the Imperial Navy and fought pirates and raiders and terror-bird-worshipping cultists in long-forgotten islands, but now is a grey-haired landowner.

And she has a plan.

“So then,” she hums to Dulmea, curled up in a seat of bent bamboo within the impassable thickets. “This is going to be about even with Eshtock, I think. Less direct combat, but they’re more on-guard. I’ll work out the order later, but I’m thinking I can tattoo Leidang Xu and a few of her ex-Navy friends with a nice clearly demonic brand somewhere concealable, put a demonic shrine in her cellar, plant some kind of link to Danadu’s group to explain how they were working together, steal the idol and get seen doing it, and then lead the pursuers back to her without seeming to notice. Oh, and mutate her like that gambit I used back in Matasque, so she turns into a horrible demonic monster when they bust the door down and they kill her.”

“Hmm.” Dulmea plays melodically within Keris’s head, thinking. “I wonder if there is anything you can use in her past to give a just-so story as to how she was called to the worship of the Yozis. I am afraid, child, that this abbess and this magistrate might know too well what they are looking for. Gaps in the story might lead them to believe they have found two rival cults, rather than the origins of the real one.”

“Ooo, good idea!” Keris wriggles happily. “I’ll do some snooping, then. Bah, this means I’ll be here another day. I’ll have to do the shrine and the tattoos at night, and I need to figure out where the icon even is.”

She sighs.

“Well then, prep work it is. Find where the icon’s being kept, and figure out when Leidang Xu became a cultist.” With a graceful sinuous motion she twists out of the cradle of bamboo stalks, paying no attention to the way they all sproing back upright, and sets off towards Rising Steam once more.

“Child,” Dulmea’s voice echoes in her head. “Why must we rush? A mistake here would be severely injurious to your goal from an Unquestionable - and your own personal greed to steal one of his faithful.” There is a distinctly chiding note in her tone.

“... because the magistrate isn’t going to wait forever?” Keris suggests as she moves through the bamboo; thickets bending obligingly out of her way to let her past before returning to where they were with barely a rustle. “I’m loyal to Ligier, so if one of his cultists is loyal to me that just means he’s better kept-on task and I’ve got more resources to do my job. And also Ligier’s jobs. But if Mr ‘Let’s Shut Down An Entire Island’ gets impatient from me waiting too long to give him something else to bite and grabs Danadu for deep questioning... you know how fast the one in Agenete caught me out. And then I’d have to rush in and kill Danadu to keep him quiet with even less prep time. Which would lose Ligier a cultist.”

“Mmm. Perhaps.” Dulmea plays a melancholy tune. “But he is expendable, child - and rushing this risks revealing to the magistrate that there is a greater conspiracy. As it is, he believes he knows what he is dealing with. But this magistrate might dig deeper if he is not convinced. That might be more dangerous to you - and to the greater cause of your mission here.”

“... fiiiine,” Keris sighs. “As long as it takes to do proper set-up. But no more than a week. I don’t want to leave Atiya alone for too long, and Kali and Ogin will already be getting up to mischief.”

“You are always so hasty, child,” Dulmea says. “And this is not Eshtock, not a ruin occupied by jumpy soldiers where - even if things had gone wrong - you could just leave your mess behind with no risk of the men of Lookshy finding you. This is your own area of operations - and only blood apes defecate where they will eat.” Keris can hear the wrinkled nose.

“I know, mama,” Keris sighs, hanging her head. “You’re right. As usual.” She pauses long enough to convey an appropriate level of contriteness, then cocks her head. “So... reckon the idol is in the big Realm fortress?”

“It is a blasphemous icon to those heretics,” Dulmea says. “They will not keep it anywhere where it might be at risk. Does the magistrate have secure quarters? Maybe? Maybe not. But I would say that the monastery is the most likely place, given that this would permit them to surround it with trained monks away from those who are not indoctrinated into the false faith of the Immaculates.”

Keris eyes the faint shape of the temple on the mountain through the morning mist, crinkling her nose. “I’ll... go find Leidang Xu’s estate first, then,” she decides. “Framing her is the start of the plan, so getting information on her should come before poking the protections around the idol.”

It’s simple enough to find her estate. After all, Keris knows it’s next to Mara’s one. Perched up a cherry tree - that sadly only has as-yet-unripe green cherries - she peers down into the lands.

Leidang Xu has clearly done nicely for herself since she left the Imperial Navy. She has a sizable manor with two stories and three wings, built in the Realm style out of local materials. A clear mountain stream runs into a small lake, and she has many fields growing what look to be a mix of rice in the upper reaches and sugar in the lower reaches. Keris’s eyes narrow. She even has her own private hot springs - though on this volcanic island, they are common.

This early in the morning, the workers are out in the fields and clearly have been so since long before dawn, doing what they can before the real heat of the day hits. And there - ah ha, on a rooftop garden on the manor house is a silver-haired woman, sitting under a red parasol. Keris can’t see much more detail from here, but she’s willing to bet it’s the lady of the house. She’s much paler than the workers in the fields.
Her eyes flash green as she observes the woman, suppressing an uncomfortable shiver at the resemblance to Sasi. This frame job just became a lot less palatable, she thinks with a sour note. Though this woman is just human - nothing special about her there. Nice and weak.
((E0, no aspect))

That’s a relief. So then. Keris cracks her knuckles. How to find out about this lady’s past? She could break into her office and read her private diaries. She could listen to rumours on the streets and ask around about the ex-marine’s career. She could even, theoretically, layer Rathanite innocence over herself and go ask directly, though that is not something she is going to do when she’s deliberately trying to avoid leaving a trail.

After a few moments of thought, Keris decides to combine plans A and B. She can scope out the manor while she’s here, peek into the office and scout around to see if there are any convenient cellars a shrine would fit in. And then, if that doesn’t give her enough, she can put on a disguise and talk to some of the locals. She's entirely used to this kind of thing. It is her stock in trade, more than about anything. Keris crawls through the fields on far too many limbs, noting approaches and paths and any interesting things she finds. She takes the chance to take a dip in Xu’s hot springs, just because she can. And then she’s scaling the wooden wall, crawling in between two half-open shutters, and the monster is in the house. Hunting.

((Dramatic action to snoop and info-gather! I’m gonna EH her with what I find here.))
((What are you envying about her?))
((Her cushy position and actually-well-furnished manor that she got from her years of Navy service. If she still has Realm Backing then that, otherwise her property and life of comfort.))
((Keris’s manor is probably bigger but not nearly as nice. :c))
((Yeah, you’re envying her home and assets and stuff here, so the bonus applies to studying them too. Take your heartsap dose and gain your Principle.))
((Mwaa haa. +4 sux, “Leidang Xu is a Rich Realm Sellout”.))
((OK, now roll Investigation to investigate her stuff.))
((5+1+2 Coadj+2 stunt+4 EH sux=10. 5+4=9 sux.))
((God, Keris you are a terrifying investigator when it comes to people you’re envying.))

The lady’s house has smooth waxed floors of cherry wood, and elegant paper walls painted with abstract art in the Realm style. It’s not as lavish or expensive as the house of Strong Ox or Jade Fox, though - but Dulmea seems almost to prefer it for its restrained nature. Reading some papers on her desk, Keris finds that Leidang is in fact a Lesser House of the Realm, which makes a lot of sense - this is the house of a member of the lesser nobility of the Realm, who probably retired to the South West because she had grown used to the weather... but also because her money goes much further here. Keris recalls what Sasi has said about the price of land on the Blessed Isles. She’s living like a wealthy noble here, when she'd probably have far less comfort in her homeland.

In the basements Keris finds that just like Mara’s house, this place is built on volcanic rock. When she taps the ground, she hears the echoes underneath. Xu hasn’t expanded her basement beyond what she has, but there will no doubt be hidden caves somewhere on her land - and if there aren’t any already, she can probably make an opening to one.

But it’s in the personal museum that Keris finds the very interesting things. It’s a trophy room of things the woman has collected over her life. There are tiger skin rugs on the floor, feathered cloaks made from terror birds and tyrant birds, and all kinds of triumphant things seized from her old victories. There’s damaged armour, broken spears, and obsidian-edged clubs. There are facades of old ruins that she pried off and has now hung on the wall, and there’s a collection of shrunken heads behind glass. There’s a Tengese battle-mask and a polished jade cat figurine.

Bitter, seething envy squirms in Keris’s gut as she sees all the lovely things the woman has taken in plunder or bought over the years. There’s a hissing in her ears as her po feels the same biting hate-envy-want. She must have been all over the South West!

The worst part - the really infuriating part - is that Keris can’t take any of it. It would be noticed missing - and not just by Leidang, but it would also foul up her frame job if the magistrate noticed. Seething spite and resentment bubbles in her gut as she surveys the hoard she can’t claim, and her mouth contorts into a snarl.

... on the other hand, the thought occurs to her, worming its way in through the back of her mind... a lot of this stuff is wooden, or once-living. Like... those bone masks mounted above the feather cloaks, which must have come from tyrant lizard skulls from the size of the solid bone chunks they’re carved from. She could reshape those easily. And the clubs, too, are just volcano glass in wood. The shrunken heads would be easy.

It wouldn’t be hard at all, Keris considers, to make subtle little adjustments to a number of these trophies that imply they’re linked to Hell. Demonic symbols on the inner face of the bone masks, vitriol-treatment for a single broken spearhead among the others, anathemic slave-brands on the tongues of the shrunken heads. It would look like her proud collection had been built up from finding places demons had taken hold. Like she’d been gloating by showing them off, secure in her arrogance that nobody would know enough to spot the subtle signs of what she knew was there.

The very hoard she was so smugly proud of would be her downfall. Keris croons to herself, very taken with the idea. Oh yes, oh yes, the irony there would be delicious. And who would be able to tell? After all, her roots reshape things with inhuman skill. The marks and glyphs would look like they’d been there all along.

((So, Cog + Occult, Diff 5, for this kind of very nuanced subtle forgery. Incidentally, creating icons of the Yozis is an act of depravity by both Realm and local law, so is valid for Passing Off Blame. Will this be conventional art, or are you using any Charms in the effects, etc?))
((This is what Pelagic Muse Artistry is made for. Keris will imbue all the ‘improvements’ she makes with inhuman alien cadence via the success-adder, and give a few of them warping effects. Mostly Delusions; that demons already rule the world, that the sun is a traitor trying to destroy Creation, etc. Only a few, though - the idea will be that most of them have lost their power or never had any in the first place, and Xu only found a few with genuine magical effects.))
((3+5+1 Utz Semivir Style+2 stunt+4 PMA sux=11. 2+4=6 sux, geez that was close. Activating Passing Off Blame as well. Fictional series of events is that Leidang found relics of demonic cults in her travels and collecting spree, and was seduced into worship of the Yozis by them.
POB roll: 3+5+3 Mendaciloquent Maverick+1 bonus {forged evidence}+2 stunt+4 Kimmy ExSux {vile art, elegant practicality, curses}=14. 10+4=14 sux. Lol, just try and see through that.))

Keris does her alterations quickly and quietly, so perhaps they’re not quite as beautiful as she could make them if she tried. That’s okay though. These are meant to be things made by scattered cultists from across the Anarchy - a little artistic crudeness is to be expected. She makes sure to scatter a few bits of Lintha iconography among the seagoing pieces and pops Ligerian glyphs along the face-down side of a broken spearhaft, as a special present for the magistrate.

She also ensures that a few of the ‘improvements’ are maddening glyphs that will paint delusions into the minds of those who study them too long. Crazed fantasies that demons already rule the world, or that the Sun is traitorous and harmful to Creation. There are only two or three of those - few enough that they look like lucky finds among the merely mundane relics of Yozi worship. But they’ll paint an enlightening picture as to how a loyal Realm marine might have ended up worshipping demons after a collecting spree across the Anarchy.
By the time she is done, it is past lunch time and the buzz of conversation and clatter of chopsticks can be heard from somewhere down the hall. She might have guests over - or might just be eating with family. Keris isn’t sure. Either way, she’s made her fake art. Time to think of what else to do - she thinks to the not-yet-sated hiss of her po. After a last check to make sure none of the changes she’s made are obvious, she slinks out and up onto the roof, thinking.
“Okay,” she murmurs to Dulmea. “So that’s the just-so story. And unless she actually picks up some of the things in there she won’t notice anything even if she has it all memorised; none of my changes are visible with how they’re set up. So that’ll keep, if I want to wait longer.”

Lips pursed, Keris stares up at the illegal sky of Creation and ponders.

“So... next step would be an evil demonic shrine somewhere on her property that they’d find if they searched,” she thinks. “That’s probably safe to do now too. If I put it in a hidden cave, she and her servants won’t find it, and it’ll fill the space until tonight. It’s the tattoos and the theft of the icon that’ll tip things over into playing out.”

“Mmm,” Dulmea agrees. “And perhaps you should make sure that the other Realm navy people are similarly compromised.” Keris can hear the smile. “As you showed one of the Unquestionable, when playing tiles it is best to ensure that your set is known to win before you play it.”

((OK, zoom out a bit. Roll Cog + Occult to build a fake Yozi shrine somewhere on her land - and then roll to cover it up with PoB, then roll me Cog + Subterfuge as a Minor Strategic Action to set up similar framing on the rest of the targets. and reinforce the stories while also cleaning up the links that Mara has. Remember, no Excellencies for Strategic actions - it’s serving to enable Keris’s scheming. This strategic action will be contesting the magistrate’s strategic investigation action, so consider how you want to enhance it, channelled principles, etc.))
((Oh, Keris. She is a spiteful little thing. Okay, hmm. For the shrine, amusingly, I’m pretty sure Temple-as-Body Style applies.))
((Yes. It’s OK.))
((Hee. So, construction is 3+5+3 TaB+2 stunt+4 PMA sux=13. 7+4=11 sux, obviously enhanced by Well-Reputed Grotto. Shrine is to Kimbery, with elements of Ligier-worship added on top. POB roll for the shrine is the same as before, which come to think of it gets a 3-die stunt because it’s fucking over a subject of her envy, so 15 dice; 5+4=9 sux.))

Keris spends the afternoon making a shrine to Kimbery.

She breaks into one of the hidden caves on the grounds and carefully erases all evidence of passage through it. Being deliberately intensive means that any traces of how many people have entered are gone, but the signs of someone having scrubbed the footprints and tracks thoroughly are there to an experienced eye. Sometimes a total wipe is as telling as an incomplete one.

She constructs, within the cave, a lovely, awful thing. A shrine to the Great Mother, made of driftwood and bamboo warped to look like coral and vitriol-marred stone. It pulses faintly, like a heartbeat, and she knows the alien cadences of its aesthetics will prove addictive if visited often enough. Around it she scatters other things - little metal idols reforged from stolen, broken trinkets to mimic the look of the many-armed emerald man the magistrate took. The shrine is to Kimbery, but Keris makes sure to litter about evidence of Ligierian worship as well.

The Great Mother for the waters of the Anarchy, and the Green Sun for success and wealth and fame, she thinks. Two different demons worshipped, likely due to contamination from two different cultist tribes. Both would make sense for an ambitious Realm noble with naval ties - ocean travel is critical here in the Southwest, and the Green Sun is strongly tied to warfare, wealth and authority.

((And now the strategic action. Hmm. So this is the one I want to do really well on.))
((So, I’ll obviously enhance it with a third Passing Off Blame, and also channel my spite towards Leidang to add 3 dice to my roll. Or... hmm. Can I channel the Love of Art for this beautiful Zanara-invoking performance?))
((Hmm. I’m going to allow it, if you want to accept that “Love of Art” is also going to shift a bit to reflect “Being a Melodramatic Bitch”.))
((Zanara is probably 100% OK with that, unfortunately.))
((...))
((I mean))
((It’s not like Keris isn’t a melodramatic bitch))
((so what does that actually change, in practice?))
((Precisely. But I mean, it’s not just a love of art, it’s going to compel showy, melodramatic actions unless resisted by another Principle. :p))
((Hmm.))
((Yeah, fuck it, I’ll go for it. She’s a coward, but that’s a Principle that will resist it when it’s not safe. And she went for showy melodrama even in Eshtock.))
((Heh. Shift Love of Art to something like Love of Artistry and Dramatics.))
((I mean, we can just keep it as “Love of Art” with the understanding that Keris’s opinions on “Art” are Zanaran.))
((Mmm.))
((Okay. So, Strategic Action roll is 3+5+3 Mendaciloquent Maverick+1 “forged evidence” bonus+3 stunt (EH)+4 Love of Art=19. 6 sux.
Enhanced by POB - do I get to apply Excellencies to that? Hmm, probably not. So that’s just the base 15 for... 9 sux; nice.))

Evidence firmly planted in Leidang’s estate, Keris goes off to find her friends. It’s getting late now - she spent six hours or more on the shrine, so the sun is low on the horizon as she stalks the city in search of the other ex-Navy officers Mara told her about. They, too, get subtle signs of Yozi worship planted in their homes. A scroll here detailing a ritual prayer to Ligier. A painting there that has a Kimberian behemoth painted on the other side where it can easily be flipped around to face the room; a many-tentacled monster with strange proportions and unsettlingly human eyes creased in a recognisable smile of joy.

By the time she’s finished with the third place, it’s getting genuinely late, and people have gone to bed by the time she’s finished. She pauses after exhausting the last of her list, mulling over her options. All she needs now is a convincing link - besides the clear evidence of Ligier-worship she’s left behind her - between this cult and the members of the real one the magistrate has already caught. And then, the tattoos and the theft.

Hmm. Planting evidence is easy, but manufacturing a consistent shared history with the real cult is going to be trickier. This, Keris thinkg resignedly, may take a while.

((OK, his strategic roll is 13 dice, plus 4 autosuccesses from having the Immaculates as “tools”. 8 + 4 successes = 12, but his difficulty is raised by 9 from the Passing Off Blame, reducing him to 3 successes.))

As the first week, then the second passes by, Keris comes to know her rival better.

Ragara Midari is a dangerous man. A very, very dangerous man who knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s not some fat noble who investigates crimes like a hobbyist. Behind that unassuming frame, that slightly shaggy dark hair, those sky blue eyes is a mind that is a cruel and pitiless machine.

He’s soft spoken. He gives his orders in a voice that barely rises above a whisper, and everyone obeys. The local nobles complain behind his back about what he’s doing to trade, but they don’t say it out loud. Because they’re scared of him. They’re scared of his little meetings, where he invites someone in to the room in the satrap’s house he’s working out of, and he offers them wine and talks to them. Just... talks. About small things. Pleasantries. And then he drops a few things that let them know how much he’s put together, and offers them a chance to confess. Sometimes they do.

And if they’re lying when they confess, he often knows. He’s a terrifying man. One who doesn’t just accept the easy answer.

Keris can barely keep ahead of him. And it’s only her elaborate chains of forged evidence, her carefully placed insinuations, the fact she murders a few cultists in ways that she passes off as natural causes before he can get to them, which keeps her careful edifice of spinning plates intact. If she’d been a few days later, he would probably have rolled up the whole case.

Dulmea is much too admiring when she and Keris talk about how to stop his latest play, his latest move. And that’s the right metaphor, because sometimes he plays Gateway against the satrap - and against anyone else who will play him. He doesn’t lose.

Honestly, Keris hasn’t felt so alive since Malra. And she hasn’t felt so scared. No one on Saata, not any of those fat, lazy blue sea masters, have been a threat to her like him.

((What Aspect is he? Did you say?))
((I didn’t, but he’s Air - hence the sky-blue eyes. Enlightenment 5.))
((Passing Off Blame is really, really pulling its weight here. If DBs had something that just let them ignore external penalties, Keris would be fuuuuuuuuuucked.))
((PS Ney has something that lets him just ignore external penalties.))

The shark, Keris takes to calling him by the end of the first week. Oh, his nature is Air, but she thinks of him as a shark. He’s quiet. He lurks under the surface, unseen until he isn’t, always swimming, never stopping, his cold eyes watching remorselessly and his senses picking up the tiniest hint of blood in the water from miles away.

By the third day she’s sent Iris as a Messenger back to Saata, telling Rounen and her Gale that she’s going to be occupied for a while. By the end of the first week, she’s half-forgotten about Ali and Zany. As the second rolls to a close, even Danadu Mara has almost entirely slipped out of mind. She just doesn’t have the focus to spare for anything that’s not the frighteningly brilliant player on the other side of the lethal game she’s playing. Her nerves are buzzing, her senses are sharper than ever, her muscles tingle and her hair twitches. All her energy, all her attention is focused like a Ligerian sunlance on a foe who doesn’t even know she’s there - and who’s still nearly winning.

It’s a rush like nothing else.

She’s enjoying it so much, in fact, that it’s Dulmea who tells her she needs to end this - now.

“Child,” she says, hair wrapped around a mug of tea. “We need to close this up. This man is... he’s like a demon lord. Is this what it’s like to go up against Lucien? I fear it is closer than anyone should know. I have told you delay, but I believe now we must act.”

Rathan, sitting beside her, nods. “I don’t want that mind aimed at you, mama,” he says. “He scares me. He’d probably hate you even if I put everything into protecting you.”

“Fine,” Keris sighs. They’re right, she supposes. She’s known where the idol was since the turn of the week, and she has the tattoos all planned and ready. “Tonight, then.”

It’s fitting, Keris supposes, as she sets out. The moon is nearly full, and shines brightly over the island. It casts halos across the sky, from the clouds from the rain earlier today. Howler monkeys call out and in the bamboo and the cane there are croaking amphibians and buzzing insects. It’s still warmer here than it ever got in Taira, but at night it’s fresher and less muggy.

All in all, it’s a lovely night for some breaking and entering. Although she might wish, in fact, there was a little less moonlight.

It’s a busy night, even before she hits the shrine. She does Leidang Xu first, hearing the hiss and bubble of the metody guarding the shrine as she enters the woman’s estate. Leidang is asleep, and she doesn’t react as Keris creeps up to her bed. Pulling back the covers would risk waking her, so she doesn’t bother. Instead, Keris teases root-fingers straight through the covers and paints directly into skin; a leering demonic face in vibrant green the size of her thumb on the underside of the woman’s breast.

Pigment isn’t the only thing she deposits. There’s poison there too; lots of it, in deep mutative blues and violets. When Leidang’s heart starts to beat too fast, when she’s terrified for her life, the other form beneath her skin - scaled and muscular and a quarter as high again, with rending talons and no voice except a chilling shriek - will emerge. Explosively. As will a furious intemperate rage.
That should take care of any protestations of innocence nicely, Keris reckons. She makes her other little visits, heading to the houses she’s identified over her time on Triumphant Air. She’s carefully made up the narrative behind this cult - Imperial sailors corrupted by something they found in the South, lured into darker practices over time, and she’s planted her evidence. With Mara’s help she identified the weak points in his cult, and reshaped them so they pointed to this lot.
And now? Now she’s nearly won. The rush as she plants the tattoo that will discredit this woman and lose her lovely house and all her lovely collections of precious things and her tiger skin rugs... oh, the rush is worth the fact she’s been so busy she hasn’t had time for Sasi.

Then she’s up the mountain. Up to the blocky, austere Immaculate temple.

This isn’t the first time Keris has hit Dragonblooded. It’s not even the first time she’s hit Immaculate Dragonblooded. But it is the first time she’s hit an actual honest-to-the-dragons temple of Immaculates.

She is justifiably wary.

It takes not one, not two but three loops circling the place before she even decides on her entry route, and she is, if anything, even more apprehensive than the baseline taut-bowstring tension she’s been working under for the last fortnight. Some part of her suggests that this is probably an overreaction for a temple that may only have one or two Dragonblooded... but Keris ignores it. She’s right at the cusp of winning. She’s not going to relax until her fake cult is wrapped up and she has idol, Lionesses and family all back safe in Saata.

((Reaction + Command to study the layout and defences.))
((FLGing the Leidang EH Principle, EHing the abbess for her Backing (Immaculates) to replace it. 5+0+3 stunt (EH)+2 Coadj+4 EH autosux=10. 1+4=5 sux.))

Her resentment spikes as she plans her approach. She’s killed gods and ghosts and demons. She’s splattered the gore of princes of chaos across their innermost sanctums. She’s run with the Silent Wind and weathered the ire of the Green Sun himself. And yet so dominant, so monolithic is the Immaculate Order that she has to skulk and cringe and hide from them.

Even as her enmity towards Leidang Xu gutters out with a satisfied sigh, a brand-new spiteful hatred for the abbess of this outpost of fucking monks takes its place.

The monastery itself reminds her somewhat of some of the fortresses she saw back in Taira . Its walls are solid stone, well-grounded in the earth, and unlike the nobles down on the plains the Immaculates didn’t build on hollow magma tubes. No, they built this place to last. Keris reckons it’d take an army to siege it, and no doubt they’ve got plenty of supplies in there, as well as kitchen gardens.

In fact, it looks like the temple has been built up in the past few years. Keris can see parts where the stonework has been repaired, and others where the walls have been thickened. She frowns. Thickened and old decorations mortared over to cover them up.

But it’s still a temple, and though it could be a fortress, it’s not being one right now. There’s no one patrolling the walls. There are still people up and about, but Keris sees it’s five robed monks and nuns, sitting around a burning fire in the centre under the cover of a pagoda. They’re meditating, but as she watches one of them gets up to check on the fire, and feeds it more fuel. Probably something religious about keeping the fire always burning.

Inside the walls, beyond the fire, it’s kind of... pretty, in an austere way. The buildings are simple, but harmoniously shaped, and the gravel gardens have been freshly raked after the rain earlier today. There’s a fish pond catching the run-off for springs, and by the smell of things the koi in there are how they dispose of scraps from the kitchens. It’s all... elegant. Not a thing out of place.

((What are the general Enlightenments of the people she’s seeing? Heh. E9 lets her spam IEI for free, just a charm activation action, so she can use it extensively nowadays.))
((E0s and E1s of the monks and nuns around the fire. No one else is really up ‘cause it’s the early hours of the morning.))

There’s nobody particularly powerful that she can see. Nobody who feels like a threat. Paranoia tempered but not entirely checked, Keris moves in, giving the fire a wide berth in favour of the more solid-walled rooms where, for example, a dangerous demonic idol might be locked up. She can afford to take her time for the moment as she searches... but not for too long. She’d really rather not have to get away in broad daylight.

There’s chanting coming from within one of the larger, more solid temple structures. Keris crawls up a wall like a spider, and squeezes her head through a gap in the shutters to peek in.

The first thing that catches her eye is the giant dragon stone statues in this room. In the candlelight, they flicker and waver, almost like they’re moving. She frowns. They almost resemble the blue jade dragon she sto- bravely rescued back in Eshtock.

The second are the chanting monks and nuns. They’re letting out a long, slow, droning chant that reaches a crescendo before falling dead silent and building back up again. There’s quite a few of them, in their many coloured robes. Some of them are awakened to essence; others are not.

The third is the shaven-headed nun at the front, who positively burns compared to the rest.

((E4, Fire aspected))

And only then does she see the forearm-sized emerald statue, sitting on a stone plinth and covered in prayer strips and wax seals and hanging charms of string and jade beads.

((Reaction + Occult to study the ritual, Diff 3))
((5+5+2 Coadj+2 stunt=14. 4 sux. 4 sux?! Urgh, fine, 4 sux.))

Hmm. Keris peers at it, waiting. She... she thinks this is a purification ritual of some kind. Trying to get rid of the demonic taint. But from the traces of old wax she can smell under the newer, fresh wax, she thinks it’s probably a repeat attempt. This isn’t the first time they’ve tried it. Maybe they’re trying to wear it down, so to speak.

Regardless, she suspects they’ve been at it for a while. Some of the monks and nuns at the back are shifting around to try to maintain blood flow. And as she waits and watches, two more nuns step in, one holding a vessel of water and a dipper, and the other fresh herbs. To the droning chant, they scatter droplets of water across the statue, then toss the herbs onto it. They retreat, and join the chanters.

And then the nun who burns steps up to the front, lays her hands on the statue, and there is fire.

She ignites, her burning soul surging forth with terrible fury. It entirely envelops the statue and her, and the flames reach up and up. Wrapped in a bonfire, she holds the statue in both hands...

... and all the fire around her surges down into white hot heat from her hands. Keris feels her face dry and she recoils back. She has no idea how the merely mortal monks and nuns stand it.

Slowly, blinking away tears, her vision returns. The statue is still there in her hands, but everything around it has melted off. Even from this distance, it’s making an audible plinking noise as it cools.

A gong is sounded, and the lesser monks file out.

“It is still here,” says the water-sprinkler, who smells like the gods.

“Yes,” says the burning nun, whose eyes still glow like red hot coals. “But it is weakening! I can feel the demonic power in it grow weaker each time! We will purify it! I am sure of it! I will do that, and we will have destroyed this potent icon of the most wicked cults! It will be done!”

Yeah, Keris thinks sadly. This is probably not going to go down well with Ligier. And it looks like a rescue is in the cards.

... wait a second. Young Immaculate hardliner. Strongest person in the room. Leading the ritual. Determined to destroy this demonic idol.

And hadn’t Mara mentioned offhandedly that the abbess here was one of Fire? Or... possibly that she’d arrived in Fire. One of the two. Either way, this is probably that bitch of an abbess, which means that if Keris steals the idol now, she’ll be able to recover it safely and also additionally get to punch her in the face as a bonus.

... of course, she might do the same thing the Fire Aspect in Agenete had done and light her feet on fire to go faster while chasing Keris out. Or have other mean cruel totally unfair tricks in store.

Pursing her lips, Keris weighs her options and veeeery reluctantly decides against jumping down there at once to smack the smug self-righteous bitch in the face. All the other monks are gone, so it might be that they’re taking a break or resting before the next ritual - in which case the abbess herself probably won’t stay and guard it. Which will make it a great deal safer to steal.

She’s reverting to the punching plan at the first sign of any more ritual stuff, though.

The water sprinkler bows to the suspected-abbess, and then pours the remaining water over the top of the idol. “I pray it will be so,” he says, to an eruption of steam.

The three of them turn to go, and as they leave, the abbess happens to glance in Keris’s direction.

((Contested her Reaction + Awareness vs your Phys + Subterfuge. 5 successes for her.))
((...))
((...))
((Uh. So. Relevant question. Given Keris is just poking her head through the window and peeking in, does she count as having cover bonuses?))
((Yes. +2.))
((Oh good. 5+5+3 Lurking Predator+2 stunt x2 HPC=15. +2 cover bonus is also doubled by HPC to make +4.))
((... 2x2=4 sux. 1x2 sux on cover bonuses = 6 sux total.
((I literally would have been spotted if not for cover.
((Dice fairies.
((Seriously.
((Why.))
((They’re my allies. They want drama.))
((Well then they got it. That was probably, uh, the most terrifying roll result this arc.))
((I was like “it’s cool, I only need 3 sux on 15 dice, and then rolled 2 and sort of sat and stared for a moment.))
((I was about to post “well, I’m fucked” when I remembered HPC doubles cover bonuses and almost cried with relief.))

Keris freezes. She wasn’t expecting them to turn and look towards the corner of the room she’s sticking her head into through the window. And because she wasn’t expecting it, she’d craned through a bit further to get a better view - and to prepare to pounce, in the moments she’d considered leaping down and punching the woman. She’s out of position, her head is exposed, and all she can do is hold perfectly still and pray that her hair and her camouflage break up her silhouette enough against the sky and the frame of the window to disguise her.

Her burning eyes pause on Keris. Right on Keris. She frowns. Opens her mouth.

“Tell One Rock to stop leaving the shutters open,” she says, slumping slightly. She looks tired, though she’s a proud woman trying to hide it.

There’s a faint ringing in Keris’s ears as she watches the Immaculates turn and leave. Her heart is hammering so loudly that she’s surprised it hasn’t given her away, and she’s covered in a fine coat of cold sweat. Distantly, she registers that her hands are shaking. Her hands - her thief’s hands, her pickpocket’s hands - are actually shaking.

Numb with adrenaline crash and a kind of peaceful, serene sense of horror, she very carefully waits until they’re gone, pours herself in through the window, huddles behind a convenient dragon statue and hyperventilates for a while.

Dulmea is going to rip into her for that, and she can’t even complain.

Dulmea says nothing. Dulmea, quite deliberately says nothing. The volume of her saying nothing is deafening. Keris is equally silent, and their mutual mutenesses hold a rich and tapestried conversation that’s probably very interesting and full of witty and eloquent dialogue, and which feels about as far away as the rest of the world does right now as Keris comes down from the near-panic attack.

Makers. If this is what Sasi feels like when her plans fall apart, no wonder she’s shit at improvising.

Taking a deep breath and pulling her shadow over herself, Keris takes on the form of a dark-robed figure - with, perhaps, a hint of silver hair escaping from the hood. Peeking round the leg of the dragon statue serving as her cover, she rolls out, warily approaches the idol, and - after a moment’s consideration spent checking for traps - swipes it.

For a moment, the world slows as Keris’s hand approaches the idol. Wait why is that, what’s the danger, she wonders to herself oh wait maybe it’s someone behind her no that’s not the crimson she tastes, not the danger that keeps her nerves humming oh yes it’s the statue itself something about it something she’s forgetting but what is it oh wait no right she remembers it’sstillreallyreallyhotsheshouldn’ttouchit.

((Warning from her surprise negator not to touch the still very hot statue))
((She will still do it unless she spends 1m. :V))

Hesitating, she wrinkles her nose, hisses out a quiet curse and grabs it anyway. Emerald holds heat well, and she can’t wait for this thing to cool down. It’s just a burn. She’ll heal.

((Diff 3 Endurance + Athletics to resist the environmental effect.))
((... haha.))
((Flip a coin. I call heads. Or 1, if you roll a 1d2.))
((1))
((Keris is ambidextrous. She grabbed it with her left hand.))
((Her left hand that’s immune to environmental damage. :V))
((Which she did not know about, until now.))
((Lol Keris bracing for the pain, and then, uh. Nothing. Just a pleasant warmth and Iris cooing happily.))

Keris feels... warm. Kind of warm. And... ah yes, the emerald statue feels like both holding her hand in the sunlight in Hell and holding it close to a fire.

It’s not burning.

Huh.

((Mingling Fire and Ligierian essence in the statue.))

Iris sticks her head up from under the shadow disguise Keris is wearing, and tilts it. She breathes out a fiery question mark.

“I’m... pretty sure this is hot enough to char wood,” Keris tells her, somewhat confused. “It should be burning me. Why... why is it not burning me?”

Iris nuzzles her hand, coiling around her shadow-covered flesh playfully. She’s either trying to explain something, or she got bored.

Gods, this is just like dealing with Eko when she was really young.

“... fine, never mind, work it out later,” Keris decides pragmatically. “For now, running. And being seen running. Back under the shadows, babygirl, mama needs to be clever and artistic for this bit.”

Iris puffs out her cheeks, but reluctantly complies. She’s probably feeling neglected and will need some playing with if she wants her to behave.

... also she’s probably missing Zanara. Iris does seem to love her creator.

Keeping the idol in her hand in lieu of anywhere to put it - and because being seen running off with it will honestly help her case here - Keris sneaks back out of the building, heads towards the edge of the monastery, and considers her options for getting seen. Hmm... yes, one of the five around the fire, she thinks, glimpsing her out of the corner of her eye as she slips between buildings. She can angle her hand just right to let the moonlight reflect off the idol as she rounds a corner. And then run for it when the shouting starts, avoiding the spies in the village and the location of the marine hide watching Mara’s house but acting as though she’s not aware of the telescope outpost up here. That’ll let them see her go into Leidang’s manor.

((OK, we can zoom out to more narrative time, so roll Physique + Expression for how Keris sells her DRAMA QUEEN theft))
((5+5+3 stunt {EH attacking the Backing of the Immaculates for losing such a valuable seized artifact this time}+3 Mendaciloquent Maverick+4 Love of Art {and Melodrama}=20. 7 sux.))
((And do I need to activate POB for this as well? Hmm. Yeah, probably. 15 dice+4 Kimmy autosux; 9+4=13 sux. Mwaa haa. Oh Rathan. He has been very helpful on this job.))
((Rathan is sitting back in Keris’s head, looking smug but also starting to miss Oula.))

All things considered, Keris views herself as an artiste. And this was art. Yes, art. She shivers in pleasure as - safely away from the manor - she watches the angry monks march on the land. They don’t stop. And oh, look, there’s the whoomph of fire as the abbess kicks down the door, her feet trailing flames.

You know what she could do with, Keris thinks, listening to the shouting and the yells, and the angry accusations from afar. She could do with an apple. Yes. Or maybe cherries. They’ll be ripe soon. Fresh cherries. Lovely. Mmm mmm... oh, there’s the bestial shriek from Leidang Xu.

That’s cut off almost immediately. Only gurgles remain.

She can hear the shouts of the abbess, yelling at her - probably tired and on edge - monks and nuns about demons. And she orders them to get everyone lined up outside, and that no one is leaving, and “... by all five dragons, someone get me the magistrate!”

Keris basks in triumph for an appropriate period of self-congratulatory gloating, then slinks into Mara’s estate to give the man the good news. That she’s delivered him from damnation. That his rival is dead, and her ‘cult’ will be wrapped up over the next few days.

That he owes her. Big-time. He’s hers now.

She takes one last chance to sit back and watch the magistrate at work, too. Partly to gloat in her success. Mostly because holy shit she’s terrified he’ll see through it.

((Reaction 4 + Investigation 5 + 3 dot Ice-Hearted Inquisitor Style + 1 Style + 2 + 4 dot “Find the Truth, No Matter What” = 19 dice, Diff 3 investigation, -13 external penalty. He needs 16 successes.))
((... you’re taking ages to post, this is torture.))
((He gets...
... 13.))

He wraps up her convoluted set of leads and clues with petrifying speed. The abbess is his chasing hound, and he’s the houndmaster who finds the tattoo she left for him, recognises the demonic art in the gallery, and tracks down the demon grotto based on his certainty that it has to be here somewhere.

Within a week, the fake cult Keris has manufactured have been taken down - and most of them are dead. They turned into monsters when stressed. Some killed themselves first - perhaps because they turned from the stress before the magistrate came for them.

All in all, it’s quite a nice little story. Demon cult among Imperial Navy veterans crushed by magistrate. And the local Navy is suddenly being much less cooperative. Much less willing to lend their men to him. Funny, that.

Keris waits until it looks certain they’re going to lift the trade ban, and sends Iris flitting off to Saata to tell Rounen and her Gale she’s on her way back - with Ali, Zany and Hany in tow and the Lionesses soon to follow.

She’s in the crowd as the magistrate is celebrated for his victory, though. One face among many, nothing special - she even makes sure to cheer for him extra loudly and throw a flower.

She smirks at his back as he returns to his ship. Oh yes, he may be feeling satisfied with his success here, but she’s the one who won. And while she may be seeing him again in future, she knows him now. Whereas he doesn’t even know she was playing.

Then it’s a quick process of touching base with Nandi to say she’s taking her family on ahead to prepare for the Lionesses’ arrival, getting Zany and Hany up on a summoned anyaglo, putting Ali on Cissidy and slipping - with considerable relief - into the warm waters of the Anarchy.

“Home,” Keris whispers happily, and sets off alongside her family.

---

Saata is much like she left it. That is to say, compared to Triumphant Air it is a wretched cesspool of vice, corruption, sin, mercantilism, and a surprisingly large number of priests. It’s always so loud here compared to the volcanic island, and there aren’t the same neat, orderly fields - or surplus of hot springs.

Still, Keris likes it. It’s like Nexus in all the best ways.

“And then we went on another ship, but this one had red sails,” Hany explains, recounting the story of their journey to Keris. She’s been at it for a while, and keeps on forgetting where she’s got to or getting distracted and starting again. “And I saw a bird. It was really big and it had huge white wings. And then we had to go ashore again and then we went on another boat and it was painted green and it had a naked lady on the front and one of the sailors said you needed to rub her for good luck but Mama told me to get down from there and...”

“I... I think that’s enough story time for Aunty Keris,” Ali says. He’s slightly green in the face, and hanging onto the ribbon horse’s neck. He is not a natural flier, unlike his wife and daughter. “Are we there yet, Keris? Please.”

The estate is just ahead as they come in low, barely skimming the waves to keep away from watchful eyes. Ali is not appreciating being closer to the ground and so fast.

“Almost,” Keris agrees, skipping over the waves on light feet as they come in to the coast. “Okay, and come in... there we go. Off you get...”

Her hair lifts Ali off Cissidy with offensive ease - she managed the dragon statue in Eshtock; he’s nothing by comparison. “Aaaaand off you get,” she finishes, bundling Hany up as setting her giggling niece down at her father’s feet as Zany dismounts smoothly. And then she staggers.

It's like the click of the last pin in a high-end lock under her fingers, and the safe door swinging open to reveal shining piles of silver. It's like the crunch and crumpling of bone at the end of her fist in a brawl, and her last opponent going down. It's like a support pole sliding home into its housing with a jarring thud or getting a horse stance just right and feeling the solidity and stability slam into place with a suddenness that almost makes you lose it.

She's done it, Keris realises in the ringing stretched-out moment of completion. She found all the members of her family who wanted to come with her, and got them out of Taira and across Creation, safe and unharmed, to a new life here in the Southwest.

She has held to her oath, and fulfilled it, and now at last the letters etched into her bones slacken their grip and release her from her self-imposed binding.

“... whoa," she whispers breathlessly, clinging to Cissidy's neck for a moment to hide how her legs feel like water. Fortunately, she recovers quickly. “I... that was... yeah. Okay. Off you go, Cissi. And thank you, too; I release you from your service,” she adds to the other ribbon-horse. Both of them lick her hand, and disperse into ribbons as they return to her Domain.

“... alright then,” Keris says, clapping her hands. “Up to the estate, and we’ll find out how much chaos brewed in my absence. Also, Hany gets to meet her baby cousins. This way!”

Ali collapses to the ground, hugging it. Zany looks down at her husband slightly pityingly, then helps him up, head never stopping moving as she tries to take it all in. “Is this... all yours?” she asks, mouth open. “There’s all these ruins and there’s farms and there’s a house as big as a village... though not as big as some, oh my goodness Keris, we went through Chiaroscuro on the way here and it was the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen, all these buildings made of glass and in the sunlight it gleamed and glimmered like nothing I’ve seen before...”

“Shiny city!” contributes Hany.

“It was, it was so shiny! And so large! It went from horizon to horizon, everywhere, this ancient glass! And...” Zany pauses, possibly for breath, but no, it’s just to wave at Xasan who’s emerging from one of the back doors, his arms outreached.

Keris giggles. “I bought this place with some lost ships I found around the Anarchy - it used to belong to one of the pirate lords here, but his fleet was suffering, so I traded him the ships I couldn’t crew for the estate he couldn’t keep maintained. It’s... kind of a work in progress.”

She glances at the dilapidated, overgrown walls and empty outbuildings, the still-rundown wings of the manor they haven’t got around to clearing out and refurbishing yet, the poor-quality fields and anaemic crops.

“A major work in progress,” she sighs. “But, give it time and it’ll be beautiful. Now come on, my quarters are up this way.” She gestures them in through a back entrance and ushers them upstairs to the richly decorated wing (“these are the bits he was able to keep in good nick, so we’re kind of squatting here while we fix the rest of the place up”) where she keeps her quarters. It’s not hard to follow her ears towards the sound of two troublesome little twins being very stubborn about eating their dinner. Winking at Ali, Zany and Hany, Keris puts a finger over her lips and stalks forward. Wait for it... waaaait for it....

“Argh!” yells her Gale from around the corner. “Kali, no, come back here-”

Now. Keris lunges around the corner, scoops up her fleeing, cackling daughter and spins her round and round and round. “Who’s being a mischievous little monster, hmm?” she demands. “Who’s being bad for mama? Is it you? Are you being naughty, little feather?”

Another hair tendril lassoes Ogin as he launches himself at her using his tails as a spring, and she smothers his face with kisses. “Hello, moonbeam,” she coos. “Guess what mama brought back with her? Do you remember who I told you was arriving soon?”

Ogin considers the question thoughtfully. “You said that uncle and aunty and... c-cousin,” he tries the unfamiliar word, “were coming. You said they were late. And that you didn’t know what other you was playing at, vanishing off like that, honestly why don’t you have the decency to send a message to yourself...”

The Gale blushes. “Moonbeam, that’s enough,” she says.

“No, that’s fair,” Keris acknowledges in an undertone. “I just spent three weeks playing a lethal game of Gateway against a Realm magistrate. One who’s even better at his job than the one in Agenete was. I barely had time to think about food after that first messenger, let alone anything else. But,” she adds, “no need to explain it. We’ll reunite once the reunion’s done, so we can fall over properly, yeah?”

Her Gale nods. “I’ll fetch Atiya,” she says, and backs out of the kitchen through another door.

Keris turns to the one she came in through. “You’re right, moonbeam,” she tells her son, kissing him on the nose. “Very well done! Ali, Zany? Come in and meet your niece and nephew!”

Kali, of course, is immediately beaming as soon as she sees her relatives. “San! San! Look! Look!” she shouts for Xasan.

“Yes, Kali, I can see them.”

“Hug!” she demands, spreading her arms wide and wriggling in Keris’s grasp until she can get a hug from all the newcomers. “Huuuuuuug!”

Ogin is shier, and turns his face back to Keris, hugging up against her. He doesn’t want to look at the strangers.

“My goodness,” Zany says, eyes wide. “They’re... are they really the ones you were pregnant with? But she’s already talking. And... the boy, was that him? He was talking better than Hany.”

“No!” Hany insists. “No one’s better than me!”

Keris cuddles Ogin soothingly, stroking his hair and kissing his cheeks.

“I was pregnant with them for longer,” she explains, “so they were more mature when they came out - on a frozen mountainside halfway to Malra in the middle of a blizzard, I’ll add. You can ask Rathan or Calesco about it; they were there. And then I have some magic that lets me teach people better, so I got them talking as soon as I could because... well, because clever babies like Ogin here who can just tell you what’s wrong or what they want are much easier to look after, and get more hugs and kisses, don’t they moonbeam?”

She lets Kali escape her grip and clamber along a hair tendril to flail her arms at Zany in hug-demandment. It’s sweetly adorable how naturally her children use her as furniture and support - the way that they just trust, absolutely, that she won’t let them fall. It warms Keris’s heart every time she sees it, which is part of why she lets them keep doing it.

“Huuuuuuug!” Kali demands again, flailing at Zany, before apparently deciding that she’s not getting hugs because of being the wrong shape. With a startlingly bird-like chirp, she pops into tiger-cub form with a little puff of dusty flame, and chuff-meows at her aunt delightedly, twin tails waving in happiness and pride.

That’s something that gives Zany pause. “Um,” she says, staring at her hug-demanding cub-niece. “Uh.”

Hany has made her own conclusions. “Kitty!” she declares.

“Kali!” Kali insists. She seems momentarily offended by someone getting her name wrong.

“Kitty?”

“Kali!”

“Kitty Kali!” concludes Hany.

Keris sighs. “Yes, she is,” she agrees, just knowing she won’t be hearing the end of that alliteration for at least a fortnight. “Do you want to give her a cuddle, Hany?”

Wide-eyed with wonder, Hany nods so furiously her head looks like it might fall off. Keris decides it’s probably safer if they’re both on the ground, and carefully sets Kali down, keeping a firm grip on her. Kali sometimes gets too excited and bites Mama - and unlike Mama or Vali, Hany won’t shrug off a tiger bite.

“Um,” says Ali. He’s clearly not entirely comfortable.

“Kali,” Keris says firmly, holding up a finger to stall him, “Hany is like Atiya. You have to be careful with her. Okay? Remember the no-biting rule.” She glances at Ogin. “Can you help, moonbeam?”

((Rolling Valour... fail.))

Ogin shakes his head, rubbing it into Keris’s shoulder. He probably needs a nap, and to be more carefully introduced to strangers. Her darling little boy doesn’t like sudden change or unexpected people in his personal space.

Kali, on the other hand, loves new people a little more than perhaps is wise. Her tails thrash away in sheer joy at having someone new to play with.

“Oookay,” Keris says, winding hair tendrils around her between her three sets of legs and picking her up again. “Kali sometimes gets a bit excited, so Hany? Why don’t you come sit next to me on one of the lounging chairs and you can stroke her, and Ogin can build himself a little cushion fortress and have a nap.”

She smiles reassuringly at Ali and Zany. “And I can explain some things about what happens when you put too much power into a child in the womb. Don’t worry, by the way; Kali doesn’t bite very often. When she does it’s usually just because she’s overexcited, and it’s me getting bitten. She’s rarely bitten Rounen, and never one of the girls. Precaution, nothing more”

A little later, Kali is happily purring and cheeping away as Hany strokes her - and they have concluded she is Cheepy Kitty Kali - while Ogin has vanished under the cushions into the dark. Fatima has appeared, carrying tea and cakes for everyone. She’s wearing a new many-coloured dress that’s form-fitting up top but voluminous over the legs, and she quietly tells Keris that Zanara insisted on making uniforms for her and the sisters ‘So they’d be proper maids’. Ali is still recovering from the flight, while Zany talks animatedly to both Xasan and Keris, gossiping and catching up on things.
Xasan is saying more at the moment. Keris is trying to talk to her relatives while being able to hear everything in Vali and Zana’s quiet argument about how dramatic their entrance needs to be, and whether they should just appear or whether they should start by throwing glitter in and doing a dance. Since they don’t seem to be planning any actual property damage, she decides to let them have their surprise, and continues sharing the trials of a child who likes turning into a bird at feeding time and making mama pull on her hair in frustration with Zanyira, who seems rather appreciative of her own experience of motherhood by comparison. At least Hanilyia can’t leave teeth marks in metal chew toys.
“This is dumb,” Keris distinctly hears from Vali. Then there’s a loud thud as he kicks the door open, and accidentally kicks it off its hinges so it crashes to the ground. “Hi,” he says, wandering in, hands jammed into his pockets. He beams at Keris, giving her a double-thumbs-up that she can tell is for how she's held to her promise, and then belatedly glances at the door. “Ooops. Thought I made them stronger.”

“Vali!” Zana snaps. She’s wearing her face as Little River’s ward right now, so she’s a Tengese half-albino. “You ruined everything, you stupidhead.”

“I said oops, didn’t I?” Vali says. He glances at the surprised faces of his relatives. “Hi. Vali. The brat’s Zana.”

“I’m not a brat! You’re the brat, brat!”

Keris gently puts her face in her hands.

“My children, everyone,” she sighs. “Ali, Zanyira, these are... uh... Vali, and Zanara.”

There’s a brief silence, in which Keris becomes self-conscious enough to blush.

“I, uh, named them on instinct,” she says, even though she knows she’s explained this before. “Before I remembered Baisha. The names just came to me.”

“Oh.” Zany looks from her husband to Vali, and smiles wickedly. “Well, I can see the family resemblance, but clearly that’s as far as it goes. You wouldn’t kick down a door, would you, darling?”

Vali raises a hand. “I’ll get around fixing it some time. I’m fixing most of the stuff around here.”

Ali looks at Zana, who is pouting. “She doesn’t look much like you, Keris.”

“Well,” Zana begins, and Keris just knows she’s about to launch into an explanation of how she’s Keris’s sister and possibly the daughter of the Queen of Hell.

“Zanara can change shape,” she says quickly. “They can make themselves pretty in a bunch of different ways, and I actually used a lot of their gift for artwork while I was on Triumphant Air.”

She fixes Zana with a Look. If Zana keeps quiet and doesn’t spill anything, Keris promises inwardly, she’ll tell her youngest soul absolutely everything about the masterful performance she pulled on the Realm and Immaculates. And maybe let Nara be there for explaining to Zanyira about the whole “Hell” thing, too.

Hopefully, Zana will be able to read that in her expression, because if she doesn’t follow Keris’s lead, this is about to become a very awkward conversation.

“Yeah,” Zana agrees, spinning in a pirouette before dropping into splits. “I’m an artist. Faces are just another form of art. But since we’re being family... everyone, close your eyes!” She flaps her hands at them. “Go on! Do it! It’s so rude to look at a girl changing.”

Keris decides to humour her, and the others obey. She hears Zana calcify, then clay breaks and she’s in front of them again. It’s the face she wore for Lilunu - the one with the bright eyes and the two-toned crimson hair.

And Iris recognises it too, because she wriggles straight out of Keris’s arm and all-but throws herself into Zana’s arms.

“Aww, there there, Iris,” Zana says, picking her up and spinning her around. “I’ve missed you too, baby. Did Keris take good care of you? Did you get to explore new people?”

“She slid her way onto Ali, for sure,” Keris grins. “Also it turns out she protects my left arm from heat, which is useful to know. Like, metal-bar-straight-from-the-forge heat. I’ll have to do some tests and see if there’s anything else she makes it safe for me to touch. But!” she adds, hearing her Gale hovering outside with Atiya. “There’s one more baby for you to meet. Hold on a moment...”

Ducking outside the room to retrieve her youngest daughter - her Gales are a thing she really doesn’t have the time to explain right now - she returns and sits back down next to Zany with Atiya cradled tenderly in the crook of her arm.

“This is Atiya,” she says. “She’s not like the twins. She’s pure human, so she’s lagging behind a bit in development. But she’s still my precious little princess, aren’t you, darling?”

They grow up so fast. It hasn’t even been a month, but Atiya is bigger than she was last time Keris saw her. She’s bigger and more alert and a little more rounded - though her breathing doesn’t sound so good. Keris thinks she’s picked up another infection.

But for now, she lies there in Keris’s arms, barely aware that she just got swapped from a Gale to Keris. She makes a clumsy grab for one of Keris’s hair locks and misses.

“Aww, she’s so tiny,” Zany says.

Ali nods. “Very young. What happened to her mother? It’s good of you to look after an orphan, even if you have your own babies to care for.”

“Ah,” says Keris. “Well. That’s where things get a bit complicated.”

She rubs her nose thoughtfully.

“Vali,” she says, “it’s been a tiring trip back. Could you and Fatima and,” she nods her head at the door behind which her Gale is waiting, “get the twins fed and put to bed, and Hany with them? I’m sure she won’t complain about getting a bedroom all her own next to her new friend Kali, right?” She directs this last at Hanilyia.

“And Zanara and Xasan and I will stay down here and talk about some boring grown-up stuff with your aunt and uncle.”

Vali nods soundly, and claps a hand on his uncle’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he tells his uncle firmly. “She’s my baby cousin and that’s basic’ly a baby sister really ‘cause I only got one full sister who can look after herself. So I’ll keep her safe like she’s my sister.”

“Uh. Thank you?” Ali says nervously.

Vali nods, and digs through the pillows, recovering Ogin. “Come on, Ogin. Big Bro Vali’s here to smash anyone who’s horrid to you.” Ogin wraps himself around Vali’s waist, a small smile on his lips. Kali leaps down, to twine around Vali’s ankles, while Fatima picks up Hany. “Off we go, then,” he says. “I bet if you want to all share a room, I can totally add another bed to it.”

“Sleepover!” shouts Hany. “Yes!”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Fatima says - and Keris realises she seems a little more comfortable now that Keris’s relatives are around, because at least they’re Tairan. “Come on, children.”

They leave, and the adults - and Zana - are left.

“Yes,” Zana says happily. “Time for adult talking. Not with little kids around, like Vali.” She nods meaningfully. “He’s only older than me chronologically,” she imparts, bouncing off her seat to occupy Ogin’s abandoned pillow fort.

“Mmm,” Keris agrees. “Do you think you could show Ali and Zany your other half? They’ve seen two she-yous, but no he-you yet.” And please let it be a mostly human Nara, she thinks. Nara is exactly what she needs for this talk. Well, bar maybe Rathan. But she can’t wait for the new moon, alas.

Zana nods. “Yeah, OK.” She gets up again, and finds a nice empty spot of wall, before sinking into it to form a painting from which a red-haired girl smiles out of.

“Goodness!” Zany says.

There’s a clatter of feet on the stairs, and Nara emerges. Keris hasn’t ever seen him look like this before - the perfect marble statue of a winged boy, made of living stone. He looks like the kind of thing she’d seen on temples back in Nexus - some foreign sky-god or something. Or... wait, maybe... the hawkmen? Something like that. Keris hadn’t paid much attention to them because they didn’t do soup kitchens.

“I-we am also Zanara, just as she-we is,” Nara says, taking a place on the edge of the room. Except... Keris isn’t sure, but... is Nara even a boy here? His features are more rounded, more feminised than usual, and his voice is higher pitched.

Well, huh. She’d thought that there was a male body and a female body, but was that really a rule, or just more of a guideline?

She beckons... Nara, over. “Hug,” she commands, and he obliges. “Yes, so,” she explains to Zany, “Zanara has two bodies; Art and Artist. Zana and Nara. They only control one at a time, and the other one turns into art when they’re not using it - a painting, or a statue, or a piece of music playing itself on a nearby instrument. It depends. Zana’s usually a girl and Nara’s usually a boy, but...” she glances down, “apparently that’s more guideline than actual rule. Still. Nara’s good at helping explain things. And... there’s a lot to explain.”

“She-we likes being a girl more than I-we do. I-we don’t really care, but she-we does, so I-we usually let her-us have her-our way,” Nara explains, and pauses. “That was probably too in-depth,” he says sheepishly. “Sorry, mama. Where do we start?”

Keris takes a breath, and blows it out slowly.

“Good question,” she says, looking between her brother and her sister-in-law. Cousin. She really needs to pick one and stick with it, she thinks vaguely; it’s getting confusing using both.

“I have things to tell both of you,” she says slowly. “Ali, you need to hear what happened in Malra, with mama and papa. They were your parents too, and I came back without them, and you deserve to know why. And Zany... you need to be told the real story behind Dulmea and my powers. We kept it from you while your heart was still weak, and I’m guessing Ali didn’t tell you on the journey because I wasn’t there to help explain, but neither of those reasons apply now.”

Zany looks over at Keris, green eyes gleaming. “Oh? Family secrets?” she asks teasingly. “I love secrets!”

Keris smiles uneasily. “You might not like this one,” she says quietly.

Looking at Ali grants her no help, and Xasan just shrugs at her. She rolls her eyes.

“This might be easier if I could bring out a Dulmea Chord to help explain... um... okay, you remember what I told you about when I got my powers? I was in the cell in Nexus, and Dulmea came, and she offered me her help and the powers she carried. And I took her into myself through my godsmark, and she was the seed of my powers, and as they grew I budded other souls for the new powers that bloomed from me.”

Zany nods, though given it’s been eight months Keris kind of doubts she remembered it clearly.

“What I said wasn’t a lie. All of that did happen. I just left out one detail, which is exactly what kind of spirit Dulmea was. Ali and Xasan already know, and they’re satisfied that I’m me...”

Keris tugs a lock of hair, stops beating around the bush, womans up and cuts to the point.

“... she was a demon, Zany. An angyalka. A harpist of time. That’s, ah... that’s where my powers come from. Sort of. Mostly.”

Zany doesn’t say anything. She just listens, eyes painfully bright.

One hand on her chest.

“I’m...” Keris continues haltingly, “I’m not... not a slave of Hell. They, uh, the demon princes actually couldn’t if they tried, I’m too powerful for that. It’s why they gave me these powers in the first place; they don’t think anything less is enough to get them what they want. But it means they can’t just enslave me and make me their creature. And the powers I get from them aren’t... they’re mine, once I learn them. Not theirs. They can’t affect what I do with them.”

She’s speeding up as she talks, sounding defensive. “Like... like healing you, that was one of the powers I got from them that let me do that, yeah. But... but it didn’t leave anything in you, you understand? I, I made very sure of that. There’s nothing demonic in you or about you or anything, my powers don’t taint everything they touch like that. The princes of Hell have no claim on what my actions touch. They don’t even know about you or Ali or Hany, and they won’t be able to find out.”

She keeps talking, not really hearing what she’s saying in between pleading looks at Ali and Xasan. That twitchy, tense feeling from Triumphant Air is back again, but this time without the thrill of playing against a worthy opponent. Just sick dread and worry in its place.

Eventually, when she and Zanara fall silent, Zany speaks.

“That’s... uh. That’s quite a secret,” she says, an odd gleam in her eyes. “I. Goodness. Whoosh.” She screws her eyes shut and opens them again. “So... Calesco is your familiar spirit?”

Keris breathes shakily. “Uh, no. Not... well, uh. You know how demons- well, no, you don’t. Um... you know how people have two souls, yeah? The one that thinks and can become a ghost, and the one that feels and can become a yidak?”

She waits for the nods. “Well, powerful demons are weird. They have seven. And their seven souls are... also demons; who can think and walk around away from the one they’re a soul of and everything. That’s what the Circles of demons mean. Since my power is, um, demon-flavoured, I’m the same way. Rathan and Calesco - and Vali and Zanara and Eko and Haneyl - are my souls. That’s what I meant when I said new spirits grew inside me for the new powers I developed, after Dulmea.”

She pauses, seeing that they still look slightly lost. “Okay, um... imagine if you liked artwork and beautiful things. Really, really loved them, I mean. The kind of passion for them that you hear about in the heroes of stories, whose love for their city or their wife pushes them through a whole adventure. And now imagine that love of art and beauty was so strong it could think for itself and have opinions and thoughts separate from yours and could walk around and do art things.”

She points. “That’s Zanara. And at the same time, they’re my child. Because I’m human as well as a thing with demon-flavoured powers, and when a human makes a little child that’s half them and half something else, that’s called being a parent.”

“Oh. Hmm. Okay.” Zany’s voice is carefully flat. “What’s Calesco, then?”

Keris smiles, slightly pained. “My compassion,” she admits. “She spends a lot of time shouting at me about how I should be a better person. Usually I try to listen.”

“Huh. Huh.” Zany sighs. “I think I would have liked to meet her. And Rathan?”

“Um...” Keris has to think about that one. “They’re their own people, you know. Just because they’re... they’re parts of me as well, doesn’t mean that’s all they are. I told Calesco, when she was little - if she was just my compassion, she’d be like my arm or my leg. A daughter can argue with you. Your fingers can’t.” She chuckles mirthlessly. “I’m not used to thinking of them as what parts of me they are, I guess.”

“Rathan is your sense of justice,” Nara says serenely. “And fair play. He gets very upset when things aren’t fair,” they add to Zany. “And since you were going to ask about the others, Vali is mama’s stubbornness and refusal to bend to the demands of others, Eko is her joy and whimsy, and Haneyl is her greed and want and her drive to better herself.”

“Hmm. Yes. I can see that,” she says, clearly thinking back about the time she’d spent with Rathan on the slow trip down to Terema. “This is... a lot to take in. A lot of secrets.” She glares at Ali. “Which my darling husband was keeping from me.”

“Don’t blame him,” says Keris, despite thinking yes, blame him. Ali was the one who didn’t explain it all back after she’d healed Zany and left it to her. But, urgh... “Back in Taira your heart was still weak and you were recovering,” Keris defends. “And it was safer for you to go through Realm territory when you had no idea who you were related to. And, let’s be fair here, breaking it to you on the journey without me around to help explain would have gone much worse than this could have.”

Zany sits back, eyes bright. “I don’t... this is a lot to think about. My cousin, my sister-in-law, who saved my life, is a servant of Rigeru, the Traitor Sun.” She gulps down a breath. “It’s... it’s a shock to the system.”

Keris wrinkles her nose. “Do you have to say ‘servant’?” she complains. “I’m not a servant. I’m, like...” She pauses, considering. “A mercenary, I guess?” she hazards. “I guess that’s closest. I do work for them for pay, like... like stealing back stuff that got stolen from their cults or murdering fae monsters out in the Wyld, but it’s not like I kneel in front of them and clean their houses. And there are some jobs I’d refuse to do if they asked them of me.”

“But... why? Why work for the Traitor Sun and his demonic allies?” Zany demands.

Grimacing, Keris runs a hand through her hair.

“At first? Because they saved my life,” she says. “Without the power Dulmea brought me, I’d have been worse than dead. Think of the kind of horror stories that got told about what the shahbanu did to traitors in Terema. Then... well, then it was because I’d grown up poor and ignored and they praised me and gave me massive amounts of money and food and servants and crap.”

She flops back into the lounging chair, glancing over at where Atiya is resting on her cushion. “Then I talked to... someone who pointed out some things, and a few bits and pieces opened my eyes some more, and I realised that a lot of them are awful, horrible tyrants who should never be let loose on Creation,” she says. “But - and I know this’ll be hard to take - it’s not true to say that they’re all absolute monsters, either. Asarin’s not bad - she doesn’t care about Creation, really, she just wants to rule a domain in Hell and pretend to be a highborn Shogunate lady. And my mentor in art, the one I showed you in the sketchbook; she’s actually really sweet. Which is probably because she’s really young for a demon, and hasn’t ever even been to Creation.”

“Why do I work for them now? Because I do have friends there, impossible as that might seem, and because the ones I’m not friends with terrify me. If I rebel; if I turn on them and abandon them and cut ties... they won’t let it go, Zany. Ever. And they could kill me. They really could. I’m powerful, I’m deadly... but I can’t fight all of Hell on my own. Nothing and no-one can. Not anymore. Besides, like I said. I get some level of choice in picking my jobs, and nobody cares if I go hunt princes of chaos out in the Wyld and deliver them to Hell to be burnt up or eaten. Nobody important, anyway.”

There’s a long silence, broken only by the sounds of children upstairs. There’s a smashing noise, which is undoubtedly the fault of someone whose name ends in “-ali” and starts with a K or a V.

Zany runs her hands through her light brown hair, green eyes screwed shut. “I’ll... okay. Okay. This is a lot to deal with, but... okay.” She rises. “I think I’ll just go see what that breaking was, and... and probably have a nap myself, honestly. I’m saddle sore and things weren’t great on Triumphant Air.” She glances back at Keris. “We’ll talk later. I promise. I... I want to see if there are any more secrets before I make a final decision.”

Keris nods slightly, shrinking a bit. “Um, Zany?” she asks, before her cousin leaves. “The, uh, the girls - Fatima and Heba and Kashma. They don’t know yet. I’ve been waiting to break it to them gently when they’re more settled. Please don’t mention it to them.”

She nods, and leaves.

Xasan sighs, and slaps Keris on the shoulder. “Could have gone worse,” he says gruffly.

She nods faintly, leaning into him. “Okay. That... that was probably the worse one for me,” she says shakily. “But... Ali. I’m afraid this story isn’t going to be much fun either.” Her mouth twitches slightly. “At least it casts me in a better light than that did. It started when Rathan, Calesco, Xasan and I set off back up the river from where we waved you off...”

((Per + Expression to break the news to him, announce any other charms you’re using to enhance it / avoid blame / whatever.))
((... I mean, tbh Keris does actually come off looking quite good in this story. She won’t tell him as much as she told Xasan, but... yeah, she tried her very best to help mama find peace without letting her murder people, she avenged her death, she put her down when she turned rabid and butchered a whole estate, and she left papa to live his peaceful life that had no place for his older children anymore.))
((Hmm. Yeah, no avoid-blame charms, even though Ali might not react well. Keris isn’t inclined to use them. And also has Xasan to back her up with “I was there, and yeah, Keris basically more or less did right”.))
((Hee. She will play as she tells the story. Time-Strung Harpist can be used “to enrapture an audience and to glean information about them, or to amplify the echoes of history. It can also support actions to use this understanding through the emotive power of the music itself.” It’s just a pity she doesn’t have Darkling Grace Complete yet, or she could provide hologram clips as she spoke. : P))
((4+5+3 Time-Strung Harpist+2 stunt+9 Adorjani ExD {inevitability that bad things happen, catastrophe and calamity, crucible of tragedy}=23. 8 sux.))

Keris begins to pluck at the air as she talks, playing the melody of the hard journey up through the mountains, the rescue of the girls and the laborious birth of the twins. She sketches the airship with her hair as she plays the rising tones of its ascent, and she switches to minor chords and chilling scales when the yidak first appears.

Her song turns sombre as she breaks the news of Maryam’s long-ago death, and from that point on the morbid refrain is a constant chorus in the background as she details, in short sentences, the slow journey up through Malra with the help of a local sun-chosen, the clues she gathered and Maryam’s increasing recklessness. All the way up to the climax of Maryam’s abandonment of her and the chaos in Malra’s capital.

“... and that’s where it ended, really,” she finishes. “Outside his door. He had a life there - one built on the same system of slavery that tore us apart, in an empire that’s headed for inevitable war with the shahbanu and probably the Realm or Lookshy given time. I couldn’t live there, you were already halfway here, and... he was content. Without us.”

She sniffs. “There was some more,” she admits. “I was injured, so Ney had to patch me up. And I kinda pulled a massive break-in theft on the naib out of spite. But it pretty much ended outside papa’s door, in the snow.”

Xasan nods. “She’s telling the truth.”

Ali clasps his calloused hands together. “Gods,” he says sadly. “What a mess. A real life ghost story, and you got caught up in it.” He reaches out and squeezes Keris’s hand. “You should have just come with us. Not got involved in all that tragedy.” He shakes his head. “What a mess.” He rises, stretching. “Uncle? Want to go with a walk with me? I just want to clear my head. Thank you for that, Keris, but... I just need some time. To think about this.”

She nods again, stroking Atiya’s hair. They’re probably going off to talk about her in private, but she can’t bring herself to care, or listen in. In fact...

“Uncle,” she says softly. “Remember my range.” He’s spent enough time around her to have a good sense of how far she can hear clearly, so if they want privacy that’ll remind him to get enough distance before starting to speak. She shifts over to scoop up Atiya and lies down full length on the lounge, beckoning Nara over.

“Make some music for me?” she asks. “Something to make me feel better. I’ll tell you all about what I’ve been doing these past few weeks I’ve been gone.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

In retrospect, it was her fault.

Wait, no, that’s a lie. It’s the fault of her little brats. But it’s her fault for forgetting what a little bunch of brats they are. And yes, she was sort of exhausted when she got back and wasn’t paying as much attention as she should have.

But the lack of attentiveness has its limits. And those limits are met when she walks into what had been Lucky Wolf’s dining hall and thinks for a moment that she’s walked into the Isles. The Isles, with more than a touch of the Spires.

The walls are many colours and she can smell how expensive the paints from the Daimyo and Yellow are, painted in murals of within her soul. The white Shogunate stone has been used to build grand, intimidating pillars and wall-nooks, and the ceiling has been knocked out to give more vertical space. A dragon sculpture wraps its way around the room, painted in gold leaf and black. Oh, and the floor has also been knocked out and flooded, and a new floor built atop it. And all of the art is obviously, clearly out of the ordinary. Her demons leer down from the walls and lean out of the pillars.

Keris has one thing to say.

“Vali! Zanara! Get in here!” she screams.

Vali confesses immediately. Wait, no. “Confesses” isn’t the right word. “Brags” is. He doesn’t see anything wrong.

“We made you a better dining hall,” he says, nodding firmly. “It’s got dragons. And it’s pretty.”

“It’s blatantly obviously demonic!” shrieks Keris, who... may not have had time to reabsorb her Gale yet and get hit with a month of memories. She’d had time right after filling Zanara in, but hadn’t wanted to deal with the headache, so she’d delayed, and...

... yeah, that’s maybe starting to seem like a bad idea now.

“Anyone who sees this will- well, no, okay, the dragon is good,” she concedes. “Little River’s a Dragonblood. And I love the water-floor. But the art! Demons! Murals of the Domain! This is like a giant sign saying ‘I’m an infernalist, send a wyld hunt’! Why?”

Vali shrugs. “It’s just pictures of home,” he says with a casual shrug.

Zanara smiles. “We just wanted to feel... homey,” he says with a winsome and very Rathanite smile. “Aren’t you proud of who you are, mama?”

Keris looks around helplessly, tugging at her hair. “I am, but other people aren’t. Look, when we get our own place in Shuu Mua; a secret city all our own, we can decorate that however we want. But this is a Little River place. If people start thinking she’s an infernalist, everything on Saata falls apart.”

She walks over to the dragon, stroking along its scales with po-sensitive fingers and feeling the work Vali put into it. “This is all gorgeous,” she admits. “But it can’t all stay here. Not where people who aren’t ours will be able to see it.”

((Rea+Awa to investigate the dragon; 14 dice. 8x2+4=20 sux.))
This isn’t Vali’s work. Not all of it. Not most of it, either. She can see the bits which are his work, because they’re the cruder bits of patchwork under the paint. This isn’t his style, and he can’t work in stone like this. Most of this dragon is Shogunate - he’s just turned fragments of what must have been parts of many dragons from many buildings into one long thin room-encompassing snake-dragon. But he’s made the crudeness of his work in this Shogunate stone its own thing, and painted the join-lines in gold leaf. This dragon is a survivor, a fighter, a creature that’s been hurt time and time again - and wears his scars in gold. Considering it for a while, Keris smiles.
“We’ll keep the dragon,” she decides. “And... Zanara? I’m assuming the floor was your idea?” Vali may have done it, but the environment of the Spires is more altitude than anything. He’s not the one who would want to feel like he was on an island. She kneels to briefly examine the see-through sections of floor that separate the room from the water lapping in the flooded cellar beneath.

“I wanted to set the water on fire, but we couldn’t get any of Hanny’s fire,” Vali chips in. “It’d be super cool to have the green lighting from underneath.”

“Always with the green,” Zanara mutters.

The glass in the floor seems to come from many origins. There are bits and pieces of ancient glass from the old Shogunate city, but that’s often cracked and curved and so they’ve been forced to use more modern bits that have to be kept small.

“We also put something under there so you can go down and float candles on the water!” Zanara contributes. “I wanted to cover all the walls in nacre, but that’s super expensive. It’s so unfair.”

Keris beams at them. “It’s wonderful,” she says honestly. “And I’m definitely keeping it like this. Maybe remodelling a few other rooms the same way. But,” she holds up a finger. “The demon-statues and other stuff from the Domain need to be moved. They’ll be great in one of the secret cellars, but not up here. You can help me make a properly artistic shrine down there as well. One that’ll make people less suspicious of the estate.”

Zanara stomps his foot. “You’re ruining the aesthetics!” he shouts at Keris, glaring up at her with three eyes.

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “So will House Sinasana if they come and level the building,” she points out in strained tones and crouching in front of him. “Zanara, honey, I promise we will make this hall a beautiful place. A place that will bring tears of awe to anyone who sees it. But there are ways for it to be beautiful that will not get Immaculates coming to murder us. And we’re using one of them. That’s that.”

“I hate you!” Nara shouts, storming out. “You’re ugly.”

Vali sighs. “I guess you’re gonna want me to tear down the wall stuff?” he says. “‘Cause, I mean, I don’t mind getting to break stuff...”

Keris glances around thoughtfully at the grand pillars, easy-to-hide-in wall nooks, alien murals and leering demonic statues.

“... leave the structural bits,” she says, after brief consideration. “And if you can, take the demon-statues and murals off without breaking them, like you did with the dragon fragments. We’ll move them down to one of the cellars. They’re pretty enough that it’d be a shame to just smash them, and you two did work hard on them all.”

“I mean, I worked hard,” Vali harrumphs. “Nara just did the painting and did some stuff with paper stuff in the markets for money. It’s not like he went and had to dig all the biiiiiiiiig holes over the estate for stuff like I did. Or go off into the jungles and pull bits of dragon off old ruins!”

Keris freezes momentarily.

“... when you say he ‘did some stuff with paper stuff’,” she says in tones of dawning dread. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

“I mean, it was mostly Zana who did it,” Vali says, sounding profoundly disinterested. “She just went in looking like a pretty lady... an old one, like, older than you... and then got money from somewhere.”

Oh no, thinks Keris quietly. So, considering how she’d do it with Zanara’s skillset... prooooobably forgery. Yeah. Some forged bank papers would let her take out a few payments supposedly between... oh, say, a rich group of Saatan traders or merchants or moneylenders with reason not to like each other. Do that two or three times so they all think they stole from one another, walk off with the money...

She sighs. Hopefully Zanara at least ran their targets past their big sister to do it without breaking anything important in the ensuing flurry of accusations and grudges.

“Fine,” she groans. “In that case, I’m going to visit Haneyl. Could you start moving the demon statues into one of the secure cellars, and make sure Zanara doesn’t do any art in a sulk or a temper tantrum? And if you want me to tell her anything, I’ll pass it along.”

Vali scratches his head. “Yeah, sure, mum.” He gives her a hug. “I’m glad you’re back,” he said. “I’ve never been away from you for so long. And that scale of you ain’t really you. She only really cares about the babies.” He turns, muttering about where he left his tool kit, then pauses. “You taking uncle and aunty and my new cousin with you to see Hanny?” he asks. “She’d prob wanna see them and them her. Plus, maybe Aunty and Hanny can... like, bond over having green eyes? I dunno.”

“Hmm.” Xasan had been... less comfortable with Haneyl than he had with Rathan and Calesco. Ali will probably be the same way. But...

“I think my brother will want to stay here for the moment and recover from the trip - and he’s a blacksmith, so you can go talk to him about metalwork if you want,” Keris says, hugging back. “Just... don’t let him see this place until you’re done, please. I’ll see if Zany and Hanilyia want to come along, though. Good idea.”

She squeezes him close and presses a kiss to his temple. He’s really shooting up in height. He’ll probably wind up taller even than Haneyl, when he’s full-grown. “I’m glad to be back too, sweetheart,” she murmurs. “It was a scary three weeks. I’ll try to give more warning next time I have to leave.”

“Kali helped with the painting,” Vali informs her. He points at the bottom of one of the walls, where there’s a little set of hand-prints, paw prints, and bird-feet marks.

Keris chuckles. “Of course she did. Well, I suppose we can leave those in place too. Anything you want me to tell Haneyl?”

“Uhhh. Tell her not to be boring, I guess,” Vali says. “And that she needs to visit more.”

“Alright. Have fun, darling,” Keris kisses him again, and goes off to find Zanyira.

... and her Gale. She really needs to reabsorb her Gale, even if it will give her a killer headache.

---

In the end, she gets such a bad headache from the re-merger with her Gale that she decides she needs a rest day to calm down from all the past few weeks - and of course, see to her babies. Her new memories tell her she caught Kali standing up with the help of a table leg, and taking a tottering step before she fell flat on her face. Her adorable little babies are growing up!

The next day, Zanyira is wary, but open to meeting her niece. Ali is spending the day in bed - he seems to have come down with a minor case of food poisoning - so she doesn’t even need to come up with an excuse not to invite him, but Hany is having too much fun with Chirpy Kitty Kali to want to leave her. Xasan promises he’ll look after her, though, so with her cousin on her back, Keris heads out. Past the hole-covered mess of her estate that Vali has made.

Many of the holes have flooded from the rain, but it’s still a mess.

“Is this whole thing a giant ruin?” Zanyira asks, looking around as Keris speeds through the jungle.

“My estate? Yeah, basically,” Keris says. “The island? Uh... also yes, I think. From what I can tell, back before the Contagion this whole place was one huge city. That weirdly circular hill my estate’s built on? Probably a single tower, hundreds of metres high.”

She diverts onto a river, skimming down it on light feet to save Zany the annoyance of branches and leaves whipping past. “From the ruins I saw in Eshtock and the way Asarin builds... the Shogunate really liked their huge, landscape-scale buildings. And that white super-stone, too. They loved that stuff; used it everywhere.”

“How did they make it?” Zany frowns. “Or did they not make it? Where did they dig it up from, then?”

Keris shrugs, which is an interesting movement with a grown woman on her back. “I think they must have made it, because I’ve seen it used in Taira, the Anarchy and even the far Northeast,” she replies. “So I’m guessing some kind of formula, like how you mix up Maiden Tea or make plaster. But the ingredients and however they cooked it to make it so strong... just another of the things lost in the fall of the Second Age. Same for that chunk of glass road I picked up from Malra. Maybe I’ll get Eko or Vali or Zanara to try and figure it out.” She pauses. “Or Asarin might know, I guess.”

They’re coming up to the fields and the farms at the edge of Saata, as well as the smaller rural estates of the not-quite-as-rich, and Keris has to pay more attention to dodging attention and eventually has to have Zany dismount. A quarter of an hour later they’re at Haneyl’s home, and find Rounen reading peacefully there. Keris checks in with her aide and introduces Zanyira to him before finding that Haneyl has bought out a countinghouse and is at work there now, along with Elly.

“He seems nice,” Zany says softly as they pause by a road, waiting for a parade of white-feathered dancers banging drums to pass by. “But is he a...” she drops her voice, “demon?”

“... he’s not from Hell,” Keris says. “But he’s not human either. He’s... mm... you know how powerful gods have lesser spirits who serve them? Powerful demons are kind of the same way; they make lesser demons. Whole races of them; the commoners of Hell. Things like the deer made of worms that Ali had to kill. Demons of the First Circle.”

She shrugs. “Rounen - and Elly - are lesser-spirits who come from Haneyl. He, uh, gets very angry if people call him a demon, so don’t. But he’s a lifesaver. Does all my paperwork and organising, and he used to be an adorable little flower-petal child who cooked my meals for me and wrote stories about what I did when I was travelling around.”

Zanyira grins at Keris. “Well, he’s quite the hotty,” she says, mouth curved wickedly up as she looks sideways at Keris. “No wonder you keep him close to you. If I wasn’t a married woman...”

“Nnnargh!” Keris says, cringing. “No no no! Bad Zany! I knew him when he was a kid! Besides, he has a... thing, with Haneyl and Elly. That I try not to think about. At all.” She shudders, and realises just a little too late that displaying weaknesses like ‘topics that can reliably make her cringe’ to someone as impish as Zanyira is probably a bad idea.

“So is there someone for you?” Zany asks, pushing on as they cross the street. “Or are you going to die an old spinster? Should I... well, I can’t set you up with my friends because we left them all back in Taira, but should I make some new friends so I can set you up with one of them?”

“There’s Sasi,” Keris sighs happily. “I showed you her in my sketchbook, remember? Haneyl and Vali’s other mother; the gorgeous Realm one. And...” Her cheeks redden a little. “I... may have had a... fling, I guess, while I was in Malra. With a... I guess you’d call him a rival? Sort of?”

Zany smiles, eyes twinkling, but says nothing. She quite deliberately says nothing. Her saying nothing and her smug smile is a void into which Keris’s words seem drawn, inviting her to blab her secrets.

((... lol. Per 3 + Pres 2 + Babbling Brook Gossip Style 2 + 1 Style bonus = 8 dice => [10 10 10 8 5 4 4 1] = 7 successes.))
((... goddamn, Zanyira.))

Keris has a girlfriend. A beautiful, brilliant romantic one who she talks to as often as she can. But she’s never had platonic girlfriends before; women her own age to gossip with and share secrets and giggle alongside and trade advice about men and makeup and the many trials of womanhood.

Or, well, that had been the general theme of the conversations between Nexan harlots she’d spied on as a kid; jealous of their easy friendships and social groups that went beyond two pre-teen street rats huddling under the same blanket.

Point is, this sort of thing is strange and foreign territory to her; rife with unexplored geography and rules she’s not familiar with. It’s tantalising and exciting and also kind of scary in an out-of-her-depth sort of way. So perhaps it’s that, or perhaps it’s Zany’s fearful powers of married-womanly-ness and teasing-older-cousin-ness that allow her to drag a rather-larger-than-Keris-intended part of the whole Ney fling out of her, albeit one that avoids the nastier bits of Malra. She even winds up expounding on the keruby when she mentions Oula and Rathan being together and has to explain how Oula grew up.

And, yes, there may be a bit of bragging involved. Both about how she pulled the wool over Ney’s eyes for the heist... and also how she totally won the bedroom sparring on both the first night at the border and then the last one in the capital.

Somehow, Zany manages to extract far, far more on that subject than Keris had ever believed she’d feel comfortable disclosing to a family member, with no more than a meaningful “so how was he?” that was packed with innuendo and then some coos of delight and not-so-subtle prompting whenever it looked like Keris was starting to listen to what she was saying.

“So the Jackal is your beau,” Zanyira concludes, with an impressed look on her face. She laughs, running her hands through her hair and seeming to only remember part way through her motion that it’s cut short and she can’t. “In a little way, that makes me feel better about you,” she says, jabbing Keris in the chest. “There’s the rumours I heard from some of the Lionesses that he’s a sun-chosen holy warrior. So you can’t be all that bad - that, or you’re so good at corrupting people that poor little me doesn’t stand a chance and I should just give in and enjoy the ride~”

“He’s not my beau,” Keris mutters, blushing. “He’s annoying. And nosy. And doesn’t know when to stop poking at people. Besides, he’s back in Malra. Being annoying.”

She points accusingly. “And you! You talk about me corrupting people! You’re a... a gossip-witch! Gods, I should be employing you as a spymaster; I’m the one who didn’t stand a chance just now! How’d you even get me to say that much about... about...”
She blushes again; cheeks pinking in a glare at Zany’s laugh. “I’ve spent a lot of time in bed being ill,” her cousin points out. “Talking to people is something I can do without getting tired. Plus,” and she smiles at Keris with a slight edge of malice, “I’ve always liked knowing other people’s secrets, Kiss.”
Oh dear. Mentioning the annoying nickname Ney gave her was a mistake.

Keris waves her pointing finger at the gossip-witch, as though it contains arcane or demonic power that will hold off her tyrannical blandishments. Sadly, Iris comprehensively fails to deliver.

“No,” she says slightly desperately, searching for a way to forbid that nickname from ever seeing the light of day again. None comes to mind. “No,” she repeats, just in case this will help matters. “Don’t you dare. I will... I’ll...”

She waves the finger again, this time with an air of faint panic. Thankfully, Haneyl’s countinghouse saves her.

“... oh, wait, look, we’re here!” she interrupts herself in relief. “Let’s go see my daughter, shall we?”

The countinghouse is located in a respectable merchant district. Keris knows her daughter and the appearance of respectability is very important to her. So is the fact that there’s a street of food sellers within smelling distance. They’re shown in, and head upstairs past the hollow hall full of scribes working away with their brushes and abacuses. Haneyl’s office is positioned so she can look over the main hall, with closable paper windows. It faces north and the slatted blinds are closed, casting patterns of light and dark onto the hardwood desk. There are, of course, bonsai trees on it.

Haneyl sits behind her desk, feet up on a footstall, dressed in a fine gold-trimmed green gown that shows more cleavage and more thigh than Keris is entirely happy about her teenage daughter showing. Elly has been tweaked to pass as human, and she kneels beside her princess on a mat, filing her own nails.

“Well, look who finally decided to show her face,” Haneyl drawls when her mother shows up. “I was almost thinking you’d forgotten I existed.”

The gravity-drop fan on the ceiling slowly unwinds, its counterweights descending and lazily moving the air in this hot office.

“Sorry darling. I had to go to Triumphant Air on urgent business,” Keris apologises, raising an eyebrow at Elly’s place on her knees and leaning in to kiss her daughter’s forehead. She’s only able to reach because Haneyl is sitting down.

“And on that note, remember how I said Ali and his family would be here around the end of Wood? Well, they got delayed up at the Realm port, so I brought them back with me. Meet Zanyira; my cousin. Sister-in-law. Uh... both?”

Keris frowns, and glances back at Zany. “You know what? I’m just going to use ‘sister’, if that’s okay. And this is Haneyl; my seventh soul and second-eldest daughter, and her friend Ellyssivera.”

Haneyl looks at the woman, eyebrows rising. There’s... heh, Keris thinks, a little similarity in the appearance of the two women, beyond the shared features that Haneyl gets from Keris’s Tairan side. They have similar skin tones and Zany’s hair is a very light brown. Their eyes aren’t the same shade of green, though - Haneyl’s are a bright, almost unnatural green while Zany’s are much more muted and normal-human; if Haneyl’s are the bright green of Ligier, Zanyira’s are the soft, gentle green of ivy and other evergreen plants.

Then Zany smiles. “Oh my, you were so much smaller in the pictures Keris showed you. You were all tiny and adorable.”

That prompts a dark blush on Haneyl’s cheeks. “Mama!” she protests. “Did you show her my childhood drawings?”

“She did,” Zany says, before Keris can deny anything. “I’m Zanyira. And yes, like Keris says, I’m her cousin.” She perches on the chair opposite to Keris. “Is this place all yours?”

Haneyl quickly orders Elly to put the tea on. “Oh yes,” she brags. “I’ve been busy. I realised when mama was away that I needed someone to handle my affairs here when I was elsewhere or had other things to do. So I found this woman, Indah Mataiya, who’s a graduate-priestess of one of the local temples and owned a counting house. I made her acquaintance, and,” Haneyl smiles, showing her teeth, “hired her. Although we’re really very good friends. Honestly, she’d work for me for free.”

“Nnnargh,” comments Keris, dropping her face into her hands as her cheeks go dull red again. “Haneyl! I don’t want to know about your... conquests.”

She sighs. “Is she trustworthy, at least? Wait, never mind, if Elly tolerates her she must be. Good job then, sweetheart. Well done. Oh, and Vali says to not be boring and that you should visit more. He and Zanara have been decorating my estate.” She pauses. “Speaking of which; did your littler sibling come ask you for help getting their hands on some money recently?”

Haneyl frowns. “No. What have they been up to?” Her eyes narrow. “Elly!”

“She wasn’t stealing from you,” Elly says, as she kneels by the kettle. “I’d have smelled it. The Prinz has a distinctive odour anyway, and theft mixed in with that... no. Nothing like that.”

“Oh dear,” Keris murmurs. “Well, I’ll work out exactly what they did later. Do you have time for a meal?” She grins, already knowing the answer.

“Of course, of course!” Haneyl springs to her feet. “Elly, I’ll see to the tea. I want you to go to the Seventh Duck and inform them that my reservation for lunch will need four, not two.”

“Yes, my princess,” Elly says, rising with predatory grace. She bows to Haneyl, and then to Keris, and leaves. Haneyl takes the tea in hand, serving it with practiced skill.

“Is there a reason she kneels?” Zany asks.

“She prefers it,” Haneyl says, with an easy shrug. “I’ve offered her a chair. She prefers her padded mat. She says chairs make her spine hurt and her teeth itch.”

Keris raises an eyebrow, but... supposes she can see that. Elly’s a crocodile-wolf in her natural state. Maybe her instincts just don’t feel comfortable on furniture.

“So, then,” she asks, sipping at her tea. “Besides your new countinghouse - very nice new feather for your hair - how have things been? Did you get the dance hall finished?”

Haneyl sighs. “Like I told you, mama,” she says wearily, “nagging me won’t make it go any faster. I’m not my dunderheaded brother who can just throw stones on top of each other. I have workers who are doing it, and they’re a bit behind schedule. Monsoon season is slowing things down. Still, the roof is mostly fixed so at least the building isn’t flooding each time it rains. Just as I told you last time, it won’t be ready until sometime in the new year.”

Keris looks slightly guilty. “Worth a shot,” she shrugs, playing it off. “Other than that, then?”

“Things are quite fine.” Haneyl swirls her tea thoughtfully. “I’m enjoying Saata. I do love mother dearly, but it’s nice to be out from under her thumb. And the city is wonderful. There’s so many things to see, so many things to eat, so many things - and people - to do. I might head off for a little holiday sometime in the new year, though. Part of the reason I hired Indah is so I can leave her doing this kind of work for a season or two. I will want to pop off home for a bit, just to check on the place and see Saji. I should probably tell her I forgive her in a bit. And of course, a month or two sailing off down south sounds like a wonderful time. At the very least, I want to find some of those spice islands and harvest crop samples. The price I have to pay for nutmeg at the market is criminal! I want some of that profit!”

“Oh, huh. Speaking of sailing down south, the Baisha will probably be done with their scouting of the region,” Keris realises. “I need to talk to Neride about what to do next. And, uh, also fuel. They’ll be running low. Hmm.”

Zanyira seems a little lost as Keris and her daughter move into discussion of politics and business. But she doesn’t interrupt and doesn’t even ask questions. She just cups her hands around her tea and listens to them, eyes wide.

Then...

“I do have a question,” she asks Keris over lunch. “You keep on talking about priests... but not as priests, if you follow me? As if they’re people you hire?”

The restaurant is an expensive coffeehouse, serving fish and rice dishes alongside a range of coffees. The walls are dark wood with hanging drapes separating the tables, and bronze mirrors reflect golden light around in the smoke-filled air. The conversations in here are too much for Keris to track, not just in volume but also in number and in details. No wonder Haneyl loves this place. Keris didn’t understand how much of the business here, away from the Tengese quarter, seems to happen in coffeehouses.

“Oh, right, yeah,” Keris nods. “That confused me too at first. Saata is wonderfully close to Nexus in a lot of ways, but there are still some differences, and this is one of the big ones.”

She snaps up a yummy spiced pastry thing made with ginger and nutmeg and takes a sip of cocoa-coffee before continuing. “So the thing you need to understand is that basically anything that involves teaching in this city happens as part of a temple. ‘Priest’ doesn’t mean ‘holy man’ here - or, well, it kind of does, but it mostly means ‘educated person’ or... or ‘journeyman’ or whatever.”

She waves a hand, illustrating her point. “So there’s a temple for finance and bureaucracy that Haneyl’s new accountant graduated from, a temple for working with firedust-related stuff, a temple for dancing, a temple for ship-making... if you want to learn a trade here, you go enrol at a temple. And if you want someone trained in something, you hire a priest.”

“I... suppose that makes sense,” Zanyira says thoughtfully. “Because back home everyone knew that the priests of Shamsun up on the mountain knew things no one else did.” She smiles. “If I hadn’t been ill, I’d probably have tried to become an initiate there.” Her smile vanishes. “Well, and... and if I wasn’t the last of my branch of the family. The priest down in the village - I paid attention and made sure I knew how to read because a few of our books survived the fire. Did I mention there was a map of all the world in one of the old books? And one of them was a diary. You know I think our family used to be minor nobility before a dam broke and we lost our land? That was before the empire, though - before Taira.”

Keris’s eyebrows rise in surprise. “Really? Huh. I don’t suppose you brought those books and maps along, did you?” She grins. “I like maps. They’re useful. And help me not get lost.”

“I think they’re somewhere in the bags,” Zanyira says, vaguely surprised. “I mean, if Hany didn’t tear them up. She might. We have to keep her away from paper.”

“Sorry, what?” Haneyl demands.

“Oh, yeah,” Keris remembers. “Your, uh, cousin also came with Ali and Zanyira. Her name is Hanilyia.”

She waits.

Haneyl crosses her arms, and glares at her mother. “Really? Really, mama? You couldn’t show any more imagination when naming us?”

“... hey!” Keris objects, not having gotten the indignant name-claiming reaction she’d expected. Her teasing comparison of Haneyl to a three-year old mortal child withers on the vine. “I... I named you by instinct! I thought I was using my imagination!”

“She just named you after your great-grandmother,” Zanyira informs her traitorously.

Haneyl sighs. “Really? Really, mama? By that logic, you might as well have called me Nemone. And then I’d sound like some kind of sea creature.”

Keris, beset on two sides by a coordinated assault, pouts.

“You used to be much more adorable than this,” she complains. “I remember when you were still asking me why the sky was that colour and why people wanted to live in houses that weren’t trees.”

“I was the most adorable,” Haneyl agrees. “Now I’m the most beautiful. That’s what happens when a girl grows up, mama. She stops being adorable and becomes beautiful.” She flicks her hair. “Like me.”

Zanyira nods. “You are very pretty,” she tells Haneyl. “By the way, which part of Keris’s mind do you represent?”

Keris hesitates. Briefly. Compassion is one thing, Art and Justice fairly non-offensive... but...

“Zanara said greed,” she says quietly. “And the drive to better myself. Haneyl’s the one who pushes me to be better than I am. To keep striving for more; like my estate and her countinghouse.”

She narrows her eyes at Zany. “Which you heard. You were there. Why are you asking now?”

Zanyira smiles. “Because you seemed much more wary about her, but she’s an interesting girl. So I thought I’d ask her.”

“... wait.” Haneyl glares at Keris. “Are you embarrassed of me?”

Keris looks hurt. “Of course I’m not! I’m worried for you. It’s hard to blame Rathan for anything, and Calesco can say she’s Compassion and a lot of people will take that to mean she’s nice.”

She pauses, considering that for a moment. “Well, people who’ve never spent much time around her when she’s in a bad mood will take that to mean ‘nice’, at least,” she amends. “And Zanara sounds pretty inoffensive as ‘Art’ if you haven’t seen the sheer power they can put into their paintings. But you don’t have that kind of protection against people thinking bad things about you, and I don’t want people to assume you’re horrible just from hearing what part of me you’re linked to. That’s not fair.”

“Mmm.” Haneyl settles down. “Well... just so we’re clear...” She glances at Zanyira. “And I’m not really a part of mama. That’s not how it works. I’m me. She... she gave birth to me because of that seed, maybe, but... it’s complicated. I’m her daughter. And Lady Sasimana is my other mother. My cousin isn’t part of you, is she? She’s just born of your flesh. So I was born of mama’s mind. See?”

“... I think I do.” Zanyira nods. “This is excellent coffee,” she adds, and the conversation moves onto lighter things.

---

The heat of Fire grows and grows as the year approaches its end. Mosquitos buzz in Saata, and even the bats and the brightly coloured birds can’t eat them all. It takes some effort, but Keris manages to calm Zanara down with the promise for Zana to get to go to one of the Saatan dance temple-colleges and take Piu with her. Keris carefully frames it as an “I’m sorry” gift, rather than a way to hopefully get the second most troublesome of her souls to behave for a bit, and Zanara seems to buy it. Maybe they’re fooled, or maybe they just want to go to dance-temple that much.

Vali’s hanging around the estate, doing handy work and being Keris’s attentive face to her family. Vali gets along with them, which is something she’s really happy to see. He’s forthright, fairly laid back when around squishy mortals, and he loves Hany - and she loves Cuz Vali back. Keris mentions to him it might be an idea to do something nice for Ali so he can feel useful, and helps him get his forge set up. There’s an added benefit there, because Vali’s always been self-taught and Ali at least can give him some formal teaching.

Haneyl seems to have delegated herself into mild boredom. That’s presumably why she’s so amenable to looking into Pretty Peacock for Keris. That and the offers of bribes of some of her wealth when Keris takes her rival down, of course.

But it’s at the new moon when Keris summons Rathan, who emerges sparkling and flawless and only slightly irked that Zanara is refusing to give up the Amulet to him.

“Sorry, darling,” she says. “But this time I’m not summoning you for beauty or as a herald. I need you to be a guardian for me.”

With a grin, she produces a long, lethal line of shining silver; the curve of the blade like a serpent’s fang, and balances it for a moment in her hands. Then she flips the two-handed blade - as long as she is tall - to present it hilt-first to Rathan.

“I think you recognise this, don’t you?” she grins. “Bear it well in the defence of my manse. I don’t expect you to get your hands dirty yourself, so I’m sending you and Oula with some of Vali’s keruby who were once wave cherubs. Get the harvesting of the guano underway and the shipments sent to the warehouse Elly set up. Guard the manse. And see if Oula can work out how to get it reactivated next year.”

Rathan - straining slightly - hefts the blade. “I have actually been sort of practicing,” he admits. “It was a bit embarrassing last time how Oulie took it off me.” As his hand gets more used to the blade, Keris can see pink waves in the metal, and it reflects his light, not the stars of Creation. “If we’re going to be sailing there, you should summon Viscount Mele too.”

“Oh! Of course!” Keris shakes her head. “I got so caught up at Triumphant Air that it slipped my mind. He hatched, then? I’ll summon him tomorrow night. And,” she grins. “You can show me how you’ve improved with that before Oula comes and drags you away.”

Keris’s family is happy to see Rathan again. After all, he was there with them for the long trip down from Baisha. Ali invites him out to go fishing again, while Zanyira coos over him and gets him blushing bright red with talk of how he’s grown and whether he’s eaten enough.

She gives Keris a wink when she turns away. Her cousin is a very dangerous woman.

“Oh, by the way, Keris,” she says. “Me and Ali have been talking.”

“We have,” her brother agrees. “About...” he squares his chest, and tries to steel himself. “We don’t want to just be your poor relatives living on your money without a shahi to our names. I can earn my keep when we get that forge up and running. It’ll be good to be working again. But...”

“But,” Zanyira takes over, “... look at me, Keris. I’m a peasant farmer who can’t farm because I was always ill. And I was thinking about that lunch I had with you and Haneyl. And how I wanted to take holy orders serving Shamsun when I was younger. We’ve been talking and we think it’s a good idea that I study at one of the temples.” She smiles. “I can live with Haneyl during the week. Keep an eye on her for you. I am one of her relatives, after all.”

Keris nods firmly. “Good,” she says with a smile. “I was hoping you’d set up a forge again, Ali. That’ll help the estate, and I want to see if it’s possible to rebuild something like the waterwheel from Baisha. And Zany, what were you thinking of studying? There are a lot of temples to choose from.”

Zany takes a deep breath. “Well, uh,” she says, showing unusual lack of confidence. “I don’t know exactly, but I did talk with Haneyl a bit about this, because she lives in the main city - and likes showing off. And... uh. She gave me a list of names, but one that mentioned was that... well, Windswift College. I know I... I probably won’t get in, but my horoscope said that I should take a chance and good things might happen, and that I should at least try to sit the entrance exam. Haneyl said they have all kinds of tests that try to see if Mercury smiles on you and my horoscope said I’d be lucky if I tried something new, so... even if I fail, I want to give it a go.”

“Windswift, huh,” Keris whistles, eyebrows rising. “Trade and winds and semaphores. You don’t think small, Zany.”

She blows out an impressed breath. “Honestly? Go for it. You’re smart - probably smart enough to get in, especially if Rounen and I give you some help preparing for the exam in the evenings. And I’m not gonna lie; if you get in and graduate, I’d hire you in a heartbeat. There are more ways an adept of Mercury Wind-Swift could help me than I can even count.”

She steps closer and squeezes Zany’s hand, looking her in the eye. “I believe in you, sister. You can do this.”

It winds up mostly being left up to Rounen. Unfortunately, Keris doesn’t have as much time to help out as she likes, as several things come up that get in the way. Chief of them is the Baisha. It takes longer than she’d like to track it down, and when she does, Captain Neride has harsh words for her.

“... all in all, the fuel situation’s severe, and you still have left us on scouting missions that this is overkill for,” she concludes. “My recommendation is we head back to Hell to try to secure fuel while we still can, because if we run out in the Desert, we’re all dead and your ship is lost to Her immensity.” She pauses long enough for it to be borderline insulting. “With all due respect, of course.”

“I would have contacted you back in Wood, but when you get direct orders from an Unquestionable you don’t argue,” Keris snaps. “And sticking a knife between the Realm’s local magistrate and its navy took up all my attention for the past month. Your reports on the region?”

She accepts the thick stack of paper. Whooph. Another job for Rounen. Flicking through them quickly, she nods.

“Good. Permission to return to Hell granted. Next year you’re going to be on search-and-destroy duty. I’ll give you your list of targets at Calibration.”

The mention of orders from an Unquestionable are enough to get the captain flinching back slightly. And she has got what she wanted. “Yes, my lady. I will await you in the docks in the All-Thing.”

Keris turns to leave, but on her way she is stopped by the blue flame-face of the Priest. “Orders from an Unquestionable?” it asks in its bone-dry tone.

Keris doesn’t bat an eye. “Ligier himself contacted me,” she says. “You are aware it was his skill that made this ship, yes? I owe him for that. He sent me to Triumphant Air to deal with a threat to one of his cults, where I proceeded to fool a dangerously sharp-eyed Dragonblooded magistrate and get him to execute a dozen Realm navy veterans as cultists. Which means he thinks he’s wrapped up all the local Yozi worship, and the marines he was relying on as enforcers are now furious at him and will be a lot less willing to help him in future.”

She cocks her head. “My orders from the Reclamation are to attack Dynastic interests in the Anarchy, are they not?” she asks rhetorically.

“To question one of the Unquestionable would be blasphemy,” the Priest rasps. “Your devotion is... admirable. That is all.” And it turns and leaves, trailing sand as it goes.

Keris counts that as a win, feels annoyed again at the fact that it’s getting sand all over her ship, and leaves them to head home.

---

It’s two days after the new moon in Ruling Fire when Keris, Rathan and Oula head down to her basements just before sunset. Oula is deliriously happy to be out in the world with Rathan again, away from the apparently quite persistent mercurial architects who have started showing up.

The basements of her estate aren’t much to talk about. They’re a mix of new stonework and a few patched up rooms from the old Shogunate structure underneath. And they’re full of trash. Unfortunately, both Vali and Lucky Wolf seemed to have got into the habit of dumping things in them. It’s going to be some work to clean them out.

“... and then I went to bed, only to find that she’d broken in and was waiting for Rathan in our bed!” Oula concludes, almost vibrating with rage. “Well, of course, that couldn’t stand! I exiled her to the City! Queen Dulmea can handle that nasty little piece of work!”

Rathan pats her on the shoulder. “Anyway, mama, are you ready? I know I told you not to peek, because I wanted him to be a surprise.”

“I’m ready,” says Keris. “Mele, right?” She focuses on her authority over her Domain and all the citizens who reside within it.

“By name, by descent, by citizenship I call you,” she intones, her anima flickering and flaring around her in vivid reds and silvers. “I summon you by the authority I wield as All-Queen! Come, Viscount Mele of the Sea!”

The world splits open, and an icy Sea wind blows in through the slit. In strolls a pale young man. No, not pale like a human. Not even pale like Rathan. Pale like ivory or marble. He looks like a statue carved from delicate materials. Two bull-like horns sprout from his forehead, rising from among his white hair. The only trace of colour on him is the smudge of lip paint on his cheek. He’s dressed in Isles-made oilcloth that shimmers in the candlelight, and his features have a certain softness to them, belayed by the cutlass loosely belted at his hip.

“Oh, I must have lost track of time, my prince,” he says in an affable mid-toned voice. “I’m sorry. A rather handsome young man was making his best efforts to persuade me to take his heart. Very enthusiastic efforts. I might have even accepted in a day or two. You know how they can be.” He glances over at Oula, who is making an audible grinding noise from her teeth. “Something the matter, your grace?”

“You know quite well what I object to, Viscount,” Oula says in a tone of voice which suggests you could replace the title of nobility with something a lot coarser.

Keris raps her spear on the ground, drawing attention back to her and cutting off the argument before it can develop. Her eyes flick over the new arrival and she hums to herself thoughtfully.

“So you’re Mele,” she murmurs. “The other wave cherub path. Come here, then. Let me see you.” She offers her left hand for him to shake or kiss; absorbing the feel of his ivory skin as he takes it. “Oula is an architect,” she adds casually. “Where do your skills lie?”

He flicks his pale hair - a motion that, thanks to the prehensile nature that seems ubiquitous among her children and the keruby with hair, lasts for a while. “Why, your majesty, I’m the second most dashing captain in all the Sea - second only to Rathan himself. I’ve built a goodly number of boats to distribute the things I’ve had my sziroms write, and of course, unlike the good duchess herself,” he flutters his eyes at Oula, who glares back, “I haven’t lost most of the skill I once had with a blade.”

His cool, hard lips brush against her left hand as he floridly bows - and then takes the certain liberty of trailing a few further kisses up. Just like Oula, he feels like Rathan - but when she’s cool and flowing, there’s something a bit more rigid about him, even if it bends under pressure. If she’s cool mercury, he’s ice. But those are just different notes emphasised in the overall, common Rathanness.

Keris raises a dangerous eyebrow at his assumption, and smirks when Iris objects to it by biting him sharply on the nose. “A shipbuilder, hmm?” she responds. “Interesting. I may have tasks for you, then. After this one.”

She nods at Rathan and Oula. “You will accompany them to the manse-tower west of Shuu Mua. Rathan will be keeping the island hidden from prying eyes, and Oula will be working on the geomancy to find a way to reactivate it. Which leaves you with the defence of the island, and the shipping of its resources to the warehouse Countess Ellyssivera has set up on the mainland for collection. I’ll supply you with a junk for the transport, though it will need repairs made.”

Mele brushes off his nose. “Oh, my queen, my radiant empress, I will of course be delighted to be of such use to you. Your thanks are like a radiant blossom upon the icebergs, and your red lips as you smile are as beautiful as the moon. Please, beautiful one, if you have any further use for me, you need only ask.”

“See, this is why I like him,” Rathan observes with a fond smile.

“Yes,” Oula says through gritted teeth, “this is why he likes him.”

Keris gives her protégé an indulgent smile. “Do be sure to keep them both in line, now,” she orders with gentle amusement; one woman to another. “I know Rathan relies on your support and counsel, and you’ve proven yourself trustworthy in Malra. I want to reactivate that manse next year, so get to know the local dragon lines and map out what we’ll need to do to reconnect them to the structure.” She clasps Oula’s shoulder firmly. “You’re perfect for this job. I know you’ll succeed.”

Oula curtseys, her long white dress flowing around her and drawing eyes to the red tattoos on her chest and shoulders and back. “Of course, aunty,” she says dutifully. “I suppose if we need to message you, Rathan can make a lesser demon and it can return to you. Rounen Secondborn was boasting about that idea, and it does sound useful.” She pauses. “As a question, how long will this be? Are we to return to hell with you for Calibration?”

“It depends,” Keris tells her after a moment’s thought. “I’ll check in to see how you’re doing before I set off, and we’ll see what the situation is and decide then.”

Oula smiles. “Well, if we do, me, you and Unquestionable Lilunu can have another girls’ night out.” She aims her words partly at Mele. “I had a lot of fun last time. And after seeing the beautiful creature on your arm...” Iris sticks her head up, and preens, “yes you are beautiful, aren’t you... I would like a tattoo from her. Or maybe some piercings. Zana was raving about her talents in that field.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Keris promises. “Alright, you have the route? Oh, and Rathan? That’s around where we saw the orcamen tribes, so if you want to make contact with them... I’ll allow it, but don’t leave the manse. And don’t tell them too much. Alright?”

Rathan flaps his hands in her direction. “Fine, fine, there’s no need to be a nag, mama. I know what to do.”

Keris pulls him down to kiss him on the forehead. “I know you do, darling. Have fun, and stay safe.”

He hugs back. “I’ll probably need a break after running herd on a group of fems,” he says, with a smile. “Oulie is right. It would be nice to spend some time back in Hell... but on the other hand,” he winces, “I’d really rather that Noh not show up again out of the blue.”

Kissing him on the cheek again - and not making any promises she may not be able to keep - Keris claps her hands.

“Alright. We need to get going in a hurry if I want to drop your junk off and be back here before morning. Mount up, people. Let’s go.”

---

With Rathan holding down the manse to the west, Keris focuses on business at home. She’s got a silversmithy to set up in her remaining two months here, and then transport across the Desert to arrange. At least this time she can grow a bamboo sandship and not have to carry anyone who’s coming with her.

((OK, Reaction + Investigation as a strategic action to find a place to site her baaaaaaaase.))

Sadly, the site of her current smithy won’t work. It’s too small. For what she Keris planned, Little River is going to need a much more expansive premises - something that can support multiple journeymen and even a few masters. Not quite a temple-college in its own right, but certainly a large property with multiple shared workspaces.

And she wants it on a river, too. She’s not sure if Ali will be able to recreate the intricate, cunning mechanism that her grandfather or great-grandfather or whoever had set up on the family forge back in Taira - and he’s had years to familiarise himself with it, so he might well have a better chance than her - but she can certainly manage a simpler waterwheel-driven trip hammer or drill. Not to mention that she’s going to own the place as Little River, and what’s even the point of advertising if she doesn’t lean into the name?

((5+1+2 Coadj+2 stunt=10. 5 sux.))

Unfortunately, things don’t go as easily as she might have liked. The specificity of her site is rare, yes, but... that rare? There are rivers in Saata, there are places next to rivers for rent, but they seem suspiciously unwilling to sell to her - and the one time she seemed about to close the deal, someone else bought the land for a higher price.

Keris suspects someone is fucking with Little River. She’s not happy. Not happy at all.

((Fail - Diff 3 for what she was looking for, but she thinks someone was contesting her and imposing an external penalty - but she doesn’t know who.))
((However, with fail-forward as a rules guidance...))

It’s nearly the end of Ruling Fire when she gets her break. She’s in her forge, working on the particularly intricate detailing on a shrine for the temple of the Golden Lord when she hears a knock at her door. She can hear from the weight and the fine fabrics that it’s Sinasana Ba-le, even before she yells out, “Hey, Little River, you in there?”.

She’s been showing up every week or so since the first meeting. Sometimes they chat. Sometimes they go out for a drink if it’s the evening. She’s not a friend, but she’s certainly an acquaintance. And looking away from her work, Keris realises how late it’s got. It’s already twilight outside.

“I’m here,” she calls, focusing back on the inscription. “Give me a minute!”

She finishes the character she’s etching with a carving tool barely thicker than her hair, blows the dust off, and locks the in-progress piece in the thick, heavy safe under the floor before heading outside.

“Ba-le,” she greets with a graceful nod. “Later than you normally show up.” She glances westward and frowns. “Later than I usually work, for that matter. I must have been distracted. How are you today?”

“Back from a little break, actually,” Ba-le says with an easy shrug. “My husband’s second cousin has a yacht and we borrowed it for a few days heading around the Shuu Mua coast. Fresh air... well, it would have been, but the marshes up north stink. Then we stopped over at one of the family’s costal retreats. It’s nice to get away from the noise of the city sometimes. You?”

Keris frowns. “I’ve been trying to set up a silver smithy, but I’m having difficulty finding a site. Or rather,” she adds in rather peeved tones, “securing one. Somebody is deliberately interfering.”

She quirks an eyebrow at her acquaintance, training her keen senses on the woman’s breathing and heartbeat. “I don’t suppose you’d have any idea who might be that petty, do you?” she asks idly. She hasn’t forgotten that Ba-le originally tried to poach her for the ruling house here. Nor that they’re closer to rivals than friends.

Ba-le laughs. “Who wouldn’t be that petty, you mean? This is Saata, darling, even if you’re still a Tengese hick right off the boats. It’s the grandest, pettiest, most spiteful city in the world! Maybe you cut someone off in a crowd and they’ve vowed eternal revenge!”

((Does Keris notice any sign that it might be her? Though admittedly I doubt she’d be remotely ashamed.))
((No sign, no.))

Huffing in annoyance, Keris closes up her little forge. “Petty,” she repeats. “And annoying. Well, when I find out who it is, I’ll drown them.” There’s not much heat behind the threat, but she still feels a little better for saying it.

And she definitely suspects Ba-le might be involved in some sort of campaign to stop her setting up a proper smithy. House Sinasana would have more than enough reach for it, and it would work as a tactic to pressure her into their ranks. Eyeing the Dragonblood out of the corner of her eye, Keris lets her more refined senses stretch out and judge how much Ba-le would charge for helping Little River set up her own silver workshop, independent from House Sinasana. And how much she’d give for aid preventing the Tengese dragon from doing so, should Keris offer it with another face.

The prices are much of a likeness. It’d be notable either way. It’s probably not active malice, but on the other hand...

((Resources 2-3-ish for both.))
((Hmm.))

“Anyway,” Ba-le says. “Want to go out for a drink?”

Weighing the values in her head, Keris tentatively decides that whoever’s behind this scheme, it’s probably not Ba-le herself. She may well know who it is, and it might even still be House Sinasana. But it’s probably not her personally.

“Yes,” she sighs. “I suppose a drink would be nice.”

The ladies decamp to an open-air bar under wide palm leaves, where a live band plays and two oiled up men dance together on a stage. Ba-le returns with a jug of rice wine and two small cups. “I still owe you for last time, so now we’re even,” she says, pouring Little River a shot. “You look down.”

“Somebody is deliberately... blocking me,” says Keris, barely refraining from vulgarity. She’s built Little River into a refined sort of woman who holds strictly to her manners. Not the kind of person who’d say someone was fucking with her, even if they were. “It’s frustrating. And Calibration is coming up. Bad spirits lurk around during that time, and Atiya’s still frailer than I’d like.”

Ba-le downs her first shot. “Well, go on. Maybe you’re just a fuck-up, Little River. Sell me on your business proposition.” She pours herself another one.

Keris gives her a narrow-eyed glare. “I’m looking to open a smithy,” she says. “A silver workshop; larger than my current one. Somewhere I can have apprentices and journeymen under me. I can teach, better than any mortal, and Saata’s fleets are always in need of more protective charms. If I staff the place with competent employees, it will bring in money - and I’ll be able to expand to working in gold and gems if I pick up any jewellers. All I need is the site and a contract. And I would have the first already were someone not deliberately stalling me.”

She throws back a cup of rice wine in an angry swallow and sets it back down on the table with a sharp click.

((Per + Pres to make your sale case))
((4+5+2 stunt x2 HDT=11. 5x2=10 sux.))

“Hmm.” Ba-le swirls her cup. “And what about funding? Can you really afford that kind of expansion, especially before the revenue comes in?”

“Yes,” says Keris calmly. She has Jade Fox’s backing, not that she’s going to divulge that when it’s not necessary. “No need to worry on that score; I have enough funds to cover the gap.”

((Hmmm.
*rolls*
6 successes.))

“Yeah,” Ba-le says after some thought. “Yeah, you’re being fucked with. Seems solid enough to me.” She looks around. “And the scenery here is cramped. Want to go find somewhere else to finish this wine off?”

“I wouldn’t have put it that way,” Little River murmurs, “but yes, I think I am. Which does not please me. I can’t say I think much of the band here; where did you have in mind?”

“Just go find somewhere better,” Ba-le says, with a shrug.

She tosses some coins out for the jug and cups she’s taking, and the two women head off. For all her claims to just be wandering, Ba-le clearly has somewhere in mind, as they head up the slopes away from the shore. From up here, Saata stretches out down below; a warren of misshapen stone, glowing paint, and the fumes from the forges.

This area is run-down, one of the outer districts away from the commerce and the vice of the water. A place of runaway slaves, smallholders, and workers. There’s a potters’ street here, where the white stones have been splattered with grey and red clay, and a slaughterhouse that handles meat coming in from the smallholdings. It really isn’t a scenic place to drink. The buildings here are mostly Shogunate ruins, patched up with wood and bamboo rather than rebuilt, and there are wide open spaces of rubble and grass where structures have been hacked apart to feed the building materials of the richer parts of the city.

Ba-le slumps down on a grassy river-bank half overgrown with bamboo. “Ah, back to nature,” she says with thick irony. She pours out two more drinks. “Cheers! How about this place?”

Keris looks around, raising an eyebrow. “For my smithy? It’s... less reputable than I’d like. And I’d have to build almost from scratch.”

“It’s my husband’s land,” Ba-le says. “Sinasana land.” She grins. “Women like us, we can afford to think for the long term. I love him dearly, but he’s too much of a man to think over decades. Of course, that enthusiasm is his charm, but if I left him up to things, he’d just sit around and read. The way I see it, within a few decades Saata will sprawl up the slopes.” She throws back a shot. “Then this’ll be prime estate away from the city mess and the sailors off the ships. And in the present, you’ll never get anything this big down in Saata proper.”

“... you have a point,” Keris murmurs. “And you’d be willing to arrange for me to set up my shop here? What would you ask for it?” She casts an eye around the plot again, judging its value.

“Oh, I’m not talking about selling,” Ba-le says, leaning back against the bamboo. “I’m talking a long term lease. A century would be normal for this sort of thing. I couldn’t sell it, anyway - which is the reason Colira still has it. The House has laws about areas where property can be sold and this is House land. Which might sound like a downside - but think of it this way, Little River. Here, you don’t have any risk of someone else buying out the Provostry for your district and changing the laws on you. You’d just be under House law, not House law plus whatever your local provost says- and if you’re renting from me and Colira, it’d be bad manners for anyone else to interfere in your stuff.”

((For a Resources 1 rent, she could easily get something the size of her current place. For Resources 2, she could get a sizable complex - take one of the old Shogunate halls or something.))

Little River considers. Her hair falls over her shoulder as she thinks, shading her eyes and casting her face into an eerie mix of shadow and ghoulish light reflected from the city below.

“It does sound like a perfect offer,” she admits after a moment or two. “Stable, sizeable, safe. Given we’re in Saata, I’m tempted to ask what the catch is.”

“A catch? Why would there be a catch?” Ba-le asks innocently, pouring Little River another shot. “From my point of view, I’m not getting any money from this land. I have expensive tastes. You’d be a tenant - and one who’d be good about paying every month. And I heard rumours about what you get up to in that rundown estate you bought cheap. Seems you have a taste for trying to get cheap things and making them nicer. So a century, maybe half a century depending on how the contract works out - yeah, that means money for me and cheaper land than you’d ever get down in the richer districts.”

“... you’re using me,” Little River says in amused realisation. “You’re banking that I’ll draw other tenants in once my shop gets up and running and the land value rises. Or just rent residences for my workers near the shop, and improve them the same way I am with my estate. You’d be getting me to renovate your land for you, and to pay you for the privilege.”

“Hah! Well, you know.” Ba-le smiles wryly. “I was born a Baltoo.”

Little River relaxes at the bald admission. Now that she can see what Ba-le is gaining from this, she’s a lot less wary.

“Very well,” she says, an undercurrent of laughter in her voice. “I think we can come to an agreement, then. But if I’m going to be improving your land for you, I’ll expect that service to be reflected in my rent.” She downs another shot of rice wine. “We can meet later this week and talk terms.”

“And I’ll talk it over with my husband...” she smiles, “but I doubt he’ll object. He also has expensive tastes.” She stretches. “That reminds me. Falling Fire 6, there’s a festival to Akhanammu. The priests always throw one hell of a spectacle - fireworks, parades, and there’s a Sinasana ball there since my husband’s aunt has a mansion that perfectly overlooks the fireworks from the temple. You should come.” She pauses. “The most eligible bachelors are there,” she teases. “And a lot of young men and women who aren’t at all interested in marriage for now...”

Little River’s smile is a subtle little thing.

“We’ll see,” she says. “We’ll see.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Outside, it is raining. The winds rolling off the Great Western Ocean stir the windchimes and prayer wheels. Howler monkeys shriek out in the jungle. Jade Fox’s shutters are down, though, and the blue sea master sits on a low chair beside his wife. The golden light of many candles within paper lanterns casts soft shadows across the room. Atiya dozes in a crib beside Keris’s own chair on this reed-matted ground. It is early in Falling Fire, and Calibration is coming soon.

“We have closed the deal with Sinasana Be-le,” his wife, Tranquil Pool says to Little River. “The land deal is signed - and I will serve as guarantor.” The implicit threat is clear there. “My husband and I hope that you soon will have operations up and running. This is no small amount of money I have ventured on you, and it is not good for friends - like ourselves - to have debts between one another.”

“You need not worry,” Little River replies calmly. “The smithy will be successful, and bring honour to all of us.” She dips her head towards Jade Fox. “Your fleet will, of course, be the first to be outfitted with warding charms and talismans. I will see to the licensing and construction this season, and with luck we can open early in the new year.”

Jade Fox makes a satisfied grunt. “I pray that day comes soon,” he says gravely, then nods. “Once typhoon season is over and the bad spirits driven away by the turning of the year, me and my boy will head up to the old country on one of our trading ships. It is good for the parents of the husband and wife to speak to one another properly.”

“I wish you good fortune, then,” Little River says politely. “And I will keep space open in my work for a special commission, should you wish to take one with you.”

He seems pleased with that, and the conversation moves on to other topics. “Oh, yes,” mentions Tranquil Pool, “I had heard rumour that you have taken in a foundling from the docks. A most peculiar child, if the tales are true. What possessed you to do that?”

((Hmm. Did we actually settle on what Zanara’s name as Little River's ward was?))
((...))
((... is it Two Opal?))
((I don’t think we did, so yes, you can name her as you wish.))

Keris allows a fond smile to cross her face. “Ah, Two Opal. Yes, you heard right. I suppose it was... a number of things, really. Her misfortune reminded me of why I had to leave the homeland, a little - though her story is more tragic than mine. And she loves the arts. When I first met her, she was painting a godsblessing on an unattended wall - amateurish, but remarkable all the same. And then she followed me all the way down a quay just to ask who’d made my hairpieces.” She fingers one of the silver dragonfly clips that she’s wearing today. “She didn’t want to steal them, you understand. Just to know how they’d been made, and whether she could learn. Talent and passion like that deserve to be fostered.”

“Mmm. Well, charity is a respectable goal for a respectable organisation, like the family.” Tranquil Pool glances over at Atiya. “Just be careful that you do not neglect your own flesh and blood in favour of a foundling. And be aware - her behaviour will reflect on your own.”

“Of course,” Little River returns, sounding mildly offended. “Atiya is still my priority. Two Opal is happily enrolled in the Orchid’s Grace College.” The dance temple-college she picked for Zanara isn’t a purely Hui Cha one, but it’s one with a large proportion of Tengese graduates that’s positioned near the edge of one of the more respectable areas in Memory of a Golden Land. “She’s thriving there, and despite her upbringing her attitude has been perfectly respectable so far.”

Tranquil Pool perks up at that. “Ah, yes, I know Third Shell well. She is a fine lady, with no time for nonsense. My third daughter is considering studying under those priests.” She nods at Little River, an older woman respecting the younger’s choices. “You have a keen eye for raising a child. I pray this will serve you well.”

Dipping her head in graceful acknowledgement, Little River echoes her hopes, and returns the compliment with flattering praise of her as a hostess. Then it's just small talk and formalities until it's time to leave.

“That went well, didn’t it baby girl?” Keris says to Atiya as she heads back to her townhouse, a proper Tengese lady with a waxed cloth umbrella and an oilskin over her fine dress. Atiya nuzzles the side of her face with her head, and makes a bubbling noise. “Yes, yes it did.”

An icy wind blows through Keris, and she feels as if there are knives being stabbed into her skin. She can’t breathe, just for a second.

And then a tension she didn’t realise was there is gone, and her ears pop.

“Ah, child,” Dulmea says dryly. “Eko is back.”

“Guh,” Keris manages, swaying. She shakes herself hard. “I, uh. Noticed. Eko? Are you there? What happened?”

Okay, okay, okay, Eko gestures with a distinctly peeved air. She just wants to say that all of this was a maaaaaaaaaasive overreaction by Sasi. A massive, massive overreaction from Keris’s best friend.

“... what did you do?” Keris asks, already dreading the answer.

Nothing, Eko insists. Nothing at all! Really, she was just helping out Sasi by getting rid of people that she told Eko, she told Eko to get rid of them! And then maybe, yes maybe, Eko might have realised a way to help out Sasi by implementing her orders better, but she didn’t have to be so mad about it! Or tell poor innocent Eko that she’s even worse than Haneyl when it comes to “improvising”!

“Oh gods,” Keris mutters. “What did you do that Sasi didn’t tell you to? Am I going to get a Messenger about this? Is one already on its way?”

She calculates. An Teng is a bit under two thousand miles away, an Infallible Messenger would take... a few hours? Or Sasi might just be waiting for Keris to enter her painting and ask what happened. “Uuuurgh,” she mutters. “Fine, I’m getting back to the townhouse and seeing what she has to say about this.”

The story comes out. Of course it does.

“... and so she decided that certain of Deveh’s agents he had sent down to the lowlands were a threat to me, so she butchered them all,” Sasi says, pacing around the beach of Keris’s soul-painting. “And we’re not talking quiet butchery. She went through them like a hot knife through butter! And then set everything up so they looked like they’d been trying to summon a demon!”

Keris runs through several possible responses, discarding each in turn. ‘Did you forget she’s Adorjan’s daughter?’ would definitely not go down well. She doubts ‘at least she framed them in a way that’ll keep attention off you’ is what an angry Sasi is looking for. And while Keris personally feels that ‘are you sure they weren’t a threat to you?’ is a very valid question under the circumstances, given Deveh’s... everything, it would probably just send Sasi into a panic even if it worked.

“I’ll talk to her,” she says instead. A nice, safe, neutral option. “Did she at least manage to help you before that?”

Sasi runs her hands through her long grey hair, pacing back and forth irritably. “What? Oh, mmm. She is... she had some interesting ideas about how one might weave a demon from nothingness. She likes words a lot and now half my library is covered in her scribbling comments in the margins of books. And she and Aiko get on alarmingly well. Aiko loved it when she showed off that she could individually stab every mosquito in a cloud.” But her mind is clearly still on politics.

Keris watches her pace for a while, considering. With Calibration and the Althing fast approaching, a squabble with Deveh and his backers is a problem, and Sasi is already under enough stress. Upset-Sasi is bad enough, but if this turns ugly it might push her all the way into Breakdown-Sasi, which cannot be tolerated. Not with Keris a full day’s swim away and thoroughly tied up with her own business dealings in Saata.

No, something needs to be done to nip this in the bud. Keris purses her lips, considers, and decides to deploy a weapon she’d been saving for the new year.

“Say,” she hums thoughtfully, “you know how you knew what my Ascending Air was when I stole it in Nexus? Are there other famous Realm-y pieces of art like that? Collections and suchlike?”

“Of course there are,” Sasi snaps. “Keris, that doesn’t matter right now. There are much more significant problems going on right now.”

“I know,” says Keris innocently. “I just wanted to check. I have something to show you at Calibration. Something I found in Taira.”

She lets that hang in the air alongside the unspoken ghosts of other things she’s ‘found’. Things like the great shard of Pyrian crystal, or the naib’s whispering jewel. Then she leans forward.

“So. Deveh is pissed. My report from Saata is going to be glowing. Is there anything I can do to help you from here? He may go whining to Iasestus, but Ligier is very happy with me right now, so we’ve got that in our corner.”

“Just do your job, Keris,” Sasi says, still pacing. “If I can show my subordinates are working effectively, I won’t have to put up with Deveh going crying to one of his many sugar-mamas.”

Keris salutes, which Sasi doesn’t seem to notice in the midst of her pacing. She’s scared, and feels like things are going out of control. The thought makes Keris think of Kalaska...

... but no. Having that fight now will send Sasi into a full-scale breakdown.

She reaches out with a lock of hair and tugs Sasi over gently, reaching out to hold her lover in place with firm hands on her hips. The way Sasi has to look down from this close means she has a perfect view of Keris’s shoulders and biceps as she flexes deliberately.

“This is meant to be a place away from the worries and cares outside,” Keris soothes softly. “My report this year will be stellar. You’ve made great progress. Deveh’s complaints won’t amount to anything. Outside this little world, you can plan to your heart’s content, but while you’re here?”

She reaches up and runs a finger down the centre of Sasi’s forehead and the bridge of her nose; smoothing out the wrinkles of a frown there.

“Relax,” she whispers as her painted anima brightens into full colour around her, “and let me take care of you.”

((Playing to Seresa, and possibly a bit to Kalaska in Sasi’s desire for a safe place. Enhancing with her TLA Principle and Hidden Depths Temptress.
Per + Pres: 4+5+3 Cerulean Paramour+1 bonus {target believes you sincere}+3 stunt {TLA-boosted}+4 Compassion TLA autosux+9 Kimmy ExD {endlessly giving, beauty, talent for temptation} x2 HDT=25. (13+4)x2=34 successes, lol.))
((Also she has -4 MDV from TLA, and My Dark Lady may also apply.))
((Plus her 4-dot principle of self-indulgence for another -4 to her MDV.))
((Indeed.))

Sasi barely resists. Up this close, within this world made of her own flesh and blood on canvas, Keris is as beautiful as the wind and as intoxicating as the ocean itself. And she knows about so many of Sasi’s vices, and how to play on them. The first kiss is all but enough to silence Sasi’s fretting, and one kiss becomes two, then three and many more.

Keris leads her lover down a winding path of indulgence, until she’s got no room in her mind for anything other than sensation. When she’s done, a mussed, flushed Sasi is largely insensate in her arms, and Keris is all but alone within her painting world, to fret herself.
But while Sasi is not all there, someone else is. She whispers. She mutters. Half-formed phrases in Old Realm escape, mentions of names Keris knows nothing of and concepts she’s barely touched. Between the stress that’s obviously been gnawing away at her and the ecstasy Keris drowned her in, Sasi’s brittle self-control is all but gone. Keris strokes her hair, worried, and doesn’t try to wake her this time. She’s concerned. Sasi is walking right along the edge of snapping, and while their time here in this secret place is helping her keep her balance, it won’t hold forever. Hopefully after Calibration things will settle down, but... she can’t be sure of that. And if the Althing doesn’t go well, it’s not going to be pretty.
Sasi opens her eyes. Exhales. Inhales. Looks around. “Where am I?” she asks.

It’s not Sasi. Keris has only heard that accent once before, but it’s familiar.

“... also, why am I naked?” Salina adds. “And... oh Sun, I hope I didn’t... wait. Wait.” She blinks. Looks up at Keris. “Keris?” she says, sounding like she’s straining for a hard-to-reach memory. “Yes, that was... you.” She pauses, stretches. Doesn’t get up from Keris’s arms. “I’m aching all over. Was that all you?”

“Gkkk!” squeaks Keris, and scrambles back from her mentor. “Um. Maybe?” She pauses. “Yes,” she admits, with mortification but also a considerable amount of smug pride.

“Mmm.” Salina stretches. “You can continue, if you like,” she says, eying Keris up speculatively. “You’re looking cuter than before. How long has it been?”

“... it’s nearly Calibration, so... huh,” Keris realises in surprise. “Almost two years. Wow.” Her raksha-hunting in the northeast, her pregnancy and Adorjan’s gifts, Calesco, Vali and Zanara, raiding on the Baisha and getting settled in Saata, her souls becoming demon lords, everything that happened in Taira...

“... a lot’s happened,” she says weakly, scarcely able to believe how much her life has changed since the last time she spoke to this woman, who’d changed her life. “A lot has happened, since.”

“Two years. Two years of... not being. Of forgetting.” Salina holds her hand out. Clenches it. Relaxes it. “Where am I?” she asks. “You never answered me.”

“Oh, right.” Keris looks around, and smiles impishly. She’s never going to get a better chance to use this. “Me,” she explains happily.

Salina’s eyes light up with a very Sasi-like curiosity. “Oh?” she asks, sitting up. She sways, as if dizzy, and rests her chin on one knee, looking down at Keris with her head tilted to one side. “How?”

Keris beams. “Well, this isn’t my actual inner world,” she starts. “I still haven’t found a way to get anything living in there that didn’t come from it. But my mentor in art made a magic painting from me that I can possess and talk to, so I gave it to Sasi to hang in her chambers, and then it turned out it had this little sanctum inside. It’s basically just the lake and beaches around it, but it’s a nice private place for us to meet in the evenings when we work a day’s travel apart.”

She holds her fingers up and rubs them together, turning her hand back and forth to show off the fine brushstrokes that make it up. “See?”

“Ah, I see.” Salina says, eyes lighting up. “Like Fire Orchid’s Fifth Kartina. Except, of course, the procedures here are significantly different, the,” she uses a word in Old Realm that Keris doesn’t understand, “are not at all woven in the same way.”

“Wait, you’ve seen this sort of thing before?” Keris asks in surprise. “Like, done by sorcery? Because I’d love to be able to make places like this myself. And do it differently to how this one was made, since I doubt most people would survive that way.”

“Well, it’s a natural evolution of the Fire Orchid Quartets. It’s ancient knowl... oh, I suppose so much has been lost that you might not recall it,” Salina says, looking distant for a moment. The way she sighs is peculiarly un-Sasi-like, even if the heaving chest does distract Keris all the same. “But Creation is Essence, Keris, and she is alive. The ancient Primordials knew that only a living thing could endure the vicissitudes of the chaos outside the world. To bring life to a small world is no small feat, and beyond the Dragonkin, but any moderately accomplished sorceress of the Sun, Moon or Stars can do it if they choose to study it. You just have to cultivate a world in rich soil. I have woven small realms from the faith of mortals, from the authority of the Deliberative, from jade and from moonsilver and orichalcum and all things that are good - each time trying to make a world where the Hierarchy’s law does not hold true and nature does not form a pyramid that crushes all below it.” Again she sighs. “And never once a true success.”

Entranced by the descriptions of a lost time, Keris thinks of her Domain. Of the way that - while it may have rights - her souls still rule there. Even despite attempts otherwise.

“Calesco tried that,” she murmurs sadly. “Didn’t work for her either. Though she wound up close enough to be content with it, I guess.”

“Calesco?” Salina frowns, head still resting on one pale, sand-encrusted knee. “Who is that? She sounds admirable, if she tried that. Chosen by the Sun, or the Moon?”

Keris smiles fondly. “Neither,” she says. “She’s one of my souls. Showed up the Water after you did. She tried to make her corner of my inner world into a fair and peaceful place where laws were decided by everyone voting - which, uh, backfired when her sisters moved a bunch of their own people in to try and have them vote en-masse for the laws they wanted. So then she sulked for a while and changed it so that she had a veto over any laws that were trying to game the system and there was a bit of a scuffle as she kicked all the newcomers out, and that’s pretty much how it’s stayed since. Relative fairness under a powerful protector who stops anyone from abusing the rules.”

Salina’s - Sasi’s - pale, iridescent eyes go wide, tears welling up at the corners. “Oh, poor her,” she says immediately. “I know exactly the feeling. That is exactly what annoying self-righteous Night-chosen or malicious old war-hound Dawn-chosen do when you try the same.” She reaches out, patting Keris on the arm. “That at least one of your souls would fight against such a terrible law of nature is beautiful, Keris. Even if other parts of you try to abuse those self-same efforts.” She pauses. “Perhaps you might find one of these old spells useful, if you are also trying such things,” she suggests. She looks around. “If I write in the sand, will it stay? It is quite a bit to take in. You can tell me of the world and what the tyrants of the Prison of the Exiles have you do while I write,” she suggests.

((Salina is offering to create a record of Sanctum of the Sorcerer in return for talk and the like from Keris - and more chances to try to sway her, Keris suspects.))

“It should stay,” Keris says, pursing her lips. “It might be tricky to explain to Sasi, but I can probably transcribe it before she wakes up. And I’d like to talk more. You...” She pauses. “You had some... good points, last time. Not all. But some. I don’t think it was... coincidence, that Calesco was the next soul to show up after I met you. My Compassion, who keeps me from hurting people. And then Vali, who hates the idea of being forced to do things by orders or hierarchies or other people’s rules.”

Salina smiles, and laughs a tinkling laugh. She reaches out, and touches Keris’s breasts, right where her heart is. “How wonderful, to have one’s own compassion as a guide on the way of life. To be able to speak to one’s heart, and know its feelings as words rather than felt sympathies. Even if the Exiles have done dreadful things to our sungifts, perhaps there are things that are not so awful if one could do such things.” She pauses, incidentally not moving her hand off Keris’s breasts. “Do you think... who I have become could cultivate such compassion?” she asks, voice quavering. “I would not like... I would not like to think that I was reborn as an unkind woman...”

Keris tilts her head, twists her mouth, and sighs.

“My compassion is strong enough that the daughter born from my mind by it became a deva lord,” she says. “And I think... from what little I know of her before I met her, I think Sasi was as kind as I am before she was reborn. Maybe kinder, honestly, because Calesco’s compassion is an arrow to the hearts of the cruel and powerful - her empathy is a light of agony that blasts away the lies people tell themselves to justify their sins.”

She sighs again. “But... that was long before I met her. The Realm I told you about? The ones who say any Exalts that aren’t Dragonblooded are Anathema; demons with stolen sun-power who need to be killed? Sasi grew up as one of them. When she took the Second Breath... I dunno how she reacted, but Testolagh says she was broken, when she first came to Hell. She rebuilt herself using him as her support, and her compassion... I think it became Seresa. Sasi likes being nice to people, in quiet little ways she doesn’t need to get acknowledged for. It makes her feel good. I think that... just turned into anything that made her feel good, as she recovered.”

Salina rises to both knees, then crawls towards Keris. “How about an agreement?” she offers. Her expression is... peculiar. Much more like the one Sasi often has than Keris is comfortable admitting. “Help her. Help her become strong enough to care again. Help her remember that the hardest thing in the world and the reason we were chosen is to care, to protect the ones who were not gifted with such unearned power, and that power does not make one right. It only allows one to make people suffer if they disagree with you.” She leans in towards Keris, face very close. “I know you don’t think that the demon princes are righteous, or that the world that they would build is one that you would want to live in. You’ve seen the wastes of Hell, haven’t you? Where endless spirits suffer because the Yozis are so cruel and vicious that they make living beings just to torture them.

“Help her become better, and in return... she’ll be a better person. Someone you can love without feeling guilty. Someone who won’t obey the dictates of cruel, uncaring masters.”

She smiles warmly at the look on Keris’s face.

“Did you think I was going to promise you a reward? Did you think I was going to have you sell out the woman you love for scraps and trinkets of knowledge that I’d drop in your lap? Keris, I’m not like too many of my contemporaries. If I had to bribe you to help your lover to care, to nurture, to love... you wouldn’t be someone I would teach.

“We must be better. All of us. We must be better, and make a better world.”

Keris breathes in.

She breathes out.

She tries not to let Salina see how deeply her comment about the demon princes hit home and resonated with Keris’s own words to Ali, back in Taira.

She’s pretty sure she doesn’t quite succeed at that.

“I’ll try,” is all she says. “I was already planning on trying to help her in other ways. I don’t know if I’ll succeed... but I promise I’ll try.”

“If we all had tried, Keris,” Salina says sadly, “my era would not have ended in blood and sorrow. Maybe we deserved it. If only they had listened to me... but you don’t want to hear me gripe over old sorrows.” She rolls away from Keris. “I’m still not used to this body,” she says light-heartedly. “She’s taller than I was. And how does she cope with such large breasts or being so pale?

“Well, never mind. Where’s a flat area of beach I can work on? I’ll try to get everything down I can, and meanwhile, we can chat. So, how are things going with you...”

---

By the time Salina finds herself fading, Keris has the whole spell written on the sand of the beach in her world, and she carries Sasi’s body to somewhere out of sight of the sand. When Sasi wakes, she’s in a better mood - almost as if a knot of stress has left her - and she apologises to Keris. They make up, make out, and then make love again - this time more gently, a coupling of equals. Sasi is tender enough, gentle enough, loving enough that Keris feels somewhat guilty for hiding that she’s plotting with the long-dead woman who lives in her lover’s head who Sasi hates and fears.

No, ‘plotting’ is a nasty word. An unfair one. She’s just... acting in Sasi’s best interests. She’d never betray her, after all.

Sasi returns to her world, and Keris starts desperately trying to copy as much of the sand writing as she can before an unfortunate wave or gust of wind erases it.

She is interrupted by a hammering at the door of her townhouse. It’s Haneyl, and Keris silently curses as she looks out at the setting sun and realises she’s lost most of the day. How could she forget that Haneyl was coming around?! Even if she’s feeling both intellectually and sexually sated, her daughter had scheduled this. And Elly is here with her, and both of them are carrying a lot of luggage. Because Haneyl is headed home this evening.

But of course she’s insisted on having one more dinner out with mama. At a very, very expensive restaurant by the Anubalim, the district of the palace of the Sinasana. The towers here rise tall and thick, built by countless architects over the years, and elements of modern design blend with an ancient looming Shogunate complex of milky stone and crystal spires.

The prices here still make the street rat in Keris blanch. They are literally more than she’d have seen in an average year on the streets.

“It’s been an... interesting year, mama,” Haneyl says. She’s been made up to perfection, with her nails painted with gold leaf, her lips are a deep crimson, and her low-cut gown with thigh-high slits is drawing attention she is revelling in. The slits are revealing she has brand new vine tattoos, curling their way up her legs and blossoming under her skin. “Definitely an interesting year.”
Keris knows what her daughter is dressing like, even if Haneyl might not herself. She’s modelling herself after the highest grade of Nexan courtesan, the ones Keris saw at a distance when she was a poor pox-scarred girl and envied with burning bile. She doesn’t mention it, though, instead complimenting her daughter’s makeup and hair warmly before replying.
“Are you glad you took it?” she asks. “You were so nervous before you went off with Sasi for finishing school. And now look at you! All grown-up and glamorous and confident.” She sniffs theatrically. “I almost feel unneeded. Have you outgrown me, my little flower?”

It’s mostly in jest, but there’s an honest thread of sincerity in her question. Haneyl is so independent and mature now. And Keris is proud of her, she is... but some part of her can’t help but miss her adorable little girl with the too-big crown who sat up in her tree imperiously overseeing jousts and demanded to be picked up and carried by her mama.

Haneyl, to her credit, at least contemplates the question. “Of course I am, mama,” she decides. “A plant can’t grow to its full height in a small pot. You wouldn’t want me to be a bonsai tree, would you?” She pauses, leaning forwards. “You’re still my mama, though. You’ll always be my mama. And we might fight and you might get on my back about your silly obsession with pirates when the real money is to be made in trade, but you do know I love you, right?

“It... it might have been nice to be a child a little longer. Little girls seem to have a lot of fun. But my body decided it was time to grow up, so I did.” She pats Keris’s hand. “You’ve still got Atiya and Kali to be your baby girls, at least for a decade and change.”

“I know,” Keris sighs. “But Kali’s not exactly a dignified little princess.” She shares a grin with Haneyl as they both contemplate the image of Kali in Haneyl’s childhood court, and Keris breaks into chuckles first.

“I love you too, darling,” she says. “Always and ever.”

“I’m not going away forever, mama,” Haneyl says, primping herself up. “It’s just a month or so back home. Maybe two, if the keruby have made a mess of things and I need to get things in order. Then you can summon me again, and I’ll have refuelled and I’ll be ready to really get serious.” She grins, showing two rows of teeth. “We’ll cut this island into tiny bits and eat it,” she gloats.

Keris returns her savage grin. “Now now,” she chides playfully. “Remember your manners. We need to spit and roast it first.”
There is a look in Haneyl’s eyes. “Oh, I’m a fan of spit-roasts,” she says, as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Keris’s grin lingers for a moment as the words hang in the air.
Then the double meaning hits her, and the grin freezes and slides off an expression of utmost horror.

“Why?” she moans, dropping her face into her hands. “Why would you say that to your poor mother? You’re doing this deliberately now! Did Zanyira put you up to it?”

“She might have,” Haneyl says mildly. “I like her. She’s proposed living with me during the week, and I think it’s a good idea. We get on well - and she’s clever. Really clever. If she does some work for me, I’ll pay her fairly.” She grins. “And also because you are a hypocrite, mama. I can see Kali and Ogin don’t have the same father. You must have had fun making them.”

“Th-that was a dream!” Keris says defensively. “That doesn’t count!”

“I do dream of being sandwiched between two men,” Haneyl agrees seriously. “It very much does count.” She lets Keris simmer in mortification for a few moments. “Incidentally, I have a proposal for you,” she adds. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing to do with sex. Well, not directly. I want a fair number of your Lionesses when they’re rested up and healed up. Sometime next year, once I’m back. I need some muscle, because I think we need some hooks into the organised crime in this city. I’ve checked the law. As long as we do it the right way and pay Sinasana the right tax, we can just walk in and supplant a gang or two. And they’ll be the leg-breakers who protect my investments. People won’t take me seriously unless I can enforce my claims and protect my turf. I’ll pay them, and it can be a long term job that’ll get them off your estate, eating your food.”

Keris grins. “Perfect,” she agrees. “I was wondering what to put them to work doing, and that’ll be a good start. I also want to teach them to sail - though, hah. Rathan’s new keruby might be able to handle that, instead of paying to put them all through a temple-college.”

“Mama, do you know how to sail yet?” Haneyl enquires archly. “And no doubt Rathan is gloating about his keruby. What a shame I have more. Incidentally, one of the things I’ll do when I’m home is spend lots of time around mine. We could all do with more of mine as adults, as they are of course the best.” She sits back. “I’ll break them in, make sure they’re properly trained. With Elly there to help, of course.”

“Rounen’s been setting up a library-complex in the Garden City,” Keris tells her. “With a bunch of szirom understudies who are leaning in his direction. So you’ve got a good start on that. And yes, more of your breeds will be useful - Rounen is priceless, and Elly’s a big help with trade and hunting.”

Her eyes mist over. “Oh wow, entire days with nothing to do but sit around and read. I... I need that, mama,” Haneyl admits. “My burn-out cycles have been more and more often, and lasting longer. I’ve been working myself to the root for you. To the root,” she adds, with maudlin self-pity.

Keris squeezes her hand. “And I appreciate it, darling,” she says gently. “You get that from your mother, I’m afraid. She’s been stressed recently too.”

Haneyl sighs. “Take good care of her, mama,” she says sadly. “Like I told you, she’s not a happy person. Maybe get her to take a holiday.” She shakes her head. “This is depressing. Sad things shouldn’t be around food. Food is for happiness and... oh, mama? I’ve still got her piercings.” She taps the green jade in her ears, and flashes her tongue, showing more jade there. “They’re what’s anchoring me. I’ll need to take them out before I can leave. Though...” she wrinkles up her nose in inner torment. “Mother didn’t say she wanted them back, did she?”

“How about you leave them with me when you go, and I’ll talk her into reserving them for you whenever you’re in Creation,” Keris suggests dryly; a compromise that doesn’t require Haneyl to relinquish the precious jewellery except when she’s not around to use them.

“I... suppose...” Haneyl says slowly. “And...” Something distracts her, and she glances down at her legs. “Wait, what?”

Her vine-tattoos have been... chewed. Something has taken bites out of them, and eaten all the flowers off her left leg.

“What is this?” she demands, voice rising in pitch. “Do you know how long I spent on making those?”
Maybe an hour or two, Keris internally estimates. She eyes the savaged body art assessingly, and remembers the hug they shared when they met. Haneyl’s dress dips low in the back as well as the front, and Iris is missing from Keris’s arm.
She sighs.

“Iris, you terrible little lizard,” she whispers in an undertone. “Get back onto your mama. I know she feels like me, but you’re still not meant to wander without permission.”
There’s a slither, and something retreats back onto her leg. Keris glances down at Iris, who is looking very pleased with herself - and also has somehow got a daisy crown of ink flowers around her head. This earns her an unimpressed look, and a raised eyebrow.
“Really?” Keris murmurs. “I hope those were tasty, young lady, because you’re going to be told off for this once we’re back home again.” She pauses, narrowing her eyes. That looks like a very neat flower crown for a baby dragon’s first try.

“... has Zanara been feeding you art?” she asks suspiciously. “Hey, hey! No squirming away to hide! Answer the question.”
Unfortunately, grabbing her elbow doesn’t stop Iris slinking along her skin wherever she likes. She’s a very difficult dragon to keep in one place while she’s on Keris’s body. Iris considers the question, and nods happily as she escapes onto the small of Keris’s back.
“Urgh,” Keris sighs. “Sorry Haneyl. Your little sibling is a bad influence on her. And I think she likes the taste of your flower-dyes.”

Haneyl is rather put in a sulk, and this lasts until she orders the largest steak on the menu, rare, and then eats it all. That cheers her up somewhat, and she’s in a much happier mood when her and Keris retreat to a bathhouse to soak while they digest their meals. It’s nice to talk with Haneyl, and Keris does sort of see the advantage of having a more adult daughter. Even if Haneyl has quite a few of Zanyira’s bad habits.

The sun is down, so Haneyl sighs comfortably and removes all of her piercings. “Honestly,” she admits, “I’m just going to go straight home and drop in a proper hot springs, not one of these baths. You can probably send me home now and have Elly carry the rest of my stuff. I can’t be bothered to get dressed into wet clothing when I’m going straight back in the water.”

“Will you be happy to get your crown and robes back?” Keris asks, amused.

“Oh, mama. Of course I will.” She pauses. “Although I’ll need a larger wardrobe. I didn’t realise how important it was to have a wardrobe that’s a room in its own right just filled with clothes until mother showed me it. I can’t just wear a beautiful lotus crown and golden robes all the time. And I learned spinning!”

Was it really Sasi, though, Keris wonders. Because Haneyl is her greed - and Keris had seen Ney’s costume place in Malra.

“Who knows?” she says lightly. “I might commission you for a few pieces of my own. After all,” she grins, “I’ll need two full wardrobes. At least.”

Leaning over in the blissfully hot water, she hugs her daughter close, accepting the piercings with her hair. They stay like that for a while; Haneyl taller and broader than her petite mother, but submitting obediently to being cuddled.

“I love you very much, sweetheart,” Keris murmurs eventually. “And thank you for all the hard work you’ve done for me. Come back home and enjoy yourself for a month or two. You absolutely deserve some time off.”

“I love you too, mama,” Haneyl says. She’s wiped away all her carefully done make-up, and up close, when she isn’t keeping up her masks, Keris is reminded how much her daughter looks like both her and Sasi. When she was younger Keris thought she looked more like Sasi, but the tanning that Creation’s sun has done has revealed the Keris-like aspects she hadn’t seen. Even if she sometimes wishes her daughter hadn’t inherited Sasi’s attitude towards her love life.
It... it’s nice. To have someone who’s part her and part Sasi. A surge of motherly warmth fills Keris’s heart for her big, strong, clever daughter who’s leaning on her shoulder. She wraps it around her little girl - who might be taller than her and all educated and cultured and... adult, now, but who’ll always be her little girl. She swaddles her daughter in that blanket of affection, and tugs gently.
That’s all it takes, with Haneyl leaning against her like this. The gentlest of tugs.

It’s much, much more comfortable to accept one of her souls back into her than have her be banished. Haneyl is a gentle warmth soaking into her bones, a feeling of fullness she was missing, a sharpness of the senses.

Keris stays in the baths for a while, relaxing, then heads home.

---

The next few days progress, as they do. Vali also decides to head home, because he’s missing it - and wants to actually spend some time around Hanny, he says - and that means that suddenly Keris’s inner life is much more active while her outer life has more time for the others. Only Zanara is with her in Saata, and she and Piu appear to be enjoying dance-temple. She gets more time with Zanyira, who’s working hard with Rounen on studying for the entrance exams in the new year, and she gets to spend time around her niece and her brother while he gets set up in his new forge.

“I still don’t trust you,” the little forge-goddess says, gripping her tiny hammer tightly with her iron hands. She pauses. “But at least you kept to that bit of your promise.”

“Amphelia,” Ali says, pumping the bellows. “Is there anything else you require? Any offerings to make this better suited for you?”

The tiny goddess examines the forge set up with a sceptical eye. “I’m going to have to scrub it all over to get the smell of demon out of it,” she grumbles. But then a thought strikes her. “In the old days, you used to keep a record of all the smiths who’d served here,” she says, eyes glazed over with memory. “You lost the scroll. It burned in the fire. I’d like you to start the practice again. So I can remember you, even after you’re gone.”

“Any materials you need to try and recreate the waterwheel, I’ll see that you get,” Keris promises her brother. “Also, uh, on a more practical note, half the window hinges in the south wing are rusted to uselessness, so you’re not shy of work.”

“That sounds more doable,” he says, with a wry smile. “Hinges, I can do.” He finishes pumping the bellows. “I... I probably have said this already, but... thank you, little sister. Even if... even if things haven’t gone anything like they should have. Thank you.”

Keris hugs him. “You’re welcome, big brother. And hey! Nowadays you don’t have to worry about watching me and making sure I don’t wander into the river or try to bring grass snakes home!”

“I’ve seen you throw yourself into the ocean and Zana bragged that you can turn into a giant snake,” her brother says dryly.

“Which is why it’s good that you don’t have to try and stop me anymore,” Keris returns, grinning up at him impishly. “And I wouldn’t have to throw myself into the ocean if I had a halfway decent beach. Hey Rounen!” she calls out through the open door of the forge. “I want to get a proper beach set up next year! Make a note!” She pauses. “Also, have someone find out how the other lords got pretty beaches for their estates! I know they can’t all be natural!”

“Yes, ma’am!” Rounen calls back. “I’m sure there are books about that somewhere.”

He’s either being serious, or poking fun at her. She’s not sure which is worse.

---

Of course, the fourth comes with annoying news. There’s someone in the Saatan docks she pays to keep track of any messages intended for Tenné Cinnamon, and when she checks then she finds a message for her from General Nandi Zwiswayo. It’s characteristically brief, like the woman is being charged by the letter.

“Tenné Cinnamon,

Bad weather - typhoons. Can’t find captain of large ship willing to risk it. On Shuu Ama, waiting for new year.

General Nandi Zwiswayo “

This prompts a visit to the Map Room, which is already one of Keris’s favourites in the wing she’s slowly reclaiming. She’s working on a sculpture of the Anarchy as a whole; a grand hardwood table ten strides long and five wide whose surface will be blue-dyed wood, with islands raised in relief all across it from the shore of the Wailing Fen all the way up to the northern reaches of the Anarchy.
But that’s not finished yet. The accurate maps the Baisha brought back will let her get it right, but she hasn’t had time recently. So for the moment she just spreads out a thick paper map across the uncarved bit that’ll be the Silent Crescent under An Teng and searches for Shuu Ama. It’s about fifty kilometres north of the northern coast of Shuu Mua - though small islands like that aren’t all that accurate on this map. Makes sense. If they island-hopped from Triumphant Air, given the fact it’s typhoon season, they might have wound up there - and then it’s late enough in the season that a good number of captains aren’t going for bluewater crossings.
Fuck.

She sighs in annoyance. Well... fuck it. Fine. She’ll get her Lionesses in the new year, then. After considering for a few moments, she sends Iris off to the Lioness’s witch with a message of acknowledgement, and shapes the angle of the shore down to the Wailing Fen on her map-table.

Unfortunately, she’s in an irritated enough mood that art-for-work just leaves her feeling more annoyed. And Keris likes maps. She doesn’t want to spoil this one by making the process of coaxing it out of the wooden slab into a chore. Giving it up as a bad job, she goes to play with her babies instead, seeking out some more relaxing stimuli.

It is not relaxing. Ogin is teething. Kali is teething. Atiya has wind. None of them are happy. All of them are screaming.

Keris winds up having problems remembering exactly why motherhood is so wonderful. She never thought she’d say that, but why couldn’t they be more like Haneyl?

It’s a relief when the reminder note comes from Ba-le, checking if she remembers about the festival of Akhanammu on the sixth and the party she’s invited to. At least it’s something else to think about rather than the screaming from Ogin who’s refusing to talk because his teeth hurt too much and the attempts of Kali to chew on her brother, her mother, and chairs.

“Yes,” she sends back by messenger. “Yes, I will definitely be coming.”

She’s frazzled enough that she doesn’t even bother including the formalities.

Zanara has the next day off because the temple’s closed for rituals, so Nara is entirely willing to help his mother choose what to wear for the party - and help her make it.

“Sooooo,” he drags out, bouncing a sulky Ogin up and down on his knee and trying to distract him with his pretty butterfly wings, “what are you looking to come across as, mama?”

“Urgh...” Keris complains. “I dunno. Uh... Little River... cultured, refined and elegant. Formal, mannerly, traditional... you know, the kind of stick-up-her-ass who insists on all the etiquette crap. Patron of the arts. Dangerous, under the politeness. Beautiful, talented; a rising star who’s worth signing on with.”

She waves a hand vaguely, glaring at Kali when she jumps from her position on an increasingly torn-up expensive cushion to snap at mama’s fingers like she’s been repeatedly told not to. “Not too much like Cinnamon,” she adds, suppressing her irritation. “I’m going for the formal thing with Little River ‘cause following etiquette all the time lets me cheat with your sense for hiding in the flowers of conversation, and I’m better when I have a script to follow.”

“It’s a religious thing - in theory,” Nara observes. He measures out Keris between his four hands. “I think... a deep scarlet, figure hugging but full body, with golden trim. Wait, no, wearing scarlet to a party with so many Sinasana in it might be considered hostile. And blue is the colour of a harlot. Pale pink with flower patterns on the sleeves would be non-controversial, but black is always in for water-aspected Dragonblooded...”

“Black with pink flower patterning?” Keris suggests. “If we make them a pale pink around the sleeves and have a stripe of them up around the body like floating blossoms on a river current, they’ll stand out and draw the eye. The black’ll match Little River’s hair, but the pink will keep me from being too monochrome. And I can wear an actual blossom on a comb to set them off.”

Nara nods. “Pretty, mum,” he says. “Now, hmm. You’re going to need to be careful not to make the Hui Cha think you’re getting too close to the Sinasana, but you are a guest there and they’ve probably got really pretty things there. Also, obviously, don’t let them sign you into any agreements or stuff.”

“Well, I am meant to be licensing my new smithy,” she points out. “I can get some level of excuse just out of networking to smooth things over with the right people to make it quicker and easier. And possibly scoping out the latest firedust weapons in case the Hui Cha fleets decide to get some more flame weapons.”

“Oooh, yes, you need the best silverwork, mum,” Nara agrees happily. “You could probably grab Zanyi back to look after Atiya, and then we can spend all day working on making you just the prettiest!”

Keris grimaces. “Think she can handle all three of them, though?” Then pauses, remembering that her sister had been the one to put Haneyl up to that deliberate mortification.

“Actually,” she says sweetly, “you know what? That’s a wonderful idea. I’ll just go get Zanyira and tell her that her nieces and nephew are eager to spend time with her, getting to know their aunty.”

((REVENGE))

Some people might have considered first use of teething akuma babies as a war crime. Not Keris.

And that gives her time to work on her fashion.

---

“Well, well, well, look at you!” Ba-le says, spinning Little River around to admire her. “Don’t you clean up nicely when you’re not standing around in your hot forge in a sweaty shift!” Little River has met up with her for pre-party drinks at her townhouse, which is a tower in the Anubalim. The other woman herself is dressed in sheer white that’s fog-thin, and which shows off the full extent of her dragon tattoo. “Isn’t she gorgeous, Colira?”

Ba-le’s husband is a lanky, stretched-out-looking man who looks like he weighs as much as a healthy man a good twenty centimetres shorter. He has to be breaking two metres, and he towers over Little River. He’s more northern in origin than his wife, and looks like he has some blood from the Hook, north of An Teng. His smiling orange eyes remind her of banked fires - and she feels the same heat coming off him. “Not as gorgeous as you, my love,” he says.

((E4, Fire Aspected))

“And look at you,” Little River returns with a smile. “I see you’ve dressed down for the heat as well as up for the party.” She eyes the sheer thinness of the cloth Ba-le wears and how little it hides. “Perhaps a little too far down,” she adds blandly. “Do you need the dress there at all, or is it just a formality?”

Iris lifts her head up off her arm and lets out a soundless chirp of greeting to Ba-le’s dragon tattoo; clearly excited to see it. Her flower-crown has mostly withered away or been eaten, though one lone blossom still remains between her horns.

“Darling,” Ba-le says, “even the dock workers can afford opaque cloth. Something this sheer takes a master weaver.” She smiles at Iris. “And look at you! You’re wearing a flower too, oh yes you are.” She shakes her head. “Brilliant, Little River. Coordinating your outfit with your tattoo. Just marvellous.”

“You’d mentioned your friend’s tattoo, but I hadn’t thought it was so... impressive,” Colira says, unfolding as he stands up to tower over Little River. His short red hair is under an ornamental headdress of bird-of-paradise feathers, while his white cotton shirt is only fastened at the navel. “Even at Windswift, I only saw one other living tattoo like that - and that couldn’t leave the man’s body. Are you a sorceress too?”

“She’s not actually sorcery,” Keris says truthfully. “Her creator... ah, now. How to say this without spoiling it for Ba-le? She’s eager to work it out for herself, you know.” She smiles teasingly. “Well, I’ll say that her creator isn’t human, and used magics other than sorcery to bring her to life. And yes, I recently discovered that she can move other tattoos. And eat them. And make them into little crowns for herself.”

Her smile twists; becoming slightly wry. “Iris plays rough, I’m afraid. Most other tattoos can’t survive her for long. I imagine the idea of a playmate that can is part of what she likes about yours. Well,” she adds with a note of humour, “that or she still hasn’t quite learned that not all tattoos are like her.”

Ba-le defensively goes to protect hers. “She couldn’t eat mine, could she?” she asks her husband.

“I don’t know,” he asks mildly. “I’m sure it’d be fascinating to watch, though. Do you mind if I take notes? I could probably get a paper out of it at Windswift.”

She swats at him, and Keris suddenly sees how this couple wound up together - even if it took Ba-le eloping and getting disinherited for her troubles.

“If you can woo Iris by the end of the night, perhaps,” Keris smiles. “But come! We’re missing the festivities. And I’d like to show off my work.” She’s bedecked with silver to offset her outfit - a gorgeous necklace of stylised flames in honour of Akhanammu, a variety of flowery hairpieces around the silver comb with a real lotus-flower pinned to it, a set of matching rings and some chiming earrings. “After all,” she adds with a grin to Ba-le, “I need the licensing for my smithy to go smoothly if I’m to set up and get it running early next year.”

“Well, that’s something I’m in favour of,” Ba-le says, offering one arm to her husband and one to Little River. Honestly, comparing their builds probably both of the women could snap Colira in half. “Let’s go, then.”

It’s only a short walk through the Anubalim grounds to the place where Colira’s aunt is holding the party. The Saatan night is alive with explosions, because fireworks are going off all over the place. There’s the crackle of firecrackers, the scream of prayerwheel fuses, and from over the walls comes the sound of the massive street parties that are going on. Fortunately for Keris, Atiya is back home - because the air is thick with firedust smoke and steam and it wouldn’t be good for her lungs.

She can already see why her companions are dressed as they are. It’s nearly the hottest bit of the year, and it’s so very humid. Both of them are already sweating.

“Dragons save us from you wretched water-bloods,” Ba-le grumbles, seeing how Little River isn’t sweating at all.

Colira’s aunt’s place is an ancient Shogunate structure that’s been renovated from its original purpose and turned into a palace. It has lavish roof gardens that rise up over the top of the city, allowing a clear view of the thronging streets outside the Ala district and it’s over the smoke and steam to see the temple of Akhanammu to the north of the city where the best fireworks are launched from. There’s a mule-driven lift that takes the guests from street level up to the garden heights, and two family members and their well-dressed guest are immediately welcomed and let in.

Up in the heights, it’s full of lavish - though skimpy - clothing on both sexes, fine wine, and food. Keris can feel the power in the room. There’s no small number of Dragonblooded here (ten at least, maybe twenty or more), and some of them are powerful indeed. The woman on stage is nearly as powerful as a demon lord, and as she raises her voice over the sound of the drums she’s playing illusions and strange figures dance in the smoke, telling tales of the gods and folk heroes.

((Lots of DBs, of all aspects and enlightenment ratings. For example, the woman on stage is E5, Wood Aspected.))

Keris can’t help but falter - the last time she was in a room with multiple Dragonblooded, they were preparing to kill her. But on the other hand, there’s attraction; the draw of being around people who get it, at least a little. Who understand about what it’s like to have power, to be set apart from humanity and mortality, who can survive her at full blast.

Ba-le catches the hesitation. But happily, she’ll just put it down to Little River being... what’s her word for it? A ‘Tengese hick fresh off the boat’; drawn to the glamour but uncertain of her place here. Before she can make a witty little comment, Keris firms the line of her shoulders and glides forward into the room.

“... on stage, that’s Leinani, she’s adopted too, but she’s maybe the best dancer and singer in all of Saata right now,” Ba-le chatters. “To the extent that the other ones don’t even count her in their ranking because she’s been first for fifty years now. Those two over there are from the Steel Dragon society - don’t talk to them, they’re frightful bores like all Imperial Navy sorts - and then over there is Masaati Meixu, I studied with her... Meixu!”

The woman who comes over is has a pinch of divine power. It’s enough to give her serpents in place of hair, which have been painted with gold leaf that matches her lips. She’s wearing a loose silk robe decorated with thunder patterns. “Ba-le,” she says warmly. “I was wondering when you’d show up. And Colira... oh, you’re always so tall, no need to bend to kiss me and... who’s this?”

((E1, Divine essence))

“Hui Cha Little River, a newcomer to our corrupt and wicked city,” Ba-le says with a smirk. “Also my new tenant.”

Little River dips in a precise and picture-perfect greeting-bow. “A pleasure,” she says. “You studied with Ba-le? May I ask where?”

“Oh, we both went to Rising Branches to learn to read, write, and other kiddy things,” Meixu says easily. “But then again, that’s to be expected. We’re both Raraan Ge... or, we were.”

((Cog + Politics, Diff 2))

Keris eyes her, listening to the subvocal cues there. If they’d been childhood friends, that puts an interesting spin on their relationship - this is one of the family Ba-le left behind when she joined House Sinasana by elopement.

((3+1+2 stunt=6. 1 sux, bah.))

Keris can’t really follow the names dropped. From what she says, the Masaati are probably another member of this often-Dragonblooded pirate nobility, but she can’t pin them down. There’s a lot of them.

“You’re staring at her hair,” Ba-le says, with a smile. “Her mother was a snake.”

One of Meixu’s hands go to the serpents. “Snake-goddess, thank you very much, as you well know.”

“She hatched, you see.” Ba-le’s smile widens. “Look down. No belly button.”

“... I have one, you idiot, as you also well know.”

“Yeah, but she believed it. They believe anything up in An Teng,” Ba-le says wickedly.

“We do no such thing,” Little River says primly. “And I have met goddesses with stranger traits than serpent-hair. If you must know,” and here she turns her attention to Meixu, “I was admiring their colour and wondering how you take care of... them? Caring for my hair can be a chore; I can only imagine how hard it must be to find oils and soaps for scales.”

“Honestly, they mostly take care of themselves,” Meixu admits. “Snakes are very clean animals and one advantage is that I hardly sweat - unlike that grinning dog over there.”

“Hey! That’s offensively accurate!” Ba-le contributes.

“I just need to be sure to oil them occasionally and make sure they don’t dry out. It’s honestly much easier.”

“Ah, yes.” Little River smirks. “Not sweating in humidity is certainly a lovely boon in this city. Is it always as entertaining to listen to other people complaining as I’m starting to find it?”

“Very much so,” Meixu agrees. “And look at you two. You don’t even have drinks yet. That’s a real waste. There are people out to drink all the good stuff first.”

“Like her,” Ba-le interjected.

“You didn’t have to say it,” the other woman says archly. “You should go get yourself something. I’ll see you around. I love the dress, by the way... Little River, yes?”

“Hui Cha Little River,” Keris responds, with another shallow bow. “Until next time, then.”

“Hmm,” Ba-le says, as they drift through the crowd towards the drinks table. “You really aren’t shocked by someone with snakes for hair. That doesn’t sound much like the An Teng I’ve heard of...”

“I didn’t come straight here from An Teng,” Keris says darkly. “And I was mortal when I had to leave. It was a long and eventful journey.”

“Ah, you and your puzzles,” Ba-le says.

“Well,” Little River says, shrugging and tossing her hair over her shoulder with a smirk. “You wouldn’t like me as much if I didn’t pose a challenge.”

The singer ends her song, then shifts to a stringed instrument. She starts to play in a minor key, her voice raising up into the upper registers with a purity that is more than any normal human could manage. Her song sounds like eagles in the heights, like far off mountains and memories of home, and in the smoke above phantasmal birds whirl and spin, widening their gyre as they dance and play in the fire-lit night.
There is polite applause from the audience, and a few wet eyes. Little River applauds too, polite and even sincere. The performance really is beautiful. But her thoughts are full of another face she plans to wear in this city - the face of Tenné Cinnamon - and its role as a performer and entertainer.
It wouldn’t be strictly true to say that Keris is mentally cracking her knuckles and eyeing up a rival, but it wouldn’t be far from the truth either.

“I can’t believe I missed this party,” Haneyl grumbles in her head. “Urgh! Shows what I knew! It’s like... it’s like broken karma! I did all these nice things for other people and then didn’t get the reward of going here!”

“I’ll see that you’re properly rewarded to balance it out,” Keris thinks warmly. “I’ll be going hunting for a tyrant lizard skeleton to put in my foyer at Silver Lotus. It won’t be hard to get two of them, and then you can have one of them to use its feathers in some pretty clothes and grow flowering vines around its skeleton and cook the meat for a feast.”

Haneyl makes a happy noise. “I had some while in Saata,” she informs Keris. “It tasted slightly gamey and a bit like chicken. A very lean meat - you’d want to simmer it for a long time to break it down, or otherwise get one of the fattier cuts. And I talked to the seller and she mentioned they do have a problem with parasites...”

Haneyl chatters on about food for a bit, because it is one of her favourite topics.

((OK, does Keris have any plans for what she wants to get done here, any group or people she wants to seek out, or is she just here to have a good time and watch fireworks?))
((Hmm. She’ll try and schmooze a bit to grease the wheels for the licensing of her smithy, and also keep an ear open to see what the state of firedust tech is since the Burning Tiger Halls are an obvious topic of conversation. And, heh, Keris is fond of arson, occult secrets and also drugs and body mods - which firedust can be used in.))

Little River drifts among the partygoers. She stands out - for her Tengese looks, and for her modest clothes, for the way she shows no signs of suffering from the heat. Her manners are impeccable, and a general perception of her starts to circulate through the party - a bit hung up on etiquette and standards like some of the more traditional Tengese tend to be, but less obnoxious about it than many, and a witty, clever, charming conversationalist besides.

Along the way, Little River makes herself known to the great and the g-, well, mostly just the great of Saata. She meets Raraan Ge pirate lords, fat merchants from the docks, the swaggering Ju Padua - a loud-mouthed, extroverted braggart who tries to flirt with her - and several members of House Sinasana.

She finds herself next to a loud argument between two men. One of them is Sinasana Tamar, a man whose anger crackles around him like lightning, while the other is more Tengese in complexion and her eavesdropping reveals him to be Andu of the Bakalong family, a student at the university. Both young men are dressed like peacocks, both are armed, and they’re right in front of each other’s faces.

((Tamar - Air Aspected, E3))
((Andu - Wood Aspected, E4))

“You’re a popinjay, a braggart, and you think you’re so good just because your bitch of a pirate great-aunt gives you an overlarge allowance,” the aggrieved Tamar snaps.

One of Andu’s hands goes to his mouth in laughter, while the other stays on his sword. “Oh, that’s rich, coming from you. Do you think that just because I actually study, I’m not man enough to meet whatever challenge you offer?”

((What group is Bakalong Andu part of? Does Keris know of any Hui Cha links he has, or is his Tengese blood just ancestry and not linked to where he stands politically?))
((Bakalong is one of the Raraan Ge families, and no, Keris doesn’t think he’s really Tengese - he just has blood. It means he’s probably from the north of the Anarchy, where they’re ethnically more related to the Tengese, though a bit darker-skinned and with more often curly hair showing up.))
((Hmm. What does FtFF say about etiquette re: “fighting at parties” and also “intervening in an argument between others”?))
((It’s socially acceptable for a woman to intervene to try to calm down hot-headed men. It also says that if they want to duel, they should take it to a proper duelling ground and get people to witness, not just start fighting out of the blue))

“Gentlemen,” Little River interrupts smoothly, stepping between them and raising her hands in a smooth warding gesture. “Please, remember where you are. This is a celebration of Akhanammu, not a duelling ground. If you have issue with one another, there are places for that.”

She pauses deliberately. “And were you to fight tonight, flamepieces might be more appropriate than blades,” she adds with disarming humour. “Given who we are here to honour.”

Sinasana Tamar glares at her, nose wrinkling up. “Hui Cha bitch,” he mutters, softly enough that if Little River wasn’t Keris she wouldn’t have heard him. “Oh, don’t bother. I got better things to do with my time.” Puffing up his chest, he rolls off.

“Sinasana dog,” Andu says to Little River. “Thinks that just because he’s the son of the matriarch, his shit doesn’t stink.”

((Reaction + Awareness, Smell-based))
((5+5+2 Coadj+2 autosux=12. 7+2=9 sux.))
She can smell the touch of a demon on him. In the oils in his skin, in his hair. Neomah, she thinks - or some related breed. Her eyes flicker over him quickly, assessingly, taking in his nature, and she purses her lips.
“And louder with his muttering than he thinks he is,” she says, ice in her voice and a dangerous glint in her eye for a moment as she glances at Tamar’s retreating back. “Someday that will get him into trouble.”

She looks at this man, this over-educated man, who’s so very proud of his sorcery. And she can see how beautiful it is that he envies her. He wants something she has - or maybe he wants her, or wants to be her. She can’t tell the notes of flattery apart. But she can read that he’s not expecting much from her - politeness, perhaps, and some sexual interest. But then again, he’s a man - and a lot of the men she’s met have thought she must have wanted them just because she was single.

((Pride in his sorcery, envious - yes.))
((Hoo hoo~))
((Fun. : 3))

“Well, apart from a few cruder attendees, this is a delightful party,” she says with a smile. “Were you enjoying yourself before he interrupted?”

He smiles at her. “Trying to stop my mother getting into trouble,” he says wryly. “She doesn’t like Saata much, but she’s here for business and she was invited as a guest.” He looks her up and down, eyes lingering in certain places. “You are Little River Hui Cha, yes? You were talk of the town for a while with how you came out of nowhere and bought one of the southern mansions.”

“Tch,” Little River tuts. “So much talk about my home, and none about my art.” She tilts her head, letting the silverwork in her hair gleam and the flame-necklace catch the light. “Well, perhaps I’ll gain more fame as a silversmith once my smithy is up and running. And you study at one of the temple-colleges?”

“I’m not with Wind-Swift, but I’ve made a deal with the seminarians and the archivists for some access to their libraries. I’m actually studying the history of the Anarchy - working on a treatise on its history during the time of the Shogunate,” Andu says, in a deliberately off-hand manner.

“Ah?” Little River - and Keris, under her mask - look genuinely interested at that. “Back when Saata was all a great city of white stone? I can see the signs of what this island once was in the ruins left behind, but you’re expanding that to the whole of the Anarchy? That sounds fascinating.”

“Oh yes! In fact, from the widespread coastal damage that reaches as far north as the Hook and as far south as places like Alahi, there was a major tsunami around 1500 years ago that wiped out entire islands from the map. Can you believe it? Some of the old maps I’ve found suggest that there was at least one major island - Shuu Mua sized, at least - which simply vanished from history!” Andu says enthusiastically.

Little River blinks at him. “Impossible,” she says in disbelief. “Shuu Mua is five hundred miles across - I’ve sailed along it. No tsunami could sink something that huge, it would...” She shakes her head. “What could even cause that kind of destruction?”

“I have no idea.” He spreads his hands. “Perhaps it wasn’t totally destroyed. There are some indications that something survived until the invasion of the fae - but that’s another topic that’s just as cataclysmic. Those monsters carried away entire islands, sweeping them off into the tides of chaos.”

Little River purses her lips. “True... and I suppose if something of it survived, it would be on the seabed.” Her mouth quirks up at the side slightly. “Perhaps I’ll go looking someday.”

“Hah, yes, I suppose you do have it easy.” He laughs, not entirely with humour. “Not being at home underwater is a barrier to my research sometimes. And my great aunt doesn’t care about such things. Neither does my mother. Although... at least she appreciates what I can find back home. I stumbled on a few jade seams while digging up the ruins of a city I found had been buried by a pyroclastic flow, so I’m in her good books for once.”

“Well, history isn’t one of my strengths, but geography is,” Little River offers. “If you ever find a spot in the ocean that looks promising, I’d be more than willing to help look for a long-sunken island.”

A gaunt woman approaches them - much taller than Keris, with prominent acid scars all the way down the left side of her face. And likely the left side of her body, because her clothing is asymmetrical and covers up that side much more than her right. “Andu,” she snaps. “Where have you been?”

“Just socialising, mother...” he says softly. “This is Hu Cha Little River, chosen of the Water Dragon.”

She turns on Keris, and Keris can feel how weak she is, a tiny blossom compared to Keris herself. Her eyes narrow and she clearly evaluates the smaller Tengese woman.

((E4, Water Aspected))

She tenses just a little; unnoticeable beneath the perfect flowers of social poise she’s shrouded her thorns with. For all that this woman is weaker than Keris, she is in truth what Keris pretends to be - equal in both power and aspect to the lie of Little River.

Gracefully, the younger water dragon dips a respectful courtesy to the elder. “A pleasure,” she greets the woman. “Your son was telling me about some ancient history. It’s interesting listening.”

And like son, like mother, she feels that this woman also envies her. But she’s proud of her blood, of her water-dragon-granted power. Keris can see the curling waves around her upright, acid-scarred posture a. “Hah,” she says. “Well, at least someone is interested in it. Wasting his life on such things. And you - you’re the lucky girl who stumbled into one of the rare mansion openings on Saata. So young and with no effort doing so. Well, some people have all the luck.”

((Yes, envies Keris - proud of her nature as a Dragonblood.))

“Luck is fleeting, and dooms those who rely on it,” Little River replies with calm modesty. “I was lucky to get my mansion, but keeping it will be a test of my skill.”

“Hah. That it will, girl.” She clicks her tongue. “Come on, Andu!”

He gives Little River a wry smile behind his mother’s back as he trails after her.

“Hmm,” Keris thinks inwardly. “Well now. A demon-summoning sorcerer looking for Shogunate relics all across the Anarchy. Blackmail and bait in one shiny package. I think we’ll be seeing him again in some form, don’t you, mama?”

“I don’t like his mother,” Dulmea says softly. “She reminds me of...”

She doesn’t say the next word, but Keris can guess what it would be.

“... well,” she says after a moment, “I won’t have to deal with his mother. Just him. And if there is an old Shogunate island lurking somewhere on the seabed, it might still have shiny things on it.”

She sighs happily and looks around. “Now,” she thinks, “let’s work out who among these Sinasana princes will be useful in smoothing the way to getting my smithy licensed, and go chat them up.”

As Little River mingles once more, she’s drawn to a sound of little bells and a raising of voices. There’s a...

... that’s a man, yes. It’s hard to tell, though, because he’s so grotesquely fat. He’s dressed in orange robes, has a shaven head with stretched out ear-lobes, and he’s already acquired a drink in hand.

“Blessings be upon this party!” he calls out.

Raising her eyebrows in mild horror, Keris gives him a dismissive once-over... and then hesitates, as she realises what those robes and bald head mean. Shit. Monk. She’d known Saata had an Immaculate temple, but not given it much thought after hearing the abbot was massively corrupt. This must be him, though she can’t remember his name offhand. Attention snapping back to him, she gives him a rather more in-depth once-over, suppressing the urge to wrinkle her nose in tell-tale distaste.

((IEI, WWOF and FtFF. 10+4 autosux for the latter; 5+4=9 sux.))
((Journeys Essence, E4. No envy, Politics 5, 3-dot Throne Shadow Style.))

The fat man, the obese man, the man with the bright golden eyes - strangely similar to Kali’s - is an insignificant worm. But he’s a worm who’s stronger than any mortal - and he’s stronger than some of the Dragonblooded around here. She watches as he downs his drink and takes a second one - and there’s none of the admiration of envy - no, he’s a clever man, and all so proud of his mastery of the political arts.

And what he expects is to be offered drinks, bribes, and favours in return for favours of his own. This is a political animal. And a very bad monk.

Something trips in Keris’s brain, and she stares openly for a few seconds before hurriedly restoring her mask. What... what the fuck? That man - that man is as strong as her lie of Little River, as strong as the bitch of an abbess on Triumphant Air, as strong as most of the stronger Dragonblooded in this room.

But he’s not of the Dragons. His essence isn’t even of Creation. He tastes like travel. Like faraway places and Zany’s wonder as she described the shining spires of Chiaroscuro and the occult whispers that flit between the semaphore towers of Windswift College.

He tastes like journeys. And that’s the scent of the stars. The sound of Mercury. Could... could he be a starry-eyed one?

No. Keris dismisses that thought immediately. Yamal’s memories tell her that... that the Star-Chosen had been equals to those of the Moon. Salina had agreed, from what she’d said about sorcery. He’s too weak to be a star-chosen - and anyway, he’s the head monk of an Immaculate temple.

So... what? A child of... of some god who works for Mercury? Keris stiffens. Shit, she realises. That’s... that’s very possible. The Temple of Mercury Wind-Swift undoubtedly has a minor god or goddess of its own, and may be visited by higher-ranking ones, being a major temple to Mercury with influence that spreads all across the Anarchy. Is that what he is? Does he have direct ties to Heaven through his divine parent?

Shit, Keris thinks again. This is exactly the kind of thing she was hoping wouldn’t crop up a few short weeks before her return to the Althing.

“A blessing for you... a blessing for you... a blessing for you,” the abbot says, tapping person after person on the brow. “Ah, hell! Blessings for everyone! Come get your blessings, as long as you bring a tithe of drinks! And some of those little snacks, too!” He slaps his engorged belly. “I’m just wasting away here, don’t you know?”

((... oh my god he’s amazing.))
(( : D ))

Keris hesitates... but she supposes she’s not going to get more information on this man without going closer. And hanging back might be suspicious. So Little River scoops up a particularly nice drink and a small bowl of snacks, and drifts over to greet the obese man with a bow and a smile.

He’s taken up a seat on one of the large viewing couches with a good range of the fireworks - “It’s my duty, you know, to make sure no one is worshipping any naughty naughty gods without permission,” he says, mouth full of pineapple - and is letting people by with a “I bless you” and “Remember to go to temple more, my child”.

“Father Abbot,” she smiles when her turn comes up, and offers the tray. “Might I trouble you to take a few of these off my hands? They’re terribly heavy.”

“I am a charitable man, so of course, my child,” he says benevolently. “Have you committed any terrible sins recently? I do hope you haven’t. And... ah, yes, you’re Little River, of the Hui Cha. I haven’t seen you at temple at all. Naughty girl.”

She bows. “I’m truly sorry, Father Abbot,” she says contritely. “My daughter and my estate are no excuse. I’ll pledge to be better behaved in the new year.”

There’s a twinkle in his eyes which suggests that he doesn’t believe a word she’s saying. “And I hope you raise your daughter the right way and don’t get up to any criminality or the like,” he says.

((Roll me 1d10))
((... why do you make me do these things that make me nervous. :c))
((1. Botch. Shit. I hope that was him rolling to notice something.))

“And I notice you have a little visitor on your arm,” he adds with a genial smile. “Look at you, small one.”

Iris, who has slunk her head out and has it stuck in the tray of snacks, peeks up at the abbot with sugared dust around her mouth. She tilts her head quizzically.

((Goddammit Iris.))
((She has Temperance 1. She is just a bebe.))

After a frozen instant too quick to be noticed, Little River strokes the little dragon’s head. “Perhaps honouring the dragons with my little friend here will grant me some measure of forgiveness for my failure to attend services,” she says lightly, internally vowing to paint her familiar yellow tonight for outing herself like this. Still, maybe she can just play it off, maybe if she acts as though Iris’s nature isn’t anything to exclaim over it’ll seem like there’s nothing suspicious there. “Though she hasn’t been attending either, I’m sorry to say,” she adds with a quirked grin, inviting the abbot to laugh.

“Well, I’ve seen how the Raraan Ge like their dragon tattoos, but I wasn’t aware it was a Tengese thing too,” he says, petting Iris and then stealing the food away from her while she’s distracted by rubbing into his fingers. “What a peculiar creature.”

“Iris,” Little River says warningly. “No climbing onto the abbot. She eats tattoos,” she adds, looking up at him. “Or shreds them when she tries to play with them. Still, she’s a clever little friend, when she’s behaving.” She reaches out to wave her hand through the space Iris is occupying, pulling her back onto skin, and brushes against the abbot’s fingers in the process. For the brief moment of contact, while the abbot is still looking at the little dragon, her eyes go slit-pupiled as she takes in the feeling of him through her left hand.

((5+5+2 Coadj+2 stunt=14, boosting for an action with po-touch before dropping it again. 6x2+4=16 sux.))

Ah, with her left hand she can feel what he is more clearly. He is the wind in the sails, the scent of foreign lands, and the gleam in Zanyira’s eyes as she recounts her tales. And there are more, more transient washes over that - fiery food, the herbaceous touch of a medicine, and, ah, just a touch of blood-shedding battles and athletic strength.

((He’s dominated by Journeys, but there’s also traces of Fire, Wood and Battles on him))

“How you got that little thing must be quite an interesting tale,” he says, eating grapes one by one.

((Reaction + Politics))
((5+1+2 Coadj+2 stunt+4 Kimmy ExD {secrets, discerning eye=14. 6 sux.
Also redoing the FtFF roll for what he expects: 10+4 autosux; 4+4=8 sux.))

He’s talking to two women, not one. Little River; playing a friendly game with him when they both know neither of them care about her lack of Immaculate worship and she’s dancing around her tattoo for personal reasons. And Keris, razor-alert and tense beneath the lie, every sense focused on him as she darts backwards and forwards in the conversation, going over everything they’ve said for hidden hooks and trying to predict what he’s thinking and where their dialogue will go next.

He’s not at ease, though she can’t read any more. And she only knows that because she can’t read him. But she knows, she knows that if she keeps to her manners and plays by the rules of the meeting, there’s a good chance that he won’t be able to read her either.

“Oh, certainly,” she agrees. “But rather a long one. And I’d hate to take you from your sacred duties for as long as it would take to recount it all.” Belatedly, she remembers she’s still holding the drink she’d snagged with the hand she’d brushed him with, and offers it. “Perhaps some other time?”

He smiles at her, eyes going to Iris. “Of course, of course.” He taps her on the brow. “Bless you!”

With a grateful bow, Little River leaves him the tray of snacks, and escapes as fast as propriety allows. Shit, she thinks for the third time. She got a lot more information from that touch, but... argh. She’d have been much happier if Iris hadn’t outed herself in the process of getting it.
“You are in a lot of trouble, young lady,” she hisses quietly as she heads out to the balcony to get some air and watch the fireworks. “A lot of trouble.” Iris coils around her hand, an obviously quizzical expression on her face. She breathes out a tiny, sad-confused coil of many-coloured flame within Keris’s skin.
“... alright,” Keris sighs, checking quickly that she has enough privacy not to be overheard. “Not entirely your fault. You’re still little. But when I tell you to stay put for an evening, you need to listen, darling. It really is important.”
Iris exhales a sad face, sulkily swimming up Keris’s arm and nestling in her cleavage. She seems to have associated it with Keris cheering up the babies by feeding them. This at least puts her under Keris’s dress, so Keris pets her lightly through the cloth, and then rests her hands on the balcony and sighs.
The point of coming here tonight was meant to be getting away from the stress, dammit.

It’s at this point when the first wave of rockets streak up from the temple, detonating in the sky and shedding vast waves of red and orange sparks over the city. The booms are the queue for the singer to start a new song, and for everyone to rush over to watch the display by the priests.

Keris is in a good position for that, at least, being at the balcony already. She has a good view - and no annoying tall people in front of her - as she watches the performance, and for once she lets herself just relax and enjoy the display; half-formed ideas about asking around for what kind of innovations the Burning Tiger priests have made with firedust slipping away in favour of simple appreciation of art.

The firelight washes over the city, lighting up the night. There’s torchlight in the streets below, and men and women dancing. The music rises up, as clouds of smoke form clouds through the sky.
She loses focus, as she thinks of festivals in Nexus. There had been no fancy parties back then, no balconies full of high-class Bags or expensive drinks or pretty dresses. But she’d still liked the festivals. Not just for the opportunities that crowds of drunk revellers gave for a pickpocket, but because she and Rat could get a little tipsy on stolen booze and watch the pretty lights and listen to the singing and forget, for a while, how shitty their little lives were.
She’s come a long way since then.

She shouldn’t miss it.

“First time to see this, hmm?” While she was caught in memory, a woman approached her to lean on the balcony next to her. She’s a tall Terrestrial woman, who looks like she’s from the Hook. She’s curvy, almost maternal - but no, that’s a mask. There’s muscle there, under her layers of loose silk that have been carefully chosen to be subtly different shades of blue with traceries of white in the outer levels. She looks like she’s wearing the ocean itself. She’s bedecked with jade and gems, wrapping around her limbs in bands. Her left hand below the elbow is a carefully carved green jade replica, which moves and flexes as she adjusts herself.

She’s attractive. Not just because she’s powerful. Because she’s powerful and attractive and wears her power and confidence like a cloak. She looks over the city before her like there’s nothing there that can hurt her.

And she’s old. She must be old. Because she’s a Dragonblooded as powerful as a demon lord, and she has crow’s feet under her makeup and Keris can smell and taste the dye in her hair.

((E6, Water Aspect))

“Hui Cha Little River,” the woman says. “My grandson mentioned you.”

Grandson. Keris has only made a strong impression on two men with Terrestrial grandmothers today, and this woman - annoyingly - could be either Colira or Andu’s grandmother. Keris- no, Little River bows, her eyes widening a little before she gets herself under control. A young Dragonblood, confronted by an elder and superior.

“I hope his impression of me was a good one,” she answers, frantically trying to assess what the woman wants from her. Keris is leaning towards Sinasana Colira’s grandmother just from the wealth, which means... which means this may in fact be one of the high-ups of the ruling family of Saata, if not its head. “I assume it was at least interesting, if it led you to seek me out.”

“My granddaughter-in-law likes you,” the woman says. She looks up at the fireworks. She expects Keris to try to stand up to her. She also expects her to break when pressure is applied. Because everyone always does. “Hmm. You haven’t come to any of our parties until she invited you.”

Yup, Keris thinks. Sinasana. Damn. Luckily, she has a ready response for that in the form of Little River’s propriety.

“I hadn’t been formally invited,” she answers primly. “And recently I’ve been too occupied with business to have time for pleasure. Your granddaughter helped me resolve that issue, so of course I accepted her invitation.”

“Hmm.” Fire washes over their faces. “Let me just say something. And you will listen.” Spark candles burn down below. “This is my city, Hui Cha. Mine and my family’s. We have rules here. You’re playing by them right now. You’re doing it right. That’s how we do it here. We give you a safe harbour, we let you come to our markets, we let you avoid those savages in the Wailing Fen. You’re renting from my grandson.

“So keep playing by the rules. Because I’ve met a lot of young men and women who think that just because their grandpa was some philandering Dynast, they’re the dragon’s own gift to the world. That isn’t how things work here. Play by the rules... or I will break you.” The old woman smiles, flexing her green-jade hand. “That’s the thing. As long as you don’t deal with demons or attack Imperial ships, I don’t care what you do. You can keep on raiding other people’s towns. You can burn their ships. You can plunder the Far South West and I’ll invite you to dinner parties. I don’t care how you make money, as long as you follow my few rules. Play by them, and you’ll be wealthy, comfortable, and this will be a safe place for your daughter to grow up.

“And that’s what I ask of you.”
In the city beyond, a great rocket explodes, firedust falling in the shape of a great tiger’s head. Gongs and bells and chimes clang all at once. There’s a quiet pause in the silence after the explosion, as the tiger’s head descends on the city. Little River meets the old woman’s eye, and doesn’t disguise the flash of deadly intent when the matriarch of House Sinasana mentions her daughter’s safety.
She doesn’t buckle, and she doesn’t bend. She accepts the words into the black depths of still waters, and apart from that single ripple, there’s no hint as to what currents run down there in the deep.

“You’ve spoken,” she says, after a charged moment. “And I have heard.”

It’s not submission, because the Hui Cha are proud and private and even their more cosmopolitan members would balk at grovelling at a foreigner’s feet. But it’s acceptance, and no hint of outright challenge. Water flowing around an obstacle it can’t wear away.

((She got 12 successes on her Per + Presence roll, fortified by Stern Dragon Approach, to create a 2-dot Principle of Respect in Little River))
((... you know what? Keris is actually going to accept that. She looks down on demon lords, but - hah - she tends to treat DBs as if they’re three or four Enlightenment dots stronger than they actually are, by dint of Exalt-wariness. She can see this woman is a force to be reckoned with, and she’ll make up her mind to work around her rather than ever trying to challenge her directly.))

“Mmm. See that you do.” The woman straightens up. “If you go to the bar, you’ll find I picked something out for you. I hope we can get on.”

And with that said, she departs to mingle with others.

Sinasana Medala, matriarch of House Sinasana. She’s over two hundred, if Keris recalls. A very healthy two hundred, if that’s really true.

She stays there on the balcony for a few moments longer, recovering from that encounter, and then heads to the bar to see what the old dragon left for her there. That is not, she decides, a woman she intends to go head-to-head with if she can help it. Old dragons are forces of nature, and that’s not something Keris wants to put herself up against.

---

A few days later, Keris has an important family meeting. For the demonic part of her family. She has Zana back from the temple, and she has Rounen and even the demons in her soul in attendance. And of course, she has three upset babies who are still grouch.

She has Calibration to plan for.

“So,” Zana says, feet up on her chair. “What’s the plan, Keris?”

“I’m taking you,” Keris says. “I’m taking the twins. I’m... leaving Atiya here with a Gale, Zany, Ali and Xasan. She’s healthy enough now that she’ll be able to handle two weeks without the main me, and between the trip to Hell and the amount I’ll need to do there, taking her would be a risk for no reason. I’m only taking the twins because Lilunu will want to see them.”

She drums her fingers thoughtfully. “Eko, Haneyl and Vali are within me. I’m going to ask Calesco if she wants to come back to the Domain before I leave, and visit Rathan to see how he’s doing. Sasi will be going at the same time, so I’ll grow a sandship for us and we can take the trip together.”

Haneyl clears her throat within Keris’s head. “Mama, you... did tell Mother that she wasn’t getting to use the Baisha?” she suggests.

“...” says Keris. “Um. Well. It can be a really nice sandship?”

Eko giggles audibly at that.

“I think... could you have Calesco come back to Saata for this?” Zana suggests. “Because she can pass as you, and you might want to stay in Hell longer.”

Keris purses her lips. “I’d thought about it,” she admits. “It depends on how recovered she is, and if she wants to play the role.”

“And she might want to make sure her people on the island are kept safe in Calibration,” Vali adds in her head

“Quite,” Keris says. “I’ll ask her, and we’ll see what she says. As for once we’re there... well. Like I told Sasi. My report will be good this year.”

Zana pulls a face. “Because... um.” She looks torn. “I really, really, really want to see mother. But temple says we have to be there aaaaaaaall through Calibration. Me’n’Piu are meant to be doing backstage stuff for the temple dances and the parades, and going out and looking cute to collect donations and stuff. Which is... this sucks.”

Keris purses her lips. “Well,” she decides after a moment, “one of the things I’m planning to ask Lilunu for is a self-portrait. One like mine, so that hopefully she can talk to us without having to leave her body empty for ten days as her mind crosses the Desert. If I do that, you’ll be able to talk to her more from here - so maybe it would be best to stay back here and give Calesco advice on how to play Little River and not lose your place in dance school, so that you can keep learning and show Lilunu what you’ve been learning next year.”

“Yeah.” Zana’s lip wobbles. “I can... I can probably go to visit her for the Wood holidays, maybe?” she tries.

“Yes,” Keris encourages. “Yes, that would be good. We can definitely arrange that.” She hugs her daughter. “You’re being very mature and brave about this,” she soothes. “I’m proud of you, sweetheart. And I’ll take Iris with me, so you can tell her to say hello to Lilunu for you, and pass on all your love.”

Zana wants a hug, and is willing to shift a sulky Ogin out the way to get it. “You have to promise you’ll look really really pretty for everyone at the Althing and you need to make sure everyone is watching you!” she insists.

“Don’t worry, tell her I’ll make sure you don’t let us down,” Haneyl says firmly.

Chuckling, Keris passes the message on, and kisses Zana on the forehead. “Anything you want me to tell Lilunu that Iris can’t pass on with little dragon-kisses?” she asks.

“That next time I see her I’ll have all kinds of pretty things to tell her about!” Zana says, voice fierce. She wipes her eyes, and pets Kali. “And... c-can we go shopping together today or tomorrow? So we can find the best things in the markets to give her as presents. All the pretty things. She needs a pet, Keris. She really likes Iris but Iris needs to be out and about so we should get her a pet instead!”

Keris grins. “I think we can manage that, yes,” she says. “A nice little pet from Creation to keep her company.”

Of course, the sentimental moment is ruined by Kali deciding to scream “Wanna wanna wanna Vaaaaaaaaaaali!” at the top of her lungs and throwing herself on the floor, kicking and screaming for no good reason.

But it was still nice when it lasted.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Down in the basements of Silver Lotus, unnatural light surges and flickers, casting a rainbow with too many colours over the walls. Keris sits, necklace of orichalcum and adamant in her palm-up hands, her hair angled in like claws. She’s naked here in her circle, having scrubbed herself nearly raw and bathed herself in pure water and done everything she could to shed all external essence. Now it’s just her. Her and the power that she wears, her anima clinging to her skin like a dress.

The tip of each lock glows with a colour of light. With each pulse of her heart, it arcs from the hair and into the necklace.

She’s not breathing. Breath would distract her from how she’s coaxing the hellish power within her. Pulling it apart, strand by strand, so instead of it being a mess of several flavours it flows more naturally, untangled, and layers itself into the adamants. Like plaster around a wax sculpture, it takes shape, taking form from the power of the Yozis. And she layers it on. More and more and more, she layers it on.

Was this how she built her soul world in the first place? She wondered this when she took Salina’s notes and studied them, realising they were exactly what she needed to patch one of the corrupted spells in this sorcerer’s necklace she stole from the naib of Malra. Is she just replicating what her body did, but over much less time and in a less permanent way?

But there’s no time for such questions now. Because it’s nearly complete. The surging waves of anima-essence are dimmer now, for she’s fed so much into the necklace that it’s barely a flicker in the air. She takes her first breath in six hours, and her hair moves like a hundred hands, weaving the threads of essence shut into a many-coloured bow that sinks into the foremost crystal.

It’s trapped in there, gleaming like a tiny sun.

Keris rises, legs stiff. She fastens the necklace around her neck, letting the glowing adamant settle down in her cleavage. It crackles like amber in a storm. She places her hand on the door, and turns it the right way.

The door doesn’t open to the stairs. It opens somewhere else. To an antechamber of adamant and orichalcum, where the prismatic walls shine like her anima and the air is abuzz with sorcerous secrets even she can’t truly hear.

“Oh,” she croons happily. “Oh yes. This will do marvellously.”

She looks around happily, running a finger down the shining walls. Her red and silver light, she decides, accentuates the orichalcum in just the right way for it not to be as tacky and gaudy as all the gold the naib of Malra had thrown everywhere. And oh, the way it refracts through the adamant is gorgeous.

Yes, Sasi will be very happy in here on the trip back to Hell. And as a bonus, this little sanctum might actually be capable of holding her twins for more than an hour without them escaping!

She’s not willing to bet anything on that, but it’s worth a try.

A little exploration reveals that it’s furnished, too. It takes ten rooms before Keris realises that this sanctum is the same shape as the collar; rooms and halls connected by concealed passages and hidden doors to form a ring.

The furniture follows the same aesthetics as the architecture; all golden and crystal, with shaped essence-fields in place of fabric. The beds are grand, gorgeous things with flickering spreads of red and silver light that - when Keris takes a running dive onto one - turn out to hold her weightless in their grasp as if she was cradled in water or sunk into the softest of mattresses. The seats and chairs in the living rooms and lounges are similar, and the dining room boasts orichalcum plates just like the one she lost in Nexus, with golden cutlery and adamant glasses to match.

There’s even, she’s pleased to note, a nursery. With gleaming toys that whisper secrets and essence-fields over all the doors and walls. Good. Hopefully that will keep the twins contained.

It’s the culmination of a couple of weeks of hard nightly studying, the only free time she could get from her babies and her position as Little River. It’s the early hours of the morning, and she pulls herself upstairs, rubbing her eyes. Her days have been filled with trying to get the licencing arrangements done for the silver smithy, making offerings to the temples and trying to make sure the local Tengese gods are happy, too.

((Cog + Bureaucracy, Diff 4))
((... crap.))
((Is the Metagaos Excellency disqualified by the “prudent planning” clause, or is it okay because Keris is trying to get herself a business toot sweet?))
((I mean, I think she’s rushing it, so as long as she’s sufficiently Metagaos-themed in her stunt she could probably get away with it))
((3+0+2 stunt+3 Metagaos ExD {false familiarity, insidious influence, seize offerings}+1WP=8. 5+1=6 sux.))

It’s only been by heavy reliance on her perfect flower-petal mannerisms that she’s managed to get as far as she has. But luckily, Little River is as Tengese as they come. She’s respectable. She’s traditional. She’s formal and proper and picture-perfect in the little rituals and customary ways things are done.

If it weren’t for how well she blends into the social jungle of Memory of a Golden Land, she’d never have been able to rush things so much - but now that she has the land, she can take advantage of all the little shortcuts and ways the Hui Cha see her as being one of them to fast-track the paperwork through. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know - and with Little Bird as a friend; Little River’s network of acquaintances is spreading.

((Making much use of Flowering the Fairer Face, and also notable use of Falling Petals Style for formal ritualised proper ways of doing things, Golden Lands Lorist, Jupiter’s Embroidery and Shining Silversmith for being a cultured artistic Tengese lady who knows very Tengese-themed art styles, and Perfumed Smoke and Wolf-as-Lamb Style to sway opinion and play the part. The first four especially will be known things about Little River.))

It’s all pretty much signed and sealed now, though. Ready for the new year. She can leave safe in the knowledge that everything is worked out.

Thinking about that, she pauses at the door she’s passing, and knocks at it.

“Come in, mother,” Calesco says.

Calesco’s room is lightless. She’s chosen an interior room and blocked off the skylights. The only illumination in here is a single moonstone she took from home, which gives just enough dull red light to give depth to the shadows. Calesco is a beautiful pale shape in the gloom, sitting in bed in only a shift as she carefully embroiders a black dress.

Her daughter is here to watch over Zanara, cover for anything that has to be done, and also... Keris sort of wants her to have an enjoyable Calibration, even if she doesn’t come to visit Hell with her. Which she has absolutely refused to do. Just in case, though, Keris has made sure that Kuha is in Saata right now, and will be following her north. She trusts Calesco enough to not hunt Kuha down. She doesn’t trust her to be in the same room. Or even the same city.

“Will you be alright?” she asks. It’s nothing she hasn’t asked before, of course, but she can’t help but repeat herself. She’s a mother. She worries. “Remember not to go into the north wing; it’s still unstable. And I told you about the notes on everyone Little River knows, so you’ll be okay even if Ba-le decides to drag you off somewhere - not that you should let her if you don’t want to! And... and I briefed the girls, so you can be yourself around them, and they’ll help keep people away if you need some alone time. Xasan will keep you company too, and... and you can get to know Ali and Zany and Hanilyia!”

Keris becomes aware that she’s babbling, and stops, venturing into the room and sitting down next to her daughter.

“I just want you to have a nice time,” she says, forcing herself to be calm. “And to feel better. You are feeling better, aren’t you?”

Calesco glares at her, eyes red in the scarlet gloom. “Well, no. No, actually,” she says firmly. “Because my heart was broken.” She puts down her embroidery, and runs her hands through her white hair. “But you’re taking that neomah-lover away from me, so... maybe. I’ll try to go to some Calibration parties.” Her lips wobble. “See if there are... are any pretty girls who... who aren’t like her.” She smiles, then. “And not have to see the horrors of Hell. Even this sinful city is less cruel than Malfeas.”

Mustering up a smile of her own, Keris hugs her daughter. “Spend some time with Hany and Atiya,” she advises. “They really are adorable. And they’re untainted by any sins or cruelties. Zany is looking forward to meeting you, too. In fact,” she sighs, “if you tell her about looking for pretty girls, I imagine she’ll volunteer to help.”

She pauses thoughtfully.

“Actually, what am I saying? She’ll find out through her gossip-witch powers anyway. I’m surprised she’s not already beating down the door.”

Calesco frowns. “She’s a... an interesting woman,” she says carefully. “I think she’s the sort who’d tried to find out what I have under my veils - and do it in the light.” She spreads her arms. “Not in the dark like this. Maybe I should show her me like this, just so she doesn’t get too hungry for my secrets.”

“I’ll leave that up to you,” Keris says, and drops a kiss on Calesco’s temple. “I trust you to make the right choice.”

“Yes, mama.” Calesco sighs. “Now, what were you doing up so late? And so naked, I might add.”

Keris bounces proudly. “Sapphire Sorcery!” she boasts. “I made another little world, inside my collar.” She taps the only thing she has on. “It’s all orichalcum and adamant and prettiness inside. Sasi will like it as lodgings on our way across the Desert. It’s a really good trick, this. I may have to work out ways to anchor these little realms to other things.”

Calesco smiles. “Oh, mama. You’re very fond of making worlds, aren’t you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with world-making,” Keris says in faux-offended tones. “And we should have a conversation about where I got the lore to learn this particular trick - or at least patch up the holes in the spell the collar had in it.” She considers. “Might be better to wait until after Calibration, though,” she hazards. “It’s not a small thing.”

“Yes, mama.” Calesco shakes her hair out. “The idea of sorcery scares me. To give up something for power is... a scary thing.”

“Alright. When I get back, then.” Keris folds her into a hug again, and leaves her with another kiss on the temple as she goes to prepare for the trip. “Have a nice time, darling. I love you.”

---

There’s less time than she would have wanted. By the time she and her family in tow arrive at where she’d arranged to meet Sasi, it’s only a week until Calibration.

“Keris,” Sasi says, from in the shadows of ruins on the small island west of An Teng where she’d been waiting. “It’s good to see you - although I didn’t expect for you to arrive by ribbon horse. And-”

“Kali!” hollers Aiko, leaping up from where she’s sitting. “Ogin! Look! Look!”

Kali perks up. “Ko!” she shouts back, gleefully bouncing up and down in Keris’s arms, trying to get free. “Kooooooooooooo!”

By now wise to the fact that her twins will gang up on her and coordinate their efforts to escape, Keris tightens her hold on Ogin, wraps Kali in a hair tendril, and carefully brings Cissidy to a halt before dismounting and depositing her children beside their friend.

Kali immediately leaps onto Aiko for a hug, rubbing her delighted little face into Aiko’s tummy and giggling as her legs kick happily. Keris smiles fondly at them before turning back to Sasi.

“The Baisha’s already gone back to Hell to refuel,” she says. “I’ll make us a sandship out of a plant for the trip, but don’t worry. We won’t have to stay on it.”

Grinning, she taps the collar she’s wearing. “I have a better option,” she brags proudly. “I worked out how to make little sanctum-worlds tied to artifacts. You’ll like the inside of this one. It’s even nicer than the Baisha was before it got refitted. A moving manor worthy of you, my love.”

It probably isn’t strictly necessary to end her little boast by kissing Sasi’s hand, but that doesn’t stop Keris from doing it.

Sasi still scowls a little. “What do you mean, you mishandled the fuel?” she asks. “But I suppose...” She looks over Keris’s little group. “Is that all you’re taking with you? None of your souls?”

((Oh wait, did Rathan decide to come?))
((Hmm. Roll me his Conviction 3))
((1 sux.))
((Yeah, he’s actually staying because he has things to finish, although he miiiiiight make a god-appearance at a mortal island to party.))

“Well, you know where Eko is,” Keris shrugs. “Haneyl needed a month’s relaxation and recovery, so she went back around the end of Crowning Fire. Vali came back too; he’d run out of things to do. Rathan’s overseeing one of my operations west of Shuu Mua, Calesco’s covering for me in Saata as Little River and Zanara had to stay there at their dance school, so...”

She shrugs. “Just me, Kuha and Rounen. And Rounen’s in my Domain with his library-project at the moment. Now come on, stop scowling at me and let me show you where we’ll be staying for the next five days. I promise you’ll love it.”

Sasi smiles. “Oh, Keris. I think you’ve done wonderfully in raising your souls to be useful. We can eat more over a midday meal - and let the children get some of the energy out of their systems before the long ride to the entrance to the desert.”

---

It is a long ride, and Ogin is playing up by the end of it. Her precious little boy is less accepting of minor discomfort than his sister, which is just as well considering how many bumps and bruises she finds herself getting. He’s crying into her shoulder as Sasi leads her through the hidden island portal at sunset, emerging into an empty, chilly salt plane in Cecelyne.

“Do your thing,” Sasi says, shifting around as she lets Aiko down onto the sand for her maid to play with. She’s looking nervously around the desert. “I don’t want to linger here too long.”

“Right then,” Keris nods. She takes out the green jade jewellery that had been anchoring Haneyl and grins sheepishly at Sasi. “I, uh, won’t be able to return these until we’re there. I can only anchor this spell in jade at the moment. But...”

Taking a branch from a palm tree that will serve as the rudder for their ship, she arranges the piercings along its length; pushing them into the bark. Then, bit by strenuous bit, she begins shaping and layering essence-fold after essence-fold into the wood, pinning each one in place as she forces in the next; working towards the keystone that will make this little branch blossom into a vessel.

Not a very large vessel - it won’t need to be, with the world inside her collar. But one sturdy enough to make it across the Desert, barring unexpected catastrophe.

Her anima flickers and flares as she concentrates, and with half an ear she hears her babies cooing appreciatively as she shapes the spell... before finally bringing it to a close and slamming the last binding in place. The green jade piercings pulse, and the end of the branch bulges, and then blossoms, and then bloats out into immensity; a fifteen-metre deck with long runners and a living mast taking shape under Keris’s feet while her hand remains locked on the rudder.

“Oh my,” says Sasi, smiling. She brushes her hand against the generously female figurehead of the ship, which prominently wears the full matching set of the piercings. “You have been missing me in person, sweet one.”

“Hello, ship lady,” Aiko says to the figurehead, curtseying to the figurehead with a wobbly curtsey. Next to her, Kali tries to pull herself upright to copy the gesture, but can’t manage to stand upright and falls flat on her face. Since this leaves her face down on a salt plane, she tries licking it. The taste is not to her liking, and she spits it out and starts to snivel.

“Alright, my sweet darlings,” Keris coos, hopping down and scooping up both son and daughter. “I think it’s time to go into our special house that mama has a secret door to. Come on now.”

She carries them up to the desk and touches one of the adamants on her collar. The light of the essence-bow shines through the central crystal, projecting the shimmering outline of a portal in red-and-silver anima light. Keris grins.

“Shall we?” she asks, offering Sasi her free hand.

“Oh my,” Sasi says, stepping inside. She looks in the sparkling halls. “Keris, I didn’t think you had it in you. Where on earth did you find this spell?”

Keris grins and taps her collar. She’s been waiting for this. “Oh,” she says airily, “did I not mention? The adamants in this have spell-matrices carved into them. The silly naib didn’t know they were there, but I heard them. I did tell you this collar was the best thing in that trophy-museum of his.”

Her grin turns positively wicked with smugness. “I did show you them before,” she crows. “Did you miss the writing on the insides of the gemstones?”

“Really?” Sasi asks, eyes wide. She reaches down, holding Aiko’s hand. “Come on, my little dragon, let’s get you settled in with Copper Hand and Kali and Ogin. Maybe they’ll have bunkbeds!”

Aiko’s eyes go wide. “A sleepover?” she enquires. Honestly, it’s probably more of a demand.

“Maybe!”

Aiko gasps. “Kali! Ogin! Sleepover!”

“Slee’over!” Kali mimics. She doesn’t know what it is, but she wants one.

Ogin considers this. “I’m not tired,” he concludes after a long while.

Sasi whispers, “We can put them away, and then we can go to our own beds. And after we say hello, you can tell me more about this.”

Keris tousles Ogin’s hair lightly. “Can you be a big boy for me and make sure Kali doesn’t get lost in here, then? It’s a big place,” she teases, “and there’s lots of secret doors and hidden places. Kali and Aiko and Copper Hand will need someone who’s very good at spotting things to find their bedroom and work out all the clever things inside.”

Ogin looks upset and wobbly, and doesn’t want to talk. She thinks he thinks he made a mistake and that’s upsetting him.
Bending down to pick him up - and reaching out with an absent hair-tendril to stop Kali and Aiko from charging away - Keris sets him on her hip where he can wrap his tails partway around her for stability. “It’s okay if you’re not tired just now, darling,” she soothes. “You don’t have to go to bed yet. And you know Aiko, don’t you?” Oh dear, she realises with a frown. It’s that he doesn’t know what a sleepover is, and he’s feeling left out by the way the girls are up for it.
“A sleepover just means you all get to sleep in the same room,” she whispers quietly. He doesn’t really like being told things instead of working them out, but he’s willing to accept it from mama. Usually. “So you’ve had them before with me, haven’t you? When you all cuddled in with me. That means you know what the rules are.”

That’s enough to get him to relax. He nods.

“Okay then. I’ll be in to say goodnight. Have fun, moonbeam.”

She gives him a kiss and sets him down to go over to Kali and Aiko, quietly relays the directions to the maid, and watches proudly as Ogin points out the first hidden door with barely any prompting on where to look.

Then she turns back to Sasi, smirking.

“So,” she purrs. “Does this little world of mine meet your standards?”

Sasi drapes herself over Keris’s shoulders. “I was worried when I found out we couldn’t use the Baisha,” she says, letting Keris support most of her weight, “but I feel things are looking up.” She nips Keris’s ear with her teeth. “Carry me to your quarters, you cruel and vicious pirate queen. I am imprisoned here as your concubine, trapped in this hidden sorcerer’s fortress with you for the next few days. Who knows what dark lusts you will use me for?”

“Maybe I’ll never let you escape,” Keris grins, hair winding around her limbs to lift her off the ground and march her off towards the master bedchamber. “Maybe I’ll keep you here forever - as the most beautiful jewel of my hoard - unless you win your freedom. Not,” she adds, sliding through the door and setting Sasi down on the sinfully comfortable weightless essence-field, “that I intend to make that easy for you...”

---

The diversions in the sorcerous pocket world are, while not endless, entirely sufficient for the first few days. The children have each other. Keris does have to get out of bed to dig the children out of the storeroom where Lilunu’s presents are, and Kali managed to somehow get into one of the cages where one of the pet parakeets Zanara had got her were. Keris only finds her when she’s napping by a half-eaten, half-plucked bird.

“... how did you get in here?” she asks, bewildered. “And how did you get up to and into the cage? And... little feather, I love you, I really do, but did you really have to do it in your human form?”

Blood and feathers smeared across her chubby little cheeks, Kali beams up at her mama and holds her arms out for a hug. “Birdie!” she chirps. “Sunny mama!”

Keris sighs. Her daughter is... very partial to the mix of orichalcum and anima-light in this little pocket-realm. It’s become possibly her favourite place ever, though admittedly any new building she hasn’t explored before which contains food is capable of claiming that title within a few minutes of Kali charging into it. New things are a constant joy for Kali, especially people.

“I know, sweetheart, but these are Lilunu’s things. They’re for Lili,” she says. “If you eat them you’ll make her sad. Be a good girl and come back to your playroom, okay? Aiko is probably wondering where you are.”

Keris really has to wash her messy little daughter before doing that, and then decides that she might as well help her dry off by taking her up on desk. It’s a hot part of Cecelyne they’re passing through, and she’ll dry off in the sunless heat.

“Aww,” Kali says as Keris leaves the sanctum, onto the small ship manned by the sand-creatures of Cecelyne twisted by Keris’s magic. “Sun fun! Sun fun! No sun!”

There is no sun here, under the black sky of the Endless Desert. Just endless glassy wastes here, the ship tacking to and fro on the cracked landscape to avoid the terrible ruptures that split this broken land.

It’s certainly warm out here, and Kali dries out quickly as Keris near the back of the ship, watching the landscape go by. She uses the chance to grab bits of blue-tinged glass from behind the ship. Maybe they’ll be of use for something.

“Mama,” asks Kali after a bit. She’s twisted around and is looking over Keris’s shoulder. “What that?”

Keris turns and bites back a curse.

Out of nowhere, a horizon-to-horizon sandstorm is blocking out the area. She’s only just hearing it now, but she hadn’t heard it before - and that’s suspicious in its own right. As she watches, bright blue lightning cracks... then thirty seconds later comes the boom of thunder. And another. And another. This black-grey cloud is growing more and more intensely lit by the blue lightning it’s kicking up. The sails flap the wrong way, the ship losing speed as all the air is drawn towards this massive, colossal, Saata-swamping stormfront.
Keris stares wide-eyed at the layer-drowning natural disaster sweeping in towards them, and fails to bite back another curse as dots connect in her head. It’s a glass-storm. And sailing into this would be madness. They can either try to outrun it, or simply anchor down in one of the cervices and accept that they’ll lose their sails and repair the ship when it passes.
Either way, they have maybe ten minutes before the storm front arrives. She should grab Sasi.

Bundling Kali back through the portal, Keris screams for Sasi. She’s not best pleased at being dragged out of bed, and is even less pleased at seeing what’s bearing down on them.

“If we take down the sails and bed down in a crevice and all pile into the Sanctum, the ship should survive mostly intact,” Keris says. “Or I could release the casting and take the branch back in with me and just leave the collar in a crevice until the storm blows over; recast it again once it’s past. But if we try to weather it... this thing is huge, Sasi. I don’t know how long it’ll take to pass over us.”

She gestures down at their dinky little ship. “But the other option is trying to outrun it in this. I’m not sure how fast we can get, especially with the wind bearing towards it.”

Keris can see fear in her lover’s eyes. Sasi takes a deep breath. “Bring us to a stop in the shield of one of those cracks,” she orders. “I can protect the ship.” She’s already scooping sand off the deck of the ship, and with a flare of light in her hands transmuting it to... fresh blood?

Commanding her sorcerous constructs, Keris has them pull the ship in behind a jagged glassy cliff, and watches as Sasi marks herself with the blood, then scatters it over the ship’s decks with prayers to the Yozis. She pricks her fingers, and lets her own blood mix with the transmuted blood, which seeps into the hull. Her anima wraps around her, blue and black and silver spiralling out to cover the hull in a glowing, shimmering bubble-barrier that wraps the whole vessel.

“Get below,” she says, panting from the exertion. “That should... should stop it giving way. At least unless someone stronger than me breaks it. Or directly tries to destroy it.”

Keris nods. “Keep the children inside the sanctum. I’ll put my armour on and stay out here. Worst comes to the worst, I’ll grab the figurehead so we don’t lose the jewellery and just run for it with you in the collar. And I can kill anything that tries to break your spell, too.”

She hugs Sasi close and kisses her, then opens the portal for her to retreat back to relative safety.

“Crew!” she calls out. “Take down the sail and store it below decks! Don’t come out until I give you the order!”

By the time the storm is upon them, the ship is silent and still; its deck empty but for a demonic silver figure sitting in the shadow of the figurehead.

The storm is screaming loud. The cracks of thunder overhead are deafening. Molten glass hammers at the dome like sleet. The malevolence of the gale is an oppressive, crushing force. Keris can feel it. It hates them. It hates anyone who tries to cross the desert.

But that’s all. There’s nothing out there she can hear. Just a storm of molten glass and cutting sand and winds that would flay a human to the bone in seconds.

Her grip on her spear relaxes somewhat, and she watches from behind the featureless silver faceplate as the maelstrom rages. Few get to see a sight like this - the fury of the Yozis cast across their bodies as seen from the inside. Keris is something of a connoisseur. She’s run with the Silent Wind, danced through the glass-storms of Cecelyne, tiptoed across the treetops of hungry Metagaos. There’s a strange, terrible beauty even to the murderous rage of the Makers, when witnessed like this.

... all the same, she’d rather not experience a layer collapse from the inside, or see the Demon Sea swamp a Direction she’s standing in. She’s pretty sure she could escape or survive either, but she could still do without being forced to.

She sits and watches, and makes no move to leave the protective bubble as the spite of the Endless Desert lays waste to the landscape.

Nothing happens. For hours. And hours. And hours.

Sasi emerges from the shelter, this time wrapped up in a dressing gown. “Any sign of it passing?” she asks.

“No,” Keris says.

She sighs, and leans against Keris. “I don’t like this, dear one. I don’t like this at all.”

Keris sighs. Even just sitting down, her armour isn’t comfortable to spend this much time in. “Okay,” she says. “Okay, fine. I don’t think this is going to pass - I think this is a layer-swallowing storm. So we’re going to have to go through it.”

Sasi sighs. “Are you sure?” she asks.

Keris shrugs. “I don’t want to,” she says. “I’d much rather spend another few days in bed with you. But we can’t risk being late, so... running through a glass-storm it is.”

She sighs, gesturing at the howling fury of the desert beyond their little bubble. “It won’t be so bad,” she says. “It’s kind of beautiful, from a place like this where it can’t hurt you. And you’ll be nice and safe and comfortable around my neck.”

She kisses Keris. “Dear one,” she says. “You forget. I don’t need to worry about the desert like you do.” She drops her dressing gown, steps out of the bubble, into the skin-flensing glass-storm - and nothing happens to her. She stands on molten glass in her bare feet, winds whipping her hair around her and hammering her with razor-dust - and nothing happens. “You needn’t look down on me,” she says, stepping back in. Molten glass rolls off her skin like oil. “I am a desert creature.”

“... I’m not gonna deny that’s really impressive,” Keris says, her eyes glazing over slightly at Sasi’s casual display of invulnerability. “And. Uh. Really, really hot. But, um... I need to move fast to stay immune to it, and you’re kind of...”

She searches for a way to say ‘painfully slow’ without actually saying it.

“... not fond of running long-distance,” she hazards.

“Dear one,” Sasi reminds her. “I’m the one who taught you sorcery. If you want to run alongside me, you can - but I’ll carry the ship in a stormwind.”

Keris blinks.

“Wait,” she says. “You can do that? Without breaking the bubble? You said it was fragile!”

“I dare say it’ll be more tiring than usual, but this is the desert.” She looks over Keris’s shoulder. “Unlike you, I can see through this sand as if it was as clear as day. Clearer, actually. Day is too bright. And it is fragile, but not that fragile.”

“Well then, my sorceress-queen...”

Keris kisses her quickly, then steps back to admire the show.

“I’m not missing a chance to watch you cast,” she grins lasciviously. “Show me how strong you are. Let your power shine.”

“I think first we should see to the children and explain what’s going on,” Sasi says, putting her dressing gown back on. “And probably make sure there’s a Gale of yours who can look after them if something goes wrong. This feels... suspicious to me. I’ve never seen a glass-storm so big in all my crossings - and I made sure to sacrifice to the Desert before we departed.”

All the affairs are seen to, and Sasi makes sure to bring out plenty of cushions and blankets that she spreads out on the deck before making herself comfortable against the mast. She takes a deep breath.

And then she exhales, silver sand coiling out of her mouth like something alive to wrap the ship in its coils. The sandstorm of her own begins to spin, opposing the flow of the hostile storm, and the ship rises up on blue-tinged sand, which makes the hull shake with a whomp-whomp-whomp.

The whole vessel tilts forwards when she starts to move, skimming low across the surface on their heavily laden stormwind.

Keris watches in awe and wonder as her lover flexes her metaphysical muscle. She always likes seeing Sasi cast. It’s a reminder that even if her girlfriend isn’t any good with a sword or spear; she’s a destructive force to be reckoned with if given time to cast. Not as lethal as Keris, but deadly and glorious all the same.

Yet part of her is worried in the same way as Sasi. This doesn’t feel like random chance. This is something else. Something that’s drawn special ire from Cecelyne to block the way from Creation now - perhaps even something directed at them.

Or perhaps it’s not the Endless Desert in full. Perhaps it’s one or more of her souls. Keris thinks of Ligier’s promise to back her souls’ status in the hall of the Unquestionable, of Orabilis and the Blue Glass Maiden who would see her children leashed to Hell’s yoke and command, and trembles a little inside.

She’s not too proud to admit a little regret at not waiting out the storm in full. Days spent with Sasi in the sanctum seem a great improvement over whatever might await them at the centre of the Demon City.

They travel for eight hours, then Sasi needs to rest. The next day they do the same. And the next.

The storm still blows. And there is no sign of Malfeas. After six days in the desert.

“Something’s fucking with us,” Keris says darkly. “This is a trap. We’re being held here, in the Desert. It’s not letting us in.”

Sasi is huddled up by the mast, hugging her knees. “Perhaps the Desert has decided those hours of pause to wait out the storm makes this a new journey,” she says in a tiny voice. “Keris, we’re going to miss most of Calibration. Even... even if I’m right... we will miss three days of it. Maybe more if you’re right. And...” she swallows. “Keris, dear one, send your Iris to Lilunu. Tell her. Apologise.”

Keris nods. “I’ll do more than that,” she says. “Take the piercings and the children. Get into the sanctum. I’ll take us the rest of the way - no stops, no pauses, no breaks. I can run forever if need be. I’ll send Iris while you get everything packed, and then set off.”

“This is the desert, Keris,” Sasi retorts. “Your speed makes no difference to her. And,” she flinches, almost reflexively, “I am a better navigator than you. If we are trapped in some loop, I’ll fare better to get us out.”

“And if we keep having to stop, it might keep setting us on new journeys,” Keris fires back. “We don’t know what’s going on here, but it’s not natural. It might be something planned. Fuck, it might be... I dunno, Deveh whining to his master and making some deals to delay us. I’m hard to predict and even harder to stop. I carried you across Cecelyne before, remember? Let me do it again, instead of exhausting yourself. Let me take care of you. Please.”

Sasi grits her teeth. “Then tell me what you need to help you get across this place safely,” she says softly. “What would help you most?”

Keris narrows her eyes and thinks hard.

“Direction,” she decides. “You can survive in the storm and see through it, and my armour should block out the worst of it even if I slow down to a walk. It won’t be stopping the journey if I slow down and let you out to sight my way by the stars. That way we get your navigating, and make ourselves a smaller target than the ship.”

Sasi takes Keris’s head in her hands, touching her head on both side as she kisses her deeply. There’s blood on her lips; cold, stagnant blood.

((8 successes on Manip + Lore + Half Enlightenment - using Casting Coveted Crowns to transform Keris’s love for her into a heroic role principle of “Sasimana’s Loving Saviour”. It’s unblockable and an unnatural Illusion, and costs 3wp to shrug off))
((Keris won’t reject, because it’s Sasi. Though, hah. If she’d had Bound by Blood-Red Strings active, that would have bounced as the TLA Principle would have been inviolate.))

Swaying backwards and touching her lips, Keris blinks hazily at Sasi. “Wh-what did you just...” she slurs, trying to reconcile what’s changed. “Sasi?”

“Trust me on this,” Sasi says, with bloodied lips, draping her arms around Keris’s neck.

And then words roll out over her skin, wrapping around her like ropes and squeezing her tighter and tighter, until her pale flesh bulges and flattens itself. Her eyes stich themselves shut, and a check pattern forms like bruises on her skin. She’s getting lighter and lighter, thinner and thinner...

... and by the end, she’s a long silken scarf in black and white check, trimmed with sky blue, draped around Keris’s neck. It’s the kind of long scarf that might form a burnoose or some other desert garb, that could cover the face - and also add a dashing flair to an armoured figure.

Keris blinks. The storm is outside... but it doesn’t matter. She can see through it, like it’s a mere greyscale shade. Her flesh tingles, and she no longer feels the desert heat. Sasi’s power suffuses her. And she can feel more than that. She can feel everything around her, every thread of the fine weave of Sasi’s new body. She blinks, and she moves, a flickering jump.

((Sasi has activated Hero’s Treasure Shintai and become a fine desert burnoose, granting Transcendent Desert Creature, Sand Slip Technique, Invasive Exteroception Technique and Distance-Eliminating Translocation. Keris is automatically attuned to her.))

“Don’t you look dashing, draped in me?” Sasi’s voice echoes in her mind teasingly.

“Makers, Sasi,” Keris breathes in wonder. “This... this is amazing!”

She flicker-jumps to the prow of the ship, then the stern, then the prow again, laughing at the feeling. Removing the jewellery that anchors the ship, she stashes it away in an inside pocket and lets her creation shrivel, stroking the collar where her babies wait with a Gale.

Then she cracks her knuckles.

“Iris, baby?” she sing-songs, and her little friend rises off her left arm. “I need you to carry a message for me to Lilunu, okay? Say this unto her: ‘Honoured Lilunu, it’s Keris. Peer Sasimana and I were crossing the Desert together, but a layer-drowning glass-storm has trapped us - and our journey is taking longer than it should. We won’t be there in time for the beginning of the Althing - and I’m not sure when we will arrive; the storm is fierce. Please give our apologies to the Unquestionable. I’ll see you as soon as I can.’“

Iris’s wings are rainbow-hued and her eye and flame blaze with occult fire. Keris blows her a kiss.

“Go in my name, and speak with my voice,” she commands.

And then; her flickering steps lengthening and lengthening until each one carries her twenty metres or more, she begins to run.

---

Keris runs and runs, Sasi around her neck, flapping behind her in the wind. The desert wind doesn’t bother her and neither does the glass-storm. Without it blocking her sight, she can avoid whatever she wishes - and without having to take steps, she can simply flicker over the chasms it’s cut in the ground.

And of course, Sasi is there with her, her voice in her head. She has Sasi wound over her face, and every breath she chooses to take brings with her the scent of her girlfriend.

She does love her so much, Keris feels with sudden strength. She loves her and she’s going to save her from whatever trouble she’s in.

So she runs. And runs. On the second day of running she emerges from the glass-storm, onto a plane that’s coated in fresh glass and radiates heat that means nothing to her. When she gets hungry, the sense of the desert she now has lets her realise that all she has to do is break one of the fresh glass slabs and there are desert creatures under there, that taste like cinnamon and pepper and lemon zest.

Then she resumes her run.

But by her reckoning it’s the fourth day of Calibration when the war-torn walls of Malfeas appear in the distance before her. There are armies swarming over them, and great plumes of fire. She can hear the screams of the wounded as the broken stone itself gives way under the weapons being unleashed.

They’re late. Very late.

((5+5+3 stunt (boosted)+3 Friagem Serpent+10 Adorjani ExD=26. 12 successes to get past the warzone.))

Keris is not in the mood to be slowed down. She is not in the mood for patience, or diversions. So she ignores the armies and ignores the plumes of fire and runs right through the middle of the war-in-progress. She doesn’t know who’s fighting, and she doesn’t care who’s fighting. She has an Althing to get to and a lover to save.

Not surprisingly, some among the warring combatants notice the silver-clad demonic figure charging at them out of the Desert with a red-and-silver whirlwind swirling around it. And take issue with their battle being interrupted. And try to stop her.

It’s a bloodbath.

Keris is furious, frustrated and greatly in need of something to vent her feelings on. She goes through demons, buildings and hellish war machines like the Silent Wind in miniature, taking no prisoners and not slowing or deviating from her course in the slightest. Green fire consumes entire structures in Haneylian flame. Blood-hued wind takes form in her afterimage, cutting down anything within range. Elinvar coils snap and bite and tear at throats, hungry devil-weeds erupt from the ground and snarl blockades and interceptors. A glowing brass cannon gets in her way, and is rent asunder as she flickers past it. The explosion vaporises a full platoon. Her wake is a charnel house, littered with corpses and burning rubble; a straight line of devastation drawn across a warzone.

Both sides are left fleeing from the monster as she heads deeper into the City. Keris runs on, heedless to the carnage behind her.

There is silence from Sasi, blood-splattered and heavy around her neck.

---

A scream passes before she can make it to the Conventicle. She was far (why so far?) from the nearest of Ligier’s light-bridges. At least the guards at it recognise her name immediately, and she is put on an impressively direct path to the Althing

Eventually she is there, and the great doors of the Conventicle open for her - open into a party that by now has been going for four days. She is aching, tired, blood-splattered, and this figure in faceless silver armour, a black-and-white check burnoose around her head and neck, draws eyes.

She heads for the centre of the celebrations, foregoing subtlety. She’s hurting too much to bother with niceties right now - and if that storm was sent by anyone, she needs to get to her patrons as soon as possible. Lilunu or Ligier - or both - are her best options here. And during the Althing, Lilunu is always at the centre of things; her love rarely far from her side.

What follows next is an unfortunate coincidence of conflated orders. As far as Keris can understand, Ligier had set standing orders that Keris was to be shown to him as soon as possible and made sure all her staff knew about it. On the other hand, Ligier had taken his lady into her bedchamber and had given equally firm orders that they were not to be disturbed unless it was vitally important.

As a result, there was a brief discussion between the guards and they decided that the former order overrode the latter, as ‘as soon as possible’ was ‘vitally important’.

The long and short of this is that Keris was shown in to find the Green Sun and the Conventicle Malfeasant in very vigorous bedroom activities, under a skylight through which the full force of the mad green sun was hammering through.

Ligier looks directly at Keris, without breaking his pace. “You better have a very, very good reason,” he says, teeth clenched. “I had planned to praise you. You embarrassed me with your absence.”

Tension, fear and fury actually overcome mortification, and Keris goes down to one knee. “My lord,” she says, “Peer Sasimana and I were caught in a layer-engulfing sandstorm on our way across Cecelyne. It seemed unnatural, even by the standards of border weather, and the Desert itself rebelled against our crossing. It took us ten days to reach the edge of the City, and even then we found ourselves further from your layer and lightbridges than I've ever been before, spat out into a warzone as if to block our passage. I made all haste to reach you as fast as possible, and I offer my humble apologies for my failure to arrive on time.”

Ligier makes a disgusted noise. “Wait outside,” he says, seemingly noticing for the first time that Keris is still blood-splattered. “I will be with you shortly. And take that armour off and clean yourself up.”

Keris bows again, and leaves - not without some relief. Outside, she has the servants lead her to a changing room, and carefully, delicately removes the burnoose.

“... Sasi?” she asks tentatively. Her love hasn’t spoken since they hit the edge of the City.

“Yes?” It’s soft, hushed.

“Are you...”

She’s not sure what to say. Mechanically, Keris opens up the back of her armour and steps out, hissing in pain at the brassy sores and basalt scabs built up all over her.

“Are you going to turn back?” she asks tentatively. “Did I... is something wrong?”

“I’m just... a little terrified,” Sasi says softly. “I don’t want to face the Unquestionable. And... did you have to. Kill. So many?”

Keris winces. “I... they were in the way,” she says. “I didn’t... the ones that were smart enough to run I didn’t kill. I had to get you here.” She traces Sasi’s fabric lovingly. “I’ll always save you. You know that, right? I... I’ll take the blame for us being late.”

“You won’t do that!” Sasi says firmly. “I... I can’t lose you. It was just a storm. Just... one of the perils of crossing the Desert. Cast no blame. Make no enemies with things we cannot prove.”

She sighs, and with the sigh she starts to inflate again, gaining width and texture, losing her checked pattern as she becomes no longer a scarf and now once again a woman. A woman who’s bleeding from her lips and whose travel clothes are splattered with demon blood.

Keris hugs her. “Did... did I scare you?” she asks in a small voice. “I didn’t mean to. You know I’d never hurt you, don’t you? I’d only ever fight to protect you. I promise.”

“Of course you didn’t scare me,” Sasi says, without any trace of fear. “Surprise, maybe. I didn’t expect that. Or to be splattered with demon blood. But I could never be scared of you. My saviour.” She sighs. “I am worried about what the children are getting up to,” she admits.

((Keris is juuuust going to fact-check that as best she can.))
((Reaction + Politics.))
((Hah! I have Politics 2 now! ^_^))
((5+2+2 Coadj+7 Kimmy ExD {secrets, discerning eye, undercurrents of distrust}=16. Bah, 4 sux? Well, at least Keris will be happy.))

Eyes intent on Sasi’s face as she speaks, Keris searches for any signs of dishonesty, hesitation or fear.

She finds none, and visibly sags in relief.

“I love you,” she sniffs, hugging Sasi tighter for a moment. “And yes, me too. But... well, my Gale is going to have to deal with them for a little longer. We can’t check on them until we’re done here.”

“When this is over, we can go leave them in your townhouse and party like there’s no tomorrow,” Sasi says softly. “I just want to forget this week.” She tugs at her clothing. “Maybe I should take off mine too. I’m a mess, I don’t have time to change, and it’ll help us look subservient to him.”

Keris wrinkles her nose, quietly wishing she was more in the habit of wearing clothes under her armour. “I wish I still had my Amulet,” she mutters. “But you’re right, we don’t have time to change.” She pads over to a chair and sits down in it with a groan, shifting her hair to give herself some modesty and cover up the scabs and bruises. “I suppose all we can do is wait, then.”

With unseen mind-hands Sasi unweaves her clothing, vanishing it into her shadow, and then works to clean herself and Keris up. By the time Ligier emerges, a blanket draped over his shoulders but dressed mostly in unquestionable self-confidence, Sasi is kowtowing before him.

He raises one pencil-thin eyebrow. “When did you arrive?” he asks Sasi.

“My lord, I was carried by Peer Keris,” she says, not looking up at him.

“Hmm.” He sprawls out on one of the seats opposite to them. “At least you did show,” he concedes. “I was... short out of irritation from being disturbed, but I had set up orders you were to be shown to me. I had thought that you two had felt that you did not need to attend the Althing.”
“My lord, never!” Sasi swears. She does seem to know what he likes. The obvious subjugation, the fact that both of them have stripped off and Sasi has cleaned off the blood - he likes that. They’re humiliating themselves before him and that’s exactly what they needed to do to quiet the anger of the mad green sun. Levering herself off the chair with a wince and an internal sigh, Keris joins Sasi in kowtowing before him, shifting her hair back to trail behind her. The bruises and scabs are brass and basalt, not blood - and serve both as a sign of her weakness compared to him, and also the effort she put into getting here with all due speed.
“We wouldn’t dream of defying you, my lord,” she adds her voice to Sasi’s. “The Desert is treacherous to cross; and the storm hit us without warning. I beg forgiveness.”

It’s a flippant gesture from him. “Such things happen,” he says, and it’s such an easy, genial tone that Keris could almost forget the blade-focussed intensity and barely contained rage of ten minutes ago. “I would have appreciated some explanatory message, though. It would have eased my mind - and worried my lady much less. She has been concerned about you, Keris.”

Keris blinks. “I... sent a message, my lord. With one of my familiars.” She frowns. “Perhaps... oh. I sent it from the Desert. It must have been the start of a new journey - and we rode the lightbridge faster than a Messenger can travel. It hasn’t reached her yet.”

She feels rather like thumping her head on something. Dammit, this is the same thing that happened when she tried to send Rounen to Orange Blossom. Poor little Iris has been travelling for five days for no reason. Keris is going to have to apologise to her with something big. Maybe a full-back tattoo for her to nibble on and play with.

It is, of course, at that moment when Keris hears Lilunu’s “Oh!” and her own voice from the next room over, with the message she had sent... five... days ago...

Now she has a headache.

There’s a clatter of feet, and a mussed Lilunu emerges in a thin silk robe, holding Iris in her arms. “Oh, Keris,” she says, smiling. “Get up, you silly. You didn’t take account of Lady Cecelyne’s nature with your message, did you?”

Iris exhales a ball of flame that looks like a frowning face, but it turns into a more smiling face as Lilunu strokes her head.

“There was a giant storm raining burning glass on us,” Keris says sheepishly, pushing herself to her feet. “It sort of slipped my mind. A-and I wasn’t sure how long it would take us to get out. We’d already been stuck in the Desert for six or seven days by then. I wanted you to know if, you know, we’d been trapped somehow.”

Lilunu puts her hand on Ligier’s shoulder, and gives him a look. He pauses, and nods. “I think I will hold a debriefing on the day after the end of the festival,” he says. “I expect the two of you to be on time for that one. But as it stands, for the remainder of this time, eat; drink; be merry. And prepare for the new year.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Keris says gratefully with another bow. “We will do as you say.”

Sasi rises gratefully. “Thank you, unquestionable ones - your mercy is glorious.” She flatters Ligier like this for a bit, and then they are dismissed. As soon as they're alone, Sasi lets her face sink into her hands.

“I’m trembling,” she whispers. “That could have gone much worse.”

Keris hugs her close. “You’re safe,” she says softly. “You’re safe, and I’m here, and it’s going to be okay. I promise. Come on. Let’s check on the children. And then I can help you work out that tension you’re so wound up with.”

Sasi hugs her back more closely. “We don’t need to bring the children out yet,” she says. “They’re safe. I... I can’t worry about them. Not right now.” She slumps. “I can’t deal with anything,” she says pitifully. “I exhausted myself with the sorcery and doing thing for you as your scarf. Just come with me. We’ll go have one good day, before we take care of the children...”

Keris looks at her like she’s gone mad. “Aiko is in there,” she says incredulously. “And Kali and Ogin. With just a Gale and your maid! They’ve been there for five days! We need to go reassure them it’s safe!”

“Keris, they’ll be fine. She’s looked after Aiko for longer when work has taken me away.” Sasi kisses her again. “And your Gales have looked after them for such a time before. They’ll be fine - and they’ll be safer in there than in here for Calibration.” She hugs her. “Do you really want Kali going out looking for Lilunu when everything is like this?”

((13 successes on her social effort, both traits of My Dark Lady apply so it’s UMI that costs an extra WP to resist. And she’s exploiting “Sasi’s Loving Saviour” and that’s treated as being 1-dot higher.))
((She’s also fighting Mother Before Daughter’s efforts to make this an unacceptable order. Hmm. I assume she’s trying to argue that it’s not a betrayal?))
((Yep. She’s arguing that both of them have left their children alone with these people to look after them for this long before, so it won’t make a difference and isn’t a betrayal.))

Keris squares her jaw. “That was when they were at home,” she argues, but her voice is weaker and less certain. “When it was planned. We wouldn’t have to let them out, but we could at least go in and let them know we’re still alive.”

Sasi sighs. “I suppose so,” she says. “We can stop by at my place, check on them, get changed and then head on out.” She smiles. “Or we could just go out like this, if you want,” she teases.

That wins her a blush. “I... think I’ll be fine going out with clothes on, actually,” Keris says hastily. She fumbles around in her Domain for a moment, and comes out with a spare outfit for childcare days that will fit her, and...

“... I don’t think I have anything that’ll fit you,” she admits sheepishly. “Can you veil yourself in shadow again for the trip back to your townhouse, or are you too tired?”

Sasi sighs wearily - in a way that Keris suspects she’s only bothering because Keris is nagging her - and pulls out a Realm robe from her domain, shrugging it on and then telekinetically doing up the long sash. “Come on, them,” she says, pinching her cheeks.

Wearily - but happily - Keris accompanies her love back to the grand hellish manor that she was given by the princes of Hell. And braces herself for three unhappy children when they get there.

---

((Heh, Sasi’s maid rolled 3 successes))

Surprisingly, the babies are actually fairly happy. Between the maid and Keris’s gale and Kuha, they’ve had people to look after them - and the sanctum is plenty large enough to keep them entertained and stop them getting closed in. Kali is actually amazingly happier than she had been last time she had to travel in the Baisha, because she’s not suffering from the lack of sunlight - between the orichalcum around her and the feeling of mama’s soul, she’s almost happy as she is when she’s left to play out in the sun in Keris’s estate.

“See,” Sasi says, as she fastens up her little black dress in her bedroom. “You did make an excellent choice for that place.”

“I... I guess I did,” Keris says, smiling. Almost two weeks’ worth of ‘playing with adorable babies’ has lightened her mood considerably, and she actually picks Sasi up and gives her a quick spin. “In that case, I suppose we should move onto the celebration part of the day~” she purrs.

That they certainly do.

---

Keris wakes. She’s still somewhat tipsy - which tells her just how much she had to drink to make sure Sasi couldn’t drink herself into a coma - and she’s pleasantly aching. And sticky. And has a Sasi sprawled over her thighs. And is sleeping on Lelabet’s arm. And there are other demons around her, equally naked and equally mussed.

Oh. Yes. That happened.

“Child,” Dulmea says softly. “That was... not like your usual tastes.” She pauses. “To think that this was what you guided Sasimana to, rather than what she wanted. I am worried about her, child.”

“Nglgrk,” responds Keris, squinting up at the fiendish and unfairly bright lights. “Hggg... h-how much...?”

“Enough that it is clear you are Haneyl’s mother,” Dulmea says dryly. “Incidentally, I am still hearing the aftermath of the party that Eko and Haneyl held in the Swamp to take advantage of having their Calibration forms. Did you know that Eko is a singing drunk?”

“Not... all tha’ surpr’sd,” Keris admits. Then pauses as a wave of sadness sweeps over her. “... m’ssd them. ‘ko’s f’v days.”

“You were too worried,” Dulmea says. “I made sure to do things for the children. And at least Eko, Haneyl and Vali were all here - and a goodly number of keruby, including pretty much all the grown-up keruby across the entire domain. Haneyl made sure to invite them all.” She clears her throat. “And a certain... ah, new guest made her appearance when Eko started to get mopey.” Dulmea clicks her tongue.

“Oh?” Keris mumbles, rubbing at her eyes and trying not to think of whatever the stains on her hand are. “New, mm. New kerub? Did Eko fi’nly get hers?”

“I think we can deal with that later,” Dulmea says firmly. “I don’t need you distracted. Right now, you need to get you and Sasimana up, awake, cleaned, dressed, and prepared for dealing with the Unquestionable. You have reports to make and need to be focussed.”

“Urgh, right,” sighs Keris, shaking herself and letting her caste mark flare to wake herself up properly. “Gah. She’s not gonna thank me for waking her, you know.”

Nonetheless, she shakes Sasi gently - and when that doesn’t work, rolls her eyes and picks her up in a bridal carry. Getting somewhere away from last night’s orgy before waking her will probably help, especially if it’s somewhere dark.

“You going already, ‘Ris?” Lelabet calls out softly, stirring. “And taking your very cute girlfriend with you?”

“‘Fraid so,” Keris replies. “Lots to do, you know how it is. I’ll try to catch up again before I head back to Creation, though!”

Lelabet smiles. “If you two want to drop by again, my bedroom door is always open.” She glances at Sasi. “I like her. And you.”

Keris smiles, and nods, and retreats with her sleeping beauty. Who is... less beautiful right now. Perfect effortless good looks right out of bed are not something Sasi has mastered yet, it seems.

“Come on, love,” Keris urges her, playing fingers down her side. “We need to be up for our report today. There won’t be a get-out-of-trouble-free civility for us if we miss this one.”

The bright green light is enough to wake her. “Dragons, my head,” she groans. “Coffee. Need coffee.”

Wise to her ways, Keris has a cup waiting. She hands it over wordlessly.

Sasi downs it, and shakes her head out. “Right. Right. All right.” She clasps her hands together, suddenly infused with a manic energy. “Washed and dressed, now!”

---

((Cog + Expression for Keris’s outfitting for the meeting of the two of them with the Unquestionable - this is an artistic social attack made by her clothing, so she needs to choose what social attack she’s building into her costume choice.))
((4+5+1 Spirit-Charming Supplicant+2 stunt+9 Metagaos ExD {false familiarity, fertile decadence, lurks in plain sight}+4 Pelagic Muse Artistry autosux=21. 10+4=14 sux.))

Keris goes conservative with her choice of outfit. She goes very conservative. She embroiders herself a dress in the skin-baring demonic style that she’s normally not so fond of, and she stitches it with the symbols of the Yozis she’s internalised. She tailors it to suggest the lines of armour and make clear her deadliness, but without going too overt and making it a threat.
Four days late to the Althing has already put her in hot water, and so for this awkward meeting Keris sucks up her protests and daubs herself in an outfit that proclaims her loyalty to the Yozis and the Unquestionable and the cause of the Reclamation. A dress for a woman of great power and considerable wealth and startling subtlety... but who is nonetheless ultimately a servant. Sasi’s thoughts obviously run in the same direction. She is every inch a priestess of the Yozis in her silver garb, bedecked with their sacred jewels and wearing an exarch’s diadem.
“Are you ready?” she whispers, before the grand door where the demon princes wait. The door shimmers with opals and nacre, and fire in alcoves in the long tunnel leaving up to it so the frame seems to dance and twist in the air.

“As much as I can be,” Keris murmurs. “I think I prefer doing this when we’re just two among fifty.”

“It reminds me of the old days,” Sasi says softly. She straightens her back, bites her lip, and takes a deep breath.

The doors swing open, and the wave of symphonic music nearly flattens them. The Unquestionable are not all here - there are many gaps in their great grand circle - but perhaps a third of them are and their attention is not split between fifty. It is only split between two. There are some familiar faces up there, in the grand hemicycle. Keris gets a tiny nod from Yuula, sitting in her silver and red throne. A broken-faced marble giant holding a silver bident sits in a colossal chair on the edge of the ring. There’s Ululaya, perfect and smiling and looking much like Lilunu, and there’s Jacinct - who’s always been a good ally to them - and so on and so forth.

But there are four Unquestionable set apart from the others. Four who are first among equals. Or perhaps three, and their tool.

For below the grand ring, in four thrones, sit Lilunu and three fetich souls.

Lilunu sparkles in white, and there’s a mix of worry and happiness in the smile she directs at Keris. It’s probably reassuring? There’s no such hope from Ligier, who entirely the cold, distant prince of hell. There is none of his genial air - not here, not now. And a surprise, an unexpected one - Noh, sitting on obsidian and onyx, lascivious yet reserved, her white mask totally blank.

The fourth is not a demon princess Keris has seen before. She has the bearing of a young girl, younger than Keris, with long blue hair tied up in braids. Her dress is white and blue, and frilly to an extent that even Eko might consider it and its laces and its silks to be overdone. At the side of her throne are propped a bow and arrow; despite her dress she wears blue glass bracers. Her features are much akin to Ligier’s; like those of a sister, or a cousin.

But her eyes. Her sky blue eyes are older than time and deep-lined with cynicism. She looks down on all she sees, judges it, and finds it wanting.

The two late green sun princesses are called on to make their reports. Sasi makes her first. It doesn’t come across well. No matter what she says, it doesn’t sound quite right. She’s nervous. Even Keris can hear it. Off balance. And maybe still hungover, Keris suspects.

((6 successes on 25 dice - Sasi got hit with bad luck again.))

And then it is Keris’s turn.

((Did she get a chance to confirm exactly what the aftermath of Eshtock was?))
((Hmm? What do you mean there?))
((Like, checking the Orange Blossom made a good report on her activities, checking with a certain morbid curiosity what the fallout of her framing Thorns for it was, etc.))
((Because if she started a war between Lookshy and Thorns, I’m gonna gloat.))
((Yeah, she checked back when she was in Hell last time. Orange Blossom had come through, and while there isn’t a war, there are much-increased tensions and Lookshy has been pulling forces back to face the approach to Thorns and Lilunu said there had been some low tempo skirmishing.))

“My lords, my ladies,” she introduces herself, suppressing her nervousness as much as possible. “My year has done much to advance the goals of the Reclamation. Peer Orange Blossom, I hope, has spoken of the aid I gave her in Eshtock; striking a blow against Dead and Dragonblooded alike and turning them against each other, while at the same time opening the city’s treasures to our forces.”

She turns this way and that as she speaks, letting them all get a good look at her, but it’s mostly the four at the centre that she addresses.

“I took a brief sabbatical to initiate myself into the Sapphire Circle,” she continues, “allowing me to release lords and citizens into the realm of traitors, and terrorising an arrogant child of the sun as I did so. On my return to the Southwest, I set my ship to map out the Anarchy in detail, reinforcing our knowledge of the region. I have set myself into the pirate city of Saata; and will soon control the Tengese triads there.”

She spreads her arms. “Lords. Ladies. Honoured Unquestionable. Once the triads are under my thumb, I will be able to push them to replace the gutted remains of the Three Flame Society and become the dominant trading power of the Southwest. The wealth of the Anarchy will flow through our hands, and we will deny it to the Realm and the Dynasts who grow fat from it.”

Warming to her topic now, she speeds up and her gestures get more lively. “My spies will spread across every island, cults will blossom in your honour, and the demesnes and relics of the Shogunate that lie on the southwestern seabed will be ripe for the picking. The regions of the Wyld and the raksha within them will be farmed and harvested; their creations ferried across the Desert to serve a purpose beyond meaningless chaos. And those who challenge this growth - they will be crushed. By the pirate fleets of Saata, the floating temple of the Yozis or myself; your servant.”

She bows low. “All glory to the Reclamation,” she finishes with a flourish.

((So, this is... Per+Expression? And do i get a 3-die stunt for shameless bragging? :V))
((Yes and yes, declare enhancing charms, channels, etc.))
((Using Carmine Mantled Emissary to suck away any negative judgements they might make from things like ‘showing up late’. Also using Flowering the Fairer Face to make it harder to read her real motives and let her follow all the taboos.))
((4+5+3 Perfumed Smoke+1 bonus {target’s perceived superiority}+3 stunt+9 Kimmy ExD {impossibly high standards, drowns all opposition, charm}+4 “Be Loved”=29. 17 successes.))

They really seem to react better to Keris. Her speech comes across much better than Sasi’s. She just has more... more concrete things to brag about.

There are more questions, interrogations, but Keris has Ligier in her corner and both of them know it. She did an excellent job for him in Triumphant Air, and he is grateful there.

Lilunu leans forwards. “There is a reorganisation planned for the South Western Division,” she says, voice clear. “The evidence and the analysis of the reports from Peer Keris Dulmeadokht have revealed to us that the South West requires reorganisation at a divisional level to increase the capability of Creation’s true masters to act there.”

Ligier nods. “Yes. Keris, we intend to split the South Western Division into the Upper South West and the Lower South West. And with your seniority, you are suited for leadership of a small new Division. Your responsibility will be manage the Lower South West - the so-called Anarchy and below - and coordinate cult activity as requested by our gracious selves. As needed, you may be called on to train junior peers and to manage other, non-Exalted assets - including summoning demon lords when needed.”

Urk, Keris thinks. Urk. She manages - barely - to keep from throwing a terrified glance at Sasi. She doesn’t know how to lead a division! That’s Sasi’s job! Keris doesn’t lead, she just... just... okay, so she has kind of been leading and coordinating her souls, but... but that’s different! She can operate solo or with her children, but she can’t do Sasi’s job!

... and yet... faced with these imperious, terrible, powerful faces, there’s only one response she can give. Sinking to one knee, Keris bows in supplication.

“I am honoured, Unquestionable,” she says. “Thank you for finding me worthy.”

“Of course you are honoured,” the other fetich says. The blue eyed girl, the one with the ancient, cynical eyes. She smiles unpleasantly. “Let it never be said that we do not reward our servants to their true worth.”

Iudicavisse. The Blue Glass Maiden. Keris knows little about her - but what she’s read terrifies her. This is one of the few beings in all of Hell that is legitimately stronger than Keris is, who is known to be a warrior of terrible skill, and whose infamous bow of blue glass is the closest thing Keris has found to a genuine counter to Keris’s fighting style.

And she’s a bitter, cynical monster who would chain Keris’s souls if she could. Wordless with fear under that malicious smile, she bows again, keeping her eyes on the floor and hoping desperately that the blue-eyed gaze will leave her soon.

The ancient monster clasps her hands together girlishly. “And Sasimana, dear sweet Sasimana,” she says, in a lilting tone barely short of mocking. “We have come to the conclusion that your talents are wasted in An Teng. Your skills are so developed, so unique, so effusive we have decided that you are to be promoted to a special directorship - one with crucial importance to the fate of our efforts. You are familiar with the current state of the Blessed Isles and the Scarlet Realm, yes?”

“Of course, Unquestionable one,” Sasi mouths.

“Well, you are aware that the Minister of War, Cathak Cainan, has by vote of the Upper Deliberative been elected to fill the vacant spot of the High Lord of the Treasury. Making him, in essence, the one who holds the Realm’s purse strings and thus the closest there is to a replacement for the sadly, sadly missing Scarlet?”

Sasi pauses. “I was not aware of that development,” she says. “When did that occur?”

“Why, in the last sitting of the Upper Deliberative before the Calibration break!” Iudicavisse claps. “You, dear Sasimana, are to be promoted to a special Directorship with sole responsibility for ensuring that the position is emptied, and that the Realm does not unify behind such a force. Isn’t that just a purpose worthy of your skills?”

Sasi is silent. “Unquestionable ones, I have updated you on the current progress of ensuring that the heirs of the Tengese princes are brought into your worship. I cannot do that if I am to be relocated to the Realm.”

“Oh, that task is obsolete!” Iudicavisse smiles. “We have been very impressed by the reports from Peer Deveh as to his actions in the High Lands of An Teng. He is to be the new divisional chief for the new Upper South West Division!”

And now, Keris cannot stop herself from gasping. The thought of Sasi - Sasi - in the Realm... and fucking Deveh in charge of An Teng...

It’s a suicide mission. It’s a suicide mission to the place Sasi fears above all others, which will ruin An Teng in her absence, and Keris throws a desperate, wide-eyed look at Ligier and Lilunu as the words hang in the air. Her hair twitches in its braid. She feels numb.

... no, wait. Not numb. The other thing.

Murderous.

There are other words, but Keris isn’t listening. It’s only when Lilunu calls to her that she pays attention once again.

“Keris,” Lilunu calls her softly, hands held out at waist height. “I know you haven’t done this before, but kneel before me.”

“But... Sasi,” she says, struggling with every muscle in her body not to leap the length of the hall and ram her spear clean through that horrible monster masquerading as a little girl. “She... it’s not... I can’t protect her on the Blessed Isles, I-”

“Peer Sasimana has operated in the Realm before, before you were chosen,” Lilunu murmurs, as Keris approaches. “She knows what she is doing. And she will still have the authority to ask a division - such as yours, headed by you - for assets if she needs them. And you, at the moment, are your main asset.”

Keris kneels before her, feeling her long-fingered hands on the side of her head. “Keris,” Lilunu says more clearly. “Know this - your race was given life and purpose by the Unquestionable, and now a purpose is given to you. No longer will you strive to ruin the dynasts who earn wealth from trade with An Teng.

“Keris, now you are to dissolve the Realm’s grasp upon the Anarchy, so that none will heed its call and its greedy hands will no longer reach such wealth.”

((Urge switch - new Urge is Kimberyian, Urge to Drown, of “Dissolve the Realm’s grasp upon the Anarchy”.))

Looking up at her mentor, Keris’s eyes are troubled, torn, terrified. More than a little betrayed.

But she makes the choice to trust. And it is a choice; a conscious effort visible just to the two of them, Lilunu’s hands on her cheeks blocking her expression from the watching princes of Hell. Only Lilunu sees the conflict play across her student’s face and come very, very close to some internal tipping point before clearing and resolving into uneasy faith.

“As you say, my lady,” Keris murmurs back, ducking her head away from Lilunu’s cool-fingered hands in an obedient, but not quite happy, nod.

“Once we are done here, I will see you next scream to help you get prepared for your new role,” Lilunu says kindly. “Don’t worry. Many people are scared by these new responsibilities and by having to handle things like this for the first time.” She leans in, and kisses Keris on the brow, her caste mark flaring to life. “And I will make sure to check in more on Sasimana. She is one of my eldest. I would feel awful if I lost her.”

“Thank you, my lady,” Keris mumbles. The nervous rush of presenting her boasts and the slightly more terrified rush of being promoted are gone, now. There’s just the sour taste of Sasi leaving, Sasi being forced out by fucking Deveh, Sasi being sent to the fucking Realm to work in the middle of ten thousand Dragonblooded and the remnants of her past.

Keris just wants all of this to be over. To leave this awful chamber and go back into her sanctum and wrap herself around Sasi and never let go. To forget all of this ever happened.

There are more formalities - and for Lilunu to do the same thing for Sasi as she has for Keris - and then they are permitted to leave.
The doors slam shut behind them, and Sasi stands there. She doesn’t walk. Keris doesn’t either, for a moment. She just stands there, shaking with terror and fury. Forcing herself to calm.
“T-townhouse,” she croaks after a moment. “We should... go to the townhouse. Privacy.”

“Keris,” Sasi says softly. “I... will you be able to look after Aiko? Just for a while. Until I secure somewhere safe to live.” She swallows. “I’ve operated in the Realm before, but back then I was... I was single and didn’t have anyone to look after. Aiko needs a stable place to live, and she won’t be able to live with me in the Realm until I have a very private place for her.”

“Of course,” Keris says quickly. “Of course, Sasi, anything. Anything you need.”

They walk on out. And it’s only once they’re away from the chamber of the Unquestionable that Sasi snarls, and punches the wall. Hard enough that Keris hears something snap.

“I’m so weak,” she growls, more at herself than anyone else. “I’m a failure. I... I should have been preparing for this. Pulling strings. Canvasing my allies. Getting warning, talking to Jacinct and the others. But no! I had to go out and get high and drunk in your arms! No wonder they don’t think I can handle An Teng!” There’s blood oozing from her fingers.

Keris... doesn’t know what to say. How to help. She wants to protect Sasi, to save her... but how can she save her from this? Anything she can say will sound like a platitude.

Well, almost anything.

“Deveh won’t be able to handle it, will he?” she says quietly. “He’s not subtle at all with those hollow people he makes. He’ll get found as soon as he moves towards the Shore Lands. Or just toss the rest of Reclamation over in favour of the Whispering Pyre. Maybe even both.”

“Yes,” Sasi breathes through clenched teeth, clutching her hand. “He... he’s flashy. He gets obvious results. That’s probably why. It’s much easier to point at what he’s doing.”

“It’s going to blow up in his face, and they’ll burn half of An Teng down to root him out,” murmurs Keris. “Makers. This is going to be a disaster. If we’d gotten here on time...”

Then it wouldn’t have happened, she thinks. Sasi would have caught wind of it - Keris would have caught wind of it, and they could have convinced the Unquestionable not to make the choice. They could at least have tried. But no, they just so happened to get cut off by a freakishly vast sandstorm at exactly the wrong time. So that they never had the chance to even try.

Keris remembers Iudicavisse’s mocking smirk of triumph as she’d given Sasi that new role. Remembers the blue lightning over the silver stormfront, a storm vaster than Sasi had ever seen, even after a sacrifice to the Desert. Hatred coils in her belly. She can’t prove it... but she knows.

“Let’s go home, dear one,” Sasi says sadly. “I... I think I’ve broken something. I never normally lose my temper and do something like punch a wall. I haven’t done that in years. And I... I have to spend as much time with Aiko. Before I have to... to leave her behind.” She swallows. “I’ll also have to return your painting,” she says, with false brightness. “It would be a shame to let the Immaculates burn it as a representative image. Even if Vali would argue that it’s a picture of a dragon as it’s a picture of you and he’s part of you.”

“Perhaps I can get Lilunu to make one of you,” Keris suggests sadly. “I... I don’t want to stop meeting for our nights together. And that would let me... know you were safe.”

“I won’t be settling down in the same way,” Sasi says, touching her arm. “You can’t get away with that in the same way in the Realm. If... if I do this right, it might only be for a year or two. And I’ll definitely try to spend at least a season next year in Saata with you.”

“I’d like that,” Keris sighs gratefully. “Just... promise me you’ll be careful. Please. I... I know you will be, obviously, but... please say it. So I can hear.”

“I’ll be careful, Keris,” Sasimana says, holding her wrist. She swallows. “I’m too terrified to take risks there. And there are too many magistrates to be rash.”

Keris nods. “Deveh won’t last,” she reassures them both. “You’ll be back soon. They’ll see that they need you there. He won’t last.”

And whether that’s a prediction or a promise, neither of them dares to ask.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

There is no rain in Hell. Not as Creation would know it. But when Keris wakes the next day, Sasi in her arms, it is dark outside. This is not the darkness of the Dragon, though. And when the lightning comes, it drains light from the bruise-coloured world.

The Typhoon of Nightmares is raining atop the Conventicle Malfeasant, above the dome. When Keris comes to the window, the landscape is cast into mad colours by the light. A landscape meant to be lit in green shows ill-favoured notes.

Zanara would probably love the way things look.

Keris sniffs. She can smell something delicious. Better than the usual fair within her townhouse, and that’s saying something. She drifts towards the nearest kitchen, tasting the air with her tongue, and finds Haneyl there, in a sweltering heat that feels like it’s hot enough that bread should be baking even outside the oven. She’s by the stove, working on yet another dish while behind her Elly works on the coffee. Neither of them is wearing very much in this inferno - basically just breastbands and aprons - and by the looks of things they’ve been working here in this tremendous heat for several hours, labouring away at breakfast.

“Oh, good morning - such as it is - mama,” Haneyl says, turning when she sees her mother, and rushing forwards to embrace her with floury hands.

“Hello darling,” Keris says, and gives her a hug. She herself isn’t wearing much either - a backless yem and loose, thin silk trousers. “Did you get out last night?” she asks, using the opportunity the hug affords to sneak a bite of the meal-in-progress with her hair while Haneyl isn’t watching.

“Yes,” Haneyl says, turning back to the... something she’s making from deep-stewed hellish fruit and sugar. “Grandmother said you’d be needing my help and someone has to make sure you and mother eat properly. Elly!”

“On it,” Elly says, taking her place at the pot while Haneyl extracts light, fluffy almost air-like sugar-globes from one of the ovens.

“Yes, she said I’d need to help you out and make sure you’re both well - and of course, I had to make you both the best meal I could on such short notice to reward you for getting such amazing promotions!” Haneyl whirls on Keris again, tossing her a sugar globe full of sweet, savoury smoke. “Mama, we did it!” she says, eyes burning bright green. “The All-Makers have basically given us the whole Anarchy to rule for them! This is our chance. It’s not just Saata we can eat! It’s the whole region!”

Keris wrinkles her nose.

“Not that I’m not happy, but it came at the cost of giving An Teng to Deveh, meaning our main trade route to the rest of Creation goes through him, and also getting Sasi sent to the Blessed Isles,” she points out. “If I ever get my hands on that crystal-fucking brainwashed fanatic...”

She trails off ominously, then shakes away the fury. Haneyl is not the person to show this mood to. “But,” she adds with a smile, “yeah, I think we deserve a celebration. Ooo! Especially since this’ll probably let us run the Baisha all year round, instead of having to save up for a season at a time.”

“Also,” Haneyl says firmly, “Grandmother said you’re probably beating yourself up about missing Calibration. Don’t feel bad about it. Me and Eko and Vali had our own party - well, OK, Vali stormed out and said mine was lame and went off and played with his keruby after two days because he’s a brat - and it was a lot of fun and even Grandmother said I throw amazing parties.”

Elly smiles cryptically.

“Yes, it was pretty funny watching Eko freak out when I tried to set you up with her, wasn’t it?” Haneyl says with a grin.

“I think she’s pretty,” Elly says softly.

“Of course you do, she looks like you and you’re gorgeous,” Haneyl says.  Her hair flicks itself, trailing embers. “Nearly as pretty as me.”

Keris ducks her head guiltily. “I’m glad you had a good time,” she says. “But I do wish I could have been there for Eko’s human days. She really values them.”

She sighs. “Well, her new keruby should cheer her up. And maybe I can see if Lilunu has any magical dresses for her - oh, I assume you want to come along and meet her? Since,” Keris quirks a wry smile, “I’ll probably be relying on you to do a lot of my division-head paperwork for me.”

Haneyl nods. “I was going to insist anyway. Because I’m not passing off the chance to spend time with her and show how graceful and mature and gorgeous I am.” She puffs her chest up, and then sneezes from the flour.

There’s a giggle from the door, and a toddling Kali makes herself known. Haneyl rushes over to pick her up. “Why hello, baby sister,” she tells Kali seriously.

“Hot!” Kali says, stretching out in Haneyl’s arms. “Hot and om noms! Mama, food! Look, food!”

“Food indeed, little feather,” Keris agrees, tickling her. “Hanny and Elly are making yummy yummy food for us. What do we say?”

Kali considers her options. “Give!” she decides.

Haneyl beams at that.

Keris rolls her eyes, accepting that this is probably the best she’s going to get. “Alright, come here and let Hanny go back to cooking,” she coos, scooping up a giggling toddler in her hair and letting her slide around in a curve to end up in her mother’s arms. “Where’s Kuha, hmm? She was supposed to be watching you. Is she still asleep?”

Kali nods enthusiastically. Keris sighs, but after five days wrangling them she supposes Kuha’s earned a rest. “And where’s your brother, too?” she adds. Then pauses, fond baby-talk disappearing in favour of vague concern. If Kali is here, and Ogin is not here...

“... crap,” Keris says eloquently. “Kali, baby, where is your brother? Are you distracting us while he does something naughty? Because if you’re both good, we can visit Lili soon, but only if you’re both good.”

That magic word is enough to get Kali imperiously leading Keris up into the attics, where Ogin has somehow managed to get up onto the high beams and is poking his head into various packing boxes. He looks reproachfully at Kali when they show up.

“Lili, Gin, Lili!” Kali explains.

He pouts.
“Lili gooder than boxes,” Kali counters. Keris is mostly just relieved that he’s found a relatively sedate activity to get up to. Nothing whatsoever is on fire, and nothing has been broken yet, which she counts as a win.
“Come on down here, moonbeam,” Keris beckons, stretching her hair up to him. “We’ll have breakfast, and then we can come back up here and you can explore all you like, okay?”

---

Sasi is very quiet at breakfast. And up unusually early, barely any later than Kuha. She’s not paler than she is usually, but that would be hard. She’s barely smiling - even as Kali and Aiko chatter.

“I have things to do this scream,” she says softly. “People to see, contacts to set up. Can you look after Aiko for me? You’re going to have to get used to that anyway, and... and it’s better if she gets used to having you around again.”

“Of course,” Keris says softly. “Will you be alright? If you need me there...”

Sasi smiles at her. “It’s my vocation, doing such things. I’m going to be travelling all over, finding people who I know need things done in the Realm. Setting up favours. You’ll need to get back to Saata before I’m done with this. And I’ll need to close up my affairs in An Teng, too.”

Nodding, Keris leans in to kiss her. “Just... remember you can call on me for support. And that this isn’t on you. Your work in An Teng’s been better - Deveh’s flashy and stupid and is going to get a Wyld Hunt coming down on him like a hammer. Don’t let that... don’t let it get to you.”

Sasi clasps her hands together. “It is the will of the Yozis and we are their chosen servants,” she says, firmly.

Keris purses her lips at that - speaking as someone who’s met both, it sounds rather more like the will of the Unquestionable to her, who are a lot less powerful and a lot more capable of being stupid and wrong about things. But saying that to Sasi would go down about as well as referring to the Heart of Cecelyne as “that blue-eyed bitch”, so she stays her tongue.

“Lilunu said she’d try to look out for you more,” she says instead. “I’ll be sure to praise you to her when I visit. Every little helps, and having the Speaker for the Yozis in your corner is never a bad thing.”

Sasi nods to that, then goes to help Kuha help Aiko cut up something into smaller parts and blow on it so she can avoid burning her mouth.

Keris is distracted by Eko’s presence in her head.

Hey... hey Mama, her eldest daughter seems to gesture with a scraped toe in the ground.

‘Hi, sweetheart,’ she thinks, immediately diverting her attention inward. ‘I’m so sorry I missed your Calibration party. Did you at least have a nice time, apart from Haneyl throwing Elly at you?’

Eko’s hands go to her face as Keris sinks into the inner dream, white-wind-ribbons covering her red-ribbon face. It was so embarrassing, that gesture screams. She just isn’t equipped to deal with people like that. Elly used to be a nice sweet innocent szelkerub! Haneyl corrupted her!

“Poor you,” Keris hums sympathetically. “Was that before or after your new friend showed up?”

Eko smiles at that. She saved Eko from the horrors of a depraved, wicked, Haneyl-corrupted kerub, her gesture says firmly.

“Lucky you, I’m sure,” Keris chuckles. “Alright, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

Eko nods, slamming her fists - and hair - together threateningly. Yes, her expression indicates. She shoulda murdered more of Deveh’s stupid lackies! How dare he take away her access to Sasi! He’s ruining everything she had planned! Sasi’s being so stupid she hasn’t even worked out how to make demons yet!

Keris frowns. “She hasn’t? Damn. I was hoping...”

She wrinkles her nose and sighs. “Well, maybe she can work it out from the notes you left. And yes. We will get revenge on him.” Eyeing her daughter, she mulls a thought over and nods. “You know what? I’m going to have a talk with Calesco when we get back to Creation. I think you should be there as well. And no guessing ahead,” she orders, wagging a finger sternly. “Wait to find out the regular way instead of working it out with your cleverness. We won’t be staying long in Hell, so you only have to be patient for a little while.”

Sooooo, Eko’s idle silent whistling postulates, mama wouldn’t really mind her going off in Creation, seeing a few places, taking a look around, maybe touring the High Lands of An Teng, studying interesting fabrics, learning dances...

“Not yet,” Keris says. “If only because I don’t want him to be able to point at me sabotaging him and whine. But if he tries to move any feelers into the Anarchy, I will quite cheerfully drop you on them with permission to do what you do best.”

There is a pause, as Eko seems to be considering options.

“... by which I mean murdering them all,” Keris adds with a sigh. “Not working out all their secrets and taunting them with the knowledge or being supernaturally annoying at them. Though... I mean, if you want to do the secrets one, I won’t stop you.”

Eko throws her arms around her mother’s neck and gives her a mildly abrasive kiss. Oh mama, her grin gleefully says, you’re the best.

“I know, I know,” Keris says modestly. “So, will you tell me about your new friend? Or are you going to be all cryptic like Dulmea until I can spare the time to come and meet her properly?”

Eko nods. She’s going to be cryptic, she indicates, disengaging and heading to the window. That sounds way more fun, she adds as she throws herself out of the tower window.

Rolling her eyes again, Keris resurfaces from her daydream. Something about Eko’s new kerub maturation apparently deserves closer inspection, if this is how her family is acting. Still, no time for it at the moment - not with Ogin peering at one of the bowls in a way that’s going to tip him into it in a moment, and Kali intently stalking towards a piece of fruitcake in butt-wiggling pounce mode.

Tonight, Keris decides as she rescues her children - and their clothes - from messy food-related fates. She’ll go investigate tonight.

---

It is shortly before the next scream when Keris sets off to her scheduled meeting with Lilunu. With her comes a Haneyl, an Elly, a Kuha, a Kali, an Ogin and an Aiko. Aiko in particular is desperately happy that Haneyl is here and is chattering on and on about everything that’s happened since they last met.

“And we were in a crystal place, Haneyl, a crystal place and there was red light everywhere and we were there for days and days and days!” Aiko explains, from up on where she’s sitting on Haneyl’s shoulders.

“Mama smell!” Kali yells loudly, from Elly’s arms. “Better than dark boaty boat!”

“I’ll make sure to carry you around in mama-smelling places from now on,” Keris promises, tapping her collar with the arm not cradling Ogin. “And Ogin can find all the secret places in them, hmm?”

Ogin nods. “There is a way to get on top of the clock through the walls,” he tells Keris seriously, as they enter Lilunu’s grand hall. It’s something new, with towering pearl-covered pillars and a floor and ceiling that’s only mirrors. As they walk along the thin green carpet, it’s like they’re walking through a giant pearly abyss.

Lilunu is waiting for her, seated at the end of the great hall on her throne. She’s draped in thin spidersilk, undyed and covered in inked-on characters, and her sleeves are freshly tattooed. Her hair is dull grey today at first, but her eyes light up and colour returns to her cheeks as she sees the children.

“Lili!” Kali screams, wriggling and fighting to get free. “Lili Lili Lili!” She’s almost vibrating with excitement, and Elly isn’t used to her ways so she manages to slither down and breaks into a toddle towards Lilunu as fast as she can.

Lilunu explodes out of her chair and sweeps Kali up before she can fall, spinning her around. “Kali!” she calls out. “How wonderful to see you again, small one!”

“Lili, tiger time?” Kali enquires.

“Not inside, small one,” Lilunu tells her mock-seriously. “I’m too big.”

“I can be a tiger any time, Lili!”

“Yes, yes you can, and I’m very jealous. And Ogin too - oh, and little Aiko. And Haneyl, of course.”

Aiko is set down, and curtseys in her little smock. “Lady Lilunu,” she says, wobbling as she tries to hold the balance.

Haneyl follows the motion, her own green robes flowing out elegantly. Her hair helps Aiko. “My lady, you are looking more beautiful than ever,” Haneyl says. “My own experiments in tattooing and body decoration are nothing compared to yours.”

Of course, that’s when Iris joins in, swimming over to Lilunu and Kali to snuggle up to the Voice of the Yozis.

Grinning widely, Keris sketches a sweeping, respectful bow, and allows Ogin to issue a shy wave at her mentor. “It’s wonderful to see you again properly, my lady,” she greets. “Also, don’t look now, but I think my daughter is a little excited to see you again.” The grin becomes a smirk. “She’s being very subtle about it, though. You might not notice.”

“I’m nearly as excited to see her,” Lilunu says, holding Kali tightly. She smiles warmly. “This has been a... trying time, as it always is in the aftermath of Calibration. I feel exhausted.” Her smile is a little wicked. “And sore.”
Keris’s face goes bright red, and she makes a sound roughly analogous to “grrkl”. Haneyl shakes her head sadly. “Mama is so backwards,” she observes to the air. “Oh yes, Lady Lilunu, we have bought certain presents for you from Creation. Mama has them. We have all contributed - myself far from least, and Zanara sends her love and kisses and wishes she could be here, but she’s been enrolled in a dance school in Creation and they have a grand performance to put on in Calibration.”
Haneyl is, Keris acknowledges, a suck-up who blew Keris’s surprise. But Lilunu is delighted, and her eyes gleam even brighter in their pupilless many-coloured nature. “Oh, that’s wonderful - and Zanara in a grand school? That’s so exotic and fascinating!”

“If it’s possible, I’ll see if they can visit you later in the year and tell you all about it,” Keris promises. “But yes, they’ve been very happy in one of the Saatan dance-colleges, and they picked out a number of pets for you from the Saatan markets. I have them in here,” she adds, tapping her collar proudly. “Shall I bring them out now?”

Lilunu claps her hands together. “Of course, of course, let’s get out of these formal confines and you can give me presents, Keris!”

((OK, Per + Pres + resources value of presents for Keris’s SUCK UP ATTEMPT))

Once they’re out of the hall and in one of the more private lounges, Keris proudly demonstrates her new ability to create worlds; summoning up the flickering red-and-silver essence-projection that serves as the way into her Collar-sanctum and showing off the way the interior is carved from the orichalcum and adamant of its anchor and her own anima-light. Then, bidding Lilunu cover her eyes while she gets everything moved out and covered by sheets, she reveals the gifts one by one.

First of all is a small - now smaller - group of parakeets; their bright plumage scattered in a range of colours. Then the tiniest kitten imaginable; a little rusty-spotted wildcat cub small enough to fit in the palm of her hand, which Zanara rescued from an exotic breeder in the Yellow-and-Daimyo Market. And finally, Zanara’s favourite; a mimic octopus in a tank of brine that it takes a second or two to even see; so cleverly is it hiding against the sand at the bottom.

And then, of course, there are Haneyl’s presents - including a cloak of tyrant lizard feathers and a range of jars of rare spices from the far Southwest - and some contributions from Keris herself in the form of Tengese art history books and reproductions of famous pieces. All in all, it takes a while for everything to be uncovered, and by the time they’re done the pile is quite large.
((Hmm. What Res do they sum up to, would you say?))
((How much is Keris willing to spend?))
((Hmm. A one-time Res 4, all summed together? Including the bits that Haneyl and Zanara got.))
((OK.))
((4+5+2 stunt+3 Perfumed Smoke+9 Kimmy ExD {endlessly giving, impossibly high standards, talent for temptation}+Resources 4=27. 15 sux.))
Lilunu is delighted, and kitten in hand she wraps each of them up in term and gives them all a kiss. The small children get more than one.

Sooner or later, they’re in one of her private rooms. seated on elaborate chairs while Lilunu holds her tiny kitten close to her, whispering reassuring words to it. The servants have brought drinks and snacks, and Aiko makes a fuss about having a baby cup like the younger children.

“So, Keris,” Lilunu says. “This is wonderful. This is all wonderful. You’ve,” she sniffs, wiping away a tear, “brought me such lovely things.”

“You deserve lovely things,” Keris says loyally. “You make your domain here so beautiful; and I want to show you the beautiful parts of Creation, too.”

There’s an irked noise from the corner of the room. “And yet you brought nothing for me,” says an albino Haneyl from the great mirror, cinnabar-red eyes narrowed.

Keris gives another bow, and raises a finger. “I actually had an idea I wanted to ask you and Lilunu about, Lady Hermione,” she says smoothly. “It... occurred to me that maybe the issues you and your siblings suffer from might be helped by prayer? And, well...”

She smirks. “I am head of the Lower South-Western division, now. Managing the cults of the All-Makers is part of my new responsibilities. I was wondering if I could test whether my idea could work by directing some prayer towards you. I’d ask for your help with designing such a cult, of course.”

((Offering Hermione the praise and adulation of a mortal cult in Creation - and the chance to be the first of her siblings to get one, as the testbed to see if it helps their various issues and makes them healthier.))

“I’m not sure that’s....” Lilunu begins.

“Shut up,” Hermione snaps at her, hissing between her teeth. “Of course I want that, Kerisss.”

Keris can hear Haneyl’s exhalation, her clenched teeth. Her daughter does not like this. And not just because she’s being rude to Lilunu. Someone else looking like her is probably rubbing her very much the wrong way.

Squeezing Haneyl’s hand reassuringly, Keris smiles at Lilunu.

“Of course, I’ll be managing your love’s network of cults as well,” she soothes. “I’ve already spent a month or so protecting them from the Realm’s magistrates. But as the Voice of the Yozis - and an Unquestionable - it’s among my duties to make sure you’re as healthy as possible. If prayer can help your souls - and that in turn can help with your control - that’s better for everyone, right?”
((Per + Pres, Diff 10))
((Urk.))
((Hmm. Does the “make a bargain” clause of Hidden Depths Temptress apply here? Since Keris is basically offering Lilunu a cult as an offer.))
((No, not really.))
((Drat.))
((4+5+3 Perfumed Smoke+2 stunt+9 Kimmy ExD {endlessly giving, darkest desires, talent for temptation}+1 WP autosux=23. Aaaaargh. 8+1=9 sux. Noooo. :c))
((goddammit dice fairies))
((barely missed it))
((Keris realises Lilunu has a 4-dot “Do Not Defy Their Will” Principle.))
“No, no,” Lilunu smiles, laughs, waves aside the suggestion. “Keris, it will be fine! Do not concern yourself with such things.”

It will not be fine. Her eyes are scared. She looks at Keris’s hair, rather than her face.
Keris has seen this before. On the streets. Street gang bosses’ girls, too scared to defy the one in charge. Her lips thin, and her gaze flickers over to Hermione. The albino’s red eyes stare back at her accusingly, and Keris’s flutter shut for a moment in a silent acknowledgement.
Then she smiles. “Well, it was only an idea,” she says, without actually promising not to do it. “Oh! I did have something else to tell you, though. Your painting of me? Peer Sasimana and I have discovered how it works. Not only can I split my attention to speak and see through it; there’s a little world in there! We found it out when I left it with Sasi as something to remember me with while we were separated by work - she and my daughter Eko figured out that she can step into it and be with my painted body inside it. It’s been wonderful getting to see her regularly, and I’m thinking of trying to learn how to make paintings that the subjects can speak through myself.”

Lilunu looks relieved at the change in topic. “Of course, Keris,” she says. “It is you. Just as you have a world within you, so does your image have a world within it.” She shrugs. “It is simple.”

Keris blinks.

“... I didn’t think of that,” she mutters, slightly shamefacedly. “Oh... why didn’t I think of that? It’s the body-architecture parallel... ach.”

She smiles ruefully. “I still have a lot to learn, I guess. I wonder, though... do you think you could make a self-portrait the same way? I can split off some of my attention to my painting without leaving my body empty - I don’t know how that would work across the Desert, but it... might let us talk in more than just Messengers, in a safer way than trying to invoke your image?”

“I would like that,” Lilunu says, “but... the techniques I used to paint your painting would not necessarily work with myself. I could not reproduce my image in that way, for it would be progenerative and...” she frowns, petting Iris. “Perhaps Zanara could help.”

“I think Iris is a good example of what you and Zanara can get done when you work together,” Keris smiles. “How have you been since that, by the way? You said you felt a lot better afterwards.”

“Lili sick?” wonders Kali, sounding distressed. Clambering up on the table - and dodging Kuha’s attempt to stop her - she determinedly crawls over and starts trying to pepper her godsmother’s face with kisses. “Kisses make you better!” she declares happily. “Mwaa!”

Lilunu endures the kisses from a determined Kali. “Well, at first - but things built up again,” she admits. “I was feeling dreadful before you arrived.”

“It’s a question of too much fuel,” Haneyl says thoughtfully. “Like when I’ve gone too long without a burn.”

“You could... try bleeding another knot off?” Keris suggests. “I mean, I handled the first one. Iris, baby? You think we can help Lilunu settle her essence again?”

“Perhaps... a little later, Keris,” Lilunu says. “We need to first talk about your mission and your new role, and the last time you helped with that, your arm was shattered.”

Haneyl blanches. “What?” she demands.

Keris pouts. “It healed,” she points out. “It’s not like a broken limb slows me down for long.”

She glances sideways at Kali, Ogin and Aiko. “But... yeah, maybe a bit later,” she agrees. “I was... sort of surprised about the promotion, to be honest. Happy! Delighted, even. But surprised. I don’t know how to lead people, or manage whole Directions. That’s more Sasi’s thing.”

Lilunu smiles at that. “Keris, most of my princesses and princes were not lordly figures in their past lives. You sell yourself too cheaply. You should have more pride in your skills.” She helps Kali settle down in her lap. “In all your time, have you failed in a single mission you have been given? Have you ever fallen to pieces when you are surprised? You are smarter than you think. And,” she nods to Haneyl, “you have become multitudes. Your souls and your demons mean you handle things that solitary humans cannot.”

“You are of course quite right, my lady,” Haneyl says smoothly. “Do not worry. I am more than willing to take any bits of her role that she feels ill-equipped to do.” She pauses while she makes sure Aiko doesn’t spill her drink down her front. “After all, in Saata, I’ve already been posing as a merchant princess and handling the purchase of land and the establishment of facilities in the city proper. And I’ve been trained by Sasimana to handle such gaps in mama’s skills.”

While her daughter is talking, Keris is processing Lilunu’s praise. She hadn’t thought of it like that, but... when Lilunu raises it like that, she hasn’t really failed a mission, as she? Matasque was a clusterfuck she had to retreat from, but she came back and got the job done. And ever since then... Nexus, the Mercy of Hesiesh, the raksha-hunt up north, Agenete, Eshtock, Triumphant Air...

“Huh,” she concludes. “I... I guess so?” A hair-tendril slips into her mouth to be chewed thoughtfully. “I feel like I should still know more than I do, though.”

“You will learn, Keris,” Lilunu says with an elegant shrug. “The Anarchy is something I felt would be good for you, so I suggested to my lord that he not acquiesce to certain other wishes. I have heard you talk about it. It sounds beautiful, and I believe you love it. And it is far from the control of the Realm, and there are few monks who could hurt you. My lord was most impressed with your conduct here - he sung your praises this past season. He thinks very highly of you, Keris,” she adds more softly.

Keris blushes a little and looks down. She’s... not happy with Ligier for sending Sasi to the Blessed Isles. But she is still grateful to him for many things. And to hear he thinks highly of her is no small praise.

“I should thank him in person for honouring me with a promotion,” she says. “And thank you, my lady. For helping me stay in the Anarchy. You’re right - I do love it there. Especially Saata.”

Even through the bruise-coloured light that makes its way through Hegra, the green sun shines - and now it intensifies, forming a column that takes concrete form. Hands over his chest, Ligier stands in the room. “Ah, Keris, I had made note that you would be meeting with my lady,” he leans over to give Lilunu a kiss, and she giggles, “and I had hoped to catch up with you now that Calibration is over,” he says. “Now...”

Someone small tugs the front of his robes. “Sun!” Kali blurts out, eyes as wide as saucers. “Sun! Sun! Mama, sun! Lili, sun!”

“And who are you, little one?” Ligier asks. “So bold as to tug on my robes?”

Kali’s response is to hug his waist, burrowing her face in him, “Sun!” her muffled cry comes out.

Keris keeps a straight face. Barely. She glances over at Haneyl, who is... yes, blushing. Noticeably.

“Ah, Unquestionable Ligier; my daughter Kali,” she introduces, as vivid golden eyes look up at Ligier’s handsome face. “And her twin brother Ogin, here...”

“Mama!” Kali insists. “Sun!”

“... who is a lot shyer than his sister,” Keris finishes. He seems in a good mood, so she risks a smile. “My lord, respectfully, could you stop stealing my daughters’ affections? Soon I’ll have none left.”

“Is that so? Well, perhaps I will have to ensure that a little girl with excellent taste is sent a small gift,” Ligier says idly, disentangling Kali and passing her back to Lilunu. “Keris, this is just a quick meeting as the matter of your most excellently done service for me in Triumphant Air is not something I wished to speak about in front of my peers.” He smiles at her genially. “I was forced by political necessity to guard my true gratitude to you. Your chatelaine has already ensured that the statue is conveyed back to me - and though the fire-wretched Terrestrial has damaged it, its core remains intact.”

“I’m glad, my lord,” Keris says. “The abbess sounded like she’d staked a lot of reputation on being able to destroy it. Failing even after days of effort and then losing it entirely - and having a cult within the Realm’s own forces be discovered right under her nose - must have been humiliating for her.”

She smirks, vicious quicksilver triumph lending a bite to her words at the thought.

“Quite so.” Ligier nods approvingly. “Offer me your hand, Keris.”

Hesitating for only a moment, Keris offers her hand - her left; the one that had snatched the searing-hot idol from its place on the altar.

Ligier takes it. His hand is like a hot rock left in the sun - and more so. It is like his touch is piercing her flesh, as it does all things save lead. She can feel the terrible, terrible power within him that others are exposed to, and so die - for that is the nature of the mad green sun of Malfeas.

And when he withdraws his hand, she can still feel that power. That awful power. For on her ring finger sits a ring of a greenish metal, the band studded with pin-sized emeralds, and where the gem should be is a little lead box with a concertina opening, currently closed.

“A small gift, of my regards,” Ligier says, offering her his own ring-studded hand to kiss.
((Ligier has made a gift of an Artefact 1 ring that is mechanically an Emerald Fire Lantern, from p186 of Infernals.))
((Oooooo~))
Keris’s eyes widen at the sight - and at the power she can feel within the ring - and she dips her head to kiss his hand obediently.

“My thanks, my lord. And my thanks for honouring me with the promotion. I will not disappoint you.”

“I have much trust in you, Keris,” Ligier says. “You are one of my most valued servants. Others might think Deveh to be your superior as our servants - for he is flashy and rash - but know this; I have faith in knowing that not once have you failed me. Those who favour him wished you to be put under his command, but as my lady so wisely said, you are effective and subtle in a way few others are. There is no way I would have permitted you to be given as a trinket to one who so adores the Hierarchy above all else.”
((... hmm. Can you roll Per+Pres for him? Because that’s actually a really good stunt towards fixing what trust he lost in that stunt with Sasi and keeping Keris’s loyalty, by distancing himself from the 3CDs who favour Deveh.))
((13 successes))
((Haha, yeah, okay, well done Ligier.))
That...

... that does a lot to mollify Keris’s anger on Sasi’s behalf. And almost as much to worry her. From the way Ligier is speaking, he - the Crown Prince of Hell - had been overruled by others. Probably Iudicavisse as another fetich to counter his influence, with Iasestus and enough other supporters to outweigh Ligier’s side.

She bites her lip. “He’s too rash, my lord,” she says. “I’m glad the Southwest was split, and grateful not to have been put under him, but I worry that he’ll be found in An Teng. And if he is, the Realm will gut the entire kingdom to root out all his hollow-minded towns.”

“And that is another thing I expect from you, Keris,” Ligier says. “I expect you to be the innocent flower, so if he does bring the wrath of the Realm upon him they will exhaust themselves against him - and not look further south. I must say that there is a certain... advantage to Our efforts if the Realm is to take a fleet and several legions and exhaust themselves against An Teng, leaving other satrapies and other kingdoms weak and ready to be liberated by those smarter than Deveh.” He looks at her meaningfully. “Such as yourself.”

Keris nods slowly, though her heart cries out at the loss of life it will mean. “I already have the Hui Cha half-subverted,” she offers. “If An Teng is ravaged; they’re one of the strongest Tengese factions outside the Three Golden Lands who could move back in and replace the ruling families. And if they do try to go further south, exhausted after a campaign...”

Her eyes narrow at the thought of the Realm coming for those she loves.

“Well,” she says grimly. “If they’re fool enough to try that, then after a long-fought struggle against an agent of Hell; my flagship striking at them in revenge will come as no surprise. It’ll just be the spiteful vengeance of one already defeated - not a sign of anyone else in the region.”

“Precisely,” Ligier says with a vicious smile.

He turns, focussing his attention on Haneyl. Who has, Keris notes, shifted while she was distracted. Her eyes are bright - too bright, a little manic - and green embers smoulder in petal-like shapes in her hair. “And who is... oh, I see. Little Haneyl, yes? You have grown up. You were much paler the last time we met.”

Haneyl kneels before him, blushing redly. “The sun of Creation was harsher than I had thought,” she manages. “My mother’s skin tone came through under its cruel light.” She peeks up. “Do you like it?” she asks hopefully.

“You wear my fire most beautifully,” Ligier says. “Your mother is - alas - still barred from my layer, but you would be a welcome guest to my balls. And,” he rests his hand on her shoulder, “I hope to hear that you have served Us well with your mother’s new responsibilities.” He glances at Keris. “Such news would strongly ease doubting voices who might dislike the recognition of the souls of my princes and princesses as peers in their own right - for there are too few of you, compared to the cursed Star-Chosen and the silver hunters beyond the world and the fecund dragon-born.”

Keris smiles proudly, laying a hand on Haneyl’s other shoulder. “Peer Sasimana has tutored Haneyl in the making of cults, the administration of regions and many other things,” she says proudly. “She has been a great aid to me in Saata, and to Peer Sasimana in An Teng. I’m sure she would be honoured to attend, my lord - though I’m afraid we can’t linger in Hell for long. The situation in Saata is delicate at the moment, and I’ll be needed back there soon.”

“Well, that is fine news,” Ligier says. He takes Haneyl’s hand, leaning in to kiss it. “Serve me well and you will know my favour,” he says softly.

Haneyl squeaks, holding her hand to her chest as fire drips down her face, and Ligier turns back to Lilunu, giving her a kiss. “This was only a short visit to make a gift to my good servant Keris,” he says, “but I am most pleased by what I have heard.”

“Sun!” Kali says firmly. “Gin! Look! Sun!”

Ogin burrows his head in Keris’s chest shyly, occasionally peeking out. His tails writhe together nervously, like a human wringing their hands together. Glancing over, Keris notices that Aiko is peeking out from behind a cushion, while Elly has averted her eyes entirely and Kuha is bowing in deference to the sun-prince that Kerishyra serves.

The green light intensifies, then fades - and Ligier is gone.

“Suuuuuuuuuun!” wails an over-tired, over-excited Kali.
“I know, darling. Come on, come here,” Keris coos, lighting up her caste mark to soothe the desolation of the Green Sun being gone. Kali isn’t happy about it, but accepts Keris taking her from Lilunu for a cuddle with only minimal grumbling, while Ogin seems to be relieved that the number of people he doesn’t know has gone down to just Lilunu again. He peeks at her curiously, big silver eyes blinking at how Iris is twined around her shoulders. Eventually, he seems to decide that someone who both Iris and Kali like is at least worth further investigation. As Haneyl rushes out as to avoid setting the place on fire, he toddles over to Lilunu on his tails and clambers up her silk robes, sniffing her.
“Hello, Ogin,” she says. “I’m sorry that my love showed up without warning. You were scared by him, weren’t you?”

Ogin nods gravely.

“He’s really lovely,” she tells him.

Ogin tilts his head. “You smell like mama and like Iris and like Sasimana,” he says, slowly and clearly.

“He’s also very clever,” Keris says, bursting with pride and rocking Kali gently. “Lilunu teaches me art, Ogin. She’s a bit like I am to Piu.”

Ogin considers this. “He’s the green sun man,” he says slowly. “Is there a yellow sun man like the green sun man?”

“Yes, there is,” Keris says carefully. “But he’s not as nice. He doesn’t like us, and says we’re bad people. But I don’t think he’s left the sky in Creation for a long, long time, so we don’t have to worry.”

“Oh.” Ogin considers this. Then he gets distracted by Iris licking his face, and starts playing with her.

Between the children in the room, Lilunu has just been watching them with a wistful expression. To try to cover it up, she turns her attention to Elly, who is kneeling beside the seat she was meant to be sitting in. “You are one of Haneyl’s grown-up little demons, are you not?”

“Yes,” Elly says simply. “Though I was once a szel. People say that this is why I look like Eko. I am the first of my kind.” She blinks slowly. “I am sorry, my lady, for failing to attend to you,” she says, showing Lilunu the back of her neck. “Is there anything you wish of me?”

Tuning out slightly from Lilunu’s examination of Elly - she seems to like the way that her human guise can be so easily resculpted, and soon Kuha is pulled in to show off her wing-tattoos - Keris moves over to Aiko, bouncing a grumbling Kali in her arms and kneeling down beside Sasi’s daughter.

“Aiko?” she asks quietly. “I think Kali’s unhappy that Lord Ligier left. Do you think you could help me cheer her up?”

Aiko nods, green eyes darting around. She leans in towards Keris. “I don’t like it when mother has really strong people over either,” she says softly. “They’re scary.” She pauses. “You and daddy are different. You’re like mother. But... I don’t like it when the others show up.”

Keris kisses her temple automatically, before her brain can kick in and remind her that Aiko isn’t one of her children and thus isn’t accustomed to such. “If you want to talk about it later, I can style your hair for you while you do,” she offers. “But for now, why don’t you cuddle Kali for a while? It’s hard to feel scared when you have a Kali to cuddle, and she likes you.”

The little girl cheers up at that. “Kali, snuggle!” she orders, patting her thighs.

Kali complies at that, throwing herself at Aiko, and soon she’s babbling at her about “Sun, Ko, Sun!”

“Keris,” Lilunu says, after a while of chatting, “I am really sorry, but between the presents and the visit from my lord and everything else, I really won’t have time to handle your briefing this scream. It was just lovely to have you around with so many children,” she pauses, “although I would appreciate it if you make it clear to Haneyl that my lord is mine.” Her hair is suddenly wet; her eyes are deep indigo. She swallows. “And... before you go, I would appreciate it if you... if you want to help, if you could do it. I find myself ill-at-ease and... sorry.”

Keris nods. “Of course. Elly, Kuha,” her voice snaps out, quick and certain. “Take Ogin, and keep Aiko and Kali content. If Haneyl comes back, keep her in here. Lilunu and I have some business to attend to in private.”

“Should we head back to the townhouse, or just wait?” Elly enquires. “I am not confident in my ability to contain both Kali and Ogin.”

“I’ll help,” Kuha offers. “I can handle one of Kalilu or Oginlu.”

Keris considers for a moment, and then taps her collar, opening the portal.

“I’ll leave the door open,” she says. “But Ogin still has a few places to explore, and Kali won’t be keen to leave. This shouldn’t take long.”

Kali springs to her feet, overbalances and faceplants, then turns into a kitten who scrabbles out of her clothing. “Ko! Shiny place!” she declares, both tails hooked up. “Koooooooo!”

“Coming, Kali,” Aiko says eagerly, after getting confirmation from Keris that she can indeed go. She takes Ogin’s hand, and helps him toddle with her in, followed by Elly.

Lilunu leads Keris into one of her empty art rooms. There’s no one here. Lilunu swallows. “These new sleeves,” she admits, “they are trying to contain the energy building up in my chakras. It has come back with more strength than before. I do not like the density of the ink I had to use to contain it.” She peels off her undyed silk robe, showing how the sleeves weave into her spine and blossom over her back in circles. “There is a knot in my lower back,” she confesses.

Iris coos nervously, hovering over Lilunu’s skin without entering.

Keris takes a deep breath. “Okay. Do... do you think we knocked something loose, by pushing the first knot out instead of... whatever happened to them before?”

“Omen weather,” Lilunu says softly. “Terrible storms. That would leave me in bed for days after they tore out. But I think they are building up faster now that there are more in me. Once there were only five All-Makers I was linked to. Now... eleven.”

Keris winces. “Ow. Okay. But on the other hand... you felt better after the last one. Maybe if we can get your essence used to circulating by taking the knots out regularly, it’ll help.”

She takes another deep breath. “This is really going to hurt, isn’t it?” she asks, more or less rhetorically. “Okay. Let me get out of my clothes first. Going by last time; anything I’m wearing when we do this is doomed.”

“If you can help me with this, I’ll definitely owe you a new outfit,” Lilunu agrees, a quaver of nerves in her voice. “I took you here because there’s nothing breakable, but... you have a lot of the Ocean in you. Would it be easier if we did it in the baths or...” Keris gets the feeling she’s trying to delay.

“I think,” says Keris, letting her mind seize the question and run ahead with it and start to build an answer.

And then, while the thinking parts of her brain are busy with that, she breathes out her fear and moves like a striking snake before she can realise what she’s doing. Before she can come to her senses and picture what’s about to happen. Before she can flinch or delay or hesitate.

Her left hand moves through Iris; pulling the dragon onto her skin, and makes contact with Lilunu’s back directly above the chakra knot.

Once again, there’s that surge, that violent force that flows into Keris’s arm with the force of a broached dam. Her nails feel like they’re red hot, and the heat only flows further and further into her bones even as her flesh freezes. Shadowy tarry ooze sweats from her pores, only to drop down to the floor as hungry, burning fire. Her fingers become silver branches, which coil back with a snapping of bones and stab deep into her arm. Her muscles squirm under her skin, trying to becoming something alive in its own right. Her skin tears, and visible through the holes is the world within her soul.

Keris screams, with a keening cry like a bird in pain.

“Keris!” Lilunu screams. The tearing, shredding, warping is bruising along her skin too. “Control it!”
((Endurance + Occult + Temple as Body Style. Diff 5. You can use this to stunt-learn an Iris charm now, if you wish))
((3+5+3 Temple As Body+2 stunt+8 Malfeas ExD {resilient, strong}=21. 8 sux.))
Still screaming, Keris yanks her unfurling arm away from Lilunu, taking the chakra knot with it. Her right hand goes to her shoulder as her torn skin becomes flaying winds, which shift state into silver-white fog that bleeds into blue-violet acid.

As she staggers backwards, the fog wreathing the vaguely-limb-like shape freezes all at once into a heavy club-like thing that pulls her off balance. Iris rises above the cracks that spread across its surface, lit up and haloed like a terrible uncontrolled parallel to how she looks when Keris casts sorcery through her. She screams, and it’s a desperate, warbling cry that cuts through the air like a knife.

That’s what decides it. Keris’s own scream becomes a furious roar, and with a berserk motion she whirls and slams her arm against the wall. The basalt spreading across the ice creeps out over the wall itself; transmuting an area roughly the size of Keris... which lasts for only a second before flickering into Kimberian brine and collapsing with a crash to wash over the floor.

But the blow seems to have done the job. The sinister, flaring power subsides, and the awful scream dies down. The ice and granite flake away, and what’s left is... just an arm; broken in three places with bone poking through the skin in two, Iris curled up and shivering in her usual position.

Lilunu slumps forwards, panting. “Ow,” she says weakly.

“Yeah,” pants Keris hoarsely. She vaguely remembers that last time her arm had been numb for a while before the pain had started to kick in, and really, really wishes that she could say the same for this round. “S-sorry ‘bout... the wall. Ugh.”

“Oh, Keris, your arm!” Lilunu blurts out. Looking around, she tears off her robes to get bandages. “We need to get the bone reset and...”

Keris holds up her only-lightly-flayed hand. “Let... me just... gimme a moment...” she pants. She waits for a second or two as the empty circle of green fire on her forehead fills her with power, then grits her teeth and screams again.

Her heart goes from frantic pounding to a deafening hammer-beat. Her veins and arteries glow green through her dark skin. The skin around her facial scars takes on a brassy sheen that cannot touch the scars themselves, and threads of basalt creep up the jagged edges of bone jutting out from her arm.

With a crack that turns the stomach, Keris’s humerus forcibly realigns; the awful angle of her upper arm straightening out as the bone pulls itself back through the compound break. The hiss Keris makes is in no way human as bone and flesh knit together.

Next is her elbow joint reconnecting with a crunch where it had been stressed beyond even her unnatural double-jointedness, and then the ulna just above her wrist; pulled in through the exit wound just as her upper arm had been.

Panting, sweating and trying very hard not to throw up, Keris takes two shaky steps sideways to fall against the wall and slides down it slowly until she’s in a shaky foetal position at the bottom.

“That,” she manages between careful, measured breathing, “sounded even worse to me. Than it did to you.”

“... I think both of us could do with a hot bath,” Lilunu says shakily. “And what did you do to the wall? It was like you were... controlling the omen weather...”

“I...” Keris gulps. “I’m not sure. Maybe... something else... like how I can sense essence through it.”

She squeezes her eyes shut and massages her forehead with... a brass-covered right hand. Oh yeah. She’d grabbed her shoulder to try and control it just before her skin had turned into flaying winds. The bone had hurt so much she hadn’t noticed the missing skin from her palm.

“You’re... you’re right,” she decides. “Bath first. Work out what... whatever that was. Later.”

---

Keris takes the chance to clean up and by the time she leaves, she’s wearing a brand new gauzy outfit that Lilunu all but forced on her. It isn’t exactly in her own tastes. It’s the kind of thing that Eko would wear.

“Honestly, you took a very long time in there,” Haneyl says sharply as they head back through the mirror-and-pearl hall, before a goofy expression returns to her face. “He kissed my hand! He kissed my hand, mama! And that ring he gave you!” She clutches her hands to her blushing cheeks. “He’s so handsome...”

“Just remember that he’s with Lilunu,” Keris cautions. “I know you like to, um... do things that I really don’t want to hear about. But best not to try with an Unquestionable, no? Of course,” she adds slyly, “I bet if you’re fantastically cultured and witty and charming and impress everyone there, he’ll give you another present. You still have that little emerald bracelet, don’t you?”

“It’s in the tree at home,” Haneyl says smugly. She looks around her, and sighs. “Lilunu is so amazing. Look at the place she has to live. And all the lovely things she has. And Ligier loves her. And she’s just plain gorgeous.”

It’s fairly clear Haneyl both wants her and wants to be her.

“Oh, it’s you.” It’s a familiar voice that greets her. Orange Blossom is waiting in the anteroom, a cluster of demon lords with her. Keris recognises Saride, the masked woman with the ruby horns - and that means the other three demon lords must also be her souls.

And Orange Blossom is looking at Haneyl and Keris can see the same wheels moving behind her eyes. And Haneyl looks enough like Sasi that there’s some recognition there too.

Well, if the secret’s out, it might as well be out properly. “Orange Blossom,” Keris nods shortly. “This is my daughter Haneyl. Haneyl, I believe you know of Peer Orange Blossom.”

“I do, yes,” Haneyl says, with a graceful curtsey. Her eyes glint green as she takes in her counterpoints, particularly focusing on a pale grey man with a blindfold with roots for hair.
((How much does OB seem to be mix-and-matching essence-flavours between her souls, from IEIing them?))
((Her demon lords are mostly mono-Yozi; two Kimberyian, one Metagaoyn, one TED. Saride has a bit of TED in her, but not much.))
((Interesting~))
“I heard of your promotion,” Orange Blossom says. “Congratulations.”

“I suppose I have your glowing report to thank for it, at least in part,” Keris returns. The silvery need to be better than her ex; to have a place that outstrips the Sceptred Leaf and all Orange Blossom’s wealth and luxury, flares hot and high in her heart. “My gratitude for your contributions. I’m sure the Anarchy will be grateful, in time.”

“No, really, I mean it,” her ex says. “You’ve been around here for four years. You couldn’t dodge promotion forever, and from what I’ve heard, the Far South West is a cushy posting. A good and easy starting place, rather than being thrown in the deep end.”

Keris eyes her, unsure if she really is being as genuine as she seems, or if this is a backhanded insult disguised as a compliment.

“And who knows,” Orange Blossom says, a wicked smile on her lips, “someday you might wind up with a subordinate just like you.” She breaks into silvery laughter, flashing white teeth.

Keris sniffs. “Hey, I’ve never failed a mission. In half of them I’ve brought home better than the goals I was given. A subordinate just like me would be a good thing.” She nods happily, smug in the light of Lilunu and Ligier’s praise, and ignores the tiny voice in the back of her head bringing up Eko’s habits of... creative improvisation.

“Well, I hope you enjoy the newfound responsibilities of command,” Orange Blossom says, still chuckling.

Saride clears her throat. “Excuse me, Lady Keris, but would you know if Unquestionable Lilunu is occupied? We have been waiting for some time, and I do hope that she has not fallen ill again.”

“She’s in,” says Keris. “I’ve just come from a meeting with her. She’s feeling well now that Calibration is over. Please, don’t let me keep you.”

“Thank you very much. My lady? We should go,” Saride says.

The group heads in, leaving Haneyl and Keris outside.

“Well!” Haneyl says, once the heavy door is solidly closed.

“Well?” Keris hums, as they continue on their way back to Keris’s townhouse. “Well what?”

“That’s the first time I met that woman,” Haneyl says sniffily. “Mama! How could you have so little taste to sleep with someone with such an annoying voice!”

Keris actually comes to a complete halt at that, and looks at Haneyl incredulously. “You are talking to me about having no taste in... in bed partners?” she asks, halfway between offended and bewildered. “Really?”

Haneyl sighs extravagantly. “I’m trying to back you up, mama,” she explains. “I’m saying nasty things about your former lover who you’re now on bad terms with. Isn’t that how it works?”

“... I mean... fair,” Keris agrees. “But who cares about how annoying her voice is when I’ve been promoted to a regional director? Four years her junior, and the same rank! And she had to give one of the reports that backed me up on getting it! Hah! Oh, I bet that must have stung.” She twirls smugly. “And I’m gonna build Silver Lotus and the dance hall up to be way better than her silly little Sceptred Leaf. Just picture it.” She sketches her vision in the air. “The Jade Carnation. The most thought-of building in Saata, after the palace. The place everyone wants to be. Where even Sinasana princes would be willing to beggar themselves to spend a night.”

Eko unhelpfully points out that Orange Blossom was even newer at all this when she was a regional director - and she has the entire Scavenger Lands.

Haneyl cannot hear this - of course, no one can hear Eko anyway - and instead beams at her mother. “Me, you, and Zana. We’re going to make it great,” she promises.

“Rathan to claim the ocean manses and demesnes, too,” Keris reminds her. “He’s doing a good job with the lighthouse. If we can get a network of Water manses set up... ooo.” She hugs Haneyl and spins them again. “It’s going to be great!”

They head home. Mehuni appears before them, oozing into view.

“My lady,” he says, “the demon lord Asarin has left a message requesting an audience with your august self and invitation to the Conventicle Malfeasant.”

“Of course!” Keris replies, beaming at the thought of seeing her friend again. “Send a reply inviting her to dine at my townhouse. Haneyl? Do you mind impressing her with food?”

“Mama,” Haneyl says reproachfully, “are you asking me if I want to show off my cooking to a demon lord who controls an empire the size of a Direction?”

Keris grins. “That’s a yes, then? Be sure to stun her speechless with it.”

“Mmm. Well, time to recover Elly from the babies and head to the markets to get some choice cuts.” Haneyl pauses. “That means I need money, mama,” she says firmly.

Keris sighs. “Fine,” she agrees sulkily. “Oh, and actually. Speaking of money, I still have, um... a lot, banked up in the estate. Like, really a lot. I might try and scope out a proper Dragonblooded aide, like Orange Blossom has. Some young dumb Infernalist who sold himself to the wrong patron, who I can rescue and then mould into whatever. It’d take some of the strain off you and let you run your own things on the side, instead of just managing my stuff all the time.”

Haneyl’s eyebrows flute up. “Hmm,” she says. “I’m interested... but I think it might not be the easiest thing to do to bring them to heel unless they happened to be Tengese when you’re busy being Little River. Although,” she adds, “I think it might be worth putting some time into that handsome young archaeologist you met at the party. He was being bullied by his mother, so I’d bet he’s single.”

“Oh, I’m planning to,” Keris agrees. “Alright, fine. Off to the markets with you.”

Haneyl gives her a Look, and clears her throat expectantly, holding out a hand and wiggling her fingers. Wrinkling her nose in annoyance, Keris grudgingly forks over the funds.

Keris is still hurting from what happened with her arm, so she recovers her babies - and Aiko, who is honorarily her baby - from the necklace sanctum and takes them to the baths again. It’s nice to have three small children with her in a warm bath, even if Aiko is much less comfortable in the water than her own children and clings closely to Keris. Ogin uses his tails to swim squidlike circles around Kuha near the edge, while Kali...

... Kali, it seems, is a natural swimmer in her human form. She looks almost as home in the water as Keris does, laughing and splashing happily as she does repeated laps in the deeper end of the pool. Maybe her human shape is the water-hunter to match the land-hunter of her tiger shape and the sky-hunter of her bird shape, Keris thinks.

“It’s nice to see that you’re more at ease with what’s happened,” Dulmea observes as Keris starts brushing Aiko’s long, silky black hair with her own hair.

“Oh, I’m still pissed,” Keris growls inwardly. “Deveh was behind this. Him and Iudicavisse and Iasestus and who knows who else. Just because I’m getting happier about the promotion doesn’t mean I’m letting go of Sasi being sent to the Realm. Deveh’ll get his. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Vali is not happy about this,” Dulmea warns her. “He doesn’t like you being stuck with responsibility. And is sulking about how you love Haneyl more.”

“I’ll make it up to him,” Keris thinks. “It might help that Aiko will be living with us for a while. She’s a dragon like him.”
Dulmea sniffs. “He just needs to grow up and accept he can’t live without responsibilities,” she grumbles. Keris’s mental response is a noncommittal hum, and she focuses back outward on Aiko, combing her hair tenderly.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks soothingly.

“‘Bout what?” Aiko retorts.

“Whatever you like, sweetheart. Your mother having scary people round, maybe?”

Aiko shifts in place, leaning back against Keris. She’s darker than Keris - much darker than her mother - and her black lips and black nails are a reminder that no, she’s not human. But it’s very hard to remember this right now. “I’m not stupid!” she says loudly. “I know mother is all sad and she said I would have to stay with you for months and maybe even years. And I know that mama knows lots of scary people. Hanny was scary when she first showed up, until she showed she was my older sister. And Eko was scary until she showed off that she’s really funny. But the other ones don’t even try. Especially when we come back here and we see the really, really big scary ones. Even Lilunu is scary, but she tries not to be.” She swallows. “Mama is scared of a lot of things and I can’t... she... she goes off and leaves me with the maids and now she’s going off again!”

Keris tries to imagine what it would be like, having the same sense for might and metaphysical power that she and Haneyl have, but being... well, weak. As weak as a First Circle. Seeing demon lords and demon princes regularly. Feeling them so high above you - like Jacinct had been to her, back when she was newly Exalted - and knowing you’d never grow to such heights yourself.

She gives Aiko a quick cuddle from behind, and plants a kiss on her temple.

“It’s not fair,” she agrees. “Sasi loves you very, very much, but the big scary ones don’t give her a choice in things all the time. Or even much of the time. She tries really hard to be there for you as much as she can, but sometimes they tell her to do things and she has to do them. It’s okay to be upset about it. I’m upset. And I promise I’m going to try and make your mama not need to be so scared or sad anymore.”

“It’s just me and mother,” Aiko says softly. Her thick brows furrow. “I... her and me. No one else. I... I know I have a father somewhere, but I haven’t seen him in a very long time. Why... why can’t mama just be here all the time? Why can’t she take me?”

“Oh, honey,” Keris sighs. “I’ve met your father. He’s...” behind Aiko, her lips twist unhappily, “a good man. The big scary ones tell him what to do as well, which is why he’s up in the cold place - but I... think I might be able to get him to come down and be nearer you.”

She stops brushing to move around and kneel in front of the little girl, taking her hands.

“And don’t for a second think that Sasi wouldn’t be with you all the time if she could. She loves you so, so much, darling. The only reason she’s leaving you with me is because it’s dangerous where she’s going, and she’d rather anything than risking you getting hurt. I promise.”

Aiko’s lips wobble. “I... at least... this time I have Kali and Ogin as friends?” she tries, green eyes wobbling. “In the stories, they talk about friends. I don’t think I have any normally. Mother says I can’t play with normal children.”

“Kali and Ogin will be your best friends,” Keris promises, her heart breaking a little. “And your little wind-cherub. And I have a baby girl called Atiya back home, so you can meet her as well.”

Her little head bobs up and down, and then she leans forwards to hug Keris. “Don’t leave me alone too,” she whispers, hugging Keris.

With a soft movement of white fur, Ogin paddles up and wraps his tails around Aiko, hugging her. Kali joins him as a tiger-cub too.

And Keris can’t help but wonder (and wishes her mind didn’t point it out, her po hissing in her ear) - if this is how Sasi unknowingly hurts the daughter she loves and cares for because of the vagaries of her life - how must it be for Kalaska?

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

((OK, so amusingly I think this is the first time you’ve hosted a dinner for an important demon. So stunt the room you’re holding it in, the theme, who you’re inviting, anything you do to enhance the prep, etc))
((Caaaaan I invite Lilunu?))
((Per + Politics + Mentor, Diff 5, to blag it and get her to cancel her current plans. :p ))
((Heh. Well, it’s post-Calibration, so her schedule should be winding down. And, heh, it’s another chance to see the kids. 4+5+Mentor 4+2 stunt (x2 HDT)=15. 6x2=12. Awesome.))

It’s the first time Keris has hosted an important citizen in her home. Hosted anyone, really - Sasi only started coming round after they’d become lovers, and even then it’s more often Keris going around to hers.

Thus, she makes extensive preparations. There’s no way she can equal the sheer blinding grandeur of Asarin’s empire and the feast she threw, so instead Keris sets things up to be exclusive. A formal message to Lilunu invites her round to sample Haneyl’s cooking, spend some more time with the babies and meet another of Keris’s friends in Hell. The response is positive, and Keris feels safe in assuming that a lavish personal dinner with Keris and the Speaker for the Yozis should meet Asarin’s more than adequately.

That leaves the venue. After a little dithering, Keris elects to hold it inside rather than under the Green Sun - which might set off Asarin - and selects one of her nicest dining rooms. It’s a circular one not far from the hearthroom, with a domed roof whose arched openings let the air move within. Red and cream-patterned tiles form a walking pattern on the floor, and three huge landscape paintings from the Shogunate era are hung at intervals on the walls. The fourth side of the room boasts an open, curtain-covered doorway out to one of her gardens, where cuttings of Vitalius have been planted to make a little golden grove whose chimes and flutes produce pleasant music.

Haneyl is on food detail, and Keris knows she’ll be magnificent there. The paintings are carefully selected to give them a conversation piece - Asarin loves the Shogunate, and Lilunu can talk about art all day, so they won’t be short of conversation. And, of course, Keris carefully sets up the door to her necklace-sanctum beside the curtained door out to the gardens, so that the children will have somewhere to play until everyone arrives and when they inevitably get bored of the grown-ups talking.

((So, one of her nicest dining rooms, a Shogunate-art theme with a place for the kids to play so that they can be another topic of conversation and also go do their own thing in the shiny place. Haneyl is doing food as a focused 2CD, and the Vitalius-garden provides some natural music that Keris can add to.))

A surprise comes when Eko makes herself known the day before the dinner, having snuck past the snake. Eko verbosely explains with rapid hand gestures that yes, the silly snake didn’t want to let her past, but she really wants to talk to her bestie, mama, her bestie! And she has to be there to advise Haneyl on the food Asarin likes because otherwise she’d get it wrong.

Keris sighs. “Do you promise to behave around Lilunu?”

Eko spreads her hands wide. Has she ever, ever, ever not livened up the conversation and brought joy and sparkling wit to a dinner table?

“That’s partly what I’m afraid of,” replies Keris dryly. “And that wasn’t a promise, young lady. You’ll behave?”

Eko sighs. Mama is going to be a spoilsport and not trust Eko, she indicates with a flick of her hair. Then fiiiiiiiiiine, she promises.

“Good.” Keris smiles. “Then we’ll ask if Lilunu has any dresses - or ribbons - with magic in them. Perhaps she’ll make you a gift of one or two.”

With a nod, Eko departs, off to make sure Haneyl doesn’t ruin the menu with insufficient lovely sweet things. Eko and Asarin bonded greatly over their love of sugary treats, she throws out as a parting comment.

“... I’m sure,” Keris sighs. Well, Asarin put up with Eko for a while before, so she’s presumably able to tolerate her. Even if Keris rather suspects that Eko has deliberately forgotten any differences between Asarin’s tastes and her own.

Shaking her head fondly, she gets back to managing the preparations.

When Asarin does arrive, it is at the head of an honour guard of great armoured figures - the lead in Shogunate armour, the others in hellish armour made in the style of that lost era. Keris can hear the slithering of the worms that dwell within. But she’s not one to judge demons by their looks - and worm-samurai who animate suites of armour might be worth looking into.

The lady herself wears a pale-pink dress with a massive train held up by her attendants, who bear her arms and armour for her. Asarin looks well, and her eyes sparkle as she looks around the Conventicle. The fire on her head could pass for hair - she must be in a good mood, even cowed.

Eko, of course, runs out to greet her in her own ribbon-decorated and lacy white dress with a great voluminous skirt that draws even more attention to Eko’s thin waist. Oh, darling, Eko gestures with a kiss to each cheek, so wonderful for her to make an appearance. Eko has missed her dreadfully.

“And I you,” Asarin says back. “Look at you! Who is your tailor?”

“I helped her with this one,” Keris provides, stepping up to greet her friend with a smile. “It’s wonderful to see you, Lady Asarin, it’s been too long. Please, come inside. I welcome you into my home.”

“Of course, of course Peer Keris,” Asarin says, with a twirl of her skirts. “It’s so good of you to invite me. I must admit, I was worried when I heard nothing from you over Calibration...”

There’s hurt in her voice.

“Ah, now,” Keris says ruefully. “That’s a tale. Come, come. I’ll tell it to you as we walk - there’s a nice stroll through my gardens to our dining room. So, I’m sure you know of the many hazards of the Endless Desert, and of course some are a lot worse than others...”
She explains, as they walk, the perilous time she and Sasi had experienced getting to Hell; pulling music from the air to add texture to the sheer terror and destructiveness of the storm and the harrowing delay that the capriciousness of the Desert’s nature had afflicted them with. Asarin makes for a good audience, and Eko jumps in here and there with her own additions - especially about the war they’d been pushed into when they’d finally reached the edge Malfeas three days late and wearied from their travels. They enter the grand dining hall where Keris is holding the dinner, and Asarin squeaks, and flinches back.
“Keris,” Asarin hisses. “Who did you invite?”

“Oh, greetings,” Lilunu says, breaking off from her chat with Haneyl. She does seem in a better mood after what Keris and Iris did for her. “Asarin, yes? I think I’ve seen you once or twice.”

“And I am Haneyl Kerisdokht, daughter and heir to my mother,” Haneyl pronounces pompously.

Eko advises Asarin to ignore her little sister when she gets too silly.

“Lilunu, this is Peer Asarin, Warden Soul of Unquestionable Balanodo, who did me a great favour in helping get my hands on the payment for little Atiya’s creation,” Keris introduces her friend, pouring on the praise. “And Asarin, I’m sure you know Unquestionable Lilunu; Speaker for the Yozis and my mentor in art and the creation of beauty. I invited her to dine with us in the hopes you might share some of your knowledge of Shogunate artwork over a meal.”

Asarin straightens up, steeling herself. “Of course,” she mutters, below her breath. Keris can hear her though. “We deserve this, don’t we? This is recognition. Even if it’s scary and one of the Unquestionable. But better this than being ignored.”
Very soon, she’s giving a lecture on non-representative schools of Shogunate art - after a little nudge from Eko - and Lilunu seems captivated by this. Keris can’t help but feel smug. Not only is she helping her friend, but Lilunu will be happy. Grinning self-satisfiedly, Keris makes sure to compliment Haneyl profusely for the food - which is exquisite - and gently tug her into interacting with the occasional relevant question. She herself mostly just listens and enjoys herself, keeping an eye on Kali and Ogin playing with Aiko and her szelkerub friend in the collar-sanctum through Iris.Inevitably, though, Ogin eventually gets around to sticking his head out of the red-and-silver anima-light doorway to see if things have started yet, as he has been every hour or so since Keris told him that Lilunu and one of her other friends were coming round to eat. And as soon as he sees them, Kali becomes aware. With a flutter of downy feathers, she sticks her head out and sees Asarin.
“Sun?” she demands, tilting her head. But there’s doubt in her voice.

“Yes, little feather, another sun,” Keris says. “And look! Lilunu is here! Come over and say hello!”

“Lili,” Kali asks, “sun?”

“She’s not the green sun. Or the yellow sun,” Ogin observes. “Is there another sun, mama?”

“That’s right, moonbeam,” Keris agrees. “Asarin is the brown sun. You’ve met her before, do you remember? Rounen was with us.”

Ogin nods, and lets Kali perch on him as he crawls over to Lilunu, demanding to be picked up. When he is, he curls up on her lap and goes to sleep, thumb in his mouth.

“Well,” Asarin says softly. “They’ve grown so much, even since the last time I saw them.”

“Kali’s been going through even more sets of clothes than usual,” Keris agrees, as her daughter curiously hops closer and pecks at Asarin’s hair. “And Ogin is starting to toddle where she can’t yet - I think his tails help him keep his balance. Though not- ah, hello Aiko!” She glances over at the door, where a worried little girl is regarding the cadre of demons sitting around the table. “I was just telling Lady Asarin how you’ve been helping Ogin get the hang of walking upright. She’s friends with me and Eko. Do you want to come and say hello?”

Keris hears the whispered. “Mother says I need to be good and smile at her guests.” She nods. “Yes, my lady,” she says clearly. She curtseys a wobbly curtsey to Asarin, while the servants fetch her a chair. She makes sure she’s put close to Keris, with Keris and Haneyl and Eko there to keep her safe from strangers.
Keris settles a lock of hair around her in a reassuring hug. “Asarin is a very good friend of mine,” she promises. “She’s nice, and she helped with Atiya being born.” She also shifts a plate of Haneyl’s sweets within the little girl’s reach, on the basis that yummy food should help distract her from the scary-until-proven-otherwise demon lady. Aiko takes comfort from Keris’s words - and promise of sugary things - and sits on her chair, swinging her legs.
The conversation continues, and eventually Asarin gets around to the point. “Now, Keris, if you don’t mind - I have a certain proposal I’d like you to hear out.”

“Your ideas have always been good for me,” Keris replies. “I’m all ears.”

“I believe you will be leaving for Creation upon the quite wonderful vessel you told me about - the one that brave, generous, wise Lord Ligier rebuilt from an ancient vessel of the Sun-Chosen?” she checks.

“The Baisha, yes,” Keris nods. “My flagship. Would you like a tour? It’s docked not far from here.”

“Oh, I will - but more than that. Keris,” Asarin says seriously, “I have been summoned more than a few times before. It’s an awfully tedious process, even before the risk of,” she shudders, “binding. Wouldn’t it be easier for both of us if I just travelled to Creation with you? It’s not that I don’t want to be summoned by you, of course, but this is less effort for you and more convenient for me.”

“Ah. Hitching a ride with me?” Keris considers. She’d need something to anchor her friend on the other side... but such things can wait for later consideration. “Of course,” she agrees readily enough. “My Lionesses are due to reach Saata early in the new year, so it would make sense for you to come and be introduced to them without having to wait for the new moon. And I’m sure Eko will be glad of the company until then.”

Of course Eko would, Eko gestures. She can have some intelligent conversation, unlike with her little sister.

Haneyl growls. “You’re just acting up,” she says, teeth clenched. “And you just talk about sugar, ribbons and stabbing people.”

Such an undignified manner of acting from her baby sister, Eko indicates, raising one hand to her mouth and laughing.

“Now now,” Keris warns. “Eko, is that any way to speak to your sister after she made all this gorgeous food for us? Including those sweet treats you’ve been snacking on.” She levels a meaningful stare at the crumbs decorating Eko’s plate where her touch has disintegrated bits of each cake and wrap en-route to her mouth.

Eko rolls her eyes. She explains that she had to correct Haneyl who wasn’t going to be making anywhere enough sweet things. Like those little red glazed tarts. All her idea.

“Those were fantastic,” Asarin says thoughtfully. “I must get the recipe for my own chefs.”

“A little over-sweet,” Lilunu says, the curl in her lips suggesting she’s being polite.

“Well, Haneyl still did the hard work of making them, so no squabbling with her,” Keris says, wagging a finger at Eko. “Oh, though, my lady? Eko had a few questions to ask you about clothes, I think.”
Eko lights up at that - and Haneyl weighs in on the discussion as well; contributing her knowledge of weaving with a smug air, while Keris turns back to Asarin. Kali has apparently decided that she’s enough of a sun to be friends with, and is happily perched on her shoulder cheeping for crumbs. Asarin nods as she feeds the little chick. “Do you know much about the history of the South West?” she asks Keris. “I spent little time there over the years. Are there many ruins there - and are any of them untouched?”
Keris leans forward. “So, I’ve found at least two Shogunate manses - one of them a ruin that I’m restoring -which seem to be part of some greater network,” she says. “The island I’m on; Saata, is covered with ruins. I think it was once a single great city, but there’s no part of it that’s gone untouched since then; the ruins are largely just foundations. If you’re looking for untouched ruins, I’d say the place to start would be Shuu Mua; the mainland just off Saata. The terrain is a nightmare, and without the ability to fly there’s no way to get more than a few miles into the highlands. Any cities in the interior would have been well-protected from anything in the centuries since the fall of the Second Age.”

“Oh, that’s just wonderful!” Asarin says, eyes flaring brown. “Yes, once we have that little cult set up I think it’ll be time to take a look up there. And perhaps make sure to occupy any of these ruins with demons, to stop any annoying little scavengers from ruining everything.” She smiles. “Perhaps we can make it some kind of contest? My serf-demons against yours, in a fight for the prizes.”

Haneyl sniffs. “I’m sure you would find that much less profitable for you than a more equitable split for each of us who contributes,” she says dangerously. “My demons are more than equal to the trash of the Demon City.”

Lips peeling pack in a smile, Asarin’s hair brightens, growing longer and more vaporous. “I think that is a challenge,” she says, hands on the table. “I quite agree, the trash of the Demon City are worthless. But my own demons are far their superior - as no doubt you will find out!”

“Alright, alright,” Keris says before the two very similar women can get too - hah - heated. “We can arrange for some friendly contests, but if you’re going to have tournaments, we should hold them outside the ruins. None of us want any treasures there to be damaged, after all.”

“Obviously!” Haneyl snaps. “And she’ll see!”

Asarin glances over at Haneyl. “She’s just a child,” she observes, “a newborn demon lord. It sometimes takes them a few years to learn their place in the Descending Hierarchy.”

“Enough,” Lilunu says, petting the curled up Ogin on her lap.

Both women fall silent. Lilunu’s word, her presence, the force of her will is a weight on them. Keris feels it too - but much less than the others. Two tiny hands close around her arm, and she looks to see Aiko clinging onto her, eyes screwed shut. Kali is a ball of puffed-out feathers on Asarin’s shoulder, but seems more rapt at Lili’s sudden presence than scared. Ogin doesn’t even stir where he’s sleeping.

“Let’s not ruin the lovely dinner with squabbling,” Lilunu says in the same mild tone. “My flesh is a place of harmony and beauty, not to be marred. Now, we will hear no more of this.”

The sense of her presence withdraws, and both Haneyl and Asarin gasp. They glare at one another, but don’t say anything.

Pulling Aiko onto her lap, Keris wraps her arms around the little girl and rocks her gently, wrapping her in a safer, more comforting layer of protective care. “It’s okay,” she whispers quietly. “It’s okay, I promise. You’re safe.”

Lilunu looks around, eyes falling on Haneyl. “Now, I do hope there’s a fine dessert,” she says happily, as if nothing had happened. “Because if it is as good as the rest of this, we will need to talk more. I might be interested in your help with planning some of the next Althing!”

The conversation haltingly picks back up and Keris participates absent-mindedly, her thoughts on Lilunu. Because in the pressure and force of what her mentor just did, she felt more... harmonised. Clear. Like the difference between a rainbow and a pot of paints all mixed up. Keris doesn’t think she could have done that with her chakras all knotted up. Just... crushed two demon lords with a word and her attention.

And from her tone of voice and attitude, she didn't even seem fully aware she was doing it.

---

Keris takes a few more days to get her affairs in order, receive more detailed briefings and when to file her reports, but the knowledge of her need to get back to Saata nags at her.

But the inciting incident is a meeting with someone she is very unfond of on one of the grand promenades. She’s just heading over to Sasi to check up on her - and yes, also possibly engaging in a calling in a booty-wards direction - when she encounters a white haired man. His robes are scanty things, made of beads and crystals draped over his skinny form, and his pale eyes don’t look at her. She feels his attention, though - and his unseen hands that track her in his overly large personal space.

“Respectful greetings, Peer Keris,” Deveh says in a soft whisper.

Keris’s eyes narrow. “Peer Deveh,” she returns. “Congratulations on your promotion.”

Peerless expressive skill allows her to miraculously rhyme this with ‘I hope you die in a fire’, and she feels the quicksilver bloom of hateful envy take root in her heart.

(EH Principle formed: “I’m Going To Rip An Teng Out From Under Him”. Focused on his Status as head of the Reclamation’s Upper South Western Division.)

“And congratulations on yours,” Deveh whispers back. Among the noise of the Conventicle, it would be hard for anyone else to hear his words. But for Keris, it is a pleasant volume. It’s not like him to be considerate, she thinks - which means he’s doing it for him.

((Keris’s envy bonus means she easily works out he must have Hateful Wretched Noise too.))

“Indeed,” he says, “this formless, criminal degenerate Anarchy to the south is well suited to you. I am sure the petty criminals, murderers and rapists of those seas are your bosom companions.”

“Yes, well,” Keris smiles; her voice a faint murmur. “I prefer company beyond hollow men echoing my own opinions back at me without any thoughts of their own. But far be it from me to insult what works for you. How is Unquestionable Iasestus?”

Deveh’s expression softens into simple tranquillity. “As with all things, he sees only the perfect. He is pleased for the world becomes more perfect. I have brought him part of An Teng and it has been evident to him. Rejoice, Keris, that the true harmony of the world makes itself known.”

Well, thinks Keris sourly. That veiled insult went flying over his head.

“Touching,” she says with deliberate dismissiveness. “But making yourself known is rather the opposite of our job as division heads, as I understand it.” A note of condescension enters her voice. “Of course, if you want to preach perfection to the end of a magistrate’s daiklave, don’t let me stop you. I’m sure they’ll see the light and convert on the spot.”

“Yes, Keris.” Deveh smiles. “They would not be the first.” He spreads his arms wide. “Rejoice, such that even the decadent ingrates of the Scarlet Realm have understood their mistakes and accepted their true places in the order of that which should be. There are those who have seen Her light. Even ones so flawed as them can come to understand the Hierarchy that binds all, contains all, is all. “ He inclines his head to her kindly. “There is hope even for you.”

Keris’s lips thin at that little titbit dropped. That the Whispering Pyre has moles in the Realm is no great surprise - that Deveh has knowledge and possible contact with some of them is useful to know.

Unfortunately, it comes with the distinct urge to smack him, or... Makers, she just wants that fucking look off his face. It’s the same contentment in his faith that used to piss her off when the more annoying soup-kitchen preachers pointed it at her on the streets. Like they had something that made them so goddamn happy, even when their living conditions were almost as shitty as hers were.

She knew that for a fact, because she’d tailed and robbed a few of them for being entirely too smug and self-righteous.

More than anything, right now, Keris wants to see that expression break. Wants to see Deveh’s pretentious obsession with the Whispering Pyre and all her creepy mind-hollowing crystal stuff get torn down and shattered and ruined.

But there’s nothing she can say, in this moment, that’ll get her that pleasure. So she just responds with a blithe, irreverent quip of “Hope springs eternal”, and hopes it annoys him enough to give her a little satisfaction as she leaves.

“Hope is the recourse of those who lack certainty,” Deveh says in parting. “Keris, may you see Her light someday.”

---

“... and another thing!” Keris snarls at Sasi, snuggled up to her girlfriend on top of satin sheets. They’re both fully dressed, because Keris has been just too annoyed to want to do anything else. “He is a jerk! He is the biggest jerk! With his ‘oh, may you see Her light!’. And that smile! That smug smile!”

“Yes, dear,” Sasi says, squeezing her tighter. “I understand very well, trust me. But you never did get around to telling me why you were coming over here before you met him.”

“Because...”

Keris has to pause to think about that for a moment. What had she been coming over for? Deveh’s annoyingness has thrown off her whole train of thought. Checking up on Sasi? Her girlfriend has been stressed ever since the Althing, and- oh, right.

“I have something to show you,” she says happily. “You remember back in Creation, when I asked if there were any other famous pieces like Ascending Air from the Realm? And that I’d found something in Eshtock that I thought might be one? I figured I’d let you have a look at it, since it might cheer you up.”

“Oh dear, have you been keeping secrets from me again?” Sasi’s hand goes to her mouth. “Keris, I’m shocked - shocked! - at how you play with me and my feelings!” She flaps her fingers at Keris. “Go on, shoo, show!”

Turning, Keris taps her collar, projecting the flickering anima-door from it and holding up a hand before Sasi can say something snarky.

“This isn’t it. It’s inside. But! I want you to cover your eyes and let me lead you to it. And no peeking with your invisible hands! I want it to be a surprise.”

Sasi smirks, and runs her hands through Keris’s hair, looping it up and over her eyes as a blindfold. “Lead on, my love,” she says, the red bound over her eyes.

Keris leads her into the sanctum, and through it - checking suspiciously for invisible hands - to the room that had housed Lilunu’s presents. It’s empty now, save for the sculpture in the middle of the floor that Keris spent four hours pulling out of her soul into this world crafted from her essence last night. It was a lovely realisation, that she could harmonise her soul with any sanctum she’d created to pull things out of her domain by ritual into one.

The carving of Mela sits amidst the red-tinged orichalcum. Blue jade scales are every bit as beautiful, delicate and detailed as Keris remembers, and she sheds a silent tear at how it seems like it could at any moment come to life. Oh, the craftsman who made this piece must have been a genius. For all that they were Dragonblooded and Shogunate; she wishes she could have met them. Some things transcend allegiances and boundaries, and this kind of beauty is one of them.

“Look,” she says softly, and pulls her hair away.

Sasi is dry-mouthed. Then; “Keris!” She not entirely playfully flails at her girlfriend. “You’ve been keeping this a secret from me! For nearly a whole year! How dare you how dare you how dare you!”

She sounds quite a lot like Haneyl denied a toy. Or a toyboy.

“I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry!” Keris apologises, laughing and giving way under the assault. “It wasn’t easy to get it out of my soul again! And I didn’t want to leave it anywhere that wasn’t secure! It’s staying in my soul or in a sanctum locked around my neck until I find a safe enough place for it, as far as I’m concerned. I mean, this piece was in a wrecked art museum in a city full of hungry ghosts, Sasi! And Lookshyians!”

Her tone doesn’t make it clear which would have been worse if they’d got their hands on it. “I had to carry it out! By hand! I couldn’t move it into my soul while they were so close, and there was no way I could risk them taking it. I barely got it out of there without damaging it!”

Sasi stops flailing at her and pouts - maybe she got tired from so much physical activity, a treacherous voice in her head suggests. It’s not Eko, but it sounds Ekoan. No, thinking about it, it sounds much more like Oula.

But Sasi is circling the dragon, admiring it. “I’ve... I’ve only seen one thing as beautiful as this in the same art style,” she breathes, eventually. “Keris. It’s like the Imperial Throne - which was once the Shogun’s Throne. And the style of Mela is similar. Perhaps even by the same artisan. Certainly from the same school of design...”

Keris’s eyes widen. “It was a moving exhibition, I think. Just in Eshtock at the time. You think... you think there might be others? A set of five?”

Her eyes gleam greedily at the thought.

“I... I wouldn’t even know, Keris.” Sasi almost hesitantly brushes the head. “But... but my best guess is that this is a treasure of the Shogunate. No, of the Shogun.”

A long, low whistle is Keris’s only reply. “I’m tempted to show it to Lilunu,” she admits. “She’d adore it. But a sculpture this powerful - and one connected to the Shogunate and the Imperial Throne - she might be required to report to the Reclamation, and some Unquestionable with designs in the Blessed Isles might try to take it. Like the Crown of An Teng. I don’t want to risk it being taken from me - not when I can put it to use in a way that’ll keep it safe.”

“My only thought as for how the Lookshyians missed it,” Sasi says carefully, “is that none of them had ever seen the Imperial Throne. I have, of course - in close detail. But if they’d ever been presented at the Imperial Court, foreigners like them would have to stay back by the second set of pillars. They didn’t realise quite what it was.” Colourless light flickers around it as Sasi squats by it, eyes closed. “Keris, I believe that this may be some great relic of storm control or control over the skies. With one fifth of the power of the Imperial Throne when the Empress sits... sat on it.” She looks straight ahead. “I have seen the Empress turn a man to stone with Paisap’s power when in her throne. And with Mela she banished the rain that would have ruined her tea party.”

Veeeeeery slowly, Keris’s head turns to look at the dragon’s head. The blue jade eye seems, for a second, to wink at her as the shifting light of her anima plays over it.

“... huh,” she says quietly. “That... wow.” Thoughts churn and wheel like flocks of birds behind her eyes. “So... yeah, wow. If I made a secret valley deep in Shuu Mua and had this in the centre, I could anchor... gods, almost anything. Something as strong as the mists around Eshtock, to keep my land protected and hidden.”

She pauses, fidgeting slightly and tensing with nervousness.

“... um... Sasi?”

“Yes?”

“... you’ve never really... I mean, I know a bit, but... and I knew you were Realm, obviously, and a serious-money Bag...”

Keris’s hair knots behind her.

“... but why exactly do you know what the Imperial Throne looks like? In great detail? You’re talking about... about the Scarlet Empress like...” Keris shakes her head. “Like you know her. Like you went to tea parties with her.”

Sasi doesn’t turn around. “Keris, dear one... you’re... joking, aren’t you?”

Keris blinks at her. “Um... are you?” She laughs nervously, and then trails off when Sasi doesn’t crack a smile and tease her for falling for such a ridiculous notion. “Oh. Uh. Then no.”

Sasi pinches her brow. “Keris, dear... very well.” She rises, turning to face her lover. She takes a breath. “I was born Sasimana. Only one kind of person lacks a family name in the Realm. Those born into the Imperial Household.

“My mother is Princess Nemone, Empress-in-Waiting; her mother is Her Imperial Majesty, Shogun of Creation, Fourth of the Scarlet Realm.”

Keris opens her mouth.

...

...

Keris closes her mouth, and holds up a finger. Swaying slightly, she turns around and walks over to a stool in one corner of the room, and sits down on it. The finger remains raised.

There’s a lengthy pause.

“... say, uh,” she says after a while. “Say that again?”

“Keris, dear one.” Sasi sighs. “I am the granddaughter of the Scarlet Empress. I am Nemone’s failure of a daughter who was not blessed by the dragons of Creation despite what should have been the strongest blood. My father had... irregularities in his background and my mother dismissed him. My younger sister - by another father - was chosen at eleven. My older brother; fifteen. But I was not chosen.

“So,” there is something dark and shadowy in her eyes, “I found another dragon, who welcomed me and gave me the powers they would not.”

“...” says Keris eloquently. Most of her brain has gone to a fuzzy numb place, and there’s a quiet ringing in her ears. “You’re. Telling me that I’m related to the Scarlet Empress. Because,” she waves vaguely. “Haneyl. And Vali.”

“I... suppose so.” Sasi coughs. “The genealogy trees wouldn’t recognise that, if it helps?”

“It doesn’t,” says Keris faintly, rocking backwards and forwards a little and trying not to fall off the stool. “I... I thought Nemone was just... one of the big Realm Bag houses. That you were a... I dunno, some rich noble whose family owned stuff.”

“I was given the name of my mother as my House as a reprimand to her,” Sasi says softly. “It was a reminder from my grandmother that her position was not unshakeable - and my aunt could be favoured too. And that perhaps my aunt - who so dragon-blessed that they chose her aged seven - would make the better matriarch of a new Great House while my mother might only get a Lesser House. After all, she had given birth to me.”

The soft tones of grief and past devastation finally pierce through the shock, and Keris is up onto her feet and half-encircling Sasi in a hug before she’s regained her mental footing enough to think about. Clinging tight, she pulls Sasi down to kiss her hard on the lips.

“Fuck them,” she says heatedly. “You were family. If Atiya never Exalts, I’ll love her just as fiercely! Family should never cast each other out just for lacking power! Power’s not what family is for!”

Sasi shakes her head. “It is family. That’s just how it works.”

“Not my family,” Keris insists, meeting her eye stubbornly. “Kali, Ogin, Atiya. Iris and Lilunu. Xasan, Ali, Zanyira, Hany. You and Aiko and Kalaska. My souls, Oula, Rounen, Elly. You’re my family; all of you. You’re mine, and I don’t care how strong you are or whether you’re Exalted or not or what you can offer me. You’re my family, my kin, and I will protect all of you no matter what.”

She’s snarling by the end, ferocious and passionate and crowned in green fire, tears trickling from her eyes as she holds onto Sasi like she’s anchoring her lover from blowing away in a storm.

“Family is there for each other. Family looks out for each other. We don’t give people up, and we don’t give them away. ”

Iris is there, squirming out of Keris’s arm to crawl onto Sasi’s shoulders and wrap herself around her neck.

And then there’s another pair of arms; much, much bigger, dark-skinned and well-developed and wrapping around both Keris and Sasimana. Flowing tattoos curl over the surface of the skin, forming ties and knots and looping weaves. And behind that there’s the breath of a great beast, blowing through her hair with the scent of desert flowers. A white glow illuminates the space, soft and gentle.

“Wha-?” Sasi gasps.

Keris’s eyes widen, but her defensive reflexes fail to trigger. She doesn’t tense or crouch or flare her hair. If anything, she finds her body relaxing.

“Who...?” she asks uncertainly, but there’s already a name floating to the forefront of her mind, and a dream from a month ago brought back by the feeling of warmth.

“E... Evedelyl?” she tries; the word foreign and yet achingly, utterly familiar as it stumbles off her tongue.

“Yes, Keris,” murmurs a deep woman’s voice from behind her. Habourhead is in the notes. “I’m here. For you and all your family. Our family.”

“And so am I,” says another voice, clear and bell-like and almost with something of Calesco in it. But the accent is Sasi’s to the core.

Keris sinks back into the warmth, trusting - no, knowing that it’ll let her move like she wants to. And indeed, one of the huge arms shifts to let her sit in the crook of the elbow and moves her up on a gigantic knee. It feels like sitting on a chair - like she’s not much bigger than Aiko, and an adult is holding her in an embrace.

Peering over at the source of the second voice, Keris tries to sort out what’s happening. She’s not entirely oblivious; Sasi being a Realm Princess notwithstanding. The name bubbling up like that and the accents make it pretty clear that she’s budded another pair of souls, and that one of them - Evedelyl - must have been that dream she had at the last new moon before coming here.

... oh, she realises. Wait. This is what Dulmea must have meant about Eko’s surprise visitor at Calibration. Craning her neck back, she looks up at the soul holding her, squirming to try and get a good look.

“Thank you for being there for Eko,” she says quietly. “I wanted to be.”

Her new soul, her Evedelyl is a giant of a woman. Even in this unreal hall in her sanctum, she’s crouched down to avoid the ceiling. Her legs are tree trunks; her arms are barrels; her bountiful figure is like some child’s clay sculpture of a woman writ large. Her skin is dark, like Xasan’s or... or her’s... and her clothing is like what Keris wore when she was in the bitter Tarian winter with her babies. Edgelands-mist still clings to her. Keris thinks she’s probably only knee-high on this giantess-mother.

Like she was in those distant memories of Baisha before she was snatched.

She leans in, and kisses Keris on the brow.

And behind her is someone - something - else . A strange female chimera, with the head and upper body of a woman, the haunches of a tigress, and great soft feathery white wings. She gazes at both Keris and Sasi with calm adoration. On her brow she wears a diadem - over her shoulders are draped lavish vestments; her chest and arms and lower body are daubed with heart-red love poetry. In one arm she holds a red-thread whip; in the other, a staff. She is also a giantess, though smaller - at least in height - than the towering mother.

“Sirelmiya,” Keris whispers, naming her. She blinks, taking in their essences... and then beams. “Evedelyl is my family,” she murmurs. “But you’re my soul for Sasi, aren’t you? Not my child by her, like Haneyl and Vali. You’re born directly from my love.”

((Kerisian essence, E5 for both of them.))

“Yes... and no,” says the cat-bird-woman gravely. “I am your love. And I have come into being from the pained cries of compassion. I guard your love, Keris, and keep it pure. And just as artistry lightened the burdens of innocence and greed, I will grant respite to compassion and take the weight that would break her heart from her shoulders.”

“Calesco,” Keris breathes. “You’re helping Calesco, too.” She snuggles further into Evedelyl’s embrace, feeling like everything is right with the world, and looks back at Sasi to see her reaction to the new arrivals. They’re more like Firisutu, she thinks. They’re not her children, they’re not human in the same way, and they’re slightly weaker than Keris’s progeny. They’re more like the demon lords of Hell; the way they’ve stepped from her mind fully-formed rather than being born from it.

((Reaction + Politics))
((5+2+2 Coadj+2 stunt+7 Kimmy ExD {patronage and kindness are real, discerning eye, secrets}=20. 14 sux.))

Keris knows jealousy. She knows it in her heart. And she sees it in Sasi’s eyes.
Sasi is jealous of her. Of her and her souls and their closeness. But of course, it’s just in her eyes, not in the mask of her face. Smile slipping away, Keris pulls herself away from Evedelyl and approaches her love.
“Sasi?” she asks cautiously. “What’s wrong? You’re upset. I thought... I thought you had Seresa and Kalaska and the others?”

“Well, I suppose I am a little jealous,” Sasi admits, with an rueful smile. “I had to put up with weeks of Eko being stroppy and insulting my intelligence because I couldn’t make serf-demons - and you just casually manifest two new demon lords. It’s always hard when the one you love outstrips your own skills. You’re so strong, Keris.”

((10 successes on Per + Presence + Tenebral Tongue Style, playing off Keris’s desire to be her protecting lover, to impart the Illusion that that’s the reason for Sasi’s jealousy.))
((Keris accepts it.))

“Oh, Sasi.” Keris hugs her sympathetically. “You know, she did it before me, too. And don’t tell her I said so, but Eko really isn’t very good at explaining things, even if she’s the only one who can understand them half the time. Maybe you could spend time with Seresa or Kalaska to try and work it out? It’ll... it’ll be safe to meditate and spend time with them when you’re on the Blessed Isles, at least.”

Sasi smiles wryly. “Some time with Seresa would help me feel better,” she agrees, before her attention flickers over to the two demon lords. “Actually, a question for you two. How old are you?”

“I am a newborn; I open my eyes for the first time; I gaze on red and crystal and I have seen nothing before,” Sirelmiya says melodically. “I am a priestess of love, for you and others.”

Evedelyl gives a titanic, jiggling shrug. “I’m not sure. Not too old, but I woke up in the fog knowing the Other Mother would not want me around. So I walk the fog, instead. I ride the serpent when she wishes it, and I care for the lost and forlorn keruby who wander into this place - and guide the ones who know not why they are here back through the fogwall.”

Sasi narrows her eyes. “Then may I attend to you, Sirelmiya, my priestess? I wish to see how you came to be.”

“Of course, divine one,” the woman-bird-tigress says, rising to rub against Sasi like an oversized housecat.

“I dreamed of you,” Keris says shyly to her... her mothering soul, she supposes; wilderness to Dulmea’s civilisation. “On the new moon before I came here. I was wrapped up and warm and you were cooking and we were... moving, I think. In a carriage or something. There were szulok around.”

“You wanted a mother who is soft, who loves you without asking anything, who hugs you and tucks you in,” Evedelyl says, resting her brow on Keris’s even as Sasi starts examining the other demon lord more closely, “and the Other Mother cannot give you that. But I will. I always will.”

Purring happily, Keris wraps her arms around her... Twelfth? Around her Twelfth Soul’s neck in a hug. They barely fit, and her shoulder is the perfect shape for Keris to nestle into. Tucked up against her like this, Keris can feel that her hair has the coarseness of fur to it, and there are dark spots among the same middling brown Keris used to wear, so long ago.

The sound of her feet on the ground is odd, too - more like Sirelmiya’s than Sasi’s. And Keris can hear a tail swishing gently back and forth behind her. When she catches it out of the corner of her eye, it’s a golden-brown thing with a black ruff on the end. Questing fingers discover a mane going down the back of Evedelyl’s neck and wide-shelled, pointed ears set high on her head.

After a moment, Keris recognises the features. Her wild-mother has the ears and mane of a hyena, and the tail and paws of a lioness. She draws back to look at her consideringly, and Evedelyl gazes back with the patient tolerance of a mother well-used to her children clambering over her and tugging at hair and clothes.
Deciding she doesn’t really want to think about where those features came from in her unconscious mind, Keris snuggles back in for another hug, and returns her attention to Sasi and Sirelmiya. She watches as Sirelmiya twitches and flinches like a cat someone keeps stroking from unexpected angles. Sasi’s eyes are alight, and the full green circle on her brow has flared to life. “Fascinating, just fascinating. Keris, can you feel this? She’s still covered in a sheath-like soul-layer that I think is like a caul!” Sasi exclaims.
“Um,” says Sirelmiya. “What are you...”

But Keris can feel - hell, she can see - Sasi’s hands spring to life, and there’s something there, something she’s lifting off of Sirelmiya that’s as thin as a layer of skin and less visible.

“Wha...” she murmurs, pulling away from Evedelyl with her head cocked. “What is that? And how did you grab it? And... wait, is that hurting her? Do you need it?”

This last is addressed to Sirelmiya, as Keris cautiously touches one of her haunches with her left hand where the sheath-layer is separating from the skin.

Sasi’s expression is gleeful, almost slightly manic. “It’s something akin to a caul, I think - a residue of her birthing process! And of her gestation within you. Oh, Keris, this is wonderful. This might be precisely what I need to see how you actually do it!” Even as she talks, tens of shimmering hands peel away at it, carefully cutting it up where it’s necessary to avoid uncontrolled tearing. “A demon lord’s caul!”

To Keris’s left hand, the caul is - she flinches back, as if she’s just touched something red-hot. It’s her. But more so. It’s not just the cutting winds of Adorjan; it’s the hand holding the knife. It’s not just the waters of Kimbery; it’s the tidal wave that drives them to crash against the shore. It’s not just hunger and fire; it’s white-hot teeth. It’s not the mercury sap; it’s the envy that causes the tree to grow. And it’s more than all of them.

It’s touched by what drives all the things she does. The key that winds the mechanisms of her soul.

((Essence flavour: Hellish, ERR_REF_NOT_FOUND))
((Haha, wow. That’s direct residue from her Exaltation, isn’t it?))
((no comment))
((Sweeeeeet~))

Wide-eyed, Keris watches as Sasi peels it off and rolls it up and packs it away with exquisite care; manic and bright and delighted with this new exotic wonder to study.

How rare must the birthing-caul of a demon lord be? How few scholars must have seen one, even in the Demon Realm, when nine of Keris’s souls have worn theirs away before she found out such things even existed? Perhaps Calesco had been covered in a thin layer like this when she entered Keris’s Domain; flensed away by wind as she crashed down from the sky. Maybe Vali had been wrapped in one under his mountain, only to obliterate it with the shock of his waking. If there had been a second skin on Zanara when they were born, Keris hadn’t noticed it - too thin and fine and fragile for her to detect back then, and soon worn off as the two bodies rolled and played in the sand.

No wonder Sasi is gleeful. Keris smiles at her, leaning against Sirelmiya’s side. The jealous sense of inferiority from earlier is gone with the scent of a new mystery to study, and that alone is enough to let Sasi have it.

“I’m glad you like it,” she says warmly. “Take it with our blessings, and let it be a boon to you.”

Sasi whirls on her, and kisses her full on the lips. There is tongue. There is a lot of tongue. Behind them, Sirelmiya gets over her confusion and applauds, sighing happily.

When Sasi finally comes up for air, she murmurs, “Thank you, thank you, thank you. Keris, this is an insight into you. I can study this. I think it might even be enough to get this to work for me. And even if not...” She lunges forwards again, barrelling Keris to the floor as she kisses her again deeply, her mind-hands getting very, very familiar with Keris from the tips of her hair to her toes and everywhere between.

Her po’s sense of touch is still active from brushing her fingers over the caul, and so Keris only barely has enough awareness to notice her souls discreetly leaving the room as things get more heated and less clothed. Then only the jade dragon is there to witness their pleasure.

It’s fine. She won’t tell anyone. Probably.

---

That little meeting - which wound up as quite an extended liaison - served as a good farewell to Sasi. Even a few days into her trip back on the Baisha, Keris is prone to grinning in a rather silly manner as she thinks of how much fun she had with her girlfriend. Who is also the granddaughter of the Scarlet Empress. Eee! Keris is in love with an actual princess!

“What’s amusing you?” Asarin asks her on the bridge of the Baisha as it heads down the hidden tunnels of the saline seas below Cecelyne.

“Sasi gave me a very enthusiastic send-off,” Keris purrs, her eyes half-lidded. Then remembers herself, squeaks, and blushes. “I-I mean...”

Asarin blushes just as red as Keris. “N-never mind, I didn’t want to know,” she stammers. “I... I’m happy for you. Really.” She blinks. “But... weren’t you involved with some very annoying man?”

Keris coughs awkwardly, and straightens her back to try and mask the embarrassment. “I love Sasi,” she says firmly. “She’s my true love. That annoying...” she trails off, shaking a fist. “That man wasn’t my love, he was my rival. A friendly rival, and one I had a bit of a fling with, but no threat to Sasi. She understands that - just like how I understand that Peer Testolagh means something very different to her than I do.”

She shrugs. “It’s a bit complicated. But it works.”

Asarin turns even redder at that, her cheeks incandescent and her hair blazing. “W-well, if it works for you,” she stammers, and runs off in a manner probably not dissimilar to Eko when she was pursued by Elly.

Neride looks at Keris, fangs showing as she barely - barely - contains a smirk. “Heard of the souls of the Prince of Leeches,” she observes. “Tale has it that the seven of them have all loved him for five thousand years - but haven’t made a move. I could buy it. Her ladyship is a right blushing virgin. But still, five thousand years?”

“It proves she’s loyal,” Keris points out, not without sympathy for Asarin. “And that she really loves him.”

“Begging your permission, lady,” Neride says, shaking her head, “but I reckon that five thousand years means she loves the idea of loving him more than she loves him. Why else wouldn’t something have happened?”

Keris purses her lips. “Well, she has competition,” she temporises. “I haven’t met him myself, so I wouldn’t know.”

Neride shakes her head, and goes to shout at someone she sees straying from their console.

---

Five days pass on the ship, and it emerges into the sparkling blue waters of Creation. Keris gives her orders for Neride to bring Asarin down to the coast of Shuu Mua, and then she takes her family and leaves the ship - and the Priest - far behind, heading back to her island home on Saata.

A typhoon is blowing when she arrives late at night and collapses down in one of her seats, stretching out her legs. Calesco appears, in a good mood, and Keris greets her daughter.

“Did things go well, mama?” she asks. Under the gloom she’s wearing just a simple robe, and her face is unveiled.

“Things... went,” Keris says. “I’ll fill you in later, with Eko. How was it here? I meant to get back earlier.”

Calesco smiles radiantly, her eyes glimmering with starlight. “Wonderful, mama. I passed as you fine, Atiya is adorable, Zanara had a lot of fun - I attended her play for you, it was beautiful, and mama! I met someone at the Calibration parties! They were wonderful! Our eyes met in one of the street carnivals - and don’t worry, I was myself - and then I talked to her and... her name is Adelia, and she’s a student at the Temple of Alka! And we kissed and... and she’s so beautiful and lovely and wonderful and she’s so clever, so educated, and I’m still seeing her and I can’t ever come to her in the day but that’s all right because I fly to her at night and she lets me in through her window and we watch the stars and I leave before dawn and...” She shivers happily. “I’m writing her love poems. They’re a lot harder than they sound. But she calls me her pale mistress.

“Um,” she adds at Keris’s expression. “Don’t worry. She’s not Tengese.”

Keris blinks soundlessly at this revelation. It... seems like Calesco has gotten over Kuha, at least.

“Um?” she manages. “That sounds... good? I’ll have to meet her? And I could probably help with your poems?”

Calesco scowls. “I can look after myself,” she says sulkily. “I don’t need you holding my hand. And there’s no point if you write them for me!”

Holding up her hands in innocence, Keris steps back. “Not writing them for you, not at all. But if you want advice, I could offer pointers? After all, you want to make them the best they can be, right?”

“What do you know about poems anyway?” Calesco demands. “If I wanted help with that - and I don’t - I’d ask Haneyl!” She pauses. “Oh, how is Kuha?” she asks, almost casually.

“She’s... fine,” Keris says cautiously. “I spent less time with her than I meant to because... well, like I said, things happened. But that’s a conversation for when everyone is here; Rathan and Zanara need to know too.”

“That’s good.” Calesco puffs up her chest. “I grew up. It hurts, yes, but I realised I don’t really love her. Not when I have Adelia now.” She’s blushing slightly. Calesco clears her throat. “No sign of your Lionesses yet, but that’s not a surprise. They say the typhoon season is longer than usual this year - there have been omens for a long season. They’re not going to risk it when the weather’s still like this.” She yawns. “I’ll go check on Atiya, and you can look towards putting the other babies to bed too.”

That sounds like a good idea. Keris could do with a night snuggled up with her tiny baby girl. She hears Evedelyl’s approving grunt in her head at that. She and Sirelmiya have returned to Keris’s mind now, as neither of them are very subtle. So she adjusts her necklace, and goes and opens her sanctum door, letting the others out.

“Well, that could have been worse,” Haneyl says with a sigh, holding a dozing Aiko in her arms. “The twins were very bouncy, though. And it was very hard to find some privacy. Ogin kept on showing up in the strangest places when me and Elly thought we were alone. Kuha can’t really handle both of them at once.”

“Awww,” Keris coos, charmed. She winks at Haneyl teasingly. “He must be punishing you for mortifying his mama. Such a good boy.”

“Mama!” calls out a disgustingly awake and hyper Kali, who is bouncing up and down in Elly’s arms. “Mama mama mama wanna see the sun!”

“It’s night outside, Kali,” Haneyl points out.

“Liar!” she blurts out. “Not bed time!”

Haneyl pinches the bridge of her nose as Keris hears Kuha calling for Ogin. “This is what I’ve had to put up with, mama,” she says. “Kali’s been getting no dark sleepy time so she’s super fuelled up.”

“I’ll take her for a bath,” Keris says, rescuing her from her excitable little sister. “That always comes before bedtime, and splashing about will wear her out.” She pauses. “Did you happen to find the dragon, while you and Elly were sneaking off to be alone?”

“Seen it already, mama,” Haneyl says, every inch the weary teenager. “Vali made me look at it literally a hundred times when I went home. He really likes it.” She brushes dust off her shoulder. “It is very pretty, but Vali is good at sapping enjoyment from things from overuse.”

“I’m gonna punch her!” Vali howls in her head.

“Anyway,” Haneyl says, unaware of the brotherly violence being planned, “I’m exhausted. Can you help Kuha track down Ogin. He vanished off somewhere again and you can probably find him better if he’s in the walls again.”

“On it,” Keris salutes. “You rest - and before that, eat. You deserve it, after wrangling the twins for most of a week.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” Haneyl yawns. “I need a holiday.” She gently lays Aiko down on one of the generously cushioned couches, tucking her in under a blanket, and glances over at Elly. “Well. I need to stretch my legs.”

“I do too. I couldn’t run properly in there, and there weren’t any plants,” Elly says softly.

Haneyl smiles, heading back towards the grand doors, She’s already peeling off her clothes, muscles visibly shifting under her skin, and her eyes are a very pale green indeed. “Let’s find something in the jungle, then. I’m hungry,” she says, with a flick of her self-knotting hair. “Don’t wait up for me, mama. I’ve been holding this in all week. Kali might love it in there, but there was nothing alive in all that gold and crystal.”

And then the two girls are gone, leaving their clothes behind them, and Elly’s skin is falling away. Keris hears the pattern of her footsteps change as she swells, falling to all fours, and then Haneyl vaults up onto her back and they’re gone off into the night.

“Alright then,” Keris sing-songs to Kali, resolutely not thinking about her other daughter careening off into the Saatan jungle while stark naked. “We’re going to play find, little feather. Can you show me where your brother is?”

“No!” Kali crows, and giggles. “No! No!”

She has discovered the word ‘no’. It is a dark omen for the future.

However, Ogin still has to breathe. Even among the crystalline noises of the sanctum, Keris can hear him.

“Sorry for losing him!” Kuha apologises, as she tries to peer through crystal walls to locate him. “Kalilu started running in circles and I was afraid she was going to hurt herself and then when I looked back he was gone.” Her brow is furrowed. “I swear, we need to put bells on him so he can’t just vanish off.”

Kali cackles with laughter at that.

“Wouldn’t help,” Keris sighs. “They cooperate on these escapes. Alright, little feather. You’re coming with mama, and I’ll track him down myself. C’mon, Kuha. He’s this way. I think.”

It takes her longer than she’d like, but she finds her little moonbeam sitting on top of an oblate crystal, staring intensely at his reflection. Slowly he lifts his left hand. Then he lowers it again. Then he raises it again quickly. Then pats himself on the head. Then starts wriggling his tails. He scowls at his reflection, and the reflection - obviously - scowls back.

“Ogin, darling, what are you doing?” Keris sighs, coming up behind him and dropping a kiss on his forehead. “You’re very handsome, I know, but haven’t you had enough mirror time after a week in here?”

“Shh!” Ogin commands Keris. “He’s going to make a mistake.” He raises his right hand, looks away, then quickly looks back at it. His reflection has, unsurprisingly, done exactly the same thing.

“...” says Keris. “Um. It’s... your reflection, sweetie. It doesn’t make mistakes. That’s how mirrors work. I mean, except when some kinds of demon are around.”

“No, mama. It is the other boy,” Ogin says. He lashes his tails about, clearly upset.

Keris looks at her son’s reflection. It’s him. White hair, pale skin, white fur on his arms and tails, red eyes, white...

... red eyes.

Red eyes.

Red hair explodes forwards, and Kali and Ogin are three yards back and behind Keris in an eyeblink. A couple of seconds later, Ascending Air vanishes from her hands as the dots connect.

“Hermione?” Keris asks, sagging out of her combat stance. “What... how... when...? No, wait, actually, go back to how? And why were you following my son around? And... how long have you been in here?”

Hermione cackles and in a flurry of silver is a white-haired, red-eyed Keris holding two albino babies behind her back. “You made a place of shiny things and reflections!” she crows. “It’s the best playground! And I was playing with them all the time. No one could find me in here! None of the Eyes! And you were going to take Asarin out but not me but I tricked you!”

Ogin burrows his face in Keris’s shoulder. Kali’s eyes narrow at the sight of another Kali who’s the wrong colour, and hisses at her reflection, who doesn’t hiss back.

“Told you it was the other boy,” Ogin mumbles.

“... I mean, you could just have asked if you’d wanted to come,” Keris says, slightly shamefacedly. “And yes, moonbeam, I’m very sorry for not believing you. I’ll pay more attention next time.”

She purses her lips. “So. Hermione. You snuck out with me to... get away from the Eyes. And out into Creation where you can help me with the cult for Lilunu’s souls directly...” She’s speeding up as she talks, talking through her thoughts. “And, hah, maybe if you’re out here with access to fresh essence from the Wyld, Lilunu will get a bit healthier from part of her not being imprisoned.”

She straightens up fully, and applauds. “You’re smart. How long did it take you to come up with this? And you managed to hide from me and Haneyl for- oh. That’s why you were following Ogin.”

“He’s pretty and he’s smart! He’s the only one who noticed!” Hermione does a twirl. “Well, apart from the girl who’s a cat and a bird and a girl. She got very confused when he pointed at me!”

“Oh, right, you haven’t been introduced,” Keris realises. “This is my son Ogin, and my daughter Kali. And, Hermione...” She purses her lips, deciding how to phrase her next words.

“The last person who snuck into one of my safe places to spy on them, I chased halfway down a river trying to beat him unconscious. I understand you didn’t mean any harm, but... don’t scare me like that again, alright? And in return, you can stay in here for as long as you like, or... hmm.”

A slow smile spreads as she thinks of her moonsilver armour. “I might be able to make you an even bigger one that’s all in silver, if you want,” she tempts.

Hermione claps her hands together, melting back to the form of a snake-like dragon. “This is going to be so much fun!” she laughs, coiling over the ceilings and the walls.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The temperatures in Saata really haven’t dropped much after Calibration, but the rain last night made the air a little fresher. The noise of the city echoes all around Keris as she has afternoon tea with Haneyl, Elly and Zany in the city proper. There are passionfruits growing on the walls of this teahouse, which dwells in a little courtyard walled off by ancient worn structures.

Hands wrapped around her black tea, Zanyira adjusts the sit of her lighter Saatan clothes and smiles at Keris. “So you’re back for good? What were you up to in Calibration? You missed some wonderful parties. They were much better than last year. We were worrying about food last year - that and those awful horse-riding thugs.” She grins. “Care to share some secrets about what you were doing?”

“Well...” Keris muses, tapping her lip theatrically. “I got hit by a horizon-spanning sandstorm that was raining molten glass while I was travelling, then there was a mix of good and bad business stuff, I broke my arm again, hosted a surprisingly nice tea party, and picked up another child.” She shrugs. “It was a hectic Calibration.”

Zanyira sputters a little bit. Then she narrows her eyes. “You’re making fun of your poor rustic ill-educated cousin, aren’t you?” she demands.

Keris chuckles at her cousin’s surprise. “Actually, no. I did tell you that going by that route was dangerous. There’s a reason I sent you and Ali and Hanilyia by boat, even though it took longer. But enough about my Calibration! Tell me about your exam! How was it? Did you get in?”

She sips her tea. “Not yet, not yet! I’ve sat a few of the exams, but I have more to go.” She winces. “They’re brutal,” she admits. “And there’s so much I don’t know! I think the only bits I certainly did well on are the reasoning problems - the ones with the proctors who ask you things and sit you down and keep on asking hard questions to see how quickly you respond. But... even with Rounen’s help, my grasp of the language isn’t great - and it would be much worse if I hadn’t learned from the Lionesses. The locals have quite a bit in common with their language.”

“Ah, yeah,” Keris nods. “I got it the other way around - I picked up Harbourhead in Taira after you left. But there are tricky little differences that trip you up.” She purses her lips, sipping at her tea. “You know... I could quietly sneak in and see how you’re doing, if you wanted.”

“Don’t you dare!” Zany snaps.

That gets her confused looks from Haneyl and Elly. “I don’t follow,” Haneyl says, mouth full of cake. “Why wouldn’t you want to know?”

“It’ll just distract me,” Zanyira says firmly. “I need to get in on my own talents. If I can’t pass the tests, I can’t keep up when I’m there. If I don’t get in this year, I’ll just try next year. Maybe at a slightly easier college,” she adds ruefully. “I didn’t make it easy for myself by picking the most demanding temple there is.”

“You’re smart,” says Keris firmly, privately planning to go check anyway. As long as she doesn’t tell Zany how she’s doing, she’s not distracting her, right? “Really smart. Smarter than me. You’ll get in just fine - if they’re a teaching college, they’ll know they can teach a smart women stuff she doesn’t know, but they can’t make an educated idiot cleverer.”

“Oh you,” Zanyira says. She turns her attention to Haneyl. “And what are you going to be up to?” She smiles, green eyes twinkling. “As I’m living with you, I suppose I sort of have to take over some motherly duties for Keris.”

Haneyl smiles a little too widely. “Oh, I’m probably going to get someone pregnant,” she says, with a perfectly straight face.

“Nrggkl!” Keris whimpers, almost dropping her teacup in her haste to slam her hands over her ears. “I told Rathan and I’m telling you, I am way too young to be a grandmother, Haneyl! No children until I’m, like, forty! At least!”

Zany is also slightly pale. “That... yes.”

Haneyl’s grin widens. “Oh, mama,” she teases, “you are so much fun sometimes. No, it won’t be mine.” She looks around, making sure that no one can overhear. “It behoves one of us to close the deal with a certain Tengese lady,” she observes. “And you’re going to be busy with your new duties. So I’m going to have to help her with her fertility so she has that heir she needs.”

There’s a relieved titter from Zanyira. “Oh, right! With herbs and the other things you grow,” she exhales. She flicks Haneyl on the nose with her fingers. “Keris is quite right! You are a nasty little girl when you put your mind to it.”

Haneyl puffs up at that. “You do exactly the same to mama!”

“Yes, but I’m her older cousin and I’m married. I’m allowed to do that kind of thing.”

“I don’t follow.” That’s Elly, frowning deeply.

Keris is covering her face with her hands. “Why are so many people in my family like this?” she moans. “What did I do to deserve it?”

That gets her three women staring at her flatly.
“Do you want your sins listed alphabetically or by severity?” Zany inquires. Keris pouts.
“Well... anyway,” she grumbles, “it’s a good idea, Haneyl. Well done on initiative. Will you be around to help the Lionesses settle in after you’re done with that?”

Haneyl considers that. “Nah,” she decides. “I’m going to take a trip down south for a few months. I deserve more holiday, and I want to see for myself what the trade routes and the spice islands are like. Go after the things in the wild, steal nutmeg and other such plants, sample the local delicacies, and of course be my beautiful, charming and radiant self to local princes and despots.” She leans back in her seat. “Saata is only rich because it’s a trading hub,” she observes. “That means we need to keep an eye on the trade which comes through here. And of course I’ll have a lot of fun doing it. Elly?”

“Yes, my princess?”

“You can hold down the fort here, right, if I leave you in charge? Just keep on making me money.”

Elly smiles shyly. “Of course.” She licks her lips. “It’ll be tasty.”

“There we go, then,” Haneyl says, expression smug.

“Hmm. Get maps,” Keris orders. “Lots and lots of pretty maps. And keep an eye out for any barren islands like the Isle of Gulls used to be. If we can make our own route up the coast, it’ll make things easier.” She considers for a moment longer. “Will you be taking Saji?”

Haneyl bites her lip. “I suppose I should,” she admits. “She’s been in the doghouse long enough for being naughty. And if I’m a beautiful travelling princess - and I am - having a bird that can sing as beautifully as she can will only add to my appeal.”

“You don’t have to run away from me just because I have motherly knowledge of a daughter’s tricks,” Zany observes.

Haneyl snorts. “Look on the plus side - you’ll just have to live with Elly instead. She doesn’t bite.”

Elly smiles.

“Well, she does bite, but only if she hasn’t been fed,” Haneyl corrects herself. “But that’s no problem in Saata!”

“I’ll keep an eye on her where I can,” Keris promises, amused. “And I guess that’ll leave Calesco with the job of pacifying the Lionesses. I’m gonna be buried under wedding preparations. Urgh.” She thuds her head on the table. “Gods and Makers, I hate Deveh. Without Sasi arranging things on the other end, I’m gonna have to work three times as hard to make this wedding happen. And I need to get it done soon, before he works his way down to the Shore Lands and sabotages me out of spite.”

Zanyira frowns. “Who is this Deveh?” she asks. “That doesn’t sound like any name I’ve heard before.”

Keris tilts her head, debating how much to tell her. After a moment and a glance around for eavesdroppers, she decides she can share a bit, and leans closer, lowering her voice and letting her hair fall around her mouth to hide her lips.

“Okay, so... you know about Sasi. Deveh’s another of my... co-workers. When I said there was a mixed bag of good and bad over Calibration, it’s because there was a shake-up in the... regional positions. I got more authority, but Deveh kicked her feet out from under her and got put in charge of... An Teng stuff. Which means I can’t count on Sasi’s help from the mainland anymore. Because he’s a smug, self-righteous, self-important prick who goes whining to his trick-daddy whenever he doesn’t get what he wants.”

“He’s a...” Zanyira considers how to put it. “He’s a demon worshipper?”

“Oh, is he,” Keris says darkly. “Look... I know you took me badly. But I’m basically a mercenary, more than anything else. I work for pay. Deveh... he believes. And not in mere demons, either. He’s got a hard-on for the Hierarchy Herself.” She shudders just at the thought. “He’s bad news, he fucked Sasi over, and he’s a flashy idiot who’s going to get himself found and hunted down and killed soon enough. Good riddance.”

She shudders. “Better you than me,” Zanyira says weakly. “I wish I hadn’t asked. I don’t need to think about this when I have my exams to focus on.”

Keris leans around the table to give her a quick hug around the shoulders. “It’s fine,” she reassures her. “The Anarchy is my turf now; I’m of equal rank to him. If he sends any of his cults in, I can drop Eko on them without a hint of shame and argue he was endangering my work here. Or just dare him to complain about it and make sure he blinks first. None of this will reach you or Ali; I’ll make sure of it.”

“I hope so,” Zanyira says.

The rest of the meet-up goes more peacefully, and Keris puts some effort into trying to de-stress her cousin so she can feel better about the exams. That doesn’t work, so they instead head to a bathhouse and Keris makes sure to pamper Zanyira. Now that goes rather better, and by the end of their time together when she heads home with Haneyl, she’s feeling much better.

“By the way, mama,” Haneyl says to Keris softly when kissing her goodbye, “Little River should probably introduce Pale Branch to her landlady. It’ll be easier if I can actually feed her some things that are good for fertility, rather than having to sneak in and adjust her food. And having her as an acquaintance will be useful.”

“Hah,” Keris chuckles. “Yes, fair point. Alright, I’ll arrange that. And be sure to send me a letter by sziromkerub every week or so, will you? Just to let me know how things are going.”

Haneyl smiles. “Please, it was me who invented that trick of sending things to you. I’ll not just send you letters, I’ll send you presents as well.”

Beaming, Keris hugs her daughter and kisses her on the forehead. And then goes off to find Calesco.

---

There is always so much for Keris to do. She is a busy woman, more than ever. The realisation that Sasi is no longer in An Teng to organise that side of the wedding for her has sunk in, and put a giant hole in her plans - and on the flip side, Little Bird has more and more things for her to sign and oversee and pay for while they get her new silver workshop up and running in Ba-le’s land. It’s only on the night before she plans to run up to An Teng to meet with the family and take over some of Sasi’s contacts that she finally has time to talk to Calesco.

It’s not that her daughter has been avoiding her. It’s just that she’s not been around. Especially at nights. And then she’s vanished off in the day, too. She’s just like her big sister in how independent she’s getting.

But Keris catches her at sunset in late Rising Air, while she’s trying on new faces in front of the mirror, and tells her she needs to talk to her and Eko.

Calesco very unhelpfully points out that she can’t beckon Eko into a statue because it’s not yet the new moon and she needs to wait until then - and isn’t she heading off to An Teng? Then she sighs. “Go home, mama, and find Eko. Then head into the Meadows. Both of you can swim in tar if you do it fast enough. Just head down. Deep down. It’ll help. Trust me.” She sighs again, even more extravagantly. “This better be important. I had plans for this evening.”

Keris follows her advice, and after feeding Atiya and putting her to bed, she sets out a comfy mat in her daughter’s room and sits down to mediate. She emerges into the dusty expanses of the Ruin, which smells more of blood than usual. Ribbon-like creatures squirm in the air, and a collection of szelkeruby in the distance are swaggering around in dusty coats and headscarves.

But Eko has been busy. She can taste her daughter’s presence in a great anticlockwise spire that rotates around and around and around and up, rising up as high as the heights of the Spires. The wind is already wearing it away, but for now there’s blood rivers flowing into the structure and then... not reappearing. And on the ground, other blood rivers have been isolated and left to stagnate. There’s sea-ice dumped into some of them, and a few demons stirring them with long poles.

Hi mama waves Eko from up high on the tower, her hands wrapped in bloodstained bandages and the mask she got from Asarin on her face. She’s wrapped her feet in silk and is wearing strange amber-soled shoes. How are things?

“Things are... fine,” Keris says cautiously. “What, uh... what’s going on here?” She gestures at the great spire, the blood-rivers, the...

“... is this alchemy?” she realises, bewildered. “Blood-alchemy? Where did you learn this? What are you even fuelling it with?”

Eko jumps down, and jogs up to Keris. Yep, her cocky posture indicates. Yep, it is. And she invented it all from scratch, apart from the bits she stole from mama’s vitriol alchemy but then she replaced the vitriol with blood and well they don’t really work at all the same soooooooooo... she wobbles her hand.

The hand gesture turns into a flick of the wrist, and out pops a small reddish chunk of rock. It looks almost like a ruby, but no - too cloudy. Not a good quality gemstone. These, Eko indicates as she rolls the stone over her bound-up fingers. Picked up a few of them in Hell, where they were lying around and no one was using them.
Keris takes that with a very dubious pinch of salt, filching one of the stones and looking it over carefully. The sensation in her left hand is unmistakable. Cold, slow, stagnant oozing blood. The slickness of tears and rose-petals. Something she’s felt in Sasi - tasted in Sasi - growing more and more over the past few years from nothing to an eternal undertaste.
((Elloge essence, calcified))

Thinking that over for a moment, Keris frowns.

“... did you steal these from my Nests?” she accuses. “Or just rob a Hellish demesne somewhere?”

She miiiiiiiiiiight’ve taken them from the Nests, Eko gestures flippantly. Like she said, they were lying around and no one was using them and since Eko is part of mama QED she can’t actually steal from mama since it was hers all along.

Giving that a moment’s more thought, Keris shrugs. Eko isn’t exactly wrong that she hadn’t been using them.

“Alright,” she decides. “Well, you can tell me about what you’re doing here later, but right now your little sister wants us to go to the Meadows and then something cryptic about swimming down into the tar. I suppose you know what she’s talking about?”

Eko pauses, and tilts her head. No~oooo, she gestures, fascinated, and starts to strip off her bandages and other protective gear. This should be fun, mama!

The two of them are fast indeed, and as they head towards the Meadows Keris notices that there’s something new. Near the city, in the gloom, there’s a softly glowing white temple; a stepped pyramid with great obelisks flanking it. And in the forecourt...

... oh. Um. A very accurate statue of Sasi, bedecked with Swamp-flowers and Isles-garlands. It is anatomically correct. Yes. Very much so. Keris can see that.

Eko’s ribbons turn red when she glances in its direction, and she resolutely looks away.

Detouring to pass Sirelmiya’s temple, Keris admires it despite the embarrassment. It makes sense, she supposes. Her feelings for Sasi are that of a lover, so that’s the form the statue takes. She spares a moment to regret that she missed her chance to see a statue of Darling Yellow kneeling in prayer as her beloved priestess, or Kuha laughing brazenly in the middle of a spear form as Keris’s student.

Perhaps drawn by the thought, Sirelmiya herself paces gracefully out of the temple to kneel in prayer in front of the statue. Keris gives her a smile and a wave, but then they’re moving on, deeper into the Meadows; Eko picking up the pace to get away from the reminder that her mama has a sex life.

They end up near a largeish tar lake in the mid-Meadows, nestled between three large hills. Keris comes to a stop beside it and peers in dubiously.

“Well,” she hazards. “Calesco said we could both swim in this stuff if we did it fast enough, and to head down. So... race you, I suppose?”

Eko noiselessly clears her throat. Very nice statue of mama’s best friend, she indicates, whistling silently. Yes! The tar! Yes, a race!

It’s dark down there. She has to keep her eyes screwed shut. And Keris can feel the heat around her, but she’s a wind outrunning it. Eko is having to fight more than her, because she doesn’t have her mother’s Kimbery-granted comfort in fluids. Keris has to help her daughter who’s really struggling against the cloying tar as they get deeper and deeper and deeper and...

... surface. Having swum down, the world seems to have decided that down is now up and there’s air above. Or below.

Keris’s inner ear hurts.

She pulls Eko out of the tar with her hair. Eko grabs her wrist miserably, and taps out that she wishes her baby sister wasn’t so clinging. Both of them are coated and Keris is desperately trying to clear her eyes. It sounds like the Meadows down here. Only... more so.

She finally manages to lick away the tar with extra tongues, clearing her face, and...

Yes. “The Meadows, only more so” is a good way of putting the way this dark world looks. The red moon is a dull glow on one horizon; the flames of the Swamp are pale red; the lightning from the spires is crimson. But the stars overhead are clear and white, and they’re everywhere.

And on this dark landscape, there are odd, flickering things. Things that aren’t just black, white or red, which show other things as Keris stares into them, fascinated.

This is awful, the stained-black Eko mimes, trying to shake off the tar that’s soaked into her ribbons and failing. Her baby sis owes her big time for this.
Nodding absently, Keris approaches the nearest flickering shape; fascinated by its shifts and changes. Circling it cautiously, she reaches out to brush its edges with her left hand. She can feel the tarry, cloying Calesco-touch to the strange flickering and - hmm, under that, something that feels just the same. Calesco around a layer of... Calesco?
“What is this place?” she whispers, through the delighted grin that’s spreading across her face. She’s not sure her inner world will ever stop surprising her, and she loves that about it. Maybe it’s a reflection of her own nature. She’s willing to bet that Sasi loves her at least in part for how she keeps serving up mysteries for her love to puzzle over.

Between the two of them, Keris and Eko trace out a circle around this whole darkened domain. The Swamp is deep dark woods and pale red fire, flickering in the sunless depths. The stones of these Isles are black, and the art in these shanty towns is painted in a dark spectrum. The Sea is a surprise - it’s nothing but mercury, and its reflection is that of the normal Sea, as if gazing through a mirror darkly. In the heights of the Spires, the black stone and dark metal catches gleams of crimson lightning. And the Ruin here is black sand, everywhere, and the blood is tarry and black. In the centre is a twisted City covered in flickering light, and around the Edge are black tarry clouds.

Eko mournfully tries to scrape off more tar. This is awful, she repeats. Her baby sister has painted the Ruin the wrong colour! Calesco might be the queen of dreams, but this is going too far!

Keris blinks in realisation. “Dreams,” she murmurs. “This is... the realm of dreams? Hah!” She points at the flickering shapes that drift around the landscape. “Those are dreamers! That’s why they feel like demons under a layer of Calesco!”

Her daughter pauses to expressively roll her eyes at Keris, then goes back to wringing tar out of her ribbons. Duh, mama, her gesture seems to say. Like that wasn’t obvious to basically everyone with brains.

“... shut up,” Keris retorts, pouting again. “Fine, so this is the dreaming part of my domain. Which... is apparently a physical place you can get to by swimming down through the tar. So... ah. I guess Calesco is going to meet us here as a dream?”

Something flaps overhead, and descends on pale wings. It’s Calesco, and in this shrouded world of dreams - including her own - she reveals almost all of what she is. White wings extend from her back, hips and thighs, and the mark of the Ebon Dragon is clear on her forehead.

“I wanted to show you my dream-world I keep safe for the dreamers,” Calesco says cuttingly, “but apparently only Mama appreciates it properly. Everyone’s a critic, it seems!”

Of course she deserves criticism, Eko points out. Can’t even get the colours right. Bah!

“Hello darling,” Keris smiles. “Don’t be too hard on Eko. I think she’s just feeling a bit tar-soaked at the moment. This place is amazing, though. How long has it been here?”

Calesco perches on a nearby tree, bird-like feet wrapping around the branches. “Dreams are heavy, mama,” she says. “They sink down to the bottom of the world, carried to my place by Eko’s winds and Haneyl’s hunger. I think some are also getting in through Rathan, though. His undersea is...” she sighs, “a mark of how he’s annoyingly like me sometimes. But this place has been building up and up as more and more demons dream their dreams in the world in your soul. And I think part of it is made of the dreams you should be having but aren’t when you visit us.” She spreads her hands.

That’s how she can be here, Eko gestures with a flick of her hair. She’s the dream-queen, this is all a dream, therefore she can speak to Eko and mama here because both of them are dreaming right now only they’re dreaming so hard their bodies are dreaming except mama’s body is also at home so she’s not dreaming as much as Eko is dreaming. Mama needs to work on her dreaming before she can become a full dream like Other Mama.

Keris takes that in for a moment.

“... right,” she says, deciding to try and pick it apart later. “Well, I suppose a dream within a dream is a good place to tell you this.” She takes a deep breath, sighs, and faces Calesco.

“You were right,” she admits. “About Lilunu. She’s like the girlfriends of the gang bosses back in Nexus. Too scared to do anything to defy the other Unquestionable. They don’t just look down on her and limit her - they’re outright abusive, and cruel. Even though she’s Unquestionable too.”
Calesco, of course, immediately says, “I told you so.” Keris accepts that as her due, and lets her get her smugness out. Once she’s finished - or at least when she stops for a moment to take a breath - Keris holds up a finger.
“There’s more,” she says. “Sasi and I got... yeah, okay, there’s not really any other way to say this; we got fucked over this Calibration. Deveh stole a march on us, and managed to force through a motion Ligier couldn’t block. The Southwest has been split in half. I’m the new division head for the Lower South West; the Anarchy and the Wailing Fen and the Violet Coast... but Deveh is in charge of An Teng and the Hook.”

She scowls. “They sent Sasi to the Blessed Isles on some kind of high-priority mission that’ll put her in danger, and that blue-eyed bitch Iudicavisse threw a horizon-spanning glass-storm at us on the way to delay us until the fourth day of Calibration so we didn’t catch wind of it beforehand. This was planned, and we didn’t stand a chance.”

“The Unquestionable are awful? I also told you so,” Calesco says, after taking that breath.

Eko wobbles her hand. The Sasi bit was super unfair because Eko still hasn’t got her to understand how to make demons, but Mama did pretty nicely out of this, she points out. Ligier and Lilunu said a lot of really nice things about Keris, and it’s good that those two best friends also like Keris.

Keris sighs. “Look,” she says to Calesco, “I get that you were right. This is me, admitting it. I mean, Ligier’s still okay; he got overruled here and used his influence to stop me being put under Deveh, but I’m totally on board with cutting Iudicavisse’s eyes out. But I’m not telling you this so you can gloat. I have a plan, and I need your help with it. Both of you. Will you help me?”

Is this something to do with Other Mama, Eko checks. Because there’s probably a reason that Mama got them together in here and...

She trails away. Baby sis, the panicked tilt of her head says as she turns white under the tar. This is a dream. Can Other Mama get in here? This is really important!

Calesco flinches, and starts to glow. “I... don’t think so,” she says weakly.

Eko jabs a finger at her. She better not, for everyone’s sake, she indicates.

There’s a brief pause - which Keris hastily fills with music so it’s not silent - as the three of them look around nervously. The world doesn’t split apart and become a blood-drenched landscape laid out around a laughing, loving titan, so Keris figures they’re... uh... probably safe. Ish. For now.

“... no,” she says, awkwardly picking the conversation back up. “It, uh... no, it isn’t. No, um. I want to help Lilunu. Her souls are all crippled and suffering, and I think that’s part of why she’s so ill and frail all the time. If I strengthen them, I think she’ll get stronger - and a stronger Lilunu will be able to stand up to the cruelties of the other Unquestionable. She’s not like them. She’s kinder.”

She crouches down and makes eleven marks in the black sand of the Ruin-dream. “I’ve only met three of them. Bruleuse is her Nurturing Soul from Kimbery; he’s all burned and castrated, but stable. Hermione is a mirror-dragon who smuggled herself out to Creation with me and is just as fiercely against the Unquestionable as you, and Antifasi is an Oramusic seer who Orabilis is thinking about chaining up, I think. Because she told Zanara something.”

She looks up at Calesco and Eko, her wind-born daughters. “Antifasi said that she’s scared Orabilis will treat her like Lela, who’s never light, and never free. And Bruleuse said that he was Lilunu’s Nurturing Soul - her ability to nurture. If her souls are parts of her the way you’re parts of me, then the one from the Ebon Dragon... she’d be Lilunu’s desire to be free, or something. Her Vali. She can’t go against the Unquestionable while Lela’s still caged.”

Calesco takes a deep breath, and turns herself inside out, re-assuming her more common veiled form. “It’s a good thing we did this here, rather than outside of you,” she says thoughtfully. “Serendipity. There’s no way grandmother can hear us here.”

She can’t ever hear Eko, Eko points out helpfully.

“Shut up Eko - no, you know what I mean, don’t pretend otherwise.” Calesco jumps down from her root, squatting beside Keris. “I think all her souls will have darker sides, if they’re aspects of her personality reflected through the Yozis,” she says. “Just giving them power won’t help. Power corrupts.”

Bruleuse might be a good target, Eko suggests thoughtfully. Nurturing is self-nurturing, after all. But, ah, her hands flap excitedly, maybe what Lilunu needs is more confidence and willingness to stand up to other people. More ego, she grins.

“You would say that,” Calesco grouses. “You’re not thinking clearly.”

“I need to find out more about the other seven,” Keris says. “The ones I can find out about, anyway. And I want to know where Lela is hidden, because I’m willing to bet Lilunu doesn’t, and Antifasi couldn’t see it in her visions. I think she’s the place to start - because if she’s of the Ebon Dragon, she’ll work against the rules. And the rule in Hell is cruelty already.”

She chews a hair tendril. “You’re right about Dulmea,” she admits. “And it might be best not to mention this to Rathan or Haneyl either. Or Vali, because while he’d be all for it, he’d have trouble keeping it secret unless he promised. And Zanara already suspects, I think.”

Mulling things over, Keris tilts her head in acknowledgement of Calesco’s point. “They probably will have darker sides,” she admits. “But Lilunu’s good for the most part. And hey,” she adds, cracking a grin, “it’s not like I don’t have experience raising young demon lords. Haneyl turned out fine, for all that she’s born from Ligier’s hateful fire and Metagaos’s greedy hunger.”

That gets her dirty looks from both her daughters.

Haneyl is a wicked corrupter of szelkeruby who turns them into wicked l-lewd demons, Eko insists stridently.

“She’s still bad when it...” Calesco trails off. “Wait, what?”

Elly, Eko exclaims. She’s been taught dreadful things by Haneyl! She made... m-moves on the pure innocent blushing maiden Eko at Calibration, and Haneyl encouraged her! She told Eko that Elly was a really good friend and they’d be cute together and Eko should take the chance over Calibration! She was trying to l-leave Eko unfit for marriage!

Calesco just stares. “So... you’re saying that Haneyl tried to set you up with one of her friends over Calibration?” she eventually says.

Ellyssivera was so nice when she was little, but she’s learned awful things as a sziromkerub and now she turns into a thorn monster and can pretend to be human and it’s not fair that Eko’s keruby haven’t evolved, Eko insists.

“... no. If you go on about that, I will wake up.” Calesco crosses her arms for emphasis. “I’m not listening to that again!” She sighs. “I have to admit, that’s... that’s better than I’d expect from Haneyl,” she reluctantly concedes.

Keris keeps staring at Eko; other things on her mind.

“Have... have you been getting your views about how relationships are meant to work from Asarin?” she asks with mounting horror. “Because that sounded really familiar, and... Eko, you know she’s been after her Greater Self for five thousand years, right? Like. Literally five thousand years. And she’s never actually done anything about it.”

Eko punches one balled-up fist into the palm of the other hand, copying the gesture with her hair. Precisely, her motions indicate. Now that’s real love. Really wanting to do it and then not doing it. She wipes her eyes on a ribbon, blowing her nose. And Asarin told Eko about how awful her greater self is and how he’s a big stupid idiot and he looks at other girls all the time but - but! But Asarin hasn’t done the easy thing and just stopped loving him! So romantic! So beautiful! Eko makes a heart-shape with her hands for emphasis. Honestly, she adds, Asarin has way more experience of romance than mama does. Five thousand years of it! Mama doesn’t even have twenty five!

“... ... ...” says Keris, which appears to be a sentiment shared by Calesco. They trade dubious looks as Eko regards her heart-shape thoughtfully and adds three more around it with her hair.

“... riiiiight,” Keris says. “Okay, that’s, um... something I’ll tackle later. Getting back to the point; will you both help me with this?”

“Of course,” Calesco says immediately. “Lilunu deserves to be able to choose for herself, if she really is as nice as she acts - and even if she isn’t.”

Hany and Sasi are going to be suuuuuuuper mad if they find out, Eko points out as she stops thinking about love for a moment. Eko doesn’t want to hurt them.

Keris blows out a sigh. “I know,” she moans. “I know. But... look, Sasi respects the Unquestionable, and Lilunu is one. And Haneyl wants to be her when she grows up some more, I think. I’m pretty sure I can sell this to them. Calesco, I want to introduce you to Hermione so you two can have a talk about the Unquestionable and you can take her measure. Next time we’re in Hell, I’ll ask Lilunu about her other souls, and Eko can... go wandering around. Exploring.”

She clears her throat. “I don’t think I need to tell you both that what we’re doing here is - while technically proper since we’re helping an Unquestionable - horrifyingly illegal and the kind of thing that would get Orabilis to instantly try to throw us all into the sky if he found out. So keep quiet about it and be smart, yeah?”
From the look on Calesco’s face, she’s considering how Hell would be better without Orabilis. “Someday,” Keris tells her. “But not yet. Not until we can follow through on it. Okay?”
She grins, folding her hands and lacing her fingers together under her chin. “Now. Let me tell you about my idea for what we can do from here in Creation. Let’s talk about the cult of the Lost Dragons, and what we can do to spread it.”

---

A few days later, she’s in An Teng once again. The difference in the heat is noticeable - even in southern An Teng. It adds an almost temperate note to the air.

And compared to Sasi’s - now former - estate, or the wealth of Saata, Keris can see how the Joyful Wave family are suffering. The damage to their lands from the storm is still evident, two years later, and there are marshy lowlands where there are abandoned villages that once were farming hamlets. The seat of the viscounty is Golden Sand By Azure Sea, but the beaches have been ruined and the Dynast-tourists no longer come here. And with the downturn in trade from the Blessed Isles as the political situation heats up, they have no way to recover.

Joyful Wave First Petal is only in her thirties, but her brows are lined and her hair is silver. “Thank you for seeing us,” she says softly, as the servants pour tea - not the finest - for the family and their guest.

Keris - or rather, Hui Cha White Rain - thanks her host with all due grace. She’s a woman of middling height, about ten years older than Keris actually is, and dressed conservatively in the same sort of way Jade Fox favours. Hui Cha Little River has sent her here to make the arrangements for the marriage and ensure the Joyful Wave family is confident they’ll benefit from the match, as Little River herself is ill-inclined to set foot on Tengese soil after fleeing it in shame.

“Has something happened to Anema Lili?” her husband, Stone Road asks. “It is not like her to go nearly two months without a letter.”

“Ah, as I understand it, some business overseas came up unexpectedly and the stars greatly favoured her attending to it,” White Rain explains. “A research opportunity, I think, though I can’t say for sure. She may still be travelling.”

“Oh, I see.” He nods, but shares a look with his wife.

The bride-to-be, Joyous Rain Rose Petal smiles at the guest, though she can see the wobble in her lip. She’s sixteen - old enough to be present at such talks - and her mother’s heir. She’s a little chubby, though with large, dewy eyes and her makeup accentuates her round cheeks. “Tell me,” she asks, a slight quaver in her voice, “do you know my husband-to-be? You are of the Hui Cha, as he is. What is he like?”

She’s not so much younger than Keris herself - but she really does seem young to Keris.

“I do, yes,” Keris says warmly, gentling her tone and taking an educated guess as to what she might be looking for. She has actually met Stone Fox on a handful of occasions; albeit briefly. “He’s a strong young man,” she says. “Loyal to those he cares about, brave in the face of danger and a skilled sailor.”

In truth, Keris hadn’t been particularly impressed, but she’d found him tolerable enough. His mourning for his first wife had seemed commendably genuine despite it having been an arranged match that had only lasted a month before her death from scarlet fever. She’d rather thought that his boldness on his father’s ships was a vent for all the stuffiness and conservatism his father forced him to follow at home, but he was skilled enough that Keris was at least fairly sure he wouldn’t get himself killed by doing something reckless and stupid.

And to this young girl, he’d be an older man; handsome enough to impress her and with a suppressed level of passion that would probably set her heart a-flutter. He’s dutiful enough to take the match seriously, and while he’s no Calesco, he’s not cruel by any means. Keris rather thinks that with a little work, the two of them will stand a good chance of being happy together.

Rose Petal smiles. “That’s something, at least,” she says softly.

“Dear,” her mother says.

“Forgive any ill manners,” she adds hastily.

First Petal inclines her head. “It is so hard to organise such things over this distance,” she says. “During your stay, we really must agree to a date for it. And then there’s the question of where the ceremony should be held.”

“Of course,” White Rain agrees. “Such details are what I am here to arrange.” Jade Fox had wanted a Resplendent Water wedding as a sign of his ocean pirates’ dominance over the landed nobles of the mainland, which Little River - as a Water Aspect - had been perfectly in support of. In Keris’s opinion, a wedding date a season from now is exactly what she wants to get things wrapped up before Deveh can ruin everything for her.

But of course it would be rude to just rush into these things. There are standards for such things - they simply can’t look too eager in front of an ill-bred pirate like White Rain. And yes, there is some prejudice there. These are desperate people from an ancient family down on its luck.

After lunch, the ladies go for a ride together down to the sea shore. The beaches are not what they once were and the golden sand is pock-marked and washed away by the storm, leaving traces of it - and salt, salt aplenty - on rocks and ruining fields. There are orchards of apricots and peaches where the trees have all died where nothing but sea-grass grows.

Keris has other things she wants to do down here, though. Jade Fox is very interested in getting a trading port - smuggling port, really - set up here, to avoid the duties of the princes’ docks. Keris has her own interests in that, oh yes she does. So she needs to take a look around at the shoreline for good places to site a hidden dock.

((Cog + Occult to study the landscape on the ride))

((3+5+2 stunt+8 Kimmy ExD {discerning eye, secrets, ultimate trafficker}=18. 4 sux. Bah.))
She can’t duck into the sea to explore it from underwater, which is what she’d really like to do. So she’s forced to fall back on what she knows from her time in the Shore Lands with Sasi and her experience with both sides of Silver Lotus’s coastline to try and spot a place from horseback. And... it’s not great terrain for that sort of thing, Keris thinks sadly. It’s just too flat. That’s the problem with the land - and why they were hit so bad by the storms. There’s no nice cliffs to hide docks in, no inaccessible rivers - and the forests around here are too thin to easily hide a village in upriver.
She mentions some of this to First Petal - apart from the bits about smuggling - whose lips narrow. “There used to be more mangrove forests, but we had to cut them down for the sake of the visitors,” she says. “The Dynasts do not like their views of the sea to be ‘ruined’ by mangroves - and neither do they like the smell of swamps. We had drained most of the land over the years, my mother and grandmother, but the storm flooded the reclaimed and drained land again.”

“They... ordered you to cut down the mangrove forests because they thought they ruined the view?” Keris repeats in horror; so offended by the notion that she forgets her composure for the moment. The Haneyl in her is screaming in furious outrage, both from a smuggling perspective and an environmental one. She knows how important the coastal mangroves in the Swamp are, and the ones in Creation are scarcely any less important. If they’d had more mangroves as a buffer, the swamps would have absorbed the brunt of the storm’s fury and they wouldn’t have been flooded as badly. That the visiting Dynasts had condemned this place to ruin for such a petty reason, when the mangroves were gorgeous in their own right...

... well, it certainly more than justifies kicking the inbred fuckers out of the Anarchy, that’s for sure.

“Ordered? No, no,” First Petal said. “But we know what they wanted - and there are many small places along the cost trying to best serve our illustrious guests.”

“Still, though,” Keris says, “if you’d had more coastal forests when the storm came...”

She breaks off, remembering herself and letting her petal-facade bloom again. “My apologies. I spoke out of turn. The sea views are certainly beautiful; that much is true.”

That gets both women smiling. “Yes, they are,” Rose Petal says. “I hope someday to take as good care of the spirits of the land as my mother does.”

Her mother nods at that. “Yes, quite so.”

But Keris can see more and more signs of the environmental degradation as they ride - salted soil, dredged waterways that now dump water too quickly into the ocean, crumbling soil, peat-cutting of bogs. All of it coming from trying to shape the land into a form it’s not meant to go, one that more resembles the northern coast of An Teng.

It’s a good thing Haneyl isn’t here. She would be furious at what they’ve done here.

It’ll be hard work fixing this place, Keris muses thoughtfully. A good reef offshore might do it - perhaps, hah, raised by a certain mangrove goddess. That would make for a storm-buffer almost as good as a proper mangrove forest, and make the view of the sea prettier. But it would need a lot of work around the land, too.

Or, of course, she could just bump up the smuggling through these lands to the point that they don’t need to mould themselves for tourists any longer, and convince them to let the land return to how it wants to be. Again, though, that will take time.

Either way, it’ll be a good idea for her to put Jade Fox onto the subject once he’s firmly on her side. Or perhaps his wife, who’s more closely tied to the land and will no doubt have opinions about this sort of thing. Jade Fox may not have any interest in women’s work, but investments are something he’ll pay attention to, and Keris can probably leave the delegation and convincing partly in his hands once she’s decided on a course of action.

---

It is the last day of Rising Air when Keris hears a familiar voice singing in the water outside her mansion. Pausing and quirking her head, she finishes drying Atiya, then scoops her daughter up onto her shoulder and heads out down the cliffs. She’s just taking Atiya to show her the sea. Nothing else.

There’s a silvery horned dolphin in the shallows, red banded patterns across its back.

“Oula!” she says happily, after checking there’s nobody watching. “Good to see you! What brings you here? Is there trouble at the manse-tower?”

The dolphin leaps up onto a rock, skin peeling off as it does, and under the skin is Keris’s student. Her long pink hair is the only thing preserving her modesty as she shakes herself dry. “Aunty!” she calls back. “It’s good to see you. Really, it is. It’s been almost two months! I’ve missed you!”

“I’ve missed you too,” Keris says warmly, leaning in for a careful hug that keeps Atiya well away from Oula’s mercury-wet hair. “And so have Atiya and the twins! Haven’t you, my little princess?”

Atiya focusses at the pink-haired, vaguely mama-shaped woman in front of her, and blows a bubble in greeting.

“See?” says Keris cheerfully. “So, why’d you swim all the way around Shuu Mua? You don’t seem worried, so it’s not a problem. Just a social visit, or do you have some good news for me?”

“Partly it was to see you. And make sure you were fine. We hadn’t heard from you,” Oula says reproachfully. She finishes peeling away the last of her dolphin tail, and drapes herself in the silvery skin as a sash. “But it’s also a note of... ah, warning, aunty. Something to at least be aware of.”

Keris quirks an eyebrow. “... oh?” she asks. “Okay, go ahead.”
“Rathan wants you to know, he has it all under control,” she begins. It’s not the most calming reassurance Keris has ever heard, and her hair begins to lash.
“Oula...” she says, rather more warningly. “What happened?”

Oula swallows. “Some local gods showed up, and were very mean,” she says quickly. “But that was just to me and that idiot Mele, and it was really his fault in many ways for provoking them. But then Rathan showed up and charmed them - and flirted with them,” she adds darkly, “and he managed to talk them into keeping it a secret. It’s just things might be a bit delayed there because Rathan’s spending his time working on the gods and... um. Well, he’s more interested in getting them to like him than working on the manse. That’s left up to us, and sometimes we have to stop work to hide what we’re really up to.”

Keris’s lips thin as she works through that. “Okay,” she says, hair lashing this way and that in agitation. “Okay. So... you got found out, you’re behind on the manse restoration... but Rathan’s charming the local gods into compliance and your cover isn’t all the way blown.” She takes a slow breath. “Okay. Fine. Fine. If you’re sure he has it under control, I’ll trust him to keep it that way. And I’ll swing by when I have the time to visit and fill you all in on what happened at Calibration. Will you stay a while before heading back? You’re right, it’s been too long.”

Oula sighs, rubbing her horns. “I want to get back to him, but... he told me I needed some time with you so I didn’t... uh. It’s not fair! I only put a bit of mercury in the drink of that divine man-slut!”

That merits a wince. “Oh, Oula. Was he flirting with Rathan?”

“Yes!” she hisses. “That disgusting sea nymph with his waxed chest and his muscles and...” she takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to think about him!” she says clearly. “But if I get back and he’s done anything, I’ll have his guts! And then give them to Zanara to make me garters!”

“Sounds messy,” Keris comments. “And not very fashionable. But I can understand the urge. Alright, you’ll stay with me until I get a chance to go visit. And don’t worry; Rathan’s as loyal to you as you are to him. He won’t let some foamy man-slut get anywhere with him.”

Oula perks up at that. “Oh, aunty,” she says fondly. “Well, can I do anything to help?” she asks as they head inside - to collect Oula some clothes, among other things. One’s own skin is only fashionable attire in some parts of Hell. “What are you up to?”

“Urgh,” Keris complains. “Wedding plans. So many wedding plans. Plus horrible amounts of paperwork that Little Bird keeps dropping on me.”

She pauses for a moment at the foot of the stairs as something occurs to her.

“Actually... the Lionesses will be arriving soon, and Asarin’s still on Shuu Mua. You’d be priceless in helping Calesco get them settled. Gods know I won’t have time. Between the wedding, the smithy and the children I barely have time for sleeping at the moment.”

Oula looks slightly discomforted. “Even with the horns?” she checks. “You haven’t forgotten I have them?”

Keris shrugs. “They know Cinnamon’s more than just a mortal. Their witch saw I was stronger than an elemental she once saw, and I doubt she’ll have been shy about sharing that fact. You can ask Zany how much they seemed to know to be sure, but I think you should be fine. And if not, you can still watch the children. Aiko could always use another friend, and the twins have been terrorising everyone near them for most of the past month.”

“Well, if you think so...” Oula says slowly. She pauses. “One thing would be really useful, actually. I know I’m not like Rathan or you and I can’t make new demons... well, except for the way you banned me from doing,” she looks away and mutters below her breath before saying normal volume again, “but can you teach me to release other demons from you? It’d be much more useful because as it is Rathan has to make each new demon we need and sometimes it’d be really useful to just call on one of the other’s demons. I mean, I’d understand if that’s another thing I can’t do when you and Rathan and the others can,” and there’s no mistaking the hint of bitterness there, “but if I can help...”
Keris pauses again. She tilts her head, considering Oula carefully as a flash of green runs through her eyes, and her student shrinks slightly under the intensity over her queen and mentor’s regard. She is as she has always been - strong for a demon, stronger than she was as an orvenkerub, but still weak in her pale reflection of Rathan.
((Rathanite Essence, E3))

She’s a little weaker, Keris thinks, than what’s necessary to take the Trial of Sacrifice. But that doesn’t mean she can’t get there. Keris is sure she’s seen demons of the First Circle a little more powerful than Oula is now - rare, yes, but still unsublimated beings of their kind. And Oula is the lover of a demon lord. Were any lesser spirit in a position to gain power, it’s her.

“... not yet,” is her thoughtful response. “You need just a little more spiritual strength to learn Sorcery. But you can get there. Hmm. I wonder...”

She coils a hair-tendril around a finger as she circles Oula, reaching out to brush the shell-over-mercury feeling of her skin again.

“I think you’ll grow strong enough to do it naturally, in time,” she says. “Just being close to Rathan will get you that. But we might be able to speed that up a little. You’re going to stick close to me for the rest of this visit, and whenever I cast anything, you’re gonna be near enough to feel it, okay? And you’ll be meditating on your essence, too. A lot.”

Wide-eyed, trusting, Oula nods. “Yeah!”

It’s really a pottering day for Keris. She really wishes she didn’t have plans, because it’s the night of the new moon and that means it’s one of the fourteen Lesser Calibration Festivals in Saata. The night of the new moon is treated like how they treat the five days at the end of the year. They’re nothing compared to the five day bacchanalia of the Greater Festival, but they’re still a lot of fun. Haneyl has delayed her departure for the Far South West so she can catch this one, while Zanara is in one of the great plays. They were not very happy at Keris when she told them she might miss some of their play because she’s busy.

But she is going to be busy. Because she has someone to call at sundown.

“Evedelyl,” she asks inwardly as night draws near and she and Oula remove themselves to the coast of Shuu Mua, away from the settlements and docks. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, Keris,” her new mother-soul’s deep voice says in her head. “I want to see this world - and find a safe place for all our family. One where the children will be safe, and little Oula will never have to be scared of humans objecting to her beautiful horns.”

Keris takes a shaky breath.

“Okay then,” she murmurs. It’s not long until sunset. “Will you go alone? I mentioned you asked, and Xasan said he might go with you and take another crack at the island. I think he wanted to meet you after seeing my sketches.”

“He’s my family too,” she murmurs. “And you’ve been summoning the cute little keruby I asked you to. I want to keep an eye on them and take them on a field trip.”

Keris nods. “They’re waiting a little way inland.” Far to the west, the sun touches the horizon. “Here we go. It’s time.”

Standing, she motions for Oula to step back. “This isn’t going to be like when I called Calesco into Kuha,” she warns. “This is going to be true Sorcery. Brace yourself.”

Eyes wide, Oula retreats and kneels in a low ditch. She seems to have assumed things will be more explosive than perhaps Keris intended. “I’m watching, aunty,” she breathes.

Keris considers calling her back a little closer, but... given Evedelyl’s stature, perhaps it’s best for her to be at a fair distance. It was hard to tell in the cramped hall of the sanctum, but Keris suspects her Twelfth Soul stands almost six metres high at full size, if not higher.

Raising her left arm, she extends her mind inward and wraps it around her mother and gathers her power.

“In Lilunu’s name I call you!” she cries, and Iris rears off her skin, expanding and unfolding as her abstract scales divide and multiply. Her wings spread as she expands to several times her usual size, and her eyes blaze with rainbow hues. “By the mark she made on me I summon you! In your own name I open the way for you! Come now, Wild-Mother! Come now, She Who Nurtures! Come, Twelfth Soul of mine! Come to me, Evedelyl!”

Iris cries out, her voice still sibilant and high - but deeper and stronger than the last time Keris did this. Her occult flame flares up to the height of a man, and then twice as high, and twice again, until it is the height of trees; the height of the soul stepping out through the path Keris has carved through the Cloud Wall.

The dragon opens her mouth and breathes out a cloud of swirling, airless mists and vapours. They gather before Keris, thick and heavy, spinning anticlockwise, and form a cyclone that grows upward and outward until it matches the flame. And in the midst of the whirling fog is a shape, distant at first as if seen from far away, but getting ever closer as it approaches the beacon lit for it in this foreign world.

Two leonid feet walk the ground of Creation. A tail swishes away the fog. And it becomes clear that, no, she was further away than it seemed. Because this time Evedelyl is fully upright, and her head pokes above the trees.

Before Keris, she stoops down, bringing her grey eyes close to Keris’s. “The air smells strange,” Evedelyl observes solemnly. “And all my fur is standing on end.”

“This is Creation, mama,” Keris greets her. “Welcome to the world without.”

Stretching up on her tiptoes, she hugs her around the neck, her arms fitting perfectly.

“I have a gift for you,” she murmurs in one of Evedelyl’s hyena-like ears.

“What is it, Keris?” Evedelyl murmurs, rubbing one giant finger down the back of Keris’s neck. Petting her hair.

Purring happily, Keris reaches into her hair and draws out a glittering many-sided gemstone. It is quiescent; not whispering as it had been when she stole it from the naib - but its power is still very real. There’s more power in this gem than there is in her Lance, and not much less than is in the carving of Mela.

Keris hasn’t had a proper chance to look at it yet. Perhaps she could spare some time over the next few months to, if she kept it with her. But there’s a better use for it here.

“This will keep you safe, mama,” she says, drawing back from the hug enough to place it in a silver clasp and pass the pendant-chain around Evedelyl’s neck. “Safe from the light of the sun and moon, anchored in this world and free to roam it.”

Around such a giantess, the sizable orb is a tiny trinket. And the voices from it re-emerge, as the clasp closes.
She can hear the world within her soul. She can hear keruby laughing, dancing, making fun of one another. She can hear proud farisyya arguing. She can hear the thunder of the Spires and the gentle sounds of the insects of the Meadows. And much more. Hugging her mama again - and being picked up with a laughing squeal and held in the crook of an enormous arm - Keris looks down at Oula to see her reaction.
“How,” she hears Oula whisper, just before Evedelyl sweeps her up and lifts her up onto a shoulder.

“Little Oula,” the giantess booms. “The eldest; the first grownup. I know you make Rathan happy - and he makes you happy.”

Climbing up to sit on the opposite shoulder, and grinning across at her, Keris pets Iris smugly. “Well, Oula? What did you think?”

“I want to be able to do that!” Oula breathes. “Aunty, it was amazing! You never showed that kind of power before, even when you made the boat and the airship! That was something Haneyl could do. This... I saw home through the fog!”

“Those other spells were Sorcery of the Emerald Circle,” Keris agrees breathlessly. “This was Sapphire. It takes a lot out of me to do, and it’s beyond even Rathan and Haneyl at the moment.” She winces and shakes her arm out. “Gods, I can’t imagine what the Adamant Circle must feel like. Oh, mama! Xasan and the keruby are waiting over that way. Shall we go say hello to them?” She giggles. “I may have been sneaky and not put anything in the sketch to show Xasan how big you are.”

Xasan looks rather harassed, as anyone who’s been around a gaggle of keruby for extended periods tends to be.

“No!” Keris hears him say firmly. “No, put the knife away, you’re not getting anyone’s blood. And you! Enough about the-”

He trails away as he turns to face the footsteps, and sees the tree-breaking giantess approach with Keris on her shoulders. In the twilight gloom, she can see his teeth in his wide-open mouth.

“Xasan,” Evedelyl says warmly.

He doesn’t say anything. He mouths it though, and Keris can hear his gasped, “M-Maryam” in the half-light of dusk.

Squirming to get free - and being deposited on the ground by a pair of huge hands that she can imagine playfully tossing her into the air and catching her again - Keris jogs over to him.

“Uncle Xasan,” she says shyly. “This is my twelfth soul; my wild-mother Evedelyl. She’s my love for you and Ali and Zany and my children - all of my family.” She pauses as something occurs to her. “Um. ‘Evedelyl’ just sort of came to me. Did I get that from a family member like the others?”

He swallows. “Eva was your grandmother. My mother’s twin sister.”

((Hee. I thought you’d say that.))

Swaying back with wide eyes, Keris looks up at Evedelyl, who smiles down at them both and lowers herself to sit cross-legged. She’s immediately mobbed by keruby, all clamouring for her attention, and Keris can hear that she seems to know each of their names - and a fair amount about their lives, given the way she responds to them and asks for more details.

She turns back to Xasan with a smile. “I’m glad, then,” she says softly. “That the name lives on. Do you want me to introduce you?”

He swallows. “She’s... different. Different from the others. They’re kids. Strange kids, yes, but kids.” He leans back. “Not... like that.”

Keris nods. “She’s not one of my children. She stepped full-grown from my mind instead of being born from it; a passion made manifest. She’s closer to what Hellish demon lords are like. Not humanised like my kids are.”

She steps closer and takes his hand. “But I promise, uncle; the passion she’s born from is my love for my family. She’ll never hurt you. Clan and kin, right?”

He grips her hand. “Clan and kin,” he says, falling back on the old words he taught her back in Baisha.

Beaming, Keris leads him over to the mob of keruby, who have somehow in the space of that short conversation all been given enough personal attention and indulgence to have calmed down and stopped bickering for the most part. Keris has no idea how Evedelyl can keep up with a dozen or more excitable children volleying questions and comments at her and respond to each of them seamlessly without falling behind, but it’s certainly not a skill she’s mastered.

“Mama,” she says, her voice rising at the end to get Evedelyl’s attention. “This is uncle Xasan. He’ll be travelling with you as you look for a new home for us all.”

“He’s always welcome at my door,” Evedelyl says, reaching out to pat him on the head. “All my clan is.”
Keris’s lips twitch at the sight of grumpy old uncle Xasan being patted on the head like a child, though by dint of great effort she manages to muffle the snicker into a quiet cough she’s pretty sure he doesn’t notice. After their goodbyes and chasing down the szel who’d run off, Evedelyl leans in to Keris. “Keris, love,” she says, brushing her lips against the top of her head, “now, remember, you need to eat enough. I know you’re going to be running all over the place arranging the wedding, but you need to get enough rest - and always make time for the babies. They need you, all of them.”
“I promise, mama,” Keris agrees dutifully. “Though I can’t promise I won’t scold the twins a bit if they keep causing havoc and running my Gales ragged looking after them. I think they’ve decided Air is the season of mischief.”

“They’re learning how to use their bodies and how to act together,” the giant demoness says kindly. “These are the things that build their future. Even if they may tire you now.”
And with that said, Evedelyl rises, and begins to walk up towards the mountains in great space-eating strides. She’s not fast like Keris or Eko - it’s just that her legs mean that each step she takes is six or more steps by an ordinary woman. The keruby race after her, leaping onto her feet and tail before she gets too far and climbing up to cling to her skirts. Keris smiles at Xasan, and Cissidy’s ribbons unfurl out of the air beside her.
“Take good care of him, okay?” she calls. “Bye uncle. Have fun. And no getting hurt this time!”

“I don’t want to!” he hollers back, as he vanishes off into the distance.

It’s with a smile on her face that Keris rides back towards Saata.

Only-

- the Cissidy in her reflection of the night seas around Saata is pure white. And the Keris on her back is an albino. The Oula seated behind her isn’t, strangely enough.

“Hello, Kerissssssss,” hisses Hermione.

“Her- Hermione?” Keris startles, and nearly falls off Cissidy, her hand flying to her collar. “You- you can get out without me even opening the door? How? When?”

She swirls, becoming a snakelike dragon that occupies where Cissidy’s reflection should be. Keris and Oula’s reflections blindly ride the dragon. “Ogin opened the door for me earlier today,” she smiles. “I hid in your basements from that hateful yellow sun, and you carry reflections wherever you go. You really aren’t as clever as me, are you?”

Keris pouts. “I think as fast as you do,” she defends sulkily. “But yes, you might have an edge in brain-strength. And Ogin’s just given up his honey for breakfast tomorrow. I was wondering why he seemed weirdly well-behaved all morning.”

“Is that why you think he was?” Hermione coos smugly. A shimmer, and now she’s in Oula’s hair, swimming through the mercury that coats it. “And look at you, you spiteful, bitter, envious girl,” the dragon says. “I like you. You’re fun. You’d tear out a man’s heart to get what you want.”

Oula shows her teeth in a feral grin as she tries to coat her hands in her mercury so she can see the dragon properly. “I tore out my own heart to get who I wanted,” she says, without blinking.

“I suppose you were watching my display back there as well?” Keris asks. “Where fr- ah, of course. The collar itself. You were hiding in its reflections, down where you had as good a view as me and I couldn’t see you at all, right?” She grins. “What did you think?”

“You need to teach me. You have to!” Hermione insists, coiled up in Oula’s metal-coated hands. “I have to know! I have to! I can teach you more things! I taught you how to heal! I can show you more! But I need that magic!”
Iris perks up at that, and swims over to join her, exhaling a happy fireball at the sight of another dragon. She dives into the mercury-covered skin, darting out to lick at Hermione. Keris needs to consider for only a moment.
“A deal, then,” she says. “You help me with a bit more alchemy, and you see if you can do anything to help Oula pull herself up to the level where she can learn. And I’ll do my best to teach you as I was taught.”

“You better hold up to this, and-” Hermione flinches, as Iris licks her. “What was that?” Her image whirls to stare at Iris. “What are you... how?”

Iris exhales a very smug wisp of many-coloured flame as she coils around the other dragon.

“Iris is born of Lilunu too,” Keris smiles fondly. “She’s saying hello to her sister.”

Oula stares at the playing dragons in her hands. “I think it must be because Iris is a tattoo, and Lilunu said Hermione is the image of a dragon. So they’re both images. So they can touch.”

“Give her a good long hug for me, Iris,” Keris says. “Okay? She deserves one.”

As they head home, Keris can hear the muffled, stifled sounds of Hermione’s tears. Of course, she’d deny it if she ever asked her. So she doesn’t, and lets the two young dragons play.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Under a brooding sky, the Lionesses arrive in Saata. Rain hammers down on the docks and pounds into white stone, leaving the lower parts splashed in mud. The luminescent paint gives the streets a surreal glow. There’s a festival going on down in the docks to Livilla, and perhaps that isn’t the best greeting for them.
Fortunately, Keris is in the city proper when they show up, trying to talk things over with Jade Fox - who is worrying about the security - and so soon hears the rumours of the black women with spears and weapons who showed up. Harassed and overworked as she is, she knows she doesn’t have enough time to see them properly settled all by herself. But she does make sure to offer Nandi temporary housing on her estate as Little River. It’s strategy, she tells Jade Fox. These newcomers aren’t a few ships of petty pirates or an unorganised rabble - they’re a large group of disciplined mercenaries. Better to take their measure early, so that the Hui Cha will know whether or not they’re a threat - and better still to make sure they stay away from the city during the delicate process of negotiating the wedding plans. Who knows what kind of chaos these foreigners might cause as they slam headfirst into House Sinasana, if left to their own devices?It’s a pity Haneyl is already off on her trip down the coast, because she’d be perfect for arranging this. In her absence, it’s left to Rounen and Calesco to do the actual work of liaising with the Lionesses and - in Calesco’s case - quietly assuring them that Little River is one of Cinnamon’s allies, and can be trusted to an extent. It’s a few days later when Keris has time to check on their progress, and she’s greeted by a grouchy Calesco who’s wearing the dark-skinned form she likes - the one which makes her kinship to Keris, which is to say Cinnamon, clear.
“She’s an ill-tempered, proud bitch who has no idea what she’s playing with,” Calesco says cuttingly, staring out from a window at the top of the house at the ruins that the Lionesses have occupied. There’s already canvas and tents set up there, and they’re making good use of the bunkhouses Vali threw together towards the end of last year.

“That is true,” Keris agrees, because... well, it is. Honestly, it’s part of why she hired the woman. Pride is an easy handle on people, and she knows how to use ignorance.

“And her daughter! Her daughter! She’s a vicious monster who’s grown up on the battlefield! She threatened me with a knife!” Calesco grumps. “Do you know how difficult it was to not feed it to her?”

“I can imagine,” Keris says drily, wincing. Nandi’s daughter may have been killing since she was a child, but Keris’s daughter is a demon lord born of the Silent Wind. “Did you let their witch see any of your power?”

That earns her a withering glare. “Who do you think I am, Vali?” she snaps. “Of course I didn’t.”

“Mmm,” Keris hums, her lips twitching. Calesco would probably glare at her harder if she knew how Keris is starting to find her spikiness endearing. It’s not as good as when she’s honestly happy, like that joyful dance in the far Meadows that Keris had ruined with news of Kuha, but Calesco with her hackles up is much better than Calesco in a gloomy fit of self-loathing.

“Well, just keep them calm until the turn of the season,” she says. “The Hui Cha have mostly accepted me hosting them - there are some whispers that Little River overreached a bit with this estate and then her silver smithy and that she needs the money, but that just means people think they have a handle on my weaknesses; I can live with that. And you know much how I appreciate you helping like this.”

Calesco pouts. “This is taking time away from my poetry classes,” she mutters, knowing full well that Keris can hear her. “And from Adelia.”

“I know,” Keris says sympathetically. “Speaking of which, I’ve heard a lot about your lovely friend. I’d like to meet her, if you don’t mind. Don’t worry,” she adds, raising her hands. “Nothing embarrassing, and I’ll defer to you on what face I should wear and who we should tell her I am. But she means a lot to my daughter, so I’d like to meet her at least once.”

“You’re not going to stop asking until I give in, are you?”

“Probably not,” agrees Keris cheerfully. “Think of it as wanting to see how special she is to you.” Flattering Calesco’s lady-love is generally a good way to getting her to lighten up, or at least smile in a way that’s adorable as long as Keris doesn’t linger on the exact details of whatever she’s remembering.

Calesco sighs melodramatically. “Well, I suppose, if it’ll get me the evening off from dealing with these whiny soldiers...” she checks.

Keris beams, and hugs her. “Just tell me when.”

“It’s a Watersday today, so she should be at temple late...” Calesco says frowning. “And she usually goes out to grab food before she heads back to her quarters. So if you’re going to be so petty and childish, we can follow her back from halls and you can talk to her when getting food. Be a student.”

---

Alka is one of the local literature goddesses and has a temple in Saata; a bulky thing with several wings and a prominent shrine to a bald woman whose marble statue is wrapped in layer upon layer of carefully applied prayer strips. The initiates and students here all shave their heads - those who have devoted themselves to the goddess gain more and more words tattooed on their scalp and exposed flesh until some elderly men and women Keris sees are walking books.

The two of them lurk in the garden grounds until the sunset bell rings, and the gardens are suddenly alive with people leaving.
“There,” Calesco murmurs, looking like a dark-eyed man. She points at a slender, almost malnourished-looking young woman whose shaven head makes her look even more delicate and breakable. She has the Firetongue word for truth tattooed under her left eye, in delicate, flowing script. Keris is in a guise that looks similar to Calesco’s - a brother, perhaps, or a cousin. Glancing over the fragile girl Calesco has given her heart to... well, certain conclusions form. Like how very different this frail, studious young lady is from the brazen, physical Kuha.Still, that’s not a reason to disapprove, and it’s understandable enough. Keris smiles and falls in step behind the girl; tailing her at a discreet distance. She has a satchel of parchments, and dresses in the kind of clothing you see in Saata among the better-off students. Hard-wearing and not as lavish as the pirate princes, but she’s wearing soft cottons and has a silk veil draped around her shoulders for show. Keris would pin her - at least back in Nexus - as the daughter of a well-off merchant, or maybe a minor noble family. Certainly a good mark to pick the pockets of.
Calesco seems to know somehow that her mother is thinking along those lines, and elbows her in the ribs.

She heads out of the temple grounds, and into the dense alleys of street food and taberna that fill the lower levels of this Saatan neighbourhood. There’s the smell of wine-fried rice, spicy gourds, and baked sweet potato mash. Adelia finds a small taberna where the beckoner clearly knows her, pays for a bowl of noodle soup, and takes a seat at one of the long tables.

Grabbing her own food - because she’s not going to pass up food when it’s so readily on offer - Keris takes a seat just across from her and to one side, letting Calesco fill the space immediately opposite her girlfriend. She waits long enough to sample her own soup - not the best she’s ever had, but good for its price range - before nodding to her companionably and drawing her into conversation.

Adelia is softly accented, and softly spoken. Keris brings up the weather, which she agrees is looking bad. She isn’t very talkative, though; she eats like someone who’s trying to get food down as fast as possible, in a much less elegant manner than her usual appearance. Keris thinks she’s probably a few years younger than Keris herself is, though the softness of her skin and the fact she’s clearly never worked a day in her life makes it hard to judge.

She tries probing a little deeper, recognising the girl as a devotee of Alka and mentioning a relative in the same temple. She can see what drew Calesco to her, she supposes - and she can certainly envision this quiet, delicate beauty swooning to Calesco’s poetry - which isn’t great, but is at least heartfelt and slowly improving. She shows no signs of being the beloved of a mysterious pale maiden from the stars who comes to her window at night, and that is certainly a mark in her favour. Still, she’s no Oula, and Keris can’t help but put a little more effort into searching for some hidden reserve of passion or steel below the soft-looking surface.

And ah, now, that brings out a bit more of what’s under that controlled exterior. This girl likes poetry. She likes talking about it, she casually brings up references to Shogunate poets in conversation, and when she talks more that lilting voice is almost hypnotic. There’s a sharp, cutting passion hidden under that calm exterior.

((Keris detects a 4 dot principle - Become the Best Poet in Creation))
Ah, Keris thinks, relaxing a little. Now that explains a little about Calesco’s sudden passion for poetry. And it speaks well of Adelia too. That kind of ambition is something she can respect. She makes a note to try and get her hands on some of the girl’s poetry to judge her skill, if she can’t coax any out here. With that kind of passion behind it, it might be well worth reading. She’s certainly talented. Keris guesses she’s probably more skilled than many of the adult adepts at the temple.
((Estimates dicepool of 6-8))
((Niiiiice.))

They finish up the meal, and Keris yields to Calesco’s repeated subtle elbowing and stops probing. Adelia flits off back to her quarters, and Keris and Calesco follow her surreptitiously, shedding their disguises and staying far enough back that they can talk.

“I like her,” Keris concludes, keeping her voice low. “I can see why you’re so wrapped up in her, and she’s definitely got skill in her art. And some admirable passion for it.” Slinging an arm around her daughter’s shoulders, she presses a kiss to her temple, inwardly gleeful about the fact that this child of hers, at least, is short enough to let her do that without having to tug them down to her level.

“A good choice, sweetheart,” she murmurs. “I approve.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you approve, mama,” Calesco says, rolling her eyes. “I wouldn’t have dreamed of getting involved with anyone if you didn’t.” She pauses, just long enough. “Just like you wouldn’t have dreamed of getting involved with Ney...”

Keris immediately flushes dull red. “I... d-don’t compare that to this!” she objects. “And I wasn’t saying that as permission. I was saying to mean... to mean I’m proud of you. Of how you’ve found a good girl to... care about.”

“I have to make sure she eats properly,” Calesco says softly. She frowns. “She’d forget if I didn’t make sure.”

“That’s how it is, with dreamers,” Keris says wistfully. “Dreamers, artists, lovers of beauty... like Piu. She’ll spend all day dancing until she feels faint and falls over, if you let her.” She smiles and squeezes Calesco lightly. “That’s why your Adelia’s lucky she has you to take care of her, hmm?”

Calesco leans into her. “Mmm,” she says, head on her mother’s shoulder. Her eyes are up towards one of the windows, and she smiles as she sees Adelia opens her shutters. There’s the light of only a single candle there, left on the window sill.

“Are you going on up, then?” Keris murmurs with a smile. “To be with your lady-love?”

Calesco blushes. “I mean, you gave me the evening off...” she mumbles.

Keris laughs, soft and fond. “I won’t linger long,” she promises. “Go be with her. And if Asarin and I find any poetry in the ruins we explore, I’ll pass a copy along.”

Calesco smiles shyly, then approaches the wall, looking around. With a graceful leap she’s up two stories, and then her wings expand and she’s running up the wall, to perch on one of the balconies above Adelia’s room. It’s gloomy here, as the sun has set, and with a deliberate motion she flaps her wings, extinguishing the candle in the sudden draft.
Deliberately, she strips off her black veil and drops it, letting it flutter down to Keris below as she drops through the window. Bare-faced. Showing who she is in the low light. Catching it, Keris lingers long enough to eavesdrop on the start of the conversation. She won’t stay long, like she promised, but she wants to hear how Adelia speaks to her pale mistress in private. How she feels in return, when she’s not hiding her nightly affair.
There’s a gasp as Calesco enters the room.

“Oh my pale lady,” she hears Adelia say. No, recite, “I have missed you dearly and now at the dusk hour you are here again.”

“Adelia, my fair, my love in dark hours,” Calesco says. “You are the light in my dark world, and I wish that the cruel sun did not keep us apart.”
Poetry. Of course they talk in poetry. Laughing softly, Keris departs; wishing her daughter well. Unfortunately she’s not fast enough to get away to avoid hearing the first kiss, but thankfully anything more is lost in the sound of Saata.
Eko nods in Keris’s head. Her little sister is good to have a good friend like that, she gestures as Keris picks her way past a parade.

“I think they’re a little more than ‘good friends’, sweetheart,” Keris comments as she walks. Though Eko uses that for her and Sasi as well. And for Asarin and her Greater Self. Honestly, she’s even more embarrassed about romance and sex than Keris is.

Don’t be silly, mama, Eko wisely informs Keris. Her little sister is just having a poetry practice session with her bestie. That’s what happens when Calesco gets really into something. Now it’s poetry, and before that it was archery.

Keris pauses.

“... have... you forgotten that they’re lovers?” she asks in bewilderment. “Wait, do you remember me and Sasi are lovers?”

Eko laughs at that. Oh, silly mama and her pranks, her laugh indicates. Sasi and Mama are just very good friends. They’re not at all like Haneyl. She shakes her head. She really doesn’t know where Haneyl gets her lewdness from, but wherever she does it’s a sickness that infests poor once-innocent keruby like Elly too.

“... right,” sighs Keris, who has no real response to that. “I’m... you know what? Fine. Speaking of little sisters, shall we go visit Zanara and Piu? I want to make sure they haven’t broken the temple too badly.”

Maybe a bit of breaking, Eko suggests playfully.

Keris bares her teeth in a wicked grin. “Let’s go find out.”

---

The Orchid’s Grace College is much smaller than the last temple that they were at, and it’s on the edge of Memory of a Golden Land. The main body of the temple has closed for the night, but Keris can hear voices of all ages from the associated dormitories.
She pauses at the edge of the temple. Someone has been drawing graffiti on the nearby streets. It is very, very good graffiti, with landscape murals, parody portraits, and in some cases it’s advertising slogans for nearby shops with pictures of food so real it makes Keris’s mouth water. Zanara, Keris suspects. Few humans are artists that skilled. Smiling, she assumes her Little River form and knocks on the door, explaining her presence as a late-evening visit to see her ward.
One of the minders greets her, and she’s taken to the duty priestess, Grey Cat, who of course wants to impress such a generous donor. There is tea for her, and sweet rice crackers while they wait.

“... and she really is talented - you say she was a foundling? Well, she picks things up like that,” she snaps her fingers.

“Gifted by the gods, no doubt,” Little River smiles. “She’s been well-behaved? I’m aware she was in one of the great plays this past Lesser Calibration Festival, and performed well.”

Grey Cat pauses, a slight discomfort crossing her features. “She... tests the rules,” she says carefully. “All the time. And she’s prone to histrionics and dramatics, especially if it looks like anyone else is getting more attention than her. So, no, I would not call her well behaved. She’s simply so talented - and good at not quite crossing the line - that there’s only so much we can do to her to correct her behaviour.”

Little River sighs. It sounds rather like she was expecting that answer.

“Yes,” she agrees wearily. “I know what you mean. You know her past, I’m sure - she wasn’t raised as a Tengese child of proper family, so perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising. She may settle as she grows... or she may not. I will, of course, do my part in teaching her. And speaking of behaviour that does not quite cross the line, and wanting for attention...”

She turns towards the door. “Two Opal,” she calls, because even if she couldn’t hear her daughter eavesdropping outside, she’d be able to guess just from the fact that Zanara has an uncanny ability to turn up and listen in whenever she’s the topic of conversation; be it good or bad. “You may come in.”

She hears the mumbled curse, and then Zana enters, sweeping in in a nightdress that she manages to wear as if it was one of Eko’s ballgowns. She dips into a perfect, florid curtsey and holds it painfully low, without wobbling or overbalancing at all. One brown eye, one pale blue lock on Keris without blinking.

Piu’s head is also poking around the door, but maybe it’s kinder to not bring her into this.

“Come in, Piu,” Keris says nonetheless. “Grey Cat, could you give us the room? I will try to impress on Two Opal that she should be better behaved in future.”

Little River is of course a wealthy donor, so the priestess is more than happy to give the donor time with her ward.

As soon as she’s out of the room, Zana flops onto the priestess’s chair, putting her feet up on her desk. “This is a good chair,” she says. “Much better than the hard benches they make us sit on. I’ll need to remember this.”

“Uh... Lady Keris,” Piu says, curtseying herself.

“Hello Zanara,” Keris grins, her poise leaving. “Hello Piu. Come on, sit down, and make yourself comfortable. How have things been? Is the graffiti around the temple yours, Zanara? The food adverts are good enough to make me hungry.”

Zana flaps her hand at Keris. “I undercut the painters, and they pay me for it,” she grins. “It’s not from the temples, but the last time someone tried to mess with my art, they started having really bad dreams~.”

Piu coughs. “I, uh, things have been good, milady. The beds were a bit hard until Zana got her hands on better pillows, but I think I’m used to it now.”

Keris throws her currently-a-daughter an amused look at the mention of better pillows, but nods. “How have you been liking your lessons?” she asks. “Have you been learning a lot? Zanara’s been helping you?”

“I think so!” Piu says brightly. “And there’s lot and lots of new friends here. Some of them were a bit mean because... well, I don’t look like everyone, but then Two Op... Zana made everything work out.”

“I’m the queen bee,” Zana grins, then shakes her head. “Actually, I’m not. Queen bees are useless, Keris. They just lay eggs. I’m more like the... some animal that everyone’s scared of and also likes so they do what they say.” She snaps her fingers. “That’s it. I’m the human.”

Keris snorts. “Good analogy,” she says, amused. “So, Haneyl’s gone off down south to carouse around islands and do terrible things to princes and despots and lords. I’m fairly sure she won’t break the coastline, but we’ll have to wait and see. Eko’s doing something she won’t explain with alchemy in the Ruin, and Calesco is in the adorable throes of true love and poetry when she’s not handling the Lionesses for me, since they’ve finally arrived. I’m not naive enough to think you’ve been doing nothing but studying and painting, so what else have you been up to?”

“I’ve just been studying and learning,” Zana says with her mismatched, wide-open innocent eyes. “Well, OK, and redecorating the surrounding area, especially when I can get them to pay me for painting their walls. And I did teach a small temple not to try to whitewash over my art. But apart from that, I’ve been a good little girl.”

The look Keris gives her is amused, but disbelieving. “And has your art been doing anything to anybody?” she asks. “Or... hmm.” She flicks through possibilities, keeping an eye on Zana’s reactions. “Any more little promissory note games? Hidden cults? Blackmail with shameful secrets?”

“I promise, Keris,” Zana says, “nothing like any of that.”
Unfortunately for her, Piu is a much softer target and flinches slightly. Keris raises an eyebrow, but - mindful of putting Piu in the position of blame - doesn’t press any further. One of the four, though. Probably one of the last two, given that Piu flinched late and Zana’s not the type to repeat a scam she already pulled.
“Just... tell me that whatever it is won’t blow up and set half the district at one another’s throats or pull House Sinasana in,” she sighs. “The matriarch is kind of terrifying, and I’m halfway through some delicate wedding plans.”

Zana sighs extravagantly, one hand going to her brow. “Really, you’re going to be such of a bore about this,” she says, sounding like she’s deliberately mimicking Haneyl. “Can’t you ever just trust me?” From the look of Keris’s expression her answer is no. “Urgh. So I miiiiiiiiiight be introducing some of the other kids into the worship of the Two Faced God, who’s a much prettier god that adults aren’t allowed to know about and has two faces, one male and one female and those who pray to them have some really pretty things happen if they’re pretty prayers.”

“...” says Keris, and she tries, she really tries to keep a straight face and look stern and thoughtful and authoritative...

“Hah!” Zana crows delightedly. “You’re grinning! You think it’s a great idea! I bet you’d’ve wanted a no-adults-allowed god when you were a kid!”

Dammit, Keris thinks. Her tenth soul is too perceptive by half.

“Anyway, d’you want to hear about what happened over Calibration?” she asks hastily, changing the subject. “Some pretty big changes went down - and I can tell you how Lilunu liked your presents.”

“Yes, do do do!” Zana crows. And she then she grins. “And look! Iris learned something new too! Come on, baby! Come to mama!”

Iris pops her head off Keris’s skin, and flows over onto Zana. But the thing is, she doesn’t look like a many-part dragon. She doesn’t look like Iris.

She looks like a Lilunu tattooed in black ink.

The little Speaker for the Yozis looks up at Zana, many-coloured eyes burning bright, and exhales a happy face at Zana.

“Yes, you’re a pretty little girl, aren’t you? You’re my prettiest little girl,” Zana coos over her.

“... oh,” Keris breathes in delight. “You clever girl. Can you be a cat, too? Can you be a tiger like Lilunu can?”

Iris tilts her head, and comes apart like a broken mirror made of black ink, reforming as... well, it’s not really a tiger. It’s more a tiger cub. With six legs.

A Kali.

... fair, Iris really hasn’t seen many non-six-legged tigers.

“Good girl,” Keris praises. “Good girl. Oh, and...”

She tugs Piu over on the seat, shifting the girl closer.

“Since we’re on the subject, Zanara? You remember we talked about a gift for Piu when we last saw Lilunu? How would you say her dancing is now? And Piu, would you still be interested in a magic tattoo like Iris that would help you use your dancing skills better?”

“Still not good enough,” Zana says instantly. Piu’s face falls. “No, no, it’s just a fact. Keris, you’re not going to be able to do this until she’s a woman at least. She’s not got her adult body yet.”

“Oh, I know that,” Keris says, squeezing Piu reassuringly. “That’s not a criticism, Piu, we just need you to finish growing before we can make a tattoo like this for you. It needs to be sized to how big you are. I’m asking if she’s going to get there. You’ve been looking good in the performances I’ve seen,” she adds to Piu, “and you’re improving well from what your teachers tell me, but Zanara’s with you more often.”

“Mmm.” Zana rolls her shoulders. “Well, once she’s as good as she can get at a human, I’ll make her chakra flows prettier and then she can be trained properly without human limits.”

Keris nods. “And Piu? You still want that?”

“Of course!”

“Alright,” Keris nods in satisfaction. “So, we’ll start with Lilunu. She was very, very touched by the gifts we picked out, and the little cat loved her on sight...”

She picks her way through Lilunu, the chakra knot and Iris’s new ability, then doubles back to the glass-storm and the coup of An Teng that Deveh had blindsided them with; explaining things in quick, efficient detail.

“... and I came back here with Asarin,” she concludes. “And something else that can wait until you have a few days off and can come see for yourself somewhere more private.” Hermione will be pleased to see Nara, she suspects - and Zanara will probably be wanting some he-them time.

“‘Kay ‘kay,” Zana says casually. “Love you, Keris. And he-me loves you, mama.”

“I know, darling. Piu, I’m glad to see you’re doing well. Keep up the good work, okay?”

Piu nods eagerly. “I understand.”

Keris says her farewells, both to her soul, her adoptee, and the priestess, and then heads home to her villa for some much needed snuggling with her babies.

She has to make a quick turn back after she realises she left Iris with Zana and that’s probably not a good idea, but she heads home nonetheless.

When she finds her babies, they’re in a big baby pile in the twins’ room. Hany, Aiko, Kali and Ogin are all huddled up in the same bed, while her childminder Gale watches both them and Atiya. Or at least she should be, but she’s dozed off with Atiya in her arms, and so isn’t noticing Kali gently chewing on her brother’s tails.

“Kali, baby,” she chides fondly. “Those aren’t your chew toys, you know.”

Taking Atiya, she breathes in her Gale - smiling at the memories and also rolling her eyes at how much of a pain her twins are making of themselves - and settles onto the bed with them. Kali and Ogin are still in a way that means they’re either dozing or lying in wait, but Aiko and Hany are still awake under the blankets and bodies.

“Hello you two,” Keris hums. “All snuggled up warm in there?”

“Yeah,” Hany says softly, nodding. “I’m with the babies.”

“I’m not a baby,” Aiko protests quickly.

Hany pats her on the head. “You’re small so you’re a baby, even if you talk good,” she informs Aiko.

“I talk well,” Aiko corrects her.

“But Hany,” Keris points out impishly. “You’re small compared to me. Does that mean you’re a baby too?”

Grey eyes - so like her own, like everyone in her family apart from Zanyira - meet Keris’s as the little girl pouts. “I’m not a baby! I’m big!”

“Mmm, I dunno,” shrugs Keris. “I think you might be my baby niece. Sorry, I don’t make the smallness rules, I just follow them.” She grins teasingly.

But before she can argue any more about that, there’s a slithering of tails and Keris’s keen ears pick up the sound of Ogin slipping out of bed and starting to crawl away.
“Ogin,” she calls warningly, her hair darting out and coming back with a pouting baby; red locks wound around his waist. Another tendril secures Kali; wise to the twins’ wily ways of distract-and-divide-forces. Her little babies are getting so big and clever! They’re just a season short of being a year old. In fact, Keris realises with no small worry, the wedding is going to be scheduled around their birthday. She’s going to need to make time for that - and Calesco’s birthday soon after that. And Aiko’s birthday is late in Ruling Air too! And it’s nearly Eko’s birthday!
So many birthdays in so little time.

She needs to know Hany’s birthday as well, she thinks; and asks Dulmea to make a mental note to that effect. Then, dramatically, she lets Kali squirm free of the hair-loop and tackle her in the stomach, sending her falling sideways into the cushions.

“Noooo,” she groans; a smug kitten-daughter curled up victoriously on her stomach and Atiya on her breast. “I am slain. Defeated by the terrible teething tigress. Woe is me. Woe.”

Ogin flops onto her shoulder, and a giggling Hany grapples her arm. Pouting, Keris turns to Aiko. “Well, sweetheart? Are you going to aid me, or will you help my treacherous offspring and niece with their rebellion?”

Aiko considers this.

“Help us!” Hany insists, giggling.

“Yeah!” Kali cheers.

Aiko however decides to help pull Ogin off, arms under his armpits. “We have to keep her safe,” she says seriously. “Bad things happen to children if there’s no one to look after them, so we can’t trap her.”

“Awww,” Keris coos, charmed. “I’m glad I have you to look out for me, darling. Come here.” She tugs Aiko in for a forehead-kiss. “Have you been making friends here?”

Aiko nods. “I made so many friends I don’t even know how to deal with it,” she tells Keris seriously, leaning her head against the woman. “Having to work out who your best friend is each day is really exhausting. Kali was my best friend yesterday, but then she bit me so now Hany is my best friend. And Ogin is my best boy friend. It’s easier with boys because there aren’t any others around.”

Keris nods wisely. “Boys get more complicated as you grow up,” she warns. “Also more irritating, a lot of the time. Watch out for that.”

Aiko nods, clearly committing it to memory.

It’s dark outside, and really the babies should be asleep. They’ve just taken advantage of her tired, over-worked Gale. But she’s a maternal presence here, and she’s either the mother or the mother replacement for everyone here. Even Hany isn’t seeing so much of her mother as she studies for her admission exam. So with her hair to give all of them hugs, she can coax all the babies to sleep. Even if that means they doze off on top of her hair, making it hard to leave.

It’s okay, though. Nestled in among their little bodies like this, hearing the peaceful breathing and the warm weight of them all over her, Keris is content. She’s home, she’s safe, and she’s loved - and she loves, fiercely, these little lives under her protection.

“Sleep well, my darlings,” she murmurs, as she begins to drift off herself. “Sweet dreams.”

---

A few days later, and Keris is perched on top of one of the spires of Windswift College, looking over the temple grounds with a juicy mango in her hand. She’s taking care to hide. Windswift is lousy with gods, in a way that few places she’s seen have ever been. They’re everywhere. The chatter of little gods is a constant noise in the background, and even now she can see there are a pair of gods, sitting on the same roof as her and snuggling in the night air.

They were the ones who brought the mango up so kindly for Keris to filch and snack on.

She’s here - technically in defiance of her cousin’s explicit instructions - to check up on how Zany’s tests have gone, and perhaps if necessary to apply a gentle finger to the scales of consideration. It’ll be a little while before the temple has emptied out enough for her to do the actual sneaking down and reading papers part, so for now she’s listening to the hustle and bustle within, trying to work out which room has the documents she wants, and quietly observing the gods that roam the place.

... and enjoying her mango, of course.

Over the course of a few hours, Keris surmises that... dragons and gods, Windswift is a mess. She's forced to conclude that they must have been building the temple-college on top of itself for hundreds of years. The entire district is higher than surrounding areas. They’ve turned the very area into an artificial hill by how the priests have been here longer than the pirate lords. There’s endless back-rooms, hidden passages that were once main thoroughfares, and many of them are occupied by junior priests who’ve acquired tenure for one reason or another.

Still, for obvious reasons the administrative buildings are somewhat easier to find, though no easier to navigate, and wearing the same yellow robes as the acolytes Keris lets herself into a great scriptorium. The walls here are lined with records, and the air inside is much, much drier than outside. Ancient Shogunate machinery pulses underground, and Keris can taste the jets of dry air pumped up through the grates. In the same building she can hear countless officials and priests in their offices, and the scratching of pens.
Now, how will she find what she’s looking for, she muses. Slipping easily into character, Keris becomes one acolyte among many, carrying supplies to the assessor’s offices. Tests need to be checked, after all, and marking needs ink and paper, and important priests aren’t going to carry that sort of thing around themselves. That’s what underlings and orderlies are for. Invisible people. Really, it’s easy. She’s like one of those wasps who get inside bee nests. She's read about those. The poor bastards don’t know what’s going on, because the guards didn’t stop the intruder.
She asks someone where the records for the current exams are, finds Zany’s ones, laboriously copies them out - gods, why didn’t she bring Rounen with her? - and then puts them back with a timid smile.

An hour later she’s sitting on the roof of her townhouse, feet up as she reads the notes. She can understand every word. She’s just not so up on what it means, because about two thirds of the notes are detailed astrological records on Zanyira and the other third are examiner’s shorthand. She thinks Zany is borderline pass right now. Her marks seem to be erratic, but she’s excelling where raw intellect is needed but failing where she just doesn’t speak the language well enough, or... well, has the gaps in her knowledge a Tairan peasant has which cramming with Rounen couldn’t fill.

But what on earth does things like “Jupiter is rising in the Treasure Trove, and the Sun is in the third House of the Captain” or “the Sorcerer and the Guardians are in equity and the Key is ascendant over the Ewer and the Pillar” even mean?

Grimacing in annoyance, Keris waits for nightfall, whereupon she summons one of Calesco’s little mezkeruby. It has the beginnings of a mask, but only in a trace of white-bone eyebrows and the beginnings of little mandibles around its mouth, which Keris takes to mean it’s in no danger of maturing yet but is probably old enough to be able to translate this astrological crap for her.

“Hello,” she greets... him? Probably-him. “I have something I’d like you to look at and tell me what it means. Can you do that for me?”

The little thing looks up at the cloudy sky, making faint cooing noises in happiness. Then they pause, and tilt their head. “I’m Hito,” they - he - says in a boyish voice. “Why’s the moon the wrong colour?”

“This is a different moon,” Keris explains patiently. Creation’s celestial bodies are a point that quite often need explaining to those citizens of her inner world who haven’t been summoned before. “It’s meant to be that colour, and the stars around it can tell futures. I’ve got a star-chart here I copied from a school for astrologers. Do you think you could try looking at it to get the hang of things and then decipher this reading for me?”

He perks up, bouncing up and down. “Ooh, show me, show me.” He pauses. “Also, get me some food, because I was just about to eat when you summoned me.” He pauses. “No meat,” he says firmly.

After paying the little creature with fruit and rice, Keris gives him the star chart and Zany’s readings and waits for a verdict while he pours over both of them and refers to the stars a few times.

Chewing on a piece of lemongrass, Hito thumbs his way through the papers slowly, making tarry notes on top of them. “Huh,” he says thoughtfully. “I suppose astrology is a lot more fun when you’ve got more things moving in the sky. When Calesco invented stars, that made scrying much funner. We need more of these planet-things.” He looks over at Keris eventually. “So, I think this Zanyira lady has a destiny ruled by the constellations they call the Key, the Treasure Trove, and the Sorcerer,” he says. “They... um, I’m not quite sure what they’re linked to, but the person who wrote this seemed to think that’s very important and means she’ll be a good student who’ll find out lots of secrets and study lots of things if she’s given the chance. Is that what you were looking for, Calesco’s mum?”

Keris grins. “That’s very good, little one,” she praises. “Thank you. That makes me happy to hear. They’ll probably want a student like that.” She pauses. “I’ll have to make sure to look surprised when she tells me she’s been accepted. Okay, off you go back home. You can take the starchart if you want, and make a version for Calesco’s constellations.”
The tar-cherub sinks back into her. Keris has a skip in her step as she heads past the penthouse where Haneyl normally lives - but now it’s where Elly and Zanyira cohabit. She can hear her cousin in there, hard at work studying, and the sound of Elly in the kitchen. She pokes her head in to see Zany, watching her for a moment before swirling in to give her a quick hug. So, she thinks, paying only half her attention to the conversation. Her cousin has a destiny.
Keris is not, by and large, much of a fan of destinies or fate. Her reaction as a child to learning of the Maidens and the fact that somewhere up in the sky were three Bag bitches who’d decided that her hometown should be attacked, and her life with her parents should end and she should get dragged thousands of miles away from home and made a slave...

... well, it hadn’t been positive, to say the least.

But a destiny to study and learn for her genius cousin; she supposes she can accept that. She pats Zany’s arm with her left hand as Zany frets over her performance in the tests, trying to sense whatever blanket of fate is apparently draped over her.

((14 dice, Po-boosting the roll for 10x2+4=24 sux. Whoo!))

It’s the difference between people like her - and Sasi and her souls and so on - and normal mortals. Keris for a moment can feel the vast silken web that Zanyira is just one tiny part of; feel the interwoven threads in five textures that make her up. One of them, the one that feels like old paper and whispering grass and ink, is much stronger than the others, but they’re all there in one way or another. There’s very little of the feeling of soft beds and easy mornings and a warm body in the mix, but next to the dry paper the feeling of hot flushed muscles and cold steel and tiredness is second. There’s the fading residue of sea salt and the feathers of a gull, but that’s dying away leaving only traces.

((Zany’s fate is dominated by Secrets at the moment, with Battles second - likely from the harsh competition of the exams - and not much Serenity. There’s fading residue of a great Journey.))

Tilting her head thoughtfully as a thought strikes her, Keris raises a finger. “Zany,” she interrupts as her cousin moves onto complaining about how the wording on question forty three had been really annoying in how it used a bunch of words she wasn’t sure about and if it was asking what she thought it was asking they could have said it in much less complicated words. “Wait a second, would you? I just had an idea.”

Rooting around in her hair - ah, yes, her art kit is still in one of her quick-stash boxes, and the paintbrushes are there -Keris pulls out the beautiful set of essence-brushes; each a work of art in its own right. Running her fingers along them, she picks out three of the Maiden-brushes; Secrets, Battles and Journeys, and passes them over.

“Just... hold them for a minute,” she says. “And maybe try swiping the green one across some paper.”

There’s not much. A few flecks of green paint, barely there. Zany frowns. “Where did that paint come from?” she asks, playing with the brush. She brushes again, getting a few more flecks. “It’s a nice shade,” she observes.

“It’s fate,” Keris tells her, eyes intent on the tiny amount. “Your fate; condensed and made physical as you live it. These brushes are made to paint with the elements, the light of the sun and moon, and the pigments of destiny.” She smirks triumphantly. “That’s pure Secrets you just put on that paper. Jupiter’s own ink.”

“Really?” Zanyira stares wide-eyed at it. “Wow. How on earth did you get something like that?”

Keris wobbles a hand. “I... may have traded for the brushes with a demon. Slightly. Who got them from, uh... someone back in the early Shogunate, I think? Who might have found them from the era before that, if they’re High First Age work.” She shrugs. “I didn’t stick around to get a full history for them. And don’t worry, I didn’t trade anything bad for them.”

She gets the distinct impression Zany is judging her. But she only sighs. “I need to get back to work,” she says.

---
A few days later, Keris is stuck in more meetings with Jade Fox and his wife. She supposes it’s a mark of respect that she’s brought in on this. But it means she has a lot of very, very boring talks about whether it’s better that the marriage happen in Saata, or in An Teng. Which go on. And on. And on. She lends her support to a Tengese wedding, mentions the negotiations her people have had with the Joyful Wave family and the progress she’s made with the arrangements, and inwardly she curses the dull, dull way things have to be done so slowly here.
At least she can bring Atiya to some of the meetings and distract herself by tending to her baby girl while other people repeat the same things they’ve been saying for hours again and again.

“It does worry me,” Jade Fox says, stroking his greying beard, “that so many respected individuals of the Hui Cha would be heading so far overseas. We have enemies, Little River. Ones I fear would take advantage of this.”

“That is true,” she murmurs, similarly concerned. “Well, there’s always the foreigners I’m hosting. I’ve been taking their measure, and they seem skilled and disciplined, for foreigners. We could put them on an at-need contract in our absence, just in case scum like the Zu Tak started making trouble. If nothing happened, they’d stay out of Memory Of A Golden Land, and if it did... well, we’d have aid.”

She purses her lips. “As for the journey itself, I think we need not fear. My talismans will keep our ships safe, and your fleet is strong. Oh, and speaking of my talismans - I am of course willing to provide a generous discount for the jewellery and other silverwork. After all, a wedding this important deserves the very best, no? And you’ve been very helpful in setting up Shining Foam Upon A Babbling Brook, so it would only be proper to gift you its first works.”

((Per+Pres to suggest hiring the Lionesses as backup in case of trouble at home, and to offer discounts for silverwork in return for the unspoken promise of recommendations and advertising for her smithy. 4+5+3 Perfumed Smoke+2 stunt x2 Hidden Depths Temptress=14. 7x2=14 sux.))

Jade Fox sits back, pausing in his beard-stroking. “We couldn’t look weak in the face of our foes, but perhaps that would let us take more men with us to ensure the safety of our people,” he says thoughtfully. “I will consider it. And of course,” he nods, “I entirely appreciate your generosity in the offer. For so many gifts to be given on your behalf is a good mark of friendship. The luck of the gods should be with us. Perhaps,” he smiles, “perhaps once this is done, it might be a generous thing for me to have good fine silverwork commissioned for the gods’ temples, so that they might bless my son’s marriage.”

Ah, that’s the way it’s done here. Little River will generously gift silverwork for his son’s wedding, and in return he’ll pay - above the odds - for her to make many fine things to give to the temples afterwards. No crude payment has to occur between them. Just... gifts.

Of course, it’s exhausting, and Keris is happy when she can retreat back to her estate to see her babies again. And head down below the buildings, into the hidden under-layers, where Oula has been hard at work with silver-slick mercury sculpting to make a hall of mirrors for Hermione. Candles down here burn in the corners, and one of the walls is carefully smoothed mirrors where Oula has coated it in silver and then shaped glass over the top.
Grinning, Keris heads to one of the uncovered walls; bare stone with a hint of roughness to it. Placing her left hand on the surface, she draws up the memory of Lilunu’s omen weather moving through it, and the stone shifts under her hand to the black basalt of the City. From there it’s a minor effort to warp it further, into Metagaoiyn wood which her root-hands can easily and rapidly work the roughness out of until it’s as smooth as glass - and since one Hellish tree is very like another, the hop to shining Szorenic silver is simplicity itself. Hermione makes an excited noise, and her Oula-reflection circles around to examine the new mirror, resting a hand on mirror-Keris’s shoulder. “Well, well, well, look at you,” she hisses, head tilted. She tastes the air with a forked tongue. “Haven’t you been studying with mother?” The last word is thick with sarcasm.
“It’s a fun trick,” Keris says proudly, because honestly, she really does love this trick. “Do you like your new home? We can get it all covered in mirrors to your liking, and set up a shrine for you to start our work on worship.”

“That’d be just wonderful,” Hermione purrs. “I already have Oula. I can’t make my own demons,” she scowls, “but Oula has enough mercury in her that she’s fine enough to be someone I would make. So she’s my head priestess. And my apostle. Demon lords do that sort of thing. I’ve spied on them in the Conventicle, Keris.”

“Ah? Has she been studying with you, then?” Keris asks, amused and approving. “What’ve you been teaching her?”

“She gives me all the mercury I want, Aunty,” Oula reports. “I don’t have to rely on brushing my hair, and out here there's no Undersea. I can be better than anyone else could be.”

“I’m feeding her my flowers,” Hermione says smugly. “Slowly, slowly - but she’s tolerant to them, and I’ll bring out more of that nature we share. So then she’ll be strong enough to learn sorcery - and that means, Keris, you’ll teach me.”

“I will,” Keris agrees, grinning fiercely. “And you’ll share more of your quicksilver-alchemy with me. How much did you get from Yuula? Did she even notice you watching her?”

“She’s a stupid drunk who wastes her talents,” Hermione coos. “Next time I’m back in Hell, I’ll spy on her more. She doesn’t want to be the best any more. So one day I’ll be better known as a healer than her. And people will come to me and beg me for my help!”

((Wow, she really is free with that Envious Heart usage, isn’t she?))

“Well, speaking of begging you for help,” Keris teases, “How about you trade one flower of knowledge for getting your shrine set up and going over your cult-to-be to make sure all the prayer works?”

Hermione flows from Oula-shape to Keris-shaped, leaning back on her hair and crossing her legs in mid-air. “I’ll teach you the art of all kinds of potions and medicines, I will,” she promises. “I... I want something like that for myself so badly! There are recipes that I know that I can’t use in these mirrors, but you will, Kerissssss. Just do what I want and you will!” The desperation in her voice is clearly evident.

Iris flows out of Keris’s arm and plunges into the mirror, wrapping around her sister-dragon and breathing out a pair of intertwined dragons of rainbow fire. Keris smiles at the view through her eyes.

“Deal,” she says firmly. “Show me how to make potions and elixirs, and I’ll make them for you too. You need only ask.”

In the night hours begins Keris’s tuition in the arts of blood alchemy by the dragon Hermione, making use of the mercury within her own blood. She learns how to grant unnatural strength, sudden intellect, and many other such things - and on the flip side, remove mutations of the form. And of course, the secret art that she stole from Yuula; the art of making mercury that is not mercury, that causes the body to act, for a short while, like it is not ravaged by its poison.

Eko whines that it’s not real blood alchemy, it’s mercury alchemy and not half as cool as the blood alchemy that Eko invented, but Keris thinks her daughter is just annoyed that her dear old mama has found a way to do it without asking Eko for help.

“You could do more with this, couldn’t you?” she asks Hermione, her eyes gleaming hungrily. “That’s one of the things you’re keeping back until I give you more. I can feel how much potential there is in these elixirs. Almost anything men envy, this mercury can grant. Health, longevity... even immortality or enlightenment.”

Hermione laughs. “I’m not teaching you all my secrets!” she insists. “Sorcery! I want sorcery before I’ll teach you that!”

Keris grins. “Sorcery, then,” she purrs. “Oula, come sit. You’re not ready to start learning properly yet, but I think this has at least worth a lesson in what I’m going to teach you.” Her protégé scurries over and sits herself down in front of Keris; side-on to the mirror so that Hermione can mirror her cross-legged attentiveness. A little part of Keris flips over in glee at how her students hang on her every word.

“The path to Sorcery,” she begins, “consists of five Trials, or Stations. Journey, Humility, Tutelage, Fear, and Sacrifice, which is also called Choice...”

It’s a long evening as she lectures, and she can feel her audience’s hunger to learn. Ahh. It takes her back to that beautiful island with Sasi. Good times. Good times.

---

“Darling~” Asarin’s lilting voice breaks her from her focus one evening as she prepares her notes for another lesson for Oula and Hermione. The False Sun is perched on her balcony, legs dangling over the edge. She’s grinning widely, and her head is wreathed in passionate fire. Outside, the moon is waning - it’s late in Ruling Air. Aiko’s birthday is in a few days’ time, and Keris has a little thing planned for her fiercely loyal, very protective foster-daughter. She hopes she’ll get a message from Sasi for that.
She shakes her head, and focusses on the demon lord in front of her again. “Asarin,” she greets her friend warmly. “Happy with your cult?”
“Darling, I am delighted!” She sighs happily. “I’d forgotten how wonderful it felt.”

Keris grins, leaning on the balcony beside her. “Do tell, do tell,” she encourages. “We haven’t been able to sit down for tea in ages, and you sound like you’ve got a lot to say.”

Keris checks the pot, and pours out another cup for her friend. Asarin takes it gratefully, sipping it. “Firstly, it’s just wonderful to be in Creation without the numbing feeling of binding in my head,” she says, wrapping her petite hands around the cup. “Moon-chosen, Star-chosen, one of the few Sun-chosen - they never appreciate me properly, not like you do.” She scowls. “The idiots often let slip that they only summoned me because Octavian was busy! Especially those stupid Star-Chosen! I hate them particularly!”

“Oh, tell me about it,” Keris agrees, and then considers her words. “Actually... yes, do tell me about it. I don’t know nearly enough about those annoying pests, and I’m pretty sure my plans ran into one in Nexus a few years ago. But later. What’s secondly?”

“Oh, your little lionesses are darlings,” Asarin says happily. “It’s nice to not be propositioned constantly by smelly, hairy human men! Those girls are a bit uncouth in the way they act and dress, but I’m sure that they’ll learn. I had some wonderful cultists a lot like them back in the Shogunate. They also worshipped Ahlat, can you believe it? He’s changed the way he accepts worship and he’s got a fairly disgusting habit of keeping a giant harem of women, but he’s still around. I’ve fought him a few times. He’s...” she pulls a face, “... very strong, for a god.”

“Strong,” Keris agrees, “but an insufferable bore. Did they tell you how his worshippers cast them out? Some of the pettiest reasons, just because he’s a jealous womaniser.”

“Exactly! Exactly!” Asarin rubs her side. “I’ve got a scar from him that never quite went away,” she adds. “How dare he! Well, anyway, the girls are very receptive to my worship. Probably because they’re used to having to worship that disgusting god that having someone who isn’t a stupid lecherous man makes them very understanding!”

“I hear Nandi’s daughter is one of the more uncouth ones,” Keris comments idly. “She could probably do with some of those Shogunate manners. What symbols are you having them use, anyway?”

She pauses, and her eyes widen. “Ooo,” she says gleefully. “You know what you could do? Ahlat’s symbol is the horns, right? I bet you could stylise your gorgeous hair-tails to look just enough like them to pass as the same symbol to mortals. Then you could start stealing some of his worship right out from under him!”

“Way ahead of you, darling,” Asarin smirks. “I’ve stolen worshippers from him before.”

“I knew there was a reason I liked you,” Keris smirks. “So, did you find anything on Shuu Mua? You were off looking around for a week or two before the Lionesses showed up. And, of course...”

She gestures to her estate. “All built on Shogunate ruins. Not intact, obviously, but I’m pretty sure this whole island was solid city once, and that this hill was a single tower, hundreds of metres high.”

Asarin sighs, taking a long sip of tea. “It’s just so sad, Keris,” she says, fire flaring down. It sits low against her head, barely recognisable as fire. “I didn’t realise where we were. But... oh, around a thousand years ago, a Star-chosen bound me here. He called on me to destroy a rogue djiin- which I did, of course - and our battle went through a town. Oh, it was glorious. The djiin set the fuel depot on fire, and I slew him when I cracked a great vessel of air-rich coolant over him with my hammer, then shattered him. But Keris, the town is gone. Nothing remains of it. And I only knew it existed because I found a waystone up there that pointed me to it.” She huddles down, hands wrapped around her tea. “I poked around in the ruins of the town, hoping they’d left some record of my battle with the djiin. Nothing. Just... foundations, covered with trees.

“I set all the trees on fire and it hardly made me feel any better at all.”

“Oh, Asarin.” Keris gives her a hug, slinging a sympathetic arm around her shoulders. “We lost so much to the Contagion and the Crusade, didn’t we? I’m a child of this Age. I’ll probably never even understand how much we lost.”

“Oh well,” Asarin says. She offers her tea for the refill. “How are you doing, anyway? How is that impertinent brattish soul of yours?”

“Haneyl is off down south, touring the islands and setting up some contacts and trade deals for me,” Keris smiles. “And probably breaking the hearts and, uh, various other organs of assorted princes and lords and despots down there. I’m fairly sure the Violet Coast will survive her. Mostly intact. Ish.”

Asarin doesn’t seem entirely happy with this. “Well, tell me when she gets back,” she says. “I want to see if she’s really just talk some time.”

“Do try not to go overboard,” Keris asks chidingly. “She is my daughter, remember, and she’s young. I don’t mind you competing - Makers know it would be hard to stop her - but keep it friendly?”

Asarin sighs. “It’s not like we can kill each other,” she says. “At worst we’d reform a year later.”

“Still,” Keris chides. “It would be her first time, and I’d rather spare her that for a while - and spare you a year’s delay in getting at those ruins if she got lucky. Now,” she adds, changing the subject before Asarin can say anything about how lucky Haneyl would need to get, “I’d appreciate it if you shared a little about those pesky, infuriating Star-Chosen. Oh, and food. We should have something to eat with this tea. How are you liking the cuisine down here in the Southwest?”

They talk a bit about that. Asarin’s stories of the Star-Chosen is mostly her bitching about various ones who she didn’t feel were respectful enough. She does mention that they tend to use her for ‘dealing with problems’ - rogue spirits, chaos creatures, and (she’s furious about this) throwing fights against heroes to make them look better.

Still, they talk long and Keris finds out a few interesting things that will probably come in useful later, if she ever runs into another star-chosen.

---

It’s at the end of the month when Keris gets two distinctly unexpected - and not very pleasant - bits of news. The first is when she goes to check on the Baisha, in the hidden port she set up for it.
She finds it beached, with extensive hull damage and crude patches. For a moment or two, she just... stands there. Staring.
Then her caste mark flares, and she storms aboard in a fury that has demons scattering like startled rabbits to get out of her way.

“What in the dreaded names of the Makers fucking happened here?” she roars, slamming the door to the bridge open with enough force that it crashes off the wall and slams shut on the rebound. By that time Keris is already inside, her hair writhing like a nest of furious snakes, feathers rasping across one another, bloody lightning flickering around her hands and an empty wheel of green fire burning on her brow.

Almost as one, the bridge crew hit the floor, bowing before her.

“Your highness,” Captain Neride whispers, face pressed to the ground. “The damage is not as bad as it looks and-”

“The damage?” Keris cuts her off. “The damage is a bunch of holes in my High First Age hull, Captain Neride! Explain to me how this isn’t as bad as it looks for a submersible ship! How did it happen? What did this?”

The story comes out. It happened a few weeks ago, when they hit a Zu Tak raiding party at night, ramming the main vessel and sending boarders in to plunder it before they sank the barge.

Things went swiftly downhill, they lost a large chunk of the marine complement, and Dead monsters as powerful as a demon lord - “Three or four of them, your highness!” - started tearing into the ship. They managed to limp away, having to submerge with a heavily damaged hull to force the Greater Dead off them, and it took the Priest to slay the Greater Dead that got inside and butchered a good number of the crew.

“A raiding party,” Keris repeats, simmering with anger. “And how big was this raiding party? Because my orders were for hit-and-run assaults. Probing attacks to test their strength and response times. A careful, cautious assessment of what kind of force they could field, taken from isolated ships without being noticed so as not to alert them before our true campaign. What part of this, Neride, sounded like ‘attack a full-strength raiding party head-on without doing proper recon’?”

Mumbling is her only answer, and Keris turns around and lashes out at the wall; slamming her left fist into it with a crash that echoes around the bridge far more loudly than any mortal blow could have done.

When she turns back, her eyes are deadly.

“Count yourself very lucky,” she hisses, “that my ship wasn’t downed completely by those log-raft-dwelling scum. Count yourself incredibly fortunate that your incompetence has at least given us confirmation of a deathlord behind their contemptible rabble, because nothing else could hold the loyalty of three or more Greater Dead and expend them on a single raid; however important it might be. You are beached until further notice - until such a time as I find an assignment you won’t botch as badly as this one. I suggest you spend that time hoping very, very hard that I can explain to Lord Ligier how his masterwork got damaged in a way that will not have him unleash his light on all those responsible, because he is likely the only craftsman who can repair it to good enough condition to be usable for our work in the Southwest.”

Furious grey eyes sweep the bridge, taking in Neride, the Helmsman and even the Priest; drawn up from the shrine amidships by the shouting and the terrified fleeing crew.

“Am I understood?” hisses Princess Keris of the Althing Infernal, and her subordinates tremble at her wrath.

((Per + Presence + 3 dot stunt to OVERTURN THE POWER DYNAMICS OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH NERIDE))
((4+5+3 Prince of Hell Style+3 stunt+9 Malfean ExD {terror, wrathful glory, authority}=24. Enhancing with Attention-Holding Grace for Keris to be terrible and beautiful and impossible to look away from. 16 successes, wahey! Geez, even the Priest is like “yyyyeah, not going to get into the middle of this”.))
(([10 10 10 10 10 9 9 8 8 8 7 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 1]))

It is in this moment that the relationship between Neride and Keris unquestionably, undoubtedly changes. There had always been a tension before. Now it is clear where the power descends from. In which way the hierarchy flows.

“As clear as Her crystals,” Neride moans, serpentine face pressed to the floor.

“Good,” Keris growls, and storms out. Even the Priest moves hastily out of the way to avoid her lashing hair. She stays long enough to take stock of the damage - the hull rents, the internal damage from water and melee, the loss of... fuck, far too many of her marines; it’s going to be a bitch summoning replacements - and then heads back to Silver Lotus in a foul mood; stormclouds brewing over her head metaphorically, if not actually literally.

The noise of Saata promises many entertaining diversions - but Keris isn’t heading there. She just wants her babies. Because dragons know, Ogin wouldn’t get her precious, expensive boat damaged at in that way. No no no, he’d be a much better captain than that! He wouldn’t take stupid risks, except for maybe jumping off high places and napping in the engine room!

Her thoughts go on like that for quite some time as she approaches her home and emerges from the water like a dolphin, landing on dry land and shaking herself dry. Not that it helps much. The monsoon rains are still here, and it’s nearly as wet on land as it is in the water. She hopes Xasan is fine out there in Shuu Mua... oh, who is she kidding; Evedelyl will be looking after everyone and won’t let them get too wet.

When she vaults in through her bedroom window, she finds that Ogin and Kali have apparently broken out of their bedroom. Kali is methodically picking things up off the surfaces, looking at them, and them dropping them off the edge, while Ogin happily sorts through the detritus accumulating on the floor. The room smells of her expensive perfumes which have oozed out after he’s pulled off all the lids.

Keris stares, twitches, and takes a very slow breath in. And then out. And then in again, and then out with more force and feeling behind it.

“Kali,” she says in a much, much calmer tone than she would have used if not for magically breathing out most of her fury. It’s... still rather strained. “Ogin. What are you doing with mama’s pretty things? Stop that now, come on.”

Kali considers that. “No!” she answers happily, and pushes the makeup off. Ogin sneezes as blusher explodes in a cloud.

“Kali,” Keris says warningly. “Mama has had a very bad day, and you are breaking her things. That is naughty. Stop it now, and apologise.”

“No!” Kali crows, batting another bottle of perfume down.

“Last chance, young lady!” Keris growls, moving close enough to catch them both and winding her hair around to snare Ogin’s tails before he can make a run for it. “Say ‘sorry’, or you are going to be in big trouble. Both of you are going to be in big trouble.”

Kali squirms in her hair. “Noooooo!” she protests, kicking and squirming in her mother’s grasp.

“Right, that’s it,” Keris declares, picking them both up and hauling them out of the bedroom. She ignores Kali’s wailing and uses the time as she walks to consider punishments. Hurting them is out of the question; she refuses to raise a hand to any of her babies. Boredom would work - sitting in the naughty corner, for instance - but keeping them from escaping is nearly impossible. Maybe she can make a sanctum for it at some point; something dull and grey with nothing fun to do, as a time-out step they can’t get out of easily.

But for now, loss of privileges seems her best bet. Plonking them down in one of the empty playrooms with nothing breakable inside, Keris glares at her children.

“I know you’ve been causing trouble all season,” she scolds. “You’ve been naughty around my Gales, you’ve been escaping and breaking things all over the place, and you’ve been playing pranks on everyone you can find. Well, enough is enough. Until you behave, you get no more romps outside, no more picture puzzles, no more honey or sweets, and no playtime with Hany and Aiko. One week, starting today. If you say you’re sorry at the end, you get them back.”

Crouching down and trying to resist the devastated looks on the twins’ faces, Keris leaves the stick to hang for a moment and then switches over to the bait.

“I love you both,” she says firmly. “I do. You are my wonderful, brilliant babies. But you can’t behave like this. You can’t act out all the time. You have to learn to be nice to other people, and part of that means not breaking their things. I know you can do this, Ogin, Kali. You’re my clever, brave little moonbeam and feather. That’s why it disappoints me so much when you do bad things. Promise me you’ll try to be good from now on, okay?”

((Two-pronged attack of “scolding & loss of privileges” punishment followed by “mama loves you, I know you can do this” encouragement.))
((Keris is Being A Parent.))
((Largely using lessons she learned from her limited successes and more awkward failures with her older children.))

Kali is in full-blown tantrum mode right now, while even Ogin looks upset. He nods seriously at that.

Keris nods firmly, picks them up - after pinning bird-Kali’s talons and beak so she can’t draw blood - and draws them into a hug, rocking them until Kali runs out of energy and starts to calm down. She wants her children to know that they’re loved, even when she’s angry at them or punishing them for misbehaviour. But she’s learned from her successes in raising her souls, and she’s learned from her failures - from Eko’s irreverence, Haneyl’s arrogance, Zanara’s attention-seeking provocation.

She doesn’t love her souls any less for the ways they push the limits. But she’s determined to be a better parent for her twins. And Keris has finally learned, she realises ruefully, that sometimes that means laying down the law and upsetting her children now so they don’t grow up spoiled in the future.

Gods. If only her childhood self could see her now.

She’s exhausted by the time she heads downstairs, having left the tired twins to nap, and just wants a hot bath. There are voices here - Calesco talking to a man, and occasionally Aiko chipping in. She’s still only a baby - she shouldn’t be up this late.

Keris drowsily pokes her head in the door to remind Aiko that she needs to go to bed. Then she’s suddenly awake.

Because Calesco is here, talking to Testolagh, and Aiko is curled up on her father’s lap.

“... what,” Keris says blankly. There’s not even any room for shock anymore, though her hair is already rearing up over her head into a somewhat-confused attack position. “What... what?” She pauses. “What?”

“Oh, you’re back, mama,” Calesco says, hands wrapped around her tea. As it’s dark, she’s wearing a half veil so she can drink without using a straw. “Look who showed up.”

“Daddy’s here, Aunty Keris,” Aiko says seriously.

“I... can see that, yes,” Keris manages. “Um. How is he here?” She considers that for a moment, turning the question over in her head. “No, yeah, how is he here? How did you get here? How do you even know where ‘here’ is? I haven’t given the Reclamation my address, even Sasi hasn’t... visited...”

Her head slowly turns to put Calesco in her sights.

“... yet,” she finishes darkly.

Testolagh rises, carefully placing Aiko down on the soft couch.

Then he drops to one knee. “I have come, with the owlriders I promised you,” he says. “They are in the city-proper.”

Keris blinks.

Then some of the furious knotted-up tension in her shoulders dissipates. Owlriders. Yes. Good. Her promised owlriders - lots more lovely followers to be loyal to her, who honour her as their saviour Mother Mortar; nice things for her that are hers and who can help keep what’s hers safe.

The serpent in the back of her mind croons. Her Haneylian side burns in happy sated satisfaction. The parts of her that live in Rathan and Vali pulse in satisfaction at the debt repayed and the promise fulfilled, and some of the awfulness of the day slips away.

“Right,” she agrees. “Yes. The owlriders.” One hand comes up to tug her hair back down, and she squeezes her eyes shut. “I’ll have to find homes for them, but... yes, this is good; this will help.” It won’t make up for the loss of the Baisha as a mission-capable asset, but mobile scouts and aerial courier-fighters will still be useful.

“Thank you, Testolagh,” Keris sighs, and staggers over to a chair to collapse into it. “Will you be staying long?”

“Yes,” he says, not rising. His one good eye, and his one brass eye both lock on her face. “I have requested of Unquestionable Lilunu that I be transferred to your Division. By the terms of the arrangement, you may command me for two seasons of every year.” He pauses. “And I am here for my daughter.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“... and then I was like ‘I can’t be dealing with this now’ and made my excuses and went to bed,” Keris explains to Dulmea, Sirelmiya, and Firisutu.

The three stranger souls within her have formed a little council - especially in the absence of the kids - and they were waiting for her when she went to consult with them.

The City has undergone no small amount of renovations. Keris hasn’t been paying much attention to her mother recently, and she’s gone in a rebuilding spree in the centre of her domain. The architecture is quite unlike anywhere else - Hellish, but in a wispy, almost ephemeral way that stretches up high and forms canyons and alleyways the wind whistles through lyrically.

“And you are not pleased about his presence?” Dulmea enquires, pouring more tea into Sirelmiya’s oversized cup.

“He’s Testolagh,” Keris grumps. “He doesn’t like me because I’m with Sasi too, he’s... very much not a subtle person at all, and he has a bunch of hang-ups about honour and honesty and all that stuff.” She flaps a hand dismissively at the notions. “There are ways he’ll be useful, and I’m glad he came through with the owlriders for me, but... it’s gonna be kind of a pain having him here without him disrupting stuff. Though, the flip side is that he’s another spear to use against Deveh if I see any hint of crystal poking into the Anarchy.”

There is a hissing sound, and steam emerges from the top of one of Eko’s strange distillation towers over on the ruins, reaching almost as high as Dulmea’s own tower where they sit.

Firisutu sits cross-legged in the air, each pair of hands posed in a meditative gesture. “The question then is how to make best use of him to protect what is ours,” he observes.

Sirelmiya hums to herself. “Why not love him?” she suggests, taking her tea gratefully from Dulmea. “It would make things much simpler, and Sasimana’s heart would be pleased to know you love who she loves.”

The others turn to stare at her. “Don’t encourage her,” Dulmea says wearily.

“Love makes everything simpler,” Sirelmiya counters.

“No, I believe you are quite wrong there.”

“I can’t fall in love with him when he keeps himself closed off and doesn’t even like me,” Keris says firmly. “Hells, Ney showed me more vulnerability and trust than Testolagh has, and to him I was a demon-tainted assassin come to murder one of the high-ranking nobles he was responsible for protecting. The most Testolagh’s ever opened up to me is saying where he came from. He saw me in the middle of my breakdown, and he never returned that trust with anything.”

Sirelmiya nods. “Well, should you choose to love either man, I will be sure to extend my temple,” she observes placidly.

Pinching the bridge of her nose with a lock of hair, Dulmea sighs. “You are right, child,” she says. “He is a stiff, proud - even arrogant - man. He will not easily sway to your whim, and though he will no doubt give you the two seasons of service he promises you, he will not be one of your pawns.” She tilts her head. “It will be even harder to get him to do what you want than it is Haneyl.”

“Mmm,” Keris agrees. “If Asarin’s like a grown-up Haneyl, he’s more like a Vali who’s loaded himself down with promises about what he is and isn’t willing to do.” She rubs her nose and sighs wearily. “Maybe I should just set him to smashing wyld zones down south and harvesting the fae there,” she mutters. “Or killing off the Zu Tak Greater Dead. I know he can lead and command and rule, but if he can’t do it subtly he’s basically a blunt instrument. I can’t easily hide him from the Realm, not even south of me. Not with the trade coming up the coast.”

“A thought,” Firisutu says. “He has experience with command and leading individuals, does he not? And he has brought the owl-riders with him. The Lionesses are, as it stands, only mortal. But with him to lead them - and bulk them out with others, it might be possible to build them into something quite potent.” He raises one finger. “Or perhaps not the Lionesses for him, but there are plenty of small islands further south it might be possible to conquer, far from the eyes of the Realm.”

Keris wrinkles her nose in distaste... but then pauses. “Huh,” she murmurs. Then, louder, “hang on... Dulmea? Those notes that Neride” - she punctuates the name with a scowl - “made last year while the Baisha was scouting the Anarchy, can you dig them out? I remember there were a few islands that caught my interest. Maza uses slave labour and its crops make it rich. And there’s another one further south that’s dealing with a rebellion, from what I’ve heard in rumours. One that might win.”

Dulmea nods. “There are many such islands in the South West,” she says. “By Rounen’s notes, it is Alahi which rebelled three years ago. And there are countless islands that make their fortune from slave-harvested sugar, tobacco and cotton, which then travels north to Saata, and beyond. Once to Buk Moi, now other places.”

“Mmm.” It’s a dark, foreboding sound. “You know, it occurs to me that freed slaves would have good reason to be grateful to the ones who helped free them. In terms of trade from their new islands, worship, support...” Keris smiles viciously. “I think we’ll have to look into toppling a few of the islands making their fortunes like that. The regimes in power right now are mostly the ones the Realm is content with being there; the ones that sell to them. That should change.”

Dulmea smiles. “The Unquestionable will be pleased with that - and I am sure you are not at all considering the losses that An Teng will take if the trade from the South dries up.”

“And perhaps,” Firisutu says, “should the Realm seek to shut down such a rebellion - well, the fleet they send will be at the end of a very long supply chain.”

A beatific smile settles on Keris’s face. “Of course not, mama,” she says with blatantly deceptive innocence. “And yes, Firisutu. Long, complicated oceanic supply chains have a terrible habit of just... vanishing. The storms down here are so unpredictable, you know?”

“It would be a wise idea to inform Sasimana of any such rebellion in advance,” Sirelmiya says. “She likes to know what will happen ahead of time - and maybe she can push to have people who might threaten her lead any reprisal - which she can tell you about.”

Keris nods. “I’ll send her a dream - and maybe talk to Calesco about how she can enter dreams in full, as well as just sending them,” she agrees. “Her arrows are good, but it would be better if I could talk to Sasi in her sleep and she could talk back.”
The other uses such a dream might be put to go unsaid, though not unthought given Keris’s faint blush. Sirelmiya purrs happily at the idea.
Clearing his throat, Firisutu shifts his hands to another meditative pose. “And on that note, though,” he says, “what of Aiko? She is not your child of flesh, but...” he trails away, his meaning entirely clear. From a little hateful crying baby, Aiko has grown up into a part of Keris’s extended family. She is Haneyl’s little sister - and adores her big half-sister - and she’s weirdly attached to Eko. And of course, she’s been living with the twins and her niece.

Keris purses her lips. “I’m gonna argue that she should stay with me,” she says firmly. “Sasi entrusted her to me - and yeah, maybe part of that was because I’m here in the warm city and he was up in freezing cold nowhere, but it still stands. She has friends here. She gets along really well with Hany and Kali and Ogin. Piu said she’ll teach her how to dance. Vali’s promised to look after her. Taking her away from that would be... he might love her, but she was lonely with just one parent and no friends of her own.”

She sighs. “I guess I’ll ask her, but I’m pretty sure I know what she’ll say. And - urgh - I’ll say he’s welcome to visit her as often as he likes, as long as he’s careful not to be seen coming or going. I can open my home to him if it means she’s happier here.”

“I doubt he will take too kindly to that,” Dulmea observes. “It might be best to have a compromise fall-back position prepared. And to play up how he has no stable home for a young girl.”

“Mmm,” she grunts. “I suppose I could argue that for the two seasons he’s working for me, she should definitely stay with me - because I might have him bouncing all over the Anarchy smashing things and leading rebellions, which is no place for a two-year old. And try to swing a third, so that she spends more time with her friends than without.”

“Perhaps.” Dulmea sighs. “There will no doubt be rows.”

“I still think it would be better to love him,” Sirelmiya says.

Keris gives the great cat-bird-woman a hug. “I love Sasi,” she says, and breathes in the desert rose scent and lets herself luxuriate in just how true those words are. “And Aiko is adorable. So I’ll do my best to make her happy, for her own sake and for her mother’s.”

---
In the morning, Keris wakes, and has to go through the stressful and exhausting process of making it clear to Kali that no, she cannot go out and play in the sun because she is being punished for smashing up Mama’s things. There is a tantrum. And then Ogin uses the chance to try to make a get-away. It takes her a frustratingly long time to wrangle them both, but eventually they’re contained in a playroom that all of the more fun toys have been removed from, under the watchful eyes of Oula and a Gale committed to upholding their punishment, and Keris can go downstairs and talk to the figurative yeddim in her manor.
... mostly figurative, anyway. Urgh. She’d forgotten how much taller than her Testolagh was.

She opts to divide and conquer, going for Aiko first. Like her mother, she’s... not great with early mornings, and in fact still hasn’t gotten up even with the extra time it took Keris to dress, corral and pacify the twins. She slips into the dark room and sits down on the side of the bed, smiling down at the little lump under the covers.

“Aiko,” she singsongs. “Time to wake up, sweetheart.” Delicately, her hair begins to pluck music from the air - the strange, wailing, high-pitched tune whose alien cadences make Keris think of snakes and shadows and the Demon City. Aiko’s own essence-song is a reliable means of entertaining her, and has been ever since she was a baby.

Aiko sticks a tousled head out from under her sheets, and rubs her eyes with two little fists, yawning with a high pitch. Her bright green eyes gleam from under heavy lids. “Good morning, Aunty Keris,” she says with another yawn. She crawls over, resting her head on Keris’s lap.

“Good morning, little princess,” Keris says warmly, stroking her hair. “Did you sleep well? You’ve got a big decision to make today, once you’re all woken up and fed.”

“‘M tired,” she mumbles into Keris’s lap.

“That’s because it’s not past noon yet,” Keris teases. “You’re like your mother there. And it’s also,” she adds with a sterner note, “because you were up past your bedtime last night. You know those rules are there for a reason.”

She holds the gently chiding look for a moment before relaxing into a smile. “Well, I can forgive it this once, since your daddy had arrived. I’ll just tell him off instead. And let it not be said I don’t do my duty. Shall I carry you down to breakfast, little princess?”

Aiko considers this. She sits up, and holds her arms up to Keris imperiously. It’s just the same gesture Haneyl used to use when she was smaller.

Grinning, Keris lifts her up - not without a grunt of effort and the aid of several hair-tendrils - and bears her downstairs on a magnificent scarlet throne. Admittedly this scarlet throne is made of hair, rather than dragons, but Keris feels it’s still pretty fitting for what she now knows about the little girl’s heritage.

“So,” she says as Aiko tucks into breakfast. “How much did your daddy tell you about why he was here?”

Aiko is an incredibly tidy eater for someone her age and size. Her thick black brows - something she got from her father - furrow. “He said he is going to be living down here now,” she says, pausing in her careful picking over her grilled fish. She pauses. “And that I was going to be living with him.”

“Mmm,” Keris hums. “He’s come down to help me with the job I do here, like how I used to help your mother with things in An Teng. But we haven’t decided exactly what he’ll be doing yet, and I think you should get a say in who you’re going to be living with. Don’t you?”

Aiko pauses, and purses her black lips. “Um. Do I? M-mama just said I’d be living with you now.”

“I think you should,” Keris says firmly. “When your mama said that, it was for good reasons - she’ll be around scary people like Asarin who don’t have to do what she says, and it would be dangerous for you to live with her until she’s in charge there. She didn’t want you to be hurt by scary people, and she’s trying to set things up so you can go live with her and be safe if you want to.”

She pauses to let that sink in before continuing. “But this isn’t like that. You’re not in danger here, and we don’t even know what your daddy will be doing, so we don’t know if you’d be in danger with him. That means that where you live isn’t about where you’ll be safe, it’s about where you’ll be happy. And that means you should get a say - because who knows more about what’ll make you happy than you?”

“Where would I go with him?” Aiko asks. “Would my friends get to come with me?”

“Well,” Keris says, reaching out to hold her little hand, “like I said, we haven’t worked out exactly what he’ll be doing. But it probably won’t be here on Saata, so Kali and Ogin and Hany would have to stay here.”

Aiko makes a little noise, and wraps her arms around herself, lips wobbling. “W-well, if that’s what papa wants,” she says in a tiny voice.

“You don’t have to go,” Keris tells her gently, squeezing her hand. “I’m certainly going to tell him you should live here at least part of the time, to be with your friends and to learn and to be safe. Even if you lived here all the time, you could still see him - nothing stops him visiting. It’s your choice, Aiko, because it’s your happiness. Choices are important. You get to choose.”

Lips wobbling, eyes running, Aiko tries to hold back her tears and fails. “I d-don’t want to move again,” she whispers. She swallows down a choked sob. “I... I w-want mama.”

It’s a reminder that, after all, she really is very young.

Keris scoops her up and gives her a cuddle, rocking her back and forth and playing her essence-song again; the high, lilting notes wrapping around them like a blanket.

“Here’s what I think would be a good idea,” she murmurs, once Aiko isn’t visibly on the edge of tears anymore. “I think you should stay here for three or four seasons every year, in a nice safe stable place where you can be with your friends and I can relay messages between you and your mama. Then in the other one or two seasons, when your daddy is doing something safe in one place, you can live with him and have adventures and he can treat you like the little princess you are. And then when you start to miss your friends, it’ll be time for you to come back here with lots of stories to impress Hany and things to show Ogin and foods for Kali to eat. Does that sound good? It won’t be long until your mama’s done with her important work over the sea, and then she can come back here as well.”

“W-why did she have to go?” Aiko mumbles into Keris’s shoulder.

Blowing out a slow breath, Keris wonders how she’s even meant to begin answering that question. Hells, Keris isn’t fully sure of the answer herself. Because Sasi obeys the Unquestionable more than a bit too fanatically, and will ruin her own life and walk into a deathtrap if they tell her to? Because Deveh fucked them both over in his coup of An Teng; something he must have been planning for months or years? Because the demon princes aren’t human, and don’t care or think about the impact on a little girl when they order a single mother to attend to a high-stakes mission on the Blessed Isle?

Or because the Immaculate Faith hunts down and murders people like Keris and Sasi - and Aiko - and forces them to sneak and hide to survive? Because the Realm is a jade-fisted superpower even with its empress missing, and can’t be allowed to regain its drive and direction? Because Creation is an awful, bitter place full of war and strife and conflict?

None of them are answers appropriate for a two-year old. Not even a smart one. Sighing helplessly, Keris runs a soothing hand up and down Aiko’s back and lets her cling.

“She didn’t want to leave you, sweetheart,” she promises. “She loves you so, so much. But even grown-ups aren’t all-powerful, and sometimes to keep you safe we have to go do things in other places. I’m sorry.”

“Will Papa go again if Mama comes back? D-do I only get one at a time?”

“No, darling,” Keris promises. “Your papa is staying here now, and I’m trying to make it so your mama can come back and stay here as well. And you have me, too, even if I’m not exactly your mama or papa.”

“‘Mkay.” Aiko swallows. “Aunty.”

Keris kisses her on the forehead. “Good girl. Eat your breakfast. I’ll go talk to your papa, and I’ll come get you once we’ve got the stuff about what he’ll be doing out of the way so you can have your say about where you want to live. Sound good?”

Aiko nods, sucking on her thumb.

“Good,” Keris repeats. “Now come on! You need to eat up if you’re going to grow up as big and strong as Haneyl someday! I want to see that plate clean when I get back, just like she would.”

With Keris’s coaxing, Aiko finishes her breakfast - yawning as she does it. Internally, she sighs. Aiko very much does take after her mother there.

---

Outside, the insects buzz. Howler monkeys scream outside. Light rain drizzles outside.

Testolagh stares out at the window, down at the camp of the Lionesses. “Harbourites?” he asks, not facing Keris, hands folded behind his back.

“My mother’s people,” she responds; giving him no more than that. “So. The Althing wouldn’t have sent you here without a task, and you claim three seasons of the year without my orders. What has Lilunu sent you here to do? I’ll need to change my plans to take it into account.”

Testolagh shudders. “I felt her squirming roots in my skull,” he says softly. “And the mission they have given me is to build them an army. The mightiest in the Anarchy.”

((Urge to Devour: Control the Greatest Fighting Force in the Anarchy))

Keris’s eyes widen. “Huh,” she mutters softly. “Huh. Hmm. Okay. I can work with that. I can definitely work with that.”

She cracks her knuckles. “Alright then. I’m here to dissolve the Realm’s grip on the southwest, and to be the sweet, innocent flower to Deveh’s flashy crystal nonsense up in An Teng, so that if they expend themselves on him, their exhausted campaign won’t look any further.”

She jerks her thumb backwards, towards the coastline. “As such, I’d advise you to go south. There are dozens of islands whose masters make a fortune from sugar, tobacco and cotton on the backs of slaves and sell it to the Realm. At least one island has an open slave rebellion, and there are always whispers and freedom trails among the others. Spark rebellions, free the downtrodden, overthrow the masters and you’ll have your army - and I’ll have clean trade without any people as cargo, while the Realm is starved of profit.”

A snap of her fingers, and she grins. “Three birds, one stone. Do it far enough south and the Realm won’t catch wind of you for a while - I can muddy the waters here so that rumours don’t reach them - and if they do try to take back the islands with a fleet... well. You’ll meet them head-on with a potent fighting force. And they’ll have long, oceanic supply lines leading right past my centre of power. Storms are so common in the Anarchy, you know. Ships just get lost at sea all the time. It’s tragic.”

“Hmm.” He turns to face her, his mismatched eyes taking her in. “So I’m exchanging cold for heat and humidity. Better than the owlriders, at least.”

“I’ll be bringing you north again on my seasons,” Keris says. “The Zu Tak are a problem. They’ve got a deathlord backing them, they have Greater Dead things among their fleets; I want them gone and I’ve passed the point of being subtle about it, at least where they’re concerned. But that can come later - in Wood and Fire, when you’ll thank me for bringing you further north to cooler climates. Right now...”

She sighs, bracing herself for a fight. “Right now, we need to talk about Aiko.”

“Do we?” He’s a lump, Keris thinks irrationally. His expression is calm, solid. “She’s my daughter. I was a parent before this. Once I’m set up and have a place suitable for a young girl, she’ll live with me. When that’s not possible or when I’m following your orders and you send me to a place like the Wailing Fen, you will keep her safe for me so I don’t have to worry about her safety.”

This proud, stubborn stuck-up asshole envies her. The gleaming of Keris’s eyes tells that. Oh, he’s so proud about his honour, so holier-than-thou, but he envies her! Ha!

((Envies Keris, proudest trait - Temperance 5, 3-higher than Keris.))

And he expects her to be irrational and flighty, but to - grumpily - concede in the face of the reasonable concession that he doesn’t take his daughter straight away, but waits until he has a stable, safe place to raise her.

“Like how she was living with Sasi, when she was the one with the stable, suitable place,” Keris says affably, outwardly seeming to agree. “Yes?”

Testolagh frowns. “No. Because Sasimana is her mother, and an infant needs their mother,” he says. “The mother has first rights to a nursing child, then her sisters, then the father’s sisters. But that is only until they are weaned.”

“Mmm,” Keris hums, sounding unimpressed. “Testolagh, have you given any thought to what she’ll do with you down there? Because she was lonely with Sasi. She had no friends, no playmates, nobody her own age who could keep her company. Human children her own age aren’t smart enough, and the ones on her mental level were too old. She was miserable. She has friends here. She’s happy here. And she’s terrified of losing that if she leaves. Have you actually talked to her about it and heard how she feels?”

He looks at her. “I told her last night. She said she wanted to live with me.”

“Yes, because she loves you and she’s missing her mother,” Keris agrees. “Did you mention that it would involve leaving her friends behind?”

She pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration. “Look, I’m not saying she should stay here and have it be the same situation as it was, just with the corner of Creation you’re in swapped. You’re right; that was awful and she deserves to have you as part of her life. But if she goes off to live with you full-time, she’ll be terribly lonely again - and she’ll be scared to voice it because she loves you and doesn’t want you to be upset. She’ll miss her friends.”

Drumming her fingers on the windowsill, she regards him with sharp grey eyes. He’s a full head taller than her, broader and more muscular. With the embroidered sari she’s wearing and her hair pinned up in elegant loops and coils, he looks by far the more dangerous of the pair of them.

Appearances can be deceptive. Keris puts her hands on her hips and stares up at him.

“Two Calibrations ago, you told me that you’d judged me too harshly,” she says, and her words have the pull of the sea and the sweet light of Rathan’s injured innocence. “That you were letting your frustration with the stuff around Sasi cloud your judgement, when I’d mostly done things that helped you or tried to cooperate. I know you love your daughter, and I care about her too - that’s why we have to think of her first here, and not let any bias or jealousy get in the way. It’s about what’s best for Aiko, not who wants her with them more or even what the cultures we came from would have said.”

A hair tendril shifts out of a bun to point back into the manor. She sounds so reasonable. So unlike how he’d imagined she’d react. Everything she’s saying makes sense, and her words pull him along like a swift current; so subtle and smooth that a ship might not even notice how far out to sea it’s been pulled until it’s too late. “I talked to her this morning. One of the things I suggested was that she spends a few seasons here and a few with you each year, so that she doesn’t start to miss you or her friends too much. I suggest we go and ask her what she thinks - because she might be young, but she’s clever and wise for her age and she’s old enough at least to have a voice in deciding her future. And we remember, while we ask her, what the important thing here is. Her wellbeing.”

((Appeal to act without bias and do what’s best for Aiko, as well as thinking it over carefully and consulting her before making a decision.))
((Per + Pres, hitting Temperance 5, resisting using Conviction 4 so -1 MDV. Better roll well to make your case and Compel Temperance. Also think of what charms you're using.))
((4+5+3 Perfumed Smoke+2 stunt+9 Kimmy ExD {self-defined victim, too-often forgiving, thinks she is fair}=23.))
((Perfumed Smoke master bonus: "treat a target’s Principles as being 1 dot higher when shaping an argument around them from scratch to convince them of something". Also enhancing with Carmine Mantled Emissary to make him forget the things that would negatively affect their judgement of her, and Hidden Depths Temptress to encourage him to think things over without bias and ask what Aiko thinks. CME roll is 11+3 Kimmy autosux + 4 CME autosux; 2+3+4=9 sux.))
((10 successes on Per+Pres roll, x2 HDT = 20.))

He wants to fight it. She knows well how stubborn he is. Painfully well. But they’re not so different in some ways. Both of them really do want to do best for the people they love and care about. And Aiko is a sweet little girl.

“I suppose I can make that concession,” he says. “For her sake.”

And of course, when it comes down to it, her suggestion isn’t too far from his. It’s not unacceptable. He was suggesting after all that she’d probably spend some time with Keris every year. She’s just... shifting the ratios a bit. Adjusting things.

He looks directly at Keris. “Was she really so lonely with her mother?” he asks sadly.

Keris closes her eyes in grief. “I... I don’t want to tell Sasi about it, because it would break her,” she sighs. “But yes. She... gods, Testolagh, she asked me if she could have friends where I was living. She said she’d read about them in stories. I don’t doubt that Sasi loves her, and she knows it too, but... I think Sasi was paying so much attention to making sure Aiko didn’t suffer anything from her childhood, she forgot about other things a child needs. And Aiko was too scared to speak up about it. Partly just because she’d never known anything else.”

Testolagh purses his lips. “That’s not right,” he says softly. There’s steel under the softness. “She might be a dragon, but she’s also a girl. Children are meant to play in the river together and catch bugs to bait bird-traps and the like.”

Keris’s mouth twitches slightly. “Apparently I used to bring baby birds home from the river,” she admits. “And field mice. Lizards. Feral kittens. Snakes.”

“There’s good eating on those,” Testolagh agrees.

“Damn good, when you can get them,” Keris agrees. “Well, come on. She’s through here.” She leads him back into the central structure of Silver Lotus, away from the windows that look out past the ruined north wing. “I managed to get breakfast into her, so she won’t be as grumpy as Sasi is in the mornings. Though she might have dozed off again. She was yawning when I came to find you.”

She finds Aiko in one of the rooms with the elusive Prita - the tiny szel that Eko made for her. She’s been a very elusive demon, and Keris has seldom heard or seen her. In fact, Firisutu has mentioned that she has somehow already mastered the art of sneaking in and out of the domain whenever she feels like it, which can only be the product of personal tuition from Eko.

Aiko is lying on her belly on a cushion, giggling as Prita animates little mannequins made of rags and cloth and makes them mime out a little childish play that probably only makes sense to unnaturally intelligent small children and szels. Prita’s hands go to her mouth at the sight of two big people, and she slips down through the floor, vanishing from the room.

“Aww,” says Aiko, as the cast of rag doll figures fall apart into their components.

“Sorry, little princess,” Keris apologises. “But we’re here to ask you where you want to live.” She lowers herself to the floor, lying down like Aiko to put herself more on the little girl’s level. “Are you more awake now?” she asks with a teasing smile.

She nods, hime cut - that’s getting shaggy because Keris isn’t such a stickler for perfect haircuts in small children as Sasi - falling to one side. “Please don’t fight,” she begs Keris and her father.

“Hey now,” Keris says, her tone soothing and placating. “We’re not fighting. We’ve just been talking about where you’ll be happiest. So.” She pats the floor beside her, gesturing for Testolagh to sit down and stop looming. “You have your say. It’s okay to want more than one thing. You can want to spend time with your papa and also not want to leave your friends behind, and we’ll find a way to try and get you both. What do you want, Aiko?”

Aiko swallows and looks between the two adults, her hands balling into fists and twisting in her smock as she sits up. Her green eyes flick from face to face; she licks her black lips with a forked tongue. “I... I don’t want you to go, papa,” she says to Testolagh. “But... but I don’t want to leave my friends. I... I like having friends. Even if it’s sometimes really tiring. But I have Haneyl and Hany and maybe Eko will show up again and I have Kali and Ogin and yesterday I got to... to h-help clean Atiya and she’s a silly baby and...” She looks from face to face. “Can’t you both live together and then mama comes back too?” she tries.

Keris tilts her head. “Your papa has important work to do to the south,” she says. “But it won’t take him long to have a place to live down there, and he’ll be able to visit more often as well.”

Alahi, going by the maps the Baisha had made, is some seven to eight hundred miles southwest of Saata. Less than a day’s travel by ribbon horse. Testolagh could visit every couple of weeks, if he’s willing to take the time - and vice versa, since it’ll probably be a good idea for Keris to keep an eye on the army he’ll be building down there.

“Do you remember the idea I had?” Keris asks. “For you to spend a few seasons with him and a few with me? You can get visits from whichever of us you’re not with, and I can probably bring Kali and Ogin along in the shiny place when you’re living with your papa.”

Keris can see Aiko’s eyes flick from face to face, looking for something. Looking for approval.

Testolagh smiles at his daughter. “I won’t leave you with no friends,” he reassures her. “And me and Aunty Keris have... talked. I will try to make sure there are children your age around, wherever I settle down.”

“You won’t be alone,” Keris reassures her. “I promise you, Aiko. Until your mama comes back, I won’t ever abandon you. I’ll always be there for you when you ask for me.”

Her words resonate, a thousand sonorous echoes in a single voice. They make the air tremble, and she feels the vow carve itself into her bones. If Aiko calls on her - if Testolagh sends a Messenger saying she wants her Aunty Keris - she’ll have to go now. She won’t have a choice in the matter.

Testolagh reaches out, and rests a hand on her shoulder, reaching down to his daughter.

“You’re a big girl now,” he says, and it’s not entirely clear who he’s talking to.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

A wicked, corruptive force - a serpent in the heart of Saata - is in her lair. With her are demonic forces of her sin externalised - a night-dwelling creature of the shadows, a horned demon-boy, and other monsters that hide behind a human face. In this wicked place, she feeds the ravenous monster she has created.

“Here comes the birdy, Ogin,” Keris coos, manoeuvring the spoonful of mashed banana towards his mouth. He obediently opens his mouth wide, showing the tips of teeth breaking through his gums. “Nummy nommy banana-nana, nom nom nom!”

He gives her a look, distinctly unimpressed by being patronised.

“Oh dear, Calesco, please help Kali with her mince. She’s getting it down her front.”

Rathan yawns and stretches. “You didn’t have to drag me out of bed,” he tells Rounen.

Rounen looks at him reproachfully. “Your highness, I did. Breakfast is one of the few times I can get you all together to review the monthly plans. I have some discrepancies in the scheduling I believe it’s quite important we address. Before the wedding that ma’am will be attending next month.”

Rathan looks distinctly unimpressed. “This better be important.” He smiles at Oula. “I have things to do today.”

Oula blushes bright red, and smiles back wickedly.

“I’ve been hammering out the details for most of Air,” Keris complains, swooping another spoonful of banana down into Ogin’s mouth and carefully ignoring the byplay from her son and student. “What more can they want?”

Rounen nods. “Indeed, your highness. Now, I happened to prepare some notes,” he rises, and drags in a wooden board on which elaborately interlinked charts have been pinned, connected with bits of string.

“Really,” Calesco says flatly. “Really.”

“Yes, your highness. Now, if you see, ma’am, you have... well, rather over-booked yourself. It’s nearly Rising Water. Ma’am, you have promised to work on the silverwork for the wedding, and additionally to treat the Lionesses - and on top of that, I filed the reports that someone has been investigating into your finances, though I don’t know who.” He looks reproachfully at Keris. “You didn’t action my note, or even respond to it.”

Keris grimaces. “Shit. Sorry. Well, all they’ll find is that Jade Fox is funding the wedding, right?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. After all, you have very little paper trail for the source of your wealth. Which is questionable in itself. And you have,” he adds, pointing to green-highlighted notes, “been making several rather large expenditures lately. To put it bluntly, ma’am, they may well discover that no one knows where your money is coming from, and that in itself is suspicious. We do not want the Sinasana suspecting you of smuggling or failure to pay customs and excise.” He sniffs. “They get infamously tetchy about that. The results of their tetchiness are displayed in Ranuman Square.”

Another wince. “Okay. Okay, um... right.”

She drags a hand through her hair, thinks for a moment, and then turns decisive.

“Alright. You and Elly work on throwing up as much chaff in the way as possible. Rathan, help them. I’ll go get Haneyl and bring her back to track down whoever’s got a sudden interest in me.”

Keris has always believed that a decent decision made quickly is better than a great one made too late. And she’s good at that part of things - deciding on a plan fast, and acting on it. She may not be as skilled a player as some, but she knows she can usually get the first move in a game of Gateway.

Also, she cheats.

“I’ll handle the Lionesses with some stomach bottle bugs to help me,” she continues. “And I’ll summon Vali at the new moon for silverwork. Zanara can fake an illness and come back here to recuperate for a few weeks to help him, with a Gale or two to check their work.”

She turns to her daughter. “Calesco? I know it means leaving Adelia for a while, but I want you to go with Testolagh, alright? He’ll be hitting up the slave islands south of us to foster rebellions and kill the masters, but while he’s brave and stubborn and honourable, he needs someone to remind him to be kind. And also to run stealth ops for him, because he is shit at subtle. Keep him covered and keep him on the right track. I trust you.”

Calesco sighs, but squares her jaw. “I wanted something like this,” she says sadly. “I shouldn’t complain that you’ve given it to me.”

“Gimme! Gimme!” Kali shouts, overturning her bowl as she lunges forwards to grab a handful of banana and try to stuff it in Ogin’s mouth.

Keris rolls her eyes. “Kali,” she chides. “Look, now you’ve got mince all over your pretty dress.” She shakes a finger at her daughter, and hugs Rathan and Calesco. “I should leave today with Cissidy if I want to get Haneyl back here with any speed. Hopefully it won’t take too long to track her down.”

“Remember, Zanyira’s admittance ceremony is on the first,” Calesco reminds her. “You mustn’t miss it. And you might want to go grab Xasan so he can be there for Ali, too.”

“... true,” Keris acknowledges. “And I need to summon Vali on the new moon...”

Pursing her lips, she considers the size of the Anarchy and Haneyl’s likely position within it.

“... I can probably find her and get back in time if I leave now,” she judges. “Assuming my heart leads me straight to her, and I swim there so as not to tire Cissidy out. One day gets me to An Teng, and I can’t imagine she’s gone further south than that is north.”

---

She has no reason to swim south-east in the way she does. Only the tugging of her heartstrings, feeling kin and family that way. As she whips across the tropical waters of the South West, she realises with a sinking feeling that she’s heading towards the Weeping Fen.

But fortunately she’s headed a little too southerly for that, and as she swims she realises that she can see an incredibly tall tower, the base of which is erased by heat-haze.

Wait. No.

That’s not a tower. That’s a collection of floating sky-platforms held aloft by the air itself, and below it are chained countless boats and rafts and ships, all lashed together into a colossal floating island. Some boats have been winched out of the water and are now suspended from the ancient steely grey platforms. Other boats are wide flat barges that hold entire fields. There are floating harbours that service lean pirate cutters and fat stinking slave-haulers. And as she gets closer she can hear thousands of voices raised up raucously in drink, gambling, and degeneracy.

Keris has heard of this place. Ca Map, south of the Wailing Fen, a place so disreputable and degenerate that the pirates of Saata speak of it as if it’s the location of the worst scum of the Anarchy. Ca Map, ruled by an ancient tyrant who watches the sea-lanes with the weapons of a lost age. Ca Map, where rum is cheaper than water and brothels are cheaper than beds.

Washing up out of the sea into this wretched hive of sin and villainy, Keris sets Iris to slinking across walls and under graffiti; a second set of eyes as she follows her heart to her daughter. If she could afford to keep her nose held and her ears plugged around this degenerate swill of humanity, she would - but, hah, the chances of Keris letting her guard down in a place like this are less than nothing.

Unfortunately, her daughter proves illusive. She trawls her way through the dive bars and places of the floating ship-city, trying to find her - but everywhere she goes, there is human misery and suffering. There are open slave markets here, as stinking slave-scows drag people back from the Far South West and sell them off here to hauliers heading to the plantations, while few of what might euphemistically be called the service industries are here by choice. Even the ones who aren’t slaves are desperate - because the tales about rum being cheaper than water are much less funny up close.

Slaves have been on Keris’s mind a lot recently. A year ago, she was following the slave trail her mother had been taken along, and had found her dead at its end. A season ago, she was brought to her knees by the reminder that when the princes of Hell command, the people she loves don’t always have a choice about obeying. And a mere few days ago, she was reminded of Alahi and Maza, and the struggle of so many to free themselves from their bonds.

Now, with this human suffering and misery in front of her, Keris is not content to stand idly or walk on past. Between one step and another, as she ducks between stalls, the fury and outrage and piercing compassion rise up and overflow the limits of her body’s capacity to hold such surging passion.

Her flesh sublimates into wind. Her skin comes apart into ribbons. Her bones vanish, and her blood tints the air that now makes her up; a half-seen ghost in the air, an ephemeral mirage written in light and the promise of pain.

She dances out of the space between stalls, glides straight through the bars of a slave pen, and draws her hair across the throat of the bare-chested man holding a battered young boy by the chin for inspection. As quickly as she’s seen, she’s gone again - out through the other side of the cage, a bone-white knife appearing in her hand just long enough to slice the lock on the door as the wind-woman disappears into the lee of a tent.

The slaver’s grip slackens, and he totters for a second. Blood runs in a thick stream down his neck and chest; the angle wrong for it to spurt or spray, painting his whole torso crimson.

Then he topples over, and the chaos erupts.

There's a lot of murder and mayhem over the next few hours. A few efforts are made to fight back by the scum who live here, but it’s not fair. It’s not even fair.

They can’t stop the killing wind, who dances from boat to boat, knives and spear and killing hair lashing out. They can’t hear her coming. There’s no face, no words - nothing but silent death. But not the Silent Wind of Malfeas. This lesser breeze is far more discriminating. Her knives claim slavers, the captains of raiding ships, the thugs outside brothels and other such individuals. A half-seen woman-shaped flicker of wind. Sometimes armed with a knife, maybe. Killing, then gone again.

The killing starts in mid-afternoon, and by nightfall the rumours the murderous wind hear are that the gods have abandoned them and that doom has come to Ca Map. Down on the ships, they wonder what the bosses up on the platforms are doing. Who have they angered? What spirit has come for them, be they god or devil?

Oh yes, the scarlet rapture realises. The floating platforms. She should probably check there for Haneyl.

She would have thought of that earlier if she hadn’t got... distracted. Rightfully so, but still distracted.

There are slaver ships leaving port. There are slaves on them, too. But no slavers; not one. These ships are crewed by the recently-freed, and no doubt they’ll thank the wind that freed them; that paused here and there to take on the form of a woman and whisper in a voice like a thousand shifting breezes where to find the empty boats, where to grab supplies, where the other groups of escapees were.

But that will come later. For the moment, the wind looks around and finds the markets empty, the men of Ca Map cowering in their hovels and praying for mercy. She counts her diversion here complete - for now.
She climbs. Up, onto the platforms. Up, in search of the root-and-fire she came here for. The buildings up here combine a certain gaudy tackiness with extreme wealth. There must be some ancient magic that protects them during typhoon season. Some of them are of ancient construction with great ceiling-to-floor crystal windows that look west over the setting sun, while others are newer, made of painted hardwoods.
The wind finds her daughter sunning herself in a private west-facing garden, mirrors arranged around her. The garden must have once been a delicate, artificial thing, but Haneyl has been here and that means that it now blooms with unnatural, hungry life - already trying to escape the walls. Haneyl’s fingers are bedecked with newly acquired rings, and she has a gaudy necklace of diamonds and pearls.

“Hello darling,” the wind whispers to her. “Are you having fun?”

Haneyl jumps. “Eko?” she demands, whirling on the wind. “Since... wait, what? Since when do you talk? When you’re a wind, I mean.”

The wind giggles melodiously. “Not Eko, silly,” it whispers, blowing around her and tracing a loving hand across her shoulders. “Don’t you recognise me?”

“Well, I’m sorry, but she’s the only wind I know.” She pauses. “Oh dragons, are you Kamilla? Has Eko managed to release her somehow?”

Another laugh, and the wind’s gusts take form and wind together into muscle, bones emerge to fill them, blood diffuses from mist to flow once again through veins, and ribbons weave together into skin.

Keris Maryam Dulmeadokht stands before her daughter, smiling gently.

“I guess I forgot to mention that trick, huh?” she says with self-effacing humour.

Haneyl rolls her eyes. “Yes, mama. You did.” She sighs and stretches out. “I’m just trying to even out my tan again. I’ve been in too much sun wearing clothes. My arms and shoulders were getting darker than the rest of me. Now, why are you here? I’m on holiday.”

“Someone’s trying to take our money,” Keris says simply. “Sniffing at where it came from. Rathan’s fending them off from finding anything, but I could really use your help in tracking down who’s been poking around our finances and sinking a nice sharp set of teeth into their... funds.”

Haneyl sits bolt upright at that, teeth visibly lengthening. “Who dares?” she snarls, eyes burning bright and hair knotting itself out of rage. “Right!” She springs to her feet, snatching up a loose silk gown and slipping it on. “I’ve clearly been on holiday too long if you’re just letting that happen, mama! Saji!”

A bird flutters out of the ancient house, eyes glowing white. “Yep, Hany?”

“We’re leaving! Time to head back to Saata!”

“Oooh, okay. So, uh, you cancelling your meeting with the Despot?”

“The old wrinkly man can go hang! No one is taking my stuff,” Haneyl fumes. “And... when do we need to leave, mama?”

“We have a couple of days before we have to be back,” Keris says. “Though, uh, we might want to leave soon anyway, since I may have slightly kind of murdered every slaver in the undercity and set all the slaves free and now people are whispering about how the gods have brought doom to the island. What’s this about meeting a Despot?”

“Oh, that.” Haneyl exhales, blowing out smoke. She doesn’t bat an eye at her mother’s mention of casual mass murder. “So, I didn’t mean to come to this place. I was actually heading further south. But my ship was attacked by pirates, and the captain was quite handsome. I played the blossom just long enough to get into his cabin.” She smiles. “The power dynamics rather changed after that. Anyway, I had him take me back to his home port, and then I gifted myself to Siti. She’s... oh, Raraan Ge, kicked out of her family. This is her house. She’s been very, very willing to please me since I got into her. I’ve been making some contacts here. Give me, Rathan and Zanara a few seasons here, and we could probably own this place outright.”

Keris purses her lips. “Hmm. Keep that thought in mind. Now that I’ve seen this place... yeah, I want it to be ours. Take enough time to make your excuses and leave gracefully, as long as it takes less than a day. You’ll be coming back here at some point.”

Haneyl nods. “At the very least, I want these floating platforms. I definitely prefer Saata as an actual place to live. The city down below is... ugly.” She pauses. “Also, just to add, there are a lot of ancient weapons up here. A Realm fleet broke itself on Ca Map a hundred years ago - it’s not a tale. The bits of the Realm ships are built into the city below.”

Grey eyes gleam with want. “We’re definitely taking it, then,” Keris murmurs. “Alright, sweetheart. I’ll wait here while you make your excuses. Then we’ll head back on Cissidy and tear chunks out of whoever’s been sniffing around our money.”

Haneyl rubs her hands together. “Oh, by the way, what were you doing, mama?” she checks. “I think I’ll spin some tale about an evil spirit and how I’ve heard rumours of ones like that on Saata and how there might be a way to banish it in the libraries there. So if we need, we can come back and I can ‘defeat’ you.” She smirks at that.

Snickering, Keris begins to fill her in.

---

At sunset on the new moon, a demon lord is unleashed onto Saata in the under-layers of Little River’s estate. The world tears, mist pours out from underground, and lightning flashes underground.

“Hi, mum,” Vali says, ambling out with his hands in his pockets as he earths himself. He’s grown up again, gaining a year or two - he looks maybe twelve, just on the verge of puberty. His tawny-orange eyes gleam in the gloom. “Oh, look, you brought Hanny and Rathan. Dunno why.”

Rathan rolls his eyes. “Because maybe I want to see my little brother?” he suggests.

“Hello darling,” Keris greets her son, hugging him close for a moment and feeling the brassy strength of his skin, as well, as well as the greasy static charge of dark stormclouds lingering under it. “Feeling up to some silverwork?”

“Mmm. Guess so. I got a few things to do first, though,” he says.

“Oh?” Keris raises an eyebrow. “Is talking to Aiko one of them? She said she wanted to meet you again when I told her I’d be summoning you.”

“Yeah, one of them.” He grins, turns, and explodes forwards. His fist slams into Haneyl’s face with a wet sound, tossing her backwards to slam into the wall behind her. Crimson blood trickles from her split lip.

“I promised I’d punch you for being rude about dragons,” he says, shaking out his hand as she makes a noise not entirely like a boiling kettle. Pale green fire licks around her head and her dress starts to char.

Keris opens her mouth to get them to stop, considers how likely it is that they will, and then slams her spear haft into the floor with a crash. “Not indoors!” she demands. “You two level buildings when you get going, and this one is full of babies and expensive things! Either take it into a sanctum or save it for the competition with Asarin! And either way, I’ll be there to referee and stop you hurting each other too badly!”

“He just punched me with literally no provocation! What the hell is he even talking about?” Haneyl literally fumes, teeth sprouting from her nails. “Rude about dragons? When was that?”

Rathan is already bravely retreating out of the way of his rough-and-tumble siblings.

“When you said you’d got bored of the statue of Mela,” Keris sighs. “And by all means, punch him back, just not here. You’ll set fire to the manor,” she emphasises; knowing her daughter’s values. “Remember how much the manor cost? I can take you out to Shuu Mua in a day or two to settle your differences, but if you start fighting here you’ll collapse the north wing for sure. And probably hurt Kali and Ogin and Aiko,” she adds. “Which would be breaking your promise to look after them, Vali.”

Haneyl storms out, trailing fire behind her. Vali nods, satisfied. “Well, that’s one thing off my list,” he says happily. “Now, where’s Aiko? She needs hugs. And I wanna talk to Testolagh - he’s so cool! Oh, wait, has he left already?”

Keris holds up a finger. “While I get that if you promise to punch someone you have to punch them,” she says, “in future, could you wait to punch them until you’re somewhere they can punch back? If you’d reminded me you were going to do that, I’d’ve summoned you out in a valley on the mainland so the two of you could get your fight out of the way tonight.”

Vali frowns. “But she wasn’t meant to punch back,” he explains, as if it’s obvious. “She was mean to dragons so I punched her. Now we’re even.”

“That’s not how balancing things out works!” Rathan calls from outside room.

“Is too!”

“Well... remind me anyway,” Keris says, exasperated. “And yes, Aiko is just through there with Testolagh.” She doesn’t mention the twins, who have been banned from being there for Vali’s emergence as part of their ongoing grounding, since Vali is unlikely to take that well. There are only a few more days left in their week of punishment, so hopefully he won’t catch on until it’s over. “I’m sure he’ll feel better knowing that you’ve promised to look after her.”

“Nice,” Vali says. He stomps out, then pokes his head back in. “So great to be out, mum. It’s only Eko and the weirdo adults in there, and Eko’s being weird too with her giant blood towers. I was bored.”

“Yeah...” Keris agrees. “Do you, uh, have any idea what she’s trying to do with those?”

Vali shrugs. “I asked her but I didn’t understand her gestures,” he says, scratching his head.

“Of course not,” Keris sighs. “Well, I have a daughter to go calm down. Rathan, come help? You go say hello to Aiko and Testolagh, Vali. She’s got lots to tell you about.”

Keris finds Haneyl in one of the ruins away from the main structure. She finds her because the ruins are lit by an eerie green, as she pours fire down a hole in the ground. Her flame eats away at the rock and stone, burning down through the old ruins and into the rock below.

She is swearing sulphurously.

Rathan makes a strangled sound and turns away from his sister, who is very much on fire. Her silk robes have not survived the experience.

Having expected this, Keris has brought food. She removes the lid that covers the tray, sets it down, and waits for the scent to waft its way over.

Haneyl keeps up her rage-venting for longer than Keris expected. But as she guessed, eventually she slumps over, shoulders shaking, sways, and... collapses.

Her daughter never has been very good at knowing her limits.

“You know,” Rathan says cattily, “I am reminded often how good it is that Oula is nothing like Haneyl.”

“Which is not to say she isn’t dangerous,” Keris points out, picking Haneyl up gently and stroking the embers out of her hair with her left hand. Settling her semi-conscious daughter comfortably with her head in Keris’s lap, she brushes a flake of raw fish across her lips and smiles as Haneyl automatically snaps it up and swallows.

“Speaking of which,” she says absently, continuing the careful feeding, “it’s her birthday in four days. What are you thinking of doing for it?”

“Her birthday?” Rathan says, surprised. “But she wasn’t born... honestly, I’m not sure when she was born.”

“No,” Keris agrees, “but she did mature. One year ago on the fourth is the day she became a mercurial artisan and gave you her heart. I think that qualifies well enough as a birthday, don’t you?”

Rathan smiles at that. “Yes, I suppose it does,” he says, looking away from his mother and sister. “Well, I’m sure I can find something. Maybe something in Saata that will serve,” he taps his head, “people with horns.”

“Good idea,” Keris nods happily. “Just be careful, as always.”

“Mama, I’m always careful,” Rathan says cockily. “Not like Haneyl. Also, make her put some clothes on so I can actually look in your direction.”

“You wander around the Sea in just a loincloth all the time, asshole,” Haneyl mumbles, pale-green eyes opening a crack. “By your standards my hair’s enough. ‘S covering up everything your loincloth does.”

“No, see, you’re a girl,” Rathan explains.

“And you’re an idiot.”

Keris solves the issue by covering Haneyl with a blanket of hair and feeling her daughter another few tasty morsels. “So,” she says, changing the subject. “Besides birthday celebrations; someone’s been poking into Little River’s finances and trying to track down where her money has come from. Rathan, I’d like you to work with Rounen to make sure they don’t find anything - and Haneyl, you and Elly have free reign to track them back and figure out who’s doing the looking. If it’s not House Sinasana, feel free to take a chunk or two out of their purse for the insult.”

“Mmm mmm,” Haneyl mumbles.

“Yeah, easy,” Rathan says. “I hardly need her for that. Which is just as well, considering she’s probably going to get distracted by every pretty face she sees.”

“... gonna tell Vali you insulted dragons.”

“And I’ll tell him you did, and he’ll believe me,” Rathan retorts.

“Neither of you will be using your brother as a weapon against the other one,” Keris sighs. “Or I’ll tell him you’re trying to lie to him to make him do what you want, and then he’ll get all stubborn about things. Anyway, he’s going to be doing silverwork for me with Nara.”

Both of them pout at that, but they listen to her.

---

The next day is the first, and it’s time for Zanyira’s entrance ceremony. Keris is there in the crowd, along with Ali and Hany, smiling at her cousin. She’s wearing yellow braids like all the other female new adepts, and a white robe with a yellow tie. Her green eyes scan the crowd, and she smiles when she sees her relatives. She’s older than many of the new students, but that doesn’t matter. She got in!
Keris waves at her, and gives a proud thumbs-up and a wink. Zany will do just great here, she’s sure. She also keeps an eye out for the abbot - the one with the power of Mercury, whose divine parent is probably linked to this temple. He’s not involved in the ceremonies. Of course, he wouldn’t be. Saata is a cosmopolitan city, but the Immaculates really shouldn’t be approving of the direct worship of the gods. But, ah, there’s a hint of yellow and the sound of the sea-breeze from the roofs of one of the buildings overlooking the grand courtyard before the temple.
Keris frowns. In the background, she can hear each of the new students in turn ritually requesting entrance to the great doors. It’s nearly Zanyira’s turn. Why is that man here, spying on Windswift from a rooftop?

She shifts a little in the crowd to keep a better ear on his reactions, though she makes sure to stay in Zany’s line of sight and offers an encouraging smile as her turn comes.

He’s there with a few others - and wait, how is a man so morbidly obese even up there? Did they have to use cranes? - and she can hear the distant sound of a brush and ink from that direction. Someone is taking notes.

“As a student of knowledge, and one who wishes to study at the feet of our Lady of Journeys, I petition for access to these halls of learning,” Zanyira says. Her voice is firm and clear, even if her Firetongue is heavily accented.

Keris listens for some sign of them paying any particular attention to her, any frantic note-writing or the like.

Nothing.

The proctor nods, and taps her on the head. “Enter, student,” he says, as he has to every one before her, “and begin your journey with our lady.”

She listens until the end, paying attention for any sign of focus on an individual student or anything unusual. Nothing. So, she concludes, they must just be... watching. Keeping an eye on all the acolytes who go into the Wind-Swift - and perhaps other major temples as well.

Why, though? Oh, she can see the value in knowing who the future priests of Mercury might be and keeping an eye on a major power of the city, but to come himself, and heave that great bulk up onto a rooftop? Is he just standing witness for his divine parent, or something?

Too many questions. Keris is troubled as the ceremony wraps up, and doesn’t entirely manage to hide it.

Of course, then the post-ceremony chaos begins, and Zanyira comes bundling down the steps to throw herself into her husband’s muscular arms, then pick up and whirl her daughter around.

Keris is third in line, and she gets a big hug, and a kiss on the cheek. “I did it! I did it! It’s like a dream but I did it!” Zany crows. “Look at this! I’ve managed to work really really hard and I got in and now I can spend the next five years working even harder oh dear I may have made a terrible mistake.” She grins. “That was a joke, dear,” she says to Ali before he can say what he was clearly about to say about her not having to do it.

Grinning back, and trying to put the abbot out of her mind, Keris lifts her up and spins her. “You’ll be fantastic,” she promises. “Don’t forget us little people when you’re all wise and learned and respectable, now.”

She playfully slaps Keris on the cheek. “The nerve! You’re one to talk, Kiss!”

Keris pouts, though it’s rather ruined by the self-satisfied grin at her own joke. “No fair using that name,” she complains. “I should never have told you about that.”

Zanyira just smirks at that. “Come on, then, you promised us all an expensive meal at an expensive place if I got in.” She nudges Keris in the ribs. “Or are you going to welch on that?”

Sighing mournfully and patting her purse, Keris mocks a grieving air. “I suppose I can wound my finances this once,” she agrees. “Since you did so well on your tests.”

Zany picks up Hany, hoisting her up. “Come on, baby, Aunty Keris is paying for a big fancy meal. So you need to study hard and put years into learning as much as you can, so you can get one free meal out of her too.”

Laughing, Keris helps her niece get settled on her cousin’s shoulders, and leads them off into the city.

---

It’s almost two weeks before Keris comes to Saata again. Her duplicate as Little River has to be seen to be working in silver - even if it’s actually Nara and Vali doing most of it - and the wedding is coming up soon. She’s invited, and that means she has to travel with the pirates up North. Which is going to be so sloooooooow.

But Haneyl and Rathan have sent a message to her, and it’s good news. They’ve found who’s looking into her. They meet her in the now-restored upper layers of what will be the Jade Carnation. They’re empty and bare, and largely undecorated - apart from a few rooms that Haneyl has quite deliberately occupied. The bare whitewashed walls have been replaced by hardwood panelling, and lush, grass-like carpets that the foot sinks into. There’s an assortment of things from the great markets of Saata here - some of which she’s pretty certain Haneyl stole - and the divans are overloaded with pillows and cushions.

Both of them are sprawled out on their respective seats; Rathan sharing his with a cuddling Oula, while Haneyl sits on Rounen’s lap and has Elly kneeling before her.

“Took your time to get here, mama,” Haneyl drawls.

“We found then,” Rathan says. “They’re operating behind the hired services of the priest-accountants of Sipra, but, well...”

“One of them had a thing for handsome young men,” Elly contributes softly.

“Don’t put it like that!” Oula snaps. “You’re implying things!”

“It’s true.”

“Yes, but that was your Haneyl who got them talking, not my faithful Rathan!”

“Alright,” Keris says, raising a hand. “So, leaving aside the details of how you found out; who hired them to poke at me?”

Haneyl cracks her fingers. “Isn’t it interesting? They hadn’t come up as a rival before. Quite the-”

“It’s Charitable Peach,” Rathan says.

“You dick, I was going to say it! I found out!”

“You were taking too long,” he says, yawning.

“Well, yes! Because my brother has no sense of drama, it’s Hui Cha Charitable Peach,” Haneyl says, adjusting where she’s sitting on Rounen’s lap. He has his arms wrapped around her waist, which Keris is trying to ignore. “Peaceful Wave’s mother-in-law.”

“One of the second tier of Hui Cha women,” Rounen contributes. “Wealthy, but no rival to Strong Ox’s sister. She’s the only one in the first rank. Peach’s daughter is Cherry Blossom - Peaceful Wave’s third wife.”

“No real achievements beyond being pretty,” Oula says cattily. “I suppose rolling onto her back for that fat addict is something you’d have to hold your nose to do.”

Keris’s lips purse. “One of the Hui Cha. Interesting. I guess I can see it. Little River’s rising fast - she feels threatened.” She drums her fingers on the table. “Out of interest, which tier would you put Little River in, right now?”

“Oh, you’re in the zeroth rank, above even the first,” Rathan says effusively.

Elly shows her teeth. “Third, maybe fourth,” she says. “You have no real income stream - your silver smithy isn’t up and running - and you have no husband. No fleets. You have no real debts from lesser women who you can use to coerce them and their husbands. No enforcers, no captains...” she counts things off. “Yes, you have more influence than you should, but that’s not publicly known. You’re not one of the monied women, in the eyes of the Hui Cha, who deal in money and favours and insurance. You’re a skilled artisan. They hire people like that.”

Keris nods thoughtfully. “You’re both right,” she says. “As a woman, I’m third or fourth tier. As a dragon, I’m the only one the Hui Cha have.” She hums meditatively. “I have Lucky Wolf’s fleet - and his wife in my debt. But nobody knows about that, and I’m keeping it that way. Hmm. Right. Okay. What to do about this, then. Is there any way we can strike back at her, financially?”

“It was going to happen sooner or later,” Rounen says. “It’s just a play - she wants to know where you’re getting your money.”

Haneyl hums. “She might even be seeing if she can get you on side, or to use you against Pretty Peacock,” Haneyl says. “Her attack wasn’t... aggressive. It was hiring the priests of Sipra to look into your affairs. She might be going after us, but I’m not sure why yet.”

“Maybe you could have tea with her or her daughter,” Rathan suggests. “Me and you are good at being friendly. We just have to make it look like we’re not a threat. You wanted an in with Peaceful Wave anyway. Tea with his wife might be a good starting point.”

“Or destroy something of hers so she can’t fish when she’s busy putting out fires,” Oula suggests, a vicious smile on her lips. “Poison some of her enforcers, maybe. There’s all kinds of wonderful uses for mercury. Hermione’s been showing me some.”

“... careful, kitty, put away those claws,” Rathan says.

“You know I’m right, darling,”

“I could see if I could hook her, too,” Keris murmurs. “Hmm. Yeah, getting an in with Sea Eagle would be a good way to move forward. And hey, if she promises me something for getting rid of Pretty Peacock, that means I’m getting paid twice for the same job.” She smiles happily. “I always like it when that happens.”

Oula looks a little disappointed that she doesn’t get to show off some of her newfound poisoning skills, but Rathan strokes her arm and she’s smiling again.

“I’m going to keep looking, at least,” Haneyl says. “These priests of Sipra are... interesting. They’re the priests of the city father, and they’re the most famous accountants and bureaucrats in the city. If I was House Sinasana, I’d make sure to own lots of people in them so I could get to see other people’s accounts.”

Keris perks up. “Oh, I like that idea,” she says, snapping her fingers. “I like that idea a lot. Yes, see if you can figure out who’s corrupt for which master, and what they’re being paid.”

“They’ll be very expensive,” Haneyl says, furrowing her brows. “It’d take a very large bribe to be willing to betray the pirate prince who’s hiring you. Those sorts of men don’t appreciate being betrayed...” she smiles, “... but I might want to hire a low-ranking one myself. Get them used to doing what I say. Then let them go.”

“Oh, I’m not thinking of flipping them all to me,” Keris waves her off. “But knowing who’s reporting to who, and for what... that’s useful. Especially if I want to set pirate princes at each other’s throats by leaking the informant of one to the other.”

She tips her head in acknowledgement. “Have fun, dear. I’m sure you know your way around a counting-house by now.”

Rathan sighs. “Looks like she’s going to get us still working together.”

Haneyl flaps her hand in his direction. “It could be worse. You’ve grown up a lot since you were a literal big baby. And don’t pretend you haven’t been enjoying living off my money and spending it on your girlfriend.”

He snorts. “You’re not wrong.”

“Of course I’m not wrong; you have expensive tastes. I wish you’d stop turning down my invitations to go to several fun places I know.”

“Like you said, I have a girlfriend,” he says, squeezing Oula’s hand.

“So?”

“You’re shameless.”

“And you’re whipped.”
“I’m glad you two are getting along,” says Keris happily. She’s not quite beaming, but she feels lazy and happy and warm at the way her babies are being friendly and not fighting or squabbling like they used to. She curls up in her chair, and Iris wriggles free of her skin to loop in contented spirals and figures-of-eight above her. The conversation turns onto other, lighter things and soon they’re both laughing at the story of how Kali managed to get inside a small space as a bird, turned back into a girl, and then got too tired to turn back to get out so was trapped.
---

Little River goes out to the docks to clear her head, and think about how she’s going to resolve her current problem. The Saatan docks are as busy as always. Everywhere she looks, many ships with brightly coloured sails are moored. The deepwater docks that the Sinasana own have an Imperial Navy vessel there, and she can see that they’re pulling firearrows out of the side and patching up burned bits of hull. They must have run into something, though she can’t tell from this distance whether they won or withdrew.

Such a shame.

There’s a parade to the ancestors of one of the Raraan Ge families going on right now, and skull-faced puppets in lavish robes dance around on the end of hanging poles. Every gust of the wind makes them bounce up and down, flexing their arms. There’s a clamour of pipes and wind instruments as the paid dancers proceed and follow the floats, and young boys and girls scatter petals before and behind the parade.

“The children have made an interesting discovery,” Dulmea observes. “What are your thoughts, child?”

‘I don’t like people poking their nose into my business,’ Keris thinks, letting the haughty, offended rage rear up in her breast for a moment before settling. “But Haneyl does have a point. If I ignore how she went rooting for my secrets, it... wasn’t an attack, exactly. And if she’s a woman of the second tier, she’s a potential ally against Pretty Peacock. Who won’t be easy to bring down, even if she’ll be easy to kill. I’m gonna need,’ she sighs quietly, ‘set-up and preparation and planning.’

“Ah yes,” Dulmea says lightly, “the thing you fear more than a Greater Dead monstrosity.”

‘I don’t have to go to meeting after boring meeting and fill in tonnes of paperwork when I stab Greater Dead monsters to death,’ Keris complains. ‘Though, speaking of those...’

Little River’s lips tighten as she cuts diagonally through the crowd following the parade. ‘The Zu Tak are going to be a problem. I’ll need to report to the Althing that they have a deathlord behind them. That’s the kind of thing that could complicate my work in the Anarchy.’

“To avoid looking weak, it might be an idea to report it only when you have some success to pair with your report,” Dulmea says clinically. “It is important to watch out for Deveh’s scheming. And-”

But what she was saying is lost when Little River - distracted by the conversation she was having in her head - stumbles into a man. He’s a sailor - no, a pirate - with a silk shirt that’s worn and lavish purple and red sashes that are fading at the ends. The mark of a man who came into money a while back - perhaps on a successful raid. He has a machete and two firewands at his hips, and he reeks of rice wine. “Well, hey there,” he says. “Look at the Tengy whore lookin’ for a piece of my purse.”

He looks Keris up and down like many of the sugar daddies she remembers from Nexus looked at their would-be hires. He lingers on her face, her figure - and of course, the blue in the wave patterns in her dress, and clearly decides his hopes and dreams are correct.

Keris - or, no, Little River, because it’s definitely the Tengese part of her whose pupils shrink in fury as her back stiffens - gives him a glare that could freeze a boiling kettle. “You forget yourself,” she hisses in tones of cutting ice. “Throw yourself down and apologise, dog. I am no common harlot to be spoken to so crudely.”

“Oh, you’re one o’ the pricy ones?” He fumbles at his belt and pulls out his pouch, bouncing it up and down. It jingles. “Don’t worry, ‘m goo’ for it. Whatever you got...”
He reaches out with a groping hand, and perhaps Keris has gone soft but she simply didn’t think a pig like this would go that far in the face of a well-dressed woman. It’s the only excuse she can give for the fact that his hand actually makes contact with her chest.
There’s a brief, violent flurry of movement. It starts with him beginning to squeeze. It ends with a curving bone-porcelain blade in Little River’s hand, and half an arm landing on the street in a spray of blood, severed just above the elbow. The Hui Cha dragon’s eyes are wide; her pupils narrow and furious, her fingers white-knuckled around the hilt of her blade.

“For scum like you to speak like this, and lay a hand on me without permission,” she snarls. “No. This cannot be borne.”
He screams. He sinks to his knees wailing; yelling; pissing himself as he curses her in the name of the gods. The parade turns around and the audience moves away from her - her and his screaming and the growing pool of blood. She’s quite the picture, standing there over his sobbing form as he clutches his maimed stump; bloody kris in hand, rigid with haughty offended dignity.
Inwardly, the outrage dies down enough for Keris to wince. But, well... at this point, backing down would only hurt her. And she has been trying to establish Little River as... well, a passionate Dragonblood hung up on propriety.

So she rolls with it.
“I am Hui Cha Little River, dog,” she snaps in scything tones. “Any hand laid on me so crudely, I will take. And any insult upon me such as those, I will punish. Know your place and mind your manners, or your head will be forfeit next.” She fixes her icy glare on his friends, who look like they’ve sobered up considerably in the last ten seconds. “Get this cur out of my sight.”
---

“... and so he crawled off like a dog. Didn’t die. Sadly. His idiot friends managed to staunch him up.”

Cherry Blossom giggles. “Oh my. I’ve never had that happen to me when I was out shopping. My guards would keep someone like that away.”

Little River pauses. “Of course, then I got called to the Provost of the Shore because it happened in her jurisdiction and the man turned out to be an officer on the Baklong family’s ships and they tried to push charges. But when I explained things,” with the help of Rathan’s red light, “they decided that since he had been trying to grope what he thought was a harlot without paying her, that made it attempted theft. And thus I was legally the same as a shopkeeper killing someone who tried to rob them. But I did have to pay a small fine for the loss of his labour.”

The other woman laughs behind her hand. “Oh my! That’s hilarious!”

Cherry Blossom is, in line with Oula’s rather bitchy observations, not very smart. Keris saw that very quickly. She’s not only not naturally gifted, she’s also very un-curious about the world. No wonder her mother married her off like this rather than train her as an heir, even if she is the eldest. She’s taller than average for a Tengese woman, with red eyes which stand out compared to most Tengese women. She is exceptionally beautiful, though, with high cheekbones, a straight nose, and elaborate tattoo sleeves which cover her entire arms and legs to the extent that she looks like she’s wearing stockings and gloves through her diaphanous gown.

“Quite,” Little River smiles; self-satisfied and smug. “And now he’s learned to treat Hui Cha women with more courtesy. A lesson many other men outside Memory of a Golden Land could stand to learn, no doubt.” She sighs. “Maybe I should start taking guards out when I go walking, if only to avoid that kind of hassle. Ah, but then I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the sea view as much, with them cluttering it up.” She sighs. “Such cruel choices.”

“It’s lovely to see you, anyway. And you have such funny stories!” Cherry Blossom starts to chatter at her, showing an extroverted side that she’s seldom seen among much more reserved Tengese women.

Lively as she is, she still has nothing on Kali, and Little River easily absorbs and exploits her chatter; returning enough to be engaged in the conversation and keep her happy while letting her do the brunt of the talking. A story about tiresome men in armour ruining her appreciation of the sea shore turns to Cherry Blossom’s own guards - and from there to her husband who placed them with her. It’s clear she doesn’t get to talk like this often; no doubt getting less of a response from other ladies of the Hui Cha, and Keris has no trouble drawing out details about Peaceful Wave and Charitable Peach from her happy conversation.

In the face of Keris’s soft words and stories, she opens up. She mentions that her husband was under the impression that she was one of Jade Fox’s friends, and not one of her husbands because oh, haven’t you heard about how their fleets clashed a few years ago and he’d be really surprised to hear that she wasn’t so close but if she isn’t maybe they can get on, before derailing into how she’s so glad her mother found such a nice man for her - one who can keep her in the standards she deserves and better yet her mother is always helpful.

Well. That’s clue enough. The things the wife would usually run, instead it’s the mother-in-law. If Keris reads between the lines, Charitable Peach basically runs the financial side of Peaceful Wave’s business - and more than that, she suspects he doesn’t care because it makes things easier for him. He doesn’t really seem to be much of a pirate - he prefers to be a merchant prince who occasionally has rivals murdered.

So, a merchant prince.

The only thing is, something about Cherry Blossom is distracting Keris. Something about the intricate tattoo patterns that make up the top of her ‘stockings’ and draw the eyes upwards. Something about the shapes are very familiar. Meaningful.

Then the bottom falls out of her stomach.

They’re Lintha patterns. She knows them, from the knowledge forced into her brain by her prayers to the Demon Sea. They’re marks for beauty, for allure, for captivation and desire. They’re not random marks someone re-used. They’re put in place properly.

Well... crap, Keris thinks. That... um... yeah. Crap.

That could be a problem. Or... it could be a boon. If her husband is involved with the Lintha as well... well, in that case Keris has him; hook, line and sinker. She can’t imagine Charitable Peach doesn’t; Cherry Blossom doesn’t seem like the type to pact with the Lintha on her own.

... then again. Neither does Little River. Beneath the smiling chit-chat, Keris’s attention sharpens. Could this somewhat dim-witted, placid woman be a mask for someone rather smarter? Keris lets a little mercury slip into her senses as she regards Cherry Blossom with new eyes.

((Using WWOF on her.))
((No envy, proud of her Resources 5.))

There’s none of the beauty of envy towards Keris - or Little River - to be seen, and in the reflection of their tea Keris can see gold and silver and jade and all those riches.

Probably safe then, Keris tentatively decides. She toys with revealing what she knows as Little River... but no. No, she doesn’t want to play that card right now. It needs more thought on how, and when, and who as. Instead she agrees that she’s merely involved in the wedding Jade Fox is planning for his son in matters of silverwork and the like, and certainly not opposed to Peaceful Wave in any way - why, she should probably apologise to him if she’s given that impression by some misbehaviour or lack of decorum.

Perhaps in private, once all this fuss with the wedding is over.

---

“So, ma’am, I have some rather interesting reading.”

Keris looks up from behind her desk, where she’s feeding Atiya, at Rounen. He’s almost vibrating with enthusiasm. She had only sent him out to poke around about Charitable Peach’s background a few days ago. But he’s already back, and has a number of handwritten scrolls in his neat, flowing font. Outside it’s sunset, and red-lit waves are crashing down on the broken shoreline her mansion overlooks.

“Oh, interesting reading is always the best kind,” she grins, rubbing her hands together. “Make your report.”

Rounen shifts, accidentally revealing what looks like an oversized hickey on his neck. Keris chooses to believe it’s from Elly. Desperately chooses to believe it’s from Elly.

“Ahem. So, I have looked into the history of Charitable Peach. She was born into a well-off Tengese merchant family in the Shore Lands - not noble, but wealthy from selling to the Realm. At the age of fifteen, she was kidnapped by unknown parties. According to the records I found, she was released shortly afterwards when a ransom was paid. But there’s very little details available about what happened to her. Her family would later flee to Saata after arrest warrants were issued for her father and mother for defrauding the Realm and selling poor quality goods to the Imperial Navy.

He looks at Keris over the top of his glasses. She’s finished feeding Atiya, and is cuddling her daughter. “She then re-appears in a much more prominent way, after her father dies. She does very nicely in the Hui Cha, and turns her mother’s wealth into a fortune. She’s... lucky. Suspiciously so. Always seems to catch a lucky break.

“Ma’am, knowing what you’ve had me record of the Lintha, I think they were probably the ones who ‘kidnapped’ her as part of the arrangement with her parents, giving them the child as a hostage. I think she was only ‘released’ when she was swapped for her father... because after all, we both know the Lintha want into Saata but are banned from it. So looking at the timeline, I think she spent eight years among the Lintha. As one of their hostages. And if you’re right, she stopped being a hostage and started being one of their cousins.”

“Very interesting,” Keris muses, gently coaxing Atiya to keep nursing. She leans back and puts her feet up on her desk. “So then, she’s in deep with the Lintha, and Peaceful Wave may or may not know. I can certainly get her with it - it just needs a word from Little River saying that I know... but I’m willing to stay quiet on the matter. As a gift. Because I’m friendly like that. She knows the penalty if I reveal it to House Sinasana.”

Rounen nods, coming over to perch on her desk. He lays the scrolls down, and reaches out to gently pet Atiya’s head. “Yes, ma’am,” he says. “So you are ruling out cooperation with - or corruption of - Lintha activities on this island? You are a princess of Hell and they are a bunch of, as you put it, idiotic inbred cannibals. Surely they should answer to you.”

“Oh, I’ll definitely approach her as... hmm,” Keris frowns. “I need to give my Lintha identity a name. Do you still have the story of me terrifying Gajui Narooj stowed away somewhere? Check it to see if I gave a name at any point. But yeah, I’ll definitely approach her in that guise - I just don’t want the Lintha knowing I’m Little River. They don’t need that information, and I don’t trust them with it, even if I intend to make use of them.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He smiles. “Actually, a thought. Maybe you want Prince Rathan to take the lead. He is a red moon, after all, and speaks with a Lintha accent.”

“Hah!” Keris grins. “Yes. Good idea.” She cracks her knuckles. “Okay. I’m booked through tomorrow with more healing for the Lionesses? How many do I have left to tend to?”

Rounen doesn’t even sort through his notes - he has this memorised. “A total of eight women remain. They are all relatively severe cases you have held off on - limb regrowth, eye replacement, and the like. You also made a note of one case of an expanding wyld-growth in one woman’s head, which is causing her headaches - with that one, you held off until you could find out more about how to treat it.”

“Ah yes, I remember.” Keris purses her lips. “Hmm. Yes, that’ll be delicate. I might ask Hermione if she has any more healing secrets to share. Actually, it’s a pity I can’t ask Yuula. Well, I could, but I’m not sure a reply with a ten-day lag would do much good.” She hums, stroking Atiya’s hair. “Well, I’ll leave her for last and do my best. Nandi’s happy with the rest of them?”

“Quite happy.” Rounen smiles. “Lady Asarin was very pleased when I asked her if she wanted to add anything to my report to you. I think she is... ah, a little jealous, and worse can’t let it show, when Princess Haneyl’s nature has given rise to someone as effective as myself.” He takes Atiya when Keris passes her to him so she can look at some of his notes, holding her competently. “Of course, my princess is much better than Lady Asarin,” he adds loyally.

“But of course,” Keris says, amused. “I have no doubt Haneyl would be furious if you said otherwise. Though I’m sure Eko would argue that the credit is rightfully hers, at least in part. Alright, if Nandi is happy - have you informed her about Haneyl’s work for them?”

“No, ma’am.” He shifts Atiya to a shoulder, and makes a note. “Princess Haneyl has put those plans on hold while she works on this investigation for you. She made a note to me that she wished to handle it herself - and no doubt she’ll want to pick the best ones to be her enforcers personally.”

“Hmm.” She turns to look out of her window at the rolling waves. “She does tend to get distracted. Flits between things. Heh,” she chuckles, tipping her chair back onto four legs and standing to press her hand against the window. “She’s more like me than Sasi there. I don’t let myself get stuck on one path either.”

She considers for a moment, tapping the glass lightly as her hair shifts and coils.

“Refer to Nandi for a list of her best,” she decides after a moment. “No reason not to get started on ranking her fighters now. And, hmm. While it will probably prick her pride that Haneyl made them; tell Kuha to demonstrate her erooltony to Asarin. I’m thinking of outfitting the Lionesses with them, and Asarin will almost certainly know of Shogunate armours that made men strong and fast like that. She might know of fighting styles designed to take advantage of them.”

“Yes, ma’am. As you wish. Now...”

Atiya opens her eyes, and starts trying to gum at his shoulder.

“Oh, hello, you.” He puts down his papers, and cradles her. “She’s getting so big,” he says. She used to be barely bigger than my hands together.”

“She’s getting healthy,” Keris says, turning away from the window with a smile. “I’m glad. For a while there I was really worried that her birthing would set her back for life. But...” she tickles Atiya’s cheek, “it didn’t, did it sweetheart? You’ve got Kerisa’s determination in there, and ma... and Maryam’s will to survive. You won’t let a silly thing like being born too soon stop you.”

Rounen lifts her up, and looks her in the eye. She blinks owlishly at him, focussing on his face.

“Do you think she remembers me at all?” he asks quietly.

“She certainly took a liking to you straight away,” Keris points out. “And she’s a determined little girl. Now and then. She won’t exactly be Kerisa, in the same way I’m not Yamal... but if you put his wife in front of me, I’d know her.”

She pauses, and considers that.

“... though please don’t put her in front of me,” she adds fervently. “She’d be older than the Shogunate if she's still alive today. An elder star-chosen. I’d really rather keep my head attached.”

“I think we all would rather you survive,” Rounen agrees, bouncing Atiya up and down. She gurgles, and kicks her legs. “Mmm. Sorry, ma’am, but I do think keruby are just better. Even that tiny szelkerub that Princess Eko made isn’t as limited as Atiya.”

“She’ll grow,” Keris assures him. “Give it a few years and she’ll be running around as adorably as Hany does. You’ll see.”

He passes her back to her mother, and gathers up his scrolls. “Yes, ma’am.” He nods. “I’ll leave you to that, then. Though, ma’am, do note that I’ve scheduled your packing for the trip up north for the day after tomorrow. You’ll need to think about that and what you’ll need for the wedding.”

He leaves silently, leaving Keris and Atiya to watch the sunset.

Keris smiles like a predator, her baby cradled in her arms. There is one thing she needs to do first. No, one thing she needs to... test. Because she has certain plans for the wedding. Certain, beautiful plans.

Eko’s ghostly giggle sounds in her ears.

---

Many-coloured birds of paradise squawk in Strong Ox’s elaborate gardens. Little River and Pale Branch are having tea there in a veranda which overlooks the ocean, next to the beautiful white sands that he has on his land.

Pale Branch is dressed a little more conservatively than normal, wearing more layers to cover the slight bulge around her midsection. Keris can hear the heartbeat of the foetus within. Or, rather, foetuses. Haneyl must have been... diligent with whatever she did, because Pale Branch has twins. A boy and a girl - exactly what she needs to secure her claim on both the male and female lines.

The other woman sips at her tea. She can’t stop smiling, even though she’s going to some lengths to hide these first signs of pregnancy. She certainly greeted Little River with an enthusiastic hug as soon as they were away from onlookers, letting subtly Keris taste her skin to get the gender of her twins. “So how is your new silver smithy going?” Pale Branch enquires. “I was surprised you went to Jade Fox for funding for that.”

“Well, you know,” Little River shrugs. “I do like the formalities, when they don’t get in my way. And while I could carve my way up to the top of the Hui Cha by force and bloodshed, it’s a lot easier to do it by getting the ones who are already there on my side.” She smiles. “That’s why I came to you first. Congratulations, by the way.” She tips her cup towards her friend’s belly. “Your clothes would hide it from most, but put together with the smile you’re wearing, I suspect you have good news to share with me.”

Pale Branch’s eyes widen, and then she sighs. “I guess I couldn’t hide it from you when you’re the doctor. Yes. Two months to three months - I’ve missed two monthlies. And this week I’m getting sick in the morning” She nods at Little River. “Keep it to yourself. I don’t want her finding out for as long as possible. My dear sister-in-law would no doubt be just as generous with her maiden’s tea in my diet.”

Little River goes still. Her eyes widen slightly as her lips thin, and her gaze goes to Atiya, gurgling happily in a crib her mother is gently rocking with her foot.

“If she tries,” says the water dragon very calmly, “I will drop the subtlety, carve out her lungs and offer her heart to the Pale Mistress. I have opinions on... on the frailty of children.”

She takes a slow breath, and the terrifying aura slowly dissipates. She forces a smile. “But enough of that. I can give you a check-up if you want? Maybe narrow the time down and get you a due date.” She smiles slyly. “And I have an offer for you that you might want to hear, too.”

Pale Branch snaps out some orders, and calls one of her maids over. The two ladies re-locate to the solarium on the roof. The air here smells of leaf mould and the many fruit trees growing here under glass.

“Things are more secure here, even if it’s hot and humid even compared to outside,” Pale Branch says. “I’m sure she has spies in my household.”

“Hmm. Well,” Little River comments idly, “my surprise may help with that. But for now... let’s see what I can find out without you having to take anything off.”

There follows a round of rather theatrical checks - blood pressure, temperature, careful listening to Pale Branch’s stomach through a delicate ear trumpet, some intensive questioning about her morning sickness. All of which is unnecessary, of course, because Keris can hear the two little lives in Pale Branch’s belly just fine.

Nonetheless, a proper check-up is never entirely a bad idea, and Little River sends her friend out of the room briefly to get a urine sample that she promises to test to ensure the baby’s health before giving her conclusions.

“So,” she sums up, “I’d say you’re closer to three months along than two, but it’s still a bigger bump than I’d expect. Either you’ve got a big strong child that’s going to be a pain to birth, or you’re carrying twins. I’m tentatively leaning towards the latter - I’ll be able to tell for sure once I do some tests on this.”

A smile grows. “It’s a good thing, I think, even if it’ll mean a more miserable pregnancy for you. Atiya will certainly appreciate having friends to play with when she’s older.”

Pale Branch blinks heavily. “Twins?” she blurts out.

“Could be,” Little River agrees. “If so, there are two options. Either they’re both the same sex, be it girl or boy... or, if you’re lucky, you might get one of each.”

Pale Branch mutters a quick prayer of thanks to the Golden Lord and Susek, a fertility goddess. “Either way, it is a blessing,” she says, leaning her head on her hand as she rests the other on her barely-there belly.

“A blessing,” hums her friend. “Funny you should say that, actually.”

When Pale Branch looks at her, she’s smirking.

“You look like a cat who’s found the cream,” Pale Branch says, grinning back.

“Oh, I am purring, Pale Branch,” Little River boasts. “You know, I think, that I said I would try to learn the teaching magics of the dragons? Well, in my time away with Atiya, I have - and more than those besides. I learned to share the sea’s power itself with those I trust - and those of the others elements besides.”

She leans back casually, lacing her hands together. “Would you like to be the first I grant it to?”

There’s initial wariness in her eyes. “What does it cost you - and me?” she instantly asks. She is, after all, a Hui Cha triad princess - and not one like Cherry Blossom. She knows nothing in life is free, or comes without obligation.

“For me?” Little River repeated. “Power. And pain. The only way I can get the elements to grant you their gifts is with blood - the blood of a dragon, born to them. For you...”

She falls silent for a moment, rocking Atiya in her crib. “You would have to swear an oath of loyalty to me, and keep it - for as long as you serve a dragon, the powers of spirits will be yours to learn and use. Your body may change, too - subtly. A consequence of more Water in your soul. And the power to use your magics will come from worship and sacrifice.”

Pale Branch cracks her knuckles, eyes narrowed in concentration. “How about this - you swear the same oath, just as we already did,” she said. “We’re equals in this, you and me. I’m no one’s bitch. So if I have to do this for power, you can keep up to your own end of the bargain and swear to serve me. That way, we’re still equal.”

Little River considers for a moment. Then she nods.

“Agreed,” she says, grinning fiercely. “Hah. I knew I was right to offer this to you first. I was worried for a moment it’d spoil our friendship. But you’re right. Like should be paid with like - and we’re blood-sisters by our vows.”

She cracks her knuckles, tapping Iris on the head to wake her from her nap. “Come on, darling. We’re going to give Pale Branch a mark of power - which you are not allowed to eat. Hmm.” She taps her lips, turning to Pale Branch. “The mark will be the channel for your power - if the mark is destroyed, your magic goes with it. Since Iris is bad at behaving around tattoos, maybe scarification? You’ll be the one wearing it, so you should choose.”

Pale Branch recoils from that. “I’ve already got plenty of tattoos,” she says, “and your dragon hasn’t touched them. I don’t want people paying attention to a new scar - maybe a man could get away with that. But tattoos - suitably chosen, of course - can help female beauty, while scars are always male strength.”

Keris sighs internally at that reminder of the gender roles that always get in her way among the Hui Cha.

“Does the placement matter for how much power I get - and how large does it need to be?” she checks, clearly making calculations.

Closing her eyes for a moment, Keris thinks back to the mark she’d left on Danadu Mara by instinct. “No...” she says tentatively. “No, placement won’t matter at all. Size... I’d say at least the size of a thumbprint. Something water-themed would be best for the energies to flow right.”

Pale Branch smirks, and stretches out her arms, working her fingers. “Simple, then. Something on my torso, where it will be less visible and people won’t know I have your power,” she says. Carefully removing layers of silks, she strips down to bare her torso for Little River’s examination. “You could add something to the beauty girdle at the small of my back,” she says, weighing things up, “or perhaps an underbreast one to frame my cleavage. Do you have any of your own suggestions for beauty or grace?”

“Hmm... how about... ah, I have it. Come here, Iris,” Little River orders, beckoning her familiar back over to her. “Here, there’s a good girl... yes, stay there. So, how about an eye,” she frames Iris’s head, covering most of the two-dimensional shapes that made it up and leaving a few select ones free, “framed within a stylised breaking wave. Looking forward to when we come crashing down on those who would deny us.”

“Hmm. Where?” She glances at Keris. “You always have a brush and inks on you - show me what you would do on paper first.”

Conceding the point, Little River pulls out her current sketchbook - mostly full of landscapes of Silver Lotus, both in its current state and what she wants it to look like, eventually - and starts drawing. “I think it would best go on your back,” she says as she works. “So, hah, I could always be watching your back for you. And it would fit neatly onto a shoulderblade if I had it... about... this size.”

She flips the sketchbook round, displaying her work. The eye is distinctly Tengese in shape, for all that it’s in black ink - and the crashing wave that frames it has kymaaeran patterns hidden in it; a simple paired blessing of protection and luck.

((4+5+3 Kymaaera Style+2 stunt+4 Kimmy ExSux {beauty, talent for temptation, secrets}=14. 5+4=9 sux.))

Pale Branch almost purrs at the sight. “Little River,” she exclaims, “I had no idea you were an artist in this way too. You’re so talented, you make me sick - and I may have to come to you for any new body art I want. Just looking at this, it’s enough to want it.” She pauses, showing some nervousness. “Is there any special things we have to do?”

“Of course I can sketch,” Little River teases playfully. “How else do you think I plan out my silverwork? I make sketches before I cast things in metal or wax, of course. And no, nothing on your part. Save the oath. But that can wait until after I’ve put this on you.” She stretches, and gathers up Atiya. “Shall we go inside and get started?”

---

Within the house of one of the blue sea masters, a demonic rite is happening. A woman, tricked by a shapeshifting temptress, is pledging herself to serve her new mistress in return for demonic powers.

And Keris might be being a little bit extra about things. Because damn it, this is a performance and she means to impress Pale Branch.

The shutters are closed, with only traces of light entering. Incense fills the air. Cloths have been placed on the heads of the god-statues in the room - so they can’t see what is going on.

“Hui Cha Pale Branch,” she intones; the wavecrests in her hair rippling and flaring to life as a hundred flowing rivers, as a crashing ocean wave. The scent of sea salt fills the little room, and the small woman looks regal and not a little inhuman as she stands there - her teeth too sharp, her gaze too predatory. This is no lowborn ape - this is a reptilian monster, an apex predator, wearing the skin of a woman.

“Hui Cha Pale Branch,” she repeats, “I have put my mark upon you. Will you swear loyalty to me, as I swear loyalty to you? Will you vow never to betray me, and to be my ally in all things - as I vow so in turn? Will you make your oath to stand side-by-side with me unto death, if need be, and to never relinquish my secrets? For if you do, I will be your sister in blood, and guard your interests with the wrath of the ocean, and grant you the power to pay me back in kind.”

“I so vow,” swears Pale Branch, her teeth bared, her eyes gleaming. “We will be loyal to each other, bound to each other - or the ocean and the Pale Mistress take us both.”

“So be it,” snarls Little River with a savage grin, and she lays her hand upon the eye-and-wave on the woman’s back.

Pain. Pale Branch screams - a short, sharp sound, quickly stifled as she gets over the surprise. Her tattoo burns, not like a brand but like a knife. It feels as though someone has carved away the skin there and poured the ocean through the mark; salt stinging at raw flesh as power, power, power floods in through it.

She hears Little River hiss behind her; a sound with absolutely nothing human to it that would make all the hairs on her warm-blooded spine stand on end if not for the pain that’s distracting her. The flood fills her like a drinking-cup trying to hold all the world’s seas, and then forces her to hold more still; tidal pressure pushing outwards and forcing her soul to flow and expand and surge.

Slowly; ever-so-slowly, the torrent abates. Her breathing settles. The spine-chilling reptilian hiss from behind her peters out into the simple laboured breathing of a woman once more.

And when Pale Branch opens her eyes, she opens them to a world recast anew.

“That hurt,” she whispers, in a tiny voice. “I feel...” she shudders, “... dirty.”

Little River lays a gentle hand on her shoulder. “It will pass,” she says kindly. “You just had your soul flooded. It’s not a comfortable feeling. But it will pass.”

She can’t see the eye on her back. It opens again, glowing with a Zanaran rainbow, and focusses on Keris. It winks. Then it closes again, becoming just ink.

Keris can taste the difference on Pale Branch, though. She might be still as weak as any other human, but she’s saturated with Keris’s essence. The hellish brew within her is now within Pale Branch, seething and boiling and waiting for an outlet. It doesn’t feel like she’s naturally refilling it, but - ah, as Keris brushes against the eye with her left hand, she can feel the invisible strings tying Pale Branch to her. Prayer, no doubt, will open these arterial-strings and let her tiny pond refill from the casually discarded foam that comes from Keris’s ocean.

She squeezes reassuringly. “Get some sleep,” she tells... still her friend. But something else now, as well. “Eat properly, for your children. I’ll come by in a few days once I’ve run those tests, and introduce you to someone you can learn from. But for now, just focus on feeling better.”

“Oh... okay,” Pale Branch says weakly.

---

Keris stops by at her forge up on the hillside above Saata, wearing her own face. It’s much improved over what it once was. The old Shogunate ruins have been built into a solid-walled compound, and while there’s still plenty of work to do at least now it’s much harder for spying eyes to get in. There’s the signs of her children’s presence here - dragon statues built out of crudely cemented stone, and many-coloured murals on the interior walls.

She steps into one of the buildings that she’s protected with an altar to her and her souls, leaving her own nature to hide it from onlookers. She finds Vali asleep on a hammock slung next to the forge, while Nara - violet-skinned, horned, hooved and dressed up in thick leathers and gloves while he works - carefully stirs a crucible.

“The tattoo-empowerment you thought of?” she greets them. “It worked like a charm. She felt the desecration - said it felt dirty - but I was able to play that off.”

Grinning broadly, Keris leans in to drop a kiss on Nara’s forehead. “And now she’ll be able to learn from Elly and Rounen,” she says happily. “And probably enlighten properly someday, after I bring her in on the truth. All in all, a brilliant plan.”

Nara chuckles, leaving the crucibles alone while he hugs his mother. “Well, of course it was,” he says sweetly. “It was mine, wasn’t it? Of course, Pale Branch was just the proof of concept.”

“Yes indeed,” Keris chuckles. “And since it worked with her...”

She grins, wide and vicious and gleeful.

“It’ll work on Sea Eagle too.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Keris is bored.

Keris is very, very bored. She is now regretting everything she did to help support the idea that the wedding would happen in An Teng. Now she’s stuck on a boat - a two-master carrying the groom-to-be and his father - and everyone is watching her and she’s boooooooooored. And surrounded by men, because quite a few Hui Cha women hold to the old ways and don’t like to travel too far away from home, and Jade Fox’s group are notably conservative.

The sun is setting in the west, and she leans over the side of the junk, watching Sea Eagle’s own junk keeping track beside them. Him and Lucky Wolf are attending the wedding in person - the others have only sent representatives due to tensions among them.

In the water below her, flying fish leap out and skim the surface.

Bored bored bored.

Some movement catches her eye. On the deck of the other ship, the wispy-bearded Sea Eagle has come onto the deck, stripped shirtless. For an old man, he’s surprisingly toned - compared to the paternalistic guts of Lucky Wolf and Jade Fox, he’s got hardly any fat on him. His old scars flex as he works through simple martial arts katas.

Cradling Atiya in her lap - gods, her baby is the most interesting thing on this boring, boring ship, and she spends most of her time asleep - Keris watches, getting an estimation of his skill. It would be easier if he showed off some of the more complex forms, but... well, Keris is good at judging killers.

((Reaction+Melee to judge his dicepool and any Styles. 5+5+2 Coadj+2 stunt=14. Hah, 11 successes. Sweet.))

The old man is skilled. He might have slowed down with age, but she thinks she’s looking at a master of Wood Dragon Style here. And then he switches forms - and she’s looking at someone who’s also mastered Tiger Style, by any reckoning.

That would explain a lot. The old man isn’t some fat wastrel like Peaceful Wave. The reason his body is in such fine shape is that he’s turned it into a weapon, keeping age from withering his health or skills. He’s slowed down, but he’s still in good health.

Now, where does a man like that learn Wood Dragon Style to such a level of mastery? She doubts he’d tell easily, because she’d have heard rumours of it elsewhere.

((What’s his estimated Melee rating/dicepool?))
((Keris thinks he’s probably Melee 3, Style 3, Physique 3 - he hasn’t lost his skill, but he’s slowed down with age a lot. He must have been a monster in his youth.))
((Geez. Impressive indeed, yeah. This is a man who could have taken one of her Gales in a straight match and made them seriously work for it - if not won, with a bit of environmental advantage or help.))
((Peak mortal, yes. He is the one who took the unorthodox approach to being a blue sea master, after all.))

Sitting on the edge of the junk, Little River applauds his performance as he starts to wind down - audibly enough that he can hear it from across the distance between their ships. When he turns to look for the source of the sound; she gives him an entirely genuine seated bow of respect; exaggerated enough for him to make it out clearly.

“I did not know I had an audience,” he calls out to her. “Does it please you, lady?” The sweat on his skin gleams red in the sunset’s light. Like blood.

“As great skill always does, lord,” she calls back. “Your talent speaks for itself.”

One hand goes to his back. “I am but an old man,” he says. “My fighting days are past me.”

Keris doesn’t believe it for a moment. Even slowed as he is, she’d bet on him against one of her Lionesses.

“I doubt that very much, lord,” she replies, a note of laughter to her voice. “But even if it’s true, your skill is impressive. Was that Tiger Style I saw? I’ve seen it here and there, but never so well-honed.”

He leans on the side of his boat. “Oh, I learned it in my youth,” he says. “The tigers of the far southern islands are mighty beasts, if you watch them in the wild. One can learn things from them.”

Little River’s eyebrows rise. As far as she can tell, he’s being truthful about that. “From the tigers themselves?” she repeats, impressed. “I knew they were the inspiration for such martial arts, but you’re the first I’ve met who learned straight from the source.” She tilts her head. “Might I ask for a story or two to pass the voyage? Though without having to strain our voices.”

“Ah, I am an old man,, and I am tired,” he says, a twinkle in his eye. “Perhaps once this journey is over.”

“I will look forward to it,” she smiles. A snuffle from Atiya has her look down and rub a gentle soothing thumb across her baby’s temple, and she gives another seated bow. “Until then, I will leave you to your practice, lord.”

He nods, and returns to his exercise. Keris watches, until the wheezing of her baby reminds she needs to get her to bed.

---

That evening, there is a wordless explosion from Eko. She has had enough of her siblings’ shenanigans, she furiously gestures.

“... um?” Keris asks. Eko’s habit of entering a conversation at least a quarter of the way through it always necessitates some hasty catching up, and she runs through a mental list of who’s within her at the moment.

...

... no-one. None of her babies are within her, bar Eko. Only Dulmea, Firisutu and Sirelmiya.

“... are you mad you aren’t out and about?” she asks. “Because I know I said I’d drop you on any of Deveh’s people I found poking around the Anarchy, but I haven’t had a chance to look yet. That’s partly what I’m going to be doing here at the wedding.”

Of course not! Just look at this... this nonsense, mama, Eko curses with a flick of her hair.
Deciding that she’s not going to get answers for this without being there, Keris settles Atiya in a cot, closes her eyes, and sinks into meditation, following the wordless voice deep into her soul. She finds herself in the paint-slick wastes of the outer Isles, where the waters are thick with many-coloured scum, brightly coloured flowers cross from the white-sanded beaches, and oil slashes down from escaped clouds, coating everything in a rainbow sheen.
Eko is carrying an amber-handled parasol-slash-spear, hiding under it as she furiously points at... at...

A two-faced figure sitting under the roof of a pagoda, their skin made of china and shaped into horned, hooved monstrosity. Wild keruby - including one red-skinned, sharp-toothed creature who is one of Elly’s kin - have gathered here, and already there’s a community forming here.

Betrayed, Eko indicates! Betrayed by Zanara’s wicked schemes!

“Oh dear,” Keris says, wincing a little. “That’s just you and Vali left now, isn’t it? I’m sorry, sweetheart.”

The two-faced figure rotates its neck around so its other, equally demonic face is... uh, facing Keris, and with a clopping of hooves they approach Keris. “Greetings, exalted one, venerable one, mother of all who attend here - it is I, your first and foremost priest,” it - probably he? - says. “It has been some time, all-mother.”

Carefully hiding her uncertainty at being put on the spot so suddenly, Keris only smiles. She’s met this kerub before, apparently... so, hmm. What clay-keruby has she met? There were a few the day her souls matured; caught in the artstorms that covered the Isles... perhaps then? She keeps the polite expression up as she matches probably-his approach, eyes flicking over him.

It’s the demon mask that gives it away - that and the presumptuous way he claimed to be her first priest. She’s fairly sure it’s Yarnhrei - the little cheeky (and dangerous) clay cherub who found her when the snake attacked and who dared to kiss Dulmea’s hand.

“Yarnhrei,” she greets him. “It has, hasn’t it? And now look at you. All grown up.”

His other face comes around, and it’s smiling. “You did remember me,” he says.

Gonna stab that smile off his face, Eko threatens, her Adorjan-granted knife already in hand.

“You will not,” he says, the same smug smile on that demon face. “I stand under the all-mother’s protection. I will venerate her; I will adore her; I will raise cults in her name. I saw her and Zanara-Two-Face in my dreams last night - and I knew what I must become. For them; the all-mother and the one who speaks to beauty with one face and truth with the other.”

“Now now, Eko, calm down,” Keris says, circling Yarnhrei with interest. His essence is, as expected, the flickering opalescent light that feels like Zanara; a little stronger than child-keruby. He follows her with his faces; occasionally reversing direction to switch which one is looking at her. There doesn’t seem to be any limit to how far his neck can turn.

“So then,” she asks, reaching out to brush her left hand across his forehead. “What has this transformation made of you, I wonder?”

She can feel Zanara’s own distinctive blend within him - oozing tacky paint, oil, fluid mercury and the sap of hungry trees. Something of Haneyl, something of Rathan. She thinks now of how Haneyl and Rathan have... calmed down since they were children, no longer showing some of those traits that so worried her.

Haneyl doesn’t try to turn people into art. Rathan isn’t so vain and self-centred.

((Zanaran essence))

Well, she thinks. Zanara might worry her in some ways, but... their attention-seeking tendencies and deliberate rule-testing is probably a safer expression of those facets. At least from what she’s seen so far.

She’ll keep an eye on it, she decides firmly, and gets back to testing what Yarnhrei’s new abilities are - a process of experimentation and discovery that’s becoming more practiced with each new keruby maturation she weighs up.
He is a priest, a preacher. He knows that much already. And he is... unnaturally calm. So calm that his calmness flows out and infuses others, so that the predators and prey of her soul can lie down together. He has drawn this crowd here, and he is their muse. Such power comes with a cost, though. His skin is not clay; it is ceramic. His joints are stiff. He cannot run quickly; he can barely hobble and it clearly pains him. There is still clay within, but this rigidity and self-sculpting has come at a cost. She smiles, and congratulates him, and spends a little more time pacifying her daughter. It’s only when they’re en-route to the Ruin; Keris having suggested her daughter show off her blood-alchemy plan and give some more cryptic comments about it that Keris won’t understand until after it’s all finished, that she thinks to wonder about Vali.
... she doesn’t voice that, of course. But it’s an interesting thought. Vali spent all of Air here in the domain. Eko doesn’t go into the Spires much, because it’s too loud for her. And so far, barring Eko herself, her souls’ keruby have been getting their first maturations in the order they were born.

Did Yarnhrei skip a step and break the pattern?

Or is there another kerub somewhere in the Spires that she has yet to see?

Maybe that’s why she routes them through the Spires. Eko rolls her eyes at that, but she does like to follow in Keris’s wake.

And that’s why Keris isn’t entirely surprised when she finds a bar at the foot of one of the spires, painted with neon-glowing lightning paint, There’s three hulking figures with steel scales slumped outside, drinking acidic beer carried out to them by a tired-looking (yet still kind of cute) guy with metal goat-horns, flecks of scales on his skin, small non-functional wings and a tiny tail.

... goddamnit Vali. How long has he had adult keruby and... just not felt it was important enough to tell anyone?

Edging away from Eko, who appears to be standing perfectly still apart from faint vibrations of outrage so that she has more time to take a good long run-up to an Asarin-worthy burst of indignant fury, Keris approaches the trio. Two breeds, she notes. Ohhh dear.

“Hello,” she greets them. “You used to be fems, right?”

One of them belches. “Yeah,” he mumbles.

“Oh dear, Eko’s shown up again,” the serving-guy says, shoulders slumping. “What’ll it be this time? Oh, it’ll be a goat-and-sugar.”

Yes, that is exactly what she wants, and how dare he know her drink order Eko gestures with outrage. She has never seen her little betraying brother’s adult keruby before, but she hates it!

“That’ll be two scales,” he says. “Same price as always.”

Such a presumptuous attitude from a guy who’d be cute if he wasn’t so tired-looking, Eko gestures, looking to Keris for help. She’s never seen this... this insufferably rude boy before. She’s quite - quite, she emphasises covering her mouth with a feather-fan she produced from nowhere - beside herself with shock!

Keris pinches the bridge of her nose. “You really need to stop forgetting your siblings’ keruby exist,” she mutters. “Why didn’t you forget Zanara’s, anyway? Is it just because Calesco and Vali are your neighbours, so their betrayal is bigger?”

She doesn’t forget them, Eko insists. She tilts her head, masked face considering Keris. But if she did forget them, she feels that the sheer betrayed outrage she’s feeling about Zanara being so terrible is probably because they only just evolved, probably because mama and Zana have both been doing cult-y things so he’s a priest, which means - she snaps her fan shut - Zanara’s been getting unfair help from Mama and so needs to be disqualified and Eko should stab that smug better-than-thou priest!

Oh yes, Keris realises. Maybe Eko inherited some of her dislike of self-righteous preachers.

“Please don’t stab him,” Keris says firmly. “And... look, come here, sweetheart.”

Drawing Eko into a hug, Keris accepts a few scrapes and cuts from contact - though fewer, now that Eko is more regularly wearing her ribbon-dress and her mask and her gloves and... huh. Honestly, she’s dressing pretty chastely, Keris realises, once you subtract all the frills and lace and general... Ekoness. Incredibly modestly, in fact. If she were human, she’d barely be showing any skin at all from neck to ankle - though, Keris notes, she’s still barefoot.

Maybe it’s because she’s feeling insecure about her body the way Calesco does? Or, more likely, it’s just the prudishness she’s picking up from Asarin. Regardless, Keris hugs her closely, smoothing a soothing hand over her back and making sympathetic noises. For all that she’s being ridiculous about it, the way all her siblings’ keruby are maturing before hers really does seem to be getting to Eko.

“Look at it this way,” she murmurs. “Your keruby were the first, right? Well, maybe the maturations have just been saving the best for last? And I’m sure your clever cryptic stuff with the blood-alchemy that you won’t explain to me will get them to mature. Along with whatever else it’s for.”

It’s so unfair, mama, Eko indicates with a head-shake. So, so unfair.

“That’ll be two scales,” says the server, holding a clay cup with bubbling blood in it.

Just as unfair as having to pay for drinks! She’s a princess, Eko gestures with her fan. This should be on the house.

“No one gets my things without pay,” the new kerub says firmly. “You don’t pay, you don’t drink.”

What if she just pays afterw-

“You’ll just run out on the bill.”

Eko throws her hands out dramatically. Look how horrible everything to do with Vali is, she complains.

Keris rolls her eyes, and fishes about for something to pay with. Her avatar within her inner world usually does have a few bits and bobs on it, and... yes, there’s a money pouch from the last time she was here. She flicks a couple of coins towards the server to cover the drink, and then holds up a few more.

“Do you mind sticking around?” she asks. “I’d like to work out what you’re good at.”

“Lady, I’ll do anything for you if I’m getting paid,” he says, forcing himself to straighten out his shoulders. He’s putting on a smile for a j... for someone who wants to talk to him. Keris knows that expression well. Of course she does. She's seen it on far too many others, on the streets.

She puts on a reassuring grin. “Just want to poke at you; that’s all,” she assures, catching his fingers in her left hand and squeezing them assessingly. Hmm. No more metal skin like fems have. Interesting.

It’s the feel of Vali, but it’s drained. Lacking. The lightning in them is mere sparks that barely sting her fingers, and there’s just leaden weight, sullen humid cloud-damp, and wet and crumbling stone.

And most of all confusingly, both him and the two hulking figures - both female, Keris realises now, though they’re so ill-formed and scale-covered she couldn’t actually tell at first glance - are weak. As weak as they were when they were children.

((Valiant essence, E2))

“What happened to you, hmm?” she murmurs. “Where’d your strength go?” She glances up at him, absently handing the coins over. “Can you tell me about when you matured?”

He takes another coin. “A moment of strength,” he says bitterly. “And then it’s all gone. You can’t live like that. So I realised I needed money. Running a bar isn’t much, but at least it’s a living.”

One of the two drinkers clears her throat. “Yeah,” she says, in a thick Nexan accent. “What Nyquan said. Me an’ Hana here, we got to be great. But it don’t last. You can’t keep your wings forever. Scrubbin’ floors sucks, but...” she spreads her hands. “Them Haneylish assholes pay. ‘Nuff’s enough.”

A moment of strength, Keris thinks. So... some other breed. A maturation that the fems became... and then matured again from? Or, no... not matured. Degraded. Into these. Odd. But it does kind of make sense. Haneyl’s breeds all have their other forms that they keep suppressed, just as Haneyl herself does. But Vali’s problem isn’t not wanting the dragon - it’s being unable to maintain it.

“Thank you,” she says thoughtfully, handing over the last of the coins. “Bring the girls another round on me, please. Come on, Eko. Let’s go. You can show me your blood-alchemy towers and gloat about how I still don’t know what you’re doing there.”

---

By the time she can see the sight of the family’s land, Keris has a lot to think about.

Firstly, Eko is up to... something. She gloated at Keris a lot when she showed the strange blood-stone-fruit that’s forming in the roots of the distillation tower, where everything Eko has been working on has been coming together. It’s a fruit the size of her little fingernail, and Eko says it’s nearly mature. It’s a present. For someone.

Then she got very cryptic and dragged Keris out again saying she’d ruin everything.

Meanwhile, the two Valiant breeds she met... she’s had a look at them. They’re sad things; degraded things. The two hulking steel-scaled ones are slow and ponderous and incredibly strong. But they just don’t give a fuck. They can work quickly, but sloppily - and though they can do a day’s labour in an hour, they won’t willingly work more. They’d probably make deadly soldiers with their thick steel plates and terrible strength, but they... don’t care about fighting. They just want their vices.

And Nyquan, the one who could pass as a lizard beastman, can sing and dance and make food and do all these kinds of things that Keris remembers from the streets. He runs his place, but in a world where sziroms will cook for a story or some ink, it’s not... great. He was cute, though. And he alluded to ‘entertaining’ the hungry one who’s moved into the Spires in search of profit.

Keris has put that firmly out of her mind. Haneyl and Vali have always been her Nexan souls - for all that Eko has a Nexan drawl when she can speak - and if some of the dirtier bits of Nexus have flowed into her Domain... well, Keris would rather not know about it. Or think about it, if she has to know.

Once again she finds herself in the lands of this declining family, with its ruined ecology and salt-soaked fields. She’s so glad Haneyl isn’t here with her.

“What do you think of this place?” Jade Fox asks her, as they idly walk from the dockside. “A place for my son and my blood, eh?”

“They’ll benefit from a guiding hand,” Little River says diplomatically. “And of course, it’ll give us access to the mainland.” She purses her lips, wondering whether to bring up the damage they’re doing to the land in the hopes of tourism.

“He’s a pirate,” Dulmea observes. “I doubt he can see it. To him, land is a thing you raid, a thing you buy to give you a place of operations, or a place that produces goods for you to carry. I doubt he can tell you much about what they’re doing to the soil here.”

Keris considers that, and makes a tentative decision. Land is women’s area, after all - he’s likely to listen to her on this. “They’re not taking proper care of the land, here,” Little River tells him. “Out of desperation, mostly. They’re pandering to tourists from the Realm, and crippling themselves by doing it - because it’s the only way to survive. An alliance with you, once they see reason and realise we can support them and they don’t need the foreigners, will let them repair the coastline and bring life back to the soil.”

Jade Fox starts at that, fist balling up. “You can tell that just by looking from here?” he asks. “Gods. That it is obvious seeing it for your first time here - female intuition is an amazing thing.”

“Well, female intuition and some experience,” Little River sighs. “This isn’t the first place like this I’ve seen. I know the signs.” She nods. “There should be mangroves along the shore here. They’ve cut them down and drained the swamps - to give better views of the sea, and to make the land more beautiful. Or, well. More like northern An Teng. But...” she grimaces. “That left them open to the storm. The swamps are what shield the land from waves.”

“Hmm. Yes. Mangroves are good for docking in, too,” he says thoughtfully. “At least when you have a shallow draught vessel.”

Little River dips her head in agreement. “And this far south, they should be lining the coast, offering protection and hiding places,” she expands. “Encourage them to let the mangroves return, show them that trade from Saata can support them where the fickle attentions of the Realm do not. They will recover.”

“You should talk to them - and my wife, too,” he says. “They will not listen to a man on affairs of the land. It is not proper.”

She sighs. “They think they’re doing what’s best for the land,” she mourns. “It’ll be difficult to make them listen. But...” She looks around again, grimacing at the damage done to this poor coastline. “I’ll try. This place needs to be healed.”

“I would appreciate you doing this for my son, as a present for his new married life,” he says meaningfully.

That’s a clear enough message. Little River nods. “Of course,” she agrees. “A path to a prosperous future is a fitting gift for a wedding. I will,” she smiles, the mournful air that’s hung around her since returning to this ailing land dissipating in favour of a more confident set to her shoulders, “do my very best to make them see reason.”

---

It is a few days until the wedding, and as a woman in more conservative An Teng, Little River is of course swept into the bride’s side of things. It’s a very prominent reminder that it’s the Hui Cha women she’s been associating with. She has to be very careful because she’s used to much more permissible crudeness and overt viciousness. And invoking the Pale Mistress at all. Yeah, that’s not a thing to do here.

Nonetheless, Keris is capable of subtlety when needed, and Little River is still a force to be reckoned with. Inside of a few hours of arriving she’s more or less taken over the ornamentation and jewellery side of things. Under her chilling glares and flowing words, resistance erodes to nothing, and soon women are hurrying to and fro setting up the shrine to her satisfaction, while she adjusts the jewellery the young bride will be wearing and gives her a combination of coaching session and pep talk.

Of course, among these tamed sheep Little River is a wolf, as alluring as the ocean and as subtle as its depths. They might not have thought they would like some pirate-woman showing up, but she insinuates herself in and almost takes over. The bride-to-be is particularly enthralled by her wiles - and of course, Atiya is always a conversation starter among women. She might have told them that Atiya’s father is dead, but it’s only a little lie.

“What’s it like?” Rose Petal says, holding the baby in her arms with a little bit of hesitancy. “Having a child and...”

“Being a mother?” Little River asks. “It’s... it’s everything, honestly. It’s frightening, exhilarating, humbling, satisfying and beautiful by turns. Your children and your land - they’re the two things most important to a woman’s life. Most fulfilling.” She smiles. “Though I do think you won’t feel quite as in over your head as I did. You’ll have your mother to give you guidance and advice. And no doubt to smile when you complain about the frustrating parts, and remind you that you were once like that as well.”

She pats the younger woman on the hand. “Don’t worry. Your husband-to-be is a good man, you have the support of your elders, and you keep the old ways. Motherhood will suit you well. And I promise; when you look down at the little life you’ve created; you’ll feel such triumph as if nothing in the world could ever bring you down - and love more fiercely than you ever thought possible.”

That seems to stick with her, and Rose Petal smiles more. Keris even works some minor wonders and helps clear up her skin before the big day.

---

The night before the wedding, she happens across Sea Eagle again, practicing in the courtyard that him and his men have claimed. Two muscular thugs move to block her way - and oh! She can see the fear in their eyes. Word of her has got around, but they’re still willing to do it - when Sea Eagle waves them away.

“So,” he says, straightening up, one hand on his back, “what brings you out of the women’s quarters?”

Once she’s through the door, Little River can see that there are women in here too - two particularly toned ones stand out, identical twins in matching white and purple outfits, both with seven-section staves. But then again, Sea Eagle is noted for his much more lax attitude towards letting women at sea.

“Well, for a start,” she smiles, “I wanted to hear those stories.”

She catches his reflection in one of the nearby windows, checking again what price this man would sell himself for. What would earn his loyalty, and his trust.

Oh, this man isn’t the sort who can be bought by money - or extended life, or killing a rival, or respectability. This is the dangerous one. She sees his desire to wield terrible power, to stand against the gods - and cast them down. This is a man who wants power to rival deities.

“And secondly,” she says, “I thought I might share a few stories of my own that you might like to hear. And perhaps get some practice in. It’s a little tiresome, not being able to do any forms or blade work for fear of frightening the mainlanders here.”

“Hmm.” He snaps his fingers, and the two women step forwards. “Setting Sun, Rising Sun. Fight this woman. A little spar, for you both.”

“Yes, master,” they say in unison, bowing to him. Then they move into the centre of the court, pacing around Little River. Making sure she can’t see the two of them.

“Just my little game, dragon-child,” the old man says, stroking his beard as he sits on a bench. “It is said that you are the equal of ten men. Well, two should just be easy for you, yes?”
Little River smiles lazily, rolling her shoulders and loosening her sarong. She draws the twin blades of Ascending Air from her hips - sheathed, for her intention is not to kill here - and takes in her opponents as her hair hangs over her face. She doesn’t bother turning, or trying to get them both in her field of view. She doesn’t need to see them to track where they are. The twins have divine blood - weak, but it’s there. Still, they’re pathetic compared to her.
((E1 each, divine blood))

Slowly - almost playfully - Little River starts to sway. Her motions are graceful, hypnotic... but the rhythm to them is a lie; shifting fluidly and unpredictably just when the eye thinks it’s picked up the pattern. Her arms rise, knives held within them, and assume a position that makes one think of a serpent’s fangs, waiting to sink into flesh and deliver their deadly payload.

“Well, girls?” Little River says, and there’s the barest hint of a hiss to her words. “Will you start? Or shall I?”

The one in front of her starts spinning her staff, around and around. The chain sections spin in the air, whirring. Drawing attention.

Or at least it would, if Keris couldn’t hear the other woman coming from behind.

They strike like hunting birds - like herons, perhaps, stabbing in at her with jerky, avian motions. Or peacocks, the tail catching the eye as the talons come down. It’s not a style Keris has seen before, and against a normal opponent it would have been overwhelmingly effective.

But they’re not up against a normal opponent.

Two beaks come down on a snake, which simply... isn’t there. Little River moves, sinuous and fluid, the fabric of her sarong swirling between them to draw the eye as the staff from behind thrusts forward through the space its target just left. A sharp tug pulls the sarong back before it can get caught, and the staff continues onward - right into the Setting Sun’s shoulder.

Fangs flash under fabric, and the hard metal sheathes of Ascending Air connect with Rising Sun’s ribs as Little River swirls past her. She recovers admirably, lashing out with a kick and then bringing the staff around in a whirling display of intimidation and strength to force her foe backwards.

The cobra coils, and flares its hood in turn. So beautiful are the patterns that its prey never feels the bite.

Sarong swirling again, Little River moves, impossibly, straight through the whirling staff-guard. And, at the same time, around it. It’s not speed, and nor is it - strictly speaking - magic. It’s a movement technique from the higher levels of Snake Style; one that plays havoc with the observer’s sense of distance and position.

Another two vicious cuts, this time to the bicep and throat. Rising Sun gags as her sister moves to the attack. Her staff comes in, flashy and brutal... and hits only cloth. Once again, that infuriating swaying and the hypnotic shifting of the sarong misdirect her. Worse yet, a gentle tap from a still-sheathed knife sends the staff down into Rising Sun’s legs.

The other knife cracks across the bridge of Setting Sun’s nose; hard enough to make her eyes water.

After that, it’s pretty much just a massacre. Little River is a shifting, smirking, sinuous predator in the ring. Every motion lies. Every attack is either a feint that hides the real strike, or follows one of their own. Not once does either staff manage to touch her, while again and again those wicked blades rap against them - just hard enough to bruise without seriously wounding. They quickly learn to pull their own blows, too - for those land far harder when the serpentine dragon redirects them into one another.

“Enough!” Sea Eagle orders, raising one hand. “I think you’ve made your point, Little River. My star pupils are... no match for you.”

She can hear that he’s not happy at that. Not happy at all. He had probably hoped they’d land a few blows on her.

“There’s no shame in that,” she says gently, coming to a halt and settling her knives at her hips again. “I did not lie. I fought two of the Greater Dead before birthing Atiya - with help, yes, but Greater Dead nonetheless.” She pauses. “And while I cannot make a dragon out of a man; that is not to say I cannot teach,” she adds. Veiled meaning drips from her words like water. “Would you grace me with those stories of how you learned Tiger Style, lord? Perhaps in a more comfortable setting?”

He doesn’t take it with the best grace, but soon he’s sitting in one of the guest rooms with Little River. The maid brings in tea, and then scurries out; her nerves aren’t fit for a shirtless old man who happens to be a murderous crime lord and a snake-fast dragonblood.

Cupping his hands around his tea, he swirls it around. “A little over-brewed,” he says, thoughtfully. “And these leaves have seen a previous use.”

Little River sips at her own, and purses her lips. “Perhaps I’ve been a little overbearing, if the staff are too terrified to make tea properly,” she sighs. “Ah well. At least they do as they’re told. Now.”

She sets her cup down with a little click.

“Of all the blue sea masters, lord Sea Eagle; you are the deadliest. Red Leaf has a claim to swordsmanship... but he is not a master of Tiger Style. And, if I’m not mistaken, Wood Dragon Style - which I won’t ask where you learned, though I would dearly love to hear the story if you ever feel like sharing it.”

She folds her hands on the table. “And yet. As you said to me on the ship, you are an old man. Your fighting days are not past you, I think... but you are not what you once were.”

Leaning forward, the dragon - the serpent - smiles at him. Alluring. Dangerous. Knowing.

“What if I said you could be? What if I told you I could share the power of the sea with you - touch your soul with brine and let you learn the powers of spirits sworn to serve the dragons? If I could give you back the strength of limb you had in your youth, and power beyond it that would let you duel elementals into submission when they becalm ships or force compliance from the gods of the shore - what would you say then?”

“I would say you’re trying to sell me something,” he says, raising one eyebrow over his tea. “I am no fool, Little River. Over the years, I have learned that gods will try to enslave anyone they can. Sometimes they call it worship, sometimes they call it servitude.” He sips. “It is all the same to me.”

“Oh, I know,” Little River says. A flicker of something ugly and bitter breaks the smile for a moment. “Believe me, I know.” She shakes her head. “But I am not a god. And you have not answered - would you reject power, if the price was servitude? Or would it simply depend on what power - and who was offering it?”

She’s taking a risk here, Keris knows; speaking so bluntly and showing so much of her hand. But she recognises something in Sea Eagle. The same mercurial envy wound around her own heart. And while he’s older and more experienced... the bitter, envious little Kit she remembers from before Dulmea came was perfectly willing to serve, if it got her the strength she’d coveted. Had been willing, when it made her safe and gave her vengeance besides.

This old man has been offered power before, and has turned it down before. She’s banking that it wasn’t the leashes attached to the offers that led him to reject them - merely the people holding them.

She sees the gleam in his eyes - and she wouldn’t recognise it if she didn’t know it so achingly well.

He has his own Vali, in his head. He doesn’t call it Vali, no. It’s not a person to him. It doesn’t rave about dragons or punch its sister or dote over small children. It doesn’t call him ‘dad’. It just screams in his ear from the inside, and what it screams is this: I will never be chained again.

((4-dot principle seen - Never Be Chained Again))

“I’ll consider it,” he says, sipping his tea.

Keris considers this unexpected stumbling block, weighs her options, and chooses. Little River waits for a few polite beats.

“I have made this pact with one other,” she says quietly. “And they swore to serve me, yes. The gift cannot work, otherwise. But I swore to serve them, as well. To heed their council and protect their interests and never betray them. I am not a god, Sea Eagle. I do not need worship. I do not want slaves. But I will make space for allies.”

((Per+Pres to convince him that what she’s looking for is a supportive ally - one who’ll back her in her plans, yes, but who beside that will have relatively little expected of them. Keris is willing to reveal her own distaste for slavery and hatred at the thought of it - as well as her Rathan Principle of fair payback.))
((4+5+3 Perfumed Smoke+1 bonus {hide one’s motives when they conflict with a target’s}+2 stunt+4 Pay Each Man Back In Kind+4 Kimmy ExSux {charm, talent for temptation, darkest desires}=19. 12+4=16 sux.))

She puts her tea down and rises. “Thank you for hearing me out, lord,” she says formally. “I hope you enjoy the ceremony. I will take up no more of your time here.”

“Wait,” the old man says, raising one hand.

She pauses. Waiting patiently for him to work through whatever’s going through his head. She doesn’t press - this isn’t the time for the tsunami of presence that carries men away under its force. The hook is baited, and what will win her this man - if anything does - is the slow erosion of a trickling stream; diverting around a rock it cannot shift.

“What is it that you really want, Little River?” the man says. “Don’t play the fool,” he says before she can respond. “You want something. You appear from nowhere - and come into suspicious amounts of money. You buy that old fool Lucky Wolf - it’s clear you paid too much for that house, and you are not a stupid woman. You paid for him to rebuild the fleet he wasted. You claim to have fled An Teng, but you can still organise this wedding and feed Jade Fox’s vanities. My wife says you are siding with Pale Branch - the young one, the vicious one, the one who is easy to control.

“You are trying to get the blue sea masters to back you. You want a majority of the council indebted to you. And you are a killer. Trained. Lethal. I have seen plenty of the Sinasana fight - you are not as young as you claim. Only their eldest and most vicious are as skilled with the blade as you are, and only a few among them.

He doesn’t let his hand fall. “Who do you really serve, Little River - as I doubt that is truly your name. Another one of the Realm’s dogs of the Eye, sent to bring us to heel?”

She’s silent for a long moment, as her mind races over a litany of internal curses. This pitch has gone very badly and very suddenly wrong. And there’s only one real way to get out of it - only one way to assuage his suspicions now that they’ve been so thoroughly roused. He’s certain that she’s the servant of some foreign power, and the only thing that might avoid his enmity against foreigners is... the truth.

That she’s a servant of demons. That Hell wants an Anarchy free of the Realm. That she wants the Hui Cha, yes - but that the princes of Hell don’t. Not really. Not more than they want to drown Dynastic influence in the southwest.

The moment stretches out as she thinks; her thoughts reaching Ekoan speed as time seems to slow.

The only way to get him on her side is to trust him. With a secret like infernalism hanging over her head, even so old and paranoid a man as Sea Eagle might well be satisfied. But... gods and Makers. To trust a stranger. It’s probably the hardest thing Keris could be asked to do. Even knowing she could kill him in a heartbeat if he took it wrong, she shies away from the thought with an instinctive, violent terror.

Eventually, it’s the simple realisation that she has nothing to lose by admitting it that pushes her over the edge. If she says nothing and leaves the room, he will work against her and try to have her killed. If she tells him of her true loyalties and he reacts badly, he will work against her and try to have her killed - but she will hear it in his heart and breath, and kill him before he can give her away, and deal with the consequences.

If she tells him and he accepts it, though...

“No,” she says quietly. “Not the Realm.” She turns fully, facing him. A bitter smile crosses her face. “Spreading the interests of the Realm is, in fact, the opposite of what I am here to do. They would kill me if they knew I sought to drown their influence in the Anarchy - if they knew the work I have done to erode their power, and the orders I have done it on.”

She pauses meaningfully. “House Sinasana would kill me,” she says, specifying every syllable.

And there are only two laws House Sinasana kills for. Only one with this kind of power.

“Hah.” It’s a humourless noise from the old man. He gestures at her to sit again. “So you’re a devil worshipper. Well, well.” He picks up the kettle idly, swirling it around. “I had considered it. That’s a very good reason for you to appear in Saata with a false name and demon-granted wealth. Very good indeed. So that goddess of yours, that Riyaah MuHiitiyah - she is one of the lords of Hell. A wicked spirit you have tempted my greedy rivals with - and they are fighting with each other to succumb.”

Little River dips her head and takes her seat. “My orders were not to gather worship, or to enslave the men of Saata, or even to take over a faction,” she tells him, because at this point full disclosure will actually make him less paranoid. “My lady’s eyes passed over we Tengese, and the Raaran Ge, and all other families of Saata save one.”

Picking up the oversteeped tea, she sips at it. “She wants the Realm’s fingers in the Anarchy drowned,” she says bluntly. “She wants the Dynasts who profit from the Southwest ruined. She wants the Navy and the magistrates to be set at one another’s throats; the trade that goes to the Blessed Isles diverted or destroyed. Demons on one side, Dynasts on the other.”

Setting her cup down again, Little River lays one hand and then the other flat upon the table, palms up.

“But my methods? She cares not. She needs no worship or slaves from me. So I came to the Hui Cha; to my people, and I sought to rise to lead them. Not so I could throw them at the Realm. Not so I could offer them to demons. So that when I do my work in the shadows, I can profit from it in the sun. Buk Moi fell, and the Three Flame Society fell with it. If the Hui Cha expand to take their place...”

She shrugs. “Then who will accuse us? It is no plan. We will not be to blame when other forces strike at the Realm - only opportunists, to move into the gaps left behind. The Hui Cha are not what I mean to use to take wealth and trade and power from the Realm - merely where I mean to move it to.”

Looking him in the eye, she folds her hands.

“And now you know. So we are in an interesting position; you and I. I could kill you before you leave this room. But the results if I did would be... complicated. Yet, if I let you go... you could kill me with a word. To House Sinasana, or any other.”

“You could kill me with a knife at any time,” he says back, brows furrowed. “You have shown my star pupils are... like infants to you. If you wanted me dead - even if you did not send your demonic servants after me - you could manage it.” He bows his head. “It is not something I have had to admit for a long time. So. We are at an impasse.”

“We are,” Little River agrees, and sips her tea again. The cup is empty when she sets it down again.

She sighs.

“There... might be a way out of it, though,” she admits, grudgingly. “The offer I made... it would have been an oath of servitude. Would need to be, to grant you power like that. Yes,” she adds at his look, “fine, demonic power, not draconic. But there is another oath you could swear instead. One that couldn’t support such a gift - but which might get us out of this stalemate.”

She doesn’t look happy. She isn’t happy. This was not the result she’d wanted. But she’s... reasonably sure it will work. Probably. And if it doesn’t, she can still just cut his throat and live with the consequences, before he can prepare any dead-man letters.

“Swear to keep my secret,” she sighs, resigned and frustrated by turns. “Let me mark you with a tattoo or a scar that will seal that oath, and punish you with unending pain if you break it. And... in return, I will swear my allegiance; to never work against you or betray your interests.”

It’s not the deal she’d wanted. It’s all give, no take. She becomes his ally, and all he need do in return is nothing. He won’t be loyal to her - and if he works out that he can get out of the oath by defacing the mark, he’ll have a noose around her neck. She doesn’t think he’ll use it - he’s not the kind of man to throw away an advantage like a leashed dragon, even one with enough slack in the chain to turn and bite him. But it’ll still gnaw at her, in the night, like a knife to her belly.

He leans back in his seat, playing with his beard. “Well, well,” he says thoughtfully. “So you would wear a blood oath for that, and bind it with your sorcery. Your demonic sorcery or the power of the dragons?”

“Does it matter?” Little River asks. His smugness rankles. Despite sitting across the table from a creature that could kill him in a single blow, he feels like he’s in control here.

The frustrating thing is, he’s not entirely wrong. Fuck. She'd underestimated him - and underestimated how subtle she was being in her takeover.

“I won’t - can’t - let you walk out of this room without a pact to keep my secrets,” she says. “This is the only one that might work for both of us. Unless you suddenly feel like signing on?” She raises an eyebrow, the sarcastic comment utterly devoid of humour.

“So, an oath.” He steeples his hands. “You will be my ally in perpetuity, and take no action or inaction against me. And in return, I will not let the secret of your acts of demon worship cross my lips.”

“Or write it down, communicate it by other means, or let it be discovered by action or inaction,” Little River amends, giving him an unamused look. “Play no games with me, lord Sea Eagle. If I am to be chained by oath, yours will match it in thoroughness.”

He spreads his hands. “If you insist,” he says dryly.

She nods. “Decide your mark, then. Tattoo or scar; it matters not - all I need do is place a mark upon your body to seal the oath.”

Sea Eagle snorts at that, tapping his forearm. “I am a man. Another scar is of no great concern,” he says - and he’s not wrong. The outside of his forearms are littered in scars, and she can see on the inside - yes, old keloids, old marks of shackles. Decades old. But he’s sure to offer the outside of his arm. “But you swear first.”

Sighing again, Little River unsheathes Ascending Air. The bone-porcelain blade is beautiful in the light. She slices across her arm - her right arm, because slicing her left might hurt Iris, or might not work at all. Wetting her fingers with the blood, she holds them up in demonstration.

“Once you have sworn secrecy to me, we are allies,” she says. “I will stand by you until your death, and take no action or inaction against you. Should I corrupt your rivals and seize control of the Hui Cha; you will still remain free, and never will I betray you. If I break my oath, let the Pale Mistress and the Wyld Hunt come for me in all their fury, and my life and soul be forfeit to my lady.”

She offers her hand, wet with her own blood, for him to seal the path with his own.

He pauses, eyes narrowed. He hesitates. And-

-he takes her hand.

She squeezes once, staining his hand with blood. Then turns his arm to angle it, and lifts the blade again.

“Your oath now,” she says. Hers doesn’t bind her until he swears, so one way or another her kris will be tasting his blood soon.
With his own knife, he cuts another scar into the back of his hand. “And I will keep the secret of Little River’s demon-worship, and will not communicate it to others, or let it be discovered through action or inaction,” he says, red blood welling up from the shallow cut. She lays the flat of her blade on the wound, and feels her essence squirm into it. Making it pretty, as Zanara would say.The tension in Keris’s shoulders relaxes, and she lets out an exhausted breath. She feels far more tired than a short talk should have made her. More tired than the sparring match made her. He rises, a look of mixed satisfaction, trepidation and consideration on his face. “Will that be all, then?” he asks with possibly false-courtesy.
She regards him carefully for a moment.

“One thing first,” she says. “What will you do? About my plans to take over the Hui Cha. Will you oppose them? Or allow them?”

He clenches his fist, blood oozing out. “You already own enough of the fools that I suspect the Sinasana would have us all burned - or drowned, or stoned - if they found out where your allegiance lies.” He tilts his head. “Make it worth my while, ally, and I might provide some aid. But if not, well, I’m sure you’re so strong, so mighty, so imbued with power from your dark masters that you can do it without me - and I am just one man. I have no doubt your dark masters could find a way around your oath without your knowledge if I stand in your way.”

He does like his self-deprecation.

A crooked smile is all she replies with. She’s learned all she needed - and if he won’t help her on her rise, he at least won’t bar her way.

It’s not a victory. But it’s not a failure either.

---

The next day is bright and clear. It is auspicious for the wedding. The bride is in blue, with passionfruit flowers in her hair. Young girls scatter blossoms before her.

But Keris isn’t in a fit state to really appreciate the wedding . She feels awful. She’s queasy and aching, feeling cold and shaking. And she tastes blood.

“Are you feeling all right?” White Rain, the mother of the bride-to-be, checks. “You look under the weather.”

“Not... nothing serious,” she mutters, clenching her fists to hide the tremor and taking deep breaths. For a moment she’s genuinely terrified she might be pregnant - the queasiness and aching remind her of it. But then she remembers that she can hear and taste within her own womb, and quickly puts the lie to that.

What the fuck, then, is her next conclusion. Did Sea Eagle poison her somehow? Yet, tasting her blood for toxins reveals nothing either. Neither poison nor disease.

Deciding that it’s a mystery that can be hunted down and brutally, vengefully murdered later, Keris forces the sickness down, orders a maid to look after Atiya so she doesn’t risk infecting her baby girl, and gets to work. Annoyingly, she’s forced much more into the background by whatever ailment she’s picked up - she doesn’t know if it’s contagious, and today of all days she can’t risk bringing down the mood or stalling things.

She hasn’t been so ill in years. In fact, she hasn’t been ill like this since she was chosen. Barring occasional bouts of Yozi sickness, but, well, she’s almost certain Adorjan hasn’t shown up at the wedding.

Just quickly, she checks. No. No, she’s pretty certain.

It takes her... longer than she should, honestly, to connect the taste of stale blood in her mouth with Eko, and her blood alchemy. Pushing the way she’s feeling at her daughter, she voices a wordless inquiry.

Eko doesn’t say anything. Well, she never does normally. But this time, there’s the distinct impression that Eko isn’t saying anything.

Through the haze, Keris can see Jade Fox beaming proudly at her. There are other local nobles here, and he’s dressed respectably - like a wealthy nobleman. His tattoos are hidden, and his gloves cover his missing fingers. And - ah, yes, Sea Eagle is watching her. Just... watching her.

The elements of the party with the groom are ritually invited in by White Rain, and led into the prepared hall where the groom will be welcomed into the family. There’s a special ceremonial threshold set up inside the house, decked with ribbons and flowers, and a priest of the Golden Lord is waiting there to conduct the ceremony.

Ai ai, Keris remembers how painful it was to resolve everything with the local priests, who were no great fans of the heiress marrying a title-less pirate. But she eventually managed to coax them into it, helped of course by certain elements of blackmail she picked up.

The guests have to stay standing - after all, they haven’t been invited yet, and Keris is really wishing she had her hair to lean on. And the priests are going on and on and on.

That’s when the waking dreams start. She can see the hall. But she can also see the Ruin. And there are now szelkeruby in among the guests - and worst of all, they seem to be paying attention to the ceremony. As if they can hear it. She can read the gestures and they’re babbling about marriage and romance and luuuuuuuuuv.

She locks her knees and grits her teeth and focuses on not moving. She knows the ceremony, she thinks blearily. None of it requires her to move. Not until everything is done. Which means that Keris can stay very still, and not do anything, and not react to anything, because when she’s hallucinating like this the line between reality and fantasy becomes thin, and she could blow the whole wedding if she starts raving now and cuts someone in half.

She has to cling to what she knows. And what she knows is that there’s no reason for anything to interrupt the wedding, and thus she’s probably really just standing as part of the crowd, looking a little ill, and maybe swaying a bit.

As long as she just keeps doing that, it doesn’t matter if... if she can see Eko’s great alchemy-towers belching strange-coloured smoke, and smell the stench of rotting blood in the lakes around them, and feel a szel tugging gleefully on her fingers.

The szel in question is tall. In fact, it’s very unfair, because this little girl of maybe thirteen or so is about Keris’s height. She’s showing the early signs of womanhood - she has hips, and the ribbon-bedecked shawl she wears has small bulges at the chest. She’s wrapped up in layers and layers of scarves and the like, but from what Keris can see of her ribbons and her light, she’s pure white.

Come on, come on, she gestures, or else Eko’s mama will be late for the wedding!

She’s weak and pathetic in her actions. But... less so than any other szel she’s seen before.

((Enlightenment 3))

Keris blinks. It’s the first time she’s ever seen a child-kerub that strong. Even the old, strong ones like Elly hadn’t been that strong - not even on the cusp of maturation. Is she even hallucinating her essence-sense, now?

Bewildered, and forgetting about her determination to stay still, Keris lets herself be tugged along, unsure if she’s even really moving or not. She can’t be, can she? After all, she’s only moving where she’s being directed by the chatty wind-cherub, and she can’t really be here, so Keris can’t really be moving.

Or something. Probably.

She’s Yuu, by the way, the szel introduces herself. She’s seen Eko’s mama around all over the place lots and lots. She remembers seeing her back when everything was just the City. Things were a lot less fun then. There was much less room, plus there was no Calesco to make sugary things.

“Nnn?” Keris murmurs. She’s not very coherent anymore. Too busy seeing things that aren’t there, but which are there, and also fighting off waves of nausea and cold and dizziness. She can just about register what Yuu is saying. But not much more than that.

It’s dusty and dry down in these cavernous roots, this chamber at the heart of the distillation tower. Yuu is the tallest szel here, but none of them are little. There’s maybe twenty or so of the demons here, in among the crowd, and they’re all in that borderline-adolescent stage.

This chamber the same size as the hall of the estate. The hall that Eko knew they were getting married in.

A terrible suspicion starts to dawn over Keris, and it would grow if she wasn’t feeling so queasy.

Eko is standing next to the priests, dressed in her best clothes. Girls, boys, and mama, she indicates, reaching out to spread her hands around this whole auditorium. They are all invited here to see the latest trick from the most wonderful, the most beautiful and most clever person here. That’s Eko, by the way, she adds with a hair-flick aside. Now, she doesn’t want to have to explain what’s about to happen, because everyone here is too stupid to understand the full details, but suffice to say that Eko stole the idea from Hell itself. And if the Unquestionable are willing to do things like this to their greater selves, it’s clear and obvious that Eko must be allowed to do it.

It finally clicks for Keris. The realisation of the what, if not the how.

Grafting. Eko is grafting something into her. Just like Lilunu being connected to a new Yozi, being given a new soul.

Keris told her, all those months ago, that her keruby wouldn’t evolve until Eko imbibed another Yozi. But Szoreny went to Rathan and Zanara; Oramus went to Vali. So with the lack of an Yozi she could claim... Eko went out to introduce one.

All that time with Asarin. All that time with Sasi. The hearthstones from the Nests, the blood-alchemy, the deliberate cryptic hints. The masks, the puzzles, the way she retreated in on herself for a season to work in reclusion. Even the theatricality of the wedding - this performance. This stage.

All of it to align her domain with Elloge, and back-graft the Sphere of Speech into Keris’s own soul structure.

The signs were obvious, in hindsight.

Keris just hadn’t believed it was possible.

Only... wait. Of course it was, she remembers. Noh did it to Rathan, after all. Cast a little shadow on his waters; a darkness under his sea.

And Eko spent so very long talking to her, alone, before Rathan showed up. She couldn’t work out Noh herself. But what did she get from that conversation?

How long has she had this planned?

With a theatrical flourish, Eko curtseys, as if she’s read her mother’s mind. And as she rises, she plucks the blood red fruit from the distilling roots, the bulging scab-pomegranate. You all have helped her so very much with her research and her testing, she gestures to the szels, and she said that you would all be rewarded.

Yuu perks up. She’s the one being rewarded. Ha, she signs to the others, in all your faces. She gets the delicious blood fruit.

Eko jabs her finger at Yuu, telling her to stop ruining it. Interjections of comedy here are not helping the narrative! She gestured ‘you’, not ‘Yuu’.

Or, Yuu points out, perhaps it’s a counterpoint that serves to release tension. Excessive tension only serves to weary the audience to the dramatic impact of the scene.

Yes, Eko admits with a flick of her hair, but shut up, Yuu. Her warning gaze brooks no dissent.

She clears her throat.

All the szels here have helped so much with her research, and let her know things about herself that she hasn’t known before. And so this will go as a reward to the one most deserving. Which is to say... Eko!

And with that said, she whips off her mask, letting it fall to the floor, and bites deep into the fruit, tearing into it. Cold, stagnant blood runs down her chin and stains her dress.

Keris feels it. She feels the blood run down into her - not down her throat of flesh, but down a channel of her spirit. Hah. The szels may have helped Eko, but Eko’s helping Keris know things about herself she didn’t know before. The fidelity of her sense of her souls just jumped a notch - she can feel the wheel of her souls more clearly now; feel the channels that run down from the faces they present to the world, funnelling in towards...

... towards what? Not “her”. The Keris doing the thinking is just the marriage of two of those channels, balanced and influenced by the others. What’s the wheel itself? If it’s her Exaltation at its core, what does that make the whole?

What exactly is getting a new Yozi added to it today?

She doesn’t bother trying to stop it. There’s no point. Even if she was sure that getting to Eko would prevent whatever soul-alchemy she’s doing; Keris can’t move for nausea right now. Her spirit feels as turbulent as when she woke after accepting Szoreny into herself. As chaotic as when her souls matured. Learning to express Metagaos or Oramus hadn’t been this bad - but then, she’d taken them in willingly. This connection was being forced.

Eko swallows the last of the fruit. She even licks up the blood running down her hands.

Well, she gestures, that... that was not good blood. Yuck. She hopes that worked, because she doesn’t want to have to do that agai-

She hunches over and topples forwards, clutching at her stomach. And all the szels also stiffen up and collapse. They’re clearly in as much pain as Eko. Beside her, Yuu silently throws up a stomach-full of cold, clotted blood.

Her daughter grafting alien metabiology into her hadn’t been enough to prompt Keris to move. Her daughter in pain... is. She lunges forward; clumsy and spasming. Her legs don’t work right, and trip over one another. Her hands come down.

Her right hand comes down on Eko as she stumbles forward, szels staggering and flailing underfoot as she goes.

Her left comes down on Yuu.

---

Kit is eleven again. Kit is eleven again, and on the streets of Nexus. She’s got a belly full of soup, and she’s up on one of the sky roads, peeking over the edge. Looking down at the dancers in their parade. Wishing she was one of them - but she’s not pretty and not graceful and has pox scars.

Rat pats her on the shoulder. “C’mon, Kit,” he mutters, “they’s throwin’ out the scraps from the chophouse soon. We gotta get there.”

---

Kit is seven. Kit is seven, and people don’t look at her. She’s a bundle of rags in the corner, a stolen dress and filched scarves. Some other kids stole the blanket she stole. It’s snowing outside. It’s snowing and she’s so cold and she’s hunched up against these shutters from a basement. She tried to get inside, but they kicked her out. But they’re willing to ignore her here. Everyone ignores her.

---

Kit is sixteen, or maybe she’s fifteen; pox-scarred, with an arm that never healed right, and just enough desperation to steal a servant’s clothes and white makeup, and break into a bag’s house. She’s not in a good shape at the moment, but she scrubbed her hair in the Immaculate baths and she needed money, she really needed money because Rat is gone, he’s gone, and... and she needs something from Old Calley but she can’t afford it but if she can’t afford it she...

No. No tears. She has to be part of the background. Because if she isn’t, it’s over.

---

Keris Dulmeadokht opens her eyes, and understands.

It’s so simple. So easy. You don’t need camouflage to be part of the background. You don’t need to make your skin ripple with colour; to break up your outline and suppress your scent and mimic the tiny movements of whatever’s around you.

All you need to do is step backstage, and cease to be an actor. And isn’t it so much easier - so much safer - to be here? To control the script, to set the direction... and never be seen by the audience?

How is this not something she’s always known? How did she ever forget?

Eko rises, scrabbling for her mask. She doesn’t turn to face Keris until it’s back on.

Ow, she gestures weakly. It’s all mama’s fault that she didn’t learn this the normal way so Eko had to force her to. It seemed to hurt a lot less when Noh did it to Rathan.

“Never tell anyone you did that,” Keris orders, and there’s absolutely no trace of humour or uncertainty in her. At least the nausea is gone and she can think clearly again. “Never, Eko. That was...”

She shakes her head blankly. “Even if it’s not heretical to the point of sky-burial; I never want the Unquestionable knowing that can be done to Infernals. Regardless of how much effort it took. Promise me you’ll keep it secret.”

She’s pretty sure they already know, Eko points out. Noh did it to Rathan, and they do it to Lilunu too. But... uh, there’s icky bits of other Yozis she doesn’t want in her, so she promises.

All around the hall, the keruby are stirring. And as they stir, they become denser. The blood pooling down here is flowing into them. So too are their old clothes tearing, the fabric and threads weaving themselves into their new forms. Yuu is the closest, and Keris watches her as she becomes a young woman rather than a girl. As she grows, she’s becoming more solid, more there. Her old winds are blowing out of her, forming floating clouds of mist over her chest and crotch.

She waves her hands around, but it means nothing. Her face is blank, like a cloth doll no one has sewed eyes onto or stitched a mouth for. She works her jaw, fabric flexing, and eventually it tears, revealing a human mouth underneath. She tears away the rest of the cloth caul - but there’s no nose under there, and no eyes. Just bare skin, and a mouth.

“Ow,” Yuu moans.

Eko opens her eyes wide, and mouths that things really hurt. Then she swears.

“Yuu?” Keris murmurs, stunned. Her left hand never let go of the girl, and she felt that transformation, in a way she’s felt no other.

“That’s me!” she manages perkily. Her hands go to her eyeless face. “Where’s my face? Where’s my face!”

It’s in your bag, Eko gestures. She pauses. That you just ate, she adds. Oh, look, it rolled over there.

It’s not her face - it’s a papier mache mask she’d been carrying around along with a bunch of other knickknacks. But it survived the transformation. She slips on the white, geisha-like mask, and it moves like it’s flesh. There are eyes behind it, too.

“Oh, I’m Eko, I had a really good idea to hurt everyone rather than just tell mama to learn how to hide herself normally. Suuuuuch a good idea. I have to be in love with my own cleverness forever and ever. Because no one else can ever be as clever as me,” Yuu says, in a pitch-perfect mockery of how Eko sounds at Calibration.

That’s mean, hurtful, and...

“Accurate?”

Keris can feel the winds. Only they’re not just winds now. Eko used to just be Adorjan’s cutting sharpness, the lightness of a gale, but now there’s cold blood oozing underneath. The winds have slowed, but they haven’t blunted themselves. They just flow differently, carrying more debris with them.

She notices Eko pulling up a sleeve to show she now has bloodwork tattoo-writing on some of her ribbons. As soon as she sees Keris looking, she yanks her sleeve back down.

“Sweetheart?” she asks, concerned. “It... looks pretty. From what I saw.”

Eko squares her shoulders. Mama has no right to complain about someone getting tattoos, she gestures, trying to square off against her mother and failing because she’s too tired to be aggressive.

“... I’m not?” Keris says, bewildered again. “I mean... I’m not, Eko. I meant it. They look pretty.”

Yes, yes they do. Now let us never speak of that again, Eko indicates. For at least several days. Maybe a month!

Keris nods. “Alright. Alright, but we are going to talk about...” She gestures vaguely, encompassing the alchemy towers, the blood-roots, the groaning, recovering... what? Szilfa, she supposes. Mature szels. The last of the child-breeds to mature.

“All of this,” she finishes firmly. “We are going to talk about all of this when we have time. But right now I have a wedding to get back to.” She levels a finger at Yuu. “You. Keep her from doing anything like this again.”

“Of course, my lady-sama-dono,” Yuu says, curtseying with her protective layer of clouds. “I hope you’ll be grateful for such... service.”

Keris eyes her warily, then decides to disregard that. It can’t have been flirtation. She must have misheard.

Drawing back and letting her avatar within the domain dissolve, she rushes back to consciousness and hopes to high heaven that she hasn’t blown things back in the real world.

She hasn’t. In fact, everyone is ignoring her.

She’s just... part of the background.

Standing there at a Tengese wedding, watching the ceremony continue on in utter ignorance about what she happened; invisible in plain sight amidst a crowd...

... Keris Maryam Dulmeadokht grins.

And her grin only widens when - after she’s cleaned herself up, and made her reappearance at the after-banquet - Jade Fox rises, tapping his cup. “And for all of this, for her friendship and her wisdom and care for our family,” he says, “for her generosity and her wisdom and grace - and of course beauty - I would like to toast Little River! May our friendship never end!”

Sea Eagle looks her direction, his expression slightly sour. “Yes, yes. To Little River!”

Already deep in his cups, Lucky Wolf sways as he rises. “Little River! The finest among us!” he blurts out.

“To Little River!” calls out the crowd of Tengese lesser nobles and Hui Cha pirates.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The wedding is a big affair, and the whole slow return journey is as agonising as the trip out had been. By the time Keris gets back to Saata, it’s nearly the end of Ruling Water. Then there’s things to do, things to pick up, dinner to have with Ba-le and of course Kali and Ogin to dote over.

And she hasn’t been able to find Eko to shout at for her shenanigans.

She takes the chance to talk to Yuu, though - Yuu and her big ruin-kat. The new breed of kerub is a... well, she’s a pain in the butt. She’s teasing, sarcastic, and mocking. She’s smarter than the szels, though - not as smart as Eko, but much closer to her daughter’s current level of intellect. And she’s very, very good at disguising herself.

Keris thinks she’s an actor-demon and a scout. And of course, just as murderous as an Ekoan demon should be.

On the first of Falling Water, Keris calls a family meeting to consider what to do next. Her souls are there, along with the keruby adults, drinking wine.

Keris tried to stop Nara getting his hands on the wine, but eventually had to settle for diluting it.

“So,” she says, “let’s talk about what to do next.”

They’re in the grand hall at Silver Lotus, mostly because she doesn’t get many chances to use the place and likes to show it off. The high ceiling and wealth of concealing wall-nooks make it a mix of intimidating to others and comforting to Keris herself; singing sweetly to her with the myriad of hiding places and manoeuvring space they offer. Kali is playing on the serpentine stone dragon that winds its way around the room, and her entourage are seated in chairs that run the gamut from decadent comfort to ostentatious looks around her own. Her own is silver-framed, with a backrest painted glittering blue and shaped to look like a crashing wave. Below them, through the glass mosaic floor, candles float on the gentle currents of the flooded white-stone cellar.

“Here's how things stand,” says Keris, tapping at the nearest pillar with a hair-tendril. A number of bits of paper have been attached to it, reading STRONG OX, JADE FOX, LUCKY WOLF, PEACEFUL WAVE, SEA EAGLE and RED LEAF.

“Two of the blue sea masters are loyal to me,” she continues, tapping Jade Fox and Lucky Wolf’s notes. “Sea Eagle... uh, isn’t, but he’s sworn to keep my secret and won’t get in the way of my takeover of the Hui Cha. That leaves Strong Ox, Peaceful Wave and Red Leaf. Peaceful Wave’s wife and mother-in-law have ties to the Lintha, so if he does as well, I can blackmail him into playing by my rules pretty easily. That might run into complications, but for now we’ll call it solved.”

Producing two new bits of paper, she attaches them next to Strong Ox’s card. They read PALE BRANCH and PRETTY PEACOCK.

“Pale Branch is my ally,” she says firmly. “She’s pregnant with Strong Ox’s children - a boy and a girl - so when he dies, they’ll inherit all his stuff, and she’ll be in control of it till they come of age. Assuming,” she adds in dark tones, “that his sister Pretty Peacock doesn’t interfere. She’s the richest woman in the Hui Cha, the only woman of the first rank, and she is now our main problem. I want her gone and all her assets under our influence or control by...” she pauses, considering. “... end of Earth? Think we can do it by then?”

Keris gets a very flat look from her adorable little babies, including from Ogin who’s copying the glare Keris is getting from Haneyl and Rathan. He’s not actually meant to be in this meeting, but he’s sitting in Haneyl’s lap and doesn’t want to leave.

“Of course, mum!” Vali says, failing to read the room.

“No, of course not,” Haneyl says shortly. “I can’t even believe you’re asking about that. We don’t even know how much she owns. We don’t have allies in place to take her stuff.”

“And,” Rathan says with a yawn, “people will suspect us. They’ll hate us, mama. Not a good plan.”

“There’s standards to follow,” Nara says softly. “If you start murdering people without having things put in place, then we’ll be outside the rules.”

Keris pouts. Even Rounen is giving her a flat look. Even Elly looks... well, not actually critical of her, but at least studiously neutral in a way that somehow communicates disapproval despite her total deference.

“... end of the year?” Keris tries in a small voice. “Look, the next Althing is my first as a division head. If I can brag that I’ve totally subverted the Hui Cha and am in a position to exert influence over a huge swath of the Anarchy, it’ll help a lot.”

The others exchange a look. “Fire would be a good time,” Haneyl suggests. “It’s hurricane season and the blue sea masters return to port. That means they’ll either be in Saata, or far enough away that they can’t intervene.”

Nara nods. “That leaves a season for getting delicious blackmail material and making friends, then a season to start painting our canvas - and then we strike in Fire. Or maybe kill Pretty Peacock towards the end of Wood, because we do have to remember when the baby is due.”

“I have a few contacts among the Hui Cha women already,” Keris muses. “Graceful Petal is good with money, I’ve got blackmail material on Charitable Peach and Tranquil Pool - Jade Fox’s wife - likes me. They’re all connected to blue sea masters - two wives and a mother-in-law - so they’re in good positions to move up. And then, of course,” she grins with a flash of teeth. “Little Bird knows people, and an opportunity to climb the rungs like this will tempt her. I’m sure she can help Little River make more friends.”

Rounen clears his throat. “If I may, ma’am,” he says, stepping to the side of the room to drag in his note-covered cork board. “You wish control of the Hui Cha. To do that, you must gain control of two more of the blue sea masters - or else murder two of them when you take control, rather than one.”

“Oh my Eko, you were way less boring when you used to be a szel,” Yuu drawls, feet up on the tables. “Like Elly! She was much more fun as a szel too.”

“And I’ll bite you if you don’t shut up,” Elly says firmly.

“Mmm, kinky.”

“Not that kind of biting.” Elly considers it. “Unless you’re up for it.”

“Ahem!” Rounen glares at both of them. “Now, Pretty Peacock stands in the way of your control of Strong Ox, and you have your eyes on Peaceful Wave, yes? Now...”

He trails away, glaring at his board. “Who did this!” he snaps. Someone has scribbled all over his board, with weird connections in tiny writing made between his notes. It’s odd, geometrical linkages in Old Realm, and Keris can barely read the complicated shorthand.

Narrowing her eyes at it, Keris slowly turns to glare at Yuu. “Okay,” she says ominously. “Very funny. But this isn’t the time. Behave, or I’ll send you back to the Ruin instead of letting you sit in on this.”

“That was not me!” Yuu protests. “I don’t even understand all those notes!”

“Complicated gibberish-script as part of a prank,” Keris points out, unimpressed. “Short of being Eko, it’s hardly going to be anyone e-”

She stops. She considers.

She groans.

“Godsdammit. Okay, so apparently Eko has escaped at some point. And decided to deface Rounen’s noteboard... when did you write that, Rounen? That’ll at least give her an idea of when she was last here, and how far she might have gone.”

Rounen blanches. “Uh. Some of those bits, just before the meeting started.” He peers at the scribbles. “One of them says ‘look up’. And then there’s another bit which says, ‘hee hee, like Ney said’.”

Snarling at the memory, Keris jerks her head up, scanning the ceiling and the... urgh, why does she have so many easy-to-hide-in wall nooks in this room?! She can’t hear anything, but it’s Eko. Of course she can’t. Of course she wouldn’t have.

Then she hears the giggle. It’s from directly behind her - of course it is - and she swivels to see Eko, crouching in full princess regalia, up in one of the wall nooks. She’s swinging her legs happily as she waves at mama, then drops down to the ground in a cat-like display of grace and waves hello to everyone.

“Oh. Joy,” Haneyl mutters.

“Eko can go invisible,” Vali groans.

Eko clears her throat silently. Actually, she lectures them, she’s not invisible. She’s just the director of the stage that the world is a play of, and that means everyone’s minds ignore her because... well, the last gesture is too hard to understand, but there’s something about textuality and something about the framing of the current scene.

“... you have the same can’t-see-me trick as Sasi’s shadow form,” Keris sighs. “No, wait. Not quite. It’s more like... like my shrines. They don’t work if someone’s suspicious of them, but until then... they just slip under people’s notice.”

She pinches her brow. “Wonderful. That’s just... wonderful. Perfect. Though...” She pauses. “... on the plus side, this does make it easier for you to stay out and about,” she admits.

Well, obviously, Eko indicates with a pouty flick of her hair. It’d have been pretty awful to not get amazing powers from drinking so much cold blood.

Eventually the plans for the season of Earth are hashed out. Keris is going to work on building her status among the Hui Cha women...

(“Obviously I’ll be helping that,” Nara brags.)

... while her oldest ones will start investigations onto the wealth and interests of the major players of the Hui Cha financiers. This does mean relying on a team of Eko, Rathan and Haneyl to get the job done without strangling each other.

“Just,” she begs, “try to team up against everyone else, instead of squabbling. Please?”

Haneyl nods. “Of course, nothing to worry about mama,” she assures her. “Me and Rathan have got our own things working out. Which means the only source of trouble might be Eko, but I’m sure that things will work out if you put me in charge so she’ll listen to me.”

Rathan sneers at that. “Eko doesn’t listen to mama at all. That attempt to be put in charge won’t work.”

“Well, I had to try,” she grumps.

Keris smiles. “Look,” she addresses the three of them, nodding at Eko to include her. “You fight among yourselves, but this isn’t home. This is other people; people not us, who are keeping secrets and money away from us. Common enemy, yeah? I trust you to work together. At least while there’s somebody else on the field to work against.”

She dispenses kisses to each of them - Eko’s mask conveniently allowing her to do so without chapping her lips - and hugs Nara.

“You’ll be with me, like you said,” she says. “And I know you can be charming as anything. And Vali? If you don’t mind, I’d like you to take a look at the north wing. Don’t do anything on the surface yet - it’s all too unstable - but there’s some pretty nasty subsidence in the cellars under it. Could you fix up the walls and make the ground tougher; stabilise everything so a work crew can put the bits on top back together?”

Vali perks up, because he hadn’t been happy to be left out of the plans. “Oh, thank you mum,” he says quickly. “That sounds way more fun than the stuff they’re doing.”

Ahem, Eko gestures, so about yelling at Vali for not telling anyone about his keruby evolving....

She appears to still be holding a grudge. Or just wants to see him told off.

“Right,” Keris sighs. “Yeah. Vali, couldn’t you have... you know, mentioned it? Your keruby maturing is a pretty big thing.”

“It is?” he asks, frowning.

That gets him glared at by Oula, Elly, Rounen and Yuu. Not Saji, but that’s because she’s asleep in Ogin’s hands. Ogin is also glaring at him, because he likes to feel included.

“It... kind of is, yes,” Keris agrees diplomatically. “Adult keruby are really good at things, Vali. I can tell yours are... well, your scaled guys are strong and tough and can do a day’s work in an hour. And dragon aides are fantastic at organising things. I think you’ve got at least one breed I haven’t seen yet, too, so who knows what they might be able to do.”

“Oh, they just steal stuff,” Vali says with a shrug. “They’re kind of horrid. They steal lightning.”

“Ah,” Keris says. “Well, skilled thieves are still pretty impressive, even if they lose it and turn into the other two types after a while. Make sure to keep us up to date when things like that happen in your Spires, okay?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess.” He still looks a bit confused as to what the big deal is.

Rounen straightens up, glaring at Eko. He clears his throat. “If I might have a moment of your time, ma’am,” he says. “I wish for,” he swallows, “some time off.” The words are dragged out of him.

Keris blinks. “Um. Okay. What for?” she asks hesitantly, and then cringes. “Because, uh, Haneyl and Elly will be, um, pretty busy...”

“I will be returning home,” he says. “I have filing to catch up on, I need to check on the progress of the work to make copies of all your texts, and of course, I want to see if I can encourage some more of my younger peers to transcend demonhood.”

“Wait, transcend demonhood?” Yuu asks, frowning. “You know you’re a-”

Elly, without hesitation, picks up an apple core and throws it with pinpoint accuracy at Yuu’s face. It splatters on her mask.

“I think,” says Keris loudly, with a warning glare in Yuu’s direction, “that would be a wonderful idea, Rounen. More dragon aides will be very useful. And you’ve been working hard, so you deserve some time off. You have leave to return to your marche for as long as you feel you need.”

“You don’t have my permission to go until the start of Earth,” Haneyl says quickly. “I need you.”

Rathan rolls his eyes. “Really?” Behind him, Eko’s ribbons poking out behind her mask turn bright red.

That gets them glared at by Haneyl. “To do my books, you idiots! If I’m going to be taking time off for two seasons, I need to make sure everything’s where it needs to be.”

Elly smiles.

“Alright then,” Keris agrees. “We’ll kick this off in Earth - I need to have Little River do some more paperwork for her smithy and slowly ramp up the number of parties and social events she’s attending so that it’s believable when she turns into a social butterfly come the new season. As long as you don’t cause too much chaos, you can do what preparation you need for this plan before we get started. Talking to you about the chaos, Eko.”

But mama, Eko protests, she has her bestie here. Ladies need to have tea parties, and for that she needs the best tea!

Keris grins. “Hanging out with Asarin is fine. She knows how not to attract too much attention - by all means, stick with her. You can tell her how much cleverer you are now that you have some Elloge in you - just, you know, don’t mention the secret bits about how you got it.”

That produces a general “What did she do?” which manages to wake Kali from her nap on top of the stone dragon. She starts crying, and fortunately that gives Keris all the excuse she needs to get out of here before she has to answer things she doesn’t want to.

---

The heat is rising again, and the rains of Earth are heavy. It is time, Keris decides as she looks at herself in the mirror - keeping an eye on Kali and Ogin as they roll around on the rugs - to introduce Cinnamon to Saatan society properly.

“Look at you, admiring yourself,” Hermione hisses at her, wearing her form. “So vain, Kerisssssss. So vain.”

Keris raises an eyebrow, examining herself. She’s wearing one of the dresses made for her natural form - not quite a tiger-dress to match Ney’s, but one that draws from a similar style, with bold reds and oranges that set off her complexion. Her lips and eyelids are painted gold; the scar down her jawline disguised by makeup. Her long hair is bound up in a great braid, decorated with gold beads and silver feathers, and she wears the orichalcum collar around her neck.

She’s beautiful. But also curiously vulnerable, exposed like this in her natural form. Oh, she’s been out and about in the city like this before - when she saw Zany off, for instance. But that was dressed down, and often with her hair covered. This... this is attention-grabbing.

“Well,” she says lightly. “I do deserve the admiration. But I actually wanted to talk about something.” She taps her collar. “I need this back. I can’t go out like this without an essence-shield to hide my nature. And,” she adds with a grin to mollify the sting of taking away Hermione’s sanctum, “I think I promised you a bigger world of mirrors. One anchored in my moonsilver armour.”

Hermione’s hair lashes around in distress, her black-and-white-striped tiger-dress becoming scales for a moment. “Do you have to?” she asks softly. “This is my home.”

It is, too, Keris realises. Hermione is very young, and has spent a lot of her short life living in Keris’s necklace. It’s the most stable place to live she’s ever known, likely.

“I know, sweetheart,” she says, just as gentle. “But the armour will still be a world of mirrors. It’ll still be rooted here - where you can get out and coil around in your mirror-room and sneak off to explore the city at night. And if I ever work out how to make something else that can shield my essence like this, I can recreate the orichalcum-and-crystal manor with the same spell.” She steps closer to the mirror; resting her hand against the glass. “I know how important a home is,” she says. “But I think in part, it’s the people as much as the place. And you have Oula here, and Ogin - who I know you’ve been conspiring with - and Rathan to talk to, and me. Those won’t change at all. So, please?”

Hermione looks over Keris’s shoulder, at the kids. Ogin looks up, and gravely gives her a thumbs-up. “O... okay,” she says, showing sudden vulnerability. “But you’ll owe me, and you better give me it back if... if it’s not as nice!”

“I will do my best,” Keris promises, “to make it as nice as possible.”

---

Hermione is very pleased with the new sanctum, and talks Ogin’s ear off about it.

“It’s a giant silver fortress, only the walls are alive and they’re made of scales just like me, Ogin!” she gleefully chatters. “And there’s even an outside, under the silver sky and there’s a fog wall around it you can’t go outside, but Ogin the whole sky is reflective I can see myself in it so I can be huge! Huge!”

“I’m glad you like it,” Keris murmurs warmly, as she clips the now-functional collar into place. The odd feeling of the shield springs into being; like a layer of glass over her skin, and she shivers for a moment at the feeling. Yes, good. A nice solid wall between her and any inconvenient essence-vision.
Now, the question. Where to debut? There are several options she could take. She could just start showing up at parties and making contacts. She could - hypothetically - show up as the lover of an established figure in the city, if she was one. She could get her name out by funding a festival. Oh yes, there are quite a few ways to make a splash in Saata as a newcomer with money.
But Keris - Cinnamon - doesn’t want to pick one of the ordinary ways. She wants; contrary to all her prior experiences, to be noticed. So she goes with something a little more... unorthodox.

To be more specific, Tenné Cinnamon shows up as dawn breaks at the temple of Orre; a college devoted to music; particularly stringed instruments. She’s beautiful, because she took her time getting ready, and she’s carrying a guqin - one of the first types of harp she learned beyond the strands of Time, all the way back in Matasque with Sasi listening.

She sits there in the courtyard, next to a softly babbling fountain in the shade of a few trees, as the morning classes start to crawl in. She enjoys, for a while, the heat and the warmth of the rising sun.

And then she begins to play.

((Per+Exp to charm the very gods from their abodes in the temple to listen to her music, captivated by its beauty.))

((4+5+3 Time-Strung Harpist+1 bonus {enthral an audience}+3 stunt {sheer audacity}+4 Kimmy ExSux {beauty, charm, impossibly high standards}=16. Enhanced by Attention-Holding Grace. 14+4=18 successes. Whoa.))

(([10 10 10 10 10 9 8 8 8 6 6 5 5 2 1 1 ]))

((I, uh.))

((I think she gets their attention.))

It is a day of legend. The woman with the long red hair that moves in an unseen wind, the petite woman with grey eyes and mocha skin, the woman whose dress brings to mind tigers and wild beasts. She plays from sunrise to sunset, and the entire square fills up. The gods come out of their temples to watch her, to hear her, to stand on the roofs and columns to be there.

No one dares interrupt. No one wants to leave.

Eventually, her song comes to an end. People weep. The gods themselves bow in honour of her art. And she smiles, and takes her bows, and speaks.

“My name is Tenné Cinnamon,” she tells them. “I am a newcomer to Saata, but I find it to my liking. I hope to see you again soon.”

It’s the first time she’s seen. But not the last. Other temples are graced by her visits - and soon, rumours begin to circulate about her in the seedy underbelly of the city.

She is a mother, they say - of twins; two children whose spirit-blood is even stronger than her own. She means to open a pleasure-house, or a theatre, or some other place of entertainment where she will perform. Some whisper that she is blessed by the gods, while others swear that her mother was the daughter of a god and a harpist-demon he seduced into devout worship at his temple.

A few quiet rumours even hint that she has come to this city, so far from her home, after fleeing from a divine paramour - or perhaps paramours; as her children are clearly not of the same father. Perhaps she spurned them in favour of a mortal lover. Perhaps they became too overbearing and possessive; demanding she choose between them. Perhaps she stole the gleaming collar of crystal and gold that sits around her neck.

The only common thread is that she’s interesting, and different. And Saatans love an interesting story.

---

Earth passes quickly, and at the start of Wood Keris and her family meet up - this time in the Jade Carnation - to discuss how things have gone and plan the next steps.

Rounen is not in a good mood. “No luck to report, ma’am,” he admits, shame-facedly. “None of my servants seem ready to mature. Two more of her,” he nods to Elly, “kin and one of Saji’s are there, but none have been able to achieve transcendence.”

She pats him on the shoulder. “Your library project is still going well, though?”

“That is, ma’am, but I felt you needed more of my superior breed,” he says. “So far it is just me and Molian over on the Isle of Gulls, and she is,” he sniffs, “erratic.”

A slight frown crosses her face. “Yes,” she muses. “I need to check in with her and see how she’s doing. But,” she pats him again, “if they’re not ready, they’re not ready. I’m sure you have a lot of them working at your library, so give it a while for the books to soak in and you can check again.”

This seems to cheer him up, and Keris turns to her eldest three. “So,” she says, rubbing her hands together. “What do you have for me?”

Rathan glares at Eko. “I can’t cover up her presence when she shows herself to a priest,” he sulks. “Now they’re all ablaze about a murderous ribbon-decked spirit serving the Pale Mistress.”
Oh. Oh dear. That would explain why Little River has had several Tengese priests try to get her to make more lucky silver charms. Keris rubs her nose and thinks for a moment.
“Say, Haneyl,” she asks. “Didn’t you, uh... spread it around half of Ca Map that the murderous ribbon-wind thing that slaughtered half of the undercity was similar to a fell spirit that you knew from Saata, back in early Water?”

“Well, yes,” Haneyl says, mouth full of meat. She swallows. “That was after you murdered all those slavers,” she reminds her.

“Fuck yeah,” Vali cheers.

“Well,” Keris says, rather happily at the reminder. “I guess that shores up that story. Ca Map may be scum that Saata looks down on, but there’s still trade flow between them. One or two rumours set down in the docks will have people remembering that and connecting the two. And now we have a murderous ribbon-wind spirit who serves the Pale Mistress to frame for things. So, uh... bad Eko for getting caught, but good job Haneyl for setting it up in a way we can exploit. Even if it was by accident.”

So unfair, Eko protests, flopping in her chair. This is just the meanest. It’s not her fault the priest was really looking for spirits so happened to see her because he was looking for her. It wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t expected a beautiful, mystical, wise, all-knowing spirit to be there.

“But I wasn’t,” Haneyl and Rathan say at the same time, then grin.

“He had to settle for you,” Rathan adds.

Her baby brother and sister are just bullies, Eko moans.

“Well, disregarding that,” Keris continues, grinning, “what did you find out?”

Haneyl nods, and reluctantly pushes her food away. She rises, pacing up and down. “There are four Hui Cha women who can broadly be considered to be of the second tier of power and influence, not including the daughters of Pretty Peacock,” she says. “The first of these is Charitable Peach, which we need no introduction to.”

“I spoke to her,” Rathan says helpfully. “You’re right, mama - she has just a hint of Lintha in the way she says certain words. I haven’t made contact with her yet, though. We agreed this month was just for investigation.”

“Indeed,” Haneyl says, still pacing. “Of the others, we have Hui Cha Aranya. She’s old, respectable, and Jade Fox’s aunt. Named in the old style, like Atiya. She’s one of Pretty Peacock’s allies, though - the two are solidly linked. One of her sons is married to Pretty Peacock’s third daughter, Hui Cha Peacock Little Gift, and the son is one of Jade Fox’s captains.”

Eko liked Graceful Wren, she gestures with a birdie hand sign. She’s young and fun and Sea Eagle’s daughter and she’s got elemental familiars and practices weather witchery. And she’s the old man’s intended heir - she married one of his favourite captains and she’s been trained to fight.

“None of us like Hui Cha Silver Hair,” Rathan says, glowering. “Not even Haneyl, and she had bad taste.”

“Hey!”

“She’s ambitious, married to one of Lucky Wolf’s captains and she clearly has eyes on replacing him. I doubt that’ll happen,” he chuckles, though. “She’s heavily invested into insuring the sugar trade and the slave trade - the two are one and the same. I doubt she’ll be very happy.”

“What a shame,” Zana says maliciously, her feet up on the table as she eats her dessert rather than her main meal.

“Hmm,” Keris muses. “So two and two. We have leverage on Charitable Peach, and Graceful Wren... may have been warned by her father about Little River’s demon ties, but probably won’t say ‘no’ to cooperating with a plan to get richer even if she has been. Aranya is going to be a problem that we may need to get rid of. And Silver Hair is screwed, because she’s going to be bleeding money for every slave rebellion Testolagh and Calesco are punching and shooting full of holes.”

She nods in comprehension, cracking her knuckles as her hair coils. “What about the Peacock daughters? Little Gift is bundled in with Aranya and tied to Jade Fox, and the youngest besides. The older two?”

“Hui Cha Peacock First Dolphin, the eldest, is...” Haneyl pulls a face. “Disgustingly perfect. It legitimately makes me sick. Oula keeps on suggesting we should poison her and I’m inclined to agree.”

“That’s because I’m right,” Oula chips in.

“She’s in her early 30s and she’s her mother’s prodigy. Mother would be impressed by her,” Haneyl says, sneering. “She’s disciplined, cunning and sharp - but risk averse. Cautious to a fault. And,” she glares at Vali, “she has an overdeveloped sense of honour. Like that brat.”

“Well, I can see why you’d hate her,” Vali retorts.

“Her word is meant to be ironclad,” Haneyl says, rolling her eyes. “Of course she’s totally cheating in the background because everyone does, I’m sure, but she’s never been caught out.”

Keris blinks. “Wait, seriously?” she asks. “All three of you were looking, and you couldn’t find anything on her dealing under the table?” She looks between them for confirmation, eyebrows raised.

It’s mega unfair, Eko gestures rudely. She thinks she’s her mother’s accountant and financier, so she’s all honest and junk. Like... what’s her face. Malek’s boring daughter, not the fun one.

“... Shermine,” Keris says absently. “Wow. Three of you looking, and you still couldn’t find her dirty laundry. She is good, then. And keeps her secrets very well hidden.”

She leans back in her chair, gnawing a hair tendril. “... worth considering,” she decides. “Not, hmm. Not necessarily for cooperating in taking down Pretty Peacock, if she’s risk-averse and cautious and loyal to her mother the way Shermine is. But if she stands to inherit... yeah, I think we can work around her, potentially. She’ll be predictable, and hopefully not as much of a bitch as her mother. What about the second daughter?”

Rathan sighs. “Haneyl’s favourite.”

“Don’t put it like that.”

He should put it like that, Eko gestures, because her baby sister is shameless. Just shameless! She flirted with her when Elly was right there!

Haneyl rolls her eyes. “Are we done?” she demands. “Yes. Good. Hui Cha Peacock Golden Child. She is...”

“A self-indulgent debutante,” Rathan helps.

“... not as boring as her big sister,” Haneyl says firmly. “Not the kind of woman who’s easily stopped. Gorgeous short hair she sort of spikes up slightly with wax. Unlike her sisters she actually keeps in shape and she has muscles. And a widow, and with no interest in remarriage.” She looks at Keris. “If you follow my drift.”

Well, yes, Eko motions, she’s preeeetty sure Golden Child didn’t kill her husband. Just... made sure he went somewhere he wasn’t likely to survive.

Oula clears her throat. “Me and Hermione took a look at her,” she says. “Hermione said she could taste the envy of her big sister on her.”

“Interesting,” Keris muses. “Wait, haven’t those widow-with-no-interest-in-remarriage rumours been going round about Little River, too? Well, not ‘widow’ since she never managed to get married to Atiya’s father before he died, but you know what I mean.”

Well, of course, mama doesn’t want to get married at all, Eko indicates.

Haneyl glares at her big sister. “I... you... yes,” she says. “And in fact, there are also some rumours that her and Sinasana Ba-le are... close friends. And I swear, Eko, one stupid comment from you about friends and I will set your ribbons on fire.”

“Harsh, but fair,” Rathan opines.

Keris blinks. “Wait, with Ba-le? Huh.” She bites her lip. “Do you think she’s heard- what am I saying; of course she has. She’s probably waiting for the right moment to bring them up and embarrass me. Or deliberately do something to feed them.” She rolls her eyes. “Well, fine. We’ll call Golden Child a solid possibility, then. One who Little River should get to know. Or, mm, maybe Cinnamon.”

Stretching, she smiles. “As for our side; Zanara and I got a lot done. Little River gifted away a lot of jewellery and drummed up some more business for Shining Foam, built ties among the Hui Cha, and is a fair bit more popular than she already was. Well-known and liked, now. Well, mostly-liked. It’s general knowledge that she’s kind of uptight about propriety and has maimed people for being too crude in her presence. No Tengese or Sinasana victims, though, so nobody important to her cares.”

“Oh, don’t undersell yourself Keris,” Zana says, looking over the family with one pink eye and one eyepatch as she pets Iris. The dragon coos on her lap. “Yes, Keris and me had some glorious fun. We talked with lots of people and I made sure to make my classmates know rumours about her and Piu helped and oh! On top of that, I danced for Keris and played music for her and we drank lots of tea and met Pale Branch’s friends and other friends. A good time was had by all!”

“Zanara was very helpful, yes,” Keris agrees. “I’m pretty sure quite a few people were looking at me as I spread my pretty little social petals, and all of them bounced off Zanara’s shield of rumours.” She leans over and plants a kiss on her currently-daughter’s head. “Well done you. Vali? How’d the work underground go?”

Vali shrugs. “Good.”

Keris waits for a moment to see if there will be any elaboration on that. There isn’t. “... well okay then,” she says. “In that case, I think we can call this a successful season. No word from Calesco, so I should probably nip down and see how she and Testolagh are doing - but they may be busy with fostering rebellions and training an army.”

Zanara sighs. “I suppose we need to plan for next season now? Or are you going to see if you can get Cally back before we plan stuff?”

“... noooo,” says Keris after a moment. “I, uh. Given the amount of assassination, blackmail and murder this takeover is going to involve, it’s maybe a good idea to keep her out of it until we’re all finished. I mean, they’re all terrible people who deserve it, but...” she wrinkles her nose, “well, you know. And anyway, she’s busy covering for Testolagh. So, Wood.” She claps her hands. “What do we have left to do?”

“Now’s time for set-up,” Haneyl says assertively. “We have basically this season to get working on getting those disgusting Lintha cultists on our side, and getting as many of the women with us before we kill Pretty Peacock.”

“Then the question is,” Keris muses, “who to approach them as. Little River, Tenné Cinnamon, a Lintha sister or someone else.”

“You know,” Vali says, “I think it’s just fine to let the cool daughter inherit. Just get rid of the nasty mother with something quiet and clean.”

“I might,” Keris admits. “I honestly might. I want to meet her first and take her measure - and figure out what she’s hiding, and how she’s doing it so well that three of you together couldn’t find it. But if she’s less of a bitch than her mother, then yeah, I might just let her inherit and chip away at the edges of Pretty Peacock’s empire during the handover to boost a few other women up to the level where they can act as counterweights.”

Zana tilts her head. “So Keris. I think you should be as super demonic as possible for them. And be as dramatic and badass and cool. Make it a presentation. Hey, Hanny, did you find anything about her defences and...”

Oh, Eko adds, she forgot to mention this, but Charitable Peach has demons and stuff hiding in her house. And she can see demons, but not Eko when she’s wearing a blood ape mask.

“Oh ho. Oh ho ho,” Keris chuckles. “Now that is interesting. Very interesting, because they don’t have sorcerers. What breeds were there, Eko?”

Eko tilts her head. She isn’t so good at demon names, but there was a crying puppet thing and four blood apes and the smell of more stuff in the tunnel that led to the sea.

“What tunnel that lead to the sea?” Rathan demands.

The one she told them about, Eko protests.

Yuu raises her hand. “That was me you told it about.”

Well, then, that was all Yuu’s fault for not serving as her memory properly, Eko gestures stroppily.

“A Lintha smuggling tunnel,” Keris states. “Yeah, I’ve seen one of those before. With demon guards. Should’ve expected one to be here, really. Where does it come out on land?”

Basement of some old ruins on her land, Eko gestures.

“Smart trick. Hmm. Okay, so I could go loud and performative and demonic. Or I could go in as Little River and say I recognised the tattoos from some I saw on my travels,” Keris muses. “I’ll want to check out Peaceful Wave to see if he’s in on it before approaching anyone, since that changes a lot depending on the answer. But it occurs to me... the aim of this is to get him to support Little River taking the headship of the Hui Cha. So if it’s not Little River who approaches him with blackmail over it, there needs to be a reason why they push him to support her - and most of those reasons will implicate her, so I might as well approach him as her and have done with it. Simple is better, and all.”

Eko perks up. What mama needs is another identity, she gestures. One who’s all sinister and evil and has a mask. Masks are just the best! Maybe an evil alchemist or even a disreputable sorcerer!

“... that would be useful,” Keris admits. “But still, why would a random alchemist blackmail Peaceful Wave into stepping back and letting Little River take over the triads? No, I’ll check him to see if he’s in on the Lintha thing first, and then just pretend Little River recognises Lintha tattoos from having run into them in her mysterious past. That’s enough to blackmail Charitable Peach, easily. And I know Peaceful Wave’s price.”

Rathan looks uneasy. “She’ll try to destroy you, if you do that,” he says. “I hate being hated, and she’ll hate you for that.”

“Don’t be a big baby,” Haneyl retorts.

That gives Keris pause. “She... okay, she might, yeah,” she admits. “But if I open with ‘I know your secret and I’m willing to keep it and also help make you very rich by taking down Pretty Peacock’...”

She purses her lips. “Urgh, we’re going in circles here. First I need to get a good look at Peaceful Wave and see if he’s in on it. We can decide how to hit him after that.”

Haneyl nods. “Mama, I think I’d like to come with you. He’s the trade-focussed one. I have some interests in the cinnamon market myself.”

“Heh,” Keris chuckles. “Cinnamon market.”

A round of flat looks - and Vali’s confused expression - greets her. She pouts.

“Oh, fine, none of you appreciate humour,” she complains. “Yes, sweetheart, of course you can come. Will you be wearing your own face, or a Tengese one?”

“I was going to go in as my main trading identity.” Haneyl puffs out her chest. “I’m a known woman in Saata - and your landlady, may I remind you. You’re organising this for me .”

“Ah, to be bossed around like this by my own daughter,” Keris bemoans, dramatically sweeping a hand across her forehead. “Alright, darling. We’ll do it your way. Soon.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Peaceful Wave’s townhouse is a sprawling former Shogunate warehouse near the waterfront, and something of its commercial nature holds tight even though he’s decorated it up. The ceilings are a little too low and don’t quite match up, and the air is smoky. Even seven hundred years later, there’s still the faint smell of Shogunate heavy fuel oil here - at least to a nose as sharp as Keris’s.

“... and put simply, the Raraan Ge are trying to push me out of getting involved in certain very profitable elements of the spice trade,” Haneyl says. She’s dressed more modestly than usual, as befits Xisa Faso, her identity as the landlady of - among other things - Little River’s apartment in Saata. Though of course her interests go far beyond such narrow confines, and she’s been building a reputation of her own as a young, free-spending merchant brat with Dynastic blood and a taste for handsome men and beautiful women.

She probably didn’t mean for her reputation to come out quite like it has, but the gossip over her has made its way to the Hui Cha ladies Keris takes tea with and she cringed to hear some of the rumours. Her daughter is becoming known as a young woman of large appetites (of all kinds) as well as a vicious haggler and incredibly smart in trade, and that reputation doesn’t always serve her well.

Haneyl uncrosses and crosses her legs, glancing over at Little River. “Put simply, I’m looking for partners to help finance an expedition to the Far South West to find alternate trade routes that will stop those Raraan Ge inbreds from cutting down on my cash flow. And of course, Little River suggested your name - as the most capable trader of the Hui Cha.”

She glances over at Little River for support.

“I know of none better in trade than you, lord,” Little River says smoothly, hands folded neatly on her lap. “When Xisa Faso asked me who was best suited into keeping a strong hold on the far-southern markets, your name was the first that came to my mind.”

She’s been paying close attention to him throughout the talks, looking for signs of the Lintha and trying to work out what kind of a man he is; how much he knows.

“Obviously, we want to avoid any contact with the Lintha pirates,” Haneyl says - but she pitches her voice so there’s just the hint of a question there. “They have made certain offers to my agents in Ca Map...”

Peaceful Wave puffs at his pipe. “You have agents in Ca Map?” he asks, sounding mildly surprised.

“I spent a pleasant few months there,” Haneyl says, flapping her hand at him. “I’m quite,” her eyebrows flute, “familiar with certain influential figures there.”

Keris can see his brow wrinkle, as she winces inside. He’s judging Xisa - her daughter is just too open about her hungers and her affairs. “What have the Lintha offered you?” he asks.

“Not enough for me to risk taking their offer when the Sinasana might find out,” Haneyl says.

“Regardless,” Little River puts in frostily, “finding a way to prevent them from harassing our trade ships will be necessary. I thought that you might have experience in that area, lord.” She dips her head respectfully. “Your fleets are known to be among the safest and most prosperous in Saata.”

The man wheezes, and tries to sit up more upright. His wife helps him up, from her hair just behind him. He gestures with his pipe. “Well, that depends on how the route-finding goes. Who have you hired for this?”

Haneyl grins. “I’ll be leading it in the new year, along with a small number of elite mercenaries from the Bloody Lionesses.” She names trade details Keris isn’t familiar with - ports she’ll be working with, sea captains she’s in negotiations with. “And of course,” she adds with a smug look at her mother, “it’s possible that I might be able to hire the infamous Captain Rathan Rattson of the Red Moon.”

Little River doesn’t roll her eyes, because that would be rude and out of place. But Keris certainly wants to, behind the mask.

“More contacts would be valuable, though,” she picks up. “And this is where a partnership with you would see its worth. Xisa Faso providing protection for the fleets and leading the expedition herself, alongside the wisdom and experience of the Anarchy’s trade that you hold, will lead to great profit on both sides.”
She’s watching him as she speaks. Keris and Haneyl are cooperating in this conversation - praising his skills and resources, tempting him with the promise of wealth... but also constantly bringing the topic around to touch the Lintha, the threat of pirates, his contacts in the Anarchy. Opportunities for any ties of his to Kimbery’s children to shine through. After the meeting - which ends with a deal Keris thinks rather favours her greedy daughter for funding for an expedition in the new year if Haneyl can provide the assets - the mother and daughter retreat to a bathhouse. The year is heating up again, and they’re both hot.
In a private bath, they discuss the outcomes.

“Don’t kill him if you can avoid it, Mama?” Haneyl says, floating on her back in the water. “I just got him to sign that and it’d be a real pain to re-arrange it. And if you want anything done in the Far South West or anything moved down there, we can do that them and get him to pay for it.”

“Mmm. I’ll try not to,” Keris says. “I’m gonna have to kill one of him or Red Leaf, because Red Leaf wants him dead. And I’m not willing to sit on a chair where one leg is bending all its efforts towards breaking another. What did you pick up from him about the other matter we went there for?”

Haneyl smiles, showing two rows of teeth. “He’s got some fuuuuuuuuuun things in his bloodstream,” she sing-songs. “Cocaine, opiates, tobacco, several other forms of herbal stimulant I’ve never even encountered before - and wouldn’t you know, some of them have been vitriol-treated.” She licks a finger, letting roots grow out and retract. “I think his entire body is dependent on that stimulant cocktail. If you took it away, he probably wouldn’t have the will to get out of bed.” She snorts. “Of course, he’s fat enough that he probably needs help for that anyway.”

Keris frowns. “He’s very not-worried about the Lintha,” she says carefully. “He doesn’t consider their raids a threat to his trading. I don’t think he’s actively a cultist, but I think he thinks they’re business partners.”

Pulling herself out of the water, Haneyl runs her fingers through her grey hair. “So you reckon his wife - or mother-in-law - got him hooked on that stimulant cocktail to leave him dependent?” Her Nexan accent has thickened. “‘Cause mama, if I don’t know what plants some of those things come from, I doubt he does.”

Keris purses her lips and leans back in the baths to think.

“So then,” she muses. “What we have here is someone who’s already suborned a blue sea master the way we are. I guess we could wean him off it and cure him, but, like...” She wobbles a hand. “Do we want to? Because the way I’m seeing it, if we grab Charitable Peach through a mix of blackmail and bribery, her influence over him basically means we’ve got Peaceful Wave nailed down - and she’s got him solidly enough under her thumb that he won’t slip out and cause trouble. I dunno what healing his dependence would do, but it’d probably change things.”

She drums her fingers thoughtfully on the edge of the bath, missing her prehensile hair’s ability to coil and wind meditatively in her Little River form.

“I think I need to get a look at what could buy Charitable Peach, and decide between hooking her and killing Red Leaf, or waiting until after your expedition to tie Pretty Peacock to Peaceful Wave and bring both of them down under House Sinasana’s wrath,” she decides.

Haneyl crocks a finger towards her mother, and when Keris paddles over, starts brushing her hair with root-like fingers. “Maybe you, Rathan and maybe Nara should go visit her in the night, looking all demonic,” she suggests as she massages her mother’s scalp. “You’ve all got Demon Sea-ness in you, and both Nara and Rathan are melodramatic bitches. They’d love to go full demon on her.”

“You speak as if you’re not a melodramatic bitch,” Keris points out, amused. “Or me, for that matter.” She tends to be subtle, but... yeah, even then, Keris is self-aware enough to admit that her hit on the naib’s fortress in Malra, or her message from the Dead in Eshtock, were pretty melodramatic and bitchy.

“You make a good case, though,” she hums happily. “My Lintha form, with Rathan as one of their patrons and Nara as some terrible thing they work alongside... mmm...”

Haneyl’s hair goes to her chest in mock shock. “The difference is,” she lectures her mother, “my melodramatics don’t get in the way of doing what’s important. But they think the overacted melodrama is what really matters.”

---

The moon is still a slither in the sky when Keris, Rathan and Nara head out for a little night trip to Charitable Peach’s estate. It’s one of the small ones, on one of the smaller islands that sit next to Saata - an island barely big enough for the house built on some old Shogunate defence platform and some gardens.

There’s not enough moon for the three swimming shapes to be seen as they cut through the vicious rip-tide between Saata and the smaller island.

Keris pulls herself up out of the water, scaling the rocks, and lowers her hair to lift up Rathan and Nara. Rathan has primped and preened and looks beautiful and effeminate even by his standards, while Nara is a low, shrimp-like thing with a human face.

“Why couldn’t you get this place, mama?” he whines. “It’s surrounded by water.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to afford this place, sweetheart,” Keris consoles him. Once again, she’s in the face she showed to Lintha Gajui Narooj - a pureblood child of the Great Mother, with sea-green skin and snow-white hair. She’s taller than she usually is; lean and long-faced and graceful, her piercing crimson eyes offset by lacquered silks and finery. Two lethal-looking short cutlasses sit at her hips, and delicate patterns of tattoos and scarification trace up her arms and one side of her face.

“Now then, stay quiet and stealthy,” she murmurs. “We don’t want to be seen by anyone until we find the lady of the house.”

The lady of the house is asleep. She is a widow. The - rather younger - man in her bed therefore is not her husband.

“He wasn’t in the plan,” Nara frets as he squeezes through the shutters.

“You worry too much,” Rathan yawns.

“Of course I-we do, because she-we doesn’t worry about anything!”

“Relax,” Keris murmurs, low and unconcerned. “We can just drug him. He’ll stay asleep for the duration, even when we wake her up.”

“See,” Rathan says. He bows low, settling into Charitable Peach’s favourite armchair and sprawling out. Making himself comfortable. “After you, mama. Do your thing.”

“Right.” Keris smiles, fishing a slender paper tube out of her hair and tearing the top off, then holding it under the sleeping man’s nose so he can inhale the fine powder within. Gesturing at Rathan to adjust the curtains, she begins shifting a few pieces of furniture and ornaments just a little, glancing at the position of the moon outside the window as she does.

---

Charitable Peach wakes. She’s colder than she should be. The scent of sea salt fills her room; blowing in on a draught through an open window. Her bed partner is deeply asleep, not even stirring, and as she looks around her bedroom, there’s nothing that...

A chill goes up her spine.

The shadows are wrong.

Creeping fingers of darkness stretch out over the near wall. The silhouette of a hanging, headless body is cast by the dim moonlight over her dresser - cast by the fall of a curtain and the placement of a vase on the windowsill, when her head jerks round in terror to find the source, but the light has never made that dreadful picture before. Strange, alien shapes loom in the shadows. The geometry of her bedroom is subtly off, though not in any specific way she can pinpoint...

Her heart freezes. One of the shapes in the gloom just moved.

Piercing crimson eyes flash in the darkened bedroom, and an accented voice speaks.

“Cousin,” it says deliberately in the voice of the Lintha. Inviting - no, demanding - formal response.

Charitable Peach blinks sleep from her eyes, her pupils narrowing and her breath catching. “What, who... how... respected elder,” she says, immediately falling into Tengese-accented Linthese.

“The wind is good, and the tides are favourable,” Keris leads, beginning the exchange of challenge and counter-challenge. Charitable Peach acquits herself reasonably well, and Keris steps closer, into the light. Her highborn Lintha features draw a breath from the older woman, and Keris flashes sharpened teeth at her as she beckons her companions to follow suit. The beautiful horned figure in the shadows doesn't move from its seat except to lean forward, but the shrimp-like thing that stands as tall as a child shuffles into the wash of moonlight, revealing a cherubic human face that only makes the whole more horrifying.

“I have orders for you, cousin,” the Lintha highborn says, leaning against one of the bedposts. There’s a trace of disgust in her expression as she looks at Charitable Peach’s lover. One hand strays to an oddly-shaped bone-handled knife on her thigh, apparently without conscious thought.
The old woman knows well what those knives are used for, among the Lintha family. She can guess what the pureblood is thinking. She’s so overcome with fear that Keris can see her shake. “Respected Elder, I await your orders,” she whispers.
((OK, so you’ve been a super extra bitch. WWOF tells you that she does not envy you, and that her most prized trait is her Politics 5. IEI tells you she’s Enlightenment 2, and has demonic (Kimbery) essence. Roll to use HP.))
((4+2+2 stunt+5 Kimmy ExD {secrets, darkest desires, talent for temptation}=13. 5 sux. Oooo. Hopefully either she’s not Persuasion 5, or she’s taking penalties to her defence pool on account of being terrified.))
((Heh heh. Yes. You squeaked it, but _only_ because of the Emotion effect from you being a melodramatic bint. :V))
((Her price is getting “control over the Hui Cha women’s insurance systems”.))

“The Hui Cha have one of the Dragonkin, cousin,” says the highborn, a nasty smile playing about her lips. “A newcomer; some young whelp from the mainland. Tell me of her.”

She speaks of Little River - young, a new mother, greedy and ambitious. With unknown backers. She’s been trying to find out where Little River’s money is coming from to see if - as she suspects - she’s a Realm agent, probably trained by the All-Seeing Eye.

The highborn’s eyes narrow, and her fingers stray to her cutlasses. “Holy one,” she says, turning to the monstrous shrimp-thing with the face of a child. “You tasted the traces of the Dragonkin’s mind. I ask of you; were there links to the Realm in her wake? Is she a problem we will need to kill?”

Nara lets out a gurgle, smiling as wide as Haneyl at her most disturbing. “No, not one,” he says happily. “Oh respected one, mother of the ocean, give me this failure’s guts! I will devour them!” He snaps his claws. “I will eat them up and those of that useless man who shares her bed!”

Tilting her head, the Lintha seems to consider it. “Perhaps the man,” she muses. “But no. If the Dragonkin is not of the Realm, our cousin can yet aid us.”

Cruel crimson eyes focus on the terrified mortal woman. “Cousin,” she croons. “You see before you one of the mothers of the Lintha, one of our holy allies of the ocean, and a sacred child of the Great Mother sent to our aid.” She gestures towards Rathan at this last.

“It is our will that you gain the trust of this Dragonkin,” she orders. “Entice her away from the dogs of the Realm who claim to rule here. Sway her to the cause of the Lintha - or if she cannot be swayed, gain her trust and make yourself invaluable to her. She is greedy and ambitious - and when she is spurred to take hold of the triads, you will be there to ensure the funds of the Hui Cha flow to aid the Family.”

In her mirror, Keris can see the woman reflected - and what she longs for. She, this more-than-mortal but oh-so-weak woman who’s supped on demonic power, she wants to take over the Hui Cha insurance market. She wants to take that crown worn by Pretty Peacock and don it herself. Greed? Maybe. Or maybe it’s orders from her masters. Either way, she would give anything for it.

Leaning in, those piercing red eyes fill Charitable Peach’s world. “Succeed at this,” the highborn breathes, “and you will be blessed among the cousins of the Lintha; rewarded for your triumph with the wealth of the triads. Fail - or speak of this to any other - and you will scream for death. This order comes from the holy ones; the sacred blessings of the Mother. You report to me - and only me.”

She can see Charitable Peach’s eyes flick over her features; her green skin, her red eyes, her high cheekbones and long face. This is a Lintha of purity almost beyond question. “Yes, elder,” she says.

A pleased smile appears on the highborn’s face. Pleased at first, at least. Then it turns cruel. “And this one?” she asks, gesturing at the man beside Charitable Peach - the man who hasn’t woken, or even stirred in his sleep. “You consort with him - do you wish for him to live? You know your place, so I suppose I can allow it.”

There’s a trap in her words, that much is clear. Whether it’s agreeing, though, or refusing her ‘generous’ offer... that’s impossible to tell, with a Lintha as pure and high-strung as this.

There’s a bead of sweat on Charitable Peach’s face - lit by the dull red light coming from the figure who hasn’t spoken, the horned figure in her favourite chair whose feature’s aren’t visible. She glances from the Lintha to the monster to the horned figure and then back again.

“I... his life is yours to take, if you wish it,” she says weakly.

There’s a moment of terror. But this seems to be the right answer, for the Lintha’s cruel smile turns into a smirk.

“You know your place, and his,” she says approvingly. “And so you may keep him; impure wretch though he is. Give me your hand, cousin.”

The bead of sweat is joined by another. She knows not to question.
Screwing her eyes shut, she offers the hand - wrinkled, sea worn. The pain is sharp, but mercifully brief. When it’s over, a thin scar runs up the inside of her upper arm - close to the armpit, where her body will hide it from view. Blood stains the sea-green skin of the pureblood’s fingers.
“Remember,” the psychotic sea-bitch whispers. “This mission is holy. You speak to me, and only me.”

She steps back. One hand settles on the shrimp-monster’s head, restraining its clacking claws and the hungry eyes in the face of an innocent child from the unconscious man in the bed. The horned figure rises, and whispers something in a Lintha accent; too soft and strange to make out. Its voice is beautiful, though wave-washed and alien.

Whatever it said, the pureblood bows. “As you say, most holy one,” she says. With one last malicious smirk towards Charitable Peach, she opens the door for her companions... and is gone.

Keris and her children emerge back in Saata proper, climbing out from the docks.

“That was so funny! So pretty!” Nara crows. “Mama, mama! Can we go get treats! We did it and I want candied fruit!”

Rathan perks up at the mention of that. “I could do with something to eat,” he says.

“You both did wonderfully,” Keris praises them. “And yes, let’s go get food. Haneyl will probably have some waiting at the apartment, and we can pick up sweets and treats on the way.”

---

Time passes, and Keris works on building Cinnamon’s reputation and status in the city. She’s not doing it because of vanity, though.

Well, not just vanity.

But there’s a reason for it. And she achieves success when Cinnamon is offered a two week contract to sing at one of the upscale music houses that she knows Golden Child, Pretty Peacock’s second daughter, frequently attends. The show she’s come up with to cover her slot consists of ten acts that vary in length from a few minutes to half an hour. It varies slightly over the course of the week as she switches the order and rotates acts in and out, then repeats the same pattern in the second week of the fortnight.

The first time Keris sees Golden Child in person, she’s barely a minute into her personal favourite of the acts. The veil-dance. Standing in a semicircle of candles and clad in dozens of layers of sheer silk so fine it’s see-through, Cinnamon’s body is nonetheless hidden; the number of layers adding up to make her clothes opaque. But as she gracefully drifts across the stage in a tantalising dance and sings with sweet seductive beauty, she slips off a layer here and a layer there; incorporating them into her ribbon-dances as they flutter and snap.

She’s not hurried. This act lasts just under thirty minutes, and she only removes a layer every minute or so. When Golden Child walks in, she’s still decent, her form covered, and she’ll stay that way for a while.

Even so, Cinnamon sees the Tengese woman’s eyes catch on her, and hold.

Golden Child is a stocky woman in her late 20s or early 30s. She’s clearly one of the Hui Cha triad princesses, but she wears a sleeveless gown that shows off both her ornately tattooed arms and the muscles under the tattoos. She has cutlass scars that break up the tattoos on the back of her arms, and they’re not ritual - they’re too randomly angled to be anything but gained honestly. Her lips and nails are painted with gold leaf; a display of inordinate wealth. Her coal-black hair is cut short and has gold thread braided into it to make it stand up, and she rests her chin on a palm as she focusses on Cinnamon Tenné.

The staff take her to one of the good seats, near the front, and she orders a cocktail. She has friends with her - other women - but they’re clearly subservient to her by their dress. And of course there’s the bodyguards she wouldn’t go anywhere without. Cinnamon reserves a smile just for her, and continues her dance. For long minutes, she gives herself over to the music and the feel of her body flying across the stage; the slow baring of what’s under the veils.

Each candle in the half-ring behind the dancing beauty has a curved mirror behind it, reflecting the light onto the dancer so she can better be seen. As the music shifts and the last song starts, the final part of the dance kicks in. An aide off to the side of the stage tugs on a wire, and those mirrors swivel round; throwing their light onto the back and sides of the stage and leaving the centre in shadow.

The songs have been speeding up throughout the performance; the dance becoming less languid, graceful and calm. Now, at the last, the music is surging and passionate - and the shadowy figure in the darkened ring is a creature of unbearable heated desire. Silk shifts over silk and her veils fly high in both hands, catching the light cast over the tops of the mirrors where she flicks them above her head. But she herself is a dark figure in the shadows, too indistinct to see clearly and yet firing the blood with what little detail can be made out from glimpses. Every movement, every shift and turn and throaty purr of song fires the blood and tugs at the heart - and at other places.

Finally, the song ends, and another wire dips the mirrors to snuff each candle out. As the lights come back up, Cinnamon is gone - the veil-dance was her last act for tonight.

A single veil, still warm from body heat and flung artfully and apparently carelessly, has landed on Golden Child’s table.

((Per + Expression, +2 equipment bonus, declare charm use.))
((4+5+3 Exotic Beauty+2 stunt+2 equipment=16. Wooph. 12 sux. Impressive.))
((Using My Dark Lady at the end there, and Attention-Holding Grace to hold the audience’s attention - which thankfully is a scenelong that covers the length of her set and then ends, so they’re not compelled to follow her offstage when it’s over. Or at least not supernaturally so~
: P))

Backstage, Cinnamon is in her dressing room. Normally she’d be working on getting changed, but it’s hardly a surprise when there’s a knock at the door. One of the house girls is there - a petite thing, only in her early teens, the one they tend to assign to fetch things for Cinnamon. “Lady,” she says. “Couple of people have asked to see you. Captain Longchen, an’ Golden Child of the Hui Cha.” She offers the ‘gifts’ they’ve made to the singer - a hardwood box filled with coins from the captain; a little jade token with a peacock carved into it from the lady.

Cinnamon raises an eyebrow at the coins, but is rather taken by the jade token, holding it up to the light and turning it around to see the carving from different angles. “I do like this,” she smiles. “Send Golden Child in, then. You may take the captain’s favour back to him.”

Instead of slipping her last few veils off and getting dressed properly, she leaves them where they are and slips on a satin robe. The way it’s left open makes it quite clear that she’s still only in what few veils were left at the end of the dance and enough undergarments beneath them to border classy nakedness rather than crude exposure. Even for a hired performer like Cinnamon who’s the lead act, the changing room she has is none too large. There’s only a few candles arranged around the mirror that cast an inconstant, flickering light over the room. Cinnamon makes herself comfortable, and waits.

There’s a knock at the door a few minutes later, and Golden Child enters. Up close, it’s a reminder that she’s like her mother and sisters; tall for a Tengese woman. She looms over Cinnamon, offering a passionfruit flower. “Your dance was exceptional,” she says, some of the Tengese stiff formality still in her voice. “I have seldom seen a woman dance so well before.”

The stiffness is a ruse. Cinnamon can see the lust in her eyes.

The dark-skinned, red-haired beauty smiles, reaching up to take the flower and bringing it down to breathe in its scent. “You flatter me,” she purrs. “Please. Sit. Make yourself comfortable.”

There are only two places to sit down in the small room. One is the hard wooden chair tucked into the dressing-table. The other is the low cushioned bench on which Cinnamon is sitting.

It’s not a very long bench. There’s room for two people on it... just about.

Golden Child sits beside her. She smells of her cocktail, and incense - Keris suspects she’s come straight from evening prayers to this nightclub. Her eyes only sometimes meet Cinnamon’s face; other times they seem drawn to the tantalising, shadowy recesses under her dressing robe.

“Ah, the hypocrisy of the worshipers of the gods,” Dulmea observes lightly. “What would her Golden Lord say?”

“I’d heard rumours about you, but this was the first time I was able to hear you sing,” she says to Cinnamon. Her thighs are pressed together. Maybe just a requirement of how little space there is. Maybe.

“And did you enjoy my singing?” Cinnamon asks, looking up through her lashes with a sinful smile. “I hope my efforts pleased you.”

“A great deal.” For such a big woman, a commanding woman, a woman who’s used to getting her way - and who has left her bodyguards in the corridor outside the changing room - she seems almost stilted. Almost shy. “I’ve heard some of the most beautiful women on this island sing. You might be the best singer. And the most beautiful.”

Cinnamon’s teeth flash in the dim light as she grins, and a slender hand reaches up to trace down Golden Child’s cheek.

“I wonder how you might sing,” she murmurs, the teasing note to her voice implying she’s not talking about the stage. “I confess, I’ve heard rumours of you too, Hui Cha Peacock Golden Child. But rumours... aren’t always trustworthy.” She shifts a little closer, the bare skin of her arm and leg brushing against Golden Child’s. “Tell me about yourself,” Cinnamon coaxes, her voice so sweet and honeyed in this artificial twilight. “Tell me who you want to be.”

In the mirror at the dressing table, she sees them reflected. Sees the answer to her question spelled out in half-seen images before the woman even speaks.

((WWOF and HP.))

The rumours her souls had collected were true. Golden Child wants - needs - to be her mother’s heir. And she’s not the eldest. Oh, this woman, she takes pride in her refusal to be stopped, her willingness to do what she feels what she has to do. And there’s a smell to her, the sickly sweet scent of envy - but, Keris realises, does she envy Cinnamon or Little River?

((Price “Be my mother’s heir”
Envy - yes
Proud of Conviction 4))
((Hee~))

Tucking herself up against Golden Child’s side, Cinnamon puts herself beside her, opens up, makes the stiff and guarded woman the centre of her attention.

“You’re interesting,” she breathes, her perfume looping unseen bindings around the bigger, stronger woman. “And sweet, and,” she chuckles sweetly, “very flattering. I’d like to know more about you. Won’t you tell me?” Another finger traces down a cheek. “Either here... or maybe somewhere more comfortable. Hmm?”

The older woman smiles at that. “How about here, then back to my townhouse later?” she suggests. “To see which is better - this intimate space, or my oversized bed?”

This woman - this pirate princess - is by turns vicious and deadly, yet sweet and strangely shy. Her hands are more used to sword and sails than fine silks or moneylender’s pens, and she’s fierce in her determination and lethal edge. In battle she must be glorious - and yet under Cinnamon’s attention, she’s halting, awkward and almost blushing; out of her element.

It’s a heady feeling for Keris, being in the shoes Sasi once filled for her. The elegant, beautiful, composed socialite who watches a trained killer go to pieces for want of her and offer up sweet attempts to please her, unsure if they’ll be accepted.

It’s honestly more fondness and a sense of kindred spirit that makes her brush a kiss across Golden Child’s cheek than any thought of politics or strategy.

“I think that sounds wise,” she whispers.

---

It doesn’t stop there. The next morning, Golden Child - who Keris is very sure is far from inexperienced with women - reveals she isn’t after sex. Or, possibly, she sees something more that may involve more sex. She wants to see Cinnamon again. In fact, for three days starting next Firesday, she wants to hire her for a personal private religious dedication to certain goddesses that she’s a little vague about. And is willing to buy out the contract to the Marble Spires to have exclusive access to her.

Cinnamon lets them handle this. The Marble Spires doesn’t actually want to let her go, and Golden Child has to wait until after it expires. It’s already good for Cinnamon’s legend - people involved in the negotiations will talk. At the end of the contract, she takes a day off to see to her babies and recharge, and then she’s off to three days at Golden Child’s beck and call. There are definitely religious dedications, or at least Cinnamon leads her to cry out the names of her gods.

And when she leaves, Golden Child has proposed a patronage relationship for the Jade Carnation, that’ll get her the funds to get it done and cleaned up and decorated in a way that won’t tie her to Little River. The older woman has been very, very generous - and with Rounen and Elly’s help, the contract is heavily weighted in Keris’s favour.

And Golden Child doesn’t seem to even mind.

Keris concludes that Golden Child is falling hard for Cinnamon. As hard as Sasi’s flings do for her. It’s almost a little... scary how the tables have turned.

“So, that’s how it is,” Keris says wryly, having told Zanyira and Haneyl a suitably redacted version of what she’s actually been up to in the private room of a coffee-house where they’ve met her for drinks in Saata. Zanyi isn’t in her robes and Haneyl has dressed down.

Haneyl leans over and kisses her mother on both cheeks. “That’s wonderful! You were going to cost me so much money with the redecoration, and it sounds like,” she smiles, “you’ve been having fun.”

“I like her,” Keris says happily, bouncing a little in her seat. “She looks all tough and captain-like and scary, but she really is sweet when we’re in private. Almost shy. I think sometimes she feels awkward and ungainly next to me after I dance all graceful-like, and needs reassuring that she’s beautiful too.”

A faint shadow crosses her face. “I’m gonna have to be careful, though,” she adds morosely. “She’s falling for me really hard, and... I don’t want her to end up like Ogi did.”

“Who?” Zanyi asks.

“Don’t ask me,” Haneyl says with a shrug. “Have you been holding out on me, mama?”

“Ah...” Keris winces, “no. No, um. That was before your time. Before anyone but Eko, actually, and even she wasn’t really smart yet. Ogi was a mortal back in Matasque on my first mission. I liked her, and we wound up in a relationship and I, um...”

She tugs a hair tendril miserably. “I kind of ruined her life,” she admits. “She fell... mortals, they don’t really cope well with an Exalt devoting all their attention to them. She fell too hard and too far and... I didn’t notice how devoted she was getting. How desperate.”

Swirling her coffee around, Keris downs some of the bitter drink and sighs. “I wound up having to break off ties to... to shock her out of it. Steal her back for herself. It wasn’t... healthy, how she was ignoring everything in her life except me. That’s, uh... that’s when I realised I couldn’t show too much of myself around people I cared about.” She glances at Zanyi. “Like, uh, when I caught you and Ali in my tidal pull in Baisha. That kind of thing... it’s not good for people, long-term. I try to be careful, nowadays.”

Haneyl nods solidly, and pats her on the shoulder. “That’s why I’m much healthier than Rathan,” she says. “He focusses too much on Oula. You know she’s had the cheek to get more powerful, right? I mean, she’s still weak and no threat to me, but it’s really rude of her to act like she’s better than my demons and Rounen.”

Keris blinks. “Huh. Really? Like, as strong as Yuu?”

“No, I just said she was no threat to me! Duh!”

“Wha- urgh,” Keris drags a hand down her face. “Eko’s friend Yuu... gods and Makers, I am going to scold that girl. I’m pretty sure she picked her name deliberately for this.”

It’s made worse by Zanyi’s chuckle. Haneyl sighs. “Oula, that horrible girl, is nearly as strong as a weak demon lord. Like Hermione, in fact. The two are hanging out, being all toxic together. I had to shout at them for getting mercury on one of my gardens and poisoning the plants.”

“Well then,” Keris murmurs. “Oh, you’ll be coming back in Fire, won’t you, sweetheart? Wood is fine, but I don’t want you down on the seas in hurricane season.”

“Oh, I won’t be launching the expedition until next year,” Haneyl says casually. “I need to pick out the best Lionesses and get them used to working for me, then enhance them up so they can beat any humans they come across. And train them to use armour blossoms and work with my demons. And get them worshiping me, of course.”

Zanyira’s eyebrows flute up at that. “That’s... a lot,” she says, her voice controlled. Keris is pursing her lips for other reasons.

“You’re expecting to run into resistance down there,” she says. “Dead, fae, pirates... maybe all three. More danger than you ran into when you were just touring.”

“Of course. That’s why I don’t want to do it in bad weather - and why I wanted Rathan as a captain. He can sail and smooth over any little incidents. Which is why I was hoping you would order him to go with me, since after all I’m making those connections and building those ties that you need,” Haneyl says quickly, trying to brush over the more objectionable bits.

“I’ll consider it,” Keris says thoughtfully. “I did want him on... other work, originally. Which I need to go check up on soon.” She drums her fingers on the table. “Alright. Until Calibration, you’re joining Hermione, Oula and maybe Yuu in sorcery lessons. Rathan as well, if he’s interested. But you have a headstart from working on it with Sasi, so you’re further ahead. In the new year, we’ll see how things line up. My bosses,” she glances at Zanyi for a moment, “may decide that the deathlord behind the Zu Tak needs quick action taken against it. I’m not sure I’d disagree if they did.”

Zanyira isn’t quite over some of the bits that came up earlier. “Wait, wait, Haneyl, go again about how you intend to turn some of the women - maybe my friends! - in the Lionesses into demonic mutants.”

“The kind of thing Haneyl’s talking about isn’t demonic mutant... ing,” Keris hastens to reassure her. “Well, I mean... not unless you count the growing back limbs and fixing eyes and stuff that I already did, since that’s technically changing them with,” she waggles her fingers, “demonic mutations. But if they want to be stronger or quicker, I can make alchemical draughts that can do that. It’ll only be voluntary.”

She glances at Haneyl, making it quietly clear that grafting leopard claws onto people will not be happening, or at least not without the people in question having the idea.

“That said, it probably would be a good idea for Haneyl to open up their chakras so they can surpass ordinary human limits,” she adds. “Not mutated, just... empowered. Awoken to more spiritual strength. Though,” she adds to Haneyl, “be aware that if you do that, it’ll affect how their prayer works, I think. Ask Asarin about it; she’ll know.”

There is distinctly sullen muttering from Haneyl at the mention of Asarin. “Stupid self-righteous pain in the butt who likes Eko and doesn’t that say everything,” she grumbles. She coughed. “And yes. There’s nothing wrong about this! The fact human bodies don’t fix up things like bleeding is a sign that whoever made them wasn’t doing their best job. If I was designing humans, I would-”

Keris kicks Haneyl under the table.

“Right, right, off topic. That. What mama says.”

There’s a knock at the door, and a messenger comes in. “Keris, Zanyira and Haneyl? Message from Eko.”

“... go on,” Keris says warily. Eko sending messages is new. New and worrying. New and worrying and probably heralding something being on fire, or stabbed hundreds of times, or both.

The messenger nods. “Eko has been spying on the various other pirate princes of Saata, researching them for you. There is important information that you must know. The Hinya family are planning an assassination attempt on Hui Cha Pretty Peacock. They are in debt to her, and consider her to have cheated them in an insurance deal where she did not pay out certain insurance payments.”

Keris blanches. She hears Haneyl breathe in sharply. Zanyira...

... narrows her eyes, and kicks Keris under the table. Keris blinks at her, looking vaguely wounded.

“Private room, fine,” Zanyi points out. “But why would Eko send something that important and sensitive to just get blurted out wherever? And how did she know Haneyl and I would be with you?”

“Why ask why Eko does anything?” Haneyl grumbles.

Keris can’t dispute that, but does level the messenger with a suspicious look. “She told you our names?” she asks. “And where to find us? When was this? How did she even...” she waves a hand vaguely, “tell you the message? Who are you, anyway?”

“I’m a messenger. I carry messages,” the messenger says. The reasoning is... lacking, and as Keris looks closer she can see the peeling away bands of ribbons of - his? Her? Their? - skin.

“Eko?” she guesses. “Oh gods, you can make masks too. Like your szilfa. And... you can speak when you’re wearing them?”

The ribbons fall away, and Eko’s mask reveals itself. She jabs a finger at Zanyi. Her aunty is horrible and ruined this, she protests. All they had to do was just accept the message. Not pull away her ribbons with all their nasty questions.

“... oh dragons, you can disguise yourself too,” Haneyl groans.

“Disguise yourself really well,” Keris murmurs approvingly. “But yes, Eko has a point. When’s this assassination attempt due?”

Eko spreads her hands. They’re still planning it, she explains. She’s been looking around their place and they’re trying to find assassins and set things up.

Her mask twists into a smile.

So it looks like they need some help, her expression says to Keris. But only to Keris.

“Well,” Keris muses. “Keep an eye on things. Tell me if anything changes. And good initiative with the spying. Come here.” She gathers Eko into her arms and drops a kiss on her mask, happy at how she can hug and kiss her eldest now without chapping the skin of her lips.

Eko flicks her hair. Maybe next time they can just accept it when convenient background characters show up with a message from Eko, she suggests. Those people don’t matter. They’re just a narrative conceit for her to convey this information and paying too much attention to such things damages the integrity and flow of the scene.

Slowly, Haneyl bangs her head into the table. “Mama, why did you let her learn to do this?” she groans, between thumps.

“I didn’t!” Keris complains. “She...” shit, she remembers, she’s not meant to be telling anyone about that bit of heretical soul-surgery. “She stole it! Don’t blame me!”

It’s not technically untrue, Keris justifies to herself. She’s just omitting who and where Eko stole it from.

Bye, bye, baby sister Haneyl, Eko waves goodbye as she steps outside.

---

Of course, not everything is entirely grand conspiracies. Sometimes Keris makes time for her brother.

And sometimes her brother just says things that floor her. Like “So, do you have any plans for your and Hany’s birthdays?”

The birds outside are squawking, despite the light rain that hammers on the roof of the veranda. There’s a rainbow in the sky. And Keris freezes up, nearly dropping her glass.

“U-um?” she stutters. “I mean, I’ve made Hany some presents for hers, but... I don’t even know when mine is, exactly. Wasn’t it back around Water or Earth?”

Ali raises his brows, rubbing his shoulder with a rueful look. “Keris,” he says with a frown. “It’s on the same day as hers. Second of Ruling Wood. We were that close to naming you for her, until I persuaded Zanyi that it might draw attention from the wrong spirits. After all, we thought you were dead.”

Keris cringes a little. Yeah, that would... that would not have gone well. She hasn’t told Ali about their half-sister in Malra, and isn’t really planning to. She prefers not to think about that, and how it had made her feel.

“So... I’m a Wood child?” she asks instead, considering that. “And always have been? That’s... uh...”

The niggling feeling worrying at the back of her mind blooms, and her face goes slack. “W-wait,” she mumbles. “Um. The... the second, you said? Of Crowning Wood?”

She hears the music in her head stutter. Dulmea recognises the date as well.

“Yes?” he says. “Is that a problem?”

Keris opens her mouth, closes it again, makes an abortive motion with one hand, then wheels around and makes for the nearest window. Throwing it open, she sits down in the alcove seat next to it and huddles in her hair. Ali watches, and then warily approaches, sensing that apparently it is.

“... d’yftrg’ct,” Keris mumbles into her knees.

“Sorry? What?”

She raises her head. “That was the day after I got caught,” she repeats. Her expression doesn’t seem to know quite what to do with itself. Her voice is hushed, and her eyes are far away. “When I went after Kasseni. The first time. I did it the first day after the new moon, for luck.” A coughed huff of humourless laughter. “Wasn’t very lucky, of course. Sentinel’s Hill took up the whole afternoon, and the beating had me out through the night. And on the third, after another night, Dulmea came.”

She huddles tighter, shivering slightly. “But the second... that’s the day I spent in the cell.”

“Oh. Um.” He radiates discomfort, and for all his blacksmith’s muscles he tries to shrink in on himself, make himself smaller; avoid her attention. “Sorry?”

“Not your fault,” Keris mutters. “Hah. My birthday. Some irony. Not even the day I Exalted; the last one before. Not much of a present.” She sniffs, wiping her eyes, and scoots over to him. “G-give me a hug?”

“Oh, Keris,” he says sadly, awkwardly wrapping his arms around her. “I... I don’t have wonderful memories of Hany’s birth either. Zanyi nearly died, and until you came she was never healthy again. Not like she’d been before.”

She leans into him, taking solace in being held by her big brother for a while. The fact that he wouldn’t stand a chance against anything that could physically threaten her doesn’t matter to her hindbrain. He’s big and warm and solid and smells of smoke and metal from the forge - and to her earliest memories, that equals ‘safe’.

“Well,” she murmurs after a while. “We’ll have to steal it back, then. Make it a good day again. A happy one.”

---

It’s mostly Hany’s day. Keris accepts that. Hany gets to be the birthday princess and she gets lots and lots of kisses from Chirpy Kitty Kali - and cuddles from Ogin and even a kiss from Atiya at Keris’s prompting. Aiko is placated from being slightly grumpy that someone else was getting presents by getting a new gown to wear for the party, and... well, uh, Keris will handle Hermione later, but started with bribing her with presents to not make a scene out of jealousy.

Hany, of course, is having so much fun being the birthday girl who is now five - five! Keris is shocked how fast she’s grown. She was only three when they met!

“Well then,” Keris says, plopping down on the ground next to her as she plays with her new set of dolls and admires her shiny new hairpiece. “Someone’s a big girl, huh?”

Iris flies over from where she’s keeping an eye on the other children and lands on Hany’s shoulder, breathing a little crowned head and five candle-shapes of rainbow fire.

Hany giggles at that, and tries to feed Iris some candied lemon she has. Iris sniffs it, but isn’t very interested on the grounds it’s not ink. “I’m a big girl!” she tells Keris seriously. “I’m practically an aunty, Aunty Keris, with all the babies I have to look after!”

Keris’s eyes stray to her cousin and brother. It’s not impossible, she thinks, that Hany might not end up getting a sibling soon so she really can be an aunty when she’s older. She smiles.

“You practically are,” she agrees. “We should trade special looking-after-babies aunty secrets, shouldn’t we? After all, today’s our day.”

Hany puts her hands on her hips. “Why aren’t you wearing your prettiest dress, anyway?” she demands. “How old are you, Aunty Keris?”

“My prettiest dress? Well, hmm. I’d say because Zanara has that at the moment,” Keris grins. “And as for how old I am; according to your daddy, as of today I’m twenty four.”

Considering it, Hany measures herself against Keris. “You’re not... four and a lot times taller than me!” she announces, pointing out a fatal flaw in that logic.

“Aren’t I?” Keris asks, raising an eyebrow and looking down at her. “You are pretty short... are you sure you’re judging it right from all the way down there?”

Mwaa haa. It’s so nice being the taller one in an exchange.

“Mama!” Hany shouts, immediately, like the little cheat she is. “You’re taller than Aunty Keris, she’s not tall enough to be twenty four!”

Keris pouts. “Fine, fine,” she concedes. “I see how it is. If you’re going to bring your mama in to gang up on me, I’ll get no victory here. How old am I, then, if not twenty four? You’re the birthday princess, so you’re clever enough to work it out.”

The little girl grins. Keris has walked right into her trap, prepared for her by her gossip-witch blood. “You’re nine because I’m over half your height!”

“Ahhh,” Keris agrees, nodding. “But... wait. I’m Haneyl’s mama, and she’s taller than me! How can she be older than me if I’m her mama?” She smirks, secure in her victory with this devastating retaliatory blow.

Hany considers this. “Maybe you’re ‘doptive,” she tries with false confidence.

“No,” Keris says firmly. “Trust me, I was there.” She grins smugly. “Could it be that the birthday princess made a little mistake?”

Aiko gives out a huffy sigh. “Or maybe,” she suggests, “your idea that adults grow constantly is wrong. And when that’s wrong, your whole argument falls apart.” She sounds... more like her mother than Keris is used to.

“Maybe you’re wrong!” Hany snaps back. She doesn’t like being made to feel stupid by Aiko.

“Now now,” Keris says, ruffling two heads. “I am twenty four, as it turns out. And I think that means I deserve a cake too - which I’m pretty sure Haneyl has made for me. But,” she assumes a serious, woeful expression, “a cake with twenty four pieces is more than I can eat all by myself. I wonder if there are a couple of brave, hungry girls anywhere around here who could help me tackle such a big thing?”

“Me!” Kali calls out, toddling over full speed before tripping and face-planting. She pulls herself right up. “I want! Mine!” Keris is impressed for a moment with her baby girl's hearing, until she notices Ogin staring right at her from his position nearby.

Rathan leans back from his position on the comfiest chair he dragged out to the gardens. “Look, Haneyl, she’s stealing your line.”

“I baked this cake. You didn’t do anything to help, idiot!” Haneyl retorts.

Laughing, Keris scoops her daughter up and stands; setting her niece and her foster-child on her hips. A cool weight climbing up her hair from behind signifies Ogin pulling himself up to her shoulder.

“Alright then!” Keris says, and the memories of what happened four years ago on this day are still there, but paler and less important against the joy of the now. “Let’s go have cake!”

---

Time passes, as it does. Little River is overseeing work in her forge, hair tied back under a protective headscarf under a hat and baby Atiya in a sling on her back, when a messenger runs up and hands her a letter before retreating.

It’s from Eko, and it’s densely written and in-depth notes on the Hinya family, who have their holdings in Zenmetsu. Eko’s notes are scrawly and have little time for things like ‘staying on the same line’ or ‘not going off on tangents’, but at least words are things that Eko can use without the subjective nature of her mime.

Keris retreats to the shade with a few bits of work to occupy her hands, and feeds Atiya as she reads.

It’s very interesting. Zenmetsu is a province on the northern edge of Shuu Mua, just east of the cursed Met Saana marshes, and a tributary of House Sinasana. As a result, most of the land is set aside to growing rice and samphire to feed Saata. The Hinya family dislike such activity as unworthy of them or their kin, and so the work is mostly done by slaves taken from dinosaur-hunting tribes from the Deep South. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this means that Zenmetsu has a chronic problem with slave revolts and sizable numbers have fled into the marshes or up into the highlands. This has made the Hinya very unpopular with their neighbours, and some of them are considering whether they could conquer them - and fund the rebels to make that more likely.

“Hmm,” says Little River, and blows silver dust off the talisman she’s engraving and into the recasting bucket. “Interesting.”

There’s a tiny movement against her as Atiya turns her head to follow a bird. Her little girl is a year old now - by her corrected age, too; a year and a season old from when she was born, back in Rising Earth of last year. She’s still a little behind, but she’s able to crawl and sit herself up all on her own, and she understands simple sentences.

She still hasn’t talked, though. Or managed walking. It’s still early days for both, but Keris is waiting with some nervousness to see if she’s just like Ogin and taking her time, or if there’s an actual problem there. Atiya doesn’t grin and bounce like Kali. She’s a very serious little girl. She doesn’t even have Ogin’s slow, beaming smiles, or his spontaneous displays of affection which crop up between his watching - especially when someone he’s watching seems sad or unhappy.

Little River inspects her talisman, decides it passes inspection, and puts it in the pile. Time for some downtime, she thinks, and heads out to the big inner courtyard at the centre of Shining Foam Upon a Babbling Brook. The old Shogunate ruins she converted already had an open space here, and so the solid-walled compound she owns is still centred on it. It’s convenient for moving things in, and it lets the individual workshops around it keep their shutters open to allow some airflow and make the heat less intolerable.

Swinging Atiya round to sit on her lap as she settles down next to the lone tree in the courtyard with a stack of spoons made by her apprentices, Little River starts sorting them into ‘passable’ and ‘discards’. There are quite a few on the latter pile. Her apprentices kind of suck.

“Well then,” she sighs to her daughter. “I need to get around to doing some proper training soon, hmm? And decide what to do about this.” She taps the message. “Nothing at the moment, I suppose, but when I get the time...”

She drops a little kiss on Atiya’s nose, and hums a Tengese folk song for her as she continues sorting. Atiya likes this sort of thing; where she can feel the vibrations in her mama’s chest as well as hearing it, and she focuses on the spoons as Little River sorts them, following them as they get tossed into the pot of discards or placed in the tray of finished products.

Clumsily, the baby tries to grab for one of the spoons. It’s out of range, of course - she doesn’t seem to have the hang of depth yet. Little River lets her have it, smiling as she wraps tiny fingers around the metal. It’s one of the discards, with a misshapen bowl, so she’s not worried about it getting damaged - if indeed her daughter even has the hand strength to bend it, which is doubtful. Atiya peers at herself in the unpolished surface, then puts it in her mouth.

“That’s a spoon, little princess,” Little River tells her, stroking her hair. “Spoon. Spooooooon.” She draws the word out in a silly voice, hoping for a giggle. Atiya doesn’t laugh, though; she just sucks on the spoon.

Keris sighs, but she wasn’t really expecting that to get a laugh anyway. She picks up the hummed tune again, and bounces Atiya on her leg a little as she keeps sorting through cutlery, tallying up the quality.

... yeeeaaah, okay, she’s maybe been neglecting the smithy a bit. She’ll have to put some effort in this season to training up her apprentices to the point where they can take on some of her more high-level workload, or maybe hire some more established talent to expand. She doubts there are many Tengese master silversmiths in Saata, but it’s worth looking - and she can potentially hire foreigners if they’re good enough, as long as she keeps the smithy very much Hui Cha dominated.

An extra song joins the air, and Atiya twists in her sling to try to see where the new noise is coming from. It’s Ba-le, dressed in gold-trimmed scarlet and approaching from behind.

“Born with a silver spoon in her mouth, hmm?” she asks.

Little River smirks. “I am reasonably sure it wasn’t there when she was born,” she says. “Though birth is a pain and I wasn’t entirely lucid, so I suppose I could be wrong.”

Iris rises up off her arm with a sleepy yawn and a stretch of her wings, blows a happy fire-face in greeting, then twists around to nuzzle Atiya’s nose and investigate her spoon.

“So,” Little River asks. “Come, sit, I’ll have tea brought out. What brings you here today?”

“Oh, just visiting my tenant,” Ba-le says with a smile.

They settle down for tea beside the river, upstream of the main workshop, where Keris has saved the wild flowering bushes that grow here. Atiya sneezes.

“So, some of it is me cheekily wondering what you’ve got planned for Fire,” Ba-le says, sipping her tea.

“Hmm? Well, I’ll be whipping my apprentices into better shape this season,” Little River replies. “They’re... well, not awful, but they could be far better than they are. Once they’re up to an acceptable standard, I’ll be able to offload some of my more advanced orders onto them and go looking for more established smiths. I might try to get a waterwheel set up and providing turning power for tools all over the compound, but...” she grimaces. “That would be a big task with a lot of driveshafts and gears, so I’m not certain I could get it done in one season, or so soon.”

Ba-le flaps her hand at her, nearly slopping her tea. “Darling, darling, darling,” she says with a weary sigh. “I’m not talking about things like that. I’m talking about parties. You didn’t throw any last year, but that’s fair enough - after all, you were new here. But Fire parties are the highlights of the social season! And if you don’t throw any, you won’t get invited to the best ones!” She nudges Little River. “They do believe in proper parties where you come from, right?”

((Lol. I thought that was what she meant. :V))

“Ah,” says Little River stiffly. “I... will have to think on it. But yes, I may be able to host one or two.” The south wing’s metalwork at Silver Lotus has been mostly replaced thanks to Ali’s efforts, so she can probably hold a gathering there if she puts some effort into prettying the place up. “I suppose you’ll be holding several?” she adds, giving Ba-le a knowing look.

“Of course I will!” She gives Little River an arch look. “And not only are you invited, but I’ll make sure to invite some eligible bachelors and bachelorettes. And some non-eligible ones who are up for a good time.”

Little River’s face shades into a faint blush. “Ba-le!” she scolds. “I’m... it’s only been a year since I had Atiya. I’m not looking to get engaged yet.”

“Darling, the second category I mentioned aren’t at all interested in engagements,” Ba-le says. She smirks. “And don’t pretend it’s a Tengese thing. A little birdie told me that Peacock Golden Child has taken up with a rather raunchy exotic dancer and singer. She’s spending a lot on her new lady-friend, so you should feel free to find someone like that too.”

The Tengese woman she’s speaking to appears not to go temporarily deaf and not hear her first sentence, but throws a sharp-ish glance over at the second part. “A lady-friend specifically?” she asks, eyebrow raised in an expression that would be haughty if she weren’t still somewhat flustered. “Or some foreign dancer?”

“Both.” Ba-le grins. “I heard she was quite a piece of eye-candy, so I was going to take my husband to admire her, but by the time I heard of her; her limited run at her club had ended.”

“I would think Atiya is proof enough that I am...” Little River pauses as she considers her phrasing, “not as disinterested in remarriage as Peacock Golden Child,” she decides on with pursed lips. “And I’m sure you’ll get a chance to see the foreigner wherever she raises her head next. With the number of parties hosted during Fire, no doubt an exotic dancer will find plenty of work.”

“I hope so. I’ve always liked the fanciest dancers,” Ba-le says happily.

Little River pats her hand. “Just be sure not to get into any duels over her,” she advises. “Now, help me decide. What should I threaten my apprentices with if they don’t shape up and learn what I have to teach them this season? The Pale Mistress seems a little strong, but being dunked in the river just doesn’t seem motivating enough...”

“Oh no, no, Little River, you wouldn’t want to pollute the water with their dumb-dumb,” Ba-Le says. “Hmm. Have you thought about just telling them to do better? You are chosen by the Water Dragon, after all. You should be good at that sort of thing.”

“Oh, I am, and I can, and I will,” Little River agrees. “But threats of terrible vengeance are traditional. Ah!” She bounces Atiya on her knee. “I can use the threat of Atiya’s disappointment. And perhaps glaring. She has a very good glare, don’t you, darling?”

Atiya burbles.

“The ferociousist,” Ba-le says with a giggle.

---

They’re back in Keris’s cellar, by the demonic altar to herself. There’s no Zanyira here. No Ali. No Aiko. No twins - and no Vali, either. Atiya is only here because she doesn’t understand what’s going on, and Keris won’t let her out of her sight because she’s picked up a cough.

“So,” Zana says, rolling out a big ornate flow diagram. It’s the result of long discussion between them. “Here’s the plan. We’re going help a Raraan Ge family succeed in murdering Pretty Peacock. With her out the way, we’ll install our allies in her place in the financial affairs of the Hui Cha. A blow like this will start a war. And we’ll use the war to seize control of the blue sea masters. Because, after all, isn’t that a time for a family to come together and be unified?”

They’re cold, cynical words coming from someone who still looks like a little girl.

Evedelyl crouches in here, chin resting on her knees. She’s shown up along with Xasan and her collection of keruby, mentioning that she’s found the ruins of a Shogunate village that seemingly hasn’t been touched in seven hundred years. She’s come back with a few bracelets and amulets she dug up, gifting them to the various children. “Are you sure it’s alright to involve all the children?” she asks in a whisper that rumbles through the whole room. She’s seen that the plan involves most of Keris’s souls. “It might be dangerous for them.”

“It’s okay, mama,” Keris says confidently. “They’re good at not getting caught. And they won’t be involved in the assassination itself. Rathan and Zanara are just helping distract Pretty Peacock and cover up the Hinya’s plans, and Eko’s in no danger even in a worst-case scenario.”

“Unlike all those people who tried to suggest Little River was a Realm spy,” Haneyl says dryly. “They’re in a lot of danger.”

Zana grins widely at that. “All I did was suggest that anyone who wanted to pin the blame on her being a Realm spy was probably someone working to bring down the Hui Cha. It’s not my fault that some people took that literally and so certain very slanderous individuals showed up in the water. Face down,” she sings.

“Can we keep on topic?” Rathan yawns.

Zana nods, flicking her hair. “Right! Here’s what’s going to happen.” She points at the flow diagram. “Thank you, Rounen, for being such a sweetie in helping poor little me do all the lines,” she says. “And look at this! We’ve identified major elements of Pretty Peacock’s network. Rathan, you’re going to lull them into a false sense of security and distract them by being friendly and pals and stuff like that!”

Rathan in a tea house, his horns disguised as part of a fancy pirate hat, freely sharing drinks. His red light washes over the guards, and they’re drinking very heavily. By nightfall, they’re all out cold.

“Meanwhile,” Zana says gleefully, “because I am a hero and even more self-sacrificial and generous and kinder than Calesco, I’m giving up my Wood holidays to tell a story, a sinister story, a terrifying story of an assassination plot that’s totally different and in fact gets them jumping at ghosts trying to work out what’s going on. All so Pretty Peacock’s guards and her pet Dragonblooded swordsman aren’t in the right place at the right time.”

A drop of paint there, a story there, a sinister plot built up in the shadows. All to try to lure the guards out.

But the swordsman is there, with his hand always on his blade, and he doesn’t trust the lures left out. Doesn’t believe in the conspiracy he’s found. Isn’t willing to commit to rooting it out.

“But it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work one hundred percent,” Zana says, “though of course it’ll be Rathan who mucks it up if anyone, because this is just to hide things from investigators. Meanwhile, Keris is going to be there, putting them in contact with the right people, making sure they can procure the right poison, and so on. Because let’s be honest here, they’re only human. They don’t understand the real art of murder.”

There are certain drugs, certain medicines, certain poisons that grow around the Far North East, on the opposite side of Creation to Saata. About as far away from this corrupt isle as one can get. Keris wears many faces as she gets into the ears of the Raaran Ge plotters. She leaves references to exotic poisons, whispers in their dreams, becomes an elderly alchemist to sell them the poison they need.

“It has a bitter taste, but can be hidden in certain foods that play off against it,” she says, voice old and querulous. “And treats heart conditions. But leave me out of this. I don’t know why you’d want it.”

“And Eko? Eko’s on the inside,” says Zana triumphantly. “The face of a messenger, a nameless guard. She’s got her knife and she can inhale. She can winnow the talented out of Pretty Peacock’s guards, and make sure there’s just not quite everything in place when it comes to the day.”

A knock at the door of Pretty Peacock’s personal healer. A messenger, carrying a note. As he opens it and reads it, the knife rises up. Blood sprays out, but never even touches the walls. It is instead inhaled, spiralling in to the nameless messenger with the face of ribbons.

She smiles, and becomes a guard who strolls over to open a back door.

Haneyl puffs herself up. “What about me?”

“Oh, you do boring greedy things,” Zana says, sounding deliberately insulting. “You’re not really an artist. You’re mass market.” She grins and scrambles back from Haneyl’s huff.

“You’ll be preparing,” Keris tells her. “I’ll get messages to Sea Eagle’s daughter and Charitable Peach to prepare for a money-grab within the Hui Cha. And you’ll be setting up your businesses to take what you can from the edges of her moneylending empire.” She grins, sharp and vicious. “We’re gonna take her monopoly apart, even if the brunt of it still goes to her firstborn daughter.”

Haneyl grumbles, but relents at the thought of profit.

“And,” Zana says, with a pirouette that turns into a bow, “that will lead to that. Pretty Peacock - or should I say Ugly Peacock - will be getting a pretty little addition to her morning tea. And then we’ll withdraw all the work we’ve done to hide the plan. After all, we’ll know everything they did. We’ll hide the evidence, only to reveal it all when the time comes.

“So the Hui Cha will know just who was behind this. We’ll have our war, Keris. A war that’s all one big performance, just so Keris can get into the war council of the Hui Cha and assume control. And Red Leaf will exit stage left.” She giggles. “Won’t it be pretty?”

Keris smirks. “It’ll be beautiful. And the aid we’ve given the plan has all been under false faces and masks. Little River has been hiring people this season to try and get a handle on the amount of work she has - the glut of orders for anti-demon charms still hasn’t gone down since Eko got spotted. I’ve had a Gale doing the carving, but to anyone watching, there’s no way Little River could have been involved in this - she hasn’t had time.”

“Ladies and Haneyl, and gentlemen...”

“Hey!”

“This is what we call art.”

---

It’s nearly the new moon that will mark the transition from Wood into Fire, and Keris is in the mirrored world of her armour along with all her babies. Iris and Hermione are playing with each other in the reflections, Aiko is self-seriously instructing Ogin and Kali how they have to build the tower of painted blocks properly so all the colours match - ably helped by her szel friend who’s animating Kali’s dollie - and Atiya is sitting upright by Keris’s leg, eyes squinting at the others. Oula is here too, in a conservative full-length gown of a Tengese cut in pale, cherry-blossom pink.

Unfortunately, so too is Yuu, because in between playing with babies a sorcery lesson is going on.

Worse yet, Kali finds Yuu hilarious.

“Yuu, Yuu, do the funny voice!” she shrieks.

Sighing, Keris waves a hand at Yuu in permission. “So,” she continues to Oula as Yuu entertains her daughter, aware the szilf can still hear her and that Hermione is listening in, “the third element of a Messenger is life. You’re making something to remember, carry and recite a message, so it needs to be a little bit alive. There are a few ways to imbue the spell with that qualify - give me the obvious one.”

“Iris,” Oula answers immediately. “She’s already alive, so you just use her as the...” she glances down at her notes, “... the conduit of the spell, and that means its form is just her flying off to deliver it.”

“Correct,” Keris nods. “Yuu, how else might I cover life for a Messenger if I weren’t casting it through Iris?”

Yuu tilts her head. “Well, any of us could serve,” she says casually. “I don’t like this! It’s strange! I’m travelling so fast that the stick up my butt has fallen out!” she adds, in a pitch-perfect mockery of Rounen.

The word ‘butt’ makes Ogin, Kali, Aiko and Prita all burst into helpless giggles, and Yuu smirks at that. Keris rolls her eyes. “A way to imbue it with a different conduit, then,” she says. “Say if I were casting it through my Lance.”

The szilf considers for a second or two. “I guess you’d just use a whatsit; sympathetic link to draw life outta the spear,” she says. “Because it’s like a snake, so you could use that parallel to conjure a serpent-construct that’d carry your message for you.”

Keris raises her eyebrows. The answer is spot-on, and a reminder that Eko’s mature keruby - for all their annoyingness - are incredibly clever.

“Correct,” she says. “Well done. Okay, so the fourth element is image. This is another one that comes up with a lot of spells - Messengers, my plant-vehicle spell; anything that has a general effect that you need to pick a specific way for it to happen, like who the Messenger goes to or what vehicle the plant becomes.”

Oula raises a hand. “Wouldn’t... the second one come under form, though?” she asks. Keris grins.

“Good catch, but no. The form is the finished vehicle, yes, but there’s still image in the process of the starting plant becoming it. The form is just the shape the spell takes while it’s in effect or once it’s created.”

The talk goes on, and as it does, Keris notices that Aiko has left the block game behind, and is kneeling behind Oula, listening in on the conversation while obviously trying to look like she’s not listening in. The guile of small children needs some work.

“Aiko?” she asks, beckoning her closer. “What do you think? Does countermagic have a form, or not?” It’s an easy question, and she winks at the little girl as she asks it.

Aiko frowns, bushy brows furrowing. “No,” she decides eventually, “because as soon as it’s cast, it doesn’t exist. Because it’s counter magic and magic at the same time. So it doesn’t make sense. And that... lack of sense is what makes the magic stop working.”

Keris notices Prita’s hand-gestures. She can’t understand them, but Aiko is glancing at them out of the corner of her eyes.

“Good girl,” Keris praises. “You’re right, it doesn’t take any shape of itself; it just breaks other spells. And that’s a good theory on why and how it breaks them, too. Your reward is a cuddle, come on.” She scoops Aiko into her lap and hugs her; allowing her the victory.

Aiko hugs a little harder, a little longer than usual. “It’s nearly new moon,” she says, face burrowed in Keris’s shoulder. “Is mama going to send her voice again?”

“I hope so,” Keris says, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “And we’re coming up to the end of Wood, too. Soon we’ll be running through Fire, and then at Calibration you’ll see her again in person.” She smiles. “Do you want some help making her a present?”

Aiko nods. “And when are Daddy and Cally coming back?” she asks.

“Soon,” Keris says. “I think they’ve been quiet so long because they got sucked into something big and complicated - like when you and Ogin tried to find all of the secret doors down to the cellars and ended up missing lunch,” she adds, tickling Aiko’s side briefly and grinning. “If they aren’t done by the first new moon of Fire, I’ll go find them and see what’s got them all wrapped up.”

Aiko nods, and slips down off Keris’s lap, running over to the other children to scold Kali for putting the wrong-coloured blocks in one tower over her - and Ogin’s - protests.

There comes a knock at the door that leads out into Creation. It’s Fatima, when Keris checks it.

“Lady,” she says, swallowing. “Hui Cha men at the door. They’re scary looking. And have weapons. They want Little River.”

Keris purses her lips and stands, rippling into her Little River form. “I see,” she says. “Keep an eye on the children and keep them in here. I’ll go see what they want.”

It’s a pair of Jade Fox’s men. Their cutlasses and firewands are sheathed and holstered, but they’re close to hand. “Lady,” the lead says, dipping his head. And keeping his hands well away. Everyone knows what happens if you cross Little River.

The water dragon returns a nod of her own. “Welcome to my home,” she greets them formally. “I would offer you food and drink, but this doesn’t seem to be a social visit. You bring news?”

“Be on your guard, lady,” he says. “The blue sea master, he wanted to make sure you knew of the danger, so he had us ride here as fast as the news was in.” He swallows. “Lady, Pretty Peacock is dead. Killed by Raraan Ge scumfuckers.” He pauses. “Begging my language. But she’s dead by poison, and they captured their assassin. She talked to who hired her. So watch your meals and be on your guard. They might go for you too.”

For just a moment, Little River is taken off-guard. Her eyes widen in shock, and her rigidly formal stance drops down into instinctive Snake Style footwork.

Then comes the rage. Her pupils narrow, her lips pull back, and a frightening cast overtakes her features. “Who dares?” she hisses. “Which miserable family strikes at us so?”

“I don’t know,” he says, backing away from Little River - terrified he’s seeing the killer who’s rumoured to lurk under her placid mask, “but I only know the rumours at the moment. The swordsman, I have heard he has passed his service to the eldest daughter. He will know.”

Drawing in a deep breath, Little River composes herself - though her eyes are still wide and furious, and the stiff formality in her posture has been replaced by coiled tension. Her hands aren’t shaking, but if she were a lesser woman, they would be.

“I see,” she hisses. “Very well. I will make arrangements to return to the city at once. This cannot go unanswered.” Another calming breath as she clearly forces herself back into the habit of manners. “I will see that you be given a chance to rest and eat before your return journey,” she adds. “Unless you have others to carry news to?”

He shakes his head. “Respected elder Jade Fox sent us specifically to inform you. No doubt because you are a great ally of his and he fears for your life.”

She nods. “Very well. Thank you for your service, and I will heed his warning.”

Dismissing them to a side room where they can be fed and rested with good repast and comfortable cots to recover from their swift and tiring journey, Keris retraces her steps back into the main wing. She carefully waits until she’s back within the sanctum to ripple back into her natural form, twirl around twice, punch the air and whoop.

“Yes!” she shouts happily. “I’m amazing! And so are all my babies!”

The other messenger - the one who hadn’t spoken - is behind her, suddenly, silently. He gives Keris a very expressive thumbs up.

Keris grins. “Hello darling. You were there when it all happened? Tell me everything.”

Eko tears off her blood-stuck ribbon disguise, and flops down with a disgusted gesture. She is literally surrounded by idiots, she indicates, and all that plan only worked because she was there in person. Stupid Zanara didn’t lure the horrible swordsman away, Mama’s plan was pretty dumb, and their idiot assassin got herself caught before she poisoned the food.

Honestly, if Eko hadn’t been there to walk in as a maid and make sure the poisoned food got served, she gestures with a huffy flick of her skirt, it would all have gone wrong.

Her poor insulted mother pouts at her. “It wasn’t that dumb. It got her, clearly,” she points out. “And I bet they couldn’t treat the poison, even if they knew to try.”

Eko tilts her head, and concedes the point. It’s true. She was there on the scene just in case she needed to help Pretty Peacock die faster, but the swordsman didn’t know how to treat the toxin and gave her things that would have worked on local plants.

Keris smirks. Smugly. “I knew Northern poisons would work,” she crows. “Hah. And yes, well done, darling.” She sweeps Eko up in a hug and peppers the cheeks and forehead of her mask with kisses. “You were brilliant and invaluable, and you made the whole thing come together.”

Well, of course. Eko flicks her hair. She has no idea how mama coped before she showed up. She sniffs. Badly, no doubt.

With a bye-bye wave, she runs off - heading in Aiko’s direction, probably to play with her.

“You let her get away with too much,” Dulmea says sharply in Keris’s head. She’s been very quiet recently.

“She did probably make sure this scheme went off without a hitch,” Keris points out. “Urgh. Idiots. I thought their assassin would at least be able to dose a teacup. I practically gave them the kill. Layout of Pretty Peacock’s estate, guard rotations, what to hide the poison in...”

She shakes her head in disgust. “Amateurs,” she complains. “Fucking up a perfectly good assassination. And I’ll be having a talk with Zanara about not pulling away that guard, too.”

Dulmea sighs. “And this is why you let her get away with so much,” she says. “I am still not pleased with how you have forgiven her for deliberately mutilating and grafting and transfusing not only herself, but you too.”

Keris winces. “It...” she starts, and trails off with a sigh. “I’d be more angry if it weren’t something that resonated with part of me that was already there,” she admits. “Though I guess that might be why she was able to do it at all. And I can’t say I’m happy about it. But I can... see why she did it? She’s not going to do it again now that it’s worked, and it’s not like getting angry will undo it.”

“Hmm.” It’s a very clinical noise. “Well, I have taken a new student, anyway - a demon of mine. One I hope to train as a housemistress. I hope she will be better at controlling her own students than you. And as for you... you are nearly there. The Hui Cha are within your grasp.

“Mind that you do not drop them just as your fingers close.”

“I won’t, mama,” Keris promises. “One last careful grip, and they’ll be mine.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The Season of Fire has come to Saata, and with it the first hurricane of the year.

But something is wrong.

Keris stands atop her townhouse, and looks up at a sky the colour of mud, where red lightning flashes. When the rain comes it is the colour of blood, and leaves rusty stains on the once-white buildings of this city of sin. The clamour is something she has never heard outside of Malfeas, because every temple is ringing its bells and hitting its gongs, and she can see the burning light of altars and sacrifices all across the city.
This storm doesn’t taste of the wyld, though. It tastes of Creation. But when the rain falls on her left hand, the sensitive skin can feel the lack of harmony. Something has gone very wrong, to make this unnatural storm. Keris pulls her sleeve up to bare her arm and opens her mouth to taste the rain; frowning. It’s omen weather, but it’s not of the wyld - it’s born of Creation. That... generally means demons.
Oh.

Shit.

Keris glances guiltily down at the apartment which currently holds two demon lords, and thinks of the five others scattered around the island of Saata. And also the one off with Testolagh. And herself.

Hmm.

She may have slightly kind of brought this on herself, in retrospect.

Behind her, Eko turns away to remove her mask, and licks the blood-coloured rain.

It’s not blood, she gestures with slumped, disappointed shoulders. That’s really unfair. She was hoping someone was giving out free food.

And before anyone mean and Haneyl-ish says it, even if it was caused by Eko killing someone who would have survived if Eko hadn’t been there, that doesn’t make it her fault.

“It’s not just that,” Keris murmurs. “It’s also just you all being here. And... well, there’s a lot of stuff we’ve been doing to fray Fate in this region, I guess.” She grimaces. “We probably want to lie low for a while after this. It might be for the best that Haneyl’s planning to go off down south next year.”

Honestly, Eko explains with a superior manner, that’s probably just a sign that the gods aren’t doing their jobs. Molina was right. Everything would be better if the gods were replaced by keruby, who were fundamentally made by Eko and are therefore much more intelligently designed than those divine slackers. Couldn’t even be bothered to make it rain blood properly! This is just nasty red sand!

“Aren’t Haneyl’s keruby the ones who are good at that?” Keris murmurs with a slight curve to her lips. “I’ll tell her you’re admitting hers are better than yours for the job.”

All keruby would be better working together in fundamentally Eko-designed harmony, she retorts. Like how Molian needs her so romantic doki-doki friend, she clarifies with heart shapes made with her hair and fingers.

“She is not wrong,” Sirelmiya advises from within Keris’s head. “You should open your heart up to more, Lady. That lady, Golden Child, she loves you for your real face. And you will be seeing her today, yes? Why not love her properly?”

“I...” Keris says hesitantly. “I might. But she’s mortal, and...”

She looks down, shoulders hunching. “Well, you know how that ends,” she mumbles. “I don’t want to hurt her, if I love her like that.”

Eko nods, somehow intuiting that Keris is talking to Sirelmiya. The solution then, she sensibly informs Keris, is to stop loving her when not around her. Don’t let it weigh her down. She spreads her hands. Simple!

Keris frowns at her. “I’m not just going to... to treat her like a coin to flip whenever it suits me,” she says disapprovingly. “I’ll see Sasi at Calibration, and decide then.”

She smiles wistfully, hugging herself. “It’ll be good to see her again. New moon Messengers aren’t enough, and she’s not allowed my painting on the Blessed Isles. I’ve been missing her, and so has Aiko.”

Eko shrugs. It’s Mama’s choice, she indicates, before dancing off.

---

The rain hasn’t stopped by the time that Cinnamon has to leave for Butterfly Golden Child’s estate, and she takes a palanquin through streets that look like they’re soaked with gore, under a red-lit sky.

Golden Child - now an orphan - is wearing mourning purple when she greets her hired entertainer. Cinnamon can immediately see that she’s stressed and wound as tight as a wire, and that’s the reason she’s paid for her services. What she needs, she decides immediately, is a massage to unpick the fact she’s a tight ball of stress.

She doesn’t say much as first as Cinnamon strips them both down, and then starts oiling her up. She glares ahead on the massage table, head on her arms. “Damn those Hinya bastards,” she growls, as Cinnamon runs her hands up and down her thighs. She’s not really loosening up. “Damn them!”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Cinnamon murmurs, expert fingers coaxing knotted muscles to untense. “I know what it’s like to lose a parent.”

“It’s so stupid,” Golden Child moans. She might not be trying to show it, but Cinnamon is loosening her up - and not just her body. Also her tongue. “So stupid. The men are going to destroy them. They’re at home, and it’s Fire. They’ll all do it and we’ll have to forgive them debts for their services. And then that will piss off the Sinasana, because Saata gets a lot of its crop-tribute from Zenmetsu. It’s all so stupid! What do they think they were trying to do? Was it meant to be a warning attempt that succeeded? Or are they all so fucking inbred that they thought it was a good idea?”

Cinnamon works her way up slowly, humming and making noises of agreement as she goes from thighs to back to shoulders.

“Who can say?” she asks. “Maybe some fool among them was angry or jealous. Maybe they were too ignorant to think of the consequences. Maybe they just didn’t care.” She plants a kiss on a muscular shoulder that’s slick with massage oil. “I wish you weren’t hurting so much for it. It’s not fair to you. You deserve better.”

“And my sister,” Golden Child gripes. “I’m sure my mother’s will left most of it to her. We won’t know until its read, but I know mother!” She thumps the table again. “And those damn priests know what side their meal is cooked. Even if I could find a priest of the Golden Lord who’d take the bribes to ‘correct’ it, they’d just know my sister could afford more than me.”

Petting her short, gold-spiked hair, Cinnamon’s eyes light up with interest. Her voice remains steady and soothing, though. “Maybe a prayer to the right god would bring good luck there?” she suggests. “The will is written, but fate is known to favour the pious. And,” she adds with a shiver, “it surely can’t hurt, with such omens hanging over us.”

“Oh? Do you know some useful foreign god?” Golden Child asks, tilting her head back to look at Cinnamon with the natural ecumenism of a Saata-born Tengese. “Or a way to make sure they hear the prayer and answer it?”

Cinnamon tosses her hair. “As it so happens,” she says happily, “I might. You put your wealth towards, mm...” tracing her fingers along Golden Child’s shoulder, she winks, “much better uses than your sister, I think. So why not Nululi? She’s a patron of the arts, and smiles favourably on those who hold them in high regard. And,” she adds with satisfaction, “you happen to have one of her distant children here to help your prayer on its way.”

“Oh?” That seems to click something in her. “So you can call on family connections, can you? What do we have to do to make your ancestor happy enough to... hah, contribute her art to correcting that will?”

“Hmm...” Cinnamon muses, tapping her lip thoughtfully. “Well, you’re already patron to a place of the arts, and I can dance and sing for her when you make your prayer - especially if we do it in the Jade Carnation. That’s a good start already - a shrine to the arts, a skilled performer and a distant relative. Beyond that?”

Her hands work as she talks, coaxing more of the knotted tension out of Golden Child’s shoulders. It’s getting easier now; she’s not so tightly held and is letting herself relax.

“Opals and emeralds are sacred to her,” Cinnamon continues thoughtfully. “And she loves unique things. Sometimes she takes the form of a great cat, and she enjoys carvings of them. A beautiful little cat statue with gemstone eyes would be a perfect offering.”

“Or...” she draws out, tantalising. Golden Child shifts, reacting to the sinful promise in that word.

“Or?”

Cinnamon chuckles. “There are rites that would get more of her attention,” she murmurs, her hands shifting to other, less innocent places. “Ways to honour her with more private arts. I could show you them, if you’d like.”

“Tell me what I have to do.” The words come out sharp and fast. Golden Child rolls over, to stare up at her masseuse. Keris can see the hunger in her eyes in the gloom; the desperation. “If your goddess and ancestor can make me the heir, I’ll do anything for her. For you.”

The foreign beauty gives her lips a playful tap. “Don’t you worry,” she promises. “You find a pretty little cat statue for the goddess, and let me handle the ritual. Come over to the Jade Carnation tonight.” She strokes her fingers fondly through short, spiked hair, but her eyes are heated, and her last words smoulder.

“I’ll teach you everything you need to know~”

---

Cinnamon can work quickly when she needs to, and this isn’t the first time she’s inducted someone into her little cults. Here in the gloom, she recovers certain items that she thinks will please Lilunu to make an impromptu shrine - beautiful art, pretty cloth, things to bedeck a marital bed.

And then with mouth and fingers, she teases and pleases Golden Child into screaming prayers to her new goddess, her new unknowing demon princess.

“I... uh... mmm....”

“Say it,” Cinnamon whispers into her ear, nibbling ono it.

“I’ll serve you forever! My soul for you! Grant me what I want, Nululi, and I’ll do anything!”

“So may it be,” Cinnamon whispers, and brings Golden Child to her culmination.

When Golden Child wakes, it’s with an icy shard of gratitude in her heart, and an opal-coloured eye on her back, just over her heart.

“I’ve never seen a prayer answered so strong,” Cinnamon tells her, eyes wide. “The opal eye bloomed on you like a flower, and I heard music playing in the air!”

She’s not actually lying about that last part. Her prayer had reached Lilunu - and while Keris has seen stronger reactions to prayer, she hasn’t seen many. Every candle around them had burned with Iris’s opal flame for a moment, and she’d heard the musical symphony of the Conventicle Malfeascent and caught the scent of Lilunu’s gardens.

The little porcelain cat figure with glittering opal eyes had disintegrated into a pile of silver sand. Keris isn’t sure if it was just used up by the ritual, or if it’s actually en-route across the Desert now; borne on the strength of that prayer. She’ll find out in a season’s time, she supposes.

For now, she pets her exhausted lover reassuringly. “She heard, and she approved,” she murmured. “I’m sure your wish will be answered.”

---

Keris leaves with a generous payment, and the next night, her and Zana are breaking into the temple of the Golden Lord. With Nara on Keris’s back. She insisted Keris carry him.

“It’s nice, us doing stuff together,” Zana says enigmatically, flicking her blue-and-red hair.

“Mmm,” Keris grunts, hefting the puppet-Nara higher on her back. Two Opal has been introduced to them in dance school, and Keris is starting to regret paying her fees to the place. Nara as a statue is fine. Nara as a life-size puppet with disturbingly not-quite-human features is unsettling, especially when Zana starts manipulating his limbs and making him dance.

“Under my cloak, quick,” she adds, scooping Zana in and shifting the cloth-wrapped bundle so as just to look like a tired orderly carting loads around as someone passes. “And remember to stay quiet,” she adds; her voice a murmur. “We need to do this without being caught. But yes. It’s nice when we’re on stage together.” She drops a quick kiss of affection onto Zana’s forehead as she picks the lock on a servant’s entrance.

They get in, and make their way through the incense-filled halls of the temple of the Golden Lord. Just through one door, Keris sees the room where Pretty Peacock is lying in state, awaiting her funeral. It will be a grand event for the Hui Cha, paid for by her estate, and she will burn atop a pyre of scented southern woods.

But that’s not what Keris is interested in now, and she makes her way through the gold-leaf decorated temple halls, past stern-faced statues of sword-saints (who have the faces of well-donating pirates) and lesser gods, into the backrooms. There are gods here, moving immaterially though this place and she takes care to keep away from them, keeping up her disguise.

Her hair into a locked door to pick it, and she’s in the sealed record vault where wax-sealed tubes protect documents and wills and deeds in the hands of the righteous priests.

“Neat,” Zana says happily, a demon lord in this sacred place.
Keris can feel the pressure of the blessings in this place. It has been purified, and the gods watch this place of records. The little gods she can hear chattering in the walls might not care just because someone is in here, but they’ll likely pay attention and cluster around if one of the wax seals are broken. She therefore has a few choices. She can kill them all, which would probably be noticed. She can lull them to sleep, which would be difficult. Or she could have Zana draw and hold their attention while Keris makes a few quick edits to one of the scrolls.
“There are spirits in here,” she murmurs to her child, whisper soft. “Think you can be Nara for a while and keep all their attention on you while I do what we came here for?”

“Nah,” Zana says. “Keris, I had you lug him-me along so he-we can eat the pretty writing off the scrolls. Plus, you know, a lot of gods know we’re a demon.” She sniffs. “‘Snot like we’re Cally, who could just be a god or something. And this won’t be pretty if they start screaming about a demon in this room.”
“Ach,” Keris sighs. “Fine, fine. In that case we’ll need to be quick about this.” She cocks an ear, listens for a moment, and rolls her eyes. “They’re all gossiping or blowing off their jobs at the moment,” she reports. “Okay, I’ll get the seal off and keep an ear out; you do your pretty artwork on the contents, and then I’ll seal it back up like it was never broken.” Her fingers dance along the rows of scrolls, looking for the right one. Keris was stealing things when she was a street rat. Now she puts gods to shame. She filches it away, and then root-fingers are enough to ease off the wax seal unbroken. She retreats back away from the whispering gods.
Zana petrifies, and the Nara puppet on her back comes down as a green-skinned, six-armed boy. “Let’s see,” he says softly, looking down. “Blah blah, main body of wealth to First Dolphin, smaller gifts of land and business to the other two. She was right. Now, what do you want this to be?”

Keris purses her lips. “We need Golden Child to be the heir,” she whispers. “But believably. Something that won’t raise suspicion... or at least that won’t obviously be fake or altered.”

Nara nods, tapping his long fingers against the scroll. “What they would expect if she chose Golden Child instead, what they would expect...” He considers it. “I see two possibilities, mama,” he suggests. “Either Golden Child is left the more profitable, more risky things - perhaps with a justification that she believes her temperament better suited for it - or else First Dolphin gets the risky things to carefully manage while Golden Child gets the stable land and low-risk investments and holdings,” he decides.

Keris purses her lips. “Which grouping would be larger?” she asks, turning it over in her head.

“Larger?” Nara considers this. “Well, uh, Hanny said that the risky ones are where the money is?” he says, clearly not sure himself.

“Mmm,” Keris grimaces. “Okay... okay. Give...” she considers. “Give Golden Child the riskier stuff. I can intervene here and there to make sure they pay out for her. Leave First Dolphin with the stable things. An equitable split; each according to their own natures - First Dolphin is a traditional woman, so she gets the traditional stuff, and Golden Child is wilder and so gets the things that need nerve and daring.”

“Urgh, boring stuff,” Nara says. He looks around. “Now, I-we are going to do this, then she-we’ll write the new stuff.”

He licks the writing off the paper where it needs to change, and then turns back into a puppet while Zana produces a brush with a flourish and showily rewrites the parts of the will that need changing. Then it’s just Keris’s job to get it all back in, and make a clean get away.

---

After twenty days lying in state, the day of the funeral has arrived. The buildings of Saata are still stained with red sand, and it gives the whole area a dirty, bloody hue. Yellow Point has been seething. The Hui Cha have been seething. And all the blue sea masters and golden sails are here for this funeral, as are their wives and the important women.

“Are you going to do it today?” Haneyl asks, as she washes her mother’s hair in preparation for sewing her into her mourning robes she’s woven specially for this event.

“Maybe,” Keris says. “I wanna talk to Pale Branch first, and there’ll be an element of picking the right moment when it comes. But probably today or in the next few. I’ll want to ride the wave of anger at Pretty Peacock’s death and use it.”

“Maybe talk to the women today, then,” Haneyl suggests. “You’ve got a few of them on board already. Maybe if you can serve as their,” she smiles, showing sharp teeth, “unifying candidate, they can basically bully you through into the blue sea master meeting.” She rolls her eyes. “So stupid. Men aren’t any better at war than women. Actually, they’re worse. Just look at Rathan compared to me.”

“I’ll make the rounds,” Keris nods. “Touch base with Graceful Petal and Tranquil Pool and Charitable Peach, just to remind the blue sea masters I already have that I’m the right woman for the job. Meet Golden Child in my Little River face. Try to get to know Graceful Wren.” She hums thoughtfully. “And provide an example for the less important women, too. A focus point.”

Sighing, she leans back and arches into Haneyl’s fingers on her scalp. “I’m gonna have to be the perfect Hui Cha woman, but also someone who can take the male role of a war leader,” she complains. “And keep the balancing act going until it’s just generally accepted that I belong there. Annoying.”

“Well, you can live up to it.” Haneyl’s face hardens. “You better,” she adds. “You don’t get to be a failure or rely on people having low expectations for you anymore. You’re one of the princesses of Hell. And more than that, you’re my mama.”

Keris smiles genuinely. “I know, sweetheart,” she says. “I won’t let you down. I promise.”

“Okay!” Haneyl’s roots retreat from her scalp. “Now, time to get you up and dressed and then we’ll need to see to Atiya too.”

---

It’s raining outside. Keris has a Gale servant to carry Atiya, who’s being squirmy and difficult and not at all a good girl. There are purple drapings - costing a fortune in dyes - hanging in the Saatan streets, and everywhere priests and beggars have been paid to wail and moan and lament the death of Pretty Peacock.
Pale Branch is waiting for her at the temple, her own young twins in a joint carriage attended by her servants. When she sees Little River, she rushes into her arms and sobs into her shoulder, in a display of grief that Little River can see is fake. Her dear friend Little River pats her soothingly and draws her aside a little to mourn.
“I’m so terribly sorry for your loss,” she says quietly, her hand pressing slightly on the wave and eye that lies under Pale Branch’s clothes. “I can’t imagine how hard it must be to lose a sister-in-law so suddenly.”

Her face is composed and serious, but there’s a glint in her eyes as her friend looks up and meets them.

“My poor husband is taking it so poorly,” Pale Branch says quietly. “The loss of his sister came as a shock to him. I thought he was on the mend when he met his son, but...”

“The Hinya will answer for this,” Little River replies darkly. “I will see to it even if I must rally a fleet myself to punish them.” She squeezes Pale Branch’s arm as her eyes flash again. “But yes, your children. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting them yet. Did Pretty Peacock at least get to know she was blessed with a beautiful niece and nephew before she was so cruelly murdered by those Raraan Ge dogs?”

“It was so sad that she only met them once, in the company of my husband,” Pale Branch says.

The meanings are those of Tengese women. She’s relieved that her sister-in-law is out of the way, and she was hiding them from her. And her husband is declining, and quickly. There’s not long to save his seat on the blue sea masters.

“Well then,” Little River replies. “I’m sure your son will be a strong heir and a worthy successor to his father when the time comes.”

“I hope so too. But Little River, dear, do come inside out of the rain. We wouldn’t want the babies to fall ill, after all.”

“Of course, of course.”

Little River follows her into the temple, shucking her raincloak to show the perfectly tailored mourning robe underneath it. She pulls authority and propriety around her like a mantle; adopting the face she’ll be wearing today - formal, respectful and honourable, but with a simmering undercurrent of fury and vengeful determination.

“So then,” she says, once she’s satisfied with it. This will be the main piece of art she’ll be displaying today - this performance; this story. The narrative of a dragon who puts great stock in tradition, upholding the ways of the Hui Cha but with her passionate blood demanding action underneath it. There will be shades of nuance to it depending on who she’s talking to, of course - different lighting for the stage depending on which scene she’s in, different instruments playing the same tune to different people. But this will underlie them all.

For Pale Branch, she lets warmth pass across the sculpted mask like a cloud shading the glare of the sun. “Introduce me to your children,” she says. “I haven’t had the pleasure yet, and I’ve been looking forward to meeting them.”

Pale Branch’s children are big for their age. Twins, and only a month or two old - it’s astonishing a woman as small as Pale Branch could carry them. “These are my darlings,” she says, pulling back the swaddling clothes that wrap them. “This is my Mighty Ox. And this is my darling little Pale River,” she says, with a mischievous grin.

Keris, for her part, has to hide back the surprise. Because the boy might be asleep, but the girl’s eyes are open, and they’re a bright, pale green.

“Hello,” she whispers, reaching out to brush the little girl’s cheek softly. “I’m honoured,” she adds to her friend with a smile. “And they’re beautiful; both of them.”

“Of course they are!” Pale Branch pulls a rueful expression. “You had it easy with just one - and so small! They were like,” she unfolds a fan, covering her mouth, “forcing out a pair of watermelons.”

Little River winces. “I can imagine,” she says honestly. At least Keris had the benefit of being a giant snake lady when she’d had the twins - and even that had hurt like hell. “Oh, and of course here is Atiya. Say hello to Pale Branch, little love.”

Atiya squints in the direction she’s been adjusted to look. Her hair and eyes are no lighter than after she was... touched by Noh. And Keris is starting to think that her vision is poor - she always squints if looking at things outside grasping range. “Ma?” she burbles.

“Yes, little one,” Little River coos. “Good girl.” She resolves to look into some way of doing something for her baby’s vision. She’s not sure she wants to risk putting roots into her, but she can certainly give her glasses. If she’s already showing short-sightedness this young, it’s probably going to be severe when she’s older, and getting her some glasses now will help her not lag behind so much.

But that can wait. Right now she has a funeral to attend.

“We’d better head in,” Little River says. “I’m sure the other women will want to give you their condolences - and we should all stand united against such treacherous deeds; behind what’s best for the Hui Cha.”

The visitors, as they arrive, are a profusion of expensive purple dye and sombre whites. Little River gets many nods here from her allies; Jade Fox and his wife embrace her, then Lucky Wolf - handkerchief in hand, covering tears she knows to be false - needs comforting.

Sea Eagle is there, wearing a loose purple robe, and he nods to her. But there’s suspicion in his eyes.

And then there is Peaceful Wave, looking like a violet balloon. And his wife Cherry Blossom is there, and so too is Charitable Peach. The older woman inclines her head to Little River after the blue sea master and his wife have made their greetings.

“Her death is a sad thing, is it not?” she says softly. “Perhaps she simply pushed them too hard.”

Keris knows what Charitable Peach doesn’t think Little River knows, and that’s that the horned sea-demon Rathan came to her two nights ago and ordered her to support Little River’s efforts. She’ll do that willingly. Shining silver servitude is in her heart, to the Lintha sea-princess who made sure her enemy died.

The fact that all the people involved in this plot are either Keris or her souls means she has to struggle to keep a straight face in self-satisfied smugness at the web of confusion she has spun.

“It matters not whether they were pushed,” she replies, and ah, there’s the ambition and haughty arrogance of the young dragon. “To dare strike against the Hui Cha so... they will be punished for this.”

“Of course, of course.” Charitable Peach smiles a saccharine smile. “We are all family here, are we not? None of us wish a relative dead.”

“Indeed,” Little River agrees. “All of us are cousins, for the Hui Cha are united. The squabbling Raraan Ge don’t have the strength that lies in our ties to one another.” She smiles at the older woman. “We must stand together against this cowardly attack, for now is a time for family to come together and be unified.”

Charitable Peach nods at that. “I have arranged a small... mourning gathering of the ladies for afterwards,” she says. “Perhaps we should speak of the importance of family unity. After all, no doubt the menfolk will need solid lines of credit and chains of supply for whatever vengeance they seek.” She rests a hand on Little River’s. “Maybe the greatest thing Pretty Peacock will do for us is teaching us all that our divides were meaningless.”

“A wise outlook,” nods the Infernal assassin who secretly arranged the woman’s murder. “I would be glad to attend. I’m sure there will be much to discuss.”

---

The funeral is long, and full of ritual. The body - preserved in the heat through temple magics and more than a little formaldehyde is washed in water and then oil by the priests. Flower petals are cast upon it by the attendees. There are women crying here; and rather more pretending to cry. The weeping mourners outside can be heard.

Little River, of course, can see the spirits in attendance - and there are plenty. For Pretty Peacock lived a long and wealthy life, and gave generously to the temples. She was a woman of the old ways, the ones from An Teng, and though her land was not what the Tengese back home might have thought was land, she still cared and protected for it. Spirits of finance are here; gods of debt; kami-spirits of insurance and credit and leveraged futures. Keris even sees the glittering silver and white stone figure of the City Father of Saata.

And then the priests take the sacred temple fire in a torch, and set the body alight, leading prayers for her to pass on, and reborn in the land she once knew. A flock of white parakeets takes off at exactly that moment, their pale wings fluttering over the flames.

Then comes the reading of the will and the surprising announcement that Pretty Peacock had chosen to split her estate between her two eldest. Little River sees the silver gleam in Golden Child’s eyes, while First Dolphin - like a lump - shows nothing and their little sister is outraged.

Little River sheds a few tears of her own - something she’s well-practiced at, and goes through all the rituals and formalities; her true feelings hidden behind pretty scented petals. She takes the opportunity to observe the gods in attendance - especially the City Father, who she hasn’t previously had the opportunity to see.

Sipra is an eight-armed man, with skin made of white Shogunate stone. In one hand he holds a coin of silver, in another, a coin of jade, in other paper bills and writs and even - in one - a hand-scrawled IOU. His accoutrements are tacky and overblown with new money - but then again, he is Saata.

Keris doesn’t let on that she’s looking at him, and keeps her attention firmly on the ceremony. But she does make a mental note that his domain in finance and wealth will probably see him clash with Haneyl at some point in the future, and resolves to see what she can do to delay or prepare for that eventuality.

---

Perhaps the burial of Hui Cha Pretty Peacock is also a burial of the old Hui Cha. Because once the ceremonies are complete, some of the women have a private grieving. At least, that’s what they tell others.

The room is small, compact - but with enough comfortable chairs that no one has to sit too close to one another. Charitable Peach has tea brought in and banishes the servants.

“Ladies,” she almost purrs, looking around the room. Pale Branch is here, and Cherry Blossom, and other wives of blue sea masters and other women Keris knows less well. She hasn’t met Graceful Wren before, but she has something about her father in the shape of her face and - particularly - the look in her eyes. She might have been warned about Little River from how she looks at her. She nods to Aranya, Jade Fox’s aunt and the only woman more senior than her. “Respected elder. They have struck at us. And they may well target others. We will need to be careful.”

There is certainly agreement with that platitude.

“Careful?” First Dolphin says, her face still impassive. “You have nothing more to say?”

Golden Child nods. “Indeed, elder sister. You own the debts they murdered mother for. Take care, please, I beg of you.”

“We cannot allow them to think they can get away with this disrespect,” Little River says; her words a tidal pull. “If they escape without punishment after such a bold and cowardly strike at our heart; they will think it leave to do as they wish. Ladies, honoured elders; I put to you - this act of war must not go unanswered. The men will need our support when they move to retaliate. We must forget our differences and stand together.”

As Little River makes her case, Pale Branch - young, brash, violent and cruel - makes her case too and the generation gap starts to make itself known. Hui Cha Aranya is an old woman, and she argues from tradition. She’s the face of the opposition that’s both uncomfortable with what’s going on and - without saying it - also fears that Pale Branch and Little River might be out to fuck them.

But the younger generation, the Saata-born generation, the triad princesses who are born to wealth and know very well that they’re often out-earning their husbands - they’re very amenable to the arguments of the young. When Little River talks about war, some of them want to see some bloodshed themselves. And the daughters of Pretty Peacock are lured towards her side - after all, she calls for vengeance for their mother’s death.

And of course, there’s Charitable Peach. This is a mixed blessing. Others are wary of how she’s backing the young. They don’t trust her - and some oppose Little River when they would otherwise back her because they fear her intent.

Aranya - ah, she’s a threat, though. Her argument is solid, backed by tradition and the ways of the woman - and she plays hard off the fear of Charitable Peach. She doesn’t insult Little River or call her greedy, no - just young. Naive. Implies she’s being played by Charitable Peach who wants to take the position Pretty Peacock has vacated.

And the thing is, the terrible thing is...
... well, she’s not wrong, is she? She’s not wrong. That is exactly what Charitable Peach is doing as the women politick where the men will never see or hear. But Little River is not a woman easily played or manipulated, and this council of triad princesses is reminded of that as she takes the centre of the opposition. Her wave-washed words tug at the heartstrings, pulling in supporters who are hovering between the two factions.
Taking a seat on the council to help guide the men and encourage them towards a common cause is necessary, she argues - and not so far outside a traditional woman’s role. Saata is not the mainland, and the squabbling of their passionate men would ruin a war effort, and cost them money and influence every year from their infighting. A woman on the council would be able to smooth over such disagreements and keep things civilised - and therefore make the triads as a whole stronger against the foreign powers around them. A mediating role more than a commanding one - and if she uses the killing prowess of the Dragons against the Raraan Ge, it will be because it is wartime; not because she intends to captain ships and command like a man at all times.

Pale Branch taking a seat there as well? But of course! She isn’t planning on being a blue sea master forever - but Strong Ox is senile, everyone knows that, and it’s embarrassing to watch him preside when he’s so clearly unable to fulfil his responsibilities. Pale Branch will act as a regent while her son grows up, and then hand over the reins to him when he’s of age, Little River proposes. It’s all very formal and proper, and it really is for the good of the family.

Even Aranya’s subtle accusations against Charitable Peach’s influence fade away when she and Little River disagree on a few matters. The first time Little River’s words directly conflict with hers, Charitable Peach looks surprised, and vaguely betrayed. But she’s a canny old woman and she catches on quickly to what the younger woman is doing - showing that the dragon is not a naive young woman under her sway, and that they aren’t a perfectly united front with the elder in control.

And in the end... why, the women are swayed. Little River - Keris - has through hook and crook acquired more than enough allies that the numbers seem with her, and no one really wants to speak out against them. More than one of the women here wear her demonic brand - sworn to serve her - and her tongue is as silver as any of the demons of Hell, carrying ocean-tinged words to wash away and corrode their resistance.

By the end of it, she even has some of the women thinking that it was their idea all along to use the chance to push for more power - lest they be murdered too for getting involved in men’s games. Aranya tries to argue, but she is an old lady - an old lady who is watching the world slip from under her as a new, vicious breed of Hui Cha woman rises. And she is no Pretty Peacock. She can’t hold back the tide.

---

That night finds Keris in her soul. She sits with Dulmea at her table in her tower, drinking tea and playing Gateway.

Or, rather, Dulmea tries to teach Keris how to play Gateway.

“It is quite ridiculous,” her mother says, at long last, “that you have done everything you have in Saata, and you still can’t grasp this tile game.”

“It’s hard!” Keris whines. “And you can’t work out what makes a tile tick and get it to think its neighbours are untrustworthy and then whisper to it with another face that it could get a leg up on them by worshipping a new goddess. Or convince it that your tiles are easily manipulated and get it to back them on the assumption that it’ll wind up being the one in charge at the end of the day only by the time it realises that’s not the case it’s sunk enough time and effort into supporting your tiles that it rationalises itself as believing they’re the best option.”

“Sirelmiya gets it, child,” Dulmea says. “Sirelmiya. And that’s with her amorous heart trying to fall for the pieces.”

Keris pouts sulkily. “S’a stupid game anyway,” she mutters. “Cards are better.”

“Perhaps I am too much of a challenge for you,” she says, with a quiet smile. “Perhaps my new student might be more your skill.” She claps her hair, and the angyalka in the room rises.

“My queen?”

“Play Keris at Gateway, student.”

The angyalka bows, not ceasing her play. “Am I to use my full skill?”

“Oh yes, of course.”

The board is reset, and the two start to play, moving pieces with their hair. Dulmea watches with a quixotic smile.

Keris keeps her silence, but for the music, and focuses on the board as she plays. Questions about what made Dulmea choose this specific citizen to teach, and what her mother is hoping they learn from this match, will be answered whenever Dulmea feels like answering them - that much, Keris knows from experience.

They play, moving five-coloured tiles around. Maybe that’s why Keris is distracted. She’s focussing too hard on this stupid game. Because that means she isn’t watching the angyalka’s sleepy movements, her lazy hand plucks, the fact that for a moment her hair brushes her hands...

... and that’s enough for vicious needles to flick out from hands that are no longer playing. Keris feels the world run to red and white and flicks her hair in the way to deflect the poison-gleaming needles, but the angyalka is changing as she lunges forwards and Keris’s legs have gone to sleep while sitting and...

It ends with Keris pinned, savage teeth pressing into the skin of her neck. But not biting. Never meaning to bite, and that’s the only reason time hasn’t slowed down to tell her the danger she’s in.

Dulmea claps. “Well done,” she says, in delight. “Down.” And then turns her attention to Keris. And as for you...”

“I’d have caught that if she’d meant me harm,” Keris defends herself. “And... I’m still tired and headachey from all the politics and arguing?”

She knows it’s not much of an excuse.

“Sloppy,” Dulmea says, voice cracking like a whip. “Very sloppy.”

The razor-clawed, muscled, she-bitch beast that was hiding in an angyalka’s form retreats to Dulmea’s heel on all fours. She runs her hair across her demon’s muscled back. “But as for you, student, I am impressed. We have worked on your speed and that was tremendous. I will name you... Teveya.”

The newly named Teveya smiles, showing teeth as wide and many as Haneyl in a mood. “Thank you, my queen.”

Keris mopes for a few moments, and then turns thoughtful. “It’s been... a while since I really put my skills to use,” she murmurs. “I didn’t even raise a finger for the Pretty Peacock kill; I just took part in setting things up with a few false faces and sent others out to do the job.” She wrinkles her nose. “My killing’s getting rusty.”

“Yes, it is.” Dulmea nods. “I felt it was worth a... lesson.” She glowers at Keris. “You have spent so long killing from the shadows without expecting it. Now you are making yourself a target. They will try to kill you, just as you killed Pretty Peacock. Remember that, child, as you make your blood-soaked play tomorrow.”

---

The seventh of Rising Fire is a day that will live in infamy among the Hui Cha. The blue sea masters have all gathered to speak of war and punishment, to plan their vengeance against the murderers of Pretty Peacock. A meeting called by Lucky Wolf - at the prompting of his real master, Little River.
And even now, she waits in the corridors of Thrice-Blessed Citadel By Water, listening in to their talk. Along with Pale Branch, who is also part of the play that is being made. She looks formidable. A breastplate the colour of mother-of-pearl is visible under the knee length jacket she wears - deep blue and trimmed with silver wave embroidery. Armoured scales protect her shoulders and form a half-skirt around her thighs, and her thigh-high boots give her a few inches of extra height.
The outfit might look pretty, but it’s also functional - and the curving blades of Ascending Air sitting at her hips only reinforces that, as does the sai strapped to her boot and the hard-to-spot garotte wire holding her hair up in a bun. Little River is dressed for war.

“Are you prepared?” she asks her friend. It’s not concern, exactly - she’s too coiled with tension for that - but it’s a thought on her behalf.

By contrast to the warrior-dragon, Pale Branch is very much a woman of the Hui Cha - indeed, her dress-style is much more conservative and old fashioned than she normally wears. Her white gown is almost skintight, and Little River had to sew her into it. The exception there is the sleeves, which are looser and hooped - and allow her to keep her knives there. She refused to go in without them.

“Of course.” Pale Branch smiles. “Nearly two years in the making. We’ve nearly done it.”

“Don’t count it done yet,” Little River advises. “We must be careful not to slip at the last step.” She returns the smile, though; thin and fierce. “But yes. Nearly. Remember not to flinch.”

She hasn’t outright told Pale Branch that she’s explicitly planning to kill a man today. But the pirate princess isn’t stupid. She knows her friend has made no particular effort to reach out her hand to Red Leaf.

“Well,” Pale Branch says, not rising from the bench, “call me in when it’s my turn to sit beside my husband - and speak for him. No doubt he’s napping through this - he had poppy juice this morning so should be dozy.”

Little River nods, and returns her attention to the room. Her sharp ears have been tracking the dull beginning formalities as her men on the inside get them out of the way, and they’re coming to a close now. She’s just waiting for her cue - either Lucky Wolf or Jade Fox giving her a good line to enter on.
But such a line doesn’t come. There’s just small-minded talk - fear of what House Sinasana will say, concerns of the cost, fear that other pirates will go for them when they’re distracted. After only a moment longer, Little River gets fed up.
“Well then,” she murmurs, “time to face the sharks.”
She nods once to Pale Branch, strides forward and pushes the door open; walking in as if she belongs there and coming to a stop at the foot of the table - or perhaps the head. With a neutral expression she stands there, taking in the mightiest lords of the Hui Cha triads at their council table. The tobacco smoke of this men’s room, long-tabled and with fine drinks on the table, blows in the wind from the door. This deep in the fortress, the sound of the rain on the roof outside is barely evident. The candles flicker at her presence, and just for a moment one might have thought that the shadows were looming towards Little River.
The expressions on the faces of these proud - yet scared and greedy - pirate princes are all too telling. Just as Pale Branch said, her husband is asleep. The surprise on Jade Fox’s face, the suspicion and wariness for Sea Eagle, the sudden grin for Peaceful Wave, and the fear on Lucky Wolf’s. And ah, the outrage on Red Leaf’s.

“What is this?” Sea Eagle demands, though there’s a look in his eyes that means she suspects he’s asking it so he can be the one to have asked it.

“Lords,” Little River says placidly. “It seemed as though you had finished your council, and needed no more privacy.” A cold eyebrow rises in quiet challenge. “Because it doesn’t seem like any decisions are being made here. Or was I wrong?”

((Per + Pres to INTIMIDATE her way in here, or other charms that’ll let her get away with this.))
((Okay. Hitting them with Attention-Holding Grace and Beauty-Over-Truth. My Dark Lady doesn’t apply to this situation even if the lighting for is right, so nvm that.))
((AHG: 4+5+3 Prince of Hell+2 stunt=14. 4 sux.))
((BOT: 4+5+3 Prince of Hell+2 stunt+4 Enlightenment sux=14. 5+4=9 sux.))
((Intimidation: 4+5+3 Prince of Hell+2 stunt+4 Malfeas ExD=18. 10 sux, lol.))
((mwaa haa~))
((Instead of a pirate council you shall have a QUEEN! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the sea!))

There is a red tinge to the light from the candles and oil lamps in here. One which seems to favour the young woman who has just entered, while leaving the faces of the old men in shadow. It’s hard to look away from her.

“What do you want?” Red Leaf demands. He is just as gaunt as he was the last time she saw him before the wedding; his lips are just as puckered; his clothes are just as well-made but plain. His jade earrings catch the unnatural light, and gleam red.

“I want what is proper,” Little River replies with lethal calm. If there were a sound to the still water of a great dam holding back a town-killing flood, it would be the chill in this water dragon’s voice. “I want vengeance for the slight the Raraan Ge have dealt us. I want action from the men of the Hui Cha to curb these Hinya dogs and show them their station. I want blood in the water so that no-one dares think we can be so easily attacked. Yet I find no preparations here; no talk of how to retaliate. Only hesitance and fear.”

She leaves her place at the end of the table, pacing round it. “Have we grown so weak? So spineless as to allow the thought that one of our own; one of our elders, can be murdered in her home without her killer paying in kind? If we let this go we will be swarmed by carrion-eaters; all looking for their chunk of flesh. Yet you sit here and dither!”

Making a full circuit, she stops at the end of the table again and leans forward; hypnotic as the moon and with the pull of a tsunami’s inward breath. “Lords,” she says, “let me sit at your council and aid you in putting the Hinya to the sword. Give me a chair to speak to the spirits on behalf of the triads as a whole, and to mediate between you when it is necessary. We are not six fleets under separate families like the bickering Raraan Ge. We are Tengese. We are Hui Cha. We should fight as one, act as one. Squabbles between us only weaken the family. In the face of an attack like this; surrounded by enemies who would see us drown, we must have unity.”

((Per + Expression))
((4+5+3 Prince of Hell+2 stunt+9 Kimmy ExD {demands payment, bottled-up fury}=23. 10 successes.))

Red Leaf grits his teeth, and glances over at the other men. “Are you listening to this nonsense?” he demands.

Peaceful Wave smiles. “I think it’s a wonderful idea,” he says. It’s not clear if he’s replying. “The Hinya have no living dragon-blessed, and only one paid for by coin-hire.”

“Calm down, youngster,” Sea Eagle says to Red Leaf, stroking his beard. He smiles to Little River. Or perhaps smirks. “Perhaps a female observer here might help with the spiritual aspects of this war, for Raraan Ge ghosts are vicious things.”

“Then she is too young for this!”

“Young, but blessed by the elemental dragons.” The kung-fu master sits back, brows arched. “Or would you rather fight a hungry ghost out for revenge yourself?”

Little River’s lips curve up slightly as she watches the men talk. She’s a little surprised at Sea Eagle’s support. All he had to say here was nothing in order to lose a rival and gain blackmail material on the new de-facto leader of the Hui Cha.
But then, he is the kind of person who likes getting the last word in. Perhaps he’s just decided to get what fun he can from a foregone conclusion. Ah, but he’s playing two levels of game here, she realises. Not only is he putting her in his debt by providing help when he didn’t need to, but he’s also funnelling her away from what she really wants. An observer. One there for the spiritual aspects. No real say; but plenty of obligation to deal with whatever spiritual nastiness occurs. It’s an unprecedented concession on his part - that leads her into what is almost a dead-end.
((Ooo, the sneaky bastard. I'm actually reluctantly impressed.))

“An observer, lord?” Little River asks. “Then let me tell you what I have observed. You waste your strength against one another. Our inward battles weaken us to foes without. You have no way to quell conflicts against the others who sit at this table - nobody with the station to resolve them, nobody with the authority to call an end to internal wars. And so you fight. You struggle amongst yourselves. Who here can say that another at this table has not robbed them of something? Who here can say they have not struck against one of their peers, either in secret or in public?”

She folds her hands and narrows her eyes. “And so we are not one house. Families like the Hinya know that they can draw our blood, step back and simply wait for us to bleed ourselves to death as we wrestle over power and influence. We should not be fighting one another over these things! We should be taking them from rivals, from foreigner fleets! We should be able to array our warships and trade junks in greater fleets, to travel further and carry more and take the place of the Three Golden Flame Society! We should be a dominant power in the Anarchy, beholden only to House Sinasana, who can bring the Realm down upon us all!”

She looks around, meeting each of their eyes in turn. “Yet we are not. Because we have no altar on which to resolve our disputes. No way - no proper, formal way - to settle our squabbles. Yes, I could observe, and help only with the spiritual edge of the war. Or I could serve as the glue that holds the fleets together, stepping in only when you come into conflict, that you might focus all your energies without and not fear an attack from within.”

((Per + Expression))
((4+5+3 Wolf-as-Lamb+2 stunt+9 Kimmy ExD {thinks she is fair, no lasting generosity, demands payment}=23. 10 sux again. Heh, slightly below average rolls this session. And ow, that’s me down to below half my motepool.))
((Heh. So they are very carefully husbanding their WP here.))

“That seems like a marvellous idea!” Lucky Wolf blurts out. Again. Keris can hear Dulmea’s disdain for the man. “Anyone who wishes to stand against this, raise your hand - else we can have it done by universal acclaim!”

There’s a moment of tension. Then;

“Like the queens do back in the old country,” Jade Fox says slowly. “Yes. Perhaps we do need a woman who can play such a role.”

Again, another constraint in her way, another way to try to bend her into shape to fit the Tengese standards. Keris would almost be impressed. They’re giving way, but they’re giving way in their way, not hers.

“Though she is not a queen, such a... neutral adjudicator might be useful,” Sea Eagle ponders out loud. One eyebrow raises, as does the corner of his mouth. She can read him. By her oath, she can’t be neutral when it comes to him.

Strong Ox just turns over in his sleep.

“A fine idea!” Peaceful Wave says, fat fingers that he steeples in front of him bulging around his rings. “Perhaps we should have an altar set up, or a hearth for her to maintain - for a chair that shows her fleets,” he pats the arms of his chair, “wouldn’t be appropriate.”

Red Leaf narrows his eyes, his lips pursed like he’s sucking a lemon even more than usual - and that’s saying something. “I suppose we can have a seat brought in for her.” He sniffs. “She can sit between Eagle and Wolf.” Away from him - he’s next to Strong Ox, as befits a powerful upcoming man, and has Jade Fox on the other side as he was once his mentor.

A chair is brought, and Little River takes her seat at the Council.

“So then,” she says, interlacing her fingers as she takes her place. “To the matter of the war. But first...”

Rising, she strides over to the door with a click of heels against the tiled floor and opens it, beckoning Pale Branch in. “Lord Strong Ox is ill,” Little River says blithely. “His wife can care for him and speak on the matter of his fleets in his stead - I’m certain she knows his opinions well enough to cover for his infirmity.”

It’s not a request so much as a fait accompli; presenting it as a decision already made.

Pale Branch walks in, talking little footsteps, moving like a humble woman. Her expression is anything but. Her father was a yellow sail, until he was murdered by Strong Ox so he could marry her mother; then, when her mother died, Strong Ox married her to care for him in her dotage. She is one of the new generation of Hui Cha women who have never seen An Teng; who are born to piracy, crime and financial affairs.

She takes her place standing behind her husband, one hand on his shoulder. “I will speak for my husband and son in all ways,” she announces, voice clear and chiming like a bell in this dark, smoky room. “And as any good woman should, I will seek vengeance for my husband’s sister when he cannot.”

Lies, of course, but what a woman should say.

“As is proper,” Little River nods. “It is hurricane season. The Hinya are penned in; we know where they are. We can destroy them for what they have done.”

((Winding Red Leaf up: 4+2+3 Social Saboteur+2 stunt+3 Kimmy ExSux {undercurrents of distrust and dissent, gleefully tortures, sadistic joy}=11. Hahaha, 9+3=12 sux.))

Red Leaf spits on the table. “No,” he growls. “No, I cannot consent to this... this farce!”

“Leaf,” Jade Fox says.

“No! This is a farce! A mockery!” He slams his fist into the table, knocking over his rice wine. “She has no place here! She is an old man’s keeper!”

Little River turns to look at him. “Pale Branch is acting on her husband’s behalf,” she says with infuriating calm. “Or are you claiming he is fit to run his fleet himself?”

The scorn in her voice - both for the senile old man and Red Leaf himself - is tangible.

“I am saying that all she is fit to do is warm the bed of an old senile man, and there is something wrong that we are pretending otherwise!” Red Leaf roars, leaping to his feet. “This whole thing is a perversion!”

Sea Eagle smiles a very unpleasant smile. “Oh, do speak your mind, young man,” he says.

“This is a game by a woman,” Red Leaf spits. “And not a woman like my own dear wife, who has served on the ships and shed her blood for our family! She is my wife and I am her husband and we are both Hui Cha to the bone! And she knows not to try to speak in place of a man!” He jabs a finger at Pale Branch. “But this bedwarmer knows nothing of ships and nothing of the sea!” He whirls on Little River. “And this adulterous bitch comes in wearing the clothes of a man and demands a seat on this council, that I have bled for and I have fought for and I love! I held my tongue, but no more!” He spits again. “Look at you! Captivated like little sheep, caught up by her magic! Magic only gained likely because her mother rolled over for a man of the Realm rather than her own husband! Look what blood runs true in her! Realm blood!”

Little River moves in a whirl of motion. She’s up on the table in a sinuous leap, and her form seems to blur as she crosses it - the hypnotic misdirection of her movements blurring her image and making it unclear exactly which way she’s going.

Nobody actually sees her draw the bone-porcelain blades. But they’re in her hands as she comes to a stop in front of Red Leaf in a flurry of robes, and the sinuous curving shapes flash out like fangs just slowly enough that they carve white arcs in the air.

Hui Cha Red Leaf; blue sea master of the Saatan Tengese triads, topples over backwards into his chair.

His head hits the ground a second later with a wet thud; its tongue carved out by a gash that runs from ear to ear.

Hui Cha Little River turns from her position on the table to regard the other lords. Her eyes are wide; her pupils narrow pinpoints. Her hair falls from its bun and unravels behind her in a straight and satin curtain. Her hands are white-knuckled around the terne kris pair that holds the heron stamp.

“I will tolerate disagreement with my opinions,” she says, and her voice is the outward tide before a tsunami, the peaceful surface of a riptide - the terrible serenity of the ocean before it drowns all who dare think themselves its masters. “I will accept you questioning my judgements when I settle your wars among yourselves. If you feel I am straying from tradition or what is good for the Hui Cha; say so. I will listen, and put my view to you in turn.”

And then comes the killing wave of terror, as her aspect markings flare and the scent of brine fills the air alongside the stench of blood.

“But it is known, and I will enforce, that any hand laid on me is mine to take, and any tongue that speaks to me so crudely is mine to keep. And anyone who claims the Realm as my master; I claim their head.”

Her gaze is a terrible thing as she looks around the room.

“Now does anyone else have any objections?”

The spray of blood has coated the table, mixing with Red Leaf’s spilled wine. There is blood on the faces of the blue sea masters. Pale Branch’s beautiful blossom-white dress caught a splatter which criss-crosses her like a sash.

She smiles demurely. “No objections from Strong Ox,” she says sweetly.

“I c-certainly don’t have a problem,” stammers Lucky Wolf.

“Ha! He had that coming,” Peaceful Wave chortles. “If he’d spoken like that to any man who wasn’t a land-dwelling dog, the same would have happened.”

“I do hope this won’t be the norm,” Sea Eagle says, blotting blood off his face with a plain handkerchief. “And I certainly don’t intend to speak ill of your traits,” he adds.

Jade Fox is not happy. He is not happy at all. But he says nothing, glancing over at his fallen protégé.

((Oh Jade Fox. I did consider that he wouldn't be happy, but... eh. Omelettes, heads. You know how it is.))
((Hey, you chose the addict and hedonist over the cold hard efficient man. There are going to be downsides to both choices. :p))

With a calming breath, Little River gives a regal nod. She returns to her seat, stepping down from the table and sitting down again. Her krises get a careful, considerate wiping down, and are resheathed.

“I hope I will not need to enforce this rule again,” she says, folding her hands together. Part promise, part warning. She spares Jade Fox a look, and notes that she’ll have to do something to offset that blow - or at least not make it worse until he gets over it.

“Now then, lords,” says the new queen of the Hui Cha as the body is removed. “To business. To war.”

---

“Well, that went wonderfully,” Pale Branch says, arms linked with Little River as they walk back towards her townhouse. She pats her friend on the cheek. “And the power helped.” She drops her voice. “A beautiful horned sea spirit with pink hair and gorgeous red tattoos visited me in my pregnancy and taught me magics for seeming and saying.”

Little River nods. “I know of her, yes,” she agrees. “And look at you now. Blue sea master in all but name, with a seat on the council - ‘interpreting your husband’s will’.” She grins. “How far you’ve come.”

They pause at a bridge, leaning over it. There’s a body floating down there, because... well, this is Saata. “Those disgusting men,” she says softly. “I’m glad he died. You can hear their muttering, thinking I’m just there to make love to an old man. The old man who murdered my father so he could fuck my mother. And the same for you. All those bastards probably have mistresses, but they judge you for coming here with a baby and no husband.”

“No longer,” Little River says supportively, laying a hand on her arm. “They may think it, but they dare not say it. Not now. You were there when we spoke to the women; you’ve seen the way the wind is shifting. A new type of Hui Cha woman is coming to the fore - younger women; born to Saata, who do more than meekly accept their place in the shadows and the household. You and I, Pale Branch; we’re two of those women. The leaders of the pack.”

“I like the sound of that,” Pale Branch says. “Now...”
Little River feels the world slow down, and her ears pick up the sound of metal spinning through the air. Normally she’d dodge. But here, she has Pale Branch to think of. So, grabbing her friend by the arm, she twists them to put herself in the path of the knife that’s flying towards them. A glance confirms the trajectory her ears have already reported, and Little River lashes out with her free hand. Hopefully she’s judged the spin right, because even with steel-hard skin; catching a throwing knife by the blade instead of the handle hurts.
She hasn’t judged it right - and the blade sinks into her fingers as she snatches it out of the air. It’s not some child’s dagger. It’s a well-weighted throwing knife. Thrown by someone who knows exactly what they’re doing.

And she can feel the snake venom in her blood. She’s a snake. She knows it. But the mercury in there is more than enough to handle this amount.

Behind her is a Tengese woman in her late thirties, with tear stained eyes and dishevelled hair that doesn’t fit her muscular build and many scars. Radiant Grace, Red Leaf’s wife. She’s seen her a few times at a distance, and heard that she’s a vicious bitch who’s served on the ships as a captain of a smaller vessel and is deeper into the worship of the Pale Mistress than is... proper.

Or safe. Or sane.

Little River - Keris - considers as time crawls by at a snail's pace. She’s not unsympathetic - she did just murder the woman’s husband. But Radiant Grace is a worshipper of the Pale Mistress, and the type to hold grudges, and she’s not going to let this go.

And she also just tried to kill Little River. In broad daylight, and in public.

With a flick of her wrist more memory than thought, the water dragon returns the knife so thoughtfully launched at her back.

She returns it at speed, towards the woman’s throat.

It takes the woman cleanly in the jugular before she has time to register its change in direction. She staggers back, hands grasping at the blade that’s driven hilt-deep into her neck, and slumps over the side of the bridge. There’s a splash as she hits the filthy water, already dead.

Little River rushes over to the other side of the bridge, watching the body bleed its lifeblood out as it’s carried away among the detritus.

Pale Branch swallows. “That was Radiant Grace,” she says softly. “Of course she’d hold grudges.”

“Foolish of her,” Little River says, with a slightly mournful tone. Inwardly, Keris is morosely nostalgic. That flick of a knife at the throat... that was pure instinct, with a throwing knife in her hand. Reflex she hasn’t used in... oh, years. Since before her Exaltation, probably - or at least not long after.

She’d even managed to pull off that catch-and-return trick a few times on the streets, though she’d never relied on it to protect herself. Still, it was amazing how few people were ready for a knife they just threw to come straight back at them. It tended to catch them off-balance.

“She was foolish about it,” Little River repeats, watching the body float away. She sighs. “Others won’t be. Stay on your guard against more subtle assassination attempts. Not just from without, but from those within who won’t like the new order we’re making.”

Pale Branch nods. “I’ll double the guard on the nursery,” she says softly. “You should do the same. And make sure they’re not in the pay of some of the other blue sea masters who might think that that’s an easy way to get their hands around our throats. As ‘influence’.”

“Yes.” Little River’s lips purse. “If someone comes for your children... don’t take risks, but see if you can take them alive. I’ll make an example out of the first.”

“If you want to make an example of them, you’ll need to get past me first. Because I need to make sure that they fear me too, rather than just you,” Pale Branch says. “Come. Let’s go.”

Keris spares a glance back towards the river as they hurry to the other woman’s townhouse. The body has already sunk out of sight as the lungs waterlog, leaving only a hint of red as proof that she’s dead.

This is what she’s been trying to avoid for years. Wearing a crown just makes you a target.

But now she’s right in the centre of view. Things are going to change. Not just for the better.