You know, an apology almost makes it worse?

Up until now, she's been able to put it out of her mind. It's been non-stop crisis, one after another. It's been Salib, and Sagakhan, and Barassidar, and saving the ship again and again. Even when sprinting across the ship to save him, she could focus on finding and saving Mynx from herself.

But now here he is, and here she is, and he's in front of her, and she has no choice but to remember the good month or two where every time she saw a vent in a hallway, she passed by on the other side. She has to think about how she jumped at every noise from the wall in her quarters until eventually she moved the furniture to block the noise. She has to remember seeing him in ship meetings and surrounding herself with friends out of, out of some idea that if she's surrounded by other people, she can't be hurt.

And he wants to apologize, and all she can do is clutch an arm, and stare at him, and wish she still had a throat full of moss.

He's doing better, yes. He's going out of his way to apologize when he didn't have to. To admit fault--he, the head of all Hermetics on board, admitting he made a mistake! In public, in front of his peers!

And is sitting there, doing the polar opposite of fidgeting--as if by stillness, he can pass on the nervousness to her and force her to fidget in his stead--and damn his eyes if it isn't working.

"… That's the first step," she eventually says, still not meeting his eyes. "And I am glad that you are making that progress. It is always difficult to change."

The spiral leads her to the center of everything. And there it, they end. Abruptly. The command is so fierce it almost frightens her. Halt, halt! Stop what you're doing right fucking now!

And so she does.

Bella drags her claws through the first available object (a banquet table overladen with toxic smelling liquors) and pulls herself from full speed to dead stop in a fraction of a second. Wood and metal shavings spray everywhere, splinters pound the floor like darts, bottles crash every which way and fill the room with a truly toxic miasma that even the very greatest of assassins would struggle to replicate, and her dress is almost certainly ruined forever. But she has obeyed; the innocent is spared.

Her shoulders sag with the fatigue of a creature that could only maintain its power through its constant expression, suddenly brought to a halt all at once and forced to comprehend how tired it truly was. She glances to her left, and there is nothing but variously stunned and angry faces. To her right, the same. The Hunt has abandoned her. No, that's not quite right. The Hunt has commanded that she wait. Cut off from the path, there is nothing else to do but look.

It is a strange creature that looks back at her. Its scales are beautiful and shimmering even in this murky light, but to her they seem more like facets on a jewel than anything that belongs to a living creature. Every ridge and crest is fascinating to look at. Its wings remind her of nothing so much as her old camera. Well, no, it's the eyes that call to mind the camera. But from there it's hard not to think about projector screens, about taking what she'd made and daring to let it blow up to the size of a wall and seeing, for once, the actual shape of her journey.

It is colorless. Almost odorless, she has to specifically look to find the faint tinge of silicon and glass. And then suddenly it is anything but colorless. Not blood, but living light, a prism with no need for outside help to split the colors. It shivers with bursts of firework light, all of the flash with none of the heat or sound. It cranes its neck and flashes rainbow waves, as though it were exalting Zeus and Poseidon in the same luxuriant motion. It flaps a wing, and in that gesture are the ideas and words of long dead or dormant civilizations Bella has no names for.

She calls it Gaia, because nothing else will stick. Her breath catches in her throat. In this moment, in spite of everything, the rest of the world slides out of view. Her feelings recede from her heart, and this time there is not even the incoherent joy of Motion to bring her outside of herself. The little creature opens its mouth, and sparks tumble out instead of sounds. She is barely aware that her face is growing warmer in response.

There is wonder, trapped inside her eye. Wonder, waging war with the sharp, predatory instinct of a beast still desperate for a name to devour. Her mouth hangs open, only slightly, showing fang. She is wary, but she is spellbound all the same. Her finger shakes almost uncontrollably as it reaches for the beast's neck. Just a little more. A little more. That's it, just one moment farther and she'll have it.

It is warm to the touch. But it's a soft and gentle heat when compared to the inferno even now threatening to devour her. It feels like a wine glass when she strokes it. Even the bumps and ridges along its surface only feel smooth, stimulating, fascinating. She strokes one fingertip down across the length of its back and all the way past its tail. When it shivers, she smiles.

A deep throated purr escapes her, but for this single moment, she's too fixated to notice it.

He waits until she is fully seated. Slowly, keeping both hands in view, at all times, he reaches for the wheels of his chair. Nudge forward. Nudge back. Turns himself, just enough to be pointed towards her side of the room. Far below the threshold of facing her. Then he is blinking at her, finding her eyes through a curtain of skulls. “I’m a Captain, now. Meals aren’t a part of my job anymore. And I think the chef who made that did quite good, for where she is.”

This might be worse? This might be worse. Those who’ve been through fire together ought to share more than names. To be fed ought to be be more than a full stomach.

“...though, if you like,” and he is watching her cautiously. Hands folded deliberately in his lap. Waiting to see how she will see him. “And you’re willing to push me to the kitchens, I could fix you something more to your taste?”

“And because of that,” Dany hoarsely whispers at Epistia, trying to simultaneously be loud enough to be heard over the noise of the room and its many conversations, laughter, and cheering for the dragon, while also not being loud enough for everyone to hear her, while also catching her breath. “We need to stop the party. Until we find Mynx. And— can you two smell her? That would be really helpful. So there’s only, if I remember, five exits from this hall? That shouldn’t be hard for the daughters of Ceron.”

When she says stop the party, she really does mean until she can find Mynx. The energy in here is almost infectious, and even though the sight of Dionysus has her on edge… isn’t this, maybe, just a little good? One great big party for everyone after everything that’s happened. Wouldn’t it be nice to stop and rest and have some drinks? To cuddle in dark corners on soft cushions and smoke whatever that violently violet vapor is? It would do Bella some good, certainly. And maybe the tightness in her shoulders that’s been there from the moment she woke up on the Plousios might melt away.

She just has to find Mynx first. That’s important. Do your work before you play, Princess Redana Claudius. You only get to stop thinking your head into aching once you’ve finished everything you were assigned. Find Mynx. Help Mynx. Then come back and ask Bella to lie down on cushions with you. Maybe let your shoulders touch. Breathe in the smoke until you get the giggles and rest your forehead against Bella and watch the languages of impossible places radiate throughout the room.

Trust Dionysus again.

Would it be so hard?

Redana!

"The shapeshifter?" said Epistia, too loud, voice heard over live music and life's motions. "What's the rush in finding her? Why do we need to stop the party? If she's here I'll call her out for you -"

She's standing up, taking a deep breath, lungs filling so that she can bellow over the noise of the party. If only there was some way to stop a pretty girl from making sounds when she was not supposed to.

Bella!

A coil of light flashes down those crystalline circuit-board scales, golden light running through those complex nodes and then up along to the wingtips. Scribe the dragon lowers his head and spreads his wings and a glittering letter written in silver glyphs forms in front of you.

From: Beljani
To: Bella

If I didn't say anything then things would very probably have continued as they always have. You'd know that I had no choice, and I'd know that you'd had no choice, and everything about our fucked up lives would have continued without acknowledgement. Whatever level we function on runs deeper than betrayal, murder, terror. Those are just part of the trade so why even bother talking about them?

Well, because, I don't want it to be that way. I know that we don't need to be close. I know that I don't owe you anything. I know that you've got your own life and stuff going on and I'm just a shitty co-worker or a distant sister. But that's not right. It's not right! I hate hurting you! I hate fighting you! Seeing you in the armour made me sick and made me terrified and made my stomach curl up with guilt even though I could argue a hundred ways that it wasn't really my fault! I tried my best to just pass you by like any of the others but trying to do that fucked me up so badly I almost killed myself writing the Master's name on your armour and...

I don't know how you feel. You've always seemed like a cool, mysterious, unstoppable badass to me. But this isn't your confession, it's mine, and mine is: I really care about you. You're the closest I have to family. I've always had a lot to lose - that was the point. But I hate being weak. I hate being so easily controlled and manipulated, I hate how nobody respects me, I hate how nobody even likes me. It's a small step from there to hating myself, and maybe that was the real leash? I don't know. But the end result is that I was stuck in a torpor for years, hating it and hating myself, and the only thing that shook me out of it was seeing that you needed help. Giving you that help was the best I've felt about myself ever, maybe. I don't know what you want from me, Bella, but I do want you to know that you can rely on me. Not because of anything you did or because of anything I'm trying to pay back or anything transactional like that. But because it helps me to have a sister I'd do anything for.

With love,
- Beljani

At the end the glyphs roll together and solidify into one of Scribe's cheek scales. The hatchling pulls it from its face with dexterous talons and places it in your hand, a little shard of crystal. Stroke it and the message displays again, glittering like a treasure.

Behind him Beljani is now standing, looking at you sidelong with the confidence only the profoundly nervous can fake.

Alexa!

"Hm," said Iskarot. "Change is impossible without destruction. I used my own destruction to reflect on many things." He shook his head. "Nevertheless. I have said my piece and you do not owe me time or courtesy. Hermes guide your travels, voyager," he said, hefting his D-Scythe and walking past you down towards the radiance of the Engine.

Dolce!

"Why are you the captain, though?" said Jil. She raised a finger, cutting you off. "Different question. Why is there a captain at all? That's an Imperial rank. That's an Imperial job. And we just left the Empire's finest terror soldiers dead on the sands of Sahar. We have definitively broken with the Empire. The Clans are organizing to turn the Anemoi into a parliamentary democracy, so what I want to know is what the fuck's going on with this ship that's just sleepwalking into maintaining autocratic institutions despite having murdered the shit out of autocracy's finest."

As she's been speaking, she's been wheeling you down towards the kitchen. At this she hops up onto the back of the wheelchair as it continues to roll so that she can look at you upside-down, the skull-beads from her hat jingling as they hang down below her.

"Especially because I've never seen a sadder autocrat than you," she said. "Say what you will about the Kaeri, they fucking loved being in charge. If you met one in a dark corridor then she'd fucking murder you and it'd make her day. She'd be whistling about it afterwards. She'd be so stoked that she'd make your bones into furniture so she could remember the moment. And then here's you, some sort of servant caste, very obviously having a mental breakdown trying to do a job that was designed for human beings or their pet monsters, so what the fuck?"

Redana, frantic, subconscious running faster than her thoughts, pushes Epistia back, clamps one hand over her mouth. “Wait,” she says. “Not like— if you just yell for her she’ll—“

But it’s too late. She’s made a mistake. She can’t de-escalate now that she’s wrestling with a Ceronian. A thousand generations howl through Epistia’s veins, all daring her to rise to the challenge and end up on top. She grabs for Dany and the two of them stumble into a pillowed alcove and there is a confusion of limbs, growling, and muffled yelps.

But it ends with Dany straddling Epistia, wrists pinned over her head, mouth stuffed and wrapped tightly with regal black and gold, and a shuddery blushy Dany trying to look somewhere that’s not the Ceronian’s pretty gagged face or her heaving chest (damn to the shining waves that Party Top). Every attempt by Epistia to wrench her wrists out of Dany’s hands, every twist of her torso under Dany, every garbled word through the spacer’s cloth, they’re just making the color rise to her cheeks all the faster.

“See,” Dany says, and tightens the grip of her knees. “If you— she— she thinks she’s hiding— and—“ Epistia bucks and makes a glareful noise and Dany nearly combusts. “The Coherent, she, and vines, and…”

And imagine Bella in her place. Straining, bucking, silenced, moaning, free to be touched, batting her yellow-and-red eyes and mumbling an invitation…

Dany makes the tactical error of letting go of Epistia’s wrists so that she can bury her confused silly head in her hands and make a noise like a tea kettle.

She'd read a book about snowflakes, once. It was Redana's book, one of her school things left carelessly out when she'd decided she was done with studying and couldn't be bothered to think about who would have to clean up after her decisions later. It wasn't even a textbook as she'd come to know them, more a collection of poetry that claimed to be from the ancient world and talked about the wonders that had long since vanished from the galaxy.

She'd been behind on her chores that night. But the way the light hit that paper, she hadn't been able to help herself.

A tiny thing, a fleeting thing. A cold, precious, beautiful thing that lands on your outstretched palm and glitters in the light before your passion turns it into... she can't remember how it goes. And this scale is hardly cold like the words said it should be. It wasn't melting or vanishing in her hand. It wasn't fleeting at all, this smooth and brilliant thing. But even still it calls this word to mind, from out of the depths of her memory. For the first time, she has a picture to go with the idea. And even though she'll never see one, with this she's sure she never needs to.

...What a day for treasures.

Bella's eyes narrow as she folds her palm closed over the scale. She pulls her hand away from the strange computer creature, to a neon flash of protest. Her spine straightens, her shoulders lift, her neck stretches. In contrast to Beljani, she looks directly forward; focused and intense in a way that either means she is deeply touched or deeply offended with no space for feelings in between. Her expression is stony and severe: lips only barely pursed and parted with her jaw set firm. Her eyes gleam in murderous red and gold.

She lifts her hand, still closed around the scale, up to shoulder height. She squeezes the little treasure tight, and it grows warm inside her tightly curled palm. It is warm and smooth, and the light it gives off is just strong enough to give off a faint glow that just barely breaks through her skin. And it does not disappear. She turns suddenly, and spits.

"I", she says with the graveled voice of a huntress, "Am going to find Mynx."

Her hand lowers. She lets it drop limp down to her hips, though she keeps that fist clenched tight. Her tail flicks behind her as she walks, and her sandaled feet make soft tak-tak-tak noises with every step. Tak-tak-tak, the foot meeting the cold metal floor. Pressing down, springing off, the sandal following foot a split second after. Tak-tak-tak. She sways her hips. She tenses her legs into things of steel. Power, purpose, drive. The invincible assassin with no time or patience for feelings. Tak-tak-tak. She approaches. Her will is iron. Her gaze is distant.

"I am going to save Mynx," her voice has gone so quiet now that it's as if she's speaking on the Anemoi, I don't give a single worthless fuck what it costs me."

She is close now. Close enough to smell the person under the pheremone and discern the sting of nervousness smothering her. The slight twitch her arm trying to reach forward for her "sister" only to think better of it. But too late, and too far back. Beljani's entire body is draining of heat as quickly and surely as though she'd been cut in half on the spot. Bella snorts.

"And you." she says. Her voice trembles worse than her fingers around the scale.

It is the speed of an attack that cannot be guarded against. No amount of training, self discovery, or improvement could prepare her for the strike of a Diodekoi in the full might of her element. Bella's arms are vices around Beljani, and they squeeze tight enough to trap her in place forever. All she's got left is the use of her forearms. Just enough, if she tries, to return the hug.

"And I want you to help me. Sister."

Bella's voice gives way to tears. Warm, wet relief stains her face. A hundred nights or more spent worrying, spent wondering, spent hating herself for hoping. For feeling the connection and never knowing how to hold onto it. And even now, she knows she doesn't deserve it. The rooftop on Salib was the best that she was capable of, and all it had resulted in was a not quite lethal mauling. Crushing one sister to try and save another. The last left broken and forgotten, and in the end she'd collapsed anyway and delivered them all into the hands of the Master.

Self loathing didn't begin to cover it. Of course that was the real shape of the leash, you idiot. But here you, but here you, but here you..!

Bella shakes, and holds onto her temple sister firm enough to keep her here even if she melted into mist and tried to float away on the air. Family. Family. The only ones who understood what it meant to be herself. They walked a path just one step to the side of hers, and that's why she can't push these feelings away. If she deserves it or not, it's beyond her power to turn it away.

It's fine to be selfish, isn't it? It's fine to take, and take, and take until she can't even stand. It's fine to hope. To hope for at least one more impossible thing, and not deserve it. It must be. It has to be. Or the snowflake would have melted in her hand. Right?

"Wait!--"

Alexa pauses, one hand raised, and lets it fall with a sigh.

"Look, I--"

Zeus's tits, what an idiot she is. Could have let it sit, it's settled, no awkward conversation, but nooo.

"I hurt a lot of people, back in the day. I am still trying to make up for it by being better. Genuinely, I am happy you're changing, and it is for the better.

"But remember--change is destructive, but destruction doesn'tt always mean change. I spent two hundred years hating myself for the mistakes I made, telling myself that only my death could pay for the wrongs I'd done.

"And it didn't help. It wasn't until I found friends that I was able to forgive myself.

"I'm not sure where your path leads. And I'm not sure I can be one of the people who helps you. But… Just. Don't make my mistake, okay?"

“Well. It’s not only an imperial title.” Ah. Were his sinking spirits that obvious? Not good. The job is his. Even if he’s the one who chose it. You can’t have a broken heart where a Captain should be. And while the thought spirals deep into a corner of his mind to gnaw and work at a mask that might pass muster, a mouse who belongs to another ship entirely wheels him to the kitchen to fix a snack. So he continues. “The Starsong carry the same title on their ships, but it’s not quite the same job. It’s…” He wrinkles his nose thoughtfully. “Imperial Captains are appointed to their positions by those higher ranking than them, and, as I understand it, are responsible for maintaining the obedience of their crews. Starsong Captains are chosen, by the crews themselves, and are responsible for maintaining the well-being of the crew, the Starsong, and whatever planet they land on. Not necessarily in that order, but all of them are important. Imperial Captains must work above their crews. Starsong Captains must work with their crews.”

“It’s a good system. I liked it, when I was a part of it. It’s what we had when we first started on this voyage, though there were only a small handful of us. Then we took on the Hermetics, the Coherent, the Alcedi. Our Captain, she had to step down, for personal reasons. I thought I could be Captain in her place. Like the ones I’d served under. But here, all anybody knows is the Imperial way of doing things. They know how that works. They know where they fit there. And, I think…”

He’s not speaking of anyone in particular. Nobody is listening in. Nobody is anywhere close to listening in. His voice drops to a whisper all the same. “I think when I’ve tried to change that, they see that vanishing. They feel the ground dropping out beneath them.” Like a little chef, taking his first, terrifying steps out of the Manor. “After Salib…what room is there for change? When everyone’s so, so…”

Shaken? Hurt? Almost certainly. Almost. Because it’s conjecture, isn’t it? A best guess, gleaned from stacks and stacks of casualty reports, requests for offerings for rites of remembrance. Snippets of conversation, half-heard, and cut off once he was seen. A feeling in the air, that might just be his own weary heart, for all he knew.

“...in any case, Imperial is what the crew expects. If I’m to work with them, I need to at least speak it well enough to hold a conversation.”

Redana!

The ancients wove many secrets into the genetic structure of the Warriors of Ceron. Honour was not one of them.

She is up and rushing in your moment of weakness. She slams you into the wall behind you, hard enough to drive the breath from your body. She is pulling the gag from her mouth and stuffing it into yours, still wet with her saliva and warm with her breath.

"So it's a stealth mission, is it?" the wolf princess' voice dips into a growl just as her fang touches your ear, dangerous for all the wrong reasons. "You insult my discretion while you are dressed like this?" Talons reach under your collar and rip open your jacket, buttons clattering against the floor. "You stand out like a firebrand, Princess. Everyone knows your name. Everyone knows your face. Everyone knows how you dress." More clothes fall to the floor. "Good thing you came to me. I know exactly how to render you incognito..."

A few hot and squirming minutes later and you stagger out of the alcove. Your flight jacket, traveling leathers and dignity are all gone. Your hair is unbound and is falling in a common cascade; your face is hidden behind a veil made of shifting liquid mirrors, and the only clothes that remain to you are revealing undergarments and gauzy silks.

"There you go," said Epistia, swatting you affectionately on the behind while grinning a wolf's smile. "Now you're all dressed up for your stealth mission, princess~."

It'd be one thing if you fit right in, but you don't. Even by this party's standards you are under-dressed and getting looks.

But at least they're not looking at your face.

Bella!

Beljani's power is invasive, insidious, corrupting. Reaching inside people until the parts of them that matter are parts of her. Changing them so they'd do anything for her. She is used to people loving her, but she's not used to them having a choice in the matter. Even Epistia was the result of chance and broken biology, but this...

She's crying because she never knew that it could be different. Never thought that so small a change could make a galaxy of difference.

"To the ends of the galaxy, Bella," said Beljani. "I am with you until the end."

Alexa!

It was always difficult reading the body language of the Order of Hermes' Magi. Ensconced within their thick, rubberized robes, faces concealed by darkening mesh, and unknown numbers of limbs moving beneath meant that the only information that emerged from the depths was that which they chose to give.

Eventually, though, something emerged from the depths of his sleeves. Two aged hands, the fur running thin, covered with the burn scars of an enginesmith's trade. They point at you and - pow pow! Fingerguns. Before you've finished processing that he's stepped backwards into a decking vent and plummeted down into a distant level.

Sometimes even wizards can be dorks.

*

You know more than a little about the capabilities of the Assassins, and what happens to them when they go Rampant. You saw the monster that the Master became, and she was not the first that had been sent to kill Molech.

As you have heard it, Rampancy is a biological failure cascade. Genetic alchemy runs riot inside the body of the assassin during periods of maximum stress, empowering them to align fully with one of Artemis' bloody handed aspects before their bodies collapse into ruined and burned-out husks. Or worse. The original design saw assassins that could generate a plasma bomb explosion inside their own bodies, and centuries of twisted innovation in the Temples built atop that original hateful impulse.

Even if Bella and Redana capture Mynx, even if they talk to her and calm her, the possibility exists that she is progressing down the road to her terminal acts of violence. What you need to find in this moment, more than Mynx, is someone who might cure her. Do you know anyone who might be able to help you?

If not, the only people who you might turn to are the imprisoned Biomancers of the Kaeri. That is a dark path indeed. They are monsters even by the standards of their kind.

Dolce!

"Uh, guy?" Jil snap-snaps her fingers in your face. "You waxed lyrical about how everyone in the Starsong votes on their captain and how great that is, and then you talked about how you inherited the title from the previous captain, who was also not voted upon, and asserted your authority based on proximity to the throne, and now you're sad that everyone's treating you like an Imperial captain. Gosh wow gee, I guess we'd better summon the Sphinx's ghost because there's no way we could possibly unravel this riddle."

She acrobatically flips back around onto her feet and pushes you into the kitchen. "Why the fuck would anyone buy into the whatever this is? As far as I can tell the major motivating factor around here is cashing out with imperial titles and ranks whenever Redana kills her mom and becomes new king of space. I mean, isn't that what she offered you? The Starsong are pirates so presumably you're in it for the cash money like the rest of them, right?"

Redana’s first instinct is mortification. People are staring at her, and not at her face. Not at her face at all. Her outfit seems to consist mostly of triangles, and translucent sleeves that just bring attention back to the triangles. She’s practically naked from behind. She reaches up, into her hair, looking for the knot holding the kerchief over her mouth…

And then she lowers it, slowly. Epistia’s smart (and smells good) (and her mouth tastes good). She’s… she’s right. Maybe even Mynx wouldn’t recognize her in this disguise. Nothing to give her away, not even her voice.

The Eye of Hermes shows her a hunched-over, blushing girl with PRINCESS emblazoned over her head, and then WOMAN OF MYSTERY over a confident, hip-shaking, strutting… woman. The Eye of this woman flashes, as if to remind her— as if to remind her that it can scan the room. It just needs the Woman of Mystery to give it time to work.

R’dyna? Rhythalla? Reshella?

Reshella lifts her veiled chin and tries swaying her hips. Her heart is beating so fast, and skips a beat when someone cheers for her. She takes a step, then another, then another, and it takes more discipline than— than the likes of Princess Redana, who is very different from Reshella, might use to push herself past her limits when straining for an Olympic gold. Reshella is very brave and she likes it when people stare at her body, at the triangles, at the way she moves, like the way she imagined Bella might, dreaming of space pirates and damsels in distress and kisses from girls with triangles for ears.

Reshella bites down on the sodden mass between her teeth and shivers in feelings that it would be very inappropriate for an Imperial Princess to have. Nobody knows that she’s gagged. They might wonder to themselves, as she flits from person to person, offering them the chance to ogle, and even— R-Reshella is brave and okay with being groped, actually, because she’s secretly a spy and that gives her the time she needs for her very special eye to do its work. You can’t see her red cheeks behind her glittering Dionysian veil and her hair is down over her ears and in this light nobody can tell that the blood’s rushing to her breastbone, too, even though all of it is on full display. In the smoky light of the party her eyes are colorless and sultry.

No, no, no, no— again and again the Eye tells her, tells Reshella, that the assassin she’s looking for, that she’s playing a game of disguise against, isn’t where she’s looking. But Reshella is willing to do whatever it takes to win this game. Whatever it takes.

Someone tugs on her wrist, and Reshella is pulled onto a table. Instructions and suggestions are excitedly thrown at her from all sides. But that’s okay. Reshella remembers these scenes. She’s confident and sexy and she’s not going to compromise her mission. She lifts her hands over her head, shakes her hips, rolls her stomach. She’s not tall and she’s not busty and she’s not graceful, but she knows what this is supposed to look like. She stands on tiptoe, slowly rotates around the table, someone is beating a tambourine on the off-beats of the bass, and dancing is just like running, isn’t it? It’s about control of her body, but instead of optimizing for speed, or for strength, she’s optimizing for…

For everyone looking at her. Wanting her. She’s not Princess Redana, who would be covering herself up frantically. She is Reshella, dancing-girl, party entertainment, mysterious in her silence, as fearless as Skotia, and maybe, just maybe, it would be acceptable for Reshella to be wanted in ways that Redana could never be.

A Ceronian waves her over from the table, grinds against her, whispers in her ear that she smells like Epistia. Let him add something, if she will? And Reshella doesn’t say no, she just nods, because what if she’d have to explain herself? And letting him know she’s gagged would just cause more questions, and it feels so good to say yes, doesn’t it? (It does.)

And the Ceronian pulls the belled collar around Reshella’s neck and locks it behind her throat and she is complete. She thanks him by stroking up his jaw and wiggling free, jingling as she continues to prance from knot to knot, almost forgetting why she’s here, because it’s snug around her neck and the bells are so soothing and it’s almost like Reshella is back on Tellus with Bella, except Reshella isn’t a princess, so perhaps there could have been… perhaps they could have shared the bells, at the very least.

And it’s like this, sultry, jingling, sexy, desired, and caught up in the waking dream of the party, that Reshella suddenly comes face to face with the two people who she knows can’t possibly be the Assassin she’s looking for, because they’re the other two Assassins.

And there she is in triangles and bells, smelling like Ceronians, completely unable to explain herself.

“Excuse me.”

He frowns. The snapping still rings loud in his ears.

“I don’t know where you got your information from, but they must have been mistaken. Our last Captain stepped down in the midst of the Alcedi contest of ritual combat for the Captain’s chair. I entered as one of the competitors, and…”

Come to think of it, he didn’t actually fight any ritual combat. Of course he didn’t. That would’ve meant disaster for sure. How could he possibly fight entire warbands? How could he win? What had he done instead?

“...and I asserted that they had no legal right to fight me, as I was the duly appointed Captain, and they hadn’t made the proper offerings to clarify their intent to Artemis. Then, yes, that bought me enough time until the incident on the bridge, where I…saved the ship by asserting that right again. Hrm.”

He quietly removes the ornate Captain’s hat. Runs a shaking finger on the edge of the intricate badge of office.

“My apologies. I, everything happened so quickly, I’d forgotten how exactly it happened. I thought saving the ship was what convinced the crew I was suitable for the job, but you’re absolutely right. I just took the job as it’d been offered, and held on long enough for everyone to accept it. I didn’t think…” Not quite true. He was thinking. He’d done an awful lot of thinking. Just never quite in this direction.

“It was by a vote, at the start, since there were only the four of us. I didn’t want it. Alexa didn’t want it. The Princess wanted to be Champion. Vasilia offered, and we agreed. But how was anybody else to know that? Galnius and their defectors, the Secretary from the Eater of Worlds, the Hermetics, the Coherent, the Alcedi, they all came on later. All they’d know is that I’d claimed authority from the previous Captain. Then we were straight to Endless Azure Skies, and - well, you were there for the rest of it.”

The rest of it. A desperate flight. A hard decision. The horrors of war. There is quiet enough for both of them to remember, before he speaks again.

“But you are wrong about the Princess. She’s on this journey because she doesn’t want to kill her mother. I don’t think she’d say it as such, but it’s the entire reason she’s chosen this journey. She wants a free world. A world where the stars are open to all, however they want to see them. She won’t get that, so long as Nero holds the throne. Nor will she get it if she wins that throne in a bloody revolution.” No one would forget that her reign was bought by blood. No one would forget the lesson, that Empresses weren’t as immortal as they seemed. Besides, the princess who could drive a spear through her mother’s chest couldn’t also cling to her beautiful dreams.

“So here we are, on a journey to Gaia, on a gamble from Hades, with a wish as the prize if we should succeed where a few hundred crews before us have failed. The one way to get what she wants, without driving a spear through Nero’s heart.”

He gives a little huff. “Can you imagine, picking this, just to get rich?”

It's not a stretch to say the Kaeri are monsters.

She's been aboard the Anemoi. Seen, in the cramped, dark quarters, the ghastly furniture. Has seen, only barely, the Lanterns taking them apart, recovering fathers and aunts, sisters and children, giving them the rest denied by their murderers. To be seen is to face cruel death, just for the pleasure of killing.

And that, just from a regular rank and file member. More terrifying still are the genetic engineers who made them, who pushed for that perfection, who looked for a design that could revel in efficient death and silent cruelty and seek to improve on it.

There must be another way. Surely, there is. Someone among the Hermetics who could help. A Coherent who knows a guy who knows a guy.

And if she had time, she'd chase them down, and find them. If the fuse weren't lit, she could relish the luxury of the best option. If Mynx's time weren't counting down, if she could believe that Mynx wouldn't light the ship ablaze in the pyre of her Rampancy, she wouldn't be down here, talking to the Evocati, and feeling only glad that the Kaeri were not allowed to pillage their furniture from the Anemoi.

"I don't want to lose my friend. You don't want this ship to burn. We have a shared goal in this."

The first sound she hears is a dull clunk: an awkward and atonal thing that's as far from beauty as this rusted, dying crapsack of a ship is from the heart of the Empire. It's a stunted noise, nothing more than a tiny bit of rubber striking a piece of pinched metal. It is the sound of a dancer catching her foot on a scrap of silk and falling on her face. One brief moment of attempted beauty cut down at the knees by poor execution.

But it bends her ear all the same. Bella half turns her head to put sight to the ugly noise. And she sees the bell flick loose from the collar it got caught in. The sudden symphony of chimes puts her heart straight into her throat. Her ears flutter stupidly with each new jingle. Her fingers squeeze Beljani's hand hard enough to turn it into dust; the only way she has to acknowledge the two moments pinching her together in their vice at the same time.

There are three bells, two small and one larger than any that she'd worn in her time. They have their own distinctive tones and pitches, high and clear or low and soothing, and when they blend together it sends the kind of tremble down her spine that pulls her foot around with her consent and moves her a full step closer. The call of them. The smell of silver and leather and silk. The smell of sweat and brine and nervousness. The feeling of organs crawling around inside her.

"What... the fuck?"

Bella's eyes seek the floor, instinctively searching out protection. She tries to pull her head away to search for the spiral and save herself in the depths of the hunt, but gold and silver paths both are hidden under clouds of cigarette smoke. The party falls away as if the whole of the Plousios was toppling over and crumbling into a great bottomless pit that leaves only this tiny, smoking platform left to stand on. The only important place in the universe.

So looking to the floor only helps her see the pair of dainty bare feet begging for attention and painted toes. When she retreats, muscular calves and thighs expertly not covered by triangles of diaphanous silk are the only road she has to run on. Up the thighs, and between, to the colors held there. Soft blues, purples, and golds that make her body melt and freeze at the exact same time.

Her breath hitches. The Auspex traitorously records every bare millimeter of Redana's body. The twitching of her abs as she sways and rolls, the princess not quite able to stop herself even as the reality of her situation catches up to her. Nervousness and confidence circle each other like twin hawks, and between them drops of sweat trickle down her royal skin in patterns that make Bella's tongue press itself against the backs of her tightly clenched teeth.

Dizzy. Hot. Her body sways in mirror to Redana's. She only barely remembers to let go of Beljani before her feet carry her forward again in a daze. Her face must be crimson just now. Fuck it. Just... fuck it. Her eyes travel up, over the soft and tiny breasts that haunted every dark, lonely night and terrified her at every bath and oil massage. Her tongue is turned to lead. Her mind along with it. She sniffs, and there's not a smell in the room that is even the slightest bit tolerable, let alone appealing. But she drinks deep of them like a woman dying of thirst, deeper, deeper, deeper. It is the most beautiful thing in the galaxy.

Up, up. Past the perfect collarbones, to the collar with the beautiful bells. To the bouncing, dangling silk that covers the neck. Up. To the face. To the eyes. Mismatched, just like hers. Staring, just like hers. Gems. Stars. A universe worth of treasure, locked all on her.

She steps forward. Closer. Closer. Again. Tiny steps that use her entire body, send the motion through her hips and waist and arms as if to show her princess an example. Like this, you moron. To set someone's heart on fire, you move like this.

The tip of her tail brushes Redana's stomach and across her waist as she passes. Anything more would have been impossible even if she wanted it. But on this day of treasures and miracles, this might stand as the sweetest of them. Bella's face betrays equal parts embarrassment and confusion, but her body is heat, power, and confidence. She steps forward again, farther away this time, and stops.

She runs her fingers over the scale in her palm, and plants her feet on the ground. It's her, between the princess and the party. No entry without permission. Bella sniffles once, barely audible. Just a leftover reflex from a moment before. The joy of gaining a sister. Nothing more.

She is being greedy enough already.

The Party!

The music is anarchic, communal. Anyone can join their voice or instrument to the beat, and anyone can leave. The music changes moment to moment as people flow into and out of it, the skills and responsibilities distributed. This is not a place where all gather to watch a single specialist work their trade; it is emergent, organic, communal.

The Alcedi have their drums, deep and pounding like crashing waves. The booming, echoing backbeat of all the other sounds, the rhythm that controls every other breath. They fall into and out of playing as their strength demands, falling exhausted and sweat-soaked away from their instruments so another might take up the sticks and keep the ocean crashing. In counterpoint to the uniting, warlike power of their sound the Coherent wield a diversity of sounds, instruments picked up from every corner of the galaxy and mastered using unique combinations of limbs and lungs. Oftentimes they echo the voices of the singers - the songs share easily. The Coherent have work and formation shanties which have simple, compatible rhythms with Alcedi rowing songs. The drunken choir booms out in time and in different languages, the words of the songs falling in tangled embrace, flowing into each other. A new pidgin language is already emerging as the songs hybridize along with the music. The sound has a logic of its own, and way is given to which words fit the rhyme or rhythm regardless of their origin.

Alexa!

Oh, there are monsters, and there are monsters, and there are monsters...

The Biomancer offers his hand to shake through the bars of the cell. Ramrod straight back. Broad shoulders. Big smile. His clothing the shape of a rectangle run through with jagged triangles, like teeth in a beak. He radiates respectability. Dignity. Intelligence. A sort of natural, easy, respectability. This is someone who will listen to reason. This is someone who will follow directions. This is someone you can trust to hold up their end of a bargain. This is someone who stands adjacent to power, real power, and knows how to be useful to it.

Biomancy is the secret art of humanity, the greatest and most terrible of their masteries. Through biomancy new species can be designed to specification. Life can be made to grow slow or fast, languages made to come easily or only after great pain and struggle, pain and pleasure made to mean different things. To a Biomancer, empathy is a switch to be flipped at a species level. Social instincts can be extracted, distilled, purified. Phobias can be added, ancestral terrors placed into minds to make the shining sun seem as paralyzingly horrific as the gaze of a cat. All this and more, blending human and animal until only the most useful parts of each remained.

"Katraph Sanchez, at your service," said the Kaeri Biomancer with an accent like a city flash-built on a savannah. "We were waiting for your call. Of course we're delighted to help, anything you need. We can begin immediately. Has our laboratory been damaged?"

Dolce!

"Wait, the Eater of Worlds?" said Jil. "And - Gaia? That's not a joke, you're actually looking for Gaia? I thought that was an incredibly obvious lie. Like, you're looking for Ceron, right? The place with the all-conquering army? You're - you're serious about this, you're actually getting a wish, like an 'anything you want' wish?"

That's a lot of information. She chews it over for a moment, but then sets it aside - it's too big to think through. There's a more direct thing to focus on, and she's never allowed big concepts to distract her.

"But to your question, yes. Fuck yes, I'd do this to get rich, and fuck you for thinking I wouldn't. Where I come from I could get murdered for breathing too loud, and my bones made into a chandelier. I've stepped over a lot of bodies and I'd step over a lot more to make sure that the clans can have plenty and safety, and I don't give a single fuck about preserving Nero or anyone else if they stand between me and that."

Her fists are clenched in determination and her jaw set, before she wavers and says less confidently, "Besides, how far away could the end be? The Rift is coming up soon so we must be getting close to Gaia. There's just not that much galaxy left, and we've already killed everyone coming to stop us. This is the end of the journey, right?"

”Do you want to try being the hero this time?”

Bella pauses. The tiara glitters on her head, framing her ears perfectly. She doesn’t look away from the mirror; she is calm, composed, everything that her sweaty, overtuned princess isn’t. It’s just that the thought hasn’t left Dany alone since she had it earlier, and it’s been rattling around inside her chest looking for a way out. Maybe it would be nice to be saved by Princess Stellabrande for once. She could even pretend to be tied up and everything. She’d do such a good job at it, and doesn’t it feel nice to be the hero? And Bella’s such a good girl, and it would probably make her feel big and strong and not scared of anything.

It’s just that. This has to be wrong, somehow. Because if it wasn’t wrong, why would she be so nervous? She feels like she’s sitting and waiting to hear how she did on an exam, when the tension is unbearable, her stomach folding in on itself as seconds stretch out into eternity. But if Bella likes it maybe it will be okay. And they can try it. And maybe it will be fun.

Maybe it will even be better than the other way around.

“If you want me to,” Bella says, and her voice is bright but Dany can tell that she’s hesitating, and her eyes slide down from the mirror and rest on the floor, meekly, and then it comes out from between her lips anyway and it’s terrible even though it sounds so casual, it drops on Dany’s head like a lead tablet. “…have I made the game too boring? You’ve never asked me this before.”

“What? No! That’s— why would I get bored of that?” Panic. See? This is why this was a bad idea, Dany! Did you hear that? She’s hurt. You asked it even knowing that it was wrong and bad and this is what your stomach was trying to warn you about. “I just thought— no, it’s a stupid idea.” Bella blinks at her reflection and her lips part for a moment, then close again. “You’ll always be my Stellabrande,” Dany continues, agh, was that too much? Redana and Stellabrande was starting to get awkward now that Stellabrande was… curvier, and now that Redana knew that sleeping together didn’t mean just a nap.

“Always,” Bella says, perfect as a princess, serene and flawless and beautiful, her hand trembling in her lap.

---

”What’s this?” Stellabrande hooks one finger under Reshella’s collar, slowly but firmly pulling her closer. Her gaze is hungry, like that of a warrior-princess of Salib. “What’s your name, pretty little thing?”

Reshella flushes, blood pounding in her ears, and says nothing. She can’t. She would sound ridiculous if she tried. Her eyes dart around, trying to find some safe place to rest that isn’t the beautiful, commanding princess in front of her.

Stellabrande slips one thumb underneath Reshella’s mirrored veil, and Reshella stiffens, but keeps her hands obediently by her sides. She can’t stop herself from squeezing her eyes shut when that thumb reaches the gag, though. She’s only so strong. The thumb stops, then slowly, ever-so-softly, presses more firmly.

“Hmmm~” Stellabrande’s voice is intoxicating, a private vintage poured out for the two of them, inaudible to anyone else over the pounding of the drums. “Cat got your tongue, Beautiful pretty little thing?” Reshella doesn’t dare open her eyes. She can feel Stellabrande leaning in closer, her hot breath on her mirrored veil, the tang of re-appropriated Saliban wine. “Don’t worry,” Stellabrande teases. “I’ll keep you safe from those nasty wolves, Redana Reshella.”

And then Stellabrande tugs on the collar, and Reshella is forced to prance forward into her embrace. Those hands— those claws that could tear through a Plover— are gentle on Reshella’s bare skin, tracing sigils from languages that Reshella isn’t expected to try to learn on her back, because Stellabrande is clever and refined and powerful and safe, gods above, she’s safe, she’s safe, she’ll protect Reshella from everyone except herself, because Reshella wants her to take liberties, wants to be touched, wants to be wanted, wants to be pressed against that lovely chest and shaken so that her bangles jingle and her veil smells like Stellabrande, and she wants to be kidnapped and put into peril but Stellabrande will come to save her at the eleventh hour and she’ll be straining against her bonds and uselessly trying to warn Stellabrande against threats and maybe her frantic grunts will really warn Stellabrande and she’ll be untied from the slowly-lowering crane before she ends up outside the hangar, where the Nethermost Eels writhe and gnash their teeth, waiting for the sacrifice of a maiden to sate their appetites, and maybe Stellabrande will knock the villain out of the hangar instead, and she’ll scoop Reshella up and say something clever or flirtatious that makes her blush and whine, and then she’ll ungag her, tilt Reshella’s head up, and they’ll kiss, and, and, and…

---

…and it’s stupid, because Bella likes Beautiful. Like likes. Dany’s just trouble, all the time. She dragged Bella out here in the first place, she left Bella behind again and again, she kissed her and Bella hated it and now she’s playing at being a spy instead of…

But it’s not her fault! It’s… Epistia thought it was a good idea! And Princess Redana is, she listens to people, and if it means they’ll find Mynx, then it was worth it and it’ll be okay for Dany to fondly remember the way Bella moved, that perfect sway, and the tail carelessly dragging against her skin and Dany didn’t touch, she didn’t dare touch, it’s not Reshella’s place to be grasping at guests’ tails, but her heart is thundering in her chest, and when did Bella end up like this? So, so powerful, so commanding, so—

So flustering.

Mission, Dany. Focus on the mission. You can’t be selfish and Bella isn’t yours to be selfish over. You want her to be happy. Even if that’s with Beautiful, you want her to be happy. And if Mynx ends up hurt because you’re busy having selfish possessive thoughts about Bella tossing you over her shoulder and thanking Epistia and the other girl for the party gift and then taking you to her quarters and tying your wrists above your head so she can take her sweet time unwrapping you bit by bit but she’ll leave your mouth for last and—

Deep breaths.

Reshella prances out from behind Bella. Her lashes flutter, and she dramatically winks at Bella, twice. Do you see it, mila— ma’am? The Auspex? That’s her plan. She’s using her charms to be invisible. She crooks one finger at Bella, a seductive, please let it be seductive come-hither, then sways, sashays, does what she just saw Bella do as hard as she can, leading her to the side of the party she hasn’t covered.

Come on, Bella. Follow Reshella. Be ready to use your strength to save Mynx. And if it helps Reshella blend in, if it keeps you following her, then maybe it’s all right for her to linger in delicate poses, or to swish her rump from side to side, or to toss her hair and for a moment glance back at you with her green eye. Maybe it’s all right for her to be your Stellabrande today.

And if Mynx lashes out, if there’s a fight, then it’ll be Reshella who’s in peril. Not you. Not anyone else here. It’s Reshella’s job to be the one grabbed, threatened, dangled, because she couldn’t possibly risk you if the tables were turned, but… but you can risk her, right, Bella? What you did on Salib for Skotia was for someone that you didn’t think was…

You can save Mynx. Redana couldn’t. That’s why you deserve to be the hero, and Reshella is pretty and putting herself at risk and ready to step away when the adventure is over and let you be with Her. So keep staring, Bella. Keep staring, because Beautiful said to Redana that it was awful for you when you don’t. And please don’t mind if Reshella occasionally, as often as she can without breaking her cover, stares back at you and…

and wishes things were different.

and yearns.

and appreciates the story while she gets to be in it.

This is not a place of pleasure.

She has to keep reminding herself as she crosses the party. She is here to do a job and if she lets even one extra thing into her heart she's going to wind up breaking all of them into pieces. She is here to find Mynx. Put right just one of the hundreds of things she's done wrong. Any more distractions can only hurt her, can only cost her everything she's trying to protect.

But. The drumbeats pound thunder inside of her bones. Echoes ache in her lungs, pull at her brain, rattle through her body until she can't possibly help but adjust her steps to follow the rhythm.

But. The smoke lives inside her lungs now. Bella is trained against the corrupting influence of Oratus pheromones, but she has no defense against drugs fit only for hedonism. This is a haze of celebration made to enhance the pleasures the victim is already feeling. Evil. It could even be one of Mynx's poisons, she doesn't know. She doesn't care. She can't care. The taste on her tongue is sweeter than flower wine, her arms pulse after every heartbeat with a fresh surge of power in relaxation in intoxicating tandem. Every flick of her tail behind her tingles with strange warmth that demands she touch something soft so she can spread it.

But. Her eyes are filled with the sight of Redana. Redana, in her silks. Redana, with her softly singing bells that Bella's ears insist on hearing overtop the chaotic music. Redana, swaying her hips with the sultry confidence of a temptress. What happened? Where did that awkward little princess go? The sight of her bare back pulls Bella helplessly forward with every ripple of those Olympian muscles. She would follow this plan of the Princess' whether she agreed with it or not.

The smell of her. Lust and nerve and determination painted over perfumes of several warriors of Ceron. Bella grimaces, and her claws stretch in warning as she glides silently behind her prancing princess. She forces herself closer, and closer still, pushing through the crowd until their bodies are near enough that the wrong step will send them tumbling into each other.

The wrong step happens over and over again. Bella's hands are gentle on Redana's soft skin. Wrapping around her shoulders, stealing touches, stealing squeezes, stealing precious seconds of contact under the guise of putting the silly girl back on her feet with a tiny growl of admonition to go with each. This little act of theirs is pathetic. If Mynx were her usual self she'd fall out of hiding just to roll on the floor laughing at the pair of them. Just fuck already, she'd say if the two of them were alone on the Anemoi. And then her scales would ripple in her equivalent of a blush she wouldn't be able to hide in the time it would take her to say she was kidding, she was just joking, gods, Bella.

What the fuck was she thinking? This is not a place of pleasure.

Mynx isn't her usual self. Only an idiot didn't know what Rampancy looked like, and what cure was anything she had to offer against that? All she can do is offer her neck in penance, and even that would only push her further down into ruin. She needed a miracle far beyond forgiveness to fix a single fucking thing.

And Redana... doesn't say a thing about Bella's touch. All she does is look away, adjust her veil, and return to her search. Those little glances back are reprimands, checks to make sure the former handmaiden is sticking to the plan. And she knows this with certainty, because every time, Redana steps away. Every time, she chooses to be a hero.

Instead of Bella's. A lifetime's worth of dreaming and hinting and carefully worded questioning with nothing to show for it should have been enough to teach her that. How was she supposed to overcome that? How many times was she going to forget she had nothing to offer a woman who could snap her fingers and have anyone in the galaxy she desired, whenever she wanted? What was she supposed to say to compete with that? I love you?

Ridiculous.

The true form of the toxin reveals itself. Pleasure turns to paranoia. Ease turns into unbearable tension. Bella sniffs deeply and loudly, trying to find a scent, literally any scent, that isn't Redana's. But there are none, apparently, in the entire room of full of Bacchanalia. Her claws strain at the end of her fingers. Mynx is coming. And Bella still can't find her.

She needs Redana for that, too.

“Jil…”

They’ve stopped. The kitchens, for a ship like this, are enormous, numerous, and perhaps the only place on the ship that sees regular cleaning. The Manor staff twice over couldn’t hope to fill the one they’ve stopped in. Now, it’s occupants only number two. They have a whole island, just for the two of them. More than enough space to fix a proper meal, in private, where they won’t be disturbed. Where no one will wonder why the Captain lays his hand so gently over her white-knuckled grip.

“...we’ve still got half a galaxy to go.”

He squeezes, once.

“Could you fetch me that pan? Second from the right, medium size. Would you like something savory, or sweet?”

He’ll need a little more of her help, as it turns out. Half of everything’s out of reach, wheelchairs move too slowly to prepare everything in time. No matter what her tastes, there are dozens of steps made easier with an extra set of hands. Fetching, and peeling, and stirring, and washing. Plenty to keep the hands busy, and the mind, just busy enough to be occupied. And, at the end of it all, the promise of a hot meal, shared in friendly company.

Hard to go wrong with that, no matter how much the world'd turned upside-down.

“If all the clans needed were money,” he continues, at a time when all there is to do is stir and wait. “I can think of plenty of options for more sensible risks that’ll still pay you a sufficient reward. After all, people make money all the time, everywhere. The Starsong make plenty, running couriers, scavenging, knocking over local warlords, that sort of thing. This far out, there’s bound to be whole planets that have barely been touched. You’ve even got your own ship now.”

He sets aside the bowl a moment to rub his aching hands. “So why bother risking a trip to Gaia, just to wish for a planet of gold and jewels? Where’s the sense in that?”

Don't think about it.

Don't!

Ignore the way even the air feels wrong in her presence, like oil, skittery and shiny, is clinging to everything inside of you and choking you with her very presence.

Don't pay any mind to the way the hairs rise up on your neck. Shove those protective instincts, every one screaming that here is a tiger about to leap, way down to the point that you can look at her without shuddering.

Tell your gut to settle down, to stop writhing and churning and kicking like a dog in a sack.

Biomancy. Humanity's hubris, their arrogance, their downfall, the reason that trillions across the stars suffer. The idea that you can not just give someone their ideal self, explore expressions and powers beyond their wildest dreams, but can then turn around and cut someone else down. Can tell them that they can be reduced to a set of instincts, a number of aversions, and pointed at a task like a program.

Think about Mynx. Think about why you're here. Think about how much you'd like to spend more time with Mynx, see that cheeky grin in her eyes, and how you'll never see that again if the bomb in Mynx's biology tears her apart.

Don't think about it. Don't think about letting Mynx go under the knife of a biomancer. Don't think about the harm she can wreak, what she can do to her don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it

You are here because she is to serve you. You are calm. You are in control. She can't hurt you. Nobody can hurt you. You're here for Mynx, and you won't let her hurt Mynx.

"I'm sure we can find or manufacture replacements as needed. Katraph, when was the last time you halted a rampancy, and what was the outcome for the Adept?"

Redana and Bella!

Amidst the smoke and the haze and the sensuality it's hard to keep track of every love bite.

There's a deeper smell here. Not the smell of old, dry tobacco. The moist, tangled smell of fresh tobacco plants, new leaves and new shoots, nicotine still wet and juicy. You catch a glimpse of a man who looks far too young. Far too... not handsome in the general, handsome in the specific. Someone's idea of the most beautiful person in the galaxy. The suit isn't dusty and torn. Hands that were once thin, desiccated are filled with blood and violence. He hefts the axe over his shoulder and tips his fedora towards you.

He's about the business of love.

It's a blessing that those who are starting the transformation into trees have their senses numbed by the drugs in the air. They look at the leaves sprouting from their fingertips with bemusement rather than horror. In place of screams there are gasps, relaxed conversations, and even sometimes applause before silence starts to fall.

There are two dancing girls in this place. Mynx has watched Redana her entire life. She has impersonated Redana her entire life. Redana's secret desires and hidden aesthetics are just as much alive in Mynx's brain, and here she is, using that sensuality and yearning as a blade.

So she goes, leaving a trail of too-sharp kisses in her wake. Reshella is indeed in peril - the wrong embrace here, the wrong kiss, and she will be poisoned too. When Reshella does it, she is helpless, defenseless, vulnerable. And isn't that the perfect bait to draw out a predator?

Alexa!

"No problem, Alexa," said Katraph. "Richards, Singh, go to the lab, get everything fixed as you can make it. Myrtle, go quicken some drones and re-establish a perimeter. Aaronson, get a list of everything we need for the client."

Orders given, Katraph returns his attention to you. "Far as I know, it hasn't been done. The Rampancy is the point, after all. See, it's specifically a stress response - when an Assassin finds that they can't accomplish their mission then their minds build up stress and that triggers a physiological response that starts the biological cascade. That broadens their range of capabilities until they've gained enough power to brute force through whatever obstacle stood between them and their target. Because this is usually happening deep inside enemy territory, and these kind of terminal stressors don't build up inside a controlled environment, there generally isn't any call to do this kind of work."

One of his colleagues approaches him and hands him a small metal dispenser. He shakes out a pair of unmarked white pills and swallows them, his owlish eyes focusing and unfocusing asynchronously. He then offers you the dispenser politely.

"That's a good thing, though," he said. "It means that it's not a security concern. If it was a security concern then the sequence might be secured. Secured biosequences - well, they're not pretty. It means when the surgeon starts operating they could trigger an immune response that could do anything from incite the body to metabolize a plasma explosive to a pheromantic adrenaline burst. Something like that still might be in there - these are assassins after all - but we've got good odds."

He popped another two pills. This time he shivered violently enough that a colleague needed to steady him, but he never lost his calm, professional tone of voice.

"Now, just to manage expectations, we can halt the process but not reverse it - not even sure a human surgeon could do that, but never say never. We're dealing with a - a Toxicrene, you said? Stage one of that Rampancy is losing the affiliation for bipedal shapes - it's a transitional phase designed to get the assassin accustomed to nonstandard locomotion and combat patterns. Can't just turn someone into a giant monster with no adjustment period, they'll be taken out by security forces before they figure out how to walk on all fours. So an expected and ongoing side effect is that the Toxicrene will demonstrate a far wider range of shapeshifting abilities than previously exhibited. Next, it's always possible for stress to trigger the cascade again."

"That all said," said Katraph, "the root problem is obviously the assassin's mind, that's the thing that's generating the stress response. We can do a lot at the hardware level but when the software starts to break down the only solution is to give them a swig of the old," he mimed a drinking gesture; a reference to the Ikarani's mind-wiping potions? "But memory has a way of finding its way back at inconvenient times and once you start walking down that road you've got something that isn't able to safely exist even in a controlled environment, at least in the long term. I recommend getting her some emotional stabilizer drugs, maybe even therapy."

Now his aide handed him a chipped mug with the ancient flag of the Atlas Cultural Sphere. He sipped a cloyingly sweet smelling liquid from it gingerly. "I presume you're recovering the servitor because the human has become emotionally invested in her? That's fine, occupational hazard, happens with all kinds of servitors. While she's under the knife we can also give her the human pet upgrade package - extend her lifespan, give her the full range of human tastes, demilitarize her other senses, activate her sex drive, make her reproductively viable, remove various inhibitions on learning non-specialized knowledge, ecetera, ecetera. Her instinctive motivations will be a secured biosequence though - no getting around that with an assassin - so we can't give her free will, but we can probably whip up an extra couple of non-mission critical blockers, like if the human doesn't want her falling in love with anyone else. Did the human give a detailed list of requirements? If not we can assign spies to watch their interactions until we've got a sense for their relationship and tailor an appropriate package."

Dolce!

"Okay, guy, that's a really good question," said Jil. "But they told you that the Rift kills anyone that approaches it, right? First people turn on the ones they love and then they die. Nobody goes in and nobody goes out. You know this, right? This thing that you're doing stops here, right? Because if you go any further then you literally die in the most unpleasant way you can die, right?"

She'd requested something sweet and creamy but didn't know how to articulate the thought. Her life has the flavour of acid reflux; bitter and spiteful. She's only dimly aware there's a different way to be.

"Or - or maybe you know something I don't," she said. "Maybe a god told you straight up that you'd be the exception. That they'd clear the way for you and everyone else aboard. That you've got signs and omens and preferably a written fucking contract with Zeus the Thunderer saying that we got this and they'll call off the hellhounds," she said. "That's why you're so chill about this. Right?"