She's not surprised. Shamash may have wanted a fair fight but there was no way the Annunaki would have risked their god actually losing in the public eye. That would be the end of them. So instead she has to fight their fleet and some shadow-realm sorcerer all at once.

She sets her shield.

Then let them come.

Light and fire smashes at her shield. Chains and blades claw and snap at her ankles. She holds. The weight of it pushes her back. The sand she stands upon is as soft as her heart and it will not let her brace, so no matter how deep her feet sink into it it will not stop her from being pushed back. Light and fire, wielded by one who has tamed the stars. Back. Down. Break.

But sand is too strong to break, and so is her heart.

The smoke and fire clears and she shines amidst it all, cursed spear in one hand, radiant shield in the other. She holds Shamash's precious weapon above her head in triumph, in threat. She holds it as though to cast it right back at the Annunaki as Leonidas once cast at Xerxes. Will she make the throw the Spartan could not? Will she be satisfied, as he was, in making a god bleed?

She brings the weapon down upon her knee and shatters it in halves.

"I might have taken your life, Shamash," she calls as she stands, legs trembling beneath her but still holding her proud. "But I won't. You alone are no threat. Instead I will take every one of the devices you use to hurt others and leave you powerless."

She was a Phantom Thief after all.

[Marking Afraid. Clearing Angry by destroying something valuable. 14 on Never Give Up, inspiring the team]

Marianne lets out a breath with a long, slow shudder. It escapes her mouth in wisps that curl above her in a tiny shivering trail, as it pulls her hand inexorably upward to slip between the chains of her mask and beneath her shadows to brush the tips of her lips. Her fingers come back cold.

"Do you see that?" she sighs heavily, "She is so beautiful..."

Her heart races. Her fingers curl into fists. For the first time, she feels hesitation creep into her legs. But it is not the body of Étoile Ravenelle that holds her back.

"It hurts me to do this to her. Truly. But I must. Mon beau chevalier, you wonderful shining idiot. I cannot use her like this. She will kill us all. Do you see? There is nothing left but this, yes."

No more time for teasing. No more time for reunions. Marianne does not glance back at Celestine to see the look on her face. She steps forward into the window, and melts away.

Damn you, Canada. Where was this invincible battle maiden routine when they came in the first place? If you could not do it then when it was needed, you will not do it now. And if this is how you want it? Fine. Meet Marianne.

The arena sounds with the howling of the wind, the rattling of chains. Marianne leaps through the paths running through her own true body to appear, just for a second, in a patch of darkness behind Canada. Blink and you'll miss it. But the crack of boot on back is unmistakable, as it staggers Canada forward into a web of rusted mesh. The nightmare floor swallows her up to the ankles, leaving nothing between her and Shamash's next pointlessly cruel and savage strike.

Go down already! How is she supposed to save you like this?

[Marianne is using the point of Team Canada just generated selfishly, shifting her Danger up and Savior down. Directly Engage: 7. She is taking Canada's "location", but stay tuned for exactly how that goes down]

Set!

“Grrrrrmph...”

The Seneschal is looking at you more appraisingly, Set. As he sinks his stylus into the malleable surface of the tablet, he’s not looking at the glyph he signs: he’s looking at you. There’s a wicked cunning there, a foxlike intelligence and refusal to give up.

You’ve made him all the more zealous in wanting to stop you, to catch you, to punish you for what you’ve just done; but he knows now that he will have to be clever and decisive. Set, avatar of her god, is a dangerous enemy clambering up the Chain.

Ah, but there it is, you have the release orders now. What’s your parting gift for him?

***

Canada!

Shamash buffets you with waves of sound from what feels like every side; they’re here, they’re there, they’re kicking up great clouds of sand as they damage spacetime. It’s an unsteady and berserk assault, and it’d be easy to punish if your feet weren’t sunk into the arena.

How heavy is your shield? How do you protect your ears and eyes? Why is Marianne doing this?

***

Marianne!

The world is growing dangerously thin. That great brute chews their way through the world, and their insistence on staying in one little arena is making things quite, quite threadbare.

What begins to leak through into the audience? What signs and portents and stray thoughts are made manifest among them as their god threatens to send them all hurtling down into your demesne?

A castle can be mighty. It can represent the end of armies and the failure of tyrants. But no matter how high or enduring the walls they can only face in one direction.

With grim determination she keeps her shield facing Shamash. Blow after blow crashes against her shield from the front - she refuses to give Shamash an inch, refuses to give him even a breath of satisfaction. Her shield is as light as air and her reactions are as quick as thunder. She endures all of the High God's wroth without giving an inch.

But there's no defence against Marianne. Her blows shake her, make her stumble, knock her to her knees. She can only carry one world on her shoulders and so she fights like her second opponent isn't there at all. Her only hope is her betrayer sees her frustrated tears and takes mercy on her. She's driven lower and lower until she's on her knees, bruised and battered between two storms.

[Potential 4. Insecure]

Set leans over to the sound of linen gently swishing and slides the tablet out from the Seneschal's bound hands. She looks it over, ensures that the orders are in place, no extra guards or wrong locations to deceive her. When she's done, she nods to herself and replaces it at the other end of the desk, outside of the Seneschal's reach. Though perhaps left alone he could scooch his chair over to get it, as long as he's careful not to knock himself over in the process.

Set steps away for a moment and examines the room. The fight was quick, a series of blows and portals, a sudden and decisive win. His retainers would have finished their falls by now. Perhaps a few were still clinging roughly to the roof, others fallen to the gardens and courtyards and now recovering, but still some distance from this office with its commanding view of the city.

Her gaze strays down to the city in miniature. All that jumping about and neither she nor the Seneschal had damaged it. Set wanders over and stands among the buildings, picks up a few trees and admires them. Even her little waterfall garden is there in miniature, and the tofu stall where she had eaten out. This thing was truly spectacular, not just practical for planning, but truly a work of art. It might well be the unique creation of some Annunaki crafter, one of a kind and irreplaceable in its eye for detail. She looked over at the Seneschal. "Truly spectacular craftsmanship. You had this made for you?" She laughs with the dismissal that the Seneschal might make such a work himself. "Did you pay nothing for it? Claim such a thing as the right of your position on your vaunted chain? Pathetic."

Anathet knew what Marianne would do here. She saw the challenge in the Seneschal's eyes. She knew a man like him wouldn't mourn the suffering of a thousand slaves but his heart would break over the loss of a precious toy. Break him inside, make him hurt, let him feel the pain of the masses in his own heart and be scarred by the revolution to come. That was the way of the Phantom Thieves, wasn't it? Anathet almost lifted her foot and with a great golden sandal crushed the Seneschal's palace in miniature like Godzilla himself had come to rampage in Babylon.

Almost.

Something in her heart stopped her. She just...she couldn't inflict that on the Seneschal, not though he deserved it. That kind of pain, that's what they were fighting to stop, wasn't it? The goal wasn't just to gather it all up and throw it back on the Annunaki. They had to be stopped, but Anathet didn't want to do that by destroying all the beautiful things in Caphtor. Then there wouldn't be anything beautiful left and her heart cried for that.

So instead, with an angry grunt, she turns the Seneschal's chair and flings him into a corner so he can see nothing. No jockeying to his tablet for freedom, his men will find him tied and punished like a child and that will be that. The tree though, is on his desk by the tablet, and Set is already long gone before he can see her cry.

Fall. Fall. Fall. Fall!

Marianne is a storm. She is little more than hot fury in the shape of a young woman, raining endless blows on Canada's and wedging her ever deeper into the ground. Every strike scythes through thinner and thinner air as the space above is torn away from the space below, leaving nothing here but Marianne. No air to breathe but her. Nothing to feel but pain and fury ever more sharply. It spreads and seeps across the audience, but it washes over Shamash harmlessly. The worst of it crashes down only on Canada.

Fall. Fall. Fall. Fall! The words crash like thunder, no longer bothering or able to fully hide her presence in a place so thoroughly corrupted by her heart. Crétine! Pourquoi fais-tu ça? Voulez-vous mourir? Tu m'emmerdes! Why! Won't! You! Just! Stop?!

Tattered shadows billow across the arena like a rotting cloak, as if they were a physical thing, her terrible coat made large enough to swallow the sun. The sound of school bells is deafening, and all the more horrible for how damaged they seem. Louder and louder, they sound like nothing so much as rust singing of the sadness of rot and ruin. Just underneath it, a girl is sobbing. Is it any consolation to know your traitor is crying too, dear Canada?

But every storm has to end. Every nightmare fades away. Marianne sinks back into her protective shell before Shamash starts tearing chunks out of her body, leaving behind a shattered and broken arena, a quavering, sick crowd, and nothing more. She wraps her arms tightly around Canada, and as one they sink through the corroded mesh that had been the floor, leaving only sands and the hope that someone would decide this had all been to save a useless hero from the wrath of a god behind.

[Marianne is clearing Angry, having hurt Canada as her act of 'breaking' something]

Jezcha!

The sound of thunder fills your head and makes you deaf. For a moment, you think that it is just more of the apparitions that have surrounded this arena. But, no, as the smoke and shadows lift, you can see that the great gate of the arena has been blown apart. It is the most terrible destruction you have ever seen inflicted upon your city, and your heart leaps into your throat.

Shamash stands, smoking, in the center of the arena, one fist still extended. That terrible gauntlet vents with a bestial roar, and Shamash lets it fall to their side. "Find the body," they say, their voice inscrutable. "Or what is left of it."

You don't say anything. You can hear the blood pounding in your head. To kill the human, the God of Motion unleashed the Huwawa. How... how terrible... how...?

No. It must have been justified. You rise to your feet, and with a dry voice, cheer the god who defeated an impossible foe. "Shamash," you cry, and your friends among the stands rise, too, desperate. No, not desperate. They, too, understand it was the only way to win. There will be stories told about this day, when Shamash slew Canada the Destroyer.

"Shamash! Shamash! Shamash!" The stupid slaves take encouragement to cheer their savior, but the prod of their guards gets their tongues working, even as Shamash's chariot descends to take them back once more to Babylon. "Shamash! Shamash! Shamash!"

Only your sister sits and says nothing. Dumb blind fool. One day, you will be rid of her. Maybe you should talk to the Inquisitors about her failure to show piety today...

***

Canada! Marianne!

You fall into the deep places of the city.

Down here there are vast machineries; there are storage-vaults; there are sealed tombs. There are shield generators; there are weather engines; there are hidden chambers. Here, there are passageways that lead from temple to temple, sealed thrice either way; here, there are oceans of oil and seas of circulated water; here, you are not meant to live. And yet you fall into the dust, hours away from the city far above, tangled among each other; and there is nothing but the wetness of your tears. There is no light, yet there is no silence; all around is the sound of strange and terrible device.

You are alone together. How cruel, to be so.

***

Anathet!

There is a huge and terrible sound that comes from the south. The kind of sound that signals disaster; the kind of sound that is so large it echoes across the bay, where the old city lies. Smoke rises, as do Shamash's chariots. But you're not supposed to do this; you're supposed to go and make sure everybody gets released on time. If you hurry, you can hit the release points and get everyone to scatter well before the Seneschal is found, but it's going to be tight. That means you need to stop crying and compose yourself. Get it together, girl!

How do you find solace and do what is needed of you tonight, Anathet? How do you find the self-control to keep going even when you just want to sit in a corner and cry about how awful everything is?

[Potential 4. Insecure]

Solace, alas, is in short supply. Anathet's talent, the Zhianku's talent is no great magic to control or manipulate one's emotions. Quite the opposite, they feel stronger, more sharply. Anathet's talent is the talent that everyone needs at times, some more often than others. The ability to act, even while hurting. Perhaps especially while hurting.

There are techniques that help of course. Anathet's interpretation of Zhianku meditation is to imagine her emotions as a myriad of colors and to visibly calm them almost as though trying to calm a tempestuous sea. In better times, she can choose her colors and wear them, but in times like this they decide for her what will come out. She has practiced imagining her mind almost like a sailor on the sea of her emotions in such times. The sailor can't calm the whole sea, but she can learn how to ride within it without being capsized. She can focus on a few tasks. Breathing and tying off the ropes where they're needed.

And there are some things that are rote. Using her things is rote. The Zhianku trained Anathet well in their technology and so moving isn't a conscious thought and it has no need of focus. She just has to know where she's going and muscle memory with her jewelry does the rest. There is not even a need for care. This is not Set trying to hide, but rather Set sweeping in with power and glory, opening large portals and ushering the newly released prisoners through them to safety. Or such safety as there is at least. To where the remaining rebels hide and hunker down as Shamash hurls around such awful destruction in their home.

It doesn't occur to her, distracted as she is, to bother alerting the rebels in advance, so they even receive a show from Set in all her glory with light and power transporting all these prisoners for them to take. She has no time for explanations, they are commanded to make space and left as to how to do it. Doing the task is much easier than doing it with care, compassion, and constant focus, and so the aspect of Set tonight is the storm and the outsider, that which is beyond comprehension or reason because the aspect that is Anathet is elsewhere.

It's busy focusing on breathing and holding back tears. It's busy trying to wonder what kind of person she is, and wants to be, and why she came back here, what she hopes to achieve with all this. She has no fire of Marianne, nor shame and the need to prove herself like Canada. She worried for her mother, and can't even find her! Can't ask the Seneschal for that or let the resistance know Set is looking for such a specific person, it would give away far too much, so she's left with nothing. For this she abandoned safety, loved ones, a warm home full of gardens she loved and her pet whale? And yes, for this and a vague sense of doing the right thing, whatever that is.

No, there's no solace tonight. There is a sense of duty, a bare minimum of skills to move about where she's needed, and a focus on merely breathing and continuing to move. There is also a practically accidental spreading of the Phantom Thieves' reputation for being many times their own number by appearing visibly in many places within a few moments, but that's of no mind. And of the destruction and the safety of her friends, for now she can do nothing and so she tries to numb herself to these things and ride through the storm of their safety and that of her family and everyone else.

Later, when everything is still, she will cry, time will pass, and she will go about gathering herself once again. That's all anyone can do.

Fall!

She falls.

She envies Atlas. He only had to bear the weight of the world. He didn't have to carry a broken heart in his chest as well. What did strength matter if she couldn't trust the ground she stood upon? What use were castle walls built on shifting sands? She couldn't survive this world of illusion and deceit and kisses. She knew that now - she knew that she was doomed.

She fell.

And she twisted in the dark.

It was her body that hit the ground first, Marianne cradled in her arms for safety.

It was liberating being doomed. In knowing that no matter how many times she was hurt the idea of revenge would never cross her mind. She'd been fooled twice, so shame on her - and weren't there worse things than shame? Like her beautiful friend crying in her arms?

"Shh," she whispered. "It's okay."

The first punch is like a rock smashing across Canada's face. Marianne forces her way up to sitting and raises her fist again in anger. Her eyes sting with hot, steaming tears.

"You idiot! You stupid... idiot! Who told you you could try this? Did you even think about what would happen if you lost? Or even worse, if you'd won? Idiot! Quelle conasse! You... you're such a..."

The second blow falls, but it hits as hard as a kitten's paw. Her voice cracks with the effort of holding back her tears, which as boiling away her shadows. Her body doesn't change at all, but without them she seems... diminished. The general murk of the Undercity still hides most of her distinguishing details, but without her aura, with no burning eyes or wicked teeth or that easy sense of power that follows her everywhere, Marianne is not a monster. She's not a warrior, and not a revolutionary. She looks fragile, tired, and weak. She's not a hero.

She's just a girl. And she's lost the battle with her tears. She sobs openly and without restraint, helpless to stop the rain of tears from dripping out through her mask and splashing against Canada's skin and armor. It's a constant storm of blows, harder than her punches could even hope to be right now. Twice she almost seems to get a handle on herself, but as soon as she opens her mouth to speak again it breaks and she doubles over in a fresh wave of crying. She sinks lower and lower, until she's back in Canada's arms, clinging to her and hiding her face in the nape of her neck, stealing comfort from her own victim like the worst sort of villain.

"I-it's... not, not ok! It's not ok, you dummy!" Is this her real voice? It's so soft! She sniffs, "How am, how am... h-ho-how am I supposed to keep you safe? How am I supposed to keep you safe when you're trying to throw yourself away?! I need you! I can't do this without you! I can't do... anything without you..."

Canada exhaled. Some part of her had been waiting for so long to hear those words. To hear that everything was for her, to hear that everything that seemed so mysterious actually made sense, to hear that in the end people did terrible things because of love. A tension that had gripped her by the base of the neck for so long started to relax.

It almost made her forget it wasn't Tirzah who was saying it.

It almost made it not matter.

Her dreams had become tangled indeed if this moment felt like they were coming true.

She tried to give the next line, rehearsed endlessly in her imagining: "I can't be safe until everyone else is safe. Come - we can still make this right." It didn't make it out. Come on, straighten up Canada. Be the hero that everyone needs. Deep breaths, one sentence. "I can't -" try again, just swallow and try again, "I can't!" her face is bruised, her back and knees ache, just struggle through it like you always do. Every punch you take is one you saved someone else from. "I don't deserve to be safe."

Ah. A mistake.

"I'm not the hero this world needs. I'm not a saviour they can rely on. I'm weak and blind, and all I can try to do is make up for the damage I've already caused," she said. "After that I won't get in your way any more..."

Étoile is trembling. There is so little of Marianne's fire left in her, and what's there feels like it's only there to burn her hollow. Chains melt off of her coat as she clings to Canada. Her mask cracks and her gloves crumble to dust on her hands; her disguise is falling apart even faster than her plans.

But even still, she doesn't let go. She's got sniffles instead of comforting words, but she doesn't let go. She's got a ratty hood and a tangled and matted nest of golden blond hair to keep herself hidden under, nothing more than that to see herself home tonight, but she doesn't let go or run while she's still got the chance.

Go on, Étoile. You have to fix this. You have to advance the plan and the cause, or what was it all for? You have to do more than just feel the warmth of another human body on your own. Do more than notice where your hero feels as firm and strong as steel and where she's so soft it makes it seem impossible she could handle anything so rough as a pillow fight. So go on. Make it better.

"...Dumbass." she winces, and pulls away so she can turn to hide her face.

"If, if that's what... if that's what, that's what you really think, then..." It should be impossible for a place so full of horrible and noisy devices to feel so oppressively quiet. But the space between her words is worse than drowning, "Th-then you're dead, ok?! You're dead and I killed you! So just... just stop for a while and, and... wait for the signal. You really, you... you don't get it, do you? What you mean t-to people and... who cares and, and!"

When she wrenches herself free, her every motion is jarring and ungraceful. She moves like she took every hit that happened in the arena, no matter who threw it. She throws an arm in front of her face to keep it covered, though it does nothing at all to hide how upset she is. She has to stomp her foot three times to get it to slide in between the corners, and only at the last second remembers to reach out her hand to pull Canada with her to some softer and more hospitable place to be "dead".

"It wasn't you who killed me," Canada murmurs.

She can't shake the words out of her head, Marianne's or her response. It makes sense, doesn't it? She's dead, dead, dead. Her heart doesn't have anything left in it but pain, and so receiving pain is the natural state of being. When she stands she's still so straight and tall despite the bruises and cuts all along her back that would have rendered a normal person a wreck. She just doesn't feel it any more, like a fish doesn't feel the water.

All that courage. All that conviction when she stood up to face Shamash. It didn't seem like courage now. Just the absence of fear. The inability to feel it. That's not what's making her shake.

Why had she said it? It had been so simple when everyone had hated her. Now how was she supposed to redeem herself, when even her sacrifice would leave someone sad?

When Étoile pulls her forwards she almost falls. She almost lets herself acknowledge all the pain, the unexpressed and entombed enormity of it. She catches herself halfway, closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. She had to carry the weight of the world, how was she supposed to carry herself at the same time?

She follows.

Caphtor!

You have ten thousand eyes with which to see. You are a panopticon with ADHD; you witness and do not understand, are not allowed to understand. You drift in and out of a wider consciousness.

This is what you witness: damage to the Arena of Shamash. You wake labor crews, reroute them to the scene of destruction beyond the ruined gates, instruct them to contact a supervisor if they find body parts under Edict of the Gods. It is a very big mess. Let’s cleaning!

This is what you witness: the council of the city, with raised voices, demanding information from your magnet-mired recollection. Is Set one woman or many, they ask. Why did you not raise an alarm, they ask. Where is Set now, they ask. You do not have answers. You don’t know things about Set! You could, if you were awake, make very accurate guesses based on evidence... but you are not allowed. The wines are heavy about you. Caphtor is not allowed to awaken.

This is what you witness: janissaries arresting every slave without a work pass who dares be out of their domiciles. Inquisitors in purple and black, who make demands of you that you can more readily answer. You are their hawk in the sky, their eyes that bring down the prey. You dutifully record names and tracking numbers for them on a tablet inside the Temple of Ereshkigal.

This is what you do not see: in an armory slave’s quarters, Tirzah ab-Marduk of the House of Blue Stone runs her fingers sightlessly over developed photographs, alone in a cramped room. You do not witness her. She has turned your gaze away; the night belongs to her and that room.

This is what you do not see: three girls having terrible coffee in Casa du #MAT, a forgotten alcove in your depths fortified into a studio apartment, a den of cracked tablets and mystic wires, a parasite deep inside you learning your darkest secrets. There is exhausted, incredulous laughter when a fleet key is revealed: the missing piece of a great work.

This is what you do not see: a brilliant man, wondering why he was released from his work for the cult of Enki, accepting a hot dumpling from his new roommate: farm worker by day, she says, bouncer by night. He won’t see her often; keep the place clean and keep your head down...

Anathet!

Casa du #MAT is a veil-free zone. No eye-conography (that’s a security measure) and no veils (that’s just personal). It’s so small and cramped that one can barely believe there’s room for one person, let alone two.

But here she is, just like Étoile told you: Canada. She’s... looked better. Those are some magnificent bruises. And she’s stuck in here until the coast is clear, and “here” is barely three steps across, even if #MAT is sitting all tucked up cross-leggies in a bed of wires, dissecting a tablet and drying her counterfeit keys.

And here she is. The only survivor of a battle with the gods not locked up in the Temple of Enki. Wow.

***

Canada!

As above, but it’s been pretty rough hiding out here, right? You need a plan. Or access to a mirror. Or something that lets you get out.

***

Étoile!

Lady is fading. The household is in chaos, Jezcha is throwing her weight around, there are guards everywhere, and the tumult is making Lady’s condition worse. She’s anxious, too, barely able to sleep at night, worried that she’s a target. There’s always the tramp of boots outside her chambers, and she’s so listless that not even your massages and fanning and perfect little tea ceremonies are helping.

You know what you have to do. There’s only one way to bring a smile back to that pale face beneath her wispy veil. And even if you have to be accompanied by guards while walking in the gardens... it has to be worth it.

It’s time for super-lamassie.

[Potential 4. Insecure]

Set walks into the little apartment with minimal fanfare. As with all her travels, she simply arrived here (Étoile provided excellent information for where to fetch Canada, so there was no challenge finding it or arriving safely and quietly). You would not know she had spent the previous night crying, not with her makeup done thickly, her headdress gleaming, her expression calm and composed. Last night, she had time for her problems, but now she has other people to worry about and she is wearing an aura of tranquility. A mild sea-blue, or perhaps the aspect of the unexpected traveler. She may be your water in the desert, Canada. At the very least, she's a ride.

Once she enters properly, her expression drops to a frown, and her aura to a muted blue-purple. "Oh, Canada, what did they do to you? Was it the "god" or Marianne? She had choice words for you last night, I bet it was her." Set kneels down in the cramped little apartment and tentatively looks over the bruises, then turning her attention to Canada's face. "You don't have to do this alone. None of us do. Gods, you're being so dumb. Whatever happened I...I want to help you. So, it's going to be all right. We'll get you wherever you need to go to rest and recover and then we'll come up with a new plan and we'll go get them for real. No running off or trying to do anything else this idiotic, okay?"

[Comfort or support: 2+1-1=2. Marking Anathet's 5th potential and an advance.]

Étoile heaves a sigh as she stares at herself in the mirror. Her golden veil is a perfect match for her sparkling, taut bikini. She's painted her eyes a flawless turquoise and set gems across her nose just so, and the dark whisker lines she's drawn on her cheeks are exactly according to the picture she was given to work with. She runs the brush through her high ponytail and it glides through the strands as if through water. Everything is perfect. And yet...

She pivots on the balls of her feet to check behind her. The luscious black-furred tail Lady gave her oh those... actually, better not to count how long it's been, what's important is that it's inserted as securely and comfortably as she could ask for, and pokes through the special hole sewn into her bottoms just adorably. Her shimmery pastel wings are laced into her top so well she could trick herself into thinking she was born with them if they didn't have such a silly and obvious costume-y flop to them. Her legs are covered by alluring black thigh-high socks that have her feeling warm despite the cooler air and her skimpy outfit.

She sighs again and casts her gaze her gaze down at her feet. It's no good. There's no way this will work, and it's all her fault. For getting distracted, and for putting too much faith in Marianne to protect what was important instead of... of... no. No. She could fix this. She had to fix this. There's nobody else in all the world who would even try. Just a few more important details, Étoile, there's a good girl. This has to work. Please, let it work.

She pulls the first glove tightly over her arm up to the elbow. It's designed to force her hand into a ball to complete the look of the ridiculous and embarrassing cat's paw at the end. It also needs to be laced up, and even though she still has a hand free she takes the time to pull the strings tight and then tie them with a simple knot using her teeth. She's more used to it this way for one thing, but more importantly she knows that giving in will only make the second one more difficult. It's an uncomfortable twenty minutes of effort, but when she's finished she's rendered her hands so completely useless that she has to bend down and pick up her leash and collar with her mouth.

This is it, Étoi-- no. lamassie. Go save your Lady. And, just... please, for the love of everything good left in the world, please don't assign any Lynxes to watch them today. Anybody else is fine, just please. Please. There's no way they're ok with this. Right?

She smacks her cheeks with her paws and forces her face into a silly, servile smile. There she is! There's lamassie! She nods at her reflection once, twice, and goes trot trot trotting off into the bedroom where she can hear her Lady being devoured by that nasty monster named Anxiety.

Prance prance prance! She swings her hips with exaggerated enthusiasm to make her little tail go swish-swish and her wings flutter daintily. She skips forward with a sort of courage flowing through her body that even Marianne would struggle to find, and paps her silly paws down in Lady's lap.

"Pweash, misshtwshh," she chirps just before spitting the collar out. She turns her face toward Tamytha with the best doe-eyed expression she can muster, "I, u-um... l-lamassie reeeaaaally wants to go for walkies! Can we go? Can Lady take her silly pet to the gardens, please pretty please please?"

She squirms and blushes hot enough to feel near enough a match for Tamytha's own body temperature. Her veil flutters on her face as she nuzzles Lady's lap. Just as nice as burying your face in fresh laundry. Right?

Canada!

"This is the bit where she says No, I work alone, like a mighty timber howling wolf, and pouts about how she's not in the spotlight for once in her life." #MAT slurps loudly out of her work thermos in the most aggravating way which she is doing on purpose. There's bad blood here, and really, somebody (anybody) should have known better than to put the two of you in the same room for the foreseeable future. The Canada Safety Area has been blocked out in tape. It's tiny. And whenever you move out of the CSA #MAT starts yelling at you about delicate cabling work and how she's hard at work here, Canada.

And she is smart! She's really smart! She's decrypting the Fleet Key you managed to filch off Shamash and that might get you backdoor access into Caphtor herself, but also, god, she is insufferable. And because you started a fight that you couldn't see through, now you have to stay down here until Marianne gives you the go-ahead to leave. For who knows how long. Without a mirror. Without access to your sanctum. With #MAT.

Mark a Condition from the past, oh, 48 hours of being cooped up in here and try to ignore the, god, she's doing the tapping thing again, she's very definitely doing that on purpose, it's ever so slightly off beat from what she's humming, somebody make her stop.

***

Lamassie!

There are two Lynxes. Two... familiar... Lynxes. Because the Seneschal has made security a priority in the house, and wouldn't you know it? Wouldn't you just know it? Among the reserves called up from the barracks in the Temple of Marduk were these two: Am’met and Visha’an. The two Lynxes who walked you home after you stole the tablets from the Temple of Ishtar. The two Lynxes who made you squeak and squirm and wiggle the whole way back. And you have to walk past them, ignore them, and oh how the two of them are staring. You can almost hear their veiled grins.

But ignore them! Because Lady gives you a smile and cups your chin in one delicate, dark-veined golden hand. "Oh, you dear, silly girl," she says, rubbing her other hand all over the top of your head, "where are your darling ears?" Oh no! You forgot your precious triangles! How could you forget, sillyhead?

"I'll get them," Am'met says, so, so helpfully, so quickly, so eagerly. And you almost manage to forget, with Lady's nails lightly parting your taut-pulled hair, the fact that she will, that she must, return. Until she does, and assists Lady in getting those adorable triangles sticking up, framing your high ponytail just so. "She looks just like a kitten," Am'met says, tail flicking like she can see a mouse scurrying across the floor. "Isn't that so, my lady?"

"Yes," Lady says, looping your leash around her wrist. "She is the most beautiful kitten in the whole wide world."

And not even the sound of Visha'an strangling the wild laughter struggling to escape his lips, only audible to your keen ears, can ruin that!

"I don't understand what everyone's so surly for," Canada grumbled, inaccurately. "I succeeded. I got the fleet key. I almost took down a High God. Working alone seems to have been working out for me. In fact, it's working together that -" she bit her lip in frustration as #MAT took another loud sip, "- seems to be the biggest thing slowing me down right now."

This is not a fair assessment. Her heart carries the turbulence of a meteor, and her emotions are far more complicated than this endorsement of mighty howling timber wolf ideology indicates. But she's been sitting in what she suspects is a time out corner being haranged by an irritating jerk all day with nothing to do but get ever more defensive.

[Marking Insecure]

Oh no! Oh no oh no, oh no! Oh cruel, uncaring Universe, did you not understand the one thing Étoile had asked for? She said no Lynxes! None! This is two! Two Lynxes! And these two Lynxes, to boot! Oh no oh no oh no no no no, she'd never live this down. By this time tomorrow the entire House of Marduk will have heard every unflattering detail of this trip. Oh goshies, why had she gone and forgotten her triangles? Er, her ears. H-headdress!

Étoile's entire body is flushed and red. If she didn't know better she'd swear she was coming down with a fever. What is she supposed to do? Listen to them snicker! She tries to hide her face, but the only place to do that is on Lady's thigh and for some reason that mostly seems to be making things worse? Oh lamassie you silly girl! Stop squeaking! Can't you hear how much they're laughing? Can't you hear how much you sound like you're mewing?? Ok no, this is not going to work. This was, in fact, a terrible idea and she needs to apologize to Lady right now and take it back before--

The thought, in fact every thought, is interrupted by a series of gentle scritches massaging her scalp right behind her triangles. N-nevermind that they're just something a servant put on her head, the sensation of those long, strong fingers gliding across her scalp is... is... mmmmm~

lamassie's deepest secret is that she never quite mastered purring. The noise she makes instead is an indecent sort of half-moan broken up by little shivers and a vague crackling to her voice that gives her voice a kind of gravelly sing-song quality. It means she's happy. It means she's safe with her Lady and not even mean, snickering Lynxes can penetrate the absolute zone of perfect defense that is ear wubs. She bonks her forehead against Lady's legs and nuzzles her cheek against her mistress with a sudden and total lack of shame. Before she knows it her butt is wiggling in the air and her guards are no longer even trying to restrain their laughter, but it doesn't matter. Étoile, lamassie has no need for pride! She's a good girl, yes she is!

Lady tugs her leash, and Étoile paps her little paws onto the ground to follow where she's led. Of course she can't stand up on her feet, silly! Then she wouldn't be Lady's darling widd... erm, little lamassie! She turns her head up as high as her collar will let her to present her chin for rubs even underneath her veil. It's the prettiest one she owns, sparkling golden fabric that's lined with tiny jewels that add weight to the soft fabric that's even thin enough to offer the tiniest glimpse at her face! Wearing this she's an open book: Lady doesn't even need to look at her eyes to see how happy she is!

The face that looks back at her is pure magic. This is the strongest Tamytha has looked in days! Looking at her tall, wiry frame and seeing all the gentleness she knows is reflected inside the depths of her soul, lamassie feels the last bits of her doubt melt into a puddle. Lady's tread is feather soft, and lamassie comes scampering delightedly behind her. To the gardens! To the gardens for Lady's pretty heart! She makes all sorts of silly noises and delights to hear the laughter that follows, but even at her silliest she never comes close to the end of her leash. If it's her time to be a pet, she is the gentlest, sweetest pet in all of Caphtor.

And do you know why? Because she's a good girl. And she's going to fix everything, just you watch!