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honiker- Posts : 52
Join date : 2018-04-24
what's The Imperial Cards?
Thu Jan 31, 2019 3:10 pm
Excerpt from the diary of Prince Clovis, Ace of Spades, two years after his ascension to the station of Ace.
“I grew up on the wealth of Mars, in the Spadelands, out in the remote desert reaches of a particularly hellish corner of the planetoid’s badlands. It’s not really remote, and I don’t really know what planetoid means, but I’ve read it in some of my ancestor’s journals, and it seems to be a mass of land, however you’d put one, of lesser stature than the planets, of which I know nothing, though each is supposed to be part of a body called a solar system, which must share roots with our modern word, Solus…
Solus, Mercury, Venus, Terrus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Every child knows these are the ten designations for the lordships divided up among each of the four imperial houses of cards. Spade, Diamond, Club and Heart all have their own Lords of Solus, Mercury, Venus and so on, ruling over differing territories of the lands. Using this, I can surmise that Mars could be called a planet class, and so the planetoid I grew up on, before I came to my current station and standing as the Ace of Spades, and now, as its lord and savior what forrit… ..
Spade itself, as with the other imperial houses, is a concept much more vast and complex than this idea of a solar system, yet the Solus system of regions of the greater Spadelands and surrounding territories could easily be classed as a simple collection of planetoids and similar bodies, et lo a solar system.
I draw these comparisons now because of what I have learned from these journals not read by anyone else in a thousand thousand years, and that there are other worlds of different lore and culture and names and understandings, and that I could draw what simple comparisons I can to what we are, in our world, have, that maybe this telling of the rise of the 79th emperor can reach you, in other worlds, and that when you read its words, or hear its lyrics, as perhaps the media will be, you might understand some better part of what we are, here and now… ..
“Space” is not a frontier I am familiar with, and yet, my ancestor’s writings seem convinced of it, yet space as I know it, is not a place, in itself, but a lack thereof, and so you can see that when you read of our places and happenings, words you may know may be in places you’ve not seen them before, meaning different connotations and roots from what you’ve once known, exactly as I’ve seen written and marveled at in these writings; my ancestor’s journals, knowing that some words are, for truer, mostly the same, and whilst others are vastly different to the point of bewilderment and ”
end of available excerpt
“I grew up on the wealth of Mars, in the Spadelands, out in the remote desert reaches of a particularly hellish corner of the planetoid’s badlands. It’s not really remote, and I don’t really know what planetoid means, but I’ve read it in some of my ancestor’s journals, and it seems to be a mass of land, however you’d put one, of lesser stature than the planets, of which I know nothing, though each is supposed to be part of a body called a solar system, which must share roots with our modern word, Solus…
Solus, Mercury, Venus, Terrus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Every child knows these are the ten designations for the lordships divided up among each of the four imperial houses of cards. Spade, Diamond, Club and Heart all have their own Lords of Solus, Mercury, Venus and so on, ruling over differing territories of the lands. Using this, I can surmise that Mars could be called a planet class, and so the planetoid I grew up on, before I came to my current station and standing as the Ace of Spades, and now, as its lord and savior what forrit… ..
Spade itself, as with the other imperial houses, is a concept much more vast and complex than this idea of a solar system, yet the Solus system of regions of the greater Spadelands and surrounding territories could easily be classed as a simple collection of planetoids and similar bodies, et lo a solar system.
I draw these comparisons now because of what I have learned from these journals not read by anyone else in a thousand thousand years, and that there are other worlds of different lore and culture and names and understandings, and that I could draw what simple comparisons I can to what we are, in our world, have, that maybe this telling of the rise of the 79th emperor can reach you, in other worlds, and that when you read its words, or hear its lyrics, as perhaps the media will be, you might understand some better part of what we are, here and now… ..
“Space” is not a frontier I am familiar with, and yet, my ancestor’s writings seem convinced of it, yet space as I know it, is not a place, in itself, but a lack thereof, and so you can see that when you read of our places and happenings, words you may know may be in places you’ve not seen them before, meaning different connotations and roots from what you’ve once known, exactly as I’ve seen written and marveled at in these writings; my ancestor’s journals, knowing that some words are, for truer, mostly the same, and whilst others are vastly different to the point of bewilderment and ”
end of available excerpt
- honiker
- Posts : 52
Join date : 2018-04-24
The Imperial Cards | Chapter 2
Thu Jan 31, 2019 3:11 pm
Ace of Clubs ♣ Zen Sunn Sukki Eichi
Sukki woke up next to her little brother, with his bedclothes wrapped haphazardly around the two of them, tangling them nicely, and she snuggled up against his naked form, thinking about how long she’d really stay, this time, while she rested her head on his rising and falling chest.
She wasn’t really his sister anymore, she supposed. Clovis was a spade, still yet, and always would be… ..
Spades were spades and clubs were clubs, right? If that were true, ever, she’d still be a spade, like her brothers, but instead she’d been married off to a ten of clubs, and an annoying one at that, where she’d taken a new name and abandoned her old life. Sukki wasn’t the only one who still remembered her old name, from her days as a princess of Spade, but Clovis had forgotten it, and she’d never told him that she’d never really liked it anyway, and that Sukki suited her fine, now that she was an ace.
Being a seven was hell for a girl with Sukki’s upbringing, and rising to a station above her husband’s had been her only way out; so she’d become the youngest Ace of Clubs in a thousand years, only to be beaten by her kid brother, a year later, when Clovis became the youngest Ace of Spades in history, at just 12.
Being an ace granted one the autonomy, immunity and power of the four of four royals, without any of the strict bindings the stations of King, Queen and Jack all had to one another. An ace was a law unto herself, as she traveled, and could even freely venture into the Spadelands, the Heart Queendoms and Romulus. When she’d become ace, effectively divorcing her jailer of a husband, Sukki was able to visit her brothers for the first time in four years, and when Clovis took her to his bed the night after. . . she didn’t have to wonder anymore what everyone else thought was so great about sex, anyway.
She’d told a three, once, that she was in love with her own brother, and the poor girl had thought Sukki had been talking about her twin, Linas, and was terrified of her after that. Linas was a vicious animal and a lunatic, and Sukki didn’t doubt that their father, the King of Spades, was going senile, like half the tens at court tended to be, because he kept doting on Linas and giving him better stations and authorities than were ever warranted, to ask the others nearby.
After her bath, Sukki was thinking about how important it might have been for her to arrive here, in Clovis’s estate on the wealth of Mars, in the Spadelands systems, when she had, because she was starting to suspect that without the right people surrounding him and influencing his thinking patterns, Clovis was irritable and manic, but in the right atmosphere, like when his elder sister the Ace of Clubs was around and loving him, Clovis was a mastermind, and it was difficult not to marvel at the brilliance of his schemes and ideas as he eeked them out slowly, to let you know he was interested in something you’d not thought him in before… ..
Sukki had taken leave of her other duties to visit Clovis again, only to find out that their father the Spade King had been making sweeping arrangements across the regions, splitting up the power structures amongst the court’s tens in different ways, favoring older, supposedly wiser delegates with greater domains, slicing off parts of Mercury’s holdings to give Venus greater standing with certain allies of the house.
Clovis, in contrast, wielding far more power as an ace than he ever could have as a measly prince of the realm, who’d been deemed to be a 4, for his early life, till the present Ace of Spades had taken an interest in the young mastermind, and granted him the authority of his station as Ace, giving up his own throngs of power in the process, just to give the young spade a chance to prove his worth to the entire Imperial order, the worlds over and again… ..
As an ace, Clovis had masterminded the assassination of twelve of their father’s minions, that Sukki knew about, and she was sure he’d done more without telling her about it. She was of the same mind as Clovis, in thinking that the courts were too full of old men and women who had long ago decided they were leaving the world, and so had aged, and yet still clung to power and held back the young… ..
“Ace!” cried one of the servants from up on a landing, and she hurried down the stairs toward Sukki, crying “Lady Ace! Oh, Lady Princess, have you not heard the news? It’s the emperor! The emperor of cards is dead! He’s died just last night, in his sleep, and the palace is empty! The line has been broken once again!”
The world spun about at Sukki’s feet, her mind firing off with the multitudes of implications at the news, and she wondered, desperately, how they could hope to cling to peace, with the King of Hearts dead and gone, and the realms fighting for power during the. . . “The Courts of Chaos,” she blurted, just after the servant had finished her sputtering delivery of ill tidings. “Great heavens of Card, the Courts of Chaos and Order must be consulted! How can this be possible? In our time? Once more, so soon after the last? Oh, hells in rains, this can’t be happening. How could he have died so soon, without an heir to the imperial throne? I’m sorry, girl, but I must speak to the Ace of Spades at once. Too much is about to happen to Card for me to delay!”
Sukki bounded up the stairs and back into her brother’s bedchambers, right as he was in the midst of making sure no one was around but himself, so he just looked at her, as if to say, ‘Did you come to help me work out, this morning, or are you just here to stand there and look vexed all morning?’
“The emperor is dead.”
He didn’t look at all displeased by the news, and instead, looking pensive and reluctant to divulge, he said, “So that’s why he moved so swiftly against the Jack of Hearts, in May… I couldn’t imagine him making such a play before his niece was. . .” He looked at his sister oddly, and said, “Wait, do you not know, by now? There is a Queen of Hearts on the throne, at last. The emperor’s niece won the hearts of her people before she was out of swaddling clothes, and so he had her declared Queen of Hearts while her father, the jealous jack, was away from the palace, and he’s been barred entrance from his holdings there, by order of the Heart Queen’s careful uncle’s plannings. Long live the emperor’s youngest friends…” he smiled, like it was an old joke they’d shared.
“Surely you’ve gone mad and heard falsely,” she accused. “She’s barely four years old by now; she can’t have been declared queen already.”
“She’s seven years, actually, and think about it, sister I love; if the emperor knew he was dying, then he had to position his niece before he left the open statehood to the current jack, with his death. The Jack of Hearts never would have been satisfied till he’d declared himself King, and if his own daughter was made queen, he’d just marry himself to her and seize her holdings, if he was able.”
“But he. . . he’s not been banished, then? Just disallowed in certain regions and estates?”
“All the queen’s estates, actually.”
“That’s madness. There’s no king, so the queen has. . .”
“Everything. Everything in the Heart Queendoms. He’s not in the Spadelands, but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone welcoming the Heart Jack into their estates, any time soon.”
“Do you know what this means, though? The Queen of Hearts isn’t his direct heir, so the emperor’s bloodline is broken once again, Clovis.”
“And so there will be Chaos, and bloodshed, and he will weep, for his people, and when he looks to the courts, she will hew at his remaining shoulders, and cut aside all that stood before her in false earnesty and lust for powers greater than any station yet borne again. Incite the Courts of Chaos, to invite the Will of Order, when all blood is shed and done, and bow, then, and hail, to the emperor, or to the heretic king who shunned Order’s names. . …”
Sukki looked at him like he was an alien; not a look he was unfamiliar with, even from her, his sister, who was more alien than she seemed to know, most days. “When you quote the old words like that, people don’t really want to be friends with you, any longer, Clovis.”
“I haven’t been preparing for this for no reason, sister.”
“Preparing? Preparing for what, dear brother, might I ask of ye?”
“It’s the end of the Heart Dynasty, as we’ve known it. All hail the emperor from Spade, slayer of kings, ruler of all Card…”
“So you plan to slay more than one king, then, dear brother?”
“I tell you I’m your next emperor, and it’s the king slaying you ask me about?”
“No killing kings, spadelander. You’re not qualified for that sort of work, yet, I’m thinking.”
“No one pre-qualified me to kill a queen.”
That wasn’t the first time he’d alluded to having killed their father’s mother, the late Queen of Spades, before seizing his own household among her holdings in Mars before his father the king could do anything about it.
As a four, he wouldn’t have any autonomy outside his own estates, and so Clovis hadn’t ever ventured far from home, and instead carried out his scheming and planning out from Mars, until he was made an ace, anyway. But killing a queen? He wasn’t worse off for the rumors, at least, because no one could actually give him the credit it would deserve to have carried out such a masterful assassination, anyway.
“Did you kill the late Queen of Spades, assassin my brother?”
“No,” he answered firmly, then; “I did not kill the late Queen of Spades. She wasn’t late until after I was finished killing the living one…”
She wasn’t as awestruck that he’d done it so much as come out and admitted to it, like that. While she was busy looking dumbfounded, Clovis unfastened his sister’s dress and let it slip down over her shoulders. He hadn’t dressed for the day, so he was quick to move where he wanted…
Sukki woke up next to her little brother, with his bedclothes wrapped haphazardly around the two of them, tangling them nicely, and she snuggled up against his naked form, thinking about how long she’d really stay, this time, while she rested her head on his rising and falling chest.
She wasn’t really his sister anymore, she supposed. Clovis was a spade, still yet, and always would be… ..
Spades were spades and clubs were clubs, right? If that were true, ever, she’d still be a spade, like her brothers, but instead she’d been married off to a ten of clubs, and an annoying one at that, where she’d taken a new name and abandoned her old life. Sukki wasn’t the only one who still remembered her old name, from her days as a princess of Spade, but Clovis had forgotten it, and she’d never told him that she’d never really liked it anyway, and that Sukki suited her fine, now that she was an ace.
Being a seven was hell for a girl with Sukki’s upbringing, and rising to a station above her husband’s had been her only way out; so she’d become the youngest Ace of Clubs in a thousand years, only to be beaten by her kid brother, a year later, when Clovis became the youngest Ace of Spades in history, at just 12.
Being an ace granted one the autonomy, immunity and power of the four of four royals, without any of the strict bindings the stations of King, Queen and Jack all had to one another. An ace was a law unto herself, as she traveled, and could even freely venture into the Spadelands, the Heart Queendoms and Romulus. When she’d become ace, effectively divorcing her jailer of a husband, Sukki was able to visit her brothers for the first time in four years, and when Clovis took her to his bed the night after. . . she didn’t have to wonder anymore what everyone else thought was so great about sex, anyway.
She’d told a three, once, that she was in love with her own brother, and the poor girl had thought Sukki had been talking about her twin, Linas, and was terrified of her after that. Linas was a vicious animal and a lunatic, and Sukki didn’t doubt that their father, the King of Spades, was going senile, like half the tens at court tended to be, because he kept doting on Linas and giving him better stations and authorities than were ever warranted, to ask the others nearby.
After her bath, Sukki was thinking about how important it might have been for her to arrive here, in Clovis’s estate on the wealth of Mars, in the Spadelands systems, when she had, because she was starting to suspect that without the right people surrounding him and influencing his thinking patterns, Clovis was irritable and manic, but in the right atmosphere, like when his elder sister the Ace of Clubs was around and loving him, Clovis was a mastermind, and it was difficult not to marvel at the brilliance of his schemes and ideas as he eeked them out slowly, to let you know he was interested in something you’d not thought him in before… ..
Sukki had taken leave of her other duties to visit Clovis again, only to find out that their father the Spade King had been making sweeping arrangements across the regions, splitting up the power structures amongst the court’s tens in different ways, favoring older, supposedly wiser delegates with greater domains, slicing off parts of Mercury’s holdings to give Venus greater standing with certain allies of the house.
Clovis, in contrast, wielding far more power as an ace than he ever could have as a measly prince of the realm, who’d been deemed to be a 4, for his early life, till the present Ace of Spades had taken an interest in the young mastermind, and granted him the authority of his station as Ace, giving up his own throngs of power in the process, just to give the young spade a chance to prove his worth to the entire Imperial order, the worlds over and again… ..
As an ace, Clovis had masterminded the assassination of twelve of their father’s minions, that Sukki knew about, and she was sure he’d done more without telling her about it. She was of the same mind as Clovis, in thinking that the courts were too full of old men and women who had long ago decided they were leaving the world, and so had aged, and yet still clung to power and held back the young… ..
“Ace!” cried one of the servants from up on a landing, and she hurried down the stairs toward Sukki, crying “Lady Ace! Oh, Lady Princess, have you not heard the news? It’s the emperor! The emperor of cards is dead! He’s died just last night, in his sleep, and the palace is empty! The line has been broken once again!”
The world spun about at Sukki’s feet, her mind firing off with the multitudes of implications at the news, and she wondered, desperately, how they could hope to cling to peace, with the King of Hearts dead and gone, and the realms fighting for power during the. . . “The Courts of Chaos,” she blurted, just after the servant had finished her sputtering delivery of ill tidings. “Great heavens of Card, the Courts of Chaos and Order must be consulted! How can this be possible? In our time? Once more, so soon after the last? Oh, hells in rains, this can’t be happening. How could he have died so soon, without an heir to the imperial throne? I’m sorry, girl, but I must speak to the Ace of Spades at once. Too much is about to happen to Card for me to delay!”
Sukki bounded up the stairs and back into her brother’s bedchambers, right as he was in the midst of making sure no one was around but himself, so he just looked at her, as if to say, ‘Did you come to help me work out, this morning, or are you just here to stand there and look vexed all morning?’
“The emperor is dead.”
He didn’t look at all displeased by the news, and instead, looking pensive and reluctant to divulge, he said, “So that’s why he moved so swiftly against the Jack of Hearts, in May… I couldn’t imagine him making such a play before his niece was. . .” He looked at his sister oddly, and said, “Wait, do you not know, by now? There is a Queen of Hearts on the throne, at last. The emperor’s niece won the hearts of her people before she was out of swaddling clothes, and so he had her declared Queen of Hearts while her father, the jealous jack, was away from the palace, and he’s been barred entrance from his holdings there, by order of the Heart Queen’s careful uncle’s plannings. Long live the emperor’s youngest friends…” he smiled, like it was an old joke they’d shared.
“Surely you’ve gone mad and heard falsely,” she accused. “She’s barely four years old by now; she can’t have been declared queen already.”
“She’s seven years, actually, and think about it, sister I love; if the emperor knew he was dying, then he had to position his niece before he left the open statehood to the current jack, with his death. The Jack of Hearts never would have been satisfied till he’d declared himself King, and if his own daughter was made queen, he’d just marry himself to her and seize her holdings, if he was able.”
“But he. . . he’s not been banished, then? Just disallowed in certain regions and estates?”
“All the queen’s estates, actually.”
“That’s madness. There’s no king, so the queen has. . .”
“Everything. Everything in the Heart Queendoms. He’s not in the Spadelands, but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone welcoming the Heart Jack into their estates, any time soon.”
“Do you know what this means, though? The Queen of Hearts isn’t his direct heir, so the emperor’s bloodline is broken once again, Clovis.”
“And so there will be Chaos, and bloodshed, and he will weep, for his people, and when he looks to the courts, she will hew at his remaining shoulders, and cut aside all that stood before her in false earnesty and lust for powers greater than any station yet borne again. Incite the Courts of Chaos, to invite the Will of Order, when all blood is shed and done, and bow, then, and hail, to the emperor, or to the heretic king who shunned Order’s names. . …”
Sukki looked at him like he was an alien; not a look he was unfamiliar with, even from her, his sister, who was more alien than she seemed to know, most days. “When you quote the old words like that, people don’t really want to be friends with you, any longer, Clovis.”
“I haven’t been preparing for this for no reason, sister.”
“Preparing? Preparing for what, dear brother, might I ask of ye?”
“It’s the end of the Heart Dynasty, as we’ve known it. All hail the emperor from Spade, slayer of kings, ruler of all Card…”
“So you plan to slay more than one king, then, dear brother?”
“I tell you I’m your next emperor, and it’s the king slaying you ask me about?”
“No killing kings, spadelander. You’re not qualified for that sort of work, yet, I’m thinking.”
“No one pre-qualified me to kill a queen.”
That wasn’t the first time he’d alluded to having killed their father’s mother, the late Queen of Spades, before seizing his own household among her holdings in Mars before his father the king could do anything about it.
As a four, he wouldn’t have any autonomy outside his own estates, and so Clovis hadn’t ever ventured far from home, and instead carried out his scheming and planning out from Mars, until he was made an ace, anyway. But killing a queen? He wasn’t worse off for the rumors, at least, because no one could actually give him the credit it would deserve to have carried out such a masterful assassination, anyway.
“Did you kill the late Queen of Spades, assassin my brother?”
“No,” he answered firmly, then; “I did not kill the late Queen of Spades. She wasn’t late until after I was finished killing the living one…”
She wasn’t as awestruck that he’d done it so much as come out and admitted to it, like that. While she was busy looking dumbfounded, Clovis unfastened his sister’s dress and let it slip down over her shoulders. He hadn’t dressed for the day, so he was quick to move where he wanted…
- honiker
- Posts : 52
Join date : 2018-04-24
The Imperial Cards | Chapter 10
Thu Jan 31, 2019 3:13 pm
Queen of Hearts ♥ Zelda
The fact that somebody had decided to let her know that Clovis would be more handsome and noteworthy than she’d ever cared to witness, just presently, made about as much sense as her best friend’s behavior, just now, and the fact that she still couldn’t see Senna and the other girls clearly, after what she’d been through in the cloverfields above, below… ..
The fact that Clovis hadn’t done much more than tempt her and flirt with her didn’t reassure her, any, and she’d yet to see the Diamond Ace at her little unbirthday party, so as for working out who had marked her by magic, she couldn’t figure alone…
Had he left his mark on her skin like that to warn her of what was already inside, or as an insatiably boring calling card for damage he himself had wrought in her?
“You’re not the same as in the stories,” said Clovis, coming up beside her where she sat on the stone bench, overlooking one of the grassy fields; this one covered in patches of red and white clover mounds scattered across the grassy green. “They’re all about kittens and laces and pink, you know.”
“Oh, I do know,” she admitted, allowing him to sit down on the bench beside her, while she watched a pair of spades across the field spar with each other, bare fisted.
“They shouldn’t be doing that without blunts, this late, sorry,” he witnessed.
She shrugged, not really sure why he’d be concerned about it. Spades never cut unless they meant to, she’d always witnessed, so blunting seemed an overreaching formality, anyway. “Do you know why I asked for you to come to me, Spade?”
“I do not, I confess.”
“I wish to know what you make of the late emperor’s demise. It seems most untimely to me.”
“I wish that it were not at the loss of a good man and king that we have this chance at change, and culling, but I. . .” he trailed off, sure he didn’t need to go further on that point in particular.
“So it is,” she noticed. “Still, though. A Spade Emperor? You make your move then, against Chaos, for Order?”
“So above, so below. I’m afraid I won’t be fast enough, though. Too many kings need killing, and where there are kings-”
“You speak to me of treason so soon?”
“Treason? No. No nonsense phrases in what I entail for myself and others, yet still again. Have you met the Spade King, yet?”
“Jovial, they say.”
“Wicked, I say.”
“You seem half prone to wickedness yourself, Spade Ace.”
“Not so. Justly that I deserve reservationless discrimination for what I entail for in or without it so, but I must needs know, too, where you rest on what the Emperor of Hearts and Minds once was, if I may ask of you.”
“I loved him for what he meant to me, I think, but I did not know him as others have laid claim to.”
“If I killed the Jack of Hearts for you… ..”
“You would do what just so many have already offered. Not impressive if-”
“If I killed the Jack of Hearts for you, it would be because he was already dead, and I claimed it was for you as a matter of inconvenience in explaining myself. He is dead already. Just rightly so.”
She looked at him oddly, lowering her fan from her face. “You’re mad.”
“Not so. His men attempted to occupy the Imperial Halls, just this even.”
“You-… You’re serious?”
“Yes. A force four hundred cards strong now guards the halls, for safekeeping.”
Her tone got dangerous. “You put four hundred SPADES in the Imperial Halls of all Card?!”
He laughed, then, to put her at ease, and set, “You really think I have gone mad, don’t you? Of course I haven’t. One hundred spades, one hundred hearts, one hundred clubs, and one hundred irritatingly expensive mercenaries.”
“Diamonds, lover. They’re called diamonds.”
“Right, just so. Diamonds, then. A hundred of those, too.”
She laughed, then, glad at his planning for it, and trusted him better. They didn’t talk about much else for a few minutes more, and she wanted to know him much better than she was getting a chance to, just presently, and then his tail flicked at her elbow on the far side from him, playfully, and she smirked.
“Didn’t think it was real?” he asked her, while she watched his tail flick about behind the two of them.
“Sort of. I’ve never really seen one like it before. How did you-” She didn’t know how to ask.
“I sought out King Louie, of the Macaque.”
“The King Louie? The giant monkey?!”
He laughed again, flashing his teeth as he thought on it. “No, not exactly. He’s not actually a. . . well he doesn’t have. . . ever seen a macaque without a tail before now?”
“Before now or having since? No, I don’t think I have.”
“Well he isn’t one. A macaque. He thinks they’re crazy, actually, and they definitely are that. He’s huge, though, and hairy, like they are, and he swings around like mad, and he’s mighty powerful, so. . . they just sort of, all hang around with him, and bring him food and tribute and stuff, and ask him to do crazy things for them, too.”
She couldn’t stop laughing, imagining it all, like he was some great, big, hairy man or something. “Does he look more like a person, or something?”
“Well what sort of person? A card, or. . . ?”
“Yes, sure. A card.”
“No, not really. He’s more human looking than the Macaque, that’s for sure, but, he’s definitely. . . well, like a lot of other jungle animals I’ve seen: unique, and profoundly strange to try and classify, knowit?”
“Only just. Where does. . . where does the king of the Macaque reside, anyway?”
“It’s called the Congo.”
“Congo…” she could feel something thrumming. It was a Word of Power, and one she’d not heard before.
“It’s a junglescape that crosses through…” he stopped, then, and pointed to one of the hedgemaze entrances. “It’s like your maze, only wild. It crops up all over the Solus systems in different ways. Finding your way through it is like learning to breathe in a completely different way.”
“That’s. . . madness itself. So you. . . you learned to grow a tail, from a Macaque who doesn’t have one?”
“Well no,” he snickered, then, and in the next moment tried not to look so raw and boyish. “I said I sought him out, I didn’t say he helped any. He uh, he tried to broker a deal, with me, for the monkeys’ benefit.”
“Oh we’re calling the Macaque peoples monkeys now, are we? I hear that’s offensive.”
“Well, we’re calling them monkeys when they’re trying to barter for man’s red flower.”
“Man’s red. . . fire? The Macaque wanted fire from you? Why? Oh, hells above below, you didn’t give it to them??”
He laughed again, and looked at her incredulously. “Like they’d ever figure out how to keep it long enough to do any real damage. No, I didn’t not give them anything close to fire. It’s not spelled for anyone but Louie though, so…”
“You’re screwing with me.”
“Only sort of.”
“You son of a bitch!” She wanted to keep laughing, so she swatted him with the back of her hand. “Fire NEVER works like that. Gods! You had me thinking you’d sired the Courts of Chaos yourself with magic fire for monkeys!”
He smiled out of one corner of his mouth, and just stared at her for a minute, enjoying whatever he was reading from her, and then, like it was easy to ask without needing to say it, he leaned over and kissed her neck.
She didn’t stop him, and then touched her fingers to one of his hips, so he’d adjust his position, and he moved closer to her, hugging her to him, then, “Wait… stop. . .” she couldn’t breathe right.
“What’s wrong?” He had stopped, hadn’t he? She was looking into his eyes, now, so he must have stopped. Her neck still felt like it was burning, though, where he’d kissed it. “Zelda? Queen Zelda? Somebody hELP!”
What the hell was he shouting about. . .? Was he carrying her? He was. . . “Clover! I need you! CLOVER!”
“Oh gods, what’s. . . bring her inside, quickly!”
Zen Sun Sukki Eichi, the Ace of Clubs, was there, and Clovis was giving Zelda something in her mouth, that tasted strange, but her senses snapped back, sharp as ever, and she took in a sharp breath of pain, past the gob of cloverleaf extract he’d given her.
“Don’t breathe that in!” ordered the Club Ace, thusly. “Careful! Here, lay her down on the bed.”
“Clover? He. . . he called for clover?”
“It was my name once, but no longer. Here, sweetheart, look at me. See? My name is Sukki. That’s it, relax. Where does it hurt?”
Zelda blinked. She was in a bed. Three aces were in the room with her; Spade, Club and Heart, all. “Radcliffe?”
“Your mark, can you show them?” he asked her.
“What happened to her, Clovis?” Sukki asked the shirtless Spade Ace, her little brother.
“I was kissing her neck, and she collapsed. I couldn’t. . . I don’t know. . .”
“It’s not your doing, it’s hers,” Radcliffe assured the other ace. “She took a nosedive into clovertown, last week.”
“Irritant.” He was vexing her in front of company again.
“Troublemaker,” the Heart Ace returned. His expression changed suddenly. “Zelda, show Sukki the mark. I have to go, there’s something I just realized.” He took off out of the room faster than she would have believed, if Zelda hadn’t seen him take off like that a thousand times.
“What mark?” Clovis’s sister was tending to her, but, Zelda was losing focus again, sort of. Clovis said something, then, and it focused her better.
“What?”
“What ma-”
Clovis pushed past his sister and like a deft handed spade would, slit open Zelda’s dress right beneath her breasts. “I smell fire…” he said in explanation.
“Oh, Fucks!” Sukki cried, when her fingers brushed across the red rhombus mark on Zelda’s flesh.
“It’s just a memento from an old fl-”
“I know what to do!” Sukki cried, and the door banged as she fled, only to return the next moment, fishing something out of her purse on the lamp table. “Use this, Clovis! Pull her out!” She threw him a black cylinder and took off again, out the door, chain whip coming free from her hilt as she ran for it.
“She’s about to go kill someone, just now,” Clovis noted. He was in a chair, at Zelda’s bedside, rather unapologetic for slitting her dress like that. He opened the black canister just slightly and smelled its contents, said, “Whoa!” and held it away from his nose, closing it back up tight.
“What? What is it?”
She looked at her, caressing the canister, smiled, and said, “We’re about to have a LOT more fun than I thought. Hail to the Clubs.”
The fact that somebody had decided to let her know that Clovis would be more handsome and noteworthy than she’d ever cared to witness, just presently, made about as much sense as her best friend’s behavior, just now, and the fact that she still couldn’t see Senna and the other girls clearly, after what she’d been through in the cloverfields above, below… ..
The fact that Clovis hadn’t done much more than tempt her and flirt with her didn’t reassure her, any, and she’d yet to see the Diamond Ace at her little unbirthday party, so as for working out who had marked her by magic, she couldn’t figure alone…
Had he left his mark on her skin like that to warn her of what was already inside, or as an insatiably boring calling card for damage he himself had wrought in her?
“You’re not the same as in the stories,” said Clovis, coming up beside her where she sat on the stone bench, overlooking one of the grassy fields; this one covered in patches of red and white clover mounds scattered across the grassy green. “They’re all about kittens and laces and pink, you know.”
“Oh, I do know,” she admitted, allowing him to sit down on the bench beside her, while she watched a pair of spades across the field spar with each other, bare fisted.
“They shouldn’t be doing that without blunts, this late, sorry,” he witnessed.
She shrugged, not really sure why he’d be concerned about it. Spades never cut unless they meant to, she’d always witnessed, so blunting seemed an overreaching formality, anyway. “Do you know why I asked for you to come to me, Spade?”
“I do not, I confess.”
“I wish to know what you make of the late emperor’s demise. It seems most untimely to me.”
“I wish that it were not at the loss of a good man and king that we have this chance at change, and culling, but I. . .” he trailed off, sure he didn’t need to go further on that point in particular.
“So it is,” she noticed. “Still, though. A Spade Emperor? You make your move then, against Chaos, for Order?”
“So above, so below. I’m afraid I won’t be fast enough, though. Too many kings need killing, and where there are kings-”
“You speak to me of treason so soon?”
“Treason? No. No nonsense phrases in what I entail for myself and others, yet still again. Have you met the Spade King, yet?”
“Jovial, they say.”
“Wicked, I say.”
“You seem half prone to wickedness yourself, Spade Ace.”
“Not so. Justly that I deserve reservationless discrimination for what I entail for in or without it so, but I must needs know, too, where you rest on what the Emperor of Hearts and Minds once was, if I may ask of you.”
“I loved him for what he meant to me, I think, but I did not know him as others have laid claim to.”
“If I killed the Jack of Hearts for you… ..”
“You would do what just so many have already offered. Not impressive if-”
“If I killed the Jack of Hearts for you, it would be because he was already dead, and I claimed it was for you as a matter of inconvenience in explaining myself. He is dead already. Just rightly so.”
She looked at him oddly, lowering her fan from her face. “You’re mad.”
“Not so. His men attempted to occupy the Imperial Halls, just this even.”
“You-… You’re serious?”
“Yes. A force four hundred cards strong now guards the halls, for safekeeping.”
Her tone got dangerous. “You put four hundred SPADES in the Imperial Halls of all Card?!”
He laughed, then, to put her at ease, and set, “You really think I have gone mad, don’t you? Of course I haven’t. One hundred spades, one hundred hearts, one hundred clubs, and one hundred irritatingly expensive mercenaries.”
“Diamonds, lover. They’re called diamonds.”
“Right, just so. Diamonds, then. A hundred of those, too.”
She laughed, then, glad at his planning for it, and trusted him better. They didn’t talk about much else for a few minutes more, and she wanted to know him much better than she was getting a chance to, just presently, and then his tail flicked at her elbow on the far side from him, playfully, and she smirked.
“Didn’t think it was real?” he asked her, while she watched his tail flick about behind the two of them.
“Sort of. I’ve never really seen one like it before. How did you-” She didn’t know how to ask.
“I sought out King Louie, of the Macaque.”
“The King Louie? The giant monkey?!”
He laughed again, flashing his teeth as he thought on it. “No, not exactly. He’s not actually a. . . well he doesn’t have. . . ever seen a macaque without a tail before now?”
“Before now or having since? No, I don’t think I have.”
“Well he isn’t one. A macaque. He thinks they’re crazy, actually, and they definitely are that. He’s huge, though, and hairy, like they are, and he swings around like mad, and he’s mighty powerful, so. . . they just sort of, all hang around with him, and bring him food and tribute and stuff, and ask him to do crazy things for them, too.”
She couldn’t stop laughing, imagining it all, like he was some great, big, hairy man or something. “Does he look more like a person, or something?”
“Well what sort of person? A card, or. . . ?”
“Yes, sure. A card.”
“No, not really. He’s more human looking than the Macaque, that’s for sure, but, he’s definitely. . . well, like a lot of other jungle animals I’ve seen: unique, and profoundly strange to try and classify, knowit?”
“Only just. Where does. . . where does the king of the Macaque reside, anyway?”
“It’s called the Congo.”
“Congo…” she could feel something thrumming. It was a Word of Power, and one she’d not heard before.
“It’s a junglescape that crosses through…” he stopped, then, and pointed to one of the hedgemaze entrances. “It’s like your maze, only wild. It crops up all over the Solus systems in different ways. Finding your way through it is like learning to breathe in a completely different way.”
“That’s. . . madness itself. So you. . . you learned to grow a tail, from a Macaque who doesn’t have one?”
“Well no,” he snickered, then, and in the next moment tried not to look so raw and boyish. “I said I sought him out, I didn’t say he helped any. He uh, he tried to broker a deal, with me, for the monkeys’ benefit.”
“Oh we’re calling the Macaque peoples monkeys now, are we? I hear that’s offensive.”
“Well, we’re calling them monkeys when they’re trying to barter for man’s red flower.”
“Man’s red. . . fire? The Macaque wanted fire from you? Why? Oh, hells above below, you didn’t give it to them??”
He laughed again, and looked at her incredulously. “Like they’d ever figure out how to keep it long enough to do any real damage. No, I didn’t not give them anything close to fire. It’s not spelled for anyone but Louie though, so…”
“You’re screwing with me.”
“Only sort of.”
“You son of a bitch!” She wanted to keep laughing, so she swatted him with the back of her hand. “Fire NEVER works like that. Gods! You had me thinking you’d sired the Courts of Chaos yourself with magic fire for monkeys!”
He smiled out of one corner of his mouth, and just stared at her for a minute, enjoying whatever he was reading from her, and then, like it was easy to ask without needing to say it, he leaned over and kissed her neck.
She didn’t stop him, and then touched her fingers to one of his hips, so he’d adjust his position, and he moved closer to her, hugging her to him, then, “Wait… stop. . .” she couldn’t breathe right.
“What’s wrong?” He had stopped, hadn’t he? She was looking into his eyes, now, so he must have stopped. Her neck still felt like it was burning, though, where he’d kissed it. “Zelda? Queen Zelda? Somebody hELP!”
What the hell was he shouting about. . .? Was he carrying her? He was. . . “Clover! I need you! CLOVER!”
“Oh gods, what’s. . . bring her inside, quickly!”
Zen Sun Sukki Eichi, the Ace of Clubs, was there, and Clovis was giving Zelda something in her mouth, that tasted strange, but her senses snapped back, sharp as ever, and she took in a sharp breath of pain, past the gob of cloverleaf extract he’d given her.
“Don’t breathe that in!” ordered the Club Ace, thusly. “Careful! Here, lay her down on the bed.”
“Clover? He. . . he called for clover?”
“It was my name once, but no longer. Here, sweetheart, look at me. See? My name is Sukki. That’s it, relax. Where does it hurt?”
Zelda blinked. She was in a bed. Three aces were in the room with her; Spade, Club and Heart, all. “Radcliffe?”
“Your mark, can you show them?” he asked her.
“What happened to her, Clovis?” Sukki asked the shirtless Spade Ace, her little brother.
“I was kissing her neck, and she collapsed. I couldn’t. . . I don’t know. . .”
“It’s not your doing, it’s hers,” Radcliffe assured the other ace. “She took a nosedive into clovertown, last week.”
“Irritant.” He was vexing her in front of company again.
“Troublemaker,” the Heart Ace returned. His expression changed suddenly. “Zelda, show Sukki the mark. I have to go, there’s something I just realized.” He took off out of the room faster than she would have believed, if Zelda hadn’t seen him take off like that a thousand times.
“What mark?” Clovis’s sister was tending to her, but, Zelda was losing focus again, sort of. Clovis said something, then, and it focused her better.
“What?”
“What ma-”
Clovis pushed past his sister and like a deft handed spade would, slit open Zelda’s dress right beneath her breasts. “I smell fire…” he said in explanation.
“Oh, Fucks!” Sukki cried, when her fingers brushed across the red rhombus mark on Zelda’s flesh.
“It’s just a memento from an old fl-”
“I know what to do!” Sukki cried, and the door banged as she fled, only to return the next moment, fishing something out of her purse on the lamp table. “Use this, Clovis! Pull her out!” She threw him a black cylinder and took off again, out the door, chain whip coming free from her hilt as she ran for it.
“She’s about to go kill someone, just now,” Clovis noted. He was in a chair, at Zelda’s bedside, rather unapologetic for slitting her dress like that. He opened the black canister just slightly and smelled its contents, said, “Whoa!” and held it away from his nose, closing it back up tight.
“What? What is it?”
She looked at her, caressing the canister, smiled, and said, “We’re about to have a LOT more fun than I thought. Hail to the Clubs.”
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