PLAIN

[quillsshadow]

The offered gown was insultingly plain, lacking even the most basic luck-catching embroidery.

"Perhaps you're meant to add your own?" Neesa suggested dubiously, very obviously wondering how rude the Lord meant to be to his future wife.

A plain dress. No chance of hidden traps.

Yoraya loved it.

KILN

[quillsshadow]

Godsforge, they called the volcano, but Puar knew better. This was no forge.

Ey closed eir eyes and strained to look at the chamber again.

Filled with notclay golems.

This was a kiln.

OUTLAST

[quillsshadow]

Goziem (no compound name, not for them) pulled impossibly tighter, and focused.

One set of hands to stoke the fire, one to weave cool air into a buffer against the storm, one to flow water away.

"You can't defeat a STORM!"

"We just have to outlast it."

JUSTICE

[quillsshadow]

The strange demigoddess tilted her head thoughtfully. "Cycles, balance... secrets and unclear boundaries... I am not directly of justice nor vengeance. But cycles and balance together make some approximation of the space between the two, and blurred edges very much are my domain."

Her lip curled at the rapist.

MORAL

[quillsshadow]

"Please." Shlorrn knelt before the wizened hermit. "My situation. My choices. I must know, what is the moral thing to do?"

The hermit's laughter was tired, a touch bitter, but gentle. "Youngster, if morality were that simple, do you not think everyone would have already been taught it?"

BATTLE

[quillsshadow]

Farratch breathed the incense in deep. Eir every motion was a struggle against the crystal invading eir mind and spirit, sharp certainty that ey was doomed by eir animality.

Ey braced against the alien pressure on eir mind.

And fought.

MERCY

[quillsshadow]

The nameless orphans named themselves, Timid and Vicious, Nervous, Soft, Blunt. The only name the trainers interfered with was Mercy - "What chance has he had to show mercy?" they demanded, never knowing that their continuing lives were the reason he was given that name.

WOUND

[quillsshadow]

You must keep it wound. Our family's sacred duty. No Lightkeepers, we - no tower to climb and set blazing. A humbler duty, instead, to turn the Great Key and wind the springs tight.

I had a bad feeling the moment that charming failure of a Lightkeeper walked in.

TROLL

[quillsshadow]

The trolls sang. Masquerade-shielded heard the wind, those who knew of stranger things assumed there were some other creatures, more known for beauty in speech or voice, possibly attuned to the wind.

Solly stayed huddled in his spot under the bridge, listening in wonder.

The trolls sang.

SAVE

[quillsshadow]

All save one, whistled through the night.

All save one, hissed between the shadows.

All save one, spluttered the torches in their sconces.

Desperately, the Witch-Queen wove more protections around her son, and cast another death-spell. "Are the King's bastards dead?" she croaked.

All save one.

CORRUPT

[quillsshadow]

Chenna tapped the flask absently, studying the cauldron. Potion fumes that granted those biddies glimpses of the future, made their guidance so needed - made them so powerful...

Ey opened the flask, and smirked. Just one drop, to change the potion, corrupt their visions, and destroy their power.

SHROUD

[quillsshadow]

"It's shrouded in mystery, that tower is!" the peddler insisted, waving arms almost knocking over his latest tankard. "Oh, plenty of folks say they know what's in there, but you push for details and suddenly they're mum as you like!"

Priel snorted. He knew what was there.

Him.

GROVE

[quillsshadow]

Both of them grimaced as they set foot between the trees. No forest, this - an artificial grove, instead, too ill-planned to be called an orchard, but kept bare of undergrowth just the same.

Knap glared at Lichen, frantic with worry. "You said she needs nature! Why isn't she better?"