"Oh my gosh, you know about crabs."

She's tugging at the tentacles, but not--Look, it's not an escape attempt, right? It's just hard to properly talk about something like crabs without the proper wild gesticulations.

"I know about crabs!

"Did you know they're on literally every planet we've ever conquered?! Every single one! Planets that are barren, lifeless, just rocks and bacteria, have crabs!

"Oh I'm silly, you know that. There are some planets where we--it's like, we've never even seen them, but we know they're there because--well, admittedly, some survivors have seen them, but that's just anecdotal, and I hear most of them were gibbering--we know they're there because of the evidence it leaves on the crabs' natural prey! If there weren't crabs there, the submarines would see far more animals down there!"

She beams at the Pix.

"Oh, you have to tell me your favorite. Please? I've read books, but my favorite is--get this--a crab the size of a planet. One of the sailors told me about it, can you imagine it? A crab so big, it has sub-crabs inside it, so big it can eat starships! It hasn't been seen in centuries, but the sailors say it's still out there!

"…Hmm. Now that I think about it, she might have been pulling my leg? She seemed serious, didn't have that little tell around her eyes that said she was joking. Or maybe trying to scare me?

"But come on! A crab the size of a planet? How do you get scared of that? I wanna see it! I wanna fly inside it, crawl on its back!"

Dyssia is grinning and wiggling against the Pix. There are benefits to tentacles, you know? Yeah, you can't escape them, but you have an excuse for getting nice and close to them, and pressing your face against them, and really getting familiar.

"Have you been working with crabs long? Have you made any improvements on crabs? I mean, they're crabs, I'm surprised you've taken the time out of your busy schedule for Azura matters, you know? Is Tidal Specialization your name or your job? C'mon, I gotta know the name of my partner in crime slash new best bud slash kidnapper!

"And the answer is yes! Although you can't really know whether that's the truth or not, because I'd say yes even if I were secretly thinking no, you know? If I wanted to escape, the easiest way to do that would be to trick you into letting me out, right?

"So, how about this: I will promise on whomever you choose not to attempt to escape until after you betray me. Does that work?"

Water in and of itself is clearer than crystal. A glass in a person's hands or a basin to wash those same hands in might as well be nothing more than invisible, sloshing veil between the space that mortals are doomed to occupy and the divine. It is pure and perfect; the only things that can be seen are what is given to the water to show.

That small basin feels ordinary to look upon. Plain and more than a little bit boring. For all its striking clarity, the water merely sits there, waiting. It pools into the curvature, taking the shape with the same gracious acceptance as it takes mineral impurities, content for all time to accept, accept, accept, and never to reach.

But the water is always taking. And the more it takes, the more it shows. When the basin overflows into a pool it becomes a mirror like no other: the rippling surface will take a person's face and show it back to them though in the same breath it permits their eyes to look straight through themselves and into the silty surface this water has accepted as its new resting place.

The more water pools, the greater its power. More water accepts more. Never takes for itself, even in infinite amounts, but invincible in its humility. The pool accepts the warmth beating down from on high, this gift from the sun that could drop a mortal woman to her knees if she tried to accept it in the same way that water would. The pool simply warms. When it has accepted the sun's warmth beyond its limits, it simply accepts a new form, lifts away, and allows itself to be gathered elsewhere.

It falls as rain. It falls upon the sea. And at last can human eyes behold the true and terrifying power of humble acceptance. That which is offered freely is enough to transform a body completely. The impossible heat and majesty of the sun dwindles to nothing inside the body of the never ending ocean. What heat there is gets absorbed so deeply that a hand brave enough to plunge into it would freeze before long. Now there is no gift great enough to satisfy it, and yet it does not ask for more.

Here the choppy waves are crested with white. And here the unfathomable reaches of the water have turned from mirrored crystal to the deepest and most impossible blue that could ever be beheld. Gems pale in comparison. The skies quiver with jealousy. Only the sea may accept enough light to give back a color this pure, this entrancing, this... beautiful.

The color, she notices, reminds her of her own hair. It is of course much bolder and brighter here, reflected back at her and yet no matter how her mind turns away from the comparison she is drawn straight back to it again. The sea is not like her hair, but her hair is like the sea. And that is something. Vesper may have known what she was talking about after all. She peers over the deck and her own pristine face and fluttering hair shine back at her as they race ahead of the ship's wake. Her reflection smiles.

She breathes, and the air is salt. She breathes, and the air is sweet. She turns and walks away from the glittering, frozen, impossible blue and returns her attentions to the decks. There is so much work to be done to keep this thing afloat and moving forward. Briny air fills her lungs and is expelled as breath in the form of orders. She directs, much as she has ever done, to keep the work flowing as evenly as the seas beneath their feet. It is not entitlement that compels her; in fact her own hands and eyes are busier than anyone's. There is simply work to be done, and she has sight enough to follow the path to doing it.

Mosaic stands beneath the mask. She is alone and yet...

She is surrounded by beauty. This ship, her Argo. The sea rushes beneath her, and in front of her, behind and to every side deep past the horizon without ever breaking or offering a sight to navigate by. All around her is breath, is laughter, is singing, is storytelling, is calls to supper, is questions, is an offer of an embrace, is promises.

Is love.

“Our house,” Vasilia breathes, and the sails flutter. “Was built from the remnants of a starship that had crash-landed ages and ages ago. Took out half a mountain when it landed, and embedded itself deep in the other half. Generations of my family conscripted workers to clear out debris, reinforce the structure, work the plates of metal until they became a firm foundation. In my time? It was fortress and mansion all in one. Our ballroom boasted an unparalleled view of the countryside, with viewports four times my height, and a working artillery battery to boot. We made our own firework shells in the foundries for special occasions.”

The hairbrush runs long, soothing strokes through an ocean of hair, expertly teasing out knots with hardly a tug at Mosaic’s head. She works to the rhythm of a song in her heart; she’s much too busy with her story to hum the tune.

“Your home was at least as grand as mine. Finer, if you’d have asked me. ‘See, these are people,’ I remember thinking, ‘who knew a thing or two about class.’ The outside…the outside was…”

“Well, there’s no use asking me about the outside, is there? Truth be told, I hardly ever saw it. I had a tunnel, specially built, so that we could go back and forth whenever we liked. Oh, what a lifesaver that was when we couldn’t bear the crowds for another second. And when the storms blotted out the sun, and the wind besieged our estates with shrapnel. I’d come over, and we’d hide away in the innermost rooms, in fortresses of blankets and pillows, where no clang of metal could reach us. And we’d dream of days quiet enough that no one would have to hide again.”

“Or, we’d fight!”

A delighted laugh bubbles up out of her.

“Come, come, darling, of course I don’t mean seriously. But even so, what storm could compete with us when we got into it? Gods, don’t tell anyone, you’ll spoil my carefully crafted mystique-” Secret Technique: Audible Wink! “But really, it’s not like I was born a master of the glaive. Sparring with you, it was either become a genius or learn to love the taste of dirt, and my palate was much too refined for the latter.”

Now claws join brush. To feel out her work. To tease out those last, stubborn tangles. To drape her hair lovingly across her shoulders.

“I think…that tripped you up, in the Olympics. There must have been a rule against using claws or jaws or the like. Only weapons you can carry, nothing that came attached to you. There must have been. How else did I ever keep ahead of you in the medal count?”

A whisper, too soft for sails, and just loud enough for one.

“Or were you happy to lose, if it was me?”

The waves lap at the sides of their boat, filling the silence between them. Her hands move to shoulders, and rub gently. An apology, in motion. “I know. I know you don’t remember, dear. You don’t have to say a word.” She squeezes, in time to her aching heart. “Just bear with the odd, silly dream of mine, and I’ll tell stories enough for the both of us. Where we were, what we did, and how we made it out, you and I.”

“And how you made out with - oops! Silly me, I meant made it out with a shining, beautiful treasure.” Secret Technique: Laugh of Ultimate Superiority! Oh ho ho ho! “So. Shall it be braids? A ponytail? Would you like her to be struck dumb, or to add a few stanzas to her song? Your hair is a gift, darling, and I have ideas…”

Is this open for joining right now?

The ancients knew the world was round. The secret was hidden in geometry and sunlight, plain for all to derive. Since then, they learned the galaxy was a disc, the universe an expanding sphere, the cycle of souls a wheel. Circles, circles, circles. As inevitable and unchanging as zero. No need to even check for a problem so long solved.

Until the Fall.

If this planet, if this reality, were circular then it would not appear a fraction so vast. It would curve away over the horizon and creep up slowly like a mountain. But the Lethe, in its cruelty, does not allow the Fall to be concealed behind optical illusions. It stands in its immensity, the sharp edge of reality, an edifice beyond even the dreams of the biomancers to prepare you for. A curtain of water infinitely wide and inconceivably high, the waterfall at the edge of the world where Oceanus overflowed and came cascading down into the Underworld. Down, down, down in endless sheets. Down, down, down until it arrived here, at the bottom. Down, down, down.

Surrounding the broken reality of the Fall is the inevitable consequence of it. Winds slash against it and catch the rushing cascade as they circle back, becoming the material of rain and storm. Lightning scorches overhead in the Thunderer's colours; waves born of ever-impact crash at the ship's sides in the rhythm of the Earthshaker. The edge of the world looms closer and closer until its storms mercifully consume the sight of it, the trauma of its impossible visual immensity replaced with the shock of its endless crashing roar.

But even over that roar another can be heard.

The only saving grace is that you have seen this manner of creature before. On the first steps of your journey you beheld a monster that had consumed the better part of the Grand Armada, a titan who shattered planets like chestnuts. All the weapons of all sentient life had been turned against the Eater of Worlds and had barely managed to stop it days from reaching Tellus. No matter the Lethe, a sight like the slain behemoth can never be forgotten.

And here, in the darkening storms before the Fall, swims its sister.

The ancients knew that the world was round. They knew, too, to write on the edge of their maps that here there be dragons.

*

Dyssia!

A pen and notepad reluctantly, irresistibly drag themselves out of the Pix's pockets and into her hands (it went without saying that the fact that this was happening deep underwater posed no issue). "Would you say," said the Biomancer with the air of someone conducting a survey, "that it would be more convenient for me to be named after my specialization?"

Ah, this was the upshot of being targeted by a Biomancer specifically. Servitors knew their roles and knew their jobs and so could be impossible to reason with or deter, but Biomancers were always looking to Do Better. That meant that your opinion on matters of performance improvement like this was as important as honour to a Ceronian.

"But I'd appreciate it if you swore to Poseidon Earthshaker," she said quickly afterwards. There tentacles wrapped around Dyssia tightened a bit as she said it. It had the aspect of a saleswoman trying to close a deal in the seconds after the customer had noticed a missing airbag.

Smooth, the grain of the wood against her palm. But when she squeezes it she feels a bite on her skin, sharper and sharper teeth gnawing on her until the pressure of her fist crushes the railing in on itself and the only sensation left is a jagged roughness, and calm.

The wind whips at her magnificent half coat and sets the intricate braid of her hair lashing with the same intensity as her tail. It pulls the heat from her body and slams the driving rain against her body like a trillion tiny arrows. Each of them nothing, but together a torrent of icy stabs that numb the body and dull her wits. The air is full of salt and blood and the special burning tang of ozone; just to breathe it is to taste it, and to taste it is to struggle. The wind howls and pushes the brine down her throat against the pace of her own breathing, choking her with the very air she fills her lungs with.

Lightning flashes all about her, and the thunder roars after with a booming voice so loud she could not say if she is listening to the storm or the beast. The light is blinding, but it is the only thing to see by. The sound is heavy, and together with the storm it tries to press her to her knees.

Mosaic stands straight and unbroken against it all. The pounding of her heart means nothing except that she is alive. She is alive, and if that is true it must be for a reason. The burning salt on her skin, the weight of her soaking clothes, the sticking of her sodden fur are only proof of the adrenaline coursing through her veins.

This is not fear. This is excitement. She flips over the railing to perch atop the prow. Atop her head, a crown flashes like starlight in the darkness. She is the beacon that her ship may steer by, even if the only place for it to go is down. Into the depths of the storm, but not alone!

Her claws itch where they meet her fingertips. Her fingers curl into fists, squeeze, and relax again on a loop for want of something to hold in them. Her kingdom for a sword, a spear, for anything but the gifts the gods have given her instead. For a hero to fight a monster, a tool is required. And yet.

Her lips pull against the wind into a grim smile. All about her the gale swirls and her clothing billows dramatically even despite how heavy the rain has made it. She watches the water for signs of white foam that mean rocks and coral and bits of other less fortunate ships have left footholds for a crossing. From step to step they lead on, tethered together by silver thread that sets her spine tingling. Thrill. This is not fear, this is excitement.

Leviathan is not a large enough word for this colossal fish swimming in front of her. All the infinite sea she has traveled across for what feels like half her life would not be enough to swallow it. No planet, as much as the word has any meaning to her, could be enough to even slow it down. The earth must break against its scales and the seas must part in deference to its gravity. Its teeth shimmer like prisms. Rainbows that scythe through cities in a single, swift bite. Its eye larger than her ship, its gaze vast enough to track the movement of the stars and yet so focused that she knows without asking that it has spotted her, specifically.

She tosses her head back, and she laughs. Mosaic laughs against the howling of the wind, against the shattering of the thunder, against the roiling of the sea that smashes hundred foot waves against her overmatched ship. She laughs like a madwoman, like a girl possessed, and yet it is a clarion call. It is the sound of bravery that lifts up the hearts that listen to it. It is a bark of defiance, screaming to Zeus and Poseidon and Hades alike that they are not the dead, these few, no matter your rage.

"This is a test!" she cries, "And if it's our last or our first then what's it matter?! It's nothing more than a trial, and those are only given to be overcome! Are you watching, O Gods? We are coming through! We will match our might against you will, and if it please you we are crossing! I have not come this far to turn aside now! I have not brought this many with me to lose them now! I, Mosaic, offer my name to this storm as the proof of our convictions! Take it! And show us what lies beyond the end of everything!"

Her tail twitches. Her muscles coil, ready for a pounce. Her tongue laps at her fangs, and finds them sharp enough to match an Eater of Worlds.

If there is any meaning to the blue in her hair, let it prove itself now. If there is any meaning to the stories others have told her about herself, let them bear fruit now. If she is right, if her heart is true, if she is in face any kind of princess at all (even of a broken and mismatched house, of a patchwork people with nothing else to unite them), then let her show her colors here, or never again.

Because here in front of her, at last, is a vessel worthy of crossing the spaces that no other vehicle thus far has been equal to. Here is a creature that can bear them past the end of everything and into whatever wonders that lie beyond.

All she has to do is conquer it.

You know, people don't notice things nearly enough?

It's weird, right? Doesn't make sense. People just say things, as if everyone's a prince, too busy thinking about what they're going to say next to pay attention.

Dyssia knows she's weird, right? People won't let her forget it. But surely everyone else is weird for not paying attention?

Do other people just… not care? Not notice? Not pay attention to the emotional state of everyone around themselves? Are they not constantly trying to figure out what other people are thinking, are feeling, so they can fit themselves in better?

And you know, she used to wish that everyone would do the same? Like, paying attention, she means. Pick up on all the cues that are right there if you just [/i] look. And they just don't?

It's to the point that someone talking to her and--and, you know, actually paying attention, actually watching her, actually listening--almost feels like it's accusatory? Like she's done something wrong, and every nerve is singing, and--

And oh shit, it's.

Go back. Go back to not paying attention to her, please go back!

It's like suddenly the universe has a physical pressure. Eyes stare at her from every direction, invisible, but totally present by the force of attention they exert. A great sucking pull, the weight of every creature in the environment hanging off her next words.

He's here.

He's here and he's watching. Here and waiting, waiting for those words to spill from her lips.

Tidal Specialization was way too quick to accept that. Way too eager to get her to promise.

Until she betrays me. Tidal has that pressure in her eyes, that built-in species-level urge. It's inevitable, right? She can't not betray her. Unless she does? Unless she just chooses to leave? Recuses herself? Can't. Gotta be a trap. Can't trust a scorpion to sting you if stinging you is. Um. Not? Stinging you?

Reexamine. Other terms? Until she's.

Until she's delivered to another pix. Seems like a good way to end up in solitary?

Until they're off planet? Does she know they're leaving? If she says that, will that mean they just. Just won't leave? She wouldn't leave if all she had to do was break one person to claim a planet.

The tentacles are squeezing her too hard. They must be, because it's hard to breathe right now.

"Not particularly, I don't think," she babbles. "I mean, not that it's not striking, because I mean, wow, what a coincidence, did your parents name you that and then you went into it? C'mon, you gotta have a name of your own, I can't call you by your job. We can be friends, right, no need for"--potentially life ending, holy shit--"promises like that, right?"

The only sane option would be to give the monster as much space as it deserves. To watch in awe as it breaks through the water, as it makes world-swamping waves with the shrug of its shoulders, as it creates an absolute shipwreck zone that requires no malice to destroy. A forever memory, a holy mark on the cheek, the kiss of the untouchable divine. To navigate the absolute shipwreck zone is impossible.

It is the prerogative of a knight to dare the impossible, when it is given to her.

The Starsong does not have a wheel. Not with the yellowfolk on board. She has a web of ropes, cables, levers, not to send signals for miles but to allow for control from a central hub. This has been the work of the entire voyage, the work of construction and knotting, improvement for the sake of improvement, for the sake of a moment like this.

The knight stands in the middle of it all, the Ancient Craftsman riding on her shoulders like a grandfather, and she knows she’s done this before. This is why she wears gloves which don’t slip on the handles. The Starsong hasn’t fallen through Poseidon’s song, but she has. Which means she’s the only one who can do this. And she’s grinning as she steers the Starsong along the length of an impossible wave, into the absolute shipwreck zone.

She can worry about what they’re going to do later. Right now, she exists in the moment, in the strain of pulling a line taut, in the knowing of sails like wings and fins, in another ship she has learned to love through earnest service, and in the laughter spilling out of her lips. When the waves fall, the spray is stained with rainbows. And yet, the Starsong impossibly breaches the surface again, and she continues where no ship has survived before.

Eventually, she will find the wave the ship cannot survive. But in her heart, there is no such wave.

Beneath a holy offering to buy them all passage. Beneath a hero’s rallying voice, raised as the second of many. Beneath the knight’s cradle of rope that bears them ever-forward. In the space below, there is neither dry nor quiet. No warning of Poisoidon’s next strike, nor shield from chaos on all sides. But deep below, there is a galley, and a little sheep racing to mix and stir as fast as his legs can carry him. Into his pack goes bottle after bottle, box after box, morsel and drink, treat and offering. And beside him, and behind him, and around him, there is a fellow of water and fear, to hold back the tide while he works.

“I can’t put my finger on why, exactly. But I think…” He thinks and speaks and if he keeps doing both maybe he can keep from shaking himself apart. “I think you know how I could get inside, and who I ought to talk to, and how to let them all know I'm not to be feared.”

Amidst the crashing storm, the Praetor takes the prow.

This is a vessel carrying knights and princesses. This is a vessel carrying magi, ancient and new. This is a vessel carrying sisters and lovers. This is a vessel carrying the soft and the kind. This is a vessel carrying a community that dares the storm together, dares the horizon together, dares the dragon together. But only one hand can hold the spear.

Leviathan turns. Despite the distance of the horizon it sees. Despite the crash of the Fall it hears. Despite the immensity in scale it cares. The beast turns with all the thrill of Love, with all the crushing enormity of desire. Though it be a nation and you but a ship, though its beak is still hot and wet with the molten yolk of a fractured planet, though it is everything and you are nothing, to the Eater of Worlds this is everything. Muscles the size of continents pull. Bones the size of mountains stretch. An skull that could hold up the dome of the sky turns as thoughts the shape of stormclouds tear through an unimaginable brain.

But for all its scale those stormcloud thoughts are simple. Ancient. Directed by the man in the battered tuxedo who stands at the barrier of life and death and says that this, too, must be a thing of desire. Let this, too, be cursed. Let Aphrodite, phallus of Kronus, work his revenge on the death that dared to take him. Let all men, all women, fear Hades. Let all hate him. May the final dream of every king be immortality.

Sleep is the brother of death; Lethe is the river of dreams. And here swims the dream of Immortality, the Eater of Worlds, the monster who inspired the pyramids.

But even as it roars away the stars, the Praetor hefts the spear.

She carries herself like she is tall. Surrounded by those taller than her, as she is, it makes her seem defiant. In the face of impossibility that is a champion's skill. She dresses herself like she is dead. Her garb is funerary and timeless. Black lace and black leather and her face painted with the impression of a skull. She carries herself like a warrior. In the end, who else to call upon? Who else could make war on this hateful dream?

"My name," said the Praetor, "is Jil. I am of the Lanterns. I was born into darkness. Raised amidst death. I have worn the bones of my ancestors. I have carried the axe in the night. I have made war beneath the desert sun. I and all my kind are the grandchildren of this Imperial dream of immortality."

She raised a finger and pointed.

"And I am what it fears."

All the gods were silent to witness this, a mouse standing unafraid before a dragon.

"Sail me closer," called Jil to her storm-wracked crew. An octopus creature slithered up alongside her, meek and wretched beneath her feet - but though it quavered, it breathed steadily. "Sail me closer! From hell's heart! Help me give up my spear!"

*

Dyssia!

"I apologize," said Tidal Specialist, now sounding increasingly like she was reciting from training. "The hypno-indoctrination technology that allowed the inserting of parental memories, while proven to be effective at improving relatability scores, was lost with the downfall of the Atlas Cultural Sphere. The Academy apologizes for any discomfort you may be experiencing from heightened awareness that you are speaking to an artificial life form. While feelings of empathy and outrage are natural, the Academy would like to remind you that you are a natural life form and this biomancer is not, and its desires are aligned with its role."

Normal servitors didn't talk like this. There was that awareness that they were built and wired fundamentally different, sure, but they wouldn't go into disclaimers no matter how you pushed them. It wasn't often that one talked to a biomancer directly - and if this was what it was like, it was clear why it was considered a path of mastery all on its own.

"Note that if you would like to upgrade this individual to the status of friend, due to a high degree of specialization, the biomantic work required will take four to six weeks in laboratory conditions," went on Tidal Specialist, voice having lost all of the colour that made her a Pix. "A clone can be procured on a shorter timeframe if that would be preferable."

"Praetor."

She speaks the word with reverence. Her breath imbues it with power. An almost nostalgic warmth gives it kindness. The sharpness of the final syllable fills the title with lethal precision. Here is a woman who will not miss. Here is a woman who cannot miss, because her spear has already struck true before she has even thrown it. Here is a friend, a confidant, and the keeper of what was lost.

If Mosaic's voice has any kind of power, then a Praetor should stand above a Princess. Even an Empress would hitch a breath at the mention of the name. While kings and petty nobles are locked in useless dreaming and far off gazing at the horizon that they reach for with greedy hands before their eyes have even comprehended the wonders they seek to control, a Praetor will have defended everything already worth loving. The weak made whole and the strong cut down whenever their strength is misapplied. Where the roaming judge walks, justice blossoms in her wake.

And what could be more injust than this endless dream of nothing? This cycle of misery and the wheel that lifts all-powerful kings over their peers only to keep on spinning and crush them again beneath the ego of the next comer to the scene? This infinite plain of misery and squalor that looks upon a stagnant, sterile world and brags, "Ah! I have conquered death itself!"

"Praetor," she says the word again with even greater respect and strength, "When you throw..."

They lock eyes, if only for a moment. Jil's eyes are shining daggers in the dark. Mosaic's are like her name: a patchwork of uneven pieces that shine with a beauty called determination. They draw strength from one another, and this is how it should be. What they mean to do would be impossible without a bond like this. A bond earned on the back of journeys either of them at best only half remembers, but the sword in Gemini's hands glitters in approval. This is enough, it says. This is love beyond love. Maybe someday a scholar will give it a word less tainted by association, but today they make do with their limited understanding. It, too, is enough.

"Remember what you're aiming for."

And she leaps. Mosaic cuts a graceful arc through the storm as she leaps off of her perch and leaves the safety of the ship for the sake of the ship itself. The wind billows inside of the longer portions of her suit. Her claws cut through raindrops and spark with power that lightning refuses to strike. She lands on the sea, but it suffers her to walk across its surface. Bits of flotsam and shattered vessels that dreamed as deeply as hers but less successfully are her silver road. She flies across them in singles bounds, and her feet barely touch against a plank, a barrel, a rotting scrap of sail before she's skyward again and heading ever farther away from comfort.

It is a Princess' job to lead the way. It is her power to buy time for the miracle to happen, and her place to trust that it will. All she needs to do is survive. She is one tiny speck in a storm, standing against the might of a hundred devoured planets. The Leviathan could swallow her whole and not even notice.

And yet.

(Keep Them Busy (Alone, Briefly, Against the World): 9)

Dyssia opens her mouth.

Dyssia closes her mouth.

It hadn't quite hit her yet--here, in this place of life, surrounded by electrifying thrills and threats, here in the enfolding tentacles of this mirage in front of her--but she's going to be alone. Just her and the Pix and, you know, whatever they decide they want to do to her, or have her do for them, or.

Just her, surrounded by people who.

Well, it's not fair to say that they don't care about her. She hopes, anyway. They care very much about her, and about what she does, and what she can do for them. It's in their best interest to keep her happy.

But it feels.

Well, you know, in the stories, the hero always has a sidekick, right? Or a friend, or a lover, or a nemesis that is actually a lover but neither of them have figured it out yet? And sometimes the story needs them to be apart--the sidekick has to be kidnapped so the heroine can kidnap her back, and confess that she's always meant the world to her, and hey since we have all this rope from climbing the wall, maybe we could.

Ehm.

Anyway, the point is, the point is that being alone always leads to being together. You ache while they're apart, you worry about them, but you know the payoff is coming. The sidekick will rescue the heroine, the lovers will confess, the nemesis will be redeemed.

And. Well, she has Brightberry, and that's good. There's days when that's all she wants, when things aren't making sense and all she wants is to crawl in bed so tomorrow comes faster.

D'you think they'd let her take her couch if she asks nicely? That seems important, right this moment. Take her family, her friends, her city, her planet, but don't take her couch, too.

But sometimes the storyteller pulls back the curtain, right? Gives you glimpses of, whoops, the friend is actually a plant of the evil Baroness Meerline, and you can almost see the calculating happening in the corner of their eyes? Seeing how the manipulation happens, and wondering why people don't see it, and lowkey screaming internally because are you blind, can't you see that if you go with her, your friends will be left alone, and--

And she's about to be surrounded by. Well, by people who are going into this knowing the score. Knowing that she's the pawn that they have to crack, which is a terrible metaphor. She's going to be surrounded by Pix who want her to trust them, want her to work for them, want to be her friends.

And she doesn't know that she doesn't want them to be her friends? Which sucks massively, because it doesn't make any damned sense? She wants to be able to trust them? But also if she picks any one of them at random, the biomancer is--

What a shitshow. How do you biomancer in a way that doesn't lead to the biomancer immediately biomancing to keep you happy?

So, can't trust them to make a friend. Can't choose one on her own to make a friend, because then the biomancer gets involved to make the friendship happen perfectly.

And she can't even keep the dismay off her face, can't keep it from crumpling, can't keep the hood from half-flaring. Even a blind biomancer--a blind biomancer who is also deaf and dead--could see this.

"How long would it take to happen naturally? Not to have a friend assigned, or cloned, or created, or edited, but. You know, to let me muddle into it without interference? If I ask for that, is that an option?"

He remembers a body, in good working order. His tentacles struggle to maintain purchase on the heaving deck. He doesn’t remember much between those points. He’s afraid he doesn’t need to.

He loves the memory too much to let the Lethe carry it away. And yet here it is before him. See the cooperation necessary to work tectonic muscles, to set fins against wind, cloud, and water alike to push a universe forward. Then see the miracle happen a hundred times over without fail. Marvel at the shellsmith’s work, no planet was ever so encrusted. The divots and cracks only show how indestructible the whole is. It’s not time yet to hear the clack-clack of claws and beak, sharp enough to split suns and drink their golden cores, and the sound alone may rattle their ship to pieces.

Go ahead then. Kill this dream dead. Split its skull. Empty it of the cosmos until it is nothing but a lonely, haunted husk. Let the communiques cease and the last claws snap. Just that, and the way forward will be clear.

He does not know how to kill this dream any more than he knows how to be whole again, and a mouse presently stands taller than him. He cannot forget to fear any more than he can forget to hunger. He can only feel adrift because he knew his place once.

His breath comes steady, because she taught him to sit with fear. His breath comes steady, and her silhouette vanishes into the distance against the wall of flesh before them.

He remembers a body in good working order.

“The Department of Doubt will be sending scores of supplicants to central. This must be a trap, they will cry. It cannot be what it seems. The first ship we have seen in memory cannot be piloted by fools alone.”

“The Sages of Fear will remember the taste of a thousand legends of a thousand worlds. How often did the brave hero find victory in the moment of their defeat? How often did the jaws of doom reveal the one place their spear could pierce?”

“The Archivists of Reason must be raising an objection, that the inside of our beak is sufficient to crack planets, but no Secretary worth their office would let that motion stand.”

“The beak will not open until the last moment. There will be a swell of water, a wall of water when it opens. Anticipate it! Count on it! Use it!”

His thin quavering voice carries to the knight at the helm, just as it carries to the chef tucked away on the deck, awaiting his moment to leap.

Sail me closer!

The knight is the Starsong. She knows her lines and wales as well as she can, given the length of their journey. And when the ropes whine and strain under the task, they are her own tendons and nerves howling. To deliver the Praetor to her doom is the death of the ship. But the ship will perform its duty. Nothing less is asked for it than all that it can give. And always, always, it is...

It's like taking the next step, the very next one. (Crest this wave. There will be a moment outside the waves; the sails will need to be turned already.) It's always her who's taken the next step. (The vertigo, the lurch, the strain of the sails threatening to rip away if she does not hold them.) The step from the earth to the sky. (The swing of the prow in the final approach, a knife defiant against the Eater of Worlds.) The step from star to star. (The next wave is the truly dangerous one.) And she chose the river, didn't she? (She screams the ship's pain as the wave crashes, crushes, envelops them whole, seeks to disperse, ropes pulled taut around waists, not a one of them slipping free, and they're through, and the sails are sodden, but they're alive for another wave, and that's all she can ask of herself, another step, just one more.) Running was like this when she was a girl. (Final approach back towards the head, riding the swell, a razor's edge and on either side the ship capsizes.) Is that why she is laughing? (Her lover glitters like a star to follow.)

So close now. (The eye swallows the sky.) The ship is dying. (The ship gives itself for everyone it loves.) This last crest will be the final one. (The ropes come unwound as she lets them all go, as she draws her sword, as she knows the route she will take across the deck in her heart. If every safety line is connected to the ship when it shatters, they will all drown with it.) Her sword is a kiss. (Each line grabbed by the carabiner.)

With a scream, the Starsong yields to the inevitable ocean. With a cry, the knight leaps through the wave, with all but one of the crew's lifelines attached to the mag harness about her hips, reaching out her hand for the hand she knows will be there.

Go, Praetor. Only this far can she take you, no further. And when you are victorious, she will be there waiting, she and the Mosaic and the crew of the Starsong, bound together in every way that matters.

The Starsong is pummelled by shattering waves. Ball lightning arcs in spectacular arcs. Slashes of sunlight illuminate the Eater of Worlds with a crown of Poseidon's rainbows.

The swell begins.

The smallest of motions, the movement of the giant's head to take a bite. Civilizations live and work inside it, trapped souls, damned souls, churning away in their thoughtless industry. Magma blood pours in channels. Plasma hearts pound at trillions of degrees. Cathedral observation decks with tens of thousands of optocytes standing, looking out and collating their reports to robed octopus scribes who send their reports through pneumatic tubes to the distant crystal brain. They see everything, including -

- including the way the glass shatters as Mosaic breaks through.

Panic. Optocytes run in all directions. Overseers start sending through panicked reports faster and faster. A few battlecrab security guards scuttle to engage. The disruption is immense; chaos, panic, an evacuation in a crowded football stadium.

It's barely a speck of dust in the creature's eye.

On the other hand, it's a speck of dust in the creature's eye.

In annoyed rage, the Leviathan rises.

*

Atop the sinking ship, Jil of the Lanterns raises her spear to the skies. Lightning flashes.

She knows the story. She knows it as well as anyone. How Queen Hatchan and the Warriors of Ceron killed the Eater of Worlds. Told in reverent, hated awe by the Kaeri. This was the bar that was set for them. To surpass the Ceronians they would need an equally legendary feat. They lived for it. They died for it. They strived for it with genetic yearning. They talked about the blow directly into the centre of the creature's forehead, shattering through into its brain.

Jil hefts her harpoon.

Her ship is not the ten kilometer capital ship of a warrior empire; it is breaking wood. Her crew are not the hardened killers of a warrior society; they are knights and princesses and magi. Her arm is not the biomantic perfection of a warrior species; it is firm but slender. She has no right to this legend.

The swell resolves.

The waves crest and smash.

The Eater of Worlds comes above the water.

The Beak opens. Slow, distracted, misaligned - eyes blinking in the wrong direction. Showing her the target.

She kisses the tip of her spear. She gives it a name. It's to help her remember what she's aiming for. She's not aiming for vengeance, not justice, not freedom, not glory. She's not aiming to bring light to a broken universe. She's not aiming to return the gift of flight to a shackled species. She stands against the craving for Immortality and all its kingly carnage, the wheel that makes kings so it can grind them into tobacco.

She has one name, one word to give to it.

"Enough."

She throws the spear.

No lightning bolts strike it. No gods catch it and speed it on its way. No hidden power ignites within it, no trick or secret or cunning. It's just a spear, thrown by a girl, against something that wants everything that ever was and ever will be.

And somehow, just this once, in this place between dreaming and waking...

It's enough.

*

You have never been warm before.

You who stood on the desert of Sahar, before the fire of the Engine, beneath the blistering fire of esoteric weapons. Your body reacted to those things but that was always a charade, an instinctive play-acting to hide the fact that your hearts did not beat and blood did not run.

This water is warm. It is full. Even here at the bottom there are fish in vibrant colours, corals in cascading arrays, columns of kelp reaching up to the skies, and of course the crabs who somehow seem to wind up everywhere. They stare at you as you emerge, the first witnesses to the slayers of the Eater of Worlds, and they clack their claws and know no fear.

But the sun calls. The sun calls, oh, how it calls. It calls with a brilliant, sparkling energy and you're kicking upwards, swimming, clawing at the water for any extra speed. It's hard, it's slow, it feels like you're so heavy compared to the birdlike fish. Your muscles burn like they've always burned. Every inch closer to that surface is precious. You see her up there, a beautiful shape in bright colours. Every moment, every second, every -

Your head breaks through the water. And before you can react, Zeus - brilliant, beautiful Zeus, dressed a in violet and white bikini, grabs you by the hair and presses her lips to yours and, with her kiss, she breathes into you. Her breath is everything. It's the breath of life. The breath you've always, always, always craved above everything else but never had. The breath you never knew you were missing. A lifetime of pretending to breath and now for the first time ever your lungs are full and your heart is pounding and the sun is warm against your skin and the tropical paradise that surrounds you in this cerulean green sea feels like being in tune with your body for the first time ever.

It's everything. It's everything. You're free. Resurrected. No longer a part of the ranks of the breathless dead.

*

The mousegirl sits atop the Eater of Worlds, staring up at the Fall as the impossible corpse drifts downstream towards the Valley of the Kings. Enough lies in her lap.

Her ears twitched. He thought he was quiet when he moved, but she was used to real stealth.

"You know you still might be able to make it up there?" said the voice of a friend. "I mean. I don't know how, but..."

"It's fine," she said.

"No, I mean it, I can probably organize some sort of lift effort with the remaining droneswarms -"

"It's fine," she brushed the skull-beads out of her eyes so she could look at him. Then she smiled, creasing her half-washed out skull makeup. "Trust me, that world's not for me."

"But," the Assistant - no, he was the Minister now, wasn't he? The Minister of the Eater of Worlds. "But you came this far. Just a little further and -"

"And I could go even further?" said Jil, with a smile. "Yeah, nah. Sucker's game, all that striving and yearning and memory loss. I'm good."

"But Lord Hades would offer you a wish - anything you wanted!"

"Mm!" she said. "He did! But that wasn't the best way to get what I wanted, now was it?"

She wasn't talking to the Minister any more. She was talking to Hades, smiling up at him as he loomed over her, blocking out the sun. She kicked her legs off the side of the Eater of Worlds childishly.

"I admit," said the god of the dead, crimson bow tie like a rose against his throat. "I thought I was going to win this one."

"Yeah, well," she said. "You weren't paying attention."

"No gods helped you. What you did was impossible."

"No gods that you know about," said Jil, rolling her eyes. "Like I said, you weren't paying attention."

"Explain yourself."

"You ever watch Prion Paula?"

"... no?"

"We'll start there. It covers the basics." She hopped to her feet and stretched. "Okay. Pay up."

Hades sighed, then laid a hand on her head.

"C'mon, give it some more juice," she said.

Hades grimaced.

"Eye level. Minimum! This reflects on both of us, you know?"

"What -" said the Minister, eye flicking back and forth between them. "- What is -?"

"You know, I always said that I wasn't short," said Jil. "I'm tall. I'm taller than almost everyone I know. And then suddenly I'm surrounded by all these giant massive people making me feel small, right?"

"Oh! So your wish was to be taller?" said the Minister.

"Nah," Jil grinned. "I said that if I won, Hades would have to make everyone in the underworld shorter than me." Jil grinned wider. "Like I said. I'm tall. By definition now."

She looked at Hades. Looked down at him. "Yeah, that's Enough."

"..."

"Ye-eeees~~?" she said, grinning at him.

"... do you need any more work?" Hades asked.

"Well," she said, flopping back down and spreading out atop the slain colossus. "I think I've got an opening in my schedule."

*

Dyssia!

The Biomancer looks at you with an exhausted, long suffering stare. "Sure, we can do that, ma'am," she said, her voice so flat that it seemed almost like this last part was imagined: "But I won't enjoy it."

But then the smile is back, animated and vivid. "Well, then! Don't think of this like a capture, think of it like the beginning of your montage! You know, we were delighted when we heard the challenge would be something so positive, right? We're wholesome creatures, us Pix, by nature and it is only the complete and utter destruction of the previous mode of production that has turned us to our current life of ultracrime. Come on, they'll have your training field all laid out for you by now!"

She turns and jets away through the water like a knife, jellyfish pulling you behind her in a cascade of tentacles. By the time she drops back to start talking again you've noticed she's forgotten entirely about asking you to swear the oath, which is definitely a mercy. "So have you ever been on a Pix ship before? You might find our way of organizing pretty unique!"

The knight floats.

All around her, there is splashing, sputtering, laughter. So she smiles. She floats in the center of them all, still tied together to her. She made it through. She made it up. She didn't lose anyone. (Well. She didn't lose anyone who was hers to lose. The Praetor made her own choice.)

Slowly, she smiles. It's not a beautiful smile, particularly. It's big, goofy, toothy. Her ankles bob up and down in the water as she kicks, not enough to propel her along, just enough to join in the splashing. She is warm for the first time in her life, the warmth of a cat, the warmth of not needing to move at all. Is this what she was always chasing, down behind? The throb of warmth in her aching muscles, the comfortable ache, the "you can take a nap" ache? The sun beats cheerfully down on her, and the heat is congealing inside of her body, and all she can find the strength to do is to squeeze the hand, still in hers, and then let her Mosaic go.

She made it. To be fair, she doesn't particularly know where "it" is, or the fine details of why it's so important that she's made it, beyond the warmth that flowed through her like a brushfire. Beyond the need for life itself. Beyond the laughter, the splashing, the crying with relief.

The knight floats, and doesn't even notice when she falls asleep, held by the sun-kissed sea in the gentlest embrace that can be imagined.

Five Years Later

When the colony fleet of the Endless Azure Skies first arrived outside of System 380-342-882, the Waterspines Knight petitioned the new world be named Celaphix in honour of her patron, Celaphix of the Riptide, Celaphix the Storm Knight. The request was dispatched on swift couriers through to the Administrative Palace on Mikeal where a herald would announce it to the assembled notables of the Galactic Council for Spans and Distances.

They would reject the petition. There was not only a world named Celaphix, but there were worlds named Riptide, Celaphix Riptide, Stormhome and 14 other pending requests that amounted to the same thing. The toadying of the Waterspines Knight was not only unoriginal it was interfering with the holy task of cataloguing and mapping the Endless Azure Skies. They returned the messenger to her origin with their firmly worded reprimand, along with instructions for the world to be named Podasia. The Waterspines Knight wore it as a badge of armour, the scrollwork of her denunciation pinned to the tilting shield of her armour, and she wore it proudly into the presence of Celaphix herself. This act of more original toadying was rewarded with governorship of a sector and the quiet termination of the careers of the bureaucrats who had dared to question Celaphix' right to have swathes of the galaxy named after her.

After decades of political back and forth were resolved, a courier was dispatched to the location of the planet that was to be known as Celaphix to inform them that their loyal and righteous request had been approved by the Shah of the Endless Azure Skies. By that point it was too late and the messenger arrived to empty void; for while the Galactic Council for Spans and Distances might be diverted by the functions of politics, the Royal Architect stopped for nothing.

The Royal Architect had arrived with a gravitational shockwave that had grounded every flight and flattened every grav-rail user in the system. Without a word he unfolded his Graviton Haulers - the "Gravy Trains" as the irreverent described them, not that there were many of those after seeing the Royal Architect in all his glory. The Haulers connected to the star-shackle, spikes the size of Neptune driven into nine acupuncture points across the length of the star, all linked through enormous chains to the great energy siphon that was transmuting the star to burn violet. And, turning the forces of cosmic momentum on their head, the Architect moved the star.

The process took more decades still. The star was burned brighter and brighter to fit with the Architect's designs, protostars hauled in from nearby nebulas to feed the star's size and growth. Planetary orbits were pushed backwards to maintain habitability, and then further as complaints about the glare reached the Architect's ears. In the end the star had increased 23% in size and brightness and been hauled 6AU out of its original position. Only then did the Royal Architect inform the citizens of System 380-342-882, nee Celaphix, nee Podasia, nee Celaphix, that they were to serve as the striking fangtip in the Constellation of The Rose Serpent, which would bejewel the northern hemisphere of distant Azura forevermore. The residents, hearing this message, rejoiced and named their world Rosefang in celebration - though up until then they'd been calling it Bitemark due to a quirk in how the planet's mountain ranges made it appear from orbit.

The Royal Architect withdrew to further the mission of beautifying the Endless Azure Skies. The citizens of Rosefang grew strong and prosperous, and multiple great Knights rose from this quiet home. The world gained a reputation for the beauty of its coral and for the landscapes where active tectonics shaped new islands. A powerful Satrap built a summer vacation palace on Rosefang. The world glittered, another jewel amidst the endless glory of the Endless Azure Skies.

This lasted, as so many things did, until the arrival of the Wolves of Ceron. They bombarded the planet for four days and nights, damaging the summer palace, and then launched a shock assault. They called it Operation Zone #1326, though when they heard about the old nickname of Bitemark from the locals they took the time to carve the landscape with orbital lances to make the feature impossible to miss. A love-bite from the wolves that blackened the sky worse than any volcano. And then, mostly, they were on their way, leaving the Azura survivors amidst the wreckage of their world.

This is Bitemark today; a world scarred from the worrying of the wolves. A world green and lush and vivid from the eruptions of volcanic ash. A world where the oceans bloom green with plumes of algae and are filled with fish and new plants. A world where the summer city-palace of the Satrap's vacation home dominates the center of an island archipelago, white ribbon bridges cracked and molten by plasma strikes - but others still intact, defended by their Guardians even against the roaring engines of voidships. It is a world of broken glass and broken lights and white marble veined with blue and the personal attention and blessing of the Royal Architect. It is a world with kessler syndrome, a glittering ring of destroyed space stations and satellites that fill the night sky with the beauty of space garbage. It is a world on the ravaged fringe of the Endless Azure Skies, a broken fang reminder of the limits of the Endless.

Few ships come here. There is only one Slipgate and it is small and intermittently used, its most frequent guest the annual arrival of the Sector Governor. Her coming is a festival and month-long celebration, not least because she brings news of how the Endless Azure Skies rebuilds its splendor - new warships, new generals, new Knights, a restoration of glory under a new Saoshyanet. Sometimes there are military flyovers and tickertape parades and it's all very splendid.

But for the most part, life in Bitemark is lived in the inches between the mountains and the sea. With so much geological activity the mountains cut right down into the ocean at sharp angles. Lemon trees and other orchards grow on steep angles, and in those places where the mountains have collapsed into shallower inclines towns are crammed in as tightly as they'll pack. White stone houses with blue tiled rooftops wrap around the edges of the mountainside connected by layers of stairs and winding cliffside roads. Where the mountainsides are heavy with spice and citrus, the water is warm and rich, filled with fish and pearl divers. The beaches are sharp gravel, baking under the sun, and the waves soft and pleasant. Sometimes during hot summer nights there are fireworks. The town you have found as home is called Beri.

It's a tropical, sun-tanned tyranny to live under, but it is a tyranny. All along the mountaintops are castles, filled with the watchful soldiers of Mayor Kaspar. The tithes Kaspar demands are extensive, but such is the price of keeping the sky blue. Sometimes groups will be called up and yoked together to haul more stones up to the hilltop castles, or to harvest trees to erect new anti-aircraft ELF-spikes. Sometimes people will be called on to spend months working in the guts of one of the defensive Warspheres that soar like zepplins above the towns below. Sometimes when the war drums sound the entire town may be rounded up, solid projectile muskets pressed into their hand, and made to stand in drenching tropical rainfalls on the castle walls, staring out into the sea as the dark shapes of Ceronian raiding vessels can be seen in the distance. Some of the wolves never left, or so the soldiers say, and the militia needs to be ready to fight them at any moment.

But on days when the arbitrary demands of the government are not being made, life is blessedly free. A riot of brightly coloured servitor species live and work shoulder to shoulder along their various arts and obsessions. Not enough Azura are present on the planet to make use of their services - the only Azura that lives in Beri is named Triden, and her only demand is that the town produce enough skilled wrestlers for her to practice her art against. There are no Biomancers - they were all conscripted by the Governor, taken away to assist with the great project of yoking the Tides of Poseidon. Only a few lesser hedge biowitches remain incognito to concoct the illicit drugs and various small modifications this untended garden requires.

There's nothing to do but enjoy the sunshine and the water, repair the damage caused by sun and storms, to manufacture things of beauty and to gift or barter them amongst each other. And, of course, to cover for all the chores of those taken away for governmental service.

It's not a bad life. The Skies never change, and that is for better and for worse.

On a curving street, halfway up the mountain, sits a house with two kitchen windows. Real, honest windows, these, not artfully decorated holes in the walls. These are the big kind, with multiple panes, the kind that let in the light, the air, and the neighbors in time.

You have to be a grand kitchen to get two windows. If you don’t have an oven, a counter you could sleep on, a cupboard for every bowl and pan in the house, a lake of a sink, and a respectable pantry to boot? You can just take whatever lets you remember there’s a sun and be happy with it. In a town like Beri, you have to be a special kitchen to earn two windows. That’s a whole bunk bed and a half’s worth of space, you’d better not be using it to indulge in some frivolous spatula collection!

For food? Food’s hardly a good enough reason. Take a walk around the bend and pluck some fresh fruit from the trees. Or run down to the beach and corner a crab in honorable combat before it scuttles away to its hole. Drink the water if you’re desperate enough, but preferably the springwater. Food is no luxury in Beri.

But it’s a good walk to the nearest orchard, and there’s no telling if you’ll find enough ripe fruit in the first one you go to, and maybe all these trees are set aside so we’ll have enough juice at the festival, so it’ll be another good walk to try the next one. The ocean’s just a hop, skip, and a jump away, but it’s recommended to take the stairs, as not everyone can manage the landing. That’s a good fifteen minutes each way. And a crab hunt takes time to do right.

Think a few minutes is a trifle in a sleepy town like Beri? Hardly! Maybe you left home this morning planning on a little jaunt to the beach, but then your neighbor’s roof is leaking and he needs you to hold a ladder, and then there’s the call to all-hands for hauling fresh stone from the quarry, and then you get caught up in the riveting tale of what happened in the lower-left neighborhoods last night, and where’s your crab hunt now? The market for time is fickle, in a sleepy town like Beri. Minutes can turn into a luxury, if you’re not careful.

But don’t be alarmed, it happens to the best of us. On a curving street, halfway up the mountain, sits a house with two kitchen windows. Give a knock, and a wave, and ask the sheepish fellow inside what’s cooking. No need to rush, there’s always something cooking, and more than he knows what to do with, and if not, well! Leftovers from yesterday are just as good heated up today. Just wait a moment, and he’ll fetch you a bowl and spoon. No need to worry about payment, he was making a big batch anyway. Though, perhaps, if you’re bringing a lot of mouths to feed, you’ll have to worry about compensation then. If that’s the case, you’d best come prepared. Your best compliments to the chef, your brightest smiles, and he’ll be too bashful to refuse payment.

Come, and sit. There’s stools enough for a few inside, if your legs are too weary for standing. Not much for privacy, but where do you find that in Beri, eh? You’ll just have to take your meal and watch him dance between his pots and pans and bowls, whipping up whatever takes his fancy today. Or maybe you’ll have to pretend you’re too busy with your soup to notice the lioness calling him to the window for a bite of lunch and a bite of him. (Or do notice, she’s a smashing conversationalist, immaculate storyteller.) Or, most likely of all, you’ll have to enjoy your meal in the company of those short on minutes like yourself. Happens to all of us, sooner or later, and you never know the kinds of people you’ll meet around Dolce’s kitchen. Why, hang around for a month or two, you’d probably meet every soul in town! Even the new folks, the ones who turned up only a few years back. They never miss an excuse for some of their Dolce’s cooking.

Oh.

That… works? She hadn't expected it to work, honestly. Like, if you're going to memorize a disclaimer about how friendship is not available for six to eight weeks, depending on cloning time--to the point that you can recite it on demand, underwater, while tying up your victim--you'd think you'd be less flexible than "Yeah, sure."

Not that she's complaining! It's. Well, it's honestly a relief! She's still trapped in a situation that's spiraled laughably quickly out of her control, soon to be in one where she's entirely removed from any resources she has now, which, to add up, sum total negative one clothes, negative two veils, negative twelve servitors, but positive one crystal dragon best friend..

Neutral? Has not gained, but also has not lost. Positive, definitely positive. Positive by virtue of the sucking gape that negative would be.

"Oh hey, d'you mind if we stop by my place before we leave the planet? Need to pick up some things before I leave."

Gotta say it before the thought goes away. It'd suck majorly to remember as you're leaving the planet the one--okay, several dozen--things you want to take with you, which somehow you do not think to pack when you're leaving to visit a friend who shares cat pictures with you a lifetime ago.

Is that what the other Azura use their flocks of gear-carrying servitors for? Just to make sure that you have your couch on the off-chance you need to flee the planet with your entire house under your arms? That's smarter than she'd given them credit for--mostly she'd just seen them carrying art supplies or files or massive blocks of marble.

God, she almost went to the spaceport without her couch. Buck naked too, but focus on the important things, like, you know, keeping your captor sweet.

"Never had the privilege, honestly. Or a Ceronian vessel, which I gather are kind of similar? Or is that a bad assumption to make? You're scaled down from them, right? But is the culture different? Do you have a shogun of your own? Does that get you in trouble with the Shogun-Shogun? What kind of mercenary work have you done? What makes you unique relative to other ship cultures?"

Keep them occupied, too. People love talking about themselves, right?