Redana's eyes widen as she absorbs what her mentor has just laid out for her. "Mother told you not to keep going out past Tellus. Of course. Because of everything she'd lost, and... and because she wanted to keep you safe. Just like she wanted to keep me safe." She rolls the thought around in her mouth. "Then I guess I am a Hermetic, then. Because I made that choice. Just like you did." And nothing can take that away from her. She made the choice. She made the choice! She became a Hermetic the moment she reached out her hand and asked Bella to come with her across the stars. And nothing could take that away from her! Not even...

"Do you think she'll be okay? Bella, I mean. I don't know how much you know about her. She's my maid. She used to be," Redana corrects herself. "I don't know what she is now. Alive. Not wanting to see me. She chased us down all the way from Tellus, and she helped us defeat Sagakhan, but I don't know if that's because they were enemies, and... I spent time with her on Salib. Only she thought I was someone else then, because Lord Aphrodite allowed me to wear his cloak as a disguise, and she thought I was someone else, someone who she could spend time with, and... she hates it out here, she thinks it's cold and dark and dangerous, but she can't go home. Not without me. But I'm not going home. So she's on the ship and she won't let me find her, but there's so much I need to say to her! I need to apologize for what happened on Salib and I need to tell her that I'm glad she's alive and I need to tell her that I missed her and that I'm sorry for the closet, it's just that I panicked and she hit me and she was going to stop me from leaving at all and I don't know if she hates me or if she... when I told her that maybe I had feelings for her, but she didn't know it was me because I was in disguise, she punched a wall into pieces and started screaming at Aphrodite! And I think I do have feelings for her but that's not the kind of thing you can have in a palace because she had to do what I said and what if I told her to do something she didn't want to do, like kiss me, and she didn't want to but she did it anyway and she hated me for the rest of forever? And then she's been chasing us and she's been a really different person and she's been mean and when I thought she was dying and abandoned I tried to turn this whole ship around? I could have really hurt Mynx and Dolce, I could have killed them, because it felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest thinking about her sad and weak and alone, do you know how much she hates being alone? She pretends she wants her privacy sometimes but I can tell, she's always been there for me, always. I was ready to hurt my friends because I could see her curled up on a venting, broken space station with nobody there for her, and is that love?"

At this point, she is pacing. Urgent hand gestures are involved. She has fallen into the excited, breathless cadence of a Hermetic offering a counterargument.

"And then I kissed her! On Sahar! Because it looked like we were about to die and that's the sort of thing that heroes always do when they're about to die, they kiss the girl, except she got really mad at me afterwards and even though I didn't order her to kiss me maybe that counts as the same sort of thing just because I didn't ask her for permission? Except there wasn't any time to ask her if I could kiss her because the Master of Assassins was about to trample us into the earth and bite us into little tiny pieces and if I had died and hadn't kissed her then can you imagine how I would have looked to Hades, all tormented by the fact that I never did get to kiss her like that, as myself? Because we did do kissing on Salib, only she didn't know it was me, and I thought maybe I wasn't going to be Redana anymore, because Mynx was doing a better job of being me, only that awful assassin girl who I think Bella like likes tore brave Skotos off me, and that's another thing, I don't know where she is on the ship but I bet you anything that the Master stuck her someplace like a sleeping princess and when she wakes up Bella is going to make a beeline for her, for some reason? Just because she's pretty and talks like she's the smartest person in the world and Bella wasn't silently resenting her for all of her life!"

Now she's starting to get a little weepy. Sniffling. Rubbing her face on the sleeve of her jacket, which is the same colors as the Shepherdess's armor today; that color scheme's now on pretty regular rotation in her wardrobe.

"I didn't know! I thought she was happy! Or, no, I thought I could fix her unhappiness! Because I could tell, sometimes, only I thought that maybe it could be fixed by the same fix as the thing that was making me sad, but now I think maybe the problem wasn't Tellus, it was always me! She was punished when I wasn't good enough and she was forced to pretend she liked to be around me because that was her job and how could you like like someone who you had to spend all day around while also pretending you liked them while also wishing they'd stop being an idiot so you wouldn't get in trouble? And I thought Mynx was the actor! So maybe I should just let her be with that assassin, who probably knows her real self far better than I do, and then I can toss myself right out into the rainbow sea because I did all of this because I wanted to give her the whole universe and it turns out she hates it, and we've come so far that if I turn back it's all for nothing and everyone who hurt and changed and died on Sahar did it for nothing, and I promised Hades, I mean uncle, I mean... the Lord of the Dead, he's so hurt every time he thinks we've failed, would you want to look him in the eye and say, oh, I got a case of the sadness, now Aphrodite has defeated yet another crew with nothing but the power of a mean, rude catgirl with tits out to here who wants to kiss a fucking Athenakissed genius who wanted to pull our eyes out, please don't tell her I said that, I'm just!! She hates this! She hates me! I'm terrible! I kissed her and she made a face! I want her to kiss me back! I want her to call me her little pet again! I want her to forgive me! I want her!"

Her own words hit her like a punch to the gut. She staggers.

"I want her, Iskarot. I want to hold her. I want to say sorry. I want to make her actually for real smile. I fucked up. I want to tell her everything. I want to get to know her again and find out if anything I used to love back on Tellus was actually real or if it was all assassin bullshit and forced smiles. I want to kiss her again. But I want her to want to kiss me more. And she doesn't. She won't. She ran away and I can't find her. What do I do? Do I let her hide? Or will she think I don't care about her and it's proof? Or do I go and find her? But what if she's Eros and I'm Psyche and lighting the candle makes her go away forever? If you'd waited and let me have the time I wanted... but even then she's just going to go and be with someone she likes more and I'm going to dive into the engine, right into the engine, except I promised my uncle that I'd find Gaia first, so we'll do that and then I'm going straight into the engine, and also! Also!"

She turns to Iskarot, face flushed, and declares, in anguish: "And I also promised Vasilia I'd tie her up! And she'll be disappointed if I don't, because Bella was extremely rude on board her ship, but now that she's here, what if she hates me even more for siding with Vasilly? What if it's the closet all over again?? What do I do, Magos???"

“But I’ve not got a hunger for E N D L E S S B A T T L E.” And he was quite sure of that. One battle was more than enough for him. “I didn’t come to Sahar to kill any kings, and if any gods got maimed, I never laid a finger on them.” You couldn’t tell, looking at these designs. Nothing so blasphemous as trophies from the gods - another basic rule of cinematography - but here a patch of wool bore the stains of the void, there another breathed Ares’ dizzying war-haze. These were rams who’d butted heads with the divine, and lived to tell the story of how it changed them.

Not a one of them would own a nice, wooly jumper either. Might not have ever even tried one, the poor souls.

“Is this how I looked, on the battlefield? Is any of this,” he gestures to the collection of hard-hitting sheep who didn’t play by the rules. “Did you really see that, in me?” An honest question, asked without thought of rank or decorum.

There's a lot of questions Lacedo isn't asking, all swirling around that one big question. Was it worth it? Did they see? Will they hear about this? Will there be more of us--heck, will there be enough of us to even ? Hermes rebuilt us--reformed our planet, gave us our lives back. Does she want us? Have we won back the glory denied us so long?

Alexa joins Lacedo at the window, staring out into the infinite rainbow of color. Her face is painted purple and red in the reflected light of the distant nebula as she turns the thought over in her mind.

She doesn't know how to answer, she's realizing. She's never been a part of a people, a member of a race, not like the Alcedi. What advice can she even answer?

"… Do you want them to make more of you?"

God, she feels dumb.

"No, that came out wrong. Of course you do. I mean, why do you want them to make more of you? Do you want the glory of being recognized as the top combat servitors of humanity? Do you want the ability to spread or preserve your people? How do you want them made, and what for?"

Redana!

"I know exactly what you should do," said Iskarot, a serene being, filled with wisdom. "First you must find your rival, this assassin you have spoken so much about. Then you must challenge her to a fight. Use these." The Hermetic champion placed a set of brass knuckles on the table. "My father gave these to me, and now I give them to you. Make me proud, apprentice."

He nodded at you, a paternal tear of affection in his eye.

Alexa!

"That was what it was for," said Lacedo. "All the history. All the practice. All the training. All the centuries of dreaming. It was for glory. So that our lineage would rise and we would become the new right arm of mankind. A thousand warrior breeds have vanished into history seeking a victory like this. The alternative is dissolution and extinction and an end to the Alcedi forever. Just another skull on the throne of Ceron."

She hasn't said why. She doesn't truly know. This rivalry was woven into her bones, the same as with every other warrior servitor species.

Dolce!

"Uh, yeah, little guy," said Ramses. "Look, the army was, what, fifty thousand strong? Like maybe three hundred could actually see you. Riders went up and down the line and repeated your speech to them. Scared men and women, people with pre-battle nerves. So maybe they jazzed it up a little, made it sound like you were a big strong demigod ram of war who would lead them to glorious victory, and that's what the soldiers imagined. That's who they fought and died for. If I put in their movie that the Captain looked like a militarized plush toy - no offense, I think it's a great look - then they'd call me a liar. And they'd be right."

Bella!

"Because I am in so far over my head," said a voice as the Assistant Secretary of Fear and Doubt materialized. He wears a golden helmet decked with amethysts, a curling helix staff, a ceremonial orb containing rainbow light. He was there all along, pressed up against a wall, skin camouflaged to blend in with the wall and gilt adornments blending in with the treasure junk that washes up inside Poseidon's realm. A single eye fixes on you as tentacles nervously clutch at the staff.

"I mean, I was only ever the acting Assistant Secretary!" cried the squid. "My substantive position is as a Administrative Positional Spawning Six! That's not even on the management cognition track! but then a spaceship ploughed through my supervisor's office and then I was kidnapped by wolves and nobody ever relieved me of the position! And now I've got ten thousand battlecrabs under arms and another ten thousand on the way and they just hailed me as dictator! I'm following the Tidal Field Manual Policy as best I can but now entire specialist cohorts are hatching and a subsidiary administrative caste is coming into being and they're asking for documentation and I don't know what to tell them!"

"And..." he slumped a little, clutching his staff. "And the mice said that you were the best captain they ever had. That you changed their lives and freed them from tyranny. And so I was wondering if you could maybe help me, too."

There's no mirth or kindness when she laughs. But when she tosses her head back to hear it echoing off the cavernous walls, there's no stopping it either. It's cruel, mocking, and seemingly endless. Every time she seems about to run out of breath, or at least run the joke to the end of its course, Bella takes another look at the squid miserably clutching its finery and she doubles over all over again.

But can you blame her? Gods, can you really blame her? This is too perfect. If someone wrote it as a story to explain the exact curve of her life, they'd choke trying to find a better metaphor than this. Not only did Redana run away to a disaster cruise where she needed sea monsters to fill slots that should be staffed by a proper crew, she couldn't even get the right monsters! It'd be a mercy to kill this ship. It'd be a kindness to scuttle this entire voyage before the gods got bored and let them all fall into a star or something. It could only be a matter of time.

And yet, her tail is still. There's no itch filling her claws, no desperation to her breathing as her laughter finally quiets. Her blood doesn't quicken with the urgency of a hunt. There aren't any names left on her skin, so what was supposed to push her forward. She was the monster who hunted monsters, but these ones sniveled and begged for her help, in the name of her... of the Lanterns. What was she supposed to do?

Bella's face turns serious as she watches the crabs shuffling about the tide pools. There's patterns to their movement: the sort of thing she could have spent weeks staring at as her life slowly crumbled around her. Not that things felt much better now. She means to huff, but winds up sighing instead. Around they go, in circles, into lines. Carrying treasures from the deep. Guiding and guarding. Not unlike phalanxes, if you just put shields in their claws. Again, so very like home.

"Don't call them 'mice'," she snaps, "Jil and her Lanterns are strong. Much stronger than your fish fry brigade could ever hope to be. All I did was recognize that. There's no magic in it. You're stuck hiding on the wall waiting for a miracle that's never going to come. You're pathetic. Worse than trash."

Bella stretches out her neck until it crunches, and rolls it around until she feels the tension finally leave her alone. She pinches her nose between two fingers, closes her eyes, and drinks deep of this soup of brine, toxic fear, and incompetence. She needs a new project, that's the only reason why. If she's not going to be dead, something has to take over for the useless arts and crafts now that she can't just steal an entire ship's worth of materials whenever she feels like it. Besides, one spare shaving out of this place and the whole fucking ship would probably collapse in on itself. So there wasn't anything left but this.

Her tail flicks with annoyance. Her eye glitters with amusement. Her lips part in a smile that's almost kindness. Not that she notices at all. It melts into a smirk before it can register.

"So you're demoted, starting now. If I'm stuck on this piece of shit tub I'm not going to have it running like it's trying to catch fire. Which, by the way, you're doing a great job of even with the salt bath you're running down here. This ship is carrying the Imperial Princess across the stars; you could have lived a hundred lifetimes inside that rotting filth you called home and not tasted honor even a tenth as sweet. So fucking act like it. If I find you hiding while there's work to be done again I'll kill you on the spot, and that's my last warning. Even Apollo loses his patience in time, and your god is much less forgiving."

Bella wades through the waters as crabs part around her. She meets the Assistant Secretary's one visible eye with the crimson glow of her Auspex, and flashes teeth when it flinches.

"I am not accepting your offer, by the way. I'll do this until it gets boring, and then I'm ditching you. Better take notes. Now, run me through everything. Forms, function, capability, don't leave anything out."

Now wasn’t that a pleasant thought. How many times since the battle had someone given him an odd look in the hallways? How often had the conversation faltered, strangely, while someone was reporting to him? Seriously, did anyone know? He’d not thought to keep track of them, there were a few that he kept revisiting, but, still. It must have been at least some of them. Probably more than he’d realized. Certainly more than he saw.

The warmth and comfort of his wife’s lap is an odd place to feel lonely.

“I see what you mean, but, surely we can’t keep this up? I’ve tried so hard to let the crew know that my door is always open for their concerns. At this rate, the only ones who’ll ever come to see me are the ones wanting a chance to cross swords. Supposing I have a bad day? Supposing I don’t win hard enough? They’ll be calling me a liar. Or worse, an imposter.”

Just imagine it; bound hand and hoof, pleading tearfully to the faces of friends, comrades, family, to no avail. Locked away, in the darkest depths of the brig, until you admit you were never Dolce in the first place...he hugs Vasilia's arms tight, and she in turn squeezes him close, till he could hear the reassuring thump-thump of her heart. Steady. Firm. Real. He lets out a breath he doesn't remember holding in. "You see, ma'am, I don't mean to tell you how to make your movie, but surely it's not worth jeopardizing the whole voyage over?"

"… Was it worth it?"

Alexa doesn't bother trying to hide the pain in her voice. She's not being cruel or making fun of you, Lacedo. Really, she's not. She's trying so, so hard to be kind, but she needs you to understand. She's being earnest, she's hurting, and she knows that if she gets this wrong, you might not listen to her ever again. So when her voice catches, when her chest aches with tightness, when tears prickle at her eyes, she does nothing to stop it. She's not making fun of you, Lacedo. She's trying to tell you what she wishes someone had told her, all those years ago.

"You did it. You won! Generations of prophecy, of myth weaving, all fulfilled. Glorious victory over the ancestral foe. The Alcedi own the sky. The years of training, the centuries of dreaming, all of it, for this moment. How do you feel?"

Hollow, she'd put money on it. You put on a good face and smile because that's what you do. Your troops are doing their best not to notice the empty spaces, at least not in public. And you know that they need you to be smiling too, because that means things are alright. And so you take that hollowness, that exhaustion, all the aches and pains presenting the bill after the battle is done, and shove it away until you have time to yourself to process.

"You're in the right place if you want the Alcedi to serve humanity," she presses. "Here, with an imperial princess, after winning such a dramatic fight for her? Humanity will have no choice to but sit up and take noice. Wow, that Alcedi combat servitor design has more legs than we gave it credit for. The Alcedi are the hot new thing. Every aspiring warlord has an army of their own--Alcedi swarming across every planet, fighting every fight. Everywhere, Alcedi clan elders and soldiers alike are able to look back at this moment as the turning point in their species, when they made it big.

"Every fight in the galaxy. Alcedi. After every fight, Alcedi littering the field, Alcedi pyres sending Alcedi souls home. But it's alright to feel this way, because you're filling your purpose, the reason you were made, and if you die, well that's alright, because humanity can make more of you when they need you."

It's hard to keep a level voice there, and not let bitterness poison every syllable.

"Up until the point when they don't. You fight for them, you die for them, you're born, you live, and end yourself on the point of their petty squabbles, and then they replace you. They find a newer design, a better design, and then you're abandoned.

"You say it's serving humans, or dissolution and extinction, one or the other. I say that the only way to avoid dissolution or extinction is to not play the role they've given you."

“It could be Bella,” Redana lies to herself.

It looks like a tomb, and that’s freaky. It looks so much like a tomb of steel that even Redana, sheltered from the signifiers of death save in the iconography of Hades himself, recognizes its shape. But the glories etched into it, the prayers written on slender ribbons and attached with wax, the symbol of the thousand eyes and the circle of arrows— this is a holy sarcophagus of Artemis. When she runs her fingers over it, it should tremble and thrum with barely-contained power. It doesn’t, though. It just lies here, in the depths of the Third Shrine, sealed shut.

Is it so hard to believe that maybe Bella’s curled up inside, the same way that her— that Dany used to, when she was overwhelmed by her responsibilities and duties as the Imperial Heir? It would be nice. Redana could undo the seal, give Bella a wry smile, tell her she was looking for one Bella, have you happened to see her about? There isn’t room inside that coffin for two, but she could wait, she could take a seat, she could sing songs from back home. Anything to get Bella to sit down and talk to her.

The brass knuckles are heavy in her coat pocket.

Because it’s not Bella in there, and Redana knows that. She can feign surprise when she opens it up and reveals the other assassin. Not Bella, not Mynx, not even Beljani-Epistia. (She feels guilt when she thinks about that; she hasn’t mustered up the courage to ask Beljani-Epistia if she regrets what happened, or if she would have preferred to stay dead in that shining refuge within the Eater of Worlds.) The other one.

”I really think she loves you.” A taunt. Trying to get under Redana’s skin. An assassin too clever for the world trying to slip a knife somewhere soft. She hadn’t heard the things that Bella had said that night; she hadn’t heard Bella’s disgust after being kissed on Sahar. She hadn’t even seen Bella run off after everything Dany did, so what did she know?

Dany slips one hand into that pocket, curls her fingers around the knuckle. An intuitive weapon. Not hard to understand at all; a layer even harder than human bone, designed to add heft to a blow, to spread the force evenly. A weapon for a blunt instrument.

When she pulls her hand out of her pocket, she’s got a knuckle on one hand. After all, it’ll take both hands to break the seal; it’s designed to avoid accidental opening. An assassin, loosed without preparation, without a target? Very dangerous indeed. Inauspicious, besides. But maybe it is somehow, impossibly, Bella in there, and Dany will laugh and think herself so silly for being ready to toss out a challenge.

The sarcophagus opens with a hiss of pressurized air. The inside is white, white, white; the blankness that approaches the infinite. And inside, her neck still faintly bruised, her eyes sightless yet open, her breath achingly slow, is the assassin. Her hair is loose, a shining halo around her beautiful head. Redana’s fist clenches tighter until the brass bites into her palm.

Come on. Get up. It’s not a fair challenge if you don’t get up. Who proves a challenge against someone lying down in their bed? All that would prove is that Dany’s a brute, violent and ignorant. So it has to be on the level. Then she’ll show you. Then she’ll win. Then she’ll… then Bella will be able to see that her Dany cares. Cares enough to make a stupid, stupid challenge on her behalf.

Come on, then! Get up!

Redana!

A blink of violet eyes. Then she gets up - suddenly, awkwardly, bizarrely, like someone learning how to move one muscle group at a time. She rolls her head and her deep, amethyst eyes. Her head spins three hundred and sixty degrees around on her neck and you'd forgotten that the Ikarani are based off Kaeri genetics so it's frankly the worst surprise.

As spooky as this is, it's also somehow hot as hell. She's fucking Beautiful, after all.

Then, as her control over her body starts to settle, shivering up through her shoulders, down to her elbows, discharging in her fingers with a set of rapid fire finger snaps, she speaks. "No ritual," she said. "No target. No incantations of targeting and awakening. You," she points a rapid-fire snapping finger set at you, "must be a threat. A criminal, looking to defile a sleeping bride of Artemis."

She winks at you. "Well, you've got good taste," she said.

A silver energy runs through her. She reaches and flexes, wiry strength visible animating her slender body. She falls back into a simple combat posture right leg back, primed for kicking. "So, I could murder you so bloody that even I'd remember it," she said, "or I could transform you into a deergirl and hunt you all over the -" she sniffed the air. "Bunker? Spaceship? Really large industrial plant? - Cuter ending, that way. How cute you feeling, cutie?"

Alexa!

"It doesn't feel hollow, though," said Lacedo quietly. "It feels good. It feels better than sex. Even now I'm shivering with joy just thinking about it. You described all of that like you wanted it to sound bad but," she shifted uncomfortably, "all it did was make me want to pin you down and fuck your brains out."

She looks at you, a strange burning, haunted look in her eyes. "You know that humans don't get that feeling? They get to make the decision about who rises and who falls, but even then it's not really their decision. It's ours. We earn the win and they have to acknowledge it. When you think about it, they're the real slaves. What are they even living for? What is the meaning of human life?"

Dolce!

Ramses looked at you like she was resisting the urge to lean across the table and pat your head. "Listen, Captain," she said gingerly. "The crew was never going to come to you with their troubles. You could be the friendliest sheep in the stars but you're in the senior executive branch and they're grunts. You might as well be the Imperial Princess. Worse, actually, because the Princess works as an Initiate and they know how they relate to that."

Bella!

The Tides of Poseidon are often billed as unknowable horrors from beyond the stars. Unreasoning monsters that serve as the armed wing of the earthquakes they accompany. The punishment issued by Poseidon for those who have grown safe and complacent. The peril they represent is existential. If Odoacer had not defeated the Eater of Worlds - which was by every history lesson a precarious and narrow thing - then Tellus would have been broken and humanity ended.

But the Empire's leadership has long known that these are not gibbering monsters of myth and film. They have their own societies that exist in strange reflections of the societies they are sent to destroy. These can be subverted with assassination, suborned through gifts and broken with politics - and they will engage in the same in exchange. Far from being bloodthirsty beasts, perhaps the single most consistent driver of conflict with the Tides is that their relationship with Poseidon is so strong that they know exactly where and when to strike in order to take advantage of the chaos sown by the Rainbow Lord, and are ruthless about exploiting disaster for their own ends.

The end result of this is that the process isn't nearly as alien as it seems from a distance.

The chief problem, as you can swiftly identify, is that the Assistant Secretary of Fear and Doubt is well suited for his role. He has a military mind, and a paranoid one. He has directed all of his available resources to the production and maintenance of a battlecrab legion while also avoiding promoting any subordinates more than he strictly has to. He actually has the younger cadre of bureaucrats locked in an all-against-all struggle and minor armed conflict in an attempt to draw insight into which of them are the most capable, but he continuously dithers over actually promoting them, usually well after the point where the young officer in question has been killed by a rival.

The result, then, is a militarized society that can only support a comparatively small military due to its weak economy, and an ambitious officer corps only kept in check by its internal conflict. And this is actually the most interesting Imperial test you've faced so far, because what you are seeing here is actually ideal. The Tides, so long as the Assistant Secretary is in charge, are weak, divided and pliant. They are categorically incapable of posing any threat to you, Redana or the ship in this state. They will be a single mediocre battlecrab legion and nothing more.

You could fix these problems almost trivially - promote capable young brainsquid, devote resources towards economic and industrial growth, undo the paranoid security state. But that will start the ball rolling on them becoming a serious power player aboard the Plousios. The example of Odoacer as a powerful military commander is all the example you need to know what the consequences of that might be.

In the opera theatre, Nero's carmine fan sweeps under your neck - then under Redana's. "The riddle of Empire!" she said with a showwoman's glittering smile. "For the nation to be strong, the Empress must be weak. For the Empress to be strong the nation must be weak! So she must walk between the Scylla of a coup and the Charybdis of invasion!"

You might want to take some time to think it over.

The brass knuckles are out. Dany’s body was the one that made that call, slipping them over her hands and curling into fists, forming a boxing stance. Strong footing, hands up, ready to block or snap out, catch any opening. This isn’t an exhausted, bloodied girl flailing on a rooftop; this is Redana Claudius, strong contender for the Gold.

“Stand down,” she says. Her pulse pounds through her fists. “You are a prisoner of the Princess Redana Claudius of Tellus.” Her body is a spring. It would feel so good to let the tension loose. To catch that perfect nose square on. “Your Master is dead… or worse… and I did it. I and Bella, of your Orders.” Which one was Bella? They’re all an inchoate mass of deadly tricks in her head.

The situation is… bad. Not because she doesn’t think she can go toe-to-toe with this huntress (she can, at least long enough for the battle to be noticed, probably) but because she’s… distracted. The way that the assassin moves. The flexibility, the inhuman grace, the precision. It’s not the same as what Dany can do, all raw power and stamina, but game recognizes game, training recognizes training. The blonde locks spilling down her back, the insouciant little smirk as she drinks Dany in, the long legs, the delicate power… no wonder Bella had it bad for her. Don’t think about being chased, Dany. Square up, hold your ground, show her your mettle.

“…and I only opened up your box because I needed to know if she was inside,” Redana lies, trying to shore up the moral high ground. “Help me find her, and I’ll let you keep sleeping before you run rampant.” There? See? Nobody needs to get punched in the face, and if somebody does, then they clearly deserved it for rejecting such a sensible offer, so there.

She can feel the pressure of that fan pressing up against her all over again. The coolness of the casing and the tender brush of paper caressing her throat. How soft it is against her neck, and how firm it is beneath her chin. That insistent pressure inviting her to press the weight of her head down into it, to submit forever, or to be a brave girl and lift her gaze where it directs and look the Empress of All Humanity in her dazzling starlight eyes. Her smile was like staring directly into a star: more beautiful and divine than anything you could fit on a planet and so terrifying it could make a heart forget how to beat.

There was so much tenderness in everything Nero did. Every breath and gesture that she deigned to share with someone was a miracle. It was impossible to look at her and not feel your chest well so full of hope that it felt like it might crack open and spill all of your secrets out on the floor. The promise of Redana, fully realized. You were safe when you with her, so long as you didn't stray too far from her side. It was comforting. And somehow too terrifying to contemplate. There was so much misery in everything Nero did. The pressure of having her sight turned on you could burn you to ash in an instant.

Everything she did made Bella want to cling to her skirts and never leave their safety. Everything she did made Bella want to run as far and as fast as possible. The demand, to submit. The challenge, to rise up. The offer, to speak one's mind. The threat, to disappoint her. It was all in those eyes and in that smile and in the lifting of that fan. And all of these... all of these, she'd put to Bella first. She'd left the theater that night and hunkered in her tiny bed under the oldest most threadbare blanket imaginable, warding off the darkness and the thoughts that were too big for her brain until the demand of her nightly chores finally forced her out of her cocoon. She knew as soon as she slipped away that she'd be beaten that day.

That fan was here with her, in this room. She could smell it. The taste of roses replaced the salt on her tongue, and it was all she could do not to cry. Whatever the answer of the riddle might be, it was surely unbecoming of a Consul to show tears on her first day at the job. But who was she to try and outdo the greatest mind that ever lived? Who was she to take the challenge of a god?

Bella licks her lips as she crosses her arms over her chest. Her tail swipes from side to side in agitation. Gods, but she needs wine. She shakes her head. There's a spark burning in the back of her eye, and an itch inside her chest. She scratches her fingers across the open folds of her prayer dress, then slips off the wall she was perched on top of to wade through the uncomfortably warm waters. She ignores the feeling of her fur as it mats and sticks to the hem of her skirt. She carries herself with her back held straight and every swaying step immaculately placed and timed.

She may, in fact, possess all the bearing of a Princess herself. Or she may not. Her regalia is nowhere to be seen. Only, her crimson eye tells the squids she walks among that she comes from no less than Nero herself. Her heart pounds furiously with something that could be terror as easily as it might be pride.

"I understand well enough about how this place is run. I don't care about that. Tell me," she pauses and frowns, looking away to where the Assistant Secretary is already hiding himself away again, "Tell me about you. And the crabs, whichever one of you speaks for them. Or whichever one of them can speak, whichever fucking way it works. Away from that asshole up there, I need to know what you're capable of. And while you're at it, tell me what you want. The Lanterns made it obvious enough; I can't do shit here unless I know you like I know them."

The scars on her back itch; the seawater is bad for her. She rolls her shoulders back and ignores it as best she can. She'll need to leave to scavenge some ointments soon, that's all it means. But then she takes a breath, and she feels the fan at her throat where her skin tightens. The pleasure of the pressure, and the deadly threat. She could swear she feels a breeze as it flutters open, and pats her on the cheek.

"What is the meaning of human life?"

Alexa paces back and forth as if sitting still would kill her. As if trying to bottle up this energy, this sudden anger, would vibrate her through the floor. She stares at Lacedo, gasping for words, before whirling and stabbing a finger at the window.

"The meaning of human life, Lacedo, is that on every planet out there, there are servitors. Billions upon trillions of servitors, toiling away against the day that their gods will return to them. Mansions full of servitors who toil and spin and cook and plant and make beds that will never see a human head. A planet full of people building more and better Plovers for the day the Armada will take them back! Rusters scavenging, cutting and dying in orbital shipyards to feed supply chains that haven't sailed for centuries! Warrior servitors playing at unending war on a decimated planet because they know nothing else!

"The meaning of human life is that after Zeus struck down humanity for their hubris, humanity didn't learn! They'd reached for the heavens, sought to push others beneath them, and were struck down and then they did it again! They built people! Thinking, breathing, people! People, with feelings and desires and souls! And humanity set them up and told them that they weren't! That they had no more right to those feelings and wants than their toaster, when even the gods will answer the prayers of servitors!

"The meaning of fucking humanity is that in one fell swoop, half the galaxy got plunged into the underworld! Our half! Us! And they still. Don't. Learn! They're a relic from the past, extinct, confined to one planet, irrelevant! They made themselves gods, told us what to be, killed us all, and abandoned us to our own devices, which is probably the greatest kindness they could have offered!"

She can feel the thought driving her along, like a spring that's been wound for a hundred years. It's like grabbing a garter snake, and finding a python in your hands. The thought's been there for years, just waiting for the chance to get out. She can't stop. Doesn't want to stop.

"Your flock scatters to the winds because however you dress it up, they made us to be slaves. And you want them to make more of you, so they can do it all again."

“Oh, of course not all of them. I’d try my best, but there are tens of thousands aboard this ship. I’d have to spend hours each day before I could remember each name correctly, and that’s before keeping track of any personal matters. But, surely, at least among the more senior…”

Come to think of it. He hadn’t been Captain for very long, true. But how many times had anybody, of any ranking, come to see him? Without his asking for them first?

“Do you mean to tell me,” he asked, delicately. “That this is normal for you? This is how you expect ships to be run?”

Say it isn’t so, Ramses. His legs, they don’t work. This isn’t his wheelchair. He’s, he’s trapped here, you see. You can’t tell him news that sad, when he can’t make you a snack later, or hold your hand now, or, anything, to make it even a little bit better.

Redana!

"Two questions," said Beautiful. Then she punched a hand clean through a loose panel in the ship's wall next to her, pulled out a solid projectile pistol concealed within, and fired it at your feet.

(The last time she'd been active, she'd instructed a priestess to conceal a weapon near her chamber, marked with a glyph of her own design. Her mind had decoded the glyph as instructions on the basic operation and effects of a SP pistol.

Under normal circumstances, Sagakhan or Mynx would have checked for exactly this.)

There is a flash and a bang, an overwhelming, awful explosion into every sense at once. While you're coughing and spluttering, vision hazy and deafened, you get a kick in the forehead that sends you careening backwards.

"One," said Beautiful, "what's a Tellus? Is it important? Normally people chant all that stuff at me while I'm waking up, there's meant to be this huge ritual and everything which is basically a couple hundred people reading different encyclopedia chapters at me all at once, so I'm kind of running on DNA right now."

She snap-reloads the pistol and aims it at you in a perfect firing position. Taking a SP round to the forehead never killed anyone but holy shit does it suck.

"Two," she said, voice ice cold. "Who is Bella? Why do I remember that name?"

Alexa!

Lacedo cannot speak. She is silent. She is still.

It took three hundred years to develop that thought. It took a minute to speak it. Who knows how long it will take for it to unpack in the Alcedi's mind?

But for now there's nothing but the thought. Every so often she makes a breath like she's going to speak, to argue or to agree or say anything, but each time the scale of the thinking she hasn't done yet tapers it off into silence. By tomorrow she still won't be ready. Maybe when a week passes, or two...

But she does stop trying to rally the Alcedi. And without her leadership in this moment the Fleets and all their glory pass into history.

Dolce!

"Oh, uh, Zeus' tits, little guy," said Ramses. "Listen, have you ever met an Order of Hermes Magos? We live and work on their ships most of the time. One of them literally built a corridor of ever burning flame just to reduce the rate we knocked on his door asking for cybersurgery. So we mostly take care of ourselves until the orders come down from above. So, like, the way I figure it, if I waste your time with unimportant stuff you'll get mad at us and cut us off entirely."

She coughed. "I actually was hoping these designs would build up some favour, but it seems like they're having the opposite effect so... uh, I should go?"

Bella!

"The crabs are like animals," came a voice as smooth and strong as a riptide. A beautiful merman steps out of a tidal pool, fish tail seamlessly parting and shifting into two human legs. His face has the cruel beauty of an elf, a shock of deep violet hair woven with kelp, onyx and amethyst. He smiles and gestures and a pair of crabs come forward to wrap a spectacular robe of cream and red silk around his shoulders, patterned with elaborate whorls and waves. He doesn't bother to do it up.

He turns to a massive battlecrab that approaches him. He smiles affectionately, letting his hand run across the front of its shell, affectionately scratching the eyestalks. It clacks its claws in what might be happiness. "It is not a perfect metaphor. Really, the crabs are more like our hands. They can think, but they cannot want. They can act but they cannot know. They are part of us, and yet separate. We must treat them with kindness as we must treat ourselves with kindness."

He turns back to face you and then smoothly bows. He shows respect without any understanding of courtly manners, instead showing genuflection while watching your eyes through the water's reflection for the twitch that indicates he has given the proper amount. "When humanity sought to leave distant Earth, it was the Lord Poseidon's will that the ocean would not be left behind. So he drank it all and spat it out in the shape of a man, and they lay together until they conceived twelve children. Those children, the Tides, were as the hecatonchires once were - the hundred handed children of Gaia. But one mind could not control all those many hands, so the Tides split themselves like starfish. Some parts of them grew into swords, some grew into hearts. Some are creatures for appreciating all the finest things the galaxy has to offer, some are to deliver the cups to their lips, but all are the same creature. But as the Tides grew larger and more complex, their aspects became more specialized. It is only here, in the aftermath of the trauma of death, reduced to barely ten thousand nodes and less than a hundred minds, do we again call upon the most ancient names of power. It is only now that it is worth creating more... generalist incarnations."

He smiled, and at last looked up and made eye contact. His eyes were orange; pink and yellow and salmon and...

"I am Eyes of Coral," said the merman. "One of several who claim that title in this region. To claim a Name is to claim a throne, and one must defeat and subordinate the pretenders before one can come into the fullness of its power. Right now we are entrapped in a hell of our own creation; we are of the lineage of a trauma incarnation. Too scared to leave the defensive crouch, too angry to let the knife slip from our hands, too broken to trust. Do not think Fear and Doubt a cruel or poor leader; he is the ghost of a starship through our brain pan. With him we are craven and obedient, without him... who knows how we might lash out?"

Eyes of Coral looked warily up at the crab. It had no fear in its eyes as it clacked its claws.

"As to what we are capable of, within a timeframe practical to you, we could build an entire million-soul battleship from scratch," he said. "Or take one apart. As to what we want? To be healthy and whole, to reckon with our trauma and learn to grow again. This eternal inquisition of the self is no way to live."

"Mmm." says Bella, because that is the noise that she can make without the croak of fear slipping into her voice.

Her body feels slow. Every muscle in her back, shoulder, and arms is clenched tight enough that basic movements seem to cost her twice the time and triple the effort that they should. Even breathing is a conscious decision she has to make, and remember. Her ears bend painfully in search of new sounds in the waves, and her tail crashes against the surface of the pools with a shock that's at once painfully loud and pathetically soft.

The salt in the air is saturating into her skin. Every little shift of her rigid, overamped body builds fresh waves of itching and discomfort that beg her to leave, or at least scratch until the blood let out and coated her with something like relief. She looks down at her claws and the mutilated stumps where her most useful fingers end for what feels like the millionth time. They ache to be whole again. Even the cool, metallic kiss of a good set of talons would be a blessing. Her neck twitches with all the effort of standing there, and pushes a headache up through the back of her brain.

She sighs.

"No, I suppose you're right. That's no way to live at all."

The riddle unfolds inside her mind with the pressure of a physical thing. It might just be the headache, but it feels more like a parasite. Clever phrases, grand speeches, ideas that point ten thousand toward the designs of a single mind. She saw it on the Yakanov and in the Armada. It was all over the Endless Azure Skies, even if half of it was reduced to ghosts and phantoms. This was a puzzle for someone like Beautiful. It's too much for Bella. All she'd wanted was to get Redana and go home. She'd never intended to change the Anemoi, she just needed the ship to fucking work in the first place if it was going to keep chasing. Whatever the Lanterns thought of it, that wasn't her fault!

She's not breathing again. She pulls an extra long sniff of briny air through her nose and holds it for another long moment before letting it all back out through her mouth in a fresh sigh. She shrugs, and shakes her head. She watches Eyes of Coral for a long time without saying anything, clever or stupid or otherwise. If this place was Tellus, then these... people felt especially like temple assassins. The thought makes her feel heavy; she sits down.

"Let me show you something. This was a lesson Apollo taught me himself."

Bella sinks into the water. It's warm and feels somehow slimy on her fur, but she ignores the sensation. Every inch of her dress that drinks in the waves clings unpleasantly to her skin and turns from pure white to useless translucence, but she pays it no mind. The brine and silt turn what had been a discomfort on her back to actual agony after only a few moments, but she keeps her posture and pays the feeling no more mind than a single frustrated snort. She straightens out her back as she crosses her legs underneath her and lays her arms palms up on the bed made by her knees. She tilts her head so that her face stays above even the largest surges of the tide pools, and closes her eyes.

"I'm not one of Apollo's chosen, I don't know why this happened. I don't worship Poseidon either, so I don't know why I'm here for that matter. Zeus ignores me, I haven't seen a single sign or token from Hera in the longest time. I was made to be a body for Artemis to inhabit, if she ever needs to crush a planet. But I've never spoken to her. I don't even know how."

She floats there, breathing steadily between her thoughts, letting her body be pushed and pulled gently back and forth along with her hair and clothing by the motion of the water. Her voice is calm and placid, almost bored. In her mind, she traces a pattern of golden light through a belt of rocky asteroids, crossing between two stars.

"I am alone. Everything I knew, or thought I did is gone now. I had a chance to get it all back, but I lost that too. In fact, I threw it away like a fucking moron, so don't go expecting anything from me. But I have this, and not even the gods can take it away. I can sit here like this, and focus my mind on the sounds I'm hearing in the room, or the feeling of the clothes on my skin, or a smell, or anything I fucking want, and the entire rest of the universe will fall away from me. I can be alone, with nothing at all to hold me down."

She stands up abruptly with a splash and a crack of her neck, and any sense of mystic wisdom or divine insight disappears in a moment. She's nothing but a broken Servitor again, from some nameless race she doesn't even know, and soaked to the bone at that. She shrugs.

"Anyway it helps. Maybe give it a try. Actually, that's an order. Work on this until it means something to you, however the fuck that has to work. When I come back you can tell me how it felt, or what you saw. Whatever. But if none of you can manage this, you're a waste of my time."

Bella flicks her tail across the water as she tosses her hair behind her with a wet slap. The further away she walks, the worse she feels. The water stops reaching her ankles before she notices she can walk normally again. She briefly contemplates the empty, hollow corridor but quickly shakes her head. Not here. The smell will drive her crazy. And if she doesn't find something for her back she'll rip her own spine out soon. No choice, she'll have to risk it.

So she slinks through the shadows of the Plousios, wishing it were as dark and quiet as she knows a ship can be. Should be. Dripping and cold and with her whole body on display, as if she were taking some ritual test of purity for Artemis. Her teeth flash every time she opens her mouth, as she looks for a new place to hide.

Redana’s head throbs where Beautiful kicked her[1]. Her back screams where she stumbled into the jutting spur of a reliquary[2]. And her fighting instincts kick in; she braces herself against the stone behind her, stares down her opponent, gauges the space between them.

“Bella is my… she used to be my maid,” Dany says, glaring into those wicked violet eyes. “She’s mean and beautiful and doesn’t give up, and she cares about you enough that she risked her life to save you on Sahar.”

And what Dany hasn’t thought through is how Beautiful will disassemble her body language, her word choice, her tone. That she’s just handed one of the Ikarani the following pieces of information:

• Redana Claudius is head over heels for Bella.
• Redana Claudius still feels complicated about that fact; it’s till unsettled, it’s in flux.
• Redana Claudius believes that Bella has feelings for you, Beautiful, and is jealous of this fact; she’s mostly convinced herself she is not.
• Bella saved you from going Rampant, and Redana was likely involved in this process, unclear on which side.

“So stop being an ass and stand down,” Redana commands. “I don’t want to have to hurt you,” Redana lies. “As I said: just help me find Bella, like I was trying to do, and you can go back to sleep.”

If Beautiful pulls the trigger, Dany will charge through the SP shot like a bull. Easily redirected, easily dunked on. She’s got power and speed and is a coiled spring right now, but she’s an open book of resentment and barely-managed envy and brass knuckles. About as comparatively dangerous as a small but vicious dog, not liable to kill but very willing to pummel.

---

[1]: right in the fucking Ajna, the flower of command, because Beautiful does not fuck around.

[2]: Of Artemis Indefatigable.

“Ah, no, please, you shouldn’t. That is, you don’t have to go-”

“What he means to say, Ramses,” Vasilia cut in. “Is that he’d very much like it if you stayed. Right, darling?”

He nods, fierce enough to send his wool bouncing every which way. “Yes. Thank you, yes. It’s” a lot for a sheep to unpack. A lot. Goodness. Where to even begin? At the beginning? Maybe? “Different, from the Starsong I served under. If the Captain put a trap on their door, it’d be because they knew exactly who was coming to knock, and they hadn’t yet gotten them back for filling their quarters with artificial clouds. Or something of the sort. Most of my work was in the kitchens, and it wasn’t unusual to see the Captain come in for a visit. If not them, then someone close to them. It was important, to them.”

Once, he’d worked up the courage to ask what, exactly, he’d done wrong to necessitate a personal visit. Whatever it was, he was terribly sorry, and even more sorry for not even noticing, but, if they told him, he would fix it right away. First, they thought he’d been telling a joke. Second, they gave him an unexpectedly big hug. Third, they explained.

“The reason the Starsong can pull off such complicated ambushes isn’t some great secret. It’s just a matter of timing, really. We would pick a list of songs that everybody knew, and time every step, contingency, go and no-go, all in advance. At the second chorus, close to board. Third measure of the first verse, if the primary battleship is not engaged, abort immediately. And so on. If we kept the beat, if everyone remembered their steps, it didn’t matter that we couldn’t speak to each other, or even see each other most times. We knew our Captains, we knew each other, and they all knew us too. Four ships could move as easily if their Captains were all in the same room, seeing everything at once.”

He shifts uncomfortably in Vasilia’s lap. “That’s the sort of ship I want to run. I don’t want my crew to be worrying that I might be about to cut them out if they don’t make me happy enough. Or, if I don’t quite understand their authorial vision. Even if we’re likely not to choreograph our battles in the future, how can I ask you to care about what’s important for the running of this ship, for the mission, if I didn’t care about what’s important to you?”

Please, by all she holds dear, let that be the right thing to do.

She's never heard silence so loud before. The only sound is the opening and closing of Lacedo's mouth, until eventually Alexa excuses herself and quietly click-click-clicks out of the room.

Lacedo. Fuck. Please, let her take this the right way, learn the right lesson. She's seen that shellshocked look in friends' eyes before. The last thing she wants is for Lacedo to turn around and turn this hurt into hate, to decide that Alexa is in the wrong and double down on humanity. Alexa certainly knows that there's enough space on this ship to avoid her if Lacedo decides to do it.

Please, let this be okay.

***

It starts, as things do, almost by accident.

The tulips won't bloom, is the thing. She's almost positive she's doing it right, and going down the list once more of things. Soil? Acidic, thanks to the bark. Not too moist, which is hard to get on a ship full of crabs, but she picked her niche nicely. No weeds to steal nutrients, as the dirt under her fingers and half-full bucket can attest. At this point, she's half tempted to assume that Demeter is simply cursing her tulips, which, at this point, isn't completely out of the question, but--

She turns at the noise, and for a second Arth'na freezes in the doorway as if caught doing something wrong.

"... I. Can I-- D'you mind if."

Alexa quietly lifts the bucket, and dumps it onto the compost pile as she waits for the Alced to assemble her thoughts. Heck, she's got no ground to judge there.

Arth'na swallows and blurts out, "I won't touch anything, but, um. Can I watch?"

Alexa smiles, and waves her over. "You won't get anywhere in gardening by not touching. Here, let's go over this together, let's get your hands dirty, and maybe you'll spot something I've missed."

And that's how it is. One or two, at first, popping into the kitchen, or the room she's trying to turn into a sewing room, or asking if she'd show them some of the wrestling moves she's been practicing with the Coherents. And it's not until she starts needing to coordinate room spaces, and moving quarters, that she realizes she's started to hold workshops.

She's not the leader the Fleets need. It hurts, a little bit, to think. There won't be another generation of the Fleets that defeated the Kaeri. She doesn't know the lore, the chants, the dances, cannot be the war leader who will lead them to glory and victory against Ceron. She cannot be the Pallas for the Fleets. But maybe Alexa can help the Alcedi. She can show them what she knows, give them options, simply be herself, be open, and support them as they decide what they want.

And if what some want is to stick around, then, that will be their choice. And when Lacedo wants to talk, Alexa will be there to pick up the pieces.

Redana!

"Oh! You want to fight for Bella's hand in marriage!" said Beautiful, snapping her fingers in understanding. "She must be a very special girl indeed!"

She then shoots you in the forehead, in the exact point where she landed her kick. Then as you charge it's directly into a second kick, aimed again at that exact spot. She's too slight to fully check the charge, though, and the momentum sends her reeling back a couple of steps before she recovers her poise.

"Well, even if I don't remember her," said Beautiful, "There is no way I'm not going to fight for the girl who might possibly be mine. Hypothetical love demands no less!"

There's a bit of a catch in that voice, Redana. Pain, perhaps? There's no doubt a lot of frustration that comes with being told that you are possibly in a relationship that you can't remember the importance of. A lot of frustration that Beautiful has evidently decided to vent onto you. There's still that dangerous, brilliant playfulness as she widens her stance, ready to catch, redirect, and throw. But you're not the only one with a headfull of complicated emotions that are best expressed with fisticuffs.

Alexa!

You're just finishing your routine when - Ares' spit! There's a Kaeri warrior standing over you. Fuck they're quiet!

"Lady Regicide," she said, voice clipped. As you recover from the shock you see the Oath of Surrender pinned to her breast armour - a long, winding scroll where she pledges her surrender and obedience in the sight of Zeus. It's a chain more binding than adamantine, and the remnants of the Kaeri who did not fight to death all signed them and wear them constantly. It is not an oath of slavery - theirs was a honourable military surrender, and the conditions are closer to that of a guest. Still, it was considered for the best if they were kept on the other ship to the Lanterns.

The title they use for you could do with some work though.

"I am Evocati Khaesh," she said. "Five of my soldiers are missing, under subcommander Meuven Ra. We cannot find any sign of them. Did you order them executed?"

The Kaeri's eyes are cold. She's ready to resume hostilities over this. But you've served with Kaeri before and you can see beyond the frosty belligerence - she's terrified. The Kaeri are creatures of pride, and to admit weakness, ignorance and helplessness in the same breath is not something they do if they feel like they have any alternative.

Dolce!

"Yeah, uh," said Ramses awkwardly. "Listen, mate. We're professionals. We're on this ship because we get paid. By the Magi. What we want is the time, surgery and components to make our ideal bodies manifest."

She coughed. "Though if you wanted to help us out you could lean on the magi to give us better terms in the next round of enterprise agreement negotiations. The union negotiates a new one with them every year and the discussions get heated. These go on for the months - tell you what, uh, first lady Vasilia, ma'am, why don't you come along and sit in on one? There's a meeting happening now."

A flash cut to the union negotiations with the Magi. A Hermetic shrieks discordant blaring rhythms to drown out the voices of hard nosed negotiators, brandishing esoteric weapons in all directions. It blasts a hole in a wall and retreats into the ventilation shafts, laying down a carpet of covering fire. It is pursued by a cautious but determined team carrying arc welders to cut it out of the hidden burrow it retreats into.

"Maybe it'll give you an idea of what we're working with here," said Ramses.

Bella!

As you walk there is an eerie stillness in the corridors of the Plousios' lower decks. The crabs are still there, still in their tens of thousands, but now they are still. They sit, claws raised up to the sky, unblinking eyes staring blankly forwards. The eerie industry of the Tides is halted as every node in its network takes a moment at long last to breathe deeply and actually pay attention to the world around it.

The breath rises and falls in a calming rhythm, waves crashing against the shore. It wasn't until the noise stopped that you realized how frenzied it had been.

Finally. This is much closer to how a ship should sound.

The waves of thousands of slow breathes washes over the corridor and wipes away the sloshing of Bella's feet as she picks her way back out of the shallows. Soon, her bare soles touch dry flooring again and even as the meditation of the Tides recedes behind her there is a deep and abiding sense of calm in place of the frantic, tapping echoes of her footsteps that hounded her all the way down here in the first place.

She pauses to take in the echoes. Her hands clench into fists faster than she can pry them apart. She scratches at her scars violently enough to tear holes in the back of her dress. Her tail flicks water every which way as it lashes about like a whip. Teeth bared for the world. She can feel her body growing hotter as the urge to murder something builds inside of her. This at least has the effect of drying her dress out, not that she especially notices or cares. She drags her claws along the edge of a wall, leaving the deep gouges that have so often marked her terrible moods out here in space. She stares at them for a long time. The distant sounds of the Tides' deep breathing still follow her. Bella snarls.

Her steps fall faster now. She stomps on the floor without consideration for who might hear her, all thoughts of avoiding people forgotten for the moment. Fuck them. It's not even funny anymore. If this is how this ship is run, then everybody on it deserves what's going to happen. Bastards. Fucking bastards. She's sprinting now. Hundreds of empty corridors in varying states of disrepair watch her pass by, and offer nothing but echoes and groans to stop her.

Bella's right ear twitches. She can hear shouting. And underneath that... yes, she's certain of it. She'd know the flutter of film being fed through a camera anywhere. People. Crew, fucking about while the ship collapsed around them. Or maybe... nngh. She'd find her answers soon enough.

"Who!"

She shouts at the top of her lungs as she bursts onto the set of what looks suspiciously like a Prion Paula movie. She pays it no mind. It's only the basic tact of a lifelong maid that keeps her from kicking over every set piece and bit of equipment as she stomps through the room with her tail lashing in permanent attack threat.

"The fuck!"

Her golden, bloodshot eye roams over a bunch of Coherent. Some in costume, some too much themselves to ever be able to tell. She watches to see which of them flinch, but all of them do. They part like an honor guard revealing a princess to a ball, a wall of bodies like an inverted phalanx. Revealing openly what they should be protecting. Her iris consumes her entire eye when she sees him, and shrinks to a furious slit a moment after. The sheep. The one from the Eater of Worlds, the party on Salib, and the battle. The one who said her name.

"...You." Her original booming accusation falls discarded at her feet. She hisses instead. Her fingers curl, and only her uncovered, scarred fingers keep her from seeming (entirely) like she's fully reverted to being XIII, come to finish the kill, "Tell me who's running this gods forsaken rust bucket. I thought it was the Princess, but no. So tell me. Who let the Tides on this ship? Which idiot thought it would be a good idea to shove them in a dark corner and let them torture themselves? Tell me who I have to--"

She squeezes her wrist and pushes the thought down into a frustrated groan.

"Tell me, and I'll be out of your hair. I don't want to sit here staring at you any more than you do me, believe me."