A yawn worked its way out of Vasilia, and she offered little resistance. The chains clinked only a little as it rolled up her back. Her eyes nearly closed as it peered into the room. A hand did the bare minimum to stifle the noise, but let no one say she hadn’t tried, whereafter she resumed her busy work of magnanimously presiding over the party’s going-ons.

Which was more than could be said for other guests of honor, who were far more concerned with slopping as much wine as possible down their throat in as short as time as possible. Oh, by all means, don’t let her stop you. We wouldn’t want you not to enjoy yourself, would we? It’s a party! Cut loose! No one will tell that you’re drunk. At least until you’re out of earshot.

She offered no resistance to the entirely unnecessary manhandling she received, and drank the wine in slow, graceful sips, even as it was poured down her mouth. Not a gulp or a gag to be heard. “Ah, thank you darling, I was getting rather parched.” She sighed contentedly. “The Magos’ hospitality has left much to be desired.” Oh, and the Praetor had counsel to give her too! What good fortune! She’d better listen attentively now, wouldn’t want to miss any of the precious pearls cascading endlessly out of her stupid mouth.

Had she not already committed to the placid, regal smile, she might have ruined the entire look with a devastatingly undignified yelp as she was flung bodily around the room. As it stood, she landed before Bella, the music reached her ears, and instinct took over from there. Her hands found their way to her partner’s body. Her back arched until her hair dusted the floor. And they were off.

Ah! So! Bella was rather strong for her build! Marvelous! Yes, yes, very...yes. Alright then. Of course. No, no, it’s fine. She’s fine. So what if the gods saw fit to bless her with titanic strength too? Life wasn’t fair. She wasn’t even surprised at this point.

If Bella wanted to put on a show, a show is precisely what she got. Every step she was pushed into, Vasilia performed with extravagance and relish. Together, they formed a symphony of motion, exulting in the sheer pleasure of movement. So transcendent, one could hardly notice the chains. At every group they stopped at, Vasilia shone as brightly as her partner, at least. And still found time to greet the Hermetics by name and station.

Do you see, Bella? Do you see the way they greet her back? The way their eyes linger, as you twirl her away before she can say more? Even now, despite the chains, they remember her, and wish a little more of her company. See all the people who actually like her? And yet Zeus hasn’t stopped by to mock your life, has she? Why hasn’t anyone, for that matter? Surely waiting for nature to take its course wasn’t the most efficient way to go about things, was it?

She did not look away from Epestia’s plight. She did not speak of it. Nor did she look away when Alexa came whirling onto the dance floor. She did not speak of that either, but her eyes glittered merrily. Isn’t this fun, Bella? Are you having fun, yet? You indulgent, pissy, wreck of a soul, are you happy now?!

(Of course she wasn’t. Not in any way that mattered.)

“Are Praetors capable of such feats? I had no idea.” She mused, twirling into the other Bella’s arms. “Perhaps you could enlighten me?~”

She traced a finger up the length of Bella’s shirt, counting each button in turn. Skirting perilously close to her neck, before gliding to her shoulder.

“Does Nero know you’ve been a bad girl? Losing your collar without permission?”

Redana!

"Our culture here is a shadow," said the Elder sadly. "Our ships are sunken, our knowledge is rusted, our herds are small, our horizons reduced to those places that can be reached with sweat and oar. Have no mistake, despite all of Demeter's gifts we still dwell within the hateful House of Hades. The Hermetics do not need to be conquerors to defeat us; archivists are appropriate for what we are now."

There is an edge of deep despair in her voice, and when she speaks you can see the spark drain from everyone about her. This is a perilous state for any people to be in, you know - if Nero has imparted to you one lesson it's that a population cannot endure without a vision of the future.

Alexa!

The cassette tapes click and play and the hall fills with the music of Hermes. Orchestral and organic music that seamlessly transitions into glaring blasts of artificial synth noise. It's music without centre, or stability, weaving into different instruments and styles and tempos, almost a demonstration of exotic musical wealth collected from across the galaxy and woven together.

You've got the feel for her body now - a cascading wave of cybernetic tentacles from the waist down. Keeping her in the dance has kept her from binding you with them properly because she still needs them to hit each beat but as soon as you are done you have no doubt that you will be bound just as surely. You could, of course, throw her first but she'll take Isty with her when she goes.

"I am Ramses," said the Coherent, breath rising - she's drawn in by the motion. "Scion of the Cobalt Desert, vanquisher of Ragnar the Wretched. What manner of person are you, Alexa?"

For a single second, Bella's body stiffens. It's the span of a missed step on the dance floor, most idiots would attribute it to the wine and nothing else. Not the sudden tensing of her legs that makes her put her foot down harder than she needs to or the way her back goes ramrod straight. She draws her next breath as sharp as a whip, and a scowl darkens her face just as a messy wave of synth beats crash their way into her sensitive ears.

She snatches Vasilia's hand from her neck with the speed of Zeus grabbing for her thunderbolts. She squeezes, and she steps into the next beat as though she hadn't just bobbled the last. She holds that hand in place as they dance, substituting the graceful waltz of their earlier number for a more wild thrashing more in tune with the shifting of the cassettes. But through every jerking motion and dangerous twirl, she keeps Vasilia pressed close against her body, half forcing and half trusting her legs to keep pace as she holds that hand right where it is about her neck. She squeezes, and she smirks. She raises her eyebrows with a note of suggestion, and she pulls that hand forcefully up to her own cheek to feel the other cat's fingers caressing her.

"Oh, is that what you wanted to talk about? I had no idea you felt that way! What a jealous, grabby little paw you've got. Does the Princess know how much her captain wants a collar?"

Bella's muscles tense again, but this time with liquid smoothness and perfect grace. She lifts Vasilia into the air and leaps up after her, carrying the two of them suspended in the air for long and intimate seconds where there's nothing for them to do but stare into each other's eyes and count on Bella's training when they crash back to the floor with a possessive sweep that turns at least half the heads in the hall. Bella dips lower, and lower. She leans until Vasilia's foot lifts off the floor and nothing is keeping her prisoner from toppling to the ground except her mercy and the strength of her arm.

She pushes herself closer. Her bells jingle as they dangle off her hip, and her blue-black hair tumbles carelessly around her face to tickle Vasilia's. Like this, they're pressed almost nose to nose. Like this they're not even a crane of the neck away from kissing. Bella's lips are wet enough. They're painted red and inviting. But Aphrodite pulls them into a toothy grin, instead.

"Don't worry little pet, I have plenty of collars for you back on my ship. You can submit as many times as you like. Everything the scriptures sing of, I'll permit. I wonder, with your backwoods scrapyard 'education', how many am I going to have to teach you myself?"

Bella twists her body like a serpent and yanks her dance partner along, and with a sudden surge the pair comes rising up to a standing position again. Finally their bodies separate, all the way to the length of their respective arms, still linked by the hand that Bella hasn't let go of.

Applause breaks out across the dance floor. This time when Bella bows, she doesn't add the curtsy. She lifts her neck and turns it back toward Vasilia. With the angle of her face and the tumble of her hair, the shadows swallow almost all her features. Her painted lips shine through, like her glinting teeth. The shape of her nose is visible too. The last feature to be seen, and the first to be noticed, is her glowing, empty red eye.

"Sing, canary. This stays fun for exactly as long as you keep being useful to me."

“Is that the best you can imagine?” The words slip out all hot-headed, and Redana verbally backspaces, flushing as those smoked lenses focus on her, the matriarch absolutely stone-faced. “Your agedness, I mean no offense. I myself am not... I don’t have skill at these things, no matter how hard I try, other than understanding the mechanisms themselves. My mother crammed my wits so full of treatises and lessons that I can’t sort between them all. All the gods gave me in return was the power of imagination, and that I must use to its fullest.”

One sweep of her arm draws the eye across the entire hall. “For the survivors of a mythic war across the stars, you’ve done amazingly well for yourselves, don’t sell yourselves short! You’ve maintained your histories, you’ve passed down knowledge of how your ancestors crewed your ships, you’ve created a farming society? Or a sustainable hunting society? I... I don’t actually know how you feed yourselves. Which isn’t a veiled request for food, I’d be happy to accept but I’m only peckish and this isn’t about me, this is about all of you. This is about the freedom to dream dreams that are not bound up in this world alone, to fancy yourselves heroes and esteemed among the peoples of the stars— for how else will you ever achieve such?”

Her voice gains some strength as the sun shines down on her through a high, arched window, Apollo granting her oratory the merest touch of his power. “You are all survivors, born to row across the sea of stars! It’s your birthright, and it’s beautiful, as beautiful as your home! And while I want you to have the opportunity to explore once more, to send your canoes to far-flung stars... I would not wish my enemy to have to sell their soul to see such wonders, let alone those who have done me no wrong at all! Please, give me the opportunity to bring an emissary of your people to the Golden Order and allow me to vouch for them and support their demands! My father, Zeus of the Scales, would turn her face away from me in shame if I did anything less for you and your people, honored grandmother.”

To punctuate her plea, Redana lowers herself to one knee, looking for all the world like a champion of the Saffron Host in her squire’s leathers. She bows her head in respect, and waits for acknowledgement— for agreement, censure, or a sign from the gods. If she had not been impetuous, here her hair would shine about her like a halo; instead, her bangs glitter like the shell of a beetle in the sunlight.

[Even with a damaged Grace, the blessing of Apollo has touched Redana’s words, and she talks sense with a 7.]

Assumptions define the form of engagement. The murder. The duel. The trial by combat.

The sparring match.

That blade is not sharp. I don’t need the heavy armor. A weave light enough to dance with, tight enough to hug skin without getting in the way, thick enough to block bruises, this is all they need.

There is nothing at stake. Everything is permitted. There are no expectations. I can give my all, and beyond my all, without fear. I can fly, I can sweep, I can bend blade and body until both might snap under the tension, then fall to floor and laugh until I cannot breath.

They aren’t trying to hurt me. I can pretend the fall was serious. I can dictate my last living will. I can school the smile from my face as they take my broken form in their arms, cursing the cruel fates that cut down such a prized flower in the springtime of its youth. I can cough my last words in a hoarse whisper. They can lean down to hear. Closer, closer, closer...

This is all a game. I tickle their ear with my breath, it is a joke. To make them laugh. Their hair falls on my face. It must be on purpose. They don’t mean to brush my cheek, pushing it away. I go along with it when I reach up to stroke theirs. We will laugh later. It is a game. It is all a game. We have stopped moving because...because...

The match will end. Alethea will come to call us for dinner. We will be seeing to our weapons. We will rise, salute, and she will say nothing of anything on the way home and neither will I.

I don’t know if she would have closed the distance.

...would I?

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

This can't be happening.

How. In the name of all that is sacred. Did she get an Auspex?!

Quickly. Quickly. What had Redana said it did? It allowed her to..."see beyond sight, from visible to invisible, and all that might be?" How was that even remotely useful?! Freeform poetry was not a suitable substitute for a tactical report! Oh, but she shouldn't be too harsh on her, it's not like she expected there to be a second bloody Auspex floating around the universe! Zeus, your sentence of silence is revoked, only if you can explain to her how this was allowed to happen! And if you can't answer that, then, what good even are you?!

steel yourself. quickly. before she notices. slow your breathing. slower, slower, but not too slow. don't make it look deliberate. it is a beautiful morning, dolce has brought you your coffee, it's perfect, just the way you like it, oh gods above no it's making it worse. it won't stop.

her heart's racing, and it won't stop

"Mm, you’re so much more...eloquent than when we last met. Is this what you’ve been using your shapeshifter for? Practicing for the day we’d meet again?” She squeezed Bella’s hand. “If you wanted a song, all you had to do was ask, darling.~"

She rose from the bow with a great sweep of her free hand, as far as the chains would comfortably allow. "Come! To all who may hear; listen!" Her voice boomed, cutting clean through song and conversation alike. "Listen! And I will tell you a tale of a land long forgotten. Of Empires and beasts, and what grew in their shadow. Of a thousand thousand tombstones that could not hold fast the fallen! For this is the tale of Praetor Bella, who stepped into the corpse of the Eater of Worlds, and walked amongst the living dead!"

She squeezed at Bella's hand again. Only, different. Fingers, alternating, in combination, in a steady rhythm, a repeating pattern. A clever invention of the Starsong, for when mouths must be silent and words must be spoken. A simple code, child's play for the Auspex to decipher:

<<Thanks for the spotlight, darling.>>

Well, Bella? You know how this particular story ends: Embarassingly. You could stop her, of course! One quick twist of the arm, and she won’t talk for screaming. And everyone will know that you feared what she had to say next. What do you suppose the Magos will do, when he knows she carries a secret that you wouldn’t bear to have out? She may not be your prisoner for very long, then!

You could let her go on! What does it mater, if everyone here knows exactly how tightly you and Redana were trussed and gagged together? You are still the Praetor, even if you teased out some fascinating noises from your former mistress. Nothing will change. But that precious Auspex of your will let you see the thought on everyone’s mind. Every bow, every scrape, they’ll remember. And you’ll know it.

But there is a third option.

<<If you want me to exercise poetic liscence on your behalf>> Vasilia squeezed. <<Then you’d better make it worth my while. Now.>>

The Auspex knows the code. It can tell your muscles precisely how to talk back to her, and no one will be any the wiser.

So, Bella. What do you do?

[That’s going to be a 6 + 4 + 1 = 11 on Talk Sense w/Blood. Paying the Price by revealing information she’d rather keep hidden: Bella, you know that you’ve gotten in her head in a big way. She legit doesn’t know if you would have gone through with the kiss, and doesn’t know what she would have done herself if you had. If you keep clawing at this weak spot, it’ll surely grow, keeping her confused. Off-balance. And importantly, pliable.]

It's not that Alexa is a bad dancer. Indeed, she's privately very proud of her mastery of several forms, hard-earned through long training for court functions.

But she can also recognize when, like drills, she's just going through the motions.

Which isn't fair to Isty, and there's a part of her that dies at the thought that these mechanical motion will be their first dance together. Can she get a redo, please? Somewhere they can be alone? Somewhere she can convince her that no, this isn't how she normally dances?

She holds them tight and doesn't meet their eyes.

What kind of person is she?

The Pallas Rex, monster of Molech? A relic of a bygone age, chased by titles and battles fought and lost?

A tool? Tool sounds nice. A tool doesn't need to think about how it's used. A tool isn't complicit.

Alexa? A defender?

What kind of person does she want to be? Does she get a say in that?

"I am unsure," she admits. "I am someone who is trying to help those I care for. My captain. My friends. Isty."

She gives them a squeeze, almost more for her own sake than for anybody else's.

"We are probably more alike than you may know. In return, may I ask? What do you gain from capturing us? Advancement? Prestige?"

Redana!

You don't understand them. How could you? A servitor is an artifical being, no matter how much courtesy you extend to them. Each servitor species has had truths written into their genome, the bedrock of their minds extracted and woven and re-helixed until a new certainty is encoded on the same level that humans know to fear sabre-tooth tigers. Each servitor knows the meaning life - or at least, their life. And as the Ceronians know their greatest purpose is to die in defense of their pack, and as the Kaeri know their purpose is to rule the darkness, the Alced know that it is theirs to sail the stars. When you speak these are not just pretty words, this is an appeal to the instincts that run at the absolute core of these people. You see the promise run through the entire gathered crowd like a shock and a new kind of silence falls. A hungry silence, a craving silence, one that banishes the depression that had filled the Alced.

But it is Hera who places her hand on the top of your kneeling head and plucks you like a weed, holding you so your feet are a foot off the ground and you still don't meet the eyes of the goddess. Instead you meet the abundant eyes of her peacock-feather dress.

"Zeus," she said, "Cloudgatherer, Lightningsmiter, Galaxyfucker, will not assist you in this."

She lifts you a little higher so you can see the mood that fills her real eyes - plenty, peace, luxury, abundance and all denied to you.

"She has tried. She has made promises, hospitality and fair dealing and feasting and all of those things that thrill her so. But every time she approaches Magos Birmingham with peace and justice and fair-play in hand, the sand of Hypnos, brother to death, blows forth to fill her eyes and snatch her memory. And while she rests her children are robbed and collared, and when she awakes she thinks it good. Trust not the will of Zeus for her daughter Hermes has her wrapped around her finger."

And she drops you unceremoniously - though you are swiftly caught and gathered up by the Alced.

Alexa!

[I have rolled for you and hit a 10 on Speak Softly with Hope]

"Advancement? Prestige? Ha!" laughed Ramses boisterously. "Some amongst the Order care for such things, but not we of the Coherent. Hermes is the God of Journeys, and where some travel across the stars or up the ranks or to the ends of books, we travel towards the most perfect form of ourselves. We envision ourselves strong, beautiful, powerful - whatever that means in the individual's own eye - and advance relentlessly towards it. Once we have arrived, we perfect it. It is not enough to become a dragon, one must learn a dragon's martial arts!"

And isn't that a thought? Simply grafting tentacles onto your body come with no guarantee that you'll know how to use them. Years of practice, conditioning, training and dedication have gone into being able to move like this.

"So I won't gain anything from capturing you. I do it because the union is not currently on strike and I have no reason not to disobey management. I do it because you might reveal a little of that strength of yours and reveal another branch of the Path I have still to walk. I do it because it's an opportunity to dance with two beautiful ladies at once, and who would say no to that?"

A dozen hands hold Redana up, a microcosm of her entire life. The servitors didn't even let her boots touch the floor. That's what it means to be human, let alone the imperial princess. And she does not notice. She is not perfect, after all, and a deep part of her is used to servitors acting as her stagehands, and besides-- she is very distracted with indignation.

"Why are you so cruel?"

Her face is red as the Alced help her upright, smooth as gyroscopes. Click, click go her boots on the stone. But she's only got eyes for Hera, who has hundreds upon hundreds to shine back. Her voice wobbles dangerously. "I get that you don't like me. I'll never stop trying to do something right by you, but we both know you're never going to be satisfied. I get it. But--"

And that's when it finally hits her. She was so busy getting upset that it took the meaning of those words a minute to get an audience with her reason. Hera isn't doing this. Oh. Oh dear. Her blush is hitting nuclear levels. "Oh," she says, and looks down at Hera's perfect boots. They're the best boots in the whole world. Supple calf leather, white as snow. "I'm sorry for speaking without thinking, stepmother," she says, and bows her head even though it makes her want to implode. "Thank you for telling me what's going on. I... thank you." Her ears are spent heat sinks. Her eyes throb. And Hera, beautiful Hera, coldly cruel Hera, jealous Hera of the peacocks, basks in her stepdaughter's thoughtless outburst and her shame before the Alced.

She has an idea, now. It's audacious. Ridiculous. Perfect. But she cannot turn around. Hera's very presence will not allow her to pretend that her stepmother isn't here. And Hera will only leave when she feels that she cannot shame Redana any further. And Redana was just so angry, and for a moment she thought her stepmother was the one doing this because she was here and she was doing the villainous speech and she was doing this just to spite her stepdaughter, but she got it all backwards and wrong and any moment now Mom is going to step out and thank Hera for her cooperation and then begin asking Dany what she did wrong, pointing out her mistakes with the confidence of someone who saved the entire universe with just her foresight and cunning and charisma, and telling Dany that she's going to be taking four more credits of Theological Astrapolitics over the next semester, and once she's had the right course work then she'll be able to figure it out on her own, because there's no way that the daughter of Nero Claudius and Zeus herself isn't a genius just like her mother. There's no way at all. She can't be anything else.

"I'm sorry," Redana says one more time, but does not specify whether it's for snapping at her oh-so-generous stepmother or for being born[1].

***

[1]: statistically speaking, if we take all the apologies that Redana has made to Hera over the course of her life and average them up, it's most likely to be the latter.

<<Worth your while? Oh kitten, I'm flattered you feel that way!>>

It should be impossible to turn the Starsong touch code into something so sensual. Even with the Privateer's reputation for mixing business and pleasure, it's still a language of emergencies and tactics, after all. At the very least, a newbie relying on a freshly implanted artifact to translate for her should be very stiff and formal, shouldn't she?

But Bella's hand is warmer than a fireplace, and the way she moves it is for more than simple messages.

It's all the little things she does that make the difference. Her face barely flickers with any sort of reaction, but her palm slides covetously and with torturous deliberateness down the length of Vasilia's forearm, brushing the fabric of her sleeve and absorbing the feeling of it forever. She deftly pushes the fabric lower, exposing the fur of her arm and brushing her fingers through so gently that it isn't felt until she passes to the next spot.

She is possessive. Aggressive. Tender. 'You are mine', she whispers in the secret language of the Anemoi, where the culture of Touch developed until it was an art. 'Here I feel your warmth. Here I feel your lifeblood. Here I feel you open yourself before me, and accept'. Her palm slides down, and ruffles the lion's fur. Her fingers tap up and smooth it out again, spelling out more words she can actually understand.

<<You don't need to worry, pet. I will make it very worth your while. You were never taught the secrets of the Imperial Kennels, were you? I have so many tricks to teach you~>>

Her talons are cruel and cold weapons suitable only for a monster. These new ones are hastily reforged, less sleek and beautiful than the jewelry she wore on Baradissar or to the World Eater. But these are the ones she turns into instruments of pleasure. The coldness of the metal contrasts the warmth of her clutching palm and soothing her squeezes down to gentle tingles. Where she taps her fingers to speak she is delicate as a handmaiden, pressing the sharp tips only deep enough to make them felt across the surface of the skin. She dances at the edge of danger, but never past it. Here is a sample, 'Captain'. Do you see? She is in control. Do you see how safe you are? She has so much control.

<<We don't have to be enemies. There's so much more to me than you think you know. Aren't you curious? Are you sure you don't wanna try singing sweetly for me?>>

The Auspex betrays no emotion. But Bella's cats-eye glitters with a complicated cocktail of them. She meets her rival's eyes for just a moment, only long enough to risk being vulnerable. Then she pulls on that arm and wraps her own around Vasilia's waist. The warmth of her body rises even as her breathing slows. The beating of her heart is controlled, but so fierce it can be felt through her arms. Her smile spreads slowly and deliberately.

"Go on then. Don't keep them waiting."

"Ackgh-!"

Oh gods. She can feel the pressure of eyes on her, wondering how the hell a statue is having a coughing fit. Can she blush? She's never blushed before, but she's also never swallowed her own tongue and she's doing a great job of that!

Beautiful!

Objectively, it's true! I mean, modeled after Athena, physical perfection, insult to the goddess to imply anything less but--!

Beautiful!

And the coughing is only pressing them closer together, giving her ample opportunity to feel the sheer solidity of the woman holding her--the iron muscles, the softness of the skin. Mmm.

Beautiful!

Oh gods. Oh fuck, Ramses is looking at her--half-lidded, smirking, seeing what she's done and oooh, how it burns. She tucks her chin, not daring to match her gaze--and damn her, even the little chuckle she makes is cute. Breathe, Alexa! You trained for hours! You know how to blend into the background, become part of the scenery! The Warsage beat and drilled courtly etiquette into you! You should be prepared for this!

But none of that training involved cute girls telling her she's beautiful!

She opens her eyes--and finds Isty there, staring back. Is that fright? Excitement? Is this cowardice, fraternizing with the enemy?

("Fraternizing." Hooboy, wouldn't she just like to.)

Alexa manages a feeble--but very excited--grin, and kind of shrugs. No, this isn't how she wanted the evening to go. But she's open to being persuaded otherwise!

Once she feels she can talk without her tongue immediately swelling and trying to choke her, she turns a timid smile on Ramses. "You know, I do not believe Birmingham said you need to turn us in immediately. Surely, you could spare some time with us alone? We can continue our dance, and perhaps I can show you a new Path?"

(13 on Talk Sense with Wisdom.)

“If you think it’s such a poor idea, then go ahead and say so.”

“Very well. I think it’s a terrible idea, for no real benefit, at great personal risk to yourself, and you will almost certainly regret it.”

Vasilia sputtered, glaring daggers at her friend’s reflection in the vanity mirror. “You - you’re not supposed to actually say so!”

“If you don’t like the answers, ma’am, you should stop asking the questions.”

“Hmph. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“...no. I rather think I wouldn’t.”

It was unfair, how little room for anger that left her. She let slip a long, tired sigh as she sank back into her chair. “It’s this famine relief bill, Alethea. We need it. Our people need it. And no matter what I try, Senator Demetris will not listen to heart or reason. So. I am trying a change in approach. Meeting them in the middle.”

“Or, in this case, at the races.”

“Would that he had any more suitable hobbies we could bond over-”

“Do you even want to?” Her hands tightened to fists, and Vasilia grew deeply worried for her mirror’s safety. “He all but runs the races, and it is the least heinous way he spends his free time. Why should you have anything to do with him? Why should anyone?!”

“What other options do I have?” Please, Alethea. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. “All my attempts at building opposition coalitions are moving at a crawl.” Can’t you see she’s been trying? “He’s got too many in his pocket to sponsor a challenger at the next Games.” They have to win this one, someway, somehow. “And I’ve had my budgetary pouring over the budgets for any other surplus we might use. Over a month, and we’ve not got a quarter of what we need.” If the price of failure was starvation for many, shouldn’t they choose the plan most likely to succeed? “We’re on a time limit, and if bending a little will get us over the finish line, then that’s what it must take.”

Silence. The pressing, suffocating silence absent of answer or approval. Despite how dearly she wished for either.

“So...what are you going to do when it comes time to end the races?” Like we promised?

She didn’t have to say it. They both remembered. And all Vasilia could do was bury her face in her hands.

“...I’ll figure something out.”

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

Vasilia’s fur is rough. But, perhaps, not as rough as you were expecting? She’s trying, the poor, misguided kitten. It can’t be easy, living off the scraps that fell from Tellus decades, or even centuries ago. Who was around to teach her the different treatments for a lustrous coat? Did she even know all fur wasn’t the same? There is damage, there is that awful reek of laser - seriously, first lesson, a real study of scentwork - but hopeless? Mmm, maybe not entirely hopeless. In the right hands, of course.

Does her build please you more, Praetor? Here, the quality of the scrapyard shines! She is not prepared to burst through her jacket with an errant flex, nothing nearly so unwieldy and excessive. No, everywhere your hand rests, it rests upon a bedrock of toned muscle. Solidly built, yet not forgetting flexibility; a career skirmisher, surely, adept in sudden, decisive strikes. And while your hands feast, the Auspex devours her whole. All that she is, all that she might be, all that you might make of her. What couldn’t you do with such a canvas? Her lungs already know how to take breath and turn it to power. Run her on the marathon track, coax the hunger within her, and her last step would be as perfect as the first. Put a javelin in her hand, teach her body the shape of the throw, and they would sing songs of her deeds.

And oh, how you could make that body bend.

Your clever fingers tease out such secrets from her. The way to pet her fur. The most sensitive spots. The thrumming muscles fighting to keep shivers from racing down her arm. Her claws slowly, idly, work open and closed in the most idle of gestures, but you know. You know she moves because she cannot bear to stay still. But the real prize comes when you hold her close. When your heart beats through her. No ear may hear, not even yours, but against your arms you feel the lowest, faintest rumble of contentment, deep, deep in her chest. So deep, perhaps, that she herself is not even aware of it.

She opens her mouth, and we must now address the voice, and the talent with which she wields it.

Your attentions would break the concentration of lesser wills, at least, but has she stumbled once? Hardly! You wrap yourself tight around her, and she sings out all the clearer! Hear her sing a story of her own imagining, a story you know she must be making up as she goes, but the ringing of her voice! The sharpness of detail! How could it be anything but the truth? You must have been sailing the stars, on an unspecified errand from the Empress herself, when the signs brought you to the Eater of Worlds. You must have thwarted the goonish Admiral Odacer, who lazed about with her vast Armada while you slipped through her lines. Do you remember now? You walked among the veteran Ceronians of old, a living soul in the land of the dead, right up until that oaf Odacer saw the Eater’s fins waving in the cosmic winds and thought her old foe had returned to life. How the ground beneath your feet trembled at the terrible broadside! But ah! As surely as you stand here before them, you escaped! With the speed of Hermes and the might of Zeus, you escaped from certain doom, and continued your quest undaunted!

(Clever girl, not mentioning the Princess, or your past meeting. No one listening could discern your true objective. No one would know the shape of your history with your prisoner, unless you yourself told them. Surely she didn’t have to go that far, and yet!)

She bows to thunderous applause, your applause, and what a pet she might make, hrm? What might you do with such a creature, with the proper time and material to train her for the collar? But your thoughts are interrupted as she rises, gives a halting wave to the room, then collapses into your arms with a pained gasp.

“Ah! Hold, a moment, hold...where’s...that’s not...” She babbles, her eyes glazed, distant, searching. You watch the color drain from her face, and feel her breath come in short gasps. Alas! What trouble plagues your prisoner, your new pet? Was the excitement of the evening just too much for her? Does an old wound (no doubt ill-patched by these backwater quacks) return to torment her?

Your Auspex informs you that she is perfectly healthy, and that this is as transparent a ruse as they come.

Yes, yes, she’s fine. A clever trick of stagecraft, to carefully adjust her breathing without it being obvious, then lean into the symptoms with a little acting. With the sympathies of the crowd already with her, no one will begrudge you time in private to see to her health. Which is obviously what she wants. A diversion? A chance to get more information, without Birmingham listening in? Whatever it is, it’s probably stupid.

And yet. She trusted you to catch her.

Maybe you’ll make something of this pet after all.

What do you do, Bella?

Redana!

"You," said Hera Mother of Cities, "have no idea what cruelty is. Do you?"

The scariest part of that is that she isn't being condescending. She's genuinely thinking about it. And that's terrifying because...

"I will teach you," said Hera Protector of Children. "You will learn the ways the universe can be cruel. Not all of them, for you are mortal and you do not have the time. But enough so that you will not embarrass yourself when you are called before the Furies in the House of Hades."

Her finger-snap is imperious and dismissive. She does not leave; everyone else does. The Alcedi bow their heads and together they file from the room and your feet, knowing better sense than your head or your tongue, go with them. The clan gathers together outside in a rusting courtyard filled with ropes that weave around and through the branches of a great holy tree that drips roots like stalactites.

Alexa!

"Hell yeah," said Ramses. "Nothing in the texts says we're only meant to explore our own bodies, right?"

And the three of you part from the dance in a tangle of limbs which seem to have taken this as an invitation to get even more familiar. It's intensely distracting, almost so much so that it overwhelms your training - but not quite. After all, you have spent a lot longer as a bodyguard than you have as a girl.

And if there's any goddess you know to watch for signs of its Artemis.

Brown hair cut short in boyish style and sharp silver suit - clearly inspired by Tellus fashions, with woven loops and a holographic badge depicting a shattered sun, all jagged triangles. What appears at first to be a tie is a black scarf, woven into a stylish loop and knot, matched by smooth black leather gloves. Everything about her style, her stance and appearance signifies restraint. Despite not seeming any more well built than average she somehow seems one flex away from tearing her clothes; despite having a face of perfect calmness you can sense the emotion boiling just below the surface; despite standing quietly and patiently you can sense the unbelievable violence below the surface waiting to rip out. Artemis is a puzzle box around a supernova and her presence has never boded anything but ill for those you care about.

Vasilia!

Bella didn't bother with a blindfold. It only took a second after the ship's door slammed shut behind you to figure out why.

It's not pitch black in here, but the gloomy lanterns that flicker and flit out of sight the moment you try and look at them make it seem like it would be easier to see if it was. In the darkness of the corridor, the guide lights feel like intruders. Even where they shine brightest, the haze surrounding them creates a fading halo that looks like nothing so much as the shadows devouring the light as you're trying to see by it. And where it fades, the hallways seem that much bleaker for it.

They curve in on each other endlessly, so that as she carries you you're always moving on a gentle slope, first one way and then twisting round until you're travelling in quite the other way. Bella's footsteps make no sound. Her breathing makes no sound. Your breathing makes no sound. In this place even scents seem far away, more vague imitations of the idea of a smell than something you can actually guide yourself by unless you already know the way. Circling left, circling right, circling left, and left, and left again. Can you remember where you're headed? Can you remember how you got here? Even the gentle way Bella carries you, placing her feet so carefully to keep her steps from jostling you as if she was somehow convinced you really were sick and fragile, even this is in its own way disorienting. Sight, hearing, smell, and touch have all fled from you here.

Welcome aboard the Anemoi.

Minutes slip by in total silence. She doesn't try to speak with you, doesn't so much as look at you the entire time she's walking. Her fingers clamp tight over your mouth a moment in and stay pressed firmly there, not trusting you to do your part to observe the piety of her ship. Or is she just keeping up appearances? A door slides open in front of her, briefly bathing you both in a soft yellow glow before this new room swallows you and admits entry into paradise.

She throws you roughly on the bed, which is neatly made and firmer than it has any right to be. She steps to one side toward a small shelf, which gives you a couple of seconds to try and get your bearings back. This is a bedroom. Obviously. Congratulations on figuring that out, kitten! For your next trick, are you gonna guess whose? It's small, like everything else on this ship, but in comparison to the claustrophobic hallways it feels like a palace snuck into the middle of a monster.

To the right there are shelves filled with books and holotapes that seem completely untouched next to a bunch of glittering knickknacks and treasures that look much fresher. On top of a dresser in the back there's a truly ancient camera that can't possibly still function, and yet there it is in a place of honor. But the far greater impression, if you bother to soak in the atmosphere at all, is that there should be more here. An Imperial Officer, a Praetor no less, should have no end of resources and tools, and yet... everything that's here, but for the closet to the left stuffed with a history lesson of Tellus' most popular fashions, all of it is widely spaced apart and lonely.

Bella's snarl is the loudest thing you've heard since boarding. She's standing there looming over you like a shadow, both hands occupied by fresh glasses of wine. She doesn't drink from either. She doesn't offer you either. Her expression is unreadable, except for her sharply gleaming eyes. Both the natural and the artificial one seem to be trying to stare straight through your soul, or else kill you without having to dirty her hands on you. Her tail flicks behind her, the motions made larger by the light leaking out of the crystal formations on the ceiling.

"This can go one of two ways," she growls, leaning so close that the wine threatens to spill onto your clothes, "Either you're a good girl and you start telling me what the fuck you're all about here, or you're a bad girl and I start things off by teaching you how the Kennels break in newbies."

She takes a step away from the back, and finally holds a glass toward you for you to figure out how to take with the shackles binding your arms and legs and making things like sitting up and reaching, if not impossible then at least very awkward.

"Well? Which kind of girl are you gonna be?"

Alexa had thought it comforting to see the arrowheads and sheaves of hair on the altars of the ship's temple. No matter how unfit her offering, how burnt the food, someone was on top of the fitting appeasements.

Hastily, she withdraws a hand from a shirt--whose, she's not quite sure, she's quite lost track--and offers an apologetic smile. She doesn't want to step away--certainly not now, just when things are getting interesting. But ignoring a goddess is... well, let's be honest, right now it's super tempting. She self consciously brushes herself down, pats her clothes back to some semblance of decency, and bows her head. Short term tempting, yes, but still not a good idea.

"How may we serve the Mistress of the Hunt?"

Captain Vasilia of the Plousios could not close her eyes. She couldn’t keep track of their position at all, not in this blasted dark, but so long as her eyes were open she could at least guess. How many turns, how many degrees? How long down each hallway? Dolce might have managed it, but every moment her thoughts lingered on him was like placing her bare hands on a burning stove. So she lies still. She breathes. And she keeps her eyes open.

A door slides open with a flash of blinding light, and her heart skips a perilous beat against Bella’s chest.

A bed. She’s been hurled onto a bed. And not the kind surrounded by new and creative ways to slowly dismember a prisoner while keeping them alive to scream. A normal, exquisite, rather large bed, in a rather large bedroom. Of course it is. Was. A bedroom. Didn’t she know that if Bella had wanted to tear her apart, she’d have a cheering audience back on the Hermetic’s ship? There was no sense, no sense at all to take her all the way out here for such a purpose. She knew that for a fact, and had known it for a fact, and Bella certainly knew she knew, for the ‘Praetor’ possessed no tools or intimate proximity that could’ve possibly clued her in otherwise. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha.

...a tad empty for a Praetor’s bedroom, now that she looks at it. Then again, Bella was no ordinary Praetor, was she?

“You know, I could ask you much the same question.” She stretches out, arching her back until the chains run taught as a bowstring, groaning in satisfaction as wearied muscles surrender and loosen. The sheets delight her fur; soft and crisp and free of any whiff of the ocean. (And hasn’t her life taken a dark turn when that was a blessing to appreciate.) Did she have to get up now? Couldn’t she savor this magnificent bed a few minutes more? She’d nearly nodded off in your arms on the way over here. It’s only fair to let her enjoy the accommodations. “For once, I’m inclined to believe you didn’t come here for Redana.” Was it just you, or did she put some extra emphasis on that name? “And while I’d be flattered to think you’d come all this way just to see me, there are more efficient ways of getting a girl’s attention. Not that I mind the effort.~” She lifted herself to a sitting position. Slowly, careful of the chains, lidded eyes twinkling in quiet amusement. “Why are you here, Bella? Why indeed...”

A pause. Teetering on the brink of a final, dangerous answer.

“Ah. But you have been on your best behavior, haven’t you?” Thoughtful. Privately contemplative. Still loud enough for Bella to hear anyway. All games aside - well, most games aside - it was an...improvement, over their last encounter. She might even go so far as to say that Bella had performed her part admirably well. Birmingham in the dark, the two of them alone, no reason for undue suspicion, and all without any prior planning or practice?

Her jaw set in a flash of frustration. Dammit all, had she been dealing with the shapeshifter this whole time? At least part of the time, surely? Impossible, that Bella - Bella! Of all people! - could have pulled this off on her own. If she had, then...then! Well, then what a shame for the myriad of other disqualifying factors. Talent like that shouldn’t be wasted on Tellus.

“Yes...I suppose so...” She breathes, and this musing truly was for her alone. With a slight nod, she graciously accepts the offered cup. “Very well. I take it you saw the enormous time cannon on your way here?”

She takes a light sip, awaiting Bella’s response. Tell us, what vintage have you selected for your honored guest, Praetor?

"I invited her to every birthday."

The feeling of having put your foot in your mouth is just miserable. Redana's body threatens to crumple in on itself; she can't look any of the Alcedi in the eye, Lacedo least of all. "I brought her offerings, I made her sacrifices, and she always ignored me and made them rot away on the altar. And when she came here and started boasting about how my father wasn't any help, I..." She makes a violent, impotent gesture with one hand, one that just makes her all the more wound up.

"Honored Grandmother," she says, briskly, because she has to say it. Because now that she has incurred the wrath of her stepmother, she might as well be a Phalanx member without a shield: a danger to everyone around her. "I'm sorry. I have to leave. Hermes might be able to keep my father at bay, but I'm small and mortal enough to maybe slip past her notice, no matter what my stepmother does to punish me for what I said."

Then she looks at Lacedo's sandals and takes one hand in hers, because Redana Claudius is an oblivious battering ram of a girl when it comes to how she might make other people's hearts throb painfully. (After all, she lived with Bella for a decade, and fell asleep with her head in her maid's lap, and used her as a pillow at nights, and she has not yet realized why the world feels more dangerous and more lonely without her.) "Thank you, Lacedo," she says, with painful sincerity. "I'm sorry I made a mess of it. But I'm still going to speak with the Order of Hermes to make them do right by you. I promise."

Redana!

"Hera..." said Lacedo, fingers running across Redana's knuckles, eyes down cast. "I don't think how well you treat her is the most important thing."

The light changes and all eyes turn towards the sky. Yours, the Alcedi, Hades ever-present, and most ominous of all, Poseidon world-breaker.

There in the stars above hangs the Yakanov, no longer a dim shadow of distant metal but a new sun. Saffron energy courses off it - slowly at first, but then with steadily increasing intensity. No less than three mighty engines have been pushed to their fullest setting and the throb of their power casts this whole world in shadow. Gravity lessens and in places reverses, and small rocks and silvery columns of sand start drifting loosely up into the air. From the jungle, a cacophony.

"All hands!" roars the voice of the Elder, a screech so harsh it cuts through the awe. "Enemy station charging primary armaments! Take combat positions and brace for impact!"

Through the chaos of Hermes' rising star you almost miss the last stranger in the crowd. Demeter Harvest-Mother, young and crowned with the delight of spring. She is smiling because, for all of this, spring is a time for smiling, but she is not watching Hermes' star like the others. She is watching you.

Dolce!

Blending in with the Order of Hermes can be challenging sometimes. For example, at any minute all of them might drop to their knees and start blaring enraptured chanting with no warning whatsoever. Moving through the prostrate crowd is a difficult thing involving lots of careful stepping - avoiding saffron fabric entirely is impossible so you must simply do your best to ensure you aren't stepping on any limbs. You don't always succeed and are rewarded for your mistakes with harsh language and rude gestures.

The vibrations running through the ship make your task even harder. A pounding rumble - three distinct beats working in parallel - runs through everything, causing plates and glasses to vibrate right off table edge and the sound of each crystal plate shattering on the ground is like a dagger in your heart.

But you're not alone in kneeling. Lady Demeter, Queen of Plenty, is picking her way through the crowd with glass-slippered feet, emerald dress rendered radiant amidst the field of saffron. She leaves trailing vines in her wake and is attended by a woman who you certainly hope is a divine attendant and not a murderous assassin disguised as a Hermetic Priest. You aren't optimistic.

They are together heading towards the Magos' vault but this is a situation where movement speed is limited by one's ability to politely navigate a crowd.

Alexa!

"Hmm," said Artemis as the ship quakes before you. Her face holds faint discomfort as her eyes flick between you, Isty and Ramses. "You know. If you're busy you can come back later."

She clears her throat and looks away. It's an intensely awkward moment.

"I mean, I won't wait," she elaborates. "I'm doing a favour for Lady Demeter here. You know, pruning the... er, flowers and all that. But probably no one will die? Physically. You know, because of the whole thing."

The Goddess of the Hunt is not a famed communicator.

Bella!

Oh, the gods had such a vile sense of timing didn't they?

The fur on your neck raises at the sound of the distant gentle rumble, the spool of temporal data from your Auspex translating into the physical sensation of being young and afraid. But it's not just that - beyond the smell of Vasilia's crude perfume you can feel more scents start to move. You can smell maple sap and human sweat and a faint pulsing flow of deliciously hypnotic taste... it's like Beljani's mind-distorting scent, but different - more artificial and more natural at once. The Anemoi swallows scents so for you to perceive this it must be close - but still you jump when you hear the pounding on your door, slow and heavy like it's coming from a place of exhaustion.

The first thought is simple: brace for impact! And the second is that any weapon that can be seen from orbit is unlikely to be one that can be survived. For a moment, Redana stands there, staring—

And then the Auspex answers the questions she did not even ask. A world, and the Yakanov spinning around it. Zap! The world hangs suspended in golden chains. Zip! The world spins in its web, faster, faster, the wrong direction, as years run backwards on a counter. Zowch! A golden chain runs through Chibidana’s head, and her clothes go back to the sort of historical style from that great museum of the War. Zotzie! Chibi-Alcedi pick up their spears and lock into a phalanx as from the sky...

Oh no.

“They’re bringing back the war,” she says, to Demeter and Hades and Poseidon, to the chaos around her, to nobody at all. “They’re going to make everybody here live through it again.” And for a moment she has the ridiculous thought of climbing somewhere high with a bat and waiting for the weapon to strike, palms sweaty as she makes the one swing that would ever count—

But it’s ridiculous, and too late, and once that thing fires Redana is going to be one of her mother’s soldiers standing in the middle of an Alcedi— no, it’ll be them in the middle of her mother’s fortress, and then everyone will start fighting, and they won’t kill each other on purpose but the point of fighting back then was to stop people from daring to get back up, and don’t they still have Hermetics here? If they left, did they take Iskarot? Did Iskarot leave her behind because she ran off?

The Auspex begins the countdown to final firing and Redana screams in frustration. There’s nothing more she can do. She’s stuck down here, and...

And what must a commander do when they know they are going to be compromised, Redana?

”In such circumstances, the commander must, with all speed, send word to such subordinate as they trust, informing them of their will, and enclosing with their message continuity of command, such that their will may continue to be a living quality upon the battlefield, and their value to the antagonist as regards the disruption or full neutralization of their force will be negated to a necessary degree...”[1]

And Redana stands below that awful yellow star and raises one hand to her face, covering her other eye.

***

And there stands the fifth person to appear suddenly in the cramped room, quite suddenly without anyone else seeing her appear. She stands there, pale, hair caught in an unseen wind, blind yet with that awful blue star burning past the simple leather in front of it. The Auspex will not allow itself to be cloaked when it goes to the effort of entangling Redana so. The Alcedi would call her a ghost, and perhaps they would be closer to the truth than other guesses.

“Still down here,” the shade of Redana declares to Alexa (and thus to the room she does not see, her Auspex blind as it tears her in two and transposes her very self). Her voice is coming from an impossible distance, clear as a bell drifting through space, each word not so much spoken as carved into the senses. “You’ve got—“

And then the waveform snaps under the strain and the shade fades away until it is clear the false Redana was nothing more than shadows playing on a wall, somehow. And the final word remains unspoken.

***

[1]: Tactics of the Post-Molechian Era: A Thesis, Elacitus et alia, Published through the Imperial University Press, signed first edition.

"Aww, did the little kitty get scared? Did you think the big, bad, Praetor was going to swallow you whole? Mmmmh, you're a lot cuter than I thought you were..."

Bella's face splits into the kind of twisted grin that suggests she'd like nothing better. Her grip on her wine glass is tighter than it needs to be, but she swirls it with a careless ease and watches the liquid swirl around with a look in her eye that feels more nostalgic than hostile. She takes a long sip, not bothering to savor it at all but simply letting it rush across her tongue and down her throat.

It's easy to see why: for all of the fancy wines she's been gifted and the vintages she's acquired on her travels thus far, the one she's chosen for this little liaison is the servitor wine that's come all the way with her from home. The watery, warm, slightly oily, quite weak drink that Empress Nero created to lift up the underclass. She hadn't found it anywhere else. Nobody seemed to drink it beyond the walls of Tellus.

Vasilia, this wine has no power to impress or intimidate. Whether it's the worst thing you've ever drank is something you would have to answer, but watching Bella and the way that she handles her glass it's very different than when she was sampling the wines in front of Birmingham, and worlds apart from her reaction to the floral wine she declared her favorite. You may not have an Auspex to read muscle movements and heart rates to divine intentions that were meant to stay hidden, but you're at least astute enough to say this: Bella, the Praetor, the most arrogant and selfish creature in the universe, is drinking the exact same swill she served you.

And then a moment later her glass shatters on the floor.

In an instant, she is the monster she was in the Eater of Worlds again. Her golden eye looks even wilder and more feral when set against the completely dispassionate bloody socket that's taken over half her face, but her snarl is every bit the same uncouth and savage bit of nastiness as it always was. Her ears bend to the point of pain in every direction, searching for something she must think only she is trained enough to hear. Every muscle in her body is suddenly tense. Her claws strain and flex against the air as the twitching of her arms sets her shoulder chains to clinking and the bells about her waist to chiming. The fur all across her body is rising to its tips, and her tail goes stiff as a rod. The low growl pouring from her throat would never in ten thousand years be mistaken for a purr.

She pounces with the speed of a divine weapon, such that the sound of her furious howl is still coming through the air when she connects. Two cats collide on top of a bed, and go skidding from one end of the neatly fitted sheets to the other. Vasilia, the first thing you are aware of is the sensation of wine splashing against your face as your cup is knocked away from you. It covers your clothes, and in a stroke of truly bad luck some of it manages to get under them. It is wet and miserable, but what comes next is worse.

Bella is on top of you. Her wild, ragged breaths are steaming up your face as you feel her thighs squeeze your ribcage with enough force to push the air from your body. She's nose to nose with you, only barely not drooling, one hand seized around your hair and the other crushing one of your arms. She squeezes until you can't help but make a noise. This is it. She's going to kill you, and you'll never know what set her off.

She shifts very suddenly. Her head dips lower and closer, burying your face in her hair. You can feel her breath tickling your neck, hot and unsteady and pounding. But you can hear her take several long sniffs with her nose pressed right against your skin, and then...

You think she might have pulled away. She's not going to do it after all, whatever it is. And then you feel her mouth against your neck. Her kiss is a savage thing, greedy and messy and wetter than a sauna. She kisses your neck again, and again, and again, sucking and claiming the space up to your chin, and then down again to your collarbone. Her teeth are not gentle, but where they prick you the pain fades to tingles almost instantly. But the marks are going to be visible from space.

Her face rises again, and she lifts her hand out of your hair to wipe her mouth off with the back of her hand. She pushes her palm back down across your mouth and hisses.

"Don't. Say. A fucking. Thing. Don't even fucking move until I tell you to. Understand?"

She doesn't wait for a response. With a final snort, she pushes herself back off the bed and turns her back to you. She stalks toward the door on silent feet against the plush floor, and tears her door open with a fury that would make Ares blush. It is not difficult to imagine the look on her face right now.

"...WHAT?!" she screams.

What does she mean, probably nobody will die? Demeter? What?

In the back of her mind, she can't help but feel like she's missed something. Forgotten something. Some little mental gear has shaken loose in the past minute--she can hear it tic-tic-tacking across the floor of her mind, skating to hide itself under a cupboard somewhere.

“Still down here."

Alexa whirls around. 'You're not suppose to be here' dies unspoken in her throat, and now it's Redana's turn to receive the confused stare.

Did you know Redana could do that? She shouldn't be surprised, but it still astonishes.

Something about the image is off, insists her brain. She doesn't know what, can't tell.

But comprehension is swimming around the edges of her minds like a fin around a shipwreck survivor. Any second now, it's going to decide it's had enough of teasing her, and will dart in, mouth agape with razor realizations.

It's not the star at the heart of the image--that's part of it, no doubt.

Comprehension beats its massive tail and goes for the kill.

It's the hair, floating in a halo around the star. She spent months on this planet--endured typhoons, hurricanes, tornadoes. Was sandblasted almost to bare stone. She's seen every weather this planet can torment a body with, seen the effects on miserable troops.

This is new. She sees the leaves floating in reverse, sees the shine on the girl's face.

Alexa would need several things to turn white as a sheet--blood, skin, a complexion not already best described as marble--but she's giving it her best go. The cannon!--

As if to underscore the realization, the ship grumbles as one of the engines burns hotter.

"You’ve got—"

And she's out here, looking for a quickie! Gah! At least Redana only endangered herself for her stupid whims, not an entire planet!

Hot grief pushes her to her knees in front of the goddess. "Mistress of the hunt. This spear was given me of my mother--it has won many battles, slain countless foes. Stop the hermetics from firing their cannon, and I will burn it as a votive at your shrine."

She doesn't dare look away--or, vexingly, to meet the goddess's eyes. She can't bear the thought of the anger there--but worse, surely, would be pity.