Indulgence Weave

It was really quite rare for Akane to come visit the dockside workshops and foundries– which is why whenever she did, it caused something of a fuss. This time had been expected, however; a project was in the works, one that Akane herself had commissioned and funded. Mighty in undertaking and grand in ambition; as were many of the goals of the Queen of Spiders. 

She trotted along one of the catwalks from the workshop entrance that hung suspended above the deck of her project, her heels clacking loudly throughout the hall. Her people waited for her upon the platform at the end of the walkway; all of them clean and in a uniform line, save for one, who hadn’t bothered to do either. At the very least she was clasping her hands behind her back this time.

“Miss Darwall,” Akane greeted, with a slight bow of the head. “How goes things?” Cordalia Darwall nodded her head in a greeting of her own– which wasn’t really a bow but was close enough. The woman cut a rather fine figure in tough leather pants and a thin singlet, despite being stained with grease and ceruleum. Or, naturally, because of it.

“The Chiheisen is comin’ along splendidly, m’lady,” she offered in her Ala Mhigan drawl. “Your people ain’t so good at the mechanical side, so until the folks from Ishgard deliver their blueprints, she’s not gonna fly. But what they can do is shape wood finer than a Gridanian carpenter full o’ so many splinters they’d make a passable porcupine.”

While Akane had absolutely no idea what that meant, she did appreciate how the Chiheisen was turning out. At a little over three hundred fulms, she was indeed a mighty piece of Hingan craftsmanship. Mighty and sturdy, painted and lacquered in deep crimsons and jet blacks, trimmed in gold– and the grim oni serving as figurehead. Were she a sailing ship, she’d easily rival those used by the Confederacy– unfortunately she wasn’t going to go very far until the engine was actually complete. Akane couldn’t pretend to know the specifics of it, but Cordalia had mentioned something about being able to do the broad-scope work with their craftsmen but needing specialists to produce the parts necessary to get further west than Aldenard. 

“Are the blueprints from the Ishgardians the only thing left to resolve?” Akane posited, tapping her gilded claws upon the railing.

“Aye,” Cordalia nodded. “Though even when they get here, it’ll take time to set everything up. It’s a process, y’know? Gotta make sure it all works, make sure it all works safely, make sure we won’t plummet into the sea if something fails, make sure that we’ll float safety if we do need to plummet into the sea–”

“Cordalia,” Akane interjected, “please make sure we don’t plummet into the sea.”

Cordalia could only laugh at that. “Aye, ma’am, I’ll do my best.”

Akane learned long, long ago that it is not the grand gestures that bend fate to her whims.

It is the gentle nudges above all else. The quiet pulls upon forgotten strings.

Time and again has Akane watched the mighty fall. Time and again has she watched the players fumble their winning hands. They swing too wide, aim too high, shine too bright– when all they need is the whisper of the right words in the right ears.

“I am most fond of wisteria, my Lord,” she says to the merchant king, asking her to choose between the wisteria and the cherry blossom.

“No, my Lady,” she says to the wife of a visiting knight, who suspects her husband of an affair.

“Yes, my Lord,” she says to the Oyabun, who asks if she is willing to play seductress to undermine a rival.

“No, my sweet,” she says to the killer, a blade in the night, whose path in life is yet uncertain, who asks if she should leave this place forever.

“Yes, my Love,” she says to the woman by her side, gazing upon her with demonic eyes, who asks if she want to see the city burn. 

The merchant king falls to madness, confusion and ill-health overcoming him; his first clash with wisteria seed poisoning, before he is compelled to consume flame to burn the poison from his body.

The foreign knight is slain in an act of passion, his betrayed bride hanged for her crimes; his warband burning and pillaging the rival clans in a desperate fight for survival.

The rival dies, his men cut down in an ambush, the wrong advisor outed as a mole and executed before the castle is raided and burned. New people, new lands, new wealth makes its way into Akane’s hands, and all she has to do is gaze upon the fire.

The killer stays, and in the heated moments before an assassin comes to take Akane’s head, the killer strikes them down. Their master’s name is picked from the corpse, and the killer delivers a torch to their home the next day. All she has to do is enjoy her drink by the fire.

The city is darkened by the shadow of war, heralding the second Age of Blood. The tides of fate rise and they fall and carry the hopes and dreams and fears of the souls of Kugane with them– and the odds upon which the Queen of Spiders places her wagers. A war is what makes Akane truly powerful among Hingashi’s elite.