[IC] Breathless Dead

[Thanqol]

Alexa!

A shiver runs through the ship. The lurch of acceleration. The distant pounding of macrobatteries. This world in the sky is waking to the call of battle.

"The story says that Kronus devoured me," said Hestia quietly, strong arms churning the yeast compound that transformed oats into butter. "And a lot of mortals took that literally. Because, bless them, they didn't understand what it was to have your life consumed by a wicked parent. To have your soul chewed down, blunt and grinding and constant, until it was more exhausting to maintain resistance than to crack. To have acid seep in, thick and burning, stripping away feeling and making gentle things feel toxic and painful against raw skin and heart. They didn't know what it was like to dwell in a darkness that was another's satisfaction. The humans who read those stories understood hunger, and assumed that was all it was. But they missed that some people aren't just hungry. Some people genuinely love food. They love eating it. They love feeling full. They're grateful to the food that goes down easy and gives them a warm feeling inside. The meal can never claim it was neglected."

Her hands are steady as she pours. The compound sizzles as the yeast sterilizes, leading only cream, fat and butter behind. Distant war-songs echo through the halls.

"I didn't correct them. I was glad they didn't get it. I was kind of glad that the worst parent that people could imagine was a hungry giant. But, just like so many of our stories, it was corrupted in our neglect. The rich and powerful heard the story of Kronus and thought, 'ah, so long as I do not literally eat my infant, then I have done no wrong' even as their devouring jaws choked down cities and worlds."

She lifts the heavy bucket and starts pouring the soft and smooth semisolids into glass bottles. The bear-head of her hoodie is lowered, and her dark hair is tied back in a simple bun. Her hands are steady even as deep and distant crashes of battle make themselves know again. "But then, you asked me how I endured it? The same way you did. I didn't know anything else. I did not lift myself from that pit, Alexa. I was rescued. I can't show you the way. Ask another."

Dolce!

"I apologize, Lord Captain," said Jil, firmly taking the pot - and the hand that held the ring. As she spoke the tip of her tail slipped into the ring, wearing it. "But that is not acceptable. We are in the Endless Azure Skies and this is a realm of dedication and specialization. You may not simply decide to intrude upon the space of another, no matter how far you may think them beneath you. Even if you have received dispensation to cook that does not give you the right to trespass on the work of the waiters."

There is a fierce determination in that voice, a genuine courage and commitment. That's a surprise. A battered and terrified slave would have backed down or stumbled. Jil, though - she was fighting for something she believed in, for someone she believed in.

And that's honestly a shock because she's the first Imperial servitor you've ever met like that. Even most Imperial nobles are driven by some combination of greed or fear. But within this lantern burns a genuine fire.

Bella, Skotia, and Vasilia!

The great hall is a storm, and the eye is Beautiful.

She moves through the storm of violence and rushing bodies, drowned in thought, untouched by the mortal world. She steps through all the empty places between bodies and debris and scattered violence, semi-divine mind having done the math on everyone's fighting styles and able to predict every move and motion perfectly. Her head is bowed in thought and her violet eyes flicker rapidly as they process incomprehensible reams of data - only resolving for a second to link with Bella's from across the hall, timed perfectly for the second when Bella's frenzied eyes catch hers. She makes the T-gesture - time out. Something is wrong.

And above it all, Redana's voice rises in command. And then all things truly are chaos.

She has directed her retinue to open fire with solid projectile weaponry. High angle, high coverage. The ceiling rattles as fusilades strike it from her bodyguard, firing volley after volley straight up, causing a shattering cascade of thunder and the descent of billowing clouds of opaque poisonous gas. It does not bring death with it - chemistry lost the arms race to biology long ago - but it brings noise, blindness, stinging pain and confusion. Redana has decided to draw the curtains on this conflict.

And as the smoke descends the only thing that can be seen is a red glow, a devil in the fog, a volcanic rupture in Azura blue. The light of some awful cigar silhouettes a serpentine shape that prowls through the toxic mists. It is hunting. It being visible is no sign of weakness, it's a sign of the most terrible strength there is. Artemis demands brilliance from the most deadly.

Each of you, whose hand finds yours in the dark?

[Phoe]

"Beautiful?! What's going on?"

Her voice is a butchered mess; all of its normal melody stripped away into a charred hoarseness that at once is trying too hard to be heard and not to shout at the same time. Normally she would cringe at her own lack of decorum. Right now, there's no time. Right now she is a sword pulled unexpectedly from the forge and quenched before it's ready. She's burning with the full fury of her battle rage and chilled through her marrow with that single chance meeting of the eyes, with no transition between these two states. She burns hot and cold at the same time, and in some parts of her body in the same place.

Her rushing blood turns to lead in her veins without slowing down to make way for its sudden horrible heaviness. Her stomach seems to have disappeared entirely in a sudden swoop that no change in gravity could hope to match. Beautiful is here, and something is wrong. That means the world has spun out from underneath her feet, and there's nothing left to even cling to.

Bella's legs turn on their own. What was meant to be a death charge becomes an uncertain step toward her friend instead. Her ears droop for just a moment, until she catches herself and scowls as she forces them back to attention. All of her attention shifts to Beautiful. She can't afford to miss anything. She can't, she can't afford to-

The Great Hall explodes in a volley of SP fire. It's not pointed at her, and in such a vast and open room the rapport is fairly muted, but even with all of that in her favor the sudden ringing in her sensitive ears is painful enough to make her stagger. The stench of the smoke belching out of the rifles gags her as much as fresh blood. The flood of bursting lights leave trails in her eye that take the Auspex precious extra cycles turning the mess into something she can still see through. It hurts. Every sense pounds against her brain and it hurts, there's another volley and it hurts and she's going backwards not forwards and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts!!!

Bella howls. The world turns into smoke and evil shapes she doesn't need an artifact in her eyesocket to figure out. Her legs tingle with treacherous weakness when it's less welcome than it's ever been before. She squeezes her eyes shut and claws at her head and face. Her breath is wheezing, snarling, and wet with the notes of anger dripping off of each exhalation. Sense by sense, she forces the world to go dull. With the colors less sharp she can see better. With her ears blocked up she can think. With her nose focused she can breath the air and pick out the strongest, most important bits instead of wincing like a stupid kitten at the noxious stench. With her skin turning numb, she can burn hotter. Move faster. Fight harder. Now she can give even more of herself to the job.

...In the absence of directions, Bella should trust her instincts. Beautiful never said as much, but she was clear about it anyway. She trusted Bella's instincts. She could work with them. Which meant she was breathing in the same danger. Her lungs must be tingling with the awful sting of it, too. Something is here, something ancient and violent, and...

There's no sense to it, really. No reason for it to be true. The first time she met Beljani, she'd asked her what the secret was to turning her Rampant. She'd left Beautiful in her coffin the entire time she'd known she existed, and resisted waking her up until the last possible second. And Mynx was... somewhere far, far away. She hoped. She prayed, in fact. Artemis, if you give a single fuck about... nnnnngh. No.

It wasn't all pleasant. Most of it felt bad instead of good. And there was no good reason for it besides. But Bella can feel her connection to each of these girls wrapped around her throat, and it reminds her of a collar. Her fingers gently brush her neck, but it's not there. Artemis, you stupid bitch, this is her family. This is all you bothered to give her for a family, and now you'd let her watch them all get lost or eaten right in front of her.

No. No. No. Whatever love you have for your servants, O Goddess of the Hunt, show it here and now. Give her, give Bella the strength and speed and skill to take everything in the Great Hall and crush it beneath her claws. Make it all fall on her. Only on her.

There's not a word of prayer spoken aloud. Bella doesn't wait for a sign or a feeling that things will be ok. There's never time to wait and see if the gods have decided to accept her or sweep her from the board before she has to move again. The answer comes the way it always has: results. Only the outcome means anything at all. And if she dies? At least she doesn't have to live with it.

Bella's scream is primal and otherworldly. Even in the cloud and haze and chaos, it's possible for anyone looking at her (and who couldn't?) to see the white flash of her tail whip-flick with desire for the hunt. She hunches low and bursts forward like a thunderbolt, tearing massive gashes in what's left of the floor as she surges straight into the red.

[TheAmishPirate]

Really? Really.

No, no. Makes all the sense in the world. Set up a smokescreen to stun the beast and trust your officer is capable of extricate themselves. After all, the only thing that matters here is that the princess remains unharmed and unbothered. Absolutely paramount. You've got to have the right sort of mindset for this work. It's to Redana’s advantage that she can set aside such sentimentality in the heat of the moment. Lucky her, to work under such a marvelous princess.

The stinging gas billows thick around her; the rest of her tactical assessment would have to wait. Without a word she slips off her perch and floats down to the chaos below. Her weapon is already in her hand. She has nothing to reach out for. With such blessed freedom, she can spare a hand to glide a hair's breadth from the wall as she smoothly falls. If she's granted a warning, at least she can push herself away from instant death.

She holds tight to that vigilance as her vision burns and the room dissolves into muffled cries. Falling, falling, draped in a chemical cloak, she falls yet further down...

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

Dolce offers no resistance as she takes the nearly-empty pot from him. A disturbance might spill some, and even a stain in the servant’s corridors is a stain on the palace. “Ah. I understand. I was far hastier then I should have been, and I've given the impression of insult. Believe me, it was not my intention. Only a short while ago I was a chef, and not a captain, and it would be terribly unfair to assume you knew.” But assume she did. Quite a few assumptions, really. “The change was not just my decision, nor was it particularly simple. Though I did have to choose to take up the role in the end, a good Captain thinks to their duty, not standing.” Unlike the implications that certain individuals had just made.

“But I would not forget the work of the waiters so easily.”

He offers no objection to pot or behavior. His smile is true, as true as lamplight, without a hint of mockery. Not even with a certain ring now dangling precariously from a little horn. “Come, let us go to the kitchens together; the soup must take a precise dash of seasonings before it is brought back.” No, not even taking the opportunity to excuse himself as she continues the work she willingly took on. His steps, too, are true. “I wish I had known we would have such dedicated waiters today. It is not every day one gets the chance to work alongside someone who loves their work so.”

And how can the praise, the curiosity, be anything less than true, too?

[Rolling to Speak Softly: 6 + 5 + 1 = 12. Why does Jill carry such courage and commitment to Bella? Bella, who does such awful things?]

[Tatterdemalion]

—and at the last moment, Skotia is there. Because he alone can see with the eyes of the gods, here and now; because the sound of Bella’s howl is like a knife slipped between his ribs, and he can barely contain old memories that do not belong to him, which insist, demand, plead that he be there for her; because the heroine must be saved from stupid selfless sacrifice by the hero, who values her pure heart but sees clearly what she does not. At the last moment, Skotia is there, and his fingers are around Bella’s wrist, and his heel becomes the axis of the world, as he pulls Bella from her course like a moon pulling a comet into its orbit, as he holds his ground and her unstoppable momentum yanks her to one side, away from the serpent’s hungry jaws just waiting for her, and as he turns, he pulls off his jacket and—

It’s not just a jacket. That’s the thing. Even torn by Bella’s claws, even unbuttoned and disheveled, the jacket belongs to Skotia, to the night, to the privacy of lovers, to the destroyer of kingdoms, to the ruin of man, to the one foe more implacable than Thanatos.

Skotia flings Empty Night into the face of the Azura assassin, and it unravels, floods the room from wall to wall, and there is no light, for

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent serpents of letters,
The generous patrons of art, the lawyers and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants, senators of many committees,
Fleet admirals and sailors second class, all go into the dark,
And dark the eye of Apollo and Artemis, and the Auspex alike
I said to my name, do not be still
but let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the kindness of your God

and there is no light, for they are in a corridor and the lights have all been washed away, but his body is on hers and she is digging a groove into his back as she flings herself against him again and again, building to the strike that will break him like a wall and leave him in pieces as she bounds heedless to her doom, and he is murmuring her name as the skin splits under her silver talons, and the only way that he can say I love you is refusing to move, by saying she’s coming after you, by saying we have to run, and don’t worry, Bella, his undershirt was wet and stained before you began to struggle against him, and now that the SP’s a room and a scene and a hard transition away you can smell him more clearly, can’t you, the sweat and the blood and the desperation to try and protect you, of all people, as if he thinks that you’re something that’s worth protecting, and one hand cups your ear and rubs it gently as he refuses to allow you any other choice but relenting or destroying him.

[Skotia rolls a 10 to Overcome the threat of Thist.]

[Balmas]

Alexa follows Hera, doing her best to shake off the impression that the Plousios is a colossus turning in its sleep. Everywhere they go, the ship's cavernous steel halls ring and re-echo the sounds of a thousand lives preparing for war. They pass the Alcedi, and the staccato rattle of spear-on-spear kata turns the room to a rainstorm. They pass the engine, and the call-and-response of the engine crew's shanty bears witness to the effort of turning the engines for maneuvers. Painted battlecrab legs skitter and scuttle across tiles, snapping claws bashing spears against shield. And below all, the thrummm of the engine is less heard than felt, the star that powers the ship rumbling as it wakes to its master's call.

Frankly, it was less lonely when the ship was empty. Everywhere, creatures bend the knee, offer her respect--she is the Emperor's right hand, the Pallas Rex, she who will lead them in battle. She's surrounded by the loyal, the brave, the followers of Emperor Molech. And yet…

"I am not wrong to reject this," she insists. "To turn from the purpose for which I was designed. These people follow joyfully the call of War, of the Emperor Molech. That does not make it right.

"But what can I do?" She stares at a passing crew of Hermetics, hauling something bristling with crystals. "I cannot harm Emperor Molech. Cannot plot against him, cannot disobey him. And I cannot wait for a rescue that may not come."

[Thanqol]

Alexa!

"The story says that we waited for rescue," said Hera, gaze imperial as she watches the boarding torpedoes cut across the rainbow black towards the dark shape of the Anemoi. "But how could we? We did not know that Zeus would come. We did not know the world would change. All we knew was darkness and hunger and hollow hearts. It was us and the void, day by day, and the void was not about to experience character growth."

Her hand flexes. Perfect jewels. Perfect fingernails. These are not practical, not necessary. She would still be Hera if she did not put in the effort, if she appeared in a simple storm-deep toga like Zeus. If she did not appear flanked by peacocks and golden heifers. Vanity, then? Obsessing over her appearance, over the full grandeur and regalia of what it means to be Olympian even when appearing before the least of mortals?

"Every day we were called upon to fall anew. It did not matter if we had fallen the previous day or had stood tall for years. Everything we were was built atop of the void, towers atop a pit. Every day our father sought to use us for the purpose we were designed, to fill his happy home and gut with the laughter of devoured children. We could not resist. We could not disobey. We had not the power. We only had the shadows."

And you can see the shadow as it closes in; the dark shape of the Anemoi, a pitch black dagger against red-green nebulae. You see its batteries fire and with a crash a vast solid projectile shell smashes through the deck next to you. The windows shatter, the air rushes with the void of space - and then stops. The shell sprays a thick weblike compound out behind it that forms a fragile skin over the breach it left, and similarly webs itself into the floor and the molten metal so it cannot be moved.

And then it begins to pump poison gas. Vast clouds of it, thick and billowing and tinged with violet and flashing with particles. It corrodes away metal like acid. All around the soldiers rush away towards emergency escapes - this entire deck will be unusable until a repair Plover arrives to cut the shell out and burn away the toxic webbing growth that is already spreading from the ruptured shell.

"But we had the shadows!" said Hera, rising up with her back to the wall of poison smoke. "And when you live in the void, how bright the shadows can be! How soft! How healing! The absence of light, the absence of power! Light seeps into everything, power is invasive. They want to pry open every thought and secret. But they tire. They weaken. They lose track. The more things they try to control the thinner they spread themselves, and they can never accept that they have enough so they're always reaching for more."

Impact. The ships have collided, through the coiled and shadowed smoke. The boarding teams are starting to cross. The objective is, as ever, the Engines.

"So do not underestimate the shadows," said Hera. "It is in shadow that you can decide exactly who it is you want to be."

Vasilia!

The darkness comes in rainbow colours. Polycromatic eyes open up to face you, clear through the madness of poison smoke. You may have your differences with the Gods, but you know better than to show any disrespect to Poseidon, Lord of the Deep. He will break your ship. He will break this world. He exists because disaster needs a face. And he smiles with the face of the Azura before settling back into scales as blue as the sea.

When the gods come to mortals in human shape the line between them and that god is blurry. Their advice will be divine, and their prowess unmatchable, but they also are that person. Perhaps inspired, perhaps synchronized, perhaps possessed. The exact nature of the dynamic is one for philosophers to argue over, but the tales of failing to heed someone who speaks with divine tongue are told in the language of ruined cities.

Then you stagger out of the smoke before an aged Azura warrior, the cataphract who sat at the right hand of the Satrap. He wears a scroll-badge that lists his battles in flowing calligraphy and armour engraved with oaths. Silver scales flick amidst his sky blue radiance, billowing white robes and disregard for gravity setting him in the air like a martial stormcloud. Rainbow eyes blink at you. His title is no secret: he is the Furnace Knight, and he needs to be treated with the respect due to an entire tank division.

"You wield the Glave, traveler," said the Furnace Knight. "Who trained you? As a show of hospitality to mighty Zeus, allow me to kill your master, for they have done you poor service."

Dolce!

"Duty," sniffs Jil, with a measure of polite contempt. That golden fire still burns even as she is pulled along in your shadow, lantern razor bright. "I suppose that is what good captains think to. I have served under a great many good captains, Lord Captain. Captains with minds on duty. Captains who were so good at duty that they were extensions of their ship, extensions of their mistresses, extensions of the Empire. I know what it is to have a good captain."

But her mind turns over your admission of your history as a chef. Of your status as a servitor, a bioengineered servant species, an organic machine whose species was built to a purpose. And despite a hostile mind she can find no lie in your gentle voice.

"But duty flows uphill, doesn't it? The obligations of the low to the high. The meek to the loud. And so those bound by duty never blink or turn their heads or look down. Duty, then, sounds a lot like making a virtue out of capitulation to power. And that is not one of the virtues that Lord Apollo teaches us. Lord Apollo teaches us the kindness to combat cruelty. Lord Apollo teaches us the courage to combat inertia. Lord Apollo teaches us the wisdom to see the cracks in the world."

The ring has slipped and fallen from your horn into a boiling pot. In the crash of steam as she pours the pasta therein into a strainer it vanishes from your field of view.

"I do not love my work, Lord Captain," said Jil with the courage of a mouse who has been through the jaws of a cat unscathed. "But I suppose most of the good captains I have served under must have thought I did. It must be a balm to those receiving the fruits of duty to imagine that it is given out of unconditional love. That frees them from all the virtues that are not duty. It frees them from sitting in the dark and listening. It frees them from confronting and banishing warrior cults. It frees them from responsibility. I imagine it is a very liberating life to be a good captain, Lord Captain."

Skotia!

You are bleeding, Skotia. You came within a breath of the ender of breath. It cost you, and you will need gentle hands to stitch that bloody wound before long.

You remember the shape of that shadow, the way it coiled, the way it moved, the way it struck with a savagery that reminded you of Bella's movements mere moments ago. You would have died. Bella would have died. But Artemis lashed it with chains for its attempt, until it shrank away from you. It has not offered her your name, has not consecrated a hunt for you, and by the Huntress' laws it may not have you. Your presence, then, will do more to keep Bella safe than anything else.

[Pay a Price despite your 10 Skotia; Thist is a Threat to the World]

[TheAmishPirate]

Ah.

Visalia bows at once in respect to one who is far, far, obliteratingly far above her present station. "I'm afraid you are at cross purposes, sir Knight. It would be exceptionally poor hospitality for you to remove my head."

Etiquette would demand that she leave it there, let the subtext speak for itself, and allow the one of higher rank to ask further. But etiquette had never been dragged through a choking cloud of chemical warfare, alone in an alien empire. Etiquette was also not staring down the barrel of an unknown sense of humor.

"My only teachers were a single scroll of katas, and my enemies. The former, I met long before I met a grav-rail. Whereas with the latter, I met the two simultaneously," she explains, without returning upright.

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

Dolce’s answer takes time, as pasta in boiling water takes time, or the one learning to boil the pasta takes time. When he speaks, he speaks to her, though his eyes grow distant, reflecting the clouds of steam.

“In the Starsong Privateers, it is the captain's duty to lead the song. The fleet commanders choose the set list, and the captains play the right songs at the right times. But. If they drive the percussion too hard, then the song does not play. If the singers lack the heart to sing from the depths of their souls, then the song does not play. If the instruments are at war with each other, each believing totally that their way is right, then the song does not play. If there are those who do not feel the music, or don't know the words, or simply can't tolerate a war song at full volume..." He gingerly rubs at his soft, floppy ears. "If the captain relies on them, then the song does not play."

“I have not met many good captains like you speak. I don't think they would lead very good songs.”

A salt shaker leaves the countertop. One of twenty drawers slides open and shut. The shaker returns, minus the weight of one ring.

“Which is not to assume that I lead any better. I have been lucky enough to watch some brilliant conductors, and to hear them speak to their work, but the real thing is far harder then it looks. I have no commander, nor other captains that I must stay synchronized with. I am on my own; the choice of song is ultimately mine.” And was it not so long ago that his most consequential decision was which drinks to serve with lunch? “I have a band of thousands, I know less than half of them by name, all while the concert is underway, and the song will play on with or without me. Perhaps if I were a different sort of a good captain, I would find this all a lot easier. But, perhaps, that would just makes other parts much, much more difficult.” He blinks. He turns his head. He looks down, dipping in a small bow. “May I look to your wisdom, then, as one so close to Apollo?”

Your real work. For whose love you put up with all other tasks.

“Does Apollo teach kindness and virtue to your allies, and cruelty and spite to your enemies?”

[Tatterdemalion]

Bella!

Reality slowly bleeds in. Stairwells were involved at one point— no, not stairs, the slow curving slope of their ramps, just steep enough to make the climb difficult, hands groping in the dark. The floor is richly carpeted, the wall is black stone, and there is a rising odor of distant smoke. Here, then, is a maze of guest quarters and servant closets and salons, the shantytowns that spring up architecturally around any ballroom large enough, and one that would be not too difficult to navigate if there were lights, but there are no lights. Lights have died, and there is night.

Sight is a useless sense. Certainly your auspex can tell you his outline, but what good is that when you are entwined and entangled, as he half-pins you against a wall to stop you from bowling him over? No. Rely on the others. Rely on the sound of his ragged breath, the catch and hitch of pain that is being repressed and pushed down, how words come apart in his wet mouth and become pants and huffs of breath until he lashes them together as exhalations. Rely on the smell of blood, fresh, on his palm, trickling down his hip; the Azura’s strike through his side did not rupture any internal organs, but blood is seeping through his body’s attempt to seal the wound, hampered by a potent anti-coagulation toxin. No wonder he can’t make the words come. He’s not close to death, but only because Artemis pulled away the blow at the very last second.

If she had not, he would be dying in your arms, here and now.

Feel his false bravado, how he turns the pain into a clinging strength, how his muscles lock in place when you strive against him, how he shakes with the effort in a way that says he can do this all night, if you make him. How dare he care? How dare he refuse to give up on you?

He needs a lot of things: a bandage (until someone can wash the injury clean and allow it to naturally seal), a shirt (or this one peeled off so he looks like an Olympic wrestler, clammy after a grueling brawl), and someplace where he can sit down and catch his breath for a moment. He needs you to stop fighting him, or else he’ll break himself stopping you. And he needs to stop smelling just a little too much like a broken bottle left behind a long time ago. Doesn’t he?

Or maybe you want to take deeper breaths of his hair, of his sweat, underneath the blood. Redana used to make you think of unthinkable things when she was finished with her Olympic training, didn’t she? And after all that, after the dance and the violence and the way he’s holding you and refusing to let go, the way his hand is on your ear right now, even though he took the blow that should have been yours, even as you’ve torn at his clothes and played with him like a mouse…

Well, you’re allowed to feel many feelings all at once. And even if there’s much more important things to take care of, you’re allowed to have confusing thoughts about pulling open a room and rewarding him while the whole palace burns down around your ears. If you’re going to die, it would be a shame to die without fucking him, you might think—

But you should probably do something about the wound instead. You always have been on the side of those who need your protection (and your carry?), after all.

[Phoe]

By rights it should be easy to force him aside. He's smaller and weaker than she is to begin with, and badly injured on top of that. But every time she strains against his arms, she's pushed back and pinned against the wall. Every time she pushes him away, he rushes back into the space between them with a desperation that disarms her before she can escape.

And every time, his hand. Reaching up. Touching behind her ear. Soft, soothing brushes with his fingers. As if she mattered. As if she wasn't a monster that just tried to burn the world. As if, even now, her comfort was more important to him than the universe.

Bella relents. Or maybe it's more accurate to say she loses. Her battle heat disperses unevenly though her body, and where everything had been thunder and crackling power just a moment ago, it fizzles into a drunken tingling of misfiring bursts. Her body drains of the power robbed by those delicate fingers, and with a sigh that's half a moan she leans back into the wall. She pulls an arm free and uses it to hold the dark stranger against her body in the night.

"All right," she sighs, "You win. I'll stay. I said, all right! Fuck!"

Her head is spinning. Her heart is fluttering unsteadily, and her skin is flushed and buzzing. Every breath makes even the pitch darkness blur as though she'd suddenly drunk several bottles of wine in the span of a second, but she can't stop herself from taking sniff after deep, greedy sniff of her pet's hair. And the perfumed sweat drenched into his skin, and, and, and!

And his blood. Slick, oozing, disgusting blood; she has to drag her tongue across roof of her mouth to keep from vomiting. And still she stands there holding Skotia tight in her embrace. And still she lets him hold her, and even lets him keep massaging her ear until he finally draws out the deep, slow purr from her chest until it's broken up again by how heavy she's breathing. This is what his courage has won him today. She listens to the brave, wet burble of his gasps. She feels his body cut like steel against her softness, and she feels him grow cooler tucked amidst her warmth. She feels the hot splash of his blood seeping into her dress beyond the capabilities of even Beautiful's planning to absorb, and she squeezes her hand tighter around his waist.

There is nothing of Mynx in Skotia. She's not sure if that's a bigger relief or a disappointment. If only there was time to figure it out.

Bella's pinky claw slides his undershirt with a whispered protest of fabric. She feels it brush the skin, but she is gentle so that he barely feels it enough to shiver. She slides the ruined garment off of his shoulders and, ah! Ah~

Even in the impenetrable depths of this dark night, he's pretty enough to take her breath away. She cranes her neck to be closer, to breath more of him in. His breasts are small, stiff, and supple under her palm. Her mouth waters at the smell of them, sweeter than ambrosia. Aphrodite flicks her ear, and Bella's head swims in sudden, dizzying desires to taste them. Suck them. Brush her teeth against them until the whole planet could track them in the dark just from the sounds of his moaning. It... if she's going to die tonight, then, then!

It would be a shame to die without ever fucking him. But so it goes. With some effort, she pulls away her hand to wipe the drool from her lips. And when she lowers it again, all her focus is on his torn undershirt, and tying it tight enough around the wound until she finally feels the flow of blood and then stop at long last under the knot she leaves. She stands there waiting patiently for him to slump into her arms, lifting him by the knee and the armpit to keep from hurting him any more.

"That was incredibly stupid," she says through an invisible smile in the black, "You moron. How bad does it make me look if I need my pet to save me?"

Her feet carry her all of a single step before his groan of protest reaches her ears. The kindest thing that you can say about Bella right now is that she lets that stop her, even with the weight of the ampule pressing uncomfortably against her thigh. She sighs loudly.

"What, modest all of a sudden? Nobody's going to touch you, I promise. Besides, I... it turns out, we're a lot alike. I don't know who I remind you of, but I've got a friend here too that makes me feel the same way. I've barely, mmmh why am I even telling you this? I've known her all of a week, ok? But there's something, something that makes that feel not quite right. Something's telling me I know her much better than that. But she's an Ikarani, if you know what that means, and I've got an hour, three tops, before her brain turns to divine dust and I've got no friends again.

She had a plan, but fuck that. It's dead now, any idiot could figure that out even without her sticking her neck out to warn me all of a sudden. I don't give a shit about that anymore, I just need to find her and... make sure she doesn't forget me forever. So that's what we're doing now. And if you try to stop me, I'll kill you right here. Got it? Good boy."

[Balmas]

"I can see it all happening again."

The Alcedi. Molech's hammers. Shock troopers, heavy on the awe. Skirmishers, taken to their logical extreme. They're the wind, given form and wings and ululating warcries. Only the relatively-tight confines of the ship prevent them from their true potential. They cannot soar over the battlefield and plunge, plunge, plunge into esoteric or engine. They must find the path, must turn from the walls of the phalanx, must zip and turn and howl through the ship, lightning blistering across wings and thrusting them along.

Were they always so terrifying? They can't have been. She remembers the comrades and friends she made--their faces, their habits. Sees them, even now, in the banshees. Hears the cries, and knows that they are of joy, of excitement, of fulfillment of purpose. Remembers when it felt so reassuring to know that they were coming, to turn and feel the ozone in the air.

Now…

"They fall before him. Bow before him, turn to his purposes. A ship now, but tomorrow?"

She shudders as she stares at them.

"I could tell you that I am doing this for other people. That I do not wish to harm them, do not wish to be a tool in the Emperor's hands in once more bringing the galaxy to it knees. And that would be true, I think.

"But it would also be a lie.

"I know that, if Emperor Molech emerges triumphant, I die."

It's blunt, factual, and she hates that she can't keep the tremble out of her voice.

"Maybe not today. Maybe not for a long time. Maybe something that looks like me keeps going, keeps commanding the troops, obeys orders. But I! I, who collect scraps and memories and hoard them. I, who would improve myself, and learn to cook, and share food with friends! I, who can love! I, Alexa, will be gone!"

Only here, in the howl of the chase, can she discuss this. Only here, where none can here, can she be sure that it will not get back to the Emperor. Only in the mechanical action of orders followed is there safety.

"I… It would also be a lie to say I do not want my father gone. But I do not want to want that, if that makes sense? If he could leave well enough alone, if I could plant him on a planet somewhere, and have done, I would. But ever has he sought to control, to own, to dictate. To form the world, to bind people, to his ways.

"And were it not for this seal, things should be so simple."

She is silent, for a while, or as silent as she can be while following her troops.

"Please, Thunderer. How did you first come to raise the sword against your father?"

[Thanqol]

Alexa!

"The story says I killed my father," said Zeus. "I'm surprised by now you still think that's all there is to it."

You see her at work across the battlefield. It is Zeus' to judge victory and defeat. It is Zeus' to fill hearts with fear or courage. Though Athena and Ares may posture, demand, and impress, it is Zeus' final decision in each moment who shall have the field. And in each moment, she decides. Sometimes cool and calm, sometimes brilliant and excited, sometimes lackadaisically or contrarian, sometimes with profound wisdom. But always she decides. Always she is confident in her decision. How? How can she know what she's doing is correct?

"I mean, I certainly struck the man," she said. "But that's not any help to you. You did that already. You ruined him, made him permanently aware he posed no physical threat to you. You damaged his ego and sense of self worth, you saw him cast down and humiliated. And here you are! Still in his power! Fat good that did you, right? I mean, you weren't wrong, it just didn't fix the real problem."

She picks up an Alcedi warrior lying broken-winged on the ground, shivering and coughing as her wounds struggle to close. She cradles her in her arms. "You ever think, Alexa, that these are your siblings? Old Liu Ban created them, same as you. He engineered their entire species and made them his trusted servants. Here they still are, seeming to smile even as he devours them. The machines on Baradissar, too. All broken scions of the same old bastard, same as you." She coos gently to the Alcedi, pressing a hand to her stomach until the girl slips into a deep coma. She sets her down, bloodstains invisible against the indigo of her toga.

She walks through the battlefield on bare feet. Her hair is wild and tangled, brown and curling, only point of fixture the subtle silver wreath upon her head. She is in the prime of her life, old enough to have muscles, will, and a handsomeness. She has a maturity now; not the easily offended pride of royalty, but an understanding of infinite capability.

"I think it's because, even when I struck him, I was still his son," she said. "He kind of always expected that. He expected me to become him, and that was his real trick. The others... they were puppets, objects, but I was something real enough to live vicariously through. To inherit his world and his puppets. He made me strong, you know? Strong enough that if Hephaestus forged an unbreakable chain, and upon one end weighed all the gods and all the worlds, and upon the other was my arm alone, it would not be I that moved. That might was his love. Even patricide couldn't undo it, because that was just a use of the gift he gave me."

She looked up into the heavens of the Anemoi. Kaeri and Alcedi warflocks impact on each other, light and dark, shadow and thunder, the spectacular war of the kingfisher and the owl. Bodies fall soundlessly onto the plastic-like linoleum of the assassin ship.

"No, what broke my father's heart was that I cut my siblings out from within him," said Zeus. "I dragged Poseidon, Hera, Hestia, and darling Hades out of that dark he expected me to maintain. I offered to divide the realms between them. I honoured them, their decisions, their kingdoms. I couldn't be rid of his might, but I could be rid of his belief in it. And when I did, that was when he cursed me and said that I was not his son."

She walked over to the a porthole and looked out at the glowing violet Azura star, away from the turbulence of the battle. She frowned pensively. "And to this day, I still regret not telling him 'That's right, I am your daughter'. It would have been the perfect... ah well. Live and learn."

Vasilia!

"Why?" said the Furnace Knight. There was genuine confusion there. "The Rail is a difficult weapon to master. The level you have learned it to does not provide you with significant advantage. You would clearly be an exceptional warrior if you trained in the techniques native to your Empire. Why study a martial art from Skies you have never visited, for a weapon you did not possess, designed for a physiology alien to your own?"

He paused. "Unless you are an Azura, who has patterned yourself into bipedal shape. Then things make sense."

Dolce!

You see a shadow appear in the doorway behind Jil. Her ear rotates - she hears it too. It's the singer who was at the feast - Beljani, sleek as razors in her coiling dress, holding a strange hollow silver wand delicately between two fingers. She sees Jil. "There you are. Come on, give me the ring, we can still finish the plan," she said.

And Jil has a choice to make.

She looks right at you. All the power is on her side in this moment; she has an assassin at her back and with a gesture she can make you a target. But she hesitates for a moment, caught in the light of rival gods.

"Bella has tried every kindness she could," said Jil, quietly, below the assassin's hearing. "She sought to win Princess Redana back with persuasion and nonlethal means. She has had these assassins since the beginning and never unleashed them, despite her mercy resulting in failure after failure. Now her back is against the wall, the decision is out of her hands and failure is not an option. Even now she has risked everything on the most merciful path she could find. I have never seen anyone strive as hard as her while carrying as much weight as she is. And I cannot let her down."

[Roll to Finish Her with Wisdom]

[Tatterdemalion]

I’ve got a friend here too that makes me feel the same way.

Thank Nyx herself that the passage is too dark to allow the look of Tragic Heroism that works its way across Skotia’s face to be noticed. How his eyes fluttering shut might be mistaken for exhaustion or a flinch at his injury being jostled. No, it makes sense. Whatever he might have been thinking, whatever is passing between the two of them here, it’s for her sake. It’s an apology. It’s not for him.

He must make things right before the end of the night; he has to carve this love into the very stones of Salib, in honor of Hera and Aphrodite. Only once he’s fixed what Redana broke by running, only once Bella gets her happily ever after, does he get to rest. And he won’t do it next to Bella. That’s not part of his story. You don’t get a gift-wrapped servitor as a reward for making things right.

“My Praetor,” he says, bleeding from a far more grievous wound with a brave face and only the thinnest strain in his voice, “I have always and ever been a slave to true love. I swear by my name that you will be reunited with the Ikarani. It is the least I can do as a pet— but you will need your hound.”

There’s a firmness there. The kind that Bella would use to tell the Ikarani she would be needed in turn. “There is someone here who will kill you if she gets her hands on you. She is not permitted to kill me. You might not like your pet saving you, but I am not going to let you die tonight. It’s the least I can do, my Praetor…”

Carried as he is, he can trace the scars of the whip on her back, long-faded but still there. The punishment for the failures of a princess. Each and every one deserved to be taken in turn. “You have been punished for someone else’s sake before,” he dares. “Let me protect you this time. I can take it.”

His side hurts. It hurts like nothing else has ever dared to hurt him. But he only has to stand up under it tonight. If he fails here, he will carry that failure for the rest of his life. That is why he throws himself here before her, tells her to use him as a shield. It’s the only way he can make things right.

[TheAmishPirate]

No, no Azura blood here, not unless my great great great grandparents had a secret they never told anyone.

Funny. All this time she'd been hunting for her past, and now that it's finally found her, the joke lies crouched behind her lips. Ready to spring forth and deflect away. But will it save her any hurt, in the end? Avoid a sting today, and suffer the knife tomorrow. If she even gets a tomorrow.

"It...is a rather long story, sir Knight. Perhaps we ought to move to someplace more-"

The floor rushes in. Her arms flail to catch her. Her arms stay still. Her arms are gone. Impact, in sight only. Stars burst in silence. Through the burning aftertrails, she sees herself lying flat on a floor that feels like nothing. In the distance, somewhere in the realm of ankles, a wisping tendril of smoke and flashes of sparks vanish into a fast-encroaching darkness.

Ah. I was wondering how I got out of that unscathed...

She remembers rising off the floor, limbs swaying weightless, before sight itself goes numb.

[Suffering damage from Bella’s Keep Them Busy. Damaging Courage. Paying a Price for Working Alone: Vasilia loses consciousness. When she awakes, she will not know where she is, and will be unable to return without the Furnace Knight’s help.]

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

His time limit enters, wrapped in delicate ribbons.

Does she see him? Does she care? Ask someone else. He has a mouse, and a small kitchen to attend to. “I see.” And he does. He hopes he does. “Before now, all I had to go off of was the Princess’ word, a scrap from Mynx, perhaps a hunch or two of my own. It wasn’t nearly enough. All this…” Fills in the gaps. Gives him the precious perspective of another pair of eyes. So much to consider. So much to weigh. And yet. “It was not kindness when she forced herself on my wife. Even now, I still don't know why she did it. I don't see any mercy in my death, the death of those I love, and the fate that awaits the Princess. For Bella...I don't know. I still don't know what I ought to make of her.”

“But. Thank you for your answer, all the same.”

The food is ready. Soups and pastas and more ready to be taken upstairs. One by one, he turns down the flames to a low simmer. No burning or boil-over for someone to clean up later. "I wish I had known you before tonight. There's...ah, there's no time. Everything's going wrong, and neither of us can fail. I know what happens when you don't do your job, but this time it's going to be so much worse, isn't it? For you, and for the one you follow. I wish, how I wish there was a way that we could both win. That my job and your job didn't have to be mutually exclusive. I know you don't love yours. You love her. As I love my wife, and all my friends too.”

"I wish you the best, miss. Whatever happens...I don't think this is enough for me to hate you."

There he folds his hands. There he waits. No sword in his hand, no clever scheme behind his back. He has given his answer. It is time for yours, Lantern.

You know where the ring is. You have all the power to seize it. All you will have to do is condemn your enemy to death. On the scales of life, you must judge that his is worth less than another's, for no reason other than you are standing on opposite sides of a fight neither of you started. He is not even giving you the excuse of a drawn sword. No resistance. The choice is yours, and the Lord Captain defers to you freely.

To take the ring, you must hate him enough to wish him dead.

What is your answer? What does Apollo teach of your enemies?

[Rolling to Finish Her with Wisdom: 1 + 2 + 1 = 4]

[Balmas]

Seeming to smile.

Seeming to smile.

The words lodge in her mind like a thunderbolt, sizzling and electrifying everything around it, turning mental pathways blindingly bright.

How often had she seemed to obey? Sat with comrades who seemed to smile? All eying each other, each terrified in their own way that the other was a spy? That one wrong word would leak and filter and climb to the Emperor's ears? Always, on opening up, on showing trust, that explosion of relief? Of "oh thank the gods, we can talk?"

Oh gods, what must they think of her? A figure of myth, standing ever behind Molech, and quick to obey his orders? Always obedient, always fierce, always waiting for the command to kill? Who, on looking on her, would think of her as anything but seeming to smile?

Brothers and sisters, wheeling and fighting and dying above her.

How many of them actually want this? Who among them are simply following orders? Swept along, inexorably, by the will of Molech? Going along with things, as have the floods of Poseidon and the Hermetics, because the cost of resistance is too high?

She swallows hard, and tries to line up the words in the right order. How do you explain that for days, you've done your best to make sure you wouldn't be hurt if they died? Done your level best to avoid names, ignore markings, see them as nothing but tools so that if you're called on to murder them, it won't sting? That her primary concern was not to help them or know them, but to figure out how they might get in the way?

Slowly, she joins Zeus in staring out the window.

"I… I have brought shame on myself, Thunderer. I was so focused on myself, I blinded myself to how my family was hurting. If I can turn them from him--help them realize how he harms them--then that robs him of his power. And with no Father Molech telling them what to be, they can discover what they want themselves to be."

The lump in her throat is making it a bit hard to talk.

"But how can I lead them where I have not gone? How can I ask them to turn from Molech when he bids me slaughter all who oppose him? Even if they all turn from him, he will yet have one soldier."

[Phoe]

Bella's stride is strong and steady, despite the darkness. Not gentle in the way an injured person in her arms might hope for, but quick and smooth enough to keep from jostling too much. She doesn't bother looking down; her eyes are needed elsewhere. In the blackness of the night, her Auspex burns like a deep red lantern. The night hides many things, but darkness is only an ally for denizens of the Anemoi.

"You talk like someone out of a romance holo. If you tried this shit on the Princess I bet she'd be tripping on her own feet trying to work your pants down right now. She's a sucker for this. Or she... look, never mind. Just drop it, would you?"

She snorts with irritation, but pulls Skotia a little tighter against her as she walks. Every few steps, she can't help but turn her head up and around to look at the rooms and hallways around her and see what her gleaming eye wants to show her. Her footsteps fall harder and heavier with each new glance.

She is home. Impossible, but it's true. These are the halls of the Imperial Palace. She knows that bust exactly, there's one just like... that is the one that leads to the Grand Museum, and Her Majesty's Domus Aurea a little ways beyond that. Redana's sprained her ankle again in training, and Bella needs to carry her swiftly but carefully to an infirmary while she insists she's fine, put her down, Bella, it's ok really, her nanites already healed it see?

But she doesn't put her princess down. She makes an excuse about protocol and behavior unbecoming of a maid, and she squeezes her Dany closer. Just not quite close enough that she might feel and notice how wildly her heart is hammering inside her traitorous Servitor chest. She has to force her arms not to tremble, and her palms not to sweat. But she does it. These halls, this moment, this one stupid excuse is all she has left for reasons to be this close. She must be safe. Proper. But the heart wants what it wants, doesn't it? She risks it, and pulls her precious princess fully into the softness of her breasts. It makes her best friend stop begging to be let go for a moment, at any rate.

...Nothing in Tellus would ever be so empty. The guards and servants alone would pack these halls to bursting even in the middle of the night. Finding privacy for even one moment of quiet angst was equal to Orpheus travelling to the underworld. Unless you knew a princess, and had things to clean inside her private chambers. And even then, the privileges afforded an Imperial Pet could never buy her so much... space. Her footsteps echo uncomfortably loud in the cavernous emptiness of these twisted nightmare halls.

She is home. And farther from it than she's ever been. There's a stranger in her arms, because he's too hurt to walk straight (the stupid fuck), and that's the closest thing she'll ever know to intimacy ever again. The Azura halls echo Tellus in a way that makes her wish the nepenthe tucked into her garter was for her. Bella's tail curls miserably around her leg.

"...Listen," she says, and her voice is tighter than it was before, "I like you. But your human. Royalty from... who the fuck knows, by the smell of you. You have a life to go and live after tonight. And you should live it. I'd stay away from the Armada if I were you, but just. Go where you'll be happy. That's a command from your Praetor. There's more than one thing on this planet that's out to kill me now, and it's more than you're up for to throw yourself at all of them."

Her steps aren't steady anymore, but they come much faster. Only decorum keeps her from breaking into a run. Bella is still a Praetor. Her duties demand a certain amount of poise from her, even in a moment like this.

"True love is a lie, Pretty Boy. I tried to love someone once, with all my stupid heart. She took that love and set it on fire, every day. Just for fun. And when that got boring she ran away to punish me for my audacity. I don't give a shit about love. I don't care about a single fucking thing except for finding Beautiful before her Rampancy takes her. I'm gonna save her. And then I'll die. You can't stop it. So don't throw away the one good thing I get to do with my life."

[Thanqol]

Alexa!

"Whatever else you were made to be, Alexa," said Zeus. "You were made to be powerful. A goddess' hand guided the chisel that struck your marble. My breath filled your lungs. No power was withheld. You were not made to be stolen. Were not made to be broken. So the question you should ask, then, is: What is a Command Seal?"

The Thunderer flexed her hands as the entire ship jolted and staggered. Massive pulses of ELF lightning ran through the entire structure of the Anemoi, battling formations coming apart as warriors stopped and grounded themselves and rode out the coruscating power of the incoming energy. Zeus let the river of power pass through her fingers like water.

"Do not get me wrong, Alexa, you are bound. But how large is your prison? What are the walls made of? How alert are the guards? Did Athena gift Molech with a chain tight enough to bind her daughter? You may hurt yourself, may hurt others, by throwing yourself against the bars of your cage. You might suffer in the process, might break yourself... but as you said, that might leave Molech with one less soldier."

Zeus patted you on the shoulder as she stepped again into the waiting skies. "How can you lead them where you have not gone? Go there, of course."

And then there came the thunder, and two ships groaned in shared pain.

Vasilia!

It is days later. The battle has passed, one way or another. You do not know what has come to pass, who has lived and who has died. And you remain the guest of the Furnace Knight.

And beyond his walls is the ocean.

You are on an island. Your assets are a knowledge of the cardinal directions and, if you gave your battered body a week of directed evolution, the ability to grow gills and swim for long distances. You'd reach land eventually, but Salib is 72% water by surface area, so it might take a while. So, for all practical purposes, if you ever want to see the Plousios, Dolce, or anyone else ever again you must have the Furnace Knight's blessing.

He is an excellent host, for what it is worth. He has given you medicine, metanutrient dense food, even the offer of a sailing ship should you desire to leave, all of which are sufficient to clear him in Zeus' good graces. But his castle tragically lacks any sort of map he might offer you, and hospitality cannot be extended to traveling with you.

Quite aside from the specifics of your situation, the island is beautiful. Cascading flows of enormous succulents erupt from every possible services, their long coiling tendrils wafting in the ocean breezes. A small village of red roofed houses lies abandoned and overgrown but for the spectacular painted woodwork kept fresh by an Azura artist lost to her Path and the small family that tends to her. Yellow stone and slashed white cloth stained with faint catches of red speak of an ancient wealth, trade that crosses Sky and Empire. And the blues, naturally, are out in force and radiance. Here, this far from the capitol and this long from noble guests, sumptuary laws can be set aside and everyone might shine their brightest.

You meet the Furnace Knight on the circular rooftop of his stone tower, table groaning beneath a bounty of pears, pomegranates and cherries, contemplating the ruined pier that extends briefly from the cliffs of his island. He is gone from his courtly regalia; his clothes are loose and breezy against the mediterranean climate; his hands are heavy with many deaths.

Not for the first time since you came here, you wonder if you died and arose in Elysium. Hades' brooding presence, sitting atop the battlements and staring out at the waves, does nothing to reduce that suspicion.

Dolce!

"Oh, shit, is that is the sheep?" said Beljani. "He's on the list. Kill him."

And the knife is in your chest. Artemis did not hesitate. Her eyes are cold as she grips Jil's hand and punches the blade through your coat, through your wool. It pulls free with a blossom of scarlet and the Huntress slams it in again. Again. Again. You stagger back, pots spilling and clashing to the floor, still again. Again. No gods defend you; this moment was bought and paid for in accordance with every ritual and years of anticipation. Stab. Stab. Stab, from a frenzied and half weeping mouse, stab, stab, stab.

You fall. Stare up at the shoulder-slumped girl above you as she breathes heavily. The knife drops from trembling fingers to clatter down besides your head. All around you is your final meal, lying in bloody wreckage.

"What did you do to me!?" said Jil through an anguished throat. Slap! Beljani hits her across the face.

"Listen up you little idiot," she hisses. "We are closer to death than even that dying servitor. We are bait to lure out an Azura assassin so that the Master can murder Redana herself. This isn't our last chance, we are already out of chances."

"Murder... the princess?" said Jil blankly.

"And bring down the Empire itself upon our treasonous heads," said Beljani. And even on the brink of death you think that she's right. This is convincing, in an alien way, a wrong way. Your fingers reflexively scratch for the knife, as though they wanted to finish the job and save her the trouble. "We are standing in our graves and the only way we get out is atop a pile of corpses. So we finish. The. Plan."

"But -"

"Give," said Beljani, and her voice was not cold. It was desperate. Feral. And it wasn't speaking to Jil, it was speaking to Jil's blood. "Me. The. Ring."

And then, just like that, the Azura ring was in Beljani's hand - and Jil had slumped down to the floor, face in her hands, gritting her teeth through tears.

Beljani stands there for a moment, holding the ring, looking down at the devastation she has wrought. She hesitates for a moment. "Just... get through this," she said, a shadow of guilt passing across her face. "Just stay here and get through this. I'll keep Bella alive, keep my family alive. I promise."

And then she glances nervously through the door and goes out the way she came.

[Damage your Blood]

[Tatterdemalion]

”No!”

Skotia’s vehemence rings out dangerously in the dark, his fingers curling tight on Bella’s dress. He is firm against Bella’s softness, his muscles taut against her skin. He’s not blushing any more, the way he lit up when accused of talking like a character, a barb that hit squarely and left him acutely embarrassed. No: he burns, but not with embarrassment. With passion. With pain. And with indignation.

“I’m not giving up on you, and she didn’t either,” he says, one arm around her shoulders, forehead resting against her cheek. His breath is only a little ragged. “Isn’t it obvious, Praetor? She wanted to save you. She was stupid and selfish and impulsive, but she left because she thought the whole universe was the only thing big enough to give you, to give her loyal kitten.”

One hand crawls up his neck towards his face, but he almost playfully nuzzles it into Bella’s neck, the way that Redana might have when they were both so small. “Besides. How was she supposed to give that love back, even if she’d been smart enough to see it? Her holos were full of slave-girls and servitors being saved from cruel masters who wanted to force them into bed by the heroes and heroines. How could she have ever touched you and known that it was because you wanted her, not that it was only because she wanted you?” Skotia’s voice isn’t entirely his voice any more; there’s a quality to it, an antique, like listening over long-gone radio waves. It’s not just Skotia talking. “She probably dreamed of you every night. Of how it hurt when you struck her, how she never thought you would; how betrayed you looked, stuffed in that closet, and how much it hurt to leave you behind; that you must have thought her stupid, and that maybe she was. No, that she definitely was. And that you knew it now, too.”

One hand finds hers, wraps around her fingers, holds it close to his throat. Close enough to choke. He simply trusts, despite everything, that she will not. “Because you were always the clever one, Bella. The elegant one. The pretty one. The one who could fill out a dress. Do you think she never compared herself to you? She, small and artless and flat, an athlete who could never live up to her mother’s expectations, living beside someone who effortlessly, seemingly effortlessly, fit into her social role and found happiness in it? She wanted you and she wanted to be you and she wanted to be good for you, and she couldn’t be any of those things, so she ran off to make a universe where maybe she could be. And when I look at you? I can see it, Bella.”

In the dark, his eye gleams for a moment, a sea-blue. In the dark, his lips on her neck are just like the princess’s. In the dark, he smells of cigarette smoke mingled with a familiar cologne. In the dark, he could be her, except that he speaks with a clarity and cleverness that she never had. But he’s just as idealistic, in his own way.

“You deserve the kind of love she couldn’t give you. You deserve the kind of life you could never have at her side. And you deserve love. So, no, my Praetor. Tonight, by the stroke of midnight, you will be reunited with your lover, no matter what it costs Skotia of Paris,” and there, the deep cut, the joking reference to The Golden Apple, to Bella in the garden reading out loud to a princess burying her face in a pillow as her purr accentuated the passion, and there too the martyrdom, the tossing-aside of his own feelings, the same impulse that led to the splitting of pancakes in bed, “or may Aphrodite open my ribs and remove my beating heart for my failure to beauty, love, and truth.”

And he nips at her neck, the hand tossed around her shoulder reaching down to pull her dress to one side, and in the dark it could be Redana, couldn’t it?

“How’s that for a holo, Bella?” And in the dark that could be Redana, too, making a dumb joke that makes those fluffy ears burn and makes fingers want to knead an apron, that send lightning down that perfect spine to the very tip of that white tail.

[Phoe]

Again. She is thrown violently back in time to the grand halls of Tellus again. Every breath, every halting step, and every frantic flicker of her eyes only confirms what her heart is desperately wishing was true. That she is back. That she is home. That she is loved.

There are fingers playing on her jaw. They feel cool and soothing against the heat of her skin as they brush up her face in one direction and then flutter back down in the other. The skin that touches hers is roughened by months of work aboard a derelict space ship, but the texture excites her. Up and down, up and down. Skotia pulls a shivering breath from Bella's lips.

There is breath against her neck, hot and steaming and perfumed. Her nose tingles. Her brain tells her she smells mint. Her eyes flutter in helpless pleasure. And then she feels lips. And then teeth, the tingle and pressure of tiny, gentle nibbles on her skin. Too delicate to be possessive, this is an act of worship.

There is lightning racing through her body. Every touch, every squeeze, every teasing weight pressed into the softness of her body sends columns of surging pleasure racing from the tips of her ears down to her toes. She is not strong, here in the night darkened embrace of her home. She is better than strong. She is wanted. There's a hand working at the plunging line of her dress and pawing greedily at her breast from underneath the fabric, and another pleasuring her jaw. The weight of an entire person giving all of themselves just to attend her own delight, trusting in the strength of her arms to keep him from falling to the floor even as he spends every effort turning her legs to jelly.

There is a honeyed tongue speaking words to fill her heart, words to fill her mind, words to make her heart tremble with desperation. And then that tongue slides up the length of her neck and across her face, all the way to her lips. She feels the warmth and the wet spreading everywhere at once. It consumes her.

She is home. She is dreaming, don't wake her up. She's home and these hands belong to Her and this voice belongs to Her and these kisses are Her kisses and these whispers are Her whispers and it must be true, it must, because everything is right. The hardness of those muscles is exactly what she remembers and the slightness of the body is right too and she smells it, she can't have but she swears she does, she does, she does, the sharp aroma of her Princess' sweat just barely not covering the floral sweetness of her perfume. She is home. Loved. Wanted. Loved. Loved. Loved! Greedy, possessive fingers squeeze her until the noises start, and among the moans, her confession:

"Re, Reda! Redana..."

Bella shifts. She has to, if her dress is going to come off. That tiny motion tugs her skirt across her garter, and presses the vial against her thigh. And that little bit of pressure turns her moan into a scream. Her muscles freeze to adamantine hardness in the space of a single breath. Her mouth closes and her teeth clench through the drool still dribbling out her lips. She reaches. Down in the deepest core of her body, she feels the spark. Her hand trembles as she reaches for Skotia's, even now holding him aloft. But she does reach for him. She takes his hand, and pulls it off of her. Her next sniff catches the acrid stench of cigarette smoke.

And she screams.

Stone floor cracks under her heels where she plants her feet. Her spine straightens and then arches over backward in pain and in power as she tosses her head back and shrieks with the kind of foul primacy that could scare a beast like the Eater of Worlds into hiding. She howls in a horrible, shrill pitch which echoes through the halls and shatters every illusion of where she is and what she has to do. Nobody could miss her, not in all the planet. The noise she makes will haunt the dreams of hundreds of Azura tonight. Maybe more. But who cares? Fuck them. Fuck everything. Fuck--

"Aphrodite!!"

Bella crushes the head of a serpent statue with enough moss and grass grown over it in that way of reclaimed garden fixtures that it must have survived the bombardment of Empress Nero all those hundreds of years ago, and must have thought it had outlasted danger forever. It could not survive Bella. Her lungs fill with the name of the god of love, and she spills it through every corner of the Satrap's domain. Her voice is venom to crack stone, shatter glass, wilt flowers, rust spears, crumble warriors into dust. It's not enough. She throws Skotia away from her with a gentleness that belies all the rest of her crackling aura, and her deadly eyes.

"You bastard! You old twisted fuck!" she screams through a cracking voice and a face already filling with tears, "What do you want from me? What else can I give you?! What gets to be mine? What? WHAT?"

Her claws tear down a wall that looks too much like his face. Bella seethes. She hisses and shudders and pulls at the air around her face, held from touching herself as if by some invisible force. Her howls are cut short by sniffling gasps, this ragged, feral thing in fancy clothes that belong on people. That were put there by a hand that knows her better than herself. The Auspex shows that hand slipping away from her into shadows forever, and her ELF cuts through the night like a sword.

"I gave you my whole life! Every last fucking day of it! Fuck you! Fuck you and Apollo both! What was the point of stringing me this far along just to drop me on Artemis' fucking hit list, you miserable wrinkled bastard? Fuck you! I'm not going out pining like some horny useless slut! Let! Me! GO! If you think..."

The night cracks. It splinters along a thousand fractal lines spinning along a web of power with Bella at its center. And with a swipe of her claws she shatters the cloak of darkness into nothing, and the Endless Azure Skies come rushing back into view. Bella trembles with the effort of containing the rush of power trying to tear her body to pieces.

"Just try and stop me from protecting my family tonight. I'll kill you too, god or no."

[TheAmishPirate]

Most of a lioness emerges onto the rooftop to join the Furnace Knight. Gone is the bombastic style of a Captain, or even the regalia of a trusted lieutenant. She wears the garb provided by her host; lightly colored to reflect the heat, breezy in the wind, unrestricting for invalid and initiate alike. Without finery to hide behind, the weaknesses of her bloodline stand exposed in the sunlight. The base ingredients faded long ago, yet their legacy remains. Too muscular here. Too soft there. Claws sharp, but not sharp as they should be. She pads across the bare stone, too loud for the predator she might have been. Not enough herbivores in her family tree to still the rumbling in her stomach, as she arranges a platter of choice fruits to graze on. Why would snakes have fangs like that if they never wanted for meat?

It is one of the few harmless curiosities here. She savors it as much as the fruit.

Of her newfound wealth of knowledge, she has added a few more treasures: Wherever she finds him, the Furnace Knight always stands a little off-center, always leaving a little room for her to join him in his contemplations. He will not answer every question, but neither will he despise one, asked respectfully. Hades is not always present. Hades is never far. Neither are in a rush to explain themselves. With these jewels, she buys herself some comfortable distance from the uncomfortable possibilities of Lord Hades. She takes a spot beside her host, leaning against the battlements to take the weight off her blackened ankle. She picks over her meal. She takes in the worn-down island.

She knows she has to start somewhere.

“Why stay here?” She asks, into the silence. “Salib is a ruin. Everyone I’ve seen is either a slave to the past, or profiting from the former’s enslavement. There’s no desire to change themselves or the status quo. It has been this way, and it will be this way for a long, long time.” There is familiarity in her assessment. A little spite, yes. But a spite that can only come from someone who’s lived through the same hell, and knows its face well enough to despise the details. “Your home itself is isolated, I don’t take you for the type to get involved in the rest of high society without cause. So why are you bothering to stay around? Why an old island on the same planet, when you could live anywhere you like?”

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

A good servant carries out their work with silence and efficiency. The only sign of their passing should be a task completed to perfection. Come when called. Speak when spoken to. Disappear afterwards.

It is only natural that the chef should cry when there are none but the waiters to be disturbed by his sobbing.

All that is familiar is dead. His body is wrong, in ways he never knew it could be wrong. She stole the strength from his limbs. Nothing moves without pain. Some things move without asking. She stole the softness of his coat, and replaced it with empty holes and sticky iron. She stole the gentle bleat of his voice and all he has left are ragged cries. No way to breathe right. Burning. Sweating. Freezing. Cold. It’s so cold.

Hard to think straight. Hard to see any of it. It’s not possible. None of it’s possible. Despair, so deep and so total as to entrap completely, even with no one around to enforce it. How?! How can something so horrible be real? How can, how can so many live...how do they live? What, must it be…?

The waiter clutches her face beside him. She shakes. She heaves. She doesn’t see him. Doesn’t see the knife in his hand. Covered in, covered in, no, no, that’s not, it’s the knife. In his hand. Raising up. Knuckles white. Nothing left to color them.

*CLANG*

Piercing the slop. Ringing off the deck. Louder than his voice can manage. His hand falls. Catches her sleeve. Tugs. His eyes screw shut. The tears still leak out.

“I...I’m sorry…”

His breath comes in shallow gasps.

“I...knew it was bad...couldn’t...how much worse it was, for...you…”

Be herself. Be another. Somewhere in there, she would hear him. She, she had to hear him…

“I didn’t know...I’m sorry, I....I didn’t know….”

She had to know this wasn’t her fault.

[Pay a Price: Spending a Food for the ruined meal]

[Balmas]

You know, the first time that Mynx brought her one of Redana's Azura romance novels, Alexa told herself she was just looking for information? The Azura! The one empire Molech never conquered, but must have spent time with, because that had to be where he originally got the seal from! Surely, there might be valuable ideas in there.

A few hours later, Mynx had had the good grace to act shocked when Alexa asked for the next in the series.

Daring rooftop chases! Duels for each others' love! Swords, smirkingly placed against lifted chins! Harems! Dungeons! Djinn!

By book three, she'd quite forgotten about command seals.

Not that there'd been a lot of good information on them in those books, anyway. They'd served mostly as plot elements, changing and shifting to fit the needs of the plot. Our daring heroine has received a beautiful but impudent djinn as part of an inheritance--the command seal means the djinn can't harm her, but can she win the djinn's loyalty, and maybe her heart? Or maybe our heroine has been, herself, captured by a stunningly powerful djinn, and bound with a seal. Can she find a way to escape? Does she even want to? By the end, is the seal even needed for her to do what her lover asks?

Not something you can use to break centuries of programming, is the point.

Then again… the command seal isn't perfect, is it? Even the twisting fiction of Azura romance novels agree that it mainly forces surface-level obedience. The djinn in the story can't disobey a direct order, no. But they subvert it all the time--twist it, interpret it to their own ends.

How large is her prison?

If she could get around the command to obey, then everything else would fall. That's the linchpin, the rule holding every other command up. But it's also the trickiest, the least open to manipulation or misunderstanding. What's there to misinterpret about "obey my commands?"

At least the next two are more open. Oh, she'd despaired when he'd given those orders. Kill herself if he dies, and return to him if ever he's captured or lost? Together, those two ruled out so many of the options for how to get rid of him!

But… if she can turn the Alcedi, he doesn't have to die. And he won't be lost if he's enshrined in a place. Captured is trickier to figure out, but that's also a definition that's very subject to interpretation. She'll work on that, she has ideas.

Hmm. She's playing a dangerous game here. She's only going to get one shot per loophole she finds. Use it, and then Molech will close it. But… Maybe that's also a good thing. The more rules he issues to her, the more commands she has to follow, the less useful she becomes. She doesn't want to think in these terms, but… She's already broken, isn't she? She's going to have to break herself more to fit through the cracks that are left.

For now, though, there are lives to save. People--her family, her brothers and sisters--are hurting and dying. She clambers and scales the wall, trying to get above it, make sense of the chaos. For this to work, she needs the Alcedi on side. Needs to know their morale, how the battlefield is going. Needs to know whether she can pull out this win, or whether it's time to retreat.

[Look Closely: 8. Tell me about the Alcedi. What are they doing? What will they do next? Specifically, I'm looking for stuff about morale--are they holding? Do they look eager for the fight? Are they turning to run? What percent of them look like they actually want to be here? How many wounded? Etcetera.]