Beta'd by the subtle Insane Scriptist.


Of celebration and rearrangement

Naga were an ancient type of Magical Beings, one Dorea suspected to be of Titan descent based on their mythology and magic, and also very, very beautiful. Not compelling like sirens were; just beautiful. Which was, of course, its own kind of compelling. Well-formed, graceful, symmetrical and adorned with all manner of jewellery while wearing no fabric at all beyond turbans or veils, the men and the women alike.

The rich tawny tones of their skin, the glossy black of their hair and the kohl-outlined deep brown of their eyes, along with their graceful hands and the gleaming scales of their long tails, was all intensely aesthetic. The way they cooed over her children in both Hindi and Parseltongue before the performance -letting Hector climb up raised coils and slide down them, as Cassie and I-Pin were assisted in adorning themselves with the contents of several jewel-boxes and had their hair styled, and Marius was allowed to ask all kinds of carefully hissed questions about where they came from and what it was like there, Fuuta standing off to one-side wide-eyed and dazzled by this revelation of how much wider the world was than he'd ever imagined- was in some ways even more appealing.

Dorea was standing a little back from the main scrum in a lavender velvet walking dress with pearl and cameo accessories, watching Daniela bounce in the arms of the largest naga in the group and be called 'little sister-queen' by another three, all eagerly coiling around their leader as they tried to get a closer look and dangled hair-ornaments for the delightedly hissing infant to bat at, sliding gold bangles taken from their own wrists over her bare and happily kicking ankles and shrinking them to fit.

"Naga revere snake-speakers as blessed by their gods, honoured intermediaries between themselves and the rest of humanity," she murmured to her husband, who was lingering at her shoulder with Squalo at his side, both of them trying to keep track of all five of the older children present without taking their eyes off the baby. "Hence this troupe being willing to come all the way to Sabina and in such numbers." There were fifteen of them, in fact, despite the largest troupe actually advertising only numbering eleven; commercial performances always had smaller numbers than religious ones, which were worship and not paid for. Sabina was paying them for this, because it was private entertainment, but that so many had come indicated there was a more spiritual element to the 'pilgrimage' involved for some of them.

Possibly all of them. However Dorea was deliberately not asking them about that aspect: she had paid the agreed-upon price for this, and had also arranged for jewellery to be made to gift to the performers afterward -because that was the traditional way to show appreciation for a naga dance performance- and that half as many again had showed up didn't change any of that, although she rather doubted the extras were all costume assistants or back-up dancers. After this 'meet the performers' opportunity she would be taking the children for lunch, and then in the afternoon they'd be sitting on the sheltered front row of the private theatre in the palace grounds to watch the dancing for an hour or so.

"Voi, what's with the jewellery?"

Dorea glanced at her husband's Right Hand. "What they're wearing, what they're letting Cassie and I-Pin try out or what they're pressing on Daniela?" Those were three very different questions, with accordingly divergent answers.

"For Daniela," Squalo clarifies, glancing briefly at where Cassie was now decked out in so many chains and pendants and bangles to clatter and tinkle with every breath and enthusiastic gesture.

"It's cultural: little girls need lots of jewellery for when they marry, so they have independent wealth. The simple bangles are basically currency -quantity matters- so pressing a few dozen on Daniela is another kind of well-wishing." Learning this had prompted Dorea to carefully follow up with both Padma and Parvati, and upon determining that yes, this did carry over to Magical society, had made a point thereafter of giving both of them appropriate jewellery on birthdays and at Christmas. Alongside more personal things, of course; Padma didn't usually wear much of her haul, but Parvati gleefully flaunted hers at every possible opportunity, one facet of her quest to attract a suitably well-to-do husband.

"The shrinking is temporary then."

"Yes, those are graded charms: the bracelets will grow with her until she's big enough to wear them full-sized without them falling off." Graded charms only worked on non-ferreous metals, so they were very popular for fitting jewellery. Of course, if badly applied the charms could wear off abruptly and lead to you losing your jewellery, but naga had power over gemstones and precious metals as well as over water, so Dorea considered that a very unlikely scenario here.

"Are they actually that pretty or is this another magic thing, voi?"

Dorea's lips twitched, her fingers idly flicking her peal bracelet. "They are actually that pretty. Their entire species is like that; I suspect they were originally designed for enhanced symmetry."

"Huh." Squalo did not comment further, but seemed slightly more settled to have that clarified. There was about another half-hour to go before they would need to go for lunch, and Dorea was perfectly comfortable allowing the dance troupe to continue indulging the children for all of that.

Hector was now perched on a raised coil and having kohl and other make-up applied around his eyes, one of the male naga sliding a bejewelled pin into the lapel of the toddler's smart jacket and wishing him a happy birthday. Yes, this had been her nestling's idea, but Dorea was very pleased by how well it was turning out. She would make a point of preserving Pensive memories of it, just in case Hector ended up not remembering it as he grew. Three was very young, after all, and she did not remember much -or anything really- of that time herself.


Naga were absolutely stupidly pretty despite the eight-metre scaly tails, the kind of attractive that made people do really dumb shit. Squalo suspected there was also a hypnotic element to their dancing, just from the visual effect of those regularly undulating movements and the way the winter sunlight gleamed on oiled and polished scales. They caught the eye entirely deliberately and then kept the attention granted.

He just knew there were people who'd married naga as well, never mind the 'half-snake' thing; people would overlook a lot in pursuit of a pretty face and these faces were seriously pretty. Maybe the local snake-speakers had naga ancestry.

Did Boss-Lady have a snake-person ancestor, given she was fluent in Snake? If she did, evidently the 'speaks to snakes' bit could persist a long, long time after all the other features faded out of the gene pool, given the ancestor she'd inherited that from had been knocking around in the tenth century AD.

The dancing was very beautiful though, despite the hypnotic element that had him firmly looking away every so often to clear his head. Clean and precise, every movement smooth and synchronised with that apparent effortlessness that only came from working really hard at something. That had to be much harder with so much more body to work with; Squalo joined in applauding at the end of the performance in the outdoor theatre -which had a lot of spectating Zabini, most of them adults familiar from previous family events with Boss- and then stuck around after Boss and Boss-Lady had tipped the performers with more jewellery -that cultural thing Boss-Lady mentioned earlier- to chat to them in Hindi.

This made them very interested in him, which he probably should have anticipated. Oh well; at least they weren't propositioning him, no matter now shrewdly assessing some of those pairs of kohl-lined eyes were.

"Yes, the Prince's household paid for a single large troupe; the rest of us chose to be here," the oldest -or at least oldest-looking- naga told him in Hindi, holding her torso perfectly, unnervingly still as she studied him thoughtfully. "It is not often one meets a Speaker, and one of such a prestigious lineage at that."

"You can tell the Princess's lineage without asking?"

The naga swayed in an extremely snaky manner. "Scent says more than humans realise," she said blandly, tongue flicking briefly against her lips. "How did a warrior come to serve one such as the Prince rather than hunting him for glory?"

Squalo bit down on his first and also second reaction, picking a magically appropriate answer instead: "His soul sings to mine."

"Oh?" the lead naga leaned in closer, tongue flicking against her lips again inches from his face before leaning back again. "Truly the age of gods has come around again on the turn of the wheel, for mighty warriors to stand beside the bewitching and the monstrous once more." She turned to two of her male colleagues. "Airavata, Vasuki, jewels for the young hero."

Squalo bit down on the urge to insist he was not young; he didn't know how old this naga was -or how old any of them were- or how long naga lived generally; some snake-person mythology depicted them as immortal. Refusing gifts might also be considered rude, given how Boss-Lady had just let them put dozens of bangles on Daniela, Cassie -despite no longer wearing everything she was allowed to try on- walking away with a fringed head ornament and several necklaces, I-Pin receiving jewelled anklets and even the boys leaving with gifts, Marius a belt of hinged metal plates and Fuuta a pair of armlets.

Hector as the birthday boy has received a full set of ornaments, elegant gold openwork set with rubies and pearls and emeralds, and several short strands of pearls.

The two addressed naga slithered forwards towards Squalo, eyeing him thoughtfully as their own jewellery clinked and jingled. "Pearls for a son of the sea, and sapphires for a hunter in the darkness of night," the right-hand one said decisively, untying a choker from around his neck featuring square gold plates carved with intricately overlapping watery ripples and five deep blue beads between each plate, strung parallel.

"Belt-buckles and anklets and a headband for the warrior," the left-hand one agreed, removing a long strand of pure white peals that hung down his chest and dangled almost to the join between his soft-skinned upper body and the hard-scaled tail. "Iravan, your headband."

"You don't have to," Squalo couldn't stop himself from saying.

"We know," the newly-arrived Iravan agreed, detaching his headpiece from the front of his turban; it was all intricate granulated goldwork framing large upright teardrop-shaped cabochon sapphires, complete with pearl edging and hanging pendants. "But by gifting you our good fortune, we share in your victories."

Well, if it was self-serving… Squalo politely accepted the fancy articulated turban ornament which he could probably wear as an armlet or epaulette, along with the long pearl necklace, the choker, three bejewelled belt-buckles, an entire belt of intricately woven metal wire and a pair of either armlets or anklets of gold chains between smooth oval decorations that looked like cameos, except that rather than being carved the little images -of battling naga- were in filigree gold, somehow applied inside translucent blue enamel. As well as the very nice curved knife with a jewelled hilt and sheath the lead naga tucked into his belt.

"There," she said, leaning back with a pleased smile. "Our kings will vie to adorn your Prince and Princess in accordance with their stations, but you we have blessed first. Wishing you victory in service, young hero." She bowed to him, prompting all the other naga to also bow -Squalo bowed back, taking care to moderate the movement according to how he'd learned during his time in India while on the recruitment tour- and then they all left the now mostly-deserted theatre, Squalo turning and doing likewise.

Boss and Boss-Lady wouldn't have gone far, and he needed to get these checked over. 'Blessings' were all very well, but he needed to know what they were before he was prepared to wear them in the field. Even though he was most likely to keep them under his clothing, given how fancy they were. Or else let Delfina wear some of them, possibly. Depending on what those 'Blessings' were and whether they would work for her, considering the naga who had given him jewellery had all been male and the choice of gemstones was implied to be somewhat related to function.

If combat jewellery like in that ridiculous sexist battle-bikini art turned out to be a real thing, Kuchisake was going to have a field day.


The most memorable part of visiting Matron's family home for the gender reveal party of the Sun's sister-in-law who was his wife's cousin Stephanie, was discovering that Matron's family bred giant winged horses. Actual elephant-sized winged horses, rather than just big horse sized. Matron's father Andrew Davies had been very happy to talk to him about them, so Xanxus learned a lot about Abraxans in the half-hour running up to the actual gender reveal -a boy- and had then been able to slide out of the man's notice as Mr Davies focused on heartily congratulating his daughter-in-law and son.

His daughter-in-law in particular; Stephanie was crying tears of joy and being hugged by all her siblings at once. Xanxus was happy evading the crush and leaving the event early with Dorea, who admitted to being tired after yesterday's day out entertaining delighted hyperactive children around Sabina for Hector's birthday. Besides, it was Sunday morning; they could go home and get an hour or so of rest in before lunch, maybe even nap so as to be fresh for socialising on Sunday afternoon.

In the end his wife napped in his lap on his couch in his suite in her lilac silk day dress while the children entertained themselves in the garden until lunch, and Xanxus played idly with his wife's hair where lay loose across his chest, thinking about how he was planning on changing up various Squads for the New Year.

Squads always got moved around in Quiet Week, but New Year was when Xanxus liked to review the past six months' performance and decide if there needed to be any fine-tuning. Or even whether there were enough newly-Named to justify doing a more significant shuffle. This year there had been some significant recruitments and Namings since the end of June, as well as a few significant deaths and some impending retirements, so some Squads were oversized and others were under-strength, and some of the Quiet Week assignments had revealed unexpected personality clashes resulting in last-minute swaps that, while functional, weren't optimised.

Xanxus was therefore going to move a bunch of people around again, which meant he had to start thinking about it now, a good month in advance of handing out assignments. There were also other issues his Squad Leaders had brought to him in search of solutions, such as for instance the problem of Lusnot.

Lusnot was a Mist, newly promoted out of the Apprentice pool as of September, and this problem actually predated their exit from Housekeeping, but seeing as Tyrant hadn't been able to solve it before Lusnot got Named, it was now Lusnot's Squad Leader Erschöpft's problem, and by extension Xanxus's problem as well.

It wasn't a capital-P Problem though; more that Lusnot was having amusing-looking difficulties that Erschöpft, as a veteran Sun, knew were due to his new baby Mist struggling to maintain control over their recently-Activated Flames.

In the Underworld, having those kinds of problems was generally a prelude to death. Not today maybe, and not next week either -especially not with Mists who hung on much longer than other types- but still death and relatively soon. Eschöpft knew that very well and was very determinedly hiding it from his rookie, while tearing through recent research himself to see if there was anything that might help.

He'd also put in a personal request to Xanxus, asking to be allowed to look into magical solutions. That had been in October, during the Ring Battles, so Xanxus had only recently excavated it out of his inbox and replied so that the Sun knew he was looking into it personally.

Investigator wore turquoise with everything, and Dorea had told him it was to mitigate the incredibly powerful Mist's struggle with focus. That had sounded like Lusnot's issue, so Xanxus had asked Flippy to get him the relevant research notes there and yes, reading the report on amulets of different semiprecious stone types and their efficacy suppressing or dissipating different Flames suggested that decking out the sixteen-year-old with turquoise jewellery and ordering him to pierce his ears would solve his new narcolepsy problem. However he was going to have to give some thought to what to make for the Mist, because an assassin couldn't just go the quantity route like Investigator; dangling strands all over the place was a hazard. And if those strands were long enough for someone to grab hold of them and twist, they were a choking hazard.

There was also the matter of finding how much turquoise worked for Lusnot specifically. Given he was having regular accidental out-of-body experiences, Xanxus was inclined to make something with quite a lot of turquoise as a starting point, then either whittle it down if it was excessive or build up gradually from there. The point was to create a safety net, not impede him from operating in the field. But for that, Xanxus first has to find the threshold.

A short necklace first; that would permit direct skin contact and fit easily under Lusnot's uniform. Earrings as well, so that the Mist could do some adjustment himself and hopefully build up his control over time. If that wasn't enough Xanxus would make a belt buckle and some ornaments; nothing that dangled or might catch on things, and all easy to adjust or remove as necessary.

Hence why he wasn't doing armlets. Those would be stuck under sleeves and hard to swap out, and bracelets could interfere with fine Flame control around hands. The point was to be grounding, not hobbling. An ankle bracelet might work, though.

It'd be interesting at least, trying his hand at carving turquoise. Lusnot however wasn't his only current concern; there were a few other newly-Named rookies to move around and some Squads which weren't working as well as they might be. The new incarnation of Hop Squad wasn't gelling, for instance, and the Glasgow-and-Lektor combination put together just last month was possibly slightly too successful in a way that other Varia were finding a bit alarming.

It took a lot to alarm Lussuria's veteran Suns, so Xanxus would take heed and move Glasgow elsewhere. Maybe to an entirely new Squad; there were a couple of Varia he was contemplating giving Squads to, to see if they managed to grow accordingly. Micia for one, although he wouldn't give her Glasgow; he was training her up for Problem Squad, so she needed assassins experiencing minor but specific difficulties she could actually solve.

Glasgow wasn't a capital-P Problem or even a regular minor problem; properly situating him was simply a matter of ensuring there weren't major personality clashes or excessive personality synergies. He'd have to make a note of Glasgow not being allowed on Lektor's Squad though, like how Raas and Ghul weren't allowed on the same Squad; that was another instance of deeply unfortunate synergy.

Perhaps it wasn't so surprising that Glasgow had a similar issue when it was those two who recruited him. While on a boating holiday, no less; you really couldn't make that shit up.

Arcana for Hop Squad, maybe; he was another newer Rain, if with a year's more experience than Glasgow. Moelle for Micia; the Mist was very new and still working out his specialty, and that would keep the Cloud on her toes. Uvimbe for Lector, possibly? Another rookie, but a Storm this time and reports so far suggested that personality-wise the combination would work well enough.

However if he intended to take Ghul off Chaos and give him Glasgow plus a few others, who did he replace the Mist with? Maínomai was much less impulsive these days thanks to being unCursed, and being Dorea's Guardian was inspiring the creation of even more coping mechanisms -with varying success- but it still took the right mindset and an innate determination to roll with the weirdness to survive Chaos. Especially for non-Mists. Maínomai's Squad Leader had to enjoy the madness; he wouldn't have made the Mist his Territory otherwise. Who to pick though…

Oh, of course; Xanxus smirked, fingertips toying idly with his wife's springy curls; he knew exactly who to reassign.


Translations

Lusnot: sleepwalker (Armenian)

Erschöpft: exhausted (German)

Arcana: relating to tarot; secret knowledge

Moelle: pith (French)

Uvimbe: boil, swelling (Swahili)