Remove ads

The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Reader mode
Remove ads
Chapter 117: In Which I Resolve Tragedies to My Satisfaction
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 117: In Which I Resolve Tragedies to My Satisfaction

    "That doesn't follow!" cried Floridiana. "You – how – we don't have the resources to establish a Serica-wide system of temples to the Kitchen God! We don't even have the authority to do it!"

    Of course we do. We're doing it, hence we have the authority.

    "That is not how it works!"

    Of course it is. Look. Is anyone else trying to set up this Temple? No. Has anyone else tried to set up this Temple? No. Does anyone else even have the VISION to set up this Temple? A hundred times NO! Hence no one deserves to have authority over it but US.

    (Me, actually. But I didn't say that.)

    Floridiana raked her fingers through her hair until it fell loose from her bun and straggled down around her face and shoulders, making her like some kind of she-ghost. "There's something wrong with that logic. There is definitely something wrong with that logic."

    If there were, I'd like to see her find it. Perching on a stack of codices so I could look down at her, I waited.

    And waited.

    She did sputter for a while about limited resources and proper authority, but she made no cogent arguments refuting my logic, so I decided to ignore her. I had bigger problems to deal with anyway.

    Namely, whether the robes or the priests should come first.

    In the end, it was Bobo and Dusty, of all people, who solved that conundrum.

    "I don't underssstand. Why do we have to choossse?" she asked.

    "Yeah, if it's so complicated, why can't we just do both?" he seconded.

    Do both? I gasped, stunned at my own lack of vision.

    "Uh-huh! Why can't we find sssome, um, ssstarter priesssts, and Lodia can sssew robes for them ssspecially, and at the sssame time ssshe can alssso make extras for future priesssts?"

    Bobo truly put me to shame. How had such an elegant solution not occurred to me?

    Yes! That's brilliant! You're a genius, Bobo!

    I flew at her and flung my wings around her neck, and she grinned happily.

    "Hey, what about me?" complained Dusty. "Why does she get to be the genius? I helped come up with the idea. I'm a genius too."

    Before he could swing his head our way and slobber all over me and Bobo, I landed between his ears. Clinging to his forelock with my claws, I leaned down and stroked his forehead with one wingtip. "There, there, you just keep thinking that."

    He snorted and tried to blow me off, but no matter how he craned his neck, he couldn't hit me with his breath.

    And then two tragedies struck, in quick succession.

    Everything had been going so smoothly – much too smoothly – so of course Heaven had to counterbalance it.

    It began one breakfast when Floridiana announced out of nowhere that she and Dusty needed to start their return journey to the Claymouth Barony soon. I knew that she'd only come along for the summer – that I'd only allowed her to come along for the summer – but somehow I hadn't drawn the connection between the passing of the weeks and the approach of autumn.

    And she wasn't nearly close to done compiling an official text for the Temple.

    How soon is "soon"? I asked warily.

    "The sooner the better. Even if we leave tomorrow, the harvest will be well over by the time we return, and I haven't made any lesson plans for the new school year."

    Well, that seemed just a tad irresponsible when she'd had the whole summer to develop them.

    Why didn't you start sooner?

    For some reason, the question made her bristle. "Why didn't I start sooner! Because – because – I've been working on that! For you!" And she waved a hand in a direction that probably pointed at her messy desk across the mansion.

    Okay, yes, fine, she'd been researching the Kitchen God and writing up what she'd learned, but that certainly hadn't eaten all of her time. She'd been working on her own pet project too. I'd seen her.

    You've spent far more time on your own book than you have on the Kitchen God text.

    I didn't know that for a fact (I didn't track her work hours – what was I? An Accountant?), but the way she stiffened told me that I was right. Well, of course I was. I knew her.

    How far have you gotten on it anyway? Can't you use that as your lesson plan?

    Floridiana had taken it upon herself to write a definitive revised and updated edition of her beloved A Mage's Guide to Serica, which she had titled…A Mage's Guide to Serica: The Definitive Revised and Updated Edition by Mage Floridiana, Headmistress of the East Serican Academy, under the Most Generous and Gracious Auspices of Her Majesty Queen Jullia of the Kingdom of South Serica, Their Graces Lady Anthea and the Lady of the Lychee Tree, and The Right Honorable The Baron Claymouth.

    No wonder codices required an entire page for the title.

    I couldn't be absolutely certain, because, again, I didn't track Floridiana's personal projects, but I thought she'd concocted that grandiose monstrosity of a title after hearing about my vision of a Serica-wide Temple to the Kitchen God.

    Long, long ago, so many lives and one whole Tier ago, I'd reincarnated as a rare type of butterfly and died at the hands of a boy who collected insects. Flicker had told me that I'd earned positive karma for inspiring him to become a renowned natural philosopher. If I'd earned positive karma for that, then think of what inspiring a reference work aimed at all mages in Serica would do for me! Not as much as a Temple to the Kitchen God that extended all over Serica – but still a hefty dose.

    And probably more than I'd get for indirectly educating the children of Claymouth by encouraging their teacher to educate them. Hmmmm.

    You teach geography, don't you? (I knew she did – Taila's and Nailus' tests on the South Serican map were what had clued her in to my return.) You can teach geography based on your book. There! That's one subject done.

    Floridiana still looked dubious. What – did she lack faith in her own scholarship?

    What else do you teach? Reading? The students can practice reading your book. There. That's another subject done.

    "Ssshe teaches writing too," Bobo put in. "I sssee Taila and Nailus writing esssays for their homework."

    Oh, that's too easy. They can write about what they read about in your book. There! Anything else?

    "'Rithmetic," said Dusty through a mouth full of greens. "She teaches 'rithmetic too."

    Right, the three R's: the basis of childhood education.

    Curious now, Floridiana propped her elbow on the dining table and her cheek on her hand (we definitely weren't letting her teach etiquette classes!) and inquired, "How would you use my book to teach arithmetic?"

    Hmmm, how indeed? Arithmetic required numbers. I hadn't read much in the way of geography books, but why would they include numbers? This was a true conundrum, and I was stumped until –

    Oh! Easy-peasy! You're writing about South Serica's ridiculous currency "system," aren't you? I made sarcastic air quotes with my wingtips. Have the students practice converting the same amount of money from Lychee Grove coins to the royal rice standard to, I don't know, Yellow Flame coins, and all that. There! All done! You have your lesson plans for the year!

    "Oh, hmm, yes, you're right," she said, taking way too long to draw the obvious conclusion. "Yes, using my Guide as the theme to tie together different subjects…. Yes, that should interest the students…that could work."

    Could work? Of course it would work. It was my idea, wasn't it?

    But that was the first tragedy averted, as Floridiana took the time and energy that she would have spent on lesson plans and channeled them into composing the official Kitchen God text instead.

    The second tragedy struck shortly thereafter: Anthea balked at paying for the silk and embroidery thread that Lodia and I had ordered.

    The raccoon dog didn't even have the decency to come tell me so in person. She left it to a teary Lodia to break the news.

    "I'm so sorry, Pip, I tried to tell her that we need them for the priest robes, but she – I – maybe I didn't explain it right, but I couldn't get her to see that we need them…."

    Did she say why she won't pay for them?

    Lodia hung her head. "She said it's too expensive and we should have gotten her approval before we placed the order. I'm so sorry, I should have thought of that, I should have asked her first…."

    I waved away her apologies. It wasn't her fault that the gods-cursed raccoon dog had decided to go Accountant on us. Requiring pre-approval for expenses incurred in the service of her patron god? What was this nonsense?

    Maybe, just maaaaaaybe, I could tolerate stinginess if Anthea had asked me to re-structure her household – but my mission wasn't nearly so mundane as designing the perfect livery for her servants, or selecting the correct artists to paint the perfect scrolls for her walls. I was organizing the formal worship of a god on her behalf. And not just any god, but the one who oversaw reincarnation!

    Didn't Anthea know that? Did she believe that she would never die?

    If so, I had some bad news for her: No matter how old you got, no matter how much power you amassed, no matter how utterly unassailable you believed your position to be, you could still die. The instant your divine patron turned on you or, through deliberate inaction or even just casual oversight, let you fall through the cracks of Heavenly politics – you were dead. It was only a matter of time before your inevitable scapegoating and execution.

    And then, after your inevitable scapegoating and execution, you really didn't want to be known as the soul who'd cheated the Direction of Reincarnation out of his due offerings!

    I realized that I was hopping around on Floridiana's desk in a fury – and that, as usual, I looked unbearably cute doing it. Lodia's tears had dried, and she was gaping at me with her lips open in an O of adoration.

    My first reaction was a hop of even greater fury that, as a sparrow, I couldn't project the appropriate awesome wrath.

    My second reaction was more reasoned. In and of itself, cheering up people (humans) wasn't a bad thing. And, caught between me and my old nemesis, Lodia had certainly been in need of some cheering up.

    I hopped onto her finger and let her lift me to eye level. Don't worry about Anthea. Dealing with her is my job, not yours.

    At my reassurance, she nearly fainted from relief.

    Your job is to make the robes. Keep going on them. You did place the order for the silk and embroidery thread, right?

    She gulped and nodded, perhaps remembering Anthea's response to that.

    Good. Have you received any of the materials yet?

    "Yes…. They delivered the first shipment yesterday…which was when Lady Anthea found out…." She gulped again. "She said she wasn't going to pay for any of it. Pip, what will we do if she doesn't pay for any of it?"

    Oh, she'll pay. She's just throwing a tantrum and trying to assert her authority. Like I said, dealing with that is my job. If she gives you any more trouble, tell her to come talk to me.

    "Yes, Pip. Thank you. I will. So then, should I – may I – am I permitted to – cut the silk, when I get back…?"

    Yes.

    As I'd predicted, once Anthea had calmed down and thought things through, she didn't make another peep about the cost of the materials for the priest robes. Lodia reported that she was starting from the low-ranking priest designs for practice before she started on High Priest Katu's elaborate costume, so I turned my attention to recruiting low-ranking priests to wear those robes.

    With the exception of Katu, the upper echelons of the priesthood would need to come from the nobility, so they could promote the Temple's interests at court. However, there was no such restriction on the lower ranks. In fact, I liked the idea of plucking humans from impoverished backgrounds. The more impoverished, the better, because the improvement to their lives would be that much more dramatic.

    I'd been wondering for a while now (okay, fine, I'd been wondering on and off, whenever I happened to remember to wonder) how Taila would have turned out if the Jeks had been as well-off as the Kohs. Here was my chance to test it on a fresh batch of humans. As long as I didn't repeat the mistakes that I'd made with the Jeks, I would be fine.

    And it wouldn't be as easy to err here. The South Sericans had preserved much of the old speech and etiquette. (So much of it, in fact, that after living in the Claymouth Barony, I found their insistence on the distinction between "thou" and "you" to be jarringly old-fashioned, although I wasn't admitting that to anyone.)

    I'd train my new priests here, and no one would call them weird or stuck-up or possessed by fox demons, and raise their rent by a third to force them out. Because this was my Temple, and no one was going to chase any of my people out of it.

    Well, that was decided. Now we just needed humans.

    Floridiana, Dusty, I called. I need you to go to the slums to find our priests.
    A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
     
  • Threadmarks
    • A part of me is just laughing at Piri effortlessly T-posing on Floridiana at the beginning of the chapter, not only with that 'i have bigger problems, like do I go Priests first or Robes first?' bit, but also the curriculum thing.
    Admittedly I have a suspicion Piri does not realize how in-depth Intlellectual work can get like but I imagine that's going to be part of how Marcus goes upside her head with a sadly? metaphorical steel chair.
     
    Zaealix said:
    A part of me is just laughing at Piri effortlessly T-posing on Floridiana at the beginning of the chapter, not only with that 'i have bigger problems, like do I go Priests first or Robes first?' bit, but also the curriculum thing.
    Admittedly I have a suspicion Piri does not realize how in-depth Intlellectual work can get like but I imagine that's going to be part of how Marcus goes upside her head with a sadly? metaphorical steel chair.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Haha, Piri has no idea how challenging intellectual work is, nor does she have any intention of finding out!

    I should check when steel was invented.... Marcius would certainly love to whack her upside the head with a steel chair!
     
    Remove ads
    A Morning Conversation by Half Moon
  • Apocrypha
    • 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.
     
  • Apocrypha
    • Oh! I love it! It sounds exactly like a conversation that Piri and Floridiana would have! Do you mind if I threadmark it for the Apocrypha?

    Half Moon said:
    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.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Haha, yes! That's exactly what Piri's thought process would be!

    Half Moon said:
    What had she thought I'd done? Sent them for tea and cake?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    That is soooo something Piri would say!
     
    Chapter 118: A Visit to the Slum
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 118: A Visit to the Slum

    How should she organize her edition of the Mage's Guide? Floridiana was wondering. Should she keep the original structure and divide it into sections by geographical location? Or should she organize it chronologically, to evoke the gravitas of the Imperial Annals of History? She was so absorbed in her planning that when something stung the side of her neck, she literally jumped.

    "Ow!"

    Her brush tip went skittering across the sheet of paper. (Paper! Real paper! When she had time to really think about it, really appreciate it, she still marveled that she was writing on actual paper!) However, the problem with rice paper, as opposed to parchment, was that ink soaked right into the fibers. You couldn't scrape off the ink when you made a mistake. All you could do was throw away the whole sheet. What a waste!

    Not that wastage was an issue here – say what you would about Piri, she kept the place well stocked with writing supplies – but it still made Floridiana's heart hurt. Her younger self, the one that had walked all over North and East Serica begging for jobs, and lingered inside mage supply shops gazing at parchment notebooks without daring to stroke their leather covers – that self shrieked.

    On instinct, her hand had flown up to slap away whatever stung her neck. Her fingertips knocked into something soft and downy that tumbled off with a yelp.

    Every time Floridiana thought something nice about The Demon, she did something like this!

    "Whoopsssie, don't worry, I gotcha!" called Bobo's cheery voice.

    You hit me! An instant later, an indignant ball of feathers crash-landed on her ruined paper and glared up at her.

    "Well, you pecked me," Floridiana retorted. She probed at her neck, but the sparrow's beak hadn't broken skin.

    Piri was settling her wings in a most disgruntled manner. I didn't peck you. I merely tapped you with my beak to get your attention, since you were ignoring my words.

    Oh. Come to think of it, Floridiana did have a vague inkling that someone had been repeating her name, but she'd blocked it out so she could concentrate.

    When in doubt, attack.

    She fixed Piri with a glare of her own. "I was working. And now you've gone and ruined that entire page. I'll have to rewrite the whole thing."

    Bobo, at least, arched her long neck over the desk and inspected the page with gratifying horror.

    However, attacks had never proven effective on Piri. Probably because the crafty demon mind had already foreseen all possible tacks and angles, and had accumulated centuries' worth of counterattacks for every scenario.

    Well, if you'd simply stopped working the first time I called your name, then I wouldn't have had to tap you on the neck, and you wouldn't have dropped your brush, would you? There's a clear lesson here.

    Or maybe it was just Piri's sheer, concentrated self-centeredness that was so hard to counter. She could twist any situation to be about herself.

    And anyway, you've been hunched over that desk all morning. You're going to ruin your posture. Your eyes are all bloodshot. You don't want to get nearsighted like Lodia, do you?

    Floridiana's eyes were dry, and she was starting to get an eyestrain headache, but she retorted, "I'm a mage. I can fix my vision if necessary."

    Piri's silence said everything it needed to about what a waste of magical energy that would be. With a sigh, Floridiana surrendered to the inevitable. "Yes, all right, I'm listening now. What do you want?"

    The rudeness ruffled the sparrow's feathers, she could tell. It gratified her as much as Bobo's earlier sympathetic horror.

    I said, I need you and Dusty to go to the slums to find our priests.

    At least, that was what Floridiana's ears told her Piri said. But "slums"? She must have misheard. Surely Piri had said "sums."

    Sums? Did she want to recruit accountants as priests? Floridiana wouldn't have expected Piri, of all people, to care about placing the Temple on solid financial ground, or to want the Temple to keep proper financial records at all, but maybe she'd learned a lesson from bankrupting the Empire.

    It was still hard to picture accountants donning Lodia's embroidered silk robes, though…. They were on the flamboyant side. (The robes, not the accountants. Or maybe the accountants too. Who knew?)

    Floridiana raised both of her eyebrows as high as they would go. "You want me to go around the nobles' mansions, poaching their accountants? I cannot imagine this will turn out well."

    Nobles' mansions? Accountants? Who said anything about that? I told you to go to the slums.

    "The slums."

    Yes.

    "You want me to go to the slums to find priests to staff our Temple?"

    Do I really need to repeat myself that many times?

    "But they can't even read! They don't know a thing about proper behavior, or worship, or – do they even know who the Kitchen God is?!"

    Oh, I'm sure they know who he is. They're Serican, aren't they? Everybody in Serica has an altar to the Kitchen God in their kitchen.

    "We're talking about the slums! Not everybody there has a kitchen! In fact, I don't know if anybody there has a kitchen!"

    For someone who'd once been intimately involved in running an empire, Piri looked stunningly blank. She asked, in a tone of utmost reason, Then how do they cook?

    "They don't."

    Then how do they eat?

    "They don't," Floridiana repeated, bitterness seeping into her voice.

    She'd been old enough to remember her parents' pinched faces, her little siblings' hollow eyes, all the babies who hadn't survived because her mother hadn't been able to nurse them. Old enough to remember when they'd sold her to the performing troupe.

    Huh, was the demon mind's response. Floridiana was contemplating smacking her – not hard enough to kill a mortal sparrow, just a little spank to teach her a lesson – when Piri pronounced, Well, that makes it even more important to bring as many of them here as I can, doesn't it? Off you go. Don't forget the carriage. Oh, no, that might be too small. Take the wagon. Hey, Bobo, tell the chef to make extra for dinner, would you, please?

    Why was it Bobo who rated a "please" when Floridiana would be the one engaging in the hard labor?

    "I don't – " she began, but the words curdled under Piri's stare. After all, she did. Want to bring some of those people here, that was. "Any preferences as to age or gender?"

    She didn't ask about literacy. The answer would be irrelevant.

    Nope. Not so long as they're human. I leave it to your discretion.

    It should have reassured her that the demon mind trusted her judgment. So why did it feel less like trust, and more like Piri giving her a sash to hang herself with?

    Dusty complained all the way to the slum. As if he hadn't started his life as a broken-down nag himself. Well, ended his mortal life as one, anyway. She didn't know, and he claimed (possibly even honestly) not to remember how he'd started his life.

    "This is so undignified," he neighed. And: "Why do the priests have to come from the slum?" And: "Can't somebody else go get them?"

    "If you don't stop whining, I'm going to sell you to the dumpling shop."

    That silenced him for one whole minute. There were old tales about boy-emperors who got chased out of their palaces by evil lords. One even featured the boy-emperor working as a kitchen boy in a dumpling shop until his loyal officials restored him to the throne. The dumpling reference suited Dusty's delusions of grandeur.

    Then the horse realized something. "Wait. But I can't change into a human yet, and these hoofs won't work for wrapping dumplings."

    "That is correct."

    "Wait. So do you mean you're selling me to the dumpling shop to help make the dumplings, or to be the filling for the dumplings?"

    "I leave that to your ample imagination."

    Since he plodded the rest of the way to the slum in silence, she considered that a win.

    The slum, on the other hand, was not. A win, that was.

    Of course it wasn't. It wouldn't be a slum if it were, would it?

    She was rambling to herself, she knew, straining to distract herself as they squeezed into a warren of narrow alleys. There was no line of demarcation between slum and not-slum. Away from the main thoroughfares of the capital, the residents and their housing simply grew shabbier and shabbier, until you looked around and realized that the houses were no longer houses, but abandoned warehouses and shanties with too many families crammed into them. And that everyone you saw wore ragged, ill-fitting clothes and had the dead eyes of the eternally starved.

    An old man who half-sat, half-collapsed against a broken stoop had his face pointed her way, but it was unclear whether he registered her presence. Her magical scan showed him to be human. Well, Piri had explicitly left it to her discretion as to which humans she picked.

    Floridiana tugged on Dusty's reins to stop him, which he did, settling his hooves carefully into the muck, as if dirt and disease could still afflict him. Then she jumped down from the wagon, pointedly not watching where her boots went. She had to set a good example for the baby spirit (plus she didn't want to know).

    "Good day, Grandfather," she greeted the old man.

    His empty eyes turned away from the wagon and meandered until they came to a stop on her nose. "Good…day…mage…." His throat was so parched that the words came out as a croak.

    Floridiana surveyed the alley for a well, but of course there was none. She should have remembered that, and prepared jugs of water before she came. If only Den were here! The dragon king could have summoned water!

    "Do you live here, Grandfather?" She tipped her head at the splintered doorframe behind him.

    "Mmmmm," he groaned, which she interpreted as a "yes."

    "Do you have family to take care of you?"

    "Mmm-mmmm…."

    That was a "no."

    "Grandfather, I am looking for people for a job." Too late, she realized that she'd forgotten to ask Piri whether the priests would be paid in anything other than food and housing. Knowing Piri, that bird-brain hadn't considered the issue. "You would have to leave here, but we would provide all the food you could wish for and a warm, clean, dry place to sleep. Would you be interested?"

    "Mmmm…."

    "All right, let's get you in the wagon, then."

    She helped him to his feet and onto the wagon bed, which was much easier than it should have been for an adult male. He collapsed into the same half-sitting position.

    People were beginning to edge out of the narrow spaces between buildings to peek at her. Moving slowly so she wouldn't scare them off, she approached a pair of children. They were probably under the age of ten, possibly a boy and a girl, although it was hard to tell under their matted hair and saggy tunics.

    "Hi." She bent her knees and leaned over so they were at eye level, and she made her voice as gentle as she could. "Do you have parents?"

    The slightly taller child, who might have been a boy, nodded. The slightly shorter child, who might have been a girl, ducked her head so her hair hid her face.

    "Are they around? May I speak to them?"

    Another nod. One skinny arm came up to point at a woman with stringy hair who had an infant in her arms and two more thin, dirty children clutching the sides of her – tunic? Robe? It was impossible to tell what the ragged article of clothing was supposed to be.

    "Thank you," Floridiana told the boy gravely. Then she straightened and approached their mother, still moving slowly. "Good day, mistress."

    The woman's eyes were hard and suspicious. "Ain't nothing good about it, mage."

    Her voice held more energy than the old man's, which made sense. She must be eating better, if that nursing baby hadn't died yet.

    Floridiana inclined her head in apology. "Good day" was an inane thing to say to a slum resident. "Mistress, I am recruiting people for – "

    But that was as far as she got before the cry went up. "It's a recruiter! She's recruiting! She's recruiting!"

    And people came flooding out of every nook and cranny.

    A/N 1: I've begun posting a draft version of a story set far in the future in Serica for all my Patreon backers! If you're curious about what Serica will look like after Piri's through with it, you can check it out here.

    A/N 2: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, Lindsey, Michael, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 119: My New Cohort of All-Human Slum-Dweller Priests
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 119: My New Cohort of All-Human Slum-Dweller Priests

    The slum-dwellers swamped Floridiana. They tugged on her arms, yanked on her tunic, nearly overwhelmed her with the stench of sweat and rotting teeth.

    "Take me!"

    "No, take me!"

    "I'll go!"

    She fought to back up, to get space to breathe, but they were behind her too. When she tripped over someone's cane, only the press of bodies held her upright. "Wait, please, calm down – "

    "Here's my son!"

    "How much for my daughter?"

    "Same bounty as usual, right?"

    "Wait, please wait a moment," Floridiana pleaded, "there's been a misunderstanding – "

    A mouth that was missing too many teeth, and surrounded by tufts of crazy white hair, shoved right into her face. "I'll fight fer Queen an' country!"

    Floridiana was starting to feel faint. She'd forgotten how bad slums were. She'd gotten out, and then she'd done whatever she had to in order to stay out, and she'd never, ever gone back. Had this really been what her childhood was like…?

    A long, angry neigh and a clomping of hooves on the muck-covered ground. Dusty's head appeared, followed by his neck and chest, as he forced his way through the mob. The horse spirit planted himself at her side and stamped and blew at the slum-dwellers, and at last they backed away.

    Gasping for air, Floridiana ran a hand through her hair and smoothed her tunic, more to buy time to calm herself than because she cared about looking presentable.

    "You okay?" asked Dusty.

    She nodded, then pitched her voice to carry. "I'm not here to recruit for the army!"

    Murmurs. The flood of people from the buildings and spaces between buildings slowed. Bright, hopeful faces hardened back into habitual suspicion of outsiders.

    "Then what're ye here for?" shouted a youngish man who was leaning out a broken window.

    Ah, perfect dramatic timing! He couldn't have set her up better if she had planted him there to ask that very question. Thanking him inside her head, Floridiana maintained a composed, dignified expression. "I'm here on behalf of the Temple to the Kitchen God!" (She didn't mention Lady Anthea. These people had probably never heard of the raccoon dog spirit and wouldn't care if they had, her existence being far less important than their empty bellies.) "In his infinite love and compassion for those who dwell on Earth, the Kitchen God has commanded the Good Queen Jullia to set up a temple to him – "

    "Who cares?" shouted the same man. "What's the Kitchen God done fer us? When's any of the gods cared about us!"

    That was a bold statement – but a true one. If you believed Piri's explanation, which Floridiana did, the gods rewarded those who enriched them with offerings. South Serica's poorest residents certainly couldn't compete with the likes of Lady Anthea and the Earl of Black Crag.

    Although it was far too dangerous to explain how the Heavenly karma system worked, maybe she could give these people a hint. She fixed the man with her sternest, headmistress stare. "What have you ever done for the gods? Even the Kitchen God, who safeguards the home? Did you think that you deserve Heavenly love and compassion just because you were born onto this Earth?" She paused for the perfect dramatic interval, just long enough to sow confusion in her audience. Then she shouted, "No! That is wrong! You must work for Heavenly love and compassion! You must earn them!"

    A fresh wave of murmurs swept through the crowd. She doubted anyone had ever bothered to teach them theology, but they were a cynical lot, and the logic resonated with them.

    The mother from before stood on tiptoe and cried over the heads of the crowd, "How? How do we earn them?"

    Floridiana flung her arms wide. (Thanks to Dusty, she could do that without hitting anyone.) "Why, through your devotion and your offerings, of course!"

    (Just the offerings, really. But stroking Heavenly egos never hurt.)

    She checked her audience, confirmed that if she were doing a street performance – and not in a slum – now would be the time to pass the alms bowl. Pressing a hand to her heart, she lowered her voice as if to entrust them with a secret. The crowd rippled as people leaned forward to catch her words. They needn't have worried: She made sure to speak loudly enough for everyone to hear.

    "I, too, come from a place like this. My mama and papa – they didn't have much. They couldn't feed all of us, and I was the oldest." Even after all these years, it was still surprisingly hard to say, "So they sold me to a dance troupe. I danced in marketplaces and on street corners for many, many years."

    A murmur of comprehension now. Many of the families here had probably already sold or were considering selling their older children. Somehow, their understanding lent her strength.

    "So I know how little you have. I know how hard life is for you. I know that you don't have anything to offer to the gods." She paused. "Anything material, that is."

    "Ma-tee-rial?" asked someone with a frown.

    Right. No big vocab.

    "Stuff like food. Silk. Jewelry."

    The offerings weren't physically sent to Heaven or destroyed in the process of being offered, of course. Only their spiritual essence was dedicated to the gods, and then the food could be consumed and the silks and jewelry donned or stored in a treasure chest – but that fact didn't help these people in the slightest. If they had the food and silk and jewelry to set on an altar before an image of a god, then they wouldn't be selling their children to dance troupes.

    Or, apparently, army recruiters here.

    "Ain't none o' that here!" yelled the youngish man who was still hanging out his empty window frame.

    "I know!" she shouted back. "That is why I have come to grant you a different way to gain the Kitchen God's favor!"

    "How!"

    If she didn't know for a fact that Piri had never set a claw in this slum, she'd have assumed that the demon mind had planted him here for this very call-and-response. On the spot, she resolved to take him back to the Temple. "You earn the Kitchen God's favor by serving him in his Temple! We need priests!"

    The chatter of the crowd swelled into excited rumbling.

    "You will serve the Kitchen God, and in return, the Temple will provide you with food, clothing, and shelter! And a stipend that you can spend as you please, or send back to your families!"

    "A sty-pend?"

    "What's a sty-pend?"

    "Sounds like a good thing!"

    Oh, she'd gotten a little carried away. Maybe she shouldn't have promised an actual salary. But surely Piri, who had wrangled enough funding to commission silk robes for the priests they didn't even have yet, and who intended to build temples all over Serica, could scrounge up enough coppers to pay her priests. It would surely cost less than the lavish Temple adornments she was plotting.

    "A stipend means money!" Floridiana called. "You'll make money for serving the Kitchen God! Who wants to come with me?"

    "Me!"

    "I'll go!"

    "Take me!"

    The crowd surged forward with even greater enthusiasm than when they thought she was recruiting fodder for the army to feed to the demons. Once again, Dusty stamped and neighed and blew at them to keep them from crushing her.

    "Line up by my wagon!" she bellowed.

    A tidy line was, of course, too much to expect, but in the end, she and Dusty got their new priests separated from their families so she could inspect them. The pair of siblings from before was among them, the sister cowering between her brother and a wagon wheel. Her brilliant call-and-response partner was there too. There were also a few toothless old women who must have decided to remove the burden that they placed on their families, and two middle-aged men who were waving goodbye to their wives and children.

    Floridiana's magical scan told her that one of the two men was a spirit. And Piri's instructions in this regard had been explicit.

    Steeling herself, she approached the spirit man and said quietly, hoping he wouldn't make a fuss, "I'm sorry, but we're only taking humans at this time."

    His smile evaporated into disbelief. "Only humans? But why's it matter?"

    "I'm sorry, but we will not be able to take you at this time."

    "Why's it matter?" he asked urgently. "You said you need people to serve the Kitchen God, right? Why's it matter if we're human or spirit?"

    She had to force herself to meet his eyes. "Unfortunately, I do not set the policies. At this time, the Temple is only accepting humans into its initial priest cohort. If that policy changes, you will be the first to know."

    "But…but…." The man looked as dazed as if someone had run off with his full alms bowl while he was performing.

    Floridiana knew the feeling. She wavered.

    Then Dusty caught her eye and shook his head.

    Dusty was right. It would be far, far worse to take this spirit to the Temple, only for Piri to reject him and send him back to the slum.

    "I am sorry," she said, with feeling. "I will have to ask you to step aside."

    The man didn't protest further. Shoulders slumped, he trudged back to his confused family.

    Feeling filthier than the muck on the street, Floridiana ordered the rest of Piri's new, human priests to climb into the wagon. Then Dusty pulled it out of the slums and back to the Temple to the Kitchen God.

    I was overseeing the installation of a new bench by the pond behind the mansion when Floridiana's voice bellowed, "Piri! Where are you? I need to talk to you right now!"

    At the sound of my real name, I jerked so violently that I nearly fell off the windowsill, and Bobo swiveled so fast that she nearly twisted herself up like a washcloth.

    "Piri?" Bobo called back, a little too quickly. "Who's Piri? There aren't any Piris here!"

    Floridiana's footsteps got louder, and then the mage charged into the room, hair straggling down in messy strands, tunic askew, and boots caked in – ugh, I didn't even want to know what that was. Through the doorway, I could see the steward, Camphorus Unus, calmly instruct a maid to scrub the floor.

    "Piri!" Floridiana cried again.

    I hopped around so I could face her head on. I am not Piri. My name is Pip. I will thank you to remember that –

    "Please!" she cried, skidding to a half before me. Her eyes were wide and crazy and, oddly, red-rimmed. For a moment, I thought she was going to grovel, but instead she clasped her hands so hard the knuckles went white. "You have to take spirits as priests too! Not just humans! Please let me take the spirits too!"

    That was not what I'd been expecting.

    Are the humans not up to your standards? I mean, I hadn't expected much from slum humans, but could they really be so much worse than the Jeks when I first met them? Could they really be untrainable?

    "No, no, it's not that. They're all so desperate – and I had to kick out a man – 'cause he was a spirit – and it was so, so sad – " By the end, she was half-sobbing.

    Floridiana, the unflappable mage, sobbing?

    Dusty trotted in after her, spreading more unspeakable muck on the floor. "Okay, I got them settled in – whoa, what's going on here?"

    "Um, I'm not sssure either," Bobo told him. "But Floridiana wants ssspirits to be priesssts too?"

    Dusty pawed at the floor, simultaneously scratching the stone and leaving more gunk on it. "It was really sad. I've never seen anyone so skinny. And even Lord Magnissimus' pigsties are cleaner."

    "Please," Floridiana begged me again. "We don't have to restrict ourselves to humans. We can take spirits too. It's about the offerings, isn't it? As long as we get people to give offerings to the Kitchen God, why does it matter if the people accepting and presenting the offerings are human or spirit?"

    You know the reason, I reminded her.

    "Yes, but – surely, it can't make that much of a difference – to our karma totals, can it? If we just take a few spirits?"

    I looked at her, torn. I wanted to say yes. Such a small thing, to say "yes."

    But it wouldn't work.

    I'm sorry, I said, and I actually meant it. I really am. But Anthea is already refusing to pay our bills. If we get even more priests, do you think you can convince her to house and train them?

    "What d'you mean, refusing to pay? Did she say something while we were gone?"

    Unfortunately, yes.

    A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • …Spirits get Karma based on how they improve the lives of humans, but not how they serve the gods…
    Case in point, Piri taking the fall for Fate…
    I feel like whatever resulted in that policy is probably going to get a VERY sharp look soon, simply because doing as the Demon Catfish did is looking better and better…
     
    Zaealix said:
    …Spirits get Karma based on how they improve the lives of humans, but not how they serve the gods…
    Case in point, Piri taking the fall for Fate…
    I feel like whatever resulted in that policy is probably going to get a VERY sharp look soon, simply because doing as the Demon Catfish did is looking better and better…
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Yeah, it's a pretty lousy system that resulted from the gods having a soft spot for humans, since a goddess was the one who created humans in the first place.

    Lord Silurus really wouldn't have gotten into trouble if he'd restricted himself to eating spirits and never humans!
     
    Chapter 120: The Raccoon Dog's Tantrum
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 120: The Raccoon Dog's Tantrum

    While Floridiana and Dusty had been off recruiting priests in the slum, I'd been having a much less pleasant afternoon. The cause, as you probably guessed, was Anthea. Specifically, with a summons from that raccoon dog. A summons. As if she were my superior, and I a mere underling at her beck and call!

    I ignored it, of course. I had more important things to do. Such as inspecting and critiquing Lodia's embroidery, lest she waste too much time on a robe I would ultimately have to reject. (And it was a good thing I checked too, because the shade of red thread she'd selected was waaaay too subtle. I mean, it bordered on coral. I knew from all the time I'd spent in Heaven that the gods favored a florid vermillion.)

    Also, Katu required supervision. Any time Lodia came over on any kind of business, Temple or otherwise, he'd drop his brush to play bodyguard. Something about how there were too many strange workmen here, as if they might be more interested in harassing one young woman than in renovating my Temple. As I told Katu over and over, keeping the builders in line was the steward's job, not his. His job was to produce that gods-cursed song cycle honoring the Kitchen God – of which he had yet to finish a single song. Something about how nothing he composed was suitable to dedicate to a god.

    Every time the steward spotted another basket of crumpled papers covered in blacked-out scribbles, Camphorus Unus' brows would knit in a worried frown. I was glad someone shared my concern that the poet would never finish.

    Speaking of the renovations, they, too, required much attention. I'd commissioned the foremost carpentry workshop in Goldhill to create the altar and the carvings for the walls and pillars. However, just because these carpenters made furniture for the royal household didn't mean that their craftsmanship was up to my standards, and more often than not, the materials they sourced were simply subpar. Every couple days, Bobo and I went through our ventriloquism routine as we inspected their handiwork in what would be the Main Hall of the Temple.

    This was, in fact, what we were doing when the first "summons" from Anthea arrived.

    That portion needs to be covered in gold leaf, I was informing the master carpenter through Bobo. Gold leaf, hear. No ssslapping sssome yellow paint on it and calling it a day. Remember, this is a HOLY BUILDING dedicated to the god who lives among us.

    Unfortunately, the carpenters had heard it so many times that they'd desensitized to the divine.

    "Yes, spirit, I know," replied the head carpenter with exasperation, "but the goldsmith is behind on his delivery, so we simply do not have enough gold leaf to finish right now."

    A whiff of camphor preceded the arrival of the steward. Keeping my intelligence a secret from Camphorus Unus would have been impossible, so I hadn't bothered to try. Shortly after we moved in, I'd told him that I was a mind trapped in the body of a mortal animal, and the old tree had accepted it at once. Unless you were threatening to burn down their trees, tree spirits were hard to ruffle.

    Now he advanced towards us, and, keeping up the charade, bowed to Bobo. "Spirit, a message from Lady Anthea." And he stepped aside to reveal a young boy in Anthea's livery.

    The messenger boy, too, bowed to Bobo. "Respectful greetings, spirit. Lady Anthea requests the pleasure of your company for tea."

    I waited for him to state the date and time.

    And then I waited some more.

    I waited so long that Bobo twisted her neck to look at me for instructions.

    Through her, I prompted, And on what day does ssshe anticipate the pleasssure of my company?

    At my sarcastic tone, the boy blanched, but Anthea had trained him adequately. He bowed again. "Begging your pardon, spirit, but she requests the pleasure of your company right now."

    Right now, you say.

    "Yes, noble spirit. That was what she said."

    The nerve of that raccoon dog! No one invited a guest to drop everything they were doing and rush over on the same day! It smacked of the grossest contempt.

    In my most saccharine voice, I gave my reply: Pleassse convey my thanks for the invitation to your missstress, along with my deepessst regrets that I sssimply cannot essscape my duties at the moment.

    This annoyance disposed of, I went back to inspecting the carvings.

    But Anthea was raccoon-doggedly persistent.

    Fifteen minutes later, the messenger boy was back. By this time, I'd resolved the matter of the tardy gold leaf delivery (by having the head carpenter place a rush order with the goldsmith) and had moved on to selecting the shade of vermillion paint that best matched the one favored in Heaven. Alas, no paint on Earth could match that vibrancy.

    "Begging your pardon, spirit, but her ladyship strongly requests the pleasure of your company at tea right now."

    Presssent my regrets to her, but I sssimply cannot get away.

    And another fifteen minutes later, while I was struggling to decide between the last two candidates for the vermillion paint: "Begging your pardon most profoundly, spirit, but her ladyship strenuously requests the pleasure of your company at tea. Right now."

    I didn't bother to look up from the test swatches. Regrettably, my cirumssstances have not changed. My anssswer remains the sssame.

    Only ten minutes later this time, in some desperation: "I beg you to forgive me, spirit, but her ladyship demands your presence right this instant."

    Demanded my presence? Demanded my presence? Who was that raccoon dog to demand anything of me? When I was the one doing her the biggest favor in existence, saving her furry neck from the same punishment that I'd suffered?

    Tell her: No.

    This time, fifteen minutes, then half an hour, and then a full hour elapsed without further interruption. Entirely unsurprisingly, Anthea had already forgotten whatever she'd wanted to harass me over. I wrapped up my discussion with the carpenters and returned to the study to check on Katu and Floridiana's progress.

    And that was where the gods-cursed raccoon dog herself tracked me down.

    The two of you need to coordinate better, I was lecturing Katu and Floridiana. Look, you're not using the same terminology. See? Here Katu calls the Kitchen God "the Divine Intercessor," but Floridiana always refers to him as "the Stove God."

    "That's because you called him 'the Divine Intercessor'," Katu protested, winning my eternal fondness.

    "That's because 'the Stove God' is the most common epithet for him in the source materials," Floridiana objected, most assuredly not winning my eternal fondness.

    Blah, don't be so pedantic.

    "I am a teacher. I am by definition pedantic. You're the one who made me into a teacher in the first place."

    That doesn't mean you have to –

    A commotion in the hallway caught my attention. "Please at least wait for me to announce you," protested Camphorus Unus' voice, and then the steward rushed in like a wind shaking the branches of a great tree, calling, "Lady Anthea, here to see – "

    A screech cut him off. "Everyone out except for Pip!" And the raccoon dog came stomping in with as much grace as Taila throwing a tantrum.

    Her peanut gallery poured through the doorway after her, blocking anyone inside the room from getting out, and hence rendering their mistress' command moot.

    Katu swept Anthea an extravagant bow. Floridiana executed a more precise one, while Bobo bobbled her head happily. The bamboo viper really did like everyone.

    As for me, I didn't bother to do a thing. Hey, I was supposed to be playing normal sparrow, wasn't I? Would a normal sparrow bow?

    "All of you, out! That includes you too," Anthea ordered, sweeping an arm at her peanut gallery.

    "Aww, my lady!" they protested, but they turned around and started traipsing back into the hallway.

    "My lady!" cried Katu, still holding his dramatic bow. "What brings you to grace our humble assemblage with your magnificent, intoxicating presence?"

    Humble?

    Her face softened as her gaze landed on him. "I need to speak to her. In private. Now."

    Floridiana looked between the raccoon dog and me. Then she snatched a stack of papers off her desk. "Of course, my lady. I shall be in the bookroom if you need me."

    Coward, I muttered, loud enough that everyone in the room could hear me, but not so loud that the hangers-on in the hallway could.

    The ex-traveling mage looked down her nose at me. "I have never aspired to feats of heroism and derring-do. I would assume you prefer that to be the case in your headmistress."

    Without giving me a chance to retort, she bowed once more to Anthea and exited the room. Katu bounced after her, but when Bobo made to follow, I stopped her.

    I need you to keep up the pretense, I reminded her.

    Anthea's peanut gallery didn't know about me. At least, they'd better not.

    The door shut firmly behind Katu, leaving me confronting my old nemesis. I flew up to the top of a heap of books so I could stare her in the face.

    Well, what is it? I'm very busy, you know. I can't drop everything at a split second's notice to cater to your whims.

    "Cater to my whims – !"

    Even Taila was more articulate. Yes, little spirit. Your whims and caprices might amuse the royal court, such as it is, but you can't fool me.

    In the past, Anthea would have flown into a rage and stamped her feet and screeched, making an utter fool of herself in front of important personages. Perhaps she had learned some self-control in the intervening centuries, because she merely gnashed her teeth and clenched her fists.

    "Piri. We need to talk about your spending."

    Oh, not that again.

    Indeed we do, I agreed, catching her off guard. I heard how much trouble you have been giving Lodia about the materials for the priest robes. I'm disappointed. I would have thought that, by now, you would have learned the importance of outward appearance.

    I gave her outfit a deliberate up-and-down scan. It was a shame beaks couldn't curl, but I settled for shaking my head sadly.

    Sometime in the past five hundred years, Anthea had learned to keep her train of thought on track. A shame, that. "Piri. You are spending money like you still have access to the Imperial Treasury. Money does not grow in rice paddies."

    Oh, is that the case? I heard that it literally does, here. I must be woefully misinformed as to the South Serican financial system.

    "You're always willfully misinformed as to anything that doesn't suit your purposes! Always! Always always always! The Imperial Builder told you, the Imperial Treasurer told you, Her Imperial Majesty herself told you, and I told you, over and over and over, that the money was running out! All you had to do was walk to the Treasury, open the doors, and look. But no, you had to get dressed for a ball. You had to look over the menu for a banquet. You had to feed treats to the chimera. You had to inspect the garden to see if the gardeners sourced the precise shade of yellow chrysanthemums you wanted. You had to 'babysit' Cassia Quarta – and who was the one who had to get her back to her mother after you let her go diving in the lake – "

    I'd like to see you do better with that girl, I retorted. Have you tried to make her do anything she doesn't want to do?

    "Present tense, Piri? You really are living in the past, aren't you?"

    I puffed up all my feathers – but I couldn't defend myself. I couldn't let Anthea know about Cassia Quarta's latest reincarnation. Who knew how the raccoon dog would exploit that knowledge?

    "Get real, Piri! We're not living in the Empire anymore! It's over! It's gone! It's never coming back! It's time to move on!"

    Says the spirit who built herself a miniature model of the Imperial Palace.

    That stopped her short. She couldn't think of a good comeback – because none existed.

    She stamped her slippered foot. Ah, the memories.

    "And stop stealing my staff! You always steal my staff! Every time I hire someone promising, you snatch them! Well, not this time! Koh Lodia and Len Katullus are mine! Don't forget, you were the one who manipulated me into hiring Lodia in the first place!"

    I had hoped she'd forgotten that. Her memory could be most inconvenient at times.

    "Well, no more! We're not in the City of Dawn Song or in the Imperial Court anymore! This time, we're in Goldhill and in Jullie's court. This time, we're doing things my way! And I refuse to pay another GRAIN OF RICE for your extravagant follies!"
    A/N 1: I've begun posting a draft version of a story set far in the future in Serica for all my Patreon backers! If you're curious about what Serica will look like after Piri's through with it, you can check it out here.

    A/N 2: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Hookshyu, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Heh.
    Simple really.
    Piri first learned about money…I bet when she had the job to bring ruin to Cassius' line.
    And I bet the old fox happily got into the habit of being a big spender without actually going 'wait, wasteful spending had a purpose, not just me throwing money around like I'm shaking my nine tails all over the place!'

    And Piri is so nostalgic for the glory days of Serica that well, getting her to look back on that time without her favorite rose-tuned lens the precise shade of an Empress' smile Lynchee or something is about as difficult as surpassing that specific Lynchee line.
     
    Zaealix said:
    Heh.
    Simple really.
    Piri first learned about money…I bet when she had the job to bring ruin to Cassius' line.
    And I bet the old fox happily got into the habit of being a big spender without actually going 'wait, wasteful spending had a purpose, not just me throwing money around like I'm shaking my nine tails all over the place!'

    And Piri is so nostalgic for the glory days of Serica that well, getting her to look back on that time without her favorite rose-tuned lens the precise shade of an Empress' smile Lynchee or something is about as difficult as surpassing that specific Lynchee line.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    That's a great explanation of why Piri has such a distorted view of personal finance! I hadn't thought about it that way, but you're right - that was when she learned about money, when she learned how best to bankrupt an empire.

    Haha, I love your lychee analogy for how she lives in the past!
     
    Remove ads
    Thanksgiving Piri 2023
  • Media

    • View: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1u6ulnesWg3BvpahCPlNN8O8gqOZjY7Hw/view?usp=sharing

    Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating it! As always, I am so grateful to everyone who loves Piri's story enough to back me on Patreon, or who comments on or speculates about her escapades, or who follows along with her adventures every week. Your encouragement and support are such a big part of what keeps me going as a writer. I couldn't do it without you!

    In case you can't see the image above, it's also here.
     
  • Media
    • Chapter 121: In Which I Am Insulted by Being Put on a Budget
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 121: In Which I Am Insulted by Being Put on a Budget

    For my extravagant follies? For MY extravagant follies? And on whose behalf had I launched this extensive, expensive project in the first place?!

    Clenching my beak, I let Anthea rant until she exhausted herself. Then, while her shoulders heaved in the most unbecoming manner, I said coldly, Ungrateful child. You do realize that everything I have done has been to save YOUR furry neck, don't you?

    "My. Furry. NECK?"

    For a moment, I thought Anthea was going to fling the inkstone at me, and I ducked behind the stack of books. If that inkstone struck, it would crush my sparrow body.

    As I peeked back out, some modicum of sanity returned to Anthea. She gripped the sides of her skirts, crumpling the fine silk beyond salvation, and she breathed in and out, in and out.

    Taking advantage of her silence, I went on, Why do you think I've been working my wingtips TO THE BONE to establish this Kitchen God Temple? It was YOUR patron god who demanded that you increase the amount of offerings he receives, remember? It was YOU who had no idea how to accomplish that, remember? It was YOU who came begging me for help, remember?

    Anthea's teeth were clenched as tightly as my beak had been. "What I remember is that 'twas YOU who came begging me to rescue your friends. 'Twas YOU who was so desperate that you were willing to swear an official oath to secure MY assistance."

    Maybe that was true, but I trilled a light, bird's song of a laugh. Oh, no, no, dear Anthea, you mistake me. I never beg for anything. And are you not profiting handsomely off the oath we both swore?

    Deliberately, I made her sound like the lowest merchant. I also omitted the part where I was amassing a mountain's worth of positive karma for myself and my friends from the project.

    "Profiting?" she asked, incredulously.

    Yes, profiting. You, I believe, thought only in terms of convincing Jullia to increase the amount of offerings that she personally makes to the Kitchen God. How disappointingly small in scope, although I suppose that is only to be expected. I, on the other hand, am building you an entire system that will stretch all over Serica, that exists solely for the purpose of dedicating offerings to the Kitchen God. When I am done, for as long as you live, every time he receives an offering from one of those temples, he will think of you.

    (He wouldn't. He was a god. Divine memory was short, and divine gratitude short-lived.)

    However, Anthea understood my logic and accepted the reality that I'd always had more vision than she. "Fine. I'll give you that. But you came up with the idea already. I don't need you to bankrupt me under the guise of implementing it."

    That accusation came as a genuine surprise. My dear Anthea, you cannot possibly believe that I think about you so often as that.

    "Ugh! Fine! So maybe you're not deliberately sabotaging me! But you are still on track to bankrupt me, on purpose or not. And let me assure you, that's not in your best interest either."

    No, unfortunately, it was not. As much as I'd have liked to fling her words back into her bared teeth, I didn't have another funding source lined up. I could find one, of course, given enough time. It would be a challenge, since I'd have to work through and puppeteer my friends, but I was confident I could do it. It would just be gods-cursed inconvenient.

    Especially now, when Floridiana and Dusty were in the middle of recruiting slum humans who would need to be fed and clothed and whatever else Camphorus Unus would need to do to make them presentable.

    Hating every moment of it, I inclined my head to acknowledge Anthea's point. Bankrupting her now would be mutually disadvantageous. (Bankrupting her in the future, after she had served her purpose, though….)

    Equally inconvenient would be if Floridiana and Dusty's wagon returned from the slum and started disgorging slum humans while Anthea was still here. She wouldn't appreciate seeing or smelling them, and without knowing Heaven's karma system – which I had no intention of explaining to her – she couldn't understand why they would be my priests. I needed to get rid of her as fast as possible, and for more reasons than the usual.

    I take your point, I said with fake humbleness that didn't fool her. (I wasn't trying particularly hard to fool her. That was perhaps the only upside to interacting with Anthea – I didn't have to pretend to be anything else.) If you will send your steward to confer with my steward about – I waved a languid wing – pecuniary matters, then I am sure we can avoid such misunderstandings in the future.

    "Misunderstandings – !"

    For a moment, I thought I'd goaded her into losing her temper again, but several centuries had taught her a modicum of self-control. Her mouth and cheeks and chin contorted in highly entertaining ways, but at last, she forced the corners of her lips up into what she maybe thought approximated a smile. It looked more like a raccoon dog pup peeling its lips back in a snarl, i.e. unattractive but harmless, except to my eyeballs.

    "Fine," she snapped. "But I'm setting a budget for you, and you'd better stick to it."

    And, before I could respond, she flounced out.

    A budget. She was setting a budget. A BUDGET?!

    So that's why we can't afford to hire any more priests, human or not, at the moment, I finished explaining to Floridiana and Dusty, who hung their heads. We'll be hard pressed to house, clothe, and feed these priests, as it is.

    Anthea, proving that she had an attention span and could move fast when it was inconvenient for me, had already sent over her steward to discuss the budget with my steward. As things stood, Camphorus Unus had reported afterwards, we barely had enough to cover Temple bills and our own household expenses. Thank goodness Lodia and Katu counted as part of Anthea's household, so she was paying for their upkeep.

    A budget. What a ridiculous concept. Whoever heard of such a thing?

    Well, Stripey, I supposed. He must have made one for the duck demons, to know when to refuse to lend me any more money. So how would he have handled this crisis? What would Stripey do?

    I opened my mouth to ask Bobo, then shut it again. She'd look so sad at the mention of our friend, and she probably wouldn't know the answer anyway.

    "Oh!" Floridiana gave an uncharacteristic yelp. "I – please, Piri, you have to find funding for a stipend – I promised them a stipend – "

    A stipend? Don't worry, we don't have to pay Lodia and Katu a stipend. That's Anthea's problem.

    Dusty corrected me, "No, no, the priests. She told them they'd get paid for serving as priests. Money to save or to send home. No way Lady Anthea will say no to that, right?" His dark eyes were big and hopeful. "Not if she wants to earn good karma too?"

    That would have been an effective clinching argument to use on the selfish creature – if I'd told her about the karma system. Which I hadn't. And still had no intention of doing.

    Floridiana was the one who explained, "We can't go around telling everyone how the karma system works, Dusty. We'll get in trouble with Heaven." She slid a sidelong glance at me. "And I, for one, do not want to get in trouble with Heaven."

    I wholeheartedly agreed. I, too, did not want her to get in trouble with Heaven. Just think of the trouble it would then cause me to get her out of it!

    Don't worry, I promised the two of them. They'll get their stipends. I'll find a way.

    They nodded, reassured, and went off to check on our new priests.

    Now I just had to find a way to keep my promise.

    In Anthea's kitchen:

    "My lady, His Heavenly Lord the Kitchen God to see you."

    Anthea's steward bowed to her, stone-faced. He should be stone-faced, as he was that rarest of spirits, a piece of carved jade that had awakened, but he'd been even stonier than usual lately. (Piri, even when you didn't know it was her specifically, had that effect on people.) At least Piri's steward had agreed to stay within the bounds of the budget. Anthea didn't expect him to succeed, of course, so her true budget for the Temple was thrice that amount. She'd take it as a win if Piri stayed within that.

    "The Kitchen God wishes to see me? Oh dear, do I look presentable?"

    Surrounded by a cloud of ladies-in-waiting who adjusted her hair and tweaked her gown and jewelry and who, irritatingly, did not include her new Junior Wardrobe Mistress because the dratted girl was off working on Piri's projects again, Anthea sailed towards her kitchens. Both the passage that led there and the kitchens themselves were even more lavish than the front of her home. After all, it wouldn't do to disrespect her patron god by entertaining him in less style than she did mere nobility.

    Of course, that only held true when he visited her on one of her own estates. The royal court was so migratory that both she and he had seen far too many dark, greasy, foul-smelling kitchens, even in the Goldhill palace. (Despite hints and wheedling, Jullie still hadn't diverted money from her military campaigns to renovate her kitchens.)

    Leaving her entourage cooing over her beauty at the door, Anthea entered her kitchens. Her cooks knew the drill: As soon as the Kitchen God had arrived, they'd cleaned up and made themselves scarce. By the time she swept in, the tables and floors were sparkling. Vermillion tapers burned with a clear, steady light. One whole wall was taken up by a gilded altar to the Kitchen God, with an image carved from precious rosewood and set with jade and pearls. Her cooks kept the offering table before the image laden with foods and drinks of all varieties, day and night.

    Right now, the Kitchen God was lounging next to it, sampling a dish of cakes. They were similar in flavor to the triangular pieces of white sugar rice cakes that he'd eaten in the Lychee Grove Earth Court's kitchen. Anthea, however, had tweaked her version to be prettier. The batter was dyed shades of pastel pink and green and orange and yellow, shaped into dainty balls, and sprinkled with sesame salt.

    She bowed low, hearing silk whisper over the tiles. In her own kitchens, she didn't need to worry about rancid grease destroying her embroidered silk slippers or the hem of her gown.

    "Ah, Annie! Great to see you again! Such fluffy rice cake-balls! You know, yours are the best, the ones other people dedicate to me just can't compare." As usual, the Kitchen God rambled on as if they were already in the middle of a conversation, not just starting one.

    Now that he'd addressed her, she straightened from her bow. "I'm honored to hear you say so, Heavenly Lord."

    "Only the truth, only the truth. Credit where credit's due, hey?" He moved on to a plate of lychees and started peeling one. "Now, what's this I've been hearing about a temple to me?"

    Anthea wasn't surprised he already knew. The builders and the silk merchant must have gossiped at home, next to their own Kitchen God altars.

    "If it so please you, Heavenly Lord, the temple is a way to increase the number of offerings to you," she said cautiously, just in case he decided to be offended that she hadn't consulted him first. (Of course, if she had consulted him first, there was an equal chance that he'd have been offended about being troubled with details when he'd already issued his instructions. With gods, you never knew.) "If it pleases you not, Heavenly Lord, we shall halt the project at once."

    He waved a hand, his fingers completely clean of lychee juice. "Oh, no need, no need. Capital plan, that, if you can pull it off. There's never been a formal temple to me before. Or to any of the gods. Hmm. Even the Jade Emperor." His lips curved upward.

    "I shall ensure its success." Now that she knew he approved of the plan, she was happy to take credit. "I intend to turn it into an entire system of temples to you, all over Serica. Of course, that may take some time," she added, buying herself some leeway in case he expected his temples to spring up all over Serica overnight like mushrooms. "I shall have to – "

    He waved his hand again. Now it held a leg of roast duck, the skin crisped to a perfect deep red-brown. "Oh, no need for details, Annie! I trust your judgment! Let's surprise me with the results, hey?"

    He winked.

    Somehow, that didn't sound as reassuring as it should have. It felt more like him giving her leeway to earn an appointment with the Heavenly executioner. And not to command someone else's execution, either.

    But what else could she say but, "Of course, Heavenly Lord. I promise the results will prove a happy surprise to you."
    A/N 1: I've begun posting a draft version of a story set far in the future in Serica for all my Patreon backers! If you're curious about what Serica will look like after Piri's through with it, you can check it out here.

    A/N 2: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Hookshyu, Lindsey, Michael, Pizzatiger, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
     
  • Threadmarks
    • arianedartagnan said:
    He waved his hand again. Now it held a leg of roast duck, the skin crisped to a perfect deep red-brown. "Oh, no need for details, Annie! I trust your judgment! Let's surprise me with the results, hey?"

    He winked.

    Somehow, that didn't sound as reassuring as it should have. It felt more like him giving her leeway to earn an appointment with the Heavenly executioner. And not to command someone else's execution, either.

    But what else could she say but, "Of course, Heavenly Lord. I promise the results will prove a happy surprise to you."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Hm. Does she know that something similar was said to Piri?
     
    Ooooh…
    That's a thing I didn't consider.
    And with Julia blowing manpower on the campaigns that fail…
    Well.
    I doubt it will be as bad as the Serica collapse but…
    It could be bad.
    A nasty thing is I could see Heaven basically doing shenanigans to see various powerful Spirits slain under the guise of 'Demonkilling' when said Spirits are those who might otherwise have the skill/knowledge to uplift humanity…
    And Heaven is going to be useless at getting anything good done no doubt.
    Cassius's dear wife likely took the fall for Piri turning Claymouth Barony into a Demon den!
    Nevermind things are far better beyond the death of that Catfish!
     
    Winged One said:
    Hm. Does she know that something similar was said to Piri?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Hmm, that's a good question. I think Piri would have been too proud to say that Lady Fate was too lazy to give specific instructions. Piri would have made it sound like Lady Fate trusted her judgment and hence left things up to her. Aurelia and Marcius could have read between the lines; Anthea probably couldn't.

    Zaealix said:
    Ooooh…
    That's a thing I didn't consider.
    And with Julia blowing manpower on the campaigns that fail…
    Well.
    I doubt it will be as bad as the Serica collapse but…
    It could be bad.
    A nasty thing is I could see Heaven basically doing shenanigans to see various powerful Spirits slain under the guise of 'Demonkilling' when said Spirits are those who might otherwise have the skill/knowledge to uplift humanity…
    And Heaven is going to be useless at getting anything good done no doubt.
    Cassius's dear wife likely took the fall for Piri turning Claymouth Barony into a Demon den!
    Nevermind things are far better beyond the death of that Catfish!
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    It could be bad...but New Piri is here to save the day this time! (Or to try, anyway.)

    Hmm, yeah, some of the gods would definitely get rid of potentially too-powerful spirits under the guise of "demon killing." Heaven is such a tangle of bureaucratic red tape that it's a wonder it gets anything done!
     
    Chapter 122: In Which No One Gets to Set a Budget for Me
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 122: In Which No One Gets to Set a Budget for Me

    Remember the last time I tried to organize a gala, to celebrate the completion of the Claymouth schoolhouse? And how Stripey shot down all my grand plans for lack of funding? Well, now I had a second chance! And this time, this time, nobody was going to tell me that I couldn't hire entertainment and chefs from the capital – because we were literally living in the capital!

    Take that, Stripey! I thought at him, wherever he was. If you want to rein in my spending, hurry up and awaken so we can meet again at Honeysuckle Croft.

    I didn't say any of that out loud, of course.

    What I did say out loud, to an all-hands meeting at my Temple to the Kitchen God, was: We need musssicians for the fessstival.

    By now, the staff roster included not only us four core conspirators – er, founders – but also the steward, Camphorus Unus, and our freshly-half-trained priests. Clean and clad in colorful silk robes, they were verging on presentable – so long as they didn't move or talk. Etiquette was still a work in progress.

    We need to hire the mossst famous and mossst talented musssicians and sssingers to perform the High Priessst's sssong cycle in praissse of the Kitchen God, I told them.

    After weeks of enduring an angsty poet and an even angstier composer whom Camphorus Unus had dug up somewhere, I had my song cycle at last. The lyrics were everything I'd envisioned, with lurid encomiums of the Divine Intercessor and His Divine Love for all who dwelled on Earth under His Loving Eye. The music swooped and soared, as if to depict the mightiest feats from the beginning of the world: Lord Pan splitting the miasma to create Heaven and Earth, or Lady Nu shaping the first humans from riverbed mud, or something on that level. Such comparisons to the Father of the World and the Mother of Mankind would stroke the ego of a god who just wasn't that big of a deal.

    I'd have loved for my priests to form the choir, but, well, let's just say that I hadn't told Floridiana and Dusty to filter for vocal talent. Just humanity. Our new priests were much more impressive mute.

    Speaking of muteness, I needed to check on something that the priests would not be reading – at least, not until we fixed their enunciation. Oh, and taught them how to read.

    Is the Official Text ready?

    Clearing her throat and stepping out of the crowd, Floridiana rotated slowly to display the gigantic illuminated manuscript in her arms. "It is indeed."

    She raised it up on high, like a Prime Minister presenting the next Crown Prince or Princess to the adoring masses. Gasps rose from Lodia and Katu, who'd never seen such fine craftsmanship on a book cover before, and from the priests, who had never seen so much gold and so many gemstones before.

    Ex-sssellent. Then I believe that all that remains is to finalize the guest list for the seats of honor, hire the performers, and draw up a menu for the chefs. Steward.

    Camphorus Unus met Bobo's eyes, keeping up our charade for the priests' benefit. "Yes, spirit?"

    I leave thossse arrangements in your sssolid, capable branches.

    As usual, he showed no emotion. He merely bowed the precise, correct amount. "Very good, spirit."

    In Anthea's mansion:

    "A festival? A festival to the Kitchen God?" screeched Anthea, clutching the invitation so tightly that the fine paper crumpled into a ball. "Why is this the first I'm hearing about it?"

    Her steward, a brother of the Temple steward, bowed. "They have only slightly exceeded the higher budget you set, my lady. Shall I tell them to desist?"

    Anthea gripped both sides of the invitation and jerked them apart so she could reread it. The program of events covered a full day of music, feasting, and performances in the courtyard of the Temple to the Kitchen God. The gardens would be thrown open to the public, with refreshments served to all who came. Select guests (herself included) were invited to attend a sermon delivered by the Voice of the Divine Intercessor (a.k.a. Katu) and a banquet in His Divine Name.

    And, crucially, everyone was "invited" to honor Him with offerings.

    There was no way around it: This program was calculated to flatter the Kitchen God, which would only redound to Anthea's credit.

    Gods, she hated it when Piri knew what she was doing!

    Her steward was still awaiting her verdict. Regretfully, Anthea shook her head. "No, it's all right. Let her carry on."

    In the palace:

    "A festival? A festival to the Kitchen God?" exclaimed Jullie over breakfast, when her ladies-in-waiting brought her the invitation. Her newest pet, an adorable golden snub-nosed monkey, reached out from his perch on her shoulder to snatch the sheet of paper. She let him have it. "Why is this the first that We are hearing of it? Lady Anthea? Isn't he your patron god?"

    Ah, this was awkward. Inside her head, Anthea cursed Piri for not giving her advance notice so she could have alerted Jullie. Monarchs, in her experience, didn't like surprises. Shouldn't Piri, of all people, have known that?

    Well, to be fair, she probably hadn't ever noticed. Emperor Cassius had let her get away with pretty much whatever she pleased.

    Unlike Empress Aurelia, who had very much not let Anthea get away with whatever she pleased.

    Anthea bowed deeply to her current sovereign, mind racing for a way to salvage this situation. In the end, she settled on a respectful, yet slightly reproving tone, reminding all the aristocrats present that she was far older and hence wiser than any of them by far. "The Kitchen God is the patron god of all who dwell on Earth, Your Majesty. For it is he who intercedes on our behalf before the Jade Emperor's throne. Is it not prudent, then, to show our gratitude for his ever-constant love?"

    To her relief, the Queen looked mildly appeased. The monkey had clambered down into her lap and was happily ripping the invitation to pieces. He then proceeded to eat the pieces.

    "'Tis not a festival of thanksgiving per se to which I object, Annie. I would appreciate being kept apprised of such developments."

    As would Anthea, who was fuming inwardly. "I do apologize for the zeal of the Kitchen God's priests, Your Majesty. I shall endeavor to ensure that in the future, they do not let themselves get swept away by their desire to glorify the Kingdom of South Serica before the god's eyes."

    The Queen waved a hand. "Yes, do. Zeal is all well and good, but they must remember that they are Our vassals and answer to Us first."

    Up in Heaven:

    "A festival? A festival to the Kitchen God?"

    Star glared at the vision cast by her seal. It showed the front of a mansion whose roof and pillars had been remodeled to mimic an Imperial mansion. Builders swarmed the front courtyard, erecting a stage. "What's Pi– that dratted soul up to now?"

    Flicker winced. He'd known, when she sent an urgent message asking him to come to her office, that something was very, very wrong. Normally, out of respect for his wishes, she was more discreet. Of course, he could have suggested that they meet under their usual willow instead, but her handwriting had been so messy and distraught that he'd opted to sneak into the Bureau of the Sky.

    "Well, on the bright side," he began, and winced at the accidental pun. "At least she isn't constantly trying to fly back to Honeysuckle Croft anymore. That was what you hoped for, wasn't it, Star?"

    The night that the Star of Reflected Brightness had invited him to view the princess-of-the-night blossoms with her, she'd told him to drop the formality. He'd finally brought himself to stop addressing her as "Heavenly Lady," but "Star of Reflected Brightness" was too long for normal conversation, and "Aurelia" felt wrong. "Star" was the best option they'd compromised on. It was a tad generic, given the number of stars in Heaven, but oh well. He was a clerk, not a poet. Unlike that Len Katullus whom Piri had swept into her orbit.

    With a flick of Star's fingers, the vision from her seal shifted to the Claymouth Barony. Down by the river, Taila and Nailus were dissecting a dead mortal frog under the supervision of a scholarly frog spirit. Star examined their handiwork with distaste – no Serican empress had ever dabbled in natural philosophy – and switched the vision back to Piri's new Temple.

    "Yes, I'm glad she's stopped corrupting my Quarta, but what in the world is she plotting down south? Lady Fate's been in a truly foul mood. She won't say why, but it has to be related to Piri. I'd stake my divinity on it."

    "Don't!" exclaimed Flicker before he could stop himself.

    She smiled, the mischievous smile that she seemed to reserve for him. "Why? Worried they'd actually cast me out of Heaven if I lost?"

    "Yes. I mean, no, they'd never do it – you're too integral to the smooth functioning of Heaven – we couldn't do without you – "

    At that, she actually laughed. "Oh, Flicker, any god or goddess is replaceable. But I appreciate your vote of confidence."

    Even as he stammered out something inane, he was thinking, You're not replaceable to me. But he didn't say it out loud.

    At least he'd succeeded in distracting her from Piri's plots, and lightened her mood, if only for now.

    In Goldhill:

    The week before the first-ever Festival to the Divine Intercessor was scheduled to occur, I got a surprise visitor: Anthea, in the furry flesh. The raccoon dog hadn't visited in person since the day she threw a temper tantrum and set a budget.

    Even more surprisingly, she wasn't here to scream about how we'd exceeded aforementioned budget (Camphorus Unus had droned on and on about that), or how she refused to cover the extra amount, or anything that would interfere with our preparations.

    The polar opposite, in fact.

    "Piri."

    Her use of my true name cued me in that something was wrong. Say what you would about her intelligence (and I did), but she only slipped up like that when she was very upset.

    She confirmed that by repeating my name, even though she already had my attention. "Piri. Is everything ready for the festival?"

    Did she need to ask? Of course it wasn't. Nothing ever went smoothly when you were organizing something on this scale, and you were always scrambling to put out fires (metaphorical ones, I hoped, given that it was the Kitchen God we were dealing with) right up until the very last second.

    The fessstival will go off without a hitch, I assured her.

    Anthea paced in a small circle, the hem of her gown whispering over the stone floor. I watched with interest to see if the delicate silk would fray. It didn't.

    "Good. Good. Piri."

    That was the third time she'd used my name. Now she was making me worried. Yes? Is something the matter?

    "You have to make sure the festival is perfect, okay? He's going to be watching. He's expecting lavish offerings, a jump in his power. We can't disappoint him."

    No, we couldn't. But luckily, I was in charge of this festival, so no way was it going to disappoint him. The disapproving tilt of my head must have conveyed those sentiments to her, because she shook her head in wonder.

    "I can't believe I'm counting on you. But I am. Kitchen God help me, Jade Emperor help me, but I am."

    Her lack of faith made me puff out my chest indignantly. Do you really doubt my ability to throw a PARTY, of all things? Stop clipping my wings, and you'll see a festival beyond even the Kitchen God's divine imagination!

    She stopped pacing, emitted a sound that was part gasp, part laugh, and maybe part sob. I was about to warn her that I had neither the time nor the patience for hysterics when she blurted out, "Something happened in the west. Something bad. I don't know what – Jullie doesn't want to talk about it, and I – I didn't want to get tangled up in politics, like you, so I never established my own sources, and now I don't know what's going on, and I'm afraid it's very, very bad…."

    On a scale of "The demons have overrun the kingdom" to "We have to cancel the festival," how bad are we talking?

    "I don't know. I don't know. That's the problem. I don't know!"

    I processed that. Then I shrugged it off. Even if Jullie wants to cancel the festival, it's not her festival to cancel.

    "I don't know about that," Anthea warned. "She is the Queen. We're all her vassals and answer to her."

    Maybe you are and you do, but not me or Bobo or Floridiana or Dusty. And we're the ones in charge of the festival. You just watch and see. We are going to put on this festival, come peasant revolt or demon invasion!

    A/N 1: I've begun posting a draft version of a story set far in the future in Serica for all my Patreon backers! If you're curious about what Serica will look like after Piri's through with it, you can check it out here.

    A/N 2: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Hookshyu, Lindsey, Michael, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 123: The Familiar Roar of an Angry Mob
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 123: The Familiar Roar of an Angry Mob

    It was both, as it turned out, that nearly stopped me from putting on my festival.

    One morning, I was listening to Katu rehearse his sermon when a dull roar began to drift through the windows, coming from all directions. Confused, he interrupted his fulsome praise of the Kitchen God with an undignified: "Huh? What's that? That's not thunder, is it?"

    Before he finished his questions, I'd already shot out the window. Because I knew that sound. Oh, how I knew that sound. The howl of many furious crowds coalescing into one, of a city forced past its breaking point until it exploded into an incoherent, undirected rage….

    As much as Anthea yearned for the City of Dawn Song, I doubted that she missed the mobs.

    Hovering above the Temple, I scanned our neighborhood. The alleys, lanes, and boulevards were packed with people – tradesmen, craftsmen, housewives, pickpockets, laborers, flower sellers, street urchins – all crashing along like a flood, the outer fringes breaking off to charge across courtyards and trample gardens and bang on doors and bellow for the inhabitants to come out. Nearly drowned out was the slamming of shutters and the grating of furniture, as the nobles barricaded themselves inside their mansions.

    I flew higher still, surveying the capital of South Serica. The ground-bound mob filled every street in every neighborhood, while a cloud of bird and insect spirits darkened the air above the rooftops, all converging on the palace. It was daytime, so the rioters weren't torching everything in sight, but this still wasn't good. Not good at all.

    All of a sudden, a hawk spirit dropped out of the sky above me, talons outstretched.

    I shrieked, folded my wings, and plummeted back towards my own roof.

    "What's going on?" called Bobo's anxious voice from below. "Pi– Pip, what's going on outssside?"

    Diving through a chimney, I zipped through the hallways until I reached our main workroom again. Thank goodness the hawk didn't follow.

    Shut the windows! Bar the doors! Hurry! It's a mob!

    "A mob?" Bobo and Katu asked blankly.

    Right. Neither of them had ever lived in a place where the population density was as high as in Goldhill, so neither of them had ever seen a mob capable of toppling governments. I had, that final night in the City of Dawn Song, as the rebel army approached and the inhabitants went mad.

    Panicky footsteps and hoofbeats. Floridiana dashed into the room, propelling an unruffled Camphorus Unus in front of her. Dusty galloped in behind them.

    "What's going on? What do we do?" the mage demanded of me.

    "Why's it happening? Why're they doing that?" the baby horse spirit neighed.

    Camphorus Unus simply clasped his hands in front of him and awaited my orders, solid, reliable tree that he was.

    More frantic footsteps heralded the arrival of my priests, some still half-dressed with their hair loose and their robes hanging open. (Floridiana hadn't yet trained their slum slovenliness out of them.)

    "Mage, Mage, what's going on?"

    "Why're they rioting?"

    "My family! I gotta get home!"

    I, too, looked at Floridiana, curious what she would advise, but she was at as much of a loss as Bobo, Katu, and Dusty. For all her traveling, for all her mage learning, for all her history-text-reading, she had never confronted an angry mob herself – or even observed one from the fringes, it appeared. Like the rest of them, she turned to me with pleading eyes.

    As well she should.

    Taking my place on one of Bobo's coils, I drew in a deep breath and addressed them. Everybody, pleassse calm down –

    "Drop the act!" yelled one of the priests, a young man who was too bold for his own good. "We all know already!"

    The others bobbed their heads.

    You all know what, precisssely? My cold voice was at complete odds with Bobo's panicky twitch.

    Undaunted, the first priest called, "We all know it's not really the snake talking! It's the bird!"

    Floridiana spun and turned on him. "Silence! You don't know what you're talking about!"

    "S-s-s-s-sure we do," quavered the oldest priest, a decrepit old man who tottered about with a cane and who, Dusty had reported, acted as a sort of grandfather to the youngest priests. "W-w-w-we ain't blind."

    "Nor deaf neither," called an old hag of a priestess. "The snake changes personalities when the bird's around!"

    Bobo performed a guilty, side-to-side wiggle.

    They were all wasting time that we didn't have. All right! Fine! You win, okay? I'm a talking bird, and if you tell anybody, you're going to be in big, big trouble with the gods!

    The priests just shrugged. "Why's it matter?" one asked. And: "Who'd we tell?"

    Good. Just keep thinking along those lines, and we may all get out of this alive. I glared at each of them in turn, but they didn't seem impressed. Back to the original topic. You wanted to know what's going on out there? Well, that's what we call an angry mob.

    Floridiana, Bobo, and Dusty sucked in quick gasps. Camphorus Unus' placid expression never faltered. The priests continued to look unimpressed.

    "Duh," said the young boy-priest with an eye roll. (I'd never heard the slum slang before, but the intent was clear.) "We've seen mobs before."

    I blinked. You've seen mobs before?

    "Yeah, 'course we have."

    Um – why? Mobs had not been a common occurrence in the City of Dawn Song. At least, not until close to the end, after we could no longer suppress news that the Jade Emperor had recalled the chimera from Cassius. Then the ultimate proof that Heaven had withdrawn its favor, combined with rumors that the rebel dukes' army was approaching the city walls, had set off the riots.

    Did this mean that Jullia's dynasty approaching its end? If only she were a proper Daughter of Heaven with her own chimera, so I could tell! I hated this guesswork at whether she and her government were salvageable.

    If you're so knowledgeable about mobs, young priest of the Kitchen God, what do they usually want?

    "Rice," said the boy at once.

    "Food," said the other old hag.

    "An en-en-en-en-end to the War o' the Wilds," said the old man.

    I cocked my head and listened to the roaring crowd outside, but I couldn't make out individual words. Bobo, can you tell what they're saying?

    With her spirit's senses, her hearing was much better than mine. "It's hard to tell what they're sssaying, but I think…I think…sssomething about a battle? Losssing a battle…maybe?"

    Uncharacteristically, Camphorus Unus spoke up without a direct invitation. "Rumors have been circulating in the marketplace that the Queen's army suffered a devastating defeat in the west. The inhabitants fear that the demons are coming for them. Some have been calling for the royal court to recall the army to defend the capital."

    I thought back to the map I'd seen in the Lychee Grove Earth Court. In theory, South Serica extended from the eastern coast to the mountain range in the west, although demon monarchs had claimed perhaps a third of the western lowlands. If they were advancing on Goldhill, that wasn't good. Demons could move fast.

    And you're only telling us this NOW?

    "I beg your pardon, but I did inform you four days ago. At breakfast?" he prompted.

    Had he? I searched my memories. Oh, yes, I did maybe vaguely remember him mumbling something about an army and a battle, but Jullia's army was always fighting battles against demons, so I hadn't bothered to listen. Military dispatches were so boring. I'd been more focused on teasing Dusty about the piece of lettuce he'd managed to get in his forelock.

    Also, when Katu wasn't angsting over the optimal word choice in his song cycle to the Kitchen God, he was agonizing over fresh disasters in the west, and you did desensitize to atrocities after a while. After all, you only had so much time and energy for outrage and sympathy, before you turned your attention back to your own, more pressing concerns.

    All of which was to say that no, I hadn't known about the defeat, or the danger that demons might pose to the capital, or the imminent danger that the mob did pose to my festival to honor the Kitchen God and collect offerings for him. In frustration, I threw up my wings and glared up at Heaven (or, to be more accurate, the ceiling beams).

    Why? Why do you do this to me? Tell me: Whyyyyy?!

    The others' gazes followed mine up to the beams, carved and gilded with scenes of life on Earth, each watched over by the Kitchen God's paternal figure. The most irritating priest interrupted my dramatic scene of anguish.

    "If the demons are a-comin', then the Queen's gonna need soldiers. To defend the capital." His voice trailed off meaningfully.

    "No!" gasped Bobo. "You can't go! You'll get hurt! You'll get killed! It's too dangerous!"

    "Yes, the snake speaks truth," seconded Dusty, thrusting out his chest and tossing his gleaming mane. "Trust me, for I have been through a mighty battle and lived to tell the tale."

    The priests didn't look nearly as awed as he hoped, but then again, neither did I.

    Floridiana stared at the troublesome priest she'd saddled us with. "You would rather die on the ramparts than stay in the Temple where it's safe?" she asked incredulously, before she corrected herself, "I mean, where you can serve the Kitchen God?"

    I could have told her that she needn't bother keeping up a pretense of piety. I knew where this conversation was headed.

    And indeed, a middle-aged priest who, if I recalled correctly, had a wife and way too many children back in the slum, put his hands together inside his sleeves, in the pious gesture that the priests were rehearsing and trying to turn into second nature before the festival. He almost nailed it, which meant that the slum dialect that accompanied it was even more jarring. "If I had my druthers, I'd rather stay here and serve the Kitchen God, mage. But they'll be payin' good rice for people to fight. My family's gotta eat."

    "Now see here! We're also payin' – I mean, paying – good rice for you to stay here and serve the Kitchen God!" Floridiana retorted, so upset that she slipped into a slum accent herself. Spending so much time with the priests was having a deleterious effect on her diction and demeanor: She was falling back into childhood habits.

    The oldest priest quavered, "W-w-w-w-we've been workin' here for weeks, and we haven't seen a grain o' rice."

    "That's because it isn't time for you to be paid yet!" Floridiana snapped. "I told you at the start: You'll be paid every month! Also, we're still waiting on the rice shipment. Camphorus Unus?"

    Unperturbed that she'd redirected the unpaid priests' ire at him, the steward nodded a slow, stately nod. "Indeed, there has been a dearth of grain in the city of late. But the rice merchant sent word only yesterday that he has received a shipment from the farms and that our portion will be delivered on the morrow."

    Out of nowhere, the boy-priest piped up, "I was listenin' to the master carpenter yell at the goldsmith's apprentice. He said, if the gold leaf is any later, he's gonna charge 'interest'."

    "Y-y-y-y-yes, w-w-w-w-we are charging interest."

    "'Less you want us to join the army."

    Poor Floridiana just gaped at the priests she'd recruited.

    Unburdened by excessive amounts of empathy, I decided to step in. I fluttered my wings and cleared my throat.

    No one noticed.

    I flapped my wings and cleared my throat harder. When all eyes turned my way, I puffed myself up to look bigger and hence more wrathful.

    Am I understanding you correctly? You are taking advantage of a national crisis to hold the Temple to the Kitchen God hostage over pay negotiations?

    (I might have projected outrage, but inwardly, such a display of concentrated self-interest warmed my heart.)

    Have you forgotten everything that we have done for you? We have fed you! We have clothed you! We have housed you! We have educated you! And why do you think we selected you, of all the people in the capital, when we might have hired those who do not need to be fed, clothed, housed, or educated at the Temple's expense?

    I glared at each of the ex-slum-dwellers in turn, making sure I held their gazes until they wavered. Where they had freely challenged Floridiana's authority, they quailed before me. One by one, they hung their heads – which gave them a good view of the hems of their embroidered silk robes and the toes of their comfortable, well-fitting slippers, all reminders of how they had benefited from my charity.

    I let them stew in shame and confusion for a moment before saying sternly, It is because we represent the infinite mercy of the Kitchen God, who intercedes on behalf of all of us on Earth before the Emperor of Heaven.

    The boy-priest opened his mouth, but at a glance from one of the hags, he shut it again.

    I hardened my tone still further. If, however, you have determined that you no longer wish to avail yourselves of the Kitchen God's compassion, then, by all means – go. We do not need priests who will place petty pecuniary squabbles above our divine mission.

    I didn't know how much they actually understood, but that wasn't the point. They grasped the gist of what I'd said, and they certainly knew the command, "Go." Told that they weren't indispensable, as they'd come to believe they were, given the actual option of leaving their warm, soft beds and easy work and hearty meals to join the army and probably get eaten by demons, they hesitated.

    I gave them the final push. Well? Have you made up your minds? The Kitchen God will not wait forever for your answers, and neither will I.

    One by one, they shook their heads and mumbled something about their devotion to the great god. As they slunk back out into the hallway, I nodded to Camphorus Unus, who told them, "Barring further upheaval in the city, the rice will be delivered to us on the morrow. You will receive your appointed stipends."

    And a bonus, for the sakes of your families, I added before I could stop myself.

    Ugh. Why I had promised them that? Now we'd have to take it out of the offerings intended for the Kitchen God. I did my best to salvage the situation with: Consider it a token of the Kitchen God's infinite love.

    As the priests exploded into shouts of gratitude, I just hoped the god was listening.

    A/N 1: I've begun posting a draft version of a story set far in the future in Serica for all my Patreon backers! If you're curious about what Serica will look like after Piri's through with it, you can check it out here.

    A/N 2: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Hookshyu, Lindsey, Michael, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Hunh.
    Piri flexed hard this go-around.
    Honestly I suspect like me she could have called out the Queen for screwing up the military conquests though I am curious how precisely she'll frame it…
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top