[b]Mosaic?[/b]

Mosaic?

Are you feeling okay?

Someone's usually there to ask you that. Someone usually cares. You're the centre of a web of light, hope and dreams and desire. You're seen and known and looked after. Even if all you have to give is a charming smirk, it's enough to make the shadows fall away.

But shadows don't work like that in this room. In the centre of those beautiful spotlights there is not a single one. What look like shadows at first are in fact painted; every crease and curl of hair has its colour perfectly controlled. No mess or darkness here in the centre of this lightbox. All that darkness falls on you instead as the Crystal Knight rises ascendant. All the light falls on her and her glittering sword. All the light except -

The flash of a blade. She reels back.

A princess stands before you. Haloed in golden hair with a blazing eye of gold. She wears regalia of an Empire long beloved and long buried, an angel summoned forth from the underworld. You know her name. It touches your name in three syllables... or perhaps four characters. You don't remember her properly. They say scent is the key to crossing the Lethe, but hers is not right...

She spares a moment to smile at you. Like a hero. Don't worry. She's got this.

And then there's nothing but the blaze of warfare. The Princess and the Knight in a storm of silver and thunder. That prism-sword slashes at her, tearing dimensional fragments of her away, but they resolve into nothing. It's like it can't figure out what to copy, amorphous and distorted fragments of girls, of wolves, of twisted basilisks, all amounting to nothing. She fights the Crystal Knight as an equal. She drives the Crystal Knight back.

But the Crystal Knight still has some sins left in her. With a hand raised to the rooftop - to your home - she summons her bodyguard. The Armatii champion swoops from ambush, from behind, talons extended and trailing blades like autumn leaves. The Princess is still smiling.

But how far can you trust that smile when it is unbound by your ribbons?

[b]Ember![/b]

When one hears of the ocean, one thinks of leviathans. Horrors. Crabs. The vast and monstrous menagerie set forth to darken the depths between stars. One thinks of the worst the ocean can produce.

But the ocean too has horses.

The creature that snuffles against your hand is cold and hard, long nose like reinforced starship plating. It has only simple black eyes but huge radar projection ears that allow it to sense the signal distortions of ELF strikes from worlds away. From its nuzzling snout comes a long, striped, black and white tongue that pokes and tickles. It tries to open your belt pouch with the frustration of a creature that can't understand why humanity insists on such tricks.

It is after your food.

Dozens of smaller ones, bubble sized against this one's equine bulk, float around it; eggs newly hatched and equally curious. They lick their little tongues at your face and scatter behind their mother when they realize they have sent you into a spiral spin. The adult voidhorse ignores them and continues its single-minded determination to get at your ration pack, holding itself steady and graceful in the deep.

[b]Dyssia![/b]

And just as you've gotten to know her, Composite starts to dissolve.

The Crystal Knight's sword was not even meant to keep her half as long; it was a weapon for a disorienting strike in battle, not this prolonged process of teamwork and shared destiny. She fades back into the cubic distortion that conjured her before you've even finished hauling yourself out of the pit. There's no time to say goodbye, no time to ask questions - it's unfair how quickly it ended.

You went through all that trouble to save her and now you'll never see her again. You don't even know if she was real. Transported here from some other place, a copy of your spirit cast like a shadow against the wall, a trick of magic and mind? There are no answers for what just happened. Does that cheapen it for you? Or do you think she's still out there somewhere, facing the same questions you are?

You can't contribute to the battle; you don't have a weapon, don't have your Rail; you'd be a detriment. A warrior races up to cover you with her shield and escort you to the exit, past the Crystal Knight's spotlight servitors. You're done here... unless you can think of something you could add to the lighting.

[b]Dolce![/b]

"This was an easier problem when I thought you were mad," sighed 20022, pulling the biscuits from the oven. He was helping prepare the meal too, accepting your direction as a simple matter of fact and courtesy. He could hardly lounge about when there was hard work to do. His contribution was rather uninspired, though. He had produced a dazzling variety of biscuits, some with cream, some with icing, all of which somehow tasted both dry and identical. He had prepared a fruit platter that somehow seemed to be 90% water by flavour. Finally he'd produced a bowl full of boiled sausages - and even those were trivial to make without actual meat, he'd somehow made them taste like they had no meat inside them. Utterly unobjectionable food.

"When you were mad I could assume you'd get bored and give up," 20022 went on, "but now I have to face the very real possibility that you'll succeed at this. And then - what? You'll have the loyalty of a warrior assassin without parallel? Would you mind my asking, what do you plan to do with -" he caught himself. "No, that's not my business. As a member of the Service you are entitled to collect assets."

There was a little hitch to how he said that. He knows your feelings about the Service but is rudely ignoring them. But he can't have it both ways - pretending that you are with the Service means pretending to extend you all the privileges of the position he's selected for you. Sometimes that will cut against him, like here where he considers himself as not actually having the authority to [i]stop [/i]you from doing this, even though he'd be well within his rights to do so if you were actually just a civilian.

That's an interesting fact about 20022. He can be rude, but he can't be[i] double rude.[/i]

"I apologize," he said. "No, my question is more specific, and it relates entirely to my own mission. Do you plan on using the assassin against Liquid Bronze? That would be... inconvenient, but I couldn't in fairness stop you. He'd likely survive the attempt and likely consider it excellent sport. If he survives it would make our mission much easier, but it's more risk than I am [i]personally [/i]comfortable with."