Script #7: Nadir’s 108 Stars of Dragstiny
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I'm home, Suikoden fandom! I...might've changed my game a little, but I'm home!
Title: Script #7: Nadir’s 108 Stars of Dragstiny (AO3 version here)
Author: Mithrigil
Fandom: Suikoden III
Characters: ...a lot of them.
Words: Over nine thousand.
Rating: Crack.
Warning: My girlfriend forced me to marathon three seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race over the course of a week. It was awesome.
Summary: A debate between two Suiko-Narcissists leads to a theatrical endeavor to boost the morale of the New Fire Bringer.
Script #7: Nadir’s 108 Stars of Dragstiny
a fabulous foray into Genso Suikoden III
It began, as all plays should, with a conflict.
“And I found it very confusing,” Shiba said, as he and Bazba strolled past the item shop, looking for a place to sun themselves. “I already have a hard enough time telling the humans apart, but this one was trying to disguise himself, so I lost him in the crowd.”
“What did he do?” Bazba asked.
“He put on a human woman’s clothes,” Shiba said. “You know how human men wear those leg-sleeves and human women sometimes don’t? Well, he hid his legs and put another skirt on over his head and I couldn’t find him anywhere.”
Bazba wrinkled his snout. “Dastardly of him. They must know how hard it is for us. Could you smell him?”
“I tried, but he put on this woman’s smell too, the kind that the ironheads spray to mask their scent. I want my bracelet back, Bazba. Once the chief is done with the council, I am going to the war room to demand satisfaction!”
“They should make a creed against that.”
“I completely agree,” Gordon called, slinking out of the item shop and leaning gallantly against the doorjamb. “Forgive me for interrupting, gentlemen, but I could not help overhearing your plight, and I agree that it’s an outrage! Unstylish in the utmost.”
“Unstylish?” Shiba asked.
“Indeed,” Gordon said. “Why, no true gentleman would ever lower himself to wear a woman’s attire. Nothing in this world is so gauche as that.”
“Excuse me,” Augustine said, intruding on the scene with one hand laid just a bit too tensely on the curve of his sword hilt. “I’ll have you know, my friend, that drag is a vaunted art with a long history, and how dare you imply that a man doesn’t have the right to wear whatever clothing he likes, if that is what expresses his fashionable spirit!”
Gordon’s smile, ordinarily so pristine and smug, tweaked at the corner. “It’s deplorable is what it is. Why should a man not be fashionable in his own clothes?”
“No, no, I agree that a man should be fashionable in his own clothes, but if he is too fashionable for the current fashion he must feel within his rights to branch into the wardrobe of the fairer sex.” Augustine flourished, and stuck a heretofore invisible red rose behind Bazba’s skull ridges. “A beautiful creature of any sentient race must look his best, whatever that best may be.”
Bazba, for his part, looked somewhat bemused at his new accessory.
“Fairer?” Gordon spat. “I’ll show you fairer!”
“En garde!” Augustine trilled.
“Take that poisonous thing off my brother’s head!” Shiba roared.
Many gloves were thrown that afternoon, and many beautiful men were party to ugliness. But Nadir, ever intent on the scene from behind his white mask, was subject to a truly exquisite idea.
***
CASTING ANNOUNCEMENT
Your Theatrical Director and Collaborator Nadir
is seeking men*
their number greater than 8 and fewer than 12
for an Entertainment, vaudevillian in nature
celebrating the ART OF FEMALE IMPERSONATION.
Auditions by appointment
Sign up for an audition appointment below:
*In the interest of fairness, only persons over the age of sixteen will be cast.†
†Guillaume, as per the theater’s agreement with Toppo, Nei, and Billy, remains banned from the tavern.
***
“Hm,” Jacques perused the announcement. “What does he mean, female impersonation?”
“He means a drag show,” Joker said. “Like in Matilda.”
“Jacques wasn’t with us in Matilda.” Queen leaned over from the bar. “It’s a show where men dress up in women’s clothes and tell jokes.”
Jacques considered this and squinted at the casting notice again, then nodded.
“Like in plays?” Aila asked.
Joker raised an eyebrow at her. “You’ve seen drag plays?”
“Well, no, but in Karaya we have shamans, and when we tell stories sometimes the spirits choose a girl to speak the part of a man, and the other way around, or they choose people who aren’t either to speak for one or the other, or. Well, you know.”
“I didn’t, but that sounds like a riot,” Joker said, and went on to explain to Jacques. “Anyway, that’s the long and short of it. You put on a dress and do something funny.”
Aila sipped her soda. “That’s not how it goes in Karaya.”
“Well, it’s how it goes in Matilda, and I think that’s what Nadir’s up to. You should give it a go, Jacques, it might be fun.”
Before Jacques could say that he didn’t know any jokes (or, for that matter, any Karayan shamans other than Aila, who he didn’t think knew anything about female impersonation except that she was naturally female), Ace bumbled into the bar, stretching his hands over his head. “What’d I miss?”
“New play,” Queen said.
“High art,” Joker said. “Probably out of your league.”
Ace puffed out his chest and pouted. “Out of my league? Ha! Let me have a look at that.” He made his way over to Jacques and the bulletin, and read down the list. “Guillaume’s still banned?”
“Probably ‘cause only the young, pretty types’ll get anywhere in the casting. Which is why I say it’s out of your league.”
“Hey, I’m plenty pretty.”
“Yeah, and you’re plenty chicken.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“Lay off him, Joker,” Queen said, a smirk pushing the corners of her lips. “He’s not man enough to wear a dress.”
The effects of this statement -- not all of which were visible -- resulted in Ace turning away from the casting notice, slowly, as if to menace a particularly uppity and out-of-line young pickpocket, or perhaps unleash Double Tusk on a plains rabbit whose only crime was to bite Ace in the ass.
Frankly, this entire enterprise was about to bite him in the ass, not that Ace knew it.
“Not man enough, huh?” he said, a glint in his eye that the Twelfth Unit had seen all too many times in their travels, though usually when Ace was a bit more drunk. “Who’s got a pen?”
“It’s hanging right there on the board, idiot,” Joker said. “What are you going to do, scribble out your stubble?”
Thus it came to pass that Ace signed his name to the casting notice right under Jacques’s, in bold accountant’s script, and Queen and Joker exchanged knowing glances and high-fives behind his back.
Geddoe, for his part, sat in the back of the tavern, drank his ale, and remained amused.
***
“Sounds like fun,” Percival said, once the matter was explained to him by an eager mercenary at the base of Budehuc’s grand stair.
“Fun?” Borus said from the doorway, his gauntleted fist curled tight (but not, as yet, punching any walls). “It’s a serious endeavor!”
“How serious?” Percival deadpanned.
“There’s makeup, of course,” Borus explained, “and deportment, and the matter of concealing your masculine attributes without diminishing their worth to your appearance -- and Nadir is imposing a talent competition as well, so the entrants not only have to be skilled at female impersonation, but at some other art --”
“So you’re entering,” Percival said.
Borus’s pale, shaved cheeks colored from the neck up. Perhaps it was only that drag was on everyone’s mind, but more than one person simultaneously imagined him in a curly blond wig with darling pink bows and a ruffled doily. It wasn’t altogether horrible, if disconcerting.
“Certainly not!” Borus said, still not punching the wall.
“That’s a pity,” said Percival. “I was planning on entering.”
“You’d look hopeless in a dress.”
“No more than you, with your man-calves.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Just that you have thick legs.”
“Of course I have thick legs, I ride. Yours are just as thick, and you’re entering.”
“Well, yes, but I’m planning on entering as a woman with thick, beautiful legs. You just have man-calves.”
“My manly calves are hardly an obstacle to my entering this contest, no more than yours.”
“No, they’re just an obstacle to winning.”
“That’s it, Percival. I am entering this competition, and I am winning it, and that’s final!”
This time, Borus punched the wall for emphasis, and all of Budehuc stood witness. That fetching red color, tinged with anger as it was, did not leave his cheeks.
“Ouch,” Borus said, because the bones of his hand were swelling from the impact inside his gauntlet.
“See you backstage,” Percival said on his way out.
All Borus could say to that was a rather unladylike “Damn you.”
When Borus was almost gone, he passed Edge, who had poked his head through the door to get a look at the fight. “What was all that about?” he asked Geddoe, who came out of the tavern a few minutes prior.
“New theater thing,” Geddoe explained. “There’s a cash prize if you win.”
Edge’s eyes brightened to the sheen of the jewel on the hilt of the Star Dragon Sword at the prospect.
***
In the end, even after eliminating a confused Muto (who had misunderstood and dragged the carcass of a troll dragon around Kathy’s racetrack faster than anyone else) and Hortez (who thought he had finally found last week’s audition for Madame Choe-Choe), Nadir found his ten men. They sat around the theater in ones and twos, and Nadir was quite pleased to find several new faces among this entourage. Such performances had a tendency to bring out the hidden talents in an army.
“Gentles all,” Nadir began, “I thank you for your commitment to this theatrical pursuit. I have great hopes that you will entertain our army and that morale will soar. So thank you for putting yourselves on the front line.
“As has doubtlessly come to your attention, this is a competition. In addition to showcasing your skills at female impersonation, and transforming yourselves from men into beautiful women with a degree of thespianic verisimilitude, you will perform twice: once, dancing as a group to a song of Mistress Nei’s composition, and a second time, in a performance of your own devising, in which you showcase your special talent. Before you ask, Nash, this special talent must be considered appropriate for viewing by an audience comprising persons of all ages and cultures, where possible.”
“Shucks,” Nash said, flashing a cat-in-the-cream-pot smile that left everyone in the theater wondering just what he was planning on doing. “I’ll think of something else, then.”
“I know I cannot ask for much in the way of tastefulness,” Nadir went on, “considering this is an army. But I do expect you to display your charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent.”
The competitors nodded, except for Jacques, who silently raised his hand and waited several moments to be called upon.
“Yes?” Nadir asked.
With complete seriousness, Jacques asked, “What if we don’t have any talent?”
Nadir curled an elegant finger beneath the chin of his mask. “Surely there must be something that you can do that no one else can.”
As Jacques considered this and came to a presumably satisfactory conclusion, he nodded, and Nadir resumed his introduction.
“So, let us begin with our choreography! I hope you all brought women’s shoes--for those of you who intend to wear shoes, that is. Now, let us assemble in height order! Sergeant, you’re the smallest, you first, and Bazba last...”
***
“But why me?” Hugo grit his teeth, and tried not to flail out his arms, because if he did he’d probably hit Caesar’s in the process.
“Because you’re the Flame Champion,” Caesar said, with an undercurrent of duh. “Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t enter. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I’m the Flame Champion,” Hugo repeated. “Everyone would have lost to me on purpose if I entered.”
“I wouldn’t have,” Nash said from the corner of the war room.
“You’re a dick,” Hugo said, and then returned to Caesar. “Besides, I’m too young. Nadir still thinks I’m a child.”
“Guess so.” Caesar shrugged, and gesticulated with Toranese abandon. “But that’s exactly why you have to judge with us. Everyone expects you to be there, for one thing, and for another they’re all doing this to cheer up your Flaming Army.”
“Fire Bringer.”
“It means the same thing in Harmonian. Anyway, you’re a great actor, and you’ll round out the judging panel really well! Nadir says we need judges with charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent, and I’ve got charisma--”
“I guess,” Hugo said.
“--Thomas has nerve--”
“Thomas is judging?”
“--yuh-huh, and Jeane has--” Caesar paused a moment. “...talent.”
“Talent,” Hugo repeated.
“Talent! And she knows what it’s like to be a real woman.”
Actually, Hugo had always wondered about that. But now was not the time. “And you think I have the uniqueness you need?”
“Sure,” Caesar said, slinging an arm around Hugo’s shoulder, not that that stopped him from gesticulating. “You’re the Flame Champion! What’s more unique than that?”
“I guess you’re right,” Hugo said, and let the matter drop. “All right, I’ll do it. Do I have to do any kind of research first?”
“Nah, just bring your unique perspective and choose what feels right. You’ll do just fine, I promise. Besides, we need a Grasslander on the panel. Joe and Bazba are in the show.”
Hugo was far too dark-skinned to blanch, but the expression that fell across his face might as well have put his face in black-and-white outline. “Sergeant Joe is wearing women’s clothes?”
“Guess so,” Caesar said with a shrug. “And that’s why we need you. I wouldn’t know the difference if you asked.”
***
Rarely is the backstage of a theater, whatever its size, a placid and pristine environment free of drama. The Budehuc Tavern and Stage was no exception. Jacques and Joe studiously rehearsed dance steps in the corner under the perpetually-under-repair flat for the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene. Ace and Edge exchanged nervous arguments about the order of the individual presentations. At the lightning-rune-lit vanity mirror, Nash and Bazba applied their own makeup and Rico assisted Fred with his, and Borus pinned a few more desert-peach bows into his ringlets.
And Augustine, somewhat expertly, explained to Percival, “Yes, well, you’re extremely lucky. In an ensemble such as yours, one can get away with several inconsistencies of the female form.”
“Is that so,” Percival said, entirely content with his choice of costume, thank you kindly.
“Well, yes -- but in something as revealing as mine or your fellow Zexen’s, one must take certain precautions.”
Borus looked up from the mirror. “Precautions, you say?”
Augustine proceeded to explain the practice of tucking, in some detail.
The human men (except for Jacques, and including also Sasarai, who had happened backstage to give the performers his blessing) and Rico cringed perceptibly with each detail of the process, in eerie unison.
“What are the humans going on about?” Bazba asked Joe, who continued to rehearse his dance steps.
“Hiding their penises,” Joe said without missing a beat.
“Oh that? That’s nothing,” Bazba said, and demonstrated how it works when the organ in question is bifurcated.
At that, even Jacques felt compelled to cover his groin.
***
As Hugo slid into his place between Caesar and Thomas at the long Judge’s Table, his feelings about this upcoming event smoldered from bad to worse.
“Um, Caesar?”
“Yeah?”
“Everyone’s here.”
“Of course everyone’s here, it’s the entertainment of the season! A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! The strongest fighters in your army -- in dresses.”
Not to diminish Caesar’s enthusiasm, but Hugo turned up his hands and shrugged. “A lot of the strongest fighters in our army already wear dresses. Mom wears a dress. Lady Chris wears a dress sometimes. Emily wears a dress and she beat me at arm-wrestling four times this week.”
“You’ll understand when you see it,” Caesar assured him. “Here, take your scorecards, Nadir’s about to start.”
The spotlight came down upon Nadir, who bowed and accepted the attendant army’s applause. “Welcome,” he said, “gentles all, to the first entertainment of its kind on this part of the continent: a spectacle of transformation, innovation, technique, and style!”
Hugo thought about those four words for a moment. They weren’t on his scorecard. Jeane seemed to find it funny, though.
“Without further ado, I present: the Fire Bringer’s one and only Stars of Dragstiny!”
Nadir swept out his arm, and the stage became awash in white light, bright enough that Hugo shielded his eyes. When he let his arm down, he couldn’t believe them.
As Toppo, Nei, and Shabon played a jaunty, strutting tune, the ten beings on stage switched from one pose to another. Each performer was wearing a somewhat abbreviated and sequined outfit in the Flame Champion’s colors, red and black and white, but in the spinning stagelights and with the quick step of the music Hugo couldn’t keep his attention on the construction.
“F is for the Freedom we try to protect,” the first competitor sang. (Hugo didn’t recognize the voice, or the curly blond hair, but thought she had rather muscular legs for a woman.)
“L is for the Love we all try to collect,” the second one sang, enthusiastically if not very well.
“A is for our Army!”
“M is for the Men in it --“
“And E’s for Everybody that we’ll need to win it!” While Hugo was quite certain that #3 was Sergeant Joe and mostly-certain that #4 was Ace because of the unmistakable break in his, her, nose, he had no clue who #5 was, and, moreover that this person’s legs were shapely and attractive and oh Spirits who is that.
Competitor #6, as well as possessing a beautiful female form, had Augustine’s moustaches. “But also F is for the Fabulous life that we lead,”
“And L is for the Land that supports all we need!” #7 sang, and behind Hugo, Lady Chris groaned and hung her head in her hands.
”And A is for All,” #8 was barely audible and a little stiff, but not bad-looking.
”And M is for Might,” Bazba sang, clearly competitor #9 even under his prodigious warpaint.
”And E’s for Everything we need to make things right,” the last competitor sang, and he, she, looked entirely in her element onstage, flashing as much teeth as leg. Hugo felt a profound disturbance, deep in his stomach.
“FLAME,” they sang in ragged chorus, doing approximately the same kick-steps, ”flame is what keeps us alive! Just like the fire inside our hearts, we’re just getting started!” They punctuated this last with hip-popping choreography that was obviously influenced by Safir clan ritual dancing. “FLAME! Flame is our biggest inspiration! So gird up your grides, and stave up your staves, ‘cause fire doesn’t ever know which way to behave! Yes, FLAME! Flame is what keeps us alive~!”
They posed together, sequins aglow and fingers and wingtips flickering spiritedly.
Competitor #10 winked and added in rhythm, before the last beat of the music, “The Fire takes us higher, so we’re Bringin’ it home!”
For a long moment after the audience was so silent that Hugo heard, distinctly, Gadget Z drop a screw. Onstage, the performers held their smiles and their pose, some of their eyes valiantly searching for approval.
Cecile broke the silence with a whoop and flurry of applause. “Yay Budehuc! Great job everyone! Yahoo!”
That was enough to startle everyone else into clapping, and a few more raucous cheers, some bearing names that helped Hugo place a few of the unrecognizable faces. The SFDF units in the back were cheering for both Ace and Jacques, for one thing, and Hugo squinted through the stagelights and layers of makeup to discover that yes, in fact, one of the competitors was Jacques, the stiffly-moving and quiet brunette in the back row. The Lizards and the Ducks catcalled loudly and thumped the floor for Bazba and Joe, who made feminine genuflections as they hightailed it into the wings.
“Let’s have another round of applause for our contestants,” Nadir said, and stepped into the sweep of the spotlight, commanding another minute of cheering.
Caesar leaned over to Hugo, still applauding. “Now you get it?”
“Sort of,” Hugo said. It was definitely impressive, whatever else.
Oh Hugo’s other side, Thomas nodded. “It’s, um, great for morale! They’re working so hard.”
“While they prepare themselves for their individual presentations,” Nadir went on once the applause died down, “I will introduce the judges. First: hailing from the Toran Republic, and lending his insight to our cause, the charismatic, capricious, and occasionally cocky Caesar Silverberg!”
Caesar stood up and turned around to wave at the crowd.
“Next on the list, but first in our hearts: our very own Flame Champion, Hugo of Karaya!”
“Get up and wave,” Caesar whispered, and Hugo obeyed, still floored at just how many people had crammed themselves into the tavern, and how much ale, wine, and other spirits were circulating the crowd. He sat back down.
“Third, the young man whose generosity, tenacity, and nerve have sustained us so far through this conflict: the indomitable Castle Master Thomas!”
Thomas didn’t quite get out of his chair, but swiveled around to wave shyly at the audience, none of whom were cheering louder than Martha, Muto, Sebastian, and of course Cecile.
“And last, the one we all think of when we lie awake at night trying to define just what makes a woman, Runemistress Jeane!”
Jeane giggled, stood, and bowed. Scott, who happened to be in the front row, leaned forward to get a closer look and promptly fainted. His parrot flew off into the rafters, not to be heard from for the remainder of the night.
“We must also acknowledge our sponsors: the merchants and proponents of Budehuc Castle, who have sustained not only the castle denizens, but our army and its cause. Through every seemingly pointless recruitment effort, every treasure hunt and acquisition, and every mission to Mount Hei-Tou that seems to end only in crabs, this castle and its businesses have supported us and here, we thank them. We must also give especial thanks to Martha’s Lottery and Sebastian’s Save Point, without which funding this extravaganza would not have been possible.”
The applause for the sponsors, this being Budehuc, was especially fervent.
“And now, without further ado, I present to you the first of our entrants: a darling young Zexen lady we all know and love, the beautiful Borborella.”
The competitor who sung the first line of the group song emerged from the wings, wearing a bustled, ruffled dress that was short in the front and long in the back and carrying a shepherdess’s crook. Her hair was a torrent of golden ringlets and bows under a peaked cap, and her cheeks were rosy with what was probably supposed to be innocence but looked a great deal more like embarrassment. Aside from her face, which was round and shapely like a young girl’s, she looked altogether too old for this sort of girlish costume -- especially, Hugo thought, her obviously masculine legs.
But before Hugo could remark on this any further, Borborella nodded to the minstrels, and began to sing, in a clear piping treble voice that was both tuneful and eerily cute.
“Sweet Sadie,” Lady Chris muttered, seated by the windows. “That’s Borus.”
Those near enough to Chris snickered and gasped, but Leo asked, “Damn. How can you tell?”
“We were in the church choir together when we were children,” she said.
“You were in a choir?”
“I’d prefer not to talk about it,” she said, with the kind of tone that assured the matter was closed.
Borborella, undaunted, continued to sing about tragically lost sheep.
***
“He still has man-calves,” Percival said, watching from the wings.
Sasarai tittered. “I’m not complaining. Are you?”
***
With every high note Borborella sang, the audience creaked up from snickers to outright laughter. By this point, Borborella’s red flush had sweat through several layers of makeup and contouring, and on the last trilled note (which happened to fall on the word sheep) she cracked like a teenage boy.
Hugo had a much better understanding of what this entertainment was supposed to be about. And, frankly, the image of Borus Redrum in a shepherdess’s dress seared into his mind was a small price to pay for, well, the experience of everyone in the Fire Bringer laughing their hindquarters off.
Borborella’s curtsy was awkward but well-rehearsed, and if she seemed to stomp offstage, it was easily dismissed as all part of the show.
“The beautiful Borborella,” Nadir said once again with a sweeping gesture as he ushered her off. “Judges, take your time scoring. We will also give you time to deliberate when the show is done. And now, our next competitor, the Red Rose of Vinay del Zexay, the indefatigable Augustine!”
“This should be good,” Caesar whispered at Hugo as he shuffled to the next scorecard.
Hugo wasn’t so sure.
The spotlight came down on the stage, and Augustine...didn’t look any different than usual, really.
***
Borborella was far too much of a lady to punch the nearest wall. She thudded the butt of her crook into the floor instead.
“Damn!” Borus hissed through his teeth. There was a twinge of lipstick on them.
“What?” Percival asked, tenderly combing a snarl out of his long wig. “They thought you were a riot. I was about ready to concede defeat.”
“That’s just it!” Borus despaired and leaned his forehead onto the vanity mirror. “I’m such a failure. It wasn’t supposed to be funny at all!”
The music of Augustine’s routine drifted back to a silent, frozen dressing room.
“It wasn’t,” Borus said, the very picture of petulance.
Almost in unison, everyone else just gave up and resumed preparing their makeup and costumes.
***
“Let’s have a hand for Augustine,” Nadir said as the spotlight swept back to him from the still-vaguely-magenta stage, covered in petals.
Hugo and the other judges applauded about as politely as the rest of the audience (except Cecile).
Caesar scribbled a few Xs on his card. “That was surprisingly lukewarm.”
“Maybe he should have shaved,” Thomas agreed.
Jeane giggled to herself at the other end of the table.
“Now,” Nadir went on, “here’s an act I’m sure very few of you have seen before. From the glittering soul of the Grasslands, performing a traditional fertility dance of her tribe, here comes the fine, full-feathered Wingy Spann!”
Aside from the lack of clothing (except for a beaded cloth) Joe didn’t look much different either.
There was, however, no denying that Wingy Spann was an extremely talented dancer.
To the tune of a song Hugo (and several other Grasslanders) recognized as uniquely Duck, Wingy Spann flapped and strutted around the stage, shaking her tail-feathers (which did seem fluffier than usual for Joe) and jingling with bells and beads. In the back of the room, Rhett and Wilder flap-clapped along with the music, and others took their cue for appropriateness from that. Wingy Spann, however, seemed in deep concentration, and finished with a flourish of her cloth.
She was met with applause, and curled her neck, batting her eyes. The Ducks in the audience went wild, of course, but Thomas stood up from the Judge’s Table and cleared his throat.
“Um, Mister Sergeant, sir,” he said, gradually increasing in sufficient volume to be heard over the crowd, “could you please tell us some of the, um, techniques you used? So we can get a better idea -- I mean, so we can assess your, um, transformation better?”
Wingy Spann nodded politely and, with a much richer quack than Joe usually used, explained, “I’ve balanced out my tail-feathers to obscure the drake feather, which meant adding several new ones. They’re held on with a sugar paste. And furthermore, I’ve matted down, but haven’t removed, a great many feathers at the nape of my neck, which mature females typically lack after mating.”
It took Hugo a moment to process that statement. Once he did, though, it was entirely too much information.
“Thank you, Sergeant -- I mean Wingy! Miss Spann,” Thomas said. “I understand a little better now.” Thomas had probably come to the same conclusion, if the blush on his cheeks was any indication.
Jeane giggled.
“Thank you, Wingy Spann!” Nadir bowed and applauded. “And now, from parts unknown and circumstances untold, the lithe, lovely Jacquea!”
In complete silence, Jacquea stepped onto the stage. She wore a tight vest with a well-appointed bosom, a brown wig in a long braid, and one of Queen’s spare fringed skirts, and carried an enormous crossbow. Hugo quickly gave her a few good marks for effort at transformation, since she looked like a plausible, if unremarkable, woman.
Then Jacquea proceeded to Boronda Hawk Rune the back wall of the tavern.
Since that meant the crossbow bolts thudded directly over the heads of the Twelfth and Thirteenth SFDF units, this also forestalled some of the more inevitable applause.
“Nadir said to do something only I can do,” Jacquea said. Then, he left.
Instead of Cecile, Aila was the first to burst into applause. Joker gave her a bit of a sideward glance, but she scrunched up her nose at him.
“I liked it,” she said, took another slurp of soda, and applauded even more loudly until Geddoe, Cecile, and eventually a few others joined in.
Hugo still didn’t give Jacques very high marks.
Nadir quickly took the stage again. “The lovely Jacquea! And now, another Easterner with quite the story to tell, the precocious, plucky Pyrrhik Viktoria!”
Hugo recognized the young, round-faced and red-haired woman as the enthusiastic but not-too-talented singer from the opening number. He also immediately recognized her as Edge, because no matter how many frilly blue hairbows you put on the Star Dragon Sword, it’s still the Star Dragon Sword.
“Hi everyone!” Pyrrhik Viktoria chirped in an obvious falsetto. Hugo didn’t know what she’d stuffed her bosom with, but it squeaked audibly. “I’m here with my special friend, Flikerina, and we --”
“This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever been subjected to, in all my years!” the sword shouted. “Onstage, he said. Just a little show to cheer the army up, he said. He said nothing whatsoever about wigs and decals and getting flakes of eyeshadow in my immaculate polishing job.”
Pyrrhik Viktoria stood a little off to the side and drank a long sip of something that probably wasn’t water. Or juice. Or any of the things Anne offered to underage patrons at the tavern.
“But that would imply that I get polished at all. Oh, no, it’s more important to truss me up and parade me around onstage like one of General Oppenheimer’s prized azaleapoodles.” The sword glowered, if it’s possible for a sword to glower. “You’re worse than the Bear.”
“Aw, really?” Pyrrhik Viktora pouted dramatically. “I think I’m much cuter.”
In the audience, Futch groaned and hung his forehead in his hands.
Sharon elbowed him. “Too much to drink?”
“No,” Futch said. “Just picturing Humphrey in pigtails.”
Onstage, the sword went on, “You think you’re cute? Ha! You big dummy.”
“You’re the dummy, Flikerina.”
“No, you are! You’re as dumb as a rock golem with Silence cast on it!”
Hugo leaned over to Caesar and whispered, “What’s his talent supposed to be?”
“Ventriloquism, I think,” Caesar said. “But I’m not sure if counts if the dummy can actually talk.”
Onstage, the sword bristled (sort of) and scowled. “I heard that, you little Silverberg punk! Come up here and say it to my face! I bet the only swords you’ve ever gotten close enough to look at are between Hikusaak’s le--”
“Golly gee! There’s a Harmonian Bishop backstage, Flikerina! Don’t get us disqualified,” Pyrrhik Viktoria hissed.
The audience, including Caesar, however, found that joke appropriately scandalous.
***
Backstage, Sasarai watched with some amusement.
“Should I bother?” Nash asked beside him, still not quite in full costume.
Sasarai laughed. “Certainly not! We wouldn’t want to give him any ideas, would we?”
Nash smirked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, I have to have good humor about such things. After all, I’m a guest in this army.” He flashed a bright, no-nonsense smile. “Besides, I’m sure my father would enjoy it.”
“Head from a Silverberg?” Nash snorted. “Ha. They suck in bed.”
***
“-- and that’s all I have to say about certain ‘historical plays’ about Neclord,” the sword concluded.
Hugo marked on his scorecard that a lot of these Toran and Dunan jokes went over his head.
Onstage, Pyrrhik Viktoria finished drinking whatever was in that glass, and accepted her last round of applause with a sloppy curtsy as the Star Dragon Sword caught its breath (such as it had).
“Let’s hear it for Pyrrhik Viktoria!” Nadir said, once the spotlight was on him again. For some reason unknown to Hugo, Nadir was now wearing a red-lined black cloak with a high collar. “You know, I witnessed a vampire fight once, but I didn’t have much of a stake in the outcome.”
Shabon provided a rimshot.
“But enough about that,” Nadir said, “let us proceed to our next act. May I introduce, a local girl just trying to make her way in the world: from the nearby village of Iksay, Lady Anna Notfellow.”
Now this was a joke that Hugo was sure everyone in the Fire Bringer would get.
Unfortunately, the man onstage dressed in Lady Chris’s armor wasn’t doing a very good job of it. Sure, he had all the hallmarks of the Silver Maiden: her white braids, the correct ironhead armor, and the air of utter dryness that would put Caleria to shame. On the other hand, Lady Anna Notfellow was rather clearly a fellow.
And Lady Chris would probably never do a Zexen peasant dance in full plate.
“Louis,” Lady Chris said through her hands covering her face.
“Yes, my Lady?”
“Did you know why Percival requested my armor?”
“No, my Lady. I swear! If I’d known it was for this, I wouldn’t have let him.”
Chris doubled over in her seat, as if down to a quarter of her constitution.
Salome leaned over. “Shall I institute disciplinary action?”
“No,” Chris whispered. “No, that’ll just make it worse. We have a war to fight.”
“I don’t think he’s half bad,” Leo said.
While none of the Zexen Knights in the audience were the type to elbow Leo in the ribs (possibly for fear of injuring their elbows), Salome was sorely tempted.
***
“He wasn’t convincing at all,” Borus said. From the wings, he watched Lady Anna Notfellow strike her final, exuberant pose, and sneered. The expression suited his still-mostly-made-up face rather well.
Bazba, waiting to go on next, tilted his head. “I don’t know about that. He has me fooled.”
“You don’t know Lady Chris as well as I do.”
“And I don’t care to. Human women hold no attraction for me. I only mean to say that the resemblance is uncanny.”
Borus, perhaps wisely, held his tongue on matters of subtle cultural perceptions. Besides, Lady Anna Notfellow was making her way off the stage, and she passed by Borus with a twinkle in her decidedly-not-lavender eyes.
“Man-calves,” Percival said.
Borus went after him with the shepherdess’s crook.
***
Hugo gave Percival high marks anyway.
Nadir took his place again. “Thank you, Lady Anna Notfellow. Now, this next act requires some explanation, and a warning to audience members in the front row. There will be live steel and live flame in this next act. No, that’s not a joke. While we do have water rune bearers standing by, I must caution those of you sitting this close to the stage against coming any nearer. If you would like to take your time to move during this interval, it would be much appreciated. There. Good. Now that that’s dealt with, let us proceed: gracing us from Great Hollow, the fearless Waggi!”
Hugo was not in the least bit surprised to see Bazba, covered in Lizard warpaint and jewels, walk out onto the stage with a gride that was on fire.
Bazba, or rather Waggi, then proceeded to dance with the flaming polearm in an impressive display of dexterity and courage.
The audience was dead silent throughout aside from a few gasps after impressive twists and stunts. Waggi swung her weapon about in arcs of flame that nearly caught the curtains, and sent sparks up off the stage floor when she flourished. By the time it was over, and she put the fire out with a gusty roar, Hugo was certain that this evening had not been wasted, men in dresses or no men in dresses, because Hugo now had a much better idea of what fun was.
Caesar, however, was much less impressed, and mad this known after a round of fervent, if startled applause. “Bazba,” Caesar said, “that was really great, but where’s the drag?”
“Excuse me?” Bazba said.
Caesar waved his hands, apparently unconcerned that there was an armed Lizard standing not fifteen feet from him, who had just danced with an open flame like it was nothing but a straw broom. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure you put a lot of work into it -- I just want to know where the girl parts are.”
“How dare you!” Dupa roared from the middle of the audience. “That was one of the most feminine displays I’ve ever seen!”
“Yeah, because you know what to look for,” Caesar said, only turning briefly to acknowledge Dupa. “I don’t. Now, if this were just a talent competition I’d score you off the charts, but it’s a drag show, and I’d be much better equipped to score Bazba if I knew more about female lizards.”
Dupa started to shove himself out into the aisle. “Why you little --”
“Peggi can explain that!” Peggi shouted from her place at the bar.
“Oh,” said Caesar. “That...does explain things, actually.”
Once again, Jeane giggled and drew hearts all over her scorecard.
The crisis now resolved, Hugo saw to his own scores. He gave Bazba high marks for talent, but he had to admit that the criteria of this contest were more than a little skewed in favor of a certain kind of performer, and whatever else that certain kind of performer was, it wasn’t Lizard.
“Let’s have one last hand for Waggi,” Nadir said. “And now, it has been explained to me that this next act needs no introduction. So, without any ado whatsoever, I give you Thierra McPain!”
A delicate (if overtall), extremely pale woman emerged from the wings, wrapped in a pleated white dress and loose blue cloak, revealing thin, shapely legs. For a moment, Hugo thought this would be another Lady Chris -- this woman had silver hair as well -- but once Thierra McPain opened her mouth to speak she dispelled that particular notion.
“Hello everyone,” she said, sounding almost frighteningly bored, like Yuber. “I’m Thierra, just some old hag from the south. I’m arrogant, never keep promises, insist on being carried everywhere on the backs of strapping young men, and suck their blood at the first available chance.”
Hugo leaned over to Caesar and whispered, “Is that Nash?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s his talent supposed to be?”
Everyone vaguely connected to the Dunan region answered, “Impersonation.”
Onstage, Thierra winked and gave a tight, malicious laugh. “That’s right. And it’s good of you to educate yourself on such things. You never know when you might find yourself in a vampire’s embrace, you know. But I only turn the ones I like, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“That is disturbingly accurate,” Futch said.
“That is disturbingly attractive,” Lucia said.
“-- Mom!” Hugo tinged all the way to his hackles. “Yuck.”
Thierra went on, twirling a long lock of silver hair in her fingers. “Yes, I’m a vampire. The vampire. The oldest vampire in the world -- not that I look it, right everybody?”
A few people in the audience said “Right.”
Clearly, it wasn’t enough for Thierra’s taste. Her eyes flashed red. “I said right?”
“Right!”
“Much better,” she sighed. “Oh, but even though I don’t look my age at all, my husband’s run out on me! That dashing, bumbling ingrate is gallivanting around your quaint little country with a younger, burlier, less-pretty version of me.” Thierra shot the sort of glare at Lady Chris that Hugo had been wanting to shoot her for months now.
Chris must have taken this long to realize it was Nash up there.
“Go right ahead!” Thierra said cheerfully. “You can have him. I’m in the market for some new blood anyway.” She licked her chops.
Hugo didn’t believe her for a second. Neither did Chris.
“So,” Thierra began, “which one of you big, strong northerners is going to carry me home tonight?”
Not even Mua or Hallec stepped up to the offer.
***
“That’s exactly what I mean, Dios,” Sasarai said, backstage as before, and observing the onstage proceedings with some enthusiasm. “You should have that sort of a sense of humor.”
Dios scrunched up his nose. “I fail to see the appeal.”
“Look at him, Dios. Why, he’s put his reputation on the line.”
“I didn’t think he had a reputation to speak of.”
“Psh. Everyone here knows he works for me. And I only employ people of quality.”
Onstage, Thierra McPain attempted to drape herself across Leo Gallen’s back and remarked most sordidly upon the feel of breastplate against her thighs.
“Quality,” Dios repeated.
“Quality,” Sasarai insisted. “I’m sure his wife will be endlessly amused.”
***
Leo Gallen intensely regretted his Firefly Rune.
“Stop complaining,” Thierra whined, “I’m as light as a Duck’s neck-feather. And I’d know, I just helped Wingy pluck hers.”
That statement sounded a lot dirtier than it was. The image crossing Hugo’s mind looked exactly as dirty as it was, though.
“C’mon, put your back into it, you big brute.” Thierra pounded her fists on Leo’s armor. “Aren’t you ironheads supposed to be dauntless? A little old thing like me isn’t supposed to daunt you.”
Leo grunted and struggled to keep Thierra on his back. “That’s just what your husband said.”
In the audience, Lady Chris turned a brilliant shade of scarlet.
Eventually, and with further admonitions about Leo’s strength, character, and masculinity, Thierra drove him offstage like an ungainly horse. By the time Hugo realized that this was the end of the act, the audience had erupted into applause.
“Now that’s how drag’s supposed to work,” Caesar said.
“I don’t know,” Thomas said. “What if his wife finds out?”
“Nah, she’s not half bad. I mean, she’s a friend of my grandfather’s. I bet she’ll get a huge kick out of it.”
Thomas glanced over his shoulder at the remaining Zexen Knights. “Maybe Mister Nash is the one who’ll get kicked.”
Hugo agreed, at least on the level of Nash’s transformation. And maybe it had been a little mean-spirited, but Thierra was funny, and she’d made fun of the ironheads, and she’d made Lady Chris uncomfortable, so Hugo didn’t see any cause to complain.
***
As he took a long pull of beer in the back of the audience, Geddoe wondered why they hadn’t tried this to boost morale fifty years ago.
He proceeded to imagine the Flame Champion in a dress.
He proceeded to imagine Wyatt Lightfellow in a dress.
He took another long pull of beer.
***
Backstage, Leo deposited Thierra on a pile of flats from For the Love of the Empire. The flats miraculously declined to break, possibly owing to the presence of a Bishop nearby.
“That was genteel of you,” Nash said.
“Psh,” Leo said. “I’m feeling sporting.”
“Any reason?”
“Just won a bet.” Leo brushed off his armor. “Borus definitely has manlier legs than Percy.”
“He does at that,” Nash agreed. There was, apparently, something of a commotion onstage, and he leaned over to glance around Leo. “Who’s on now?”
“Fifty-two Pickmeup,” Leo said, and shrugged. “Weird name.”
***
Onstage, Ace posed melodramatically, hands in a vague approximation of one of the five classical positions of female distress.
“Erk in danger!” he recited.
***
Joker, laughing, fell clean off his barstool.
His beer splashed all over Elaine’s cleavage.
Nobody seemed to notice.
***
Ace, or rather, Fifty-Two Pickmeup, wore an unflattering and extremely revealing white gauze gown that she might have borrowed from Jeane, and what could only be described as romance novel hair. The drape of her costume flapped as Fifty-Two Pickmeup continued to pose, regaling the audience in a booming voice that showed no evidence of transformation whatsoever.
“Erk was stuck in a hole for the fourth time,” Fifty-Two Pickmeup said. “This time, it was not hot water that was poured on him, but cold! Icy cold!” She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, crouched in the spotlight. “’Blast! I’m done for!’ His skin became blue. He thought he would die. Erk in danger!”
Hugo thought this was supposed to be a serious dramatic reading. Ace -- Fifty-two Pickmeup -- certainly looked...theatrical. It was hard to tell over the raucous laughter from the mercenaries in the back of the house.
“But no!” Fifty-Two Pickmeup sprang up (things jiggled) and assumed a pose of heroism, arms curled to show off their muscle like the statues in the Budehuc gallery. “Suddenly fire melted the ice! Erk was spared from the fire. The rain turned to steam! At the top of the hole, a man appeared. ‘I am the Flame Champion!’”
Hugo understood some of what Lady Chris had gone through twice tonight so far.
“The Flame Champion pulled Erk out of the hole. ‘Join my army.’ Erk saved!”
It was somewhat difficult for the applause to start, seeing as the entire back of the house was already laughing (yes, even Geddoe cracked a smile).
***
“Why do we keep employing these people?” Dios asked.
“Because he’s a very good accountant,” Sasarai said.
***
“The dramatic stylings of Fifty-Two Pickmeup,” Nadir said, his mask impassive though his tone was a little shaky. “And now, for our final act of the evening: hailing from Toran in the pursuit of justice and good, the inspiring Lady Ismene Maximillian.”
The lights dimmed, then rose, and standing center stage was the most beautiful woman Hugo had ever laid eyes on.
She had fine black hair in a feathery cut, armor forged close to pronounced curves, bare legs that looked both strong and streamlined, and she looked altogether like she could take anyone in the castle in a fight without breaking a sweat. Hugo thought he’d like to see her sweat. Or maybe make her sweat. And his mind drifted to the pattern of thoughts common to sexually interested teenage boys, scorecard and stage forgotten, as he envisioned himself and Lady Ismene sparring until they were both sweaty and steam was rising from his right hand --
“Damn, Fred makes a hot girl,” Caesar said.
It was suddenly very, very cold in Hugo’s seat.
Lady Ismene -- Fred, Hugo chanted in his head, Fred, Fred, Fred -- went through elegant sword and shield drills, displaying her strength and the beauty that overlaid it with martial grace. Her hair whipped with the force of her swings, as if each strand could spur or stall her blade. A good portion of the audience was as dead silent through her turn as they’d been through Bazba’s, perhaps because some of them were also thinking what Hugo was trying not to think. (And, since the majority of the audience was human or had human inclinations, it’s possible that an entirely Grasslander audience would have felt the same for Bazba, but that is neither here nor there.)
“That is supremely unfair,” Iku sighed. “He’s far too pretty to be real.”
Franz muttered something about maybe trying on a dress for Iku’s benefit.
Lady Ismene grunted, and stabbed her sword into the stage with such force that it stood upright when she lifted her gauntlet off the hilt. “Thus ends evil!” she hollered, in a strikingly female voice. “Let righteous beauty triumph over fear!”
Hugo had to slap himself across the face several times to remind himself: Fred. Fred. Fred.
To thunderous applause, Lady Ismene pried her sword out of the floorboards, saluted, and left the stage.
Hugo experienced a great deal of difficulty holding his pen.
***
“Master Fred!” Rico cheered, throwing her arms around Lady Ismene almost as soon as she was in the wings. “Master Fred, you were amazing!”
“Thanks, Rico.” Fred smiled and adjusted one of the straps over his things. “Aunt Isabel’s armor sure came in handy!”
***
Before Hugo could slip into a further stupor with regard to his sudden apparent attraction to Fred Maximilian, whom he’d previously found rather annoying and unremarkable, Caesar leaned over and elbowed him in the ribs.
“I think that’s the last of them,” Caesar said. “That’s ten.”
Hugo distracted himself from uncomfortable thoughts of Lady Ismene -- FRED -- by counting the entries. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Not a bad way to spend an evening,” Jeane said, making a few more marks on her last scorecard.
“Everyone seemed to enjoy the show,” Thomas agreed, though he also seemed a bit uncertain. Hugo wondered if there was any way to breach the subject of Fred Maximilian’s attractiveness without admitting to it.
The spotlight flickered one final time onto Nadir at his corner of the stage. “That concludes our Stars of Dragstiny showcase,” Nadir began. “Now, while the judges go backstage and deliberate --”
A flash of white light savaged through the theater, and Leknaat descended from the rafters.
She was a vision in flowing robes, the mark of the Back Gate Rune like a smoldering coal on her forehead. Her hair fanned behind her in a torrent of wind.
“I am Leknaat, Keeper of Balance,” she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper and yet piercing through the minds of all assembled. “And I am here to tell you you’re all a bunch of bitches.”
An eerie stillness swept through the rest of the theater, though the stage was awash in wind.
“Give it up, Hugo of Karaya,” Leknaat said, utterly sedate and deadpan. “You’re a patsy who needs a gryphon between his legs to kill a plains boar. Your Fire magic stats are shit. And you’re fate’s favorite chewtoy since Tir McDohl, except scrawnier.”
Hugo pounded the judge’s table. “Come down here and say that to my face!”
“I would, but even then I don’t think I could sink that low.”
To Hugo’s ire, the audience laughed.
“Have fun getting carded for the rest of your eternal life,” Leknaat said, almost cheerfully. “That is, if you manage to defeat Luc at the Ceremonial Site at all.”
“We will defeat him!” Cecile yelled, jabbing the butt of her halberd into the floor. “Just you wait and see, you mean old lady!”
“Yeah!” Muto yelled. “We’re gonna win!”
“No one can defeat our Flame Champion!” Wilder quacked, and Rhett chimed in with a “You said it. Get off the stage!”
The chorus of indignation rose and rose, until Cecile started everyone shouting “Budehuc! Budehuc! Hugo! Hugo!” Onstage, Leknaat’s lower lip quivered, and the wind around her strengthened until eyes opened and her wig fell off.
“-- Your Eminence?” Thomas dropped his pen.
Leknaat did, in fact, appear to be Bishop Sasarai.
The cheering slowed, then stopped entirely.
“Surprise?” the now-wigless Leknaat said.
It was by now so quiet that Caesar’s laughter rang out like an avalanche.
‘Leknaat’ basked in the resounding applause that soon filled the tavern, hugging herself in the pooled robes. By the time she teleported away, a red flush across that fetching girlish face, the entirety of Budehuc Castle was cheering. Even Jefferson, assigning inane titles somewhere in the corner, was forced to admit that morale had never been so high.
***
Sometime later, the judges gathered in the statue gallery.
Caesar drummed his heels on the empty pedestal he sat atop. “Have we reached our decision?”
“I think so?” Thomas said.
“Tee-hee,” Jeane said.
“Can this please be over with?” Hugo said.
Caesar groaned and flung out his arms, nearly toppling off the pedestal. “How about making this feel a little less like a hung jury?”
“You’re the one from the Republic of Toran,” Hugo said.
“Fine, Flame Champion. You’re the boss. Who do you think should win?”
***
All ten performers stood in a leg-flashing line upstage, with varying degrees of confidence on the matter. Borborina and Lady Anna Notfellow snuck glances at one another through their smudged makeup. Fifty-Two Pickmeup adjusted her undergarments through her clothes. Thierra McPain pursed her lips and mouthed what could only be obscenities in the general direction of the Zexen Knights in the audience. Jacquea shuffled her heels, and Lady Ismene fiddled with her sword, and Pyrrhik Viktoria scolded her sword for not keeping its bows on.
“Now?” Hugo asked.
“Now,” Nadir said, and escorted the judges onto the stage. “Thank you all so much for waiting!” he pronounced to the audience. “The results are in!” He yielded the stage to Jeane.
Jeane endured a few wolf-whistles, and shuffled her shoulders, which of course caused other matters to jiggle. “I have a special consolation prize for my favorite competitor. She brought back some beautiful memories, tee-hee! And she put a lot on the line. The winner of an Honorable Mention, and a free armor refit at Dominic’s -- and I think she’s going need it,” she giggled: “Thierra McPain!”
Still the perfect picture of righteous vampiric haughtiness, Theirra came forward, kissed Jeane on both cheeks (to the envy of most of the audience), and accepted a voucher, which she also kissed, then blew on as if to send her kiss soaring out over the audience in some sort of unite attack.
“In third place,” Thomas said, “um. Her act was exciting and educational too, and I think we all felt a little stronger after watching her. The, er, winner of a Rage Rune and a free attachment at Jeane’s, is Waggi!”
With a triumphant roar, Waggi raised her gride and accepted the voucher for her prize.
Caesar spoke next. “So, I guess it’s fitting that I present the next one, seeing as, like me, she came from somewhere far away and shook things up like you wouldn’t believe. I think I speak for everyone in this castle when I say -- Lady Ismene Maximilian, we didn’t know you had it in you!”
Lady Ismene flushed beet red, staggered forward, and clapped her hands over the golden eagle on her breasts.
“Come on down, Lady Ismene! Second place, which means you’re the winner of a weapon upgrade at Peggi’s, gratis, and after what you showed us today we’re sure it’ll be useful!” Caesar stood on his tiptoes and gave Fred a quick peck on the lips. “Great job.”
(It is possible that Sanae, Belle, and Mel fainted in the audience. It is also possible that Hugo now had a few more things to try not to think about.)
“Your turn,” Caesar said, and yielded Hugo the stage.
“This was a tough decision,” Hugo began, much more comfortable addressing crowds than, well, thinking about Lady Ismene. “For one thing, this wasn’t a conventional entry, and for another, it might be an unpopular decision. But I thought about the reasons we decided to have this contest in the first place. It’s not just about the transformation and the innovation and all that: it’s about bringing us closer as a fighting force, and boosting morale, and I think we can all agree that there was one act that stood out to us all as far as morale goes. And I want to honor that, because as leader of the Fire Bringer, I want to give all credit and respect to our soldiers and commanders who put themselves forward, regardless of their station or their homeland, to show that they’re part of this army and with us until the end. So: in first place, winner of a grand lottery prize of one hundred thousand potch:” Hugo took a deep breath. “Bishop Sasarai of Harmonia, as Lady Leknaat!”
It turned out not to be an unpopular decision at all. Even the remaining contestants onstage applauded and cheered, and everyone sought out whatever entrance Sasarai could emerge from.
After moment, the Bishop did come in from backstage -- but he wasn’t in costume at all.
“Thank you all very much for the honor,” he said. “But that wasn’t me.”
Everyone froze.
“...Cecile,” Martha asked, “if you’re here, who’s on watch tonight?”
“Juan,” she said, in a small voice.
Now that no one was clapping or cheering at all, the sound of Juan’s easy snoring wafted through the tavern windows.
“Well, fuck,” Duke said.
***
Meanwhile, at Mount Hei-Tou:
“I thought we were supposed to demoralize them,” Yuber said. “This is stupid.”
“Hush,” Sarah said, smearing cold cream all over Luc’s face to get the makeup off. “Master Luc just wanted to feel pretty.”
Luc groaned and submitted himself to Sarah’s ministrations.
“Pathetic,” Yuber said, flicking his swords in and out of existence. “I didn’t even get to kill anyone. What the hell was that, anyway?”
“One of my brother’s cockandable ideas to boost morale,” Albert said. “But their contouring was horrible, the acts were uninspired, and not a single one of those men knew the proper way to tuck.”
Everyone turned to stare at Albert.
“Except maybe Nash,” he scoffed. “Amateurs.”
“What’s tuck?” Yuber asked.
There were some things, Albert decided, that Yuber was not meant to know.
***
.
I'm home, Suikoden fandom! I...might've changed my game a little, but I'm home!
Title: Script #7: Nadir’s 108 Stars of Dragstiny (AO3 version here)
Author: Mithrigil
Fandom: Suikoden III
Characters: ...a lot of them.
Words: Over nine thousand.
Rating: Crack.
Warning: My girlfriend forced me to marathon three seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race over the course of a week. It was awesome.
Summary: A debate between two Suiko-Narcissists leads to a theatrical endeavor to boost the morale of the New Fire Bringer.
Script #7: Nadir’s 108 Stars of Dragstiny
a fabulous foray into Genso Suikoden III
It began, as all plays should, with a conflict.
“And I found it very confusing,” Shiba said, as he and Bazba strolled past the item shop, looking for a place to sun themselves. “I already have a hard enough time telling the humans apart, but this one was trying to disguise himself, so I lost him in the crowd.”
“What did he do?” Bazba asked.
“He put on a human woman’s clothes,” Shiba said. “You know how human men wear those leg-sleeves and human women sometimes don’t? Well, he hid his legs and put another skirt on over his head and I couldn’t find him anywhere.”
Bazba wrinkled his snout. “Dastardly of him. They must know how hard it is for us. Could you smell him?”
“I tried, but he put on this woman’s smell too, the kind that the ironheads spray to mask their scent. I want my bracelet back, Bazba. Once the chief is done with the council, I am going to the war room to demand satisfaction!”
“They should make a creed against that.”
“I completely agree,” Gordon called, slinking out of the item shop and leaning gallantly against the doorjamb. “Forgive me for interrupting, gentlemen, but I could not help overhearing your plight, and I agree that it’s an outrage! Unstylish in the utmost.”
“Unstylish?” Shiba asked.
“Indeed,” Gordon said. “Why, no true gentleman would ever lower himself to wear a woman’s attire. Nothing in this world is so gauche as that.”
“Excuse me,” Augustine said, intruding on the scene with one hand laid just a bit too tensely on the curve of his sword hilt. “I’ll have you know, my friend, that drag is a vaunted art with a long history, and how dare you imply that a man doesn’t have the right to wear whatever clothing he likes, if that is what expresses his fashionable spirit!”
Gordon’s smile, ordinarily so pristine and smug, tweaked at the corner. “It’s deplorable is what it is. Why should a man not be fashionable in his own clothes?”
“No, no, I agree that a man should be fashionable in his own clothes, but if he is too fashionable for the current fashion he must feel within his rights to branch into the wardrobe of the fairer sex.” Augustine flourished, and stuck a heretofore invisible red rose behind Bazba’s skull ridges. “A beautiful creature of any sentient race must look his best, whatever that best may be.”
Bazba, for his part, looked somewhat bemused at his new accessory.
“Fairer?” Gordon spat. “I’ll show you fairer!”
“En garde!” Augustine trilled.
“Take that poisonous thing off my brother’s head!” Shiba roared.
Many gloves were thrown that afternoon, and many beautiful men were party to ugliness. But Nadir, ever intent on the scene from behind his white mask, was subject to a truly exquisite idea.
***
CASTING ANNOUNCEMENT
Your Theatrical Director and Collaborator Nadir
is seeking men*
their number greater than 8 and fewer than 12
for an Entertainment, vaudevillian in nature
celebrating the ART OF FEMALE IMPERSONATION.
Auditions by appointment
Sign up for an audition appointment below:
*In the interest of fairness, only persons over the age of sixteen will be cast.†
†Guillaume, as per the theater’s agreement with Toppo, Nei, and Billy, remains banned from the tavern.
***
“Hm,” Jacques perused the announcement. “What does he mean, female impersonation?”
“He means a drag show,” Joker said. “Like in Matilda.”
“Jacques wasn’t with us in Matilda.” Queen leaned over from the bar. “It’s a show where men dress up in women’s clothes and tell jokes.”
Jacques considered this and squinted at the casting notice again, then nodded.
“Like in plays?” Aila asked.
Joker raised an eyebrow at her. “You’ve seen drag plays?”
“Well, no, but in Karaya we have shamans, and when we tell stories sometimes the spirits choose a girl to speak the part of a man, and the other way around, or they choose people who aren’t either to speak for one or the other, or. Well, you know.”
“I didn’t, but that sounds like a riot,” Joker said, and went on to explain to Jacques. “Anyway, that’s the long and short of it. You put on a dress and do something funny.”
Aila sipped her soda. “That’s not how it goes in Karaya.”
“Well, it’s how it goes in Matilda, and I think that’s what Nadir’s up to. You should give it a go, Jacques, it might be fun.”
Before Jacques could say that he didn’t know any jokes (or, for that matter, any Karayan shamans other than Aila, who he didn’t think knew anything about female impersonation except that she was naturally female), Ace bumbled into the bar, stretching his hands over his head. “What’d I miss?”
“New play,” Queen said.
“High art,” Joker said. “Probably out of your league.”
Ace puffed out his chest and pouted. “Out of my league? Ha! Let me have a look at that.” He made his way over to Jacques and the bulletin, and read down the list. “Guillaume’s still banned?”
“Probably ‘cause only the young, pretty types’ll get anywhere in the casting. Which is why I say it’s out of your league.”
“Hey, I’m plenty pretty.”
“Yeah, and you’re plenty chicken.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.”
“Lay off him, Joker,” Queen said, a smirk pushing the corners of her lips. “He’s not man enough to wear a dress.”
The effects of this statement -- not all of which were visible -- resulted in Ace turning away from the casting notice, slowly, as if to menace a particularly uppity and out-of-line young pickpocket, or perhaps unleash Double Tusk on a plains rabbit whose only crime was to bite Ace in the ass.
Frankly, this entire enterprise was about to bite him in the ass, not that Ace knew it.
“Not man enough, huh?” he said, a glint in his eye that the Twelfth Unit had seen all too many times in their travels, though usually when Ace was a bit more drunk. “Who’s got a pen?”
“It’s hanging right there on the board, idiot,” Joker said. “What are you going to do, scribble out your stubble?”
Thus it came to pass that Ace signed his name to the casting notice right under Jacques’s, in bold accountant’s script, and Queen and Joker exchanged knowing glances and high-fives behind his back.
Geddoe, for his part, sat in the back of the tavern, drank his ale, and remained amused.
***
“Sounds like fun,” Percival said, once the matter was explained to him by an eager mercenary at the base of Budehuc’s grand stair.
“Fun?” Borus said from the doorway, his gauntleted fist curled tight (but not, as yet, punching any walls). “It’s a serious endeavor!”
“How serious?” Percival deadpanned.
“There’s makeup, of course,” Borus explained, “and deportment, and the matter of concealing your masculine attributes without diminishing their worth to your appearance -- and Nadir is imposing a talent competition as well, so the entrants not only have to be skilled at female impersonation, but at some other art --”
“So you’re entering,” Percival said.
Borus’s pale, shaved cheeks colored from the neck up. Perhaps it was only that drag was on everyone’s mind, but more than one person simultaneously imagined him in a curly blond wig with darling pink bows and a ruffled doily. It wasn’t altogether horrible, if disconcerting.
“Certainly not!” Borus said, still not punching the wall.
“That’s a pity,” said Percival. “I was planning on entering.”
“You’d look hopeless in a dress.”
“No more than you, with your man-calves.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing. Just that you have thick legs.”
“Of course I have thick legs, I ride. Yours are just as thick, and you’re entering.”
“Well, yes, but I’m planning on entering as a woman with thick, beautiful legs. You just have man-calves.”
“My manly calves are hardly an obstacle to my entering this contest, no more than yours.”
“No, they’re just an obstacle to winning.”
“That’s it, Percival. I am entering this competition, and I am winning it, and that’s final!”
This time, Borus punched the wall for emphasis, and all of Budehuc stood witness. That fetching red color, tinged with anger as it was, did not leave his cheeks.
“Ouch,” Borus said, because the bones of his hand were swelling from the impact inside his gauntlet.
“See you backstage,” Percival said on his way out.
All Borus could say to that was a rather unladylike “Damn you.”
When Borus was almost gone, he passed Edge, who had poked his head through the door to get a look at the fight. “What was all that about?” he asked Geddoe, who came out of the tavern a few minutes prior.
“New theater thing,” Geddoe explained. “There’s a cash prize if you win.”
Edge’s eyes brightened to the sheen of the jewel on the hilt of the Star Dragon Sword at the prospect.
***
In the end, even after eliminating a confused Muto (who had misunderstood and dragged the carcass of a troll dragon around Kathy’s racetrack faster than anyone else) and Hortez (who thought he had finally found last week’s audition for Madame Choe-Choe), Nadir found his ten men. They sat around the theater in ones and twos, and Nadir was quite pleased to find several new faces among this entourage. Such performances had a tendency to bring out the hidden talents in an army.
“Gentles all,” Nadir began, “I thank you for your commitment to this theatrical pursuit. I have great hopes that you will entertain our army and that morale will soar. So thank you for putting yourselves on the front line.
“As has doubtlessly come to your attention, this is a competition. In addition to showcasing your skills at female impersonation, and transforming yourselves from men into beautiful women with a degree of thespianic verisimilitude, you will perform twice: once, dancing as a group to a song of Mistress Nei’s composition, and a second time, in a performance of your own devising, in which you showcase your special talent. Before you ask, Nash, this special talent must be considered appropriate for viewing by an audience comprising persons of all ages and cultures, where possible.”
“Shucks,” Nash said, flashing a cat-in-the-cream-pot smile that left everyone in the theater wondering just what he was planning on doing. “I’ll think of something else, then.”
“I know I cannot ask for much in the way of tastefulness,” Nadir went on, “considering this is an army. But I do expect you to display your charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent.”
The competitors nodded, except for Jacques, who silently raised his hand and waited several moments to be called upon.
“Yes?” Nadir asked.
With complete seriousness, Jacques asked, “What if we don’t have any talent?”
Nadir curled an elegant finger beneath the chin of his mask. “Surely there must be something that you can do that no one else can.”
As Jacques considered this and came to a presumably satisfactory conclusion, he nodded, and Nadir resumed his introduction.
“So, let us begin with our choreography! I hope you all brought women’s shoes--for those of you who intend to wear shoes, that is. Now, let us assemble in height order! Sergeant, you’re the smallest, you first, and Bazba last...”
***
“But why me?” Hugo grit his teeth, and tried not to flail out his arms, because if he did he’d probably hit Caesar’s in the process.
“Because you’re the Flame Champion,” Caesar said, with an undercurrent of duh. “Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t enter. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I’m the Flame Champion,” Hugo repeated. “Everyone would have lost to me on purpose if I entered.”
“I wouldn’t have,” Nash said from the corner of the war room.
“You’re a dick,” Hugo said, and then returned to Caesar. “Besides, I’m too young. Nadir still thinks I’m a child.”
“Guess so.” Caesar shrugged, and gesticulated with Toranese abandon. “But that’s exactly why you have to judge with us. Everyone expects you to be there, for one thing, and for another they’re all doing this to cheer up your Flaming Army.”
“Fire Bringer.”
“It means the same thing in Harmonian. Anyway, you’re a great actor, and you’ll round out the judging panel really well! Nadir says we need judges with charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent, and I’ve got charisma--”
“I guess,” Hugo said.
“--Thomas has nerve--”
“Thomas is judging?”
“--yuh-huh, and Jeane has--” Caesar paused a moment. “...talent.”
“Talent,” Hugo repeated.
“Talent! And she knows what it’s like to be a real woman.”
Actually, Hugo had always wondered about that. But now was not the time. “And you think I have the uniqueness you need?”
“Sure,” Caesar said, slinging an arm around Hugo’s shoulder, not that that stopped him from gesticulating. “You’re the Flame Champion! What’s more unique than that?”
“I guess you’re right,” Hugo said, and let the matter drop. “All right, I’ll do it. Do I have to do any kind of research first?”
“Nah, just bring your unique perspective and choose what feels right. You’ll do just fine, I promise. Besides, we need a Grasslander on the panel. Joe and Bazba are in the show.”
Hugo was far too dark-skinned to blanch, but the expression that fell across his face might as well have put his face in black-and-white outline. “Sergeant Joe is wearing women’s clothes?”
“Guess so,” Caesar said with a shrug. “And that’s why we need you. I wouldn’t know the difference if you asked.”
***
Rarely is the backstage of a theater, whatever its size, a placid and pristine environment free of drama. The Budehuc Tavern and Stage was no exception. Jacques and Joe studiously rehearsed dance steps in the corner under the perpetually-under-repair flat for the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene. Ace and Edge exchanged nervous arguments about the order of the individual presentations. At the lightning-rune-lit vanity mirror, Nash and Bazba applied their own makeup and Rico assisted Fred with his, and Borus pinned a few more desert-peach bows into his ringlets.
And Augustine, somewhat expertly, explained to Percival, “Yes, well, you’re extremely lucky. In an ensemble such as yours, one can get away with several inconsistencies of the female form.”
“Is that so,” Percival said, entirely content with his choice of costume, thank you kindly.
“Well, yes -- but in something as revealing as mine or your fellow Zexen’s, one must take certain precautions.”
Borus looked up from the mirror. “Precautions, you say?”
Augustine proceeded to explain the practice of tucking, in some detail.
The human men (except for Jacques, and including also Sasarai, who had happened backstage to give the performers his blessing) and Rico cringed perceptibly with each detail of the process, in eerie unison.
“What are the humans going on about?” Bazba asked Joe, who continued to rehearse his dance steps.
“Hiding their penises,” Joe said without missing a beat.
“Oh that? That’s nothing,” Bazba said, and demonstrated how it works when the organ in question is bifurcated.
At that, even Jacques felt compelled to cover his groin.
***
As Hugo slid into his place between Caesar and Thomas at the long Judge’s Table, his feelings about this upcoming event smoldered from bad to worse.
“Um, Caesar?”
“Yeah?”
“Everyone’s here.”
“Of course everyone’s here, it’s the entertainment of the season! A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! The strongest fighters in your army -- in dresses.”
Not to diminish Caesar’s enthusiasm, but Hugo turned up his hands and shrugged. “A lot of the strongest fighters in our army already wear dresses. Mom wears a dress. Lady Chris wears a dress sometimes. Emily wears a dress and she beat me at arm-wrestling four times this week.”
“You’ll understand when you see it,” Caesar assured him. “Here, take your scorecards, Nadir’s about to start.”
The spotlight came down upon Nadir, who bowed and accepted the attendant army’s applause. “Welcome,” he said, “gentles all, to the first entertainment of its kind on this part of the continent: a spectacle of transformation, innovation, technique, and style!”
Hugo thought about those four words for a moment. They weren’t on his scorecard. Jeane seemed to find it funny, though.
“Without further ado, I present: the Fire Bringer’s one and only Stars of Dragstiny!”
Nadir swept out his arm, and the stage became awash in white light, bright enough that Hugo shielded his eyes. When he let his arm down, he couldn’t believe them.
As Toppo, Nei, and Shabon played a jaunty, strutting tune, the ten beings on stage switched from one pose to another. Each performer was wearing a somewhat abbreviated and sequined outfit in the Flame Champion’s colors, red and black and white, but in the spinning stagelights and with the quick step of the music Hugo couldn’t keep his attention on the construction.
“F is for the Freedom we try to protect,” the first competitor sang. (Hugo didn’t recognize the voice, or the curly blond hair, but thought she had rather muscular legs for a woman.)
“L is for the Love we all try to collect,” the second one sang, enthusiastically if not very well.
“A is for our Army!”
“M is for the Men in it --“
“And E’s for Everybody that we’ll need to win it!” While Hugo was quite certain that #3 was Sergeant Joe and mostly-certain that #4 was Ace because of the unmistakable break in his, her, nose, he had no clue who #5 was, and, moreover that this person’s legs were shapely and attractive and oh Spirits who is that.
Competitor #6, as well as possessing a beautiful female form, had Augustine’s moustaches. “But also F is for the Fabulous life that we lead,”
“And L is for the Land that supports all we need!” #7 sang, and behind Hugo, Lady Chris groaned and hung her head in her hands.
”And A is for All,” #8 was barely audible and a little stiff, but not bad-looking.
”And M is for Might,” Bazba sang, clearly competitor #9 even under his prodigious warpaint.
”And E’s for Everything we need to make things right,” the last competitor sang, and he, she, looked entirely in her element onstage, flashing as much teeth as leg. Hugo felt a profound disturbance, deep in his stomach.
“FLAME,” they sang in ragged chorus, doing approximately the same kick-steps, ”flame is what keeps us alive! Just like the fire inside our hearts, we’re just getting started!” They punctuated this last with hip-popping choreography that was obviously influenced by Safir clan ritual dancing. “FLAME! Flame is our biggest inspiration! So gird up your grides, and stave up your staves, ‘cause fire doesn’t ever know which way to behave! Yes, FLAME! Flame is what keeps us alive~!”
They posed together, sequins aglow and fingers and wingtips flickering spiritedly.
Competitor #10 winked and added in rhythm, before the last beat of the music, “The Fire takes us higher, so we’re Bringin’ it home!”
For a long moment after the audience was so silent that Hugo heard, distinctly, Gadget Z drop a screw. Onstage, the performers held their smiles and their pose, some of their eyes valiantly searching for approval.
Cecile broke the silence with a whoop and flurry of applause. “Yay Budehuc! Great job everyone! Yahoo!”
That was enough to startle everyone else into clapping, and a few more raucous cheers, some bearing names that helped Hugo place a few of the unrecognizable faces. The SFDF units in the back were cheering for both Ace and Jacques, for one thing, and Hugo squinted through the stagelights and layers of makeup to discover that yes, in fact, one of the competitors was Jacques, the stiffly-moving and quiet brunette in the back row. The Lizards and the Ducks catcalled loudly and thumped the floor for Bazba and Joe, who made feminine genuflections as they hightailed it into the wings.
“Let’s have another round of applause for our contestants,” Nadir said, and stepped into the sweep of the spotlight, commanding another minute of cheering.
Caesar leaned over to Hugo, still applauding. “Now you get it?”
“Sort of,” Hugo said. It was definitely impressive, whatever else.
Oh Hugo’s other side, Thomas nodded. “It’s, um, great for morale! They’re working so hard.”
“While they prepare themselves for their individual presentations,” Nadir went on once the applause died down, “I will introduce the judges. First: hailing from the Toran Republic, and lending his insight to our cause, the charismatic, capricious, and occasionally cocky Caesar Silverberg!”
Caesar stood up and turned around to wave at the crowd.
“Next on the list, but first in our hearts: our very own Flame Champion, Hugo of Karaya!”
“Get up and wave,” Caesar whispered, and Hugo obeyed, still floored at just how many people had crammed themselves into the tavern, and how much ale, wine, and other spirits were circulating the crowd. He sat back down.
“Third, the young man whose generosity, tenacity, and nerve have sustained us so far through this conflict: the indomitable Castle Master Thomas!”
Thomas didn’t quite get out of his chair, but swiveled around to wave shyly at the audience, none of whom were cheering louder than Martha, Muto, Sebastian, and of course Cecile.
“And last, the one we all think of when we lie awake at night trying to define just what makes a woman, Runemistress Jeane!”
Jeane giggled, stood, and bowed. Scott, who happened to be in the front row, leaned forward to get a closer look and promptly fainted. His parrot flew off into the rafters, not to be heard from for the remainder of the night.
“We must also acknowledge our sponsors: the merchants and proponents of Budehuc Castle, who have sustained not only the castle denizens, but our army and its cause. Through every seemingly pointless recruitment effort, every treasure hunt and acquisition, and every mission to Mount Hei-Tou that seems to end only in crabs, this castle and its businesses have supported us and here, we thank them. We must also give especial thanks to Martha’s Lottery and Sebastian’s Save Point, without which funding this extravaganza would not have been possible.”
The applause for the sponsors, this being Budehuc, was especially fervent.
“And now, without further ado, I present to you the first of our entrants: a darling young Zexen lady we all know and love, the beautiful Borborella.”
The competitor who sung the first line of the group song emerged from the wings, wearing a bustled, ruffled dress that was short in the front and long in the back and carrying a shepherdess’s crook. Her hair was a torrent of golden ringlets and bows under a peaked cap, and her cheeks were rosy with what was probably supposed to be innocence but looked a great deal more like embarrassment. Aside from her face, which was round and shapely like a young girl’s, she looked altogether too old for this sort of girlish costume -- especially, Hugo thought, her obviously masculine legs.
But before Hugo could remark on this any further, Borborella nodded to the minstrels, and began to sing, in a clear piping treble voice that was both tuneful and eerily cute.
“Sweet Sadie,” Lady Chris muttered, seated by the windows. “That’s Borus.”
Those near enough to Chris snickered and gasped, but Leo asked, “Damn. How can you tell?”
“We were in the church choir together when we were children,” she said.
“You were in a choir?”
“I’d prefer not to talk about it,” she said, with the kind of tone that assured the matter was closed.
Borborella, undaunted, continued to sing about tragically lost sheep.
***
“He still has man-calves,” Percival said, watching from the wings.
Sasarai tittered. “I’m not complaining. Are you?”
***
With every high note Borborella sang, the audience creaked up from snickers to outright laughter. By this point, Borborella’s red flush had sweat through several layers of makeup and contouring, and on the last trilled note (which happened to fall on the word sheep) she cracked like a teenage boy.
Hugo had a much better understanding of what this entertainment was supposed to be about. And, frankly, the image of Borus Redrum in a shepherdess’s dress seared into his mind was a small price to pay for, well, the experience of everyone in the Fire Bringer laughing their hindquarters off.
Borborella’s curtsy was awkward but well-rehearsed, and if she seemed to stomp offstage, it was easily dismissed as all part of the show.
“The beautiful Borborella,” Nadir said once again with a sweeping gesture as he ushered her off. “Judges, take your time scoring. We will also give you time to deliberate when the show is done. And now, our next competitor, the Red Rose of Vinay del Zexay, the indefatigable Augustine!”
“This should be good,” Caesar whispered at Hugo as he shuffled to the next scorecard.
Hugo wasn’t so sure.
The spotlight came down on the stage, and Augustine...didn’t look any different than usual, really.
***
Borborella was far too much of a lady to punch the nearest wall. She thudded the butt of her crook into the floor instead.
“Damn!” Borus hissed through his teeth. There was a twinge of lipstick on them.
“What?” Percival asked, tenderly combing a snarl out of his long wig. “They thought you were a riot. I was about ready to concede defeat.”
“That’s just it!” Borus despaired and leaned his forehead onto the vanity mirror. “I’m such a failure. It wasn’t supposed to be funny at all!”
The music of Augustine’s routine drifted back to a silent, frozen dressing room.
“It wasn’t,” Borus said, the very picture of petulance.
Almost in unison, everyone else just gave up and resumed preparing their makeup and costumes.
***
“Let’s have a hand for Augustine,” Nadir said as the spotlight swept back to him from the still-vaguely-magenta stage, covered in petals.
Hugo and the other judges applauded about as politely as the rest of the audience (except Cecile).
Caesar scribbled a few Xs on his card. “That was surprisingly lukewarm.”
“Maybe he should have shaved,” Thomas agreed.
Jeane giggled to herself at the other end of the table.
“Now,” Nadir went on, “here’s an act I’m sure very few of you have seen before. From the glittering soul of the Grasslands, performing a traditional fertility dance of her tribe, here comes the fine, full-feathered Wingy Spann!”
Aside from the lack of clothing (except for a beaded cloth) Joe didn’t look much different either.
There was, however, no denying that Wingy Spann was an extremely talented dancer.
To the tune of a song Hugo (and several other Grasslanders) recognized as uniquely Duck, Wingy Spann flapped and strutted around the stage, shaking her tail-feathers (which did seem fluffier than usual for Joe) and jingling with bells and beads. In the back of the room, Rhett and Wilder flap-clapped along with the music, and others took their cue for appropriateness from that. Wingy Spann, however, seemed in deep concentration, and finished with a flourish of her cloth.
She was met with applause, and curled her neck, batting her eyes. The Ducks in the audience went wild, of course, but Thomas stood up from the Judge’s Table and cleared his throat.
“Um, Mister Sergeant, sir,” he said, gradually increasing in sufficient volume to be heard over the crowd, “could you please tell us some of the, um, techniques you used? So we can get a better idea -- I mean, so we can assess your, um, transformation better?”
Wingy Spann nodded politely and, with a much richer quack than Joe usually used, explained, “I’ve balanced out my tail-feathers to obscure the drake feather, which meant adding several new ones. They’re held on with a sugar paste. And furthermore, I’ve matted down, but haven’t removed, a great many feathers at the nape of my neck, which mature females typically lack after mating.”
It took Hugo a moment to process that statement. Once he did, though, it was entirely too much information.
“Thank you, Sergeant -- I mean Wingy! Miss Spann,” Thomas said. “I understand a little better now.” Thomas had probably come to the same conclusion, if the blush on his cheeks was any indication.
Jeane giggled.
“Thank you, Wingy Spann!” Nadir bowed and applauded. “And now, from parts unknown and circumstances untold, the lithe, lovely Jacquea!”
In complete silence, Jacquea stepped onto the stage. She wore a tight vest with a well-appointed bosom, a brown wig in a long braid, and one of Queen’s spare fringed skirts, and carried an enormous crossbow. Hugo quickly gave her a few good marks for effort at transformation, since she looked like a plausible, if unremarkable, woman.
Then Jacquea proceeded to Boronda Hawk Rune the back wall of the tavern.
Since that meant the crossbow bolts thudded directly over the heads of the Twelfth and Thirteenth SFDF units, this also forestalled some of the more inevitable applause.
“Nadir said to do something only I can do,” Jacquea said. Then, he left.
Instead of Cecile, Aila was the first to burst into applause. Joker gave her a bit of a sideward glance, but she scrunched up her nose at him.
“I liked it,” she said, took another slurp of soda, and applauded even more loudly until Geddoe, Cecile, and eventually a few others joined in.
Hugo still didn’t give Jacques very high marks.
Nadir quickly took the stage again. “The lovely Jacquea! And now, another Easterner with quite the story to tell, the precocious, plucky Pyrrhik Viktoria!”
Hugo recognized the young, round-faced and red-haired woman as the enthusiastic but not-too-talented singer from the opening number. He also immediately recognized her as Edge, because no matter how many frilly blue hairbows you put on the Star Dragon Sword, it’s still the Star Dragon Sword.
“Hi everyone!” Pyrrhik Viktoria chirped in an obvious falsetto. Hugo didn’t know what she’d stuffed her bosom with, but it squeaked audibly. “I’m here with my special friend, Flikerina, and we --”
“This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever been subjected to, in all my years!” the sword shouted. “Onstage, he said. Just a little show to cheer the army up, he said. He said nothing whatsoever about wigs and decals and getting flakes of eyeshadow in my immaculate polishing job.”
Pyrrhik Viktoria stood a little off to the side and drank a long sip of something that probably wasn’t water. Or juice. Or any of the things Anne offered to underage patrons at the tavern.
“But that would imply that I get polished at all. Oh, no, it’s more important to truss me up and parade me around onstage like one of General Oppenheimer’s prized azaleapoodles.” The sword glowered, if it’s possible for a sword to glower. “You’re worse than the Bear.”
“Aw, really?” Pyrrhik Viktora pouted dramatically. “I think I’m much cuter.”
In the audience, Futch groaned and hung his forehead in his hands.
Sharon elbowed him. “Too much to drink?”
“No,” Futch said. “Just picturing Humphrey in pigtails.”
Onstage, the sword went on, “You think you’re cute? Ha! You big dummy.”
“You’re the dummy, Flikerina.”
“No, you are! You’re as dumb as a rock golem with Silence cast on it!”
Hugo leaned over to Caesar and whispered, “What’s his talent supposed to be?”
“Ventriloquism, I think,” Caesar said. “But I’m not sure if counts if the dummy can actually talk.”
Onstage, the sword bristled (sort of) and scowled. “I heard that, you little Silverberg punk! Come up here and say it to my face! I bet the only swords you’ve ever gotten close enough to look at are between Hikusaak’s le--”
“Golly gee! There’s a Harmonian Bishop backstage, Flikerina! Don’t get us disqualified,” Pyrrhik Viktoria hissed.
The audience, including Caesar, however, found that joke appropriately scandalous.
***
Backstage, Sasarai watched with some amusement.
“Should I bother?” Nash asked beside him, still not quite in full costume.
Sasarai laughed. “Certainly not! We wouldn’t want to give him any ideas, would we?”
Nash smirked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, I have to have good humor about such things. After all, I’m a guest in this army.” He flashed a bright, no-nonsense smile. “Besides, I’m sure my father would enjoy it.”
“Head from a Silverberg?” Nash snorted. “Ha. They suck in bed.”
***
“-- and that’s all I have to say about certain ‘historical plays’ about Neclord,” the sword concluded.
Hugo marked on his scorecard that a lot of these Toran and Dunan jokes went over his head.
Onstage, Pyrrhik Viktoria finished drinking whatever was in that glass, and accepted her last round of applause with a sloppy curtsy as the Star Dragon Sword caught its breath (such as it had).
“Let’s hear it for Pyrrhik Viktoria!” Nadir said, once the spotlight was on him again. For some reason unknown to Hugo, Nadir was now wearing a red-lined black cloak with a high collar. “You know, I witnessed a vampire fight once, but I didn’t have much of a stake in the outcome.”
Shabon provided a rimshot.
“But enough about that,” Nadir said, “let us proceed to our next act. May I introduce, a local girl just trying to make her way in the world: from the nearby village of Iksay, Lady Anna Notfellow.”
Now this was a joke that Hugo was sure everyone in the Fire Bringer would get.
Unfortunately, the man onstage dressed in Lady Chris’s armor wasn’t doing a very good job of it. Sure, he had all the hallmarks of the Silver Maiden: her white braids, the correct ironhead armor, and the air of utter dryness that would put Caleria to shame. On the other hand, Lady Anna Notfellow was rather clearly a fellow.
And Lady Chris would probably never do a Zexen peasant dance in full plate.
“Louis,” Lady Chris said through her hands covering her face.
“Yes, my Lady?”
“Did you know why Percival requested my armor?”
“No, my Lady. I swear! If I’d known it was for this, I wouldn’t have let him.”
Chris doubled over in her seat, as if down to a quarter of her constitution.
Salome leaned over. “Shall I institute disciplinary action?”
“No,” Chris whispered. “No, that’ll just make it worse. We have a war to fight.”
“I don’t think he’s half bad,” Leo said.
While none of the Zexen Knights in the audience were the type to elbow Leo in the ribs (possibly for fear of injuring their elbows), Salome was sorely tempted.
***
“He wasn’t convincing at all,” Borus said. From the wings, he watched Lady Anna Notfellow strike her final, exuberant pose, and sneered. The expression suited his still-mostly-made-up face rather well.
Bazba, waiting to go on next, tilted his head. “I don’t know about that. He has me fooled.”
“You don’t know Lady Chris as well as I do.”
“And I don’t care to. Human women hold no attraction for me. I only mean to say that the resemblance is uncanny.”
Borus, perhaps wisely, held his tongue on matters of subtle cultural perceptions. Besides, Lady Anna Notfellow was making her way off the stage, and she passed by Borus with a twinkle in her decidedly-not-lavender eyes.
“Man-calves,” Percival said.
Borus went after him with the shepherdess’s crook.
***
Hugo gave Percival high marks anyway.
Nadir took his place again. “Thank you, Lady Anna Notfellow. Now, this next act requires some explanation, and a warning to audience members in the front row. There will be live steel and live flame in this next act. No, that’s not a joke. While we do have water rune bearers standing by, I must caution those of you sitting this close to the stage against coming any nearer. If you would like to take your time to move during this interval, it would be much appreciated. There. Good. Now that that’s dealt with, let us proceed: gracing us from Great Hollow, the fearless Waggi!”
Hugo was not in the least bit surprised to see Bazba, covered in Lizard warpaint and jewels, walk out onto the stage with a gride that was on fire.
Bazba, or rather Waggi, then proceeded to dance with the flaming polearm in an impressive display of dexterity and courage.
The audience was dead silent throughout aside from a few gasps after impressive twists and stunts. Waggi swung her weapon about in arcs of flame that nearly caught the curtains, and sent sparks up off the stage floor when she flourished. By the time it was over, and she put the fire out with a gusty roar, Hugo was certain that this evening had not been wasted, men in dresses or no men in dresses, because Hugo now had a much better idea of what fun was.
Caesar, however, was much less impressed, and mad this known after a round of fervent, if startled applause. “Bazba,” Caesar said, “that was really great, but where’s the drag?”
“Excuse me?” Bazba said.
Caesar waved his hands, apparently unconcerned that there was an armed Lizard standing not fifteen feet from him, who had just danced with an open flame like it was nothing but a straw broom. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure you put a lot of work into it -- I just want to know where the girl parts are.”
“How dare you!” Dupa roared from the middle of the audience. “That was one of the most feminine displays I’ve ever seen!”
“Yeah, because you know what to look for,” Caesar said, only turning briefly to acknowledge Dupa. “I don’t. Now, if this were just a talent competition I’d score you off the charts, but it’s a drag show, and I’d be much better equipped to score Bazba if I knew more about female lizards.”
Dupa started to shove himself out into the aisle. “Why you little --”
“Peggi can explain that!” Peggi shouted from her place at the bar.
“Oh,” said Caesar. “That...does explain things, actually.”
Once again, Jeane giggled and drew hearts all over her scorecard.
The crisis now resolved, Hugo saw to his own scores. He gave Bazba high marks for talent, but he had to admit that the criteria of this contest were more than a little skewed in favor of a certain kind of performer, and whatever else that certain kind of performer was, it wasn’t Lizard.
“Let’s have one last hand for Waggi,” Nadir said. “And now, it has been explained to me that this next act needs no introduction. So, without any ado whatsoever, I give you Thierra McPain!”
A delicate (if overtall), extremely pale woman emerged from the wings, wrapped in a pleated white dress and loose blue cloak, revealing thin, shapely legs. For a moment, Hugo thought this would be another Lady Chris -- this woman had silver hair as well -- but once Thierra McPain opened her mouth to speak she dispelled that particular notion.
“Hello everyone,” she said, sounding almost frighteningly bored, like Yuber. “I’m Thierra, just some old hag from the south. I’m arrogant, never keep promises, insist on being carried everywhere on the backs of strapping young men, and suck their blood at the first available chance.”
Hugo leaned over to Caesar and whispered, “Is that Nash?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s his talent supposed to be?”
Everyone vaguely connected to the Dunan region answered, “Impersonation.”
Onstage, Thierra winked and gave a tight, malicious laugh. “That’s right. And it’s good of you to educate yourself on such things. You never know when you might find yourself in a vampire’s embrace, you know. But I only turn the ones I like, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“That is disturbingly accurate,” Futch said.
“That is disturbingly attractive,” Lucia said.
“-- Mom!” Hugo tinged all the way to his hackles. “Yuck.”
Thierra went on, twirling a long lock of silver hair in her fingers. “Yes, I’m a vampire. The vampire. The oldest vampire in the world -- not that I look it, right everybody?”
A few people in the audience said “Right.”
Clearly, it wasn’t enough for Thierra’s taste. Her eyes flashed red. “I said right?”
“Right!”
“Much better,” she sighed. “Oh, but even though I don’t look my age at all, my husband’s run out on me! That dashing, bumbling ingrate is gallivanting around your quaint little country with a younger, burlier, less-pretty version of me.” Thierra shot the sort of glare at Lady Chris that Hugo had been wanting to shoot her for months now.
Chris must have taken this long to realize it was Nash up there.
“Go right ahead!” Thierra said cheerfully. “You can have him. I’m in the market for some new blood anyway.” She licked her chops.
Hugo didn’t believe her for a second. Neither did Chris.
“So,” Thierra began, “which one of you big, strong northerners is going to carry me home tonight?”
Not even Mua or Hallec stepped up to the offer.
***
“That’s exactly what I mean, Dios,” Sasarai said, backstage as before, and observing the onstage proceedings with some enthusiasm. “You should have that sort of a sense of humor.”
Dios scrunched up his nose. “I fail to see the appeal.”
“Look at him, Dios. Why, he’s put his reputation on the line.”
“I didn’t think he had a reputation to speak of.”
“Psh. Everyone here knows he works for me. And I only employ people of quality.”
Onstage, Thierra McPain attempted to drape herself across Leo Gallen’s back and remarked most sordidly upon the feel of breastplate against her thighs.
“Quality,” Dios repeated.
“Quality,” Sasarai insisted. “I’m sure his wife will be endlessly amused.”
***
Leo Gallen intensely regretted his Firefly Rune.
“Stop complaining,” Thierra whined, “I’m as light as a Duck’s neck-feather. And I’d know, I just helped Wingy pluck hers.”
That statement sounded a lot dirtier than it was. The image crossing Hugo’s mind looked exactly as dirty as it was, though.
“C’mon, put your back into it, you big brute.” Thierra pounded her fists on Leo’s armor. “Aren’t you ironheads supposed to be dauntless? A little old thing like me isn’t supposed to daunt you.”
Leo grunted and struggled to keep Thierra on his back. “That’s just what your husband said.”
In the audience, Lady Chris turned a brilliant shade of scarlet.
Eventually, and with further admonitions about Leo’s strength, character, and masculinity, Thierra drove him offstage like an ungainly horse. By the time Hugo realized that this was the end of the act, the audience had erupted into applause.
“Now that’s how drag’s supposed to work,” Caesar said.
“I don’t know,” Thomas said. “What if his wife finds out?”
“Nah, she’s not half bad. I mean, she’s a friend of my grandfather’s. I bet she’ll get a huge kick out of it.”
Thomas glanced over his shoulder at the remaining Zexen Knights. “Maybe Mister Nash is the one who’ll get kicked.”
Hugo agreed, at least on the level of Nash’s transformation. And maybe it had been a little mean-spirited, but Thierra was funny, and she’d made fun of the ironheads, and she’d made Lady Chris uncomfortable, so Hugo didn’t see any cause to complain.
***
As he took a long pull of beer in the back of the audience, Geddoe wondered why they hadn’t tried this to boost morale fifty years ago.
He proceeded to imagine the Flame Champion in a dress.
He proceeded to imagine Wyatt Lightfellow in a dress.
He took another long pull of beer.
***
Backstage, Leo deposited Thierra on a pile of flats from For the Love of the Empire. The flats miraculously declined to break, possibly owing to the presence of a Bishop nearby.
“That was genteel of you,” Nash said.
“Psh,” Leo said. “I’m feeling sporting.”
“Any reason?”
“Just won a bet.” Leo brushed off his armor. “Borus definitely has manlier legs than Percy.”
“He does at that,” Nash agreed. There was, apparently, something of a commotion onstage, and he leaned over to glance around Leo. “Who’s on now?”
“Fifty-two Pickmeup,” Leo said, and shrugged. “Weird name.”
***
Onstage, Ace posed melodramatically, hands in a vague approximation of one of the five classical positions of female distress.
“Erk in danger!” he recited.
***
Joker, laughing, fell clean off his barstool.
His beer splashed all over Elaine’s cleavage.
Nobody seemed to notice.
***
Ace, or rather, Fifty-Two Pickmeup, wore an unflattering and extremely revealing white gauze gown that she might have borrowed from Jeane, and what could only be described as romance novel hair. The drape of her costume flapped as Fifty-Two Pickmeup continued to pose, regaling the audience in a booming voice that showed no evidence of transformation whatsoever.
“Erk was stuck in a hole for the fourth time,” Fifty-Two Pickmeup said. “This time, it was not hot water that was poured on him, but cold! Icy cold!” She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, crouched in the spotlight. “’Blast! I’m done for!’ His skin became blue. He thought he would die. Erk in danger!”
Hugo thought this was supposed to be a serious dramatic reading. Ace -- Fifty-two Pickmeup -- certainly looked...theatrical. It was hard to tell over the raucous laughter from the mercenaries in the back of the house.
“But no!” Fifty-Two Pickmeup sprang up (things jiggled) and assumed a pose of heroism, arms curled to show off their muscle like the statues in the Budehuc gallery. “Suddenly fire melted the ice! Erk was spared from the fire. The rain turned to steam! At the top of the hole, a man appeared. ‘I am the Flame Champion!’”
Hugo understood some of what Lady Chris had gone through twice tonight so far.
“The Flame Champion pulled Erk out of the hole. ‘Join my army.’ Erk saved!”
It was somewhat difficult for the applause to start, seeing as the entire back of the house was already laughing (yes, even Geddoe cracked a smile).
***
“Why do we keep employing these people?” Dios asked.
“Because he’s a very good accountant,” Sasarai said.
***
“The dramatic stylings of Fifty-Two Pickmeup,” Nadir said, his mask impassive though his tone was a little shaky. “And now, for our final act of the evening: hailing from Toran in the pursuit of justice and good, the inspiring Lady Ismene Maximillian.”
The lights dimmed, then rose, and standing center stage was the most beautiful woman Hugo had ever laid eyes on.
She had fine black hair in a feathery cut, armor forged close to pronounced curves, bare legs that looked both strong and streamlined, and she looked altogether like she could take anyone in the castle in a fight without breaking a sweat. Hugo thought he’d like to see her sweat. Or maybe make her sweat. And his mind drifted to the pattern of thoughts common to sexually interested teenage boys, scorecard and stage forgotten, as he envisioned himself and Lady Ismene sparring until they were both sweaty and steam was rising from his right hand --
“Damn, Fred makes a hot girl,” Caesar said.
It was suddenly very, very cold in Hugo’s seat.
Lady Ismene -- Fred, Hugo chanted in his head, Fred, Fred, Fred -- went through elegant sword and shield drills, displaying her strength and the beauty that overlaid it with martial grace. Her hair whipped with the force of her swings, as if each strand could spur or stall her blade. A good portion of the audience was as dead silent through her turn as they’d been through Bazba’s, perhaps because some of them were also thinking what Hugo was trying not to think. (And, since the majority of the audience was human or had human inclinations, it’s possible that an entirely Grasslander audience would have felt the same for Bazba, but that is neither here nor there.)
“That is supremely unfair,” Iku sighed. “He’s far too pretty to be real.”
Franz muttered something about maybe trying on a dress for Iku’s benefit.
Lady Ismene grunted, and stabbed her sword into the stage with such force that it stood upright when she lifted her gauntlet off the hilt. “Thus ends evil!” she hollered, in a strikingly female voice. “Let righteous beauty triumph over fear!”
Hugo had to slap himself across the face several times to remind himself: Fred. Fred. Fred.
To thunderous applause, Lady Ismene pried her sword out of the floorboards, saluted, and left the stage.
Hugo experienced a great deal of difficulty holding his pen.
***
“Master Fred!” Rico cheered, throwing her arms around Lady Ismene almost as soon as she was in the wings. “Master Fred, you were amazing!”
“Thanks, Rico.” Fred smiled and adjusted one of the straps over his things. “Aunt Isabel’s armor sure came in handy!”
***
Before Hugo could slip into a further stupor with regard to his sudden apparent attraction to Fred Maximilian, whom he’d previously found rather annoying and unremarkable, Caesar leaned over and elbowed him in the ribs.
“I think that’s the last of them,” Caesar said. “That’s ten.”
Hugo distracted himself from uncomfortable thoughts of Lady Ismene -- FRED -- by counting the entries. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Not a bad way to spend an evening,” Jeane said, making a few more marks on her last scorecard.
“Everyone seemed to enjoy the show,” Thomas agreed, though he also seemed a bit uncertain. Hugo wondered if there was any way to breach the subject of Fred Maximilian’s attractiveness without admitting to it.
The spotlight flickered one final time onto Nadir at his corner of the stage. “That concludes our Stars of Dragstiny showcase,” Nadir began. “Now, while the judges go backstage and deliberate --”
A flash of white light savaged through the theater, and Leknaat descended from the rafters.
She was a vision in flowing robes, the mark of the Back Gate Rune like a smoldering coal on her forehead. Her hair fanned behind her in a torrent of wind.
“I am Leknaat, Keeper of Balance,” she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper and yet piercing through the minds of all assembled. “And I am here to tell you you’re all a bunch of bitches.”
An eerie stillness swept through the rest of the theater, though the stage was awash in wind.
“Give it up, Hugo of Karaya,” Leknaat said, utterly sedate and deadpan. “You’re a patsy who needs a gryphon between his legs to kill a plains boar. Your Fire magic stats are shit. And you’re fate’s favorite chewtoy since Tir McDohl, except scrawnier.”
Hugo pounded the judge’s table. “Come down here and say that to my face!”
“I would, but even then I don’t think I could sink that low.”
To Hugo’s ire, the audience laughed.
“Have fun getting carded for the rest of your eternal life,” Leknaat said, almost cheerfully. “That is, if you manage to defeat Luc at the Ceremonial Site at all.”
“We will defeat him!” Cecile yelled, jabbing the butt of her halberd into the floor. “Just you wait and see, you mean old lady!”
“Yeah!” Muto yelled. “We’re gonna win!”
“No one can defeat our Flame Champion!” Wilder quacked, and Rhett chimed in with a “You said it. Get off the stage!”
The chorus of indignation rose and rose, until Cecile started everyone shouting “Budehuc! Budehuc! Hugo! Hugo!” Onstage, Leknaat’s lower lip quivered, and the wind around her strengthened until eyes opened and her wig fell off.
“-- Your Eminence?” Thomas dropped his pen.
Leknaat did, in fact, appear to be Bishop Sasarai.
The cheering slowed, then stopped entirely.
“Surprise?” the now-wigless Leknaat said.
It was by now so quiet that Caesar’s laughter rang out like an avalanche.
‘Leknaat’ basked in the resounding applause that soon filled the tavern, hugging herself in the pooled robes. By the time she teleported away, a red flush across that fetching girlish face, the entirety of Budehuc Castle was cheering. Even Jefferson, assigning inane titles somewhere in the corner, was forced to admit that morale had never been so high.
***
Sometime later, the judges gathered in the statue gallery.
Caesar drummed his heels on the empty pedestal he sat atop. “Have we reached our decision?”
“I think so?” Thomas said.
“Tee-hee,” Jeane said.
“Can this please be over with?” Hugo said.
Caesar groaned and flung out his arms, nearly toppling off the pedestal. “How about making this feel a little less like a hung jury?”
“You’re the one from the Republic of Toran,” Hugo said.
“Fine, Flame Champion. You’re the boss. Who do you think should win?”
***
All ten performers stood in a leg-flashing line upstage, with varying degrees of confidence on the matter. Borborina and Lady Anna Notfellow snuck glances at one another through their smudged makeup. Fifty-Two Pickmeup adjusted her undergarments through her clothes. Thierra McPain pursed her lips and mouthed what could only be obscenities in the general direction of the Zexen Knights in the audience. Jacquea shuffled her heels, and Lady Ismene fiddled with her sword, and Pyrrhik Viktoria scolded her sword for not keeping its bows on.
“Now?” Hugo asked.
“Now,” Nadir said, and escorted the judges onto the stage. “Thank you all so much for waiting!” he pronounced to the audience. “The results are in!” He yielded the stage to Jeane.
Jeane endured a few wolf-whistles, and shuffled her shoulders, which of course caused other matters to jiggle. “I have a special consolation prize for my favorite competitor. She brought back some beautiful memories, tee-hee! And she put a lot on the line. The winner of an Honorable Mention, and a free armor refit at Dominic’s -- and I think she’s going need it,” she giggled: “Thierra McPain!”
Still the perfect picture of righteous vampiric haughtiness, Theirra came forward, kissed Jeane on both cheeks (to the envy of most of the audience), and accepted a voucher, which she also kissed, then blew on as if to send her kiss soaring out over the audience in some sort of unite attack.
“In third place,” Thomas said, “um. Her act was exciting and educational too, and I think we all felt a little stronger after watching her. The, er, winner of a Rage Rune and a free attachment at Jeane’s, is Waggi!”
With a triumphant roar, Waggi raised her gride and accepted the voucher for her prize.
Caesar spoke next. “So, I guess it’s fitting that I present the next one, seeing as, like me, she came from somewhere far away and shook things up like you wouldn’t believe. I think I speak for everyone in this castle when I say -- Lady Ismene Maximilian, we didn’t know you had it in you!”
Lady Ismene flushed beet red, staggered forward, and clapped her hands over the golden eagle on her breasts.
“Come on down, Lady Ismene! Second place, which means you’re the winner of a weapon upgrade at Peggi’s, gratis, and after what you showed us today we’re sure it’ll be useful!” Caesar stood on his tiptoes and gave Fred a quick peck on the lips. “Great job.”
(It is possible that Sanae, Belle, and Mel fainted in the audience. It is also possible that Hugo now had a few more things to try not to think about.)
“Your turn,” Caesar said, and yielded Hugo the stage.
“This was a tough decision,” Hugo began, much more comfortable addressing crowds than, well, thinking about Lady Ismene. “For one thing, this wasn’t a conventional entry, and for another, it might be an unpopular decision. But I thought about the reasons we decided to have this contest in the first place. It’s not just about the transformation and the innovation and all that: it’s about bringing us closer as a fighting force, and boosting morale, and I think we can all agree that there was one act that stood out to us all as far as morale goes. And I want to honor that, because as leader of the Fire Bringer, I want to give all credit and respect to our soldiers and commanders who put themselves forward, regardless of their station or their homeland, to show that they’re part of this army and with us until the end. So: in first place, winner of a grand lottery prize of one hundred thousand potch:” Hugo took a deep breath. “Bishop Sasarai of Harmonia, as Lady Leknaat!”
It turned out not to be an unpopular decision at all. Even the remaining contestants onstage applauded and cheered, and everyone sought out whatever entrance Sasarai could emerge from.
After moment, the Bishop did come in from backstage -- but he wasn’t in costume at all.
“Thank you all very much for the honor,” he said. “But that wasn’t me.”
Everyone froze.
“...Cecile,” Martha asked, “if you’re here, who’s on watch tonight?”
“Juan,” she said, in a small voice.
Now that no one was clapping or cheering at all, the sound of Juan’s easy snoring wafted through the tavern windows.
“Well, fuck,” Duke said.
***
Meanwhile, at Mount Hei-Tou:
“I thought we were supposed to demoralize them,” Yuber said. “This is stupid.”
“Hush,” Sarah said, smearing cold cream all over Luc’s face to get the makeup off. “Master Luc just wanted to feel pretty.”
Luc groaned and submitted himself to Sarah’s ministrations.
“Pathetic,” Yuber said, flicking his swords in and out of existence. “I didn’t even get to kill anyone. What the hell was that, anyway?”
“One of my brother’s cockandable ideas to boost morale,” Albert said. “But their contouring was horrible, the acts were uninspired, and not a single one of those men knew the proper way to tuck.”
Everyone turned to stare at Albert.
“Except maybe Nash,” he scoffed. “Amateurs.”
“What’s tuck?” Yuber asked.
There were some things, Albert decided, that Yuber was not meant to know.
***
.