”Hey, Redana! Whatchu reading?”

Redana jolted, and not just because Mynx had fooled her right up until she opened her (Bella) mouth. The shapeshifter’s grin was wickedly playful, and Redana’s brain went into panic mode. She had a plan! She’d had a plan! All she was going to say was “studying for my Practical” and Bella would hum and then she’d either start asking questions about the battle (because Bella wasn’t allowed to join her for lessons, and always wanted to know more), or she’d remind Dany to get some water and stay hydrated before swish swishing away. But Mynx respected the boundaries of neither god nor princess when she was feeling impish, which made it all the more vital that she not come over and see what Dany was actually reading, hidden in her textbook. All Dany had to do was just tell Mynx she was busy prepping for the practicals. That was all she had to do. Just do that.

“Nothing,” Redana blurted out. “What are YOU doing here?” Inside her heart, she fell over like a toppled statue and imploded on herself.

Mynx hopped up onto the bed, twisted in midair, and hit the mattress so hard that pillows went everywhere, and in the process ended up with her pretty catgirl head bouncing on Dany’s chest as she took a look, and Dany couldn’t awkwardly slam the textbook shut fast enough, particularly because of the book that was inside the book.

“Purrincess,” Mynx said, doing her Silly Bella Voice, “why are you reading A Princess In Scales? Is it informational and edificational? Is it moralistically uplifting? Can you tell me what happens?” She looked up, smushing her ears(?) against Redana and stuck her tongue out in a blep.

“I just... you know, I... there’s some Azura strategies in here, and descriptions of their society, and it’s a lot more vivid than, well...” The block paragraphs were making her eyes glaze over. The graphs were worse. And the adventures of Myran of the Ceronians through Azura space, rescuing princesses and fighting janissaries and foiling the plots of wicked viziers and making love under blue-litten suns (whatever blue-litten meant), was a lot more engaging. In the story, the Azura were understandable: the good ones were all pretty and breathy and schemed against, while the bad ones were sinuous and cruel and condescending and in charge of all those schemes that Myran kept barreling right through, ruining elegant plans by being too honest to tempt and too brave to count the odds and too direct for them to plan for.

“I getcha,” Mynx said, winking. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Bella.”

“Won’t tell me what?” Bella asked, in the door frame, carrying some new sheets up from the laundry (as a favor to the servitors down there, because Bella was kind, too).

“Mew mew mew! Mew, mewmewmew?”

Bella stared for one moment at Mynx’s outrageous smile, and then (when Mynx took a breath to start again) threw the folded sheets overhand at Mynx (and Redana). Mynx slithered cackling out of the way, and Redana very much did not. Fortunately, they were coming undone by the time they smacked her in the face, drowning out Bella’s gasp of horror at her own impetuous sheet-throwing and Mynx’s hiccuping laughter.

***

New sketchbook. New schematics. New Redana. Sure, she’s tired and wired and grumpy, but all of that is drowned out to a vague irritation as she listens to Iskarot’s tirade. She’s got a plan. She’s got a plan. She’s going to Myran this.

The Plousios in her sketches is a juggernaut, a falling star with radiating vents and engine shunts and thrusting jets, fell-prowed and layered with plating. In design, it is something like a thunderbolt. It is a ship for a princess who never, ever wants to be held back again. Try and get in the way of this. Try to stop it as it is loosed from the bow. Get out of its way or be wrecked in its wake.

So what if she’s gutted the Plover launch bays? So what if the SP launchers are reduced to simple broadsides? One Plover and its royal pilot will be enough. One away team will be enough. This ship, this crew, they can’t and won’t be stopped. They’re going all the way to Gaia, no matter what gets in their way.

Redana raises a hand, because she’s got to know. “Magos,” she says, trying to balance both respect and commandfulness. “On Tellus, our information about the Azura is somewhat limited. Have any elements of the Hermetic Fleet[1] come into possession of, uh[4], new information?”

***

[1]: what a weird thing to say, even after being at ground zero of one of their paracausal weapons. What’s next? Dolce leading a fleet of war-chefs[2]?

[2]: Bella peeling away her cuteness and safety and kindness and leading killer owls to throw her in a miserable hole to stew all the way back home[3]?

[3]: stop stop stop don’t cry stop it you’re at a meeting for Oizys’ sake

[4]: tripped at the finish line. We were this close to greatness!

***

Before? Before? Do pardon her, Lady Hestia, but had you not already conveyed the gravity of the moment, she might have thought you were joking. And if you’re not joking, then do you mean to say that you’ve genuinely not taken notice of her for her entire life, until this very day? That, yes, alright. Hrm. Was not an option she’d ever considered, to be frank. Usually, to avoid someone, you had to at least acknowledge they were there. Unless it worked rather differently for a goddess?

...questions for later.

“Perhaps it would be best if I started at the beginning,” she says, folding her legs to sit beside Hestia. “Where I began, born on Lakkos to one of the great noble families. A rising star of a rising star. I made my name in the Olympics, winning favor in the eyes of the gods and the people alike. There wasn’t a soul on the planet who hadn’t heard my name. As I climbed, I sought to use my position to forge peace for all, on a world that had known none for generations.”

She sniffs. “...I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice to say, I did no better than all who’d come before me. I paid dearly for compromises that bought nothing of value. My plans forever remained a day ahead of me. All the while I swam drunk in ceaseless admirations and imagined virtue.”

“Then the Starsong came, and accomplished in a week more than I had in years. And I was expected to help fight them.”

“Instead, I allowed their escape. No, more than allow, I was their escape. Of my life and fortune, I brought those of my staff who wished to fee with me, and the clothes on my back. Nothing more.”

Not even a heart.

“I drifted with the Starsong for a time. I was handy in a fight, and good enough at parties. ‘The exile with the dark past, only spoken of in hushed whispers.’ I think they had a betting pool going on what terrible fate I'd escaped from. But they were as good as they were on Lakkos. I had nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do; their causes were just enough for me.”

And are there no other names in this story, Captain? No faces to tie to these ideals? In all the years of living among the best people you’d ever met, wasn’t there at least one that touched your heart? Changed the course of a life spiraling down? Won’t you tell us of a miracle, Vasilia?

“It was...pleasant.” She shifts, suddenly uncomfortable on the cold floor. “As nice a position as I could hope for, and so it was for a time. I rose through the ranks, never so high that would have to direct the Starsong themselves. And when word came we had a...moonshot of a chance, to overthrow Tellus’ grip on the galaxy without ever fighting them directly, I made sure I would be the one they chose.”

She reaches into her coat, and takes a long pull from a precious flask. The past was thirsty work.

“What I am trying to say, Lady Hestia, is that I’m afraid I have no ‘before.’ I do what I have always done. Of second chances, all mine were burned away on Lakkos.” She gives a distant, wan smile. “Never quite gave up enough to find anything else.”

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

Could he tell you a secret?

It’s not always intuition.

It might seem like that, when he shows up with a favorite dish in your lowest moment. But maybe you just forgot when you said how much you enjoyed this sort of bread those seventeen months ago, and so it seems like magic when he produces a loaf now. But sometimes there aren’t enough months, or lucky moments, or thoughts going right that he can turn to the question at hand. And when that happens, he returns to the altars.

For Hestia, he leaves out a mug of her favorite cocoa. Shredded dark chocolate, hot, but not too hot, cool whipped cream, to give the ideal sip, a sprinkling of cinnamon to bring it all together; just how she liked it. What few thoughts he had, they all agreed that perhaps Mynx could use a little taste of home, and so to Hestia he must turn.

For Hera, he leaves a humble stew. Prepared with care, of scraps secreted away from greater dishes, in a quiet corner of the kitchen where no-one goes. And before her, he kneels, and he thinks, and he kneels, and he thinks, and he is oh so grateful that Hera is not one to mind her time too strictly.

“Hera. I’m afraid something’s gone terribly wrong with me, and I don’t know what. I cannot think. I can hardly sleep. I am useless in the kitchen-” Pause. “Well, I can cook, yes, but it just isn’t right. I make food, but little else besides. And what little I make is slow, much too slow for the mouths we need to feed. Something’s broken, and I am full of uselessness, and please, can you tell me what it is? Can you fix me? Why-?” Oh, Hera. Do not mind your time too strictly today. Grant him a moment, please. Just a moment. “Why can’t I do my job anymore? Am I so far gone that...that I cannot even do what I was made for?”

And he waits. With his head pressed against the cold floor, a shivering tangle of emotion, he waits for an answer.

At this point, being useless would be the very gift of the gods.

Useless would mean that the exercise in pincer tactics would end in squabbling and infighting, instead of having her mock forces cut apart and routed. Useless would mean that the spear in her hand would feel unfamiliar, but not so awkward that she's a danger to those around her. Useless would mean that everywhere she go, she might see exasperation from people, but at least she would see people. People would not make awkward excuses, or turn abruptly when they see her entering the hall, or have conversations drop out around her.

Useless, in short, would mean not making things worse for being present.

How great her folly must seem! She, who truly believe that she was the greatest fighter alive! Heir to the greatest tradition of strategy, recipient of the finest training! She, who felt she must restrain herself, lest her unreleased fury harm those around her! How great the folly of Molech, to imagine that by codifying rules of war, he could cage her, bind her! She has displeased the goddess of war, and like that, her vaunted skills take flight and leave her worse than she started.

What is she, if not the greatest warrior? If she's not that, then what does that leave for her to be? What's left behind when you cut away the trappings of the warrior princess?

She wanders the hall, dodging the faces of those who must surely be able to see the cloud following her. Is she running away? Running towards? Just moving, to leave the thoughts behind? If she can just find a spot to make her stand, plead her case--

Then what? She's worse than useless as is--Athena turns her plans to ashes, spites her efforts, brings whispers of curses as she passes. But if she goes back-- Back to being as she was--

The thought sits in her chest like a brick. She has to appease Athena if this journey is to succeed. Has to make recompense for the murder of her father, if the gods would smile on her again. But what does that mean? How?

And so she wanders, not even knowing what she's looking for but knowing it's not here.

Redana!

If there's an upside to the Order of Hermes it's that they make it a point not to pay attention to imperfections. If someone stutters, fumbles their words, becomes emotional or is habitually clumsy priests of the Order will patiently wait for them to finish with no commentary or reaction whatsoever. It's a militant, doctrinal sympathy - underneath each set of robes each priest is fighting a conflict that nobody else can understand. If anything, Iskarot seems more sympathetic due to the fact that all of your conflicts are out in the open.

"Of course," said Iskarot. He pauses for a minute, chewing over the thought - you could tell he was about to launch into a long discussion about the minutae of Azura techno-religion and it's developments, but showing an uncharacteristic awareness he changes course. "When the Rift opened the Shah was on the other side and remains cut off to this day. There was a period of devastating civil war immediately prior to Imperator Nero's assault, and her retrieval of the Azura human population left the nation in disarray. The Endless Azure Skies are strangely empty even now, many cities left as ghost towns. The Azura always favoured individual excellence but that is pushed to new extremes. Refusing to accept decline, each Azura now performs the work of five or ten and devotes their life to almost artistic mastery of their chosen field."

He takes a seat and it's no longer a formal briefing or a lecture. The energy has changed in a way that is holy to the Order - this is one traveler telling a story to another. "It's the most desolate, haunting place I've ever seen. Architecture of unknowable size and grandeur, intricate monoliths balanced on a trick of gravity and physics, a city that seems in the process of falling but in every moment resisting. You can walk for hours before seeing another soul and where you find them they burn bright and radiant, and they have been burning that way for a long time. The people felt like the cities - on the verge of collapse but held aloft by will and magic. They are proud. They are proud because the alternative is to break, and so they are very proud indeed."

You can imagine it. Nero consolidated all of humanity on Tellus - but what if she hadn't? What if the empire had refused to take one single step back and stubbornly clung to every scrap of land? How thin must it be stretched? More of the map might be coloured in Azura blue, more of the stars might burn Azura purple, but that does not make it more free than Tellus...

"Five Shahs have risen and fallen since Nero took the throne. The latest was a low ranked soldier, favoured by Dionysus and Apollo, who seized power in a harem coup. Like her gods, her reign is likewise a thing of madness and serenity in equal measure. Now she carries the name Xerxes CVI and has sent waves of roving warbands into the black to capture people - any people - to fill her empty cities."

Alexa!

You're down on a planet, one of many brief stopovers. The sky is brilliant with the reflected light of broken orbital shipyards and solar mirrors. The ground is wet and loamy, and here grow apples.

The Alcedi play, laugh, woop and fight, their ceremonial battles taking on new joy and life as they take wing and engage each other in the air. Tangles of feathers fall on soft soil. Hermetics march all about in their strange organisation, breaking open large rocks to reveal geodes filled with magnificent crystals which are sorted through for those of exceptional colour and quality.

And still you wander, alone and without answers. You are in the shadow of the ruined sky, in the shadow of the clouds, in the shadow of the warship that bought you here, in the shadow of the Alcedi...

And in amidst these shadows you find something as incongruous as a simple apple grove, left to run wild and sweet.

Vasilia!

"Wait, hold up," said Hestia raising a finger. "When the opportunity came up to dare the wrath of the most powerful organization in the galaxy and it's star-shattering armada of billions, you volunteered? Uh, Vasilia, I get that you're saying you never had a normal life, but you are aware that's crazy, right? You're going to have to unpack that one for me. Why does some two-bit space pirate from nowhere decide that she's going to be the one to overthrow the space government?"

Dolce!

Hestia walks past briefly in her bear hoodie, scribbles a note on a post-it before tucking the pen behind her ear, and keeps walking without pause for comment. Her advice is fairly straightforwards: 'Mynx hates eating because she's used to her food being poisoned. Give her an opportunity to snatch a meal meant for someone else'.

And that's it! Hestia doesn't waste time, she knows you've got places to be.

Her casual approach does nothing to dim the splendour of Hera, who even in this quiet place comes in her full divine radiance. She is not a thief or a beggar or a fellow put-upon servant. She knows what she is not and does not pretend to be like you. Instead she shows her respect by coming as what she is, in her full radiance and panoply, with a mighty ox and a splendid peacock by her sides. She got dressed up for this, for you. She takes your problems as seriously as she might take a king's and she sits in unhurried ritual. All her glory makes it all the more wonderful that she eats your soup with appreciation - she is not too good for it either.

And Hades is there too. Unbidden, unasked for. With his bloody-throated bow tie and shining crystal eyes he walks in and begins adding milk and sugar and butter to a bowl. You can see the shape of the cake he's making already and you do not think he's going to make it right.

"Thank you for the offering, Dolce," said Hera. "You're carrying a great -"

"Why are you bothering?" said Hades.

Hera snaps around on him, eyes flashing fire. "What did you say?"

"It's happening already," said Hades. "They're falling apart. Even the sheep can sense it."

"That does not give you the right -" Hera said, voice ice, but again Hades interrupted her. This time his voice had an edge of passion, even fury that sent a dampening shock through the room.

"It's the same story each time! Dissolution! Despair! Betrayal! Death!" said the God of the Dead slamming and pounding the cake batter with his bare hands. "Artemis hunts and Demeter rages but it is Aphrodite who time and again murders my crews! You can't hold their hearts together, Hera! You can't save them! They've already failed and -"

Hera slaps him. Hard. He staggers and touches a powdered-white hand to his crimson cheek, and then a faint flush of pink rises to his other. His eyes descend and he returns to his miserable work.

Hera takes a dark and imperious breath, straightening her dress with a dramatic flick of her shoulders. "Please forgive my brother for his insufferable and loutish manners. He is, however, correct," said Hera quietly. "You are cursed, Dolce. All of you are. Aphrodite has cut the galaxy in two and his rift is not just a physical thing. You draw strength from your relationships but those are exactly what is under threat. If you are to survive you must find some other source of strength."

Bella!

The ship has it's own secrets. All ships do, even a populated one. Entire decks lie empty, given over to the strange below-deck combinations of stowaways, parasites, hidden altars, love nests, moonshine distilleries, exotic beasts...

To an outsider like you even the quarters of the Coherent seem just as strange, snapshots of lives abandoned without warning. Here is a movie set where some of them were working on making a feature film and posters for it cover the walls with amateur enthusiasm. Prion Paula VS Djemento 2!. You've seen the posters so many times by time that if you don't make time to find and watch the damn movie you'll go to the grave wondering if it was worth the hype.

The empty artifact containment bays - the Hermetics outfitted their treasury with escape pods which seems like some sort of metaphor - are places of strange bureaucracy. Papers scatter desks along with cigarette butts, family photos, an entire tombstone being used as a writing desk as part of some obscure joke you'll never be in on. The Magos' quarters are harder to reach, the passageways to them deliberately obfuscated or requiring either inhuman anatomy or a willingness to punch through walls to access. When you find these they're so personalized as to be either fascinating or embarrassing - all the secrets a Hermetic hides beneath their robes can find full expression in their room; everything from walls covered in equations, to postcards from a hundred different worlds, to attempts to engineer synthetic hands, to a room that's just full of unicorn themed merchandise.

It's hard to see this as just another starship by this point. The Order of Hermes, for all their mumbling and ritual and knowledge games, were people with their own weird and mundane lives and communities.

“What?”

So first you ignore her, now you’re picking over her past with a fine-toothed comb? Which is it, Hestia?!

“Well. It’s, it was, a rather complicated decision. There wasn’t just one reason behind it.” Vasilia muddles on, grasping at a rhythm that kept slipping between her fingers. Thrillingly tragic tales were not meant for this sort of sudden transition to scrutiny. Hestia, to her credit, did not rush her. Soon enough, she had her thoughts, and she began a new tale:

“When we first took Redana on board, the celebration lasted two full weeks. Not because she was the life of the party; far from it, all she knew was formal balls and state dinners. No, she wanted to see everything. Do everything. There was nothing so insignificant aboard our ship that she wasn’t interested in. We had to keep pausing to make expeditions to the other decks whenever we offhandedly mentioned the waterfall we used to cool the cannons, or the second, upside-down bridge on the lowest deck, or what have you. The things we all took for granted, she saw their worth. Their wonder. All this time, and I don’t believe she’s stopped seeing it, not really.”

She fixes her gaze on her audience, and draws her voice, ringing with iron certainty. “That girl is going to die, Lady Hestia. Either in space, or Tellus will catch her, and they will kill her, and it will be centuries before she is permitted her rest. The only way she survives this is if she reaches Gaia, and receives her wish. There is no other path for her victory. Her future. None that I can see. It is simply what has to be done.”

“...so I’m an old softie. Guilty as charged. Perhaps I could’ve withstood just her, but two-”

She stops. Stares a hole through the deck, eyes filling with a simpler past. She does not even look at the numbing flask as she draws it to her lips again.

“Ah. Two. Two bright, dear hearts. I didn’t stand a chance.”

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

The Lord of the Dead possessed many wondrous things. A comforting presence was not among them.

So, please, do not take it the wrong way if Dolce is silent and still through the whole argument. Nor should you think he chooses a side, subtly inching towards Hera. How can he; he works for you, after all! But she is an honored guest, and you should not think much of it that he sits, kneeling, at her feet, filling his vision with her warm radiance.

“I don’t understand, Lady Hera.” It could only be Lady, this close to her. “Where is the threat? She said she did not fancy Bella that way. She clearly regrets her actions. I told her that we will be fine.” Do you hear it, Lady Hera? His voice, he doesn’t intend for it to shake so. Clear enunciation, he strives for it, but hear what hollow, brittle words pass his lips. Broken, just as he said. “So, then, where is the threat?”

Once, there was a fence. See, right there, where the ground dips? The firmer stones, arranged in a line, that must have held fenceposts? Grass plays along it, grows greener where the remains have fallen, decomposed, and become more fertile soil. And that patch of mossy cobble--so unusual in its straightness--can only have been a shed of some sort. She almost expects a figure to emerge, pick up a rake or a trowel, and continue to care for its orchard.

Because that's what this is. This is no random group of trees, run wild where the seeds first fell. This is a place of care, of nurture, and she would dearly love to know what drove its first planters away. Were they humans, scooped up in Nero's galaxy-wide collection? Servitors, tending it on behalf of their masters? Did something happen to them that would mark this as a place of danger? Should she be concerned for those around her?

It would be a terrible thing to be caught unawares on a strange planet. But as she picks her way along the fenceline, admiring the trees, she can't convince herself they're in danger. And surely...

Well, surely the Alcedi must be able to spot the danger better than she can? The Princess is well-guarded. There is no threat here. Surely, surely, she must be able to...

Well, to take some time for herself?

Finally, she finds the spot where two fenceposts must have been closer together. And the grass here bursts from between small stones, the remains of a path. Yes, this must have been the entrance.

She debates whether she ought to follow the path back the other way. It must lead somewhere, certainly? A farmhouse, perhaps? A ruined city? Or perhaps this simply fell into ruin because other orchards, more prosperous ones, are in use?

The thought brings a twinge to her chest. That this could be abandoned--such a lovely spot! How the reflections from the debris play across the leaves, paint them in shades of orange and purple, cast bands of blues and yellows through the grass--the thought brings a twinge through her chest.

Right.

Carefully, gingerly, she takes off her shoes. Places them outside the gate. Folds the long outer clothing neatly, brushes off a patch of dew-soaked grass, places the bundle next to her shoes. Lowers the Aegis and spear to the ground, neatly, carefully.

And then, facing the orchard, she bows deeply.

It is her privilege to be here, in this place, at this time, enjoying the fruits of those who so dearly cared for it. It's in disrepair now, but this was once a place of love. And now that she's here, she intends to make it one again.

It started off small. Everything always does. It was nothing more than a splinter: a momentary sting and an irritating prick that she could hardly be bothered to notice or identify mixed in with all the other aches and hurts in her body. So she shrugged it off and ignored it, and soon enough forgot she'd felt it at all.

And after all, how was she to notice? The kitchen was so overrun with the signs of Demeter's passing that it was impossible to tell what it was meant to look like. The hangar had been arranged to please her. Birmingham's Grave had been arranged to bury her. The endless hallways were alien and took most her attention to navigate until she'd pulled her body back together. There were projects, endless distractions, that she'd chosen so carefully to pull herself away from her thoughts. All of it was exactly as she meant it, by her design.

But like any other wound, when left untreated it started to fester. The splinter twisted inward, and it rotted inside of her. It bubbled sickeningly inside of her and greedily filled in all the spots left behind by her other retreating hurts. Hunger, weakness, boredom, and malaise all ebb away as if drawn out by a syringe only to fill painfully back up with the ache of the infection, which was called Obsession. She could not work. She could not sleep. She couldn't do anything until she found the evidence that would pluck the splinter from inside her.

Her shadow prowls from place to place, retracing all her steps. Her footfalls are as silent as they might have been on... that other ship, but the growl building in her throat seems to echo off of everything. She winds her way from hall to hall, and this time takes nothing for granted. Her claws dig grooves into the walls where she passes in three uneven lines. Her two blunted fingers itch for the kiss of new talons, and the chance to join in.

The kitchens are unchanged since her last visit. Long stretches of countertop run through the room near the garden in orderly rows, broken up by stoves and ovens and the occasional pit for fires. Every element is familiar to her, but the placing is wrong. Her fingertips slide smoothly along the marble as she searches for the stains and specific carvings that prove each station is designed with a particular kind of prep or cooking. She sniffs about for the telltale signs of greens and herbs or the pungent whip of a spice grinding station, but each spot shows mixed traces of everything. All of it separated, but wasted.

She closes her eyes, and the image washes over her. Dozens of cooks, bordering on hundreds. They work on dishes in a system of total chaos, plucking what they need as they need it from the gardens and the waters and even other chefs' stations, and only sometimes with permission. It's noisy and disorganized; people talk and shout at each other almost as much as they dice or fry or bake, and twice as loudly. It's anarchy. A system with no hierarchy except the one loosely pounded into place by a string of failures and successes.

A battleground. That's what this is: a place of war and competition, where food is a weapon and its purpose is as much to bury rivals as it is to keep the ship moving and happy. It's a ruthless place that leads to failure as often as success. She opens her eyes again and sneers. Stupid. Pathetic. Imagine, being stupid enough to let that kind of mess run wild every evening and then daring to put whatever slop came out of it onto the plates of the nobility? She'd be flayed alive if she tried it. She must have made a mistake. This is just a Coherent kitchen; she'd find another, separate one just down here where proper chefs cooked for the real people aboard the ship.

The girl stalks the ship to the point of exhaustion, and finds two other kitchens before the burning in her legs forces her to rest, but neither helps her cause. Whether she turns her imagination or her Auspex to the task, the only differences she finds prove these places are more of the same.

Impossible. Absurd. But the dining halls, such as they are, tell the same story. The girl looks through one horrified eye at uneven scatterings of tables arranged into pure chaos. There are small ones tucked into corners and huge benches and cramped booths and simple chairs sitting over nothing. None of it suggests a social order. No adjoining rooms fix the problem. This is a place for protecting secrets, or collaborating on new ones, sharing gossip, or eating in stony silence. This is a place for hiding and for showing off. This is a place with no head.

It takes her hours to stumble back to the rooms. She picks through each one of them in turn, lifting silly mundane treasures from stupid, pointless lives in her hands and smashing them into walls. The splinter called Obsession falls loose in the commotion. Now there is nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Now there is nothing. Even the figurines, baubles, and blankets she tears to pieces confirm the story. Where she can find the hordes of the Magos everything becomes nicer, but not in the correct way. It's more... more.

And there are no little beds, for silly pets. There are no mass piles of worn out sheets to serve large groups of workers. There is secrecy and individuality in every room and that same sense of loose hierarchy that might slip up or down at any moment on the back of a new accomplishment. Communal. Competitive. Chaotic. And entirely free of any signs of a Servitor class. Or a slave caste to replace them.

Her heart has forgotten how to beat. At long last, tears bead up in the corners of her eyes, but do not fall. Her jaw clenches and her fingers curl permanently into fists that tear huge feathery tufts out of the pillow she'd been holding. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Impossible. This was impossible. Everybody lived that way. On Tellus it was so, and Tellus was the heart of Empire, and therefore life. In the distant territory of the Azura it was very much so, every book agreed. They hadn't bred their perfect workers for every job, but all of the Princess' books went on and on about pleasure slaves and workers worth less than dirt. Two groups as different as can be, but they agreed on this, because it was a simple truth of the universe that it had to be that way. Even n the Ship That Sailed Away it was so, despite the whole crew being made of Servitors. The Kaori made a sort of noble class that pushed the Lanterns down and made servants of them all, until she, until Bella had come and...

She throws her beret to the ground without thinking about it. Her arms reach up to tear her dress off. Something makes her be gentle about it, instead. She carefully folds the coin-patterned dress into a neat square that she sets atop a pillow. Her tail curls around her leg while her hand pulls at her other arm. Hollow. Her entire heart is hollow. Everything is a blur of awkward motion as she stumbles from chamber to chamber.

But here is what she knows. She has stolen every pillow and blanket she could find. She has dragged them to a room with a large, flat wall. And other things, but these are pointless. She destroys them, to make room for the blankets. She has built a nest around her self-made clothes, a place where sunlight cannot reach her and she will never need to leave. She will not need to be seen, not ever again. She has found a projector, which is good because she also found that stupid fucking movie. And this bullshit anarchist farce of a community couldn't possibly have made a single thing worth watching. That's the only reason she's winding the film in now, to prove once and for all that a place like this and a people like this aren't worth a single extra second of her time. She can prove how stupid and godless this whole fucking place is through their idiot movie.

She knows the lingerie she stole is, at best, a half size too small for her build. She knows she's not taking it off anyway, because she knows that black is a flattering color for her fur. She doesn't know why she cares. She knows the projector is ready, and that the wine is plentiful despite her very best efforts these many eternities.

She slips inside her nest, and watches the heathen wall.

Redana’s instincts manage to kick in. A little belatedly, but still they kick, bucking like the engines of an old runabout. She stands up with a flourish and hands Acolyte Bian of the Fractal Goddess the blueprint she managed to get knocked out and ready for the meeting.

Bian inserts the blueprint into the Revelation Niche, and the surface of the wall it controls ripples into black and white, indenting where her pen pressed hard against the paper, until Redana’s handiwork is plain for all to see. It is the head of a star dragon; it is the deconstruction of a Hoplite into planes and angles. It is modular armor plating and an engine system inspired by putting her head together with Magos Theodorus of the Infinite Throttle. She has had Documentor Agatha annotate it in her precise, spidery notation, each piece of the design laid bare in clustered jumbles of letters, numbers and sigils. (She doesn’t know them yet. But she wants to.)

“If the Azora want us,” she says, into the semi-hush of whirring processors and the click of lenses, “they’ll have to catch us and pierce our hide first. Motion is the impossible miracle.[1] Let’s see the Tricorns handle this.” She crosses her arms and grins, and for a moment she is more like her mother than she could knowingly bear.

***

[1]: The Mysteries of Velocity, Winged Sandal Press: Magi Timatheo of the Gracious Message, The Anchorite of Diana, et al.

Redana!

Ring, ring, ring the hammers! Industry is unleashed! Pipes and violins and sweat! The saffron is ablaze, flesh concealed and flesh revealed. D-Scythes roar and the engine burns thick and hot and heavy.

"Atlas tried to build a man!" roared a Hermetic Priest in the voice of the mountains, choir-master alight with sacred candles atop his formless robes.

"His eyes were cast from gold
His fur was spun from silk
His mind was built from shining stars
And his spine was made from foil!"

The refrain was picked up by the united voices of the Coherent. This is a labour song, held in time with the engines. Three time the call and reply go out, a steady and endless rhythm designed to hammer away the time as much as the steel.

"Molech tried to build a man!" called the Priest, voice rising in passion as the song built power.

"His arms were carved of stone
His spear was forged from steel
His mind was built from spinning gears
And his soul was black as coal!"

Everything moves to the beat. The MRUs manage their steps in time as they roam amidst the sweating workers. Backs bare and furred and scaled shine and stink and are slapped as they tear down walls and rip up floors. Flashing sequences of datacode subvocalize through the din, laser-lights patterning out morse code to augmentic eyes. Wherever specialist work is to be done, the priests seamlessly arrive with their arcane arsenal to conjure matter from nothing or melt away a key bulkhead in a single gesture. Whenever there is hard labour to be done the Coherent surge in with hammers and picks like the tide.

"Nero tried to build a man!" called the Priest, voice relishing this line particularly - and the roar of approval rippled up through the assembled workers. A particular bloody, husky passion filled these next lines.

"His ass was soft from pillows
His stomach was full of fat
His mind was built from theatre shows
And his feet never left the soil!"

It was incredible how young the Order of Hermes seemed to be. How vital, how passionate their civilization and culture. They wouldn't last a fraction of a second against the Armada, naturally - for all the shock of them having a fleet, having heard the numbers and stories from Iskarot you now see that your tutors were not blind to think of them as harmless. You half wonder if Nero could destroy their entire civilization with the Assassin Temple alone.

Today she could do it easily.

But if they kept working like this? If the empty galaxy was left to them for another two hundred years?

Was this what the future looked like?

Alexa!

The grass ripples. Shifts. Cracks. Tears. The soil pours off, wet and thick and clumpy, still bound together by the roots of a thousand different varieties of grass. The mound splits and cracks apart and what is beneath is indistinguishable from the soil that it had been buried in. A creaking leg screeches its protest as it reaches out and scratches at the earth, unsteadily testing its weight. It sinks slightly into the damp soil but it holds. With the second step the whole bulk of the creature pulls itself free - four legged, hunched, creaking and clattering and with the gentle and pained screech of metal rust.

The ancient autodog takes its third pained step towards you. And then from its mouth it drops a single clod of earth - no, not dirt. A ball. This machine has slept here for unknown hundreds of years, ball in mouth, obediently waiting for the day that someone would come to throw it once again.

Vasilia!

"So, uh. What happened to stop your heart from being bright and young?" said Hestia. "You're not much older than either of them and you talk like an ancient mariner. What happened to you?"

Dolce!

"The Rift," said Hera. "Aphrodite's Rift. It's a wound in the heart of the galaxy, in the most literal sense. The closer you draw the more savage its effects. Each of you is cursed. Your hearts are uncertain and broken and they will become more so. Any flaw, no matter how invisible, will grow and grow until the void becomes insurmountable and it consumes you all."

"It is the blackest of curses," murmured Hades, kneeling down to place his cake in the oven. "Each soul carries the seed of heartbreak. No matter how they try, it is impossible for anyone to cure themselves."

"Any relationship is destined for destruction if you stay on this terrible path," said Hera. "But perhaps if you are strong enough to stand alone you might yet survive it."

Bella!

You should have known. The Hermetics weaponized music against you before. Why not again?

You've got the theme song to the movie stuck in your head. Chan-barra-chan-barra chan-barra-chan! The rolling, confident theme music of Prion Paula as she enters each new room of the ship fills your mind. It runs deeper - every entry she made was so smooth, so confident, so effortlessly sexy that it's almost impossible to avoid hesitating in each doorway, the pose half-struck. Chan-barra!

The story was simple to the point of parody. The bad guys wore red and spiked armour and the good guys wore blue kimonos, chan-barra! The wicked were powerful and the good were lowly, chan-barra-chan! Fights were staredowns of unutterable tension, long shots of staring eyes and subtly trembling hands, sweat dripping down foreheads until everything exploded in seconds of unutterable violence that were so swift and so skilled and over so quickly that they left you stunned and mouth dry, still trying to process as that shining swords was returned to its sheath. It was a movie that did not for a second exceed its ambitions, did not for a second feel drawn to add any complexity, did not have any of the nuance or subtlety of Imperial stagecraft. It was a story of good and evil, and after much struggle - chan-barra! - good triumphed.

And that's possibly the most frustrating thing of all. The movie, despite every expectation, is not dumb. It doesn't make any mistakes. Doesn't get anything wrong. Nothing that makes an easy criticism and dismissal. It's just... simple. Straightforwards. Catchy.

"...fucking... stupid."

Her voice is still strained and gravelly from underuse, but she drowns her throat in an angry swig of wine straight from the bottle to keep using it anyway. There are offenses in the world too sharp to lash out against with only your thoughts, even when you're all alone. She hisses at the ugly sound and wipes her lips dry with the back of her hand before gesturing vaguely toward the blank wall that had offended her so much.

"Dumb fuck. Thing. Who wrote. This? Morons! Never seen such. Garbage costuming!"

Her hands tear the pillow she'd been hugging to her chest into shreds and bits of fluff. She grunts when the words get too hard to form, and her tail lashes in furious assent. Her back aches after she'd been tensing it through the final half hour of the film. Her body is slick with sweat. She glances down, fumbling for more words to through at this clusterfuck of a masterpiece, and spots her wine bottle again. This is one of the poorer vintages she's found in her time here; the mulled spices drown the delicate flavors of the fruit and sting her tongue like hard spirits when she drinks it. But damn everything, she doesn't have anything else to do with her hands. She snatches it up with another hiss and a spit, and upends the bottle down her mouth with a sharp toss of her neck.

She gulps down the warm, vaguely burning drink in huge and noisy gulps that feel like tiny claws marching their way across her mouth and down to her stomach, except for the thin trickles that run like dark-red waterfalls down her chin to splash across her collarbone and drip down her chest to meet the rest of her. She doesn't stop until the bottle runs empty.

"Real life doesn't work like that!" she seethes, "Real stories understand that! You don't just... rrrrgh! There aren't real heroes out there! Just run out and save the girl with a swordfight, why don't you? That'll fix everything! Chan bara chan bara fucking chan. What the fuck made me think this was worth my time?"

But the wall doesn't have any answers for her, and the projector's fallen silent. And it's not like the smiling, jackass god is going to suddenly open his mouth and enlighten her either, that asshole. She glances around for another drink, but like a dumbass she's only brought the one vintage to her nest. She sighs and scratches at an ear before she laboriously rises to her feet with an enormous stretch. She glares death at the reel of film as she passes out of the room, not even realizing she's betraying her plan in the process.

Her feet carry her to the showers before they find the wine cellar again. She bathes, despite the utter pointlessness of it beating her in the face even harder than the water. When she returns, she's carting an assortment of snacks she's cooked up after several hours of melting sugars along with the last create of flower wine that she could find. She respools the film and presses play before settling in again.

It had just... felt so good to be angry at something again. She wanted that. Just one more time. She'd set it on fire after, Hera hear her prayer.

***

The scent of metal shavings fills her room. Her foot shifts carelessly and knocks a pile of abandoned attempts at hand-made talons clattering all over the place. She grumbles and shakes her head, but leaves them lying there. The ones in the vice on her little table are more important. She carefully carves, then files, then sharpens, then files again, blowing across the silvery metal jewelry so she can watch her work take shape. They're crude efforts compared to the ones the temples had made for her work, but something about the etchings still makes her chest flare with pride.

Chan-barra-chan-barra! She glances up in time to see Prion Paula's dramatic pose of surprise as she crosses the threshold into the maze of mirrors where the evil Djemento's most insidious trap is waiting for her. The door slams shut and swords are drawn before the noise is even finished reverberating across the reflective surfaces. Chan-barra-chan!

She knows how every part of this battle plays out. She's seen it twenty times already. In another few hours, she'll have seen it twenty-one. It's an impressive technical achievement, actually. The mirrors capture swords clashing from something like 3 dozen angles almost all at once, a dizzying kaleidoscope of violence, and even when she turned the Auspex on the spectacle she hadn't been able to see the camera's reflection in any of them. That kind of care and precision was worth respect, if nothing else.

She hesitates before she slips her fingers inside her latest work. She lets out a quiet sigh, and her ears twitch with mild delight atop her head. The metal is still a little warm and uncomfortable atop her skin, but they fit. She flexes her fingers, and the joints only click a little bit as they bend with every gesture. This, she can fix. She taps her claw tips against the table, and the talons match their height perfectly. She drags them across the surface of the table, and the sound of screeching as she carves her marks across it sends giddy shivers up her spine. She slips them off, and carefully threads them through a silver chain necklace.

"I'm impressed you made it this far. But now you die, Prion Paula!"

"You are mistaken! A blade as dull as your heart's could never cut me down! Prepare yourself! I'm taking the Priestess back with me!"

She mouths the words along with the movie, not even glancing up at the screen. She rolls her eyes and goes hunting through a box to find another block of material good enough to carve into her second pair. She'd probably watch this stupid fucking thing another twenty times before she could replicate the first. Not that she cares. The excitement of the anger died down a long time ago, even the memory of it is barely a flicker of irritation. There's just... nothing else to put on. And she doesn't trust the music around here. So it's this or nothing. And working with nothing but the sound of grinding silver in her ears makes her fur stand all up on end in protest. So it's this.

She huffs. Forever feels so much duller than she remembers it being last time. Chan-barra-chan-barra-chan!

***

Prion Paula bleeds from a dozen claw wounds inflicted on her by the evil Daimyo, the last and most unexpected opponent. It must be hard to fight when the whole world is turned sideways.

Tears run freely from Bella's eyes as she sprawls across the floor and looks up at the greatest hero of the rebellion bravely defying her destiny and her many bloody wounds to capture the happy ending that feels so inevitable now that she's here. Bella doesn't bother to wipe them clean as they run across her cheeks, even when they drip into her nose and make her sniffle and sneeze with hideous volume.

She doesn't move at all, except for a slight thumping where the tip of her tail rises up and smacks against the floor. Her arms and legs are sprawled in front of her, and her ribs hurt from lying her on her side for so long, but she doesn't bother to move. It's so pointless, when she has so little. Behind her, amateur attempts at paintings and jewelry and aborted attempts at food, now filed down to mostly raw ingredients sit in great project piles alongside hundreds of sloppily piled up tablets full of incomprehensible wisdom.

Her breath comes in a messy, snot-soaked snort. The credits are rolling. She doesn't move. Every beautiful thing makes her heart ache with longing, but her hands can't reach through the screen anymore than they could reach across space and grab anything worth having. That ache is a poison spreading across her body. Why had she missed these tears? Why did they seem so important to have again?

The music comes to a stop, and the room slips into darkness. The flutter of the reel spinning down reaches her ears, and then nothing. Nothing but the sound of her disgusting breathing. Nothing but the feeling of her heart stomping in her chest despite all her prayers that it should stop. Nothing but the dull thwack of her tail on the ground in the dark. Nothing.

They have everything, and she has nothing. And that's the way it would always be.

***

Chan-barra-chan-barra-chan-barra!!

Bella hums along, so far past needing to pay attention to feel every beat moving through her. The muscle memory of each piece of the choreography and stuntwork is burned into her muscles. She doesn't need to watch to know exactly what's happening. Her mouth moves silently to every line, but her lips capture the intonation perfectly.

It's the first time she's watched in a little while, and she's not really paying attention at all. But it's soothing to have the pattern to fall back on. And this time she wants to finish that dress.

Most of the work is already finished. Just a few more beads to tie in, and she'll be done. The plunging v-line neck and the delicate shoulder straps will mold to her bust perfectly, and even through the tassels the fit of it will hug her hips and show off the soft muscles in her tummy. The hem of the skirt should just fall short of her knees, not counting the tassels. But the tassels are the selling point. The whole dress is made of them, in fact. Swishing, swirling, flapping bits of motion that capture every little thing she does and turns it into dance, all strung through with beads in metals of so many colors that she could capture the raw power of the galaxy itself. The stars. The nebulae. The patterns that told the first stories of the universe, all captured as best she could remember them.

It's a simple design, actually. Embarrassingly simple. All of the work is in the pattern instead of the stitching. But the skill of it makes her ears flutter almost as much as the sight of it makes her teeth clench. A doomsday dress, if ever there was one. Could anything be more perfect to have, if she ever got another chance.

The movie rolls on behind her. Bella's hips shift and sway along with the motion on the screen as she finishes her work. The last project she can think of. The last thing worth doing on this stupid fucking graveyard of a space station. This is where Prion Paula strikes against the oppressors. This is where she bleeds for her hubris.

And this is where the final showdown takes place, after hours of teasing the tension to its peak. The final duel has such different energy and intensity than the entire rest of the movie. Most of the other fights are carefully coordinated explosions of martial might that was no less evocative for how little sense it made. She'd long learned to stop questioning why there weren't any phalanxes fencing the heroine in, or how anyone could tell a story without invoking the gods even once. That's just what made it special. This silly little dream that someone had. But here at the end it was all different. None of the complexities and showiness that mark the first few hours of the movie.

Instead the tension tugs at the air until it starts to tear. Instead the two last combatants stare at each other from across a field of grain. Why there should be a field of grain is besides the point. They are there, swords undrawn, glaring into each others' eyes to kill with their intent. The fight ends in a single, explosive motion. The world turns to black, and then to red while a burst of blood gushes everywhere into infinity. So much more than a body can even hold, but it's here because it sells the perfection of the strike. Good triumphs. Evil perishes. Nobody questions which is which. The credits roll.

Bella sits there for a long moment, staring at the mannequin. Her muscles burn as she stands up to stretch for the first time in six hours. The sound of the projector winding down again feels like the explosive slash of that strange, curved sword. Is she going to burst into an ocean of blood, too?

"...Fuck me. I can't do this anymore. I want out. Let me out. Let me out!"

Alexa pauses, weed in hand.

She's not actually sure whether it's a weed or not? It's thornier than the rest of the greenery, certainly. Stem is thicker, veiny, and coarse. And the roots go deep, tangling with the roots of the trees and binding like arcane knots.

It's the perfect reason to get down in the dirt, though. She's filthy from the knees down. Mud squelches moistly between her toes. And her fingernails have a pleasant thickness underneath them where dirt has gotten stuck in the crevices. If her father could but see her today...

But she's making a difference! See where she's watered, how the dirt is darker? How the purple buds of the delicate flowers under the weeds perk up, seek out the light? It's simple, dirty work, but...

It's immensely satisfying to see where the world is better for her being there. Carefully, she tosses the weed onto the pile and reminds herself to take the lot out of the garden--no sense in doing all this work and then letting the pile take root again.

Still, she keeps her eyes on the dog as she slowly gets to her feet, brushes the dust off her knees. See, boy? Hands out, palms up. Go on, give her a sniff. Smell that? Smells like friends, doesn't it?

It's in bad shape. Probably painted at some point, though the soil and rust haven't done it any favors in that area. Not any markings she recognizes, or, if it comes to that, a model she's familiar with. So, not a castoff of Molech, refurbished into a pet. Something older?

It snuffles against her palm, and then walks--no, limps, she sees--back to the ball. One leg drags against the ground, and so its entire rear end hopskips as it noses the ball towards Alexa.

How long has it been since this old dog got to chase a ball? Got to run, legs pistoning, tongue lolling?

She allows a smile, and sits down next to the dog. "Come, let us get you fixed up. And then we can play, okay?"

"But Hera, I don't want to stand alone. I want to stand with her. I swore I would, always." What value was an oath if he only kept it when things were easy? If his word could be broken by a cross-universe voyage, then what good was it? "Besides, there's nothing wrong between us. Whatever’s the matter with me, it doesn’t feel fair to blame the both of us for my shortcomings." And that was just good, common sense.

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

"I believe I mentioned the tragic past?" She waved her flask in a vaguely past-ward direction. "Take your pick: Perhaps it was discovering all my good intentions could not overcome my pride, vanity, and the cruelty of wicked souls. Only took me years of earnest collaboration with them to realize I’d been played. And to think, I once believed I would be the one changing them! Me! Armed with the right words, speaking them in the right way, what heart couldn’t I change? Obviously, Lakkos would have discovered a better way of life years ago if I’d had the decency to be born sooner.” She directed a derisive snort to her younger self. “A naive lie. Or perhaps, a truth meant for a better person. Maybe that was what did me in.”

Her ears perked up, and a slow smile curled across her face. “Oh, here’s a good one: Of all the shuttles in the family hangar, when it came time to leave my life behind, what did I take but the biggest one? Surely I would need room for all the friends, family, and associates who would want to leave with me, no? Imagine my surprise when we only used two seats. Including my own!” What a grand joke! The two of them, alone, in a shuttle that could’ve held her entire household with room to spare. She couldn’t help but laugh; what a fool she was! “Myself and dear Alethea only, who would’ve run off without me had I refused the idea. When just days prior, there’d have been a stampede to share a ride with the Queen of the Arena. Ha! Some good a silvered tongue is when you’ve not the silver to back it up.” Wasn’t she a card? Wasn’t she in rare good form today?

“I’d thought,” (Had she?) “We’d at least have convinced a few to follow us.” But no one had listened. “I thought about ordering the staff aboard too, but, hrm, not the wisest thing, to have a disloyal crew when you’re about to stab someone else in the back.” It’d been a mistake to tell them anyway. Should’ve left alone, or left no one to tell the tale. “It’s hard enough to fight off all your terrible co-workers without” Half measures. They catch up to you, don’t they? “Without, having to” They told her. “Go through...” She found you.

“A-anyone. Else.”

Ah. Oh no. Bad. Bad. Laughed too much. “Excuse me, I just.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Her fur came back damp with tears. “I just need a moment.” Come on, Vasilia, pull yourself together. So you don’t get to have nice people; what else is new? Clarissa wasn’t nice people anyway. Bad luck, getting tangled up in her. You’re better off without her, now. Or. You were.

Her hands flew to her pockets, checking them again and again and coming up empty but having nothing better to do with them then check yet again. Of course she didn’t bring a handkerchief to guard duty, who would? He would. Like a child she dried her eyes at the expense of her sleeves, and before long they were mottled with unsightly wet splotches. “Forgive me, I. I’m not usually in such a state.” No, she was usually much better about the awful things she’d done to the people she’d made the mistake of loving. A thousand pardons, Lady Hestia. She will take care not to love you too, just as soon as she collects herself.

Captain. Captain Vasilia heaved a great sigh, sinking against the command table along with the tattered remnants of her composure. “Well. There you have it. What a mystery, that we haven’t met before.” Miracle of miracles, was she still here, listening to her?! Her gaze drifted to the now-empty mug of cocoa, set above her. “...I don’t suppose you have another mug of that you could spare?”

The first time Redana heard the Nero verse, golden hair tucked into a bandana and mask pulled up to hide a rather distinctive face, her cheeks burned and she fell silent, listening to it ring out all around her, her pride pricked and prodded. How dare they talk about her Mommy like that! How dare they mock her subjects! She was sullen and dejected for the rest of the shift.

It took time for her to figure out what they meant. It was like a lightning-bolt striking her the day she realized that what that song meant was that they agreed with her. Kind of in a mean way, but the Coherents didn’t have much of a filter in a way that made her... well, relax, once she knew that not everything they said was calculated and intentional. That they said the first thing they thought of, and if that got a laugh and a “fuck you!” that wasn’t a challenge to duel but a mild rebuke or even an acknowledgment of, yes, I don’t mind what you said, but don’t think I won’t push back if you try to insult me.

Then she started to sing with them, in time with the hammers and the wrenches, the cabling and the scything. Her voice was made for operatic solos before an audience, but here, among the strange shapes of the Coherents, this neo-creed, this trans-crafted fellowship, it was one note among the many. And once she was there, she sang the verse about her mother loudest of all.

Because one day, they’ll be singing a verse about her, and she means for it to be a really, really good one.

(And Redana noticed more than they let on, too. Noticed how they closed ranks around her, didn’t let her get singled out when the Magi were looking, how they Knew that the human princess was looking to slum with them... but she kept her head down and didn’t complain, and they let her be one among the hundreds.

(Catch her, soot rings around her eyes from her goggles, glowing with exertion as she flops into bed without even undoing her ponytail, smiling her way into dreamless sleep. Catch her, delegating as much as she can to Iskarot, sneaking stamps of approval for the Order’s motions and resolutions on lunch breaks while around her, there is laughter and insult-contests and jokes about Nero snapping off Zeus’s swan[1] between her cold thighs.

(Catch her shouting back into the hubbub: “How long does it take a Coherent to install a bulkhead?” Catch the reply swelling all around her: “Depends on how often the Magi change their minds!”

(Catch the smile around her eyes, crinkling over the smoothness of her mask, one golden strand escaping to curl on her forehead, as she listens to Big Jenny talk about the movie she starred in[2]. Catch the moment of serene acceptance.)

***

[1]: long, stately, beautiful, and prone to causing catastrophes.

[2]: chan-barra-chan-barra-chan-barra-chan!!!

Redana!

The shuttle doors open revealing a howling hurricane beyond. Within the atmosphere of the gas giant is a storm worthy of Poseidon, a colossus of destructive fury larger than some planets. Even the bulk of the Plover suit struggles against those squalls like boulders, even the pulse of the plasma that floods the suit's engine through the thick cable whines from the stress of the celestial forces.

Down below, far below, a mighty cruiser hangs suspended on a curtain of hydrogen more solid than steel. The ancient derelict has been hanging here atop the storm winds for many hundreds of years, a lost marvel half consumed and holding strong. Its faded nameplate is recognized by your Auspex - the Achae. A legendary warship destroyed in battle with the Azura, its corpse marked by the Order of Hermes and left for future recovery. That day is now.

You, half a dozen of the Coherent, and two Magi wear mighty Plover suits on this mission. The goal is to sever the mighty beak of the Achae and raise it from the gas giant's depths for the Plousios' new crown.

It's time to jump.

Alexa!

Your quest is for nothing less than the favour of a wizard. A perilous mission indeed.

The ancient autodog limps behind you through the decks of the Plousios. The Coherent were no help - they're manual labourers, and something this old and complex is beyond their limited abilities. What you need for this project is one of the true, ordained Magi but in the ancient tradition of wizards they are aloof, unapproachable, and endlessly busy. As a mere petitioner with no ties to their order or history of devoted service you are finding it extremely frustrating to corner one. The autodog watches you without judgement or understanding. It knows you're doing the best you can.

So what is your best in this case? How are you going to gain the attention of a Hermetic Magi?

Vasilia!

Hestia makes more cocoa. She does not magically conjure it, she does not pour it from some ever-full horn. Such is not her way. Her way is the joy of the quiet moment of the kettle heating. Of fiddling awkwardly with the packaging before leaving to find scissors. Of the gentle wafts of steam and the taste that isn't miraculous but for the promise that you could have something this warm and sweet every day from here till Hades.

She sets down the cup in front of you. She's wordless, just leaning down on her elbows and waiting patiently for you to keep telling your story.

Dolce!

"Once upon a time I had a pain like yours," said Hera. "I wondered if my wife's wandering eye was my fault. My weakness. I wondered if I was simply broken and I had to fix myself so that I would be worthy of love."

Her eyes curved along her arm as it flicked out, threads of divine sleeves ending on nails of perfect shape.

"It drove me to madness for a time," she said quietly. "Do you know of the torment of Sisyphus? It is not, as many think, a tale of the cruelty of Hermes. At any moment the king could step away from the boulder, but he does not. He thinks the flaw lies within him. He's sure if he exercises enough, if he perfects the angle, if he approaches his task with a clear and perfect mindset he will conquer his mountain. I watched him for many years and with each failure he kicked himself and declared himself insufficient. Not once has he blamed the boulder."

Bella!

Say what you will about the Order of Hermes, they know how to manage an evacuation. All void-capable ships were launched, the vast majority of escape pods have been fired, and they somehow did all this while leaving no one behind. All you have access to is the escape pods, which will fire you directly down at the planet; the problem there is that you'll likely land somewhere in the ocean, and you understand instinctively that if space travel is bad then traveling via water would be truly wretched.

That leaves you with the only mode of available transportation the grim products of the repair deck. Apollo lights this place up, seated quietly below a tool rack with that smile upon his face. It's an entire floor of the station, a massive area of stilled foundries and exotic tools carelessly dropped in the middle of a job. The reactors hum through the walls and all manner of marvelous and archaic machines can be found here; tall MRU walkers, in-progress cybernetic limbs, some manner of mechanical hydra, and there at last - a voidskiff.

Starships are almost always immense things. The smallest ship in the Fleet still has a crew complement of almost five hundred. You understand vaguely that this is to do with the massive size and expense of a true Engine making anything smaller impractical. It was only too late that your attention was turned to the threat of a voidskiff when Redana escaped on one.

Voidskiffs are the toys of daredevils, smugglers and adrenaline junkies. They're barely armoured by Imperial standards but built for ludicrous speed and agility and can cross interstellar distances at a pace even full warships can't keep up with. They pay for that, though. You grimly remember where you found Redana's abandoned voidskiff - torn half to shreds from the stresses of deep space travel and crash-landed on an alien world. Cautiously stepping away from the cursed thing and seeking an alternative is the natural response - even if you gather from Apollo's position that this is going to be your only real option.

Zeus. You bastard.

You knew.

You knew this would happen. You threw Hestia at her, and you knew this would happen. All roads led to cocoa. Moments of absolute stillness, when all their attentions were enraptured with the first shy wisps of steam emerging from the kettle. The intense battle between too-large fingers and a rascally little packet. A spoon riding the eternal circuit of a mug, scraping out a steady little tune as it went.

This is how he learned to make it so well; learning at the feet of the master.

The gift of a goddess lay before her. She took the mug in her hands. Felt the heat bloom against her skin.

She didn’t want a drop of it.

“I don’t know why I’m this way.” She continued. Quietly staring into her mug. “I don’t want to be this way. Not a day goes by that I don’t ask myself why, and in all this time I haven’t found an answer.” The first sip filled her belly with a sweet, comforting warmth. Reminding her, keenly, of the warmth she so sorely missed.

“And I hurt him. He put his precious, fragile little heart in my hands, and I shattered it. For no reason at all.” The mug froze, halfway to her lips, clouding her face with steam. “...no. I think there was a reason.” A terrible, awful, reason, but a reason all the same. “I was alone. Bella was in my way. And it was the easiest way I could think to get one over her. Of course, nobody forced me to, but once I had that...all I could see was forward.” Good, that the cocoa was hot enough to scald her tongue, if she wasn’t careful. Kept her from downing the whole thing in one go. Forced her to take it slowly. Linger. “What happened after that...I don’t know. I don’t know. Always, it’s forward, forward, and I don’t know why. Why did I have to be the one to beat her? Why couldn’t I love him enough to stop?” Her head fell, catching on the rim of her cup. “And why can’t I think of anything else I could’ve done?”

“I hurt people, Hestia. That’s what I’m best at. That’s all I’ve ever really done. Oratory, the stage, the arena, this ship, what good is any of it? But put an opponent in front of me, and I will make them bleed. That, I can do.” No matter who else got hurt along the way.

Herself - and him - included.

“Leaving Lakkos...was just the first time I had to do it on purpose.”

Was that it, then? Had she told enough stories for one day? Was she going to have to say her name? please no Would this be the last she’d ever see of Hestia? The thought cut through the stone-heavy haze, and before she realized what she was doing she was asking, “Is all this why you’ve never visited me before?” She couldn’t stop herself. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want cocoa. “Is this why you stay away from him, whenever I’m near?” She stared the Lady Hestia dead in the eye, crumbling beneath the whole of her presence, and still she could not be silent. “Are we that unsuited for each other?”

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

Terrible. Horrible. As if there were words enough for such a tragedy. That someone so kind, so beautiful, so unbelievably deserving of so much should think herself not even worth loving. In spite of the unimaginable breach of propriety, were Zeus in the room at that moment, Dolce would have bent time and space to show her the full extent of the harm she’d caused. Had Hera not already recovered - and what a relief, she knew she was wrong! - he might’ve raced to the altars to get started on-

Wait.

She was wrong. About herself.

If Hera (a goddess) could be wrong in this matter, and Dolce (a silly, lost chef) was no better than her, then. Then.

Oh. Oh heavens.

A door burst in his heart, before he could finish giving himself permission to open it. Questions upon questions, without form, before words, filled him up to bursting. Nowhere to go, but they had to go, but nowhere to go. No way out. Too many words. No words. He felt...he felt something, several somethings, all blended together into a horrible lump, deep in his chest, at once hardened into a thousand needle points and melting into white-hot slag, and, and, and,

“I don’t feel well, Hera.” His legs were splayed out in front of him. He didn’t remember when he’d stopped kneeling. Or when he’d begun to sob. “It hurts. It hurts bad. You told me I could not carry the darkness alone, but. How can I ask someone else to shoulder something so awful? Something I can’t even manage myself?”

To the east of the repair bays the dock opened up to a view of the planet... whatever the fuck it was, the horrible ball of blue churning death, and the wine-stained, endlessly swirling and sparkling reaches of the universe reaching out to grab her. The colors looked even brighter here than she remembered them. The painted spirals of red, yellow, and green reaching out across the field of blue like grasping fingers stretching painfully across a wound that was always visible in the night sky no matter who looked at it or from where.

Funny, how she can't pull her eyes away from it. Funny, how for the first time in her life the sky was the least terrible thing she could be watching. It steals her eyes from her and turns her head without consent so that she can see more and more and more of its gaping maw, and instead of a shiver down her spine and the crawling sense of dread, what she feels is more, is almost like a, can only be described as.

A hole.

In the middle.

Of her heart.

She watches. She stands there and she watches, until the whims of gravity spin her away from the planet and there is nothing to see but Poseidon's miracles. She sits down, and she watches. Her tail twitches. She watches. Her legs tingle under the weight of supporting her body as they sit folded up beneath her, and she watches. They turn numb. She watches. They burn. She shifts to let them flop out beside her. And she watches. She watches the colors, and the vast ripples of motion that make space feel so sickeningly alive. She watches the tiny twinkles that hide the wrath of stars burning with the full might of an imperial starship. Do all them smile like jackasses too? Her eye goes wide with wonder and narrows with fury as she traces imagines paths across the stars.

She would have found this one pretty. This one blazed with the heart of adventure, Bella! Over here she'd test her might against the legends of the Azura Empire, before coming to rest by the pools that were hammered into place by Heracles himself. And she'd say it all with the dopiest of smiles on her face, heedless of the danger, confident that every adventure was another holonovel she'd worn down to uselessness in refusal to put it down in favor of her textbooks. Those stupid old rags with their exotic veiled warriors wearing bits of cloth and Starsong Privateers trading jabs between volleys of gunfire where she saved some helpless useless cunt of a princess and got a kiss and a golden apple for her troubles, every single time.

"She's got no fucking idea how dangerous anything really..."

Redana. Bella's mouth flops open so that she looks almost as stupid as the princess she's grousing about. And she watches. And she sees it. Aphrodite's Rift. The one place more beautiful and more dangerous than the entire rest of the sea. There's no other place her princess would be heading but down the ultimate cliff in pursuit of her useless shitty little girl dreams. The weight of realization sinks in her stomach. Did she swallow rocks with her food this morning? She turns away; suddenly the voidskiff is the less terrible thing to look at.

"This is stupid this is stupid this is so stupid! I'm gonna die alone in a tube in the middle of nothing and it's all your fucking fault, Redana!"

She scowls as she passes Apollo on her way to the tools. These are familiar. ELF welding clamps and grease smeared spanners, drills and belts for grinding, the long series of delicate little knives and needles that assisted clumsy servitor fingers in performing the delicate operations that sealed all those thick plates of alloy seamlessly against one another. How many nights had she lost in the docks fixing plovers with no instruction manuals to guide her? This was simple, by comparison. Child's play. There wasn't even anyone waiting for her with a whip if they didn't like the job she did. She grabs a visor and sets herself against the skiff.

She puts the tools down and slinks away. This is not defeat, she swears inside her head as she races through the corridors away from the hateful thing. Her feet ring loudly through the corridors, stomping at first, until she breaks into a run. And then a mad sprint. Her throat feels tight. Her eye stings and waters, but she knows where she's headed. Of course she does. The library will have organized information on the building and repair of personal spacecraft. As stupid of an idea as that was to begin with, the Order of Hermes was stupid enough to make it sound smart somehow. They'd know what the fuck they were doing. And one of them would even have managed to spit it out as something other than a rant or a song or a double-secret code to trick her enemies.

She passes another window on her way, and all her momentum comes to a crashing halt. Again, the hollowness claws inside of her. Again, the... the ache takes hold. Because she is alone. No. She's so good at being alone. She's been alone her entire life, hasn't she? The Empress was too far above her to care. The other servitors were too far beneath her to connect. Mynx was a lying, scum sucking whore who couldn't keep her stories straight in her own fucking head, let alone to anything or anybody. And Redana...

Bella howls and smashes her hand through a table. The library comes to life with the sound of splintering wood-analog and the thud-clatter of a hundred different books and tools slumping downward after it to roll whatever ways it pleased the gods to make them go. Her shudders wrack her body with waves of paralyzing spasms. Her breath is a thing of ragged, seething groans. She does not cry. She does not cry. She is doing this because it is her job.

Yes. She was given a job to do, and it's unfinished. A good girl does what she's told, and finishes every task without complaint. An idle Servitor is a mistreated Servitor. And that is why this empty, hollow castle full of leisure and safety feels like a dungeon. She has to fix it. Fix it, find the Princess, and drag her back to Tellus. Then she could go back to work. Then everything would be fine. Forever.

So she reads, when she should be connecting power supplies. She flips through schematic after schematic, tossing hundreds of complicated, convoluted sketches and boring, impossible treatises on the forces of physics and known space and shut the fuck up you stupid bastards, blah blah blah. She reads and she learns nothing she didn't already know, because Tellus was the source of all knowledge in the universe and it was only natural that the tasks it would set before her would be equal to anything the backwaters of space could demand.

"Waste of time. I'll fix it myself."

Hours pass, or maybe days. The skiff lies untouched. She puts the tools down, and slinks away. This is not defeat, she swears inside her head as she limps lamely from shadow to shadow as though missing her Anemoi and shunning all light for some semblance of its silent embrace. She just can't focus. Every time she moves to try anything the damn window catches her eye and she loses it all staring at space again like some useless fuckwit. She could name six without trying.

So that's why. That's why she's heading there now. Her feet carry her back to her nest where the projector waits like loyal pet. Chan-barra-chan-barra-chan. She grabs the mannequin with her final dress and drags it to the repair dock to slam angrily near the back of the voidskiff. An irritated huff. A twitch her her tail. She slinks all the way back to bring the movie here. The third trip to wheel the projector. The fourth for her blankets. The fifth for her snacks. And the sixth just because she might have forgotten something important.

She simply needed the distraction. Something so drilled into her brain that she didn't need to pay it any mind, just mindless noise that she could tune out with zero effort. Tuning it out would destroy the rest of the universe with it. Chan-barra-chan. Her third failure is instant. Her fault. She hadn't actually watched the film in a long time. She just wanted to see it again. Full focus. The second play would go better.

She works. The smell of sparks and melting metal stings her nostrils, but the visor blocks the worst of the light. The sound of alloys screaming smashes full on against the keening of sharp blades bright enough to save the universe, even from itself. This foil needs adjusting, but her hands know what to do. This plating wouldn't hold up if she kicked a rock at it. She tears it off and sears it on again, thicker.

But in the end, she makes precious few changes after all. There is a sense to the design, after all. To be lithe and quick enough to move out of the way of everything and stay alive scratched a very special itch among her instincts. Cutting her way through the sea, a lone dervish amid a storm of brutes, that's how everything always was to begin with. She could trust herself to be delicate and precise. She could trust herself to be perfect, because she knew what waited for her if she wasn't.

She could not trust herself to be strong.

So she works. She spares glances to the smiling god. Even dares to scowl at him before she returns to the infinite job ahead of her. But even work that lasts forever someday has to end. Even she has to admit eventually that a voidskiff is as perfect as she can make it. It's not like she deserves a better tool for her redemption, anyway. Nobody here to beat her, didn't she say that? Don't worry, Your Majesty, the gods have done it for you.

"You're not, not coming. Are you?" She eyes Apollo suspiciously, "No room. Find your own way. Something better. This one's mine."

A voidskiff is not a pleasure vessel. It's barely even a kayak. There's hardly room for anything, once she's crawled inside it. She peels her dress off the mannequin and folds it to make it fit. She grabs the pearl headdress she made to finish it, and sets that on top. No food. No wine. If she took the time to use either, she would die anyway.

Bella turns to the sound of a film reel flapping as it winds down to stillness. In her ears, it always sounds so satisfied with itself. Wasn't it loved? Wasn't it cherished? Wasn't it a wonderful film, if it could convince somebody to play it, over and over and over again? You might call it her best friend. You might call it her lover.

Bella reaches for the projector. Her thumb brushes against the reel with a touch soft enough for the bedroom. Her eye turns glossy with the flood of memories. She plucks it from the machine as carefully as she would hold a kitten.

She drops it to the floor. Her eye glints with horrible determination as she watches it roll around on the floor, around and around and around on its lip until it runs out of energy and wobbles stupidly to a stop in front of her. It must have been so love. It must have done such a good j--

Bella's boot crunches as it grinds through the case. The film whines pitifully under her heel. She drags it back and forth, back and forth, and then with a final wrench and a stomp, she twists away from its corpse. A lone frame capturing Prion Paula with her sword glinting in the stagelight against the backdrop of a thousand savage opponents flutters in the air behind her, but she doesn't spare it a glance or even so much as a single twitch of her ear before she climbs aboard the skiff.

Sure, she could spend all day chasing people who do not want to be found. It would, of course, be no end of satisfying for the Magi to see a petitioner worn down and frustrated before they will deign to see her. That's how the game is played--important people are acknowledged and seen, while the weak and impotent are ignored or demoted from existence.

But why should she do that when she knows where their workshops are? Let them run around and avoid her all they wish--so long as she holds this crucial ground, they will eventually have to face her if they wish to collect their tools and artefacts. She is nothing, after all, if not expert in standing still and being threatening.

"Please don't touch that."

Alexa ignores the Coherent, and tugs open another drawer. Tools jangle noisily as she digs, shoves incomprehensible thingamajigs around in her search.

The big lug seems friendly enough, which is his first mistake. She is here, somewhere she should not be. You never rely on them being nice and doing what they're told. You're here, you own this space, you don't let them dictate the terms.

Ah, finally. This tool probably isn't meant to be used as a wire brush, but it's got enough stiff wires sticking out to be good enough. The coherent winces, she notes with some satisfaction.

Hey now. No biting. Yeah, it hurts, I get it, but we gotta get that rust off if we're gonna make any progress.

See what a mess she's making? Better run and tell your boss what she's doing before she has a chance to mess up anything volatile.

To you, lord of the deeps,
let there be praise and fearful awe.
Who has seen the nebula’s heart?
Who has run a hook through the Eater’s beak?
Surely that man has not been born,
the one who knows the deep places
that you have dominion over;
the deep places and the unknowable dark.

***

Fingers clench firmly on the grips as Redana’s face breaks into a helpless grin. Here it is. Another beauty, a pearl found shining in the mouth of glorious Poseidon. This is not the still, stately glory that she saw as she worked her way to the Eater of Worlds. This is energy, wild and violent and joyous, like the mania of Dionysus. This is no flotsam and jetsam; this is a storm-wracked tomb, the resting place of a mighty weapon about to be repurposed once more.

The plovers have no tethers here. It would be a death sentence; the tempest would whirl them around, make nooses and garrotes of them, shearing limbs and shattering cockpits. They will have to trust their engines, trust their cooperation, and trust that they will not suddenly be ambushed by ELF weaponry. They seem to be alone, out here in the storm, but— they haven’t seen Bella in a long time, and the Azora are quick raiders. To lose power here is to be lost.

And doesn’t that just make Redana’s heart race? When the jump’s called, she’s the first one from the starting gate, as sure-footed as if this was another Olympic sprint. She vaults into her uncle’s arms and tumbles, wild-eyed and grinning, down through the hurricane.

There is no straight path; each plover will have to take their own spiraling route down to the Achae. All Redana can do, as her Plover shudders and whines around her, is lean in hard, sinister grip slammed shut, engine roaring as she angles herself against the winds. Her teeth rattle in her skull. Her head throbs as the world outside goes lavender and indigo and hot flaming pink, flashing straight to the back of her eye. And her stress bleeds through her mouth, her laughter surely at risk of depressurizing the cockpit for how densely it fills the space.

Eventually, after a short infinity, she lunges out, the bulk of the Achae filling her entire world, her boarding hook skidding, seeking purchase, until it catches just long enough for Redana to reorient herself. She presses herself against the bulk, then begins to grope her way down the length of the ship, her boosters whining and hissing as they continue to force her down, to give her an artificial gravity, to keep her from being torn off the back of the Achae as if she were a tick on an animal’s back.

The journey will be long for each and every one of them, falling one by one onto the hulk. The calculations to deliver them all to the veal directly would have required, well, Magos Birmingham, who she has been assured is very good with calculations. If she ever meets him, she’ll have to apologize for stealing all of his subordinates, but, in her defense... they are her vassals. Apparently. Because she is the daughter of Nero, who is to be revered as Hermes herself. Which makes her... Hermesette? Hermesind? There’s a title for the daughter of Hermes, if she could just remember which one. Though Princess is a very broad and all-encompassing title in and of itself. A noble name. Her name. And yet she works alongside them, because...

Because she’s not her mother, the woman who regretted ever leaving Arcadia. She’s her own self. And Redana Claudius doesn’t want to be up on the dais waiting for her generals to come to a conclusion. She doesn’t want to be up on the bridge, letting her Auspex track the infinitesimal forms of Plovers on the vast hide of the Achae. She wants to be here, where there’s work to be done. That’s simple. That’s easy. That’s good. The work is the work.

When they meet together at the prow, there will be work to be done. Hours of it. There will be a rhythm to it, hooks rising and falling, severing the appointed mounts and the pins the size of tree-trunks. There will be so much of it! Then, when the prow sloughs off under its own weight, nine Plovers will use it to cut through the storm until they all break free of the giant’s grip[1].

When Redana returns to the Plousios, she will have pushed herself to the brink of what even she, human that she is, can do. She will ache from the stresses she has forced her body to undergo. Her arms will throb with Plover’s Grip, her gloves sticky with sweat and her golden hair plastered to her pale forehead. And she will know she kept pace with the Coherents, and she will be proud enough to cry.

But that’s not yet. Now? Now is one limb in front of the other, all while the tempest roars around her, her visibility ahead cut down to almost nothing, her Auspex slowly counting down the number of steps it will take for her to reach her destination, and the rain making oracle patterns on the windshield that only her uncle could read, each one lasting only a moment before becoming something new and true and incomprehensible. Now is only the joy of the Princess.

***

[1]: Then a more stately pace back to the Plousios. It is inauspicious for a new war-beak to taste its own ship’s blood first.

Redana!

You only catch a glimpse of it for perhaps thirty seconds, distant through the window of the Plover suit. It does not move fast and it is the same storm that carries it that conceals it from your eyes before you're finished taking it in. It passes like a flock of birds; sustained enough to draw someone's attention to it, but too fleeting to finish fumbling for the camera.

It's an opal. An opal the size of a skyscraper, surrounded by a cloud of fragmented chips, carried somehow aloft in the vastness of the storm. Was this some strange meteor, the cargo of the wrecked Achae, some natural blessing that has been aloft above this gas giant for so many thousands of years? You see it through the clouds, miles distant, a huge and shining silhouette in the sky below you before the violet clouds close around it again. Another mystery, glimpsed at a moment when there is no time to go back and investigate.

You might have thought it a dream if you didn't find the chips of shattered opals embedded in the self-sealing rubber joints of your Plover suit when you land.

The sea may be terrible, but it has treasures too.

It is after a long day with muscles that burn with the exertion of Hephaestus upon his forge that you make your way back to your quarters, opals clattering in your pocket. Galnius informs you in passing that they have the shapeshifter Mynx but you're too tired to see her tonight, too tired to acknowledge the statement. You slump down in your bed, your room and keep well earned by your efforts today.

And in the morning, you hear the sounds and the smells of an angel cooking you pancakes.

Alexa!

It's a fool's errand to guess at the true shape of a Hermetic underneath their robes. They deliberately create strange scaffolding to break up their silhouettes, conceal their scents beneath perfumes, run soft backing tracks of their personal theme music to mask footfalls or conceal whirring gears. Despite all such attempts at concealment, when your base material is 'elephant' there is only so much that can be done.

It arrives with a clattering, scattering set of knucklebone dice thrown across the floor. "The runes have been cast," it states in a soft, expansive voice with a hint of a lisp. "The War Goddess does not favour you any longer. So in whose name do you dare disturb my workshop and misuse my sacred tools!?"

Vasilia!

"Dunno," said Hestia. "Suited, unsuited? Heartbreak, love? That's all Aphrodite's business. What I do know is that you've never once talked about your past or your future. I know that you don't have a dream house you're just waiting to finally build. You haven't built a playlist of movies and shows, sorted by viewing age, that you intend to show to a future kid. You haven't faced your own fears enough to convincingly tell someone that there's nothing to be afraid of. I don't know why, but if I had to guess it's because I don't think you think you'll be alive for any of it."

She knows you don't want cocoa, but she pours you another cup anyway just in case you change your mind.

"You can't build a future if you don't have a past, Vasilia," said the Goddess of the Hearth. "You live like a lightning bolt, trapped in an eternal present."

Dolce!

"Dolce..." whispered Hera, her celestial peacock dress crumpling as she knelt down before you, touching her forehead close to yours. "They're all already shouldering those burdens. Every heart is already broken. Every soul aboard this ship is already cursed. And for all the brilliance and industry you see around you, all the smiles and all the confidence, nobody can manage by themselves."

"It's impossible," muttered Hades, a sapphire star in the distant black.

"Yes," said Hera. "It is. The task before you is impossible. So you cannot fail."

Bella!

Despite the smouldering chaos in your heart, the anathematic violence that seethes around the edges of the calm of Apollo, still the god smiles. Still he lays his hand on the prow of your ship and draws a spiral sun shape into the prow. Still he gives you his blessing and protection for the terrible voyage ahead.

And then you launch.

For all the Hermetic reputation for secrets, you were surprised at how plain their discussions of Engine technology were. There was a... fear in those schematics. There was the scent of uncertainty in the rawness of their language, how freely they admitted the gaps in their knowledge, the plurality of authors invited to examine each document and suggest their insights.

They don't know. They don't know how to make new Engines. They don't think anyone knows. There are plenty of wrecks in the void to salvage still, but this is a non-renewable research and the ordinary games of knowledge and power are suspended on this topic. Some of them project a future where travel between the stars might become far more difficult than it is now. Some of them were turning their attentions towards imagining how the Order might adapt and survive in such a future. Already doctrines are changing to prioritize the survival of what Engines remain, to develop diplomatic alternatives to void combat, to outlaw weapons capable of breaching an Engine core.

Standing aboard a ship is always about the Engine. Muffled, distant, still its rumbles and echoes and moods run through everything like a distant bass chord. Aboard this skiff it's a different matter. Now every rise and fall of that machine's breath is as close and present as your own, and as it starts to burn and you start to pick up speed, so the Engine's breath raises like a runner's. You can feel it shake through you and struggling against it promises every bruise. At the same time you need to be tense. You need to be tense and alert and run without sleep or pause because there is no room for mistake at these speeds. You need to fight it even as it fights you. It's going to be one of the longest and most exhausting fights of your life.

But sometime the middle for a period that could have been seconds or could have been weeks you weren't fighting it. You were somehow in tune with it. Every part of your body was relaxed and still your hands were steady and every motion and correction happened in a timeless, endless, perfect moment of sheer unity with the forces of the stars. For just one eternal moment that spiral sun seemed to glow and you understood Apollo. In that moment it felt like you were seeing reality as it really was, unburdened by the expectations of your own mind. You were matter guiding energy, the brain of a shooting star.

You're not sure what triggered it, or what broke it in the end. But the experience would not be one that was easy to forget, even as the spaceport of your destination appeared dark against the distant golden sun.

Redana? There is no Redana here. There is only the Eater of Pancakes. Behold it arise in its glorious pajamas[1]. When it yawns, the galaxy trembles. It has been summoned here by the possibility of the FEAST. The chocolate chips, half-molten, sunken into the pancakes like fallen meteors; the Ridenki false-banana extract, expertly mixed into the batter; the sinfully soft butter, just like the kitchens back home used every day; the nameless cream of Dolce’s kitchen, white and fluffy in its whorls. Yes. Yes! This pleases the Eater of Pancakes! Eyes still closed, it descends upon the table and accepts the offering lifted up.

Pancakes fall like battleships, each one torn apart by the Eater of Pancakes as she demolishes the arrayed fleet. Woe to you, delicious treats! When you were first formed, given shape by the hands of your creator, did you know that this would be your fate? Or did you, in your hubris, think yourselves too soft and fluffy to ever be eaten, a meal fit only for the gods themselves? Fools! It is the Fates who decree the span of each life, and they who decide when kings and servitors and pancakes meet Hades for the final trick! Is it not said that the life of a pancake is like a bird that flies through a feasthall? For a moment it has come out of the dark and the cold, and all around warmth and life and revelry, and yet in a moment, with the beat of its wings, it is gone, never to be seen again. So it is with you, o pancakes!

And yet a higher power and a keener mind has made of you a sacrifice, and secreted within you the doom of the Eater of Pancakes. Like a sacrificial ship, packed with explosives, you are, o most perilous of pancakes! The Eater of Pancakes bites down, and the venom within explodes through her mouth, first as hot as a Thousand Embers curry, then cold and numb. With a terrible squeak, the Eater of Pancakes drops fork and knife, hands fluttering to that terrible omnivorous mouth, as the final payload of the Sweet Fluffy detonates in her throat. Already her body works to modulate, change, and overcome; only the most wicked and fast-acting of venoms could send the Eater of Pancakes to the House of Hades!

And the cook turns from a soft and fluffy sheep to a crimson-haired Redana with a shimmering of scales. “Hey, Dany,” Mynx says. And the smile she gives is a fragile thing, like a bird too soon removed from its nest, cupped shivering in your hands. It is rueful and hopeful and sheepish and ever-so-slightly amused and exasperated that the old “envenomed breakfast” trick worked, holding back the scolding that Redana should always, always rely on a taste tester and not simply trust in an iron stomach and a mutable throat, because iron can be melted and throats forever silenced with but the right compound, the perfect poison— but that would be too much, too soon, a headlong charge across creaking ice with an infinite abyss below.

And the look that Redana gives her is vulnerable in turn, confused and worried and unsure if she’s about to be attacked in her own chamber, but alloyed with a wordless longing for things to be other than they were within the Eater of Worlds, a stupid but unquenchable hope that maybe this time, things will be different.

She lets Mynx take a seat at the modest table, one hand over her mouth with a napkin to stop herself from drooling helplessly, and tenses, but does not leap into action. Not yet. Not with her Mynx. Not after so long.

***

[1]: upon detecting REM sleep, Redana’s clothes are designed to become very cute, loose jamjams. The theme is: leviathans of the deep, chibified. (The same pattern she’s given her jamjams since she was eight.)