#swept up in the tragedy of sangfielle indeed

thinking about how chine gets the vulnerable fallout on the jade moon while listening to an old song from blackwick and watching everyone else (including duvall, of course) dance.. and how that’s gotten as a way of healing? how they had the song they request written in their fable book……. and how they don’t hesitate to rip that page out

(and how they spend the rest of that night waiting outside the captain’s quarters for duvall and the next morning is marrowcreek and then, well,)

Austin: You know, or the next day. You got another week on this boat, so. All right.

Dre: Austin, really quick. Is this a place that can just do Mind Stress or can this do Mind Fallout as well?

Austin: It can do Major Mind Fallout. It’d D8.

Dre: Oh, okay. I need to…

Austin: Yeah. You do.

Dre: Um…

Austin: Talk to me about Chine on the dance floor.

Dre: [sighs] I don’t think—

Austin: And also the song that Chine requests.

Art: Ha!

Dre: Right. So, I think the song that Chine requests is…it is a song that is kind of like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” not in terms of like, that’s what it sounds like, but…

Austin: Mm.

Dre: There’s like a bunch of different nursery rhymes that are to the tune of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

Austin: Mm-hmm.

Dre: Like the ABC song and “Baa Baa Black Sheep” and probably more that I’m not thinking of. So it’s a song that when people hear it, they’re like, “Oh, I know that. It’s ba-ba-ba.”

Austin: Right, right, right.

Dre: But like, every three people will answer that in a different way.

Austin: Right. I love that. And do you— are you asking for a particular version of it or are you just asking for the melody?

Dre: Um, Chine requests it not by name—

Austin: Mm.

Dre: —but by tearing a page out of their fairytale book and the melody’s written in it.

Austin: [laughs softly] Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think that they, you know, the bandleader is like:

Austin (as bandleader): Oh, yeah, we know this one. Of course, of course.

Austin: And like pushes the page back. Like, I don’t need the mu— we know this.

Dre: Yeah.

Austin: “We’ve heard versions of this that existed before you were even born,” type, you know? type of stuff. Since that is in fact true, it seems. So what do you— what are you paying with? Is that— or is that what you’re…or I guess, yeah, what— yeah, what do you have left to pay with? God.

Dre: I have the thread of the Mother-Beast.

Austin: Oh. There you go.

Dre: yep.

Austin: They, uh… [amused sound] They take that from you. What are the intr— uh, Jack, who is gonna use the thread of the Mother-Beast to replace a broken string on their instrument?

Jack: It’s gonna be one of the viola players. Those are nasty bastards. [Austin, Dre, and Art laugh]

Keith: The players or the instrument?

Jack: [laughs softly] The players. [Austin laughs] It’s a violin that can sound like a cello? No thanks.

……. (cut out their trying to figure out which fallout chine is trying to heal) ……..

Austin: I think as that song plays— when did you first hear that song? When did Chine first hear that song?

Dre: Um, as a child—

Austin: Mm.

Dre: —at a community holiday celebration.

Austin: Okay, sure.

Dre: So probably another very large like public dance like this one.

Austin: Right. Right, right, right. You should take Vulnerable: “You feel small, shaken and scared. You cannot use Mind Protection. Ongoing.” There is…you know, the experience of having that hit kind of moves you emotionally to that sense of vulnerability of being a child. I mean, both the joy of it being this kind of big festival moment, but also that sense of…that’s such a different person than who you are now, do you know what I mean? And those emotions are tied to a version of yourself that did not have a big poleaxe and the ability to transform into a wereshrew. [Dre laughs] And there’s a sort of misfire emotionally happening here. Or maybe it’s not a misfire. Maybe this is emotions working the way they should. Is that in touching that— in hearing that song again, you’re moved to a place where you’re able to really feel not like the invincible Cleaver, but like, you know, young Chine of Blackwick during a harvest festival or whatever. And yeah, so, Vulnerable. All right. Day comes to a close, Broken Quartet breaks. The next day, we only have one thing scheduled. It’s the false war tournament. I don’t remember who’s left in. I think, Duvall, did you lose?

Art: Sure did.