It would be nice to dive, to hit the water with her hands to cut it open, to be propelled down into the depths. But she's on the beach. All she can do is walk, slowly, confidently, into the water. Running attracts their attention. Walking, even walking in an unexpected direction, is easy enough for the eye to miss as she sinks into the waves, and then she starts to swim. The Silver Divers specialize in swimming, after all. The water deadens scent, but her eyes kick in to compensate. She holds her breath and feels the pressure slowly fill her body as she hugs the sand, her fur sleek as an otterskin, immersed in the sea. Once she gets out from the beach, once she gets to the drop, she'll take one more breath, face sticking out of the water briefly, and then she'll be able to drop.

The coral's beautiful, once you hit the drop. The sun slants through the water, illuminating the Divers' Garden. This is where she plays-- not here, exactly, not this precise spot, but all along the coast. This is another training ground, another place where she can race her packmates, another battleground full of advantages. Here is where she has learned to knife-fight in a place without air; here is where she has learned how to free herself from weights. Here is where she has learned how long she can hold her breath; here is where she has learned how to share her breath with a packmate who is floundering.

It didn't take her long at all to learn how to think in three dimensions. She earned praises for that, and envious glares, and extra chores maintaining the underwater defenses. It just came so naturally. She doesn't have a mobility pack here, but if she did, she'd be jetting along, eyes squinting as the water rushes past her face, making automatic adjustments at a level underneath thought. She might be the little Ember of the pack, but the sea can't quench her fire. It loves her too much.

The weight is heavy in her hands. Her palms burn where the sharp edge of the cube scratches them. An ache is beginning to creep into her arms from the strain of holding something so ruinously heavy this high above her head. Not pain, just dull weakness pooling in her triceps and leaking up the rest of her as the blood drains down into her body. Even still, her arms barely twitch.

A weight like this could be a deadly weapon if she only dropped it carelessly enough. A weight like this should be a liability, slowing her movement until she's barely faster than the mountain itself. It is neither of these things: it is a shield. With a battle cry like laughter, Mosaic lunges forward and lets the massive stone block fall behind her where it shakes the ground as the footfall of a passing titan.

The sudden shifting of such a great and dangerous weight sets the pack behind her scrambling, but Mosaic pays them no mind except to bend one ear in their direction to keep track of their movements. She is already lunging forward, arms hanging down at her sides with her right foot raised up to head level. Her foot connects with a stone mask, and the sound of splintering echoes across the battlefield as one champion sprawls and bounces their way backwards a full ten meters before skidding to a halt.

War can be a complicated thing, but its principles are simple. If you want to overwhelm a coordinated assault, start by applying pressure to a single point. She pivots on the ball of her foot, and swings the other leg around to the side and land another crushing blow to the side of a second combatant who's caught between charging and setting themself against one. There is thunder on the mountain without Zeus there to guide it. Stone is strong, strong enough to absorb Mosaic's force and keep the brave fighters protecting their own from her safe. If bruises and lacerations count as safe.

They do not use their claws, so she does not either.

Her blows fall heavy and erratic. Sometimes she swings around on the great stone block, sometimes she lifts it again and moves it away some distance to establish a new battlefield. Sometimes she drops it, and sometimes she merely lets her body shift to put it in between herself and a fist. Sometimes she catches those blows and crushes them between her rib and her elbow. Sometimes she takes them full on, strikes hard enough to push her backwards through the soil. But every time, she laughs. Bright and happy, unconcerned and always without pain or struggle. If this lasted through the night the only issue would be the lack of houses she is supposed to be building.

But the smell of cleaners sneaks through the rock and sweat and battle lust. It floats over top of Tactics and strikes her nose with the power of a god. Mosaic twitches, only for a moment, but it crushes her between two heavy blows that she forgets to tense against. The smile on her face grows wider. The smile on her face grows softer.

And tears start running down her cheeks, unnoticed until they drip and splash messily against her chest, her arm, her thigh. She drops the stone again, this time to no purpose whatsoever. A hand wipes at her face. Her thumb pushes her nose back into alignment.

"I know you," she half giggles and half sobs, "I know you, but I don't. Who are you, and where? Come! Come out! If you overcome me, I'll put the entire mountain back!"

Her grin is wide, playful as it is confident. But it is also wet, and there is no drying it today.

Mosaic!

The camouflage cloak comes off in a whirl.

It was hiding a gun of comical length and thinness. Four meters long, held up with supports, while being scarcely more than five centimeters wide, comprised entirely out of red wood. Along the top, running between raised wooden spikes like electrical cables between power lines, is a thin coiled copper wire. The trigger and details is in old-fashioned, hand crafted bronze and is inset with an intricate crystal device. You can see it gleaming for a moment before it fires.

Rainbow light arcs along the string, pausing for a second on each of the connecting spikes and building in intensity. By the time it reaches the end it's surging in power until there's a crack like a thunderbolt and all of that energy arcs down into the gleaming head of a crossbow bolt that bends light around it as though it was being launched by a microsingularity.

It doesn't hit you. It embeds in the mask of one of the Stone Tribe champions. For a moment you think you've found an ally.

But then the turtlegirl breaks into two and hits you from both sides at once.

The impact is hard to parse given how crystal clear it is; cube-shaped holes, three-dimensional pixel distortions, fragments of two worlds overlaid at once, like the universe is running two different graphics settings at the same time. The Stone Tribe champion emerging from this chaos is clearly an exact copy of the same person, and from the way it bleeds off fragments that are absorbed back into the rift it pulled itself out of, sealing it again, you know it's not long for this world. But this is also the best of your opponents and now there's two of them. Worse than that, with their identical instincts they're working at a level of harmony and co-ordination even the Ceronians can't match.

You get a glimpse of the girl behind the weapon before you're fighting hard on the defensive. You only knew her in passing. Yellow robes. Yellow thoughts. Walking behind you into forever because she wanted to see what came next. You didn't forget her name because you never knew it, but it was the same path.

But you also see that she isn't reloading. She's staring at you too, the way you move filling her head with memories. That's a blessing - if she started multiplying your opponent even further then you'd be in serious trouble.

Ember!

Someone breathes a grid at you.

It's - it's a weird, inexplicable moment. You weren't trained for this. No one was trained for this. This is a completely new tactical experience, and you can feel a prickling hyperawareness. Your senses sharpen and glands release sharpening chemicals, every moment of what happens here embedding crystal-perfectly on your memory. Adaption Instinct - when encountering a new threat, Ceronian biology pushes a hyperaware state so that you can record every detail and communicate it to your Pack later.

There is a dragon (silicate, transparent, predatory) overhead, a fifty meters up. Five meters long nose to tail. Unnatural flight - its wings have long fingers but there is no matter in between them, instead glittering hologram light, filled with colour. Secondary defenses (claws, fangs, tail). Primary weapon: the light grid. In its open mouth is a glittering crystal array that projects patterned light on a variety of wavelengths specialized for cutting through water. Where it directs this cone of grid-light it creates a topological map of the undersea surface. Where the light falls across your back it picks you out as clearly as it picks out the fish around you.

The crystal dragon turns its head and focuses its crystal laser into a connecting beam of light. It sweeps this across the beach. The alert goes up instantly.

Previously this was just an opportunity for action on a slow day for the Corvii. The second that laser goes off they get serious. Depth charges start hitting the surface - sludgewater bombs, underwater solid projectile munitions that turn swathes of ocean into horrible walls of poison. The warsphere blares a siren in the distance and starts drifting eerily towards this area. Shuttles carrying teams of commandos start sliding down from above. It's a full response.

Unfortunately to be expected. On the land this could have been just an idle incident. In the water means that they've assumed that this is a Silver Diver incursion and are responding in force. But more important than your test is now reporting on that dragon - the capability to spot submerged warriors represents a threat and it's your genetic duty to assist in the Adaption process.

Dolce!

"Don't mind that," said 20022. "Attitude is far more important than experience. I'd have to train anyone who I took on board anyway, and our kind have a tendency to... imprint. We work for a master who likes things to be done a certain way and it's very easy to internalize those facts as just The Way Things Should Be. It's pleasant to speak to someone who focuses on the fundamentals: service, diligence, anticipation, invisibility. Those are far more transferable skills even if you don't know the details of graviton climatology economics or what have you."

He finished his coffee, smiled politely, revealing nothing, and stood up. "Of course, I won't rush you. I'll have an ID tag delivered tomorrow. If you decide to wear it approach me at any time and we'll find work for you."

Dyssia!

The first problem you experience is that the system is designed to be impossible for any one person to disrupt. There's always at least one check for deployments or changes - a formality, but a velvet wall. Various guardians, like the ones who maintain the id-wards that keep the Pix from the hidden decks, are weaponized obsessive-compulsive disorders who have panic attacks if they don't check every ID pass every time. There is an routine of regular blood and saliva samples in mass public gatherings to identify shapeshifters - so practiced that it is quick, habitual and ironclad. Biomancers shape societies just as they shape flesh and their own society has optimized for the frontier of security and convenience.

In the end, though, there is only one weakness you're able to identify: the ship itself.

The biomancers have the ability to project a lot of force an extremely limited distance. For three days in a close environment they could utterly overwhelm the thousands-strong crew of the Firetree, but in a protracted campaign on the ground the limitations of drone swarms become crippling. A campaign of extermination would have to be waged by a warrior species, which is not simple to arrange. If you can convince the Pix to commit to abandoning ship entirely then the timeframe for purging them goes from days to decades.

The problem, then, is that the Firetree is a hell of a ship. It's a spectacular, gleaming Imperial era warship with room for ten thousand crew and enough firepower to go toe to toe with Shogunate warbands. How to convince a pack of scheming foxgirls that there's something even more important out there?

This is a very specific kind of assault. The sensation of being hit by the same fist on two different sides of her face is disorienting. The burst of pain is nothing, but she doesn't know what to do with the feeling of the exact same grooves in the fingers, oriented in exactly the same position, connecting with the exact same part of the knuckles before folding into the heaviest, flattest part of the fist with the exact same timing, but on opposite sides.

The smell is even more difficult. The same pheromones and the same emotions, the same skin and flesh and even the same chipped stone of the same age from the same soil all stacked on top of each other is enough to cause physical pain on a level this girl could never hope to even with all five of her natural companions working with this same degree of synchronicity.

They feel wrong. Smell pixelated. Look unreal. Mosaic's smirk is lopsided, almost drunk. Her arms lift to block the hits that come for her face, and drop for the ones that try to weaken her body. Her posture drops into a crouch to help her shift and tumble away from what is simply too much to block. The three (two) of them dance for several long seconds around the stone block and over it.

Her mind is filled with the color yellow and the memory of the smell of cleaner. With bronze and red wood in a long, thin shape that seems more like a spear than a rifle. With a name she does not know and never knew in the first place, but that she is nevertheless certain is connected to a dozen different memories she can't quite hold onto. Together it leaves very little room for fighting.

"That's good, that's good! I think that counts for enough of a handicap, don't you? Good enough for one anyway."

Mosaic lifts her arm to the sky. Her body remembers heat, enough to melt the mountain beneath her feet. Her body remembers rain, enough to raise an army out of nothing but belief. Her body remembers power. Her claws shine on the tips of her fingers. She pulls them together, snatching at the air.

And she vanishes. For a moment there is nothing but confused looks around the space that she had been, but then her laughter echoes from the sky. She falls as if fired from a rail gun, fists raised above her head and hair whipping in the tempest she has created. A shame to do this, but there are spares.

The sound of the impact is loud enough to be heard back in Beri. Mosaic tears through her prize in a single blow. It shudders under the strain of her impact, and then explodes into a shower of shards and splinters. The ground craters in her wake, and trembles like an earthquake where it does not give way. The dirt and rock are blinding, the sound is deafening. It is simple shock and awe, no different from an SP barrage. But it's an assault with godly force behind it, and she did it with nothing but her hands.

She rises from the crater and steps out into a cloud of smoke and steam, digging at her ears as if she could pull the ringing out of them. A tiny spur of bone sticks out from her wrist; she plucks it from her skin with casual disdain.

"My name is Mosaic. I have come here for the mountain. But I have not come here for myself. Send an army, if you must. Make one, if you dare. I promise here and now in the shadow of Mars, I will not lose."

Our kind.

Funny, how chatting with 20022 about the fate of everyone on this planet felt easier than any of a hundred conversations about menu choices with anybody back…where he started.

“That’s very considerate of you, thank you. I truly appreciate how understanding you’ve been about all this. And the slides were expertly done, a very nice touch.” He stood, and shook his hand, a moment of triumph for two sheep who’d talked their way past what could have been a half-dozen arguments. “You’ve given me quite a lot to think about. I’ll have to at least speak with my wife-”

Oh. Hrm. Right. He coughed sheepishly. “That is, I know the work you’re doing is rather delicate; how much am I free to discuss without jeopardizing your efforts? I don’t intend to shout it from the rooftops, but this isn’t just my house after all.”

Abandon the Firetree?!

It's…

Is it weird that she doesn't want to abandon the ship?

It's not that it's become home in a startlingly short amount of time, really. Not the friendships that she dares to think are maybe real, and not foxgirl machinations to manipulate her.

It's….

It's an imperial class.

Look, you probably don't get that, not if you haven't read all the books she has, but. Imperial era warships don't need the slipgates, right? They can go anywhere they want, anywhere they please, with naught but ritual to guide them and--

They're families, right? A crew, all united and pulling together. Shanties, echoing down the hall. Smiling faces, passed and waved at and embraced when the time is right. An Imperial ship is the face of freedom.

Well, not always. Occasionally it's the face of the abrupt surprise villain, but mostly, right? Mostly the face of spunky young heroes exploring the cosmos in an episodic go-anywhere strike-anywhere ship.

But after too long spent thinking, it's the only thing she can think of. A ship can be replaced, right?

Potentially, for someone else, because where else is she going to sign onto one of these, but the ship itself is available somewhere else.

And the Pix aren't.

Unless she succeeds, in which case she'll have unleashed a horde of backstabbing foxgirls on the galaxy, which seems like it should take mental pride of place, but that's not what we're doing right now. Right now, we're trying to convince the Pix that they could more efficiently bamboozle folks by showing up one at a time, right?

Which is also happening one at a time, mostly. Trust is a rare coin among the pix--did you know in their language it translates to someone you haven't stabbed today?--and so she's not sure which of her friends is actually a friend, and which views her as an easy mark, and which thinks they can manipulate her into acting on their behalf.

(Which, come on, all you have to do is ask, she is not exactly a closed book here. Get her excited about something and that's your in, you've got what you're implying already.)

But one at a time, a few at a time, she's doing all she can to make them realize that the ship is really an impediment. If you blow a hole in someone's atmosphere every time, rain fire down on a mountain, people come to expect you, right? You can't con them in that kind of environment.

Hell, is it actually a con at all? You're just demanding something under the threat of violence, like a brigand.

See, and here's the thing, if you go in one at a time, you can ingratiate yourself into the population, right? They don't know to expect the Pix, economic superstars and quasi-ceronians. Hell, they might actually see you as actual Ceronians, if it's been long enough since the last raid.

And talk about coverage! Right now, you're pretty much limited to one ship, right? Can only affect one planet at a time, can only rob one planet at a time. Think what you could achieve if you split off, twos and threes, and held up small settlements! You're still basically Ceronians, you can still band together and take over planets, the power is in you, not your ship!

Avoid the biomancers. Avoid the captain. Steal badges as needed and as possible to get away with.

She's hoping. She's hoping like hell that she can appeal to that base instinct, that base need to get away with it, to hoodwink someone, enough that they'll give up the power to just blow someone out of the sky, which is much less satisfying for everyone involved.

And maybe that will be enough.

She's not afraid.

The first time this happened, there was an attempt to be afraid; she didn't know what was going on, why she was hyperfixating on the grin on Plundering Fang's face, the tilt of the sky as she turned on her axis, the tautness of her muscles as her heels left the ground, the wetness of her own half-open mouth, the nails digging into her side. But it was submerged beneath the genetic need to understand, to remember, to be able to explain how she was defeated. Part of training is learning how to survive during the Adaption Instinct, and that's why the recruit is barraged with new experiences during their training-- and that's why a Ceronian never forgets the experiences of being trained and initiated into the pack. All of those memories are more vivid in her head than the faint mist of whatever happened before she joined the Silver Divers.

So she swims. She knows well enough how to avoid the sludgewater, and, it's the oddest thing, but the current's working against them. As she swims out and down, all those toxic clouds are swept back up towards the beach, and the current's with her, pulling her downwards like a riptide as the clouds fade away like dying jellyfish, spat back up out of the mouth of the water. The water pulls, but it's comforting, it holds her tight as if to say that she is safe here.

So she follows. Out she sweeps, kicking her legs together like a mermaid, past the reef, downwards to where the light begins to falter and her instincts tell her that she should be relying on scent. She doesn't need to breathe, not yet. Above, the dragon still follows after her, but she is moving fast, and the current is unpredictable, and it pulls her deep; she has a decent chance of losing it on her way to...

Wherever she is going. She's headed perpendicular to the route she should be headed, out towards the current Silver Divers camp (for the daughters of Ceron move their location regularly to baffle their foes). But the sea is insistent, and little Ember trusts it. It is like being rushed along by many faint hands, urging her forward, inviting her down deepwards, and if she closes her eyes, she can see the faint throb of a riot of colors, a memory so old that it comes without names or a sense of self, just joy and speed and discovery. So she swims. So she lets the hunt fall behind her. So she braves the unknown again.

[15 on Overcoming the peril of the sludgewater.]

Mosaic!

There are yellows that fade into muddy brown or corrupted orange. This touches on electric green.

Once it had been designed for concealment, a faceless hunch, a blackened void. Tropical conditions, a litany of battle, and a repressed fashion sense have done for that. Now you see the lower half of a jaguar, lightless obsidian, plated with fabric stretched over steel. What had once been robes were remade as armour plates, that thin layer of neomaterial stronger than the metal frame that supported it. Four fierce paws scratch at the ground, feline grace admixtured with the fierce stomping of a horse.

Above the jaguar rises a machine angel. Here the torn robes give way to feminine curves written in chrome metal and glittering crystal. A fierce mane of hair, running all the way down her back, moves as though it was underwater, as though it was blown by the wind. Her face wears a pale golden death mask set with jasper and lapis lazuli. Wings comprised of thickly-bunched cables and wires, brightly coloured and moving like tentacles, rise up above her. There is nothing like her in all the galaxy; she is artist and canvas both. Some part of you wonders if the reason she hid this from you in the past was out of the fear one so glorious must have of arousing the jealousy of the gods themselves.

"Mosaic!" blares the jaguar angel, voice distorting as it tunes into human frequencies. "In the name of Hermes, the custodians of this mountain have hired me as their defender. Though the Skies may fall, the price of stone shall be paid. Run back to the Royal Surveyor and let him know that the Arquebusier will defy him and all his whipped hosts."

Ember!

There are colours in the deep.

Poseidon is always out of reach. To the Azura he was the sky; to humanity he was the sea; where the two merged there was the rainbow. Here on this world, with civilization taking place in the sweat and sun, he has taken on his human aspect. You are of the sea, you are of the outside, you are the scratching claws and winter howls on the edge of civilization. And so the oceans are yours. So too are its treasures.

Glowing corals light the way. Jellyfish that hunt like sharks, spearing salmon on lightning quick electrified tendrils, light up the dark with blue and bloody red. Schools of fish surround deep water vents, feeding on the exotic chemicals and refining them internally until they can detonate with the force of a grenade. Crabs. An arsenal in the depth, a growing peril, an arsenal awaiting a diver who has gone deep enough, waiting with the promise of the end of worlds.

And beyond these lights, in the lightless depths, surrounded by an ocean of toxic filth, looms a leviathan. Larger than a mountain. A vast underwater structure the likes of which you have never seen before.

Dolce!

"For official use only," said 20022. "We're too far from the centers of power to be particularly cautious about an intelligence threat, so you're not going to bring the Skies down with a little loose talk, but discretion is always appreciated. I can put you in touch with Service councilors or a union representative if you'd like information from someone other than me. It's very natural to want to follow an authority figure in isolation, but we work for an institution, and trust me when I say that there is no higher pleasure for any of us than understanding what that means."

He smiled and stood. "Oh, and just so you know, there are a plenty of perks. Corrective biomancy, choice of assignments, wellness retreats, objective-based work, high quality management. All of us are our best selves after a good night's sleep, a full breakfast and a delicious cup of tea, and the Service will ensure that you're always at your best."

And, if there was nothing further, on that note he'd leave with a smile. The Mayor's bodyguards carried him, stiff as a plank and snoring, heels and shoulders out through the door, leaving you in the ruins of your destroyed cafe.

Dyssia!

You quickly hit an obstacle. What's worse is that you know how and why she's an obstacle: Lieutenant Yaji, stabilization clone. She's an artificial Pix directly administered by the Biomancers who serves to enforce ideological uniformity amongst the Pix. She immediately identifies the Pix talking about your dangerous new ideas and picks a fight with a few, stealing their badges and redistributing them to loyal maids. She is the direct manifestation of the Biomancer's will, an optimized darling of the Art designed to be stronger, faster and more charismatic than all the Pix around her; a cultural paragon who will bend all of her natural gifts towards maintaining the status quo.

Your idea has appeal but it won't get traction so long as Yaji's collar is around the neck of her sisters. You need to accomplish two things: Removing or discrediting her, and staging some sort of mass breakout before she can be replaced - it's still not everything you want, but it's the only path forwards you can see in the time you have.

Luckily, Yaji is pretty knowable. She spends all her time engaged in or listening to gossip, taking a malicious delight in going after nonconformists. She takes a particular pleasure in looting the finery of her sisters and walking about in sweeping luxury. She exceeds in grandeur even the Captain but her unambitious mean girl nature means that she never makes a move against her, stifling political mobility at the top if a third of all social capital is locked up in the body of someone who embodies the status quo. She likes tea parties, party parties, ruthless public mockery, and ruthless public demotions and punishments. How will you get her out of the picture?

Have you ever worried which version of you is actually real?

Because you're never one hundred percent unfiltered around anyone, right? Pure you is raw, unfiltered, chaotic, dangerous. The kind of brain that spits out the wrong thought in the wrong way at the wrong time to the wrong person, and suddenly the entire room is staring.

Faces, that's the ticket. You put on different faces around different people, carefully crafting each mask to mirror those around you. Oh, these people don't get why anger is--

Well, not good, not really, but also not purely negative?

Anyway, that group can't handle Angry Dyssia, so you shave the anger off, tuck it away for when it's needed.

And it works in reverse! Yeah, Dyssia loves some close personal contact--hugging, squeezing, biting. And wow, this group is really accepting of that!

Bad example, really, hard to find people who like that, but follow the metaphor please.

And it's just such a relief to be able to express that bit of herself that Dyssia finds herself embodying that face even more than she normally would? Like, to the point that sometimes she finds it more exhausting to be true to herself than it would be suppressing it?

It's like.

All the time. Literally, all the time.

Every second, there's a little Dyssia sitting behind the eyes, watching the world. Assessing, watching, stressing, deciding which version of herself gets let out.

Do other people do this? Is there a little Merilt, watching out at the little Dyssia, and privately just as terrified of getting it wrong?

Do other people feel the relief when they get home and can take the mask off? When the door shuts, and they're alone--or as alone as you get when apparently your support staff numbers in the double digits and includes emotional support spies--do they also heave a mental sigh when they get to take off the weight of managing other peoples' emotions?

The point is, Dyssia is lying all the time. She is pathologically good at it.

Which would be less frustrating if she were confident in being deliberately good at it? It's nerve wracking, sends her heart into palpitations, like there's a voice screaming they know two inches from her ears.

But she's always best at doing something when she is afraid or when someone is in danger. When it's lie or suffer, oh, how the lies flow.

Like melted butter, or perhaps chocolate. Some liquid substance that tastes good.

Sweat?

Don't say sweat. People look at you weird if you say sweat tastes good. Could have said other stuff, but sweat's bad enough.

A-ny-hoo.

She's been smart about this, she hopes. Avoided proselytizing to the mimetic spies, which she really should have considered when she started propagating a mutiny. If nobody knows she's the source of the rumors, it's gonna be child's play to insert herself into Yaji's inner circle.

Well. Not.

Not child's play, not exactly.

Or maybe yes, child's play, but only for the right kind of child? The playground bully kind of child. The kind of child who can relish in emotional suffering, in bullying, in ensuring that she's on the top of her own private empire--you know, the kind that doesn't actually threaten the status quo, like a playground bully doesn't threaten the school, but lets the bully hold court over anybody smaller than her?

The point is, it's exactly the kind of child's play that is anathema to Dyssia. It's taking all the normal masks--how to notice emotions, how to care for others, how to avoid causing harm, how to celebrate and cultivate the weird--and decapitating them, inverting them, wearing their skin as a trophy.

Suck up to Yaji. Tell herself that the harm she's causing is less than the harm of genocide. Ignore the looks of confusion and pain--ignore them, damn you!

Cultivate that acquaintance. Yes-girl the shit out of her. Laugh at her jokes, goon for her. Ignore the creeping, gnawing panic of how long this is taking, how long it's taking for her to let her guard down in a species that does not let their guard down. Be the perfect mirror, plus one. Collapse in your bed at the end of every day emotionally drained and aching because tomorrow is gonna happen.

It'll all be worth it once you claim her crown, once you steal her badge, once you recruit her cronies and move against her at that big event.

Don't think about what happens next, once you sit atop the new power vacuum, become the new mean girl.

Whatever you do, don't think about which version of Dyssia is real.

Court adjourns until tomorrow, wherever the court may be. Most of the petitioners sigh out their exhaustion, grumble out the accumulated irritation, and disperse to the far corners of Beri to try again tomorrow. A hungry few peek their heads through one of the two windows, and without another word found an appetite for a long stroll around the town instead.

Dolce alone remains, without even his own furniture to keep him company. He stands in the hollowed-out kitchen, his polite smile remaining long after he stops waving good-bye. Outside, there are several piles of beaten-up belongings with his name on them, sometimes literally. Whatever tangled thoughts in his head, whatever swirling emotions in his heart, Dolce is a sensible sheep - sorry, Synnefo, and there was work to be done.

Nothing else for it but to roll up his sleeves, and get started.

Truth be told, he likes a good tidying up. Chores were a good way to keep the body busy, so the head and heart could get some serious thinking done. He half thought that some of the best books he’d ever read must have been cooked up amidst a good dusting.

Decommissioned.

He’d forgotten to ask what it meant, exactly. In the moment, 20022 had spoken of it with such gravitas, and with pictures and everything, that he’d gotten the general point across. Now, he wonders how they’d find out the trigger’d been pulled. Would there be any warning? Ships in the sky? Boots in the distance? Was there a plan for them beyond the planet they were standing on? Was there anything they could do, if it came down to it?

The thought ought to have worried him more. Not that it didn’t worry him a great deal, but instead of a creeping dread in his heart, he felt a quickening of his hooves and an unsightly urge to slam cabinet doors shut. Decommissioned. Decommissioned. For what, exactly? For the crime of…of not being the most organized? For not meeting some quota of productivity? Lack of good neighborliness? That was reason enough to Decommission everyone here, whatever that meant? And their only way out was to tread water and hope that someday they’d have the right to live here?! It was absurd! Not reasonable in the slightest.

Well, of course it was unreasonable. 20022 said it was unreasonable, or said as much, anyway. He didn’t want to steer Mayor Kaspar towards a stern hand. If there was a more reasonable path, he’d have been on it already. Dolce had worked through the logic himself, and now he had the added benefit of several large chairs to haul inside while he double-checked his work. Nothing. No insight, no grand ideas, nothing beyond the simple facts of the matter: This planet had been dealt a terrible hand, 20022 was doing his best, and that was that.

Still. 20022 didn’t have to wreck his kitchen for the sake of his operation. Which is as far as that thought went before he plopped down onto a miraculously-intact stool with a sigh. No, he did have to wreck his kitchen. Working this sternly meant having personnel on hand who would be willing to wreck a few kitchens. It meant maintaining the facade at all times, without exception, because the risk of misjudged mercy was too great.

Mind, it didn’t lessen the sting of finding a favorite mug scratched and dented. Nor did it give him any less of a pile to sort through. Which, at the least, meant more time alone with his thoughts.

Suppose 20022 couldn’t do anything, no matter how hard he was trying. What about someone else? Couldn’t all the Synnefo in all the corners of the galaxy do something about this, being so close to so many important people? And right away, he felt hopelessly silly for even thinking such a thing. What, was he supposed to ask 20022 to pass a message up the chain? A request to, what was that now, “do something?” Yes, how many somethings would you like? Is this a rush order? Would you like them in ocean blue, or sky blue? That was sure to fix all of their problems. If he really wanted to help, 20022 had already pointed out a perfectly doable, perfectly reasonable course of action.

So why was he spending so much time thinking of any other way he could go?

Everyone’s lives were in terrible danger. There was something he could do to help. As dearly as he loved his kitchen, seeing the faces of the crab-hunters when they finally sat down for a hot meal, having a home, he couldn’t be so selfish as to choose that over everyone’s lives and happiness. Not that he’d necessarily be any less happy in the Service. By all accounts, they could find a place where he’d fit perfectly, and help ease this world into one where Mayors didn’t have to rule with such a heavy hand. So why…?

"-we work for an institution, and trust me when I say that there is no higher pleasure for any of us than understanding what that means."

He’d heard that before, hadn’t he? Maybe not in those words exactly. But the Manor was quite clear where Dolce was to find his highest happiness. See how right they’d been.

But, surely, this time was different? 20022 was different. The Manor had been a cruel, pointless waste, in service to people who never knew they existed and never would, and who didn’t deserve their loyalty anyway. The Service didn’t sound a thing like that. For one, they sounded entirely Synnefo-run, so that was already a welcome change. If they’d been in charge of the Manor, they would have…

If they’d been in charge, they surely would have been more reasonable, and he could’ve asked them to…to...

Dolce froze, a half-folded tablecloth hanging loose around him.

…if the Manor was such a waste, what, exactly, should they have done instead?

He thrusts the tablecloth into a random cupboard in an unceremonious bundle. On the stove, he leaves a simmering pot, set just right to keep warm without ever burning. On the windowsill, he leaves bowls, spoons, cups, and a little piece of paper. On the little piece of paper, he leaves a carefully handwritten note:

Terribly sorry, but I’m out for a stroll. Take as much food as you need tonight. Please wash your dishes afterwards and set them out on the windowsill for the next guest. Thank you very much!

Signed with his name, and a little doodle of himself, holding a heart out in gratitude.

With an apron swapped for a light vest, he carefully picks his way through the remaining piles and sets off down the road at a fast trot. This was a problem too big for one chef, and too important for even a moment’s delay. 20022 had asked him to be discreet with the specifics, but there was no harm in discussing theory with a more experienced friend, now was there?

"Then by all means fight! Defend! Defy! I respect it. But I'm not running anywhere, and I'm not telling anyone shit. The Royal Surveyor? Ha!"

This is a vision of loveliness. Her mask glitters in the sunlight, blinding flares as tactical as they are gaudy. Her fur luxurious and her muscles sublime, every piece of her a love letter to the ideal form even where the flesh is overtaken by metal and her breathtaking curves leave behind the realms of men and enter something much like a god. She smells of silver and of harsh, chemical cleaners. She is pure. Divine. One of the five loveliest visions in all of Bitemark.

Mosaic smiles, a thing of genuine love and vicious intent both. She wears no cloak she can discard to reveal her glory in greater heights. She wields no sacred transformation or a weapon she can brandish beyond the flicker of her claws and the burning of her skin. But her blood quickens with the thrill of the hunt. Her tail thrashes with the force of a gale behind her back. Her breath falls calm and even, the predator hidden in the brush before the kill.

There is no sound when she moves. There is the sensation of squeezing, of bones and muscle and organs being compressed into a space the size of a bottle, and then she is gone. The breeze sings its battle song, hollow and uneven. The flowers sing their battle song, fragrant and laced with the pheromones of half a dozen Servitors prepared to perform the sacred dance of war. The earth sings its battle song, patient yet groaning.

Mosaic sings her battle song, the barking laughter like gunshots and a whistle worthy of the kind of movie you might call the greatest ever written. She descends from on high. She rushes from a boulder on the right. She springs up from the gravel underneath the jaguar's feet. She comes all of these ways at once, and more besides, and where her claws pass the air itself wails in pain and terror. The force of her hand is crushing, all consuming. The twisting winds that pass in its wake are enough to tear a large gouge in the jaguar's death mask, but the feeling of the full blow is a tale that only the mountain can tell.

Her fist sinks into the stone. She splits the earth beneath her like a fault line as she plunges her entire arm up to the triceps in rock and dirt and sweet smelling minerals. The impact shivers through her bones. The sting in her fingers is heaven. Shuddering, shivering, sharpening delight. Her tongue darts from her mouth of its own accord as she tenses her legs and leaps back into the air, wrenching her arm free in a sleeve of stolen mountain stone.

She punches the air and it snaps. Shards of shrapnel rain down against that thin and perfect armor and accomplish little beyond adding a percussive beat to the symphony of their building fight. Mosaic smashes her feet back onto the ground as more stone splits and shatters all around her. Her spine crunches and pops with the relish of uncurling, of unfurling, of rising once again to her full height (which is no less impressive for standing in the middle of a crater that she's created).

She tilts her head to look over her shoulder. Her purple eye is fixed with red, and fixes directly on her gorgeous, perfect dance partner.

"If the Skies are going to fall, let them fall. If the price of stone needs paying, then pay it. Nobody asked me to come, but I'm here. So boast, little kitten. Mew your threats and show me your claws. But do me a favor and leave the Royal Surveyor's name off of my lips. I would much, much rather have yours, instead~"

A dark shape cuts through the water with the ease of a shark. Out of the many dangers of the deep, she knows that she is one of them; that she is a part of the host of the outside. And so as a shark, sharp-toothed and sleek, dangerous but not vicious, Ember passes by crabs and jellyfish with equal ease. The residual intensity of the Adaption Instinct edges everything in crisp colors, but by the time that she beholds the ruin, it had almost passed. Almost.

It roars up her spine again, eyes wide, aware that what she is seeing is, no, has the capability of being a threat. It is without life, without animation, but it is intrinsically dangerous. Like a sword, lying unsheathed on a table. Even broken on the seafloor, this cyclopean ruin (for it was they, the one-eyed, who made the weapons of the gods) is a possible threat to the Silver Divers, and it is...

It is not her responsibility to investigate yet. And yet, she hovers in the water, slowly treads, looks down at the achingly familiar mystery. It is her duty to bring news of the dragon and its light-scanner to her packmates. It is, technically, still her duty to fulfill her training exercise. Going on an exploration of whatever lies inside that husk, bleeding death into the water, a slow accumulation of toxins that have her shivering just from the trace elements working their way into her nose from this far away, is not her duty. If she dies, breathless and trapped, or poisoned by the deathwound of this titan, then her information about the dragon's tactical capabilities may come too late. It is not her duty.

And yet, she struggles. She can see a gash torn in its flank, the deathblow of a comet. She yearns to swim inside, to walk down its halls, to see the drowned fountains, the miles of corridors cable-wreathed, the old chambers, the starheart, the starheart, the starheart, bound in adamant and raging, even buried beneath the weight of Poseidon, its veins seeping into the water, its claws abandoned in the corridors, its crew all shelled and pincered now, missing the captain, missing the temple, missing the stowaways, missing the statue, missing the princess, missing--

Her hand touches its flank and she starts. The water around her is clouded, stagnant, clinging to her fur. She kicks off, nostrils sealed, limbs pumping, and spends far too long getting to where the water is clear, and her heart is racing, and the tightness in her chest tells her that it is time for her to return to the surface. But she knows.

The way, that is. If she can lead from the beach, the dragon has given her the gift of knowing exactly, exactly how to reach the fallen titan. She can come back with packmates, with wetsuits, with rebreather muzzles, with her Alphas, who will know what to do with this impossible primordial corpse, how to pick its bones, how to learn its secrets, how to call for a reclaimer fleet; with pumps, this could even be their new fortress until it is lifted back into the stars.

It belongs among the stars.

Is she light-headed because the sun is drawing close, or because the thought has lodged inside of her brain like a knife in flesh?

It belongs hanging, impossible, beautiful, among the stars, and she belongs on it.

She loves it like she loves her pack. She knows its secrets, its turns, its furious planet-devouring heart.

And she has never seen it before in her life.

Ember breaks the surface of the waves with a gasp that is a scream, and she reaches up, tries to keep going, lifts her hand up towards the sky and the stars, and then she bobs beneath the water again, and the shock of it makes her sputter, shake her head, unseal her nostrils. She is already trying to sweat out toxins. She needs to get to her pack, to be hosed down, to deliver her message, and then--

And then they will invade the sea.

Mosaic!

"Mosaic..." she whispers. Awe. It's a flattering feeling.

She's gone through her kata effectively, the exquisite mathematics it takes to maneuver all those limbs and a four meter weapon that you might have snapped if your knuckles brushed against it in flight. It is unclear to both of you if she had the shot during your flight. It is crystal clear to both of you that she didn't even roll the dice.

But now at this range it's impossible to see how she could miss.

The breeze blows between you as the glittering dust starts to settle, leaving quartz-diamonds shining in the duelists' hair.

"Fine then," she said. She said it with the renewed determination of someone who knew how to be in awe of herself too. "Mosaic. You wish the mountain. You wish your name upon my lips." She shucked some complicated mechanism at her end of the longarm, those rainbow crystals began to glow. "Your prizes lie beyond my rifle. Come and claim them if you can."

You can see her eyes beyond the mask. Grey. Feline. Prepared to pounce.

[Roll to Finish Her]

Ember!

In the distance behind you you can see the great, hulking shape of the Warsphere. It descends from the heavens like an unlovely eye, gazing into the ocean's black. Gazing down at your prize. The sea can't help but love it and it's toxic gravity. False tides. False moon.

You feel the distant call of a war howl.

*

You have only begun to develop a sense for the strategic movements of the Silver Divers, but it's as beautiful as their dance.

Something the training is very clear on is that the reputation of the Warriors of Ceron does not rely on their physical might or their lightning reflexes. That is why they blindfold you through so many of those exercises, or make you fight eight opponents at once, or make you fight with your arms tied behind your back, or make you fight Plundering Fang before whom you might as well be a fragile little princess all over again. Again and again the lesson, drilling it down so that it pierces below the reputation: they are good because they are soldiers. The ability to field strip a base camp and move to a point inside the enemy's search pattern in a single co-ordinated movement was strategic invisibility and worth more than mere chameleonic skin.

The popular imagination of a secret Ceronian military base is something like a fortified compound of advanced technology, surrounded by mines and traps. Indeed, the Silver Divers built a dozen of those when they arrived on the planet. They just haven't been back to them since unless they needed to throw a tail. Instead their base of the moment is inside a servitor village co-opted for the task.

There's a particular energy in an occupied town, a kind of dazed giddy panic. It's like meeting the devil and oh no she's hot, oh no she's everywhere, oh no we're helpless and entirely at her mercy. The shadows of wolves watch the roads and politely turn around any strays. Many people are holding exotic treasures parceled out from the administration offices, and there's a merry bonfire going as the land, ownership and census records are burned outside. The rabbitlike clerks who collect that information are getting the personal attention of a squad of pheromantic specialists who are working hard to overload their senses to the point where they won't be able to use their photographic memories to recreate the records later. They could probably manage the duty with just one set of scented gags, the rest must just be for fun.

Time for your report.

Dolce!

"I saw the Skies once," said the Decaying Soldier, leaning forwards on her crutches. It was a miracle of adaptation that she could eat noodles with chopsticks while possessing only six total fingers, and a militarized brain that made her learn to do so while moving. "You know, people talk about it. But they don't get it. They don't get it until they see - a hundred Azura moving at the same time. They hate being close to each other, makes 'em too horny to think. But to see a Satrap and his entire court go to war is like seeing the armies of Heaven itself. I cried afterwards. I tried to bury myself in the mud because my broken body was an offense against them. CO warned me, of course, gave me the blindfold, but I wanted to see what we were fighting for. Still have nightmares about it."

-

"Politics..." said the Thoughtful Songbird. The Lyri were beautiful, ornamental, charming figures, each one a sylphlike blessing. "Why would you want to get involved in that? Maybe there was a time in the distant past where ordinary people could have political influence, but my bones are made out of custard and fairy kisses and I feel like I risk a compound fracture if a hot guy looks at me too long. Every Lyri on the planet couldn't stop a single Azura from taking whatever she wanted. No amount of political organization or class consciousness can cross the line of military force that is inherent to a genetically stratified society. Much safer just to avoid the whole topic."

-

"Government? Wrong word," said the Beloved Spy. The slow-witted Stone Tribe intelligence agents were community favourites in a How Do You Do Fellow Kids kind of way, and it was considered a breach of etiquette to break the keyfabe of letting them think they were getting away with it. "They. Design ecosystems. Self sustaining. Interconnected. To them. We are animals. No malice. Raised up or. Wiped out. Accidentally. Not relevant. They have bigger goals."

Dyssia!

Servitors are artificial in origin, yes, but they're their own people. They've had their own childhoods, formative memories and unique personalities. A clone like Yaji doesn't. No past and no future, she's a static creature with a rigidly pre-programmed brain. Her ability to self reflect, to learn, to grow is completely stunted. She is what she is and that's a terrible thing to see in a living creature.

You see it at her most fluidly cruel. It would take a truly malicious mind to say those things and mean them, but there's no actual pleasure happening there. Her eyes are empty. She's... it's like she's just predicting what word to say next for maximum effect. That she doesn't truly have any of the emotions like pride or disgust to which she's constantly referring, she's just some hideous quirk of condensed language that has been structured in such a way that makes it say horrible things. The more time you spend with her the more you become convinced that this was never a person, that it is a literal abuse golem.

But then, that's your answer. When she's in the flow she literally can't change course. You can flick her whiskers, scratch her ears, probably even stab her with a flaming broadsword when she's in the flow and she doesn't slow down or even process that anything is happening. It's only really her hangers-on, her junior mean-girl cronies, who cover for the gaps in her perception and personality. They're all scared of her but can't vocalize why; the uncanny valley effect of realizing that they're this close to something this wrong has them as trapped and tense as you.

Still, it means that when you do make your move you've got a lot of leeway on how to do it.

"Oh darling," Mosaic's grin splits her face in half, "I already have."

Tension in the air, a taste like chili paste. Heat without the need for fire. The pressure of that gun barrel is like a tidal force, pulling, pushing, crushing, then pulling again. The polychromatic flare of its charge up sets the hairs on the back of Mosaic's neck to full standing. There is danger here.

But she stays standing tall and proud and planted, regardless. Her spine is straight, her shoulders set, her arms relaxed, her claws still covered in mountain dust: the only kind of blood she'd come to shed. Feline eyes meet feline eyes, pride glaring into pride, and no one watching could say which was lesser.

All the same. The tension shifts; the air turns sweeter, as if some mischievous demigod or another had crept into the battlefield just to dust everyone with confectioner's sugar or honey. The jaguar draws a breath, and her finger twitches over the trigger instead of pulling straight away. That is the margin of victory.

Mosaic's foot crushes down on the stone beneath her. The mountain groans, briefly, and then it roars. The earsplitting snap of stone shearing along fresh fault lines echoes down the valley for minutes all around, as earth rises in columns and then falls, and rocks large and small go tumbling down the side. The place they had been standing on shifts, and then it falls. It jostles the barrel of the great, strange rifle, only enough to turn a perfect shot into one with a whisker's width of error. Mosaic steps into that margin with her fist in front of her.

She hits like a thunderbolt. The gun falters, bones and armor both wince and roll away from her, the mountain yields. With a whoop of victory, Mosaic sets her feet in a surfer's stance and rides the great slab of stone down, down, down, down, back into thicker air and safer territory with elated laughter building in her throat as she descends. She turns and offers a wave and a bow to the stone tribesmen above her, and as she dips her tail flips playfully across the jaguar's chin.

"Sorry friends, but my need was greater! Remember, war favors the prepared! Next time have a plan, and better yet have twenty warriors ready for me!"

She snorts and turns to face the direction of her momentum again. Her body shifts perfectly along every little bump and jostle, feet never leaving the "ground" even when it hurtles into the air for fifteen meters at a time when it crashes into a large tree and trades shards of rock for freshly cut lumber (imperfect and mangled though it is). She pays no attention at all to the cacophony all about her: her ears are bent solely toward the companion riding down the mountain with her. Her face is calm, amused more than exhilarated, and in her eyes there is no readable intention or desire to pounce again. She has won. She is queen, here, until the ride ends. The whipping of her hair in the fierce wind that buffets them on the way down is the only indication she is not somehow living inside a tiny, invincible shield bubble.

"Not that I'll be back up this way any time soon," she calls over the noise of her escape, "Much too much to do, and it's no fun to take what I don't need besides. Hey. You any good at construction, friend? I kinda suck at it myself, which is a damn shame because I've got maybe a night and part of the morning to turn all this crap into a new neighborhood. Gotta move quick before those poor dumbasses get their requests denied.

"But no, what do you care right? Your pledge is back up there. No worries, I'll help you pick a path back up if you want. I think this one's getting a bit too dangerous for travel, ha!"

Her arm's find the jaguar's shoulder, and then her waist. Four paws, lifted from the ground. Together they fly, before their sled can crush them against the trunk of an ancient tree. Mosaic smiles as she sails through the air and lands as lightly as if she'd hopped down a single stair. Her heart is calm. Moments like this are a treasure beyond any depths that meditation could bring her.

(Finish with Courage: 14)

Dolce waits in respectful silence, yielding the floor for the Decaying Soldier to add one last thought to their litany. Dolce waits in patient silence, for it is difficult to speak and enjoy noodles at the same time, and a terrible thing not to enjoy one’s dinner. Only when he has finished, does he ask, quietly, “What did you think when the Skies were defeated?”

-

“It’s a real hurdle.” Like how a mountain is a small pile of dirt. “If it’s just a few people in a room, and everybody has some trust in each other, no matter what it is we’re facing I think we’ll all be able to work it out somehow. Politics? Actual politics? I don’t know what they do in actual politics, but it seems to involve a lot of speeches and arguments. And I don’t much care for either of those. The more people there are to listen, the less it feels like I can actually say and make it worthwhile. I can’t sit down at a negotiating table and not feel for everyone the other party’s representing, just as strongly as everyone who’s counting on me. If I’d fall to pieces doing the day-to-day responsibilities of the job, what would I do if faced with a merciless enemy who wanted everything I had?”

He daintily adds a little more honey in his tea. The third such time. A truly ridiculous amount. Thus obliterating the social pressure preventing the Thoughtful Songbird from adding a seventh, eight, and ninth spoonful to their own cup.

“Do you know my wife, Vasilia? Tall, carries a glaive, built like a lion? There’s a fair bit of genetic stratification between us, but we do alright together. Or Mosaic. She’s, well, Mosaic. To everyone in this town, no matter who or what they are. Do you think that sort of thing could scale up? Or is there a line somewhere where it all falls apart?”

-

You know what’s just the thing for these hot, humid evenings? A good comb. One that won’t get tangled on your wool, one that will deal with all the knots and frizz. Here, Beloved Spy. Take his comb. The wool atop your head will appreciate it greatly. “If that is what they believe, how do you think they’ve kept on believing it? We live, just as they do. We think and dream, just like they do. The gods hear us, just as they hear them. They don’t have to look far to see the evidence, and if they don’t want to look the Ceronians put it right in front of them. They were conquered. Their designs failed.”

“How do they keep ignoring us?”

Of course the rest are for fun. Gemini is all about fun.

She's the Fun Mom of the pack, where Taurus is more serious. (Ignore that Taurus is about the same age as Ember; age isn't important to the Silver Divers, just experience and competence. The only requirement for being leader of the pack is proving, over and over again, that you are the leader of the pack.) When there's plunder to be won, Gemini is there. She's the one who receives the loot and the one who parcels it back out, stopping arguments over ownership before they can even begin. When there's a party to be had, Gemini is the one at the middle of it, playing scent like a harp, supremely indulgent but never losing control of her self. Taurus wins arguments by wrestling her opponents into submission, but Gemini wins arguments by making them never happen in the first place, or redirecting their energy when they happen.

Both of them are happy here. That's part of why they offered pack membership to Ember; they took pity on her and wanted to let her share in their joy.

Even so, approaching Gemini while she's working/playing is difficult. The crystal-clear images in Ember's head keep her from veering off to play, despite the squirming clerks all around, tied to chairs dragged out from their archival office, drowning in Indulgence and Defeat and Invitation, with scritchies and ear-rubs and kisses from passing Ceronians, and with the conductor in the middle of the sharing circle, sunglasses perched on her forehead, dressed in a loose gown with flowing sleeves, a vision worthy of an Azura master-painter as she runs a bolt through her hands, soaking it with artisanal scents, impossible to look away from as she stoops and pulls it snugly over just the right clerk's face, her sleeves whispering against their bound arms as she knots it snugly into place...

But Ember is a good girl. She stands to attention and radiates Urgency. Two of the clerks start struggling harder, ears twitching, trying to look anywhere that isn't a wolfgirl, only able to slowly rotate in the spinning chairs, but that's enough to get Gemini's attention. The sunglasses come down with a huff, and if she wasn't here on serious business, Ember would be tucking her tail between her legs and trying to make herself smaller, apologizing for interrupting Gemini's art.

"Share your report."

"I was on a training exercise," Ember dutifully recounts, hands behind her back, legs apart, chin up. Respectful stance, as befits the pack omega. "I still remember the exercise data and can recount it if you want. However, while returning to base, I encountered something new and noteworthy on two separate occasions." Gemini nods. There is no fear in Ember, only the relief of being able to share her sense experience. "First, while diving off the coast to avoid patrolling Corvii, I saw a dragon in the sky above, fifty meters above the water. It was five meters long, nose to tail. It was translucent, but filled with colors and light; I don't know if it can hide the colors to make itself more difficult to spot. The impression was crystal, not glass. From its mouth it projected a grid of light on the seabed, and this grid highlighted three-dimensional objects, including myself. After I was scanned by the grid, it focused the grid into a laser which it used to alert the Corvii patrols. Notably, it didn't attempt to use the laser to disable me, and it didn't chase after me. It's possible that it represents new discoveries in silicate-based biomancy, but I believe it's a relic of the gods, possibly Apollonian in nature."

Gemini nods. Not the nod of a new discovery for her, but of something she isn't surprised was new to Ember. Bashfulness coats Ember's inner arms. She's still the sapling, still the cub. But she hasn't done anything wrong; she's done exactly what is expected of her as a member of the Silver Divers by reporting this.

So she continues.

"I was pulled deeper out to sea by an unnatural current that I believe was a sign from the Horsefather. After swimming for approximately thirty minutes, approaching the limits of my ability to sustain my breath, I discovered what I was being shown: a structure of cyclopean size and make on the seabed. I can't estimate its length or height, but it was like a mountain range on the bottom of the sea. The water around it was polluted, and my instincts told me that it was leakage from the structure. In delirium, I approached the structure despite the toxicity of the water around it and had a vision which was difficult to interpret. It involved stars, and a star beneath the water, and crew instead of attendants. My original guess was that it was a temple built by humanity and drowned, intentionally or otherwise, by some change in the planet's climate, given its impossible scale. However, after having the vision, I think it's some form of starfaring craft, one which would require the entire clan to function at its barest minimum. I estimate that, drained and made functional, it could carry multiple Ceronian warhosts, or an entire planetary population. As I left, in need of air and disturbed by the nature of the vision, the Warsphere in orbit approached the site. I don't know whether they were previously aware of the site. It is possible that they have been charged with keeping us unaware of the site and now will need to escalate in an attempt to drive us away, but I think it's more likely that they were also unaware of the site and that they will move immediately to secure it. However, we have the edge in war in our patron's domain. We can take it and secure it, perhaps even repair it if my instincts about its purpose are correct."

Ember licks her lips.

"Do you still want the information from my training exercise, Gemini?"

Probably not. This is more serious than one of her training games. But she can't assume. It's possible Gemini will want her to recite the information just to prove that she is capable of holding it all in her head. She stands in submissive attention, waiting for her Alpha to require more of her or to dismiss her. She is Not looking at the clerks. It would be really fun to be told she can do whatever she wants now. There's one with a mop of curly hair and a lap that's begging for her to sit down in as she practices her own tactical pheromone usage with scarf and kiss and the remnants of his stuffy buttoned shirt. But she can't yet. She hasn't finished her duty until Gemini tells her she can stand down.

Ember is, after all, a very good girl. The one who takes this seriously, because she's the bottom of the pack. The one who takes this seriously, because the god of the Silver Divers has given them a sign. The one who takes this seriously, because she's so hungry for praise. And the one who takes this seriously, because Gemini might toss her right back to Plundering Fang, who might pull out another chair and make her an honorary clerk for the day. The Silver Divers may be egalitarian, but Ember's still earning her place among them, and being the bottom of the pack makes for a very respectful and dutiful young huntress. And, besides, nobody mouths off to Gemini. She'll just smile and then arrange your imminent downfall, possibly by having Taurus get you when you least expect it.

In the end, she decides against the broadsword.

She hates that broadsword is an option here.

It's like. On the one hand, Yaji isn't a person. Which is a terrible sentence and one that feels dirty in her mouth. It's a seven-syllable horror story that someone out there--someone on this ship went out of their way to create a walking, talking, laughing thing to--

They aren't friends, to be clear. Dyssia sees what Yaji does--what Yaji makes those around her do, what she does to keep herself in the good books of this automaton.

But at the same time, you can't spend any amount of time with someone without. Well, not liking. Definitely not liking. Nothing this side of loathing.

But it's like, the second it twigged to her what Yaji was, Dyssia also couldn't help but pity her?

Which is the weirdest feeling, by the by? Yaji was created to cause harm. She takes no joy in it. Joy does not exist. She was created for one purpose, and it was to control a population of pix through incredibly violent suppression.

You don't pity a broom for being dirty. But the idea of doing it with--

Not a person. Not a people. Easy to see, once you've asked the question and can instantly see the answer, but so hard to internalize.

Somone out there figured out the optimal way to cause harm. Somebody asked themselves how to police the pix, came to the conclusion that bullying was the answer, perfected bullying, and loaded it onto this chassis that would go out there and cut someone down with a well-placed word. Someone could have figured out the optimal way to do, you know, not that, to do the opposite of that, to build people up and do something constructive with a highly-customized drone chassis, because that's what Yaji is, and instead they made her--

She doesn't feel like not a person, is the thing. The illusion is so perfect that you only spot it once you're there, once you've been accepted, once she's. Decided is the wrong word. Once whatever process behind the eyes has optimized for you as an element of bullying, rather than a target.

The books never tell you what it's like to see someone as a target, incidentally. It's all well and good to tell herself that she's not a person. That she's a thing, and one designed with harm in mind. That if she doesn't get rid of Yaji, somehow, all of her efforts to save the Pix will be frustrated and come to naught.

Or possibly nought. What a fun word.

But none of that prepares you for holding the knife. Will she make noise? Will she even know it's happening? Slit the throat, or jam it between two important vertebrae?

How will the Pix react to her straight up murdering one of them? Can't tell them "whoops, you don't understand, she wasn't actually real."

But…

Ignore the reasons for and against, for a second. Is that something she can do, something she can bring herself to do? Can she stare at this not-a-friend-not-a-person-pitiful-thing and end it?

She's been seeing it in her dreams already. How much worse if she actually does it?

But!

But but but!

She's decided against it! Because there's a better way, and one she's actually really damn proud of figuring out!

See, there's this theory one of her teachers taught her about. About ethics, right? Some old bastard wrote about how the best thing was about maximizing goodness for the most people, right? If you have one option that benefits twenty people a lot and one that benefits thirty by the same amount, you maximize goodness and choose the thirty person option, right?

Not a very convincing theory of goodness, she admits, because, like, how do you quantify goodness, and who's picking the measures of goodness, and who's doing the measuring, and so on, but! But there's the idea--rather applicable in this case--of the monster, right?

Figure there's a monster, right, who derives infinite pleasure from somebody else's suffering. The good in the world is always higher if the monster gets to carry out their torture than if they don't, right, because the pleasure the torturer derives from it is greater than the pain it causes the torturee.

It's meant to be a big ol' gotcha to the theory, right, that the greatest good in this system could logically be to torture someone for a monster's satisfaction.

But hey, even if the theory is bogus, the exercise…

Because, and here's the genius thing, right? Yaji is a drone. Or something similar enough to it that it doesn't matter. A drone evolved not to need food, to take satisfaction--no, wrong word, no mind. Pleasure? Purpose? Instinct. Yaji acts on [/i]instinct[/i] to be cruel. There's some kind of prioritization there, which is why Yaji jumped on the malcontent pix first.

So, if she can reverse engineer Yaji, and figure her out, it should be possible, then, to engineer an equally built-to-purpose drone of her own. Something that can't think, can't feel, definitely can't feel hurt by the abuse golem pointed at it. Something absolutely irresistible to the arcane process inside that empty head. Three days base, but she's sure this one could last at least a week--maybe even two.

Which isn't a lot, and she's doing her best not to think that she's creating a life for the sole purpose of being attacked and degraded and eventually blessedly dying, and how different does that make her from whoever made Yaji, but.

But it's gotta be worth it, if the Pix live, right?

Mosaic!

Perhaps when the designer of this beautiful body of brass and fur looked upon the jaguar she thought that she was drawing inspiration from the greatest of predators. From a terror of the jungle, a weapon of stealth, speed and power. But held aloft in the arms of Mosaic she was instructed that this form also contained the nature of a helpless, wide-eyed kitten helpless at the feeling of fangs against her neck.

"Mosaic," she said with a hesitant voice. "Mosaic. Mosaic..."

She was struggling, very gently - there were other things that she wanted to say. But your terms had been clear. Your name on her lips, as fast and secure as a gag. She could only whisper the word to the tune of an increasing blush as she realized how utterly helpless and secure she was, too good a girl to say anything else until given permission otherwise. "Mosaic. Mosaic. Mosaic~" a soft word emerging from the bronze mask to touch against your neck like a kiss.

Ember!

Gemini feigned disappointment. "Oh, Ember," She said. A familiar lesson, saying one thing while scenting another, teaching you to pay attention to the hidden voice above any other. "I fear for you, you know?" the voice was scolding, but the scent was: delight. Warm. Love. Affection. Reward. "Because you're so very clearly addicted to praise," she said, "that even when you earn it, giving it to you feels like it will Damage your Morals. But what else can I do for the girl who finds such a treasure?"

She gestures, and the pack descends.

You haven't earned a moment like this before. A crushing, shifting group hug; dozens of bodies pressing against yours. Hands reaching over every part of you; ears, neck, spine... One voice after another whispering "Good girl," into your ear before pulling away. Your scent mingled across the entire pack's. Love. Belonging. Reward.

When it parts you're left breathless at Gemini's feet, head in her lap as she runs her hands through your hair and along your ears. "I appreciated your report," she said. "I am impressed with your skill and your fortune. The Howling Rainbow has blessed you and us, and with this treasure we will bring this entire sector to its knees." She smiled, and there was a new scent. A familiar scent. Danger. "That is, we would, if you did not lead the Azura right to it. And all because you could only hold your breath for thirty minutes? I think you need a lot more practice in that area."

She reached over and picked up one of the unused gags that had been meant for the scribes. "Before we get started," she said, "did you have any last things you wanted to say?"

Dolce!

"I'm old but I'm not that old," cackled the Decaying Soldier. "What, two hundred years since the war? As far as I've seen, every year the Skies grow more powerful. I'm living proof, eh? My entire species was retired, they replaced us, and even now I hear rumours. Crystal weapons, silicate dragons - new wonders, while the Shogunate stagnates. Mark my words, the Peace of Mars will crack and there'll be another war."

*

"Oh, they're lovely," said the Thoughtful Songbird, and from her dour tone it was clear she was the advocate of despair. "But what about their children? We live in a monarchy regardless of if our monarchs condescend to pretend we are equals. Give even a republic a few generations and we'll be right back to oligarchy, and then inevitably towards empire."

*

"Oh-h-h-h," rumbled the Beloved Spy. "You call us. Their equals? We are. Cavemen. Medieval. Serfs. Culturally, scientifically, politically. Behind. Do you think integration. Means. Them accepting our values? When their civilization broke stars. Before ours was born. A bird. Craves seed. It does not understand. When its nesting swamp is dredged. To build a rocket launch pad."

*

There is no need to linger in these conversations much longer; the message is clear. The predominate emotion regarding the Endless Azure Skies is despair. Collapse. Unloving but hopeless obedience. Nobody in Beri contemplates revolution because nobody can even dream of success. There is no love for the Azura but to fight them, even to resist them, seems as unimaginable as fighting the gods.

In the darkness is a rustle, a shifting of sand as it flows uphill, of waves as they crash a little further against the shore. Amidst the distorting gravitational singularities Vasilia meditates, eyes closed. Her ears twitch. "I imagine that was dissatisfying," she said.

Dyssia!

This is a godless process. It feels like a sin. Other work has a strange, drunken flow to it; a storm of thoughts that zig and zag and expand into ever more complex ideas. But in the fleshlabs of the Biomancers even the joy of creation evades you. Instead it's cold and silent, right up until you feel the hot breath of cigarette smoke on your neck.

"You know, I almost got you bastards this way," he rasped. He was heavyset, muscular, a boxer who had let himself go. His scales were a dusty, aged lilac, cracked and splintered. "The very first Biomancer was mine. Did you know? Not a scientist in a lab like these pretenders," he laughed. "A drug dealer. The best drug dealer ever. Named Wonder Whonce if you can believe it. Looked like this," he gestured at his scarred jaw, his lazy eye. "Figured out how to make a smoke so good it'd be all you'd ever need."

He ran his hands over the head of the victim-drone, making it twitch, its growth accelerating, muscles condensing. "See, there's a state called a jhana. It's a state of profound peace and hypersensuality that is deeply spiritually fulfilling. The kind of thing that people back in the day needed to meditate for years to master and here it was in a little roll of wacky tobaccy. It'd last as long as you liked, leave you without side effects, and not interfere with any of your tasks or responsibilities. Wonderful stuff, but you know, every civilization figures out how to do that to themselves at some point. What made my man Whonce special, the evil genius that animated him that I still respect to this day, was that he contaminated that feeling with love."

Aphrodite gave a long, corroding laugh even as the creature under his fingers grew cascading black hair. "Love! What an idea. But then, not only did anyone who tried Whonce's product get the best trip of their life, one that could last for months, but they were so filled with overwhelming love for the people around them that they couldn't help but want to share it. They became evangelists who would beg, plead, wheedle and threaten those around them into trying the product. They wanted to share this feeling with everyone they met. After a point they started doing it at gunpoint. They didn't feel pain and a breath of smoke into the face of a soldier screaming out her last around a bayonet wound would make sure she didn't either. In fact, the soldier would often thank them after the fact!" he laughed again. "Oh, I almost had you that time. I was this close to wiping your entire species off the face of the galaxy before you even stepped into the stars. Shame. After that it became much more complicated."

The God of Love picked up the drone like a doll. It was radiant, beautiful, perfect. Clumsy and apologetic and weak, perfectly designed to lock Yaji in an infinite loop, two mindless creatures play-acting the injustices of their authors. "Still, you beautiful slippery bastards managed to wriggle your way out of it!" he said in tones of congratulations. "For now. But I'll get you in the end. Time is on my side after all, ha ha ha..."

The drone blinks in the drab lab lights, too artificial to even shiver. It was an inspired creation in the end.

"ShhhshshSHHH!"

Mosaic fixed her with a flat stare. The kind that made Ember feel small and silly and flustered. "Are you that ashamed of me?" The question was almost certainly a bit of barbed wit, but Ember wasn't about to let that pass, just in case. Just in case. Mosaic deserved nothing less.

"No," Ember whispered, Sincerity misting her breath, the bright orange-yellow of flowers on the mountainside, the sky at dawn as the sun broke free from the sea. "I don't want you to get in trouble for being found, like this, with a Ceronian. You might be arrested, or ostracized, or trapped underneath a very large rock!" In her mind's eye, she pictures Mosaic with her head and shoulders sticking out from underneath a mountain, chin cupped in her palm, glowering at the world for witnessing the shame of her being trapped by something too heavy for her to lift. She'd scare the sun down earlier and earlier every day, until dusk stopped existing. And then everyone would say: Ember, it is your fault that Mosaic has scared the sun into jumping down out of the sky every day. You should have known better than to seduce her and then let her get caught. You are a bad girl and you are on laundry duty for the rest of your life.

Mosaic stared at her very, very hard. Her lips twitched. That's a smile, right? She's trying not to smile? It's easier with her packmates, who broadcast what they're feeling, what they want her to feel. Mosaic just smells like Home. Like safety, and exertion, and the oil she uses for her hair. On first sight, Ember had lusted after Mosaic; on first sniff, she'd fallen in love.

Then Mosaic rolled over on top of her, pinning her down like the mountain, the muchness of her flesh sending Ember's heart racing like an athlete down some sort of prized contest's track. In the back of her head, she could hear Taurus scolding her, telling her that what she's feeling is what she needs to ignite in the hearts of her targets. The perfect operative uses desire as a leash and a garrotte, depending on what is needed to complete their mission. Between their legs, Ember's tail thwapped helplessly against Mosaic's voluptuous thighs, and underneath her, Ember held her breath, staring adoringly into the gold and the ruby of her mistress's eyes.

"I guess we'd better be quiet, then," Mosaic said, and clamped her palm over Ember's mouth. "There. Now you can't 'get me in trouble.' Is that what you wanted, Emb...?" A narrowing of the eyes, and then the curl of a lip back from a fang, one that knew Ember's neck and breasts well. "Oh. I see. No wonder you're always letting yourself get punished by that pack of strays. Well, I won't be shown up by them." Challenge glinted in Mosaic's eyes, and Ember realized that she was sweating out Lust again, hot-pink tongue-drool spread-lips Lust, growing damper with every half-hearted squirm and muffled meep beneath her lover.

This place would be obvious to any passing packmate for days.

---

"So, like, did the Earthshaker point anything out to you specifically~?"

A good girl shakes her head. A good girl flicks an ear. A good girl does not struggle more.

"Of course not, what am I sayyyying. He shows up in person for, like, the death of planets. You ever seen him, Emby?"

A good girl... isn't sure. A good girl doesn't remember, so a good girl shakes her head.

"Thought not. Wouldn't that just be wild, though, packie? Seeing Poseidon show up and knowing, ooooh, shit, we're sooooooo fucked. Well, maybe not us. Everybody else, though. Maybe us. If we were slipping. Probably not. We're his wavecaps. His silly rabbits."

You've always got to have a spotter for breath-holding exercises. Goldie volunteered. So she's lounging on top of Ember, wearing a strategically torn looted top over her wetsuit, presumably all Joy as usual. It hangs around her like a cloud, like the dye in her hair, like the oil on her cheeks, like the smile on her lips, like the servitors tripping over themselves to get her attention. Both of them are hiding out in the mayor's offices, away from most prying eyes, where Goldie can take a break from being adored and Ember can be face-down, hogtied, and buried in Gemini's craftsmanship without making anyone wonder if the wolves are turning on each other.

If she takes a breath, she'll regret it. Chastisement, blossoming hot and red and intense in her nostrils, and Disappointment hanging low and heavy underneath. In a real fight, Ember, this breath might be the one that makes you start drowning. Goldie will keep track for you and change out your gag every few hours; let's see how well you can do for the clan, little wolf. And a knowing smile, a caress of her cheek, a reminder of the incredible high of being loved by the pack.

And yet, unbidden creeps in the thought of Mosaic opening the door, tossing Goldie out the window with one hand (not that Goldie deserves it, she's one of Ember's pack favorites, but Mosaic absolutely would), asking Ember what she'd gotten herself in to this time, tossing her over one shoulder, maybe spanking her a little, and carrying her off as a trophy, daring anyone in the pack to fight over her. For her. Unable to so much as squeak, feeling Mosaic's hand on her side, paraded out in front of the village as Mosaic carried her off as a prize, telling Gemini to her face that she'd trained Ember too well in seduction and sensuality...

"You're doing real well, Embs," Goldie continues. "Too well. How about a little challenge?" Her claws whisper up and down Ember's sides, the soles of her feet, right behind her ears, as Ember strains every muscle in her body and grinds her forehead into the floor, holding her breath like a true warrior, seconds stretching out into infinity waiting for the playful gold-dyed Ceronian to end the semi-random spike in difficulty, each and every one of her strained whimpers swallowed up into the thickness of Gemini's cloth, almost as beloved as Mosaic's palm.

“Dissatisfying and discouraging,” says the lump of wool at the edge of the clearing, freed from the shackles of needing to maintain a presentable shape. “Every time I talk to someone who feels just as strongly as me in the opposite direction, my first thought is that they must be seeing something I’ve missed. I try to imagine what things look like from their perspective. I try to look for the missing piece. I get so far from my own thoughts I forget why I even had them in the first place, and everything I just believed in starts to look suspect. Nevermind that the other person could simply have been mistaken all along. It’s work to hold onto a thought when you’re the only one in town who thinks it's important.”

He checks, periodically, on the curve of her back and the serenity of her face. It hasn’t shifted in any of the other hundred times they’ve chatted mid-meditations, but you never know about the hundred and first time. Better gaze at her a little longer. Just to be sure the mountain of fur and muscle and sunlight is as solid as it always was.

“She asked me why I wanted to get involved in politics in the first place. There was enough else to talk about, so I don’t think she noticed I didn’t answer her. Not really, anyway.” He shifted about, hugging his knees to his stomach and resting his back against a particularly comfortable rock. Making himself as small and as comfortable as possible. “She had a point; that’s the part that makes it extra frustrating. I’m one sheep in a small town on the edge of the Skies. I’m not anywhere close to levers of power or high office, and it’d be forward of me to act as though I’d ever get such a chance, much less that I’d be any good once I got there. All I have is a little opportunity to help with local affairs, and here I can’t do a thing until I’ve figured out how an entire Empire ought to be run. And all everyone in town can tell me is that things can only be the way that they are.”

He blew a stray, wispy curl from his eyes. “I don’t even know why I can’t believe that too.”