He frowns.

“The...Tides were there, of course. But they did not advocate for one side or the other. The Secretary showed great favor to my decision, though, and made it abundantly clear he harbored no doubts about it.”

This was the first time since he’d seen her that she’d smiled and meant it. Asking for a glimpse of the crew, calling for her head on a spear.

He reaches for the tea, at last. The Coherent have been conscientious enough to place it somewhere he doesn’t need to brace himself, or ask for help to reach. The same cannot be said of the sugar and cream, placed close enough that one might scoop it up without wasting a step on their way to adjust Bella’s tea again. He takes a long, slow sip at his tea. And waits a thoughtful few moments longer, before quietly asking for someone to pass them over.

Tea is a thinking drink. It will not do to be pulled out of his thoughts to wince at the taste.

He holds his cup, carefully, with both hands, staring long into its cream-clouded depths. He nods to himself, so slight that one might miss it, or else lifts his cup for another sip. Lost in thought, lost in memory. Around them, the clatter of the stage crew fills the air with an uncomfortable tension. The sound of halfhearted activity. Accomplishing nothing except the unsteady interruption of silence.

At last, he shakes his head. “No. No, that is not how I run this ship. I asked my crew for advice, not a debate. Decisions that important shouldn’t be decided by who’s the most skilled at speaking, or how loud a faction makes their case. Your fate was tied in with the fate of so many others on this ship, they deserved to have their say, and have it be heard, without condition. But in the end, it was nobody’s decision but my own.”

He goes for another sip of tea. Pauses. A war, in his shaking hand, over the last few inches. Discomfort. Exhaustion. A chair that doesn’t fit. Legs that don’t work. Long nights, spent alone. Weighed against a collar. Fixed to the neck of a servitor, on a dead monster far, far away.

Carefully, he sets the teacup back down.

“...I don’t know what difference it makes for you,” he adds. And truly, he doesn’t. “But the overwhelming majority of those who spoke, spoke in your favor.”

Alexa sits on the catwalk surrounding the cavernous engines, and decides this is probably the best case scenario.

Well, no, of course it isn't.

Best case scenario involves Alexa pulling her head out of her own ass in the days leading up to this. In a perfect world, she could have paid Mynx the attention she obviously needed before she poisoned a dozen people and plunged the ship into chaos. Best case scenario is not "Alexa picks which of a hundred identical yellow hoods holds a disguise."

But if she has to pick Mynx out of a crowd, this is perhaps the best case scenario. Mynx is a perfectionist, but the nature of secret societies is that they are, as it were, secret. Even if Mynx spent time on nothing but infiltrating the ranks of the Hermetics and learning of them, she can't have mastery of every detail. She can't have the perfect mastery she normally would.

More mastery than Alexa, more's the pity. Alexa doesn't know the rankings of the Hermetics, the intricacies of their robes, the secrets.

So instead of trying to interpret, she's only trying to notice the patterns. She follows them, one by one, noting garb, responsibilities. What pattern of robes, who do they talk to, where do they go, what levers do they pull? She's building an index of robes on the fly and not understanding a bit of what it means. But she doesn't have to decode the robes, know who's who--all she has to figure out is which cog is turning just that little bit slow, which one is not fitting in.

[Look Closely: 5,4,6, +1 Sense. [b]12.[/i] Which one is Mynx?]

The smile doesn't fade from her face, even as she turns the empty wineglass over in her hand. But any sense of amusement dies instantly, crushed by a monster named Anger that prowls inside her eye. But she is quiet for a long moment, watching the Captain struggle with and then finally drink his tea. She sets her new memento down on the table with the sort of precision that implied she thought the ship would instantly burst into flames if she so much as scratched it.

And she snorts.

"And how many of them have swung by since to apologize? None of them, obviously. Because it's easy to say whatever the fuck you want, especially when the call isn't yours to make. It's even easier for bleeding hearts like your lot's to try and argue that all life is precious or... whatever the fuck. I don't care. They can say it. They took none of the consequences. You did. Stand up and fight me if you disagree."

She grins, full of teeth. The gesture doesn't even reach the rest of her face. Her hands busy themselves with twisting her golden jewelry up and down the length of her forearms, letting it bite into her wrists. Her eye betrays her once again. Not anger this time, but unease. Not about what she's said, but that she's the only one who's come to say it. She glances at the wine glass one more time, and the lipstick pressed along the rim.

"...Would you really like to know what should be done with the Tides? You seem reluctant to kill the monsters you keep bringing on this ship. You might have to anyway, before long. You can leave the Assistant Secretary in charge to run his little pod as he sees fit. And his craven little ass will stay in line, because he knows just like I do that if he's ever not on your leash then the smartest thing you could do is kill him and his on the spot. So you can leave things exactly like they are and have your little collection of claws and tentacles to handle all the jobs you'd ask a slave to do, and all you'll pay in cost is knowing what they're doing to each other every day to fit inside your pocket."

Bella licks her lips, and it's comical how fast a Coherent springs up to refill her teacup, already halfway to sweetening it before that tongue is finished playing over her teeth. Another zips up with the bottle of wine, but Bella waves her off. It's her turn to stare at the surface of a liquid and not touch it. She doesn't need two glasses for that. She doesn't want to risk her prize so soon.

"Ask your little council, then. I bet they'll argue in favor of freeing the Tides, instead. And then what? You can argue with each other whose fault it is that you're all clogging up Elysium after they overrun your ship and eat the fucking thing in half. They're monsters, remember? The only thing that's kept you all alive the whole time they've been on your ship is the torture rack they've been stuck in. And if you undo that? well.

"These aren't your pirate buddies. None of them chose a life of songs and adventure. They are monsters. The Assistant Secretary, Eyes of Coral... each one of them is just a piece of a brain from something so huge and dangerous it cost Odoacer an entire flagship just to put it down in the first place. They live with the memory of that death every second of every day. And if the meditation training I'm putting them through doesn't take, the kindest thing that you could do is slaughter the lot of them. As they are, I could just manage it on my own. Might cost me an arm, but what's a limb or two between friends?"

She chuckles and lifts the cup to her lips, where she contents herself with sniffing it. Her Auspex flickers across Dolce's frame, and one more time crushes him under its oppressive weight.

"Then again, maybe a miracle will happen. Maybe one monster is enough to teach another how to be something else. But you're the one in charge of this ship. You'll be the one who has to administrate the consequences of whatever happens. And I'm the only one you'll ever be able to talk to about any of it. Lonely at the top, isn't it?"

Redana!

"Somewhere dark," Beautiful mutters, emotion in her voice. "Somewhere warm. Don't search for her in cold places, all you need to do is stand in the light until she's ready to come back..."

And then you, Redana, are in a magical world.

Cherry blossom flowers fall over a battlefield of green hills. Ten thousand roses bloom. Lights shine down from a dozen different angles, falling down upon a gorgeous mahogany table. At its head, with gentle wafts of tea contrasted against her wet cascading hair. By her left side stands a swordswoman of legend, a dozen handmaidens and a dozen camera crews. By her right sits a cloud with a frown. Your mind must be playing tricks on you; seeing her here somehow calls to mind the memory of Sahar at its most beautiful. Perhaps you have gone mad again? Perhaps you are seeing visions? How could her presence send you back in time like this?

Alexa!

The Order of Hermes has the same idea as you. A lot of their tasks are make-work, complicated tests of breaking and recovering in different contexts. Already they are starting to filter out low status workers - apprentices, incompetents, and hopefully impersonators. Those marked suspect by the course of the endless rituals are removed further and further from the center of power -

And then one of them jumps the gap.

It's a perfect move, sleek and feral. Only one Order Magi sees it and she has her head kicked through a bulkhead by the oncoming figure. The sound is muffled by a perfectly timed roar from the engine. In a couple of seconds the body is tucked inside the ventilation tube, and the yellow robe ripples slightly and changes shape. And then she's moving again, back inside the perimeter, with the attempt to section off infiltrators having instead just reduced the cover her true target possesses.

This is a hunt, but it is not for you - yet. You have the edge.

There. Alexa fixes her gaze on the one yellow hood, and stares at it. Don't let her out of your sight, don't give her a chance to melt back into the crowd, keep your eyes locked on her. Move across the catwalk as quickly and quietly as you can, but don't lose her.

What even can she say? "Please stop poisoning people?" "Help me understand?" "I've been a terrible friend and I'm sorry?"

Finally, she's over the hood, takes a step off the catwalk, and drops like a stone.

The floor buckles, and yellow figures scatter around them, but that's not important. What is important is that she's got her, she's hugging her as hard as she can, and--

"Mynx, please, tell me how I can help you."

[Hold Them Back squeaks by with a 5,1,1, +3. 10. Probably gonna spend hold on Talk Sense or Speak softly after Mynx responds]

That’s what it feels like— as if the search across the ship, the time spent drinking coffee with Beautiful, the trek through the vaulted halls of the Plousios, the slow accumulation of more knowledge— it all bleeds away, swirls down the drain of thought, is blasted away to nothing in the face of the sun.

Redana stumbles forward. She hits something. A chair, maybe? She walks through it. Doesn’t matter. The world is vast. The world is a face. The world is incomprehensible. Her heart is in her throat. Think of something, she thinks to herself, over and over.

She’s at the head of the table now. Dolce blinks at her. Bella stares at her, red-and-yellow against blue-and-green. She is her body. Her body does not understand what it is doing. She needs to say something. She had so many things she was going to say. They were important. She needs to say them. Bella isn’t saying anything. Olympus.

She opens her mouth, dumbly. She licks her lips. Coughs, the once.

“Hey, Bella,” she manages. The worst thing anyone has ever said. She blew it. Her brain explodes. Hey, Bella. Like they’re on speaking terms. Like nothing at all happened. Like she’s about to ask Bella what she wants for dinner. Bella is going to run away and hide and everything beautiful will be ruined. She’s sweating. Her hand is warm where she’s leaning against the table. Hey, Bella. She needs to have something else to say.

“…I didn’t know you knew Dolce?” Perish. Perish. Perish. I didn’t know you knew Dolce! Her mouth is dry. She’s smiling weird. It’s frozen on her face. Beautiful, come back, Dany does need an assassin, she’s taking out a hit on Princess Redana Claudius For Embarrassing Herself In Front Of A Pretty Girl, And Also For Thinking Of Bella As Just A Pretty Girl, But She Is, So Also Impugning Bella’s Honor Just While We’re At It.

She’s nothing like the Bella that terrorized her on Baradissar, feral, vicious. She’s nothing like the Bella that kissed her on Salib, lush and hungry and explosive. She’s here. She’s almost (almost) the Bella (her eye) that Redana (her clothes) remembers from Tellus, but… changed. Changing. Different. Can she learn more? Please? She’ll listen this time. Promise.

You’re holding back.

He cannot run. Everyone in this room is dazzled by you and disappointed in him. You have every means and opportunity to break his heart like a stale twig, and yet, you put no strength into your blows to actually follow through with it. With one hand, you restrain yourself, and with the other, you offer fleeting gifts; of wisdom, of hard-won experience, of glimpses of something beneath the name Praetor.

You’re holding back. But wounds do not have to be fatal to matter. Perhaps you know this? Perhaps you don’t. It’s so hard to tell. It’s so hard, when the only eyes he has are his own. When the only heart he has still bleeds. It hurts. It just. Hurts.

He moves to set his teacup down, then, thinking better of it, shakes his head and cups it in both hands. The warmth seeps through his aching fingers.

“Will it really make you,”

You turn the Auspex on him, and he wilts. No Captain. No ram of war. Just a tired sheep. Asking a guest to please repeat their order.

“Will it really make you happy, if I admit that I hate you?”

But you don’t get a chance to respond, do you? Your Princess is here, Praetor. Look sharp. See, the Captain of the Plousious lifts himself up at her presence, and those not entranced by dreams might chide him for how shamefully shallow he bows. But no one could fault him for how ready his answer comes.

“We’re just getting acquainted.”

There is time enough for one response before the little tea party comes to an end. Two, in fact. Another smile passes across Bella's face: less amused this time, but just as genuine. This is kindness born from pain. This is warmth born from sadness. She can't use it in place of an apology, because it isn't one. What good would that do her, after everything she's done? This is resigned acknowledgement; that she's heard what she's been expecting to hear this entire time, and now she will take her permission to melt into the shadows and disappear forever.

The second response must be a thank you, then. Bella sits and waits for Dolce to meet her eyes again, even though it probably costs her a chance to escape. Even though it takes enough time to leave an awkward silence in the air, she sits patiently and watches for him to finally look up from his tea. He needs to see. He needs to watch her screw her eyelid shut tight over her Auspex until she's staring at him through just one mortal eye, looking like an exhausted traveler staring into the sun. It's important, so he'll know the reason the pressure suddenly abates. That he knows that she knows: she was too much. She is sealing herself off for his benefit.

"Hey, Redana~"

She swings that playful tone like a sword. Not even turning to look, she rises from her chair with supreme confidence. She can smell the bewilderment all over her princess, after all. This light bit of teasing is all it will take to make her freeze up long enough to let Bella disappear again. She'll do a better job of it this time. It's an empty as fuck ship, all she needs to do is bend away from the sounds of people this time. No more projects. No more tea. No more--

She feels the hand clamp around her wrist before she makes it two steps. Bella snarls, and whirls about to scream obscenities, but they die on her lips. Prion Paula smiles at her, and holds up the forgotten wine glass. She's even filled it, as if to prove that signature was stronger than any drink. In Bella's hand it feels more like a chain. She's trapped. Trapped again. If only the thought of bolting didn't make her feel sick. She sighs, and takes a tiny sip from the opposite end of the glass from her treasure.

"They're filming a sequel to my favorite movie here."

The teasing confidence is gone from her voice. She still has her eye squeezed shut like an idiot, but it's turned on the wrong target now. Her back stiffens and her tail wraps itself around her thigh. She reaches behind her to lift her sea-soaked hair off her neck for a moment, and lets it fall again with a wet slap. Her eye darts to Redana's hair again and again, no matter how many times she tries to direct it elsewhere. Red opens again, to duel with Green.

"Your captain was just inviting me to review the set. You know, to show there's no bad blood. So generous of him; if the gods had been a little kinder to me these last few months you can bet I'd..."

She lets the threat fall silent, unfinished. Her fingers play around the stem of her glass, the smooth, cool roundness only felt across her fingertips because of her lack of talons these days. She frowns, and worries at her dress.

"...You kept that braid in. You mor-- Princess, please put more care into your appearance. A sloppy thing like that doesn't suit you."

Response Level 2: Overgrowth
Toxic fog and plants impair mobility across the Plousios, interfering with pursuit and aiding in escapes.

Alexa!

"Help me?" Mynx said, voice heartbreakingly unchanged. "Oh, no, you've got it all wrong. Our job is to help Redana."

Beneath the robe you can feel the ripple of bones rearranging, muscles aligning, poison developing. Without warning a bone needle erupts from her shoulder, an envenomed needle piercing into your arm. It falls away and crumbles to dust so quickly you could almost think you imagined it.

"She is lost without her friends, Alexa," Mynx said, sounding exactly like a person even though beneath the robe you can feel exactly how far from human she is. "And once they learn what is coming they will abandon her. Her heart will break again."

You can hear the hiss of toxins escaping alongside her breath, over the sounds of Hermetics running and shouting. You can feel it dig into your body - your shining new body - as the hooks of moss add texture to your smooth curves. You can feel it in your ears, in your nose, in your throat.

"Aren't you supposed to be her bodyguard?" said Mynx. Quietly. Accusingly.

[Pay a price to act against Mynx, who is a Threat to the World. In order to talk to her further, you must first Defy Danger, paying another price for making the attempt. You are not positioned to Finish Her and you have a limited range of things she will hear with Talk Sense.]

Redana, Bella, Dolce!

The sound of chaos echoes out from the engine room. The cries of Assassin! echo down through kilometers of steel, the clanging of tocsin bells.

If you answer the call, as I imagine you might, you will push your way through crowds of Hermetic magi in flight, through Coherent phalanxes attempting to form in defense, past ranks of cold-eyed Lanterns climbing into ambush positions. You will arrive to see the Engine Room filling rapidly with a toxic fog. It obscures and blinds, and everywhere you look seeds are sprouting with poisonous flowers already in bloom. You will need to Defy Danger to progress.

Is it in question that Redana dives into the engine room? No. No, it is not. As soon as she sees that vast and familiar hall filled with mist and flowers, an otherworld to match Elysium, the heart of that horrible jungle she thought she had defeated when she buried Sagakhan beneath the sands, she’s fumbling with her clothes. Out come the goggles from one pocket, pulled down over her eyes, even as her mother’s eye traces paths through the mist: her destination laid out as it is destined. Up comes her scarf, pulled over her face, making an airtight seal with a trace of her fingers along its edges.

But before she does, she stops, just for a moment, aware of who’s next to her. Bella. Bella, beautiful, questionably loyal, an enigma, but—

“You don’t have to follow me,” Dany says. “I’ll come back this time. I promise.” And then, her duty done, hoping desperately that Bella will wait this time, Dany opens her eye and jumps, for once in sync with her mother’s eye: it traces out the steps it knows she can take, highlights where she will need to vault over hissing cabling and duck beneath sickly-sweet orchids, allows her to immerse herself in the moment, this moment.

[Dany Overcomes with a 9, marking a narrative use of her Spacer’s Uniform to continue. This triggers her Survivor move, which she will use to get to Alexa quickly, avoiding any harm along the way, but not quietly.]

'You don't have to follow me.'

Bella watches Redana's retreating back without saying a word in exchange. Her fingers pinch the cold glass, and her eyes dip to stare at the swirling dark red liquid, instead. The name on the side is visible even through the wine. All around her is the sound of panicked cries, clattering bells, and heavy feet running both toward and away from danger. Assassin, assassin is the cry ringing in her ears. Assassin, assassin say the stench of creeping mists. Assassin, assassin whisper the softly blooming flowers that creep along the ground.

'You don't have to follow me.'

She doesn't. Hi Bella bye Bella. It's so clumsy and stupid it makes her want to laugh. She sips at her wine, instead. Not so much as a smile. What would she smile about? It could technically be any of them, she supposes. Assassin, assassin. Her sisters. If Beautiful was awake again she could be capable of anything. Beljani seemed less likely. Harder to set her off, easier to contain her, but even still. Surrounded by Magi she could set off this kind of terror, too.

'I'll come back this time. I promise.'

Bella lifts the glass and drains it in a motion, as has become her custom. She smacks her lips together and winces. This was stolen from her personal stock on the Anemoi, and mulled it as part of some twisted experiment to turn it palatable. Dipshits. What the fuck were cloves and anise supposed to do for something this oily? The orange notes begged for herbs, a lemongrass or something. She should punch whoever was responsible for this.

'I'll come back this time. I promise.'

'Bella, you're okay. You're okay! Oh Hera and Aphrodite, thank you for keeping her safe!'

It won't be her. It can't be her. She's dead. Even though this feels like her, looks like her, smells like her, it's not. She's dead. Bella killed her herself. She is dead and buried and she is not to be trusted in the first place. Bella sniffs the air like an animal, and scowls.

'Pretty disciplined of me, huh?'

'You don't have to follow me this time.'

'so... I'm happy. That's all I wanted. I just wanted you to see...'

'You don't have to follow me this time.'

She's going to be sick. The memories crawl in her head like insects, buzzing and bursting with every fresh flower she notices. Bella paces. She turns back and forth, cracking her tail like a lash as she goes. No. No. No. It can't be. It can't! She can't breathe. Her chest is going to collapse. The walls are creeping closer; soon they will crush her.

'Hey, Bella! How are you doing?'

"...Mynx."

Don't have to follow? Fucks sake, Redana. Of all the times for you to try. Bella spins one final time. The pressure of the blood rushing through her body looks like it could kill her at any moment. But she glides over to Dolce with the poise of a goddess. She puts the signed glass in his hand before he can say anything.

"I don't have anyone else I can... just... make sure it doesn't break. I don't have anything else right now."

She turns her back to him immediately. That treasure was the only thing holding her in place; now that it's been safely handed off, she vanishes like she's been shot out of a cannon. Toward danger. Toward Redana. Toward Mynx. Easier than breathing to run. It's in her blood, after all. She slips between formations of soldiers and under the foot-endings of floating Magi like she was born to move. She has something to protect. Several things. There are things that need to be said.

The further she goes, the more toxic the miasma. She was an idiot to deny the obvious. Bella picks up the place and dives into the thick of it with reckless abandon, but the thicker it gets the more it feels like she's feeling behind instead of catching up. She wheels about and heaves, growling with frustration. Typical Mynx, damn her. Toxins and trickery and lies, there when you don't need her, and find when you want her.

Toxins, and trickery. And softness. Support. Best friend, the only one to ever put up with her bullshit. Toxins. And an antidote for every single one. She puts her hand to the wall, follows it to the floor, and... there! Bella plucks a small white flower from the ground, and pops it stem and all into her mouth. Fuck, it's as bitter anything. That wine would've loved this. And when she swallows, suddenly she can see the golden path unfolding before her. She rushes down it in pursuit of a princess, and a mistake begging to be set right. Whatever the cost, she...

She doesn't have to follow. But she does.

[Overcome: 9. Bella expends a use of her Clever Tricks to make it stick]

There were five of them, in total. One with the coiling body of a snake, painted in iridescent colors that physically swam across the surface of her scales. One riding atop a writhing mass of emerald tentacles, steadily walking a circle from floor to ceiling and back again. One that was, primarily, eyes. One that was not a human, but who wore the suit of one, and held the spear of one, and laughed with their voice. The last carried a pair of jagged shields, and in her other pair of arms, carried him. The only one who introduced herself was his carrier, when she knelt before him and asked permission to carry him back to his quarters.

There were no further words to him than that. He must’ve understood, in his current condition, that he would be far more of a hindrance than a help in this crisis. No one would take heart from the sight of a crippled sheep. Everyone would be better off with one less VIP to protect from an Assassin. The Captain ought to be somewhere safe, and he would look kindly on them for not wasting his time with explaining what he must’ve already known.

So he didn’t say anything either. Not through the length of the trip back to his chambers. Not when they set him on his wheelchair, and took up positions in and around the room, keeping sightlines on each other and him. Only when his carrier turned to take her post did he clear his throat, and ask her to deliver a message to Ramses once this was all over. If she were to inform him of the first day when Captain Dolce, the Ram of War, was to appear on set, he would like to be in attendance for filming that day.

Of course she would carry his message, sir. Didn’t her shoulders straighten, with the promise of yet further favor, and what she might buy with it.

Silently, the Captain took to his desk. The Tides would need new leadership. He would need to learn who, then learn what they needed from him in turn. Vasilia would return from the union negotiations with the Hermetics. They were loud, very loud, and not afraid to be loud if it bought them their privacy. But the Coherent needed them, and so, a peace had to be maintained, constantly. The Lanterns are leaderless, and paralyzed. The Flocks are lost. More and more are joining in Epestia and Beljani’s party, and fewer and fewer are returning.

And Bella…

He reaches, with effort, across his desk, and checks the wineglass, a handkerchief around his fingers to keep from leaving prints. It has not moved in the last few minutes. Nor has it come free of its perch, tucked away in the back of a shelf, with folds of cloths stuffed in around it in case it should get jostled. Still safe. Still secure.

He withdraws his hand, and dabs the moisture from his eyes before it could fall and stain the Captain’s correspondence.

Everyone wanted something from the Captain. Nobody had much need for Dolce.

[Paying the price of losing the Aegis, probably by dropping it in the fall. Overcome: 2,3,2, +2, squeaks by with a 7.]

None of this is right. She's stone and metal. Who uses poison on a machine? Who expects that to work?

Dread creeps across her like the vines. Because it's not poison, is it? You don't poison a machine. You sabotage it. You throw grit in the gears, drain the oil, contaminate the fuel.

Already, she can feel stone cracking. Roots as fine as hairs seek out pinprick imperfections and expand, doing in minutes the erosion of centuries. Moss tickles at her ears, and then the world dulls, muffles as the moss grows down and in. Vines tease around her eyes, and she can't squeeze them shut tight enough.

Her chest isn't tight--it's too full. The stone has nowhere to go, nowhere to expand to, in the face of the invading plants. Already, she can feel the plants spreading in her throat, pressing out, binding the flow of sounds.

[Damaging Sense.]

"Aren't you supposed to be her friend?"

She only has seconds, and she needs hours.

"Redana doesn't want servants! She wants people to like her, she wants friends, and she'd be more destroyed if she found out you were coercing people to be her friends than--"

A knee buckles, and she sags against Mynx, as much holding Mynx down as holding herself up. '--if they left' dies in her throat, choked out by the vines and impact.

[Damaging Grace. 1,2,6, +1, 9 on Talk Sense if Mynx cares to listen]

Alexa!

"Oh, Alexa," said Mynx, and in that moment you're not holding her any longer. She's holding you - coiling around you, serpent coils thick and muscular. Around your neck like a noose. Around your chest like a corset. Around your hips like a lover. "It's a tempting mistake to make, isn't it? But don't listen to Aphrodite's lies. His maps lead to ruins. His gifts turn to ashes. And then when it's done he has everything end in violence again, and again, and again. He did not choose Ares for his lover as a flight of fancy."

The way the coils move is hypnotic. The way the fangs brush against your marble is intimate. Here and there they go, searching for the nick or flaw in your marble body where they might penetrate the deepest. They trace the edges of each gold-patterned scar looking for the places where the repairs were less than perfect.

"You open your mouth and you will find a fist around your throat," she hummed. "You open your heart and you will find a fist inside your ribcage. Hephaestus knew. The only way to bind love... is with a rope."

And just as her mouth opens wide - to bite, to swallow you whole - you hear banging and shouting as Redana comes rushing down through the corridors, inaudible footsteps moments behind. You feel a shiver of tension through those serpent coils, so powerful it feels like it might snap you like a porcelain doll.

And then she's gone, in a rush, into the ventilation shafts, flowing away like liquid along the secret paths built by Magi to impede the progress of humans.

Response Level 3: Corridors of the Magi
The Plousios is riddled with secret tunnels and access pathways, and only the Wise might navigate them.

*

Dolce!

Everything has a place. Everything in its place.

That was the mantra of the Manor. It was the call and response of the staff, the first words children were taught to read in the picture books. The world is inherently organized. It is designed for softness and comfort. Where there are hard edges there are specialists for that. Entropy is exported, only stability may remain. You never know when the Master might get home and want dinner.

There was no need for leadership in the manor. Such matters as scarcity and resource allotment were decided... informally. Through the mysterious alchemy of gossip over mahjong games things just seemed to work themselves out. It could hardly be said to be a government if there weren't so much decisions as... new rules. New events. Oh, it looks like we're repairing the west barn tonight. Oh it seemed like that new hound guard was a bad fit and decided to move along. Oh, it seems like those two are getting married soon, such a cute couple, somebody should let them know...

What a lovely way to make decisions that would be. It wouldn't be anyone's... idea, or responsibility. Nobody would have to make big choices and be held accountable for them. Things could just happen in a frictionless, soft kind of way. You could just worry about waking up and going to bed and all those decisions could just sort themselves out without the call for any sort of decision makers. Nobody would have to wear any big hats or have any big chairs. Nobody would have to be anything other than who they were.

You're so deep in contemplation that you only gradually realize that a hungry mousegirl, wearing an gothic hanfu and a mian opulent with skull-shaped beads, has snuck into your room and is eating the dinner you were too despondent to touch. Jil of the Lanterns freezes when you move - your stillness having completely concealed your presence. One hand holds a large slice of pizza toast and she is clearly fighting with an instinct to either drop it and run, or drop it to go for the pistol on her belt.

You think the pistol is winning so you might want to defuse the situation.

*

Redana and Bella!

One of the blessings of this galaxy is that there is absolutely no reason to stop for the wounded. If they live then they shall recover fully, no matter how grievous their injuries might seem in that moment. If Apollo would teach them a lesson in sickness it shall not be one that medical care will assist with. Despite there being over 50,000 souls aboard this ship you would not find among them one who considered themselves a medical doctor. One might as well spin dresses for the clouds.

So there is nothing in the slightest bit callous about patting Alexa hurriedly on the shoulder and continuing to rush after Mynx. Only one of those things is dangerous.

And then... you're running. Foot past foot. Hand past hand. The two of you racing like practicing for the Olympics. There are the flips and twists and coil turns of tight passages, the blind turns of lower depths, the shanty markets where the strange species of this starship barter coinlessly. There are wagons filled with tomatoes and apricots and entire coral reefs. Kingfishers haggle with crabs, and the crabs aren't having it. The fires are warm and the ship is lit with hundreds of lamps dedicated to Apollo and the sprint just goes on and on.

Long enough for the adrenaline to fade. Long enough for the panic to fade. Long enough to settle into the steady, chest-heaving drumbeat of running. One cannot think and maintain this speed, and so the two of you race through the ship, the world passing you by in flashing lights and colours. Deck by deck you run, breaking one hundred and thirty kilometers on the straights, and all the world becomes a blur.

Your feet fall in rhythm, Bella. You have felt this rhythm before. On the Azura planet Salib, beneath endless azure skies and in the shadow of space elevators. You have felt this rhythm before. In the depths of the void, in a perfect trance of sunlight and starlight and speed enough to escape yourself. On the track and field of Tellus where you bought dishonour to the Olympic Games, where every step was ended with a glance over your shoulder, wondering when the time would come to turn the race into a blood sport. A sprint where you were predator and prey. A sprint as a prelude to violence. This feels like that Olympic race, a night time shadow gallery of Artemis that held no matter how many lights were put up. You can't drown her out. Your quarry could turn at any moment, and then...

But also... you are running alongside someone. Not a fellow hunter. Not... anyone at all, it seemed. Not a princess, in this moment. Not someone you... have to follow. The first time in a long time you were just... running. Alongside a girl. And there was nothing else to bind or twist that simple fact into something it shouldn't be.

Not you too, Jil. Not you too.

In the depths of Salib, he bore his heart to you, trusting you would not abuse the power he surrendered willingly. You held him as his life bled out. Waited, when you could've left him in the dark. But already, his eyes collect the facts before him, and his mind dutifully sorts everything to its proper place. The Lanterns are accustomed to cruel and abusive leaders. To get what they want, they expect they will have to steal, scheme, or otherwise take for themselves. That is why Jil threatened you during the meeting. That is why she is preparing to shoot you now.

His movements are sluggish, and they are neither threat nor act. His heart sinks, and the rest of him is drawn down with it. "You ought to chew that slowly. It'll taste better, and you won't get a stomachache." A hand shakes in the general direction of a chair; sized for him, it'll suit her fine. "Go on. I'm...not really hungry."

Consider it a successful heist of unwatched supplies, if it makes you feel any better.

Every footfall is a symphony. The soft clatter of sandals stamping down onto the ground and the springy crackle of them curling and tensing to spring forward back into the air again. The ecstatic shiver of impact climbing up her legs. The pressure that shakes her knees and rolls her hips. Each motion carries her forward, explosive and liquid smooth at the same time. The harmony of raw power, directed at a purpose. Uninterrupted, perfect rhythm. The feeling of total invincibility that urges her forward faster and faster and faster.

The ship is alive with all manner of scents, but each one falls away in turn as though she'd swatted it into the wall and stepped over its corpse on her way ahead. The Plousios becomes a funnel with a curious void at the bottom of it, faint and astringent chemicals painted overtop delicate alchemy that takes a host of other smells and twists them into a knot where each layer cancels out the next one perfectly. A chameleon odor that could convince any mind that it couldn't smell anything at all, but for that tiny nip of something like floor polish. The signature that the world's greatest forger couldn't help slipping into the masterpiece. She takes great, noisy sniffs and feels as much as smells that painted knot lurching ahead of her, skittering through vents and walls that refuse to hide anything from the great huntress.

Her chest heaves. Her shoulders roll with every clawing stretch in balance with the crushing pistons that are her legs. Her spine compresses and curves, and with every fresh snap back to a full upright posture she is rewarded with the tingling rush of a fresh breath of air laced through with adrenaline. This perfect speed is not effortless. On the contrary, it feels and is the maximum level of exertion her body is capable of. This is ecstasy. All her physicality is bursting through her nerves in every direction, building and building and building in intensity until the heat rolling off her body becomes a tangible thing on its own.

She is blind. Sight is worthless to her, so she discards it. The entire ship and all its many visions and obstacles melt away into less than an indistinct blur. There is nothing to run through except the golden footfalls curving up and over and around and through a pair of sharp spiraling lights. One in soft gold and the other in shining silver. And for the first time, she recognizes this presence for what it is. Who it is. This light has been everywhere with her for her entire life, and only her own tiny mind kept her from recognizing it sooner. Artemis beckons. She follows, faster still. To the crabs and kingfishers, the wagons and the lanterns, she must seem like nothing. A bolt of danger, there and gone before it can register.

Except.

It's an accident of her own running form that she turns her head at all. The slightest shift of her neck to accommodate a flying leap over some part of the gold-and-silver path. That's all. The first is only a flash. She ignores it, to sink back into the raw bliss that is motion. The Hunt.

Except.

Bella sees her clearly. The sharp edges of her joints. Her awkwardly jutting hips and her short but powerful legs, that tiny nose that looks too prim and delicate to belong on the rest of her diminutive yet iron frame. The bouncing of her sweat soaked ponytail trailing behind her.

There's nothing regal about her, just now. She couldn't seem less like a princess if she tried. She doesn't look kind, either. Not panicked, not stupid, not brave, not clever. Her unsupported breasts jiggle with every lunge of her body, as tiny as they are. The muscles in her stomach roll and stretch into all kinds of exotic patterns as she hurtles down the same path as the one beside her. In this moment, she doesn't even have a name. She's not even the girl who opened the Box.

She just is. Clear and just as distinctive as The Path. Keeping pace with the same huge and obvious effort that was turning her own body into song. Is she beautiful? Desirable? Distracting? These things all require thought to pick apart and identify.

All Bella knows is that she's there. She's as much there as Mynx and Artemis. Bella breathes a little bit more freely. Her legs feel a little lighter than she remembers, if she could remember anything to begin with. So she runs. Alongside a girl who can keep up.

It would be nice to just relax into it. Mynx is gone, with nothing to mark her passage but a cryptic message and two darting-deerlike shapes in pursuit. She could simply lie down amidst the flowers, breath deep the spores, and let the vines have their way with her.

And that's exactly the reason she can't. That thought pushes her, staggering, to her feet. She can't stop here. Maybe she'd be fine. Maybe she'd just have a relaxing day to herself with her thoughts. But she's had far too many of those as is, and she has things to do. There are people she cares for, and miracle of miracles, she's one of them.

Aphrodite is a villain, yes. He destroys for love. But thus are all gods, and she loves herself too much to lie down now.

Someone--she doesn't see who--catches her when she staggers out of the fog. She's slow, too slow to chase, but she can at least scrape the moss out of her throat enough to speak and try to make some order out of the chaos of fleeing magi and scattered phalanxes.

Running.

It’s hard, because her mind is racing and trying to unpack what’s going on, because that was Mynx, but it shouldn’t have been, because Mynx… she hasn’t seen Mynx since Salib. She’d been so focused on Bella, saving Bella, worrying about Bella, that everything else had just been noise. And the worry is a servant gnawing on its own tail, a loop of stress that unspools the more she runs and becomes not a thought with words but a burning in the elements of her self, a raw chafing discomfort—

But she is running, see.

And running is one of the best things in the whole wide universe.

It is her whole body optimized for purpose. It is an explosion of intent and capability. It is a speed so reckless that the mind becomes a thing of sensations and reactions and words go away, thoughts are sublimated, and there is just the raw animal power of a human being who has pushed herself to this purpose, who has become a thing that runs, whose will is not befuddled and worrying and stymied but effortlessly expressed, and why couldn’t ruling an empire be the same way? Why did it have to be a cramped closet of a thing, shut up in the dark of the mind with so many books and reminders and scales?

It is like piloting the plover of the self.

And so Redana does not process what soothes that chafe. She does not understand why she is so happy that she laughs, a convulsion of muscles, even as she flings herself through her ship, her ship, alongside Bella. All she knows is that in this moment of stress, when she should be tearing herself apart, she instead feels powerful, light-headed, capable of finding Mynx no matter where she tries to hide.

And that, too, is a gift.

Redana and Bella!

Dionysus holds the door open for you, and in his reflective mask you can see the howls of wolves.

The party is in deep swing and more and more of the ship has been drawn in. The air is thick and heavy with the viral bliss of Beljani; the will of an Oratus Adept reaching into the altered biology of servitor species and altering it further. Joy, withheld and rationed by biological sculpting, flows like wine. Smiles reserved for conquering heroes adorn countless faces. The drug of her presence is the confidence to ask that cute girl out, the strength to forget your own self criticism, the burning flavour of somehow knowing that when you speak your audience will see your heart. There's a certain safety in getting drawn into this hivemind, a clarity of trust and purpose, and for the lost and damned of the Plousios it is intoxicating.

A great many Alcedi are here, as are paroled Kaeri. A great many Lanterns keen to escape the dark corridors of the Anemoi are here alongside Coherent who know a good time when they see one. Here, on this melting pot, at the feet of the two Warriors of Ceron, the divergent factions of these great ships at last find common ground.

And oh, does Beljani look like a Warrior of Ceron now. This seems like a vast, debauched party, something that should be a corrupting influence, but compared to the prison of pampering she was caught in until now? This is the hardest she has ever worked in her life. She has been dancing, fighting and cheering. She has been told no and taken it for an answer. She's lost weight and gained muscle, eaten common food and drunk garbage moonshine and she's haaaaaaaayted every second of it but it's okay because she's alive and part of something and the feedback loop she gets from interacting with Epistia her pack mate is unlike anything she's ever felt before. The two are flowing into each other like water and sugar.

Epistia, too, is happier than you've ever seen her. She was the only child in the Eater of Worlds, the only one her age, forever caught outside the kinship bonds so vital to the Warriors of Ceron. Craving for battle seemed like her only joy because she lacked the invisible bond of romance/understanding/trust hardwired into the depths of Ceronian biology. Her scythe has been set aside, war and death forgotten in a corner of this great room, and when she howls it is with unbloodied fangs.

But neither of them are the stars of this show. That would be Beljani's crystal dragon pet, sitting proud and aloft in the centre of the room. Every scale is a complex, glowing masterwork of engraved glass and its wings are made of holographic energy. When it breaths a brilliant and scattering array of prismatic laser lights ignite the entire room like a disco rave to the cheers of the crowd, and when it spreads its wings it creates vast flowing scrolls of calligraphic glyphs - words, mathematical formulae, hieroglyphic images. It's a spectacular series of effects, bringing to mind the mythical and archaic technology of digital computing.

Nothing like this has been seen in the galaxy since the destruction of the Atlas Cultural Sphere. It is worth at least a little awe.

Alexa!

It is warm, briefly. Iskarot has hosed you down with a flamethrower. It doesn't hurt you but washes the moss and vines clear. All around the Order of Hermes is moving in readied formations armed with similar weapons, scorching the ship clean wherever they can find it.

He stares at you for a long moment from beneath his robe, fingers tapping along the edge of his device, and then grumble-sighs and finally speaks. "When we first met," he said. "I attempted to use you in order to further my career in the Order of Hermes. I was... thoughtless. Angry. I had been stuck on Tellus for a long time in service to an idiot and I did not consider the value of you as a thinking entity. And so I wanted to," he glanced aside. "Apologize. So. I am sorry. I have tried not to repeat that mistake."

Dolce!

Jil stares for a long moment. Then, with a swift and deliberate speed, kicks a foot around the corner of the chair, drawing it out so that she can sit on it sideways. She pauses after chewing for a moment and then looks at you sharply. "I thought you were a chef," she said. "And this is the best you got?"

She swallowed uncomfortably and looked at the plate with the indecision of someone raised not to waste food working up the willpower to finish something she did not want to.