The trick was, you had to look and listen without really looking or listening at anything. Your eyes would see and your ears would hear, but you weren’t really doing either. You’re there, but not there, ready to come back when called, and all the memories (well, the ones that made sense) would be waiting in a pile for you when got there.

Today, Dolce was called back to the kitchen by the departure of the gods and the entry of a familiar face. “Alexa!” Thank goodness, he’d left her in such a state. Artemis had assured him she’d be safe, but, still! There was a long way between dead and safe, and he hoped she hadn’t fallen too deeply in the divide. Except...

He titled his head, eyes full of quiet concern. “Alexa, what’s happened to Princess Epestia?”

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

She wished every moth were a knife. She wished the scarf would pull tight around her throat. She wished Demeter would stop beating around the bush and start ripping arms out of sockets for fertilizer or whatever it was she did with her free time.

Tear her apart or leave her alone, just don’t keep dragging her back to the present.

“Given up so easily on the murder, have we?” There’s no banter. Only bitter weariness. “Suppose that makes two of us tired of...” Vasilia trailed off, Demeter’s clever fingers feeling the tangle of words lodged in her heart.

Tired.

Gods. She was so tired.

Drink me until you're full of me.

Once upon a time, she would have given anything for that. Let something, anything, fill her up, ease her mind, bring her nothingness.. Plant her under a tree, bury her deep, let roots grow around and through her. It's calm down there, surrounded by earth. Let her drink deep the sweet nepenthes of oblivion.

Now, though, she wrenches her shoulder free, grabs Isty, and shouts "Run!"

Now, she has an image in her head that isn't complete without her in it.

Alexa bursts through the kitchen door like a wrecking ball through a building and seizes the first vaguely white coat she sees. "The sheep!" No, calm down, the little chef's terrified, be calm, be nice. "You! You. Have you seen a sheep? About yea tall, waistcoat, shaped like a friend?"

Redana!

It's a quiet night on the road. Your feet are sore but your sandals are soft. The sky is hot but your hat is wide. Your staff is broken but your purse is full. You've got the stars for guidance and what more could you need? You could wander forever like this and see all that there was there to see.

But there across the plain stands the dropship, grey steel and Imperial in every aspect. The recruiters smile as they stand outside - "Join the Imperial Forces - see the galaxy!"

And for some reason the infinite expanse of the planet you're standing on seems very small - small compared to all that which could be out there. And so you took the coin from the recuiter to see where it might lead you. But for all the millions of miles that ship carried you it always felt like you'd walked into a cage. No matter how the view behind the bars changed that oath, that coin weighed you down and pulled you into the depths of the Underworld.

A miserable journey is no journey at all.

Such is the regret that festers in the deepest heart of Empress Nero.

Alexa and Dolce!

The Alexas stare at each other for a moment. Then one of them throws up her hands. "Augh!" came Mynx's voice. "Artemis! Why!?"

"Because you didn't trust your instincts earlier," said Artemis from across the room, mouth full of the honey-glazed nuts served to her by Dolce. "This is life and death, Mynx. You can't let your feelings get in the way."

"Mmmmmnnnnnhhhhg," said someone who was doing her best to not let her feelings get in the way. "Okay, fine. Let's -" and in a dizzying shift of colours the false Alexa cracked and fell away in a cascade of scales. "- get this over with."

Mynx's shapeshifting is in her scales: Imperial perfection of the concept started by the ancient chameleons. She's not tall in her natural form - in fact, she's a perfect match for Redana - and adding the height and width needed to impersonate the mighty guardian of Athena had required her to grow strange bone protrusions from her body. It's an unsettling organic exoskeleton look, armour plates that extend away from her body; a shape of violence. Only her obviously and relatable exasperation stops her from seeming a true monster in this moment.

"Right, shut up, we're up against the Master of Assassins," said Mynx. "And it's my fucking fault for not noticing but shut up - just, shut up and keep the sheep alive, all right?"

She looked as if she was about to head out through the door alone, and then hesitated. "There's a ritual - a cycle, it's like - uh," she stumbled, evidently having never had to explain this before. "If I do this right then I can save Redana. But it won't work if you die... so don't, okay?"

Vasilia!

Demeter looks at you for a moment in a curiously human expression. For a moment the vibrancy of the world stills.

And then she does indeed rip your arm out of its socket.

It's still attached - small blessings - but it's sickeningly dislocated and agonizingly painful. She has somehow twisted it to strike every nerve on its way out.

"Va-si-la," said Demeter, accent warping your name into an entirely different shape. "I am not tired. You are not tired. You are dead. Trees don't feel the heat when they burn. You don't feel the fire of Asphodel even though you're drowning in it. This," she cracks your arm again, "is not murder. I don't murder. This is, how you say, coffee. Drink!" She snapped one of your fingers. "Drink!! You need your wits and your husband or you'll never be a mother, hmm?"

[Mark damage]

Bella!

One of the more agreeable traits of the Coherent is that they tend to blare music when in battle. It's the secret to their formations and tactics, it's how they communicate on calamitous battlefields. All armies use horns and drums to signal above the din of conflict, but the Coherent fight according to clockwork formations that change tempo with the beat of music played loud enough to disorient foes who did not deaden their senses beforehand.

Parlor tricks to defeat primitives and pirates. All the rush of sound from the Hermetics does against you is give you a satisfying backing track. You can see why they like it - it's satisfying to fight to music like this. It's satisfying to stay ahead of them. These are soldiers who see battle as a chance to pose and flex their muscles, and oh how they scramble as they realize how seriously they need to take you.

But oh you need to take them seriously too. Even if they were all fools - and only most of them are - they are fools armed with rocket launchers. You can never know with each raised fine wooden gun if it's going to be fire, ice, thunder or stranger things. There's only so much you can do to dodge a weapon that shoots flocks of angry crows.

[Pay a price to close the distance to the Coherent]

Bella's never sung a song like this before. On Tellus when they trained her it was all histories and propaganda and big, complicated ballads that proved the quality of her pedigree and her pitch control. At the palace she'd mastered lullabies, and then after that love songs became the popular thing (plus Redana was going through that romance phase), so that type of sappy and synthetic electronic rhythm had become what she thought of when she tried to consider music.

The Coherents' war music surged and swelled in ways she therefore wasn't prepared for, but it settled inside her heart like it belonged there the entire time. The beats replace her pulse. The tune swims inside her blood. The Auspex picks apart the secrets of the lyrics hidden under the flow of music, and all that's left to do is let her body relax and melt into the dance.

And the dance that goes with this music is as familiar as it gets. Here she ducks low, so low that her legs have to bend into a split to accommodate her. Her chest squishes into her as she slides it across the ground, and this narrowly avoids the arc of lighting that tears above her in anticipation of her move. She pushes up again and kicks back onto her feet just as the grand note that marks the end of formation setup bursts across the field, and she rushes at the lot of them as if she too were nothing more than a projectile fired from a gun.

Every impact of her legs on the ground sends pleasant shivers along her body. She hums along as she moves and swishes her tail to the beat. Her hips sway from side to side as she pivots into a series of spin moves and corkscrews to avoid the various things flying at her with increasing intensity. Sometimes she steps backwards when a gout of flame or a swarm of birds or a billowing cloud that smells exactly the same of death cuts across her path. Sometimes she's forced to the ground again, and other times she has to make great leaps straight into the air to keep from being vaporized. This is the nature of the dance, and having so many partners only means she has to work harder to take the lead.

Now she advances, now she retreats. The music shifts into a long series of percussive beats and she taps her toes along with it while the Coherents wordlessly shift formation. Bella casually sweeps the room again, and it's easy to see what's happening. They've boxed her into a corner, the little shits. If they cluster together and shoot all of their little miracle science guns at once, even her Auspex can't perceive a path around them all.

Bella sucks air in deep, greedy gasps that roll her shoulders forward every time she exhales. Her arms dangle in front of her with her claws still itching with need to be used, as if she's caught between wanting to lift them up again into some sort of rude gesture or just dash across the ground on all fours. Every breath drinks deeply of the air, and among all of the ozone and cinders and smoke, there's a whiff that makes her grin with savage delight.

"Do you guys jerk around every girl you dance with, or am I just special?"

The smell is fear. They're soaked in it, and she's not. They are weak, and she's not. Because the lot of them care about whether or not they make it to tomorrow. And Bella's free from having to.

She rushes forward and it feels good. The air fills with the sounds of weapons discharge too loud for even her sensitive ears to pick the music out from under, and it feels good. She feels a hundred chunks of ice and claws and bits of sharpened metal slice across her skin and tear a hundred different holes and gashes in her suit. It feels g o o d. The blood dripping from her body is the release of toxic pressure she's kept inside of her for far, far too long.

And she's among them now. In a formation this tightly clumped there's no more room for them to run, no way for them to shoot without hurting their companions. And when her talons start carving into their lines, their weapons, and their fucked up miracles of bodies... yeah. Yeah, that feels good, too.

[Bella damages her Blood as the price to reach her prey]

Dolce politely shuts up until she was finished, as per her request. A spark of hope, warm and invigorating, grows in his chest until his whole face is alight with it. “Understood. You save the Princess, I evade the Master, and the cycle is broken beyond repair.” Simple! Marvelous! Wasn’t it a miracle, to have things work out so well? He dips his head to Mynx, for who else could this be? “Thank you for your assistance. I will stay alive to the best of my abilities.”

And, please, forgive him the indiscretion? He knew what a dangerous game they were playing, and how perilously important every second was, but, let him stop you? Let him take your hand? For just a moment? “Pardon, may I ask; if I am next in the cycle, and my Captain after me, then..." Just a moment, just a moment longer. It’s, there’s so much, he’s trying the best he can to understand, but he needed to know for certain. “...will she be safe, so long as I am safe?”

[Auto-success on Speak Softly. Dolce wants to know if his wife is going to be okay.]

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

She can’t see.

Where are they? How long have they been walking? Had she gone the wrong way? When is it safe to breathe? What is she going to lose next? Will she tell her? Will she tell her? Will she tell her? Will she tell her? Will she tell her? Will she tell?

She can hear.

Arms don’t make those noises. They make them once, then they stop being arms. Now it is heavy flesh and shattered bone, whose only purpose is pain. Demeter doesn’t stop talking. The words come in the wrong order. Or are they missing? Did she miss something? Her voice. Screaming. Again. And again. And again.

She can feel.

Agony to move. Worse to move on purpose. Demeter’s hands. Always, they are there, through every break she piles on. They are there, and their touch is life, vibrant life, and no wound can dull beneath them. One more crack. The world lurches. Spins. Stops. One foot, stinging, planted square on the ground, trembling with the effort.

She knows.

If her knees touch the deck, she will not get up again. She will lie here, lost, and Demeter will break every bone in her body, and her mind besides, and leave her in anguish until her pets come to put her out of her misery.

And she knows.

Demeter is not going to kill her. Not now. The only way she dies here is if her knees touch the deck.

Absent of faith and absent of confidence, an ember of defiance burns bright in her heart, and will not be snuffed out. With her one good arm she grips tight the arrowhead tucked away in her coat until it tears through the fabric and presses into her skin. She beats her screams into prayers, and fires them full-draw at the goddess who ought to have warned her. Who ought to be by her side now. Who answers the call of those devoted to seeing the job done.

Unless Artemis, too, cannot see.

[Damaging Courage, paying a price for Working Alone: Vasilia has lost the use of her left arm. Rolling to Look Closely: 6 + 2 + 0 = 8. Question: Why does Demeter want her dead, without doing the job herself?]

Redana weeps. Redana weeps for cages. Redana weeps for the knife driven into her dreams. She weeps because the prison of humanity is not gravity. She weeps for the golden crown bloody on her brow. She weeps for the glory of Hermes, the messenger, for the injury of the message received. She weeps because the soldier next to her, holding her wrist, making soothing noises with a look of concern and incomprehension, is someone who will never love her again, who never did love her, who she could have lived with in innocence forever. Hermes strips away the lies. Hermes is revelation. Hermes is not the physician, no matter how many use her symbol in confusion.

The Imperial Princess of Tellus, Redana Claudius, born to dominion and power and authority forever and ever, born from a Director and a God, hero by the blood, chosen of her Father, delight of Polychromatikí, breaker of hearts, she who dared climb over the wall of thorns around the garden of paradise to escape into the wasteland of her own heart, reaches up, and up, and up. She seizes the solar crown, the Principality of Tellus, the birthright of command. She twists her fingers around it.

This thing that makes her important. This thing that makes her worth hating. This thing that is the collar on a chain that leads back to the wound in her mother’s heart. This mountain she never surmounted, this expectation she never met. It is hers, and it will not break.

She lowers it down into her lap, and the blood runs freely from her broken hands until the crown is red as copper. It remains inviolate, unbroken, and Redana breaks around it.

Bella takes those hands into hers and rests her forehead against Redana’s own, and their tears steam where they strike the crown, the hiss of evaporation like a depressurized plover. It is so hot. It scalds her. And even if she destroyed herself, throwing herself against it, it would remain inviolate and whole.

“I dreamed you were a shepherdess,” Bella sings softly. “And I a forest nymph. I dreamed myself a jeweler, and you my model dear. I dreamed you were a sailor, and I was all your sea...”

“I dreamed us both anything but what Olympus made us be.”

Alexa doesn't smile, but the corner of one lip does tug upwards. Dearie me, we're all getting attached, aren't we? Would the Mynx of Tellus have been so caring, so desperate, as to say something so directly caring as "don't die"?

Still, keeping someone safe is nothing if not practiced for her. The VIP's safety takes priority over everything else. Dolce can't be allowed to fight, and Mynx has her own VIP to care for. Isty and herself as assets. Two powerful fighters, though mismatched in style--no phalanxes here. A narrow enough choke point could solve that issue, but also severely limit how well they could fight together. Put one of them at either end of a hallway? Risky. Two points of failure, and if either falls then Dolce and the other are stuck in a pincer. Besides, they're on a ship full of thrice-damned Hermetics--holding a choke point just means that they have time to pull out whatever esoteric they want.

So. Running. Or, for Isty's sake, tactically retreating. Not ideal, because ideally you need a place to retreat to. She doesn't know the ship. They're outnumbered. She won't know whether the hermetics are herding them until it's too late. The hermetics have a ship AI coordinating their every movement, for crying out--

A choke point with only one way in. No way for skirmishers to get around. And something they can't afford to fire an esoteric into.

"Mynx," she asks delicately. "Do you think Birmingham would afford Bella a personal audience?"

Redana!

"But the dawning scatters dreams as the sun rises from his grave," whispered Zeus, holding your hands where Bella had been but an eternity before. "And in humble resurrection death's brother fades away."

She kisses your forehead with the kindness of fatherhood itself.

"Once I lay in the same place you do now," said Zeus, gently pulling you into her shoulder and stroking your hair as the tears flow freely. "I had escaped my father and the wounds were so fresh. How does one stand up to a parent who desires for you to become a part of them? To take you in and digest you, breaking down every new thing that was growing inside of you? How does one pull oneself from the crushing teeth while protecting that brand-new soul from scars?"

And did you never notice the scars before now, Redana? The huge patches of stained white skin across her face and neck all the way down to the dress? They seemed before but marks of power, additions to a terrifying and imposing presence that called to mind violence even in her restraint. Now it's as though the veil has parted and they are simply scars after all.

"Mortals call Dionysus mad, you know? They are fools, for I am mad too. Mine is the madness of those who have fallen to the bottom of the world, forsaken and alone, and in the heart of their despair they find responsibility. They recognize that they cannot save themselves but they can save those around them - they must save those around them."

She takes the bloody crown from your hands and does not wipe it clean, but places it upon your head.

"Kings think I favour them for wearing crowns. They, too, are fools. This is not a badge of office, this is a metal bandage holding in a broken mind. This is the symbol of someone who will stand against all the power of a twisted cosmos because they have taken responsibility for the suffering of others. You need such a bandage with you now, Redana, for you have a great many people to save."

Dolce and Alexa!

"Yeah," said Mynx awkwardly. "She'll be fine. From Artemis, at least. Demeter who the fuck knows -" she realized she wasn't being reassuring so changed tack. "But she probably doesn't kill people herself, which is why she bought Artemis! And we've got tonnes to worry about just from Artemis!"

The end of the hallway ignited in a vicious grey light.

The Master of Assassins had returned in an aspect of deadly force, encased in a cathedral of divine armour. It's so loaded with detail everything upon it blurs together - each inch of black metal is covered with gold engraving, holy battle scars, wax seals, gleaming trinkets, diamonds and gemstones, feathers and skulls, leather pouches, animal teeth. It's a suit of armour with which to invade Faerieland.

It's a suit of armour to run in terror from.

"I think it's worth a try!" said Mynx, hurriedly picking Dolce up off his feet and tucking him under her arm. "Good luck with the unstoppable killing machine!" she said, hurrying off down the corridor with the swiftness of someone who clearly knows exactly what that suit of armour is capable of.

Vasilia!

"Oh, this insistence on forward momentum!" Demeter said, putting her hands on her hips and petulantly kicking over an anthill, spraying you with biting fire ants. "Where does Hermes keep finding you people!? Every year it's the same thing! She rummages up half a dozen omnidirectionnelle people who only go in straight lines no matter how many times you step on their fingers."

She punches you in the arm causing your tattered uniform to explode into a nest of biting venus fly-traps, but her voice has ascended into genuine whining. "She is doing it to hurt me! She knows that I hate this kind of thing! She could find smarter people, you know, ones who understand when they are beaten and say 'thank you for the opportunity to test my strength against you, Demeter' - but time and again she gets the absolute most stubborn ones possible! Listen, when you die, talk to that brute Hades for me, won't you? Tell him: I think that selecting these obsessively driven mortals to carry your mail knowing I have to stop them is cruel. Next time he should send some robots! I tell you what, I'll have a word with little Zeus and have her knock it off with the electricity thing so the humans can build proper robots again, and then we'll fight using those for a while instead." She put her hand on her chin thoughtfully. "Or," she added, "you could simply tell him to stop doing this entirely. It was cute the first couple of times but now it's become a chore for both of us, don't you think?"

Bella!

The Magos' bunker lies ahead. Its massive sealed vault doors are woven through with vines and the sound of mad clattering spirals from within. It's the height of summer and all is fire.

Before you stands Khitava, General of the Coherent. She has not come carrying weapons - she nor none of her followers. This is time for a different arsenal, this one comprised of leather gloves and bloody lipstick.

The music is in your blood, in your pulse - and it stops. Then it hooks you violently in a different direction. Your head turns, following each curve of her hands as though pulled by invisible strings. She pulls you towards her like an animal and then slips closer like a lover, circling you without quite touching as her gloves brush ghostly-close to your hair and lips. She's in your blood and in your ear, not an overpowering cascade of force like Demeter's chant. This is a thing of Hermes and everything is motion and redirection.

She stands behind you and pulls your invisible chain tight around your throat - your breathing is not interrupted but still you fall back gasping even as her hand rises and falls with the crack of a whip. You're spiraling away and she catches you, one hand above your head like a puppeteer, the other below your chin holding you without touching, gazing with dark contempt into your eyes. Then she pushes you back, through a cascading crowd of her Coherent soldiers - each time one falls out of your way it is like falling deeper into her trance.

It's the denial of touch, you/your Auspex realize as another pantomime push sends you pressing into a wall, and as invisible pulls bring your hands up above your head. She can control you so long as she can keep you in this moment of musical suspense. She can twist you around and pull you deeper and deeper into this hypnotic song until she doesn't need the divine music to control your limbs and you become a true puppet. But again she's come, close and commanding, turning your head this way and that, forcing your blood to beat the colour of her lipstick - moving as close as she can, as close as the song demands, without allowing herself the contact that will break the spell.

More, and more, and more, and more. Bella feels the shifting of the beat underneath her skin, changing from a fiery bolero of steel and battle to a twisting, winding thing that whispers lust and yearning into her twitching ears. As the song changes, she changes with it. Her heart dances like fingers on a flute, her fur ripples with the need to be touched and underneath it the music makes her skin feel like a thousand tiny needles are prodding every inch of her with secret pleasures. Her eyes flutter with a shyness that brings a blush to her entire body just to feel it pushed upon her, and in the span of a single shaky breath the song in her blood has turned her from an invincible creature of battle to a lovesick maiden.

The rush of adrenaline is incredible. She dances, and it feels even better than the fight. More, and more, and more, and more! Letting go feels so good, so good, so good!

Bella's claws slash through the empty air with choreographed slowness so that Khitava can pivot on her heels and skirt so dangerously, flirtatiously barely just out of the way. Together they tell the story of the cat who fell in love with a woman too beautiful, too perfect, and too important for her to hold. Bella chases Khitava first one way and then another through a writhing sea of Coherents on dazzling and intricate steps. They move perfectly in synch but always a step apart; where one twists the other turns, where one advances the other retreats, where one leaps the other ducks, around and around and around again.

Bella's vision blurs. An image of flawless golden beauty stands in front of her with hair flowing in a breeze she cannot feel. Her breath catches in her throat and becomes a collar wrapped soothingly around her neck. She can feel the comforting weight of the chain dangling behind her underneath her hair. She reaches behind her to touch it, to caress it, to pacify the ache inside her heart, but the exaggerated tremble of her fingers pulls her short.

The figure gestures, and she reaches for it with renewed desperation only for a Coherent formation to bend in front of her at the last second. Their bodies cross over each other like a web, or a wall, and for all she has the power to tear through them and for all her desperate longing to do so, all the dance will let her do is reach her arm through a small opening in the group and stretch until she can almost reach the hem of the figure's, of her Princess' dress. Her talons twist and curl through empty space, and she slumps backward in defeat. Her arm lifts again by itself to cover her face. Her eyes are open wide enough to drink in every little detail as her talons drag their way across her cheek and nose, leaving shallow gashes in their wake. The Auspex guides her fingers around the edges of her worst lines, but it does nothing for the pain.

More, and more, and more, and more. The music shifts again, and Bella and Khitava tell the story of the cat who was punished for daring to love someone far and away her better. The music swells and swallows Bella with the invisible fury of a riptide, dragging her backwards and down no matter how hard she fights it. The roles are reversed: now Khitava pursues Bella with light and confident steps that carry her up and over the formations of Coherents that are pressing down on Bella and hemming her in. As a unit they pull on the air that represents the chains that bind her tight, and Bella stumbles forward onto her knees. They tug sharply and spin away, releasing her to roll forward onto her knees, face now level with Khitava's stomach.

Bella's gasps for air keep getting interrupted by her need to spit the blood trickling down from her face out of her mouth. The Princess in her vision is so blindingly white that she can barely make out the lines of her hips. Her face is completely obscured by the spotlight, but her smell...

The bouquet of flowers. The underpinning of laser tying it together. The garden. The vial. The bedroom aboard a ship that would never keep her safe again. Re--

Khitava pantomimes a shove across Bella's face that sends her sprawling backwards, backpedaling on her hands and pushing with her legs against the ground to scramble away, away, away from the danger. Her skirt catches under her heel and tears in half with a loud rip. Behind her, more Coherents in all blacks form a fence for her to pin herself against, and Bella is stuck hopelessly, helplessly waiting for what comes next.

Khitava kneels overtop of Bella. She reaches down and slides her hand just centimeters above Bella's leg from calf to the inner part of her thigh, drawing a deep moan from her and then pushing the leg straight before shoving it to the side. She sweeps Bella's body around with gestures, lifting her onto her other knee and arching her back and lifting her chin until her neck tips backwards and her blue-black hair spills across the ground in rivers. Bella's arms dangle limply at her sides as she sits suspended in this impossible suggestion held aloft only by the music and the suggestion of Khitava's hand underneath her back.

Her breathing is growing faster and more desperate. With every beat they climb nearer to the end of the story, and as they approach it her body sucks in the air more desperately than ever to keep her alive. Khitava clenches her hand into a fist and pulls, repeating the gesture several times over Bella's jacket. Chimes ring out, the musical cue for the buttons on her jacket to fall free and clatter to the ground. A fingers does as well as a kinfe to start carving up her undershirt. Her soft stomach twitches in the cool air as she's exposed up to the middle of her ribcage.

In the depths of her mind, the thought swims lazily through her that she is being prepared for ritual punishment. Maybe even sacrifice, if she's been a bad enough girl. And she's been a very bad girl, hasn't she? Just look at all the chores she'd left undone. A Princess vanished into the sea of stars. The Empress grieving every day while she slacked off and played her silly, stupid games. A human, a priest of hades, murdered under her protection. And still, look at how she gasps! Watch the way her lips pucker, and those silly, needy noises slip out from inside her! See how even now, she trembles in her suspended state and begs with her half-lidded eye for a treat she does not deserve? Such a bad girl. Such a disgrace of a Praetor. The Empire would be well rid of her. Though maybe...

Bella shoves the buzzing stream of words away, and swims deeper into the music. What's it matter, what they're planning? What's it matter what they want to do to her? Let them. She feels so good right now. So deliciously, impossibly good. She feels her core tighten, the spark of divine energy filling every inch of her and easing all her worries. The Auspex hisses steam around the edge of her socket. She closes her eyes and pushes her chest further forward, and waits for what comes next.

[Bella attempts to Overcome, but Blood is damaged so it's with despair: 5 2, 2 = 4. Tenacity Incarnate: she gains Vigor until her next roll]

“I’m not good enough,” Redana admits into the all-encompassing acceptance of her father, here and now. “I’m not clever, like Mom, and I’m not strong, like you.”

Her bloody fingers take Zeus’s hand in hers. She can’t look the king of the universe in the eye, and so her eyes linger on those scars, revealed to someone who does not deserve the revelation.

“How can I keep them safe?” The Alced. The Privateers. Her statue, her bodyguard, her friend. How can she keep them safe from a harsh universe and a furious cat and a gun that breaks time?

Whether she must is not in question. She only doubts if she can. The crown gleams like the eye of the Nemean on her head.

“I couldn’t protect Isty’s mother. I couldn’t stop Alexa from killing Molech. I couldn’t stop Bella...” The blood, sprayed on a rain-streaked wall. The hand, stopping her from spitting out the Paragon capsules. The hatred for someone who’d never been in Bella’s heart, after all.

And that was the worst part. Missing someone who’d never even existed. Falling for the mask, because she’d been so desperate for someone who thought she was good enough even when she failed, over and over again.

“So how? How can I be a king? Please?” Her voice cracks, and she leans her weight on the shoulder of Zeus, she who watches over the exile and the refugee.

“She can’t kill you! All she can use is violence! Take care-!”

Dolce’s warning echoed down the long corridor behind them. Would that he do anything more to help, but that would rather defeat the point of getting him away from the Master, wouldn’t it? The best thing he could now was be as unobtrusive a burden as possible, and let Mynx spirit him away someplace safer.

Yes. Yes, that was. All he could do, for now.

“...thank you. Again.” All he moved was his mouth. He was just a lump of soft cloud, no sudden movements to throw her off. No loud voices to spoil any schemes. “Terribly sorry that we couldn’t meet under better circumstances.”

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

An arm shattered. A thousand fiery needles blistering her skin. One of her best coats in tatters. Only a thin shirt offering token resistance to a legion of biting plants. No weapons. No gear. No one coming to save her.

None of it mattered. Not really, anyway.

Demeter was against them. This was all a divine ambush. She’d meant to stop them here. She knew what name to give Artemis’ assassins. Her work had started the Yakolov’s engines, when they should have remained silent. The cannon must be firing. Aimed for Redana. Alexa and her Dolce would be in danger too. What kind, she couldn’t say. As bad as the knife at her hip. As bad as a time cannon.

And Demeter. Couldn’t. Kill her.

What more did she need to know?

One step. From a dead stop. Lift the foot. Move the foot. Set it down again. A plan of three parts. The first, she paid for in sweat and shouting. The second, ah! The distance! Her limbs were iron and her body couldn’t hold, hold it in its socket, it would fall, and she would fall, but not if she chose to fall first. Forward. Push off. Throw her weight and catch herself at the last and it’s done. The first step was done.

Two steps. But not from a dead stop. Not from a dead body. Two becomes three. Three becomes five. And more! And more! And again! And her feet hit the deck with a booming of thunder! Laughing is so far above her current capabilities. Her mouth shows too many teeth to smile either. So all her heart pours from her eyes, blazing, alight, shining like twin suns! Burning plant and animal alike! Look upon her, if you dare! If you can!

“I think.” She spoke, in a voice not quite her own. “There may be a third option to consider.”

Caval is too recent for Alexa to feel anything resembling confidence. She is caught out, lax in her one task, with no offering to Athena or the other one. And here stands a glittering goddess, blessed with omens and favors wondrous and breathtaking to behold. She should be only a step behind Mynx in her flight!

And yet, her feet are firm, her arm steady. The spear--her spear, her gift--sits in her hand like it could belong nowhere else. The Aegis is a silver flame on her arm, eager to protect. Here and now, she is calm.

Because she has no other choice. If she falls here, the Assassin will kill Dolce, and then her, and then everyone else she cares for. She must fight, holding nothing back, and win.

It's been a long time since she's done that, hasn't it? How long, since she truly had a good reason? How long, since she could truly say she believed in her own cause?

The assassin can't kill her. Always useful to have an opponent who doesn't want to kill you--it means that, however briefly, you want the same thing.

No boasts. No challenges. But, as she stands and blocks the path, she murmurs:

"Ares. Guide my spear."

[3,5,+3. 11 on Keep Them Busy.]

[wrong thread, no delete button, ignore]

Redana!

"You will succeed," said Zeus. "Or you will fail. People will call you king or you will fade into obscurity. You will not know which. It is not logic that calls you now Redana, not recognition of station or respect for your natural talents or judgement for past successes. It is madness. Madness that makes you take responsibility for all suffering and all death. Madness that makes you shoulder the weight of the cosmos. Madness that makes your heart break in time with each breaking heart."

Zeus stood up, shoulder damp with tears, and with a thunderclap of her fingers a door opened in the distance. She offers her hand to you.

"The madness will not heal your scars. It will not give you wisdom. It gives one thing only: The will to stand. In a galaxy lost in darkness that is a mighty thing indeed."

[Heal your Grace]

Alexa!

"I thought you'd never ask."

It is perhaps the most sick joke of your existence that you have never before had a real fight.

The training was endless, of course. The battles were likewise. You've fought against phalanxes and Plovers and monsters on every battlefield you could be sent. You've fought kings and the warriors of Ceron and Codexia. You've won and you've lost, but the dark truth in every battle is that you always knew you had the potential to win. It simply wasn't always clear why you should exert that strength. Your cause was lacking and your opponents were weak.

Neither is the case now.

Is this what Princess Epistia dreams when she dreams of war?

The Master of Assassins fights as Artemis does. She has performed every ritual, worked every prayer into that mighty armour, devoted a lifetime in service to death precise. She overflows with knives. To think of her is to be rewarded with jagged counterattack. She has mastered no forms or practices of war except insofar as she is the inverse of you. To fight her is to swim through blades engraved with the words of your inadequacy.

And you?

You fight to save the lives of all those you have decided to care for. You fight with the unrestrained power of Ares erupting inside you like a volcano. You fight as the ultimate weapon of war finally unleashed and the station around the two of you melts and shatters in the inferno of unleashed energy.

Tell us how you fight, Alexa.

[Remember that you must Pay A Price as the Master of Assassins is a Threat to the World]

Dolce!

"Don't get too friendly," said Mynx. "I might have to kill you myself someday."

There is much more 'trying to sound like a calloused badass' than 'calloused badass' in that warning.

"But on that note, is this finally enough to convince you that Redana belongs on Tellus?" she said as she cautiously advanced to avoid the constantly flowing Coherent and Hermetic movements. "You've got no idea what you're messing with when it comes to Imperial politics."

Vasilia!

You will later concede that Zeus Most High, whatever her flaws, is unparalleled when it comes to giving gifts.

You enter the armoury where your gear is contained and there, floating in mid air upon a time-frozen web of violet electricity, are your pistols. They are as you remember them in terms of grip and weight with but one alteration: the charge chambers are sealed shut and crackling with intense violet energy. You respond to motion as a bonsai zombie rounds a corner and you disintegrate it with a single shot that does nothing to drain the charge in your weapons.

You have an army and a goddess between you and your husband. Zeus has given you two guns and infinite ammunition.

For the first time today you finally feel like the scales are even.

[Your pistols have the stats Ranged, Piercing, Dangerous, Ammunition: Infinite until the end of the issue.]

Bella!

The lights flicker out - and blood red emergency lighting fills the hall.

The Coherent move unexpectedly for a just a moment and then recover. Khitava gestures and twenty bare-chested and masked warriors drag forth a glass cage that stands atop a stone altar. Inside is a bonsai tree, heavy with apples and flowers both. This greenhouse is the altar of Demeter and in this bloody light it seems like a vision of the Styx.

The Coherent roll and dance around the Altar as it is wheeled out before you, the cage doors opening to reveal that the soil in which the tree grows is thick with bones. Khitava stands tall and domineering and with flick after flick of her fingers she lifts you up and drags you closer to that monstrous garden. The beat is still there but it's been stripped away of every instrument leaving only the twisted sound of your blood rushing in disordered time.

"Well?" said Aphrodite, lighting a cigarette - the only real light in this twisted place. "Go on. Back in the box."

[Damage your Sense]

She can't breathe. Bella heaves with the desperation of a wounded animal, but her throat fills with frothing blood instead of air. Her voice cracks. She gurgles. She bubbles. She seethes. But there's no air.

The princess in her vision is still a figure of blinding gold and peerless beauty, but when she moves now she splinters. Her arm shatters into terrible mirror shards when she moves it. Her head distorts and twists in shining spiral patterns. And then all at once her light goes out and what's left is a monster.

"You are such a disappointment, little knife. Even this is more than you deserve."

"Well? Go on. Back in the box."

There is a single point of flickering light in the entire universe for Bella's eyes to see. The cuts on her face burn like fire. Her voice is dwindled to a desperate wheeze. There are no scents but her own putrid fear. No sounds but the rush of blood pounding its irregular rhythm through her body.

Ka-thump. Ka-thump Ka-thump. Ka-thump. Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-thump!

Bella's scream is wet. It shudders and spikes unevenly, rolling to a pitch that freezes thought and curdles blood. She is singing, Master, do you see? She learned a new song just for auction. It's a tricky song, because she has to hurt herself so much to sing it. It's a tricky song, because it uses noises for notes that people shouldn't be able to make. She screams until her voice shatters to dust. She screams with great, shuddering bursts that crack whenever she chokes on her spit or the blood that won't stop dribbling across her lips. She howls, and her howl is like a wave that only recedes so it can surge again higher than it reached before.

She fills the Yakanov with pain. She fills the Yakanov with fear. She fills the Yakanov with desperate, yowling terror so intense that it pierces walls and sinks into the whirring gears of machine intelligence. Whether it takes hold or not, it crosses through the halls of the titanic ship like they were purpose built to carry her howl to everyone on board. She screams so horribly it might even reach the planet below, through time and any other barrier that would dare to get in its way.

She surges forward to a cue that has nothing to do with the music inside of her. Her arms feels sluggish, like it's wrapped in heavy chains tying her in place, or like her claws have to push through an angry river just to reach anything. But she wrenches and, with a snarl, rips the monster in half. Her hand closes around Khitava's arm. The spell breaks.

Every breath that Bella takes is audible. The scream is the music now, and it dribbles out of her mouth through clenched teeth. Gasping, trembling, rasping. Death. Her shoulders roll sickeningly in directions her sockets weren't built for, tugging the Coherent General along to the rhythm of her sickness.

"You... you.... you!!!"

This time, the struggle isn't lyrical or beautiful. Bella and Khitava tell the story of the stupid bitch who's going in the box, instead. Her muscles ripple through her fur. With her clothing as torn up as it is, every fresh twist and bulge is easily seen by anybody with the stomach to watch. The two fighters whirl and wheel around each other, pushing and dragging in the struggle for footing.

Bella's eye is trembling in its socket. Every motion brings another feral grunt of effort, spinning and twisting until Bella's hair is digging into the soil. Matted. Clinging. The box calls.

And then she spits in Khitva's face. With monstrous strength, she knees her tormentor in the stomach. Again. And again. And again. With a final howl and a twist of her hips, she flings Khitava on top of the bonsai and slams the altar shut on top of her. Her lips twist into a terrible, evil grin.

"No," she dribbles, lifting a hand to wipe her mouth clean, "You go in there."

She turns away and plants her feet wide, sliding into a fresh battle stance. She doesn't have the luxury of deciding whether the Coherent live or die. Bella's talons sing through the air in place of music for the final dance. What happens to anyone now is up to the gods, but without distance? Without their toys or their tricks? None of them are coming to save their leader.

And she'll never go back in the box again.

[Finish (with Iron): 1, 1, 5 = 8]

Redana stands, fingers interlaced with those of the King of Heaven. For a moment she stands, sways, does not fall. Then she pulls Zeus of the Outcasts into a tight and furious hug, the kind that would overwhelm anyone else.

“Thank you for not giving up on me,” she says. “I promise. I won’t give up on them. No matter what it takes. The Alcedi, Alexa, Dolce and Vasilly... I’ll stand up for them.”

She releases her father, wipes her face on the back of her hand with a very undignified sound, and then flashes her father a sheepish smile, all vulnerability and rippling will. “King of Kings,” she says, the words a well-worn groove. “Smile on me until the wreath is won.”

And with that, she runs for the door like it’s another finish line.

Dolce did not answer right away. It was a big thought, and it deserved due consideration, which was hard when every spare thought seemed to turn to how agonizingly slow they were advancing. Still, he thought, and still, he puzzled, but in the end, all he could do was shake his head. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t see how that matters.” Imperial politics? Future murder? He didn’t specify. “You have to do this, because Bella has her job, and so do you, and it’s the only way you have to getting all your friends back, or even seeing home again. I have to do this, because I have my job, and it’s the only way I can keep my friends. We don't have much of a choice, do we?”

She tucked them in an alcove to hide from an advancing patrol. Neither of them so much as breathed until the sound of boots was just a distant echo, no louder than their own heartbeats.

“...still.” He murmured. “I wish we could have met under better circumstances. The Princess speaks well of you, and I think her judgement has been sound thus far.” He offered up a little smile that couldn’t quite banish the regret misting in his eyes.

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

Vasilia will commit to conceding nothing, least of all this seemingly-restrained act of the Thunderer’s ‘benevolence.’ Gift! Really! Knowing her, she was probably lurking in one of these lockers, waiting for the proper moment to burst forth and receive Vasilia’s weeping, awestruck gratitude. Any moment now! Get ready! Here it comes!

Anyyyyyyyyy moment now!

...well! Were she not so pressed for time, she would throw open every last locker until she found her generous patron and, and, she’d let her know personally what the great ruler of Olympus could rescue her from next! The top culprit may well shock her!

A dim, wearied voice of reason reminded her Demeter was no longer harrying her so directly. Which was a point in Zeus’ favor, all things considered.

Which, well. Yes. But. She distinctly remembered only having the one pistol before, which would have matched perfectly to her current repertoire of usable arms, had Zeus not been so blindingly obsessed with the aesthetic qualities of a matching brace of pistols. So. Perhaps it’s all a wash.

The lockers were, ultimately, not spared her coming. Many were slung open far faster than was traditionally acceptable, until she found one stocked full of weaponry in potentia. From here, she selected two short spear hafts, and along with the last remnants of her once-proud jacket, they made for a makeshift sling. Though perhaps 'half a straitjacket' would have been the better term. She expected the battle before her to stay grounded only as a temporary measure, and of the options available, fixing her bad arm tight to her side was the least painful.

The rest of her gear, she donned with haste. The glaive, collapsed at her belt. The musket, slung across her back. One pistol, in its holster. The other, clutched in her right hand. Nowhere else to put it. Nowhere else to go but forward.

With feet beyond the grip of gravity, she loped down the last hallways of the Anemoi, bounding though the loading dock, off the deck, the wall, the ceiling, back again, back again, onwards and forward!

Hold fast, crew of the Plousios! Your Captain fast returns!

[As Vasilia is racing to return to Dolce's side, she now rolls with Hope.]

Alexa has never felt so alive.

She is a fire! Every slab of stone sings with energy, every ornamental filigree must surely be streaming molten. Every step is forward--no phalanx to hold her back, nothing to stop her advance, nothing that could match her!

She is a song! Her every movement is grace, freed of thoughts of who she is, what she is, what others see her, how she must mold and fit what they wish. See her dance!

Careless! She should be terrified, concerned! Worried about the supports she's severing, worried about Isty! The moment a flurry of blows finally overwhelms the Aegis should put her to flight, but the thoughts won't come--refuse to come! Cower back into the mind with shame! See, now, the freedom denied her!

Honestly, she's pretty sure she's going to need help to unpack this. It's liberating! But confusing! There's no control! No defense! No concern for others! She is berserk, unleashed! It's glorious, beautiful!

And the most terrifying thing she's ever felt.

Redana!

Zeus freezes for a moment - and then gently, so gently, starts to relax.

"I killed my father," she said. "And he killed his father before him. Some part of me expects every embrace to contain a knife - some part of me thinks that despite all my striving I've somehow made my family as toxic as his. So... thank you, Redana."

And as you turn and run you know her smile will stay with you for as long as you ask.

*

You emerge into war.

This is not the war of the modern age, the thing of glorious phalanxes and terrible poisons. This is a mythic war. This is the battle of Ridenki as remembered in the chants and stories of the Alced. This is the war where the golden rooster and the world-shattering wolf battle in the heavens and the fleets burn upon the surface of the waves.

But oh, how the Alced move in their storming flocks! They fly like birds but when they cut below the waves they swim like fish. They swoop and dive as mirrors to the burning skies, falling in time with the voidships falling from the skies.

It's a moment of overwhelming scale and violence, and all the more overwhelming for the inaudible lament that runs through it. We failed, we lost and this was how our world burned.

Alexa!

Just as rapidly as her initial assault tried to carve through you, the Master of Assassin's plan shifted to trying to disengage and go around you. The matter shifts from duel to something more like wrestling, where she tries to slip by you and you need to position to block her.

The entire nature of the fight has shifted, now it is like trying to hold onto an oil-slick eel. Success is no longer measured in blood, it is measured in inches and intersections - when the corridor opens up to allow the Master to sprint away across open ground. Violence proper has become incidental but still Ares pours his blessings upon you. He has offered them to you for so long it would be churlish indeed to make them anything other than glorious in this moment.

Dolce!

"Her what has what?!" said Mynx, lifting you up and giving you an experimental shake to see if your senses had been knocked loose. "Redana is a precious and naive little goofball who once cried because Bella drew a stick figure with a sad face. She stayed up for two nights wondering what made that stick figure upset! Her judgement is not sound! She is not prepared to see all of this!!"

She sounded genuinely agonized by the idea. The idea of Redana's heart breaking was causing Mynx genuine and real hurt in turn.

"And she's not the only one her departure is hurting..." Mynx said. "You don't understand, but she doesn't belong out here. Bella's been... Everyone would be so much better if she just..." the shapeshifter sighed. "Why am I telling you this?"

Vasilia!

Tell us a legend, Vasilia. Tell us of how you cut through those cursed by Demeter and Artemis. Tell us how you leap from the Anemoi moments before it decouples from the Yakanov and sails out into the Void. This moment is your aristeia, your moment of excellence when the tale stops and all marvel in your skill. Tell us of it.

[Roll to Overcome]

Bella!

It is a long moment in the bloody red emergency lighting. Then, finally, the lights flicker - off, and then back on to their normal pale glow, casting everything in a surreal and sterile light - everything that is, except the green-yellow verdency pouring from the open door to Magos Birmingham's vault.

Machine Intelligences are not alive (Dionysus' blessings notwithstanding). They're exceedingly complicated difference engines, clattering pistons and whirring microfilm scanners - Rube-Goldberg machines of transcendent complexity, analog computing in raw and heavy metal. The Magos performed calculations and managed a mighty starship but it was continuously maintained and updated by a council of senior engineers and programmers who would carve in new priority cylinders to load into the fiendishly complicated device. They have been dead for a very long time.

The inside of the Magos' vault is a garden. Soft and fresh grass runs underfoot and cherry blossoms fall in sheets. Amidst the wildflowers, bones. It's so soft, so quiet, all the machine gears muffled by moss - and it sends a shiver up your spine even without knowing that this same environment is unaccountably replicated in the depths of the Plousios.

But your golden eye tells you that the golden heart upon that table is what powers the mighty weapon that will kill Redana. The heart you know you cannot break for it is as divine as your eye - but the brilliant wire-weave mesh that the Order of Hermes built to surround it, so full of crunchable crystals and tearable steel? Oh, that is so very mortal.

[You must Pay a Price to Finish Magos Birmingham]