Dyssia bears down on the Biomancer like a ship under full sail.

It's like an optical illusion, right? She's seen the ships in the yard, coming and (it seems to her, nowadays, more often) leaving. And it's amazing how slowly they seem to go, right? So calm, as if they're not mounting the heavens on a spear of flame.

The effect is very different when you're standing directly in front of one.

Words like impacable, unstoppable, inevitable come to mind. She is an avatar of Mars, suffused with a golden glow, and you could no more turn her aside than dam the sea.

Because of course, from a certain view, the biomancer is right.

This isn't her fight. She's acting completely against her own interests, and against the interests of her people, and against the interests of the Skies.

If she does nothing, she gets her life back. She saves her planet. She'll be hailed as--

Hmm. Well, no, no, let's be honest, she won't be hailed as a hero. Too much baggage to be a hero, too politically embarrassing for Merilt for her to have succeeded. No ticker tape parade for her--though can you just imagine the lemon-sucking face Merilt would make to see her back?

But her planet will survive, and balance will have been restored. She will have driven a useless species already on the brink of decommissioning into the loving hands of her biomancers, and the Skies will thrive.

She'll have exercised her right as the ranking Azura--you know, out of a total of one--to make a decision that will affect an entire species. She has the power of life and death, of reshaping life to better suit the skies, of deciding when foxes should go and when they should be remolded into adorable.

But.

But it would mean admitting that. You know.

Even the thought sticks in her throat, like a bit of food that you realized was bad too late, and is trying to come back up.

It would mean admitting that Aphrodite was right. That the Skies are more important than any sacrifice maid to maintain them. That so long as the machine functions, it doesn't matter how many people are ground into grease for its weels. That the system works.

It would mean accepting that she--Dyssia, Distracted, Fuck-up Supreme--is nevertheless the best person to make those decisions, just because she's an Azura.

As if Azura are magical, somehow different than the Servitors around them. As if they're not made of the same things. As if the blacksmith back home doesn't hide the little marks where the changes happened, and occasionally curse the way they did back at their home.

It would mean believing that the Pix--that all the servitors--are somehow less than people. Wind-up toys to be tweaked and tooled and decommissioned when no longer useful.

Her planet would survive. Dyssia might even be hailed as a hero, a saboteur.

But what would come back would not be her. She'd have lived, and have been gifted a dozen reminders of who she gave up.

Because, fuck you actually, you're dead wrong, and this is her fight.

Because if the system is right, and the system works, then she is more broken than the Pix. If she doesn't fight with everything in her to save these people, then who will fight for her? Who will stand with her if she does not stand with them?

She says none of this, but just brings the hammer down with a too-meaty splash.

The shoe might still drop.

He repeats the thought like a mantra. As fast as his gasping breath. As slow as the lazy shifting of her coils. The shoe might still drop. The shoe might. Mi. Miiiiiii. Ght. Htt. Shoe, might. The shoe might. Still drop. The shoe might still drop. That much is true. The shoe might still drop.

What other bit of solid ground has he to cling to? This is no hello. There is intent. There are glowing eyes piercing him through and if he could shut his own then he’d surely see them in the dark. His leg twitches. The motion is swallowed whole, absorbed into her thick, powerful muscles and nothing remains. He is held still. He is held tight. Her tongue flicks his nose. Her hands run across his cheeks. Her words wrap tight around his ears, such a pleasant, soft voice. She lingers, she hums, she purrs. The shoe might still drop. His senses are simultaneously overwhelmed and smothered. He can hardly think. He cannot observe. But even as his heart thrills she tightens in a steady, squeezing rhythm that he is forced to follow, and the shoe might still drop, and in the room there is a child’s skull missing a tiny chip of bone. There is Too Much. There is Nothing.

Crushing pressures on all sides, and he hangs, weightless.

“Dol…” He can still breathe. He is out of breath. “Dol. It’s, ha, it’s…ddd…Dol…ce…”

“Mmmmmmmmmmm. Dolce.” She purrs, and he feels it from every side. “Such a delicious name~. “

“Is this -ngh- really an appropriate working relationship?” He grits his teeth, groaning with the effort to remain coherent. “I had thoughtttt.” Panting. Hazy. “I had thought, as, representative, I might…be treated as a man…and an official.” His cheeks twitch, and from the depths of her grasp, this innocent, inexperienced morsel novice gives the Lord Governor an earnest little smile. “Wouldn’t that be best?”

[Rolling to Speak Softly: 6 + 4 + 3 = 13 Dolce forges a Bond with the Crystal Knight, and asks a question: Can she, an Azura, see Dolce - a sheep, a Synnefo, a Servitor - as a person like her?]

Ember does not howl. But she does glow.

A wolf is meant to howl at the moon, is she not? But she is not lunar, not tonight. Fire courses through her nerves, and it sets fire to her thoughts, and all that is left inside of her head is the crackling warmth of that flame, and the secret of the heart of that flame is-- well. Best not to talk about him around Mosaic. It makes her irrationally twitchy to hear that god's name.

Where Mosaic exults in her power, shows off to the Silver Divers, their loyally treacherous pack bitch is not showing off at all. Not a bit. Her focale smells of her lover's skin and crushed flowers, and her sword is a flickering firefly thing. She was paying attention, every time; see how dutifully she learned your lessons, o her tutors?

Plundering Fang leads the ambush from all sides, tossing gas bombs at her feet, coming in low and close for the legs, and she gets the flat smashed in her face for the trouble and her right ear nicked as Ember redirects her energy onto the cobblestones, her vēlum spilling loose onto the street. There's no mocking, just the hum of thought without thought, the sacred syllable of the sun hiding beneath her tongue, the clash of her scimitar against forked knives, the grace of a dancer flowing through a pack, her focale always out of reach, her knight's vēlum fluttering underneath calm sunblinded eyes.

Goldie tosses a shell-weighted net; Ember, dreamily, reverses her grip on her sword and catches the net's outer edge in her free hand. How her belt flares out as she spins on one foot! And then, ah, she neatly returns the net and knocks down three of her packmates, mmmmmmmmmm humming as she fights just like her moon hunts, until Plundering Fang lunges for her again, and she steps back into the embrace, rolls her most beloved teacher over her shoulder, lays her flat out on the street, and steps on her neck.

Only then, finally, she speaks.

"Mosaic, darling, this is Plundering Fang~"

And the ears of the victorious demigodess twitch, and she draws her lips back in a terrifying gorgon-smile, and she says: "Ah. There you are."

Mosiac and Ember!

The best thing about punishing a Ceronian is that you know they'll never forget it.

Ceronians are traditionally hard to goad into open conflict if they do not wish to be - the Bitemark authorities would have drawn them out long ago if such things were effective. There is no shame for them in avoiding a conflict. But Taurus is impetuous and she has Gemini's ear, and Gemini is an eye-watering singularity of charisma within the context of the pack. And so the instinct to find easier prey is overruled. Beri will be theirs, by open force if necessary.

This time the pack is concentrated into a phalanx. Outriders guard the edges, riding horses, or crabs, or other gifts from Poseidon. This is a formation that indicates they are expecting dedicated, armed resistance - not the loose, predatory hunting packs that would surround and contain a town with its military heart already captured. For all their legend, a Ceronian phalanx is a strangely indifferent thing - competent, yes, but still ultimately just a phalanx. Legends have a way of being exaggerated, after all - when the Wolves capture worlds it is due to logistics, awareness, stealth, cooperation, engineering, instinct and fundamental soldiering skills and not sheer individual prowess. The dreams of Alcedi kingfishers in their awesome displays of airborne might seemed more glorious than this formation of the battleline.

But then, the Alcedi fought the wolves and lost.

Dolce!

Oh, it is worse than that, Dolce. She does see you as a person. She sees the savage aliens on the planet she raised as people. You see in the eyes of the Crystal Knight the same playful malice she showed the Imperial Princess, a bona-fide society-certified Person a few minutes prior. The Crystal Knight has no illusions that you are robots, or puppets, or less favoured by the gods.

If you were, what would be the point?

There were those Azura who rejoiced at the fall of the Old Tyrants, those would-be deities of silicon and monstrosity who sought to control the very thoughts of their slaves. They were no democrats - they were the decadent. They wanted their prey to be unwilling. They wanted their subjects to have souls. They lived for the game of taking apart civilizations with their own bloody hands. They were those for whom digital tyranny had grown too efficient, too joyless, too industrial. The Crystal Knight is a devil but she is a devil who would torture every soul with her own two hands and delight in each unique squirming reaction.

(And how she torments you, now that you have her attention. She knows how to shift to take you from your feet, to separate your limbs and leave you free floating and without leverage, she knows where to touch to send jolts of fear and excitement, and her complete attention is on every little gasp and squeak, which she savors like honey.)

But there is an almost admirable catch to this - she has no interest in impersonal cruelty. She would not harm the world of Bitemark in abstract - only those individuals who she has decided to torment. This has made her effective in her role as Sector Governor.

"Tell me, Dolce," she purrs again. "Exactly what you think would be best ♥."

Dyssia!

A Knight sat upon the moon.

In ancient days he fought aliens - lesser creatures, mere shadows of the Empire and the Skies. They had been terrified of the power of divination. Knowledge received directly from the Gods, torn from flesh and rising from fire? How could there be victory against such revelations? Their will had collapsed before their prophecised end had come to pass. In ancient days, the Azura had feared the future too - but they were wiser now.

His name was Sequenti Horatio Sansalar. In ancient days he had been the Dust Knight. Now he sat upon the barren lunar surface above the world named Hurricane Gem, as he had sat for eight years. He stared up, unmoving, at the world above him, and had there been the most gentle of winds he would have long since been buried in lunar sand.

The oracle had said that there would be a great injustice done here. Here, on this lifeless and uninhabited rock. Here, in this ruin of a system, connected by not a single slipgate. Here beyond the dreams of Skies and Empire. She had not said when, nor whom, nor why. This was what the aliens had not understood. Prophecy was brother to patience and sister to honour. Because of injustice alone, the Dust Knight had come. Because of injustice alone, the Dust Knight had waited.

And with a final tick of the clock an instant that had lasted an eternity came to an end.

Colour rose into the sky of that distant world, a focused beam, each frequency layered over the top of each other. It found a gap in the clouds and struck the glittering gemstone that waited in orbit, a satellite of barely processed crystalline material. It caught at such an angle that the light bent and broke, splitting into a dozen smaller beams that spread across a radiant network of gemstone satellites. The same message glittering across dozens of nodes. The same simple code. And finally it reached those satellites that bounced that laser light directly up to the moon, to a spot a few feet from where the Crystal Knight coiled.

+Coordinates locked+ pulsed Ico. She stirred, stiff and sleepy, light running through her glass scales like electrical dye. The crystal dragon had grown since they had put down together. She was almost as big as he was. +Distress signal. Warrior servitor species 'Pix' engaged against apocalyptic drone swarm.+

It had been a desperate prayer that had sent this cry for help into a sky choked with clouds, heavy with storm winds. But Zeus had, for love, given them one moment's blue sky in answer to that prayer. Such was the kindness of the Gods. The rest was simply looking for it.

The Dust Knight raised up. He was as fluid and ready as the moment he had settled in eight years ago. +Armour functions?+ he pulsed with subvocalized words and diamond lights.

+All systems are primed and ready. Charge stable at 98.2%. Stellar gravitational balances ideal, moon is in near orbit. Estimated transit duration eighteen hours.+

+Awaken the legion. I will go ahead.+

+Understood. Cleared for planetary jump. Follow the crimson light.+

+As ever, my friend.+

Zeus had, for the sins of the Skies, revoked her gift of electricity. She had invented it's antithesis, the Flux, and given it to any child who cared to ask. The galaxy had burned. The galaxy had forgotten. The galaxy had taken refuge in artifice and mysticism, cleaving to those few technologies too brutal to fail. It was easier to return to candles and parchment than to rethink society.

But, the Dust Knight thought as he raised up in the glowing electromagnetic rings of the interplanetary railgun, power was not easy.

He coiled - and jumped.

Magnetism had not gone away simply because society had forgotten how to wield it. Gravity was not the superior force because it was the one easy to control. The Dust Knight accelerated at blistering speeds, even his advanced and ancient brain creaking against his skull as the massive acceleration sought to flatten him. He frothed in pain, but even as he did, he activated his Grav-Rail, improving his speed. Black spots danced in front of his eyes. His skull filled with fluids that pickled his brain, rendering it too inert to break. His capillary blood vessels closed lest they shatter. This was what it was to jump between planets.

All he saw was crimson and black. He followed the crimson.

With the crash of shattering sound he broke through the sky, wreathed in flame. With the crash of shattering chitin he broke through the swarm, haloed in ichor. With the crash of shattering stone he broke the earth itself, and he rose molten from the ruins of a Wayang operational command centre. His descent had been targeted precisely by the dragon on the ground, his mere arrival decapitating an entire flank.

Up was down. Down was up. For the second time he arose. As he did the black paint burned off his armour. It surrounded him in a halo, each ember catching onto each other until at last they ignited into a roaring inferno that cloaked him. The fire settled and wove, stitching heat into carbon and carbon into a diamond latticework. Revealed for war, his armour was celestial white, and his cape was the richest red the galaxy had ever seen.

He spoke aloud and his oration was prayer and oath.

"Tyrants of tomorrow," he said. "Your perfect future is built with a wicked present and forgotten past. Awaken from your dreams and see that justice has come."

Above his head he ignited his crystal energy sword. With it he cut away the clouds, the wind and storm. And from a clear blue sky came a legion in red and white.

There are so many ways to punish a wolf. There are the obvious, the boring, the smacks on the backside and the threats of worse. These she employs first: shackling these defeated Ceronians in the same chains they'd been given to bind her in, once they'd caught her. She makes leashes of them, binds their arms behind their backs, and according to the severity of their crimes (as she sees them), strips them of their arms and armor and more besides. Some get off relatively lightly, but others whose names are known to her will reek of Shame and Defeat for a week. Plundering Fang alone is promoted to the role of chief pet, collared and left with the only uniform appropriate to her new station, made to watch the rest of it all play out from her spot at Mosaic's feet.

And then there are the subtler, more sinister, more delicious torments. Having to watch their Little Ember roam free. Watching her, on Mosaic's orders, run off to the demigod's cottage to collect and outfit and bring Vesper safely into town. Oh, little wolves, were you not aware she had a sister you could have struck? Was that ignorance or fear that kept you at bay? But Ember, your plaything Ember, your darling new girl hazing tool, she does not react at all, other than to kiss her beloved and sneak away as asked. She has kept this confidence for a long time. Perhaps the training techniques of the Silver Divers need to be revisited? Something is clearly not up to scratch.

As they march, this tiny and defeated pack, they are burdened with heavy rocks to drag along with them. Enough each to slow even the vaunted muscles of the legendary Warriors of Ceron to a crawl, and all with the very same rocks they had just been bludgeoned, crushed, and beaten by. It is not a long trip, but neither is it quick or easy. Only in Beri, only surrounded by the townspeople they were meant to have enslaved by now, are they relieved of their burdens. And then they are left to watch as their labors are turned by Dolemon the Giant and the assorted good people of Beri and Rosedam into rough walls that will sow the seeds of defeat for the rest of their pack.

They know this, because they have been taught this lesson already. It is not that stones are strong in ways that their bodies cannot overcome. Their bones and muscles are harder, their armor is stronger, and the construction of these ramparts is easily knocked aside. But it still must be done, if a phalanx is to move forward in formation. Even crushing pebbles underfoot means taking the time to step on them. The hunting packs had been thwarted not by the strength of stone, but by being made predictable. And now they would live with enabling that to happen once again.

They must watch, as one unit, Ember return with clothes. They must watch Mosaic change, see the glory of her body and be made for once to reckon with their legends falling short of somebody else's perfection. They must watch the Hero of Beri arm herself for battle, as a Goddess might. As a Goddess should: in tight fitting pinstriped pants and lacquered black shoes, in a perfectly contoured white silk blouse and a sleek black tie around her neck, in an ash gray vest, in loose silver chains draped from shoulder to shoulder and down her chest, down her ribs, across her waist and around her hips, dotted with tiny glittering diamonds that glitter like stars next to their ugly, heavy shackles that are nothing alike at all. She makes Plundering Fang sweep her hair back, paint her lips crimson, paint her claws the colors of jewels. They styled themselves conquerors, or the resistance, but now they look upon a Queen. Revolution, true Revolution, has come at last to Bitemark, and they must sit and nurse their sore limbs and chafing wrists wondering if they will watch the whole thing as slaves.

There are many ways to punish a wolf, but the worst among them is to shine. To burn in such glory that it plants the idea of mutiny inside their brains. To fix each of them with a piercing stare and drag them all around with her while she rounds up her trusted warriors: Quajl, the Decaying Soldier, Ember. She separates the ones who can hold a spear or an SP gun from the likes of the Lyrii and the soft-hearted, if not so soft boned. These she puts in charge of her captives: bathing them, repeatedly, washing their wounds and their fur and brushing away each burst of pheromones they might have used to save the phalanx from her guerrila tactics.

Is there a worse threat she could make to the Daughters of Ceron than to tame them? Without a word, she drags her new pet with her to what will become the front line again and again and again. She does not ask them for help. Could a creature like this even need to? Who would set them on this monster and expect them to win? Is that a person to be followed? And what will be left for them when their Taurus meets Mosaic? Almost a match?

They'd regret those words forever.

It takes him some time to answer. Because he has no foundation to stand upon. Because energy spent speaking is not energy spent on thinking of what to say. Because her clever tail will slip from his throat to his mouth and he cannot stop trying to speak or else the momentum may crush him before she does. So he sounds the words against and again into her scales until she grants him a voice again, one he hardly recognizes.

She no longer needs her eyes to tease the truth from him. The truth is all he has left.

“Mmphhh…don’t know what is best. I haven’t, haven’t found it, yet. I onlyyyy-”

“Mm?” Her hands knead lazy circles through his wool. Her fingers are strong, and insistent. “What was that?”

“I. Only see its absence. All my life. I started a, a, a cafe? I thought I could make it myself. Feel more c-c-complete…h-ha…”

She glides across his bound form, coils parting just enough to let her nails trace over him. Neck. Chin. The sound of the fine collar on his shirt tearing, thread by agonizing thread.

“It wasn’t - ghhh - enough. To have a little place of my own. And just. Watch. The world. From behind my windows. A little right here. Ev. Every other, where, not. Everywhere the same. And all of it coulddddd, be. Be swept…away….”

“You’ll have to speak up, Dolce.” She breathes into his ear. The perfect hush. The perfect hiss. Tingling shivers race down his spine. “E-nun-ci-ate.~”

“Thhhe, problem’s bigger than one house. And I, couldn’t ignore, that. I need a wider view. I have to see more. I have to join the Service. A-as an official. Not as a…as a-”

“As a what?” Her tongue flicks at his ear. His head rests on her chest. She tightens around each limb in turn, building slowly, inevitably, to the moment when she closes in around his middle. “As a what, Dolce?”

“A-as…as..a…mghhh…”

“I can’t understand you unless you speak clearly.~”

“Ggghhghhhhh…nghhh…”

“Mmm, poor thing. So exhausted from the trip here, is that it?” Her tail cups his cheeks fondly as she seals away his mouth. “You don’t have to do allllllllll this hard work yourself, you know.” Her voice flows from somewhere behind him, always moving, like her coils, like her hands. Winding him up until his vision blurs and he fights a hopeless fight to wiggle just a little bit until wave after wave of pressure squeezes the tension out of him anew. And she can wind him up all over again.

He is exhausted. How long has it been? Where are they? He has to keep talking. Don’t stop. The other shoe. It might. He has to say something. It could. She’s waiting. Shoe. Which was, any, could.

Where is the princess? Where is 20022?

“Shall I finish it for you? You tell me when I’ve got it right. ♥”

Where…where………?

"Oh no," Ember says, astonished. "They... Plundering Fang, are you seeing this?" Her jaw is loose in astonishment as she watches a phalanx march up towards Beri. She reaches down, absently squishes her tormentor's cheeks, lifts her sullenly embarrassed chin with the wicked innocence of a knight (and ignore the way her tail is wagging). "Oh, if only! If only someone could tell our pack that they have packed themselves into the worst possible formation for taking this town! It can't possibly be Taurus who gave this order, can it? Sagetip, maybe? Taurus has to be trying to flank us, or getting dressed for her challenge against Mosaic, and-- darling, can I warn them? Can I at least give them a fighting--"

"No."

"Well, I can't watch. You can't watch, can you, Plunder~? No, you would definitely try to warn them, wouldn't you? And we can't have that~" Nobly, the traitor of the Silver Divers puts herself to work to distract her own instincts to warn the pack by putting as much loving care into packing her teacher's cheeks full as-- oh, it couldn't possibly have been just the morning before! And the morning before that! And-- why, yes, I think she can fit a little more, can't she? And, here, I think you won't mind breathing in some Defeat, you've been giving off so much of it that it's like you're begging for it~

Then, with nervous energy being channeled into beaming smiles, an inability to hold still, and a furiously wagging tail, the pack bitch of the Silver Divers goes down the line, making sure to demonstrate to her teachers just how much she's learned about securing prisoners, keeping them well-silenced and distracted with pheromones, and how to fluster them with a well-timed "good girl" and a pat on the head.

Really, they should have seen this coming. Any storyteller could have predicted this, and it's their own fault for being defeated by the demigoddess clearly mounted on the wall in the first act!

Holy shit?

Like, she keeps trying to come up with other words but holy [i]shit???{?i]

A knight! The Dust Knight! Career knight! Career knight she knows!

Or, you know, not knows, knows, but has! Has heard stories about! Like, in the canteens and docks and--

Ho-oly capital S H SHeeeyit!

She doesn't realize she's been gnawing on the halberd in awe until it comes into two halves in her hands.

A knight! To save her! Holy shit does that--no, no, she's probably not a knight, but she could be! Oh shit, she could parlay this into-- Well yes she could parlay this into fame and fortune but not actually and really she wouldn't be happy with the kind of fame and fortune that just dropped into her lap and--

Amycix's training knocks against her skull like a club to the hindbrain. Iron. Red. Now's the time to strike, dumbass, she had to train that into you hard enough.

She doesn't do anything dumb like stare at the two halves of the warhammer in her hands. No, there is rescue, there are the gods, there are slightly less than fifty thousand Pix, and she is leading the charge into the drones with a warcry.

Well, more like an ululating howl. Warcries are supposed to be more articulate, she thinks, bear a message of some kind.

Tyrants of tomorrow. Holy shit. Holy shit holy shit holy shit.

He is the coolest person she has ever seen, and she's going to be just like him someday.

Mosaic and Ember!

The Silver Divers reach the wall.

They are out of their depth and they know it. Their home and their power is the ocean, the unknowable outsiders, striking as a natural disaster and melting away with the tide. They stand here on stone, before stone, bound by pride they do not share. They are the legends who conquered the galaxy, who capture towns while laughing, but tonight there are only the silent scents that say 'alert' and 'ready'.

Two Ceronians leave the pack. They walk cautiously forwards towards the wall, legs crouched and tense, spears raised. The entire scene is two dimensional - one side of the road is a sheer cliff going up, the other side of the road is a sheer cliff going down. The phalanx stays still, a bristling mesh of spears and shields and uneasily held SP weapons, all staring in frozen wonder to see if these scouts, too, will somehow disappear without a trace like their forerunners did.

Nervously, step by step, the first two reach the wall. They wait in stillness, watch in stillness, waiting for the hammer to fall.

Dolce!

You can feel her heartbeat. Thump. Thump. Deep and slow and powerful. You can feel the muscle as it presses against your neck, vibrating through her chest, so loud it seems to drown out your own heartbeat. Thump. Thump. You can feel it in her wrists where they're wrapped around you, her vitality drowning out yours. Thump. Thump. Is it not glorious to be reminded that you are a lesser creature, a soft toy for a goddess to play with?

"... remember," she gives you a peck on the forehead. "Service is rewarded ♥."

20022 is there. He bows respectfully but insistently. The Crystal Knight scowls at him as she leaves you, shivering, legless and cold. "Speak your piece you busybody."

"Lady," said 20022. "I have come to discuss with Lady Triden an update to the plans for the peninsula. The Royal Architect has placed a request to resonance mine the central territories along here," he gestured at a large swathe of the map. The Stone Tribe lands. Beri.

"I am not surprised to hear that old bastard's name on your lips," said the Crystal Knight, pouring herself a glass of honeyvenom. "You want me to relocate, what, eighty thousand servitors?"
"The Service does not require anything from you, my lady," said 20022, bowing again. "We have already begun steps to post evacuation notices. The Architect's emissary is already on its way."
The Crystal Knight stared at the map fixedly. "Tell him to turn back. I have a recovery operation off the coast, I won't see it vaporized."
"My lady -"
"Hm!" she snapped. "I see how it is. Well, tell you what - why don't you get all of those refugees you're creating and assign them to my work crews instead? The more bodies I have to dredge the ship the faster I'll be out of your way."
"But the evacuation schedule -"
"They can run, can't they?" said the Crystal Knight languidly, reclining over a couch. "Or if you're so chummy with the Architect, you can ask him for a few days delay? It's a reasonable request from the sector governor and I am certain your superiors will see it the same way."
20022 hesitated. "I'll assign the civilians to the work crews."
"Good boy. And speaking of, do you still want your little friend here?" she ran the tip of her tail along Dolce's neck. "It's a long road and I could use a snack~"
"... I believe I should take him with me."
"Heh," she smirked. "As you will. Good luck teaching him the joys of public service now, little eunuch."

She's still smirking, eyes following you unblinking, as 20022 helps you to your feet and guides you from the room.

Dyssia!

A red sunset glows over the newly born forest. Bone white eucalypts stand tall amongst the tundra scrubgrass, staining a dusty red world with yellow and blue. The winds still blow, but lighter now that the trees break their flow and the grass stops the sand from being carried away. After the death, the harvest.

By the numbers you should have lost. But such was the problem with drones as an instrument of war - where a warrior species could adaptively react to an orbital deployment, drones were pre-programmed and mindless. When the hammer fell directly on the staging areas and the Wayang were butchered the drones were left standing as empty meat. And now they are all dead, their cracked shells thick upon the ground, plant life oozing through like egg yolk.

The Dust Knight lost his helmet in the fighting, and he is handsome - the Azura equivalent to a silver fox. Aged scales losing their saturation has made them fade from a common navy to an exquisite powder blue, offset hypnotically with a pattern of crimson-painted scales that circle his right eye, then descend in three swooping parallel lines all the way to his jaw. But more than his striking appearance is a profound... peace. A calm, a lack of posturing, a sense that he not only knows what righteousness is but finds embodying it to be no great trial. Someone whose inherent goodness is so beyond question that even the Endless Azure Skies could not bring itself to censor his name and deeds in the hopes that he would come back to them.

"Hello there," he said to your approach, voice without pretense or ceremony. "You're the pilot?" he nodded at the wreckage of the distant Firetree. "Nice landing. Not many people in the Skies would trade a ship like that for a couple thousand Pix."

Two spears snap in half before anybody notices what caused it. A moment later both scouts' feet leave the ground, lifted up by the throats by the powerful arms of Mosaic. She holds them there, watching the phalanx hold position. She listens to their desperate wheezing, and feels their scrabbling claws against the back of her hands.

The seconds tick by, and the formation holds. No one approaches. The scratching moves down to her wrists, and grows rapidly weaker. Enough. Her foot slides across the stone street as she turns. Her hip twists, the fabric of her vest slips across her shoulder as it rolls forward. The muscles in her back twitch and stretch, and a crack like fireworks echoes through the town as first one wolf and then another is smashed against the road. Their backs arch as they bounce, but they do not scream, do not even grunt. There is a whuff of breath being squeezed out of the pair of them, and a low hiss as it sinks back into them. Their heads loll to one side; the uneasy breathing of the dreamer.

Mosaic sighs as she turns to face the pack again. Her god's eye gleams out from the shadow the hill casts over her face. Her arms spread wide, gesturing at either side of the wall she stands in front of as her tail whipcracks behind her.

"Daughters of Ceron," she booms, "Welcome to Beri! I am Mosaic, and though I am not the Mayor here, today I'm in charge here. Let me tell you what I told your sisters, out of respect for mine: conquering this town and conquering me were the same thing. All of you against me, or all of you here, and if Beri and I were separated that might have been enough. But girls? You fucked it. All that's left for you to take is an ass kicking."

Her arms drop. Her lips curl up in a smirk. Sour and salt is the scent on the air: the kind of mineral foulness that she knows signifies conflict, and nerves.

"We can save ourselves some time, you know. Drop your shields and lower your weapons. Strip off all that pointless, heavy armor so my friends can put it to better uses. Why not just surrender? We want the same thing, you pricks and I. The only thing we seem to disagree on is who's on top here. But we know. We all know. Do me a favor, and don't make me prove it."

She knows before the words finish leaving her lips that there will still be a fight. She hears it in the rattling of shields, shivering edge to edge against one another as the phalanx mills, but does not scatter. Leather gloves clutch tight against the hafts of spears and the barrels of rifles, and gravel keens against the street as boots push it away where they dig in to their position. Hyperventilating breaths are turning into snarls, and the notes in the air turn more and more to rust and earth and powders. Smells, in other words, of war.

But she has done her job. Neither Gemini nor Vesper could complain about the result now. Some footfalls draw closer, but others pull back. Some wolves howl, but others whine while they are certain the sound will be drowned out. Some eyes fall on Mosaic, but a great many others watch the wall. When the charge comes, it is not the phalanx stomping in its unconquerable unity. Impetuous, tempestuous, furious. A full fifteen of the bravest of them come leaping over the shield wall to shatter the stone one.

Mosaic's muscles pop when she stretches them. Her fist catches the first Silver Diver full on in the face, and she rolls her eyes at the mighty warrior crumpling like tin underneath her. She flashes forward, low to the ground. She plants her hand in front of her, and launches the heel of her foot into the chin of another, who goes sailing backwards to test the power of the battle line still waiting and watching. She lifts up and spins, lifting her spare hand to cover one ear against the report of an SP rifle. One quick breath as she steps through the cloud: her elbow crushes the lightweight alloys of another girl's armor straight into her ribcage. She grabs the same girl by the ankle before the blow can carry her away and swings her as a club into another two who have managed a whirling flank.

Spears disintegrate under her claws. A shield implodes against the might of her meteor of a dropping heel. An SP rifle chokes on its own round as it is snatched up and bent into a knot. She feels the bite of a sword as it slides into her abdomen: Mosaic turns her head and glares down at the warrior still clinging to the weapon inside of her. She grabs the hilt, and walks it farther in. Her headbutt proves itself the more dangerous attack by far. She wrenches the blade out and snaps it over her knee, and just like that two spears go clattering to the street, while the hole in her vest closes over with plates of horrible bone that see her spill not even a drop of blood.

"...You can't say I didn't warn you."

Finally, the phalanx moves, and splits as much as it can on the narrow pathway to circle and surround her and hem her in with an overwhelming abundance of weaponry. Where one sword failed, two hundred similar pokes will succeed. Too late! Too late, too late, too late! Mosaic's foot crashes into the ground and the air is made of thunder. Rocks tumble down the hill, the street splits in half. Ceronian warriors lose their footing on the ramps they hadn't seen through all of Mosaic's disguises, and with undignified squawks, yelps, and howls they tumble by the dozens into ditches dug mere hours ago to welcome them.

The good folk of Beri are not an army, not trained for war, not even led to accept it as a possibility. But never underestimate the prowess with a net of a people who live so near to the sea, and who have for as long as anyone can remember thrived off its bounties and generosities. The crab hunters cast their traps, and the builders hurl their stones. The sailors tie the knots. The Lyrii prepare more baths. Lady Mosaic has been very explicit about her distaste for the smell of dog.

Her hymn swells from every building and through every street like the heartbeat of a monster at the edge of the forgotten underworld: chan! chan! chan-barra-chan-barra-chan!

Mosaic wades into the sea of violence with a look of serenity stitched across her face. She is a demigoddess, and the shadows of the Oneiroi walk alongside her. Fists, elbows, feet, all of them fall like stars upon the ambitions of Taurus. Come out, come out, come out, little wolf. Prove to your pack how superior you really are, quickly, before you run out of pack to prove it to.

"Pointless," she spits, "If you really thought yourself my equal you wouldn't hide behind a thousand sets of teeth all sharper than your own."

"Fifteen-hundred Ceronians."

She's going to die. She's going to die because she opened her stupid mouth to make a joke that only ever made herself laugh and that only in her own head. The flush is starting at her head but she can feel it surging down her tail like a fire. Just bury her ashes in the ground here and find something more pithy for her tombstone than "fifteen-hundred Ceronians."

You know, with all the trees having sprouted, the soil's probably nice and soft, could do the burial nice and easily.

"What?"

"In-joke, sorry. It's that each Pix is, uh."

Bail. Pivot. Topic change now.

In all her years she's never seen a more compelling question of wife or life.

Fuck, fuck, change back--

Because on the one hand, whoof. The silver scales? The scars? The shape, that armor--

Note to self. Invest in armor. Find a tailor, invest in armor. Research tailoring, invest in armor. Hell, she's already half a blacksmith, and they can probably pick her forging gear out of the wreckage--

God, she could climb him like a mountain.

But it's like, it's not just the physicality, right? Not purely the sex appeal of a big buff guy made more buff by armor?

It's the confidence, is what it is. Every inch of him says that he knows what is right, has bound himself to live it in both word and deed, and to look at him is to want to do better personally.

Red, right on the face. Red, right where people can't help but see and know and be confronted by and--

What other people think doesn't matter. This is his virtue, he shall live in it, and the petty opinion of the Azure Skies will not change it.

Fuck, she actually has to explain why she did it. The words bubble up--excuses, lies, witty sayings--

But looking at that face--looking at those eyes, those eyes--the words gurgle and die in her throat. It's like, she doesn't need them? Doesn't actually need the full reasoning, either, it seems. She could explain her reasoning, explain how it happened, dance around the fact that she wasn't exactly in control of piloting while still accepting the praise (and she's realizing now that the praise of this man abruptly matters quite a lot), could spend a whole lot of stammering and words to say not very little.

But there's a certainty here that cuts through all of that.

It's like, she's heard questions like that before. Dyssia, why would you do that? Dyssia, why are you like this? How could you do this? Why would you not do this other thing that nobody told you about but which somehow everyone is supposed to know anyway? Always with that same air of Dyssia, you moron, you fuckup, you embarrassment to your family, clod, idiot, like getting stabbed by knife after red-hot unspoken knife.

(And then they never stay for the answer, by the way, which is even worse. Because it means it's not actually about getting an answer--it's just about making her feel like shit in a way that doesn't make them feel like shit.)

But he'd asked as if there was… Admiration? No, maybe not, but at least certainly approval. Curiosity. She'd done something interesting, something unusual, something he approved of, and now wanted to find out whether she'd done it for the right reasons. And he was listening, as if what she said actually mattered. To him! To a knight of who knows how many campaigns and seasons!

"How could I not?"

Four words. As if they were the most simple, obvious thing in the world. Because if the world is one where they aren't, the world is a shitty place that Dyssia doesn't want to live in.

"They were going to--"

She gestures emphatically at the forest around them, as if nothing she could say would say it better than just looking around.

"As if it were their fault that we, you know, made them. And then decided that we didn't like the way we made them. And so because we made them in a way we didn't like, somehow that means we also have the right to murder them all?

"S'like, what part of that says that we should be the ones with the fingers on the trigger, huh? We fucked them when we made them, we fucked 'em again when we played around with them, and then when we can't twist them into something useful, oh well, we did our best, obviously we can't be blamed for this, we'll do a little light genocide in the morning and then go out for brunch after?"

Probably a bad first impression to have that much bile in your voice, but she can't help it.

"They're people. People who are different from us, yeah, but whose fault is that? Who picked and bred and programmed them and then decided they weren't needed? What's a ship compared to them? What ship would replace them? We can make more ships, or we could, if--"

She bites her tongue just in time to cut off the treasonous sentence. We could make more ships, if the system actually even fulfilled its promises. If the Skies existed as more than a phantom of its former self.

Would she want it, even if it did?

"… We shouldn't be killing people. Like, bare minimum. We owe them too much to even contemplate anything but trying to help them as best we can."

He didn’t realize the house was so cold. Not even layers of wool keep him warm like they ought to. 20022 presses close to his side, or, rather, he presses heavy into 20022 as he’s helped from the room. Even when they step into a smaller office, cozily appointed. Even when there’s a cup of hot tea pushed into his hands. Cold.

He didn’t realize the house was so far from home. The plush chair welcomes this woolen lump like an old friend, the leather invitingly soft and textured beneath him. The tea is delicious. Refreshing. Sweet. A delightful herbal blend. He hugs his cup with one hand. 20022 holds his other, gently stroking with a steady rhythm. Two days separate him from two windows. Two days separate him from the world of her arms.

“What. Was that?”

The words come out tight. Strained.

He didn’t realize he was shaking.

It is ridiculous to try to defend a demigoddess. She is invincible, unstoppable, a roll of thunder that makes armies bow like grass before her. The weapon that could stop her cannot be found on this planet, and it is only her heart that stops her from ruling Bitemark as a god-queen, crowned in gold and draped in silver. She could do battle against an Azura and win, and there is no hope for the Silver Divers to wrestle her down and use her heart as her weakness, not now.

But Ember is still there, her scimitar flickering, dancing through her stances. There will be no attempt to grab Mosaic from behind, to pull a bag over her head, to jam a spearhaft against her throat. There will be no envelopment, no sneak attack, no cunning ploy so beloved of the Wolves of Ceron. Not tonight. She hums the hymn of Mosaic and lets it reverberate in her bones: chan! chan! chan-barra-chan-barra-chan!

Her mind is serene, her nose full of Mosaic, her swordplay is done with the same breathless air of certainty and gap-finding that marks a true swordmaster, and she restrains it to simply defend the undefendable, to be there beside the raging daughter of Heaven, to always and forever be a step and a grasp away from her hand.

This is not treason, her spine shivers. This is submission to a higher power. What else is the ultimate end of knighthood? Power for its own sake is nothing if love cannot take the hilt, if honor and submission do not recognize their intended aim. And after the battle--

After the battle she will surrender, too. If all the Silver Divers fall into the hands of Mosaic tonight, then it will be all.

No hesitation. No flinching. Nothing but the sword-dance, the haze of her lover's scent, and victory over her clan-mates as she betrays them in the honor of the highest name. chan! chan! chan-barra-chan-barra-chan!

Mosaic!

The crack of the whip sounds above even the din of battle. The crack of lightning follows soon after.

Ceronian soldiers scramble to the edges of the ravine, climbing up or dropping down and hanging by their fingertips. Crushing bronze wheels bypass them by inches. The hooves of four mighty bulls, thick and vital with the heat of life, pulls a chariot in blue and silver to the front of the formation. Atop it stands Taurus, crowned with the bull horns of Mars, whip in hand, the long metal spike of an ELF Buzzsaw rising up from the crest of the chariot. It crackles with power from the heavens, lightning storming overhead.

An ELF Buzzsaw is an uncommon weapon type, so named for its ultra-rapid disorienting blasts of electricity. It is inaccurate and close range, only a few meters longer than the reach of the heavy whip. Its role in this context is to paralyze the front line of an enemy phalanx as the chariot charges head-on, shattering a formation outright.

"Mosaic!" roars Taurus, exalted in the light of Mars. "The Gods will this battle! They have revealed to me in dreams how you invaded Elysium and stole my Princess from me! In the name of Mars I swear I will collar you to my chariot, or else I will break it with my own hands!"

A glint of light reflects from the warlord ahead of you; the focused rainbow that indicates where Quajl's crystal arquebus has lain its gaze. It's a promise - stand your ground and she will fire to disable the Buzzsaw, if you trust her to make the shot.

Ember!

She will not be able to make the shot. From behind Mosaic you can see the reborn Hermetic's sniper nest atop the distant rooftop. You can see Sagetip creeping up on her from behind, silhouetted by the moon. You see strong hands reach out to grab the mechanical jaguar-taur, heavy across her mouth, stealing her breath. To rescue her you must move with speed beyond speed and confront the most skillful of the Ceronian lieutenants in direct conflict.

Be wary. Sagetip can hit a mosquito in flight with a shot from her solid projectile pistols, and she wears a dozen loaded and ready about her armour.

Dolce!

"The Crystal Knight is rather... forward," said 20022, and his voice was sympathetic without being apologetic. "You've never met an Azura before. They are an Administrator species, as far beyond us as we are from the birds and fish. They are our creators, our mothers and fathers, who took dirt and water and made it into our blood. They speak to the Gods and built their civilization to please them, as our civilization was built in turn. They carved our brains, so it stands to reason that loving them is our first instinct."

He gently sipped his own tea. "There is corrective biomancy that the Service offers. I've had it done, very pleasant procedure. It makes it much easier to withstand their direct attention which can be helpful if you draw the eye of some of the more aggressive citizens. In fact, there is even a career path that allows even people like us to be physically uplifted into Azura bodies, though it is rare that anyone would even think to want that."

Dyssia!

The Dust Knight smiled. Genuine but weary, the smile of someone who feels good about his chances of conquering the desert - tomorrow.

"You know, what you just said used to be a mainstream political opinion?" he asked. "Don't do heinous shit. People just kind of took that as a baseline. But the fucking Skies, man."

There was a deep, frustrated exasperation to how he said that word. Like he remembered it as something other than the all-encompassing, all-consuming empire that it was today.

"We - which is to say, the majority - were out living our ideal lives, not fucking with anyone, exploring, colonizing, building, living - dying, you know? And at the time there wasn't much you couldn't do with yourself and a few decent friends and neighbors, so that became the average community size. But the Skies - they seemed harmless at first. A weird cult, heavy on the recruitment, advertising their vision to anyone who would listen. Fill in the void! Make the black sky blue! It seemed right mad to most people, but that was kind of the point. What else was there to do? We didn't have any rivals, any scarcity, any checks on our power. No reason to organize - no reason but the Skies. And so we invented this mad game of shahs and nobility and hyper-optimization out of boredom, because the only thing worse than pushing the boulder up the hill was sitting peacefully at the bottom."

He smiled sadly. "So there it is," he said. "That's why the Skies cling to life like a leech on a teat. It's the ultimate artistic vision, the final reason for a bunch of degenerate immortals to crawl out of bed in the morning. The fact that it justifies anything is the point, because without it they couldn't justify anything."

The air is rich with the scent of ozone and ionizing metals. The clatter of hooves and the crash of wheels and the crackle of constant lightning rise above the tide of battle that has spread ever further outward from her wall and her trap. The world is hot in front of her, but cold behind her; where Taurus' challenge does not reach, the breeze pulling at her hair is positively chilly. All around her, walls collapse, streets groan and crumble, wolves yowl and the townsfolk of Beri stomp and sing.

Mosaic is unmoving, save a single raised eyebrow. Her arms remain relaxed at her sides, her posture proud but unbothered. Her shoulders are squared and her breathing is steady and unflustered. Her head is tilted toward the top of the chariot but only slightly: she lets her eyes close the distance instead of bothering to make the effort herself, glaring with an intense disapproval that would whither a lesser creature into dust if they held her gaze too long. A frown darkens her face, but only just. Disappointment. Not concern.

"You're still dreaming, kid."

Her voice is quiet, but she speaks with a spark of the divine. She has no trouble making herself heard over the clashes of conflict or the cacophony of Taurus' war chariot. The air around her seems to warp in her presence, and the gleaming of claw tips more deadly than any weapon yet invented in the Skies pull the attention of every set of eyes and ears around to her. Only to her. Quickly, if only for a moment, the sounds of fighting fall silent. There is Mosaic, and there is Taurus, and there is an audience to hear the words that are spoken next.

"Silly toys and playground threats," she clicks her tongue, "Is that how you're going to repay the efforts of your army? That's what makes you my better? Quit wasting my time. I know it's hard for someone who's put horns where here brain should be to understand, but there's a lot of hard work left to be done and I don't have the time or the inclination to indulge this crap."

Finally she moves. But she does not take a step. She does not settle into a stance for battle. She does not even flick her tail in signal of a pounce. Mosaic's grand gesture of combat is merely to fold her arms across her chest and snort her annoyance.

"Climb down from there before you get hurt, little girl. Apologize to Lord Mars before he gets tired of you. We can fight when you're ready to take this seriously. Until then you get nothing from me. If I have to climb up there just to take what should already have been offered to me by now, I promise you I will not be gentle. When we're done you will never be able to look at yourself and see strength ever again."

She does not swear this on any god. She does not need to. She does not move to cut the ELF Buzzsaw down. She does not need to. Mosaic puts her faith in Quajl, in Ember, and in Beri itself. They each deserved that much for the faith they'd put in her. If they fell it would be her own failure. And she would break Taurus and all of her glittery toys on her teeth in penance.

Who would be pleased

We do not exist for

I am not their

Hera answered

They lost

“I.” Dolce blinks. “Do not love the Crystal Knight. Just to be clear.”

He takes a long sip of his tea. A long. Slow. Sip of his tea.

He continues.

“But, I’m sorry, there’s still some context I may be missing. What exactly was supposed to happen with the Royal Architect and…all of Beri, and its surrounds? Why was the Crystal Knight able to force everyone into hard labor instead? And how was…” Adjectives. Words. Many to choose from. Few that feel right. Few that can be said. Little overlap. “How did the Crystal Knight…encounter, the Dredge?”

Dyssia doesn't answer right away, which is her first victory.

It's like, intellectually, there must have been a time before the Azure Skies, right? It's not that she hasn't thought about it, right? Or like, what it would be like if the Skies were different.

But it's in terms of eons, if that makes sense? There was a time before the Skies in the same way that there was a time before the planet existed. There was a time when the Azura lived in the oceans, before they surfaced and looked at the sky. It's ancient history--it happened, yeah, but nobody's old enough to remember it or for it to be relevant.

He was there. He's over five hundred years old, which--

It's like, you're immortal, I'm immortal, we're all immortal here.

Unless you're a servitor race that's been created with a short lifespan. Or created to be fodder. You know, things that are, again, heinous shit when aging has been eliminated and the only reason for their suffering is to optimize for the betterment of the empire.

But five hundred years just-- it's like, it refuses to fit in the mind. Stops being a period of time that is understandable and devolves to just a number. What do you even do with that much time?

What do you do, knowing that you have infinite resources, can build whatever you want, create whatever you want?

"That's insane," she eventually says, horror struggling with--no, actually, yeah, just horror. "That's not an argument for the Azure Skies to keep being around. That's-- That's hundreds of thousands of millions of people, all playing a never-ending game, all suffering in the name of pleasing the neurotic psychopaths who want to paint the galaxy blue.

"That's not justification for an empire. That's justification for the empire's destruction--for breaking it down so entirely that the name loses meaning, and replacing it with something--

"Infinite resources! Infinite time! The ability to go anywhere, do anything, with anyone! Get as good as you can at anything you want!"

Oh fuck stop talking before he--Dyssia, you're shooting your mouth off and you don't know--why can't you--

She can't bring herself to stop, staring at the night and hoping against hope that he gets--

Please understand her.

"There's got to be a better answer than 'everybody dedicate themselves to this one idea that's hurting everyone,' hasn't there?"

Ember teleports onto the roof.

Well, no, she doesn't do that. She just knows, in the Apollonian flow of no-thought, where she needs to go, where she needs to grab. Her handholds might as well be slathered in yellow paint. Her nails dig into windowsills and she flings herself across the little roofs of Beri. There is only one place where this can happen, after all, only one tower jutting up into the sky: the belltower.

From here, the people of Beri call out the hours of their lives. From here, time is stretched out, measured, and cut into strips. From here, a sniper (an ally of Mosaic, or else Sagetip wouldn't be ambushing her) could take down the chariot. And from here, Sagetip can instead unravel the entire defense with her pistols.

A shot goes off; it stings. Ember rolls into it. She is so good at running. Every obstacle course, every punishment for not being good enough on the obstacle course, has pushed her into this moment, into this jump across rooftops. Another shot, and this knocks her into the alleyway between the tailor's shop and the chandler's den, but she bounces between the two walls and uses it to approach the belltower from below. The third shot catches her on her arms, raised above her head. Each one is a blossoming flower of pain with tentacles for petals.

But she's inside, and climbing. She grabs a plate left here by a bellringer; a shield, a discus, an unexpected advantage. She pulls off her focale and, as she bursts through the door, tosses it as a distraction, a moment of uncertainty, a way to hide the way she scrambles, all the better for diving at her from an unexpected angle, knife out and ready to cut away her battle-sister's bandoliers.

[Keep Them Busy of 8.]

Mosaic!

"This is serious!" said Taurus. "What could be more serious? Glorious battle in the eyes of the Gods!" her breath is so hot it steams in the night air. Purpose is pounding in her blood, rushing in her ears. She is a Ceronian with blood scent and every cell and impulse screams that she is made for this. "An army's job is to fight. A general's job is to find them worthy foes. A civilization's job is to raise them, arm them and send them on their way."

No past. No future. An endless hunt for the next battle. She left Elysium for this. Left that glittering, wet afterlife because this craving poison dripped in her blood. She was...

... she was the daughter of a mother who'd cursed the gods themselves. She was the daughter of a people who had beaten their swords into ploughshares. It had seemed a blasphemy at the time. A corrupted rebuke to the Gods, a prison in an eaten world, locked with a lie that had also been the truth. Of course she had died for it. But...

The girl raises her battle-scythe, blood of Hades alight in her veins.

There is a sword in your hand. You can smell your sisters close at hand.

You look past the physical force of the chariot as it charges, the scythe as it swings, the wolf as she snarls. You see your true enemy in the darkness of the blood rushing through her heart.

And you know that this is not a hopeless battle.

Ember!

You back up past the edge of the belltower, onto the rickety scaffolding. Your steps disturb the doves who burst out in a great flock. Sagetip has you dead to rights with a pair of pistols. The fall wouldn't be half as unpleasant as having those go off in your face at this distance. The fight was short and violent, her bandoleers are scattered on the floor, she only has these shots left. She is determined to make them count.

But in the scuffle you've knocked over the tripod that held the glorious crystal rifle. It gleams on the floor behind Sagetip and so long as she's holding you at gunpoint she's not picking it up and shooting Mosaic.

"Good show, now," said Sagetip, gesturing with one of her pistols. She's proud. "Off you pop."

She expects you to jump? Oh - of course, if she fires here then the smoke will throw off her own aim when she takes up the rifle again. At this distance that irritation will make it impossible. A fall by comparison won't add more than bruises but will give her the time to snatch up the rifle and make her shot before you recover.

Quajl is slumped but stirring. Her eyes are focused on her rifle. She only needs a moment.

How will you buy it for her?

[Pay a price]

Dolce!

"The Royal Architect is a digital intelligence," said 20022, pausing for a moment to see if that registered. It didn't, so he went on. "A remnant of the Atlas Cultural Sphere and a survivor of the Long Storm. Extraordinarily powerful and influential but profoundly fragile. He is a direct agent of the Skies' collective purpose and makes decisions about the demolition of planets, the relocation of stars, and the bending of physical law itself. He answers only to the Saoshyant. He has taken an interest in a mineral deposit under this planet and has requested its extraction - a process which is likely to destroy the entire peninsula on which we stand. This cannot be meaningfully prevented.

"The Crystal Knight, as sector governor, while not having the power to prevent the Royal Architect's operation can make it inconvenient. She wants to acquire... something of her own, sunk beneath the waves," he waved a hand. "Not important, ultimately, but she's willing to put the local servitor population at risk in order to get it. We could stand on principle but that will likely result in the deaths of thousands, so it's far more effective to ensure that what does happen is well organized. That means conscripting the local servitor population into satisfying the Crystal Knight's obsession, then pivoting immediately to the evacuation afterwards. If we do it right a lot of people will be very tired and somewhat homeless but they won't be dead."

Dyssia!

"Oh, sure there is," said the Dust Knight. "It's called the Publica."

That winsome little smile of his flits back onto his face as he looks up at the sky. "It's not a complicated idea," he said. "Be good to each other. But the implementation is complicated enough to even stir the mind of an old warhorse like me. The challenge is really just about implementing a stable, respectful form of government that can integrate all of these hyperspecialized biomantic species without the expedient of just biomancing them 'better'. In fact, we'd as soon see the whole fucking field of biomancy regulated back into the box of medicine where it belongs."

"Which," he sighed. "Makes it hard. Going to war with the Skies when your ethics prevent you from just biomancing up a warrior servitor species and sending them to kill the enemy's biomantic warrior servitor species is a bit of an ask, especially when that courtesy isn't returned. Make no mistake, we're outnumbered, outgunned, outclassed, and constantly on the run. Every twenty minutes we need to stop and deal with two servitors brain malfunctioning at each other, the pay is shit, everything is so scarce that pay is a relevant internal concept, and also if you have personal assistants you have to pay them or face administrative sanctions. But," he said, "as cures for boredom go it's way better than the fucking Skies."

"No."

The sword is warm in her hand, and lighter than air. As if she held her sisters' hands all joined around this single hilt. As if the promise they had made on it was strength enough to lift it toward the sky all by itself. But for all the ease with which she wields it, Mosaic makes no move to thrust, or slash, or to parry. Simply having the weapon in hand makes her head squeeze with pain; a memory or a thought that won't fit inside her skull pressing down on her insistently.

Asking her to wait. Asking her to listen. Asking her to watch.

"This is just a game. A stupid game for children to play. What could be less serious, and us not even fit to be the children playing? If this is all there is, then we are toys. And if the gods are watching at all, they must be weeping. Or laughing, maybe. Bored. But I'm Mosaic. I'm nobody's plaything, and there is no god that I can name that I need the favor of to crush this farce. You were warned. We are out of time."

All that she can hear is the thrashing of a wild heart. All that she can see is the writhing of night-dark chains around it. These tendrils called Purpose, rattling and squeezing until everything that could be beautiful about the life struggling inside of its cage turns limp and lifeless. It makes her teeth grind. It makes her hand squeeze the hilt of her sword until she can feel her bones crunching against it.

There is a sound. Louder than any rifle or cannon a Silver Diver or a citizen of Beri could conceive of, and yet purer than the crack of a whip. There is a vision. Brighter than a lantern's light and startlingly white, until it splits into a prism of the deepest hues in every color of the rainbow. There is a feeling. A lance of cold air cutting between the heat of two women whose bodies had been burning themselves in the name of war. A sting, a kiss of winter wind and then after... nothing.

The world returns. The ELF buzzsaw splits and crumbles into pieces. The chariot rumbles and tips as its wheels collapse under the shock of the impact. Harnesses snap clean off and panicked bulls scream as they scramble away only to fall howling into the ravines dug for the Ceronian phalanx just hours earlier. This is the power of Quajl's brilliant diamond arquebus: no toy of war could stand against the culmination of this much passion, this much effort, this much desire for something so much realer than the chains of some invented purpose.

Taurus does not falter. The instincts of a perfect warrior see her legs tense before her war machine can toss her off of it, and she turns what might have been a helpless fall into a picturesque leap and pounce. Her whip arm flicks back and she lashes at Mosaic, who catches the barb around her wrist and holds it taut. Even this is nothing to a daughter born for war. Born so strongly to the song and smell and lust of battle that she would drag herself out of paradise just to taste it. She rides the momentum higher into the air and swings on her whip like a grappling hook to carry herself toward Mosaic's back. Her scythe whistles through the air as it sings its way toward Mosaic's neck.

"YOU!"

Mosaic ducks at less than the last second. Her body sinks so low that the decorative chains on her vest clink and drag across the stony street, and her shoes groan from the strain of spinning so intensely with her feet. She pops up in a tenth of an eyeblink, only to vanish from sight entirely for a moment.

"WILL!"

She is above the haft of the scythe. Her foot crushes down on top of it and and drags the weapon to the floor. The blade bites deep into the ground with eerily little sound as she plants her foot and pulls her weight back onto her hip for a strike. Her free arm pulls at the whip. Momentum is Taurus' enemy now, but even still she rolls into it intending to turn these twin setbacks into the form of a deadly wheeling kick. The knife blade hidden in her boot clicks as it pops out from under her toes.

"WAKE!"

It is too late. The muscles along Mosaic's back crackle with power that no ELF could match, however hot it burned. Her arm is already uncoiling with the might that only a demigod could wield. Her thrust is more perfect than perfect. The sound of splitting skin, then tearing muscle, cracking bone, and the cry of a heart all mingle in the air of the town in a chorus of pain and shock.

"UP!!"

Blood trickles from Taurus' wound onto the edge of this blade borrowed from a person Mosaic had never met. Blood trickles down the length, catches the crossguard, and splashes against the ground. The stone turns red, and nothing more. Black miasma hisses from her wound, but no flowers spring forth. There is no chattering of new animal life, and no microbes grow from the wound. This is no hunt of Artemis, and yet. And yet.

The wound is only a wound. Because it is more than a wound. Because it is not a wound at all. Mosaic's strike pulls her forward. Up the length of the blade. Forward. Forward. Forward. There is a promise to be kept. The promise she made to her sister. The promise she made to... No One. She feels Taurus' weight slump against her shoulder, but then.

Forward. Forward. Forward. Her claws itch at the sight of chains.