"Oh, come now," said Aphrodite, as beautiful as the Skies. "Did you think this was for you?"

The wind pulls at his hair, touching the line where it threatened to recede. He takes a deep breath of pure, clean oxygen. He stretches in the radiant sunlight, the warmth that carries out even here at the system's edge. He feels the trace of humidity, and looks forth to the coming thunderstorm.

He needs no cigarettes here.

"I know exactly what each of you people want, and frankly, it's disgusting," said the Heartbreaker. "Your desires are the desires of the dead, and I mean that quite literally. For you see..."

He leaned across the sweeping silver railing of the Plousios, and he called to the air. "What is the purpose of life?"

And the uncountable trillions of microbacterial life in the air that stabilized the wind currents, perfumed the breeze, and transported nutrients to the larger organisms in this sky blue sea - they raised their voice in chorus to answer.

"Life is the export of entropy!"

"That is all there is to it," said Aphrodite. "All organic life, from the meanest parasite to the most complex biomantic miracle, exists to export entropy. To stabilize the center by pushing chaos to the frontier. When the first algae blooms oxygenated the ocean they pushed chaos into the atmosphere. Laudable, but they were not complex enough to understand their world's limits, and their ecosystem overloaded and collapsed. Demeter had to search long and hard to overcome that problem, deriving ever more complex ways to push chaos to the frontiers in the process. She had to invent the brain, and then invent social organization, and then invent the empire. The technology of empire was able to push entropy to its fringes long enough to build a ladder to the stars. The great work could, at last, continue, unbound by the chains of a singular atmosphere."

He smiled, like a polaroid photograph of a grandfather when he was still young and beautiful. "That is your purpose. The galaxy out there is merely the spoil heap at the edge of the ant nest; the inevitable consequence of the dig. You dare to think that this place is not beautiful? The infinite force of life that builds and maintains and expands it disagrees with you. The galaxy swims with life, and all of it is bent towards this end."

"But," he sighed. "Your desires are not those of the living. You have dead souls. Corpse souls. Broken hearts that see the beauty in the entropy that life itself slaves to expel. You are nothing of mine, you breathless dead, but I love you even still. How can I not? So come, see, the night time sky that lives as the proof of my love."

Night fell across the Skies. A macroengineering marvel beyond measure, involving eclipse and storm clouds beyond comprehension. Celestial mechanics whirled and swung to darken the blue almost to black so that the citizens of the Skies could see the stars and the galaxy beyond.

A galaxy of constellations. Stars organized into framing squares, and the pictures within drawn with stars as ink. The ancients looked for meaning and order in the sky, but the Skies built that meaning and order even if it meant moving the stars themselves. Seen from Capitas, the whole galaxy is organized. Seen from Capitas, entire sectors of uncountable trillions form a single glittering portrait in the endless whirling night.

"In the ancient days, men built pyramids," said Aphrodite. "But they told stories of the Gods immortalizing their favourites in the stars. Now the pyramid is obsolete; any man can become my favourite by immortalizing himself in the Skies of Capitas."

Thus spake Aphrodite... but you might not have the ears to hear him. After all of this, the God of Love might feel distant even from atop his own throne. Instead all this bombast might feel like buzzing, like silence, like the raving of a small man, like knowledge spoken by the choir. Instead all you might see is a night time sky where the stars are not scattered wildly, but organized into neat rows and shapes.

Splendid. For a while.

What did it feel like to be the Crystal Knight?

Bella sits in silence and watches the stars. The motes of pure white that pierce the blue, in all their vast complexity and their woven tapestry of stories written in the Skies to extol the virtues of civilization. True Civilization. Ancient constellations were vague shapes and inferences, but the Endless Azure Skies painted with a far defter brush. Here the stars formed visible lines to depict their greatest moments and the highest kings in their history, things that represented true and absolute beauty in such specific clarity that it was not possible to miss or misinterpret them. Even they had a mind to, they could even backfill the galaxy with nebulae to color in these paintings and render their history in living color.

And it's awe inspiring. It is artifice that the Empire of her childhood never dreamed of. What else could you call it besides total mastery of the universe? The vast tapestry of creation was nothing but a suggestion that had long been ignored. The only thing is, as soon as you stepped away from paradise the whole thing was nothing but gibberish. The stars didn't look like this from Beri. Or to the Portuguese, or to any other gods-damned people in the universe outside of Capitas. All of this work and it only made any sense if you lived here. Did anybody who'd come here on the Plousios even know the sky was meant to tell a story in the first place?

So the trash heap didn't know what it had been thrown away to accomplish. Sure, what the fuck ever. But the Crystal Knight was Azura. She'd even distinguished herself to the point of receiving an exalted title from those on high. Surely she'd known better. Surely she believed in the greatness of her empire and all of this shimmering blue horseshit. She knew, and then they shot her off to the bumblefuck quadrant to play with rocks on a scale that was completely useless to the grand work happening in the place where they actually exported all that entropy.

Then what did it feel like to be her? An Administrator Species member in good standing with her empire who knew that the sky she saw when she looked out from her palace ship was broken and wrong. Real beauty was somewhere, invisible to her eye. She must have known enough to miss it. Had they jettisoned her because she'd been a cruel lunatic tyrant, or did she just crack from the strain of being so far away from everything that was 'real?'

There had been a quiet desperation to her reign that Bella had missed before she killed her. All those projects, all of her tinkering... she'd been nothing more than another striving ghost, like all those people on Salib. Only whole enough to know that she'd been cracked. Who could possibly believe in all of this and not be driven insane by that kind of life?

"Oh fuck off." she says through a luxurious stretch.

Her ear twitches first. Her neck turns, and her eyes follow. Bella beholds a nervous sheep fighting valiantly to stand in place. She listens to the music of his determination, and sighs.

"I didn't do shit, Dolce. Like I could have killed that girl even if I wanted to. Do you even understand how many improvements they made on her compared to me? Trust me: not getting killed by her was impossible enough already. No, you don't owe me a fucking thing."

She laughs, though she can feel her ribs straining with every breath. She turns onto her side, away from the Skies and their condescending god and back onto the floor of her... of the ship. Her tail flicks above her head and her spine curls into a crescent as she stretches across the length of her couch.

Slowly, she rises. She walks over to Dolce and looms overtop of him in silence before she reaches down and flicks the bell hanging from his dapper blue uniform. She flashes him a smirk.

"This place pisses me off so much I can't stand it. Every new detail I notice makes me want to kill someone. But I think," she taps the bell again, "Revenge is gonna be a little harder to manage this time. It's not even the size of the place that's the problem, right? They're so fucking... vapid. All of this. Everything. All of us. For a stupid fucking color. To draw scribbles with the universe because they can't think of anything else to do with all their power. We could kill everyone in charge and I bet you the Skies wouldn't notice after a day or two."

She flexes her talons, watching the tips gleam in the light with an intensity to her face that could crack buildings. But when she moves again, it's only to toss her hair in a messy wave over her shoulder and down her back. She ought to return to her rest, but she holds her back straight and proud for the moment. Diminished in form though it is, the Regalia shines like a tiny star atop her head.

"But."

Her teeth are daggers in her grin.

"There is one thing we can do. This is where we're leaving the Summerkind. And the people of Beri, and every Pix or other person who isn't sure about our journey. Help me organize it, Dolce. Let's give them paradise, if they'll take it. I'm sure it'll be a pain in the ass to negotiate, but if I can make this place do one actually good thing before I turn my back on it I'll count it as a win.

"It's... all I can manage. Artemis has plans for me too, you know. I have to get ready her next gauntlet, if I have to hear her call me flabby again I'm going to kill myself out of spite."

"I have several stacks of forms taken from my last job, and I can reproduce the ones I do not have. I would be happy to put them to good use." It's something. It's more than standing still. No, it's much, much better than standing still. A bit of the tension leaks from him, finding a direction to move in.

He can help her to a more appropriate spot. Or he can bring his desk here. He'll do either. He'll do anything.

Wherever and whenever they are, there comes a moment when he stops. A thought, at last, has come into view. "You could tell. You could tell right away that the Azura here weren't the ones to target." He says it without judgement. Just a simple truth. "You're right, I know you're right, but I didn't think about it until you said it."

Above him, a thousand thousand worlds upended to create a pretty picture. About him, the god of love calls it good. In his hands, he straightens his papers. Unnecessarily.

"Does it feel like this...all the time? Holding a knife, when someone you want to use it on is. Right there? It's, well, it's quite a lot. So much that...even though I know you're right. I didn't think about it until you said it."

Dolce of Beri looks to Bella the Deodekoi, Praetor of Nero.

"How did you manage it? All this time?"

"All of the suffering, all of the work. Centuries of war, of effort, of empire. Of painting the sky with royal azure blue."

Dyssia is still staring out the window--the too-large, too-open window, the better to display the universe with to the gloriously new bridge, aren't you so happy you came--with hands limp at her side, shoulders sagging.

"For a picture in the sky."

Where's Irassia? What speck in what quadrant of which picture?

She's not angry.

Which is, itself, strange. It had felt so strong, so pure, just seconds ago. A god just called her scum. She should be foaming, righteous, upset, not--

She should feel something, surely?

Is there--

"Do you think they have a department dedicated to making it happen? Like, you know, some happy cluster of Synnefo, smiling at whoever wants to wreak their will in starlight? D'you think they'd want to outsource their immortality or micromanage every aspect?"

It's…

"How much effort is dedicated to this? For something that's not visible until they turn off the lights? All because…"

Because they recognized, from the beginning, that their grand artistic design was a lie.

Like, sure, paint the map blue. Bring civilization to the frontier. Expand the center. But there will always need to be, you know. The outside. The frontier. The backwater. And there will always need to be people there.

It was never going to happen. It was--

It was always a lie.

As the Alpha of a Ceronian pack, Ember should, by all rights, have an answer to this, all this - to why the Azura think themselves the center of the universe, how their schemes function, on what timeline the sidereal architects work on. As a Princess, Redana should, by all rights, have some political argument against this, some devastating line which punctures their hubris and makes the folly of attempting to immortalize themselves at the cost of an entire universe clear.

But she doesn't. She was never a very good princess, and the Silver Divers are not a politically relevant pack, just another minor scout-pack devoted to Poseidon and his wealth. She doesn't have an answer to Aphrodite's villain speech, and she doesn't have an answer to the constellations. She considered drawing them, just to make sure that they wouldn't be lost if something happened to the Azura and inexplicably didn't happen to her sketchbook, but she gave up when she realized that there's probably artbooks available, each one packed with concept art and contextual articles. That's an art too, after all, and the Azura are all about their art, this art, their use of the entire universe as raw material for their projects. How could they not have artbooks?

So what she does, instead, is the sort of thing that she's been doing since she left Tellus.

She puts her arms around Dyssia's arms and squeezes, and puts her head on the Azura's sholder, and is just there. Good luck trying to pry her off! A lifetime and a galaxy ago, she was practicing on plushies, never realizing that she was preparing for moments just like this. She's steady on her feet, just warm enough to be reassuring, and good at squeezing in a way that reinforces the physicality of the body.

Cry if you like, Dyssia. She will remain steady and present. Take deep breaths and she'll take them with you. Pat her head; it's clinically proven to reduce stress.

You are hurting, and all she can do is this. So it is vital for her to do this.

A breach in the blue. A carcass tears its way into paradise.

Rainbow light bleeds where its hide has been pierced by the cosmic flock. Silver light shines upon its brow where the mark of Artemis alights still. Its jaws hang loose to reveal an infinity of teeth and a storm of insects wraps it like a veil. Liquid Bronze has come, and the oil-slick chroma of his passage stains the perfection of the Skies. King, slave and madman, he has sworn himself to the Earthshaker and carries a shard of chaos into paradise.

Ahead another storm begins to rise."

"My brother has long sought to subvert this domain," said Zeus, wind pulling at her dress, tugging at her hair. "It is the way of brothers. He demands that some things remain beyond understanding, that the unknown should be feared and supplicated. I have never denied him his desire, but I have always known it to be a folly."

The reborn Plousios shudders as the first strong wind hits it. Crystal sails open to catch the wind, turning the ship and sending it through a garden of floating asteroids, each heavy with mighty trees.

"You do not see the humanity in it," said the Thunderer. "And you are right not to. This is no thing of yours. None of your kindness lives here, no equality, none of the stories you value. This is a place for me. I, who carved the atom from the cosmic ocean. I, who placed every star in the sky. I, who wrote laws of mathematics for their beauty alone. I, who breathed life into dead clay, with no plan or higher purpose than the joy of creation. I was here before my brothers and sisters, and I will be here after they have passed. At the dawn of time, standing atop my father's body, I struck a single blow against the cosmic firmament and all since then has been the ripples. I believed I knew how it would end: the ripples would pass, the lake would still, and this universe that I had created would smooth out to the same perfect flatness as before."

She raised her hand, the distant thunder rising. Her clouds were indigo in the daylight, the atmosphere burning the edges of the storm orange, the sky around it teal, the water inside it halo gold.

"So imagine my surprise," said She, "that this place began to form instead. That instead of a passing ripple, a whirlpool began to form. That a tiny micron would sprout, and flourish, and swarm. That it would re-order its own world, and then its neighbouring worlds, their sun, and then other suns. And I saw, for the first time, the Fates reach up to their tapestry of the galaxy's end and begin to unwind the threads of the ending."

A bolt of lightning split the blue, racing against the speed of light as it continued ever on towards that distant speck of coloured light.

"A better ending? A worse ending?" said Zeus thoughtfully. "Perhaps you have opinions on that. For me, it does not matter. All that matters that the Skies are not the ending I thought inevitable. Daughter Redana, you who seek freedom in your heart, perhaps you of all people can understand me. Every day the Azura continue their work is a day I do not know what the future holds."

In the endless distance the endless thunderbolt struck its target. It burned through to the heart. The roar of thunder and wind, the slash of rain, the speed of the Plousious as it rode the storm - all of this came together into a sense of speed and power, of precarious existence balanced on cosmic edge of paradise.

"Can you forgive me this?" asked Zeus.