5th Quest, Endgame: Friend To The Lost, Enemy Of All Tyrants

[lightnovelexperiences]

1: Who Waits By Your Sickbed And Brings In Fresh Air

Though she faded into the background somewhat, Deedee has been quietly practicing, healing, beautifying. The plague didn't catch her flatfooted, and she's been distributing the vaccine almost as fast as she's been getting it, and doing her best to heal the afflicted with her own growing healing powers, as well.

Sylphan may not be one of the Old Gods, but she likes to think He is still listening, and honoring her vows and sacrifices to him.

So if you've got an injury or want to be inoculated against plague, come visit Deedee at the Five Winds Spa after hours.

2: Who Comforts the Distressed and Distresses the Comfortable

Deedee's never forgotten her main objective with the spa, of course: tricking upper class twits into revealing more than they should in small talk with their masseuses, pedicurists and nurses. Deedee and her crew continue to lavish the very rich and stupid, so their Reichmarks flow into the Corsair's coffers and their plans end up in the ears of Corsair leaders.

And if this means giving a massage to an unpleasant officer or two, then so be it.

3: The Laughing Wind, The Trickster-Fox, Who Caught His Own Tails

When not working, she's busy training her art, both the physical martial art and her command of Ether and inner arts. She mastered wind; she's learned fire; she's been slowly working up to other elements.

She'll gladly spar with you. Who'll take her up on it, with bare hands, halberds out, or in full wuxia bullshit mode?

Comments

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[theriflespiral]

Natalia, after a spectacular meltdown last month involving delivering an incredibly gruesome death to the head of the main research fortress on Bavrecht and nearly hurting her squadmates, has been removed from combat operations effective immediately. Word's probably got around about what happened.

But she wants to keep in condition, and the opportunity to see what Deedee's learned in the intervening months since their first meeting is highly tempting. There's a few things she needs to learn, but interspersed with them all... Is that for the sake of the Corsairs and their cause she has to learn proper control. "... Deedee. I'm glad you agreed to work with me."

Waiting on mod approval for her to dabble in the other bending forms btw

[lightnovelexperiences]

"It's something I had to learn. And I... well, I had a teammate who was technically a berzerker. I had plans in case they lost control."

Thankfully, Deedee hasn't yet seen Ace lose it.

Yet.

"Have you ever practiced meditation before?" she asks.

Re: Waiting on mod approval for her to dabble in the other bending forms btw

[theriflespiral]

Natalia is standing just that little bit too straight, that little bit too wound up. Her voice and expression, at least, remain carefully under wraps. Her Ether flows, however... "Not... As such. Motion exercise, to better pay attention to my energy? Yes. Testing for psychic ability? That also. But..."

She looks away, almost ashamed to admit: "Peace is rare for me."

[lightnovelexperiences]

"Was for me, too, before I relearned this. I've found that peace needs cultivation."

She cracks her neck, then her knuckles.

"But those motion exercises seem a good place to start, if they're to put you back in your body. Show me."

[theriflespiral]

She nods, and starts going through them.

There's... Some sops to Russian cultural practice and Soviet close combat philosophies, but the motions and the way it's done is almost all stolen from tai chi.

As she performs, she gets an odd look on her face, like she's a little sick to her stomach. She can feel how out-of-sorts she is, even if she doesn't name it.

She shifts to a different style, as if it is the exercise itself that's bothering her, and not the sorting through of distant wreckage in the fog. But she doesn't seem much more at home with ballet than she does with tai chi.

[lightnovelexperiences]

“Thought so. You’re clearly not centered.”

She considers, flat eared, tails corkscrewing, tapping her foot and scowling.

“…mind if I do my thing with bodywork and pressure points, see if I can help physically loosen you up before you try again to loosen up emotionally?”

[theriflespiral]

There's a flash of irritation, a twitch of one eye, a hand, but then she appears placid.

"Very well." She almost wants to apologize, but instead she controls herself. She knows it's like to take time, but... Still.

[lightnovelexperiences]

"I will have to be behind you for this," Deedee says. "Apologies in advance."

And she steps, carefully, behind Natalia, taking deep breaths and rubbing her hands together.

She starts by laying her palms flat on her shoulders and gently pressing down, seeing how much tension is there. At the same time, she reaches out with a faint whisper of Ether, trying to get a sense of her internal Ether flow, what some would call her meridians.

What does Deedee find?

[theriflespiral]

Her body is-- there's no other way to put it, it's under some constant tension. Like she never lets go of anything. Like she'll sink it beneath the iceberg of her heart, and like she's done a lot of "meatball" healing, and hasn't really had time to rehabilitate. All of which is true, but life's been hard on the front lately, too.

As for her inward channels... Oh, gods, what a mess.

The first unusual thing is the pearl, the tightly packed snowball where her center should be, roiling, disturbed, cracked. Inside, a center of life magic that seems like it's been constantly working at its peak. Were it ever unearthed, it might resemble a blossomed lotus-- hundreds of channels and a wide field of Ether, filtered through the ice-ball around it to affect the world.

As for what cracked it, what few roots and petals emerge from the pearl are tattered and weak; like she pulled a spell-- or several-- into herself.

It's not hard to reconstruct what happened from that-- she knew she was hurting her squadmates, and hit herself until she stopped.

[lightnovelexperiences]

"Eranda's tender mercies on you, Natalia." This oath is delivered with a sigh, rather than sharply, but with concern. "And since prayer without sacrifice is useless, I'm cooking blini and feeding it to us and the poor on Her behalf tonight."

Deedee sighs, eyes shut, careful now, breathing as if it was still Breath that guided her spells, trying to see what she could do and where on her back to poke to start to mend the cracks in Natalia's icy heart, perchance to see the day where it's no longer needed and can melt.

It'll be slow going. They both know this.

[theriflespiral]

It's been slow going. Some of it, in places, is thinner than others. This is not where it burst out, but it seems she's been thawing, slowly, on her own, and now this has happened.

"It turns out, trying to only feel some things is not so easy." It starts at the neck, the shoulder, where she's carried most of her weapons, where she wrenched it months ago in rigging and patched it; that radiated out, until it's all on her back and neck, and met the damage from her heart wildly rejecting the death fever of Gaurus the Bleeder, freezing him at last... and causing internal bleeding.

"I... I have been feeling for others. It hurt at first, but... Less so, as the months dragged on. But... This... Anger. This anger I did not fully expect."

[lightnovelexperiences]

"Natalia, please listen to me and take this in the spirit of compassion I intend it," Deedee says, wondering when she became her mother.

But she has not forgotten the face of her father, either, and he would respect that. She sighs, and continues.

"Trying to ignore how I felt, even the anger, even the sadness, is how I managed to make myself miserable for 25 years. Only... only becoming the godbotherer I am now and allowing myself to feel those saved me from that," she says, managing not to lie while concealing what about that transition saved her heart and soul. "Anger is a pure burning fuel. It is the cry of 'but that's not fair!' at the top of your lungs. Those who have everything and say that to mean 'it's not fair that you have what I don't' are despicable, but I know you well enough to say that that is not the kind of anger you have in your heart."

[theriflespiral]

"... 'it is because of people like you, that I am like this.' I do not remember all of what was done to me, clearly. Because I do not remember a torturer, fancying himself a scientist--" She stops, clenches her fists, closes her eyes. "That one is past my ability to hear, now."

Even with her moderated tone, the sense of and good fucking riddance is laced all through. "... your Eranda. Tell me of Her."

[lightnovelexperiences]

"She is the lady of wild strawberries, of the oats, the rye, and the barleycorn, the patron of all women," even those born not realizing they were women, "there when the lamb is birthed, there when the sheep is sheared, there when the wool is spun, there where the quilt is woven. There, too, as the First Midwife, to welcome her children into the world. She used to be the lady of the emmer wheat, too, until Aurora made that hers; for her worship is older than Aurora's, among those who shun city walls for the countryside and transhumance. She is revered as healer, maiden, mother, and crone; she loves Aurora and Scherzo both, and I won't go into detail on how and how much."

She takes a deep breath.

"She is not my Goddess, exactly. But all of the Fourteen are family, the first lords of Mundus, even the Fifteenth whose name must be abjured."

[theriflespiral]

She winces slightly, as her shoulder comes back into proper rest, as neck and trapezius stop favoring it. "Then, to your kasha baba, I shall help you in that tonight, if I can."

"... and may i one day flourish..."

[lightnovelexperiences]

"Blintzes with strawberries and sweet cheese," she agrees. "It's mom's recipe, which should please Her. And a good way to calm down."

She pauses.

"Take out your frustrations on the berries as they boil, really pulp em."

[theriflespiral]

For a moment, there's a faint up-turning of one corner of her mouth. "Are you sure? May end up making strawberry slush, instead."

Though, right after this, she adds, "perhaps it would not be that much longer in pot, either way."