Ember does not walk over to her Mosaic. She runs. She greets her Queen, her lover, her captain, with a kiss, standing on the tips of her toes, hot, hungry, alive, needy, excited, excitable, barely restraining herself enough to stop her from bowling the taller woman over. But she does, just enough.

“We won,” she pants, her tongue pink, her teeth white. “Now we can regroup, prepare, gain ground, and…”

She trails off. Blinks. Looks around. When she flexes her fingers, sparks of bluewhite static hiss between them, remnants of her flight suit drawing off excess. “…what [i]happened?[/i] Where’s all the, the, the banners, and the statues, and why is the marble cracked and scuffed and— and why are there [i]crabs[/i] in here, Mosaic?”

She looks around, baffled, her old inkmarks charred away. “What happened to our [i]ship?[/i]”