Major Thread Completed Fortuna Vitrea Est

[Lord Yaro Ashpaw]

Half an eye on their surroundings lest any fools decide to attack the Ryalors out on the street, Yaro scowled at the burning building. He had left his favourite crossbow up in the gods, in a case at least, but it wouldn't be retrievable for some time now assuming it survived. Matisse probably wouldn't let him live it down if he found out. There was no use cursing over what else he could have done. Weapons could be replaced. His body could not. There would be Gates to pay over how this had played out. Hopefully this would lead to a great many throats needing to be cut.​

 

[Dusk Rainblade]

Dusk made a mental note to assign Nutty to investigate the paranatural properties of poetic irony as, no sooner than Tanya made her comment, the opera house collapsed in on itself. To her immense relief, this coincided with her son, her potential grandson, and a number of their party escaping out the door just in the nick of time. She let out an exhale that seemed to deflate her, and she all but slumped to lean on her old friend. "Idainaru kitsune ni kansha," she murmured, an old Fyadorian turn of phrase she'd picked up in her time in Eastisle coming to her lips. She wasn't religious in the least, and was certainly skeptical of her husband's newfound faith, but if such a deity did exist, she'd give credit where credit was due. She watched Alwyn swiftly moving to take charge of the recovery, every bit the soldier that Talinn and Alexei had molded him to be. May he one day forgive us for it.

She straightened up, taking a deep breath to recover her poise and composure. "The Empress won't let this stand," she murmured. "After this, every single ministry is going to be focused on rooting out the vulpinists. I wouldn't be surprised if the army sees deployment to the streets." Privately, she thought that would be a terrible mistake. A heavy-pawed response by the government would only confirm to the vulpinists and those inclined to support them that the government did not have their best interests at heart. Sadly, with all of this, they were well past the point where a calculated half-measure was a viable option. Anything less than complete retaliation would be read as trepidation (or worse, tacit approval) by the Empress. It seemed the vulpinsulists would get the war they'd desired.

"Come," Dusk requested of her co-conspirators, exhaustion creeping back into her voice. "Let's go have that drink in private. I think we all need it." She caught sight of her two candidates for the Director's Men and gave each a subtle gesture of the paw, an at ease command. There would be time for hunting the perpetrators of this act through the night, chasing them into their foxholes and rooting them out - but that was not that night. She needed her beasts at their best, and given what they'd gone through, rest and recovery was the order of the day.

And when we go after them... may Asmodeus have more mercy upon them than we will.

@Orina Emberkin @Tanya Keltoi @Lord Yaro Ashpaw @Matisse Dubois

 

[Orina Emberkin]

There were quite a few things Orina wished to say to Dusk, but she felt those words best left unsaid until they were in private, preferably with drinks in paw. As it was, she waited alongside her friend and the disguised vixen, watching as the last of the beasts exited the opera house. Soot-covered, some blood-soaked, most alive, some dead, at least the night was nearly over. She caught the eye of the massive cat who spoke to Dusk, their gazes meeting for just long enough for him to flash her a toothy, predatory grin. Despite her sour mood, the squirrel nearly found herself smirking back at him.

Then the opera house collapsed in an immense crash of burning timbers and billowing smoke and soot. Orina coughed, covering her nose with a paw. She did not care to think about the bodies left inside. It would take days to find them all.

Dusk leaned against her, and Orina could not help but feel some amount of pity for the vixen. Though the squirrel had no spouse nor offspring, she knew how much Dusk's family meant to her. That attachment, combined with her paranoia, was what led to at least part of the mess that night. Orina could not entirely blame the Minister of Misanthropy for everything, and the vixen was right, the Empress would not let such a thing stand. Unfortunately, the squirrel also had a hunch that it was not only the supremacists who would be hearing from Amélie.

She had not wanted her rise to power to cost so many lives. The life of a Minister and several of his cronies was one thing. So many others killed, even if the blood was not directly on her paws, already felt like a weight on her shoulders. This is what you wanted. Such was the price in the Imperium to play the games of power.

She turned and began to walk away with Dusk and Tanya. They were a block away, a row of short buildings now between them and the burning heap of the once-proud opera. Something prickled at the fur on the back of her neck, and Orina glanced over her shoulder at the column of smoke. What had happened to the explosives--?

A concussive detonation second only to that which blasted a hole in the Harbor during the Winter War shook the ground beneath their footpaws and sent a cloud of fire and smoke and flaming timbers shooting high into the air well over the highest buildings in the Harbor. Orina watched it, the flames reflecting in her eyes, the heat of the explosion, even from a distance, burning at her face.

"Fortune is of glass," she murmured, brow furrowed as she turned away from the conflagration. She only hoped that her fortune would prove more resilient than that of the late Afton Kilaris, former Minister of Niceties.