One Flame

Clephesia lost herself in Tanaquil's eyes. There was no way she was going to look away to notice the hinges slowly freezing, so it was Cleïs who called out as the door snapped in and landed with a loud crash, chips of diamond flying throughout the room.

Alifa and Zaria were on the other end. Clephesia's sister was coated in hard ice and still managing to stare through at Tanaquil with a gaze as cold as her armor. Zaria looked ready to run at any moment.

"Mirai, the bell," the Empress said. Clephesia, her head fuzzy, vaguely considered that Eastern Human -- I wonder if that language has an actual name -- was neither the Empress's nor Mirai's first language, and that this was said in a language she and her sister could understand purely for their benefit. Mirai left Clephesia and the others in the bed and ran across the room to loudly ring a wide, gilded bell.

"Lif... could you have waited on the daring rescue for another ten minutes?" Clephesia asked.

Alifa sighed and stepped forward, the air around her fogging with the sheer cold of her presence. "Really, Boots?" She asked, also in Eastern Human. Is that for Zaria's benefit? Or Tanaquil's? "You sold out your people for sex?"

"Sold out? What are you talking about?"

Zaria pulled out a sheet of paper and read from it. Clephesia listened, despite not having the faintest idea what poetry could have to do with this.

It wasn't poetry. It read more like some form of... written long-form communication, though the idea strained credibility in Boots's mind. The language wasn't nearly obscure and metaphorical enough for anyone to decide how to interpret it, it was like there was only one possible meaning.

"'My dearest Oadas, the rock embracing me, Emperor of Batillus Unas and my heart. My conquest of Cymru' -- that's the Woolen Coast, where I and the Canard are from -- 'is under way, and while I fully expect it to prove a quick and simple task, I have set my sights on a more bountiful land. A land where gemstones grow on trees. I speak of the land of Faerie. I know; the legends are far-fetched, but you know that I am not one for chasing rainbows. I have personally met, touched, and tasted the Princess Heir of one of their... 'Queendoms.' She was being delivered on a Cymruan ship. I am confident that offering them peace in exchange for any information they have on Faerie's location will yield results, and we can just get an early start on our backup plan to take Cymru over time peacefully. While I do think I will need to rent more Diutisc armies, my hopes are high. From what I've heard, Faerie is controlled by two states continually at odds with one another. So long as we are careful to take one at a time the land of the fae should be ours in short order. I estimate conquest two, perhaps three years after landfall.

All my heart, your Empress,

Tanaquil.'" Zaria rolled up the parchment and nodded to Alifa. "Based on her translation. Fae magic sure is handy."

Boots shrank back from the Flamecaller in betrayal. "You're going to try to take over Faerie? Dethrone my mother, seize my home?"

"Please, Clephesia. You know you don't need any of those things to be my Princess." Tanaquil casually hooked a finger inside of Clephesia and pulled her closer, making Boots moan and glance guiltily at her sister.

"All you need is someone to treat you like one." Tanaquil's lips were close, very close, and Clephesia's head was still hazy, but Lif's voice penetrated through the fog.

"Tanaquil, get your fingers out of my sister. Boots, get over here and fight for your country."

As Clephesia pulled away, the Empress looked disappointed... but let her go. Boots slapped the seed against her chest as she joined her sister, her Living Armor growing down her frame slowly.

"So in answer to your question, Boots, this isn't a rescue mission. To save Faerie, this is an assassination."

"Then I hope you do not mind if we treat it as one." One of the crewmen of the ship, steel sword in hand, led four others into the suddenly cramped bedchambers of the Empress.

"Take them alive if possible; I'd like to punish my new Princess personally." As Tanaquil found a comfortable position to watch the fight, Clephesia swallowed.

"Focus, Boots." Alifa had twin icicles hovering over her head, ready to hone in on and fly at whichever soldier made the first move. Zaria was just putting the Princesses between herself and the swords.

Boots lifted the shield growing on her right arm and fumbled with her left hand until the Living Armor let her draw her wooden sword, Green Fang.

"Boys, we found the escaped prisoners!" The leader shouted over his shoulder. That announcement started to be echoed down the ship; soon it would reach the whole crew. Alifa scowled and, realizing that time was against them, launched her first icicle. The soldier it was aimed at lifted up his gauntleted left arm and the ice shattered on it. He smirked at Alifa, but she pointed at him again and the shattered bits of ice resumed course into his face, dozens of tiny icicles impaling his lips and cheeks. He screamed and stumbled back, but the other four soldiers fell into formation and attacked.

Boots launched herself between two of them, slamming one with her shield while her sword parried a blow from the other. Alifa shot another icicle and tried the same trick, but without the element of surprise the soldier in her face just kept his arm over his face to weather the icicle's deathrattle. Both of Lif's opponents landed a blow on her frozen armor, but that ice became her weapon as well as it exploded in their faces, buying the younger princess the time to kneel down to the deck and press her hand to the wood. Chanting in the Fae Tongue, she called out:

"Ocean, rush in and meet the chill of a thousand winters! Crystalize into one form and fight by my side! Advent, Frigid Salt!"

From the gaps between the boards making up the decks, saltwater sprayed up and pushed the four soldiers back just as the one who was initially impaled resumed the battle. Boots took the opportunity to lunge forward and widen her eyes in astonishment when her wooden sword tinked harmlessly off of her target's armor. The saltwater twisted and churned into a vaguely humanoid shape in between Alifa and those who had broken through her shield of ice and froze solid, long sharp icicles extending from its arms. The five warriors, initially believing they were here to subdue one small princess and a ledgerwoman, shrank back, but the leader steeled himself and lunged forward, followed quickly by three of the others as one peeled off to keep up the pressure on Boots.

Boots wasn't about to give in -- her sword couldn't get through their armor to do damage, but she didn't need to harm her opponent to disarm him. As he swung his weapon, she twisted out of the way and smacked his fingers with her sword, eliciting a belt of pain and a thud on the ground as his cutlas fell.

Zaria picked it up and went for the Empress. She jumped up onto Tanaquil's bed and pointed her weapon, which she had to wield in two hands, at the other two women in the bed.

"You two stay out of this," she insisted. "This is between me and the woman trying to conquer my home."

"If you'll pay attention to the letter you read, I specifically want to stop conquering your home. If you kill me before I send word of that to anyone else, I assure you that my navy will continue their assaults and takeovers of Cymru just fine without me."

"Yeah, and if you pull the other one it plays The Ballad of Unicorn Run. I know you're planning on taking Cymru over even after making peace!"

"Yes, with my backup plan. To be more clear, we'll build cities and settlements within our borders, but also within travel distance of the serfs and poor of Cymru. Anyone who leaves Cymru and joins our settlements will not be serfs, but will own their own land so long as they follow the laws of Batillus Unas. The hope is to bleed Cymru dry of the lower class, the class that produces the wealth that the nobles just take."

"And... and you're calling yourself an exception to that rule!? You think you aren't a noble profiting off of the labor of those below you?"

"I never claimed to be the solution... just the better mistress. So unless you think you can organize a quick peasant revolution that also doesn't leave you open to being immediately conquered by my waiting navy... My way is the best way to create a better life for your family back home." Tanaquil shrugged. "Something to think about before you kill me."

"Has this... worked? To take over a country?"

"Well, I've never tried it but I've always wanted to. Oadas keeps telling me, rightly to his credit, that it would take decades, maybe generations. But I certainly am curious if it's possible to conquer a country completely peacefully. That's what I'm offering you and your people: A better life under me." Tanaquil nodded to the Princesses. "What do you care about their home? All it ever gave you was a boogeyman."

Zaria looked back at the Princesses. Clephesia had disarmed another soldier. Alifa was panting and looking faint... summoning that ice monster seemed to have drained her almost dry and it wasn't exactly winning its fight.

Oh, its initial assault had been devastating. It had aimed its huge arm down at a soldier and thrust down, and when the soldier sidestepped and the ice impaled the planks under his feet, it had pulled back with enough force to rip the wood up and toss him to the side. Its wide weapon had then allowed it to slam back two other crewmen... but that was when reinforcements started to trickle in. Men with pikes, crossbows, even the odd mace which could shatter large chunks of the ice monster with each blow. The creatur was being stabbed, shot, and smashed apart slowly but surely, and it could no longer put up an effective assault as it was being attacked from all sides.

"Throw your lot in with them and be imprisoned for the rest of your life. Drop that sword right now -- that's right, don't even join us, just sit this out -- and I'll need a tax collector for the new settlement. Someone with a good head for numbers. And, Luna Occultans, if you were to play with the numbers a bit to be too generous to yourself or maybe to Batillus Unas's new full landowning citizens from your people... well, I don't think the officials I send to pick up your taxes would even notice, so long as you were smart about it. What do you say?"

"You don't even know my name."

Tanaquil smirked. "I know your price. That's more important."

Zaria scowled, but tossed the cutlas aside.

The mace hit right in the middle of Frigid Salt, at last shattering the last of him. The approaching soldiers, though wounded and winded, were still all standing.

"Drop your weapons, sing that armor back into yourself, and return to bed," Tanaquil ordered Clephesia. "And I'll make the conquest as Faerie as bloodless as possible. I'll even see about making your mother the Queen of the whole of it, so long as she abides by our laws."

Boots looked sadly at Alifa. "I don't... think we're going to win this one."

"That's fine... I was more interested in getting the crew to send everyone who could fight here," Alifa explained. While exhausted, she grinned as the whole ship shook and rattled as deafeningly loud CRACKS and bursts filled the belowdecks of the ships, throwing everyone there, Empress included, onto their faces.

"Really was hoping to kill her but that's our cue." Alifa scrambled to her feet. "Boots, here!" She ran to the hole in the deck made by Frigid Salt and slid down, skinning her knee landing below but still going. Boots cast one more glance at Tanaquil, who was sitting back up on her bed.

"My, that sounded expensive," was all the Empress said before Boots followed her sister.

"What are we looking for?" Boots called. Alifa held out her hands and Wenny dropped her pack into them before burying herself in Alifa's bag. The younger princess threw it over one shoulder and ducked under a spray of sea water. The ocean was gushing into the Empress's flagship, like the lower walls of the ship had simply ceased to be. "Just a way out." Alifa swam out of the largest hole in the hull as the ship rapidly sank lower into the water behind them. "Can you call some dolphins? I am tapped." Wenny's hand came out of Alifa's pack with a small seashell. Boots, treading water, pressed it to her lips and blew into it.

Zaria followed the Empress as she and those women she kept with her were led onto a longboat, evacuated with the rest of the crew in a speedy, but organized manner. Zaria jumped onto the boat behind them before anyone could tell her she wasn't allowed, and they were lowered into the water as another boat was being filled up.

She watched as two green women started vanishing into the distance on the backs of dolphins. She shook her head and chuckled. "Faeries..."

"Fascinating creatures," Empress Tanaquil agreed, lifting a hand in a regal wave good-bye to the fleeing princesses.

"Farewell, Alifa, Clephesia. I'll see you again soon."