Five Feet of Gules

[caper_est]

Killer-Kate and Luke Lackland: 840 words, of the knife-fight between Fiery Younger Sister and a piece of very frisky scum indeed: nimble young tiger against heavy-pawed old black bear.  I may need to edit some of it for combat realism in the redraft.  Then again, I may not very much, because whilst FYS isn't explicitly supernatural, in her battle-taking she dances somewhere between the poles of Hu Sanniang and the Hound of Ulster, and I'm not sure how naturalistic one can profitably make that sort of thing anyway.

The ghastly resolution tonight, and I well done with it.

The Popinjay: 380 words.  Bright Young Thing may not be a wicked stepsister exactly, but I see the slander didn't just spring out of nowhere, either.  On the other hand, I don't think there are many other people in any world who could treat some of the things Beauty comes out with as sensible conversation rather than affected sentimental drivel, so it all turns the carousel.  I like carousels.  BYT and Beauty would like them too, if only either of them had ever encountered any.