Welcome to Savvytown

—

Charimone watched servants collect plates and boards, pushing chairs back and gliding out of the room. She glanced at the one High Councillor left in the room, looking away again.

What danced behind those pale gray eyes she did but did not desire to know. The thought made her seize, this dread rising, a monster within come to claim her.

It spun her thoughts on a chandelier, spinning flames around the same thing. The Chalice. The one thing they desired. The Chalice. Her ticket out. The Chalice. A game she is but a pawn of.

The real monster swished her fingers around the candle. “Charimone.”

She breathed, knowing what stood behind her. In, out, in, out, her form emerging from the shadows.

On the other side of the candle, she peered down from her perch. “How could you?”

Her voice breached a perilous drop. “Charimone, in all fairness—“

“No!” The chandelier’s arm swayed under her foot. “You told my father to get the Chalice knowing you had it all along. You lied to me, you—“

She screamed on the way down, pulled off the candle’s lip and onto the table, scattering back under her captor’s looming gaze. “I told you the truth and nothing but. Not once have I lied to you. Nor will I ever. Get those words out of your mouth, or else.”

“You just want to keep me forever!” Tears started to cloud her eyes. “That’s all this is to you, politics.”

—

From @writingrosesonneptune (here!) there's WHIMSY

W - When the call connected, the first thing they were subjected to was blinding light streaming in from a large window, glinting harshly off an assortment of machined parts strewn across some sort of workbench, before a voice from just outside the view of the camera grumbled, "Oh, wrong way!"

H - Her hand snapped up on instinct, clenching the wrist of whoever it was trying to stab her, the leathery material of the jacket they wore flexing in her grip as something clamped around her own throat.

I - "I'm guessing a Zahhak is bad, but what flavour of bad are we talking about?"

M - "My hope is that if we can find out where it's going to emerge ahead of time, we can put an end to it before it has a chance to pick up much momentum."

S - Swinging over to hover near her, Viatrix said, "The Kith actually have a pretty sophisticated system for finding Leviathan, so I can see about digging up something bigger than a Lambda."

Y - "Yeah, I've still got all the research notes from when I built personal stealth units for our heist on Ritroser, so it shouldn't take me too long to fabricate and install what we need to make that shuttle stealth too."

From @willtheweaver (here!) there's CLAIM

C - Completely at odds with the frantic beat of her own heart.

L - "Looks like the party is really popping off in there - the guards are hanging out more around the doors than the ships to keep an eye on everyone."

A - "All of us were. Recovering from that, I'm finding, is going to take more than decent food, rest, and exercise."

I - "I know," Rhea replied, her voice thick as she held Pryseia tighter, "We'll just have to figure out how to wean you off it as we go"

M - Malakh made a questioning noise in the back of her throat, too groggy to be coherent, and Rhea leaned down to whisper, "I've got it," against her lips before placing a soft kiss against them, reluctantly sliding out from under the covers and padding over to her ringing console.

From @cat-esper (here!) there's GROTESQUE

G - Grasping V'tala by the shoulder, Rhea tilted the both of them forward, and with a retch, blood flew from Pryseia's mouth, scalding across her and V'tala's legs.

R - Rhea said something she couldn't comprehend then, Malakh darting between Nevara and Elytra as Rhea eased V'tala back, Pryseia heaving for breath against her.

O - Opening them again, she asked, "What happened?"

T - The memory had V'tala gripping this assassin by the snout and the ridges on the back of their head, twisting until a wet crack sounded from within them, and they became a dead weight in her arms, little more than a marionette with its strings cut.

E - Eyes wide and wild with fear, so different from the distant gaze in the throes of her panic attack, Pryseia's hands were clutching at her throat, as if trying to pull away something that wasn't there.

S - She didn't break stride as the door to the suite as a whole slid open before her, or the door to the bedroom she was drawn to after that, her hands clasping together and rising over her head before it had a chance to fully pull back and reveal the nightmare taking place inside.

Q - Quickly, gently, she shoved V'tala towards the head of the bed, gripping Pryseia by the front of her shirt and hauling her into a sitting position while she ordered, "Get behind her, prop her up."

U - "Unfortunately, it's not something I'd be able to do with the tools we have on hand."

E - Even if she'd been exhausted past her limits, injured beyond ignoring, if V'tala had been given an order, she would carry it out, regardless of how badly it ended up harming her.

From @lamuradex (here!) there's GRAND

G - Glare turned to Pryseia, mouth opening to ask a question, but it never got the chance to launch from their tongue as the overwhelming presence of the Storlayacas drove the air from their lungs, the polite welcome of the Hyttan mechs filling the cargo hold like a fog bank.

R - Relief was the first thing that they felt when they emerged in the cargo hold, a wave of it breaking against their shore as they stepped off of the chartreuse dematting zone.

A - "A slight that doesn't require forgiveness," Rhea's eyes were bright with tears, her smile fond, "I know you weren't in your right mind, given the circumstances."

N - Nevara just heaved a sigh, briefly touching Pryseia's cheek before moving away to take her seat.

D - "Don't remember any of the details, but it felt like my mind had been running the entire time."

From @forthesanityofstorytellers (here!) there's WONDER

W - "Well, it's not exactly a body," Rhea corrected herself, her voice coming to all of them over their Longan Units, "The armour's made of self healing material too, so whoever died in this thing was just broken down in order for the suit to maintain itself over the ages."

O - "Oh yeah, tons," was Viatrix's sarcastic reply over the speaker system that ran through the halls of the Pelekys, "Fought off like a billion Leviathan, discovered a new alien race and became the queen of them, I developed telekinesis of my own so watch out, and someone dropped off a deliver of chocolates! I already ate them all."

N - "Nice, I've been on the lookout for some of these!" Was Rhea's delighted cry as she hoisted one of the pods out of the container it had lain in for millennia, "Shock of shock, they're way more efficient than anything we have kicking around in the modern age."

D - "Don't worry," Viatrix assured her, "Kith scramble the metadata on everything they upload - the system does it automatically - so even if people go digging around in that sort of thing, there's no way they're going to know its you unless they were there in that system while you were flying that thing around, creeping behind an asteroid to peep on you."

E - Even swiping through the site as she was, she felt a warmth coil low in her belly that had absolutely nothing to do with the heat of her bath water, a far cry from what the novel she'd been reading had been able to bring out of her.

R - Rotating one of the pictures around to see it better, V'tala asked, "Did the pirates give us any information on this mansion's defences?"

From @rayne143 (here!) there's ABSOLUTE

A - Aside from Elytra, who looked as stunned as V'tala felt, the others in their crew lit up at this revelation.

B - By the time she was done with that, the humans had calmed down enough to actually speak in complete sentences, and they made their way over to the table where the rest of them had gathered.

S - Standing from her seat, Pryseia said, "Given Captain Shinju's recommendation, we may as well reach out to the Gorgon."

O - "Oh I get plenty of medical practice in, don't you worry," Rhea chuckled darkly, casting her gaze over her crew mates, "I've had to play doctor for every single one of them."

L - "Let me get in there and see what else got changed about it."

U - Uniformity over self actualization, conquest over cooperation, subjugation over freedom, the Thalatte were everything that the Kith weren't.

T - The four shouting humans had drawn the attention of everyone in the pub by then, including a pair of baithaizans wearing badges and uniforms she didn't recognize, the both of them with their hands braced against the table and chairs they were seated at like they were preparing to spring into action at a moment's notice.

E - Either finishing up or cutting their own tasks short, the crew of the Pelekys met up at a human-style pub called the Relic and Remnant, which had been built to resemble an ancient, wooden public house, the antique decor of it somehow blending in seamlessly with the rest of the district's eccentric storefronts.

And from @nossumusstellae (here!) there's either HOCKEY or LESBIANS, so as a queer Canadian, it is my duty to do both! heh

H - Her avatar spinning in excitement, Viatrix said, "I can definitely do something about that"

O - On the main view screen, the bridge of the Salsica came into view, a bright and chaotic space that was at odds with the serious expressions of the two people on screen.

C - "Captain Killzar Pryseia of the Pelekys at your service," Pryseia said, "What can we assist with?"

K - Knowing she wouldn't sway Elytra on that subject, Pryseia sighed, instead saying, "My experience is hardly unique, for in some form, we've all gone through something like this."

E - "Everything about these haulers was built to deter others from coming after them."

Y - "Your people do have a saying, about killing two birds with one stone, yes?"

L - "Looks like our medical equipment has been upgraded too."

E - Everything back in order, she gave Kaizoku a slight nod before walking out of the room.

S - Stripped of her elaborate armour and crown, she wore a dark jumpsuit and sturdy boots, her mechanical eye throwing a beam of light across her surroundings, while the device on the side of her face blinked in a clear indication that it was scanning as she went along.

B - Bathory let out a scoff at that, swiping a hand down to shut off whatever it was she was seeing, before she pointed a thumb back at a scanning alcove behind her.

I - "I can only assume it's done the same to the Program, making it just as impossible to understand as Hyttan data is."

A - "And what about now?" Grim asked as she typed something up on her console, eyes intent on some detail on the view screen.

N - No longer glitching and garbled, the Program's voice was smooth, steady, its previous undercurrent of malice nowhere to be heard.

“What is it, Mil?” Leo’s voice is soft.

She drags a hand down her face. Part of her says no, don’t tell them. They’ve had enough in the last few days, surely. But another part… oh. Another part just wanted a hug.

Her mouth opens and closes, like a fish. “Ronald…” she can’t say it. Alex had said it to her, and she had said something like it to the man himself, but he already knew. Amelia never had to finish the sentence. “Daddy isn’t…”

A worried glance goes between the boys, and James’ left hand plays with something around his neck.

“I’m…” Her mouth is dry, all of a sudden, and she gets up for water. The glasses are on the bottom shelf of the left hand cabinet by the sink, like always. When Amelia returns, both the sandwiches are gone, and the fingers of Leo’s good hand are laced into James’ across the gap between their seats.