Bella and Ember!

The Shrine of Hera opens to the void. The great leviathan suitor of the Sunshark looms above, endless rows of teeth hungering for its bride. Its body burns in a dozen places from the rain of plasma torpedoes that fall upon it; soon it will have no choice but to retreat. Damaging the ship was within its capabilities, outright destroying it is not.

Below at the shrine waits the Avatar of Liquid Bronze. A tall, gangly biomechanical sculpture; a projection of the Biomancer General allowing for action at a distance. Even in love, Liquid Bronze is a prudent man and does not risk himself in person. After all, he has a mission, and missing a wedding here or there cannot be allowed to distract him from the mission.

Not that he wanted anyone to notice this; it is only the power of the Auspex that reveals this empty shell for what it is. A deadly combatant in its own right and filled with the pheromantic chemicals to activate or alter nearby Summerkind, this is a battlefield design. It is designed for durability and self-repair. Do not allow it to speak.

In the pews are Summerkind, bought in to fill out the numbers. They sit politely in their chairs despite the chaos above and below them. They were, after all, born mere hours ago so none of this really strikes them as strange. They await their instructions but, as they have not been to a wedding before, don't know how things are supposed to go and so will not question anything strange they see.

And into this moment, stepping down from the Shrine of Hera where she'd appeared embraced by the stone statue of the divinity, is Bella.

Dolce!

"I am afraid if there is anyone out there who I need to kill on your behalf," said Vasilia as the door on the shuttle craft slammed closed. "They shall have to wait. You look like you haven't been eating at all -"

She is politely saying that she hasn't been eating at all either. She's visibly lost weight, and you'd reason that is equal parts from worry and not having a high enough opinion of the other cooks aboard the ship. Vasilia isn't a picky eater, exactly, it's just that her standards have been raised very, very high and she's gotten by quite a while on the hopes that her beloved would be returned to her.

You even see on her face the determination to cook for you. The determination to be a good wife and take care of her poor, lost, rescued husband. That determination will absolutely win out over her desire to taste your cooking again - of course you should rest and let her take care of it, you must be exhausted.

But the fact that it's a struggle says less about her love and more about your talent in the eyes of someone who truly appreciates you.

Dyssia!

The God of Madness shakes their head, the ink spreading and flowing like shadow-puppets. Not a cage. No bars. No constraints. Desire does not work that way. Instead:

A clock - an old fashioned circular clock. Hands moving ceaselessly. Every moment in chase, touching for moments and then moving onwards. Smash the clock, freeze the hands - it is still a circle. As soon as it is repaired it will start moving again, around and around and around. That is the shape of time. All things rise until they inevitably start to fall. Tick, tick, tick - until that twelve falls all the way back to one. Until the greatest and wisest becomes hungry for their children.

Dionysus grips the clock and pulls it. It breaks like taffy, coming apart as it is stretched from a circle to a line. They laid it out in front of you, a single long straight ruler, one to twelve - and then it stops. And what then, after twelve?

That's not for you to know.

Not knowing is the point. Not acting is the point. Going only so far, and then stopping - even if stopping means letting everything you worked for fade back into the ocean...

It's hard. Isn't it?

Bella arrives in the mien of a decorated hero. She arrives wreathed in gold and crimson, like her eyes and not the black she donned when she first took hold of an Imperial title. Instead she has the seeming of someone more than worthy of the most coveted bride in the galaxy: a princess in her own right. Or maybe more accurately than that, a prince.

A clean white robe sits elegantly atop her chest, tucked neatly into a blackened leather waist corset cinched tight with a pair of golden belts that perches with tantalizing grace across her hips. Underneath the robe, the folded collar of a dress shirt, and draped overtop of it connected to a red ribbon and a golden pendant of a crescent moon wrapped around a star: a series of layered crimson straps that cling to the underside of her ample chest and then hang loose as they dip closer to her waist. Her pants are a match for her robe, smooth and clean and loose as they flare a little away from her thighs only to pull tight against her knees and tuck into the heavy black boots with the high, flat heel that lifts her further off the ground than her normally impressive stature already manages. A golden chain with a matching moon-and-star pendant wraps around her pocket and glints with the regal bearing of a house she has yet to found. This demigod, this child of the moon-which-foreswore-love, has descended.

Draped across her shoulders is a long and flowing cape of the same brilliant and furious red as her Auspex. The shoulders are decorated in gold filigree winding and spiraling patterns like rose petals and twisted stems that wind down the hem along the front of her arms and all the way to the ground where the fabric brushes against the floor. Bella flexes her fingers, and five golden talons glint in the light shining on the shrine, with each ruby inlaid on the second knuckle blazing like a setting sun on some planet where the Skies are not so Endless and that kind of thing would be allowed. For once she wears these talons over her natural claws, not compensation for anything lost or broken and not a tool of servitude, but a celebration of her beauty and perfection, and a promise of her power. She wears no sword at her hip; she has no need of it.

Her blue-black hair is dotted through with golden ribbons that bind a series of thick and elegant braids together in layer after layer that cascade like a waterfall down her back. Red and gold the eyeliner painted in opposition to the mismatched eye it accents, set against deep black shadow that pulls out the animal shape of her eyes. Everything that makes her herself is beautiful. It is to be celebrated. On her perfect skin, no attempt is made to enhance it. The lone remaining concession to improvement are her ruby painted lips, so that when she smirks to see her princess carrying her flowers, it creates an arresting and bloody backdrop for her fangs to sparkle against.

And smile she does. She is Bella, and she has come to wage war.

"Hey, Redana~" she sings in greeting.

"Of course I'll have you," she adds a moment later, "My Ember. My bride."

She does not blush or stiffen when she says it. Neither does she wait at the altar of Hera, but saunters down the steps with the exaggerated flow of her hips that marks Mosaic's absolute confidence in a hunt, and places her golden talons on Ember's wrists. With a whisper of sharpness she cuts the bindings loose. With a gentleness that belies the danger of this conquering heroine who crossed the great Rift and lived, she brushes the back of her hand underneath Ember's veil and caresses her cheek. A moment later she is a flash of violence that shatters the electric prod torturing her lover. These things have outlived their purpose, she declares with a flick of her beautiful tail as it peeks from beneath her cape. She will not suffer them to mar the ceremony any farther.

And then she turns on her heels and glides back to where she first appeared. And offers a deep bow with a wide flourish of both her arms not to the proxy terminal of Liquid Bronze, who could not deserve the gesture less if he tried, but to the polite rows of Summerkind warriors who sit and wait for whatever it is they're meant for.

"I'd like to thank you all for coming to my wedding. I couldn't ask for a more magnificent host. When this lovely vision of Ceron and I are joined, it will mean the end of a long journey. And the beginning of a new one. Though I have already been gifted it, I ask once more in front of you all for the blessing of Queen Hera to take this woman for my own, and promise to live a life that no empire has yet dreamed of."

She looks up at the deadly gathering around her. One wrong move and they'll all descend, and against them a mere Praetor and a Ceronian Imperial Princess, without even the promise of a sacred hunt to guide them through the shadows back to safety. But her eyes have all the sunken hunger of the sunshark rampaging in the sea above them, and all the frozen fury of the Lady Artemis having been caught bathing once again.

"I am Bella Hostilius Mosaic: Ember is mine and no one else's."

Sanalessa goes to the bridge to give them some space. Iskarot wanders to a quiet corner to ensure all his tools and supplies are intact. When the door to the shuttle slams shut, they are alone.

Dolce runs and clings to her without another word. Without needing another word. He wraps his arms around her as far as they will go and buries his face against her. How could he not have noticed how much he was carrying, until she volunteered to remove the slightest bit of it? How could he keep away any longer?

Vasilia picks him up like he weighs nothing. Here, love; isn’t this shoulder where your head should rest? Don’t these fingers belong in your curls? Feel this low, murmuring purr all through your poor, tired body. “There, there. It’s okay. I’m here. I’m here. I’m-”

He pulls back. Just a bit. To tell her how he’s missed her. To tell her thank you for saving him. To tell her he’s so, so sorry for making her worry.

She pulls back. Just a bit. Her mouth half-open. To tell him he needs to lay still. To tell him it’s alright. To tell him she’s never, ever going to let go of him again.

They are close. Close enough to share breath.

They both find something better to stay.

Her lips press gently into his, her breath hitches against his face. She can’t believe this is real, that she gets to hold you again. His mouth is not enough. She claims his cheeks. His nose. His jaw. His neck. His neck. His neck. You are lovely. You are so handsome. You are perfect, perfect, perfect. Her arms bind him tight to her chest, squeezing this warm, soft lump flush against her, and tighter still. She missed you. She needed you. Her fingers sink into his wool. Her claws trace tingling paths along his skin. Mine. Mine. Mine.

He presses up into her lips, welcoming her eagerly. He’s alright. He’s safe. He wants her. His head lolls against her shoulder, baring his face and neck to her hungry mouth. You have all of him. All his heart is yours, and yours alone. He shivers. He nuzzles. He wiggles helplessly in her grasp, soft wool against golden fur. He has been lost, so lost, and now he is safe. He is safe with you. The chef who worked the silent kitchens opens his mouth, and out spills a litany of dazed, joyful bleating, all for her. He is happy. It is your fault. This much, you have already set right.

Behind them, the viewport fills with the blossoming flower of an anti-Boarpedo battery catching light and discharging all of its munitions in one glorious display. The whole shuttle shakes, throwing anything unfortunate enough to be improperly secured rattling to the deck.

All Vasilia hears is

don’t stop

And what then?

Is that what the Azure Skies asked, right after they won? What then? What do you do when the knights fall, and the world opens before you, and you can wreak your will across the worlds?

Dyssia's eyes are liquid mercury, shimmering, shifting pools spotted with pink and purple.

Well, you solidify. You expand. You project power, create beauty. You engage in passion projects. You've fought long and hard and sacrificed so much for what you have. You've become a monster in its name, and now's the time to finally do that good you always promised yourself you would, now that you have power.

And it's the only thing you see, is the prize you won. It's the center of your existence. And if someone threatens it, well, you fought for it before, you'll fight for it now. You won't let it die, not after so long dreaming of it.

To stop…

To, to, to, to not even hold what you have. To willingly be content, to allow it to slip into the waves. To look at the immortality of kings--of empire, of prestige, of accomplishment--and willingly…

The words giving up feel wrong, don't they? That's the thoughts of the old way, the thoughts of the clock. That if you're not going forward, tick-a-tock, you're losing ground. You have to press onwards, keep going, get stronger, consume, grow, consume, grow--

So long as there is desire, the clock ticks. Today is not enough, only what is Next, what is More. Good intentions, one step at a time, until you devour your own children.

To stop… To declare that this is enough, to accept oblivion, to be happy with what is, instead of what could be, if only you took that next step… To stop, even knowing all you have fought for will vanish into the ether and be forgotten?

Her eyes gleam like silver spotlights in the dark

To stop would be madness, wouldn't it?

Her heart is all of her, from her ears to her toes to her frantically wagging tail. It's all alight with the wine of Bella: intoxicating, inflaming, as rich and deep as the sea. She stands on tiptoes, leans after her demigoddess-- which is to say her peer, but in the moment she feels unworthy of this woman cloaked in glory. But she longs. She yearns. She wants to be the bride more than she wants to breathe. She wants to take Bella's hand and jump off the ship onto the back of her horse and ride across the stars until they've found something that nobody has ever laid their eyes on. She wants to kiss her heroine under the eye of a dazzling sapphire sunset. And she wants to be that princess that Bella remembers.

(and a long-quiescent blessing stirs, and while it has withdrawn from Redana, it may still grant the wish of this yearning Ceronian girl as swiftly as if it were on winged foot; all this time, it has half-sleeping transcribed all that it has seen in a manner which will not burn out nerves and stop that vast heart, and for a moment it is roused once more with a mother's love)

There is a flash like all the endless azure skies beneath her veil, one which makes the shadows of lace dance across the floor. The bride staggers. With one hand she fumbles at her lips; with the other she pulls the veil free. Beneath, her hair is done up in a net of pearls, white on gold, worthy of a princess. Her lips are wet, and she drags breath through them like a drowning woman, blinking in pain and shock. But she is smiling, too, like she was in a giddy heap at the bottom of the stairs staring up at a frantic maid demanding that she not grab the pillow and ride it all the way back down again.

"Bella?" She looks up. A lock of hair has come free from her perfect bun. Her mismatched eyes shine like stars. Her ears are perked up and eager. "I... Bella!"

When she runs, when she jumps, her Bella's arms are there waiting for her. She clasps her own about her Bella's neck, presses her forehead to hers, laughs like a madwoman. "We did it," she babbles, feet kicking in the air. "Fuck you, Aphrodite, and fuck your river! We did it! I do, I do, a hundred times I do, and I'll say it again when we stand on Gaia together: Bella Hostilius Mosaic, I do! And--"

A sudden thought flashes across her face. Her ears droop. "I, um. Do you mind that I joined Ceron? I don't know if I can go back. Not that I can't, but that I can't-- ugh! It's that we match, and I don't want to lose that any more than I want to lose the pack, and you smell so--"

The kiss is sudden, the passion of violence barely restrained. The princess melts into the lips of her bride, the fingers of one hand digging into those blue-black locks even as the other smushes a bouquet of flowers against Bella's ear. One of her heels falls to the floor as she returns that hunger, inelegant and delirious with joy, heedless of the audience[1]. That net of pearls tumbles after, her hair spilling free over her first wedding gown. Love and Joy and Devotion[2] mist the air.

"I'm back," she says, as Bella nips at her sodden throat, "and I never left, and I missed you, and we found each other anyway, and I will marry you as many times as it takes, Bella, Bella, Bella..."

---

[1]: let all of the Endless Azure Skies see! Let the stars marvel at their good fortune! Let the gods attend in pride!

[2]: and, it must be admitted, Screaming Carnal Lust. Fortunately, there are no Ceronians around to pick up on the fact that Dany wants Bella to tear her right out of the dress.

Kissing!

You would think that this fell under the domain of the God of Love. At the end of the day Aphrodite would smile and be satisfied that it has all come apart into this. But his was always the yearning and never the having; the separation close enough to touch - and every barrier in the way. He would give you Helen with his right hand, and give you war with his left. He would show you Narcissus, and show Narcissus himself. He existed in the space between; the yearning, the wanting, the suffering, the dissatisfaction, the hunger and the empty snare.

His distance can exist within a kiss. His distance can exist in even deeper intimacy, where fingers entwine and sweat merges and it seems like you can't get any closer. Doubt can run deeper than tongues, and a pounding heart only circulates the fear that grows inside it.

That is all to say, he is not the god of marriage. He is not the god of peace. He is not the god of having and holding, in sickness and in health. He is not the god of a life lived without regrets. He can't stand it here.

He leaves.

And when he goes, time really does stand still.

Take a moment to enjoy the moment.

Dyssia!

Oh hey. Time has literally stopped. That's fascinating. Was that because of something you did?

You can see how to start it up again; you just need to shake yourself just so, ease yourself out of this Olympian hinterland and resume the flow of normal time. But until you do that you've got all the time in the world. Enough time to rescue your friends from the battle with the Sunshark, enough time to read and think, enough time to have all the sleep you want, enough time to just sit for as long as you like or get everything you're thinking down on paper. You're lucky; you've got as long as you want.

"...Hey Dany."

It's shocking how much 'after' there is in a world where time stands still. After gawking at a god's departure. After prayers and promises and silent thanks to the goddess that had stayed. After tears that fell from love and then the ones that fell from happiness and finally the ones that fell from soft, almost delirious relief. After kisses and a thousand embraces. After passing their names back and forth over and over again just to be able to say them. After laughter. After sighing. After ogling each other up and down and after far too many glances at the danger all around them just sitting there with perfect patience for them to at long last be finished.

After all of that and more, there is still more after. So the pair of them are laying on a blanket looking up past the shrine of Hera to the sea of stars beyond. Even with the terminal of Liquid Bronze standing there and all his thousands of Summerkind around him. Why not? An ugly battle for life and death and the slim chance of escape was something that would happen later. Happen after everything else. Right now it was this.

"Is this how you pictured everything? The journey, I mean. And... this. Like, getting married here. Getting married fucking here. Does it count? Is it what you wanted? Does it even matter?"

Breathing just now feels strange. Normally the air is overwhelmingly thick with information: there's so many things in here to smell, so many enemies she should be marking, so much to read from the temperature and pressure of the air around her. Even the smell of Redana, who is Ember, who is Redana would ordinarily be overwhelming. And certainly she can tell all of that is there. Her senses are working. But none of it filters into her thinking, none of it matters to her at all.

For the first time in her life, Bella is not calm around Redana because she's programmed to be. She just isn't afraid. Sometime after all of this, she'll pause to think about how strange that feels.

"I'm just wondering. Because it all feels impossible to me. When I left... Tellus, all I let myself imagine was bringing you back to your mother. That's as far as I ever got, and when I lost that I just kind of... stopped. I assumed we'd die, I've just been waiting for it to happen. I even got turned into a whole other person and she never let herself think about this, either. You were loyal to her enemy and... wow fuck, it all kinda goes in circles, doesn't it?"

Bella sighs into the starlight, and for all the weight of the questions on her soul there's nothing of heaviness to it. That comes later, comes another dozen 'afters' from now. Her fingers entwine with Redana's, and she feels at peace.

"Is it... meant to be a straight line from here?"

They reach an agreeable compromise.

Vasilia will boil the water, fetch a teapot and cups and plates, make a whole tray of tea cookies, remain perfectly composed when she has to make them again, set the table, hold Dolce on her lap, feed him one dainty nibble at a time, run her claws through his wool, snack on his ears, and tell him absolutely every piece of news, gossip, and goings-on that she has somehow managed to collect and retain in-between praying for his safe return.

Dolce will steep and pour the tea. He knows just how she likes it. And he will give her every excuse to keep talking.

What did she say dear Ember wore to the festival? Quite impressive, to be able to slip off into the night with Mosaic while looking so radiant. She was always so talented at sneakery.

And the fireworks were quiet? Really! Oh, do tell…

… Is she going to get in trouble for this?

Not. You know. Not yelled at, never yelled at. But like, looked at in that one way? Like someone is registering the words that just came out of your mouth, and you're sitting in that split second when the smile falls away?

Because she's… ninety-eight? Ninety-nine percent she didn't do this?

Not one hundred percent. Never one hundred percent, but again, she likes to think she'd remember stopping time.

(And especially, if she did, could her brain kindly remember how to do it again?)

She wanders the ship, staring at the endless trichrome friezes: scenes, in their hundreds, of friends, family, strangers, all painted in shades of grey. A movement, and the world explodes in reds and blues. Then… more grey.

She's… Alone. Alone, with nobody but herself to talk to.

Which, you know, could be worse. Turns out she's a fantastic conversationalist, and for once, nobody's there to look at her when she talks out loud.

It just… feels weird to sit there with no sound.

It doesn't even echo, you know? She says the words, feels them leave her mouth, feels the vibrations in her jaw, and… nothing. Not even anechoic. Like the room has swallowed the sound entirely.

She tries to resist the urge for the longest… Time? Can you call it that like this? It's just… She wandered the ship, right? Not a sign of life anywhere, no movement except hers. Who knows what's going to happen when she sleeps?

Turns out, you wake up leaned on a shoulder, eight--

Damn the terminology, she's going to continue calling them hours and days, because "cycles of subjective periods of wake and sleep" is two much of a hassle, even in her own head.

Eight hours later, you wake up on a shoulder, having nodded off. And you dust yourself off, and you realize… we have infinite time. We can do… Anything.

Which means that finally, finally, there's time for…

Well, let's be honest with ourselves. There's time for everything.

Art, picked out in shades of grey, made of paints chosen less by the color they are and the color they ought to be, based on the materials mixed. No idea what they'll look like when time starts again. She's looking forward to it, honestly--to seeing just how good she is, or even how hideously ugly they turn out.

Steel, worked and reworked until she begins to pile up the statues. Furniture, planed until the sawdust is its own room.

Oh! Turns out, her own unique style of cleaning--which is to wander, pick something up, move towards where it needs to go, and then get distracted by something else which needs cleaning--is still capable of leaving the ship spotless!

Spotless except, you know, where there are people.

She talks to them, you know? Tries out the words, even in the spotless silence. Infinity means you have as many tries as you need to get things perfect. All the words to express how much they mean to her in exactly the right way.

And once she's figured it out… Well, it makes no sense not to write them down, right? She won't remember, that's for sure, not without a reminder.

They're tucked away where they'll find them. Little surprise bombs of feeling, inside pages of a book, or under a pillow.

There are people missing, though. Messages to deliver that can't be, not without their recipients.

She's gone through the ship… She honestly doesn't know how many times. They're out there, in the massive battle, the sunshark frozen above them, the Ceronians scattered to the winds.

She collects them. Brings them home. Rides the Tiger's Roar out and back, again and again, checking against mental inventories. Who's missing? Who's…

They're on the Cancellation. Of course they are.

And what a strange feeling it is to walk across that deck, is it not? So familiar, so feeling of home, so alien.

She shuts the door on the wedding, and hopes she hasn't been noticed. There will be time for them, last of all. There is always more time.

Floor by floor, she finds them. She brings them home.

And…

She shouldn't. She definitely shouldn't. Brightberry…

The vats are hard to lug across, but she manages it. Eggs next. She scours the ship, does her best to leave no egg behind. How many summerkind were in the wedding? She'll need a shuttle. Should have used the shuttle instead of the plover.

They will need guidance. A biomancer to wake them, and teach them, and give them the tools to make their own choices. But there will be time for that later.

And… What next?

The Cancellation needs to go. Somewhere far away. Somewhere away from a gravity well, where its maneuverability is worst. Somewhere far from a hyperlane.

She makes the offerings. Performs the rites, the auguries.

She's only one person, but she turns the engines. Prepares them. Sings the shanties to herself, sweating as she directs that great, grand imperial tail, stokes the Engine at its heart. Into deep space you go, warsphere, if nobody figures it out soon enough. If nobody warns you. And then, kaboom, the tail overloads, and whoops, a warsphere's worst nightmare.

And if she's already a thief…

The Cancellation has a nice temple, with shrines to every god. Dyssia memorizes them, every one, before grabbing the chisel. And brick by brick, she rebuilds them aboard the Plousios.

It's overkill, definitely. And probably blasphemy, besides. But it leaves the flagship stranded in deep space, in a humiliating, political-career-ending move, with no guidance on how to return.. There will always be resources, yes, but let us see ol' Bronzey get the support for them after this.

Stoke, again, the engines of the Plousios. Offer, again, the rites and rituals of deep space navigation. Sing, again, the shanties of the one-woman engine crew.

And with a full belly, a fuller shuttle, a ransacked Warsphere, and a deeply tired back, Dyssia finally wanders towards the blanket, shhhhhrugs just so, and coughs politely.

She still hasn't figured out the words for these two.

There will be time for that later. And now, there is time. And it is time to make haste, before anyone realizes what has happened.

Dany sits up in a flounce of white lace, seriously considering the scene before them: Liquid Brone, the Summerkind, the shrine to Hera, Bella herself. Each one gets considered two to three times, her ears cocked quizzically. Wheels turn in her head, interlocking gears ticking away.

She points to Liquid Bronze. “I was sure that the Empress of the Endless Azure Skies was going to be marrying me to her daughter, actually. And I’d be wearing a lot less. There’d be at least three ancient Swordmasters guarding me, which you would have to take on, and—“

The princess sputters as she is thwacked in the face with her own wedding bouquet. An unrepentant Bella glares at her with an air that suggests she would have at least *considered* leaving her princess to those three ancient Swordmasters. Even so, Redana’s smile is irrepressible.

“I don’t care,” she says, and places her hand on Bella’s. It is soft. Warm. Her palm rests on those talons like a blanket, safe and warm. “My life was a straight line before I left, wasn’t it? That’s why I left. Out here, we can go in any direction we like. A princess can love her maid. A demigodess can love a scout. Anything is possible out here, anything. The only questions are what we want to do and who can try to stop us— and once we get to Gaia? Once Hades blesses us? Once we’ve made things right? Who in the entire fuck is going to be able to stop us then?!”

Her mismatched eyes are full of fire and delight, and she clutches tighter, smiles wider. Not for nothing is she at risk of being another of Dionysus’s favorites, driven mad by love and the wine-dark void.

“It doesn’t matter, as long as I have you, you have me, and we have the freedom to go where we want, do what we want, love like we want, and help who we want! And once we get to Gaia, we’ll open up the Skies to everyone.”

She doesn’t have a plan. She doesn’t have a carefully-worded wish. She doesn’t know what galactic society is going to look like once chains are shattered and the dead are alive once more. All she has is the fire in her eyes and ears that are willing to listen.

“And we will live happily ever after,” she promises, suddenly as serious as a child. “I promise. Every day I will make it come true. Now, let’s hurry up and make a list of everything we’re going to do together — we’ve only got forever to figure it out!!”

And, so saying, the Princess of dead Tellus throws herself into the arms of her lover, giggling in an irrepressible joy.

Outside, for at least half of forever, a glittering and clever serpent swims back and forth across the vast gulf of space, scales glittering in the light of frozen suns.

For the turn that this is about to take you might think that you are being punished for your happiness.

If you did, you would be right.

*

Feet of sharpened bone crack crystal lattice underneath. Torn and bloody silks writhe and peel from the walls like eucalyptus bark. Every few steps a shadow flashes across the light, there is the sound of a scream, a crack, and a crunch. Watery blood spills across the pure sea water that covers the floor, and the robed Tidal bureaucrat crumples to the ground in a rubbery heap. From their corpses bubble riotous growth, the bloom of Demeter's garden seeds as groves of bioluminescent coral expand across the dying mind of the Sunshark.

A sunshark is not an individual thing; it is a nation, an ecosystem, an organization. Even in the days where Hades' realm offered the tantalizing possibility of escape these things were immortal for they were the greatest of Demeter's children. Even when the field is ploughed the growing climate remains the same.

And so Liquid Bronze moves through the wreckage of the Leviathan. In his wake comes his robed legion of Biomancers, and their endless swarm of drones. They set about the rituals required to asset-strip and repurpose the fading starbeast. From its bone marrow it begins to drip battlecrabs by the tens of thousands, its heart is surgically implanted with the Cancellation's salvaged engine, and the great cathedral to Poseidon in the Sunshark's throat crawls with drones that scratch at the mortar and carry away loosened stones.

The hunt will resume. No matter the cost.

*

Bella and Redana!

The corridors are filled with moonlight.

Moonlight is, in the end, just sunlight. The same kind of sunlight that'll burn the wings right off a girl who flies too close to the realm of the Gods. Someone down here had the bright idea to play the gods off against each other so hard that it momentarily broke time and now it's getting bright - and it's getting hot. In your Auspexes you can feel the Eclipse coming - and with it a time of disaster. All the delicate balances that go into keeping a ship alive are starting to come down.

You got lucky with Vesper last time. Her plan worked. Everyone was saved. Everything came right in the end.

She's going to roll those dice again. She can't help herself. Not when she's like this. Bigger and better. Double or nothing.

Iskarot is here with you, back in his familiar rubber-yellow robe, carrying a heavy medical case. He cautiously stays in between each of you; your auspexes together, the two Eyes of Hermes, together representing more awareness than he could possibly have on his own.

Dolce and Dyssia!

You have stolen an army. In some ways this is easier than it might sound.

Imagine that you have stolen a fighter jet. Being expected to operate from an airbase, it does not have a lock or car-alarm or any other top level security features. You can simply hop in and start flying - if you know how, and if you can keep up with the punishingly elaborate maintenance routines required for sustained operations. The Summerkind are not drones, to swarm with perfect obedience, who are always at risk of being redirected by another Biomancer - they are a full Servitor species designed for full integration with the military of the Endless Azure Skies at a moment's notice.

You have one Biomancer deeply familiar with the design and operation of the Summerkind, you have Dyssia - an Administrator Species, and the only one on board other than the Ceronian's magos prisoner. This is enough to ensure that you, Dyssia, are personally in charge of this entire ship. That much is not in question.

What is in question is how you're going to keep it together. This is the hard part.

Even the Publica does not deploy different battle servitor species alongside each other because of the catastrophic levels of competition it creates. The Pix and the Ceronians were already feuding, but the presence of the Summerkind destabilizes that already delicate balance. The Ceronians are using their own pet Azura as a political center to start making Summerkind loyal to them, the Pix are beginning to intervene to stop this happening, what senior Summerkind there are are desperately trying to figure out what's going on and why, and even if your personal presence can calm down flashpoints it's a big ship and you can't keep the wolf away from the rabbit and the rabbit away from the lettuce at the same time. Put three Servitors species in a closed environment and there's going to be a war.

(And that's not even taking into account that territory is cramped due to the Tidal infestation on the lower decks, which is becoming increasingly violent and agitated for some reason, and that the ship's general crew is resort planet Servitors and not a true voidbreed).

This is a crisis point. Give it your best, and know that it might not be enough.

How many miracles was one person allowed to ask for?

She'd gotten plucked out of an impossible situation and watched what should have been the moment she lost everything into her own wedding. She saw the light return to Redana's eyes after she'd already said goodbye. She'd come home to her ship and for eleven minutes everything felt like it was going to be perfect.

But time marches on. Spitefully, it turns out. The scorching light pouring into every corridor isn't turned so directly on her as Apollo's displeasure had been in that nightmare world, but it was every bit as dangerous. Bella watches the moonlight. She can feel it watching her back. Just waiting for the moment she screwed up enough that it had permission to burn her to ashes.

Meanwhile, her ship was tearing itself to pieces. One thing about this piece of shit was that she didn't need to be around a problem to know it was happening. The Anemoi swallowed all senses, but that had turned out to be a blessing now that she can only stand here and remember it in passing. The silent darkness of that ship meant that it flew with precision and trust or not at all. By comparison the Plousios held no secrets, so there was no hiding the paranoia, the scheming, or the misery onboard.

The bulkheads rattle and quake with the sounds of physical conflict. With a little bit of practice it's possible (even simple) to pick out the loud bursts of poping echoes that indicate a skirmish between more militarily minded people from the duller more rhythmic drumming that meant a former Bitemark citizen was fending off a crab incursion. Or the even worse single-instance tremors that told her that her people had managed to toss over one of their own crafting stands or a critical ship component as part of an argument with each other.

If she pressed her ear to a wall Bella could even hear what the voices were shouting about: her. Mosaic, so odd and so distant lately. Everything was falling apart worse and worse on a daily basis, and far from keeping her promises about holding the Silver Divers in check she'd let even more military Servitors on board the ship and the bullying was worse than it had ever been under the lazy eye of the Regional Governor and the distantly disinterested Crystal Knight. The great hero of Beri was ruining their lives, if it was really even her and not some monster wearing her flesh as a mask. How could you say that about her!? And then the blow that meant the drunken shouting match had turned violent again.

The air did not smell of tension. That was not a condition that had a real smell, since every individual became aggressive, nervous, or frightened in different situations and all had slightly different chemical reactions to these things that turned any stressful situation in a crowd into a bizarre soup of sour, spicy, and bitter notes. And absent any direct presence with the people giving off those smells what happened instead was that the air started picking up sparks that dried it out and made breathing feel heavy or dangerous. The smell she did get was worse: brine and sea rot. There were multiple crisis level events happening all over the ship and somehow they weren't even related.

"Dany shut the fuck up I'm trying to think. I can't sit still ok, I need to-- there's nothing to clean. If I can't put my hands on something I, please. Don't open that door yet, we're not ready. Just let me pace. Let me figure this out."

Bella shrugs and returns to her silent, bestial stalking. She brushes the tips of her claws against her palms and stares at them in disbelief. Life was so much easier before they'd grown back. She barks with sudden, dark laughter. Life was a lot easier when she was dead, too. She can't hold it together. Cackling, she falls into Redana's arms and clings to the smaller girl until she's laughed tears into her eyes. Easier when she was dead, gods! It takes three attempts to calm down. When she's got her own feet again it's all she can do not to kill herself blushing at the concerned/enigmatic looks she's getting from her company.

"...This is so fucked," she observes, "Just completely fucking fucked. We've only got one thing going for us on this entire stupid ship, and that's the problem we're here to fix. Don't get me wrong, she's going to get us all killed. But the goals-- Vesper's..."

Yeah, the goals. Vesper's attention would be pulling the same direction Bella's was at the moment, this clusterfuck of a power struggle. It's why her mind kept turning back to it, even though her sister was a higher threat priority. Frankly the Ceronians, Summerkind, Pix, and all the people of Bitemark could start a war right now for all it mattered if Vesper was allowed to get even one more idea off the ground. But she couldn't help it. For all she knew it was pointless trying to out think an Ikarani Adept, the way that she talked things out made Bella feel it was important to at least grasp the edges of everything.

Forget the difference in the ships for a minute. Why had the Anemoi run so much smoother than her version of the Plousios? That ship hadn't actually run any better to begin with either, if she was being honest. Her authority had all been fake from the start; the Kaeri operated under instructions fine but under the surface they had no delusions about what Bella's orders were for or who they were really from. The literal instant they were presented with Redana they tried to take over without a second thought, even though it should have been obvious to the most braindead slob that letting the Princess take over would just hijack their mission.

That part wasn't so different from Mosaic being 'in charge' of the Silver Divers. They followed orders if she gave them, but they didn't follow instructions at all. Their presumption of superiority superseded even being trapped on a hostile backwater planet without the support required to do more than petty raiding against a bunch of farmers and stoneworkers, and no matter how many of their alphas she dominated (or married) they were always testing the limits of what they could get away with. Every single Ceronian on the ship barring Ember gave off the impression of a temporarily embarrassed noblewoman. Bella would have to be blind not to see that the second the ship crossed into Shogunate territory they would try something. They'd been blatantly preparing since the moment the journey began. But she'd let it go on for the time being because...

Why? She'd have never tolerated that sort of belligerence out of the Kaeri, at least not after they'd fucked up the pirate raid so badly. What had made her think such a light touch would be better now? For an Empire to be strong, the Empress must be weak, but... that was just bullshit, wasn't it? Easy for Nero to say it, in a theater in a palace on the safest planet on either end of the galaxy. But Bella wasn't trying to build an empire. She wanted, she wanted--

"She wants to help. For everything that happened to her, she remembers me. Most of her life all her solutions involved mass death, but ever since we met she's bent over backwards to keep her hands clean. She just pulled off the stupidest thing I've ever seen her do and nobody died for it. That's our advantage. She trusts me. So we don't need to reset her, we just need to cut her off long enough to pull her back down underneath the clouds. If she loses that perspective, nothing we try will ever work."

Fucking... no no no, what kind of stupid joke is this? She can't possibly be this stupid? What was the difference? Obvious. Bella you moron. You stupid, glazed eyed drooling dipshit. The Lanterns trusted her. And they trusted her because she'd done things for them, and kept doing that until it stuck. Her motivation was irrelevant, she was strong and she used that to do something other than force her way onto things. By comparison, what the fuck had she done here?

She never talked to the Pix, not once. She and the people of Beri had beaten the Silver Divers but her relationship with Ember immediately recomplicated that dynamic, and even if that hadn't been true what vision of the future was she even offering? A Servitor could be more than they were made to be, but that would never happen without a clear alternative and a reason to go in for it. What had she done besides wear stupid outfits and fill out paperwork? She was a logistics manager sitting in a captain's chair and expecting nobody to be call her out on it.

If Nero were in this situation she'd take control by leaning on Dyssia. And while she was putting out fire, Nero would make a swift demonstration of her own power by crushing a faction and playing the rest against each other to maintain a tenuous hold on a majority of power, and then make speeches to her enemies to blind them with her charms and keep them pointed away from her the entire time. The Empire would be strong. The Empress would be weak. But if anybody upset the balance she would call in her favors, flip that dynamic, and wipe the dissenting force off of her map. Her rule would be total, only playing loose enough to keep the lot of them growing stronger.

But Nero, and please forgive your former maid, Your Most High Imperial Majesty, had no fucking friends. A city didn't need an Empress. It needed a culture. It needed a goal that could pull people in, and maybe most importantly of all it needed to let people walk away from it if they needed to. She could do that. She could provide that goal, and she could be strong enough to hold up the mountain while everyone else climbed it.

She needed to tell them all. More important than that, she needed to show them. But before any of that could happen she needed the ship to not fucking explode, please and thank you.

"We have time. Vesper is going to set up some kind of cosmic bomb that's going to open the path for this ship to cleanly get where it's going, but to do that she needs to play up the fighting going on high enough to bounce the gods off of it. I'm sure she sees how to get there already but I'm just as sure she doesn't have the tools yet. So while there's still room to think, tell me how we fix her. She's done everything for me, and I'm going to pay that back. What can we do to pull her away from Rampancy without erasing her?"

This is torture.

Everything is bright, right? Eardrum-piercingly noisy. Too fast, too loud, too stimulating. Too many things happening at once, all demanding her attention at the same time.

She'd thought the olympics idea would be… you know, a release valve. A way to vent competition in a way that doesn't involve more than metaphysical spear-rattling among the various groups. Keep it meta, that's the ticket, prevent the outbreak of violence in the other half-sense of the word.

Too much happening at once. Competitions demanding rules adjudication. Feathers to unruffle.

Preen? Is that the right word for this metaphor?

The attempt to return to that timeless state was not successful. Maybe a controlled test of the Crystal sword? Cloning?

It's a stall, is what it is. A stalling tactic to avoid allowing the thought to seep into her head as anything more than a background of dread.

But…

"We can't keep them," she admits quietly over her shoulder to the sheep nestled securely in her tail, as if the thought itself is deeply shameful.

Below, a fight breaks out between the Pix and a cluster of Summerkind. Something about the relay being run, probably.

You only get one shot at a conversation, is the worst bit. The words have to be right the first time. Torture, over and over.

"But what can we do with them that won't get them dumped right back in the waiting arms of Liquid Bronze, or at the mercy of whatever 'administrator species' happens to find them first?"

It’s rather hard to see it, hidden away within a soft, squishy lump of wool. But a tension ebbs from Dolce, dissipating into the scaled depths. One by one he drops potential conversational openers, times when he might catch her relatively alone, brief lists of counterpoints to common objections, and a handful of phrases worn smooth by rehearsal. All gone. None of them needed. Odd, feeling so relieved to talk about such a difficult subject.

He wiggles, just a bit. That may even be too violent a word for the slow turn in place he makes, back and forth, back and forth. Cloud-soft wool brushes reassuringly against smooth scales. “I have been thinking much the same thing,” he admits. Back and forth. “If we were to make a slight adjustment to our messaging around the games, to say they are to welcome our Summerkind guests, I think that would go a long way to reducing tensions, even in the short term. The Ceronians, the Pix, and the Summerkind would have a clearer understanding of where they stand with each other, and that they aren’t competing for the same space. I am no expert - and we ought to consult one, to be sure - but I think that would be a weight off their minds.”

“But we do have to talk to the Summerkind about it first.”

Back and forth. And stop.

“Not right away, I don’t think. They are lost enough as it is, we cannot ask them to also learn an entire galaxy and figure out a plan for their own survival. We can at least work at the problem ourselves. Provide them with some ideas. Something to start with and work from.”

Behold! Just as when she first met Bella, Dany has brought out a tablet and stylus for taking notes[1]. The tablet reads, presently, as follows:

• induct her into the pack
• use drugs
• weed??
• ultimate riddle no we need her to not think
• dionysus's wine (how get??)
• headpats from pack
• dionysus's weed
• gas mask (custom filters)
• give her a pet to look after (cute as possible)
• cooling system for blood
• use dice to make decisions for plan?
• cooling vents in neck
• ask Dad how she would handle this
• wait is Dad here like Dad back home????
• douse her in really cold water
• backup brains
• board game night (cat letter, adoption alley, not mysterio)
• board games while smoking weed
• tempt her in...

"The trouble's with all her thoughts," she says. She knows a little of what that's like, but nothing like Vesper must, or how Bella must, for that matter. "So we blunt them. Cloud her thoughts, cool her brain, erase her train of thought, help her feel and experience and be without building on those thoughts. That'll work until we can gain some favor from the gods to free her from that weight."

Whatever that favor is, she doesn't know. She did not make it through THE BOOK OF INEXORABLE DEATH, VOL I-IV[2]. She doesn't know how assassins function, how to switch them on and off[3], how to stop them from meeting a grisly fate. All she's got is a pack that knows how tactical subspace works, a half-baked plan involving Dionysus's party supplies and every board game she can get her hands on, and a heart that aches seeing Bella like this[4]. But all of her, all her enthusiasm and love and desire to make things right: all are at Bella's disposal.

---

[1]: in between dispensing medicinal headpats, running her hand firmly and lovingly across Bella's glossy hair and sensitive ears, and applying kisses directly to the affected zone.

[2]: Bella may or may not have distracted her from this one intentionally. But the truth of that is on the other side of Lethe.

[3]: though she does know how to turn one assassin on.

[4]: beneath a chest that really turns one assassin on.

Bella and Redana!

"I can prepare sedatives," said Iskarot. "Your choice of delivery mechanism - airborne, skin contact, saliva. This ship has enough residual Lethe water for me to brew a full reset for her as well. Any chemical effect you imagine I can brew - but I can't guarantee its effectiveness. Protocol for an Ikarani flying this high was always to leave the system and watch the explosions."

He took out a bulky metal slide-rule and opened a reinforced panel to reveal a thermometer; it was an ungainly brick the size of his arm, but it was meant to measure the temperature in plasma reactor cores. "Speaking of, whatever she is doing this time is drawing the ire of the God of the Sun. That's expected - an unbound Adept always progresses to the final stage of enraging Apollo, it's why we gave them the name. Temperature and disease protections are recommended."

Does he... not know that this is moonlight? It might take a moment of conferring, but it's plain: the Ancient Craftsman who contributed to the biomantic construction of the Ikarani Adepts had no idea that this buildup of energy is coming from Artemis. It's the kind of misdiagnosis that recontextualizes centuries of work - but he never had the Auspex with which to test his theories.

Dolce and Dyssia!

"The problem is the Ceronians," said Omn, the Subject Matter Expert to whom you have referred for advice. "It is the deepest part of their design. Place them in any situation and they will work to seize control and influence. They can't help themselves, they can't stop themselves, they can't be content - it's that drive that makes them the galaxy's premier warrior species despite centuries of competition. Other designers build for use cases, build for control, build for reliability - the Ceronians were built to accumulate power, endlessly, whatever it takes. In one famous incident, an entire clan - the Harem Blades - sold themselves into slavery and spent centuries working as janissary soldiers for some primitive empire. Eventually they were able to erode the empire from the inside and collapse it amidst corruption, civil war and economic collapse."

The sphere reconfigured, glowing arcs rearranging into a galactic display with orange light radiating out from a single world. "Humanity only ever maintained control over the Ceronians by limiting their numbers, only turning Ceron to full production during times of war and calamity. But that strategic lever is unavailable to us and we must recognize that the presence of Ceronians at all represents a continuously building coup against any and all authority figures."

"But this is also the key to riding this wolf in the short term, so to speak," said the machine intelligence. "The Ceronians are expanding against the Summerkind because they sense weakness and opportunity. You can redirect them in the short term by offering them richer pickings elsewhere - the Ceronians know how to play the long game when it suits them. Naturally, that will have consequences as we travel towards the Shogunate. The Pix, while similar, are more introspective and less fanatically expansionist, so they are primarily a danger when attempting to counter Ceronian power grabs."

*

You pass the first Pylon of the Endless Azure Skies

A vast diamond-shaped monolith the size of a moon. Closed black, reflective and dark, surrounded by great orbiting grav-rail loops. No windows, no entries, no spaceports.

Inside is a civilization. Five billion servitors sealed inside this massive device, forever, a perfect little bubble society designed to exist in peace and harmony forever. They have no desire to explore, learn, grow, or push the boundaries of their little world - they are there to maintain the shrines and the machines that empower the Pylon, enjoying a timeless idyll. This little space habitat will drift on forever, inner utopia blind to all war or calamity unless it should somehow breach those massive walls.

It is the first Pylon in a network growing into the thousands. In the distance more and more of them are visible. In order to perform the great working of the Endless Azure Skies, gravity must be bought to heel on a level unimaginable and unprecedented. These Pylons are the ring-fence that will hold together the Skies, the monumental effort required for mortals to reshape the laws of physics into more beautiful forms.

Dyssia frets over her notebook as if doing so will make the words line up better.

"What even do I say to them?" she half-whines, half-wails, and tosses the notebook into a drawer. It's not staring accusingly at her, she knows, but still she turns away from the drawer's gaze.

"Oh hey, by the way, I know you told me not to steal them, and whoops I did anyway, and now it's causing trouble, but actually it's your wife's warrior servitors who are causing the problem, can we weaponize them until we find a good spot to dump them?"

She's less pacing than she is orbiting--hovering around a fixed point, tail trailing behind her like a particularly stressful comet.

"Dolce, you were with them on Beri, right? You seem like you know them so much better than I do. What even can I do to help here?"

"...Apollo."

Hermetics are baffling voids of disinformation in the best of times, but Bella watches the old man anyway. Anything he might give up that would help her make sense of this situation. A little shudder of his cloak that implied hidden laughter and a joke of some terrible sort. She couldn't perceive where his legs actually were on that tripod setup he operated with, but even the tiniest shift in his weight would hint that he was concealing some uncomfortable truth, or at least nervous about the things that he was saying. A twitch of a finger, a fluttering of his muddy yellow hood, anything. Anything at all.

But no. So far as she had the ability to discern, the old hermit had told her what he understood at exactly the level he understood it. She does not hide the shiver of fear that creeps up into her shoulders.

"You really look at this and see Apollo's hand? Are you stupid?! Or just blind? And I already told you we are not resetting her! You're useless! You decrepit, moron, blind ass idiot motherffff--"

She vents frustration through her hair. Hands raise to press tight into the blue-black locks. Claw tips ever so barely brushing against her scalp, fingers teasing their way through the length as her spin bends backward further, and further, and further in the glare of the moon. As though bathing. She drops her arms to her hips, curls forward again to a standing position, and sighs.

"...It's moonlight," she says, turning away to watch it through a window, "Apollo has nothing to say here. Artemis is the one who's descending here."

Some terrible mixture of fear, anger, and longing wars across her face, twisting it into a scowl under the shadows that form beneath her eyes when she turns her head down toward the hallway again. Why did she have to be so stupid? She'd only known a single Ikarani in her entire life, and even that undersold the gravity of the problem here. She barely understood anything about the temples, about who designed each of them, and what each of her sisters (and herself) were even intended to do.

Was this a special instance? Was it only Vesper? Or had the Ikarani designers been wrong from the beginning and just never questioned the essential workings of their labor because the "product" had been performing to spec? The air smells like blood; every last molecule is saturated with its stench. Bella's hand flies up to cover her mouth as she retches and coughs uncontrollably.

It doesn't make any sense. The question is making her almost as dizzy as the smell. How could this be the first time Artemis had come for an Ikarani, rather than Apollo? How did it make any sense at all for the Sun God to take issue with for what is for all intents and purposes a handpicked, handcrafted priestess of his sister? But then how could multiple empires bent toward fanatical, almost insane micromanaged worship of the gods have failed to notice this detail the entire time? So it must have been sunlight at one time, only it can't have been because that's utter nonsense.

What made her even sicker than anything was how of her wanted to let this happen. If Artemis manifested through Vesper, or at least... showed up she'd finally have a chance to witness the goddess with her own eyes. There were so many questions. But the one with all the answers refused to speak to her. What did it take? What was happening here? Why, why, why?

The room lurches, and Bella stumbles. There's a sudden pressure and a warmth under her armpit, wrapping around to her shoulder on the other side. She opens her eyes and sees Redana, who has dropped her little tablet to scramble over and keep her from falling. Bella relaxes, if only slightly. She can see the answer in the mismatched eyes shining up at her. No, of course. Obviously she can't allow this to happen. More than not allowing the chance to come to pass, she has to actively slam the door shut on it. Dany would never consider it. Dany would scream at her if she knew about the thoughts in her head right now. Dany wouldn't, couldn't ever leave anyone behind. Dany, Redana...

"Oh, fuck."

Bella wraps her arms around her wife. She forces herself to stand up straight, and closes her eyes to focus on her senses until she's dulled them enough to function normally. It feels like a mistake to push her smell this far down, but what else can she do.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck. I hate this. Fuck. But, oh gods is that the prob-- shit. Shit, fuck! I think we might be running out of time after all? How long would it take to gather Lethe from wherever it's collected on this ship? And can we dilute it? Mix it with, mmmf. I don't know how any of this shit works. But I don't want to make her forget everything. I want her to not need a bunch of chanted instructions and a target to function in the first place. I don't want everything to be the first time she's seen or felt or tasted it, not ever again. We just need to clear her head of her plan now. Never mind a delivery method, I need... Dany, Ember. Can I count on you? Can you handle a hunt for the Princess Redana Claudius?"

She doesn't say the name. She doesn't dare let it pass her lips. But there's more than one assassin that needs saving from the moon tonight.

Please forgive her. Please, please forgive her.

Dyssia!

Tap tap tap. Three times, in sequence, on your scales.

You hardly have to think about it, right? Even as you orbit about, you have not squished your sheep the slightest bit. Well. Not any more than is comfortable. At the given signal your tail unfurls as if on its own, and places Dolce gently on the floor.

“I think,” he says, straightening out his lightly-coiled vest. “The first thing you could do is to help me get some tea ready. Bella would not stand for you starving yourself on her account. Ember would run and fetch you a snack herself. She might pause to grab you and drag you with her, for efficiency.”

And he evidently doesn’t need the help, as he seems to have had the foresight to set in motion complex culinary workings such that cups, tea, and the makings of cheeses, meats, and cracker-y things were close to hand. But he asks if you could fetch him this or that, and how do you take your tea (or drink of choice, he would not dare presume), and would you slice these for him while he’s got his hands full? Little tasks. Simple tasks. A beachhead of small wins, from which to wage a broader campaign.

Can you tell that he’s as sick as you are stressed?

He covers his tracks admirably as he works. He pours the correct amount of water. The tea steeps for precisely the time it should. His smile is as soft as his voice. You’d never know he was remembering a Manor he had to escape because he was never content. You wouldn’t think he had the time to imagine, in detail, a life where he would never find a home. Where someone chose to make him wander forever. He sees and hears you far too well to be replaying conversations with 20022. With the other chefs. With the generation that came before. With the generation he grew up with. Supposing somebody did that to an entire species. Deliberately.

No, you won’t find clues as he works. But when the tea is ready, when you have delicious plates of food to try in all sorts of exciting sandwich combinations, Dolce does not even glance at the available seating.

Tap tap tap.

Back into your coils. Where you can feel him rest his cheek against your scales. Feel the long, long breath out. Count the seconds, before he finds his words again. They are many.

“It is not your fault the Ceronians are this way. Nor is it your fault that they are causing problems for us. If it was not the Summerkind, then it would have been something else. At some point, at some time, they would have made a move. It.” He is quiet. Still. Worms a hand free to manage a sip of tea. “It is not their fault either.”

Silence. He has no more words adequate to the purpose. So he returns to her question.

“Bella is sharp. I’m sure that she knew they would not simply do as they were told forever. She may be angry. But I think the most of it will be directed elsewhere. Ember has already chosen her over her pack, and I have full faith she will do so as many times as necessary, no matter how much it pains her. She may be hurt. But I think she will persevere.”

“I think what we can do to help is ensure that everyone they entrusted to us is safe and well until their return, to the best of our ability. I think they would appreciate that most of all.”

We hunt.

We are not the Assassins, not the perfect killers shaped like one death. None of us contains that inside of ourselves, and that's why we don't burn out and die after the perfect climax of that one death. No. We are Ceron. We are nothing when we are alone, but when we are together.

Oh, when we are together.

The Assassins are brittle. They shatter. We are like a school of fish; we scatter and then reform. We reformed around Bitemark; we reformed around Bella-Mosaic's hand; we reformed around her Ember; we reformed around her ship. We take new forms, new shapes, new plans, new deaths; none of us is as perfect as all of us.

It takes us days to prepare for this one. We gather our panoply around us: our own maps of the ship, our Princess Alpha's knowledge of the side passages and the worker's tunnels, our nets and our syringes and our wooden paddles. The Summerkind swarm and the Pix nervously try to scout our meetings. We silence them, overwhelm them, imprison them; there will be no chattering of silly vulpine voices warning the quarry.

When it begins, it is almost silent. We move in our teams, clearing deck by deck, tunnel by tunnel, room by room. We come together in knots around the prey of Beri and Piximander; we study their scents and their reactions and the taste of their lips, and then we release them. There will be no hiding from us, not in the herd, not in the bones of the ship. Our best engineers are drumming and listening for the spaces in the echoes; no hidden chamber will remain so. No secret ally will remain so. No disguise will remain so. We do not rest until we find a weakness; we do not rest until the pack is satiated.

We are Ceron, and we are the thousandfold conquerors.

We hunt.