[IC] Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

[Raz_Fox]

Alina!

“Hum, ho,” the River King says, and gives you a knowing look. “Four rainbow monocolor run? Fortune is with you, little salmon!” One tendril reaches out and brushes your cheek for a moment...

And then he slides back down under the ice, vanishing with hardly a ripple. Of course. He’s not going to just clap his fins together and fix this for you with a wink and a magic spell. The magic of the River King is the favors he is owed, and a mind that never forgets a trick.

“Hey, Lina!” Rita backflips by your side, narrowly avoiding dunking herself in the water (which, even as you watch, is already beginning to freeze over again). “Give me a paw here, would you?”

Right. Yes. Whatever the River King has planned... you need to buy him time.

***

Kazelia!

You are making a gamble here, child. You are bringing the light of Be into Be Not. You are an illuminating star. You are suffering an issue of light from your fingertips, dripping down the shaft of your spear. It hisses where it hits the soft grey mists swirling about your feet, and sizzles away into nothing.

Your heart unfolds into a thing with walls and branches. Ourania did not predict this; she is not a devious mastermind, preparing a poisoned pill to slip into the throat of your Mother. But in Argossa, she has just looked up from her loom work, weaving the magic of Hyperborea, and she has just said Oh to nobody in particular, to an empty room, and she is smiling. Not a triumphant smile, but the smile of someone who is quite impressed.

Argossa unfolds out of you. Argossa flowers through you. Argossa asserts itself by your name against your Mother. You are an off-shoot, or perhaps a sapling transplanted. If you are not careful, it might be very easy to accidentally become a world; you are at risk of becoming a legend, or a goddess.

But every goddess must face katabasis.

The walls around you are made of smoke, and you cannot see the floor you walk on. You are bleeding light. Somewhere in this palace of your heart, your Mother spins her threads. The question is, then, how you intend to find her.

And then how you intend to pass the Guardian, who comes first.

Then how you will pass through seven doors and pay their prices, which comes second.

Then how you intend to weigh your heart, which comes third.

Then, only then, will you find your mother.

***

Adila!

“What?” Princess Eska Glinteye holds up one frost-blue hand, looking like a vengeful wraith, her starry eyes blazing with fury. “Azora wishes she knew half the things I do! Her mystic tricks may seem impressive, Adila, but they’re unsophisticated — brute strength, slamming her oversized forehead against reality until it gives in. I work within the confines of your metaphysics and outsmart it!”

She places her hands on her hips and gives you a withering look. “You don’t believe me, do you? Tch. Name anything — anything — that your witches can do, and I’ll show you how my machines can do it faster, better, and more reliably!”

Did she actually just make that offer. Yes she did. Oh Ourania she actually just committed to that. You have been handed a golden opportunity on a silver platter, Adila. Stretch that brain and start thinking fast!

[Thanqol]

Adila!

“What?” Princess Eska Glinteye holds up one frost-blue hand, looking like a vengeful wraith, her starry eyes blazing with fury. “Azora wishes she knew half the things I do! Her mystic tricks may seem impressive, Adila, but they’re unsophisticated — brute strength, slamming her oversized forehead against reality until it gives in. I work within the confines of your metaphysics and outsmart it!”

She places her hands on her hips and gives you a withering look. “You don’t believe me, do you? Tch. Name anything — anything — that your witches can do, and I’ll show you how my machines can do it faster, better, and more reliably!”

Did she actually just make that offer. Yes she did. Oh Ourania she actually just committed to that. You have been handed a golden opportunity on a silver platter, Adila. Stretch that brain and start thinking fast!

+Can you figure out what the Bazaar Clocktower's clocks mean?+ thought Princess Adila.

Part of her was completely confident in this. She'd outsmarted Princess Eska with a clock-based riddle before, and besides, the greatest minds of Jedad had spent generations gathering scientific evidence correlating every possible occurrence with every possible position of every clock. Geniuses would take decades of meticulous study to make a breakthrough on even one of the minor clock facings and their names were honoured eternally by the Palatines.

Part of her was terrified that Princess Eska was going to figure everything out in minutes and then laugh at her. That would, by accordance with Palatine practice, make her an immediate Clockmaster and entitle her to Princess Adila's eternal respect and devotion which would put her in an extremely theologically tricky position when it came to knocking her out and overthrowing her evil kingdom.

+We're not at the tower now, but in my coat pocket I've got a book with detailed observations and theories, including of the internal mechanics, everything cross-checked and peer reviewed...+ Princess Adila thinks. +I mean, solving even one of them would be impressive.+

[Anarion]

Kazelia lets out a breath, and it streams with a misting light that fades into the graying shadows. She takes a step forward and holds out a hand, glowing with the essence of itself. She gently, tentatively touches a smokey pillar near the entrance of this foggy castle and as she touches it, she almost brushes off the mist and finds a dull gray stone underneath. It is no grand pillar, no shining light of gold and gems hidden beneath the smoke, but it is stone and she caresses it gently for a moment, letting the feeling of coolness and sturdiness run through her hand, up her arm, and into her body where she touches it. Then she pulls her hand back and it becomes insubstantial, nothing but smoke and gray mist, any essence of being out here obscured by that which is Not.

This is so different from last time, and somehow out here she remembers it much more clearly. They had departed from the last world all in ice. There was a cold, metallic room, one of the last that whirred and hummed with lights and noises. Most of the planet by then was frozen, the turbines jammed with ice, the generators a solid block of steel and copper so frigid that any exposed skin would stick to it. Eska had wanted to stay longer, she had some grand theories about beetle servitors keeping everything running, but Oberon would not hear of it and everyone had fallen in line. He had used that last room in combination with his tools of office to open the portal to the void and they had obediently stepped through it, one daughter after another, without even a glance back. Before he had stepped through last of all, in a rage, Oberon had grabbed the wires all in a bundle and ripped them free, leaving that last room dark and silent. With Oberon the end was always darkness and silence.

But! But but but, this is different. This is not cold. This is the warmest Kazelia has felt in some uncounted age. She is shielded by memories of joy and hope and they make for her truth. She bends down and brushes at the ground. She is going to track within her bubble of reality. Carefully, tenderly, with honest effort, she is going to use her old skills from the field and a little of her magic. She conjures a light to see by, hovering just ahead of her own glow. In its illumination, she brushes at the ground, looking for comings and goings, the scuffs in the stone that mark well-used paths. She does not move quickly, but she moves steadily and with purpose, following the corridor, stopping at every turning to observe the wear on different doors, the feel of the air from different corridors. Illuminans have marched here, and she looks for signs of crystal or cracked glass and colored fabric that might yet exist when she observes them.

That is how she will find Mother Void, who is and is not her mother. Careful, thoughtful, simple effort moving through this castle of nothing. She will speak to any Guardians she faces, and fight through whatever trials stand in her way until she reaches her destination.

[PhoeKun]

The Felorian Flower Fox is a favorite animal of princesses everywhere, because of their small size and generally approachable demeanor. And of course, their beautiful brushy tails that blossom into entire fragrant bouquets. They need too much sunlight and fresh water and are too prone to roaming to make good pets (not to mention most are far too proud to want that sort of life). But if you can convince one to part with its tail during shedding season, or better still convince it to present that tail to your lover, it is considered the most romantic way in Hyperborea to propose. But the reason Alina's shaped one out of yellow and purple light is because the Felorian Flower Fox also has wonderfully clever little paws, and loves more than anything to dig holes for planting things. Show it a vaguely hole-shaped object, and the fox will happily dig away at anything. When its paws are made of warmth like sunlight, its cheerful scrabbling on the refreezing surface is more than enough to keep the ice at bay and leave the pathway back for... whatever the River King is planning.

Alina pats the fox on its adorable little head. Her hand is still pleasantly warm when she touches it to her cheek.

"Little salmon..." she smiles.

He called her that when he made her the Princess-Promised, too. Her heart is welling up with impossible strength. It's not happiness, it's... something more elemental, unbreakable and warmer than joy. It's hope. There's no reason for her to tremble. There's no need to be afraid. Are you watching, Mommy? Your little light has got this. Alina Cascade gently nudges Rita back away from the river's edge, and smiles.

"Hey Rita, you wanna see a magic trick?"

One! She holds up her dice, still showing her four-rainbow monocolor score.

Two! She flicks her wrist, and the dice disappear in a flash down her sleeve.

Three! She rolls her arm back up and her battle ribbon is unfurling in her hand right where the dice had been one quick motion ago.

Four! The ribbon twirls and wraps itself around a Rider's wrist just before she can swing it down on Rita. With the simplest of tugs she turns that swing sideways and smacks the flat of the blade into another Rider's shins.

Five! She yanks the off balance Rider off her feet and smiles as she slides across the ice and plunges into the cold waters. The temperature probably bothers this guard not a bit, but... well, promises, promises. She'll be fine if she keeps her wits about her.

Six! She whips the saber back up into her free hand in one motion, then jabs the butt of it into another Rider's hand to disarm her. Another twirl of her ribbon later and she's got all three swords. A third circle of her battle silk and they're on the ground rather ungently with just the most unfortunate headaches and... if you'll forgive the expression, stars in their eyes.

Seven! Alina snaps up the discarded light blanket Rita tossed away to be able to fight and then flourishes with it so that it turns into a cloak. In the same fluid motion, she wraps it around Rita's shoulders, clicks it into place around her neck, and drops to one knee in front of her girlfriend.

"Your paw," she kisses Rita's adorably dainty hand, "My love."

And then with a smile like the sun that says she's invincible and not to worry, Alina rolls backwards and pops back onto her feet. She's already a quarter way up the stairs as she calls back, "Keep an eye on things down here, ok? I'm gonna hold the stairs!"

She's got a ribbon, a Rider sword, and a choke point. But she's not alone. She's not alone! The River King will bring the river back, and with it will come that most important of Illuminan magics. Hope.

She's got this.

[Keep them Busy: 10 (yes, with the -1 and everything)]

[Raz_Fox]

Adila!

Princess Eska has set herself up in what used to be Jessamine’s training room. She moved out almost everything, but your sharp eyes notice a faded chalk drawing of Halycon in an unlit corner, above one of the bookshelves. Now, the space is half mechanical workshop, half buried under sketches and schemes and ideas. And now, in the center of the room, a new project has begun: solving the question of the clocks.

Eska moves a lot. She pins up sheets of paper to wheeled boards and stalks between them like a predator, spinning a quill between her fingers before suddenly springing and making a spidery annotation to a graph of a clock face, or to a cross-section of the Fallen Tom clock, or her list of necessary data. She doesn’t even look at you when she needs you to answer a question, letting three Riders stand awkwardly beside you and prod you with the butts of their spears when you don’t answer quickly enough.

And she’s got information you don’t: a description of Devilhome is pinned to one of the boards, several pieces of data on its architecture circled. Give her a little more time, and she might actually answer the question— or give you a little more of its shape, at least.

Is that the part that’s giving you butterflies in your stomach? Or is it the realization that she’s a little more like you than you expected? Wearing someone’s skin comes with consequences, after all, especially with someone whose identity is already damaged.

If you tried to fight her again... she might know your instincts before you did.

***

Kazelia!

The Guardian has the head and shining wings and steady hooves of Shiva. But Shiva’s sleek flank becomes scales, dark as slate, and terminates in the great tail of a dragon, and you’re fairly certain you know which one. The only thing that doesn’t belong is the horn, which is an illusion and a real thing. One is a gleaming arc, a gleaming saber as keen as ice, and the other is a solid, dull-colored spiral of bone. There are two horns competing to be in the same space, and it is likely important to know which one is the true thing.

+The way is shut,+ Shivadila says. The light of their wings stretches from wall to wall. +This is not a puzzle for you, little snowflake.+

***

Rita!

Alina is so cool. Your tail won’t stop wagging, and you do a gleeful little hop from foot to foot as soon as your girlfriend(!!) dashes up the stairs.

Okay. Okay. Business. You wrap a sealing ribbon around the Riders, cinching it snug. No escaping for you naughty little Riders! You’d just die of mortification if they took you prisoner and tried to convince Alina to surrender, especially because she would. Without even a second thought. That’s just who she is.

Keep an eye on things. Okay. Well, the little flower fox is still digging, everything’s still frozen solid, and—

Something slams against the ice, and you gracefully shriek and jump up onto a frozen pipe, clinging to it with all fours. Then another slam, and then another. The flower fox lets out a chime of alarm and hops up onto your tummy, where it settles, kneading you nervously as the frozen river begins to groan and hiss. Sharp cracks are torn through it, and beneath it you see flashes of red and flickering yellow.

“Hey, Lina!” You’re grinning again, watching the Jedadi Fire Sharks go to work. (They’re small, as far as sharks go, and hunt by grabbing onto fish and letting the water around them boil.) “You’re not gonna— whoa!”

You drop down from the pipe as it groans and begins to thaw. This whole castle’s about to get nice and toasty, what with a bunch of fire sharks playing in the basement!

Though given how far away they live, you can’t help but wonder how many deals the River King had to make to get them here this quick, and how much he’s going to hang this over Alina’s head later...

[Thanqol]

Adila!

Princess Eska has set herself up in what used to be Jessamine’s training room. She moved out almost everything, but your sharp eyes notice a faded chalk drawing of Halycon in an unlit corner, above one of the bookshelves. Now, the space is half mechanical workshop, half buried under sketches and schemes and ideas. And now, in the center of the room, a new project has begun: solving the question of the clocks.

Eska moves a lot. She pins up sheets of paper to wheeled boards and stalks between them like a predator, spinning a quill between her fingers before suddenly springing and making a spidery annotation to a graph of a clock face, or to a cross-section of the Fallen Tom clock, or her list of necessary data. She doesn’t even look at you when she needs you to answer a question, letting three Riders stand awkwardly beside you and prod you with the butts of their spears when you don’t answer quickly enough.

And she’s got information you don’t: a description of Devilhome is pinned to one of the boards, several pieces of data on its architecture circled. Give her a little more time, and she might actually answer the question— or give you a little more of its shape, at least.

Is that the part that’s giving you butterflies in your stomach? Or is it the realization that she’s a little more like you than you expected? Wearing someone’s skin comes with consequences, after all, especially with someone whose identity is already damaged.

If you tried to fight her again... she might know your instincts before you did.

How was anyone supposed to be brave in captivity? Princess Adila didn't understand it. She was trembling, not even able to hold herself still enough to stop the chains from rattling. This was somehow worse than it had been before. Eska wasn't a dragon this time but that didn't help - being a dragon had been a weakness for her, it had stopped her from thinking properly, it had made her instincts wrong. Now she was at the mercy of a Rider Princess in the fullness of herself, who knew exactly her capabilities and limitations - and knew exactly Adila's as well.

But the worst part was Eska's body language. Adila's motions tended to be very stiff and controlled but Eska was moving like she hadn't seen anyone since Stheno move. It was all confidence so sharp it was shredding away at her own. She was... feeling the same kind of thing she'd felt when she'd first seen the Snake Husband. Powerful. Submit. Retreat. Bide. She had been raised to respect intelligence and authority, and her instincts were responding to Eska's draconic mannerisms, and she'd never felt so vulnerable.

And it wasn't the sort of vulnerability she could reason her way out of either, or puff herself up with false confidence to push away. She was helpless. She was waiting to be rescued. Not like a dragon at all, but just like a princess.

+So... um...+ Princess Adila thought, +are you okay? You must have been through a lot.+

[PhoeKun]

Alina comes racing back down the steps, dragging another pair of unconscious Rider guards behind her. Her arms are alight with the glow of red ribbons, but she's still straining. She has to be quiet, after all. And quick as much as quiet; Rita could be "woah"ing for all sorts of super bad reasons!

But then she sees it. And when she does, she drops her prisoners far less gently than is appropriate for a princess.

Rain on a wedding day, could this really be happening? The air is alive with the sound of hissing steam and cracking ice and the wonderfully happy splashes of fire sharks playing in her beautiful river. Wait. Fire sharks? Jedadi Fire Sharks? Alina gasps, and then in spite of everything she starts to jump, and then because she's jumping she even manages to laugh. The air is so warm! The basement is filling with steam, ice is crumbling off of the water wheels and even though they haven't started turning yet it's only a matter of time. They haven't cracked through, she can see that now. Oh, lights! Oh Ourania, thank you for teaching Illumina how to make glass be a forever treasure!

The giddiness bubbles all the way through her from her toes to the top of her head. It swirls and mixes in her heart with the hope that's taken root in there and when she sees Rita standing there holding her flower fox it's too much to keep inside her petite frame. Before she knows what's happening she's rushing full tilt to wrap her arms around Rita. Inside the steam filling the room, they kiss like lovers should. They kiss like the world is about to end and in its final seconds they found each other. They kiss like Rita's holding a real flower fox and she's said yes and now there's no need for words or breath or...

Oh right. Breathing. Alina blushes and finally steps away, panting now and fighting the urge to loosen this warm cloak in the rising heat of the river thaw. She flashes a grin at her perfect, brave, and beautiful partner-in-crime. And then she turns to face the river, and she bows.

"Thank you, oh thank you, you wonderful, magnificent creatures, you! As much as anyone can say it today, you've saved Illumina! I'll never forget this, I promise! You will always be welcome in our waterways for as long as I'm alive, do you hear me? I don't care where you're from, don't be strangers, ok? We'll open the path for you!"

She has to force herself to push the joy back down into her heart and take control again. Soon the many wonders of Castle Thessia will come to life again. The doors will open at her touch, and every device and passage will answer to her will. She can turn the heart of the castle against the intruders living in it... but she still has to. This place is still filled with Riders, and worse besides. Mommy and Kaja and all of those other poor people still need help and medicine. And she's still a long way away from making it safe to signal for Jessamine to begin the assault.

They need the Light of the Queen. Halcyon's Gold. Mommy's special light. If she can find it, she can take the crystal and join it with the castle again, and then she can finally start to protect it and every beautiful thing inside from the terrible cold and the hungry void that still haunts her dreams at night. Then she'll have a real foothold for kicking all of these intruders out of her castle. She'll send fireworks and her raging waterfall of a little sister will swing the trap closed.

And that's when the real fight will begin. Alina squeezes Rita's hand, and steals quieter than shadows back up the steps. She needs to get to her room... and hope Azora or Eska or anybody else never figured out all the secrets built into it.

[Anarion]

How interesting. "You sound like Adila does. That's interesting. She's fully back though, as is Eska last I checked. Are you like some kind of echo of her that Azora left behind in her workings? Or something that Mother Void took when Eska was remade in Adila's image? Or are you this way because she's trying to provoke a particular reaction in me? Interesting interesting."

Kazelia is always one for a good puzzle, so as she's thinking she's glancing at the horns, the gleaming ice horn and the solid gray horn. She leans towards gray, it feels more in keeping with the black coloration and the slate scales of both Shiva and Adila, and ice is a symbol of the void's cold and unreality besides. Though she's also considering trusting no part of this at all and refusing to play into the premise that one thing is real and another unreal. It's far more likely that what she says and does will determine these things.

"Oh and don't call me snowflake. That name isn't for anyone anymore. But do tell me why it's not a puzzle for me. Don't tell me you're expecting other guests? I made sure that none of the Illuminans will be coming in here right now, so I'm all you'll be receiving today." Kazelia smiles quite sweetly she thinks at the guardian Shivadila. "Now, let me past, tell me what needs doing to pass, or stonewall if you must and I'll force my way past."

[I believe I'm looking closely here. 3+6=9. One question the hard way.
Is something hidden or out of place? What looks suspicious?
Tell me about the guardian bird. How could it hurt me? How could it help me?
What will happen if I choose the gray horn?]

[Raz_Fox]

Adila!

There is a penknife at your throat. It’s... probably not sharp enough to hurt you. Probably. But the edge is pressing insistently against your skin, and even taking a breath is a terrifying prospect, and Eska has the handle in a reversed grip, leaning the weight of her lean body into that edge.

“What do you think you’re doing? I’m not your friend, dragon.” Stars wink and turn in the endless dark of her eyes. Her smile is thin and mirthless. “I’m your superior. Forget your place again and I’ll send you to the gardens to wait for me to finish solving this delightful little puzzle.”

That doesn’t actually sound like a bad thing? Except the way she says it makes it really sound like a bad thing. Maybe the gardens are full of pollen or something. Or maybe they ran out of room in the dungeons and are torturing people by chaining them to hedges and making them hug those prickly, uncomfortable bushes.

Either way, this is... a reminder. Eska Glinteye does not have, and never has had, friends. You’re acting like a princess, trying to show sympathy and compassion, and exactly like a dog that doesn’t want to eat its medicine, she’s willing to stab you over it if you don’t hide it inside metaphorical peanut butter.

She flicks the penknife back up her sleeve and steps back. “Now. Why are these three clock faces of more stylized design?” She stabs pins into the North Bank Clock, the Wolf Moon Clock, and the Ruby Clock. “They had the same architect as the fortress overlooking the Bazaar, given the underlying design priorities in each.”

...what?? Hold on, is it possible some of the clocks were attached to the clock later? That has huge ramifications and that is privileged information. Destroy all intel fallen into enemy hands. Do not listen to anything she has to say. Trust no one. She fell and I did nothing.

***

Alina!

You have a problem, right now. The problem is that Mommy’s room is off the main hallway through the palace, and the space in front of it is an open “hub,” very prettily decorated. Very open. Your disguise is shaky, and sooner or later a Rider is going to really look at you.

Actually, that’s only part of the problem. The other part of the problem is that the door to Mommy’s room is open, and there’s somebody sitting inside. She has a tight braid of white hair, and an eye on her cheek, and she’s slowly tearing apart the portrait the King gave Mommy as a 10th Anniversary present. Your other mommy’s face comes apart, strip by strip, underneath the black nails of Morgina Fang.

Just being in her presence... your scar begins to ache. No, worse: you feel that same sense of wrongness you did in the Slaugh. She is something that came crawling out of it, her body as malleable as mud tracked on the stairs. She has not yet noticed you.

This is good, as you know, in your bones, that she is A Threat To The World.

The Gold has to be here. It has to be! That’s why Morgina’s here like a guard dog. That’s why she’s been destroying the room, leaving shreds and splinters and ruined dresses all over. Maybe she’s been looking for it.

But if you try to fight her...

She exudes another arm, which clings to the bottom of the painting, keeping it steady as she tears away a ribbon-thin strip of your other mommy’s eye. And she smiles like the presence that met you inside the Slaugh.

***

Kazelia!

Let’s take those from the top!

What will happen if you choose the grey horn? You’ll be choosing the solid nature, that which settles and sinks and breaks apart, over the wind that whistles in empty places. But you’ve already done that, haven’t you, daughter of fire? Fires go out. Solid ground crumbles. Worlds end. There is only motion in the face of the waters that will endure forever, and the beating of wings which are not.

The guardian bird, which haughtily sniffs and holds their head proudly, is a reflection cast by you. There is something inside you that is hesitant, that does not wish to go in deeper. Expressing your fear, or your wish, or the shape of the shadow in your heart, defining it and thereby embracing it, is what is required to continue forward. They are Shiva and Adila because of what Shiva and Adila symbolize for you: name this, too. Tell us what your two flying companions mean to you.

Finally... yes. There is something out of place. The door behind you has vanished, and there is only a blank wall in its place. This might be Argossa’s reflection cast outwards by the lantern-lamp of your heart, but lights flicker in the deep and hungry dark. You cannot trust anything in this place to forever maintain its consistency; the deeper you go, the more you will come to doubt your own senses. But you have no choice but to continue. It is likely that your Mother cannot extinguish your flame, but likely is not the same as certain. Damage your Sense, as the flickering light weighs heavily on your soul.

[Anarion]

Kazelia lets out a sigh as she glances at the now empty wall. Nothing could be trusted here, save perhaps herself. Yes, she has chosen the solid nature over the icy wind. She was solid, full of the stone and wood of Argossa and she had chosen this place to stand, not merely to be the frigid wind without substance. Still she sighs again because the wind too had been part of her and already Mother was at work making her choose in every little way. Always so demanding, was mother void, and they hadn't even spoken yet.

The guardian had nothing more to say then. That too, made it insubstantial. It was reflecting her and she had to do all the speaking now that she was starting to see its shape. That made it less real somehow. Real things could surprise you. "You are my vision of power then. Flight has always been my love and speed my strength. That I don't want to give up." Kazelia gives a small laugh for nobody in particular to hear, wry, maybe a little bitter and a little sad.

"I suppose that's fair. Father builds a world where only power matters, and I've spent enough time that I'm loathe to surrender any, even though I know I'll have to make sacrifices to reach mother, even if I'm foolish enough to think I can get it all back in the end. You have to give something to get something, that's the way of the void, right? And I have to be willing to be humble and not always strong. Not always fast and able to soar above my problems like my faithful steed or my stubborn friend." The memory of Adila in their duel is worth a smile here. Slamming into every wall and haystack until she got her way. Kazelia sometimes wished things came to easily so her, though she wondered if she had such natural gifts if she might have fallen into Adila's trap and never spent the time training and honing her skill either. It was a good question. Adversity did breed a certain type of creativity and drive, after all. Oberon wouldn't have the power he did if there was nothing to his approach to life. If only it weren't so twisted.

That line of wondering was one that Kazelia didn't have time for. So she stands before Shivadila and slowly, facing the beast, she kneels and lifts her head, baring her neck to it. A sign of surrender, that she might be allowed to proceed.

[Thanqol]

Adila!

There is a penknife at your throat. It’s... probably not sharp enough to hurt you. Probably. But the edge is pressing insistently against your skin, and even taking a breath is a terrifying prospect, and Eska has the handle in a reversed grip, leaning the weight of her lean body into that edge.

“What do you think you’re doing? I’m not your friend, dragon.” Stars wink and turn in the endless dark of her eyes. Her smile is thin and mirthless. “I’m your superior. Forget your place again and I’ll send you to the gardens to wait for me to finish solving this delightful little puzzle.”

That doesn’t actually sound like a bad thing? Except the way she says it makes it really sound like a bad thing. Maybe the gardens are full of pollen or something. Or maybe they ran out of room in the dungeons and are torturing people by chaining them to hedges and making them hug those prickly, uncomfortable bushes.

Either way, this is... a reminder. Eska Glinteye does not have, and never has had, friends. You’re acting like a princess, trying to show sympathy and compassion, and exactly like a dog that doesn’t want to eat its medicine, she’s willing to stab you over it if you don’t hide it inside metaphorical peanut butter.

She flicks the penknife back up her sleeve and steps back. “Now. Why are these three clock faces of more stylized design?” She stabs pins into the North Bank Clock, the Wolf Moon Clock, and the Ruby Clock. “They had the same architect as the fortress overlooking the Bazaar, given the underlying design priorities in each.”

...what?? Hold on, is it possible some of the clocks were attached to the clock later? That has huge ramifications and that is privileged information. Destroy all intel fallen into enemy hands. Do not listen to anything she has to say. Trust no one. She fell and I did nothing.

This is the first time Princess Adila has been issued a direct order by Princess Adila I. It starts her, shocks her - there's no way to interpret this as latent Operations Manual training mixed with active imagination. At the same time she is cowed into meek silence by Eska's cold rebuke and suddenly she's got powerful, scary women telling her what to do on the inside and outside of her head. And there are false clocks on the clocktower!?!? Or real clocks!?!? That could send the entire Bazaar into chaos!!

She glitches confused telepathic mumbling in all directions as she frantically tries to think this through and get her claws underneath her.

[Speak Softly with Adila I, marking 1 use of my spirit guidance: 3 One answer is true, one answer is terrible or refused, one answer is false. I also gain a bond with her from Fast Friends.

- What would she have me do next?
- What can she tell me about the clocks?
- What do they want and how could I help her get it?]

[PhoeKun]

A lance of yellow light tears through the room before Alina can even think about what she's doing. Her entire body is tenser than steel, while her crown shines dangerously upon her head. Even Rita, who must be twice as scared with half as much anger inside her to cover over it with, simply looks at her and nods. There's no choice, and this is not courage.

"No!"

Alina leaps into the room like a deer, shot after shot of color after color snapping off from her left, from her right, from her left again. She's inside within 5 paces, with Rita not even a breath behind her. Alina jumps high into the air and fires a barrage of painful lasers down from on high as she lands between Morgina and the portrait of Momma. She fights like a storm. She fights like a tempest. She fights like a dancer. She twists and twirls as bolts of magical light crackle about her like fireworks.

Every step she takes, Rita perfectly matches. When one attacks, the other closes off retreat. Alina's light sings its song of anguish and fury, and Rita parries nightmare claws with a stolen Rider blade where Alina drops her guard. Rita throws the ribbon around Morgina's body, and Alina blasts a pair of mouths back into the arm they try to grow out of. Something, she doesn't dare look at what, clamps around Alina's foot and she tears her way free with a snap kick and a burst of yellow light as bright as the noon sun. She can feel the drip of her own royal blood running down past her knee, and she tries her best not to think any more about the Slaugh than she has already.

"You... can't... have... her!" Alina hisses, "I'll never let you hurt Momma! That memory's mine! That face is for Mommy! You can't have it! I won't let you take it from us!"

Her lavender hair is clinging to her forehead and the back of her neck, slicked with sweat. Her leg is burning almost as much as her scar. She's worried about Rita. And she's so, so scared. But there are things in the world important enough to risk everything for. Alina Cascade once escaped from the void with her soul still intact. Love was her secret then, and as she stares into the terrible, warping face of that same void's favorite child, love is her secret again.

She's here to save her family... every part of it.

[Using Rita's All the Powers of Cat and Girl to generate advantage. Damaging Grace to also finish with it: 9.]

[Raz_Fox]

Kazelia!

The guardian bird does exactly what you expect it to. It presses that so-solid horn’s tip against your neck and pushes its way into you. It hurts. Of course it hurts. But it hurts like the hurts you have caused so many others, on so many different worlds. They are faint but unmistakable, all over you— lances pressing into your soft flesh, your cheeks burning with strikes, your eyes thick and hot with tears—

And then that power, and the ways in which you have used it, have passed inside you once again. A reminder, too, to be careful with the power Argossa has given you.

Do you need a moment before you continue to the seven gates, and the seven coat hooks beside them, each one leading you deeper inside the castle, each one requiring you to hang something up, to make a small sacrifice? You don’t have a lot of time, but facing quietly judgmental doors and coat hooks is the sort of thing best done with eyes that aren’t swimming with tears.

Nobody ever has to know. I promise.

***

Adila!

Don’t be silly, dear. This is just another layer of the Operations Manual. It’s weird that there are context-sensitive instructions inside the OM, but, okay, think logically, if Adila I was able to interlace layers upon layers of meaning encoded inside the OM, then it’s not much of a jump at all that she also left behind failsafes concerning the clocks. Though what on Hyperborea could be so important about clocks that would—

“It’s not as devilish as the rest of the tower,” Eska is saying through the buzz of your training trying to lock down your brain. Use all of your strength and destroy the chains holding you. Do not take collateral damage into account. This is more important than anything else you have done. “And the decoration isn’t just decoration. It’s encoded Hecatian seals. If, assuming that the tower itself was made to regulate Hyperborean time, which, according to your myths, once was fluid and in flux during the creation of the world, then these sigils, artfully disguised as vines—“

Stop listening. Let your mind go blank. Act now.

“—likely trapping something inside, using the temporal properties—“

Stop listening! Let your mind go blank! Act now!

“—creation in miniature, like a very small Hyperborea—“

She fell and I did nothing!

“—which means that not only is the clocktower the temporal regulator for the entire world,” Eska concludes, becoming a Clockmaster immediately upon conclusion of her thesis, “it is also a prison.”

***

Alina!

With the two of you working together, there’s no way that Morgina can win. She’s not stupid, you know.

So she grabs you by the throat and, ignoring Rita’s anguished hiss and attempt to hurt that arm by growing two more from her back to bat away her stolen sword, tosses you out the window.

It shouldn’t be far to fall, but the angle she throws you at is deliberately arced up so that you’ll have a longer, more painful descent. As it is, you’ll barely clear the wall and—

Oof!

You’re caught by a arm around your waist, and suddenly you’re heading in a different direction. “Saved your life,” Freesia says, trying feebly to lower her voice into an unrecognizable growl. “You’re welcome, princess. Have you actually come to fix anything, or are you just here to make things worse? Again?”

She’s wearing a domino mask and cowl, all black, and even her mantle and tight leather pants are black. She’s renounced the colors of Ilumina until it’s free. As she lands both of you on the kitchen roof and detaches her grappling hook, you notice she even has a sword. A sword, Freesia, really?

She holds herself defensively, even as she tries to take a heroic pose, and...

And the yowl of a catgirl in peril floats over the castle before suddenly being cut off. And then there’s silence and snow settling on your shoulders.

“I said, you’re welcome.” Wow, Freesia really is being a jerk while she thinks you won’t recognize her, huh? “Now let’s go. It’s not safe here.”

[Current Morgina stats!
# Rabid Wolf. Morgina's attacks are always Hard Cuts and cannot be Overcome.
# Off The Chain. When the Fellowship Keeps Them Busy, the person keeping her busy gets to decide the target of her Cuts.
# Threat to the World. Pay a price to act against her.]

[Thanqol]

“—which means that not only is the clocktower the temporal regulator for the entire world,” Eska concludes, becoming a Clockmaster immediately upon conclusion of her thesis, “it is also a prison.”

Princess Adila clenched her fists, tensed against the chains. She felt power move through her - physical reflections of the thoughts crackling through her head, the pounding demand for action. Maybe she could have done it - there was still such raw strength there. Maybe she could have shattered free and fought Eska, fought everyone...

She unclenched her fist.

No! This wasn't the way to do things. This was - she wasn't going to be... hurled about like a brute engine of destruction again! She needed to trust her friends, trust Dandy - trust teamwork. The Operations Manual said that too! She... needed... to...

She needed to listen. She needed to know this. She needed to focus not just on Eska but the area around her, the behaviour of the guards, sounds in the distance that might hint at rescue. If Princess Eska was ready for anything it would be for her bursting free with brute strength. She needed to... relax. Bask in Eska's intellect like sunshine while watching the for shadows of the coming sunset.

+That's brilliant,+ Princess Adila's thoughts murmured. She couldn't help herself; it was.

[Look closely: 8 I find one out the hard way
- Tell me about Princess Eska. What is she doing? What will she do next?
- Tell me about Eska's lab. How could it hurt me? How could it hurt me?
- What is going on here? What do my senses tell me?]

[PhoeKun]

Alina falls.

She cuts through the air like a missile. The only problem is that someone else aimed her. The sound of wind rushing through her ears is all she hears, the feeling of the icy air biting her face is all she feels, the sight of snow whipping into her eyes is all she sees. But even as she hurtles toward the wall, even as the wind catches her cloak and rips it off of her completely, even as her hair gets yanked this way and that, she twists herself around, then around, then around again. Her grappling beam has a limited range, but if she can just find the window, find Mommy's window she can get back up there and-- oof!

All at once the wind gets knocked out of her as her other little sister this mysterious and heroic stranger oh my gosh who could it be?? swoops in from the other direction and pulls her toward a lower roof in the completely wrong way. She wheezes out something that's almost like a thank you but more like a what are you doing put me down and thrashes like a fish on a line until she's let go and she's free to run and get back up there, get back up there, come on Freesia Hero of Illumina we have to get back up there!

Alina falls.

She makes it all of a single step before her knee twists and buckles under her, folding her by the stomach back over that long, surprisingly strong arm. She's been working out, huh? Of course she has; she's taking this seriously. She always takes everything so seriously. But the scream crushes the tiny smile off of her face and forces her proper 'thank you' back down her throat and already there are Rider patrols scrambling up to where they are and it's not safe it's not safe it's not safe but

"Rita! What are you-- let me-- we have to-- RITA!!!"

She pushes away, she lifts her arm. It's... it's close. But she can make it. She can. She'll figure out the rest later. Her leg buckles again; the pain is so strong it feels like it's still being bitten somehow. The thin line of blue light goes slack just feet away from the window.

"Come on you little idiot, we have to go!"

Freesia's voice is so strained and desperate that she barely bothers trying to disguise it this time. Alina just hugs her tight and zips out a purple line in the other direction, toward safety.

"I'm sorry..." she whispers to too many people for her heart to handle.

[Anarion]

Kazelia embraces her pain. Lets it flow through her. Tears are rolling down her cheeks in a steady stream, but she can't feel them over the ache that spreads through her from the top of her head all the way down to the tips of her toes. She can't hide from this. From every blow and strike to the soldiers she's driven off and forced into making weary trudges back home with heavy boots and heavier hearts.

It isn't right to say that this is good, but it is just. It is fair that after all the worlds in which she led Oberon's vanguard, she would have to face her own power this way. Even if she was under Oberon's command, even if she couldn't really consider alternatives, she had still done those things. She'd still done them once she was free too, her current count was getting near 100 Illuminans scattered while working with the crown princess of Illumina (come to think of it she'd need to ask Alina why that kept happening). She'd still do them in the future when the need arose.

But she needed to face the understanding of what she did. To accept the consequences, to know she was hurting people and face that. To not cause pain for its own sake. Kazelia wanted to be a protector. Of her friends, her loved ones, ultimately of everyone, of the whole world, as best she could do it.

She stands carefully, runs a hand along her arm, up her shoulder, massages it to try and get the soreness out, massages the other shoulder, along her upper back, her neck. By the time she's done, her tears have stopped and she stands.

"Thank you Mother" she says to nobody in particular. She needs to really accept what happened and face what's coming with some cheer, not with all of this weighing down her heart. "You do always know how to receive your guests properly" she says letting a wry smile pull her mouth a little ways up as she walks onwards to the next doors.

[Raz_Fox]

Adila!

The good news is that Princess Eska has decided not to tear your skin off and wear it herself! Being a demure little princess has saved you from being undragoned again! You’re very lucky.

The bad news is that this is because she’s decided to test out a different contraption on you.

You’re sitting in a chair! It’s a pretty, fancy chair. It’s got a pretty, curly back! It’s actually a little tight around your tushie, and a lot tight where you’re strapped down into it. Which is a lot of places, actually. You’re more strap than dress.

There’s a pendulum swinging in front of you, and behind it, a swirling pattern of snowflakes spun about in a phantom wind, white against the dark beyond. You can feel your heart slowing and your breath coming so soft as mechanical manipulators rub your head, giving you the massage of your life.

“You never had a chance against me, you know,” Eska purrs, running one finger along your jaw. Even though you’re a telepath, you’ve got a mouthful of black Rider silk puffing out your cheeks and one of her scarves pulled snug over your lips. You’re really getting the full princess experience here! “I’ve been inside you. I know you. How scared you are of using your strength.”

The snow swirls. The pendulum swings. Her hand is cold, but it is a strangely sweet coldness, one that tamps at the fires of your heart.

“Let me control it.” Her voice is trickling down your spine, melting at the base where your tail should be. “I can do all your thinking for you. I’m smart, aren’t I? I figured out your silly little clock like that.” The snap of her fingers echoes in your head. “Can’t you trust me to know what’s best for you? Arrows don’t have to worry, or be afraid, or make decisions about where to go. Be my arrow, Adila.”

So, the thing about this lab? It’s got all of her experiments! If you managed to get free, you could probably fight your way out with her experimental arrows. Grab a quiver or two and fling them at Riders like darts! The only trick will be getting free.

Which, um, well. There’s a new and familiar Rider who slipped in the room, but you can’t... remember her name? The fox princess. But if you think that too loud, Eska will hear. But if you don’t think it, it’ll just get buried under her voice and the swirling snow.

***

Alina!

It’s surreal watching your subjects getting ordered around by a Rider. It helps that everyone has figured out Dandy’s not actually a Rider.

“Riders don’t kill people,” Dandy’s saying soothingly as she rubs mockberry sap into your leg. It’ll help close up the bite marks, leave them as nothing more than angry red scars on your skin. “She’s going to be okay. There we go, you’re being such a brave princess.” (It stings. A lot.) “We’re going to save her and your mother.”

“We?” Freesia is watching you intently, trying to hide the fact that she’s worried about you. Really worried. “Your little stunt may have ruined our own chance at getting in. We were getting closer! A few more months, and we might even have had our way in secured.” She huffs, and her boyfriend rubs her shoulder reassuringly. “I still can’t believe Alina Cascade came up with the boneheaded idea to smuggle in a dragon.”

“Now,” Liza butts in from opposite you, holding her teacup in both hands, “Princess Adila really is amazing at infiltration! She’s probably exactly where she needs to be, right at this very moment.”

Dandy bites her lip softly, exhaling through her nose, as she winds bandages around your leg. She’s definitely upset about something, but she’s got a fine poker face, no telling what’s eating at her.

You’re in a comfy little den, a little slice of home, surrounded by the Iluminan Resistance. And, for once... everyone’s happy to see you. Everyone except Freesia, that is.

***

Kazelia!

This part...

To pay the toll of the labyrinth of the seven doors, with their neat little coat hangers at each one, each door a little smaller than the last (and small to begin with), until you’re scrambling through on your hands and knees on the last one, trying to squeeze your hips through... well, at each one you must give something up. It’s easy when you can just give up your socks at the first door, but by the time you get to the end, well.

Pay a price, two times over, and tell us some of what you leave behind by the time you scramble through that tiny door and end up on the top of Argossa’s echo, its branches waving in a false breeze, and your Mother waiting for you.

She is wearing Ourania’s face, her eyes all full of stars, and she is doing her embroidery, which lies in heavy coils all about her. Hot piping tea sits on the table, and there is a chair and an embroidery hoop for you as well.

The sound of the void is almost like the opposite of a song, there, and pleasant in its own strange way. Give up, it sings. Pluck out your eyes to free yourself from the tyranny of seeing; stop up your ears to free yourself from the invasion of sound; become a wave on the empty deep, allow yourself to find enlightenment and peace in the Not.

Your mother does not say a word. Her fingers like knives delicately swoop in and out, making art with black thread on black thread.

[Thanqol]

Perhaps it would have been easier to resist if she knew more about snow. If she'd seen it before, if she had played with enough snowflakes that their fascinating uniqueness was mundane to her rather than a glittering, secret world of fractal crystal possibility, maybe she might have been able to pull her mind away from Princess Eska's words more easily. Maybe she wouldn't be thinking so hard about snow, spinning snow, crushing snow, being crushed under snow that is also grinding a massage into her powerful, deep muscles...

The plus side was that it was very easy to not think about sneaking fox princesses. It was easy not to think about most things. It was easy not to think about being bound and gagged as anything other than an extension of Princess Eska's will because everything here was an extension of Princess Eska's will. The straps. The clocktower. Even her.

+I am your arrow,+ she thought, fixated on the pendulum - on the voice. +And you are my quiver. You will wrap around me in leather and keep me warm and safe and never let me go and we will be together forever.+

Well, that's sort of what you wanted, right Princess Eska? It's not really a mindset with, er, military applications though. You'll probably need to clarify what exactly you mean.

[Keep her busy: 9. My humble suggestion is that the hypnotism kicks in after Adila has been unchained]

[Anarion]

At each door, one places a thing. Things that we hold aren't just things though. We fill them up. With hope, dreams, and memories. We look at things for what they represent, talismans of our past and our future, the meaning we create for ourselves. Coming to each door, wandering through this strange place, Kazelia feels as though her link to her own past is growing stronger only for it to be taken from her. She feels less with each door. Perhaps she is truly shrinking, perhaps the world is expanding to match her perceptions, perhaps it's all an illusion. Mother does so like her presentation.

***
At the first door, she leaves a little chip of never melt ice. Oberon gave it to her once, when she was still a child. Before her real mother was gone. Before the fights and the march out into the snow. She was one of his gifted daughters, and he showed her a little bit of what magic could do, a piece of ice that would never melt, infused with power. She had always kept it as a tool for her own magic though she had long ago forgotten how she had received it. Until now. Could Oberon be redeemed? No, his fundamental nature was to try and control everything around him until he drained it of all vitality. But she had remembered that he could show delight, that he did not break things purely for the joy of it. It made her sad that he could not be more than he was, but it was the first thing she gave up at the doors.

She leaves some other baubles as she passes through. The second door receives the remains of her ice magic. The third a set of Illuminan crystals full of rainbow light. She had taken them shortly after the city had fallen, scooped up from one of the rooms in the castle. It was possible they had even been Alina's. Come to think of it, she wondered why she had never asked about them, buried at the bottom of one of her travel bags. Or why she had kept them hidden in the first place. Jealousy perhaps? Maybe she had wanted them for her own and not for Eska's experiments or to power Azora's reckless workings. Or maybe she had thought them beautiful even while she had been a servant of Illumina's foes?

***
At the fourth door, she leaves her new boots. Perhaps call that one an extra reduction in height, maybe they were even starting to seem too big for her this far in. Maybe call it a sign of something bigger. All that military training she's had, years, ages of marching, flying, spurring on all sorts of mounts. Boots are for long and rugged walking and leaving them here says that she's not going anywhere, not doing those things. Perhaps it says that she's coming back for them, too. She can hardly go back outside without putting her boots back on.

***
At the fifth, she takes out a handful of dust from a now empty pouch and leaves the pouch itself. Something about this reminds her of her people. It has been a long time since Kazelia spent time with the regular riders. Being at the vanguard meant being away. She'd had an elite unit, sure, but they were her unit to mold. Perhaps, when they'd found Cleo at her little fishing village, that had been a quiet time. The Riders had always been skilled at crafts. They weren't usually fancy like most of the stuff in Hyperborea, where gems and precious metals seemed to line the streets in most places. but a well-made Rider bag or saddle would last through the toughest conditions. The design was one of the few things Kazelia hadn't touched at all when she had come back in Argossa. She hadn't thought about it then, maybe had just considered her bags and pouches to be part of her natural aesthetic. But she realized now, as she left it, that it was the work of her people and one of their great strengths. Was she leaving them behind? Or coming back with things to fill it?

***
The sixth and seventh doors are the hardest. She's caught up with her present and somehow there's no avoiding where her mind takes her. At the sixth, she leaves a bit of glitter from her gala dress that Alina had found for her in Argossa. She so admired Alina's sense of beauty, her eye for understanding not only what might look good by itself, but what could bring out the natural gifts that someone else possessed. And what would make them feel comfortable, strong, and confident. She had to leave a keepsake of that at the sixth door, even though she would carry many memories of Alina with her.

And at the seventh, she takes out her new staff, the one filled with the spell of warding. She smiled again, remembering how she'd slid right under Adila who had flown face-first into this staff. It was too big to fit though, and she had to let some of the magic drain out of it to match the rest of her and squeeze, crawling on hands and knees through the final door to see mother. There were tears in her eyes all the same when she was done, and perhaps that was the right way to greet Mother Void after all.

[The prices I am paying are a charge from the staff and a use of magical baubles, though the associated memories and thoughts are sent with each door as well.]

***

When it is all done and Kazelia is...less than what she was, she steps into the room with her mother. She is still prepared to face her. There is a strength within her heart. Few have come to the depths of the void in this way. Most are lost long before now. Some stumble in by chance. Some come howling with power. Very few sit down for tea still themselves and begin to embroider. "Hello, Mother. It has been some time. How are you? Do you have any thread besides black?"

[PhoeKun]

A Princess Must Always Be Beautiful.

Alina is managing to delicately sip a cup of tea in between polite non-winces while Dandy works on her leg. It's true that it stings a lot whenever she does... well, anything to her leg, but the overwhelming feeling is relief. It's easy to bravely endure your treatment when your leg doesn't feel like it's trying to gnaw itself off anymore. And the tea (a delicate white tea with lavender and peony mixed with generous amounts of wildflower honey) is the exact right touch of home.

She smiles at each hopeful face in turn, at the exhausted but still dazzling eyes managing to shine back at hers, marveling to see their princess' again. Heads full of soft, colorful hair and faces all done up with beautiful Battle Makeup look at her with such hope and admiration that it almost stings more than the mockberry sap. In any case the Masked Hero of Illumina glaring at her with absolutely none of those emotions definitely stings more than the sap or the bandages.

Poor Freesia. She must have thought she was the only Cascade left. She must have been trying to shoulder a princess' burdens all by herself with no training and no adjutants to help her. No sisters. She looks so very beautiful to Alina, so very much herself and yet so... wrong, too. She's grown so tall, and yet her arms and legs still don't seem quite in sync with her body and the muscles she's filled them out with don't suit her frame at all. She'd always been the most delicate of the three, the softest and the fussiest, but also the most detail oriented and very probably (very definitely, Lina,) the smartest. When Alina had set off on her big adventure in Jedad just before everything had gone wrong, Freesia had just started studying the art of glassblowing and shaping. She wanted to make jewelry and shape new crystals for housing lights to make them happier and healthier, she wanted to be like Momma since nobody else seemed interested in trying. For her to have shaped herself into an Illuminan knight instead felt all kinds of backwards and hurtful. She'd let her little sister down, and that was worse than all the nasty barbs she kept tossing out to keep herself steeled and ready to go back out where Alina knew she absolutely didn't want to be.

But in spite of everything, in spite of the tea and this perfect slice of home still standing in the middle of the blizzard, Alina is so sick with worry that it must be showing on her face no matter how brave she's trying to be. It's no use consoling her that Riders don't kill, because she's seen the gardens. She's seen her mother and nobody else has, and she's seen Morgina besides so she doesn't need an imagination to know what sorts of things they must be doing to Rita even now. Each thought and fear twists inside her like a gnawing little worm, wriggling and unpleasant and impossible to pull free without infecting everybody else. And she's sitting here smiling and drinking tea.

Even worse, Adila and Kazelia are counting on her to do a lot more than just fill the basement full of fire sharks. Without every princess doing their part the whole plan would collapse and then everyone including Jessamine and Helya and Tashanna and Nemie and Gale, all of the princesses that had agreed to risk themselves for the sake of freeing Illumina, all of them would fall. They'd all line the gardens, Alina was sure of that. She couldn't go running off to save her girlfriend if it cost her the chance to find Gold. But it did her heart no good to tell herself that was the best way to save her.

A Princess Must Be Beautiful. She doesn't cry. She promised Mommy she'd save everyone, so there's no time to cry. Saving everyone starts in this room.

"Thank you," she says to Freesia and all of her freedom fighters, "Thank you so much for everything you've done. Illumina will survive because of what you've done while I've been away. And I'm... sorry that it's taken me so long to come. I'm sorry I haven't been here to help out. I know that some of you must be furious with me. A princess is meant to make her people shine like the stars they are. But my beautiful heroes, I'm here now. And I don't want you getting hurt more than you already have, so... please. Let me take the weight from off your shoulders. I will save our country. Rest now. Rest. You've done more than I can ask from you already."

This time she doesn't smile. But she doesn't cry, either.

[Raz_Fox]

Adila!

“Oh, you silly, simpering, helpless little thing!” Eska’s laugh is a peal of sleigh bells ringing in your head. Kyouko is quietly, unobtrusively working her way behind you. “I’m not your quiver. I’m the bow. I decide what you do, so you don’t have to! I point you towards your target, and I set you loose. I trust you, Adila. I trust you to be a good girl. I trust you to do the right thing. I trust you to understand that thinking is too hard for you, and that you should always do what you’re told! I trust you, because you trust me.”

Her face is so close to yours. Her breath is on your ear. “You trust me, because I trust you. I trust you, because you trust me.” This is the hardest part for her! She totally wants to barf in your lap saying the t-word. But you can’t tell. Your mind is falling snow and trust. “I trust you to obey. You trust me to show you your target.”

Then three things happen all at once!

Firstly, all the lights in the room are extinguished by a masterful use of Seven Paw Shadow Style. Whoosh! Secondly, Eska Glinteye yowls in pain as one of her lightning arrows is jabbed right into the small of her back. Zap! She falls over twitching. Thirdly, all the straps on your chair fall open, because you can always trust a fox to know how to untie someone, too.

“Run for it,” Kyouko hisses in your ear, and then scampers away in the dark! And if there is one thing you’re really good at right now, it’s taking orders. After all, Eska trusts you to be a good girl. Don’t you want to be a good girl, Adila?

***

Kazelia!

You can understand your Mother more than Alina could, but even your understanding only goes so far. In the back of your head, you know that this isn’t happening. This is as unreal as anything that happens here; this is the opposite of real. The only reason you see Ourania is because that is the face you give your Mother in a vain attempt to see her.

The threads passing through your hands are Not. The serene expression on your Mother’s face is Not. This entire place is the impression of your existence upon its opposite. Maybe that is why your Mother so furiously attempts to take apart those people who believe they exist. She is lonely. Or perhaps she can only understand you if you are like her. Or maybe even this is just how your mind reacts to being unraveled in the void: you give her a face, memories, motives, to soften the blow of being undone by nothingness.

But if you really were imagining this... would you see the faces of Iluminans in her embroidery, as she carefully pricks out their eyes with her needle?

So many people who do not exist, she says to you. An entire kingdom full of them! Maybe a whole world’s worth, hidden behind your darling queen.

Can you explain to me why they pretend? She holds up her hoop: a little boy. There is nothing here! He is nothing but a concept. If I were to unravel him, only those who think themselves connected would mourn, and even then, how their memories would fade away!

***

Alina!

There’s a cheer, and... hold on, why is Dandy wincing? If Dandy’s not happy with something, it’s usually a sign to start thinking twice.

That’s when Freesia’s voice cuts through the celebration. “Rest? So you can be the hero again?”

She dramatically pulls her mask off and tosses it onto your lap. “Surprise, Alina! It was your useless sister all along!” There is a shocked gasp from about half the room. Iluminans are not known for being able to look past masks, generally. “And you’re right! I did more than anybody thought I could! More than Mommy, more than Jess, and more than you, princess perfect!” She’s tearing up now, because she can’t get upset without crying, and that just makes her more flustered and upset. “Coming back was the scariest thing I ever did! I promised Mommy I’d save her!” Her voice cracks painfully. “And now the best princess has come back, the Princess Promised, and it’s okay, she’s going to save the day and make everything better and save Mommy because she’s the only person in all of Hyperborea who’s allowed to do anything right, and her little sister should go b-back to her room and play with her glassblowing set, because that’s all she’s good for!”

And the knight of Ilumina, the (former) Sunless, and your dear little sister... she runs out of the room with her face under her arm, sobbing. Because she can handle Riders, but she can’t handle you outshining her. Again.

[PhoeKun]

It would be really nice if somebody would clear their throat right now. Maybe they could gasp instead, faint dramatically, drop a teacup and let it shatter tragically on the floor. She'd even be fine if Dandy would start chewing her out in that quiet but somehow terrifying Dandy way of hers. Just... something so that she doesn't have to be the one to break the silence, you know? But of course none of those things happen. When Alina stands up, you can hear every tiny ruffle of her stupid Rider clothes as they shift, and the gentle chiming when she sets her cup back down on its saucer sounds to her more like a cannon. She stands for a moment, looking around the room. No one makes a sound. All eyes are turned on her. She sighs, a noise like the wing beats of a storm bird in her ears. And then she bows graciously.

"...If you'll excuse me for just one minute."

Alina was never as good at handling Freesia's bad days as she was dealing with Jessamine's. With Jess it was instinctive: she wanted to be hugged when she was sad, and Alina wanted to hug her. Sometimes you had to wrestle her a bit to get her to accept your affection, but that was always what the game was about. Words came after forgiveness. She didn't have that sort of magic with Freesia; it was always Mommy who stepped in and made the bridge for them to cross over the river of hurt feelings and make peace. She also always needed Mommy to find Freesia in the first place, because unlike Jess, Free was the hide and seek champion of Castle Thessia. If she didn't want to be found... she wouldn't be.

But this is a small house, already overfull with supplies and people, and Freesia really only has the kitchen to run to. Alina finds her toes sticking out from behind the counter almost immediately, and just in case she might have confused that heroic black boot for somebody else's, the room is plenty full of awkward sniffles punctuated by soft bonks of her head against the wood. Yeah, that's her little sister all right. Alina smiles in spite of herself and settles in on the other side of the counter. She can't fix this with hugs, no matter how much she might want to try.

"I knew it was you the whole time, Sunspot."

Nothing. Just more sniffles and head thumps. Alina sighs and turns her sister's mask over and over again in her hands, admiring the lens inside while she fumbles about for the right thing to say.

"It's... really good to see you, sis. I'm so glad you're not, I mean. That you're free. I'm just, just so... relieved. I've been all across Hyperbroea, and I never stopped asking about you, not once, no matter where I went, but nobody ever had news of you. They hadn't seen you, hadn't heard from you, it's like you disappeared. Rivers, Free. I was so scared. I thought maybe they'd caught you! But I guess this is the real reason, huh?"

The sniffling's stopped. The head thumping hasn't. Alina starts knocking the back of her own head into the counter, matching her sister's slow beat.

"When I found Jess, she was," Alina bites her lip before continuing, "Hurt really badly, Sunspot. I thought I was gonna lose her forever, right there in my arms. It took a miracle, an actual, honest to goodness straight from Ourania miracle to bring her back. And when she didn't know where you were either, I just took to hoping every night. I'd whisper my little wish up to the stars, asking for you to be ok, for you to be safe and happy somewhere, for Mom and for Momma to find you so that when I finally caught up we'd get to be a family again. How many years has it been since even you and me and Jess were together? Haha, it's so funny. She didn't wind up even close to being taller than you. She's gonna be so mad when she sees."

Thump. Thump. Thump. Alina watches the light in her eyes reflected in the mask her sister's been using to save Illumina. All of her smiles fall away.

"...I really made a mess of things, didn't I? When Illumina got attacked and Mommy said to run, I went without even thinking about it. I hardly even looked back! I... I went everywhere, you know. Everywhere. I asked everyone I could think of for help. Some of them apologized and said they were busy, some of them thought I was being a sore loser to the new King. A few of them just laughed in my face and slammed the door shut. I went everywhere. I even went to Jedad! I asked about you, I asked about Jess, I asked about Mommy... but I never came back here.

I told myself... it was because my crown was broken. Because my lights were dimmed or stolen. I told myself it was because I needed help. I told myself it was because I had to have a plan. Everyone was counting on me and I had to be perfect. But, really? I was scared, Free. I was so scared. All I wanted to do was help that sad old stranger, and he... it felt so cold, Free. So awful. Even now I can't get it to go away, it's like... like there's ice stuck in my chest and whenever I need to be brave I wind up falling apart instead. Some perfect princess, huh? When we scattered, Jess turned straight back around and almost put him down all by herself. You swallowed all that fear and led a whole resistance! And I just... I just ran around making excuses. Both of my little sisters turned out to be so much more than I could ever be..."

Thump. Thump. Thump. It could be that Alina's the only one hitting her head now. She doesn't know. All she knows is that her eyes are beading up with tears again even though she promised Mommy she'd be strong until she'd saved her. The dam's on the verge of breaking.

"I'm so sorry, Free. I'm so, so sorry. You're so brave. You're so wonderful... I should have been here to help you all along."

[Thanqol]

Adila!

“Oh, you silly, simpering, helpless little thing!” Eska’s laugh is a peal of sleigh bells ringing in your head. Kyouko is quietly, unobtrusively working her way behind you. “I’m not your quiver. I’m the bow. I decide what you do, so you don’t have to! I point you towards your target, and I set you loose. I trust you, Adila. I trust you to be a good girl. I trust you to do the right thing. I trust you to understand that thinking is too hard for you, and that you should always do what you’re told! I trust you, because you trust me.”

Her face is so close to yours. Her breath is on your ear. “You trust me, because I trust you. I trust you, because you trust me.” This is the hardest part for her! She totally wants to barf in your lap saying the t-word. But you can’t tell. Your mind is falling snow and trust. “I trust you to obey. You trust me to show you your target.”

Then three things happen all at once!

Firstly, all the lights in the room are extinguished by a masterful use of Seven Paw Shadow Style. Whoosh! Secondly, Eska Glinteye yowls in pain as one of her lightning arrows is jabbed right into the small of her back. Zap! She falls over twitching. Thirdly, all the straps on your chair fall open, because you can always trust a fox to know how to untie someone, too.

“Run for it,” Kyouko hisses in your ear, and then scampers away in the dark! And if there is one thing you’re really good at right now, it’s taking orders. After all, Eska trusts you to be a good girl. Don’t you want to be a good girl, Adila?

Princess Adila carries a treasure with her as she runs - for what could be a more precious treasure than trust? It is a glowing, precious thing that cools a mind overheating with contradictory thoughts and orders and hurts. She's free from all that now. She doesn't need to chart an uncertain course through a terrible and confusing world - all she needs to do is obey. Isn't that wonderful? She can focus entirely on what she's doing now without distraction.

And what a blessing that is! She doesn't need to stop and hesitate and second-guess or restrain herself or compare an elaborate series of priorities. She can concentrate just on running as fast as she can, as fast as she wants, the kind of running only possible when there's nothing to hold you down. As light as a snowflake and as inevitable as a charging dragon she blazes a path through the corridors. She had no idea where she was going but she wasn't supposed to think about that either. Eska will be so proud when she sees how well placed her trust was.

[Anarion]

"There's a little boy there, mother" Kazelia says. "He's there. He's young, so unless you take them away, he'll remember this in his dreams later, won't he? He walked through a portal in a castle even though he was scared because he had to. He's Illuminan, so he probably had a little sister and wanted to be brave for her even though if you looked really closely, he's little too. I can imagine his voice, I've met a lot of Illuminans, it's the kind of voice that's like water plopping onto a stone. I bet all the Illuminans are good singers if they want to be. If Morgina was managing things, I have no idea who he's here with, but from the way you did his eyes in the embroidery before you poked them out, he looks the type to have made friends lightly and easily, ready to run and jump and play rather than sit and be awkward."

Kazelia gently lifts up her own embroidery. "Did you give me the sister, I wonder, or another little Illuminan girl? They have the same nose and there's a little dimple in the chin, I bet they're related. Ah, she looks so young, younger than I was the first time we met. Scared and small. I wonder, she's not crying though. I think she might be a little angry at you for poking at her brother. I should finish up her legs so she can go over there and give you a piece of her mind. She should have a companion too, I think one of those Argossian rainbow sheep would do nicely. You'll just have to imagine it, but we are using black thread, so every color is there under the surface."

Kazelia starts working on it absent-mindedly, finishing the pattern and running her hand along the cloth. It might be her imagination, but where she touches the image, it seems a little more vivid, perhaps a little more relaxed. She hums to it gently, absent-mindedly as she works, but she hums an old hunting tune, her soft murmurs nevertheless quick and rising like the horns of old that would chase the uncatchable white deer.

She stopped, tapped her chin. "Now where had the deer been? That must have been ages ago, only the second or third place, the one with the mountain theater. It had been full of beautiful things, mother. Much more wild than Hyperborea though, less bountiful and more secretive. That had been its downfall, I think. We never caught the things that would hide, but they had simply run out of room at the end. I'm not sure you ever saw them, Oberon didn't carry much from that world with him, only a handful of Riders, and Morgina of course. Is that why you always take more from her than everyone else? She wasn't a part of the main group?"

Kazelia pauses again and resumes her sewing. "They don't pretend, Mother. They are. You change them, but they don't want to be changed. Morgina would like her self back: her thoughts, her focus, her attention, her patience. I might not like what she'd do with them, but she deserves to have them and decide for herself. And Mother, I'd like my stars back. I miss them. And...I'd like to know why you took them."

Kazelia goes back to her sewing. She's adding the little fluffs of wool around the sheep, one over another. She thinks the girl looks a little happier.

[Raz_Fox]

Alina!

“I wanted to be the Princess Promised more than anything else in the world.” Freesia’s voice is faint and thin, the sort of voice that you use when you’re breathless from trying not to cry any more. “I studied for weeks. I made a plan. I figured out what snacks the River King liked, and exactly how to curtsey to him, and how to play the games he liked... but I never had a chance. He looked right through me. He... he knew I wasn’t... I’m not you.” She sniffles loudly. “So I thought I could, that glass would be my thing, that Momma would...”

When Momma left, Freesia was a little brat for ages. But everybody knew (even if Freesia didn’t know they knew) it was just her way of saying that she was in pain. That the parent she’d been closest to had to leave her with little more than a word.

“...and then the Riders came. And I hid. I didn’t fight like Jess and I didn’t go find help like you did. I hid and hoped someone would come and rescue me. It wasn’t until the Riders started hurting people for not working hard enough that I did anything. I’m not a hero. The River King knew that all along. I thought, maybe, I could be...”

Her voice trails off. She can’t even finish the thought: but I’m not. I’ll never be like you.

“I promised. I promised, after I made the mask. I promised Mommy, wherever she is, that I’d save her. But that’s stupid. I’m stupid. So what if you’ve got a magic wound that makes you scared? I was scared the whole time. I’m not brave. I’m nothing. And a real princess would be beautiful and not make a scene, and I’ve ruined that too. Stupid!”

She can’t blame you. She tried, but deep down... if things have turned out this way, the only person she can blame is herself. (Or, more realistically, Oberon, but Oberon didn’t walk in and tell her to give up on trying to save Mommy.) So she’s imploding in on herself instead.

***

Adila!

There’s someone in your way! Actually, there have been multiple people in your way, a lot of very silly Riders trying to grab you or tell you to stop, and the silliest ones of all are the ones who thought standing in front of you would stop you, only to find out that it’s like trying to tackle a brick wall going for a touchdown.

But now there’s someone in your way who looks like she means business! She has a whole lot of arms digging into the walls and, gosh, she’s throwing herself at you now! How very foolish! Not even biting is going to stop you!

Though those are a whole lot of very sharp teeth and Eska probably wouldn’t want you to get hurt, right? If you’re hurt, you can’t do what she wants you to do! If you can’t do what she wants you to do, she’ll be wrong to trust her! So it totally makes sense to avoid being mauled by Morgina, like the little voice in the back of your head is screaming about, so just relax already! You got this on lockdown.

***

Kazelia!

Your Mother laughs. Or... it is the sound of one hand clapping, but laughter. An empty space in your thought. A hole.

I took away the stars because you never saw them in the first place. I took Morgina’s heart because she only pretended to have one. I took your eyes, all of them, because they lie to you. They tell you stories of shapes and forms and signs and you believe them, and think that you are more than you are.

She puts down her hoop and looks you in the eyes, and hers are vast seas which would drown you if you were not sitting on a pier above the nothingness, which is your heart.

You are one of the children of Oberon. You are part of his existence; you exist because he exists, and if he did not, you and all of your friends who ride with him would be summed down to zero. You are a detail in his tapestry, Kazelia. Do you want to pretend to be anything more? Lie to me and I shall be cross.

Her fingers are such terrible knives that divide what is from what is not. You have upset her, insisting on your own existence. She will try to winnow you down in a moment, and while she will find a hard diamond core at your heart, it will still be terribly unpleasant. You may wish to instead assert yourself and prove that you are not just a figment of your father’s story.

[PhoeKun]

"You made this? Rivers Free, you've gotten really good!"

Alina brushes her fingers over the mask with a little smile spreading across her face. The little thumps of princess heads on cabinets have stopped, and now the room is only filled by the quietly strained breathing of two girls who've been near tears for too long without giving in (and quite possibly the hushed whispers of a bunch of Illuminans who shouldn't be snooping at the door but almost certainly are anyway).

"I mean it, this is one of the most beautiful pieces I've ever seen. You have a talent; I could never have done this."

She stands up and turns around, and sure enough Freesia is standing too and watching her with a curious and very guarded look on her face. Alina's eyes glitter, and probably this is the moment where her little sister properly notices what's happened to her while she's been gone.

"Now that I look a little more closely, it's very obviously one of your designs. This kind of attention to detail is very you, Sunspot. Look at the way the facets for the lenses are worked into the face of the mask. And the surface is so perfectly polished you'd never guess it was done in crystal even after you touched it, unless you knew just what to look for. It's a little small, and maybe you're a little tempted to discount it, but I think it's amazing. Just like what you've done here for our people."

Alina's beaming with pride, but she still doesn't go in for the hug even though her heart is screaming at her to. By now the crowd at the door aren't even bothering to hide their gasps; Illuminans by and large weren't very good at hiding their feelings any more than they were skilled at seeing past masks. Well, that's ok. This is a good lesson from their Princess-Promised: that the difference between wisdom and folly isn't in avoiding mistakes, but in realizing that you've made them. Alina holds the Sunless' mask in front of her face and does a rather startlingly accurate impression of her sister.

"So what if you hid? You were here when you were needed! So what if you're afraid? Free, you silly trout, you can only ever really be brave when you're scared! You don't have to be a Princess-Promised: you're already Freedia Cascade. And Freesia is smart, and brave, and beautiful. She's everything Illumina could ask of her and more. Just look at all the people that you've saved! You, Free. You! See how they shine with nothing but your light to guide them. You've kept them safe, you've kept them focused, you've made the pathways in to take back the castle even if I'd stayed stuck waiting for the perfect moment. You've been here making it, with all that focus and hard work that makes you so special."

Finally, she reaches out. But not to embrace her sister: just to hand her back her mask.

"I was wrong to ask you to stop. I thought I needed to take away your burden, but the truth is... I need you, Free. I can't do this alone. By now the castle should be just about warmed up enough for all the doors and hidden switches to be working again, but the Riders still control almost everything. We need Castle Thessia back for Jess to safely lead the princess confederacy in to push them out for good, but we can't do that unless we can find Mommy's Gold. Now that I've been thrown out once my disguise is ruined, but you can make it! You can do it! You were always the best of any of us at sneaking into the kitchens for midnight cookies or any of that sort of thing. And if Gold isn't in Mommy's room... I don't know anyone else who could even find it. Besides, I... there's, there's something else I need to take care of. I can help you get to the secret path into the gardens, and once we're past those I can be enough of a distraction to give you free run of things for at least a little while, but past that... Illumina needs its hero to be brave just a little bit longer, ok? Will you do it? Please, Free. Freesia. Be my light..."

[Reveal the Way: 14! Dance party in Castle Thessia!]

[Anarion]

In the void where everything is still and silent, a wind blows, and Kazelia's eyes burn with fire. In a distant throne room, there is emptiness. The Illuminans have run off, the Riders dispersed, Morgina is elsewhere now, as is Eska, and the Cascades are busy with a heart to heart. Yet in that silence, Oberon's staff shakes. It rocks and shudders as though it might break before settling back into place.

"I am no mere shadow. I stand before you aflame, mother! If you see nothing but Oberon's reflection then it is you who are blind. I have never..." Kazelia stops. Cuts herself off with what she had been about to say. She just stops still and lets it sink into her.

"I've never been a shadow, Mother. Never. Not once. Not in all the times I've seen you." There is wonder in her voice. Surprise. "Oberon claimed he was protecting us, protecting me. But he didn't need to, did he? You and he, you've had a grand deception. He made us all so cold that we'd forget everything else. Then you...you blinded our eyes so we couldn't see. But I was singing long before I came to Hyperborea. My heart never stopped singing and you could never reach it. Not in all this time. Not if I visited you a thousand thousand times and let you take everything that I had to give."

There is a sharp intake of breath as Kazelia pricks herself with the needle and a thin drop of blood pools at her fingertip. "You've never felt it, have you?" There are tears in her eyes, pooling at the corners. One runs down her cheek in a little line of light across her face. "That's it, isn't it. The real hearts, you can't touch those. You've held me in your arms and you couldn't reach it even without Oberon. That's why you couldn't have Alina. And the others, the others break in your hands, brittle, unformed, not ready to face someone like you, mother. You have nothing and so you give nothing. Oh stars above, that must...it must hurt so much. Oh stars, oh..."

Kazelia puts down the needlepoint and looks at her mother. At those empty eyes and that sad face that is at once Ourania and yet lacks all the vibrancy that the real things brings to a room. "Let them go. All the Illuminans here, all the Riders you made. Send them out. Let me shatter my father's staff and break his power here. Make peace with Hyperborea, mother. Do that and I'll let you join with my heart in a way that you've never felt before."

[Thanqol]

Adila!

There’s someone in your way! Actually, there have been multiple people in your way, a lot of very silly Riders trying to grab you or tell you to stop, and the silliest ones of all are the ones who thought standing in front of you would stop you, only to find out that it’s like trying to tackle a brick wall going for a touchdown.

But now there’s someone in your way who looks like she means business! She has a whole lot of arms digging into the walls and, gosh, she’s throwing herself at you now! How very foolish! Not even biting is going to stop you!

Though those are a whole lot of very sharp teeth and Eska probably wouldn’t want you to get hurt, right? If you’re hurt, you can’t do what she wants you to do! If you can’t do what she wants you to do, she’ll be wrong to trust her! So it totally makes sense to avoid being mauled by Morgina, like the little voice in the back of your head is screaming about, so just relax already! You got this on lockdown.

Princess Adila is relaxed. Princess Adila is calm. Princess Adila is a good girl. Princess Adila does not, however, have this on lockdown.

For a split second as she's lifted in the air she has a moment of sympathy for the Riders she just barrelled through. She has a moment to regret the fact that she doesn't actually know any martial arts or fluid liquid backflips. She has a moment to remember that she has a bunch of tricks and abilities that might help her out with this, if she just had a moment to think of which one would work best. Then she gets put through the wall like it's nothing and lands in a tangle of wings and tail and cape and fallen masonry.

Her legs are still twitching. She's supposed to be running! She can't let Eska down! It's comforting to fixate on that. It means that she technically hasn't failed yet... that she's still good. That helps her think about things other than the crackling panic that is happening in some other part of her brain.

[Overcome: 3+2 5]

[Raz_Fox]

Kazelia!

Your Mother stretches herself from wall to wall. She makes of herself a sky, or a sea to drown yourself in, ready to swallow up your little flame. She no longer has a face, she no longer has a form, but she still manages to gesture.

She wants your heart, Kazelia. She wants it now. You have given a voice and a name to her longing and if you do not give her what she was always hopelessly searching for, searching without thought, searching without knowing, she will do something absolutely terrible.

She doesn’t know what it is yet. I doubt anyone could predict what, exactly, she would do. She might try to drag Hyperborea down by the roots. She might force her way through the gate and drag everyone in the entire castle inside the void. Or she might declare a war against the many worlds, seeking to undo them all.

The good news is that— well, she’s not going to betray you. She will do what you have asked of her, a reflection of your own hope. You burn too bright to be refused.

***

Alina!

Freesia may have thought she was out of tears, but you have proven her wrong. Her eyes are brimming over as she throws her arms around you, ignoring the offered mask, and holds you almost painfully tight.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, burying her face in your hair. She is the tall one, after all. “I said such horrible things! I thought... you’d never know it was me, and... I missed you so much.”

And that’s when your lights spin around the two of you, shining radiant and delighted. Every bit of glass in the whole room shines with their flashing rainbow, and the only thing missing from this perfect moment is the spray of the fountain and your mother’s delighted laugh.

Instead, there’s applause and cheers from the Iluminan Resistance, and an approving nod from Dandy, and... and there’s no Rita here to hug both of you and purr so happily.

But that’s okay, too. Because you’re going to save her, no matter what.

***

Rita von Catabas!

This room is supposed to be full of spray. When you were a little kitten, you would dash through here with Alina and Jessamine, bouncing into puddles and getting your hair all wet as the fountain churned and shone with the light of a rainbow. Now it’s painfully dry, even though the castle’s warming up.

You dangle, suspended in shadow ropes, over a vat, as light shines down on you, filtered through prisms and ice and special lenses, a baleful hot pink. And as you writhe in the itching, stinging light, your magic beads in hot drops on your forehead and drip, drip, drips into the vat.

And every drop makes you a little less of a girl and a little more of an ordinary cat.

You growl and thrash helplessly from side to side, chewing on the thick mass of shadow between your teeth, but... it’s useless. You’re helpless. When Azora Howl comes back, she’ll have a gift from her feral sister: a cat in a cage, and a bottle full of sweet-smelling Askaian magic, distilled into an elixir.

And Alina will never hold hands with you again. She’ll never want to be with a pathetic cat princess without any magic or girlness. And that thought, most of all, is what makes you sob as the witches of Azora Howl gather all around and make notes about the process of magic distillation.

***

Adila!

You try to get up and Morgina hits you with a chair. It was one of those nice, dainty chairs, you know, the kind you might have to set outside on the patio for watching the garden and relaxing. It breaks over your shoulders in a sproing of tortured metal.

You try to get up again and she hits you across the head with a glass cabinet, which shatters on contact, raining shards and adorable little glass figurines which chip and snap and smash on the floor.

You try to get up a third time, fatally lacking pattern recognition, and she hits you with... a throw pillow. It’s whipped at your face at such high speeds that it is ripped in half on impact and you are sent rolling across the room, smashing into a suit of armor which falls on top of you.

Once the clanging stops, you manage to hear it: Morgina’s hollow, sawing laughter. She’s delighted. That’s the only thing you can hear over the white noise of the open portal, because, as luck would have it, you’ve ended up in the throne room.

“Fight,” she purrs. “Fight! Fight, Dragon! Fight!!”

This is possibly the worst possible place to try and fight Morgina Fang. But it’s not like you have a lot of other options.

Take Damage, and brace your aching body for more.

[Thanqol]

Adila!

You try to get up and Morgina hits you with a chair. It was one of those nice, dainty chairs, you know, the kind you might have to set outside on the patio for watching the garden and relaxing. It breaks over your shoulders in a sproing of tortured metal.

You try to get up again and she hits you across the head with a glass cabinet, which shatters on contact, raining shards and adorable little glass figurines which chip and snap and smash on the floor.

You try to get up a third time, fatally lacking pattern recognition, and she hits you with... a throw pillow. It’s whipped at your face at such high speeds that it is ripped in half on impact and you are sent rolling across the room, smashing into a suit of armor which falls on top of you.

Once the clanging stops, you manage to hear it: Morgina’s hollow, sawing laughter. She’s delighted. That’s the only thing you can hear over the white noise of the open portal, because, as luck would have it, you’ve ended up in the throne room.

“Fight,” she purrs. “Fight! Fight, Dragon! Fight!!”

This is possibly the worst possible place to try and fight Morgina Fang. But it’s not like you have a lot of other options.

Take Damage, and brace your aching body for more.

Fight, Dragon! Fight! Fight!!

She's surrounded by Devils. They're chanting and laughing and throwing bits of chewed wolfcrab shell. Trying to provoke a reaction out of her. And worst of all is Princess Iron Star, standing in the background, not even paying attention. She's looking at something else, far off in the sky. It's impossible to tell what she's thinking but it's clear that it's not about this. Moonlight breaks against her lashes, haloing her eyes in silver-blue light...

Adila wants to fight. She wants to go through these devils like a whirlwind and win the attention of that impossibly unapproachable figure. But...

Her gaze follows Iron Star's to the Clocktower. It's so close by and - what if she damages it? What if she breaks this part of her precious home forever just to show off - just to show that she can?

It's not worth it. So she closes her eyes against the jeers and taunts, straightens her spine, and remains a silent and vigilant sentinel.

*

When she breathes out it's not with fire.

These are precious, meaningful things that she is being struck with. This is a precious, meaningful place. This is Princess Alina's kingdom and while she'd maybe be able to stand up to Princess Morgania if she fought as a dragon fights - as a Devil fights - she doesn't know if the castle would survive it. She isn't even guaranteed a victory if she fights like that. This time she's alone, without Princess Iron Star to carry her, and the last time she fought a monster like this alone he'd almost torn her heart from her throat.

So instead she settles into place, sitting down on her haunches, raising her head high. She closes her eyes. And she concentrates on her light. It coruscates around her, expanding from her heart, surrounding her in a shimmering silver bubble. It is proof against raking claws and crushing jaws and terrible strength no matter the direction, no matter the technique, no matter the cruelty. It shines bright and bold, brighter than it ever has before - here, in the form of a shield before the throne of Illumina, it seems as though it has never had so much purpose with the light it casts. It feels like this is a home worth defending. And so Adila weathers the storm.


For Morgania it will be a terribly dull fight. How frustrating! How enraging! All those teeth and talons, all that power, sitting unused? Hiding behind a wall of glitter? The only thing that could possibly make this even more boring is all the soldiers pouring in through the doors - after waiting this time for a real fight against something worth fighting and Aristea Spite's lackeys want to steal it from you?

Well, at least you've got something to do while you're waiting for the dragon to crack.

[Damaging Sense. Keeping her busy: 9, redirecting her blows towards any Rider reinforcements who come through the doors. Damaging my Light as the price.]