When Redana uses the Command Seal implanted under her skin, it’s not because she’s afraid that Bella really will do what she just threatened, and she needs someone to save her. She’s not thinking that clearly at all. She just can’t bear to be alone.

She’s alone with Bella. For the first time in their lives, they’re together and apart. There’s no safe haven here, no softness she can touch. The face in front of her belongs to a stranger. Her Bella is gone. Spittle trickles down her face, beads against her lips. The magic throbs and lances under her skin, a command, inexorable and inexplicable.

Come to me. Stand before me.

The air shimmers into impossible angles; the world warps. A transposition of necessity. A miracle. Owls shy away, ready themselves, as an impossibility steps through under compulsion: Pallas Athena in a wedding gown, sculpted from the finest stone.

“Alexa,” Redana sobs. Again. Again, her friend sees her like this: weak, humiliated, helpless. Wasn’t the last time enough? “Tell her she’s wrong, please.” She tries to turn her body, to look, and the Kaeri keep her feet from touching the ground, from finding any sort of leverage. “Tell her... you’re my friend, aren’t you?”

Then she does manage to get a look, courtesy of a scan from the Auspex, and her train of thought derails spectacularly. “Wait, Alexa, you’re getting married? Why didn’t you tell me? Am I invited? Did you not tell me because you didn’t want me there? Oh no. Oh no no no. That can’t be right because if that’s right—“

Then Bella is right. Alexa doesn’t even want Redana to attend her wedding. The betrayal stabs deep.

When Dolce had first doled out the field rations for this trip, all of the hoplites had refused to take any, which he hadn’t ever realized was a possible outcome of that exchange. Usually, most people would rather not go hungry, and yet they were adamant in their refusal. Somewhere in the midst of insistence and counter-insistence, Galnius asked why it was so important to stop for a meal when they were due to launch any moment. What he had called rations, they’d taken for an entire meal.

Can you imagine? What must the Imperial chefs be doing over there in the Armada? How badly could they be mangling their food that it didn’t even look like food anymore? If this was their first time with decent food in the field, oh, they would be in for a treat.

You see, food? Food comes from ingredients. To make bread, you need flour. To make a salad, you need vegetables. But, what if you want croutons in your salad? Why, then you’d need bread, wouldn’t you? Bread, which was food, is now an ingredient again, and you’ve made something altogether new! With a little time, a hot surface scraped clean, some oils and herbs, why couldn’t field rations be the same way? Taking a little from everyone’s pack - and a double portion from their own, for Liu Ban had nothing to give - Dolce served up a steady supply of toasted sandwiches and freshly-sauteed fixings, enough for mortal and god alike. In no time at all, everyone had food, company, and good cheer in plentiful supply.

Incredible, wasn’t it? Crashed on a forgotten planet, hunted, without knowing how they were to carry on, a little good food made everything a little better, didn’t it? Not. Well, not perfect, but still better, yes?

...it could still be better, though. Galnius hadn’t let plate or cup so much as touch the ground they shared with Liu Ban, and some of the other hoplites were starting to follow suit. Vasilia was laughing at everyone’s jokes, so long as everyone never included Zeus. Lord Hades hadn’t laughed at all, and to tell the truth, Dolce hadn’t seen him eat even once, even as sandwiches disappeared from before him. But no matter how things were, they’d be better with full bellies. That much, he was sure of.

Now then; was anyone ready for seconds? Thirds? Refills on drinks? He had a few powders on hand that could make even a canteen of water all the more delicious and refreshing. He did not sit with the rest, nor at all really. His post was at the makeshift stove, and he would man it faithfully. Too much to do to sit, too much to do.

It's not a lack of words that pushes Alexa forward, wraps her around Caval in a tender but firm hug.

Oh, the words definitely play a part--believe her, she tries. Opens her mouth, fails, gulps, and then draws Caval in. But what even does she say to that? How could she possibly respond? What speech could properly fill that void?

...She doesn't even know what the right speech ought to be. You're not broken? But they are, just look at them! None of them are fulfilling their purpose, that for which they were made. But "you all are broken" also doesn't feel right? Broken, but that's not bad?

Hugging is easier than thinking. She can close her eyes, nestle Caval close, occupy herself with running her hands across her back. Reassure her that she's here, and here and now, so long as she holds her, the world will be alri--

The world blurs, her arms are empty, and the world is not alright. She swallows. Kaeri. Bella. This is a hell of a pickle to suddenly be transported into without warning. She can handle one or the other easily, but both?

Tell her she’s wrong, please.

"She is wrong, please."

She shouldn't be surprised, really. Molech was secure enough in himself, in his prestige, his power, that the idea of retaining people simply to reassure him of the same would be laughable. And Nero almost didn't care that Alexa existed, so long as she didn't get any ideas about leaving or rebelling or things of that ilk.

Still, the surprise hurts. Having her voice stolen, parroted, reminding her that she is not her own, hurts all the more. She'd... well, she'd almost started to think that...

The thought sticks in her throat like a lump. She was wrong. Nevermind what she thought.

"I..." Don't fiddle with the bouquet, Alexa. You're the best. You have the best poker face. No tells. Stony disposition, that's the key. "I am... unsure?"

She's being asked a question. Don't look away, that's a sign of lying. Face her, and don't let the burgeouning panic show on the outside.

"You have... brought me out of the palace, to be sure. Opened my eyes to many things. You are a better master than"--your mother--"others I have served. I do not count you among my enemies." She swallows. "So long as you hold my seal, I physically cannot count you among my enemies. I am perfectly loyal to you, can do nothing to defy your orders. If that is what you seek in a friend, then yes, I am your friend."

Waves of Kaeri start to move again, only startled out of their unique formation for a moment. Like a ripple across the cavernous room, they raise their spears and bristle in answer to the challenge. Spears raise level with the shoulder, held exactly parallel to the ground. Feather cloaks flutter and conceal, filling the room with a quiet rustling like hunting wingbeats that mask and confuse their movements. They stalk in their uneven circle motions, strong and slow paces carrying them to their right instead of forward. These are the Kaeri. This is a terror phalanx. Their prayers and benedictions spoken in silence, much the same as their Praetor. Even here, they are ready to make war. Even the Palas Rex is just an obstacle to be overcome. If they were any less they could never challenge the warriors of Ceron for the highest glories.

And the sound of one woman's applause booms out across it all and slices into the tension. Bella's hands slap together with deliberate and sarcastic slowness as her face twists into a monstrous grin that quietly threatens to devour Redana whole. Every now and then her hands slip and the echoing slap of her palms is replaced by a sharp keening as her talons slide across each other. If she notices, she doesn't seem to care.

"Ah, friendship!" she burbles, "So touching! I hope someone loves me enough to tell me how they're compelled to loyalty by my magic tattoos!"

Bella explodes with laughter: sharp, disgusting barks that make her whole body convulse as though she were possessed. It rises higher and higher as she gives herself over entirely to the specter of her day's drinking and the flame of malice crawling around inside her heart. Yes, Redana, that's the look! Squirm and sob you stupid girl, that's exactly the way you should look! A wet, pink tongue slides lasciviously across gleaming white fangs.

"Honestly highness, what were you thinking? You were there when I asked dear Alexa to stand down and leave you to my care! Well, since it seems to have slipped out of that empty hollow that passes for a brain in your head, let me be the one to remind you: she didn't leap to your defense crying Friendship and glory to your sacred, selfish vision quest. Come, come! If you think reeeaaaallly hard, you'll remember before you burn yourself out!"

She saunters confidently back toward Redana, flicking her tail in Alexa's face as she goes. Her eyes slide across the flustered statue, and she leers at the state of the wedding gown. Perfect. Wonderful. Gorgeous. You could not be a bigger help, Alexa, you must truly be a boon from Athena herself. Thank you for taking the time to... oh! That's right, you poor thing!

It's unnerving how gentle Bella is now when she traces her fingers across Redana's skin. Her fingertips are softer than a garden breeze as she brushes them against the now slightly muted pattern of the Command Seal. She leans in and touches her lips to it as though greeting a noble lady at a ball.

"It's all because of this. Without it, she'd have left you to me. Look at her, you know that's true. Without it, she could tell you how frustrated she is right now. Frankly, I don't blame her. Do you realize how bad it feels to be a slave and have your Master insist on calling your her precious friend?"

The feeling of wanting to fold in on oneself and disappear is not unique. Many young men and women have felt like Redana does now, wishing that they could stop taking up space, being observed, being judged. Redana is simply unique in that she can, with a wretched and broken sob, do so. The Kaeri are forced to release her as she recedes into an infinite point; wind whirls around the room, stinking of ozone. And then the Nemean is here, looming tall and inescapable, her face in shadow, her star-eye cold and infinitely distant. She wears no armor, her aketon a second skin more provocative than Redana’s nakedness, the lionskin on her shoulders drinking in the low light.

“She is a fool,” the Nemean says, and her voice is the shadow of something in the storm, seen by a sudden flash of lightning before the dark crashes back down. ”The princess is so lonely she looks for companions where she should see servants. She even hesitated from calling me because she feared I would hurt you. Ha! You have done your duty, statue, for all that she might cry about it. But you.”

She shifts, and the light falls upon that almost-familiar face, unfamiliar contempt etched into her Olympian features. “I liked you, little knife. Willing to speak truth to your mistress! To protect her from that pathetic little smear. But I have no patience for the faithless.”

The double-headed axe slams down from some unseen point in space high above, as if thrown down by Zeus herself, and the explosion of hissing lightning clears a circle in the phalanx, burns holes in that lovely wedding dress Alexa wears, and showers Bella in chips of marble. It buries itself so deep in the earth that seven Kaeri could not shake it, but the Nemean pulls it free without a whisper.

Then the nightmare woman stops and sneers. ”No,” she says in aside to her unseen audience in a troubled quantum state, ”I won’t kill her, little coward. But if you will not punish treachery, I will. You are welcome.”

And Redana Chrysopelex advances on Bella like the sea advancing on the shore.

[Blood is damaged. Bella is in trouble now. Alexa has some more choices to make about Redana and her feelings.]

Vasilia!

Guards lower. The guards of the gods, the guards of the hoplites, the guard of the princess, the guard of the Emperor. There is plenty, and Zeus has declared that there is to be peace. And so, here in the machine hell at the heart of Baradissar, there is peace.

In this moment, beneath the auspices of the Thunderer delighted, opportunity comes. As food fades away, and as Dionysus weaves their magic over the cups with gleaming fingers, tongues loosen and secrets start to slip. Vasilia, you may ask one question of anyone present, and Dolce may ask another - as Heroes of the People you do not need to roll for this, simply ask and you shall learn.

What is happening.

Dimly, she can feel the tickle of the dress smoldering, smell the acrid stink of silk starting to burn, and is sad. It may not have been a dress of her choosing, but it was... Is it wrong of her to feel sad at its impending destruction? She felt pretty.

It's a silly thing to focus on, but it's something to take her mind off of no seriously, what the fuck is happening. One second she's wrinkling her nose, assembling a sentence to try to refute Bella and then--

Did everybody know about this? Have the rest of the crew been excluding her from this, keeping her in the dark? Why would they do that?

It's the smoke from the dress causing the prickling around her eyes.

She flicks from one to the other, before grumbling and picking her spear from her belt. Redana may regret it later, but she's still her ward. And Alexa is, at heart, a defender. She'll keep the Kaeri off her back so... Redana? Still, she thinks? can have her alone time with Bella.

Zeus is unignorable by nature. She’d just finished telling a story louder than she’d needed to, and covered most of her audience’s reaction with her own booming laugh. Like she’d not told it a hundred times over. Vasilia hid her smile in a sip of her beverage, which was why you couldn’t find it on her face. Pah. No drink bitterer than a forced one. “Anyone can see what an honor it is to host such a host, Thunderer.” And now she was sitting next to her. When did that happen?! She specifically remembered at least a two-seat buffer not five minutes ago… “Of all the Captains of all the ships in all the universe, whyever should you dote on me so? After all, there’s no end of brave souls with the necessary...ambition to seek glory.” Why not bother one of them for a change? Jas’o certainly seemed your type.

**********************************

Dolce had been idly tracing patterns in the ash with his foot. Little swirls and whorls turned into swirling nebulae, and soon he had a few ships in to see the sights. He didn’t remember adding the face-down cards on top of them, but they were there to greet him when he turned away for a moment to address a call for refills. But, well, they were here, so he might as well pick one, no?

Thus began the Lord Hades' subtle exit from the table, and entry into a spirited game of cards with the chef. They had little to play with, only a few crumbs leftover from the cooking, but it didn’t seem to matter; the Lord of the Dead played as if they were priceless diamonds, and Dolce was not about to disappoint him with a poor showing.

“I was wondering,” Dolce asked, as Hades silently shuffled the cards for another round. “With all that’s still before us, and all that might be, are you...betting on our voyage? That we would succeed or fail?”

The air is filled with the smell of ozone, just like it was the last time. Bella's nose wrinkles as she takes shallow, involuntary sniffs, even as she raises a hand to ward off the storm of marble flecks. They stab at her palm, and at her cheeks and her forehead despite her best efforts, like a volley of tiny spears.

Her feet slide back. Again, and again, further and further away, but never shrinking the distance. The rush of blood in her ears is deafening, and when they press flat against her skull it offers no relief. Her tail bristles and stands on end behind her, her claws flex to the point of pain, but even so her feet carry her backwards. The monster comes at her without remorse.

It's the eye. Every other part of her could be forgiven, since it was all still so obviously Redana. The height didn't matter. The arms as thick as ship struts didn't matter. Even the scent didn't matter, woven through as it was with the heart of the princess. But that eye... that swirling universe of infinite power and possibility, it threatens to swallow her whole even as it narrows with horrifying focus to bore a hole straight through her chest.

Bella startles as she hits a wall. Only sheer force of will cuts her yelp of fright short, but nothing can stop the furious hiss that wells up in its place. Her back arches and she hunkers low to the ground, digging deep grooves into the floor with her claws. Stay away. Stay away! Her tail lashes frightfully behind her. Stay away!

Her heart freezes inside of her chest. For a second every part of her is still. Her muscles do not twitch, for as much as they long to. Her claws are held fast to the ground as though they'd been bolted there by an artisan. Her lungs refuse to pull anymore of this storm-tainted air, even though they burn with the effort of their restraint. Bella is locked inside the world of that eye. Crushed by it. Torn to pieces. Drilled through over and over and over, unable to live, unable to die, because Redana's promises were worth so little that she would turn herself into an instrument of Zeus' fury aimed solely at her.

No more words. No more taunts or pleas or threats. Betrayal wars with hatred on Bella's face in silence. But in the end what wins is terror. She twists her body unnaturally as she scrambles up the side of the wall behind her and leaps off of it to put the kind of distance between herself and that thing to let her breathe and swallow and think again. Like her champion father before her, she sprints. Fuck Alexa. Fuck the Kaeri. Fuck how this might look. Get away. Get away!

The Nemean does not run like Redana runs, no fleet-footed champion she. Redana moves like a graceful stag, pushing off every step, every one sure. The Nemean lunges, and the air hisses and sparks behind her. The axe can be felt before it is heard, and that is Bella’s salvation. Someone quick and desperate and acting on instinct could evade the Nemean’s lightning, letting it blow open walls and topple columns. What the years and neglect have not done, the Nemean does without so much as a qualm; if the palace fell on top of her, she would bat it aside.

And worst of all, she sings.

”when will this end?
where do you go?
four-foot you hurtle
hither and fro—

where do you go?
when will this end?
the knife that dares me
will learn how to bend!

where are you now?
why do you try?
little fleet-limb,
quiet your cry—

why do you try?
where are you now?
do you think you can flee,
my little niáou?”

It is the kind of effortless, shameless pageantry that only the gods can get away with. Redana would never be able to do this with a straight face; she would stumble over words and crack up into laughter, or get distracted by the chase. But the Nemean’s voice rolls like the deeps and makes the fallen stones tremble like they mean to jump up and join her in the chase. She is inhuman. She is a fury on the wing. And she cannot, will not, be stopped until she has levied punishment.

Alexa!

There is much that has surprised you today. The Kaeri are, blessedly, not amongst their number.

You recognize their formation, liquid and continuous in secret prayer to Ares and the fear that shatters armies. You realize the futility of striking out against it. You set your back to the wall and hold your spears and now you are a mountain before the wind - two unassailable forces, united and apart. The Kaeri consider their options. They consider gas and grenade and confusion and darkness. They consider all the techniques by which one can be rendered weak, all of the air's subtle poisons, all of the lashings by which they might shatter stone. You see their motions and contemplations as clearly as if they were asking you out loud. These are not exchanges, they're tests in the language of war.

But they are weaker than you. They need to prove themselves. And instead of hunting in their true way, seeking out your weaknesses over the hours or days that may require - if they found them at all - instead they send forth their champion.

A Kaeri Bloodfeather. This secret too you know. The ideal of the Kaeri is stealth and subtlety, the ideal Kaeri leader is one who manipulates from the shadows. To stand plain and open is a curse, a vulnerability, a trial borne by those too brutal to wield the dagger. A pitiable figure. There is no doubt they see Bella the same way.

There is low cunning in that stance, the way that gleaming crimson-orange halberd hovers low above the ground, the fusion-heat of its miraculous cutting edge causing the stone to sizzle and hiss. There is precision whirring in the joints of that sleek, matte-black divine armour. This is not a true warrior you face, it is an assassination via single combat. She is not dangerous because she might win, she is dangerous that you might both die here.

"I am Captain Lorventi, lord of the Anemoi, bound in service to Imperator Nero," and here you must be careful for the speech too is part of the assassination. Blink your eyes in reverence to the name of the Empress and you'll never open them again. "The Throne calls its wayward children home. Submit."

Vasilia!

"Ah, little lioness, don't think I don't hear you telling me off!" laughed Zeus, as bright as noon-time, her hair and eyes and laugh and dress crashing from indigo to radiant blue. "You're trying to be mad at me, just like my big brother Hades is. But I'll tell you the same thing I always tell him: I'm always right, you're just mad because you haven't got around to admitting it yet."

She pinches your cheek affectionately, like a little sister playing at parenthood. "You're so cute, thinking you're above all this. You think you're above bombast, above showmanship, above pride! Isn't that the way of things? When children like you think you're smarter than your old lady you become gothic edgelords like Hades there, like dressing in dark colours and thinking badly about space dad is some deep truth about the cosmos you're clever for having figured out! But just like Hades, you're wrong about everything because the future is bright! It always is! And I see that underneath all those scowls you have the strength to overcome your curse, don't you see if you don't!"

Dolce!

What surprises you is how often and readily Hades loses. Not tragically bad, but you win two thirds of hands that the two of you play. For all the stories of the hubris of challenging death to cards or chess or checkers, the God of the Dead seems to trust to luck and his luck is often poor. He does not bemoan or curse his misfortune either, but each hand of cards causes increasing intensity to burn in those neutron star eyes,

"Against," he said quietly. "You are the two hundred and fiftieth crew I have sent on this errand," that number is not random - it is the two hundred and fiftieth reign of Empress Nero, two hundred and fifty years since this planet burned in the fires of the great war. "And you have nothing to set you apart from any of the others. This is not the first princess I have called on, nor the first captain, nor the first legendary warrior, nor... the first chef," his mouth twitched enigmatically. "In each case the crews are consumed by their own nature. Strengths and weaknesses are the same thing, you see. When the stars change then arete becomes hubris, compassion becomes indecision, valour becomes idiocy. There is not a being in this galaxy who can cross Aphrodite's scar, and yet I throw soul after soul into the depths of the river for no sane end. My strengths, too, are my weaknesses."

Vasilia treated Zeus to a witheringly polite smile. “Ah, good, you heard. That saves me the trouble of repeating myself more bluntly.” An ocean could dry up at her tone. In spite of the shameless cheek-pinching. “Will you graciously grant me another portion of your all-seeing insight? I’m afraid I’ve over-indulged on sandwiches, which you must know, affects the senses so dreadfully.” Zeus ought to know, given how she doubled the intake of even the starving Liu Ban. “Could you remind me; what, exactly, is my curse?”

******************************************************************

So he wasn’t the first! Didn’t that bring a little smile to his face, to know that it wasn’t so outlandish a thing for one of his station to catch the eye of Lord Hades. Except, when one considered the rate of successes of those chef(s?) and the implications for his own chances…

Dolce did not win that hand. Or the one after that. His heart was too busy curling into a tiny ball and hiding away where it was quiet and safe.

“...so, who do you put in your bets with? And what do you wager?” His curiosity found an opening in the space between hands, and nosed its way back into the light of day. “Surely by now, you would have cleaned out anyone’s coffers with your winnings.”

"Then we are at an unfortunate impasse."

The knowledge is all the worse for knowing that this is not done by the Captain's command. Lorventi is the face, the voice, the spearpoint, the champion--the designated victim, the sacrificial lamb. Briefly, she wonders what would happen should she manage to divine which in the formation was truly giving the orders, pick them out, strike them down. Would Lorventi be angry or grateful?

It's pointless to do more than wonder, she knows--her eyes are locked on Lorventi's. See? We are all friends here. We all serve the Empress. This is merely a misunderstanding. Honesty and integrity line every marble surface of this face. Never mind that while we're here meeting each other's eyes and smiling at one another, neither of us have stopped tracking exactly where the other's speartip is.

"If the throne calls her child home, then this must be directed to the child in question, for it is she that I must follow. I am sure that when she is less..."

In the distance, the child in question starts to sing. Alexa meets Lorventi's eyes, deadpan.

"...indisposed, we may sort this out."

If she could run like a champion (like an Olympian), if she could sprint like she was in the arena being screamed at, then maybe Bella's heart wouldn't be ripping itself out of her chest right now. If she could keep her poise, she could pretend this was a contest between equals, and it might not matter that she'll lose.

But the hard marble floor sends shocks through her tendons, and she stumbles. Where she glances over her shoulder, her dainty shoes slip off of the smooth and polished surface and she bounces off the walls until her shoulders feel crushed and useless and her ribs burn like they're being washed in acid and her lungs her lungs her lungs there's no air she needs air why can't she breathe please, please, no, stay away! Stay away!!

She runs until the heels snap off of her shoes: she frantically turns and kicks them at the Nemean, for all the good that does her. Her bare feet make no sound as she bounds away. Her knee buckles, finally breaking her form. She can't be this monster's equal. It was hubris to try. Her lungs scream, her legs burn, her throat makes a constant, pitiable whining sound whenever she tries to breathe. Her body betrays her pride, forcing her lower to the ground. She runs with her arms too, just an animal fleeing the hunt. With every few bounds she rises again and tries to find a sprinter's form, but she comes crashing back to the ground after only a step or two at best.

She can hear the steps behind her, stomps that make her palms and the bottoms of her feet tingle. So powerful that they don't need a shred of a princess' grace to keep pace with a desperate servitor. The horrible singing sinks inside her skull and weighs her down more heavily than any shackle. She can smell the monster coming, a slight tang of sweat wrapped in a thunderstorm that manages to be more fierce and terrifying than Space itself without the need to rage. And, worse, just underneath it, the telltale mark of flowers and laser that means that this is Redana, really Redana after all.

Bella howls with animal desperation. She skids into a corner, out of room to flee. Her body tenses, her claws spread wide. She hunches, waits, and when she slashes...

Agony.

The fingers on her right hand twist unnaturally as the talons wrapped around them shred themselves to useless hunks of scrap metal when they meet the Nemean's unprotected skin. The shriek of space age alloy faltering in the face of a god feels muted next to the sounds of Bella's own labored breathing and the throbbing rush of her blood as it forces itself through her shivering fingers. The final scraps of her talons fall away, and the shame of her imperfection, the scars where her claws were carved out of her, now lie naked in the open air.

Bella's tail wraps itself around her leg. Her eyes shrink in undisguised panic. But she forces herself to stand up straight. She ignores the way her neck still has to crane to see her opponent's face even at her full height. She twists her face until it's defiant and furious. Or, she hopes she does. Every greedy breath she takes needs its own special effort in this place with no space, no air, no hope. Her laugh is shaky and ragged.

"...Kn-knew it," she heaves, "I knew it. H-h-ha! You don't care. Never cared. You wanna p-punish me for being a Bad Girl, huh? That it? Lorventi's gonna tear Alexa in half, but who gives a fuck? If she's... in pieces, she still did her job. Isn't that right? Redana?"

The Nemean is a nightmare demigod, an oncoming storm. But the seed she grew from was the same, even if she blossomed under alien suns and in strange waters. When she growls in frustration, it’s a disarmingly Redana sound, like when she got her yarn tangled up while working on her latest craftswork assignment[1].

”Little snake.” One hand takes Bella by the chain, the other pulls her crushingly close, fingers in her hair. Safer to stand by a shuttle’s engines as it launches. Safer to curse Zeus’s name. If she squeezed... ”We are not done.”

The end of the chain is jerked up and slammed into the wall. The Nemean roots around in the guts of the marble until she finds what she wants: a suitable hook. It’s too high up for anything but scrabbling on tiptoe, collar biting into the skin as gravity pulls Bella down, almost all the way to the ground.

”When I am done with you,” the Nemean breathes like an oncoming wind, hand still on the small of Bella’s back, ”you will be tame.” A promise. A reminder of punishments for losing a princess. And then she is gone with a blurred stutter and a sharp crack, leaving Bella trapped[2].

***

[1]: an Empress does not simply know how to command. She knows the mechanisms of the gods. Athena may be the tactician of heaven, but even she may succumb to the allure of a shared hobby from time to time.

[2]: the Nemean never had a Bella of her own. But even Redana would have failed here, wrapping rope around Bella’s wrists and telling her to stay put. Bella is not another biddable part of the environment, and wanting her to stay is an empty wish.

Alexa!

"It is natural that the Heir sees our lives as worthless," said Captain Lorventi. "Our entire species lives and dies at her whim. You are bound to her, and she will use you as a blade to spill our blood. We are humbly grateful she did not send a legion."

She seems perversely satisfied with this. The prospect of a pointless death seems to fill her with a strange serenity, and her feathers flick and rustle as she sinks into a predatory crouch.

Another trick. She launches straight up in a burst of feathers, and as she does her halberd drags the floor up in molten lines to splash and burn you with superheated stone.



Behind her, you can see the Nemean surge towards you like an avalanche, but Lorventi does not see. She has begun her death dance, and your challenge becomes to prevent her from dragging you both down with her.

Vasilia!

Zeus gives you a look. This isn't a look of reproach or disappointment. This is the face of someone who's having to tell a truth so brutal she's honestly surprised you didn't already know.

"It's that nobody likes you, Vas," said Zeus. "It's that you've got no friends. You think it was a coincidence only you two made it aboard the Plousios? It's not. Your crew fell behind on purpose."

She leans back, flexing her fingers, and the muscles that show through the sheeting gaps in that indigo-black silk could lift mountains. "I have strength, Vasilia," she said. "If all of my kin, all of my divine family, gathered all the physical mass under their respective domains and hurled it all along with themselves into the black holes at the heart of the galaxy, even their combined gravitation would be no obstacle to me. I could reach into those absolute depths and tear forth a new cosmos should I wish it. I could reign forever as a lonesome cosmic tyrant. That is strength, but it is nothing compared to the power that binds them to me in joyous servitude."

Dolce!

"With Hermes, naturally," said Hades, never letting his attention fall from the game for a moment. There's an obsession there, a focus on each hand and each play, a craving and desire that renders this conversation almost an afterthought for the God of the Dead. "Ordinarily it would be her duty to bear this message from me, but she is," his lip twitched, "busy. So each year I come before her to demand she fulfill her function and instead she bets on a group of mortals being able to make the trip on her behalf. She is playing for time, of course, but she has masterfully raised the stakes year after year."

Clubs drip from ivory fingers in mismatched sequence.

"I am intrigued about what she will offer next year," he murmured. "How much room does she have left to move? It can't be much now."

"Guh! Au-auugh!!"

Bella's screams are wet, guttural... and muted. Her precious collar bites into her throat as sharply as a dagger, squeezing every attempt at language until it dies and slides back down her throat or dribbles out her mouth as spittle. Her toes strain desperately against the cold floor until they feel like they're about to break under her weight.

But every time they slip or get too tired, she sinks and the chain digs into her chest to crush what little air she's stolen back out of her. This is death. This feeling of being squeezed until the wine in her stomach is forced back up her throat in place of air and her heart slamming like a fist inside her chest until her vision grows dark around the edges, what else could it be but death? She sputters and chokes as her panicked body tries to spit and swallow at the same time, until she finally finds her feet again and lifts herself high enough to rest.

Bella snarls. Bella heaves. Bella does not cry. But she thrashes in her bindings like a lunatic beast. Her leash rattles as if taunting her while it crushes her breasts in ways that send white-hot bursts of pain across her vision and bites into her skin in ways that might take days or even weeks to fade. If they fade. If they don't kill her now, kill her, now, ggghk, nnnnnf!

The pain can't stop her desperate lunging. The Nemean's trap has no hold on her heart while it beats so fast that the rush of blood drowns out every thought except the desire to be free, to breathe and move and stay alive just one, three, ten minutes more. Bella pounds her head against the wall and snarls through the pain as she wrenches an arm free. It flops weakly back down to her side, but she grits her teeth and drags it higher. Her fingers find the links of chain closest to her collar.

She freezes. Her eyes squeeze themselves shut against her will as her trembling fingers trace the metal that binds her to the Empire. Her fingers pray to each link, though she can't think of a god to name or a favor to ask. The worship is enough. Her weak and fluttering touch is all she has to give. Her eyes snap open. They are wet. Her hand clenches into a fist, and where her claws meet the chain they rip through it as easily as carving meat for dinner.

Bella flops to the floor with an undignified thud, surrounded by dull and broken links of chain scattered in lumps and little coils all around her. No thought. No prayer. No feeling anywhere at all. For the moment, all she does is breathe, so ragged and exhausted and desperate. It's an act that swallows her entire being and drowns her in the cosmos of her own will to live. Time passes, meaningless.

She's on her feet again, with no memory of trying to stand. Her shoulders still rise and fall with the exaggerated motion of the weary. She reaches up with her good arm and wrenches the limp one in merciless silence until the shoulder finally pops back into alignment with a crunch and a pop that don't belong to her. That can't.

Her breathing finally quiets to a simple, forceful push in and out her nose. It's the only sound as far as her ears can hear. The only sensations on her body are the phantom serpents of pain still squishing her flat and the brushing of her disheveled, torn, and ruined dress. A strange tingle she can't explain spreads across the small of her back, right where the Nemean held her. It's warm. She shivers.

Bella's expression is unreadable, even if there were someone around to read it. Her eyes watch the shattered remnants of her leash with an intensity that would gives full phalanxes pause. She lifts a hand and lazily tears her collar in half before flinging it to the ground in disgust. Behind her, her tail twitches.

And all that's left is the watching, the endless staring at the torn or broken bits of what had been, of what was, and what might have been.

Alone.

The whole of Vasilia’s thoughts came to a terrible, crashing halt. Which was no reason to stay silent and let Zeus think for a moment she’d won.

“I, wha, well, well I never.” Her canteen groaned in her iron grip. “Of all the impertinent, unimaginable, altogether rude - as if you were there! As if you bothered to ask how they really felt. As if you ever.” Fine. Fine! Zeus didn’t want a civilized talk, she should have just said so from the start. “If all I am to you is another chance to pat yourself on the back, then why don’t you start with your joyously servile brother. I believe he wandered off first chance he got, smart fellow.”

**********************************************

Ahhh, of course. He’d been wondering why Hades had bothered with them when he had Hermes at his disposal.

...wait, what?

“So.” Down, voice, down! We do not get over-excited in the presence of Lord Hades. And squealing was simply out of the question. “Hermes has been giving up of her movement? That must be valuable, given her line of work-”

To his credit, he tried his very best not to grimace when the dinner conversation grew loud enough to spill over into their game.

It's strangely unnerving to fight someone who doesn't care about surviving.

She has fought people who knew they were going to die. Better people than her, who hoped to buy time for others, who stood knock-kneed and trembling. But always, they fought with... Well, saying they fought with hope would sound unbelievably trite. But they fought as if they wanted to live, as if they dreamed to imagine that there might be another outcome.

The two fight like dancers. Each movement is precise, exact. Every thrust and defense, calculated. But the calculations are wrong, and there's no other way for Alexa to think of it. Lorventi throws herself into the fight like a berzerker, takes risks that no sane person could. It should be so incredibly easy to take advantage, get in the one good thrust needed. it's what Lorventi wants!

But time and again, Alexa flinches back and is punished for it. The Aegis accumulates molten floor, scratches--does not crack, thank Athena--but each time, that willingness to die, to push beyond what is required, unnerves Alexa.

All she has to do, she tells herself, is keep at it. Keep Lorventi facing her. Keep her thinking of stabbing and twirling and not noticing the... whatever the Redana thing is.

Any day now. Take your time.
[Keep them Busy, 9.]

Boom! Crack! Kaeri scatter like ninepins, too quick and clever to be caught by even the Nemean’s sudden onrush. All save Lorventi. The halberd is pulled from her hands, the haft snapping like wet wood under those powerful fingers. When the head strikes the floor, it sinks down low until its terrible heat no longer suffices to melt— too low to be retrieved.

And that’s when the wrestling starts. The Nemean is Redana, if a different sort of Redana, and so she loves wrestling: the strain of muscles, the planting of feet, the throw and the crush. Lorventi tries a dozen approaches in the space of a breath and the Nemean shrugs each one aside. Claws drag uselessly down her underarmor, every attempt at a grapple or hold is broken with a flex of muscles and a husky, dangerous chuckle.

Alexa, however, will note that there is a flaw in the way that the Nemean fights, like a missing scale on a dragon’s belly. What is it? How will it mean her doom if the Kaeri focus on her and her alone?

[The Nemean rolls a 9 to finish Lorventi, and I toss the energy back to Alexa.]