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The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

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Winged One said:
I call bullshit.

Dammit Piri, how has a joke like that not bitten you in the ass back when it was fluffy?
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Quite rightly, too!

And it probably has.... But Piri can be a bit of a slow learner when she doesn't want to learn the lesson.

Zaealix said:
Well.
I have to say, Katu might have more showmanship then sense but he seems to have done the job, and even gotten the Kitchen God's attention.
What I would like to ask is why Piri is going 'uh-oh'. He's not about to torpedo what Piri's got going on here right…?
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Katu has more showmanship than sense, which is why he needs someone like Piri to provide the sense!

Piri doesn't like it when gods show up unbidden.... Only when she wants them to show up.

Half Moon said:
One would hope not. Unfortunately, gods are idiots.
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They most certainly are!
 
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Chapter 130: That Blinding Golden Light
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    • Chapter 130: That Blinding Golden Light

    Golden light blazed from the altar, blinding everyone who could see it. Since I'd designed the Temple to have a clear line of sight from the front doors all the way to the back of the main hall, and since Katu was standing right in front of the wide-open doors, that meant all the ex-rioters. Gasps and shrieks rose from the crowd, accompanied by a wails from those who'd been unlucky – or lucky – enough to be staring at the altar when it lit up like a star sprite showing off.

    Heedless of her skirt, Anthea dropped to her knees at the very first twinkle. Lodia, too, prostrated herself so fast that she left me hanging midair for an instant, before I caught myself, found a perch on a side table, and executed a perfect sparrow's bow. Why not on the floor? The higher vantage point gave me a view of both the altar and the front doors. Also, I wouldn't get trampled by accident. Plus the priests had been tromping in and out with refreshments, so the floor was pretty dirty and I didn't want to besmirch my feathers.

    "Well, well, well, my children," boomed a voice from the heart of the brilliant light. I expected it to dim to reveal the figure of the Kitchen God, but it continued to blind everyone. Perhaps the god deemed these worshippers too lowly to see his divine self. "What have we here?"

    Not the most original of lines, but backed by that Heavenly radiance, it didn't need to be. Tardily realizing that they were in the presence of the divine, the ex-rioters fell over themselves groveling before it.

    Katu, on the other hand, imitated Anthea's pose, kneeling and bowing his head. From the venomous glare she shot his way, she took that as her personal poet setting himself up as her equal before her patron god. Personally, I thought it made perfect sense for the High Priest, the Voice of the Divine Intercessor, to be a little less prostrate than common worshippers.

    After a moment, Anthea and Katu realized that the Kitchen God had asked a question, and that it might not be all rhetorical.

    "Heavenly Lord – " she began, at the same time that he said, "O Divine Intercessor – "

    Katu stopped, deferring to his patron and social superior. That would never do.

    When Anthea attempted to keep speaking, I plastered myself across her mouth. Let him talk! Is your pride more important than establishing the credentials of the High Priest?

    "Mmmph!" Anthea pried me off her face, made a convulsive gesture as if she were about to fling me aside – which would have killed me when I hit the wall or floor – but in the end, she settled for dumping me back on the side table.

    I waved a somewhat rumpled wing at Katu for him to continue.

    He'd followed our scuffle with dismay, but he obediently cleared his throat and addressed the Kitchen God once more. "O Divine Intercessor, O Prince of the Hearth, ye who watches over all on Earth, hear our prayer! Hear the cries of the poor, the weak, the hungry – the pleas of those abandoned, left behind, trampled underfoot. Save us from the demon horde!"

    The golden light pulsed, shooting rays throughout the Temple and out the doors and windows. Everywhere, dazzled new devotees shouted their awe.

    It wasn't actually any kind of promise on the Kitchen God's part, but Katu and the others interpreted it as such. "Thank you, O Divine Intercessor! Your mercy is endless. Your compassion is infinite." And here, he, too, prostrated himself.

    Ex-rioters who'd begun to raise their torsos, either out of a desire to get a better view of what was going on or simply out of discomfort, flattened them again.

    The golden light grew brighter and brighter until I thought I might explode from the pressure of it – and then it flickered out. The divine presence faded.

    Blinking my eyes to clear my vision, I tottered a little and surveyed my surroundings. Everyone was creaking to their feet while whispering about the scene they'd just witnessed. Everyone, that was, except for Katu.

    He'd begun to rise too, but Floridiana had hissed a quick, "Stay!" at him, and he'd remained prostrate, establishing his superior faith.

    At last, she gave him a minute nod. He stood and rotated slowly to face the new devotees, Lodia's brilliant robes cascading off his frame. The butterfly spirits swirled about his head and shoulders like a majestic aura.

    "Friends!" he shouted. "Do you see? We called, and he answered!"

    Ragged, uncoordinated, but enthusiastic cheers rose from the new devotees.

    "Praise be to our Savior the Divine Intercessor! Praise be to he watches over us and protects us from evil! Praise be to he who will save us from the demon horde! Come, my friends! Let us go into his Temple so that we may dedicate offerings to him!"

    Oh, good. Katu remembered the point of this whole Temple business. Although, to judge by the glow on his face, his exhortation to donate funds had been more sincere than calculating.

    Oh dear. My High Priest might have begun to buy his own rhetoric.

    Still, this first round of fundraising proved most efficacious. Word of the Kitchen God's miracle rushed throughout the capital as devotees pushed their home to fetch offerings, shouting about the god to all who would listen. The mob this side of Goldhill calmed down out of sheer curiosity, transformed into a crowd of festival parade onlookers, and redirected its flow from the palace to the Temple.

    After I determined that enough of them had gawked at the High Priest Who Summoned the God, I assigned Camphorus Unus and the serow, Miss Caprina, to handle crowd control, and hustled an exhausted Katu off the workroom.

    "Thank the Jade Emperor in Heaven and the Kitchen God on Earth that that worked," he groaned. He made as if to drop into a chair, which would crumple the back of his robes, but I screeched. He jumped back up.

    Lodia was already bustling behind him to check on the cape. Even to my eye, her "basting" had been so tidy that it still hung perfectly. Still, she tugged at it and measured the hem anyway, frowning (or maybe squinting) at some unevenness that she imagined she'd discovered.

    "You shouldn't have done that, Katu," she said in a shaky voice. "It was too dangerous. What if they'd thrown rocks and knocked you off the gate? What if they'd dragged you off it and attacked you in the street? What if they'd turned on you when you were leading them here? What if a different group had attacked you when you were leading them here? What if you'd said something that the Kitchen God didn't like and he got mad at you? What if – "

    Her voice broke off on a sob.

    "But none of that happened," he told her, more somber than I'd ever heard him sound. "It all worked out in the end. Thanks in large part to these robes you made."

    (And to my efforts.)

    I expected Lodia to demur, to claim that she had nothing to do with it, that it was all due to his oratory skills, that he could have pulled off his High Priest role in rags.

    But she didn't. "It was still too dangerous! You could have been killed!"

    "You could have been killed too," he pointed out. He tried to turn to face her, but she circled with him and kept fiddling with the cape. She'd produced needle and thread from an embroidered pouch at her waist, and she was adjusting the way the fabric hung. "Loddie, why'd you come here anyway? The whole point of me going out there was to get them away from you! You were supposed to stay inside, where it was safe! You weren't supposed to come outside at all!"

    "Stay inside and watch you walk into a mob? How in the name of the Kitchen God did you think I would do that?!"

    Lodia thrust the needle so hard that the tip came out of the fabric and stabbed under her nail. She gave a cry and dropped the cape before she could bleed on it.

    That freed Katu to rotate at last. He took her by the shoulders and made her face him. "Loddie, do you want to go home?"

    "Go home?" she and Anthea gasped at the same time.

    "Yes, go home," he confirmed.

    "By myself?" she whispered.

    He shook his head at once. "No. I'll go with you. Say the word, and we'll leave Goldhill today."

    What?! it was my turn to yelp.

    Floridiana's voice snapped, "Shh! Let them figure it out themselves." At some point, the mage had popped up next to us.

    But he's the High Priest! "But he's the High Priest!" Anthea and I whisper-wailed in unison.

    If he leaves, how are we going to find another High Priest on such short notice?

    "Don't worry! I'm sssure we'll find sssomebody. Maybe we can promote one of the other priesssts?" Bobo swung down from the lintel, making Anthea jump.

    Clip-clopping hooves heralded the arrival of the final member of this comedy routine. "Or we can pick somebody else. Maybe another poet? There's got to be more than one poet in the capital, right?" asked Dusty.

    "I'm sure there is," Floridiana told him, her eyes glued to the scene in the workroom.

    If Lodia and Katu heard us, they gave no sign of it.

    "But you're the High Priest," Lodia protested on our behalf. "You can't just leave. Whatever will the Temple do without you?"

    "They'll find another High Priest. Maybe a noble this time, like the Earl of Yellow Flame. That'll be more politically advantageous anyway."

    "But don't you want to be High Priest? It's so prestigious, and you'd have actual power to change things in the capital, just like you always wanted…."

    "I'm serious," Katu insisted. "Say the word, Loddie, and we'll go home today."

    I was flapping my wings and bobbing up and down behind Katu's back, shaking my head at Lodia in exaggerated motions, but she didn't so much as glance at me. I really had to get Floridiana to fix the girl's vision.

    No, no, no, don't say it, don't say it, don't say you want to go home, I thought at Lodia. Maybe a noble holds more political power, but Katu now has a miracle to his name. We need him as High Priest, Lodia, surely you can see that….

    "No."

    The word came out with such firmness that for a moment, I thought Anthea had spoken. But it had been Lodia's voice.

    "No?" asked Katu, bewilderment clear.

    "No." The word came out with just as much resolve on the repetition. "I don't want to go home."

    "You don't?" This time it was Anthea who failed to contain her shock. "You want to stay here? Even after all of that?"

    She gestured around the room, presumably referring the scenes unfolding all over the Temple, the capital, possibly even the kingdom as the South Serican army retreated before the demon horde. She herself had fled the City of Dawn Song, after all. For all her self-professed love for that home, that way of life, she hadn't stayed to fight for them, and she hadn't imagined that Lodia might.

    Of course, none of us had.

    "But why?" Katu asked for all of us.

    He was dazed by this reversal in his timid childhood friend, but I was remembering something her father had said, back in Lychee Grove: "What shall we do with Lodia? If she were like her mother, content to marry and bear children and manage a household for the rest of her life, I wouldn't worry, but…."

    But she wasn't content to live just within the confines of her home. She'd hinted at that when she accepted Anthea's offer of the post of Junior Wardrobe Mistress, and again when she'd undertaken to design and sew the Kitchen God's priest robes. Now she'd proven it definitely by refusing to leave the capital in its hour of crisis.

    "Because the kingdom needs you," Lodia told Katu. She straightened his robes, stepped back, scrutinized the effect, and nodded to herself. Then, in a slower, quieter voice: "The kingdom needs us. We must go to the palace."

    What would we do with Lodia? her father had asked.

    We would let her embroider her way to a greater role.

    A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Edward, Hookshyu, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
     
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    • Chapter 131: A Hymn You Can Actually Sing
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 131: A Hymn You Can Actually Sing

    In the throne room:

    "Your Majesty, we need you to authorize the use of force." The Earl of Yellow Flame stared at Jullia with his mouth set into a stubborn, flat line. "Either that, or you must allow us to evacuate you."

    Jullia stared back at her cousin, her own mouth set into an identical, stubborn, flat line. "No. We will neither use force against our subjects nor be driven out of our palace by them."

    "Jullie, stop coddling that rabble. Force is the only thing they understand," snapped the Earl of Black Crag.

    Her uncle had sent so many messages pleading to be allowed to return to the capital that she'd relented. He was her father's only brother, after all, and he'd been her favorite uncle when she was growing up. But she already regretted her leniency. Just because you had fond memories of someone teaching you how to climb a tree or ride a horse bareback did not mean he was a good advisor in a crisis. Or a good presence in the room in a crisis, period.

    "Be firm with the rioters, and they'll back down," seconded her cousin, in accord with her uncle for once in their lives – and when she least wanted them to be. Normally she could count on them to argue polar opposite points of view on principle and distract the court while she chose the path she deemed best, but not this time. "Your Majesty, we're not suggesting a massacre, but they will overwhelm the guards by sheer numbers soon. We must disperse them before it goes too far."

    Jullia's fingers had clenched on the armrests of her throne, and she had to force herself to relax them. "No. They are our subjects and our vassals. We are responsible for their wellbeing. We will not authorize using force against them."

    "No, just throwing them down the gullets of demons." The murmur reached her ears from somewhere among the courtiers who milled before her throne like panicky koi.

    Jullia's head snapped up. "Who said that?"

    The courtiers traded sidelong glances and shuffled their feet, but no one pointed out the culprit.

    Hand on the hilt of his sword, her uncle leaped off the dais, landing in a crouch at the base and glaring around the room. "Your QUEEN asked you a question!"

    "Oh, Your Grace, surely that isn't necessary," objected her cousin, although Jullia noted that he didn't budge an inch from his (safe) position at her side.

    Steel rang and flashed. Her uncle spun back, sword drawn. "Not necessary! Not necessary?! The palace is under siege, your liege is under attack, a traitor in our midst stands ready to throw open the gates so the mob can murder THE QUEEN – and you say it's NOT NECESSARY?!"

    Their own swords drawn, Jullia's Household Guards flung themselves in front of her, while the courtiers squealed and jumped back and tripped over their own hems. Jade Emperor in Heaven, never mind the rioters storming her throne room and attacking her nobles – her uncle was going to do it for them.

    "Uncle! Sheathe your sword!"

    Instead of obeying her command, he advanced a step up the dais, sword raised, eyes fixed on her cousin. "The biggest traitor has been right there at your side the whole time."

    Safe behind the Household Guards, her cousin laughed contemptuously. "I – the biggest traitor? Who was it that attacked one of Her Majesty's most powerful vassals – against her express wishes? Who was it that was spared only by Her Majesty's mercy and exiled rather than executed? Who was it that was permitted to return to the capital only by Her Majesty's compassion?"

    With a growl, her uncle charged up the remaining steps.

    "Your Grace! Halt!" shouted the Guard captain.

    "Cousin! Do not provoke him!" Jullia snapped. "And Uncle, I order you to sheathe your sword!"

    For a heartbeat, the two men glared at each other across the row of Household Guards, and Jullia thought a fight might actually break out right there in front of her.

    Then her uncle rammed his sword back into its sheath.

    "As my queen commands." His tone was grudging, and his bow shallow, but she decided not to reprimand him. At least, not just then.

    As if to show how much better a servant of the Crown he was, her cousin bowed deeply to her. "Forgive me if I have overstepped in the defense of Your Majesty."

    Jullia suppressed a sigh. Given a choice between dealing with her relatives and the mob, she thought she might prefer the mob. It was certain to be more reasonable. "Now, if both of you are finished, as for our plan to calm the – "

    The great doors at the back of the throne room slammed open, and a disheveled Outer Wall Guard burst in, shouting, "Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"

    "Stop!" bellowed her herald. "You have to be announced!"

    "The rioters breached the Gate of Heavenly Peace! They're storming the courtyard!"

    On the streets:

    A simple melody. One that didn't require vocal training. That was what we needed.

    "Praise to the mighty Kitchen God," my priests were "singing," so off-key and so out of sync with one another that I could barely pick out the melody.

    Like a festival-day parade, we were marching from the Temple to the palace at the pace of a baby snail spirit. Katu stood on his platform, carried above our heads so everyone could see the god-summoning, miracle-performing High Priest of the Kitchen God. The bear whom Dusty had smashed into the ground had been so impressed that he'd recruited his acquaintances as platform-bearers (haha). Unfortunately, they weren't very steady bearers, so the platform pitched and rolled like a ship's deck. But those movements meant that Katu's robes fluttered, and the butterflies flitted around him, ready to save him if he fell, and it all made for a most dramatic scene.

    "Praise to the mighty Kitchen God." The rioters-turned-worshippers attempted to echo the priests, producing an even more off-key cacophony. On the outskirts of the procession, it was more of a chant than a song, because if even I couldn't identify the melody, how could they pick it out, much less reproduce it?

    Yes, we definitely needed a hymn that didn't require an opera singer's vocal range. Or, preferably, the ability to carry a tune at all.

    From the way Dusty's ears swiveled, he agreed with me. "What's that song you used to sing?" he asked Floridiana all of a sudden. "The one about the sun going down but coming back up tomorrow?"

    We were arrayed before Katu's platform like an honor guard, with Floridiana keeping an eye on the child-priests. They kept craning their heads to gawk up at Anthea, who'd commandeered Dusty for her steed. I rather thought that if one of them pickpocketed her, she'd deserve it.

    "Oh, you mean that children's song? The sun sets but will rise just the same tomorrow morning, the flowers fade but will bloom just the same next year." Floridiana sang the first lines softly so as not to confuse the priests, who were struggling enough to hold a tune as it was.

    Although I'd heard Aurelia croon that song to her children ten thousand times, Lodia cocked her head to a side. "I haven't heard that before…."

    Floridiana's face lit up in a very familiar way, and she pulled out her notebook right then and there. (I wasn't going to warn her if she fell into a pothole. No, I would – she was human, after all.) "You don't have it down south? What children's songs do you sing here?"

    "Oh, um…I don't know…. The only one I can think of is the one about the house with the brook in front? I'm sure you know it…."

    "I don't," Dusty butted in. "Can you sing it?"

    "Right now?" Lodia cast a glance at the priests. The child-priests had given up on the hymn entirely and were watching us instead.

    That was when a brilliant idea popped into my head – one that would solve all our problems. (Okay, maybe just my current problem, namely, the racket assaulting my ears.)

    Yes! Why don't you sing it, Lodia, and we'll see if we can set the hymn to its tune instead?

    "Oh…." Looking as nervous as she had when she met the queen, Lodia half-sang, half-whispered, "In front of my home, there's a brook, behind it there's a hill…."

    As I'd expected, it was a very simple tune, requiring almost no vocal range.

    That's perfect! And this is a common children's song? As in, everyone here knows it?

    "They should…? I think…?"

    Perfect! That's just what we need! I called to the priests, Stop! Change of plan! Set the lyrics to the song "In front of my home there's a brook" instead!

    Their relief was palpable. And when they started singing again, it was at a much higher volume. The worshippers around them picked up the tune, and soon the whole procession was belting out, "Praise to the mighty Kitchen God, praise to the Kitchen God!"

    More and more rioters stopped beating down gates to gawk at us, and after we passed, some fell in behind us, picking up the song too. "Praise to the mighty Kitchen God, praise to the Kitchen God!"

    By the time I glimpsed the palace walls in the distance, half of Goldhill was marching behind us, and the other half was hanging out their windows to watch.

    I was hoping that the palace guards wouldn't make too big a fuss over letting us in – but when we came into full view of the walls, I realized that wasn't going to be an issue at all.

    In the throne room:

    "They've only breached the Gate of Heavenly Peace! Everyone calm down!" the Earl of Yellow Flame shouted, which didn't do a thing to calm anyone down.

    "Your Majesty! Please!" The Outer Wall Guard started wading through courtiers, struggling to reach the dais.

    For their part, the courtiers started screaming and pushing one another out of the way so he wouldn't touch them with his sweaty armor.

    "Reinforcements, Your Majesty! We need reinforcements!"

    A pair of Household Guards dove at the man, knocked him to the marble floor, pinned his arms, and started to wrestle him out of the throne room. All the while, he kept howling, "Let me go! Let me go! I have to tell the Queen! Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"

    "Stop!" Jullia called, but in the commotion, no one heard her. She took a deep breath, channeled her father on the battlefield, and bellowed, "EVERYONE STOP!"

    Gratifyingly, everyone froze.

    "Guards! Release that man."

    At her command, the Household Guards obeyed, and the courtiers parted to open a corridor to the foot of the dais. Intimidated now that he had a chance to think about where he was, the Outer Wall Guard dropped to his knees and did his best to prostrate himself in his stiff armor.

    "Speak," Jullia ordered.

    Without daring to look up at her, he reported, "The – the rioters breached the wall, Your Majesty. They're over the wall. We – we couldn't hold them back. We need help!"

    "Jullia, I told you from the start that you needed to use force – " her uncle began, but fell silent at her raised hand.

    "You have done well to bring us this news," she told the Outer Wall Guard. "Tell your captain that I hereby authorize the use of non-lethal force."

    "Non-lethal?" he gasped.

    "Non-lethal? Jullia, what good is that – "

    "Non-lethal," she repeated, fixing her attention on the Outer Wall Guard and ignoring her uncle. "We will not have a massacre of our subjects on palace grounds. Now go."

    "Thank – thank you, Your Majesty," the Guard mumbled.

    He bowed and stumbled back out between the ranks of silent courtiers. As soon as the doors slammed shut behind him, her uncle and cousin were at each other's throats again.

    Where's Annie? Jullia wondered.

    It was unlike Annie not to rush to the palace at the first hint of trouble, especially trouble like this. Even if the ancient spirit claimed that she'd had more than enough of politics and had no interest in getting mixed up in court affairs again for the rest of her existence, she still gave astute advice when necessary.

    And this was a scenario in which it was very much necessary. Meaning that she should have been here. And she wasn't.

    What happened to Annie? Did the mob get her? Is she safe? Please let her be safe.

    Jullia sent up a quick prayer to the Jade Emperor and, for good measure, Annie's patron god the Kitchen God, before she turned her attention back to affairs of state.

    In the streets:

    "Praise to the mighty Kitchen God, praise to the Kitchen God    ," sang my procession, but their voices faltered at the sight of the walls.

    In the skies above them, bird, bat, and insect spirits dove at one another, the queen's guards struggling to repulse airborne rioters. At ground level, the splintered main gates hung on their hinges, and landbound rioters charged howling into the courtyard beyond.

    Anthea emitted a dying wail and collapsed over Dusty's neck. "Noooooooo! Not again! Not agaaaain!"

    We were too late. The rioters had already breached the palace.

    A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Dylan, Edward, Hookshyu, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, TheLunaticCo, and Anonymous!
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Calm down you panicking raccoon!
    Your priestly procession will distract the mob and let the Queen reassess and Piri can explain the way to push the demons out is through Garrisons making it less fun to hang out, not trying to crash the demon parties! That just turns you into the local 'it's morning! Go to bed alarm!'
     
    Zaealix said:
    Calm down you panicking raccoon!
    Your priestly procession will distract the mob and let the Queen reassess and Piri can explain the way to push the demons out is through Garrisons making it less fun to hang out, not trying to crash the demon parties! That just turns you into the local 'it's morning! Go to bed alarm!'
    Click to expand...
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    If only Anthea thought that way! Then Piri would have such an easier time managing the situation! Clearly, Anthea needs to have more faith.
     
    At first, I thought the religious mob had been mistaken for still rioting.

    Also, if Julia can actually pull off her convictions to not kill her subjects even when it's this hard, she has my non-counted vote for new queen of everything. Yes, that's a low bar, but I'm pretty sure it's historically unprecedented.
     
    Winged One said:
    At first, I thought the religious mob had been mistaken for still rioting.

    Also, if Julia can actually pull off her convictions to not kill her subjects even when it's this hard, she has my non-counted vote for new queen of everything. Yes, that's a low bar, but I'm pretty sure it's historically unprecedented.
    Click to expand...
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    She's trying her hardest not to kill her subjects! (If you don't count conscripting them into the army and sending them to get killed in the Wilds.)
     
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    2024 Serican New Year Sketches: Day 1
  • Media
    • Happy Lunar New Year, everyone! It's time for our third annual Serican New Year sketches! I'll post a drawing of a different character for each of the 15 days of the Lunar New Year. They'll each be holding a piece of red paper that will spell out a message by the end. Guess who the character is, and I'll reveal the answer the next day!


    View: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12wHtvtBmrI5bzpIKZaQoEoTWBOkHgc6a/view?usp=drive_link

    If you can't see it, the image is also here.
     
  • Media
    • I had, I'll admit to imagining her as significantly darker in my head. Silly of me, Serican folks would look Chinese!
    Dusty!
     
    Winged One said:
    Me, when I saw the pic. For some reason, she looks more stylized despite being exactly as stylized as everyone else.

    Does this one expect us to remember his ridiculously-long chosen name?
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    Hmm, I wonder if she looks more stylized because I used stereotypical teacher objects (ruler, apple, etc)?

    This one definitely expects you not only to remember but to use his totally reasonable and appropriate true name.
     
    Chapter 132: With Full Confidence, at Full Volume
  • Threadmarks
    • Chapter 132: With Full Confidence, at Full Volume

    "No! No! Jullie! Noooooooo!" screamed Anthea.

    She kicked at Dusty's sides, not to spur him into a gallop to rescue the queen – but because she was throwing a tantrum. For obvious reasons, that shocked him so much that he reared up. As she began to slide off his rump, she screeched, lunged forward, and clutched his mane, yanking out strands.

    Eyes rolling in their sockets, Dusty whinnied and lashed out uselessly with his front hooves. "Make her stop! Make her stop!"

    Anthea landed on the ground with a thump, silks splayed out around her, and began to bawl. The bear spirits who were carrying Katu's platform nearly trampled her before they teetered to a halt, and then a wave of worshippers stopping abruptly and getting bumped by those behind them spread down the street. The singing petered out, and its place, confused questions and complaints rose.

    This was bad. If we lost momentum here, our procession wouldn't sweep into the throne room with full gravitas, and if we didn't sweep into the throne room with full gravitas, we'd never bowl over Jullia enough for her to obey me.

    Get up, Anthea. We're not there yet. I flew from one side of her head to the other, fanning her face with my wings in an attempt to calm her.

    "It's all ooooooooover!" she wailed. "It's just like the City of Dawn Soooooooong!"

    This is not the City of Dawn Song, and it is not over. It hasn't even begun! I'm just getting started here.

    "The mob – the riots – the dynasty – "

    Anthea. Pull yourself together. Look at me. I hovered right in front of her nose, so close that she went cross-eyed focusing on me. The discomfort, at least, distracted her from her sobbing. Did Lady Fate send me to end Jullia's dynasty? Answer me!

    She shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. Sigh, over five hundred years old, and as much of a baby as ever. Still, I strove to hang on to my own temper.

    Then, if Lady Fate didn't send me to end Jullia's dynasty, is it going to end?

    A jerky head motion that could have been either a nod or a shake. I interpreted it as the latter, since that was the desired response.

    So if it's not going to end, what are you bawling over? Pick yourself up, pull yourself together, and let's go see how she's doing. I'm sure she's looking for her pet raccoon dog.

    That last part got a rise out of her, as I'd known it would. Anthea jumped to her feet, pointy ears sprouting out of her hair. "I am not her pet!"

    There, there, you just keep telling yourself that.

    As she hauled herself back onto Dusty's back, I flew up high enough for Katu to see me and gave him an exaggeratedly reassuring nod. The High Priest had been teetering on the platform, torn between maintaining a dignified stance and getting down on all fours to peer over the edge so he could see what gods-cursed crisis was going on down here. At my signal, he raised his arms to Heaven, and the flock of butterflies soared up as if released from his sleeves. Their wings sparkled in the sunlight, and a chorus of oooh's rose up after them.

    "Friends!" Katu proclaimed. "Be not afraid! For we do the Kitchen God's will! The Divine Intercessor will protect us!"

    Floridiana seized the nearest priests and propelled them forward. "Off you go! Sing!"

    "Praise to the mighty Kitchen God?" they sang, making it sound more like a question than an assertion, but they did start shuffling forward again. That made space for the bears to advance, and the horde of the ex-rioters slowly transformed into a procession of worshippers again. More voices picked up the song, these sounding more certain. "Praise to the Kitchen God."

    As we drew near the palace walls, I got a better view of the struggle between the guards and the rioters. Above the main gate's tiled roof, a group of bedraggled hawk spirits dove at a pair of pheasants who wore palace badges around their necks.

    Another strangled squeak escaped Anthea, and I glanced over in time to see her freeze, eyes locked on the birds.

    With a sigh, I plastered myself over her nose and covered her eyes with my wings. If you're going to panic, don't look.

    "Um, Pip?" came Lodia's shaky voice. Something white entered my field of vision. "I have this – if it helps…?"

    She proffered a cotton handkerchief embroidered with a lotus.

    Yes, that's a good idea. Let's coordinate this. I'll fly off, and you blindfold her, on a count of three. One, two –

    "That will not be necessary." Anthea shook me off. Steel had entered her voice, and her mouth was set into a flat, stubborn line. "I'm all right now. Let's do this."

    If you're sure you won't panic again….

    "I will not. Let's go."

    "Uh." Floridiana spoke up, gaping at the fight that raged above and on top of and in the shadow of the wall before us. "How are we 'going' through…that?"

    Even as we watched, a human rioter lost her footing and toppled off the top of the wall, screaming as she fell. The scream cut off a few seconds later, and from the way the spirits around me winced, it must have been accompanied by a gruesome splat.

    "We can sssing louder!" Bobo suggested. "Maybe they'll be like everybody elssse and ssstart sssinging along with us!"

    I cocked my head, examining the mob in front of us. Somehow I didn't think they would be so amenable, and from the others' silence, they agreed.

    "What will we do?" Dusty whickered.

    Everyone was all staring at me, even Anthea, waiting for me to come up with the solution. Well! As well they should. I puffed up my chest to make myself as big and authoritative as I could and announced, We keep marching with full confidence and at full volume. Onward!

    "Sssounds good!"

    Bobo started to slither faster, but Floridiana put out a hand to block the snake. "That's it? That's the plan?"

    Yes. That is, indeed, the plan.

    "Why in the name of the Jade Emperor – I mean, the Kitchen God – is that going to work?!"

    Because they'll be shocked, stop to look, see there are a lot more of us than there are of them, and not attack.

    "Uh…."

    Unexpectedly, it was Lodia who backed me up. "I think – I think – it'll work," she offered, then nearly collapsed under all the stares that landed on her. "Um…I mean, I think – it makes sense…. We just – we just have to get them to stop, right? Long enough to think? Like everyone else." She made a tiny pointing gesture at the people behind us with one finger, as if terrified someone might bite it off. "And – like Pip said – there are a lot more of us, so they should stop…and then they'll think…and then…."

    Bobo bumped Lodia's arm with her head. "Yeah! Jussst like you sssaid! It's gonna work!"

    After a moment, Floridiana raised her eyes Heaveward and heaved a sigh. "How do I let her drag me into these situations? Very well then. Let's try it your way."

    I stabbed a wing at the palace wall. Forward, march! Full confidence and full volume!

    We charged straight into the screaming mob, singing at the tops of our lungs. On the edges of the procession, a howling human punched one of my pangolins. She roared, swung her tail around, and walloped him in the face.

    I flew up to Katu and bobbed up and down in front of him. Don't let them get distracted! Tell them to keep going!

    A blur of motion out of the corner of my eye. A hawk rioter closed his wings and plummeted at me. I shrieked and dove, and behind me, the butterflies swirled up in a cloud of glittering wings to intercept him.

    "Friends!" Katu's voice shouted overhead. "Let nothing distract you from our purpose! We go to the throne room! We go to save the Queen!"

    The butterflies drove off the hawk and settled down on Katu's head, shoulders, and arms.

    The pangolin stopped clubbing the human who'd attacked her. She brandished her tail at nearby rioters, who wisely backed up a couple steps, and took up the song again.

    And we kept going.
    In the throne room:

    "Your Majesty! We can't hold them any longer! Please, you have to evacuate!"

    Jullia's fingers tightened on the armrests of her throne, but she kept her chin up and her voice cool as she answered the Household Guard Captain. "No. We will not be chased from our palace by a mob. Let them come seek an audience, if they dare."

    Her cousin, who would have been happy to have evacuated an hour ago, interjected, "Your Majesty, surely it is unnecessary for the Queen of South Serica to lower herself to address a mob!" He had to raise his voice into a shout by the end, so she could hear him over the screaming and shouting and thudding outside.

    "Nonsense!" her uncle roared back. "Flee if you want, you spineless demon-lover, but Jullia is made of sterner stuff! Just like her father! Would he have turned tail and run? No! Stay and face them, Jullia! Show them why you're Queen!"

    Jullia's cousin clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, but before he could return the barb, the Guard Captain barked, "What's that noise? Go! Scout!"

    Noise? Jullia hadn't heard anything, but the Guard Captain was a rhinoceros spirit, and she trusted his judgment.

    In no time, the leopard cat scout slunk back into the throne room, ears pulled back flat against her skull. "It's a parade," she spat.

    "A parade? Explain," snapped Jullia's uncle before the Guard Captain could.

    "The High Priest of Lady Anthea's Temple to the Kitchen God has led a procession of…people onto the palace grounds, Your Grace. Their goal appears to be the throne room. Their singing is what we are hearing."

    "Their – singing?" Jullia couldn't help it: The question just burst out of her. "What, pray tell, is there to sing about?"

    The leopard cat bowed her head. "It appears to be a children's song, Your Majesty, that they have modified to praise the Kitchen God. They are literally singing, 'Praise to the Kitchen God' over and over."

    It was too much for Jullia. She exploded into laughter, doubling over right there on her throne, in front of all her courtiers. "A children's song! They're singing a children's song! Praising the Kitchen God! While marching through a mob!"

    "Your Majesty! Should we stop them?" asked the Guard Captain.

    "No! No. This is too – !"

    She couldn't say "funny." They'd think she'd cracked. She reined in her laughter, blanked her face, and spoke in her usual cool voice.

    "No. They have come for a purpose. It would be too cruel to deny them the chance to speak it. We shall hear what they have to say. Let them in."
    Outside the throne room:

    As we advanced across the courtyard, scuffles kept breaking out on the fringes of the procession, but obedient to Katu's command, the worshippers fought only long enough to throw rioters off their backs and then moved on.

    "PRAISE TO THE MIGHTY KITCHEN GOD! PRAISE TO THE KITCHEN GOD!!!"

    The further we went, the hoarser and more off-key the singing got, but it correspondingly increased in volume, as if the worshippers thought that bellowing the words might shield us from the violence around us.

    Past the chaos in the courtyard, royal guards tried to stop us from entering the palace proper, but they backed away when Anthea cut them down (not literally) with a ferocious glare. And so, praising the Kitchen God at the tops of our lungs, we charged into the throne room to save Jullia's crown.

    It was quite the dramatic entrance, if I did say so myself.
    A/N: Thanks to my awesome Patreon backers, Autocharth, BananaBobert, Blacklark57, Celia, Charlotte, Dylan, Edward, Hookshyu, Ike, Lindsey, Michael, TheLunaticCo, yoghogfog, and Anonymous!
     
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    • Ah, that's meant to be embroidery on his robe, and those butterflies are supposed to be fucking jacked, so this is the high priest whose name I can't be bothered to remember!
     
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