The tank is empty, and has been for days.

Now hold on there. You might hear that and think, come on, this is Dyssia the Irrepressible, Dyssia the Can't-Be-Kept-Down. 

(And why doesn't anybody ever have positive epithets for her, huh? Come on people, you can be more inventive and kind than "the Distracted." Dyssia the Passionate. Dyssia the Kind. She's got a list.)

But this is Dyssia--she's always got a little bit of energy left for a new passion project! Some unplumbed bit of energy, some fresh spark.

But she was running on fumes a week ago. 

The fumes have been burnt, and the fuel tank ripped out and dismantled as unnecessary weight. Already, she can feel that she's physically scanter than she was--the body scavenging energy from fat and muscle, devouring itself in its search for anything to keep it going.

Even spite, which carried her through spitting in the face of Love himself, has hollowed her out, left her flat and barren. Is that good or bad? Probably bad. Emotions should be treasured.

But it's like--she can see the battlefield, right? Can see the drones unfolding their legs, see the steel-hard bone armor glinting across the field. It's better to hold here, in the open, where the Pix can devise strategems and hold points, but--

Battlefields are supposed to be noisy, right? You know, screams of the wounded, heroic charges, battle cries, speeches from gallant leaders? The way the drones just unfurl themselves--like dying insects in reverse--in total silence and advance like a mute thunder feels like it's against the rules. It'd be less scary if they actually [i]did[/i] make some kind of noise--if they gibbered, and howled, and flung imprecations. It wouldn't be this unnaturally silent advance. It's like being threatened by a thousand malevolent earthquakes, but made worse by this being a deliberate act by the biomancers.

They have no mouths, and she must scream. 

Point is, she's basically too tired to do much at this point. She spent her energy unwisely, without planning how to pay the bill, overspending her account, and now the time has come to pay.

Except--

It's like, she doesn't have any physical energy. That's spent. Can't find it in herself to be angry, even. Feels flat and weary and so, so tired.

But Brightberry's [i]alive.[/i]

Brightberry's alive, and Brightberry's helping, and if they survive this, Dyssia can talk to her, and--

And it's like, a knot of energy that was wrapped around worry is unclenching? A little ball of--

Yes, call it hope. That tomorrow might happen after all. That she'll get a chance to apologize. That they might make it out of this alive. That she hasn't fucked everyone here by trying to do what she thought was right.

That--That someone else might help fix this?

She's reclaimed that little bit of energy. A candle-flame's worth, maybe. But enough to take her back behind the phalanxes, enough to bark a few orders to the score of pix surrounding her, enough to push her through the movements to project the gravrail out.

They are her phalanx, and she is their esoteric. They protect her, she protects them.

Survive. Yeah, she can do that, probably.