Ember!

The regalia, it must be confessed, has more chain than fabric.

The prismatic heavens roar and crash. Nebulae flash and groan with the sparks of protostars struggling to ignite. Gravity tears and distorts, hurricane winds of oxygen and hydrogen course through the void. Mix every strand of light together and you get white; mix every colour of paint together and you get black. Here in Poseidon's realm you feel the rainbow darkness across your scarcely protected body.

In the distance you see the thundering of eight hooves; a horse in scale to the Eater of Worlds as a horse is in scale to a turtle. The horse, the rider, and the cyclopean eye - all scale beyond imagining. Necessarily vast because imagination has grown far indeed.

Teardrops fall from his eye, each containing runes. The ones you see read CIVILIZATION IS BUT THE EXPORT OF ENTROPY.

Against this storm the Plousios is small indeed, and you are smaller. But the ocean has a mouth to consume everything offered to it, no matter how vast, no matter how insignificant. And as the storm flashes your dragon arises from its depths. It is golden, sleek, fast, ascending from the depths below to catch you and your ship below. Out of respect for your divine beauty, Poseidon has sent a divine beast: an Angelshark.

The regalia has more chain than fabric. Unfortunately most of the fabric involved goes towards covering the mouth. Yet, you must negotiate with this creature nevertheless.

Dolce!

"Then it is necessary for you to take the assassin you are offered," said Artemis. "Her line is named for Diomedes, a warrior from ancient times. Have you heard of him? I'd be surprised if you had - he is overshadowed in every telling of his story despite being the one who objectively accomplished the greatest feats of all his peers. I think that even those of my kin who met him have forgotten him, and that they were relieved to have done so."

Artemis licked her finger and turned the page on her newspaper. "I remember the past, though. And I suggest you learn it too. There is always a delay between an arrow being fired and it hitting its target, and the length of the shot can be surprisingly flexible. Firing from out of someone's recollection can be just as dangerous as firing from outside of their line of sight."

"You're making fun of me, aren't you?"

Bella can't keep her eyebrow from arching from overtop her golden, mortal eye. The gesture pulls at the cuts she'd just given herself, making a thin trickle of fresh blood ooze down the side of her nose. She licks her thumb and wipes it clean, in this moment more cat than girl.

She shrugs. Right. Well. Anyway.

"...Yeah, ok. Everything it is. On the far side of the galaxy, there's an artificially constructed planet called Tellus. On that planet you will find the entirety of Humanity, the former administrator species. A woman named Nero took the throne of the Empire, gathered the lot of them there, and forbid travel of any kind from the planet to keep what was left of her precious people safe. It is a place of unholy stench and misery. It's a technological wonder, space and resource efficient in ways you probably can't even imagine. I mean not that I'm calling you stupid. But up here you people have everything. Nero doesn't. She can only keep her people safe on this one planet, and it needs to hold a hundred worlds' worth of people inside of it, not to mention provide for them with a minimal amount of outside shipment. Every last meter of it is packed to bursting with people and their even more miserable servitors. It's wrong to call them survivors. They are all dead, every last fucking one of them. They're just... clinging to the memory of their own existence for as long as they can. And when that pale imitation of a spark finally gutters out they slip away into a lower realm where Lord Hades can care for them more fully.

"That is the place I was born. Well, 'produced' might be a better word. The Imperial Kennels don't raise children so much as... nnngh. Fuckers. The biggest regret I have left anymore in not being able to go back is that I'll never be able to burn that place down. They made me, unmade me, and remade me until I was perfect. I'm purpose built to resemble a Human as much as possible while still making it clear that I'm not. The ultimate pet; uplifted and under thumb at the same time. They even designed me with top of the line athletics, just in case. Whoever won me at auction was supposed to want for nothing. But then, nobody wanted me. A nameless luxury good on a planet drenched in its own apathy. Servitor Candidate XIII. That was as close as I got to acknowledgment."

The room is so dark and tiny it can't hold anything but her memories. Bella's breathing is nothing but a shallow hiss, and her eyes have contracted to barely visible, furious slits that tremble in pools of red and gold. Claws jab into the flesh of her palms, and she has to force them open and slide them flat across the surface of the desk until she bumps into the sword before she realizes she is not alone. That she is telling this story to someone.

Bella clears her throat.

"But then my Mother found me. She selected me to become the Imperial Princess' pet, de facto best friend, and handmaiden. It... look. I don't want to talk about this part. Don't. Don't look at me like that. Don't ask questions. Not yet. The only thing you need to know about Princess Redana is that she left. She saw the prison for what it was and she ran away because she wanted to find something that could fix it. And I, paranoid, selfish little dipshit drunk on the paradise of being a palace slave, didn't follow. The Empress was furious with me. I didn't understand it at the time but I think I... yeah. No, Hades said as much himself. Nero sent Redana. I was supposed to go with her. So I got sent to chase her, instead."

"Every planet in the Underworld outside of Tellus is dead and haunted. There's nothing but hollowed out Servitor cults trying to fill whatever function they were given for masters who had long since abandoned them amidst vast, empty fields of nothing. Even the Azura planets toward the periphery were just blasted apart ghost towns dotted through with silent artisans among crumbling hallways. Dead, dark, and quiet. Down there, we thought we were breathing. We thought we got hungry, thought we felt our hearts beating. We didn't. Redana flew through it all, and I chased after. And we fought, and I lost. And I lost. And I lost. I lost so many times, fucked up so many chances, that my Mother had to turn up again and..."

Muscles tighten. Bella's teeth clack together and through the pressed line of her lips she makes a noise that's half a moan and half a prayer. 'Everything'. That's the word that's leaking out of her. 'Everything'.

"And I learned that I had sisters. That I was part of a family. That I belonged to Artemis. See, we dead, we're... not supposed to enter the land of the living. Demeter does not want us in her garden, not that I blame her for that. But she paid my mother very handsomely to murder everyone who tried to make it across the Rift. The River Lethe, you see. And we ignorant little child assassins were her pawns to make that happen. She sealed me inside of armor she'd grown in secret from my claws and set me loose to murder everybody I've ever known, or even just laid eyes on. Do you know how a Diodekoi works? You write names on our flesh, prayers for death, and when we snuff that name out it... goes cool against our skin. I, I hate that I can remember how good it felt. I hate it. I hate it so much. But my sisters... in their own blood they wrote our Mother's name. Together, all four of us and Princess Redana, we betrayed the Master of Assassins."

"We-- it doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it. All together we didn't measure up to even half of Mother. She is--was? The most senior, most powerful, most skilled assassin the Temple of Artemis has ever known. She had mastery of every style and discipline, and unlike all of us, she was alive! The only person in the underworld with Demeter's blessing, and nothing we did ever managed to hurt her, but then out of nowhere she just... stopped. Being. I don't know what happened. I just know we payed the price for it. Mynx the worst of all. She was the one I was the closest to. The one I... hurt the most. My best friend, my first sister. We nearly killed each other in the aftermath. But in the end, I... prayed. To nobody. Literally, to nobody. And this sword was the result. I stabbed Mynx through the heart with it and she, she came back to me."

Bella's eyes are watery now, and she traces the length of the blade with a fingertip as one might caress a lover's arm. She squeezes her eyes shut.

"I... lost her again in the crossing. Probably for good this time. But, I-- it doesn't matter. She's alive, she hasn't succumbed to Rampancy, that's already more than I deserve. Anyway it showed up again on Beri, and helped me cleanse an old bloodlust from Beljani's... that is, from Gemini's lover-best-friend-weird-hivemind-sister Taurus. And now it seems like it might have killed that gun that attacked with Regret. Which makes a kind of sense, because that's what this blade is really for, Dyssia. For cleansing hearts that are in pain. But it belongs to somebody else. They sent it to me when I prayed, but I know they need it back. I can feel it, in my heart. So that's what I'm doing. It's why I'm here, it's what I crossed the fucking Lethe for. It's something that's worth a thousand planets. There's no price that could make me turn away."

Once again, Ember floats in the beautiful, awe-inspiring void. In the face of Poseidon’s domain, to cling to the ego is to be destroyed.

Plundering Fang could not do this; she would be thrashing like a worm on a hook, trying to challenge Poseidon just to regain her control over herself and her world. Sagetip could not do this; she would be in her own head, unable to respond to the majesty of the void with the appropriate awe.

Not that Ember can completely escape her thoughts, and this is by design. Whenever she tries to move her limbs, the chain pulls taut, pulling her out of being lost in the majesty of the storm, just enough to keep her thoughts from floating away.

Now. As to the Angelshark. She cannot exactly speak to it— and, indeed, the regalia stops her from even trying. You cannot communicate with a beast so vast, so alien, using words. You cannot use scents, either— this silences her just as strictly as the wadded-up cloth on her tongue[1]. There is only—

dancing in a perilous garden, wearing triangles of silk, Mos— Bella’s eyes on her, drinking her in, hungry, and her mouth full of packscent, her mouth hidden, all this has happened before—

body language. And here, too, Ember is trained; she was once a scout, and a scout must know how her body speaks, must be ready to seduce their way into information or out of peril, must know what movements will give them away as a daughter of Ceron.

Even to an Angelshark, she knows how to lie.

Her panicked screams are more seen in how she struggles, how she closes her eyes, how she strains against the well-secured cloth, as if she could make herself heard across the vast gulf. She waggles her feet as if trying to paddle towards the approaching vessel, vainly, desperately. A toss of the head, a glance back over her shoulder, eyes wide. She needs a hero to come and save her from this monster—

And the name of this hero is Liquid Bronze. This is what she says with her tearful, pleading glances into the far distance; this is what the waggling of her shoulders says, as if thrashing from side to side would make the chains about her come undone[2].

Be jealous, beautiful shark. The princess is yours; yours to devour once her dashing hero has had his flagship torn open and exposed to the void. Although hopefully the Divers will have winched her back in by the time that one or the other has proven themselves victorious. Otherwise, she will be legitimately helpless in the face of being eaten alive, and not even by some sort of star-swimming serpent.

In silence, in strictly-enforced silence, her hair billowing in the solar winds, her face all but hidden underneath Plundering Fang’s gifts, her body on display like that of a swimmer, the Princess plays her part in the old story.

---

[1]: it remains suspicious that Plundering Fang was permitted to apply the regalia, and even provide some of it, but Sagetip insisted. Said it provided authenticity.
[2]: fortunately, even given her ritual toplessness[3], there’s no bounce to her thrashing. Yet another reason she is perfect for the role.
[3]: why, yes, Bella-Mosaic was invited to the ceremony to watch.

Had he? The Manor had quite the extensive, ancient library, and many of its treasures were open to the staff provided they left no marks and did not neglect their duties. Diomedes…was the name familiar, or did it just rhyme pleasantly with more popular figures? “I do not know. I will need some time to think and reflect. If I go hunting for more information, that may help me recall more clearly.”

It doesn’t feel right. Probably because it isn’t. By all rights Sanalessa ought to be here for a conversation about her own future. You know, all of her, voice included. The galaxy’s deadliest warrior wanted to see her sisters again. She wanted to live. She wanted to be free. What right did he have to take that from her? Who was he to decide that she *had* to join him on this hunt, wherever it eventually led him?

Somebody who’d Demeter had given a gift to. And didn’t that still feel like a shortcoming on his part?

He doesn’t speak until he’s confident his voice won’t crack. “If you say it is necessary to. Take. Her. Then I will trust in your promise. You have said you would prevent me from any unnecessary sacrifice. I will trust that is so.” Folded hands hide white knuckles. “It would be improper of me to treat a gift from a goddess with carelessness and scorn. But society has given me few examples of how one should behave to your Assassin. Please. If you will tell me the regulations and the protocols, I will follow them.”

The pupil maintains strict attention on a goddess, patiently waiting as she peruses her thin, carefully-typed paper.

There is no universe where Dyssia doesn't try for the hug.

It's not a decision she's making, right? Bone-deep. Instinctual. Written in--

Shit, fuck, that's. That's a bad comparison to give right now. Note to self, erase 'bone-deep' from personal lexicon, at least around Mosaic. No, upgrade that to in general.

Point is, Mosaic is.

You can't not offer hugs to someone hurting so bad.

Carefully, eyeing the claws, watching for the first twitch of discomfort, the first hint of a facial tic that might signal that…

Please accept this, Mosaic?

"That's... a lot, is. Is an understatement."

A new god? Planets of--one planet of the dead? She's not gonna remember all this she needs to write it down so she can--

But one question looms over the rest.

"Have you… No, no, rather. Why-- If it cleanses hearts that are in pain--"

How come you haven't used it on yourself?

You can read the words on her face. She's not comfortable with them existing in her head, much less speaking them aloud. It cuts much too close to a basement ship room, dark, dingy, full of drones.

"… You're in a lot of pain, Mosaic."

Primitives often have a hard time grasping divination-based warfare.

The ships of the great empires are, by traditional definitions, blind and deaf. They have no scanners, no computer-assisted modelling programs, no signal emitters or receivers, no ability to detect life signs or lack thereof. Nothing more than Biomantic eyeballs being placed against Ultramateriel telescopes. You can, in fact, hide from the warfleets of the Endless Azure Skies by painting your warships black and turning off all the lights.

But that's where divination comes in. Blind and deaf though the ships of the Skies and Shogunate might be, through communion with the Gods they are able to consistently place themselves into the same broom closets as their enemies. This is powerful sorcery, but brute force: on the one hand, the infinity of space is condensed into a single certainty, on the other, you are not provided with any detail of what you will find at the other end, only with the directions on how to get there and the certainty of a battle at its conclusion.

This has a curious effect when a fleet seeking engagement hunts a ship that seeks to escape. Against primitives the entire fleet might deploy in perfect order around its quarry, but against an enemy working its own acts of prophecy then the strands of fate become entangled. The prey's prophecy tells it that in the future if it goes to this point it will be engaged by the entire enemy fleet; the hunters prophecy then has to change to account for the fact that the prey knows they know, but then the prey's prophecy has to take into account that the hunters know they know they know, and so forth. Presuming the relevant war gods do not hold particular malice or love towards one side or another, this results in a stalemate that must be solved with a sort of bidding.

The aggressor fleet performs the divination, gets a null result from Mars, and determines that there cannot be an engagement on the terms it desires. So it splits off a task force, commits it to going to one of the possible battleground areas, and then it performs the ritual again. This process continues until the fleet has split up sufficiently that the balance of powers has become if not even then within the range of possibility; at that point the gods bring the comparably matched forces together for their fated clash.

So it is that there is no surprise for either side when the Plousios and the Cancellation of Florence Nightingale leave the Deep Void to arrive in the suburban Archer-12 system at the same time. The Archer Constellation is one of many star clusters that has been rearranged so that it forms a constellation visible from Capitas; according to the grand plan of the Endless Azure Skies this entire cluster is to be transformed into a militarized bulwark, a multi-system stellar fortress that can anchor multiple civilian sectors. That is many centuries in the future; right now, Archer-12 is a scattering of luxury mansions, and an archaeological site with a few scattered research bases across the system hard at work on important questions like 'did we destroy these planets/civilizations?' and 'why?'. A dull red sun burns low, unseeded by the stellar macrocytes that make the stars of the Endless Azure Skies burn blue and violet - the star is too small and weak, it needs to be upgraded by fusion with another star before it has the dignity and brightness to be worth seeding. Somewhere in the distant horizon the machinery will be underway to redirect the relevant stellar objects.

The Cancellation is twice the length of the Plousios, and modern: ships of this era are ridiculously large and over-designed, temples to cost blowouts and gold-plating, stuffed full of cutting edge systems and optimized for parade duty and saber rattling. An evolution on the traditional Warsphere design, behold: the Spike-Sphere. Shaped as though a grape had been stuck through the centre with a toothpick, the spike extending out evenly in both directions. The forward part of the spike is an energized blade, the theoretical answer to the ramming techniques that Imperial vessels use to such great effect against Azura warspheres in the Battle of the Trinary Stars. By rotating precisely, the theory goes, the Warsphere will be able to wield this massive blade like a sword, cutting apart enemy vessels as they approach. The aft part of the spike is a massive Imperial-style plasma engine, almost skeletally exposed and vulnerable but giving the Spike-Sphere Imperial acceleration in deep void.

To add vulnerability to vulnerability, this section is also covered in massive nacelles filled with plasma torpedoes. Historically such armories present points of critical vulnerability in Azura formations, requiring fleets to baby their vulnerable munitions trucks. The Spike-Sphere solves that particular issue by making the entire 'tail' disposable; a detonation chain reaction will destroy the entire Engine spike but inflict minimal damage on the central Warsphere itself. In fact, detaching the tail might be a deliberate decision by the Captain: breaking the spherical shape causes a massive reduction in the effectiveness of the Grav-Rail drive, limiting the Spike-Sphere's maneuverability. If the tail is detached or destroyed then the Spike-Sphere will gain a massive increase in agility to help it win its current engagement.

The final aspect in this equation is the massive carrier bays on the Spike-Sphere's central structure. Carrier operations have been out of fashion for a while, but Liquid Bronze is bringing them back. A massive, forward projected fighter screen works to prevent speculative attacks against the vulnerable tail and prevent flanking. Together this makes the Cancellation alone a hybrid of all the strengths of Imperial and Azura designs, a fleet unto itself, the herald of a new age for the Endless Azure Skies. As a fun little aside, it would be utterly defenseless against an enemy that had access to starship teleportation, as they would be able to detonate its expensive tail with impunity - but then, this generation of warships is not designed to fight primitives. It is the final answer to problems of the last war, as represented by the Plousios.

(One might wonder what the point of all of this is compared to the traditional Azura answer of 'just bring another Sphere filled with ammunition'. Well, to answer that question one must consider that Warspheres have been destroyed often enough to lose their intimidation factor; they are known quantities and tactics against them have been perfected. But this? Fear of this new face of war will propel the Endless Azure Skies into a new age.)

The Angelshark lurks in the shadow of the fourth planet; it is an ambush predator and will only be effective if it has the advantage of surprise. Two slipgates in the system provide a flow of civilian shipping to render this a functional, if not prosperous, outpost. Right now the Cancellation is holding its ground at a distance - a stall. The fighter screens are currently being flown by drones while the Summerkind eggs are quickened and initial rage spikes are quelled. Once drone pilots are swapped out for elite Summerkind then the Cancellation will be ready to engage; until then it will maintain its distance - something its Imperial Engine allows it to do even in deep void.

Hugs are not something Bella has ever been good at. As a child she didn't trust them and wasted most of her time squirming and feeling trapped. By the time she'd realized Redana meant an embrace solely as affection they'd already grown up enough that the closeness had become and entirely different type of dangerous and awkward. Mynx's embraces on the other hand often were traps, which made walking into her arms a horrible game of russian roulette. And of course, no one else had ever wanted to touch her.

All of it meant she had no developed sense of how to receive affection, or sympathy. Dyssia's embrace is a nightmare of limbs and coil, at once crushing and yet constantly shifting and threatening to pull away at every slight twitch. Sympathy at war with fear. Well if that didn't sum up every problem with the person she'd grown into, nothing ever would. She can't accept the kindness, but she can at least tuck her claws against her palm of the hand she uses to awkwardly pat Dyssia's arm.

There you... there. See? She gets it.

"I'm fine, ok? I'm fine. You don't need to worry about me. It's you who's got the rough end of this. You fell from the sky like a bolt of lightning and shocked me from the dream I was trapped inside of. What did I do as thanks? Stuff you in this crab-infested rust bucket and drag you into all of my bullshit, is what. Didn't ask you what you wanted. Didn't tell you what I was up to. I've wasted so much time getting mad at you over all these stupid little things but I won't even--"

Bella sighs. The lights in the room have turned an ugly warning red. No cries of warning have come pouring from the communication tubes yet, but it's obvious that something is coming. She ignores it.

"Dyssia. This ship has a mission, and as long as we're on it we're going to be Demeter's enemy. I didn't tell you that whole story so you'd think I was some tragic hero, I just needed you to believe me. Lord Hades wants a message delivered to someone on Gaia. I don't really know where that is or how long it'll take to get there, and this is just a guess on my part but I'm pretty sure giving this sword back to its owner is part of that. The point is, it'll suck. It's going to be dangerous and painful and you need to understand 'cause if you or anyone you care about is going to stick you shouldn't be doing it in ignorance. The best time to get off was yesterday, the second best time is now.

"And if you want out, I won't stop you. I'll even give you that gun if I can find it again, and you can trade it whatever to group that wants me dead to help out whichever planet you trust them to save. Nevermind what I said before, that'll be my punishment for not being honest with you. But if not, if you stay... staying means knowing. And knowing means you help me. And helping me means all kinds of terrible shit is going to happen. You are not going to be able to help every sad story we meet, because I have to keep moving and all of my enemies are so much stronger than me that I have no chance of making it. It's only sheer, stupid luck that's gotten me and mine this far and even then we've lost more than I can count."

She taps her claws against her desk one last time. Right next to the sword still gleaming in the dim red light. The first shrill calls of warning have begun to echo through the Plosious.

"We won't make it, Dyssia. We're all going to die. Whether we substantiate into a school of fish or whatever doesn't make it any less the end. So don't take this as me promising you anything. Nobody who's tried this has succeeded for two hundred and fifty years, and they've been making the attempt every year without fail. We're not more special than they are. If anything, we suck a whole lot more. It's a doomed voyage, Dyssia. Completely fucked. But. If we make it to the end before the journey gets us, there's a wish waiting there. Anything you want. Anything you could ask from the God of the Dead. You should... think about that."

Bella blinks in the flashing lights, and frowns at the warning cries filling her peaceful little room, as if her overtuned senses were only just now picking up on them.

"...What the fuck?" she says in a brilliant display of intelligence and leadership, "This can't be an engagement already. We were supposed to have another day at least before-- shit. Vesper! Oh gods, Vesper!"

Bella leaps to her feet. Her eyes open wide with sudden fear, and her hands fly up to cover her mouth in a surprisingly girlish display for such a foul mouthed death cat. Her tail whips behind hard enough to cut the air, audible even over the alarms.

"You don't understand, she's, fuck! She's an information addict, I was supposed to seal her room off ahead of -- no, no, no, no, no, she's so sick already! If she tries to process any of this she'll! Sister!!"

There's no more time for heart to hearts, or to wait for answers or any other cute little gesture that might have made this meeting worthwhile. Bella is already vaulting over her desk and is flying out the door as swift and agile as if she had suddenly grown wings. All else is forgotten. In this moment there is only enough space in her brain for family.

It is still some time before the engagement begins in earnest. The Biomancers are hard at work around the clock, and Dolce is hard at work during normal business hours, because if lack of sleep causes a lapse in the dining service disaster will ensue.

“My…temporary nemesis, will not let me stray far once we find them. I think, if I were in his shoes, it would be far easier to simply restrict my movements and actions rather than try to figure out what I was doing. He will certainly not let me leave the ship; I can think of no excuse that he would accept. Nor is there any function of the Service that could compel him to let me go at such a critical moment.”

Thus, there will be no lapse in the dining service. His order forms are rerouted the moment they leave his desk, helpfully filtered through several stages of quality checking for overtaxed supplies, inventory management, and disagreeable menu items. Precisely eight hours after he attends to his duties, he will be given an invitation to dine with 20022, after which they will take a refreshing stroll back to his quarters. No doors or desks are locked. He is an honorary member of the Service in honorary good standing, and so, to lock him away would be unthinkable. It is a testament to 20022’s diligence and good planning that he still has so many resources to spend on looking after his junior.

“That said, he has no way of knowing if I even want to leave. His authority ends at my office, as it were. To pry into my doings, that would require time, paperwork, and a reasonable suspicion that could stand up to outside scrutiny. He will be much too busy for that. Without any way of knowing for sure, I think he will settle for waiting, and watching for the slightest clue of mischief. Should he spot one, he may make my life rather difficult.”

Dolce’s evenings are spent as peacefully as they can, under the circumstances. He reads. He writes letters. He chats with Sanalessa over herbal teas, to what end, no one really knows for sure, but he is quite consistent about asking for his tea things in the evening. It is important to keep close tabs on such a dangerous resource, isn’t it?

“Since we do very badly want to leave, I think it would be best if it was not my idea.”

Tonight, someone knocks at the door.

There is the chink of cup meeting saucer. A rustle of wool and papers. A click. Dolce opens the door wide.

“Hello? Oh, it’s you-”

They are all the words he’s allowed.

That. That is.

She's falling down the hallway, and wishing terminal velocity were faster. Shouting to clear the hall, shouting to be heard above the alarm, shouting to--

No, actually, terminal velocity is fine. It's her brain that isn't fast enough, right?

How is she supposed to respond to this? What kind of brain could figure this all out in real time?

She's chasing her friend, because, you know, friend, panicking, chase, help, it's-- it's automatic, right? Brains in her tail, so the brains in her chest can figure things out.

It's like, Dyssia has already pissed off one god, right? At least? Definitely Aphrodite, and court is still out on whether Apollo hates her or just doesn't care if she exists?

And here comes Mosaic saying--

Well, exactly what honesty demands, right? "Hey, if you come with us, you're fucking yourself, please know that in advance, leave now if that's not what you want."

And--

Damn her eyes if she isn't considering it.

Because, on the one hand, they're friends. Or at least, she likes to think that they're friends. That--

Well, that Mosaic is--

--Is outpacing her, what the fuck how--

Mosaic trusts her. That, in itself, feels like a wondrous, miraculous thing. Trusts her to let her know about her own past, trusts her to--well, to give her this choice, right? To be honest with her about what staying could mean.

And she wants to reward that trust. She does!

But also, she's a Publica knight, with a Legion--or a good part of one--depending on her.

That is a lot of people who would need to be convince to follow up on this. A lot of people to be shafted if she makes the wrong call. This isn't-- This isn't something she gets to decide on her own. There are decisions, and then there are Decisions.

It's not like any one of them get to get off this ride right now, though. Alarms blaring, a distinct absence of ships to escape on, a sector full off Bronzey's crew hunting them down.
She isn't even clear, in her own head, which way she ought to side.

Or, no, let's be honest with herself, she knows which way she's going to side. It's just a matter of convincing herself it's smart to do it.

A wish from a god half the galaxy thinks is dead. What couldn't she do with that? What would she even do with that?

One problem at a time. Figure out the now, and let later happen later. Vesper first, ship second, wish… sometime.

“See, it makes a lot of sense when you think about it,” Plundering Fang says, stretching in such a way that her arm rests against the wall just above the Pix’s head. “There’s a lot of you, right? Just scurrying around, looking for something to do together, and hey— wouldn’t you know it? Finishing the flood traps is something you can do together. Is actually improved by having a bunch of girls running around and coordinating by squeaking at each other. We’d be spread too thin and we don’t really do the, uh. The squeaking and squealing.”

The Pix spokesvixen stares up at Plundering Fang with a defiant pout that is only mildly ruined by the furious blush. Some ways down the hall, her soon to be former subordinates huddle, watching with all the courage of Pix who are not within arm’s length of a Ceronian.

“What we’re going to do, instead, is get ready to fight the Summerkind.” Even saying the word seems to make the hull groan. Soon this ship will be full of desperate battle. Pix and Ceronians will have to stand… well, not exactly side by side. Not if the Silver Divers have anything to do with it. “You know them? The bugs? They live, they die, they live again? You’ll want to leave that to the big girls, sweetcheeks.”

“Do you forget that we outnumber—”

Plundering Fang reaches out. Her fingers are gentle, the thumb indenting the cheek, the lift forcing the Pix to look Plundering Fang in the eye, rather than staring balefully at her chest. One of the Pix onlookers falls over.

“But we’re going to work together, right? Like Mosaic-Bella commanded. Unless you want her to come down here and be sardonic at you… what was your name?”

Plundering Fang lifts her hand just that little bit more. The Pix lifts onto her tiptoes, her tail a stiff counterbalance.

“Marbret,” she manages.

“Well, Margret. We wouldn’t want that, right? She’s very busy. And if she can keep our Alpha in line, heeled and leashed, what do you think she’ll do to a bunch of prissy little girls who think they’re too good to accept assignments, hmm? She’ll toss you right out there to be the monster’s appetizer. So. Margret. Are you going to be a good girl for Mosaic-Bella? Or am I going to take you to see her myself?”

Snickers ring out from behind red-haired hands as Margret’s head is shaken from side to side. Then Plundering Fang spins her around.

The sound of the smack is almost louder than the sound of Margret’s yelping indignation.

“Get going, vixen. And get that tight little ass of yours to work.”

Bella!

"You know I've killed a lot of people?" asked Vesper. "It's actually kind of stupid when you think about it. When they designed me they were thinking that an ultra-genius assassin would kill people in the most subtle ways of all - some kind of butterfly effect where if I knock over the right glass of water then a toothpick ends up in the target's brainstem a few days later. A coincidence! But what they got instead was the kind of butterfly effect where I knock over the right glass of water and then a moon de-orbits a few days later."

Her room is a nightmare. When she first emerged from the Lethe she was writing on the walls in an attempt to get all the thoughts out of her head - she's done something much worse now. A simple black metal typewriter sits in the centre of the room, so smooth and heavy it's like it was made in a factory and not from panels ripped from the walls. The thing has a terrible gravity to it; it makes the room feel smaller, like moving through the blast radius of an Azura microsingularity.

"Maybe that's not the designers fault," said Vesper. "Maybe it's a target selection problem. Once they realized what I was capable of they started sending me on impossible missions, and it turns out there's been some inflation since Heracles' twelve. So once I started to remember -" she gives a normal giggle because, like the typewriter, there's no need to add anything extra to make it horrifying. "- I thought, well, what if I didn't exist? What if all the people I'd killed survived instead? What would the galaxy look like then? And so," she gestured vaguely at the machine, "I found out. There's an entire universe in there, one where I ate dirt on my first mission and billions of people lived when they would have died. But you know what's fucked?"

She slams her hands down on the typewriter. It jumps and dings, hammers smashing tracks on the paper.

"It's not any different!" she said. "Nothing's changed! There are different people in certain chairs but it's not the people making the decisions, it's the chairs! And this goes all the way up, all the way to the Gods themselves, ever since Demeter -!"

She shut her mouth. Then smiled. "Did nothing wrong," she said pleasantly.

"Anyway," she said, stepping away from the typewriter. It started clicking, the key turning like a wind up doll's. "How are you?"

Of everything she'd just said, that was the least with it she'd been. How are you. New information. She says it like a junkie trying to convince herself that her last shred of decency is worth more than the contents of your wallet.

Dyssia!

Hey, did she say there was a universe inside that typewriter?

Dionysus thinks you should touch it.

Ember!

You're doing fine. All you have to do is look pretty. You're really good at that, you know? You're so good, you're such a good girl, "you're doing great, a face that could launch a thousand ships, my kind of face. Guys like me have to look out for dames like you when you're doing something so fool as putting yourself in danger -"

Aphrodite takes off your gag, and puts a cigarette in your mouth. It's worse. "Don't think nothing of it," he said. "You're doing all of this to get back to your true love, Liquid Bronze?" he grinned with nicotine-stained gums. "Far be it from me to star cross such lovers." He undoes your chains, and with them, your choices. He wraps you in his suit jacket to preserve your modesty and bind you tighter than you had been. "Ahhh. Don't you love it, love? People used to think that it meant stunning, overwhelming, violent beauty, but that's not how I like to work. I like to sneak up on people and then get them when they're not expecting it. One day you're in control of your own destiny, making your own choices, and then -" Aphrodite carries you away from the Plousios, towards the Cancellation. Like a gentleman. "- love changes everything."

Dolce!

"I think we got off on the wrong foot," said 20022.

He's not who you were expecting. He's here with a fruit bowl - somehow the same kind of bland fruit bowl he bought earlier.

Sanalessa sits up slowly on the couch, black skull t-shirt hanging loose off her statuesque body. She has barely shifted but it felt like the chambering of a shotgun shell.

"There has been a bit of a learning curve here," said 20022, putting the fruit basket down vaguely. "Humanity was, after all... sentimental. They loved their cats and dogs and, yes, even their sheep long after the time for such things had passed, and they kept those animals alive through us. But they were also more fractious than the Skies and so there was a certain amount of, ah, duplication. That is to say, there hasn't been clear enough communication about your bio-preparedness to handle the rigors of the Service, and that is something I regret."

He smiled a professional little smile as he drew forth a document. "Not to worry. I've negotiated with the local Biomantic administration, and they've agreed to perform a correction. Of course, I do not wish you to have any unfinished business, so if you would, please go ahead and write down all of your own sentimentalities on this piece of paper and we'll see to it that everything is taken care of, as best as business allows."

Something in the corridor behind him shifted. Sanalessa is focused on it, terrible muscles bunching with the promise of resurrected violence.

But Artemis is sitting quietly by the door, reading her newspaper - and not acting. Not yet.

"Vesper, I..."

Bella is a very practiced sort of careful when she swallows. She curls her fingers in habitual, ritualistic patterns only. The old claw squeezing and circling, a flex at the knuckles, and a release. She has to fight to keep her breathing steady, without it appearing to be a fight. Nobody understands better than she does how much information can be conveyed without words. What could she control? Not scent, not touch, but surely sight and sound? Pitch control and intonation, rapidity or hesitation, posture and ear position and tail height.

The trick was burying the trick. If she can't keep her breath even, she has to start pacing. Rhythmic and controlled steps make it easy to fall into a pattern she can maintain indefinitely, it helps hide the beating of her heart in physical exertion, using only old responses to old problems. Hiding something from Redana. Being concerned about Sagakhan's orders and intentions. The deep fear that Mosaic carried for her sister's health whenever it was necessary to tend to her. Use both sets of memories, to make sure she gets it right.

It is... probably unnecessary to try this hard to hide her sensory data. Vesper shouldn't have the same blessings of observation that she did. Except the first time she saw those intense, lantern-like eyes, she watched them follow a single speck of dust that had snuck into her prison room aboard the Anemoi with a hunger that wouldn't be satisfied with an entire star.

"Don't understand," she finishes at last, "Did you build that out of the walls? But you said you simulated an entire universe? I know I'm not an expert on, uh, whatever that is, but what the shit? How is that possible? Explain it to me Ves: how did you get this thing to work?"

She frowns, and cocks her head. Of all the ways she has to help, this was both the most practical but the least effective. Certainly the cruelest. 'No new information' as a mantra was really nothing more than stalling tactics. But what was she supposed to do? She can either double back over Vesper's old thoughts as a distraction until she can figure out a novel way to knock her out she hasn't developed a counter for yet, or she can beg her sister to 'just hang in there'.

Yes, fight the curse of your own genetics. With what? Incredible insight, Bella. All the while they fly further and further away from the source of the medicine that held her stable for so long, and toward total oblivion. Knives in her throat. Needles in her heart. The sting of failure, in every little motion.

...When she was fading under the curse of XIII, she received a miracle and pulled herself free. Redana. But who could that be for Vesper's sake. Not her. No, not Bella. Not Mosaic, or any other name she'd worn over the years. All she could be was inadequate. As a leader she was subpar. As a sister she was distant and bitter. As a warrior she was constantly scraping by, just short of killing herself. And none of these things were good enough. They didn't even amount to a halfhearted prayer. So all she could do was stall. Pace and twitch as carefully as she could manage, and ask stupid questions.

Wait. When did she start glaring at Dyssia? What is Dyssia doing here? Didn't she? No. She didn't. In the middle of her panic she forgot to give orders. She snarls before she can catch herself.

Fuck.

Dolce holds the single sheet of paper with both hands. One on the upper-left, one on the lower-right, held at the correct distance to hold the scrap perfectly in tension. You don't hold important documents in the center. There you must press your thumbs into the document until it turns concave. The line between readability and a crease is knife-thin. Dolce does not crease the paper. Dolce does not wrinkle the paper. Dolce does not permit his breath to rustle the paper.

"Okay." Dolce says with his mouth.

Dolce turns in one step. Five steps, equal in distance, take him to his desk. He picks up his pen.

******************************

Vasilly had a wonderful voice. Glaive or tongue, do not ask him which she was more skilled with. To say that she could fill a room with her voice would be a gross understatement. Let him walk from one corner to the other, let him duck into cupboards or rifle through closets, let him go where he will and do what he will, her words would find him all the same. Let her breath caress his ear. Let her speak to the wind. It made no difference. Here she purrs, stretching luxuriously over her syllables. Dol~ce. How she tastes each sound. Here she runs, now here, now there, and back, and again, and again, and how could you keep from dancing to her rhythm? Hiding was pointless. She did not need to see you to know she had led you precisely where she meant to. Her next swipe would tap your guard where you cannot expect it. Her next feint would wind you up. One breath of silence, the illusion of safety, a precious chance to melt.

When he sank into her jaws, it was a formality. Her voice had already swallowed him whole.

******************************

Dolce stretches. He reaches for a fifth sheet of paper. His pen resumes the work.

"Please, do not feel as though you must stay on my account." He speaks without looking up. "This may take some time, but I will send word when I'm finished. I know how busy you are."

An invitation to step inside is noticeably absent. 20022 had to put the fruit bowl on the floor to hand him the paper.

It is one of the quintessentially romantic images, perfect for the damsel in distress, the lure of the Angelshark (which must, surely, even now be lured out of position).

It would be much more romantic if Ember were not hacking and coughing, red-eyed, sputtering, waving the unwanted cigarette in one hand which just makes the smoke spread. Ceronians don’t smoke. They’ll burn incense, they’ll spread perfume, they’ll control the scents precisely, but the stench of roses and nicotine that surrounds her is cloying, suffocating, overwhelming, not made for her.

What this practically means is that she doesn’t have a clever argument for why she’s using her love for Bella, her Mosaic, to save her from being saved by her ritual love, Liquid Bronze, which is really just mean of the god— how dare he put this princess in a position where she has to either renounce her ritual or deny her heart? That’s the sort of thing that gods are doing all of the time, but still!

Instead, she is just, well, rather canine. And part of that animal instinct is knowing how to wiggle out of someone’s arms. Not gracefully, not with any concern for where she will end up, but with the wriggling panic of an anxious dog in a suit worrying about things like wine sales: in such wise does the Princess Alpha free herself from the clutches of Love Himself, flopping in a heap on a neat and tidy bed in front of at least two sheeps.

She coughs again, twice, like she’s about to throw up or expel a hairball, and then brushes her hair out of her face, suit jacket hanging half-open to show her— well, let us be polite and say undergarments.

“…Dolce!” Her smile is like the sun on a day with a picnic basket and a pleasantly cool breeze, isn’t it, Dolce? “From Beri! Juno be praised! Have they been making you cook for them all this time?!”

(A sheep might here, perhaps, remember the Silver Divers, and perhaps even one of their scouts who would occasionally enjoy his cooking.)

[With an 8, Ember gets to Dolce quickly and without harm, but not quietly and without attention.]

Purple eyes.

She's always been struck by his eyes, you know? Purple, but in the way a nebula is purple. Deep, like you could fall inside them and never hit bottom.

Those eyes look like he's just told the best joke, and is caught in the split second between punchline and laughter.

A whole--

Just like that? A whole universe, in a typewriter?

The implications are explosive! The seats do the decisions? It makes sense--you can't solve structural problems with personal addresses, but--

So if you replaced the gods--

Could you even replace the gods? Would it do anything? How would--

She could find out. Right? If Vesper can rewrite reality to--

Fuck, that just caught up with her. That's-- Is there a single well-adjusted person on--

Well, no, no, and if the Generous Knight was right, that's objectively correct--

She could--

The experimental possibilities. To rewrite time. To rewrite the gods! To rewrite herself, the Skies, the what-ifs--

She can. What would she even ask? What if I--

Dionysus's stare is like a drill, a pressure, a weight on her. Why does he even want her to-- Does he have a-- No, of course no, Dionysus never plans, so why does he--

She's hovering, she realizes. She--Gods help her, she does want to touch it. To have your fingers on the levers of the universe. She could spend days--no, no, years toying with this. Figuring out what happens if she does this or if she does that, like a perfect oracle.

… Is it real? It can't be real. It's an artifact, a gift, a, a,

An icy chill runs down her neck.

What does it mean to be real? When there are--no, not swords, the sword is different, but, you know. Crystals. Guns. Whatever they are, of Hades, summoning alternative selves, alternative versions. Is this the same thing? If she--

She stares at the levers, fingers frozen in the act of reaching out.

If she changes the universe, it's a blink of an eye for her. An instant rejiggering of time and space, all in a handy jug of a universe where nothing bad spills out.

She could find out what things would be like for herself if she. Well, you know, if she hadn't made any number of decisions. If she hadn't been a knight. What things would be like in a world where she had never needed to become a knight, because she'd been more normal. If she'd ignored the push of prophecy. If she hadn't saved the Pix.

She doesn't regret those choices, but at the same time, they hang over her, a never-ending stream of what-ifs. You can't live your life that way.

But also, if you-- If you fall down the well of seeing everything else, you can't live today, either.

… Is it real for them? If she moves a lever, makes a decision, what happens to the people on the inside?

Well, the same thing that happens to people when she makes a decision on the outside. Except on the outside, there aren't do-overs. There are real relationships that suffer, real people that suffer, and you can't take it back. You can't try and retry until you--

It's real enough. It's real enough that her hand is already shrinking away from the levers of power by the time the snarl reminds her that there are more than three people in the room right now.

And to her credit, she doesn't flinch! She was already decided!

What was it that Demeter did?

"I'm also curious how it works."

Eloquent as always, Dyssia, your teachers would be proud.

Bella and Dyssia!

Vesper smirked a little. Leaned forwards, elbows on the table. It was a genuinely affectionate movement - like she'd seen through both of you so totally it was like she was reading your internal narration, but she liked what she was reading enough not to skip to the end.

"It has to do with being old," she said. "Calendar old, not days-active old. Each time I activate I need to figure out the laws of the cosmos from scratch because they change, more often than people think. But once you've seen them change enough times, had enough points of comparison, you can kind of see how the Gods are moving the pieces. And from there it's not really so far to start changing universal law by yourself."

The Ikarani Temple. The ones who fly too close to the sun.

"Prometheus did, of course - but oh! Those old stories are so garbled. They say he gave man the gift of fire, but probably the better way to think of it is he birthed fire into the world. Fire, the consuming hunger, the desire that destroys. They say he stole fire from the gods, but why did the gods have it locked in a vault?" She whirled something silver in her fingers, click -

A silver lighter, made from torn and polished metal. She touched the gleaming little flame to a rolled up tube of paper. It burned like a cigarette.

"No wonder Zeus was pissed," she said. She glanced up at the roof, then around rapidly, then smiled. "Ahhhh, I timed that well, right when Aphrodite was distracted. I did not give myself good odds of getting that one out but ~worth it~!"

Somehow this was worse. Going quietly mad was one thing, dispensing hot gossip about the true nature of the Gods was the kind of thing that resulted in eternal punishment. You absolutely, positively have to shut her up.

Or, you know, let her roll the dice again and hope she gets lucky.

Ember and Dolce!

Two impossibly tightly wound springs snap.

Two cats have been having a staredown, and when a friendly dog blunders into the center of it, a peaceful situation becomes an instant furball of ultraviolence. The Drone crashes through the wall, gangly limbs, thorax shaped like a hoopskirt and an impassive feminine face made entirely out of bone. It is met with a hoof to the face from a spectacularly executed side-kick which parses immediately into an alternate leg roundhouse; the crack-crack! of the two impacts echoes down through the corridor. The Drone responds by shoulder-charging the unicorn, piledriving her into the wall - and Sanalessa barely jerks her head aside before a headbutt dents the thick metal where she had been a moment ago.

They'll be everywhere, all over the room, crashing into and destroying everything. In the chaos 20022 ducks his head and hoofs it.

Later. Later. There'd be time to figure out what the fuck Vesper just said later. She could tell already it was the kind of gossip-bomb that Beautiful used to drop as part of a mission; the kind of stupid and dangerous comment that was really laying groundwork to destroy something later when all the implications sunk in. But it turns out that knowing the trick and following its path were different things, and every moment Bella spent gasping stupidly was another one Vesper could use to set herself on fire.

Her muscles don't even tense. Her tail does not flick. She skips straight from standing to pouncing without even enough warning to keep up with it herself. There might be a trap in this. There might be several. The air between them might be filled with wires even the eye of Hermes hadn't spotted, or there might be poison on the ground she can't smell harvested from Mynx Redana when she wasn't looking or there might just be a gun, or the trap might just be designed to get her to offend some god by her actions that would turn all of her blessings and talents into curses before she died within sight of her dream. She might even just knock a screw loose somewhere in the room, and who could even follow the shape of that trap?

She flies in slow motion. Her mind races; she can see the progress of every last millimeter of distance she gains in excruciating detail as if she'd had minutes pass between each one. This was the problem of trying to get ahead of Vesper. She couldn't tell what level her sister's mind was operating on, and that made it impossible to understand the implications of anything at all. Maybe everything she thought and did had already been predicted, maybe a single impulsive decision was about to undo a masterpiece of scheming built atop a pebble. Maybe she needed to be smarter about this. Maybe she needed to be less herself. More Mosaic. Or less. More Bella. More someone else entirely.

She wishes she had Redana's talent for changing what it meant to be herself.

This is taking forever. She can't read the expression on Vesper's face. She can't even see it with that lighter taking up so much of her vision. Her nose is telling her everything about every tiny corner of the room (nobody has dusted under the bed since the ship was dredged. Something spilled recently near the door, but it was frantically cleaned up. The drawer nearest that typewriter contains something rotten, like crab meat that's been left to sit for a year in the sun) that it isn't telling her anything at all. All she can feel is the resistance of the air against her fur and skin. The only noise to be heard is her own tortured grunt as she thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks about everything and nothing of a decision she'd been committed to before she could catch herself making it.

None of it matters. You could unmake Bella and spin the pieces into something or someone with three hundred times' the brainpower and she'd arrive at this same moment anyway. The word is still sticking to all her thoughts, and every time it echoes it makes the conviction stronger: 'sister'. She tossed the word around so freely. She'd never thought about the why before, but here it finally makes sense.

She couldn't really be Vesper's sister, not even in the sense that both of them were born grasping for the same flickers of moonlight. Bella was the final effort of a long dead program with nothing left to kill; just a pawn to distract while a queen moved elsewhere across the board. But the way Vesper talked sometimes it was perfectly possible she was not only the older of the two of them, she could turn out to be the first Ikarani. And her mind at any rate operated on such an unfathomable scale most days that connecting felt impossible. An idiot ball of muscle like Bella must be the most useless, boring companion she could ever be inflicted with.

But duty didn't connect the Assassins of the Temple of Artemis. Their personal experiences were each so distinct that they would forever be stepping on each others' toes the closer they got to one another, so that wasn't it either. But sisters. Sisters. Sisters. The word always stuck. Because Artemis' children were all connected by one single, horrible thread:

The desire to die.

Yes, that want. The need, the overwhelming intrusive thought that drove each of them to seek suicide in the way that made sense to them. It was more than the simple wish to end so much as the nature of it. Gentle, slow, without pain or suffering. Just sit still, drink your wine, and wait for starvation to do its thing, Bella. Just wear the armor and let the names wash clean until they wash you away along with them.

Mynx, who only wanted to die in the arms of someone who loved her. Someone she'd spent her whole life trying to save, so that when she finally succeeded she could pass on knowing for those last few seconds that whoever she loved enough to die for loved her back enough to let her. The violence of the fantasy hid the need to go out on a soft kiss and a hand on the back of her neck.

Beljani, Gemini, who needed to constantly be distracted from her own power so she didn't simply slip away into it and never return. Her death didn't even need her to make a choice, it didn't even need her heart to stop beating. All she had to do is wander into a crowd and hide there until her face disappeared into it completely.

And here was Vesper, on the verge of collapse for the second time that Bella had seen her, winding up a machine so subtle she wouldn't be able to follow the mechanism back to its beginning when it clicked on and signaled her doom. She'd die accomplishing something, a hero freed from the need to think anymore.

Except that, the last time she'd set something like that in motion she'd already put Bella in the way of it and quietly prayed to drift off to sleep instead of absolute oblivion. A break from the weight, not its absolute removal.

So what made them sisters? The Ikarani, the Diodekoi, the Oratus, and the Toxicrene? Well that was easy. So easy that Bella had missed it for years. Without ever asking to, they lived their lives as bombs. That meant they were the only ones who could hear the song inside the death wish. That quiet prayer to the moonlight instead of the darkness shrouding it. That hidden cry for help.

And in the face of that understanding, did it really matter what Vesper was up to, or what she might accomplish if someone let her roll the dice?

Together, they go toppling across the floor and collide with the stripped down wall opposite the horrible typewriter. Bella heaves with terror atop the body of her sister, hiding the little lighter from view as best she can while clamping a hand over Vesper's mouth. Her eyes tremble as the room shrinks too small to hold anything but this awkward embrace.

"Ves, don't..." she growls, "I'm sorry. Don't finish that story. Don't do this..."

Dolce could’ve followed 20022. He also could’ve stood up on his chair and provided a singing, musical accompaniment to the fight. There’s a lot of things he could do that he doesn’t think to do.

He stands on the edges. The sword was a gift from Vasilia. The ready stance was a gift from the Starsong. He observes, and that is a gift he has made his own.

"Ember, can you give her a hand with whatever this is? I've got your backs."

When the time is right, a sheep and a blade will be where they need to be.

Ember doesn’t have her weapons to hand: not her sword, neither her knife. That would have ruined the magic, after all. All she has to hand is the suit jacket wrapped around her and her own body.

So much to say that she is not disarmed.

All she needs is that nod, that gesture, and she’s tearing off the jacket, flying the black flag of herself. (You’re married, Dolce, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.) She’s behind the drone before you can say “Ceron!” and wraps her limbs around its thin, waspish waist, between thorax and abdomen.

Redana of Tellus was an Olympic wrestler.

The suplex drops the drone like a thunderbolt. It’s too strong to be stunned, but those gangly limbs and powerful face can’t get at Ember, who uses their prone position to adjust her grip, and then has the drone on her shoulders, now lifted into the air like Antaeus with one hand at the neck and the other at the waist.

“Okay! Where do you want me to put her?” Ember says, tail wagging, suit jacket finally settling onto the floor, grinning broadly at her reunited… friend, yes, that’s the fire burning in her. Her friend! Her Dolce! Not her Dolce in that way, but how else is she meant to express her joy?

[Overcome 10.]

The lighter is the entire world, glittering and sparkling like a malevolent jewel.

But it's the smell--foul, acrid, and yet somehow also sweet--that chases lightning down her hindbrain, flushes the thoughts out like ice cold adrenaline chases out tiredness.

You know that smell is one of the oldest senses? Before mammals, before Azura, before biomancy or anything, when life was nothing more than bacteria in an ocean, smell defined chemicals, smell was food, smell was life.

The smoke fills her nostrils, lays heavy on her tongue.

Aphrodite was in the vault.

The thought lands in her head with the certainty and finality of a thunderbolt.

Zeus was pissed. Why was she pissed?

Because the father she'd put so much effort to imprison had been released.

Had been reborn. Gods get reborn. Dead relics to twin gods Athena and Mars, trapped in a submerged and temple, needing to be purged and rededicated to the proper gods of war.

Chronos, the titan. Aphrodite, the titan. The desire that destroys.

How do you change the results? You can't target the gods. You have to target the seats, you have to target the laws, you have to change the constants and she can feel the thoughts whirl, see the lighter, see it click see it change see it mold and break and reform and--

And disappear.

She has to know. She has to understand and she can see the world in shades of lavender and she has to know and this is the one chance to meaningfully change the world and make something different, something better and--

She has to come back when Mosaic isn't there to stop her. Has to know. Has to hear Vesper speak.

She has to know.