Redana’s laughter is innocent, guileless, even now. It’s a laugh bursting through a smile— but not Apollo’s smile. The difference might be that Apollo’s smile is satisfaction at the beauty of the world, but Redana’s smile is an almost baffled joy at how the world can be so beautiful as to have fussy, gleeful, irreplaceable Praetors in it. It is a loud smile that tastes of sunlight, and her laughter is like, perhaps, a bough of golden bells being shaken.

“Of course! Please, Bella, help me!” How many times had that been said between them? Often. How many times had it been said in that light, joking tone? Perhaps never. “I need, um… they’re part of a shrine to Uncle Poseidon! Just imagine! Sharks in priestess outfits, carefully guarding a shrine to Polychromatikí, even as more crowd up around its foot, a whole herd of sharks. A flock of sharks? A swimming of sharks!”

She swings the sharks in her arms back and forth, and ducks her head down to give one a little kiss. “There! Now they’re all mine! Thank you, Bella!”

It really is a shame that she wouldn’t think to blackmail her Praetor, isn’t it? Imagine all the concessions she could win by threatening to reveal such a secret to Vasilly! Truly, she’s in desperate need of a spymaster to help her leverage her secrets appropriately. She’s hardly acting like the future Empress of humanity should.

And is that such a bad thing?

Look at her as she squeezes sharks to her sides, balances a shark on her head, starts looking for some more bags to carry— “Oh, Bella! Look! A thousand tickets for a chest!”

It’s the same size as the one that was on the Anemoi. Not that Redana ever saw it. Maybe she’ll never know about the chest that was assigned for her down in the depths of the ship, after what happened on Baradissar. A box for shutting a girl inside and then sitting on. No room for her to stretch her limbs, no way for her clever eye to see out, no hope of escape from her extremely thorough confinement.

“And if we get some straps, the kings can ride on top! And— oh, look, Bella, Bella, it’s got wheels! Little wheels! Right there! And there’s a button! Bella, we have to know what the button does! We’ll go mad if we don’t ever find out what it does, I know we will! But… how are all of us going to get a thousand more tickets?”

(By all of us, she is including the sharks. As if they’re going to pipe up with an idea for how a princess and her maid, or a praetor and her pet, or two girls who might get up to some embarrassing business behind a tent later, might just be able to win a thousand tickets with their help.)

And she looks to Bella, because Bella always, always has a clever idea, or asks a question that makes you realize what you need to do. There’s nobody like Bella for helping her through thoughts, not in all the worlds.

It's a momentary thing. A fleeting flicker, nothing more. Bella's eye catches the box, and her pupil opens at the sight. There's a slight pause before her nose twitches and air fills her lungs again, and a tiny... not a frown, but a brief pressing of her lips flashes across her face. For a moment, she is in another world.

It's a good thing she still has so many sharks to hold. Without them, she might have crushed her claws into her skin and ruined the entire carnival with her blood. She might have torn down the booth completely, and then there would have been a great many questions to answer. Just like old times, right Redana? The secrets and the lies.

But her hands are full of softness, so she doesn't do anything more than brush her fingers along the velvety surface of a hammerhead. A shadow clouds her eye, but she blinks it away. She is rooted in place. When she sighs, it might be nothing more important than a plan to procure the box her Princess wants so badly. This one, at least, she'll actually use. This one won't haunt her sleep.

Finally, she smiles. Hers is not a loud grin, full of laughter or bright expressions, but neither is it the serenity of Lord Apollo. Hers is a ghost's smile; a glimmer of moonlight peeking through clouds before it's swallowed up by something much brighter than she is. Guilt washing away with the tides, kept at bay until the next sight or smell that pulls it back toward her again. A smile like a scythe that is constantly contemplating violence as the fastest possible solution to any problem. That is constantly thinking its way around violence. If she comes across as clever, then this is the true reason for it. They are hard won, are her ideas.

Her arms are full of sharks. It would be nice to have a chest to carry all this treasure inside of.

"Well," she says in a voice that sounds half a universe away, "I suppose if it's got wheels. Then there's really no choice."

The look of concentration on her face is also a thing of moon-and-starlight. She is on board the Anemoi again, preparing for a raid. Quiet orders hissed into the darkness where every sense is a strain just to catch it, but with the lethal edge of absolute confidence that her voice will carry where it needs to.

She points toward a strange table: a smooth and elongated surface that curves upward at the far end, where it houses a series of strange and increasingly smaller ringed barriers with holes to nowhere carved into the middle of them. Each ring is labelled with a larger number that for some inscrutable reason is connected with the smallness of the ring it's attached to.

"We'll use that. That's the last of these rituals we haven't completed, at least as far as I can find. We'll take what we win there and bring it over to the betting hall. Hades is a gambler himself, isn't he? It makes sense that if you want to win the nicest prizes you'll have to earn it the same way he did. And if that doesn't work... don't worry, Dany. It'll work. Trust me. Come on."

Her smile may be a shard of moonlight against the blackness of night, but when she grins? When those wickedly sharp fangs come out, all confidence and no malice? That's more like a lantern, blazing fierce enough to make anyone want to follow it.

Bella and Redana!

The skies darken and the shadows gather in strength. As you ascend through the ranks of the carnival you have attracted the attention of Lord Hades himself to stand in opposition.

The games do not change other than their intensity. The God of the Dead does not speak; this is not about him, nor what he might say to you. He does not interrupt your date, your dialogue, your rhythm. A lesser creature would have demanded your attention; Hades only demands your focus.

He is there and waiting behind the frictionless flat table, circular plastic pucks ready to parry the flat circular disc that is sent sliding across towards him. He is there at the cards table, unblinking as he draws his sixth card in a row, unable to match the red you have cast down. He observes the rotating clown head machines with relentless precision before placing the ball in the mouth of the leftmost. He pulls a lever sending a boneless, rubbery horse sprawling waterfall-like down through a maze of pegs. These carnival games are his traps, his wards, the fortress vaults that conceal his greatest treasures. Lord Hades knows, after all, that even his divine brothers and sisters do not rule the chance that rules these games.

... but he wages a war against two girls with matching eyes. The Auspexes are the eyes of Hermes and Hermes always did know her way around festival games. As the God enters the competition so do the eyes and they can see the patterns that Hades misses. He is so intent on the chance implied by the throw of the dice he doesn't think to calculate their velocity and momentum. He throws himself on the mercy of the cards unaware that the metal behind him is reflective. There is a logic beneath this place; there are challenges of skill and perception hidden amongst shifting metal and the twitches of flesh. But the God of the Dead is so caught on the riddle of the whirling cups he does not even think to notice the dealer has flicked the ball into his sleeve after the first round.

Tricks are not his domain.

Alexa!

"I'd kind of like to just keep hating them, if that's okay," said Cerberus. "Not because they were hateable, not even because leaving was their fault. I want to sympathize with them, want to worry about them. But when you worry about someone that hard for that long it just... turns toxic."

The mechanical toy's eyes are a cluster of lights arranged into the shape of eyes, blank and sightless circles. "If I didn't hate them I'd have to love them, and if I loved them I'd have to be heartbroken all over again. They gave me a collar once, you know? I loved it. I wore it every day. It kept them in my thoughts every day. So I scratched it and scratched it and scratched it until it finally broke. It felt..."

The eyes focused again, the change in those pixels implying somehow conscious thought. "Maybe it was just a change of pace. I'm always winding up to start conversations that I'll never get to hear the other side of. After that I got to have the conversations with a different emotional energy. If all that emotion is just for me, why not have it be louder?"

Dolce!

The laughter eventually passes that ethereal line into tears. A lifetime of stress unwound itself in this liminal moment, this skipped beat. The Lanterns were engineered to serve the ship; created to serve as an extension of the captain's will. Even when that meant their death, even when it meant their exaltation, all of life was for the ship and all the ship was for the Captain. You may as well have swallowed the sun, Dolce. If you'd given her a thousand years this idea would never have crossed her mind.

Eventually there is no air left; muscles are sore from strain, serenity is found amidst the ruins of reality. "Fuck," she said, at last, looking off at the distant rooftop of the Tunguska. "That's it, then? Freedom. It's..." she toys with the skull-beads of her hanfu. "Well. Is it weird to say the Rift doesn't feel like a big deal any more? I mean, it was easier to imagine life after having my personality erased than this."

A shade, well-accustomed to toil, turns his arms to the wheel. The machine does not roar to life so much as it purrs; within its guts, arms flex and retract, and the well-oiled mechanism begins its work as it was intended.

The rings (which are painted in stygian blues, flecked with golden stars, strange symbols of goats and centaurs and rams traced and luminous, an anachronism among anachronisms) begin to rotate. This is an old way of imagining the cosmos, and thus dead, and thus here. And yet, beautiful, singular, it awakens, and each hole (which are given both value and assigned to one of the gods, which is an ill-advised decision) begins its journey around the luminous neon sun in its heart.

Some (Hermes, Aphrodite, Gaia) are small, quick, running on the inner track; some (Kronos, Poseidon, Hades himself) are stately, gliding like swans on the outer bounds of night. This is no trick; it is a forgotten mystery, something that would spell out secrets lost to time if only it was known for what it is.

But to the two girls, laughing in delight, watching wide-eyed, it is just a challenge that is as beautiful as stomping their feet in time to the falling arrows several tents down. This is a challenge worthy of two Olympians.

“Watch, Bella,” Dany says, hefting a ball and tossing it up and down, getting a feel for its weight, its nature, its use as a tool of victory. And she means it. Watch this, Bella. Let me show you what I can do. “I’m going— I’m going for Mom.”

And she tosses for Hermes, whirling, clicking, on winged feet. And the ball arcs, and perhaps it’s the auspex, but perhaps it’s just Dany’s other eye, her timing (as she danced among the revels, as she ran on Baradissar, as she threw the discus in the training arena while Bella cheered from the benches), her arete—

The ball catches the lip, rolls wildly in it like a horse’s eye, and then rolls in. Lights flash above in long-lost constellations, and Dany laughs loud and free and joyful. “See? You try!” And without pride, without guile, without anything but a shining hope, she tosses the next ball to Bella and rocks on her heels to watch her match it, without any doubt in her heart that Bella can, too.

The tension left him in fits and giggles, in cracking smiles and quiet tears, draining out of his tiny body and leaving him a sodden, woolen lump in a chair. Thank the gods for natural padding, or else he might’ve had a cramp in his neck, lying flopped against the armrest. Dimly, he’d registered Vasilia materializing out of the surrounding chaos, where she’d quickly press-ganged the Alcedi into a moving crew. Difficult to tell someone in a wheelchair that they’ll have to move all their things back themselves. Especially when you moved it all out in the first place. Or did that count as stealing? Hrmm. The statue dog was…somewhere else. Not here. Not a problem. They are alone, on a little island of inactivity all to themselves. Free to do as they wished. Free to do nothing at all.

He cranes his neck, up over his chair, peering upside-down at the mouse laid flat on her back. Jil of the Lanterns, who’d known only one good Captain. Who saw the world through a curtain of her ancestor’s skulls. Born into darkness, Assassins, and Empire. She asks her questions bluntly, forcefully, with a blithe disregard to polite language. He answers without fear. “To be fair, we may have left weird behind several stops ago.” And yet, eating his hat hadn’t seemed such an impossible leap, in the moment. “Maybe a little surprising, true. But I believe you.”

“...so.” His fingers idly play with an errant curl of wool. “Does that mean you’re thinking of crossing? On this ship? There’d be a seat at the table for you too, you know.” And wouldn’t it be nice if the seat was next to his? Captain Dolce would oversee the transition of power as his last official act. Another friendly voice at his side, one speaking for an entire community, wouldn’t that be grand? And, he knew it wasn’t really a matter of odds, but it was hard to think of it any other way, that the more friends one crossed the Rift with, the greater chance you’d still know at least one of them on the other side.

Still. It wouldn’t be right of him to be so greedy.

The choice was still hers, in the end.

It's wrong of her to want to fix this, but she does. If only she had the right words, surely she could do something about this. She could erase years of hurt, bring fond memories to the surface, have the dog smiling. It hurts to see someone love so hard and so long that it turns to loathing, to see the space that used to fit a person rub and chafe until all that's left is festering blisters.

But it's not her place. She doesn't know the full story and, more importantly, she's been asked not to.

"I've never been in your situation," she says, as if by feeling out the shape off the words she can shape out the feelings. "When I left my father, it was less abandonment and more deliberate escape.

"But even then, after I'd done my best to make sure I'd never see him again, I still built myself around him. I still shaped myself by what he wanted me to be, still craved the approval he'd never give me. And it wasn't until I was dragged into this that I could meet other people, and find other sources of love.

"It kind of sounds like you could keep talking to yourself. But I've been there, and it's lonely."

The ball is heavy in her hand. Her muscles strain with the effort of holding it, though only seconds ago it felt lighter than the air she'd been breathing. But now that air is stale, thick, and dry. Her tongue feels like dense sand inside her mouth, so strained that she can't even swallow. Across the length of the table, the target hoops shimmer and wave within her vision, as though trapped in some great basin of heat.

To her left, Lord Hades stands and watches. He has nothing to say; he is helpless to let these games play out, because they are sacred to him. But whether he minds seeing his treasures taken through the mechanisms meant to defend him is impossible to tell. All he seems to say or care about, in the end, is that the seriousness of the act be understood. At least, that's how it seems to Bella. The real test is not succeeding at the rituals, or even deciphering their true meaning. The real test is looking at a god, and telling him you intend to take what is his and carry it away from his domain.

To her right, Redana is beaming, her hands held up against her chest and clenched into fists with the excitement of it all. In her, there's no sign at all of the sudden change that has come over the temple. The air she breathes is cool, is clean, is fresh. She does not sweat or sway. Her eyes sparkle with delight to see her... girlfriend? Her girlfriend. Her girlfriend create a miracle. Her eyes between them have seen so many miracles there's not a trace of fear or doubt to be found inside of them. Her smile is as light and easy as her laugh. What is this place, really, but a gift? Redana Claudius has no reason to fear the Olympics.

One ball left. After all the cards and dice, after watching the innumerable games of chance pass by and the tickets pile up, it came down to this single ball. If she scored at all, from what she'd seen, they would have enough tickets. She can see the arc of her lob traced across the air even without focusing on it. Put the ball in Hades' ring, and end it. Slow, steady, cautious. No risks. Take only what you're given, Bella, that's the law of Servitors.

"...You think that was a good shot? Ha! Watch this!"

She watches Hades as she releases the ball. Her lips are pressed thin in defiance and determination. One gold eye and one crimson affix Him with their stare. Meanwhile her throw seems to float through the air as if suspended in some sort of Azura gravity well. It carries with agonizing slowness marked only by an imperceptible whistling as the atmosphere gives way before it. There is no apparent speed to it at all, not that she can afford to take her eyes off of Lord Hades to watch it herself. Bella's ears twitch to tell her the story, instead.

Slowly. Inevitably. Her toss hurtles its way toward the tiny and impossibly shifty loop marked for Gaia. It catches the lip with a bang far too loud for how fast it was travelling, and rattles around the outside once, twice, three times... four. There it teeters, a single shocked gasp away from falling in. Or out. From victory, or defeat.

Bella's fingers curl tight until the tips of her claws press against her skin. She releases them as soon as she feels the jab, only to curl them again without thinking about it. Her tail cracks behind her with whiplike intensity, her old signal of an incoming attack. A single bead of sweat rolls down her neck to tumble carelessly down the valley between her breasts. The ball rolls, choosing its fate (and Bella's) at last. Even still, she does not turn to watch.

No looking back. That's the law, if you want to steal from the Underworld.

Bella and Redana!

You walk down the street. Leashed behind you is a suitcase full of sharks. They gaze out in every direction, freed from their prisons to watch with stitched eyes as the glittering digital glory of the ancient world played out in every direction. It rolls smoothly across the floors, flimsy little wheels of hard plastic carrying their precious cargo.

Here and there are set out small clusters of chairs in the street; red, plush and cramped, looking like they have been torn out of solid foundations. They sit in clusters of a dozen or so, all facing towards one of the infinite moving screens. When you sit down on the chair and allow the audio to focus on you then you find yourself watching a movie. Ancient movies, movies from before the invention of film. Movies from a time when all the actors were too fragile to fight living creatures and so they had to fight digital ghosts in weightless, frictionless battle in front of emerald screens. They are stories about men who wear machines and mortals who are equal to the gods. People of this era had strange stylistic tastes.

And there is animation. It is strangely modern, familiar - the old style of hundreds of hand-drawn frames arranged in rapid motion is as alive today as it was back then. Some of the shows on display even compare favorably to modern content. Some of the shows of ancient Japan are timeless enough to stand through the separation of history, in the same way that painters of this ancient era could still marvel at Renaissance masterpieces.

There exists open stalls of the strange, weightless ancient food; warm white cornbursts of nothing and salt, orange liquid of nothing and chemicals. Help yourselves as you walk through this museum of ancient art.

Alexa!

"Hmm," said Ceberus. There was another long silence, the intimacy of a broken toy. Thought without motion; statues of girl and hound.

Finally, those eyes blinked back on. "Can I go with you?" she asked. "Across the Rift. I've been thinking about it for a while and... forgetting might be better."

Dolce!

"Of course I'm going," said Jil, standing up in a sweep and taking off her skull-bead hanfu. She looks at it like she's contemplating eating it as well. "I was born in a coffin and grew up in a mausoleum. This is my chance to live, to truly be alive. For me... that's everything, that's a chance to spit on the order of the cosmos itself. Frankly, I hope I don't remember anything - I'd pay the ferryman for a chance to wash all of this away."

She gives in, and takes a very small, experimental bite of her hat. Just a corner.

"Anyway, you want to get smashed? I'm sure there's a bar we can raid around here somewhere," she said, drawing her sword. Evidently she means that in the literal sense of violent robbery.

“I think you are like the monkey,” Redana declares, in the middle of a fight scene against big burly tiger-demons. (They have clubs. The monkey has a magical stick.)

“My face doesn’t look like that,” Bella rumbles back. It’s hard to tell how seriously she means it. She doesn’t look away; her eyes aren’t still, chasing after every true-to-life feat of motion, the ones that the real actors couldn’t match. Maybe this is where it all started. The dream of being like the monkey.

Either way, Redana keeps going, because if she leaves it at that, it will just sit in her stomach fermenting for the rest of the movie how stupid she is. “No, because— look, he’s protecting the monk. And he didn’t want to at first, but… there’s something there. And I think at the end of the story he’s going to decide he wants to keep going even if that crown ends up broken. Because it should be.”

Which is idiotic. The crown is the only thing stopping the monkey from using his incredible skill at violence against the monk. Without that inbuilt leverage, the monk’s journey would be over before it began.

“And even though they started out at odds, I think there’s something there. The looks they keep giving each other.” Which could be anything. Tension, but not necessarily romantic. Could any romance blossom without that crown being broken? “They should kiss,” Dany declares. On screen, the fight is over, and the monkey steals a jacket from one of the tigers, pops the collar, sneers at the fussy little monk. The size difference is palpable. Maybe that’s part of why Redana opened her mouth in the first place.

“And besides,” she keeps going, nuzzling into Bella’s shoulder, feeling both hot and like she’s edging across creaking ice, desperate to try to get the words to come out the way they should, for once, “he’s obviously the most interesting character. The monk just keeps getting in trouble.” (Maybe he’ll be tied up later, her brain unhelpfully suggests.) “Maybe he’ll get tied up later. And need rescuing. And then the monkey will save him, because that’s this sort of story, and— you can fight like him, too. I don’t fight like that. Like you’re the weapon. All that power’s in you, and you don’t even need the stick to let it out. And—“

Bella’s hand cups her mouth. Careful, but firm. “Watch the film,” she says. One of them talks too much, the other is too used to keeping her words inside. However are the two of them going to make it all the way across the demon-infested wasteland?

That’s the trouble with being a lump; there’s no easy way to get yourself upright.

“You know,” oh, dear, right, yes, legs aren’t yet up to a scoot into a sitting position. At best they can manage a sort of half-wiggle, and that was generously rounding up. “I really think we ought to ask first before making it a swords and stealing raid.” Hands, it’s all up to you now. Brace yourself on the armrest and! Up! “It wouldn’t really be stealing if they’d have just given us the drinks anyway. And a wheelchair really does benefit from the use of both hands.” Good sense, from the fellow who was sitting askew at best.

“Though, I should also warn you,” he admits sheepishly. “I’m not very good at getting drunk.”

Secondhand grief wraps one icy fist around her heart and squeezes the breath out of her.

She's failed, she knows. Teach me, Cerberus says. And she doesn't know how to help her learn. Let me follow you, and forget, she says. And Alexa can do nothing but remember. This hurts too much to bear. Make me forget them. Help me not hurt anymore.

And oh, if Alexa knew how not to hurt, what a world this would be.

What do you say to someone who, with all the earnestness and face of a puppy, has just asked you to help them die?

No. That's the wrong word. This isn't death. She has to hold to that, has to hold to the idea that after all of this, this isn't a goodbye forever. The Lethe will rinse her friends clean, but… they will come back.

She hopes.

But still… Something will emerge on the other side of that rift that looks like Cerberus, but shares nothing with her. No memories, no pain of abandonment, no love for the woman who wronged her.

And that feels an awful lot like death.

"That… isn't my decision to make."

Because it isn't. Just as it isn't hers to take, life isn't hers to force on someone else. If, a year ago, someone had told her there was a way to forget and had forbidden her entrance, she'd never have forgiven them.

But knowing what she knows now… Knowing what she became, what she can yet become…

"I don't know your heart, Cerberus. I don't know your story. I don't know why they left, and why you stayed. Would love to! Offer of listening ears still stands! I would like nothing more than to learn about you, become friends with you. If you decide to cross the rift, I will stand behind and respect your decision.

"But if you're asking to come specifically with me, you should know I'm not crossing the rift."

And from there, it all spills out. She can't sit here, and not tell her why. Can't not tell her why she understands wanting to not exist anymore. The stories tell about Molech, tell about her, but don't mention what it does to you. A year ago, she'd be sprinting towards that river. A year ago, she'd have signed up for this crew if she knew there was a chance to forget.

Talks about how it still hurts, some days. She still remembers. She was the Pallas, and no amount of forgetting will change that. But sometimes, she can fill herself with enough other things that… it hurts less. She can bear to be Alexa--can even enjoy it, most days! Can move on, and learn from the pain.

"I do think you're right to leave," she admits. "Being here… it seems like it's hurting you. It's that old collar, worn through, chafing. Whether it's through the Rift or with the rest of us, you need to kick that collar off. Things do get better, but only once you get away from the things hurting you, and give yourself a chance to heal."

Idiot.

Bella rises up from the slouch she'd been watching the movie in. Her legs pull straight and she plants them both evenly and directly underneath her. The colors on the screen invert as she rises, motion blurring the whole production into a black-blue-green mess of nonsense. She sniffs, and folds her arms across her chest.

It is not lost on her that this is the last pose she saw the monkey strike before she rendered the screen unwatchable. Her teeth flash in a snarl. She squeezes her eyes shut, and a moment later her expression softens. Her ear twitches, catching the voice of the monk (sniveling, fighting back tears after being narrowly rescued from a pack of snake demons) as he calls his companions back to him so he can continue his journey. Asserting control despite being possibly the least qualified member of the entire group.

But of course he's in charge. He's the one with the crown. And he's the only one with a real reason to 'go west'. He's... well. It isn't difficult to draw the comparison, that much is true. But still, idiot. Stupid, stupid Redana. Movies don't overlap one to one with reality, and especially not the stories of the ancient past. Not that it matters. There's something else bothering her about all this. Something much more elemental.

She reaches for the strange, salty-buttery-empty-air snack and pops several pieces into her mouth. They melt almost before she can crunch down. So strange, this sensation. All flavor and no nutrition; she's been eating it for hours now and it hasn't done a thing to her appetite. It must be designed to break down into simple air before it reaches the stomach. Ingenious, actually. It's a shame Her Imperial Majesty was so concerned about resource efficiency. Even party snacks were made into essential foods under Her guidance; that way Servitors maintaining the many royal parties and functions could operate at full power without the need for a dedicated meal break. It kept the schedules running, and meant that all food on every plate and platter was healthy.

But there's a decadence to this pure air treat that makes absorbing stories feel... special. It's something Tellus doesn't have. And Tellus should not want for anything. If the Ancients had a process and a way of life that the shattering of the universe had made everyone forget, someone really ought to go back and--

Her tail curls. Her eyes flutter open in surprise. Aha.

"The monk," she says, "His voice is exactly the same as that bandit's from the other movie. The one about the 108 stars. Do you remember."

Redana shrugs. "Maybe it's the same actor?"

"Don't be ridiculous. This isn't a play, it's animation. Wouldn't be much simpler to just breed another voice exactly suited to the role?"

"Iono, maybe they hadn't thought of that back when."

"It's just such a simple concept, isn't it?"

"Hmm," Redana looks away from the movie to look at Bella appraisingly, "Then I guess they understood that cartoons should be art. Like, I've always said that Batrachomyomachia should be-- mmmph!"

Bella cuts the thought short with a fistful of salted snack puffs straight into the Princess' mouth. She smirks at the furious, and thoroughly silly glare the shorter girl shoots her in response.

Still, though. One person, many roles. Bella watches Redana in silence for a long time, tuning out the movie entirely. The chewing. The split attention between the screen and Bella herself. The increasingly nervous stares, until finally Dany is so distraught at the eyes on her she opens her mouth to apologize for the entire journey all over again.

Bella presses a finger over her mouth this time, as she settles back down into the relaxed position that lets her watch these paintings in their proper colors again.

"If we can find one while we're here... I'd like to watch a love story next. A real one."

Alexa!

"But where is there to go, if not to the rift?" asked Cerberus. "This is the land of the dead. Ever since she left it has been a place of ashes and ruins, forsaken by the gods. This is the end of the line. Where else is there?"

Dolce!

"She thinks she's a big shot," Jil was muttering. She was glaring at another mousegirl on the other end of the room, white against Jil's black and marked with strange green tattoos. "Look at her. You can see it in her eyes." You could not, actually, because the villain in question hadn't turned her head once to even glance at Jil. "I'm going to give her a piece of my mind."

She tried to stand up. She wavered, staggered, slammed her hands on the table to steady herself. She could hardly be faulted for being intoxicated - after all, she was almost halfway through her first drink.

"Fuck," she said. "How hard could this stuff be? They make it out of lemons. Imagine. Here, help me up, I'm going to punch her in the back of her stupid head."

As she said this she tried another sip of her drink. She closed her eyes, held her breath, and took the smallest and most ginger sip possible. Muscles in her face made a complicated dance as she tried to keep herself from grimacing. Imagine grimacing at this frilly lemon drink. Imagine getting beaten by a drink with an umbrella in it. She was way too badass for that, and she was going to prove it with violence.

The seat divider was in the way. Bella fixed that. Now there was just one seat, with a little dip in the middle, and the two women shared it. One bucket, too, full of the wisps of grave-food, shared between the two as if it were Zeus’s jar of fortune.

It had been difficult to find a real love story. Most performances had a moment or two, a kiss at a moment of danger, but that was all, and that certainly would not do for Bella’s purposes! Not if Dany had anything to say about it. Which meant, well, marching along, trying to find anything marked with a sign of Aphrodite. There was that one hopeful one, about the girls who fought for love, but a real one had been requested, and so they continued on their search for love, hand in hand.

(The more she stroked her thumb along Bella’s knuckles, the tighter Bella held onto her, as if afraid Dany would let go. So Dany kept doing it.)

Then, oh, that helpful shade! The perfect performance, right this way, ladies! It didn’t make much sense at the beginning, up until Bella realized that they were just showing opening acts, and tossed puffs at the screen, demanding they begin the real performance at once instead of showing them improbable chariots and previews of other stories.

And then the show really started, and somehow, Redana ended up snuggling against Bella while watching the story of a princess who meets a rascal from her home country while traveling. They bicker and go through misadventures, realize they have only fallen in love when they have bid each other farewell, the rascal must follow her back to their native country to win her family’s approval before she is married off, and the songs, ah! She can’t help but hum along and wiggle closer.

Everything’s going to turn out right in the end. It has to. It’s this sort of story, where love overcomes everything. Good hearts found in unusual people. That’s been the story she’s been in all along, hasn’t it? Vasilia, Dolce, Alexa, Lacedo, Mynx, Epistia and Beljani, and…

And her Bella.

Fingers interlace. Hand in hand. The touch of her soft fingers, the prick of her sharp ones. Each one hers. Each one loved. Bella, Bella, Bella.

Alexa leans back, stares up at the Rift, and lets her fingers work the thoughts out.

"You are wrong about the land of the dead, you know."

It's hard to directly deny the dog. Hard to look into those eyes, and tell them that hope is still out there.

"You say it is ashes and ruins, that the gods have abandoned us. If I had nothing but the Rift to keep me company, it may be that I would share your opinion.

"But in the course of a year with this crew, I think I've seen enough to believe otherwise. I have seen worlds and wonders that made me question everything I knew. Things I hadn't even dreamt of, even before the galaxy was cut in two.

"I have seen the gods intimately involved with every member of this crew, for better or worse. They show on this side, just as surely as they do on the other. They care, just as surely as they care on the other side of the rift.

"And, perhaps most important to me, is that there are plenty of people I've come to care for on this side of the rift. It's not all ashes and ruin. There is wonder and life to be found here."

She considers again, words expended, before admitting, "Where, on this side of the rift, though. That's a harder question."

"After all, following is the close to the only thing I've ever known. Where Molech went, I followed. When he needed me to go into battle, I followed his orders. The only way I found to break free from him was to attach myself to someone else. Even here, at the end of everything, I followed someone else's dreams, someone else's plans."

"And now I'm off the guiderails. I'm so used to being penned in by what someone else wants me to be that the freedom to choose a heading is… Well, it's terrifying. I can go anywhere.

"Half the universe is open to me. Pick a heading, Alexa. Where, in half of all the galaxy's nigh-infinite wonders, do you go?

She shakes her head, chuckling ruefully.

"So if you've asked me where else you could go, I think I have to turn the question on you. Where else do you want to go? You have all the worlds to choose from. Is there no other world where you want to go? No other world with people you care for?"

Notes, Taken Silently, On Account of The Drinks and Festivities

-Jil had glanced at the drinks list before ordering the frilliest-sounding drink listed. It was, in all likelihood, only the third or fourth least alcoholic option (confirmed when perusing the menu for his second round), not counting those which contained no alcohol at all. Possible she was in the mood to sample local flavor. Possible she was too winded after an exciting day to remember any of her favorites. Possible she’d never heard of any of these before, and had tried to aim low.

-Jil had spent the majority of her life living in the shadow of the Kaeri, in halls built from the bones of her too-slow ancestors. Silence and watchfulness were a primary means of survival. Bella (Bella) was her best example of kindness. Rooms devoted to leisure aboard the Plousious were limited to nonexistent. Possible this is her first time at a bar outside her own people. Possible this is her first time at a bar.

-The target of her ire had not acknowledged their presence, not even as Jil outlined a hasty scheme to ambush her. Ambient crowd noisy enough that he couldn’t decipher conversations more than three tables away. Unlikely she could hear them. Possible that Jil has never met this mouse before in her life. Possible that Jil has met this mouse many times in her life. Facial tattoos bright, distinct, details visible from distance. Target could be hearing this conversation, and playing dumb. Consistent Rival behavior. Unlikely. But worth remembering. Never count out a Rival.

-Jil had consumed one half of her drink. Her latest sip was taken with closed eyes, held breath, and a few seconds to brace herself. Muscles visibly tensed across her entire body, especially across her brow, cheeks, and jawline. The opposite of relaxed. Highly probable she regretted her drink choice. Highly probable she was not enjoying herself. Possible relation to sudden ambush plans.

Response

“Now, now,” Dolce chides good-naturedly. “Getting wasted is no reason we should forget our manners.” He waves to the barkeeper, and puts in an order for the next round. His glass vanishes behind the bar. “I remember, once, a shipmate of mine ambushed one of our fellows on a night out. The punch landed seconds before the target was about to start weeping into their drink. The night…hrmm, we tried, but I believe that was the moment the night was beyond salvaging.”

He shook his head sadly. Right on cue, the bartender slid a glass full of a dark, violently frothy liquid into his waiting hands. Regrets from the past needed company, after all.

“No, a special occasion deserves a proper bar fight.” A nod. A sip. A grimace. “Mmm. And proper drinks. Trade you a sip? That lemon thing looks rather refreshing.” It’s a bracing burn, this drink. A taste to remind you that you’re not just alive, you’re _strong_. Powerful. Ready to howl at the storm with the sheer thrill of drawing breath. Perfect to prepare a queen of skulls for battle.

Does it have alcohol in it? It’s got spirit, in spades. Spirits, though? Well, the bartender was certainly thinking of alcohol when they prepared it, so maybe the spirit of the thing got mixed in there. You can’t discount the possibility.

“Now then; how shall we test the waters? We have a wheelchair, which would provide ample excuse for an accidental bump as we pass.”

The grave-whisps fall to the floor with a hollow clatter. Each tiny tuft of salt and air is as soundless and insubstantial on the ground as it had been in their mouths. It is the container that sings complaint as it rolls around. Bella catches it with the heel of her boot, treasure of the ancient universe. She stomps it flat with a squelch.

Her tail twitches, exactly once. Always the same tell before a pounce. Two joined seats shrink into the space of just one, though for Bella there is no seat at all. Redana's waist is hot against her thighs. Her hands clutch tight around her treasures and she leans forward, pinning Redana's arms against the seat back and trapping her under a form of physical perfection. Even now, she can feel that thumb rubbing the back of her hand. Her grin lights her face with predatory delight.

Sheets of blue-black hair fall like curtains, cutting off the romance-play behind them. Her legs shift, and she sinks deeper into the trap. Her ears are filled with songs and traipsing music, her veins are filled with rushing lifeblood and need, her chest strains at the buttons of the dignified shirt now pressing its ample weight into the girl underneath her.

In the end... the rascal corners the princess. In the end, permission is taken, not given. The journey gives them freedom that home could never manage. The princess is due to be married. She deserves the life she was born into, deserves things the rascal could never give her, not even after diving into the depths of the planet to pluck its greatest treasures as dowry. It matters not. In the end...

"What have you been doing? You never pay attention. Stupid girl..."

Her breath steams against Redana's face. Warm, wet, and rough, her tongue drags across the offending spot where salt and melted fat and chemicals have smeared across her skin near the corner of her lips. Salt and fat. The ghosts of the theater cling to them tighter than could ever be guessed from their empty nature. Tenacity. Every rough lick only motivates another one, and another, and another, the flavor stronger every time. And if... if her skin was such a treat, then her mouth?

Her fangs bite into those trembling lips. The flavor of blood mingles with the grave snacks and for once her pulse quickens rather than constricting at the sensation. She is gentle. Her tongue laps at the wound with as much affection as hunger, until her lips seal across the princess' and she sucks as if she means to steal the breath and life from Redana's body. Her secret assassin's form, revealed at last.

Behind her, lyrics prattle on. Endless possibilities and boundaries unfolding. Bella moans overtop of the Ancients' masterpieces. Her hips shift and squirm, carrying her body across her quarry's and filling the theater with a symphony of squeaks and rustling, jostling fabrics. Her fingers close tighter still, to feel the circling of that thumb.

It's foolish, is it not? In moments like this where she burns with the desire to record every tiny detail in her mind forever, her instinct within the space of every kiss is to let her eyes flutter closed. To swim in the smell and the touch of the moment, to savor the taste and ignore the beauty of the girl whose tongue she's got trapped against the walls of her mouth.

She forces both eyes open. To catch the same silly fluttering of lashes happening across from her. To see the twist of surprise when her legs clamp tighter around her prey. To watch surprise melt away into barely constrained lust as their bodies touch just so. To watch that determined thumb even now brushing the back of her hand as its cousin starts to struggle for supremacy, to free itself, not out of any kind of discomfort but to greedily steal away the buttons locking Bella and the true glory of her physical perfection away from the world.

It is useless, Princess. You cannot overpower her. You will drown in this sensation until she has drunk her fill of you. Until you are clean of the influence of these insidious wisps. Until the memory of the conductor's score is enough to make your chest heave and your thighs squeeze close together.

Until she's paid you back. For what that little gesture across the back of her hand is doing to her. Until you have to ask her how the story ended.

So she can tell you that it doesn't matter. Endings are a sucker's game. Just a distraction. Romance, Redana. A real one. That's all your Bella is after. So don't let go.

Alexa!

"I've always wanted to see Rashiden," said Cerberus so easily it surprised her. "Have you heard of it, the Old Capitol? In ancient days when humanity and the Azura were united under a single republic they had the might to move the stars. And so they rearranged all the stars close to Rashiden so that they would form new constellations visible only from the planet's surface. All the great histories of the galaxy would be written in stellar ink."

The words are spilling out of her now. "I want to see the spires of Ceron, with its dreamcatcher windmills that dredge the dreamworld for the spirits of the greatest warriors that they might be reborn as wolves. I want to see Alced the world without a world, an atmosphere with no planet, an ocean with no bottom, air and water free-floating and liquid in space amidst the garden islands as the Alcedi dive and prey. I want to see the ziggurat of Eut, the pyramid suspended so close to a star that if you stand on its pinnacle you can reach out and touch the surface of the sun through the energy field. I want to see the Golnostir, the great cruise ship that travels the galactic void to the Canis Major galaxy on a hundred year voyage. I want to see the Draupnir, the great ring of rings, a sun encircled by a world. I want to see the Flower Array, the brightest star in the galaxy surrounded by a network of mirrored solar panels, surrounded by a network of planets that convert that power into quadranix. I want to see the Greenforge and its endless conveyor lines, to see the ever-burning refineries of Waterspines, the dead hypercomputers of the Stacks piled up to orbit. I want to see the Intergalactic Clearing House, the planetary shipyard and storage centre that stores millions of tonnes of every raw resource and commodity in the galaxy. I want to see the waterslides of Jan-Frii! I want..."

She trailed off.

"Of course, none of that's possible, really," she said. "I'm an AI, in the oldest sense. Electronics and silicon. That means I'm cursed by Zeus. Hades keeps me safe here, but outside, a single ELF lights up anywhere in my postcode and - poof. Gone, forever. Or at least to some lower depth of the Underworld where I'll never be seen again."

Dolce!

Jil tried to stand again but each motion seemed to have 5% too much force behind it. She frowned, focused, and then stood up normally - and paused as she could feel the rush to her head.

"You're right," she said. "And wrong. You. You, go over there and let her know exactly what I think of her. You watch, she's not going to do anything about it. She'll back down. I know her type. Anyway, when she does, I want you to punch her for me. When you do I'll," she rummages in her pocket and produces a lighter. "I'll throw this molotov cocktail at her friend. That'll show her who's in charge."

She starts folding up a napkin to make a wick for her drink before inspiration strikes and she uses the drink umbrella to form it. She then starts hefting the glass experimentally, checking weight and aerodynamics with a critical eye. A few drops spill over the edge of the glass and she licks at them out of a sense of honour.

Sweat. And salt. And perfume. And lust. And a thousand years of half-melted sugar.

Every breath is heaven. She smells it in the air. She feels it coat her tongue until it's all that she can taste. This cocktail of theatricality, secrets, and romance. Redana's hair is lush and soft against her face. Her skin is wet and supple against her fingertips. Their mouths are deliciously dry and their bodies are filled with warmth. A glowing ache.

Bella is a long time before she finally rises to her feet. She glides to her feet with a luxurious stretch; hands above her head and all of her sweet curves rising, stretching, rolling with the tides of her body. Every tiny pop as her muscles shift back into alignment from the cramps that were ruling her form is a tiny burst of ecstasy. Something warm and soft that reminds her afresh of the blissful ocean still lapping at her insides.

She is not quick to dress herself either, preferring to take her time sorting her clothes from Redana's in the awkward pile they all wound up in, and tossing the Princess' down on top of her. Each one draws a fresh squawk of protest that makes Bella laugh in turn, but where these exchanges should naturally be followed by flustered glaring, Redana's eyes remain worshipful. Every time, her head turns and her mouth falls open a little. She watches without comment. The flickering, constantly shifting lights of cinema splashing across her Bella's naked body. Her Bella. Her Bella. Bella Bella Bella, only Bella.

After everything they'd seen of each other, everything they'd done to each other, their whole lives and again the last two days, to see eyes like that on her can't be called anything other than a miracle. Bella's body flushes with a sudden heat and color, and she quickly pulls her dress on overtop of her head.

Her body is lighter than air. She could fly among the Azura ships the way she feels this moment. She could climb the walls of the Palace in a single bound, she could, she could, she could...

"We're gonna need a bath after this, Redana. Of all the places for you to lose your head, why'd you go and pick this one? Now I'm never going to be able to remember that movie."

Or anything else, for that matter. The thought strikes her like a thunderbolt. Her insides suddenly tangle themselves into knots trying to crawl through each other. Bella stiffens, and awkwardly pulls on her socks. The smells in the air are all the same, but they've taken on slightly different qualities. As if they'd suddenly become old and dusty. Dead things, all around her.

"Dany, I..."

She bends low, without warning. Her hands dart out faster than a pair of arrows and pluck her princess off the ground. She lifts Redana as easily as if she were a bucket of amphitheater concessions, and pulls her close enough to bury her nose in that beautiful golden hair. The warmth, rival to a star and yet more gentle than the insubstantial wings of the garden's butterflies. The smell, purity itself. Slowly, she unclenches. Slowly, she lets Redana down. Not enough to let her feet touch the ground, but free enough for them to wrap their arms around each other, and for their love-parched lips to find each other once again for one last lingering kiss in the half-darkness.

And then, to smile.

"Hurry up, you useless thing. Don't keep your mistress waiting. This place goes on for fucking ever and I don't want to miss any of it. Come on. Let's go make some memories worth forgetting."