Bittercup flinched back as Shin’s hands slammed down onto the table, incredulity fighting against outrage in the kobold’s voice. “So we’ve got no idea how many of the Red Player’s we’ve dealt with might have already come back?” His fingers curled against the council table, claws scraping at the wood. “How did we possibly miss this?!”

Hilde took a moment to respond, harried as she was by the stream of Banken pouring in and out of the council chambers to give and receive hastily scrawled reports. “Well,” she started, a faint vein of irritation shimmering in her tone at the Schemer’s demanding words, “They all look exactly the same. That makes identification a bit, to use the industry term, iffy.”

“It’s the smell that really got us,” Gero declared, thunking her finger down with authority. “Every one of the bastards is masking their scent with perfumes or musk or whatever they’ve got.” She snorted out a breath of annoyance. “Pretty good way to fool Enhanced Senses.”

“It’s smart,” Hilde begrudgingly admitted. “And suspiciously organized. As far as we can tell, they’re all doing it. I still don’t know how Glandem could be the one herding all these Red Players, but it seems clear that someone is.”

“Mm.” Momo drummed her fingers across the tabletop, disquiet plain on her face. “We might not have ever noticed if those collars hadn’t happened to be enchanted with Keep Clean. We were lucky.”

“Yes, yes we were.” Shin’s teeth clacked sharply as he collapsed back in his chair. “We were very lucky. We cannot rely on getting this lucky ever again.” He shot up once again, buzzing with tense energy as he leaned over the table . “So a Red Player can die in Shinki Itten today, and be back here tormenting us tomorrow. That is known, that is a fact. If we want to stop that, first we need to figure out how. How are they doing it?” His eyes circled the tabling, seeking out those of his fellow council members. “Does anybody know? Does anybody have a guess?”

And then, to Bittercup’s chagrin, the kobold’s insistent gaze fell upon her. “What about you, Bittercup? You’ve had to deal with more Red Players than any of us. Is there some trick of the trade they might be using?”

Oh blah. The elf attempted to burrow even further into her cloak’s hood as thirteen sets of eyes focused on her. She began to fumble for some sort of deflection, for some halfway plausible effort at hand waving the possibility she might have any insight worth sharing.

But Shin was staring now, and Bittercup simply couldn’t avoid saying it for a second longer. “...Okay, seriously, are you just going to stay like that?”

The Schemer tilted his head. “Stay like what?”

Bittercup tsked at the man’s false display of confusion, but when he only tilted his head even further the elf boggled at him. “Shin, your entire face is still covered in blood.”

Silence filled the council room as Shin waited for Bittercup to give voice to the rest of her objection. “......Go on?”

“That’s, that’s it! There’s no ‘go on’!” Bittercup sputtered. “I seriously need more of a complaint than that?!”

The hobgoblin council members had the decency to look a bit embarrassed at the confusion of their elvish concerns, but the kobolds were baffled to a one. “I don’t get it,” Gero rumbled. “How does grooming matter right now?”

Fuckin’ for real?!

But the other kobolds seemed to implicitly agree, and even the hobgoblins were lukewarm at best. Bittercup looked imploringly to Shita, hoping the reliably level-headed blacksmith would see the problem with someone trying to run a city council meeting while caked in the life-blood of an enemy.

But instead of respite, Bittercup only received a deeply unconcerned shrug. ‘What’s wrong with a little throat-blood among friends?’ it seemed to say. ‘You’re the weird one’.

“It’s an emergency meeting,” Momo offered, clearly attempting to placate Bittercup despite just as clearly not understanding her issue. “So maybe a few of us had to skip a bit of personal hygiene in light of the–”

“Personal hygiene?!” The Wild Son growled in annoyance. “You city people are so backwards. Chewing out your first throat is a rite of passage.” He beamed at Shin with something uncomfortably close to approval before shooting Bittercup an annoyed look. “In the woods, where dogs know what’s right and what’s shit, a pup’ll leave their first paint on until it’s crumbled and black and disgusting.”

“Barf,” Bittercup intoned. “I hate that I can’t ever un-know that about kobolds.”

The Wild Son sneered. “Sorry that our sacred traditions aren’t housebroken enough for you, lap dog.”

Momo clucked her tongue. “Don’t be rude.” She drew herself up, expanding her attention beyond the abruptly contrite Wild Son to include the rest of the table. “Bittercup has been an important ally and good friend to us all. And if a little thing like this makes her uncomfortable, I see no reason why we can’t accommodate her. Right?”

Making an effort to make sure one had cleaned all the viscera off of their face was a ‘little thing’ in Shinki Itten, apparently. Splendid.

All the same the Wild Son seemed apologetic, his tail wriggling low and chastened. “Um, right.” His tail perked back up as a thought occurred to him, leaning forward to address Shin. ”Do you have a mate? You should see if they’ll lick it clean for you. Very intimate. Very romantic.”

Gero coughed into her fist before Shin could respond, eyes averted as she grumbled. “That’s, um, really old-fashioned, I don’t, I don’t think anyone really-”

The screech of Bittercup’s chair scraping backwards cut through Gero’s stammered response as the elf stood up. “Okay, well. Great meeting, gang.”

Shin stood as well as the woman slipped away from her spot at the council table, readjusting her cloak as she made for the exit. “Bittercup, we really do need to figure out–”

“Yes yes, Players are coming to kill us and that sucks. Story of my life. I’ll be in my room.”

“I just think that if we all put our heads together we could–”

The elf paused in the room’s threshold long enough to lob a final rejoinder over her shoulder. “Generally speaking, I try not to put my head together with one that’s covered in gore. Sort of a personal rule; I’m just fussy like that, you know? But I guess it works for all of you, so by all means don’t let me interrupt.”

Bittercup was already halfway down the hall before Shin’s response could reach her, muffled to obscurity by her tightly drawn hood and the blood thumping in her ears.

Maniacs. These dog people were all maniacs.

Okay, sure, the elf was more than willing to admit it: the situation with the Red Players was bad. She knew better than most how dangerous the monsters from beyond Magica could be, how their shameless self-indulgence and relentless pursuit of petty grievance devoured innocent lives whole. Against creatures such as that, the only hope was that eventually, they would get bored.

That eventually, they’d find some easier target.

So the idea that bedeviling Shinki Itten was actually convenient for Red Players sent shivers down her spine. But she just couldn’t focus on that problem, as dire as it may be. Because Bittercup had a problem of her own.

The elf slipped into her room, making certain that the door was securely shut behind her before turning to face the dreaded mirror propped up beside her washing basin. Bittercup winced, hesitating for just a moment longer, and then threw back her hood to confirm what she already knew. It had finally happened.

She was no longer an Oaken Elf.

Bittercup grimaced at her reflection, taking in the undeniable truth. She once presented with short, sharply angled ears, very nearly perfect triangles.

Proper Quercus Ears, her mother would approvingly call them. The only proper thing about you, Lothnaena.

Now? Now her ears were indulgently long, brazenly drooping with a wanton little wobble.

You’ve got the ears of a tramp, her mother would sniff. Yavanna, the Goddess of Filial Piety, is going to send your grandmother’s soul straight to Hell.

The elf’s frown deepened as she watched her ears fold downwards in her reflection, a near-perfect imitation of one of a kobold’s expressive non-verbal tics. How had this happened? Bittercup had been so careful about keeping these people at arms’ length. Sure, she liked them well enough. She’d go so far as to say she was friends with a few of them.

Maybe more than a few.

Close friends, perhaps. Maybe more like–

She shook that thought away. No Bittercup, blah. Remember: Arms’ Length.

The city itself, then! Hadn’t she done her best to stick to her little room, to avoid any attachments? Her occasional strolls through Shinki Itten’s gardens weren’t enough to form a permanent bond, surely. Quercus had gardens! Great ones!

Well, okay, fine: decent gardens.

Decent-ish.

Yes, it was always raining. Yes, they were infested with woodlice the size of house cats. Yes, they were filled to the brim with leering Oaken Elf nobles, shooting her looks that were simultaneously scornful and lascivious. But the gardens themselves were…

…ugh, fine. They were bad gardens. Whatever.

Bittercup heaved a sigh, the semi-familiar elf in the mirror heaving one right back. She had really, really not wanted this to happen. But with the evidence reflected so plainly back at her, why bother denying it? Bittercup loved Shinki Itten. It was pleasant, and comfortable, and three days ago she’d discovered an old woman at the corner of the Docks who sold Dire Shrimp tails wrapped in bacon. How could she not love this place?

In the back of her head, she suspected she simply hadn’t wanted to be the first elf to jump ship. Let someone else take all the attention, and then she could quietly slip in once the idea of elvish citizens was no longer new and exciting.

Oh!, she would proclaim, we’re all joining up? I suppose I will too and wouldn’t you know it I already have the right ears, what a coincidence no time for questions more Dire Shrimp please.

Fucking Alyn; why couldn’t Wren’s aide de camp have let himself be seduced by that little farm girl already? Both Bittercup and said farmgirl would have appreciated it, Alyn.

But no; that was a fool’s dream. If the former General’s former troops were going to jump Sides, they’d have done so already. So that just left Bittercup as the lucky girl to officially bring a new subspecies of elf to Magica. Cue the celebration.

Yippee. Hooray. Fireworks and whatever.

What would she even be called? Surely ‘Shinki Itten Elf’ was a bit too dry. There was usually some sort of gimmick or bad poetry in these names. Pack Elf? Closer, but…no, maybe not. The vaguely canine shape of her newly formed ears was definitely going to be the key, but what sort of dog-pun would wind up the–

Oh, wait.

Oh no.

Oh shit.

With a dawning sense of absolute, horrified certainty, Bittercup realized that there was a strong chance she was about to become Magica’s first Doggy-Style Elf.

She was fated to join a Side where people thought biting out throats was a totally reasonable rebuttal, and she was going to join it as a Doggy-Style Elf.

Sorry, grandma. There’s zero chance you aren’t headed straight for Filial Piety Hell now.

Fuck it. The System could dictate the Side she was born to, the Side she was drawn to, and even what she would be called. But it couldn’t stop her from going to the nearest tavern and drinking until she stopped caring about any of that noise.

See? She’d already come up with one A-plus idea. One of the many benefits of keeping one’s head away from heads covered in gore.

————————————————————————————

The hostess carefully refilled Bittercup’s drinking bowl, her tongue peeking out and her ears twitching in concentration as she did her best to avoid spilling. “And…ah! There, enj–whoops!” She squeaked as she pulled the jug of sake back too quickly, sloshing a bit over the elf’s hand. “Oh gosh, I did it again!”

“It’s alright,” Bittercup assured the embarrassed kobold, lifting her hand to impishly slurp up the errant droplets of liquor. “Thanks for the free sample, Aya.”

The young woman giggled, her tail thrashing happily, only for her response to be cut off when a pair of Players made their boisterous entrance into the small inn. “Oh, um, I gotta go help them.” She grinned back at Bittercup, giving the jug of sake a little wobble. “Want me to leave the bottle?”

“Aya, you are a dream.” Bittercup took a sip from her bowl, offering the hostess a wink over its rim. “I’ll think of you whenever I spill some.”

Aya laughed again, giving the elf a playful swat on the arm before hurrying off to address the Players’ exultations for food and drink. Bittercup watched her scurry away, her easy smile fading a touch as she swirled the sake in her drinking bowl.

Well, here she was.

A fresh start, in a fresh city, with a fresh Side, and her first idea was to plop herself down in the nearest bar and play-flirt with whoever wandered through her line of sight. She took another rueful sip from her bowl, impressed by the tidiness of it. It seemed you could take the Girl out of the Repast, but not the Repast Girl out of the…

…hm. First off, that was an awful attempt at an idiom. No points awarded. But it did make her wonder: Repast Girl wasn’t her Class anymore, right?

“Status.”

———————

Name: Lothnaena

Race: ??? Elf (Citizen)

Class: Courtier (Lvl 18, Class Advancement Reset)

Description: Lothnaena, otherwise known as Bittercup, was born to misfortune, weaned on tribulation, and groomed for tragedy. Once a quietly lamenting flower, she has found herself violently uprooted and tenderly replanted in fresh soil, fertile with opportunity.

Freed from the shackles of her past and urged onward by the earnest goodwill of her departed sisters, she finds herself at a crossroads: Will she embrace her new home? Or will she strike out on some other path of her own?

Whatever her choice, she deserves nothing but the best and we are rooting for her shut up get that style guide out of my face I run this Description I can write whatever I want you cow

———————

Bittercup curled a small smile into her drinking bowl. She was back to a simple Courtier, and she’d lost two Levels in the deal, but at least her Description was as weirdly supportive as always.

Still, she’d dawdled here long enough. The elf drained her cup before indulging in a sigh; better trudge back to the Central Tower and do her part to figure out this mess. The ability to instantly reset her sobriety was baseline for Courtiers, right?

She flicked through her Status Screen, searching out the ability that would silence her mild buzz, her eyes lingering on an entry she hadn’t read in quite some time.

———————

Satin-Draped Skullduggery: The ebb and flow of high court is a better-heeled affair than the crunch and tumult of combat, but it is a high-stakes battlefield just the same. And as in its rough-and-tumble counterpart, the first step to diplomatic victory is knowing precisely where to direct your efforts.

When activated, individuals with information or materials vital to a single matter nominated by the ruling parties of Bittercup’s side will be highlighted. Specifics as to what that information or material may be are not revealed, and targets with a higher Wisdom Modifier than Bittercup may resist or obfuscate this effect.

———————

Feeling briefly nostalgic, Bittercup flipped the ability on. She toyed with her drinking bowl, noting with a vaguely bored sense of detachment that one of the two Players loudly chatting at Aya had immediately flared up with the aura that indicated him as a person of interest.

So. That guy had some Royal Coins. Yawn.

It was an elegant use for the skill, Bittercup had to admit, if a supremely boring one. Glandem’s only real use for his Repast Girls was churning out those stupid Coins, after all, so being able to weed out Players that weren’t packing any was convenient. Limiting their scope to such a narrow question completely sidestepped the need for any actual sleuthing, too. Did that guy light up? Bingo, he had Royal Coins. Did he not? Boo, he didn’t have Royal Coins. Tidy, predictable, single-purpose and single-use.

Exactly how King Glandem liked all of his tools.

Though…she wasn’t one of those tools anymore. She was no longer a Repast Girl, she was no longer tied to Quercus, she wasn’t even the same subspecies as Glandem anymore. So that meant her skillset wasn’t laser focused on sniffing out Royal Coins anymore, didn’t it?

Bittercup carefully refilled her cup, silently activating the skill to flush away her inebriation as she focused on the aura-outlined man and pretended to take another sip.

That meant that Player had information vital to Shinki Itten’s biggest crisis. And that could only be one thing.

She may have been making a mistake. She may have been signing herself up for more council meetings featuring more blood than she was strictly okay with. She may even have been condemning herself to a lifetime as a Doggy-Style Elf.

But Bittercup had picked her path, and Bittercup had found her home. And now, it was time to show what she could do.