A Perverted Path to Victory

Sara Brown

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A crystal was buzzing in her pocket. She could hear Evie’s increasingly insistent mutterings coming from her discarded pants, which had landed… somewhere.

But she kept ignoring it, because what was happening now was just too fucking cute.

Mui was purring.

Rising out of the sleeping soldier’s chest was a deep, powerful thrum, utterly unlike anything else Sara had heard from her many partners. Sure, Sara had heard Evie purr before, but she purred like… well, like a cat girl. Involuntary though the noise was, she still purred like a human doing an imitation of a cat’s purr.

Mui’s purr?

Mui’s purr was making her tits jiggle.

She’d never had reason to try and imagine what it would sound like when a hundred and sixty pounds of cat started purring. Now that she was experiencing it, she couldn’t imagine why she’d never wanted to hear it for herself. It felt like hugging a warm, fuzzy engine, an idling motorbike clutched to her chest. It sounded like a distant helicopter thumping away, and it was so loud that she wouldn’t have been surprised to find out the people in the next room could hear it. When it had started up, it had actually woken her up.

And it was even louder to her than it might have otherwise been, because his muzzle was buried between her breasts. He’d passed out face-down on her chest, halfway asleep before he’d even cum in her for the last time. She’d really wrung him out. Maybe a bit much for his first time, to be honest.

Which was all the more reason why she didn’t want to force him off her to go answer Evie’s calling over the crystal. Sara had her control wristband on, and Evie her collar, so her wife had to know that they’d finished not that long ago. Evie had literally felt every pump of Mui’s cock like he was driving it into her, after all.

Which… well. It probably wasn’t the most ethical thing for Evie or Sara to be doing. Could they even call it voyeurism? It was certainly close enough to be questionable. Mui had basically been fucking Evie alongside Sara without even knowing it, and since Evie’s pussy had even more of a hair trigger than Sara’s, her wife had probably gotten off a dozen times. Sure, Sara was probably going to order Evie to hop on the dude’s cock as soon as she didn’t think the mere idea of a threesome wouldn’t give the guy a panic attack, but they weren’t quite there yet.

Actually, that brought up another point. Where had Evie hidden while Sara was grinding Mui’s hips into dust? That girl had no poker face when it came to sex. She couldn’t have just been in the barracks. They all would’ve known, and for all her shamelessness, Evie always maintained professional stoicism in front of troops she commanded.

Then again, it was a barracks. There were probably other rooms full of young, fit men and women, and in this more sexually repressed society, someone like Evie would be awfully hard to resist. And if she wanted to explain why she was cumming from nothing, it would be easy enough to find something real to fill her holes…

Evie’s buzzing voice grew another touch louder, drawing Sara’s salacious thoughts back on topic.

Carefully, gentle as could be, using every muscle her Champion’s Class gifted her, Sara began scooting towards the edge of the bed. She’d spent an ungodly amount on this fancy inn, almost two weeks of a Tulian blacksmith’s wages for one night, but the bed had been worth it. That did mean she had to inch herself across a far vaster expanse of featherbed than she was used to, all while carefully keeping Mui balanced on her body, still purring happily away from where he was buried in her tits.

He really loved my tits, Sara silently chuckled. Then she looked down at herself, smirking. I mean, who could blame him?

She finally reached the edge of the bed, flinging one hand off the side to pat blindly around for her pants. She tried to think of where she’d taken them off, if it had been at the door or the bed, and if she’d tossed them aside or just stepped out of them. It was all a hazy blur, unfortunately. Mui’s scent had hit her harder than a shady concert-goer’s ten dollar MDMA.

Twisting her head to the side slowly, careful not to brush against Mui’s sensitive ears, she managed to snag a look at the rest of the room.

It was a mess, predictably. Armor, weapons, clothes, they were scattered every which way. When she’d tossed Mui’s belt off, it had struck the wall buckle-first, creating a sizable dent in the fine hardwood paneling, exposing chips of the stone beneath.

I’ll probably have to pay for that.

Sara eventually spotted her pants mercifully close to the bed, just within reach of her outstretched fingertips. Careful as ever not to disturb Mui’s sleep, she strained outward, barely catching a belt loop with one finger. She tossed it up, then crumpled it into a ball, muffling Evie’s voice further. She put the bundle up to her mouth and made a shushing noise into it. Once Evie quieted, she pulled the crystal out properly.

“Listen to this,” she whispered, pressing the crystal to Mui’s vibrating ribs. She held it there for a moment, then returned the crystal to her lips. “He’s purring.”

“So it would seem, Master,” Evie drawled disinterestedly.

“It’s fucking adorable!”She whisper-screamed.

“Quite. I take it the evening went well?”

“You tell me,” Sara teased.

“He was… clearly inexperienced.”

“Yeah? And how many times did you cum?”

“Only eight,” Evie sniffed.

Sara cackled silently. “Only eight? I’ve really fucked up your standards, girl.”

“Mm.” Evie listened to the purring for a moment longer, then sighed. “I know you’re enjoying yourself, Master, but do you know what time it is?”

“Well until you said that, I’d thought it had been about six hours…”

“It is nearly midnight. You have been with Mui for nine hours.”

“Huh.” Sara put a hand on the back of Mui’s neck, gently stroking downward, smoothing out the fur she’d twisted into knots. She’d let him have a go on top towards the end, but he’d mostly been made of jello and drool by that point. “Guess we slept longer than I thought.”

“We so dearly require replicas of your father’s watch,” Evie murmured. “Your sense of time is atrocious. Now, are you going to be coming back to the barracks? We have much to discuss with those in Tulian. The sooner we set our plans into motion, the sooner they may come to fruition. At the very least, I would like to ensure work can begin come sunrise, lest our industries waste an entire day on outdated orders.”

Sara groaned. Her wife was right, of course. She always was, at least when it came to matters of practicality. With their path chosen, any delay in Tulian’s involvement would extract a toll in blood from the Empire’s citizens. In a war centuries old, most people would argue one day may not make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. Sara didn’t think like that. If you were the family whose home burned because Tulian mercenaries arrived a few hours late, minutes could mean everything.

“Alright, alright,” Sara whispered. “I’ll just… five more minutes, alright?”

“Five. Minutes.”

“I’ll keep the crystal close.”

Sara set the communication crystal on the sheet next to her head, leaning back with a sigh of contentment. She returned both hands to her slow stroking of Mui’s fur, letting his rumbling purr soak into her body. She didn’t want to wake him up. He’d probably stop purring.

I wonder how I can convince the Empire to let him stay attached to my retinue, Sara thought, eyes slipping closed. He wouldn’t want people to know we’re fucking, so I’ll have to come up with something else… Sara shrugged. Eh, whatever. I’ll figure something out.

Five minutes of peaceful drifting later, Evie got her attention again, and Sara was forced to wake Mui. The catfolk’s purr continued for a few brief moments after his eyes opened, only to choke off in scandalized embarrassment. Sara’s Abilities had clued her into the fact that Catfolk considered purring to be terribly immature, something they did when they were kittens, not adults. Mui would think it was awfully unseemly for a grown man to be purring.

As they began to groggily dress, Sara decided she would break him of that belief if it was the last goddamn thing she’d ever do.

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Hurlish

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“...wasn’t this supposed to be a sexy thing?” Hurlish asked.

“It started as that,” Oddry admitted, “but then she got competitive. This is her fourth attempt.”

The two women watched as Vesta lunged across the kitchen, auburn hair flying wildly as she spat a tirade of profanity, shoving a pan off the stove just before its smoking sizzle gave way to true fire.

“Well. She’s giving it her all, at least.”

“That’s because I ordered her to, with the collar.”

“Huh.”

“Shit, shit, shit!” Vesta cursed, diving back to where she’d just abandoned a pile of mangled meat dangling halfway out of a wood-fired oven, its tray teetering precipitously on the edge of the rack. She grabbed it with both her mittened hands amidst another storm of curses, tossing it up onto a countertop.

“...so how are your stepsons doing?” Hurlish asked. She was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Oddry, or shoulder-to-ribcage as the case currently was, watching Vesta’s flailing attempts at cooking through the narrow doorway to the kitchen.

“Oh, I would hardly call them my stepsons, Hurlish. But they are doing better than we expected,” Oddry said. “I think the job Sara found for them suits them quite well. It is a good use of their academic training, and it fits their… particular temperments.”

“Lets them be an asshole, y’mean.”

“I would never be so crass to refer to my wife’s sons as such.”

“But if they weren’t her sons, you’d call em…?”

“Uptight spoiled little know-it-all pricks,” Oddry smoothly answered, barely pausing to breathe. “But yes, they are doing well.”

Hurlish snorted. “Figures.”

Sara had put Vesta’s brats on the ‘opposition’ team of the new Tulian government committees. With her paranoia about creating a set of laws that would fall apart like a house of cards the moment she took her eyes off it, Sara had put out a call for people trained in law and philosophy to come be employed in Tulian. On paper, the process was simple: the people Sara trusted, namely Vesta, Evie, and the few dozen Union heads and wandering philosophers that had passed Sara’s interrogations, would get together and draft up some laws. They’d sign their names on it all fancy-like, as if it was really going into law, and then they’d drop it off in front of the ‘opposition’.

That gaggle of selfish, greedy, opportunistic bastards were exactly who Sara wanted. They’d spend a week working together to tear apart everything Sara had written, finding every loophole and flaw in wording, tearing its good intentions to shreds like a guard dog shaking a fox until it stopped squeaking. If they couldn’t do too much damage, Sara would officially pass the law, but that was rare. It usually took a few rounds of back-and-forth between the two groups to create something that could actually be useful.

And Vesta’s kids seemed to be loving it. Going straight out of fancy-ass university life right into a job that only required you to be as much of an unashamed bastard as you could, arguing all the while? Kids were in heaven. They’d been going so hard at it that Vesta had started to complain the kids weren’t coming to visit often enough.

And if this was what Vesta’s home cooking looked like, Hurlish couldn’t blame ‘em.

Grease splattered everywhere with sizzling hisses as Vesta slammed a tray down, ruining the front of her decidedly uncharacteristic maid uniform. It wasn’t one of Sara’s flimsy, overly sexualized maid uniforms she’d had made for Evie, but a real and useful one, almost identical to the sort Oddry had worn back in the day.

“So how was it supposed to be sexy, exactly?” Hurlish asked, eyebrows raised at the unending midnight shitstorm she’d walked in on. Tahn was spending the night with David, having been given a few bottles of breastmilk which he was keeping in a prototype refrigerator. With Ketch impossible to find at the best of times, Shale out building fortifications, and Sara and Evie hundreds of miles away, Hurlish had taken the risk of maybe waking Oddry and Vesta up for a late-night fuck session.

Luckily, Vesta was so terrible at cooking that they were both still awake.

“Well,” Oddry sighed, adjusting the collar’s control band on her wrist, “my idea was that I would, using the collar, order her to cook me dinner as best she was able. And she, being the fancy noblewoman she is, would almost certainly make a few mistakes, for which I’d send her back to the kitchen to start again. Perhaps slap her a few times, maybe spank her. You’re familiar with that sort of play, of course, you know the drill. Then, when she came back a second time with whatever flaws I’d thought up corrected, I would ‘reward’ her by allowing her to kneel beneath my dress.”

“Not working out how you thought it would, is it?”

“Not really, no.”

Vesta slammed down her utinsels in frustration as the broth began to boil over, creating a cloud of steam where the river of watery stew spattered on the stovetop. With an almost guttural scream of anger, she reached for the bubbling pot.

“Hey dumbass–!”

“Dear, don’t–”

They were too late. Vesta grabbed the soaking sides of the pot with her thick cooking mittens on, lifting it for exactly as long as it took for the steaming liquid to soak through her protective pads.

With a screech of pain, she physically threw the pot away from her, cursing all the while. It struck the kitchen wall with a great splash, completing the ruination of the rest of the disastrous meal it landed across.

Vesta leapt away from the spreading steam, violently shaking her gloves off with a hiss of angry pain. Hurlish and Oddry squeezed through the kitchen door together, Hurlish reaching out to snatch the burning-hot gloves off the tiny woman’s hands, Oddry preemptively opening a cabinet for a healing potion.

“Dammit all!” Vesta swore as Hurlish plucked the gloves off her delicate hands. Splotches of red boils were already rising across her skin.

“Not as easy as it looks, is it?” Hurlish joked, wadding up the cooking mittens. They were still hot to the touch, but a Class meant for forging had given her a resistance to heat well beyond the diminutive ex-noblewoman.

“Give those back,” she said, holding out her hands. “I’m not done with making dinner yet.”

“Pretty sure that pooch is already screwed, Vesta.”

“Then I will start again.”

“No, my sweet, you will not,” Oddry told her, walking up with a potion vial. A small dose, just right for the minor burns. “I think that if we let you continue, you might consume our month’s grocery budget before morning.”

Vesta sagged in defeat, dropping her hands to her sides. Even with the collar’s order countermanded, she eyed the kitchen with a frustrated glare.

“If I just tried one more time-”

“It is nearly midnight,” Oddry said. “And we need to be awake at something that vaguely resembles a reasonable time. Drink this.”

Compelled by the collar around her neck, Vesta’s attention snapped to Oddry’s hands. She took the small vial and downed it in one swig, shuddering slightly at the bitter taste.

“I just don’t understand how you do it all so quickly!” Vesta huffed. She folded her arms petulantly, defiantly, as if she weren’t standing in the center of a self-made disaster zone.

“I did not start cooking a half-dozen dishes at once,” Oddry said. “In fact, I spent most of my early years peeling vegetables, watching the real cooks work. How often did you visit the kitchen of our old manor?”

Vesta turned her nose up, feigning offense. “Quite regularly, I’ll have you know.”

“Oh? And when was the last time you visited?”

“When I bent the maid before last over the countertop and used the handle of a wooden spoon to-”

Hurlish’s booming laughter cut the story short as Oddry rolled her eyes, shifting her arms to match Vesta’s haughty stance pound-for-pound.

“When was the last time you visited the kitchens when someone was actually cooking?” The maid clarified.

Vesta’s nose turned up even further, like she was avoiding a bad smell. Then she glanced away from Oddry’s piercing eyes.

“...I haven’t the faintest clue,” she muttered under her breath.

Hurlish laughed again. “Damn, girl,” she said to Oddry. “You couldn’t think of, like, something easier for her to start off with? You just jumped right into a four course meal?”

“I thought she was capable,” Oddry said defensively.

“Uh.” Hurlish eyed the ruined kitchen. “Why?”

“Both of you can keep such opinions to yourself,” Vesta snipped, an embarrassed blush rising up her cheeks. “I am perfectly capable of handling myself. In fact, if you hadn’t requested such a-”

“Drop,” Oddry snapped, a domineering expression flashing over her face.

Vesta’s knees hit the tile an instant later, collar flashing around her neck. Unlike Evie’s, there was no engraving of Whore etched across the front, but the thick, stylistic padlock had two names on either side. One said “Vesta’s”, the other “Oddry’s”. Right now the word “Oddry’s” was facing out.

Showing the world who owned her.

“I thought you could behave,” Oddry said, shaking her head. “But clearly you haven’t learned a thing about how to handle yourself. How long will it be until you understand that failed noblewomen like you must be broken of their bad habits?”

“I-”

“Silence,” Oddry commanded. Vesta’s lips kept moving, but she couldn’t say a word. Oddry shook her head in faux sadness. “And here I was almost looking forward to giving you your reward. Oh, well. It is time to make do. Put your tongue out.”

A powerful shudder raced up Vesta’s body as she pressed her tongue out as far as it could go, presenting herself for Oddry’s approval. Her hands were pressed firmly in her lap, clutching a fistful of her maid’s dress.

“I thought you said getting to eat you out was her reward, not a punishment?” Hurlish asked as Oddry moved forward, wrapping a hand in Vesta’s hair.

“It would have been,” Oddry said. Then she moved Vesta forward, dragging her across the tile. “You, Hurlish, are her punishment.”

Vesta slid easily across the kitchen flooring, half-frozen by Oddry’s orders. She had to crane her neck back, looking far, far up at Hurlish. The former noblewoman’s pupils dilated, her breath coming quicker.

“I think I can work with that,” Hurlish said, grinning. She unbuckled her belt, dropping her pants a moment later. She was tall enough that Vesta had to raise herself up a few inches, no longer able to rest her butt on her heels, not if she wanted to line herself up with the crook of Hurlish’s legs. Hurlish wrapped one hand around Vesta’s head, her calloused palm cupping it like most people could a mug.

“So how’s this gonna go?” Hurlish asked, eying Oddry. The woman was dragging a chair into the kitchen from the living room, falling back into it as she hiked her dress up, hand slipping beneath.

“Hm?” Oddry hummed, glancing up from the sight of her wife on her knees. “Oh, I don’t care. Use her to get off however you’d like. So long as she doesn’t cum, I’ll be satisfied. She needs to learn her place.”

“Perfect. Always happy to help.”

Hurlish dragged Vesta in, shoving the woman’s face into her pussy. Vesta’s lolling tongue began to obediently run up and down her slit, taking to her “punishment” with a satisfied groan.

Then, just as she was about to reach Hurlish’s clit, a muffled voice called out of Vesta’s pocket.

“Vesta? Hurlish? Dad? Any of you up?”

Hurlish swore under her breath, fingers still tangled in Vesta’s hair. The noblewoman-turned-pseudo-slave tried to pull away, reaching for the communication crystal, but Hurlish didn’t let her budge.

“Oddry,” Hurlish grunted, grinding her hips into Vesta’s face. “Go get that.”

Oddry hid her laughter behind a hand, drifting out of her chair to kneel next to her wife. After being briefly distracted by feeling her up through the maid dress, she slipped a hand into a pocket, pulling out the crystal and holding it up for Hurlish to speak.

“Hey, what’s up?” Hurlish said.

“Hurlish?” Sara’s voice replied, surprised. “What are you still doing up?”

“Getting eaten out by Vesta right now.”

“Oh, fun! Can we talk to her, too?”

Hurlish ground herself a bit harder into Vesta’s tongue, a hungry moan slipping from her lips.

“No.”

“I mean, surely you can just let her breathe for a minute-”

“No.”

There was the sound of Evie snickering alongside Sara’s sigh.

“Alright, fine. Just get her up to date, later, alright?”

“Sure, sure,” Hurlish said. “Oddry’s here, too, so she’ll pay attention.”

“As best I can, anyway,” the woman called out breathily, two fingers rubbing tight circles on her clit.

“Oh my god,” David suddenly said, his tired voice filled with abject horror. “These things need a mute button.”

“Oops,” Hurlish said, pulling Vesta away for a second so the trembling pleasure in her voice wouldn’t be quite so obvious. “Sorry about that. Forgot you were in on this.”

“Yeah, well, I’m going to go shove this crystal in a safe so I never have to hear about my daughter-in-law’s sex life ever again.”

“Could you hold on for a second, Dad?” Sara asked, a slight twinge of embarrassment coloring request. “Sorry to wake you up, by the way.”

“Is it important?”

“Yeah, kinda. We decided which Empire we’re gonna back.”

With that kind of declaration, Hurlish could almost imagine everyone on the crystal network leaning forward with bated breath. Most of Tulian’s upper decision-makers had probably been asleep when Sara called, but most everyone who had a crystal on the communication network kept them as close as they could, more than enough to wake them up. Hurlish felt bad for whatever lone artificer was on the connection nexus’s night shift; if too many people started talking, they’d be all on their own as they juggled one hell of a mess, trying to stop the system from overloading.

“Mui’s, I’m guessing?” Hurlish joked.

“Yeah, thank the gods,” Sara said.

“Hey Evie, did I win the bet?”

“Yes,” her wife replied, voicing the admission as nothing more than a quiet grunt.

“Ha! Knew it. Alright, sorry, back on topic. What’s the deal you managed to cook up?”

While Hurlish continued to drag Vesta’s face up and down her slit, smearing her face with slick arousal, she listened to Sara’s brief breakdown of the deal she’d brokered with the Imperial Adjutant.

Even distracted as she was, Hurlish could tell it was a Big Damn Deal. If Vesta hadn’t been deafened by Hurlish’s thighs, she’d have been throwing a fit at the economic opportunity Sara had passed up.

Not that Hurlish was surprised, of course. The moment Sara had revealed what the Adjutant had offered her, she knew exactly how the chips were gonna fall. There were a lot of arguments for or against picking either side, way more than Hurlish could ever have hoped to keep track of, but none of them could change the way her wife worked. Even as the de facto queen of a country, she’d never once seen the world through the lense of “us versus them.” At least not based on borders, that is. Sara’s only real enemies were the rich and powerful. And this Adjutant’s deal had given her a chance to fight the people she actually hated.

“We’re going to have to push Project Cycle up the priority list a good few notches,” Sara said, moving on from the political deal’s technicalities. “Dad, how are we looking on that?”

“Well, the rubber’s not nearly as good as I’d want it to be,” David said, speaking slowly as he worked through his thoughts. “I’m real nervous about mass-deploying the pneumatic tires we’ve stockpiled, even if we technically have enough rubber in storage to replace them. There’s too much risk of puncture, too little ability to do field repairs. I still think it would be better to use solid wheels and restrict their use to better terrain.”

“But we have the equipment to manufacture replacements at the expected rates if we need to?”

“Should do, yeah,” Hurlish answered, pulling Vesta out from between her thighs so she could hide her groans of pleasure. “We’ve got plenty of ways to make steel tubes, and we’ve already got a few good roll benders up and running. ‘Course I’ve had my kids working on gears like crazy, so they should’ve at least made some good progress there. I’ll have to double-check with ‘em in the morning. We’re not anywhere near ready for folding mechanisms or welding, but that’s to be expected. A one-piece frame should still work for what you want. How many are you going to need?”

“Six or seven hundred, I’m guessing,” Sara said. “What about the powered cannon carriages? Is Tinvel on the line?”

There was an anticipatory silence, waiting for Tulian’s premier artificer-inventor to pitch in. When nothing happened, likely because the kid was asleep or Chona had taken their shared crystal for the night, Hurlish answered for him.

“I think he’s made some progress, but it’s not like he’s been working too hard on it. Kid’s obsessed with his plane. Even if whatever he’s got going is kinda-sorta working, I doubt they’ll be able to keep up with the infantry all on their own.”

“Well I can’t pull him off the plane project,” Sara said. “Those griffons are nasty bastards. Now that we’re outright backing one side, I wouldn’t be surprised if they start trying to harass the border. We’ll need proper combat planes as soon as we can get them.”

“If you’d just let me develop proper guns for them-” David began.

“Shut up, Dad,” Sara snapped. “The crystal network isn’t half as secure as it should be. And no, we’re not doing that. Not until we absolutely have to.”

“Alright, alright,” David said, soothing his daughter. “I get it. But I still think it’s gonna end up inevitable. We should start working on it as soon as we can.”

“If you can find some time in Hurlish’s schedule, go for it. But I really doubt you will.”

“I’m busy as shit,” Hurlish agreed, slamming Vesta’s face back into her crotch. The noblewoman had barely caught her breath, but why should Hurlish care? This was supposed to be a punishment.

“I said I get it,” David repeated. “Now what about the forts Shale and I have been working on? Are we gonna have to pause the work?”

“No. We need those up and ready as soon as we can get ‘em. I still don’t know how long it’ll be until Sporatos invades again, but it’s gonna happen. If the King doesn’t take Tulian soon, he’s gonna end up with a knife in his back.”

“By all our informant’s reports,” Oddry chipped in, “the Sporaton nobility’s support for a second invasion of Tulian is absolutely abysmal. Are you so sure a second invasion is inevitable?”

“Absolutely. The longer the King leaves his nobility to mull over how bad he fucked up, the more pissed they’ll get. He has to find some way to distract them, and what better way than winning the war he shouldn’t have lost?”

“If you say so,” Oddry said doubtfully. “Those few spies that remain loyal to House Vesta, in addition to sporadic reports from the burgeoning peasant resistance, indicate the King is speaking constantly of the importance of peace and prosperity.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he is,” Sara sarcastically drawled. “Which is exactly why he’s going to start explaining in a few months how much the Republic of Tulian’s mere existence is supposedly threatening that imaginary peace and prosperity. He soothes ‘em over, promises something better, then whips ‘em into a frenzy by convincing them I’m some bloodthirsty maniac that wants to come and leave every last noble dangling from a noose.”

“Aren’t ya?” Hurlish asked. Vesta’s face was getting red between her thighs, her tongue’s movements sloppier and sloppier, but she didn’t pay the woman any mind. She was still licking, and as long as that was true, Hurlish wasn’t interested in giving her a break.

“Yeah,” Sara admitted casually, “but I’m years away from actually being able to manage that.”

“Regardless,” Evie interjected, “in the coming months, the bulk of our focus should remain on the southern border. The mercenary force we will be assembling to aid the Imperials will not have free reign. We will be inextricably attached to a larger army, and thus unable to maneuver towards Tulian’s defense. If the rebellion sees fit to march north, the conventional Tulian army must be prepared to drive them back.”

“We’re barely going to finish the northern forts in time,” David said. “And that’s taking almost every last one of the workers Shale and I can scrounge up. There’s not going to be anything we can prepare in the south.”

“I didn’t expect you to,” Sara said. “Besides, the territory the defenses would have to cover would be massive. We can’t just make the… oh, what was it? That stupid shit the French built for World War Two?”

“The maginot line,” David provided.

“Yeah, that. We can’t build one of those, and even if we did, that shit didn’t do anything back on earth. There’s no point making defenses the enemy can just walk around.”

“Actually, the maginot line was surprisingly effective, and it was only because the Belgians, French, and British didn’t properly-”

“Okay, don’t fuck with my metaphor here, Dad,” Sara said. “Point is, no, we’re not going to be building forts to the south. They could just ignore them, and if we sallied out to attack them, we’d be crushed by superior numbers. We’re going to have to figure something else out.”

“That’s assuming that the rebel forces even bother to attack Tulian directly,” Evie noted. “The nearest major cities of either Imperial faction are well over a hundred miles away from the border. It would be quite the trek, one that would doubtlessly expose gaps in their own defenses as one of their armies grapples with Tulian. Even if they crush us on the first day of combat, the time spent marching alone is a daring risk to take.”

Vesta was starting to go limp between Hurlish’s legs, but she didn’t pull her out yet. She wanted to hear what her wives had to say without trying to stifle the lady’s panting.

“Doesn’t mean we shouldn ignore the possibility,” Sara said. “Remember, they’ve got ten times more people in one city than we’ve got in our entire country. They could afford to send off some mob of rookie conscripts to go burning our countryside without blinking an eye, and maybe even throw that army at our walls. Who cares if they don’t break through to Tulian itself? They’ll cause enough trouble just burning the countryside to the ground.”

“That would still be a very poor strategic decision on their part, Master.”

“But it would be satisfying as hell for them, because they’re gonna be very, very pissed off that we sided with their enemies. Never underestimate the power of spite.”

“If you say so, dear.”

“What do you need from us, then?” Hurlish asked, pulling a limp Vesta away from her pussy, letting her take deep, heaving gasps. “I assume you didn’t just wake us up in the middle of the night to chat about random shit.”

“Mainly, I want everyone to start getting ready to shit out as many guns and cannons as we can manage. We’re stuck in this bullshit, now. If the side we’re backing loses, Tulian’s going down with them. Plus the more guns we build, the more money we make. I want us to start getting back on a war footing first thing tomorrow morning. Maybe send a runner to the newspaper, get Thalison to release a special edition. I can give him a statement if you manage to wake that old codger up.”

“The people are going to be concerned that you have involved them in this war, Governess,” a new voice said. Garen, sounding as groggy as David had a few minutes before. Apparently he’d been unable to ignore the chattering coming from the crystal.

“Technically, Tulian as a nation hasn’t gotten involved,” Sara said. “I’ll have to emphasize that in the press release. We’re just selling guns to one side, and offering some soldiers a chance to volunteer as mercenaries under Evie. There’s plenty of precedent for one nation providing foreign arms sales and mercenaries without actually ending up at war with someone.”

“Will this rival Imperial faction see your actions as such?”

“Probably not. Which is why we need to get our defenses ready. Also, by the way, I guess since we’re backing one side, we’re gonna have to start calling the other group ‘rebels’ instead of an Empire. Politics and shit.”

With Garen having joined, the conversation began to delve deeper into abstract, boring-ass political shit. Hurlish eventually tossed the crystal back over to Oddry, then wrapped her other hand around Vesta’s head, beginning to grind herself properly into the pretty little lady.

Plenty of people in the city had a lot of opinions on Vesta. Whether or not she was another greedy noble, a shameless opportunist, or a downright charlatan, Hurlish knew one thing about the woman that most didn’t:

She was damn good at giving head.

With all their focus back on each other, Hurlish’s grunts and groans started to grow in volume. Oddry hurried out of the room, sparing the rest of the meeting’s attendants the sound of Hurlish’s rapidly approaching climax, which rose up in her belly as a firey, burning tension.

Years of experience told Vesta exactly what was happening, and she dove into Hurlish’s slit with wild abandon. Hurlish relaxed her grip on the woman’s head to let her do her work, tongue running in quick circles on her clit, three fingers pumping away in her pussy.

With a final, stuttering moan, Hurlish’s hips threw themselves forward, shoving Vesta’s head through the air. Vesta kept her hands on Hurlish’s ass to keep the pressure up, fingers pumping Hurlish through her climax with just the right little curl, sending her legs shaking.

When she came back down from the high, Hurlish dropped Vesta’s head. She collapsed backward, barely managing to catch herself before she fell onto her back. She gasped in lungfuls of air, what little makeup she’d worn smeared by the obscenity of Hurlish’s slick.

“Y-you’re welcome,” she said, coughing lightly between her words. She wiped her mouth with a sleeve. “I take it my service was adequate, miss?”

“Good enough,” Hurlish said, pretending she was leaning on the countertop just because she wanted, rather than because her legs were about to give out.

“Good enough to earn a favor in turn?”

“Nope,” Hurlish said, grinning evilly. “That’s up to your owner, not me. Now come on, you little whore. You missed a lot of shit while you were up in my thighs.”

Vesta made as if to stand, then frowned.

“Ah, Hurlish? I cannot stand. Oddry’s orders won’t let me.”

“So crawl,” she said, walking out of the kitchen to join Oddry. “Maybe if you stick your ass out enough, Oddry’ll let you eat her out next.”

“Yes, Miss,” Vesta sighed, half out of frustration, half from a flush of arousal. She followed after Hurlish on all fours, entering the living room just as Hurlish dropped down onto a sofa.

Together with Oddry, they watched the half-ruined woman drag herself over to them, coming to a stop on the other side of the coffee table.

“Closer,” Oddry whispered. Vesta eagerly crawled forward, licking her lips, only for Oddry to hold up a hand. “Stop.”

Vesta’s confusion at the order was remedied shortly, as Oddry threw her feet up, legs crossed, ankles resting on one of her wife’s shoulders. She had thick black leather boots on, Sara’s wedding gift to the former maid. In private, Sara had called them ‘bad bitch goth boots,’ though at the wedding she’d just told Oddry they were called 3-inch platform shoes. At the familiar weight resting on her shoulders, Vesta groaned in disappointment, but didn’t say anything further.

Hurlish smiled. She’d found some fun damn friends ever since she met Sara.

--------------------------------

Ignite Parables

--------------------------------

There was a squall in the distance. A lone one, a small one, but still, a squall. A patch of cloud which had begun to dissolve, pelting the ocean with drops of fresh water. The rest of the sky was empty, pale blue for as far as the eye could see, and there was no land in sight. A stiff breeze was filling the Waverake’s sails, carrying them along at a steady clip.

And it carried their companions with it, too.

Unlike that fitful squall, the Waverake was not alone. Two ships flanked her on either side, less than a hull’s width of open water between them. Nora had ordered the sails reefed to allow the ‘foreign’ vessels to keep pace.

But they were not foreign to Ignite.

They were Carrion Magecraft.

Off their starboard side was a Bulker, a craft which once could have claimed to be the heaviest vessel on the sea. Now it sat in the shadow of the Waverake’s sails, forty feet shorter, twenty feet thinner, and with only two sails raised beside the Waverake’s three. In her belly, Ignite knew, could sit hundreds of Carrion Marines, any one of whom were thrice the match of every other Navy’s troops. Enchantments shimmered along the hull, catching the sunlight bouncing off the waves, ready to protect the vessel as it drove straight into even the most arduously defended harbor. With their turtle-esque covered deck and thick wooden planking, Bulkers were the premier symbol of Carrion might, a ship designed to crash mindlessly through any coastal city’s defenses, spewing a battalion of elite Marines directly into the most vital of a city’s industries.

Flanking their port side was an unfamiliar ship. It flew the Carrion flag, carried a Carrion crew, and held all the subtle hallmarks of Carrion craftsmanship, but Ignite did not know its design. It had the sharply angled, rakish hull of a Magecraft Skimmer, but lacked the stabilizing pontoons, which would have been bumping against the Waverake’s hull had they been present. It was half again wider than any Skimmer Ignite had ever seen, and half again longer, too, thus equaling the two-hundred-plus feet of the Waverake. She was triple masted, and despite her prodigious size, she was clearly a vessel built for speed.

Ignite studied the strange ship of his former people through an open gunport, crouched in the shadow of the gundeck. He could tell This new ship was fresh out of the shipyards. Its paint was fresh and unchipped, without the uneven splotches that invariably developed as maintenance paint was purchased in different ports. Its crew were as skilled as any Carrion Magecraft, but there was a subtle hesitance to their motions, sailors pausing ever so slightly before they began to follow an order. This was a veteran crew taking a ship out on its first trials, testing the seaworthiness of a novel design.

Creeping just a touch closer to the open light of the gunport, Ignite watched the ship carefully. Its inspiration was clear: this was the Carrion Navy’s first attempt to answer the Waverake. It had likely begun construction as soon as Captain Vanillaflower had returned with reports of the massive Waverake in drydock, and the Carrion designers had been shameless in their mimicry.

The Admiralty were no fools. Whether or not they had believed Captain Vanillaflower’s reports of Governess Sara’s burgeoning military prowess or the importance of securing an alliance with her, they could recognize the inevitability of the Waverake’s influence on naval design. She was a ship which, by her very existence, rendered obsolete every prior vessel on the sea.

But for all their eagerness to seize such an advantage as soon as possible, this new Magecraft was not without its flaws. Its designers had not grasped the importance of the Waverake’s tumblehome hull, which bulged outward at the waterline for stability, and instead had built their new craft with the flat sides of earlier Skimmers. It rocked hard from left to right as it crashed through the waves, and, Ignite suspected, would heel terribly far over should the wind truly pick up. They would have to reef the sails almost entirely should the wind grow too stiff. So too had they failed to fully replicate the beautiful complexity of the Waverake’s sail rigging, though this error was more understandable, as it had not been completed when Vanillaflower had toured the vessel. Though the Magecraft had three sails, their ability to control them was severely lacking in comparison to the nigh-supernatural grace Nora’s training had instilled in her crew. Next to the Waverake’s tangled spiderweb of ropes, pulleys, and sails, the Magecraft was tattered and threadbare. Ignite knew that would soon change, seeing as the Carrion captain was even now carefully studying the Waverake’s lines.

For all its flaws, however, it remained an incredible vessel. Even if its purely physical design was inferior to its inspiration, the aid of Carrion artificers had closed the gap. It slipped through the water with hardly a splash, easily keeping pace with the Waverake despite its half-furled sails, while its Bulker companion had thrown out every yard of cloth it could just to keep pace. While Ignite could not discern the thickness of the strange ship’s hull at a glance, what few enchantments he could spy more closely resembled those of a Bulker than a Skimmer. It was, in its own way, an armored vessel.

A hand abruptly clapped onto Ignite’s shoulder. “Impressive girl, ain’t she?” A voice asked.

Ignite jumped in place with a thundering heart, having been far too engrossed in his study of the ship to notice anyone approach.

Gunner Balon laughed at his reaction, slapping him on the back.

“That nervous to be seeing some of your old kin, First Sergeant?”

“Nervous to be surrounded by them,” he said, standing straight. “They would not send such an escort if they thought highly of our intentions.”

“Ah, but no one’s started shooting yet, have they?” Balon asked. Even indoors, he wore his massive-brimmed hat, the brim of which was so floppy that he often had to lift it with a thumb to keep it out of his eyes. “If they really wanted to put a stop to us, they’d have started flinging spells a good while back.”

“If the Captain thought we were likely to receive a peaceful escort to our destination, she wouldn’t have ordered the cannons loaded.”

Ignite spoke the truth, though he kept his voice down. The gundeck was on full alert, every member of the crew at their stations. All the 24 pounder cannons were loaded with solid shot, the 32 pounders above stuffed full with a double-load of grapeshot. The gun crews were not waiting with the firing string gripped in their hands, but neither had they strayed far from their posts. There was a thick, palpable tension in the air.

“Better safe than sorry, I say,” Balon said, grinning. “Besides, I’d like to see them try. They sailed right up on us like some damn fools. We’ll shred ‘em in the first volley.”

“Only if the Captain elects to fire first,” Ignite said, compelled to be the voice of reason. Gunner Balon, though a reliable man in most every respect, had the same fatal flaw of every other artillery officer Ignite had met in the Tulian Republic: he was far, far too eager to put his pretty toys to the test. “I have no doubt we will deal the enemy irreconcilable damage should our three ships come to blows, but I fear the destruction shall be mutual. Their mages will coat our ship in more flames than can be fought in the first instant of the battle.”

“Ah, we’ll worry about that when it happens,” Balon said, crouching to look down the barrel of the nearest cannon, checking its aim. “The Captain will have some plan for it, I’m sure.”

“I hope she does,” Ignite agreed mildly. He did not have the same unyielding faith in Captain Nora that many of the other officers and crew did. After all, he was one of the men who she came to in order to evaluate how well she was doing in building her cult of personality. “But I’d rather us not put her plans, whatever they may be, to the test.”

“Y’don’t know what she’s thinking?” Balon asked, grunting as he nudged the cannon he was inspecting a few degrees to the side. “You’re usually the one the rest of us come to for figurin’ out what’s going on in the Captain’s head, y’know. First Mate Castalan’s too tight-lipped, the fuzzy little prick.”

“I haven’t spoken to her since the vessels showed up, I’m afraid.”

“And why’s that?” Balon asked, glancing up at Ignite. Then he blinked. “Well you’re damn right, you haven’t. You’ve been down here ever since them ships got in a couple hundred yards. What, one of them carrying some old Carrion buddy of yours?”

“I do not believe it best to flaunt my betrayal,” Ignite said, careful to keep his face impassive. “It would only make the Captain’s overtures, should they be peaceful, more difficult. Either Carrion captain would be within their rights to demand I be extradited for execution.”

“Captain would refuse, though.”

“Yes. She would.”

Ignite let the implication hang. Truthfully, if he should find himself in a situation which required him to fire upon Carrion citizens, he did not know if he would be capable of it. Perhaps one tenant of Sara’s peculiar ideology, that of disregarding unjust legal edicts, had taken root in him, but that was a far cry from adopting her more ‘anarchist’ beliefs. Carrion law may have viewed his refusal to go down with his Magecraft as an act of treason, but Ignite did not. That meant he was, in his own mind, a loyal citizen of the Navy. Even when unwelcomed by his people, he still cared deeply for their fate.

“Still think y’shouldn’t give a rat’s ass what they think of ya,” Balon said, moving to peer out the gunport for himself. “If they’re stupid enough to think men and women’ll happily go down with the…” He trailed off, squinting. “Oh? What’s this?”

Ignite bent down beside Balon, who shuffled to one side to allow him a better view.

The rowing ports along the side of the strange Magecraft were opening up. Ignite expected the ship to change its tack, perhaps rowing to get ahead of the Waverake for whatever reason, but what emerged…

A rumbling noise was carried across the water.

The deeply familiar sound of wooden wheels trundling across a wooden deck.

What sprouted from the darkness of the Magecraft’s hull was no set of wooden oars.

Thick as Ignite was wide, built of a cold, gray iron, suddenly appeared the muzzles of a dozen cannons.

“Make ready!” Balon roared, his voice thundering across the gundeck. The cannon crews, who had not entirely given way to idleness, scrambled forward, taking their positions in moments.

“Run out!”

More wooden rumbling filled the air as cannons began to sprout from both sides of the Waverake, turning its sleek hull into a black castle of bristling iron spikes.

Ignite began to run towards the stairs, countless drills wresting control of his body from his far more tumultuous mind as he made for his combat station up above.

But before he could reach the stairs, and just as Gunner Balon inhaled to bellow the order to fire, a crystalline cry chimed across the ship.

“Hold!” Captain Nora cried, filling every sailor’s ears with her order. “All stations, hold!”

As always when she ensured the entire ship would hear her, there was a strange tone to her words, like the echoing of a city’s belltower at noon, though not nearly so distant. Ignite winced at the pain lancing through his skull, her order as loud as if she’d screamed at the top of her lungs with her lips pressed to the skin of his ear.

When he recovered, Ignite found himself frozen in place, his momentum swept out from under him. Nora was an erstwhile captain. They had drilled for this exact scenario innumerable times. The moment when an enemy vessel would finally present cannons, when Nora would finally get the fair fight she so desired. Time was of the utmost importance. At this range, whoever fired first would gain an unbelievable advantage.

But instead of an apocalyptic thunder of cannonfire, bodies torn limb from limb as smoke choked them all, what came next was a jovial call from the Waverake’s Captain. Nora began hollering to the Carrion craft in as chipper a tune as Ignite had ever heard from the woman, speaking as if she were discussing some local festivity with a passerby on the street.

Only the least inexperienced of the ship’s crew would take that as a sign of relief.

To Ignite’s shock, the Carrion captain did respond, if in not quite as casual a tone. Down on the gundeck as he was, Ignite could not make out the exact words being spoken, but what little he caught didn’t seem overtly hostile. Rather more like… like two novice sailors who had been caught fighting in some bar once before, having suddenly happened across one another the next night. Though just as drunk and angry as they’d been in their first encounter, they were now in posession of a mutual understanding of just how awful the city’s jails truly were. Another fight, no matter who won, just wasn’t worth the trouble.

Well, at least one of them has that understanding. Ignite thanked Daylagon himself that this particular Carrion captain didn’t seem to share Nora’s love of the fight.

“Look at them things,” Balon suddenly crowed in contempt, dragging Ignite’s– and half the gundeck’s– attention back over. “Big fat bastards with a tiny little pinprick for the muzzle.” He guffawed, leaning on a cannon as he inspected its opposite rival. “They might’ve figured out how to get them cannons of some sort or another, but they’ve no idea how to make ‘em like the HOT foundries do.”

Hesitantly, still unsure of how the next few minutes might pass, Ignite pulled his foot off the staircase. He… did not want to show himself to Carrion sailors if necessary. His was a distinctive countenance, sure to be recognized at a glance by any who had met him.

So instead he joined the gaggle of junior officers, crew, and general busybodies who were clumping together to hear Gunner Balon’s appraisal of the enemy’s cannons.

“Tried to use iron, they did, likely thinking that if we could do as well as we did with the stuff, they damn well ought to as as well. And look what it got them. Should’ve just went with bronze, I say. That’s how we started, least ‘till we could figure out how to get iron to stop bursting. Instead of that, they just slapped more iron on the shits ‘till they stopped cracking. Those big bastards must weigh twice as much as any of ours, all to fire a shot with a quarter less weight.”

“They’re still cannons,” one girl in the crowd said. Midshipman Seima, Ignite thought. With a face fresh enough Ignite suspected she’d lied about her age to join the Navy, he vaguely recalled she’d been jockeying for Gunner’s Mate, hoping to someday have the privelege of aiming a cannon, not merely helping load it. “It don’t much matter how much money they pissed away on makin’ ‘em,” she argued, “not when they’re already paid for and pointed at us. Don’t care much if they’re ten times as heavy neither, not once they’re on the damn ship.”

“Ah, but that’s not all matters, is it?” Gunner Balon glanced back at his audience, grinning widely. While he’d earned his command of the ship’s guns early on, on account of his prior experience with ship-mounted ballistae, Ignite thought it was the man’s passion for teaching which had kept him in Nora’s short list of trusted officers.

“Look there,” Balon said, pointing at the gun directly ahead of the hatch they’d bustled around, one which was in prime position to smash through all their bellies in one fell swoop should it be fired. “See how thick it is at the muzzle? Three finger’s width, easy. And that’s just at the muzzle! Imagine how much iron they’ve had to slap on way back at the first reinforce. Three times as much? Four? Forget how much it cost ‘em, lassie. I don’t care if one of their cannons cost as much as a whole damn ship. Carrions can afford it, they could. No, imagine how much all that damn iron weighs.”

“They only have twelve,” Ignite murmured. The Waverake currently sported thirty-two 24 pounders along its single gundeck, with twelve short-barreled 32 pounders on the top deck. The Carrion ship had only twelve to answer them, having a keel of equal length.

“Aye,” Balon said, floppy hat bobbing as he nodded enthusiastically. “With how quick they got this ship in the water, I’m doubting they had any time to get the iron enchanted to lessen the weight. One of them bastards probably weighs what, six, seven thousand pounds? And if they’ve got twelve more on the far side, that’s 150,000 pounds in cannon alone, not to mention powder, shot, and everything else y’need to keep cannons and crew running. On a ship like that, with a thinner frame than ours? Be damn lucky if they can store enough food and water in that ship to keep it at sea for more than a few weeks. Two months at best.”

“So it’s a paper tiger,” one of the other onlookers said, half as a statement, half as a question. “It just looks big and scary, but it can’t do what we can do.”

“Oh, it’s a fine ship, don’t let my making fun lead you to that mistake,” Balon said. “It’s just like every other ship on the waters: it ain’t no Waverake. Lot closer to us than they were before, though. They’re stumbling their way forward, trying to ride on our coattails. They ain’t fools. Carrions build the best ships in the world. This ship’ll sail about for a bit, some pencil pushers on board making all sorts of notes and whatnot, then they’ll come back into the dockyards and turn those notes into a new ship that doesn’t have half the problems this one does.”

“It still won’t matter,” another voice said, this time from a proper officer. A quarter gunner. “The Governess is a genius. If they ever get close to building something like the Waverake, she’ll have some awful beast in the water two months beforehand. Probably made of blacksteel, with cannons that can shoot down the sky.”

“The Governess is not a genius,” Ignite harshly corrected, drawing proper attention to himself for the first time. The crowd looked back at him with astonishment, an expression which Ignite ignored by continuing to stare out at the Carrion vessel. “And she is not an army nor Navy unto herself. Have you not heard her constant cries, pleading for artificers, mages, and the mechanically inclined to join her and her wife in the foundries? Her feverish efforts to establish education for all who wish to receive it? She requires aid as much as any of us. Moreso, perhaps, since any goal she achieves is, to her, simply the unveiling of an even greater struggle. One woman may provide the design of a vessel, but should she be left to build it alone, it will never be completed.”

“Oh, uh, m’sorry, First Sergeant,” the officer who had spoken said, rubbing the back of his head. “I didn’t mean it like-”

“I do not care,” Ignite cut him off. “Complacency is the first rung on the ladder to the grave. Do not fantasize of how the Governess will salve your worries. Look at the tools you have now, and ask yourself how you will apply them to solve your problems. If another ship joins these three, one with every flaw Gunner Balon has presented to us already resolved and with its battle flag flying, how will you, Quarter Gunner, fight your position? That is the question you should ask, and it is the plan you will make. Do not invoke the name of a woman five hundred miles distant who will never know you existed to solve your problems.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I was just-”

“Your proper and only response will be yes, sir, Quarter Gunner.”

“Yes, sir!” The man cried, popping up into a salute.

“Now get to it.”

“...Sir?” He looked left to right at his fellow shipmates, who were equally confused.

“I gave you an order,” Ignite tersely explained. “Return to your post and begin formulating a plan for how you will conduct yourself in an engagement with the vessels currently sailing astride us, in the event they are joined by a third vessel, this third ship being the Waverake’s equal. You are not a midshipman anymore, boy. You are an Officer, and that means you should not only be capable of planning your next meal, you should be literate. I wish to see if you are progressing in the Captain’s lessons as you should be. Should there be no battle commenced today, I expect your written plan of action presented to me at sundown. Am I now understood to your satisfaction?”

“Yes sir!” He cried once more, bouncing away.

And with that, doing his best in front of the gawking crowd to act as though nothing had happened, Ignite crouched back down, looking out the gunport once more.

“What do you think her draft is?” Ignite asked when the conversation didn’t restart. “If she carries as much weight as you say on such a thin beam, adjusting her ballast must consume half her crew’s duty.”

Mercifully taking the hint, Gunner Balon once more grabbed the reins of the discussion. Ignite remained at the rear of the crowd, but there was a new, uncomfortable air to those knelt beside him. In most Navies, Ignite would have been only a Marine, in charge of the Marines alone. But here in the Tulian Navy, or Nora’s Lonesome Navy as it was currently more accurately described, his nebulous and as yet-undefined title of “First Sergeant” gave him leeway he had never been afforded.

Leeway that he still was not sure how to properly manage. By all rights, Ignite had just blatantly usurped the chain of the command, heavily chastising someone under the direct authority of Gunner Balon, and all for an offense that was, had it occurred on a different ship, minor to the point of perhaps not being an offense at all. His had been completely inappropriate behavior from every shipboard angle.

But Ignite was bound by loyalties that lay beyond the Waverake’s wooden hull. Sara’s distaste for the common people’s worship of her talents was well-known, and while she had never officially charged him with countering its festering, she’d often offered surreptitious thanks that the Waverake held at least one officer who would not give into belief in her infallibility. To Ignite, who was used to the political games of higher offices, that was as good as an order to suppress such behavior among the crew at all costs.

A considerable complication arose from his being under the command of Nora, who often directly, explicitly charged him with singling out members of the crew who might better inflate her legacy. She had ordered not just the officers, but all of the crew to be educated into literacy. Ostensibly, this would allow them to peruse her grand collection of naval histories and treatises at their leisure, providing the whole crew a rounded perspective of the importance of every shipboard duty. A sound enough order on the surface, if obsessive in the standards she expected of them, but not unreasonable nor unheard of. The Flagship of a Navy should have the most educated and skillful of the fleet’s sailors.

But Ignite knew from his own private discussions with the captain that her motivation was not entirely pure. While still a practical woman at heart, when finding herself deliberating over which of two equally qualified crewmembers should be placed where, she had a distressingly callous methodology for breaking the tie. If the position was to be close to her, within eyesight, she would ask Ignite which of the two candidates he thought to be more creative with their words and writing, happily explaining it was all the better they have a good view to someday dictate her deeds later in their life. If the position in contention was elsewhere, perhaps a dangerous station such as up in the topmast, she would position the more-skilled orator below, where they would be more likely to survive a battle to tell her tale. She even discarded the traditions of other Deepwater vessels by requiring all her crew to not just learn how to swim, but to swim well. Most Deepwater ships and their crews viewed the ability to swim as more a curse than a burden, certain only to prolong their agonies should they be swept overboard while still a hundred miles from shore. Nora? When they had been becalmed for half a day the week prior, rather than give her crew the customary period of relaxation until the wind rose once more, she had ordered them to practice rapidly stripping all their heavy gear off, sending them leaping overboard. She then dove into the water herself, leading them all in merry laps around the ship until they were too exhausted to continue. Even for the portion of the crew who enjoyed women, the sight of their half-elvish Captain soaking wet, the undershirt of her uniform clinging tightly to her body, hadn’t been a salve great enough to recover from that exhausting exercise. Nora herself, of course, hadn’t seemed tired in the slightest, even after treading water for hours longer than anyone else.

For those isolated from the knowledge Ignite possessed, most of these were either arbitrary decisions, if a touch odd, or eccentricities born from an uncommon empathy for her crew, something that warmed their hearts for their strange captain.

To Ignite?

He wasn’t quite sure.

She had not once, to his knowledge, sacrificed the capability of her ship in order to better secure herself a legacy. She had not acquired a chronicler to follow her every step, as some wealthier Carrion captains Ignite had known did, nor had she frequently called Ignite into her office to discuss the orator or literacy skills of a crewmate. Barely once a month at most, a fraction of the crewing decisions she made in the same period. She claimed to, and seemed to, only use such criteria as a tiebreaker for her more indecisive moments. Assuming that was strictly true, it was no better or worse than any other method he had heard of, be it choosing by seniority or flipping a coin.

But he could not be certain. Nora was an excellent captain, yes, but she was a captain for a reason unlike, Ignite dared suspect, any in mankind’s history. Her wild, manic love of the ocean touched her mind at all times, constantly seeping into whatever chunks had been ripped from her fae-riddled reasoning. She laughed at the dawn of battle and drank heavily at the onset of peace. She would occasionally babble in languages not even the most traveled or educated of the crew recognized, seemingly confused at the lack of response, only to speak the same sentence again in Continental without ever acknowledging the lapse. When a midshipman had slipped and fell from the maintops to his death on the deck, betrayed by a hidden mold eating away within the thick bindings of rope, she had spent the rest of the day cross-legged in the center of the deck, silently unbraiding and rebraiding every rope in the ship’s stores with freakish, inhuman speed, her hands such a blur that she finished a month’s labor an hour before sunset. With no more faults discovered, her flesh-stripped fingers had coiled the offending rope into a tight bind, shoving it down the barrel of a cannon loaded with as much powder as Balon dared. She had personally lit the fuse which fired it directly into the sea.

They were sailing against the Locks of the Sea. Created at the behest of the God Daylagon himself, they were the greatest fortifications mankind had ever produced. At the rear of the Waverake was a great stained window honoring Daylagon. Every crewmember had seen Nora bow her head in prayer to the Beast God, and on the few occasions she helped haul in a catch of netted fish, she was fastidious in tossing the ritually splayed guts of the first-caught creature overboard, a humble offering to the divinity whose holiest temple they were intending to destroy.

Yes, she was skilled. Impossibly so. Ignite had never seen another Captain like her, and, he prayed to the gods, the world would never see another like her again.

At the end of the day, Ignite was proud to serve under her.

He did not expect to survive the honor.

He didn’t think anyone aboard the Waverake did.

--------------------------------

Mui Thom

--------------------------------

Two weeks later

Mui stood outside the walls of a new city, one considerably further east than Tonlay, and for the first time in what felt like years, he stood without Sara anywhere nearby. Though her small squadron of rifle-armed troops may have been helpful for picking off the commanders of the rebel army, Sara had stalwartly refused to aid in the defense of the city. She’d seen both the army defending it and the enemy coming to assault it, and promptly written Tonlay off as a loss without the slightest hesitation. Under her advice, the city had begun an arduous evacuation three whole days before the rebels could have arrived. The refugees had scattered to the countryside, while the remnants of the city’s defenders, those who hadn’t deserted in disgust for giving up the city without a fight, had regrouped here.

Battulen was a considerably smaller city than Tonlay. It was not the capital of a local province, and accordingly, its central district of towering construction occupied less than a quarter of the city’s walled interior. It was something closer to the cities the Tulian mercenaries may be acquainted with when they finally arrived, though that wasn’t why it had been chosen.

No, it had been chosen for its proximity to the coast. The sea was some hundred miles away, and though the Empire’s centuries-long policy of isolation left them without much in the way of ports, the natural bays which could harbor ships still existed. Rather than march her mercenaries through the great many miles of ill-kept jungle that separated Battulen and Tulian, she had elected to first load them onto her flotilla of stolen merchant ships, then deposit them at the edge of the jungle. There was still a single maintained road leading from there to Battulen, used on the rare occasions the Empire had a need to import foreign goods, and that would be her avenue of arrival.

The issue was, Sara had departed to meet her troops on the back of a griffon only three days ago, leaving Mui with instructions to expect her force’s arrival three days later.

That was impossible.

Even marching at the head of five or six hundred mercenaries, as opposed to the tens of thousands of an Imperial army, there were certain logistical absolutes that could not be overcome. A force of her size could march across the jungle, on average, ten or twelve miles a day. If she was willing to push her troops to the breaking point, simply abandoning stragglers where they dropped from exhaustion, they may be able to cover fifteen miles a day. Mui had even heard fanciful tales of elite forces covering twenty-five miles a day through the jungle, groups of Warriors literally sprinting across the landscape in order to reinforce a siege at its most critical moments. That was the stuff of legend; the things that happened in the war long before Mui was born, the sort of achievement people whispered about in awe-filled words.

For Sara’s troops to arrive in three days, she would have to cover more than thirty miles a day. Thirty miles up and down the jungle hills. Thirty miles of mud, muck, and tangling vines. Rising with the sun, gathering your pack, and charging forward as fast as you were able until the sun fell. It was a suicidal task.

Mui shifted anxiously, the tip of his tail flicking back and forth behind him. Beside him stood Most Prodigious Warrior of the Sixth Kyu, Borek Son-Sokthem. The vanara man was a true veteran of the Civil War, his brown fur fading white at the tips where it spread out above his cheeks, not unlike a human beard. He kept that not-quite-beard neatly trimmed, its tips twisted together with a bit of product to not be ruffled by the wind. His armor had been polished and mended to near-perfection by his attendants, as would be expected of someone of his stature, but it was the flaws that caught Mui’s eyes the most. Whether it was sentiment that drove him to keep the same old set of armor, or if he had simply invested far too much money in his equipment’s enchantments over the years to discard it for minor blemishes, the dents remained. Scrapes against the metal from an enchanted blade that had intrinsically altered the chestplate’s being, repelling all paint forever after. Dents along his helmet where hammers had repeatedly failed to pierce the gold-painted steel, so the rumor went, the time he had been surrounded by so many enemies he had been dragged down and wailed upon for minutes on end, enemy troops failing to pierce the steel until he was saved only by a Warrior who would go on to be given the honor of guarding the Adjutant himself.

He was an intimidating man, clearly. He needed neither his armor nor blacksteel-headed glaive to achieve that. Once upon a time, his rank alone would have cowed Mui into abject silence.

But now Mui had the ill fortune of being responsible for keeping this titan of war happy.

“Sir, I encourage you to feel no need to await the Governess’s arrival in the discomfort of the elements,” Mui said, speaking slowly to ensure he did not stutter. “While the Governess did say she would arrive in three days, considering the distance traveled-”

“Do you have no faith in your charge, Imperial-Tulian Cultural Exchange Officer Mui Thom?” The gruff Warrior asked, using the full weight of Mui’s new title as a club.

“Of course I do, but one must consider the realities of the-”

“She said she would arrive today, and I have received no news otherwise. If standing patiently in a field is all that is required of me to meet the requirements of polite decorum, I will do so.”

“That is another thing, sir,” Mui said, wincing even before he got to the tough part. “While you have doubtlessly prepared for the Chosen’s arrival with all the proper rituals necessary, I feel compelled to remind you of the Adjutant’s advice regarding her preferred forms of address-”

“The Will of Divinity is the foundation of all we are. Even the Emperor bows to the gods. I do not think myself above the Emperor.” The man’s eyes slid down and to the side, observing Mui from the corner of his vision. “Do you consider yourself above the Emperor? Above the Gods?”

“No, sir, of course not, sir,” Mui said, stepping back, folding his hands together as he bowed, appropriately chastised.

Sara’s going to fucking hate this, he thought, sweat beginning to lather beneath his armor.

They were standing beneath what had to be the most ostentatious pavillion available in the entire city of Battulen, purple silk bedecked with golden trim so dense it almost entirely hid the beautiful imagery woven into its surface. Three plush chairs had been set out beneath it, one for the General, one for the Chosen, and one for the Chosen’s wife. A table bristling with absurdly expensive wines would serve as the demarcation line between the General and Sara, every bottle lit from within by an enchanted diamond. Behind the chairs was a row of soft rugs for Sara’s ‘attendants’ to stand, much as the General’s own attendants were standing behind his chair.

She’s going to hate this SO fucking much, Mui thought. Did the Adjutant not send a letter warning him?

The only solace Mui could take was that it wasn’t his fault. He had tried everything he could to convince the General to moderate his greeting of Sara, and to the man’s credit, he had made concessions. He had forbidden an audience of the city’s nobility from attending, had canceled plans to build rows of bleachers to hold a choir to provide music for the meeting, and had even agreed that having his highest Kyu Warriors attending in full military gear could be seen in all sorts of negative lights, even though he would have had them pressing their foreheads into the mud while they murmured prayers for the entirety of the meeting.

And now he had begun waiting for Sara at sunup, even when she’d made the clearly impossible claim that she and her mercenaries could cover a hundred miles in three days. No matter how patient the man claimed to be, Mui knew no member of the nobility actually enjoyed being kept waiting for hours upon hours. It would start the entire meeting off on the wrong foot for him to still be waiting for her in twelve hours, long after the sun had set. If only he had listened to Mui when he said-

“Wow, Sara is gonna hate this,” a strange voice whispered into Mui’s right ear, breath tickling his fur.

Mui flung himself forward into a dive, hands folded over his head to protect him from the storm of crossbow bolts he expected to follow. Someone, somehow, had snuck into the pavilion.

“...Cultural Exchange Officer Mui Thom?” The general asked, sounding bemused. “Did you trip?”

Mui spun onto his back, eyes wide. His mind worked for a moment, utter confusion reigning, only to be overwrought by terror.

“Intruder!” He cried, brandishing his sword as he stumbled to his feet. “Invisible, whispering in my ear!”

At that the General responded. The front of his helmet slid down with a perfunctory click just as his glaive flung itself off his back, one hand spinning its blacksteel blade in a bobbing circle to ensure the space around his person was clear.

“Not invisible!” The voice called, this time apparently heard by all. “And not a bad guy, either.”

The General had already been joined by his guards, who were pointing crossbows in every direction.

“Show yourself!” The General called.

“Look up!”

Mui’s eyes instinctively flicked up, like some sort of damn fool. Of all the childish tricks to convince someone to look away–

Oh, no.

The voice hadn’t been lying.

Folded into the corner of the pavilion’s wooden bracing was a cluster of pooling shadows, some amalgamation of liquid smoke sprouting limbs. White dots protruded from its center, within which two pupils stared down.

“Hi!” The eerie shadow called. “My name’s–”

A half-dozen crossbow bolts loosed as one, shooting towards the thing which… wasn’t…

There?

Mui felt a pain behind his eyes, the world growing blurry, and when he managed to refocus them, the corner of the pavilion held nothing more than holes from enchanted crossbow bolts. In fact, he suddenly became aware there hadn’t ever been anything there. But he had seen it. But it hadn’t been–

A migraine burst to life beneath his eyebrows.

“Mui,” the voice whispered again, far closer, a touch pressing against his back. “Tell them I’m with Sara.”

Mui spun, shoving against the sensation. “I have no proof that you are anything of the sort–”

Behind him was standing a young blue azarketi with a nervous, apologetic half-smile on her face. For the first brief moment he saw her, Mui thought her naked, but no, she barely skirted past the technicality. The nipples of her slim breasts poked through two thin triangles of cloth, held up by flimsy string tied behind her back, her only other clothing being azarketi-weave shorts of such absurdly tight fit that he could have counted the frills of her cotton underwear. Though technically saving her from the crime of public indecency, the black material could not have ended any more than an inch beyond the edge of her buttocks.

“She is with the Governess,” Mui announced, sheathing his sword.

There was an immediate rush as the General’s guards tried to tackle the girl, but Mui held his hands out protectively, once more proclaiming her allegiance.

“I said she is with the Governess!” He yelled. “I would not lay a hand on her if you value your life! Back, back!”

The guards pulled up short, but they did not drop their weapons.

“I apologize for scaring everyone,” the girl said, leaning out to be seen around Mui’s armor. She gave a small wave. “I just… uh… oh man, you are all looking at me.”

Dear gods, Mui thought, recognizing the strange, happy little tremor in this girl’s tone. Sara must have been close indeed. He had only heard that particular mixture of giddiness, disregard for danger, and general inebriation from one source:

Evie, straight after she’d emerged from a room with Sara, still licking the white from her lips.

This girl was cock-drunk.

This girl, who had just stealthily approached a pavilion in the middle of a sunny, open field, who had hidden in plain sight from dozens of high-level Imperial Warriors so effectively she could literally whisper in his ear without being spotted…

Was cock-drunk.

“Oh, look!” She said, spinning around with an arm and finger to point outward. “Sara’s here!”

So taken aback was Mui that he involuntarily followed her gesture, allowing him to see it straight away. At the edge of the jungle road emerged the first of a long column of troops, five abreast.

And they were riding the strangest contraptions Mui had ever laid eyes on.

“I’m Ketch, by the way,” she said, turning around to shake his hand. “Sara told me a lot about you, Mui.”

He ignored the insane woman, stepping out into the sunlight to get a better look at what was approaching them.

For a moment, he had thought the Tulians had managed the impossible by guiding a force of cavalry through the jungle. Then he realized that the things they were riding were far too small, and that they were not armored as he had first thought, but rather not creatures at all, being composed entirely of steel. Two wheels were placed in line with another, black rubber tires bouncing over the terrain, supported by spindly spokes of yet more steel within. Every rider was pumping their legs in the strangest fashion, almost like they were treading water in midair.

For all the utter bizarreness of their presentation, it was clear that they were soldiers. Every one of them carried a wooden box of supplies on their back, a bayonet-tipped musket tied with thick rope to its side. They all wore at least their chestplates and helmets, though they had eschewed leg armor, presumably to make propelling their bizarre devices easier.

Leading the column on, of course, the largest of the contraptions, was Sara. Evie was standing on two poles attached to the rear wheels, resting her hands on her wife’s shoulders for balance.

“Hey, Mui!” Sara called out, taking one hand off the steering bars to wave as she approached. The rest of the Tulians disembarked from their devices quite a ways back, kicking out a small stand to let the metal steeds rest upright. Sara approached alone.

The pavilion, Warriors, General, and attendants all, had gone completely silent.

Sara came to a stop just before the rug of the pavilion, her contraption screeching slightly as she froze her feet. She hopped off of it, leaving it to thump unceremoniously in the grass, then stepped into the pavilion, shaking out her black hair as she removed her helmet.

“I guess you’re General Borek?” Sara asked, putting her hand out for the wizened General to shake.

“I am,” he said, already informed by Mui on Sara’s preferred casualness of address. “It is an honor to have you here, Chosen of-”

“I bet,” Sara said, dropping his hand to scrape her boots back and forth on the priceless rug, smearing mud across its intricate weavings. “Let’s walk and talk,” she said, moving past him. “This humidity sucks ass. Do you have somewhere nearby with cooling enchantments?”

The General stared at her back, uncomprehending. When Evie passed him to follow after Sara, followed by Mui, the realization seemed to set in.

Mui swept up to Sara, going up on his tiptoes to hiss in her ear.

“Have you no concept of subtlety?!”

“Welcome to the beautiful world of big political power moves, big man,” Sara whispered back. “Hope you enjoy the show.”

Mui dropped back, shaking his head as he ceded his place to the General. He very much doubted he would.

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