K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
[X] Solar
A Vision in Bronze; A Sidereal quest
- Thread starter Gazetteer
- Start date
- Fantasy
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
[X] Solar
Okay arguing with house sounds really funny
Okay arguing with house sounds really funny
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
All 3 sound pretty great, but living in a sunny garden looks very nice.
- Location
- Virginia
[X] Solar
Either of these work, one because it suits Grace and one because it precisely doesn't. For that reason,
[x] Solar
...Also I took "opinionated" to mean that, like, the architecture clearly has Something To Say that shows through no matter how you dress up the fittings. It seems that's not how most people read it!
Pretty much, yeah.
I have a suspicion that a celestial-aspected manse in Heaven just has a fundamental vibe that can't really be concealed or substantially modified by any amount of normal interior decorating.
"In a fight, right?"
He's both younger, more recently exalted, of a higher original social class (i.e. more used to speaking directly and getting his way as a local elite than she, as a mortal servant who had to carefully navigate the whims of those with power of live and death over her, did), and of a different caste (focused on the endings of things and people rather than their ongoing relationships).
It's called gap moe, and it's probably a martial art.
s/for/to/
If I call him a silver fox, will I wake up to find an Anathema eating my heart for the political implications?
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah.
Article: Under Medoan rule, many loyal families of land-owning gentry became aristocratic vojvadas. Over time, the Cosmir, Radju, and Stojca families established their power as greater vojvadas — intermediaries between Medo and the lesser vojvadas. They divide Clovina between them, mediating feuds between lesser vojvadas and assembling in the city Tears-of-Beauty to discuss collective concerns. The Realm left this system intact, playing the vojvadas against one another to defuse rebellions before they begin.
[...]
Stojca: Living in pine forests and foothills along the western border, the Stojca oversee Clovina's lumber and charcoal production. Deeply stubborn and traditionalist, they cling fiercely to propriety and ritual. They rarely bother with lowland politics, focusing on threats from the hills and in the night, which they address with paranoid ruthlessness.
Oh right, I neglected to comment: if the manse does literally talk to the inhabitants, what will be really funny is Lohna being steadily radicalized towards political opposition to her daughter.
slybrarian
Creature of Fable
- Location
- A Far and Sunless Land
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Solar
I like the sound of opinionated.
I like the sound of opinionated.
- Pronouns
- Reader
I wouldn't say it's a given the house is much concerned with modern bureaucracy politics. Based on it's description, it feels more like wise, doting yet brutally honest Aunty, who just wants her foolish Sidereal to let her hair down.
Year 1, Arc 1, vote 05
New
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The first conversation between them:
Grace: Wait... Where has my pen gone?
House: Hid it. You need to take a break and I know you won't voluntarily do so. So you can go buy a new one, and your predecessor complained often enough about traffic that I know it would take an hour to get it and return, or you can take a 30 minute break. Taking a break gets your report finished faster.
Grace: ...
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think I'm going to go back to 48 hour voting periods, if my updates start getting as long as the last one was again. I switched to 24 hour very late in TLD when having to wait two days before I could start on the next update felt sort of unbearable, but I want to give people a chance to read the whole update and still have time to vote.
- Pronouns
- He
Grace stop! NO! Don't give the author ideas!
I was wondering what Peleps's Joker mode would be like. Glad to have not missed this one either.
Ah, oh well. I was about to change my vote to Solar anyway.
Last edited:
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It's what Venus would want.
- Pronouns
- Reader
Which planet/god oversees irrational gestures of affection and what do they want for adorable Amiti and Ambraea scenes?
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Also Venus.
Does Venus have a subgod people pray to when they have a "Just kiss, gods darn it. Everyone can see you have the hots for eachother, why is neither of you making a first step?!" moment and don't want to yell at the involved people directly?
- Pronouns
- He
- Location
- GTM-3
Alternatively, Survival is acceptance
slybrarian
Creature of Fable
- Location
- A Far and Sunless Land
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You can always try your luck with Saturn.
Year 1, Arc 2: Yu-Shan 01
New
- Location
- Nova Scotia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Solar: 27
Lunar: 14
Sidereal: 10
Lunar: 14
Sidereal: 10
The Gulf of Daana'd,
Equidistant between the Silk-and-Pearl and Daoshin Peninsulas
For completing your goal and safeguarding destiny, you lose one point of Limit. Current Limit: 0/10
The Serpentine River is one of the great waterways of the Blessed Isle, flowing westward out of the mountains to the coast. It empties out into the Gulf of Daana'd, a vast body of water over two hundred miles across at its widest, opening up to the Great Western Ocean itself.
Your destination lies almost due south from Bittern, Silver sailing the boat out into the sheltered waters of the Gulf with calm expertise. The sun grows lower and lower on the horizon over the course of your journey, and you'd call the winter air cold if it wouldn't have made Lew scoff so hard.
Rising from the water is a rocky outcropping, seven sharp, hull-breaking rocks thrusting up out of the waves. The locals avoid this place — apart from the very real danger of being smashed onto the rocks themselves, stories about spirits dwelling here beneath the waves abound. The rocks are adorned with Immaculate talismans hanging from rusting chains, more a warning for the ignorant than a serious impediment for the gods who use the heavenly gateway hidden here.
"I hate this gate," Lew says, watching the rocks with displeasure.
"The boat is blessed," you remind him, "it won't take on water even if we hit a rock."
"We are not going to hit a rock!" Silver shouts up from his place at the tiller, clearly insulted.
"Granted. But if we did—"
"Grace, I will shove you overboard," Silver says.
"Do it. She'll be passive aggressive about it for the rest of our lives. She'll still be making snippy little non-references to it two thousand years from now!" Lew calls back. Thankfully, the boat trip has given him time to calm down — he's needling Silver a much more normal amount, for him.
Silver ignores him, tacking into the wind in order to bring the boat dangerously close to the rocks. The boat tips alarmingly as it circles around alarmingly close around the rocks. He repeats this maneuver again and again, completing a full seven circuits, once for every stone. You've seen the Rushing Waters Gate opened before, at least, so you aren't so alarmed when the water begins to violently swirl beneath the boat. A whirlpool forms beneath the boat's hull, unnaturally swift and powerful, pulling it in faster and faster.
You still instinctively hold your breath as the boat is finally dragged under the waves. Instead of being plunged directly into cold water though, you have the strange experience of the whirlpool forming a sloping tunnel in the sea itself. You're carried down nearly to the seabed before finally landing with a splash, everything going still again.
The boat is floating in a pocket of air, water to all sides, light dimly filtering down from the twilit sky above, the sandy floor of the gulf less visible beneath. A school of fish swims past, oblivious to your presence.
Directly ahead, rising out of the ocean floor, is an arch of stone formed out of the base of the rocks Silver had been circumnavigating, its interior pitch black. On carved platforms to either side, elevated clear of the water, two large, intimidating guardianss doze. Each is a lion the size of Silver's boat, formed out of pure, living orichalcum. They've presumably materialised here for your benefit, the gate opening above giving them ample warning.
One of the lions stretches and yawns like an overgrown housecat, the feline motion showing off flesh-rending claws and skull-crushing teeth. "Business and identification?" the celestial lion asks in a deep, masculine voice. The second one, a lioness, continues to feign indolence, barely cracking an eye in your direction.
Silver speaks before the rest of you, leaning over the edge of the boat. "Scattered Silver, Chosen of Battles, returning to Heaven after completing official business on behalf of the Bureau of Destiny," he says. His Caste Mark flares crimson on his brow for emphasis, casting the water around you blood red. "Accompanied by Singular Grace, Chosen of Serenity, and Lew Stojca, Chosen of Endings, who are doing the same."
"Good day," you say, giving the lion a polite smile. Celestial lions are prickly, and it never hurts to show them courtesy even if you do have a good excuse for going past them.
The lion nods self importantly. "You may proceed," he says.
The boat's sails hang slack and empty, but the lioness gives a languid flick of her paw and a current grips the craft, pulling it forward toward the gate. Silver was ready for this, calmly steering the boat into the gate.
As you pass through the stone archway, the world goes dark and cold, and your entire body is filled with the sensation of hurtling forward at truly terrifying speed. You bite back a yelp. You know it will be over soon, and you've lost enough dignity today just from having collapsed the way you had.
When the darkness disappears, you're sailing under a wholly different sky than Creation's.
Yu-Shan, the heavenly city,
Rushing Waters District
The sights and sounds of Heaven waste no time in assaulting your senses. The other side of the Rushing Waters Gate sits in a circular quicksilver lagoon ringed by stores and eateries. One quarter of the lagoon borders on a large canal thick with water traffic, separated by nothing but a low wall.
Yu-Shan is the city of the gods, peopled by spirits great and small in every shape and size imaginable. Here walks a woman with the head of a rodent, arm and arm with a being formed of featureless shadow. There, an earth elemental sweeps the walk outside a teahouse dripping in gold and jewels. Very near to you, just at the edge of the water, what looks for all the world like an ordinary seagull is having an animated conversation with a stern lion dog made of varicoloured jade, gesticulating with both wings from atop a stall that she appears to run, piled high with fresh fish.
"I have a permit, hold on!" the bird-god squawks.
All around the marketplace, a series of ornamental waterfalls cascade down into the lagoon from tiers above, somehow not disturbing its glassy surface. The sound of the quicksilver competes with nearby traffic, with the conversations of the crowd thronging the streets, and with the sound of music and laughter drifting out of a nearby drinking hall. The city stretches out in all directions, buildings grander and more fantastical than anything in Creation rising up wherever you look, connected by the canals that Silver is preparing to maneuver you all into. Overhead Yu-Shan's sun is setting, the glimmering shape of the Golden Barque of the Heavens following its arc across the sky.
"Where do you want to be dropped off?" Silver asks, furling the boat's sails. He gives the two celestial lion guards lounging on the shoreline a polite nod — his Caste Mark is still plainly visible, making it obvious who you are and why you were let through. Nearby gods stare, or hasten to take themselves elsewhere. The gods of heaven are not precisely hostile to the Sidereal Host as a group. Nonetheless, your strange natures and unique status as humans in a place of power within the Celestial Bureaucracy can make your presence an uneasy one for many gods.
"I could catch a water taxi, if you'd like to just drop me off at the shore," you offer, not really expecting him to go for it.
Silver rolls his eyes. "Grace, you almost got hacked into little pieces by a Solar today. Don't be difficult."
"Fine," you say. "I'd like to go home first, but I have something with me that I'd intended to turn into the Crimson Panoply directly, which I don't think can wait." You hold up Rika's satchel indicatively.
"Just give it to me, I'll get it there," Silver says, looking at it with mixed emotion. "I'm just glad you didn't give it to the Dynasts."
You laugh at that. "Please. Our goal is still to put off a civil war in the Realm for as long as possible. Arming House Peleps with a city destroying super weapon is not constructive for that. The Admiralty Board is not to be trusted to be sensible indefinitely." You only hesitate for a moment before you pass him the satchel, handling it as carefully as ever. If Silver tells you he's going to take it to the Panoply, you believe he will. And if you did have any doubts, you're in Yu-Shan, in front of a witness.
"You have a place in Heart's Rest, right?" Silver asks you.
"Yes," you say. He's never been there to call on you. Truth be told you rarely entertain at home outside of one or two people who more or less insist. There is a limit to how much of your work life you want to bring back there, all things considered.
Silver glances up, seeming to consult his mental map of the city. He kneels to take up a pole that had been stowed in the bottom of the boat, necessary for navigating the canals in places. "It's on the way if I'm already going into the Panoply. What about you, Stojca?"
"Works for me. Let's see if you're as jealous of her as I am," Lew says, leaning back in his seat as Silver guides the boat out of the lagoon and into the main flow of traffic.
"That seems unnecessary," you say.
"Not everyone's past life left them a whole celestial manse, Grace," Lew says.
"I know," you say. Sometimes, you wish that's all she'd left you.
By the time you get home it's nighttime, the moon a thin sliver overhead. Heart's Rest is a relatively quiet, relatively downscale neighbourhood. It was originally settled by gods of art and culture who couldn't afford to live directly adjacent to the Cerulean Lute but who still wanted some sense of proximity. Many of the gods who live here now are lesser deities employed by the Division of Serenity or its surrounding amenities. Its structures are beautiful but for the most part relatively humble by Yu-Shan standards.
There are exceptions, of course. Translucent Alabaster, goddess of fine porcelain and famed patron of the arts, keeps a splendid gallery-manse here. Other great dwellings rise up above the brightly-tiled rooftops of their neighbours, impossible to miss as Silver finally steers the boat onto Heart's Rest's smaller, quieter waterways.
"It's that one," Lew helpfully supplies, leaning over the boat to point it out to you..
"Yes," you say, too tired for much else. You still feel a distant throb in the worst of your injuries despite what Silver had done to alleviate them. You desperately need another bath and to put on clothes that you haven't bled into.
Silver lets out a low, appreciative whistle. You can clearly see the walls surrounding your home standing head and shoulders above the surrounding buildings. Gold filigree lattices the pale brickwork, seeming to glow faintly in the light of the street lamps. The wooden gates are visible past the obscuring shape of a wine shop, eight feet tall and adorned in a glittering pattern of sapphires.
You jump the slight gap to land on the street alongside the canal. Solid land feels very good to you after hours on the water. "Thank you for the ride," you tell Silver.
"And for patching you up," Silver agrees.
"I already thanked you for that," you say. But you manage a thin smile.
"Try to get me some documentation for this artifact I'm turning in. They'll want a papertrail at the armoury, and you're the one who 'found' it," Silver says.
"I'll get on it," you say. You glance to Lew. "Don't put off your report."
"I won't put it off," Lew says, scowling.
"I'll send you a copy of mine to look over, so that we can be sure we don't have accidental discrepancies," you say.
Lew mutters something under his breath in Skytongue. You're almost certain that it contains something to the effect of "Auntie Grace". You give them both a polite parting bow, then approach the ostentatious gates of your home.
As the gates come fully into view, the sapphire pattern becomes more obvious — it traces the constellation of the Musician, which governs joy, desire, art, and excess. It had been more appropriate while your predecessor had still lived. From what you've heard, Wayward Prayer was well known for hosting particularly wild revels. Here and now, the house is dead quiet.
You reach beneath your dress, pulling out an amulet that would have been worth more than your lifetime earnings as a mortal. At first glance it looks to be wrought from silver, but the hearthstone socket set into the middle of it is lined in red jadesteel. Socketed into the red divot is a piece of clear, round-cut amber, the faceted stone always warm to the touch. You hold the amulet up to the locked and barred gate. "I'm home," you say.
In answer, you hear the bar lift from the far side of the gate. It swings open enough to admit you into the main courtyard. As you set foot onto the paving stones within, you feel a faint rush of Solar Essence welling up into you. The thin moonlight overhead immediately feels brighter, lighting a garden full of rare and supernatural plants in silvery light. Despite their subtle and enticing fragrance, you barely spare them a glance tonight, trudging wearily toward the largest of the buildings that ring the garden.
The structures are made of the same white stone as the outer wall, rising up several stories to an elegantly peaked roof covered in gilded tile. Large glass windows look from every floor at regular intervals, enchanted light spilling out of several of them. You could house countless people here, a large family and a full staff of servants. Right now it's only you, your mother, and the house itself.
Speaking of whom, you pause at the round reflecting pool near the centre of the courtyard, staring down at your own reflection there. "House?" you ask.
The water shimmers and glows faintly gold, a face formed of shadow materialising within, staring up at you with a slight frown. "Do you know what time it is, my lady?"
"Yes, as you know," you say. Sensing the time of day and the current position of the stars overhead is one of the less flashy gifts of the Sidereal Exalted, but it is also one of the truly universal ones.
"Ah, my mistake then, my lady. I just wanted to check." The house smiles. Its voice has a faint, chiming edge to it, clearly artificial. It isn't nearly subtle enough at this kind of falsely servile nudge toward a superior — it faintly bothers you, in a professional sense.
"Is my mother awake?" you ask, choosing to ignore the tone.
"Miss Lohna went to sleep hours ago. Would you like me to wake her for you?" the house asks.
"No, please let her sleep. The blood would upset her," you say.
"Very well," the house said. "Shall I run a bath for you in your chambers?
"Please," you say. "And reroute my mail from the office, please." You have absolutely no idea how the house manages to do that and no one at the Bureau has been able to explain it either, but it's very convenient.
"It shall be done," the house says. With that, the glow fades, and the face disappears.
"Thank you," you say, before going back on your way. Most manses, even particularly powerful ones, are not truly intelligent, let alone verbal. Yours is fully capable of carrying on a conversation and carrying out a variety of household tasks. It's alternately very helpful and very annoying.
You enter the main hall. The large portrait of Wayward Prayer and her circle stare down at you along with many other pieces of iconic art showing people and landscapes from centuries past. As always, you consider packing it all away and replacing it with something more to your tastes, but a strange mix of guilt and a distant nostalgia not entirely your own always stops you. Ayesha Ura, Chosen of Mercury, smiles from beside Wayward Prayer. It had been a nightmare to get her to stand still for long enough for the artist to capture her likeness, you remember, but Harbingers are like that.
You tear your eyes away from the painting, and climb the first of several curving flights of stairs leading up and away from the hall. Already, you're debating whether or not you actually want to go to bed. You rarely sleep anymore. You'd learned the technique — well known among the Fellowship — of replacing rest with reading, writing, or bureaucratic tasks. Eight hours of writing your after action report should leave you every bit as refreshed as eight hours in bed, and with fewer strange dreams.
The stairs lead up to a doorway that opens up onto an enclosed bridge spanning the gap between the main hall and the smaller tower your personal chambers are housed in. You pass through it, and into a landing filled with books you mostly haven't found the time to read yet, then finally onto the bath chamber.
The baths are set into the yellow-and-white tiled floor here, large enough for a group. Which, given what you reluctantly know about your predecessor, is probably deliberate. True to your instructions, the house has filled the smallest of the tubs with hot water for you. You efficiently strip off your clothes, followed more tentatively by your bandages. Sure enough, though, Silver's magic has spared you the worst of your injuries — the wounds themselves have closed and are well on their way to healing, leaving you bruised and aching in strange places, but not at risk of fountaining blood again. Reassured, you step in, slipping under the gently steaming water.
By the time you emerge, clean and pleasantly warm, you have entirely convinced yourself that sleep would be a waste of your precious time. You have two official after-action reports to write, one for your Division, one for the Convention on the Center. You also have to see to the paperwork for the Crimson Panoply that Silver asked for. It only makes sense to get a head start on it now.
You pull on a comfortable dress in slate grey and a pair of silken slippers before you head for your study. You take a route that brings you through a largely-unused sitting room, a space full of comfortable chairs and low tables, well stocked with drink of all kinds. Arched picture windows give a commanding view of the gardens and the neighbourhood beyond your walls, depending on which direction you look in.
You would have passed through this room as quickly as the others, but you're stopped short by a wine bottle sitting on the edge of a table, far newer than the racks of old spirits that dominate one wall of the room. A yellowing label handwritten in High Realm is affixed to the glass with a blob of green wax, declaring it to be a twenty year vintage from Pangu Prefecture. It had been a gift from a senior colleague, Fox of Paradise, the month before last, who had been trying to butter you up to ask you for something, you remember, and you've been saving it as obviously too good to open alone. On impulse, you snatch it up and set about opening it anyway.
As you open it and pour yourself a cup, you reassure yourself that red wine gives your mother a headache, and that the friend who drags you out drinking most often passionately detests wine from the Eastern Blessed Isle. You aren't going to have enough to impair your work, after all, and after a day like today, you're in the mood for something to take the edge off at least a little.
As you pour, you catch sight of your reflection in one of the windows, your light blue curls still hanging damp around your shoulders. The light brown complexion and soft Western features you get from your mother have changed little in the eight years since you came to Yu-Shan. Having Exalted at nineteen, you'd continued to mature for several years, losing the last of the childish roundness in your face, but from here, it's very likely that you could look more or less unchanged for centuries. Or millennia.
The dress you wear is plain, but made of fine fabric with delicate patterns embroidered into it. It is genuinely difficult to get a heavenly prayerwright to lower themself to making common clothing from good ambrosia, and often more expensive when you can talk one into it. The dress sits flatteringly on your slight frame, the Hearthstone amulet is still around your neck, hanging visibly on the outside of your dress.
It's amazing the things you get used to.
You take an experimental sip of the wine. It's rich and dry and doesn't particularly need to breathe, you decide. You move over to the couch beneath the window you'd been looking at, and curl up with your drink. You'll just take a few minutes to have one cup, and save the rest of the bottle for the following night.
The fabric feels deliciously soft as you curl up on it, silver cup in hand. As you drink the wine, your eyes grow heavier and heavier. You've barely finished it before, for the first time in weeks, you slip off into genuine sleep.
It is twenty years before your own birth, and you are pacing furiously back and forth across the very parlour where you'd just fallen asleep. "Oh, of course, appeals to 'the lesser evil'," you say, making it sound like a curse. Genuine anger thunders through your veins. With every word, you gesticulate forcefully. "That's only ever an excuse to change nothing and reassure yourself that there was nothing else you could have done. There's always something else you could have done!"
The young Shieldbearer tracks your movements from his seat on the couch, a look of genuine fascination in his arresting eyes. Like this is more of a novelty than anything to him — it only makes you angrier that he isn't taking this as seriously as you are. "Yes, but sometimes we don't have the luxury of choosing the righteous option — sometimes, it really is down to one evil or another." He brings the glass in his hand up, inhaling deeply as he savours the nose on your third best liquor.
"Always very convenient, after the fact," you say, giving him a very hard look. You turn to face him more fully, a hand on your hip. You catch sight of your reflection in the glass of the window behind him: A dramatically tall Zhao woman, the angles of your face knife-sharp with piercing blue eyes to match, your straight dark hair cut efficiently short. A scar angles across one cheek, a souvenir from a duel you'd fought in your youth. You're still dressed for outside, wearing a long jacket of supple leather. A spray of blue flowers splash along the hems and run up the sleeves. Over the jacket, hanging from a swordbelt, is a sleek, slender daiklave in a pure white sheath. Comet's Tail, the Wandering Blade. It is the same one that, in several decades time, will be found shattered and driven through the heart of your own cold body.
"You're too young to remember the Shogunate," you say, a swerve that takes your guest a little aback.
"Well, no," he admits, smiling at you infuriatingly over the rim of his glass. "But we can't all be a thousand years old, or whatever enchanting age it is you're up to."
"Nine-hundred seventy-one," you say, a little stiffly. "I remember what it was like. Hundreds of years of pointless war, the Dragon-Blooded murdering each other over who got to sit on a fancy chair that they kept moving around every few years, and trampling the world underfoot as they did so. I remember what my seniors told me here when I was your age — 'it's the lesser evil'. And all the while, the corpses piled so high you could barely see the sun, while the ground grew soft underfoot from spilled blood. Was it true then? Why should it be any truer now that one of them has finally clawed her way to lasting power? The Realm's rule was ushered in by the complete destruction of my homeland, my people forced to flee for their lives." You finally unbuckle the sword belt, lifting it free of your waist and carefully laying the daiklave down on a nearby table.
The young man's smile fades a touch. "Now you're just putting words in my mouth. I'm talking about practicalities. The Realm exists, it isn't going away overnight or because we might wish for it. While it's here, it has its uses."
"And that makes up for the sheer weight of human misery that it inflicts upon the world? The lives lost or destroyed just to enrich the Dynasty?" You pull your gloves free, first one, then the other, tossing them onto the table next to your sword.
"No. that causes far more problems than it could ever be worth. Desperate mortals are stupid mortals — stupider mortals. Leave them alone, and they're mostly content to sit on their squalid little farms and play in the dirt. What the Realm does pushes them to all sorts of idiocy that makes my job harder."
"Your compassion for those beneath you is truly boundless and admirable," you say, real acid behind the sarcasm.
The smile comes back, charming as ever. "You know, I have often been told I'm generous to those beneath me, if you can believe it." His eyes have never left you, but you feel the weight of them more than ever, trailing a hot path down your body.
You give a derisive scoff. It's precisely this kind of arrogance that made you demand to continue this argument in private to begin with — some things you just can't work out in the staid confines of a destiny planning meeting. "So what, exactly, are these 'uses' that you feel are so important?"
"It's good enough as a tool for cleaning up its own messes even if it causes its share of them. When you can get the Dragon-Blooded pointed in the right direction." He brings the glass to his lips and takes a slow, savouring sip of the drink.
You shrug out of your jacket, tossing it over the back of the nearest chair. "Which is good, considering the amount of time, energy, and blood we spend murdering anyone else we could turn to for these things."
"Oh, please, spare me the plight of the poor maligned Lunar Host," he says, actually rolling his eyes. "I simply don't have the energy for a line of argument this tedious."
You take two long steps forward to stand over him, snatching the glass out of his hand and downing the entire thing in one smooth motion. The liquor burns in your mouth and throat, giving you no time to appreciate its delicate complexities. This is fine — you're too busy savouring the outrage on his face to notice. You cast him a contemptuous look down your nose.
"Well! If you lack the energy, should I leave you to your rest?" you ask. You lean past him to set the glass down on the windowsill behind his couch, a little firmer than necessary. With your other hand, you're already working at the knotted fastenings of your shirt, starting at the top and working your way down.
He stands up all at once, glaring down from a vantage of inches. You're fully in each other's space now — you can practically feel the frustration coming off of him. "Maybe I was saving it," he growls.
He grabs you roughly, shoving you down onto the couch, forestalling your reply with a hard kiss. You return it hungrily, channeling all of your anger with him into it, your nails digging into the back of his neck.
Some things really can't be worked out in a meeting.
You wake on the couch, yourself again and back in the present. Your first, absurd thought as you study the ceiling is to reassure yourself that the furniture in this room has to have been cleaned at least once in the past fifty years. Still, you get up in a bit of a hurry. This is part of why you usually avoid actual sleep, along with the lost productivity.
The worst part is that, as is all too often the case, you recognise the other Sidereal from the memory as a man who is very much still alive and still working for the Crimson Panoply. It's going to be impossible not to think about this encounter the next time you have to interact with him. Just the thought of it makes you hunch in on yourself with mortification. Many people have good things to say about your predecessor, but you can't exactly speak to that. Given that you were born the same day that she'd died, you never had a chance to meet the woman. You just wish that she'd been capable of practicing even a modicum of restraint or discretion when it came to initiating... entanglements with gods and Sidereals who you now need to work with.
Her politics were also hopelessly naive for someone as old and experienced as she was, but you can live with that more easily.
The sun has risen outside, early morning light reflecting off of the rooftops of the manse, bathing everything in a bright, warm glow. You examine yourself — your dress now looks like you slept in it, and to your horror, you fully realise that you went to bed with your hair wet and without combing it first. With a heavy sigh, you put away what's left of the wine, before heading back toward your bedroom to change and to try and fix the tangles that you know must already have formed.
Once you're more presentable, you venture out into the house in search of your mother. In stark contrast to your long and unpredictable office hours and constant coming and going to Creation, your mother has settled into a well-established routine in the five years since you brought her to Yu-Shan. Every day, she rises with the dawn as she had for the two decades she'd spend as a palace slave, eats a light breakfast, then occupies herself with reading or correspondence.
You make your way down from the upper floors of the manse, making your way outdoors. You hear the voices just before you see them.
"I have addressed a letter before," your mother says, audibly struggling not to laugh. "You might recall."
"She's a particularly prickly goddess!" says the house, annoyed, but not angry.
"I'm not addressing the letter to the goddess, I'm addressing it to her guest," your mother says.
Lohna Prince's Scribe sits at a small table set up on an outdoor patio overlooking the garden, already halfway through a bowl of rice porridge. Beside it, a cup of tea curls gentle billows of steam. She's dressed in a simple, silken day dress, blue-green curls longer than she'd ever let them get before coming here and with a touch of grey that hadn't used to be there. She still bears the signs of a hard life in the lines of her face, and the brand of the Imperial Household burned into her neck is still visible, but she's smiling. Genuinely happy.
Across the table from her, an indistinct figure of shadow and flickering golden light seems to sit in another chair, somehow managing to convey displeasure with its very body language. "You're addressing it to a mortal in her household; she may read it. Do you want to cause problems for Lady Grace? She is responsible for your conduct, you know."
"Lady Grace?" your mother asks, not a trace of comprehension in her voice.
You ignore the dull lance of pain that goes through your chest. You're used to hearing that from her. Or, you should be.
"Lady Grace! Good morning." Noticing your arrival, the house's insubstantial form seems to dissolve from the chair, reappearing a few feet away to execute a perfect bow. "I trust you slept well? I appreciate the thought, but I would have made up your bed, if you'd cared to use it."
Lohna shoots to her feet, face wide with surprise. "Oh!" she says, briefly giving you hope for the morning. But she's only realised that you're her host, not recognised who you are. "My lady. I had no idea you'd returned." She bows low.
"I told her this morning, twice," the house says.
You shoot the house a look of mild reproach, before focusing on your mother. "I only arrived back late last night," you tell her. "Do you mind if I join you?"
"No, not at all," Lohna says, straightening up again. Mixed emotions are clear in her eyes — she doesn't know you, but she is glad at your presence. She still loves you even if she doesn't know why.
"Shall I fetch my lady some breakfast?" the house asks.
"Yes, thank you," you say, taking the seat that the house had formerly pretended to occupy. You glance at your mother's simple breakfast. "I'll have the same, thank you."
"As my lady desires," the house says, and the figure vanishes.
Food, a luxury for the gods, is shockingly expensive in heaven. It either needs to be crafted from pure ambrosia, brought in from Creation at nearly as much expense, or bartered for with one of Yu-Shan's few, scattered human communities that manage to grow their own food. Even a simple meal of rice porridge with pork floss and vegetables for two people costs you more than you care to think about. The Bureau pays you enough that it shouldn't bother you, but it still does.
"What were you talking about before I arrived?" you ask your mother.
"Ah," Lohna says, hesitating a moment before she takes a seat. "Well, a letter I've been meaning to write." She glances to a nearby table where ink, paper, and other writing supplies have been laid out.
"To a guest of Translucent Alabaster?" you ask.
"Yes. The goddess has brought up a... young mortal 'guest' to stay with her in heaven," Lohna says. "An artist from the Blessed Isle. Heart's Desire met him in the market yesterday. Ah! Apologies, my lady, Heart's Desire is my friend."
You're well aware of who Heart's Desire is. A god-blooded courtesan who works at an upscale brothel just beyond the limits of your neighbourhood. Her unlikely friendship with your mother had taken you off guard, originally, but there are only so many humans in this part of Yu-Shan. You well understand finding friendship in places you wouldn't have thought to look when you still lived on Creation.
"Risky, on Alabaster's part. I've heard she has a good reputation with the Immaculate Order — that won't last if they find out she's spiriting away mortals," you say.
"I suppose you would know more about that, my lady," Lohna says, a trace of irony in her voice.
You laugh in spite of yourself. "I'm not a goddess," you say. You rather suspect that the larger objection to you taking your mother away from the Palace would have been more along the lines of "theft of Imperial property". You doubt you would have gotten away with it if the Empress were still there.
Lohna studies you, curious as she always is when she can't recall your precise nature. "As you say," she says. She takes a mouthful of porridge, chewing thoughtfully before asking: "Is the house right? Will Lady Alabaster really object, do you think? I wouldn't wish to cause you any difficulties."
"I can write to her and explain that you only want to help the boy adjust to things here," you offer. Translucent Alabaster works for the Bureau of Humanity, and so may forget, but hopefully the good feeling will stick even if your name doesn't. You feel awkward about the offer. It's a reminder that, while she isn't a slave anymore, legally, your mother relies on you as a patron here. She'd understood that when she'd asked to come stay with you, however.
"Thank you," Lohna says, giving you a tentative smile.
The shadowy figure reappears, somehow supporting a golden tray with your food and tea stacked onto it. Spirits ordinarily can't dematerialise in Heaven, but from what you gather, the house is doing something different. "Here you are, my lady," it says. "I have rerouted your mail, as you requested. It's waiting for you in your study."
"Thank you, House," you say.
"I literally exist to serve," it says, before vanishing again.
You finally make it up to your study after breakfast. Irritating past life memory dreams or not, you do feel refreshed and renewed after a night's sleep and a quiet meal in your mother's company. Her not knowing you is always disappointing, but you try to keep things in perspective. She remembers you much more frequently than she used to, even if not today.
Still, the work isn't going to wait forever. Your study is one of the few rooms in the manse that you have heavily modified. Wayward Prayer's taste in furnishing is both sumptuous and gaudy, which you'd found almost as distracting as the beautiful-but-risque artwork she'd hung around the place. Instead, you've remodelled the room after your office in the Cerulean Lute. It's a pleasant, well-lit space with furnishing in polished mahogany, the desk low to the ground in a style common in the Realm, shelves of useful books taking up much of the wall space.
True to the house's word, your mail waits for you on the desk in several neat piles, organised by date and importance. One pile is for urgent work correspondence and memorandums, the next for purely social matters, and the third for missives that probably aren't worth your time — largely mail delivered directly to the house itself, hawking various services or opportunities.
You quickly sort through the first two piles. Near the top is a brief but cordial letter from the office of Chejop Kejak, your mentor setting a date and time he's set aside for the meeting he's asked of you. It doesn't require more than a quick reply confirming that you have received the letter and intend to be there at the agreed upon time. There are other letters regarding the status of particular long term destinies, but nothing as pressing as the reports you already need to work on.
The social pile turns up a thick letter from Yula Cerenye, another Joybringer and the first friend you'd made in Heaven. Presumably she had sent it to you while you were on Creation as part of her ongoing policy to studiously ignore the parts of your time that you spend supporting or organising Wyld Hunts. You set it aside to read in full later — her letters are usually long, eloquently written affairs full of amusing anecdotes, unkind observations about mutual acquaintances you both dislike, and her frequently-caustic thoughts on plays or books she's seen or read lately. They're usually thoroughly entertaining, and you always make a point of responding to them in full, especially when your mutual work periodically makes in-person socialisation impractical.
The other thing from this pile that particularly catches your interest is a thin, plain letter sealed by a Dragon-Blooded family mon pressed into yellow wax. You immediately recognise this as coming from your newest and least experienced Circlemate — Hari isn't prone to letter writing unless it's a particularly practical matter. You're about to read it, when something near the bottom of the trash pile catches your eye:
You pull free a letter on heavy paper embossed in gold, your name written out on the front in green ink in antique Flametongue. You sigh with irritation. You're aware that the house doesn't particularly care for Sapphiria, but putting her mail in the trash pile is just petty. You split the seal on both letters. Unlike Hari's, which is more than a week old, the ornate letter was clearly written and sent while you slept.
Grace,
I know you're busy right now. When you make it back alive, I need some advice. Family issues. I don't know who else I could even ask. Maybe you'll understand, given your situation. It's not that time sensitive, but let me know.
— Teresu Hari
I know you're busy right now. When you make it back alive, I need some advice. Family issues. I don't know who else I could even ask. Maybe you'll understand, given your situation. It's not that time sensitive, but let me know.
— Teresu Hari
That's both cryptic and a little concerning. Apart from your booth being Sidereals, your own family "situation" couldn't be more different from Hari's. Gens Teresu, from what you understand, is large, wealthy, powerful, and still very much in Lookshy. All you have now is your mother. You hope it isn't anything too serious.
Dear Grace,
It has come to my attention that the Cerulean Lute's most precious jewel has returned to grace (ha!) Heaven once again.
This is particularly fortuitous, as I have recently acquired a trifle that I feel would suit you far better than I, and I would like the opportunity to pass it on to you before one or both of us are dragged away to Creation once again.
I would consider it a profound kindness if you would help relieve the endless tedium of my days, before I'm forced to entertain myself by tearing out the tongue of the next fool who asks something of me. I have been positively drowning in paperwork, between that affair in Kamthahar last month and the Department of Celestial Concerns quibbling over my choice in servants, and any excuse to to come up for air would be most welcome.
With all my affection,
Sapphiria the Night-Lily, Chosen of Jupiter, Sorcerer-Prince of Ysyr
It has come to my attention that the Cerulean Lute's most precious jewel has returned to grace (ha!) Heaven once again.
This is particularly fortuitous, as I have recently acquired a trifle that I feel would suit you far better than I, and I would like the opportunity to pass it on to you before one or both of us are dragged away to Creation once again.
I would consider it a profound kindness if you would help relieve the endless tedium of my days, before I'm forced to entertain myself by tearing out the tongue of the next fool who asks something of me. I have been positively drowning in paperwork, between that affair in Kamthahar last month and the Department of Celestial Concerns quibbling over my choice in servants, and any excuse to to come up for air would be most welcome.
With all my affection,
Sapphiria the Night-Lily, Chosen of Jupiter, Sorcerer-Prince of Ysyr
Sapphiria certainly does enjoy having fun at your expense. The absurd flattery is rarely actually annoying enough to actively object to, so you usually just try to ignore it rather than letting it get a rise out of you. Still, you're very curious about what exactly she has to give you. You have to visit the Forbidding Manse of Ivy anyway for your meeting with your mentor, and it would be easy enough to make time for her earlier in your day.
You try to lay out a mental map of your schedule for the next week or so. Not only will you have the meeting you're already committed to and the reports you need to write, you'll also want to try and follow up on the information Flotsam had given you before he died yourself. House V'neef has a personal component to it for you that all of the other houses lack.
You have a lot to do.
Article: You are very busy. From long experience, you're certain that the moment you set foot on the grounds of the Cerulean Lute of Harmony, even more work will land in your lap. Still, you try to make room for friends and Circlemates — keeping yourself sane and functional is part of your responsibilities as well.
Which of your two remaining Circlemates do you make time for first? You will have an opportunity to follow up with the other as well before the end of this arc, but the context of the conversation will differ as a result.
Other, similar choices in the future may be mutually exclusive, or carry costs that can't be immediately taken back.
[ ] Sapphiria the Night-Lily
Sapphiria probably won't actually maim a clerk-deity out of frustration, but she does really have a gift for you. She also treats you to a drink at a coffeehouse near to the Forbidding Manse of Ivy.
[ ] Teresu Hari
Hari is asking you for advice, and invites you to meet her at her favourite place to be alone with her thoughts, an overlook in an abandoned park overgrown into a wild forest.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[x] Sapphiria the Night-Lily
I'm a simple enby: I see a chance to hang out with an arrogant sorcerer-prince of Ysyr, I take a chance to hang out with an arrogant sorcerer-prince of Ysyr.
Also, Hari's situation sounds much more interesting for something that blows up later than Sapphiria's.
I'm a simple enby: I see a chance to hang out with an arrogant sorcerer-prince of Ysyr, I take a chance to hang out with an arrogant sorcerer-prince of Ysyr.
Also, Hari's situation sounds much more interesting for something that blows up later than Sapphiria's.