SHOWHOUND Part Two
Added 2025-09-28 14:03:24 +0000 UTCAfter her duel against Kosterion, Sartha finds herself at a social gathering for the powerful ruling class that holds sway over the Empire as Handler seeks to curry favour and expand her influence. Amid the strange environment and its horrors, Sartha finds herself struggling more than ever to reconcile her devotion and her heroism - and when Handler begins to use Sartha herself as a bargaining chip, the strain threatens to take her over the edge
This part is quite long, and takes WARHOUND and Sartha into some new territory. I hope that the answered questions about the world and the Empire are interesting and provocative, and I especially hope that the ending leaves you on the edges of your seats
Enjoy! And my profound thanks to my beta readers: Esme, Maggie, and Olivka
Comments
Welcome back! And I'm very, very glad you've gotten a kick out of seeing a little of the old Sartha peeking through the cracks
Kallie
2025-10-21 21:42:30 +0000 UTCOh. Sartha really is still in there, maybe. I love the little oppositional comments from whatever it is in there that still has an ounce of fighting spirit. I can't wait for every single one of my hopes to be crushed and for her to get worse again it's gonna make me violently ill (figuratively) and be wonderful
Haggisllama
2025-10-21 21:34:41 +0000 UTCAaaah I finally got around to reading this chonky chapter. And what a delight it is ehehe good fucking work!!! im all giddy having just finished!!! HOUUGH!♡♡♡ You already got a lot of comments in regards to describing this elite of guests as desperate fascist losers, and I can only agree. What a hateable pathetic bunch, and yet the leather fashion trend was almost cute. Gosh the dogeza scene. I'm so glad you write what you know. And stripping off even the wedding ring!! Nothing is sacred, nothing is taboo, everything is stripped and taken and malformed. Poor Leinth, the *second* most attractive pilot. The chaser woman was disgusting and again, good commentary on fascists - I'm guessing trans people are a kind of delicacy for them in an empire that doesn't have "deviant" health care. I really liked the brief bit with the bullet girl. Her company name being on shell fragments Sartha is familiar with. That's really cool world building and pulls it all together in a way. Even if she appears only now in name, there's a feeling she was always there with just that. It just makes sense. The idea someone might *flirt* with Handler, and that she might *flirt back* was somehow so revolting. Any tool of manipulation She deems efficient She will implement, but it was new and strange to see her like that. Apologizing in conversation. Playing the long con. I love the mystery of what exactly Handler did to her in that room and that we just accept that she has the ability to exhume a human soul if she gets as much as ten minutes with them. Around here is where I realized that the italics are a part of Sartha that is not broken. A horrified deepest part of her that beats her fists against the insides of her brain, trapped in an unquestioningly submissive body on autopilot. Very chilling. KIONE AND AMYNTA GUEST APPAERANCE LETS GOOO I love that amynta is so fucked. I love what it says about Kione. That her work would be less artful, less loving, less craft but rougher, more amateurish, more frustrated and hateful, more execution. You can't talk to Kione, not anymore anyway. I love her as a self destructing drunk too, hating her life and what she has become. Surely trying to stop herself from ratifying her existence by drowning herself in cruel work, luxuries and alcohol... especially in direct contrast to Handler who doesn't drink. In way Handler and Kione are two characters in similar roles that could not behave more differently and so they remind me of other pairings like Theoden and Denethor, very overtly illustrating a concept to the reader. "Her long, black, double-breasted handler’s coat lined with crimson to match Her old pilot’ssuit and adorned with the flair of golden buttons and epaulettes" .... Kallie is thAT MY 3D DESIGN OR WHAT!!! I was almost yelling irl when I read that and recognized the details!!!! I'm so happy flattered and honored??? Thank you!!!! That absolutely fucks, and I love it to death. "You let Her ruin you. You let Her pour poison into You, and now it sings in Your veins." Hot. I'm looking over to my trench coat and boots and pocket watch and think nothing by it. It's also interesting that the italics give us confirmation that Sartha in RESCUEHOUND *wanted* to get out but was too fucked to stop what she let happen to Kione. Absolutely stellar work just from a writing perspective how the war memories seep into the presence, when Sartha is in a room with Rhadama (rocky floor, smell of battlefield, bed as ruddy earth). At first I thought the room is just very weird to be drafty and have gravel on the carpet, but then it quickly becomes clear that realities are overlapping for Sarthas. This chapter was full of flat out abuse, and it wasn't the worst abuse I've seen you write in this series, and yet the General got so much time being awful and hateable that I would have been surprised and thought a little less of SHOW HOUND had it gone unpunished by the narrative. As cruel as your story is, it was never *needlessly* cruel. So I'm glad to see it took the turn I hoped it would. I love the way her memories become more overt, her mind rebels against the conditioning, that she realizes that the words have power but ultimately it's a process within her and she can trigger it herself, too. That Sartha fights like Ancyor fights. The way she coils around her, it reminds me of my RESCUE HOUND ch1 fanart, a body like a canine or feline spring full of kinetic need to explode. Insane work Callie, just extremely fucking sick, I'm deeply invested, you're doing amazing (and I need to read your other recent stories too!!). I hope you're doing well ♡♡♡♡
Marigold
2025-10-16 15:32:45 +0000 UTC
