The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

[arianedartagnan]

To help kick off the holiday season, here are lyrics for a song from Cassius' perspective! (The quantities should not be considered canon. )


The Fifteen Days of New Year
To be sung to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas"

On the first day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
A brand new torture device.

On the second day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
Two murdered wives,
And a brand new torture device.

On the third day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
Three coffins,
Two murdered wives,
And a brand new torture device.

On the fourth day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
Four dead cousins,
Three coffins,
Two murdered wives,
And a brand new torture device.

On the fifth day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
Five mutinies,
Four dead cousins,
Three coffins,
Two murdered wives,
And a brand new torture device.

On the sixth day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
Six gold pagodas,
Five mutinies,
Four dead cousins,
Three coffins,
Two murdered wives,
And a brand new torture device.

On the seventh day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
Seven empty treas'ries,
Six gold pagodas,
Five mutinies,
Four dead cousins,
Three coffins,
Two murdered wives,
And a brand new torture device.

On the eighth day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
Eight pits of vipers,
Seven empty treas'ries,
Six gold pagodas,
Five mutinies,
Four dead cousins,
Three coffins,
Two murdered wives,
And a brand new torture device.

On the ninth day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
Nine Burning Pillars,
Eight pits of vipers,
Seven empty treas'ries,
Six gold pagodas,
Five mutinies,
Four dead cousins,
Three coffins,
Two murdered wives,
And a brand new torture device.

On the tenth day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
Ten dukes a-crisping,
Nine Burning Pillars,
Eight pits of vipers,
Seven empty treas'ries,
Six gold pagodas,
Five mutinies,
Four dead cousins,
Three coffins,
Two murdered wives,
And a brand new torture device.

On the eleventh day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
Eleven children screaming,
Ten dukes a-crisping,
Nine Burning Pillars,
Eight pits of vipers,
Seven empty treas'ries,
Six gold pagodas,
Five mutinies,
Four dead cousins,
Three coffins,
Two murdered wives,
And a brand new torture device.

On the twelfth day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
Twelve bandits robbing,
Eleven children screaming,
Ten dukes a-crisping,
Nine Burning Pillars,
Eight pits of vipers,
Seven empty treas'ries,
Six gold pagodas,
Five mutinies,
Four dead cousins,
Three coffins,
Two murdered wives,
And a brand new torture device.

On the thirteenth day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
Thirteen mercs marauding,
Twelve bandits robbing,
Eleven children screaming,
Ten dukes a-crisping,
Nine Burning Pillars,
Eight pits of vipers,
Seven empty treas'ries,
Six gold pagodas,
Five mutinies,
Four dead cousins,
Three coffins,
Two murdered wives,
And a brand new torture device.

On the fourteenth day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
Fourteen ladies fleeing,
Thirteen mercs marauding,
Twelve bandits robbing,
Eleven children screaming,
Ten dukes a-crisping,
Nine Burning Pillars,
Eight pits of vipers,
Seven empty treas'ries,
Six gold pagodas,
Five mutinies,
Four dead cousins,
Three coffins,
Two murdered wives,
And a brand new torture device.

On the fifteenth day of New Year, my Piri gave to me
Fifteen lords rebelling,
Fourteen ladies fleeing,
Thirteen mercs marauding,
Twelve bandits robbing,
Eleven children screaming,
Ten dukes a-crisping,
Nine Burning Pillars,
Eight pits of vipers,
Seven empty treas'ries,
Six gold pagodas,
Five mutinies,
Four dead cousins,
Three coffins,
Two murdered wives,
And a brand new torture device.

 

[arianedartagnan]

The Lunar New Year (and Serican New Year!) is coming up on February 1st. Here's my imagining of a duet that Aurelia and Piri might sing to welcome the new year. (It's not canon, because Aurelia is too honorable to poison anyone and Piri thinks it's too boring.)

Auld Lang Syne
A Duet between Piri and Aurelia

Piri:
Should auld enmity be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld enmity be forgot
And the days of auld lang syne?

Aurelia:
For auld lang syne, my foe
For auld lang syne
You'll take a cup of poison yet
For the deeds of auld lang syne

Piri:
I built a golden pagoda
That glittered in the sun
And you rolled over in your grave
In the days of auld lang syne

Aurelia:
We fought over an emperor
And the fate of a whole land
We tore the palace near in twain
In the days of auld lang syne

Both:
For auld lang syne, my foe
For auld lang syne
You'll take a cup of poison yet
For the days of auld lang syne

Aurelia:
And surely you will be a worm
And surely I a star
You'll languish in the lowest Tier
For the deeds of auld lang syne

Piri:
And here's your child, my trusty foe,
You put her in my care,
I'll watch and teach and mentor her
Like in days of auld lang syne

Both:
For auld lang syne, my foe
For auld lang syne
You'll take a cup of poison yet
For auld lang syne

For auld lang syne, my foe
For auld lang syne
You'll take a cup of poison yet
For auld lang syne

 

[Jaertin]

Bandit-Duck, Bandit-Duck,
does whatever a Bandit-Duck does.
Can he jump
a security fence?
Yes he can
he can fly.
Look out!
Here comes the Bandit-Duck!

 

[ForwardRewind]

I can almost imagine a future history book... In fact, I'll write an excerpt:
-
After the collapse and subsequent restructuring of the Heaven, it is now commonly considered that the demonizing of nine-tailed foxes was simply the result of finding a scapegoat that didn't make them look bad. And they just went with whoever their 'perfect leader' decided to firmly blame the results of his inability to counteract Heaven's own attempts to sabotage his rule. Encouraging and even assisting Flos Piri's efforts to remove the competent works. With the initial intent to bring them back in after Cassius' rule had ended. And in their place other workers of Heaven were able to bring in their 'favorite mortals', regardless of their competence. With some of the flimsy excuses as them being able to manage the transition.

But as later scholars realized, his spite caused far much more damage than was anticipated, render what would have been a massive karma loss for many involved, to the point of rapid demotion and being forced into the reincarnation cycle from the very start. But especially for Lady Fate. So a bribe to Cassius in position as the Star of Heavenly Joy, and a measure of 'revenge' on who he perceived responsible. With enough political ability to realize that going against Lady Fate directly would not end well for him, if one was being generous. After all, her orders destroyed his empire before, why wouldn't she go further for anything more direct that defiling her temple? Less generously, Cassius might have not realized that nothing Piri did was outside of her remit. And in fact was relatively minor compared to what options she had available to her. A fact that most likely embarrassed Heaven due to how simple it was to completely destroy his reign.

Though it is somewhat unclear as to if Cassius himself was aware of one bit of revenge against Lady Fate for his situation, the defilement of her temple was deemed the, or at least a, 'proper' way to have the temple decorated due to Cassius being rewarded. And the specific actions he took were deemed proper worship. And thus neither were from then on reported to Lady Fate as 'defilement'. Due to laziness, she never really looked onto her temple to check on it, unless a report specifically called her to do so. And as long as she got 'everything is fine' in the reports she saw, she had no reason. And further changes were gradually made, that would have greatly upset her had she found out about them. Her temple becoming more and more a mockery of her. But less and less reports were sent to her for review that had any resemblance to reality. Leaving out instances of great disrespect to her.

This change of how much respect those working under her leadership had for her seems to have been at least partially caused by the passing around of what exactly the scholars had determined that damned Piri so much in her trial. The fact that it was Lady Fate, not Piri, that truly caused Cassius turn from being a Just ruler. And had Piri not been ordered to cause the fall herself, it still would have happened. Combined with the original justification and reasoning of sending Piri to deal with the problem was the final straw for many. The fact that Lady Fate left off the reason for the fact that defiling her temple was the beginning of the fall of his reign was that she would continuously send disaster after disaster until it fell.
-

Spoiler: A/N

Longer than I though I'd end up writing, but there it is. I'm sort of tentatively imagining that Lady Fate didn't get that whole message. Either because she cut off the messenger as soon as she heard 'beginning of the end', or at some point someone realized that preventing her from having a target from her rage wouldn't help their position that much. She was no doubt ranting about finding a way to get back at Cassius for the defilement of her temple.

Was it said what the defilement actually was? And if it was actually even anything that wasn't quickly solved? Such as something really minor like spilling a glass of wine onto the tile/stone. Something that really makes her look petty for going after it in revenge.

If there's anything that goes against canon, because I didn't recall the relevant details as I was writing up the kind of sillyness, well... It's totally because the writer of the history book is either a bit biased or had biased sources.

Like I said, I wasn't expecting it to be this long of a write up. But hey, when the muse has the words flow, just go with it.

 

[Half Moon]

A Morning Conversation
It was a lovely morning in South Serica. The sun was warm, the air was cool, and I had a lychee to eat for breakfast.
I pecked at the peel. It was fresh enough to still be soft, making it easy to open.
Mmm.
So I couldn't taste it. It was still tender, juicy, and most of all, luxurious. I'd eaten these as Prime Minister, and I'd missed them. Even if they were common here- My thoughts were interupted by the approach of Floridiana, who looked more nervous than I'd seen in a while. That didn't bode well, considered she'd almost gotten used to me over the course of our stay.

I waited for her to speak, still pecking delicately at the lychee. She sat down next to my perch and breathed.
"I wanted to ask you some questions," she said.

I looked up in surprise. Then down again to snap up a scrap of lychee flesh. "Oh?" I responded. "Does it relate to the creation of the temple?" She breathed again. "No. It's for my own book. I'm writing a history section."
This didn't seem particularly like my problem. Then again, thinking that way before had led to a great deal of lies and misunderstandings from the people, so I guessed it was probably better to set the record straight. "Alright," I said. "What do you want to know?"

"So. The downfall of the Serican Empire. You were there. How did it begin?"
I blinked. She knew this already, didn't she? She'd been scared of me for months because of this. "Once I secured my place as Cassius's adviser, I started manipulating him into making unenforcable laws." Rules about taxes, and restitution, and similar. The spark of anger at his own subjects I had kindled within him was really the beginning of it all.

Floridiana swallowed. "So it was you? I thought the history books might have... exaggerated your role."
I bristled. "Exaggerated? It took years of work to make the empire collapse like it did!' Enjoyable work, but still work. Work that had gone unappreciated by cold ungrateful goddesses that punished their servants for doing exactly what they'd told me to do.
The mage nodded, and wrote something down in her book.
"Why, then?" she asked.
I considered my answer carefully. I'd have loved to tell her about the tyrant of a goddess that the Lady of Fate was, but I didn't want to risk anything getting back to her. "A powerful god sent me," I said at last, keeping my voice free of bitterness.
"The same one that sent you to take care of Taila?"
"No."
I didn't say anything more, and she seemed to get the point.
"I see. The Emperor Cassius didn't see what you were doing?"
"Of course not," I said, affronted. "I had the advisers that opposed me framed for treason and executed."
She paled, which seemed rather an overreaction. What had she thought I'd done? Sent them for tea and cake? Still, she obligingly noted it down in her book.
The interview continued in this fashion for much of the morning. It was surprisingly enjoyable; I'd missed those days more than I had realized. Maybe her project wasn't quite as useless as I thought it would be.