Alexa sits against the wall, almost motionless, and lets the sheep's clever fingers do their work.

Honestly, it's amazing how deft his motions are. She's seen him in the kitchen, preparing meals, and always he makes it seem so simple. His knifework is impeccable, flowing, like an extension of his arm, no matter what technique is called for. It's almost like the universe is mocking her. Put a spear in her hands and tell her to pin it to a target from fifty yards, and she'll split a hair on the bullseye. But give her a knife and an onion, and--well, the less said about that dinner, the better.

It must be nice to be so sure of yourself. So able to focus, to know exactly what you're supposed to be, what role you need to fill. Is it that wrong to wish to trade places? To be soft, to know what to say, to know how to help? To spend all your time making other people happy with food, wise words, and friendship?

She winces as the chisel hits an unexpected snag, and does her best to keep her face turned away from him. He doesn't need to see this. It's not important. It's a function of existence, is repair. Ideally, she'd have been able to pick up the chunks that got chipped off so they could be cemented back in place, but in the mean time, sandpaper and chisel will have to just prepare a rough surface for the bronze and keep more stone from chipping loose.

But of course, they could never swap. She could never force him to take her position. It wouldn't be fair to him.

Bella smells it before she sees it. Even underneath all that mud. Even with the rain muting everything into a bland haze, she couldn't possibly miss this. The first and only scent her Imperial handlers specifically trained her to isolate as part of her bodyguard training: the sour, vinegar-soaked note of fear. Redana scrabbles backwards. Bella follows into the space left between them.

The smile falls off her face. Her eyes open in obvious shock. She... she sniffs the air, loudly and deliberately. She shakes her head. No. No! This isn't happening! Why? Why now? She hadn't smelled it at all while they were running from Jas'o, not even while he was putting his boot on the Princess' chest and stomping her into the ground. Why now? Why now? This isn't how it's supposed to be!

"Princess, stop it. You need to let me clear your airway out before you..."

She reaches out with the characteristic fussiness of home, too late realizing she's done it with her bloody hand. She flinches; Redana smashes her arm on a large sharp rock in her desperation to put space between them. Bella's face skips straight past disappointment. Her eyes narrow. Her fists clench. Her lips curl, showing teeth. The growl builds up in her throat, and it feels louder than the thunder.

"You... YOU MORON! Don't run from me, you idiot! I'm here to save you, don't you get that? You heard him! You know what he was here to do! A million slaves, Dany! A hundred worlds destroyed, just to spite you! Do you seriously still think you can stop a person like that with a knock on the head and some pretty words? So listen to me! JUST LISTEN!"

The muscles ripple underneath her soaked and dripping fur. Her tail thrashes behind her and every step, be it forward or back, is the dull song of her bells. Water falls in waves upon her. Thoughts turn like gears inside her. They hit her all at once, and she... stops. In mid stride, she stops. Her newest breath is still caught in her lungs, and she stops. Her heart freezes in between beats. And then rushing, changing, twisting all at once, it comes. Her eyes narrow. Her snarl morphs into a nasty smile. Her hands squeeze so tightly that her claws break open her palms and add the drip, drip, drip of her own blood to the deluge washing over her every second.

"...I get it. I see what this is, now. You don't care at all if it's someone like him, do you? Perfect, invincible little Dany out on her magical adventure! But not me. Not me. It's 'cause I'm your servitor. Isn't it? ISN'T IT?! Scrub the floors, do my laundry, cook my food, Bella! No thank you, never thank you, you don't have to thank the silly maid! Well guess what?! I'm more than that, Redana! I'm so much more! I came here to find you! Me! On my own ship! I sailed across the stars just to find you! I slipped free from Odoacer, I killed Jas'o, I! Am! Strong! Where's my fucking gratitude, Milady?" She spits and turns her head sideways, "...And by the way? I dressed myself, too. Not that you think I can, apparently."

Bella stands there, tall as she can be, the grin that splits her face and the gleam that lights her eyes as sharp and wicked as can be. Only her ears are pinned back, and her tail wraps around her legs, which pull close together. She shivers, and if it's from the rush or the cold or from fear, she could not say. She stands. She shivers. Her chest heaves. Some thing or some god stops her from reaching out her hand.

"It's over, Princess. That's enough. You don't belong out here. Let me take you home."

Her voice is strained to breaking with something almost like tears, but which must be the raw effort of stuffing her monster self back into a civil shell. Must be. And the same force that held her hands at her sides steals the word 'please' from her lips.

"I wanted you to come!"

This is too much. Everything is too much. Her body throbs and aches and Bella is yelling at her so confusingly, everything is getting upended and she needs time to think through everything that's happening, but Bella sounds like she's mad she got left behind and is blaming her for wanting to go on a magical adventure alone and that's not what she wanted, that's never what she wanted, and the unfairness, the unfairness is burning her up and vomiting up words.

"Why do you think I told you? Oh, Bella, I'm going to save Tellus, be sure to have my laundry done when I come back!" This is such a bad idea. She hasn't even thought through what Bella was saying yet. "You and me! It was always supposed to be you and me and then you hit me and what was I supposed to do, cry and go to my room?? And, and it's not a servitor thing! My new friends are servitors too and I don't order them around! And they can pilot ships too so good for you, I guess, but it could have been us piloting that ship because honestly Alexa was not a very good copilot!!" She's babbling and her heart's going faster than Poseidon's tempests.

Thank gentle Aphrodite that Bella does not move at her, so that Redana does not flinch and make that gentle maid's heart shatter into ten thousand fragments. Instead, Redana gets up, wincing and making a strangled noise when she has to put weight on her tainted leg, but she forces herself to stand up and look Bella in the eye. Her cheeks are that mottled red-and-white that they go when she's trying her hardest not to start bawling.

"So thank you, I guess, for going the long way around and killing someone you didn't have to and yelling at me and pretending to be my friend this whole time, you did a great job until I wanted to stop sitting around being useless!!" A wave of nausea hits her and she doubles over, putting her hands on her hips and nearly toppling over. Okay, Dany, breathe. Through your nose. You're not going to throw up on Bella's pretty boots.

-tink tink tink-

Stonework. Apply the chisel at the correct angle. Tap gently, but insistently, until the surface is relatively level. Apply sandpaper to smooth. Repeat. Precise work, but simple work.

Work that he could do right.

-tink tink tink-

Do you know the story of the little lamb who tried to fly? When no one was looking, he slipped away from his chores, and snuck to the master bedroom, where he was never ever supposed to go. From the great balcony, he could see the skies stretching out to the horizon, and they wove a spell over the naughty fellow. Come, join us! Swim in our depths! Be as the clouds! He was so taken that he leapt off the railing at once.

He fell like a stone. Had the gardens not been in full bloom, the story might’ve ended there. As the house nurse carried the crying lamb to the infirmary, he sobbed out apology after apology. He would do better next time. He would train hard. He would study the winds. Next time, he would get it right. The nurse shushed him gently, drying his eyes and soothing his hurts. For it was not the silly little lamb’s fault that he would never fly.

-tink tink chrnk-

He froze. She winced. “My apologies,” he murmured. “The angle was-”

She didn’t even look at him. Cut him off, told him that she shouldn’t have overreacted. That it wasn’t his fault.

Then, it was finished. Holes patched solid with bronze. Solid, strong, ready to soar to the field again. Perhaps if saving a Princess required slipshod stonework or an artful cheesecake, he would be ready too.

The steady tromp of boots heralded the arrival of Vasilia, with Galnius and their comrades marching close behind. Dolce shot to attention, giving a slight bow to his Captain, sparing him a few moments of those hideous, ghostly claws rending her spirit. “I’ve finished repairing Alexa, we’re ready to-”

Which was as far as he got before a clawed hand cupped his chin, and she planted a loud, lingering kiss on his cheek.

“Thank you, my dear.~” You know, perhaps she meant to whisper that, but if she did, she forgot to say it quietly. “Careful on our advance now, there’s bound to be guards in the dungeon. Alexa, Galnius, the front is yours.”

He was walking beside her, which was good, because it meant that he wasn’t frozen in place while he tried to put his heart back together. Was that...good? Was he good now? That felt a little good. And not normal. That wasn’t usually how that went. So was that bad? How could it be? But why now? Why here? Did everyone have to see that? Why did she spare a quick glance to Galnius? Was it okay for them to see that? What did it mean?!

A confused and agitated bleat fought in vain to escape his throat, but he studiously kept his mouth clamped shut and his eyes ahead. They were on the march, and there was nowhere else to go but forward.

Redana!

All is chaos. The world does not function. The foundations of the heavens are but water. Tears and shouts are at once swept away by the storm. Things are at their worst.

Or so you thought before the Solid Projectile volley hits.

Human skin has long been proof against the mere ministrations of physics and smokeless powder. Assault rifles long ago joined the blowpipe and sling in the museum of obsolescence. Instead the military demand for ranged firepower has been filled with the noxious battle-chemical cocktail known euphemistically as 'solid projectiles'. They seem harmless enough in the hand - little glass marbles filled with multicoloured and swirling colours, like a bite taken from a rainbow. They seem harmless enough when they impact - certainly they sting like being struck by a paintball, and might leave painful bruises if they happen to strike unarmoured skin. But the bite of these weapons comes in the highly reactive gases that billow outwards when those hideous chemicals react with the open air.

The red ones merely detonate with sound and light, converting their contents into magnesium flashes and point-blank thunderclaps. The blue ones gust forth in clouds of smoke thick and heavy with poison. The green ones contain electrochemical lightning that overwhelms the nerves like a thunderstrike. Heightened senses and keen servitor hearing and smell renders one even more vulnerable to the sudden deafening, blinding, foul-smelling explosion of sensation. In time the body can adjust. In time one can deaden ones nerves to the point where even this detonation of suffering is no more than the wind. But there are many demands on one's time in this moment, not least of which are the hurricane charge of Ceronian warriors.

They have come equipped for capture. They laid down their spears long ago, but they have long since herded and trapped the squidlike Secretaries of the leviathan and other benign creatures to serve as workbeasts. The same trapping techniques and lashes are applied here with expert practice. Limbs are caught in rope snares and sprinters circle in leaping unison to entangle and net the disoriented targets. Finally, the strongest martial artist close from behind to twist and lock joints pending the final click of chain. The gagging is not an ordinary part of doctrine but they have their orders.

Firm and muscular hands wrap around your neck, tracing up your jaw to settle into a full and harsh grip, pinching down to open your lips. Shouts of defiance are cut short as the gags are pulled roughly into place, pulled harshly back like a tug on the reins by the Ceronian straddling your back. You're held firmly in place while the leather is twisted into place and buckled into position. Then it's to be seized roughly by the hair and turned to face the rain to wash the mud and blood away. You are to be presented to the Admiral, after all, and your bodies have value even if she has decreed your words do not.

By the time your senses have cleared themselves you are free from the rain and mud - the one positive to this moment, though you are still both soaked to the bone. You hang by your wrists with your feet just off the floor, back to back with each other, tied together at the wrists and the ankles, intimately aware of each others' attempts at struggling. You're in the tacky and backwards little throne room (the Empress' throne room is so vast one can hardly make out the distant side of it, this is barely a bedroom by comparison).

"Excellent," came a cold voice - cold, but not quite cold enough. "You have served me well."

Vasilia!

There are indeed guards. A squad of ten, eerily hollow-eyed, with none of the chatter or small talk or moments of distraction normally demonstrated by such guards. With Galnius' squad their numbers are even with yours but that is not a situation that favours you - they stand within a long, linear corridor with room enough for three soldiers abreast. They are not in a shieldwall formation now but it would take moments for them to manage such a thing, and once they have it will be as though the corridor is blocked with a gate of adamantium. Narrow environments with no possibility for flanking are the ideal conditions for phalanx stalemates - were such a thing to form those ten could hold against a thousand.

Fortunately and unfortunately these soldiers do not seem inclined to patrol, meaning you have plenty of time to develop a plan.

Bella's heart is pounding with the particular panic of a trapped predator. The ropes around her wrists are rough and chafing. The ropes around her ankles squeeze uncomfortably tight. The sensations following her are the nagging tugs at her hair where her sleek blue-black locks are tangled with Redana's knotty golden ones, the firmness of the space their backs share with each other that melts into softness as it descends to where their thighs are forced to brush against each other.

The fear-smell is gone. There are others now, a confusing cocktail of responses Bella does not have specific names for because she has spent her life trying to avoid them. But they're here now, swimming underneath the thickness of her perfume which somehow is still soaked into everything, and they bring color to Bella's face and a feverish warmth to her body.

She thrashes like a caged animal in her bindings all the same. Her heart is about to burst, the pressure is so tight. Caught. Caught. Caught! She writhes, she twists her hips, she kicks her legs with all the power in her body, she torques her wrists past the point of agony to get her claws into her restraints. It's all for nothing. The chain holding her above the floor saps her of the leverage that would turn her weight to her advantage. The bindings around her wrists are such that her fingers, stretch how they may, can't reach anything but the Princess'. With her ankles bound to Redana's she can't even bend her legs up enough to get a good kick in, so all her straining accomplishes is adding the feeling of her body rubbing, brushing, touching up against her Mistress' to the miserable soup she's stuck in right now.

Her ears turn on her head to catch the sound of the voice that's taunting her, but the rest of her head can't pivot to put eyes on it. It doesn't matter. She knows the voice. Her teeth clench hard against her gag, but the sharpness of her teeth are defeated by the thick leather. She chews anyway, not caring about the saliva bubbling up and dribbling down her chin to splash against her shirt.

"Mnnnf! Ghllph hrrrrr, MMMMrrrrm! Ffffffk uuuuuu!"

It's not enough. The unintelligible threats aren't enough. Being bound hand and foot to Redana isn't enough. Bella's tail, the one part of her that's free to do what it will, whips free of the prison of two women and wraps itself possessively around Redana's stomach. It squeezes, as if its soft length would be enough to fend off all the trained warriors in the room and the voice that's commanding them. It writhes against her in challenge to everyone who thought that putting her in this predicament would be enough. This is Bella's prize. Nobody else's.

Her fur is soft. Her voice descends into garbled moans that forget to even try to be words, taken as they are to hold the note of defiance mixed in with her desperation. She's trapped. She's helpless. She hates it.

She's going to kill Mynx.

Don’t despair. That’s what Redana clings to, desperately. Don’t despair. If you give up now, then Odoacer wins. There’ll be a sham wedding, where the bride hobbles down the aisle while the Admiral preens. Don’t forget, she’ll whisper as the sacrifice to Aphrodite is performed, one word from me and your precious little Servitor will be spaced. Now, be a good princess and say I do. And after that... another gilded cage. A cell deep within the flagship, meals delivered by dumbwaiter, a door triple-locked from the outside, and always the threat: one word from me and Bella dies.

So that has to be stopped here and now. There has to be time. She needs time. The longer she can delay Odoacer, the more likely it is that her friends will come to save her, guided by the wisdom of her father. The gods help those who delight them, after all.

She takes a moment to try and steel herself. It’s not easy. Her stomach feels strange, like she’s teetering in the edge of a cliff, nervous and guilty and tight — and that was before Bella wrapped her warm, soft tail around it. There’s a tension taut at her breastbone and a breathlessness in her head that absolutely, totally only has to do with how any breath through her mouth is wet and slobbery. Is it warm in here? She’s so warm. And tingly. Is that because her body’s falling asleep?

If she squirms out of the chain (and she totally could) she’d just be making Odoacer angrier. She can’t fight with her leg still numb and useless, she can’t run away, and she needs to let Odoacer think she has the upper hand completely. That she can gloat.

So instead she rests her head against her shoulder while Bella furiously wiggles behind her. (Fingers accidentally interlace. She feels guilty for how reassuring that feels. Bella is being a real brathead stinkyface right now. And letting her free so she can kill another person is very much the wrong idea![1])

She looks Odoacer in the eye, and then casts her gaze down and flutters her eyelashes like Cassiothe in Danger on Orion VI when she’s captured by the Azora captain. She groans, huskily, around the leather bit in her mouth; spit bubbles on her lower lip; her toes curl in her boots as she keeps going. Look back up, keep your eyes lidded but let her catch you sneak a look, then push out your chest[3] and moan.

Come closer, she says. I’m helpless and all yours, she says. Tell me everything, she invites, wordlessly.

***

[1]: ”You’ve been a very bad girl,” Redana says, going down to one knee to look Bella in the eye. Her bloody-handed Servitor writhes against the steel stocks, her hair messy, her ridiculous skirt hiked up. “And I’m not letting you back out until you’ve been unmurder-trained properly—“[2]

[2]: this is where Redana’s imagination burned itself out out of sheer embarrassment, leaving her to note that maybe Keeping Bella Contained was a good idea.

[3]: this was, comparatively, much less visually impressive than if Bella had done the same thing. Redana has a bad case of Olympians’ Chest[4].

[4]: “two bronze medals,” as the punchline goes. Or “built for archery,” as the polite euphemism goes.

***

[7 on Keep Them Busy!]

The only warning the Ceronians had was an empty barrel thundering down the hallway.

As one, they wordlessly rose, closed ranks, leveled spears, and shut the gate of adamantium. This did not even count as a clever trick; this was a tired training exercise. Entire Olympic events were built around shield walls resisting ever-larger, ever-heavier impacts. The hollow wooden barrel disintegrated into firewood on impact, and did not move them back an inch.

Which was when two figures leapt from the blind spot behind the ruined barrel. Dolce slid beneath the outstretched spears, and with a quick slash knocked them off-target. In the breath before they brought them to bear again, Vasilia thrust her glaive at the heart of their formation, the space around its tip seemed to warp, and-

-wrrrrrkBOOM-

The enemy scattered like tenpins, their shields crumpled.

[Rolling to Overcome: 4 + 6 + 2 - 1 = 11]

Alexa opens her mouth.

Alexa shuts her mouth.

No, that's fine. Totally fine. Unorthodox, but undeniably effective. Totally fine. Not a problem.

I mean, sure, Vasilia ordered that she and Alexa should take the lead. Sure, that means that they'd have had no answer to this phalanx but to find another passageway with fewer guards in it. Sure, that's robbed Galnius of any glory from this fight, and the bulky soldier is glaring daggers. It's fine. Totally fine.

You know what would be even finer? Is helping out.

Still, she can't help but feel that little niggle that something is wrong. These soldiers do not fight as they should. Do not act to preserve themselves, do not show fear. Any general would be thrilled to have soldiers that disciplined, but it feels unnatural.

Redana and Bella!

"You will leave us," said the voice of Admiral Odoacer. "Form a perimeter outside and do not enter unless summoned. Further, you will collect all the shuttles from the surrounding area and consolidate them immediately outside on the training field, under guard. Dismissed."

As the Ceronians leave, the Admiral approaches Redana. A menacing smirk crosses her lips, the kind that makes you feel afraid and hopeful all at once. Hopeful because it suggests that your seduction is working... afraid for the same reasons. She hooks a finger under your chin and looks into your eyes. Her finger slipped up around your mouth, tracing where the skin met the leather of the gag. "Well then, princess," she sneered. "I've finally got you right where I want you."

For a moment everything seems like it could go in a very different way.

Then a viper-quick tongue slips out from between her lips and licks your nose. Aaah! Phbit! Mynx!

"You dummy!" said the shapeshifter, falling back into her natural(?) crimson reptilian form, sweeping you (and Bella, by proxy) up into a massive hug. "You see how close you got to getting caught? You had me worried sick! Are you -" she pulls back and scrutinizes your face, "you're not okay!" She's immediately tearing open your shirt - oh um, Mynx, you needed that shirt - and looking at the still fresh scorch wound where you were hit by the Thunderbolt earlier. "Redana!" she said. "That's it! I've had it! Bella was right! You obviously cannot take care of yourself and you are going to stay gagged until I get you home."

She leans in close, head coming down to your neck. You feel her breath for a moment - and then the tiny pin-prick pain as she bites you. It's soft and sharp, piercing skin. Mynx's fangs contain extremely potent antivenom substances and you have been running your barely bandaged open wound through the mud of an alien environment. Precautions are necessary. The fact that these precautions take the form of intimate kisses to the neck being taken while you hang mostly shirtless, bound and gagged are neither here nor there.

Again there's a moment where things feel like they could go a very different way.

And then Mynx is looking up at you with a smile and tracing around your jaw with a finger until her hand passes across to Bella's face. Again she coils it under Bella's chin, smiling brightly. "Don't worry, kitten~," she trills. "I'm taking this all very seriously, but you've left me with such a mess. Good work on catching Redana, but now it's my turn to drive. I'm going to have to disguise myself as that King you killed and take the two of you to the Admiral as prisoners, and then work something out where I spring you once we're closer to Tellus. It's a rough plan but the entire Armada will be running a blockade outside by now and I can't evade that. It does mean that you and the princess will be spending a couple of weeks bound and gagged, but who knows?" she pats your cheek in a way that would be absolutely perilous if you had access to your fangs. "Maybe you'll come to enjoy it!"

Alexia!

An enormous bulk loomed over you through the prison bars. Dark tendrils extended through the gaps, reaching out to grasp the construct woman who had stepped a fragment too far over the red-painted line on the floor. Tentacles seized your arm and - shook it. Up and down. "Good morning!" burbled the strangely pleasant voice of the enormous octopus in the jail cell. "And hello! A pleasure to meet you, I am the Assistant Secretary of Fear and Doubt. Welcome to my office! I do hope I can assist you!"

Vasilia and Dolce!

The phalanx of the dull-eyed Ceronians is in total disarray as they try to pull themselves from the impact of your grav-glaive. They're in no position to stop you - but they've also got the keys to the cell somewhere in that mess. They're not really a threat right now but you can act to make that a more permanent victory if it suits you.

You can move in with a Finish while they're too disoriented to stop you, or you can devise some other way to open the cell door.

“MNNX???”

To say Redana is flabbergasted is an insult to flabbers, probably. How is Mynx here? Oh, wait. She was probably working with Bella all along. Who Redana is still mad at! Don’t get it twisted! But at least... at least they were working together for once. At least Bella had a plan to save her that wasn’t relying entirely on herself. And now that Mynx was going to let them free and help them escape and—

Sorry, what?

“Nnnh! Mnnx! Dnn’t huu drrrr!!” Redana glares! She furrows her brows together and gives her best impression of the Empress, despite (or because of) her shirtlessness, right up until Mynx leans in and bites her and— “MMMMHMHMHMHMMMPH~!!”

Mynx is a fiend! A devil! A tormentor from the pits of Tartarus! She knows that is exactly where Redana is vulnerable. Helpless. Ticklish. Redana squeals and grabs frantically, desperately, at Bella’s fingers, which she squeezes like a vice because Mynx is holding her still and she can’t pull her knees up to her chest and all of this frantic be elsewhere energy has to go somewhere.

While Mynx talks to Bella, Redana is wetly panting, making a mess all over her lack of shirt and clinging to Bella’s fingers. When she escapes— because she is, she can’t be held by anything, that’s what Zeus promised her— she’s going to have her revenge!! There will be pinning, Mynx! And noogies!!

From the sound of it, Mynx is pulling a prank on Bella anyway. But the joke’s on her, because Bella? Bella’s coming with her Princess. And so will Miss Ticklefangs over here!!

Alexa seizes the tentacle and pumps it enthusiastically. "Finally, somebody who understands proper civility! A pleasure, to be sure. I am Alexa, born of the Warsage."

Although, she thinks as she keeps the bright smile fixed on her face, the bars and lack of a proper desk do somewhat detract from the office-ness of this office. And there's very little

"And I, too, hope that you can help me. I am given to understand that you are capable of moving the Eater of Worlds, even in its current state. If it pleases you, I would have your assistance in navigating the paperwork and bureaucracy that no doubt accomplishes such a gargantuan task."

Gah. This is weird. Normally, it would be child's play to find the levers on a petty bureaucrat--pride, envy, the odd murdering of an annoying superordinate--but there are so many levers at play here that it's hard to find one to focus on. And, if she's being honest, the tentacles waving around are--gmfhp. Yes. Distracting. That might be more the issue.

[Alexa's dice strike again: 4 on Speak Softly.
-What do they want, and how could I help them get it?
-What can they tell me about moving the Eater of Worlds?
-What should I be wary of when dealing with them?]

This was not a time to be clever, this was a time for decisively striking while the opportunity presented itself. The last thing their escape needed was a surprise phalanx cutting off their retreat.

It was, on paper, a hideously unfair rout. Vasilia, standing above the chaos with rifle leveled, directed Dolce and the others to any Ceronian making an effort to gather their weapons and stand. Any out of their reach received a bullet for their troubles. Keep the pressure on, and eventually there would be one soldier who gave up. That was the trick to dealing with Ceronians; they stood as one, and they broke as one. No in-betweens.

Only, these soldiers did not break. Shot after shot, slash after slash, they would not yield. Their shields were broken to uselessness, their formation was a shambles, they were bruised and bleeding and cut to ribbons, yet they showed not a trace of fear or exhaustion. They rose, and kept rising, even as their ambush force tired and her rifle jammed.

Vasilia felt the sneaking suspicion that something here was terribly, terribly wrong.

[That’s a 1 + 4 + 2 = 7 on Finish Them (with Grace) Vasilia spends her rifle’s Reload for the scene to damage Shieldwall.]

"Mnngfh! HHHnn uu... gff! Ghhflllk!"

Bella chokes on her insults, vitriol, and drool. She's cut off from the first two by the third and loses all of them to a messy coughing fit that leaves her neck and chest glistening and uncomfortably slick. Uncomfortable. Unseemly. Her cheeks burn furiously with the shame of a maid who's been caught with a messy apron. Her wrists burn from the strain she's still putting on her restraints, wiggling and thrashing and stretching her fingers to the point where she can feel them start to--

She stops. Redana's hands are pinning hers in place. Fingers entwine. Bella rides the wave of her Princess' ridiculous giggle fit, and with great difficulty manages to swallow through her gag. Her eyes blink shut for a moment, snap open again, and then... she closes them softly, takes a deep breath, and holds it all the way through the long moment of relentless wiggling and obscene noises. Her hands turn from wrought iron to sand like a passing wave of magic had washed over them. She is the stillness to her Princess' incessant fidgeting. Her heartbeat slows.

Finally. It's over. Finally. She's going home. She's... she's going home! This is not how she envisioned her moment of triumph, not by an Olympic mile, but it doesn't matter because she's finally going home. Bella's tail unclenches from around Redana's waist, even in the face of Mynx's brazen assault, and begins happily swishing back and forth of its own accord. Redana's skin is soft. Nice. Tail does not consider why that should be a thing it's discovering. Tail only knows swish swish and brush brush. It tickles the Princess' stomach and sets her to fresh waves of muffled giggling. The tip brushes her tiny chest, and Bella's ears twitch at a very different sort of noise.

She feels fingers on her cheek. Bella instantly snaps her eyes open to glare daggers at Mynx. Stupid bitch. She squeezes Redana's fingers tighter so that she won't (attempt to) say something indecent again. She rolls her eyes. This is such typical Mynx. Power play with all posture and no tooth. That stupid smile that's seconds away from breaking into a flick of her nose and a "gotcha" without any power in it because even an idiot can see she wants her meal ticket back in place as badly as... as...

"HWWHHHTT?! HUU BHFFF! DNN HUU DRRR! Hnnnnrrrmmph~!"

Bella's fangs aren't sharp the way her claws are; they can't snap through this leather in a clean bite. But that is not stopping her from lunging and trying to tear Mynx's face off anyway.

Redana and Bella!

Mynx bites her finger to stifle the giggles. "You two are so cute like this! Oh, I should have done this much sooner. And maybe I should find a way to keep doing it even longer," she daringly puts her finger under Bella's chin to affectionately scratch. "After all, from that expression I might be in danger if I were to let you go! You know, I told Redana that she should train you better."

She reaches into one of Bella's pockets and takes her time rifling around until she comes out with a silk handkerchief. She uses it to dab up the saliva from the maid's mouth, and then steps around to provide the same service to Redana - with the same handkerchief.

"You know the Empress didn't trust me with this?" she said. "She didn't even trust Bella. You should have seen how hard Bella worked to get to be out here with you... but don't worry, okay? It's not just us two. I've got assassins from all five of the temples standing by. I'm teasing now, and later when I'm pretending to be the King I might have to be really mean... but you're safe, okay? I'm going to get you and Bella back home and things can go back to normal." She grinned widely. "And then you can punish me as much as you want! Oh, should I start giving you some ideas? There are all sorts of things I can show you now so you know how to really discipline me when the time comes~"

Alexa!

"Oh, so polite!" said the Assistant Secretary. There's so much to keep track of - so much movement and motion - that you almost don't notice when it starts squeezing out through the bars. Despite its bulk, the rubbery body of the octopus is capable of deforming even through this narrow space. It takes a while though, the cage isn't entirely useless. It continues its cheerful patter while it's so doing. "And yes! A system like the Eater of Worlds doesn't collapse just because one office building is destroyed. Admittedly after the decades some systems will have grown cancerous and need to be put down, and resource scarcity will have done for some non-critical functions, but there's life in these old bones just yet, ha ha!"

For all the cheer in that burbly voice, you manage to finally spot the eye of the brainsquid as its core bulk emerges on the other side of the prison. It's nervous. Darting around frantically in all directions. It's latching onto politeness because it's terrified of violence, and what it wants more than anything is confirmation of its own physical security. The tentacles continue to move erratically - octopi are distributed intelligences and every single one of its limbs has its own brain that only works vaguely in tandem with the others.

"Anyway, it's been ever so pleasant to meet you Alexa, but I really must be going -" and oh whoops, that's the rooftop vent clattering down besides you, and before you have time to blink the entire Assistant Secretary has lifted itself up and crammed itself into the air vent. "Please put your request in through the proper channels - Form 20185 I think you'll need - and I'll make sure it's processed. Ta ta -" and it's slithering away into the vents.

That's what you should be cautious of.

Vasilia and Dolce!

They're still moving, yes, still coherent - but they're so slow. You can escape from them in moments if you have to and that might be desirable because the objective is whooping away down through an air vent. Alexa isn't going to fit down that but one of you might - if you're prepared to climb into a cramped air vent currently occupied by a giant octopus. The rest of you might be best served going upstairs into the palace and trying to cut it off.

Bella is catching fire. She must be, because she's burning to death. It starts at her face, flushed and twisted into a desperate mockery of her real self, and it spreads down from there. Past her throat, which dries like she's walked through a desert, past her chest, where it sets her heart ablaze like an inferno that pounds and roars and tears her to pieces. Down, down, it seems to settle in her stomach so it can tickle and crawl around inside her like she was a garden unto herself filled with butterflies for Redana to admire and...

The fire spreads lower. It's morphing, shifting, changing into a boiling ocean. She's wet. Soaked. Dripping. Her breaths comes in ragged flutters as she tries to squeeze her legs together, but it's hopeless. Her brain is soaked with fever dreams, chains falling away into soft silks, these fingers entwined around hers, Redana, Redana, Redana, looking like this, sounding like this, Redana Redana Redana, begging with her eyes and tongue against her lips as she opens herself in invitation to her Bella, Redana, Redana, Redana!!

Bella wrenches her fingers free from the Princess' so she can squeeze them into fists. Her claws press deep into her palms, deep and sharp and terrible, until the skin punctures and warm wet sweet relief goes flooding through her system disguised as pain. Only now does she dare to open her eyes. Her bright, golden eyes so full of pain until they deaden. Darken, and grow cold with fury.

Mynx, you stupid cunt. Dumb bitch. Do you really think it's going to be Redana who punishes you? She'll find your breaking point, and she'll hold you at it for hours. Do you want the brand or the whip? The salt or the crop? The collar or the muzzle? Imagine how much fun it's going to be, finding out what shape you pop into when you're beaten past the point where your little act can save you. Imagine how it's going to feel to dangle from chains just like these in that body, till you say the words, say sorry sorry sorry mercy please and you mean them!

Bella draws a sharp breath through her nose. Her whole body is stiff and unyielding against the Princess'. Her tail has resorted back to clenching around Redana's stomach and squeezing in a way that confuses the lines between comforting, possessive, and spiteful. She lets the breath out, and with it she lets it all go. Her fists unclench and she smoothly spreads her fingers with their mysteriously wet claw tips open again to make them available again for Redana. If she wants them. If she needs them. If she'll have them.

She lets it all go. She'll be patient. A good gi-- a good maid always puts her Mistress' needs before her feelings. Always.

Ack! Blppph! Mynx, why is that handkerchief already wet? Reusing a handkerchief on the Imperial Princess is illegal!

...well, it isn’t, but it should be! And it can be! Let’s put a pin in that! One day, there will be an official ordinance outlawing the use of sweaty, gross handkerchiefs on royal lips! And the fact that Mynx is breaking this pre-law will get her punished terribly!

Yes, when she takes Bella and Mynx back to the ship, she is going to scold Mynx in front of the entire crew! And she’ll have to wear a sign that says NAUGHTY SERVITOR! That’ll teach her to be so naughty!! And...

W-what’s with that smile, Mynx? Wait, you’re not allowed to discipline a princess!! Bella! Bella!! “Dnn’t hyyu drrrr,” Redana burbles, and, oh no, oh no, here comes the blush! Why is her face so vulnerable to blushes? Bella’s tail is squeezing her tightly and Mynx is leaning in and her face is starting to get hot, and, gosh, where is Alexa anyway??

She starts to realize that, um, Mynx’s ideas of discipline might not involve being told to stand in a corner and think about what she did.

Alexa sits in front of the jail cell, jaw agape and one hand outstretched towards the grill.

Did he just...?

The chair goes flying and the doorway loses a chunk of wall as she barrels for the hallway. "No, sir, you do not understand!" Rock dents under her fingers as she pounds the wall. Come on, come on, there's gotta be a way to figure out which way he went! An echo, a hollow! She peers hopelessly down the next vent down the hallway. Come on, give her something! A tentacle, a slime trail, something to tell her she's going the right way! "I am not here to offend or maim, but to follow the will of Hera! She bids the titan to move!"

Stone pounds on stone as she gallops down the corridor. She doesn't know where she's going, but she has to do something with all this energy! Has to find him! Has to figure out...

Has to...

Her gallop slows to a pace, slows to a stop, slows to a drop to her knees at the corridor's splitting point. If she doesn't know where he's going, there's no hope of catching up as things are. He can fit through smaller gaps, has a better knowledge of the complex. He could be in the next room, and by the time she busted the door down, he'd be down the vents again.

So, the obvious solution is to ask someone who knows. The bones are smooth, polished from long use, and every soldier has a set of their own. Maybe Hades will help. Maybe he won't. As she shakes the dice, feeling them click and clack against her palm and each other, she desperately hopes it's the former.

Left. It'll have to do.

“Boost me!”

Did he just say that? Vasilia was already kicking away a free space beneath the vent, Galnius and the other soldiers were falling back, Alexa was shouting somewhere down the hallway, so, yes! Didn’t leave anybody else, did it? Besides, somebody had to leap into the air vents after the talking octopus. He was the smallest and most flexible of them. Vasilia could make it, but really; what kind of Chef Mate asked his Captain to do a thing like that? Frankly, it’d be a terrible one who didn’t volunteer for the job in the first place.

All this ran through Dolce’s head as the rest of him tossed his sword aside, and made a running vault off Vasilia’s waiting hands into the air vent. Which meant that other, insistent thoughts like “what do you say to a giant frightened octopus?” and “oh no, I’ve just crawled into a confined space with a giant frightened octopus” didn’t have a chance to get in the way.

“We’ll meet you on the other end, dear!” Vasilia called from below, before ordering the others after Alexa. Leaving him alone with the only soul who could save them all.

At least no one was around to see his heart race most unprofessionally.

“Sir! Please wait!” He called out, crawling after the writhing mass ahead of him. “The offices are in terrible disarray, and you are the only one who can help us. Moving the Eater of Worlds is the only way we can save our friends, and all the Ceronians here. Isn’t there anything to be done?”

[Auto-success on Speak Softly due to Heroes of the People:
-What do they want, and how could we help them get it?
-What would they have us do next?
-What can they tell us about themselves and their job here? (Dolce would like to get a sense of what they do here, and their attitude towards their job. Get to know them a little better.)]

Redana!

"Oh, Princess... you may be wearing these rags, but that doesn't mean you can drool all over them," said Mynx, rolling her fingertips up and down Redana's burning-bright ear, ice cold against white heat. "I suppose that it was too much to hope that this place would have a gag worthy of royalty. Well, we will have to make do."

She leans in with a serrated smile, finger running up the place where your shirt used to be before coming around the back of your neck to tie Bella's handkerchief over your mouth. "It's such bad form to have to double-gag someone," Mynx lamented, "but I'm afraid it's the only way to protect your dignity. And besides, you're making so much noise through that gag already I think you're trying to get someone to burst in here and find you like this..."

She leaned in close. "You're going to have to get used to this, Princess. You're going to have to get used to me be being someone who -" SLAP! Mynx's hand hits you, open-palmed, across the face, "- hits you. You're going to have to get used to me being someone who -" SLAP! Again, against the thigh this time, "- being someone who disobeys you. You're going to have to get used to me being someone who -" she spits in your face, and it soaks down into the already dirty handkerchief, "- degrades you. I am going to be playing an extremely dangerous role in the presence of a singularly dangerous individual and the wrong," SLAP "squeak out of you will doom us all. Do you understand, Redana? We're going to have to play a game. We're going to pretend that I am strong, you are weak, and Bella can't get out of those ropes."

She flicked Bella's ear, and then petted it provocatively. "You see how good Bella is?" said Mynx, running her hand along Bella's tail as she circles all the way around. "She knows that she needs to be a good maid. She knows she needs to keep her eyes down. She knows she needs to keep what she's capable of a secret. She's going to let me do this -" Mynx tugged on Bella's tail sharply, "and worse because that's the price she has to pay to keep you safe. You're going to play this game, princess, because the alternative is playing it for real."

She stares into your eyes, deadly serious, cold as ice.

Bella!

You know Mynx a little better than Redana, and you know her signs of embarrassment and stress. Her scales are rippling in what you've come to recognize as her version of a blush, and while her hands are cool as ice cubes against your burning face and ears they're warmer than they normally are. She's as much talking herself up to this as she is beating it into Redana. In her heart she's shy and soft as butter. Being able to flirt and project confidence like this is something she's been consciously working on for years, and you can tell how nervous this role makes her.

You have a moment to reflect on this before a trapdoor slams open and a goddess emerges.

Alexa!

You've walked in on - something. The Princess! And Bella, the maidservant you met back at the Palace - what is she doing here!? And there's a blur of liquid motion you're already coming around to face when -

"Oh, it's you," said Mynx tucking her bioplasma-blue glowing hand inside her sleeve with an air of faint embarrassment and letting out a relieved sigh. "The statue, right? Stand down, the princess is fine, I'm her bodyguard."

You know Mynx. One time she shape-shifted into you and stood directly in front of you silently for six hours before pulling a goofy face. And more, you know what she's capable of - the Toxicrene Temple was one of Molech's favoured instruments, for what better war than one where you controlled the leaders of both sides? She has a lot of strange tricks up her sleeve but all of them are useless against your lack of metabolism, so she'd only be a tactical threat if she was supporting a Trochidae.

Dolce!

One of the problems of distributed intelligence is that it very easily lends itself to indecision - and so the Assistant Secretary slides back and forth at the end of the tunnel as its limbs all vote differently as to if they should stay or go. But you are soft and harmless-looking and so the octopus comes to the conclusion that it is in no immediate danger here, talking to you.

"Oh, very well," said the Assistant Secretary, one tentacle taking the initiative to pat you on the head and delight in the fluffiness. "Look. I'm out of a job, to be honest... what's the point of managing a dead leviathan's fear? Oh sure I'm still on the organizational chart and my office is one of the ones that didn't get shattered when the ship came through but that doesn't mean I deserve to be here. My position has been destroyed and now I need to grow a backbone," funny. "and decide what to do with myself. Do I take a voluntary redundancy and return to the spawning depths? Do I transfer into a new position? There are so many vacancies, how do I decide what I want? What if I don't like it there? What if I need to apply?" it groaned.

"Help me out, little sheep," lamented the bureaucapus. "What should I do with myself? Retire? Start a new job? Maybe even go into the private sector and join a cancer colony?"