[b]Bella![/b]

This is what it is to fight a God.

One move into the next. The opening parry is not even relevant; throwing her into the air is barely worth noticing, and anyone could have performed the first, second or third kicks in the sequence. But then comes the fourth, and the uppercut, and the throw - and oh. The first moment of interest comes at this moment where the bone unicorn snaps across space, a replication of the just-demonstrated teleportation technique - to catch Bella at the apex of her arc. Kick, strike, slash with the heavy weight at the end of her tail, crash with the horn. Bella hits the ground so hard she bounces, but before she can recover then a hand crossbow is firing electrified darts. Distractions, irritants, but just enough to distract attention before Sanalessa hurtles down from the ceiling with a full body kick. 

Finally the combination is over. The unicorn settles back down into her ready posture. Bone plating covers her eyes, blinding her, but still she stares. She does not advance.

Bella was wrong; this is a teachable moment. The lesson is not one of strength or endurance, not how to inflict or suffer damage. It does not come from the auspex or biology, both remain dumb and mute. It comes from the single drip of blood that runs down Sanalessa's brow, staining bone crimson. 

This is what it is to fight a God. Though all the universe tells you no, you can make it bleed.

[b]Ember and Dolce![/b]

"I shall forgive you this once, on the grounds that I am dealing with long-established sillyheads," Vasilia sighed expansively, setting down her empty teacup. "But my heart has already been moved once today, and it shall be all the more difficult to move it a second time. Fail, and I shall throw the whole raucous lot of you in the dungeon."

She sat back contentedly, happy with the stakes she has set.

[b]Dyssia![/b]

"Evolution is junk. It's [i]garbage[/i]. Evolved DNA is enormous quantities of legacy, wasted space," said Iskarot, scratching furrows in the wood of the wine cast. "It's computation done by dirt. Takes forever, doesn't understand anything. That's why I don't believe in it! I think that Prometheus and Zeus built all of the optimal shapes out of clay, at the beginning. Then Zeus changed the mathematical laws of the universe that those optimal shapes would be evolutionary lagrange points, or plateaus, or destined equilibrium. Then the animate dirt all across the galaxy begins to crawl its gradual blind way forwards until it stumbles across one of the pre-set perfect shapes - the cat, the crab, so on - and then it stops. Biomancy isn't about the meat and bones, that's what Liquid Bronze never understood. It's about the mathematics and symmetry. Triangular ears overperform because Zeus changed the laws of physics so that they were optimal, and not the other way around."

"But - but what happened to those original clay sculptures?" said Iskarot. "The templates that every creature is trying to approach? The very first fox, the very first cat? They're still out there, I think. And what if they're behind everything?"