there is something fun to me about early game Drakona having this notion of "I'm simply too violent/ruthless to be a woman" (trying to justify their Gender Stuff to themself by falling back on The Victorianisms) but then the absolute worst of their violence and spite and cruelty crystallized into their reflection is, specifically, a version of them that has remained a woman
the thing about The Desolate Bride is she's not powerful. She has enough Glasswork to build a little place for herself in Parabola and to conjure up little illusions and that's about it. she's about as physically capable in a fight as Drakona is, which means she is a tough opponent but she's truly like. Just A Person. she has knives and a gun and a couple syringes with Substances on her. the horror of dealing with her is the way she persistently stalks you with her limited capabilities and the things she'll do to you once you are completely in her power
bullet points of What Sunny Has Been Up To to set up me getting serious about his Heart's Desire playthrough. this is everything you would have picked up watching the previous seasons of the nonexistent tv show that is the canon Drakonaverse in my mind. enjoy
(Nemesis endgame spoilers, Heart's Desire early game spoilers, warnings for kidnapping, physical and psychological torture, trauma, drinking)
gets to the Neath. tries to investigate his brother's death. doesn't get far. eventually hears about a detective investigating the same leads (Drakona), shows up to offer his help. becomes their sidekick. gets put on their payroll.
stays their main helper until around the Iron Republic. tails people for them, steals things, carries messages, does anything they need them to do. hauls them out of honey dens. takes Manners Lessons from them. they set him up with a stable source of thief/chaperone/errand boy gigs in Veilgarden, where the Bohemians quickly become fond of him
gets killed by Jack-Of-Smiles in retaliation for Drakona officially picking up the Smiles case. found nailed to the wall of the Veilgarden apartment Drakona gave him with three knives and the words LADY DETECTIVE DRAKONA scrawled on the wall in his blood next to him. this was Jack's opening shot. Drakona manages to keep Sunny's name and face out of the papers. he comes back. his first death. he can never go back to the Surface now
at some point, it turns out that his cat is a panther when she dreams and she goes into his dreams and leads him on weird adventures in this place called Parabola. eventually a friendly silverer tracks them down there, there is a minor altercation, and it ends with the guy deciding to teach Sunny glasswork. this is something he's studying on the side now. (hi @thedeafprophet and Alex)
when Drakona come back from the Iron Republic a shell of their usual self, he takes turns with the rest of their inner circle looking after them. they talk a bit. well, it's mostly Sunny talking to fill the silence. stories from his life with Charlie, since he has the most of those. they talk about their past some. there's not much he can do for them except be there, but he doesn't seem to mind them at their most bitter, most unpleasant, most hopeless, and they are intensely grateful.
they recover. they pick up Scathewick's notes.
they have a difficult conversation with him.
it takes him a while to process. Charlie wasn't one of the seven. the stab wounds, the petals — it was all a coincidence. he spent over a year in Drakona's service, thinking they were working for a shared goal, but now their revenge is underway and his is. right where it was when he first came to the Neath almost two years ago.
Charlie had been talking about the Marvellous. a story he heard from his new friends that almost definitely killed him. a card game where you can bet your soul and wish for anything. Charlie joked about playing. Charlie was great at cheating in cards.
Sunny investigates and finds out that the game actually exists.
if he can wish for anything, he can wish for his brother back. and then it won't matter who killed him.
so he decides that he wants in. follows the trail. gets his First City coins. he's already friendly with the Topsy King, one of his favorite thieves, so talking to him is easy.
Drakona carries on with their revenge. he helps. he's decided that it was worth it, regardless; their cause is a good one, they've already gotten this far, and besides, he's grown to care about them. he wants them to get their justice.
still, for all purposes the Firebrand is Drakona's new right hand man. that's just fine. for the next part of this they'll need the kind of resources Sunny never had, and the Firebrand has them. when it's time, Sunny and Bedbug (his cat) guide them to Beggar's Wake.
they come back, their revenge complete. Sunny's dues fully paid. he goes back to the Marvellous, looking into the Topsy King's past. uncovering the identity of Tristram Bagley. Drakona looks for something to occupy themself with. opens a lab at the University, names it after James.
at some point, they catch the attention of something behind the mirror. it's in their dreams, at first. then, shadowing their steps as they explore Parabola in a scientific settings. creeping ever closer. studying them.
one day, they don't come back from the lab. they've stepped into the mirror have haven't returned. Sunny and Bug are called. this is their area of expertise.
he finds them. kidnapped by a woman with the same face, their reflection. she hates them. she's been keeping them in Parabola, torturing them for — what end? just to see them suffer? doesn't matter. not his problem. they put together a rescue party.
they get Drakona back. one finger short, shaken, but alive. they're already joking about the whole ordeal, even as their hands shake. her name is Catherine, they say. she has their old name. they think for a moment and bestow upon her a title: The Desolate Bride.
the Bride flees when the rescue party arrives, bur stays behind to watch. she identifies the silverer who led them there. she decides that one day, he too must pay.
she's in all of their dreams now. poking here, prodding there. trying to turn Drakona's cousin, lover, friend against them. to see them for the monster they are. tries, fails, disappears, shows up again.
one day Sunny passes by Drakona's Parabola base-camp and hears them scream. he rushes over.
that was not Drakona.
Sunny goes missing. Drakona and the others look for him. he is gone.
a few days later, a stranger shows up. gets on Drakona's radar because he's picking up the Marvellous right where Sunny left off, arranging for Tristram Bagley's opera to be performed. he's charming, quick-witted, a smooth talker with the kind of manners Sunny never had. a roguish kind of charisma, but knows when to bow to his betters. immediately beloved in the court. wears a mask at all times.
he introduces himself as The Crimson Ace. Ace to his friends. Mr. Ace for formality. he supposes you can also try Mr. Crimson, though it has a weirder ring to it. the previous player candidate left London, you see, and told Ace he can pick up where he left off.
once you get close, despite the mask it's immediately obvious that this is Sunny's voice and Sunny's build, and if you still had any doubt, there is a terrified Bedbug sitting at the man's feet. she will not talk to anyone, follows him around and does everything he says. she's been told that if she misbehaves, the real Sunny will suffer.
still, when she sees Sunny's friends, she dares to make a break for it. slinks away while the Ace is distracted. explains what happened.
the Ace notices.
back in Parabola, Sunny has been alone in a dark room for. he can no longer tell how much time has passed. he can't see. he keeps hearing things that turn out to be not real.
the door opens. inexplicably, the room brightens, reality shifting to allow him to see.
it is Drakona.
he stares at them for a long moment.
"you're not real."
"no," they agree. "why would I be? the real Detective has forgotten about you."
"doubt that."
"you make Drakona feel bad, Sunny. they failed you. this doesn't make them look good." the not-Detective steps closer and closer, until they are just a few feet apart. "you are a loose end. a liability."
"that's not how they think."
"do you know how they think, Sunny? do you think they're searching for you? they can find someone else to carry parcels for them, I assure you."
"they — "
"tell me one thing you've done for them that no one else could have."
he doesn't know what to say to that.
he blinks.
it's Charlie standing in front of him now.
"you fucked up, Artie," he says. "I told you. you've got to earn your keep. you didn't do enough, and now no one's coming for you."
when he tries to turn away, the ghost of his brother does what he never did in life. he grabs him, and throws him against the wall, and when he slides to the floor, he kicks him.
he says: "I taught you better than this."
he says: "it's all your fault."
he says: "you were too busy chasing skirts to do what it takes to survive."
at some point, he leaves. others come. Drakona again. Iffy. his father. Charlie again.
they say the worst things they could possibly say. things he knows they don't think — didn't think — probably — but it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter that it's not them, that they're not real, because if they did think those things, they'd be right to. he couldn't blame them.
you forgot your place. you're nothing. you're a sick, ugly runt, begging for an excuse to pretend you're more than that. the most you could ever be to anyone is a pet. if anyone would even want to keep you.
they say those things, and then they hurt him. over and over. rinse and repeat.
Bedbug is told that her choice had consequences. when the others come for her again, it's way more of an effort to get her to cooperate. but, in the end, she does.
there is a rescue. the small cottage Catherine built for herself in Parabola is empty, front door wide open, and so is the basement. Sunny is curled up in the corner. it takes him a long time to believe that what's happening might be real.
they get him out. they'd gotten the Ace captured and propped up in front of a mirror beforehand. Sunny gets his body back.
something about him stays broken.
he knows those were illusions. he knows. he knows. but there's what he knows is true and what he feels is true, and they're both real, and he can't tell the difference. the same people who would try to comfort him scare him. he locks himself in the Veilgarden apartment where he died, sends Bedbug away. he can't take care of her in this state. he doesn't want to be to her what his drunk father was to him, a shambling, barely lucid, unpredictable presence.
it doesn't get better.
people visit him. he does his best to tolerate it, but sometimes he does just refuse them.
he spends his days either indoors or up in the Flit, away from everything. closed dark spaces make him nervous, uncertain he's not still back there.
sometimes he will see or hear something that is not real. a memory will resurface of something that never happened. he will become convinced of something that couldn't be possible. and then, after a while, it will go away.
one night, he comes back to the apartment with a bottle of Strangling Willow. he's not a drinker. it makes him violently sick, and then he blacks out, and when he wakes up he's sick again. it didn't help. at no point did he feel any better.
at least he knows he's in no danger of following in his father's footsteps now. he never wants to do that again.
Drakona comes over while he's nursing a headache. they talk. they get him to admit he can't stay in the apartment forever.
they know that it's hard. but they do think he should try. he should reach out to the others, talk to them. it might help to separate truth from fiction.
he's wanted, out there. they miss him.
he tells them what their own double said. they tell him that they've searched for him. that this should never have happened. that they are so, so, so, so, so, so sorry.
he can see that they're heartbroken. that's real. and he doesn't want them to stay like that any more than he wants to keep hearing the voices of everyone he's ever loved tearing into him, in the back of his mind.
he decides to try.
Drakona decides that they will kill Catherine.
it takes time for him to return to his life; to as much of it as he can, at least. he starts off small. letting people stay over. pushing against the memories of their doubles in his mind, confirming for himself over and over that this is real, that it's safe, that they're really here.
Bedbug takes on the role of service cat now. whenever he's not sure if something is really there, he asks her. if he's still confused, she does her best to talk him through it. they're slowly perfecting the system, but just having someone he can trust in this helps.
he moves out of his rat-rented attic. he might never be able to sleep in small dark spaces with skittering in the walls again. he moves to a different attic in Spite; one with a human landlady. he finds a new tenant for the rats. an urchin longshanks who'd just left the Regiment; with a good hideout and a network of friendly rats, she'll go far. he leaves her everything in the apartment he can't carry to the new place.
he stops his work on the Marvellous, taking time to adjust. one day, in the Flit, he sees something strange. he's sure he's hallucinating, at first, but Bug sees it too. they get curious. they check.
this is how they get introduced to the Glass.
author's note: perfectly aware that the Shroud is the cat-aligned option. however, I need Magician Sunny in my life. so I am declaring that he runs into a silverer he'd met in Parabola who got him out of trouble (similar to Alex) who is a part of the Glass. and that silverer basically has him do a few jobs to repay that favor, and he ends up involved with the organization for a while. picks up silvering lessons AND magic lessons. spends some time in Mahogany Hall also. uses this as an opportunity to get back on his feet, and then, as the second anniversary of Charlie's death comes along, he decides that he's dallied enough.
