Uffish Thought

After eight hundred glorious years of working together, his Radiancy is rather distressed at the news of his secretary’s probable death.

Or: in which a certain landslide happens far earlier than in canon.

“I love you, and I’m forming a committee about it.”
Fitzroy spluttered on a laugh. “A committee? And what is the purpose of this committee, my Lord Mdang? I believe it has to be, what, two sentences or less?”
“The purpose is to love you.”
“Ah, truly poetic simplicity,”

-

Cliopher gets his shit together, weaponizes parliamentary procedure in his own brain, and finally does some self-examination and clear communication. Fitzroy is just happy to be here.

It took me an appalling three hours and thirteen minutes to even realize that Kip was gone.

Ah, but that was too charitable. Once we had a timeline together, we discovered that Franzel had seen Kip last, turning in for bed at twelve minutes before midnight, and it was not until Shoänie went to wake him at dawn that anyone knew he was anything but asleep in bed. This meant that by the time the knock on my study door came, shortly past the third hour of the morning, Kip could already have been missing for more than nine hours.

In which Cliopher goes missing midway through The Hands of the Emperor. Fortunately, he has friends and family willing to do whatever it takes to bring him home.

Cliopher's first morning with the Sun-on-Earth was everything he could have dreamed of, until it wasn’t.

or: Cliopher and his Radiancy break time. Again.

Sardeet gets arrested.

You turn to look at Cliopher in absolute, utter betrayal. Cliopher discovered that you have daughters - daughters! – and brought them to the Palace!? Here, the name Damara would smother any child of yours with taboo and tradition, any ounce of freedom stripped painfully away-

“While away, I encountered these two girls, named Circe and Aurelia,” Cliopher tells you, steady as the rock on which the world has always turned. “With your permission, my lord, I will adopt them myself, and raise them as my daughters here in the Palace of Stars.”

Or: in which rumors reach the Lord Chancellor of two teenage girls with golden lion eyes.

Jullanar didn’t realize anything was wrong until the newspaper boy yelped in panic, until she was turning back to see the paper Fitzroy was holding on fire, a conflagration held in one hand, his eyes liquid gold with magic and his voice perfectly empty when he said, “No. That can’t be right. There’s been a mistake.”

In which an adventure in progress is thoroughly derailed by news of the presumed death of the Viceroy of Zunidh.

Jemis is invited to attend the investiture of the Viceroy of Zunidh, which promises to be a delightful trip with Almost No Adventures along the way.

Von Stalhein is forced to accept his orders.

Murderbot is not paid enough to deal with this shit. (It's not paid at all, which is definitely not enough.)

Five times David consulted in a medical capacity on Amanda's gothic novels.

George Penn and Ned Caulfield: their lives and love viewed through a glass, darkly.

Three ways truth serum could have been deployed during the Emerald Conspiracy case.

The spear butt struck the side of his face, knocking him to the smooth marble floor. He was tired enough to lie there, gasping, until one of the guards hooked their hand into the loop of his arms where they were bound behind him, and hauled him back to his knees.

“We will try that again,” said his interrogator. The man was wearing the full panoply of the Imperial guard and an incongruously friendly smile. “What is your name, barbarian?”