[IC] Breathless Dead

[Balmas]

Dyssia hems and haws, and holds up two hands as if to mimic a scale.

"So, to clarify, on the one hand--" and the left hand dips, cupping as if to feel the weight in it, "a life of ease, requiring me to submit to the whims of the skies, but which rewards me with infinite resources, infinite privilege, free time, the chance to perfect myself, the certainty that we have crafted the universe in our image like someone who hasn't quite learned about hubris yet."

The left hand rises at the same rate as the right hand sinks. "And on the other, a harrowing life of struggle, underfunded, underclassed, perpetually on a shoestring budget, harried from planet to planet by an empire larger and more willing to stoop to the heinous, requiring me to think on my feet in the service of people who may or may not welcome my help, with no resources or assistance and with much more demanding personal ethics while making myself an enemy of the public good in the name of

"Do I understand correctly?"

This is the moment, isn't it? The call to adventure.

Or, like. You know, the call happened a month ago. Two months? A time.

The scales balance momentarily, wobbling, and she grins as the right hand drags itself down.

It feels… liberating. Like a relief, almost. Like the shoe has dropped, and it's because she dropped it, and-- and she's able to say things she's been thinking to someone who agrees with her, holy shit--

"Where do I sign up?"

[Tatterdemalion]

Ember tumbles out into empty air.

Her eyes are trailing tears as she cartwheels. Her nose is full of not-scent, burnt and acrid and hideous. The starchoked sky spins overhead, blurred with pain. She clutches Sagetip to her chest as tightly as she held Mosaic.

She's used to losing, see. It's just that Mosaic is important enough that she needs to make sure they both lose, her and her clever battle-sister. It's just that she's used to being punished and having to power through torment to make her stronger. It's just that she's not the smart one, and all she can do is go forward.

Or, in this case, forwards, to the side, and then down at increasing velocity.

Above, a retort. The sharp kind (are there soft retorts?). A flash that is just another streaking star across her vision. If she could make a sound without wanting to throw up because there's SP smoke choking up her lungs, she'd make some sort of victorious squeak and--

The ground hits her like Waverunner tossing her off a cliff and into the sea, but it doesn't part for her. It's just the ground. She hugs Sagetip to her chest, limbs locked painfully tight, a smoking barrel still pressed between them, and hopes that eventually the sky will stop wildly spinning like one of the tops that the kids here like to play with, wobbling, that's the word, wobbling in looser and looser circles around the tip.

[Ember marks damage to her Sense in a senseless action.]

[TheAmishPirate]

“So. If I have this right…”

“The Skies employ a…digital intelligence, yes? A digital intelligence who will render tens of thousands homeless for the sake of a mineral deposit, and whose representative will not stop to check if those persons have gotten out of the way of their mining lasers before firing. And anyone taking issue with their work must progress through the entire government of the Skies, right up to the Saoshyant.”

“Meanwhile. The Crystal Knight has ordered all of those persons into forced labor, where if they do not complete the work in time, or you object to her decision and the matter gets tied up in official review, the Royal Architect’s representative will kill them all. For the minerals. She knows this, and is using it as leverage to get what she wants.”

“Is that correct? These are the…actions in accordance with the virtuous ends of the government's highest vision? There is no individual’s pleasures and will that need overriding?”

[Thanqol]

Mosaic!

You cut as a God might cut.

This is no poetic flourish. To do anything as a God might is to enter the realm of the Divine. In a shining moment of aristeia you are no longer a ship buffeted by invisible winds and storms; you are the wind. You are the storm. You are outside and apart and you can see a galaxy with no empty space. You can feel the living sky, wet with the breath of Zeus. You can feel the fangs of Mars try to sink into the scales of Hera as they twist about, two enormous serpents, spear and shield. You cut but you wield a secret sword and it is not a thing of death, or war, or rebirth.

You cut instead at desire.

When you open her heart, words come rushing in place of blood. "Bored," they say, in the voice of Taurus, in the voice of Epistia, in the voice of Aphrodite. "Bored bored bored! Everyone is old, everyone is slow, everyone is inert. Nothing changes. Nothing happens. Nothing happens that I do not make happen. I am young and strong, and strength must be used. To have strength and not use it is to rot. To become ingrown. To be unappreciated. To be unrecognized. See me. See me! See my strength! Let it change the world! No one else can. No one else will. It doesn't matter how. It doesn't matter as long as I can be myself."

This desire is not hers alone.

Standing close by is Aphrodite, and behind him stands the dream of wolves. It towers to the heavens and the ruins of civilizations drip from its jaws. A colossus, the nightmare of barbarians at the gate, the yearning howl to crack the walls and blow your house in and devour the riches of empire. The words of craving spill from Taurus in a flood as she scratches at your shoulders, at your wrists, seeking even now to overpower you. You tumble together into a violent embrace as the desire of wolves soaks your breast and fur. It seems amidst this divine blood there is no space for the girl who was called Epistia - no space but what you might cut.

Ember!

You stare up at the sky. In the vast distance, past the clouds, amidst the stars your golden eye can see something burning. It glitters and focuses - a shape of thrones and trees, an empire in red and saffron. Galactic Reclaimer Unit 04. A... brother of kinds. Something made by Nero's hands. You can feel it calling...

And then it's blocked out by Gemini's face. She puts her foot on Sagetip's unconscious back and stomps down, squishing her into you into the dirt. "Oh!" she said. "You bothersome -! Everything is completely off the rails now, and it's all your fault!"

Every Ceronian is vulnerable to Gemini - and Gemini is vulnerable to Taurus. She pouts down at you, puffy-cheeked, loudly expecting your apology.

Dolce!

"Oh, I see what you are saying!" said 20022 brightly. "Yes, good show, you're thinking about simply pulling rank on the Crystal Knight. Unfortunately she quite effectively outmaneuvered me - she made a humble request for a few weeks delay, which is prima facie reasonable. She knows that a digital intelligence like the Royal Architect is rather unreasonable and will disregard her reasonable request. This would grant her a legitimate grievance and give her a free hand to perform any of a dozen political maneuvers, dragging both ourselves and the Service into disrepute - especially if what was destroyed is valuable, which I believe it is. We could make some sort of power play against the Crystal Knight in this situation, or we could roll up our sleeves and use a bit of elbow grease to make sure that everyone walks away from this satisfied."

Dyssia!

The Publica.

Open revolution against the Endless Azure Skies is neither possible nor desirable. The sapphire knights of the Skies hunger for such an obvious battle, they crave it, they will travel across the galaxy to put themselves in harm's way that they might provoke it. It cannot be offered to them directly. They cannot be torn down.

They must be built around.

The core of the Publica is the act of institution building. The construction of communities, networks, the forging of a social contract. The Skies releases servitor species like an ancient Tallship might dump a cargo of pigs on a tropical island, unleashing an invasive species so that at a later date they might come by the island and harvest the results. Taking these untamed, fatherless civilizations and convincing them they have something to look forwards to beyond the butcher's block is a task for heroes.

You are sent to a world of twisted, nightmare forests. Biomantic beasts prowl in the dark, nightmares that keep isolated communities from coming into contact. After months of battle you assist in months of negotiation, negotiating the details of the peace treaties between monsters and servitors.

You are sent to the heart of a sprawling ecumenopolis, an industrial city-world in the core of the Skies. An attempt at unionization ignited a crushing backlash from the Skies, collapsing an entire hive-spire. Amidst the neglected ruins it was the red and white flag of the Publica that raised, offering medical care, reconstruction - and government.

You are sent to a idyllic landscape of white clouds and green hills, ground darkened as a crusade armada gathers overhead. The princess of this prototype warrior servitor species dared to defeat the Molten Knight in single combat, an outrage that caused the Skies to launch a thousand ships to remind them of their place. Through daring speed, skill and piloting you snatch the princess out from under their fangs, the entire crusade fleet turning to pursue you and leaving the world unscathed.

One mission translates into another, finding ways to connect a galaxy grown distant from itself. The Dust Knight travels with you, teaching you secrets of sword, rail and command. He is grand in his way, but he is old and his imagination is limited - an old warhorse who will default to violence even if there is a better way. He has much to teach you, both as an example both shining and abject.

[Phoe]

No god may undo what another has done. Mosaic gazes upon the mountain, the colossus named Desire with the eyes of a divinity, and the words form in her mind unbidden. She understands now, seeing it. Why Zeus does nothing. Why Hera does nothing. The shadow of the Dream of Ceron looms over her, it slavers and drools and soaks her beautiful suit as she tumbles down toward an abyss she cannot see out of, and every part of it is whole. Complete. There are no loose threads to be pulled that might unravel it, no lines that could be cut that would slay it. This is not the mountain that she promised to steal. That feat is beyond her, moreso than ever.

But.

She falls. She feels the scrabbling of claws against her shoulder and she tightens her grip. She feels the pull of gravity and the kiss of the wind and she suffers their touch with grace and beauty. Sharp and ugly voices bite into her like the fangs of some apocalyptic beast, and they sap her strength. She endures it all without flinching. She listens. She watches. She tightens her grip on her sword.

But.

"Strong?! What good is strength? What's that even mean?!"

The words are a shield around her arm. She swings it as one might a hammer, battering aside words and whispers, stings and barbs. She slams it against Taurus face as they fall, again and again and again as 'bored' echoes across the land and drifts past the clouds to sigh among the stars.

"You are nothing. A beggar. An idiot pushing a stone around in a circle because you can't figure out what to do with it! What do you do? What do you make happen? Movement in no direction is the same thing as sitting still, moron!"

Mosaic's sword arm is strong. She crashes down onto something hard and firm, but the shock of the impact doesn't wrench the blade from her hands. She holds it steady, even manages to twist it just enough to open a notch in Taurus' heart. Not a large one, but space enough for a girl who might be called something else to answer back.

"You can't change the world just by being strong. Look at you. Look around. What have you done? Why does everyone look down on you? Because you dug a hole, and now they're all above you. Stop this. Say something new. I'm bored."

[TheAmishPirate]

There is much work to be done. It will be some time before sleeves are allowed anywhere near the wrist again. His training is not postponed, per se, but altered. On-the-job training, where it can be found. An assistant, to take up what tasks he can, to keep 20022’s plate even a little more clear that he might take up even more vital work. No longer can they afford the luxury of two Synnefo in a room together. He is free to make his own way. He is free to act, to carry out his tasks, as best as he sees fit.

What does he see, then?

He sees days of tea and light refreshments brought before an ever-gracious Princess who always has time to chat with a soft, friendly face. Their talks wind through the halls and gardens of the Triden’s mountaintop monastary. Always somewhere beautiful. Always somewhere separate, from host and teacher. He sees every storeroom twice a day, and when he looks at a careful little list in his pocket, he sees the household down to the last scrap of paper and drop of ink. He sees hallways in active construction, active renovation, active re-beautification. Every road between him and his next destination, a place where no Azura would care to linger. He sees his primary job carries two responsibilities: Manage the busywork. Stay out of trouble.

He sees more of Bitemark than he ever has from a distance he could have only dreamed of. There are tallies of every soul in every village in the peninsula and surrounding countryside, numbering into the tens of thousands. He sees the official records of species, past service, current occupation, imagined purpose, fitness for work. Quotas appear for each village, and grand estimates are devised and stacked against the crumbs of details from the Sector Governor. He sees complex mathematics spill across pages, arguing convincingly that ten frail bodies might equal a healthy one, in the right conditions. So many hours of rest might cancel out infirmity and age. The quotas rise higher.

He sees the careful weaving of correspondence to the Architect’s representative, informing them of the particulars of Bitemark’s atmosphere at this time of the year, and all will be well just two days after the date in their last message. The end result is a masterwork; one would never have imagined it was written amidst a full-scale mobilization. He sees a handful of Corvii pulled from their swelling ranks to affix a mounted collection of tiny skulls to a place of prominence in the house. Another gift from the Crystal Knight in case the previous ones were lost. When they finish, they return to their drills. March street by street. Keep to the timing of the drum. Wash over the village and herd the unwilling before them.

He sees the same lines bubble up through his thoughts, burning and steaming and red-hot and unignorable. Today it is skulls. Later this evening it will be chains. Tomorrow it will be prayer. He has put each of them to bed a hundred times over. He will relitigate them a hundred times more. Sleep is a luxury harder and harder to come by. The full body of his work spans the entirety of that day several times over, to a level of detail that could count the breaths between words. The premiere work on the subject, and he its studied author.

He sees 20022 at least once a day. Their conversations are brief. There is too much to do in too little time. They share their progress. They take comfort in sharing a heavy load. Dolce receives his orders. They part amicably.

He sees what had been a steady refrain in his thinking become manifest; all this was, after all, just the view of one sheep.

[Balmas]

Why do they need to push the rock, though?

It keeps bugging her, you know? The only thing worse than pushing the rock is not pushing it. And she hadn't said anything at the time, because she was busy, yes, geeking out, and then there was all the work to pick up the pieces, and then she had been out there doing things, and it'd felt so good.

But the entire point of the story, right, of the guy pushing the rock up the hill, right? Is that it doesn't work. Sisyphus or whoever spends all that time and effort and sweat, and every time it rolls back down. It's like--he doesn't get that his story is a tragedy, right? He's trying to live in the kind of story where he's successful and powerful and a king and can outthink, outfight, outwit the rock.

They're fighting a losing battle.

Nobody's willing to say it, but it's true, innit? It's a good battle! She's out here, she's seeing the galaxy, being helpful, and doing something nobodyelse is doing, for probably the best cause she can think of. It's a fight she can't stomach the idea of not fighting.

And maybe that's the problem.

Put yourself in the spot of the king, right? Invincible hill, massive fuck-off boulder, and capital-S Success at the top of the hill.

But the king, at least, can find success in other places. In leaving the boulder behind. In carving the boulder into stone to build a home. Put up a plaque, In This Day In The Year 20086 The King yada yada yada'd, and boom, now you have a monument.

But for the Publica, the mountain is sentient, and fickle, and can come smash any town you might build somewhere else, and also owns the infrastructure you need to build somewhere else, and it keeps shitting all over the mountain.

And they've been winning, right? She's feeling super good about what she's doing.

But none of that changes that the Skies are building the mountain more quickly than the Publica can take it down.

Did Sisyphus ever feel like this?

It's like. She can see the trajectory if left unchanged. But the only other trajectory she can think of is, you know, a massive public campaign where she, outcast and red-robed, somehow convinces the shah and all her men to change course on a project that's been in the works since… well, since forever.

But what else can she do? The alternative to pushing the rock is, well, not pushing it. And there are too many people who'll get hurt if she doesn't. She just has to hope that she figures out something else before, you know, the worst comes to worst.

[Tatterdemalion]

"Gemini."

It's not so much a greeting as it's a statement of fact, breathlessly muttered by a bleary-eyed puppy. That is Gemini. Gemini is who is speaking. You are Gemini; I am not Gemini. That is the level that, for a moment, Ember's brain is working on. But she is a daughter of Ceron, and a particularly healthy one at that. She took very well to the genemods, bears incredible stamina, and has never broken a bone in all her time among the pack. So it is hardly a surprise that she is able, once Gemini moves her foot, to shift Sagetip's heavy body onto the street beside her.

She sits up onto her knees, and then dives back down to the pavement, pressing her aching head against the cool stone. It is damp with the breath of dawn.

"Honored scentmistress! I have acted as honor and love demand, but I know I deserve no mercy for my crimes!" No mercy. Gemini's love is merciless, a scythe with which she could defeat entire armies, were it necessary. Her love is a net, a gag, the smoke from a fire. "I only ask that you be mindful of Peril, which is present, which I tried to warn our pack away from!"

Peril, whose name is Mosaic. Peril, who even now defeats Taurus (that there could be any other outcome is alien to Ember's mind). Peril, who would kick Gemini into the ocean tied to a crab if she doesn't think that Ember's punishment isn't amusing or cute enough.

Ember does not rise. She remains prostrate, tail drooped, ears low, willing to remain her all day if that is what her honor demands. After all, she's been trained very well.

In the distance, the low moans of the Silver Divers, the clink of chains, the cheers of the people of Beri.

[Thanqol]

Mosaic!

"I just need... I'll get there eventually..." the words drain out like poison. "Just one more victory and I'll..."

The wolf maiden slumps in sudden exhaustion. The animating vitality has bled out of her. More. More, more, more, it drips out of her heart and as it goes the space it leaves behind is how little it even wanted it in the first place. "I want..." what? "I wanted... to not be bored..."

The blade slides free, shining clean. Her claws scratch at the edge as it leaves her. She falls gently to the ground as a final truth escapes breathless lips.

"I don't know what I want."

She lies on the road, curling up, vulnerable, shivering. "I don't know what I want. I don't know what will be enough. Nothing ever is. I fill myself with instinct but being full isn't the same as being whole. It's just... not having to think about it."

Ember!

"Oh!" said Gemini. "You! I can't even be mad at you, and that's the most annoying thing of all!"

She fumed, staring off into the distance. "Well. For love, is it? I can't be mad at that. But the pack is the pack, and right now the pack is suffering because of you. So your punishment is to suffer with them."

Scent and memory are intimately linked - but Gemini can go one step beyond. Her invisible aura swells, her being larger than her body, and she acts as the conduit - the full flow of the pack's formation instinct pours through her. In normal circumstances a Ceronian is subconsciously aware of the exact location and status of every pack member around them, letting warriors move in perfect silence and harmony through complex maneuvers. What Gemini does to you is a razor sharp refinement of that basic instinct.

She pours all of the experiences of the entire pack through you. Those of them trapped under nets, piled up on top of each other, stripped and bound and put on display. Your mind fills with the full humiliation of defeat, every slap and jeer and gag and twist of rope applied to the Silver Divers also being applied with crystal clarity to the one who doomed them.

It's a lot.

Dolce!

"Do you see it?" asked Artemis, sitting across from you. "The power."

The ancient stories speak of the moon. The hunt. The howling of the animals in the bloody forests of the night. The maiden who walked into its depths untouched and emerged with the bloody wreckage of her victims. This deep into the work of the Service...

Your senses are heightened. A stray number on a ledger might be a family. Your breath is still. You have sat in a repose that an ancient sniper might have prayed for. Your tools are sharp. With a flash of your pen invisible arrows cross the distance. You are afraid. There are monsters in these depths truer than any modern wolf.

Artemis stares at you. When the natural world became knowable, when wolves became tame, when ecosystems were tamed she did not change. She still stands in the heart of a mysterious world, where the tremble of your fearful hand or the blink of your weary eye could spell death.

"You had fourteen minutes spare after you finished your assigned tasks," said Artemis. "Enough time to fill out two requisition forms. Two wagonloads of treasure, delivered anywhere on the world you desire. You moved around tens of thousands of Corvii, and you had a surplus of them. A unit of them could have been dispatched to burn a village and massacre its inhabitants. You ordered the clearance of the orbital minefield to make preparation for the Architect's arrival. What if you submitted it with the wrong priority stamp and it did not get done in time?"

Her eyes are more lupine than the wolves of Ceron. To walk into her forest is to risk everything - and to emerge with meat, rich and bloody.

You can feel hot breath warming the paperwork under your fingers.

Dyssia!

"You sound like you're bored," says the Dust Knight.

He doesn't choose to say it, though. Some power inspired him to say it. Silver strings descend from above, lifting his cheeks and jaws, waving his arms about like a puppet. Careless. Ridiculous. Mad.

You look up at the divine monster hunched over him, hands raised aloft in the splayed puppeteer's precision. Your own distorted face stares back at you in the murk of Dionysus' mask.

"And why wouldn't you be?" said the Dust Knight/The God of Feasts/Your Reflection. "You haven't moved an inch. You thought you were looking for righteousness, but you never were. This is righteousness. It is just another Path, Dyssia. After all that you're climbing the same old ladder towards the sun and you haaaate it. So is this it, then?" His face/your face is Merilt's. "You just needed to feel even more guilty about getting bored, hopeless and distracted before you'd finally stick with it? All you needed to knuckle down and do the work was more strength behind the whip?"

Dionysus grinned Apollo's grin, mad and shining, more passion than the Sun had ever shown you. "We're sure to get there eventually if we do it this way," he said. "Swear on me mum."

[Phoe]

There is an awkwardness to the silence after a fight. When the sword slides out of the body and the thundering hearts and heady breaths of battle reduce to quiet huffs and then to nothing. When the crushing headbutt she'd been winding up for (whether as rebuttal or in countermeasure she could not say) turns into a simple dip of her head. When the mountain and the monster fades and there is only Beri again. When false bravado shatters before she can even punch it properly, and there are no more warriors left to prove herself against.

How is a person supposed to battle against shivering confusion? The sword feels at once too heavy and too light in her hand. Mosaic lifts it and watches the pristine edge for a long moment before letting it rest on her shoulder. Again. She stands alone again.

Her knees bend, as if to pick up the now fragile wolf maiden off the floor and hold her close while she works through the confusion. She turns the motion into a simple stretch of her legs, and returns to simply standing there looming over the defeated. One hand on a blade that she called Love. The other empty, held aloft, and uncertain what to do with itself.

"Don't look at me," she shrugs, "I'm as stupid as you are when it comes to this stuff. What's good enough? What's missing? Fuck me, I don't know."

Her hand lowers again, and hangs in the air over the Princess of the Silver Divers. Or at least, that's how she seems in the moment as she slowly uncurls on the ground. Mosaic makes no effort to pick her up this time or even reach lower. She'll have to sit up if she wants the help. The winds shift around them; salt and sand and all the promised wonders that the Sea makes to the brave.

"So come with me. I've got no answers, but we can look for them together. Help me pull that ship up, and let's leave all this behind. Even if the answer we find is terrible, or dumb... at least it'll be ours. Right?"

She smiles, and the light catches her face as it bounces off her sword. She is as radiant as the rainbow, and for once the silence of the moment she had to share with someone else wasn't awkward at all.

[Tatterdemalion]

No mind and all mind are two sides of the same coin. In this moment, she is everyone, and as a result, she is (again?) no one.

She is strong. Being the Silver Divers allows her to understand that just because Ember is one of the smallest of the pack does not mean that she is weak. All of the pack is strong— and the one still groveling at Gemini’s feet is surprisingly strong for her size, is a wound-up spring waiting to go off in bursts of speed. But the pack’s strength is wrapped up in chains and their own scarves and all the flexing muscles of her other bodies can’t break them free.

She is… embarrassed. Not just because so many of her are naked, as if giving an eyeful to some peasants isn’t something they’d do anyway— but only on their terms, and without surrendering their trophies, their veils and their scarves. All of them are aware that they’re not in control, a sea they swam through on instinct that has suddenly receded. They are used to this, yes, but only as part of the pack’s games of dominance and submission, the ebb and flow of control amongst themselves, and to have that power pass into the hands of these little creatures has made most of them either blushingly meek or impotently fuming and struggling.

All of her will eventually come to the same conclusion that Ember has: that Mosaic must be at the top of that struggle for power, and she will not step down from that vaunted position; power is hers, and will be shared only as she pleases. By tomorrow, Mosaic will be revered by the Silver Divers, and Ember will become something like a Speaker for the Tyrant, a messenger mediating between the demigoddess and her hounds. Little Ember will be surrounded by the veils of her new self-proclaimed allies, each one attempting to curry favor with Mosaic’s Toy. By tomorrow, collars with moon designs worked into them will proliferate among the ranks of the Silver Divers, and her keys will pass from hand to hand within the pack, entrusted with unknown others until such a day as the object of her collective worship changes.

She is also rendered completely unable to communicate in a way that adds to the meekness of many of her. It is one thing to have a mouthful of cloth and drool— a very familiar thing, at that. But to have their scents bathed away? The air is full of helpless grunts and moans as the Silver Divers find themselves alone together, unable to plan or plot or reassure each other right beneath their captors’ noses. All they can do is trust in their emotion, their eyes and their struggles and their incoherent noises, and hope that their sisters-in-arms will understand roughly what is meant.

The only bond that little Ember can trust, truly, is the one that connects her to Mosaic. Without it, red and thin and shining, she would be lost in the pack’s sensations; she would be trapped in sensation and convinced that her adventure was over. But Mosaic loves her little adventures, and Mosaic loves to watch her run. That is enough for Ember to trust in as all of her bodies squirm and flush and squeak and shiver and huff and hop and sulk and flutter and struggle, learning a new lesson in power and control.

A tiny, muffled whimper rises up from the figure of the punished knight, but she does not rise. How can she? She bears the chains of an entire pack, and her face upon the ground hides the absolute mortification she bears for them. She flexes, strains, but it is impossible for her to move or to open her mouth. Even her scent is silent.

[Balmas]

To her credit, Dyssia actually does consider the question.

Is she bored?

It's like, in all of her stories, it's nonstop action. Or, you know, heh, nonstop "action" of a very different sort, if your writer knows what they're doing.

And this isn't that, of course.

But also it's not…

"Not bored," she decides.

She could never be bored of this. Are you kidding? A never-ending chain of problems to be solved, puzzles to be wrangled, people to meet, in planets that are fantastic and new and with people that only sometimes want to eviscerate her! She's constantly being asked to do the new and different, a nonstop drip-feed of something to tickle her brain.

But…

"Useless," she amends. "Frustrated."

It's all new and interesting, every time. It's a learning experience, every time. She has to think on her toes and figure things out, even if the Dust Knight seems to think that the one solution he has is enough.

But…

"It's like, if you tell me to make ten thousand teacups, I'll see a mountain of clay. My brain might choke on it, might let me get good at making a mug before I move onto something new, and maybe the mountain sticks around.

"But there's an end to the mountain, if that makes sense. I might not make them today, or tomorrow, or years, but the mountain will be there, and every teacup made is one less bit of clay on the mound."

She can see the exhaustion in her own eyes, in that hynotic mask.

"It's not boredom that might kill me here. I don't abandon projects because I'm bored--I find new projects that are more interesting. This is interesting all the time!

"But it also doesn't end. Eventually, if I make enough teacups, the mountain will run out of clay, I will be a master teacup maker, I will have walked my Path, and will choose a new one.

"But the mountain of virtue just keeps getting bigger. I climb the ladder and don't gain height.

"I'm working and trying and helping, but making no progress. When do I win?"

[TheAmishPirate]

“Maiden of the Hunt.” He sees without looking. He addresses without moving. “Thrice have I locked the attache’ case before moving my documents. Twice have I reviewed every form my pen has touched. Not once have I wielded the ink before seeing in whole the form of the stroke. I would not disrespect your forest with anything less.”

“But it is curious.” Seconds pass. His voice neither lingers nor rushes. Breath fills him like the tide. Slips past a throat pressed to choking. “For the privilege of power, I must give over the overwhelming share to the Royal Architect, the Crystal Knight, and 20022. What is left to me is fourteen minutes spare. On a good day. What is left to me can do nothing, on its own, to change the rest.”

His hand drifts to the pen by the shortest line. His fingers meet its cold surface as one, and as one, they squeeze. One by one, he flips the blank papers in front of him, pulling out one page, and then the next. One he places before him. The other sits to the side, where ink will not run. Thrice he consults the maps of Beri. Twice he reviews his selection of fields. Not once does he wield the ink before seeing in whole his next stroke.

Well. It’s one thing for a chef in a cafe to say there’s nothing he can do about the way things are. It’s no use saying as such when a shot in Artemis’ forest falls in your lap.

The Corvii formations have sufficient forces. Surplus squads are sent to guard out-of-the-way positions against runaways and deserters. They will have the honor of faithfully guarding a mountain pass of wide open fields, many hours away by even the swiftest messenger. It is a reasonable position to place them. After all, it was roughly even odds whether refugees might go here or the pass a few miles south, where they would have to wind through dense forests to safety. A perfectly reasonable allocation of spare forces.

Supply depots are positioned along well-trodden roads. It is their own country, and they face no armed resistance. There is no need to be coy with their movements, and miss the convenience and speed of well-maintained highways. This particular location will suit the quartermaster he’s placing in charge of their supplies. He’s an ambitious one, and will make good use of the roads to move his position forward to keep pace with the lines. It’s a bold tactic, one that does carry some small vulnerability to overextension and ambush, but the front line troops will appreciate the shorter supply lines.

There are, technically, a few stations capable of dealing with the orbital minefield. His choice will get them cleared in time. If only just. They are notorious for how they loathe to put aside work until it is properly finished, and they are currently wrapping up a set of constellation charts for Triden. They will get to the minefield when that’s done. And if there is a need for them to drop everything, well! It’s a good thing this station is so close to the monastery. A message fired off in the morning with the maximum priority will reach them before lunch.

Such orders find their way into his stack at the end of each day. Any given task may have any number of forms associated with it. There is variance, an expectation of independent discretion in the Service. A quick glance through his papers will find roughly the correct volume of paperwork. A leafing-through of documents will find everything reasonably sorted, in all meanings of the word. A thorough check of his work may find some curious judgments. A full audit of all his doings might - might! - unearth a worrying collection of strings strewn loosely throughout the workings of the administration. And while the tangle may appear benign, a sharp tug on any thread could cause these perfect plans to crack.

20022 works overtime to ensure this operation proceeds as scheduled. There is no time for a full audit.

By diligence and care, by clear eyes and sharp instinct, Dolce reaches through a storm of jaws and plucks out *opportunity.* Potential. Options. For what, he does not know. Perhaps when his work is done, it will all go as 20022 said it would, and he will watch those who remain of eighty thousand collapse on newly-carved shores as their homes sink into the sea.

But then again, perhaps he could be waking up every day to cook a meal that would never be tasted.

It’s no good to pray for rain, and never once tend to the fields.

[Thanqol]

Mosaic and Ember!

The message from on high is quite clear: Haul or die.

The Corvii descend in great unkindness. Every living being on the peninsula is swept up and dragged into place. Vast teams of sweating labourers are made to hold enormous cables that run down into the depths. Supervisors with ELF Razorwhips[1] walk the lines, and flesh and blood flies at their crackling rebukes. Like the slaves who built the ancient pyramids the people of Bitemark pull.

[1] A Razorwhip is a cruel perversion of ELF technology. Normally an Electromagnetic Flux nullifies electrical impulses, stunning living people and draining electricity. A Razorwhip instead briefly merges with its victim's nervous system, causing intense pain, before flensing the top layer of skin and flesh leaving bloody welts. They are awful weapons against unarmoured targets and are truly horrifying when wielded against primitive aliens. They are not standard, their use by the Crystal Knight is a statement of malevolence.

In the distance you can see the Crystal Knight's flagship hovering over the ocean, the uncannily levitating sphere surrounded by a cluster of orbiting subcraft like a miniature solar system. Extending from her ship are multiple large crystalline barbs, esoteric weapons of unknown design - though if Quajl's weapon is any guide, it is capable of strange and terrible effect.

You can almost see her there in the distance, the hungry loom of the ship over the water, staring for even a hint of its coming prize. The pupil of the serpentine eye, the perverse moon that commands the masses of the world to pull, pull, pull.

Dolce!

"You cut it fine with the minefield," said 20022 mildly.

There was no time for a full audit. But he spent the fourteen minutes he had checking your work. You see the truth now; although he looks as mild and soft as you, he's a hunting dog as dedicated as the Majordomo. He is your enemy, even as he smiles from behind his cup of tea.

"I made a few corrections," he says gently, even supportively! "But on the whole you did very well! You are a lot more daring than I would have given you credit for!"

You're sitting above the world. From your throne in space, in a room facing each other, all your plans in motion, the two of you sit in a comfortable room with a plush green carpet and a little garden off to the side. The full-wall window shows the planet in perfect frame. As calm as the setting is, this is a duel of intellects, a chess game of politeness and deception. 20022 is suspicious. You might be a spy, or you might be a naive student who made a few questionable choices. He's trying to sniff out the truth as you wait together for the Royal Architect to arrive. He hasn't mentioned what changes he made or why; he wants to see if that makes you sweat, if changing your setup will have caused your plan to fall apart entirely.

"Do you see what I mean?" he said with a happy little smile. "Even if you've never done this work before it's all in your genes, and you took to it like a natural. How did it feel?"

Dyssia!

There was a sudden sunlight breaking through the fog.

"Ah," said the Dust Knight, no longer possessed but inspired - the radiant smile of Apollo shining through behind him. "To win. The most dangerous thing of all. We won, the Azura - we conquered our rivals, we conquered the science of life, we triumphed over material limitations. It almost killed us all. Why not climb the endless mountain of virtue instead? Why not leave the task unfinished to your children, and your children's children? Why not let the galaxy continue on like this forever, the endless accumulation of virtue as its own purpose and own reward?"

"Fuck that," Dionysus says through your lips. "I'm going to strap the wheel of karma to the front of a motorcycle and backflip off it into a canyon while drinking cocaine cola out of the Buddha's skull. It's time for a new age, and a new age is always built out of the failed and succeeded promises of the previous era."

"And," you say, with a rare certainty, "I know I'll find my answers on Bitemark."

[TheAmishPirate]

20022 may as well have delivered the news to an expertly-carved stone. No nerves draw his frown tighter across his face. No spark ignites behind his distant eyes at the praise of a superior. He stares into his tea, unmoving.

A change in setup could not cause his plans to unravel, because he had no plan in the first place. What he has are a stockpile of useful options, nothing more. The lack of plan is itself a considered defense. A hair less than intentional, a happy accident, a realization after he’d already begun to move, and considered what might happen next. The only setback he has suffered is that those options are a hair less reliable than they were when he started out. It was, in fact, a mistake to have told him that at all, because now he knows that - whatever may come - he should not place all his faith in a single tug.

“I’m not quite sure how to describe it.” He’d picked up his cup with the intention of taking a sip. It hovers in limbo as he considers the question. “Heavy? Terrifying? But at the same time, small. Horribly small.” His gaze slips to the planet below. “The Crystal Knight outmaneuvered us, once, and this is the result.”

The chink of cup meeting saucer fills the room, in spite of the chanting of overseers, in spite of the creak of cable, in spite of the work that must be going on and on. He needs both his hands to hold his head up. The danger of discovery, the maneuvers of his partner, service, diligence, anticipation, invisibility. All this happens in the background. He needs both his hands to keep from staring at Bitemark below. Vasilia hadn’t been there on the shuttle off-world, to keep him from looking out the viewport. He still sees it now.

Snap.

Spark.

Fall.

Snap.

Spark.

Again.

His breath hitches. But he does not make a sound. Not yet. Not here. Not because 20022 might hear. It’s worse, that 20022 is here. The room chills with the wind from a distant mountaintop, and all around the stars looks so familiar, yet different when viewed from a higher perch. Him being here means spending thoughts he cannot spare, when none of this is for him. None of this should be for him. Yet part of him wants 20022 to step over from the other side of the table and sit with him, and the other wants him to stay over there, because he will not come to this side to mourn.

He does not cry. Not drinking tea and eating cookies in a cozy, comfortable room. He hasn’t got the right to.

Snap.

Spark.

Again.

[Balmas]

… Where did that come from?

Bitemark. Who put that in her head? Was it Dionysus' purple dripping out her lips?

She's starting to grow familiar with the feel of the gods inhabiting her, as much as you can. Like electricity, wired through every muscle. Ares' red, Dionysus' purple. And the insistent absence of gold.

Which is, by the by, kind of a terrifying thought? It's like, two kinds of heroes get used to this kind of thing, and half of them are morality plays.

Bitemark. Huh. She's heard something about that, but can't remember what right now.

Dangit, now she wants a motorcycle. Completely impractical form of transport, but there's such a thing as style.

"I may be absent for a while. I've been given my next assignment, I think."

[Phoe]

It burns without heat. It crushes without weight. It carves her into pieces without claws, without even moving. Mosaic watches it hanging over her, for as long as she dares. Her eyes, both of them, dip from the sky and the horizon to the ground about her feet. Of course she blinked first. Of course she did. For all her power, what is she? For all her dreaming, what is she?

Below. Beneath. The genetic material used to weave her tapestry is filled with instructions that predate every known civilization; the cat on the high ground was untouchable. The superior predator does the watching. To be seen and exposed makes one weak.

The order came down from on high, to pull, pull, pull. But they put a horn in her hand and not a rope. They expected her to yell instructions and fix the lines, and to always stay moving. Even though her arms are the strongest. Her hands clench into fists. She turns now and watches the sea. Watches crews from Beri and Rosedam and a dozen other towns hauling on chains that stretch down endlessly into the water.

On the beach, scores of other Servitors lie across the sands catching their breaths. Her best swimmers. She'd sent them down to attach the hooks that would pull up the Crystal Knight's prize. She'd sent them down because it meant the job got done before anyone else got the brilliant idea to send the Lyrii, or anyone else who could have gotten hurt.

Even so, the waters down there are dangerous. It was a tough swim; she should have done it herself. But if she had...

"Oi! You lot! Breathin' ain't pullin' Get your sorry asses off the ground 'fore I tear 'em offa ya!"

The thrum and the crack of a Razorwhip snaps across the air. Mosaic's legs are already moving. The sounds of loose rock and dust precedes her feet as she slides down the cliff side to land in front of the Corvi taskmaster leering at her diving team. Her shoulders are squared. Her back straight. She towers over the other woman, for one fleeting second the picture of the Hero of Beri again. She glances down at her fists, and sees they are still balled tight.

"Enough."

"Shut it lady. The sheep said 'supervisor'. That don't put you in charge."

Mosaic's teeth flash in anger. She glances up, and feels the weight of the Eye on her back. Her heart pounds inside of her, but she wrenches her hands open again. Forces her face back to calm. She says nothing, but tilts her head toward the ocean. The Corvi rolls her eyes and wrenches her shoulder back for another lash. Mosaic's hand is on her in an instant.

"Enough. They cannot work at all if you tear their skin off, you dipshit."

"Izzat violence? D'I hear a threat? You heard it, right boys? I think the supervisor's comin' on to me!"

A chorus of wet chuckles washes over her back. Corvi smiles are ugly things, and one flashes right in her face. A twisted thing with no happiness inside of it, only jagged teeth and breath left to rot as fashion statements, with a lopsided twist to the mouth that makes the whole thing look broken. The razorwhip hums in her hands, purring like a favored pet.

"You're right though. This lot can't pull none after I work 'em. Nice of ya to volunteer - you ain't done shit today. You know, I hate those fucking eyes of yours. Mismatched little fuckers. Always lookin' down at me. You think you're hot shit, supervisor lady? Think you're better than me? Lessee who's bigger than who after a good twenty lashes!"

Her suit tears open with whispers of complaint. Her skin screams white hot pain straight into her spine. Mosaic's golden eye explodes in stars and darkness, only for a moment, but enough to make her think she's gone blind. It rushes through her body, like wildfire, consuming every nerve in a symphony of different pains. Impalement, laceration, burning, freezing, gnawing and itching and numb, whimpering nothing. Her knee twitches involuntarily as the ELF weapon finally breaks contact with her skin.

She does not flinch. No spark of anger, no cry of pain. No retaliation, no slumping of her shoulders or droop of her tail. Mosaic brushes a finger along the gash, finding no blood but feeling the roughness of a burn scar across her abdomen. She glances once more at the sky, and turns around.

"If it makes you feel better," she shrugs, "Nineteen to go. But do it as we walk, I've got more teams to manage than I can count, and we're not going to meet the Crystal Knight's deadline standing around here. So if you don't mind..."

She catches another lash across her back. Her shoulders tense. Her ears bend around to the source of the noise, but nothing more. She waits a moment and then walks across the beach, listening for the sound of following footsteps, of buzzing electro weaponry, of angry shouting and signs of aggression pivoting back to the people she needs to protect.

Two more shocks through her body. Like being asked to hold Zeus' thunder and the sky up at the same time. Her muscles scream. Her body begs for deliverance. Mosaic does not. She passes from camp to camp. She gives breaks to overworked citizens by way of chewing them out for poor form and taking the rope from them to demonstrate proper technique. She rotates crews and sets up a lunch line to create jobs for the most fragile Servitor species that don't involve heavy labor, and buy spare moments for others where their hands get to hold something less weighty than a starship that will never deliver any of them to a new world, or a new hope, or a new idea, or to anything other than the ever-shifting whims of a tyrant who happens to be too high to reach.

She's taken far more than twenty lashes to reach this point. Her beautiful suit is clinging to her in tatters now. But even still, even with her legs slowly turning to jelly underneath her, she does not react. She doesn't grunt, and with practice she's trained even the involuntary twitching out of her. Her ribs are starting to crack under the strain her body puts on her bones, but what does that matter? She has one job allotted to her, and it doesn't allow for pain.

"You're fucked in the head, lady! What a piece of shit! Crystal Knight's gonna mount your skull on her wall when this' over, you just wait!"

One more bite from the razorwhip, and her tormentor screams frustration at everything. But she's tired, she's bored, she's hungry, and there's all this excellent food tormenting her nose that she hasn't been eating because she's been too busy trying to break in a demigod. Worthless fucking waste of time. She stomps away, and finally all is quiet.

Alone at last. Alone, if only for a moment. Mosaic's body betrays her at last. She drops to one knee faster than breathing. She slumps forward, and lets her arms droop to either side of her. All her nose can smell anymore is burning skin and fur. Acrid, stinging, disconcertingly like a meal. She spits, and turns her head as best she's able in the name of looking anywhere that is not the Eye, and not the Ship she thought had meant salvation.

Not the thing that would abandon her here. What was the question she was meant to be asking? What could she even do against a moment like this? What language, what knowledge, what skill fixed the immovable order of the universe and the Endless Azure Skies? There's nothing left on Bitemark that can tell her what she doesn't already know. Her voice turns to the gods, instead.

"Is this... all you wanted from me? A-am I not, nnnngh! Am I weak or am I strong? At least tell me that!"

[Tatterdemalion]

From indignity to indignity; from failure to failure. By all accounts, the Silver Divers are a broken-down pack of whimpering, cringing has-beens. They shy away from Corvii, keep their heads down low, work diligently and without complaint, and if the Corvii made halfway decent supervisors instead of simply being sadistic bullies, they'd be aware that the Silver Divers are one command from Mosaic away from repurposing trench shovels and chains. It doesn't matter why Mosaic told them to stand down (to avoid the entire town being caught in a lethal crossfire, or simply obliterated from above), only that they have their orders. Be good, be beaten, give the unkindness no excuse to single you out. Be ready. Be ready.

The cruelty, Ember ponders as she hauls, is inefficient. Before the arrival of the Corvii, they were already making good time. Morale was high; villagers were even beginning to have the courage to socialize, to joke, to sing howling Ceronian songs alongside the pack. And Ember was the liaison, the mediator, the messenger between Beri and the pack and the demigoddess; she was embarrassed and unsure how proud of herself to be for what she'd done, the betrayals she'd had to choose between, the moon-swirled collar she was proud to wear. There was joy in the work, those first few days. The circle of her pack was expanding, and labor was a chain to bind them all together, too.

And now look at them. Slow, quiet, miserable. Useless. Fear smothers joy beneath the purpleblack acrid flighttense. Eventually the work will be done, and it will take longer and be worse. There are more accidents. And that is why Ember, still hauling, still carrying small messages where she can, has a scream building up inside of her that is harder and harder to clamp down on. Her teeth ache with violence. How dare they come and defile the work? How dare they come and make the burn of her muscles and the unity of labor unclean? How dare they stamp out the songs?

It is more difficult for the villagers. They do not know how to pretend. They do not wrap the knives of their selves inside cloth; all they have are forks and spoons meant for not-battle, for tilling earth and spearing crabs and mixing creams, the sorts of things that the Silver Divers need other people to worry about. They do not have the pack to take comfort in, even in pretended distance. (It is pretended. Ember believes in that with her whole heart. Her pack has to understand her why: they have seen her in battle and in victory. Nobody can look at Mosaic and not understand. Nobody.) The people of Beri are going to break, and Ember yearns for the command to rise up and be Pack again, fighting for honor and justice and to defend the innocent.

And Mosaic waits.

And so Ember waits, and watches, and hopes, putting all of her faith in Mosaic, and trying not to wonder why, when their eyes meet, Mosaic always looks away first.

Mosaic has to have a plan. She has to know what she's doing. That's... that's what it means to be in charge, to be touched by the gods, to be her. Because Ember's put her everything in Mosaic's hands, and she has to trust that it was worth it and Mosaic is going to know what to do. That's what it means when you give all of yourself over. That's what it means. And if she is a knife in the ribs, she does not mean to be, but she cannot be anything else, either. She cannot stop herself; she would die looking to Mosaic. Unwilling to yank that trust away, even at the last second.

So she is ready, Mosaic. She and her pack have made of themselves knives wrapped in linen. Blunt and innocuous and easily overlooked and yet still, underneath, the handle and the blade remain. At your call, Alpha. The Silver Divers are yours, and so you are theirs, too.

[Thanqol]

Mosaic!

Turn your eyes down. Zeus is there down in the dirt with you.

"Therefore, through a constant shifting of rhetorical focus -" she chuckled at an old, grim joke. "Weak people. Strong people. Don't you see that's the thinking that all this is built on? Now you're strong, built for labour, outperforming Heracles as you haul a starship from Poseidon's maw. Now you're weak, disarmed and observed, a mortal before an oppressive Sky. Was Heracles strong or weak when madness made him devour his children? Was he strong or weak when he carried the golden apples to his hated enemy?"

The Thunderer looked into your eyes; deepest indigo and flecked with purple. "Your strengths are your weaknesses, Mosaic. Your weaknesses are your strengths. The ancient playwrights knew it when they penned their tragedies. Modern tyrants forget it when they pen their screeds. You too have the opportunity to walk the same path of tragedy that's haunted you all your days."

"Or," she said, and looked up into her sky, "you could do the one thing you have never been able to do. You could look power in the eye without blinking. See past the radiance of the throne to the woman atop it. Imagine yourself in her place."

Ember!

You see the Plousios emerge from the waves.

The chains of sweating labourers pull it onto a long carpet of null-friction neomaterial, the brutal and arcane manifestation of technology at its height. The massive armoured beak of the ship, the chipped gold and red and black paint as proud as the House of Hades, the riots of colour as corals and crabs drop from its rising surface. Seawater pours from rusted macrocannons. Treasure spills from open cargo bays like dripping blood. It is mighty. It is as familiar as the grave. You remember your claws breaking that coffin open from the inside.

Nothing dies in the deathless domain of Demeter. Does that extend to the spirit of this undead ship? Does the heartbeat you felt beneath your fingertips still stir? Does the voice of the ancient craftsman still resonate in your ears, telling you the secrets of bringing metal and stars to life?

You can feel it in your heart. The space in this ship's heart where you belong.

Dolce!

There is a sound like nothing you've ever heard before. There's a sight like nothing you've ever seen. A crackling blue magical fire ignites in the corner of the room, and where it spreads you can see through into a different place like looking into a cinema screen. You look into a place filled with armoured soldiers.

Immediately they're piling through the gap, shoulder to shoulder, shouting things like "GO GO GO" and "PERIMETER SECURED" and "MARS VICTORIA". They're all over you and past you in that wild, fast paced way that warrior servitors on a mission are like. 20022 does not even let a ripple show in his tea.

And then, when the room is lined in every particular with snake-masked soldiers, the Royal Architect steps out.

He was old. Even if his primitive design of glittering lights, plastic-alloy and holograms didn't make him feel as exquisitely dated as a blackpowder rifle, he moved with a hunch and a walking stick. Despite the obvious signs of age, he moved with a similar quickness to the soldiers - their nervous, paranoid energy mirroring his. Rapidly he moved into the room closing the portal behind him, floating camera drones surrounding him on buzzing little wings, and stopped with one arm folded behind him to look down at Bitemark. Then he turned and moved over to the table where the two Synnefo sat, moving an arm twitchily to snatch at the cup of tea that 20022 had already poured for him. His robotic mouth did not open - it just glowed in time with his words - but he seemed to appreciate the smell of it.

"You -" he snapped his fingers at Dolce, the jerking motion almost making him spill the tea. "- you. You're an atypical design. Different phenotypes, wool is tinted yellow rather than violet, horn structure, excessive posterior design. All traits of human-variant Synnefo strains." The orblike lenses of the camera drones closed in. "Are you a spy? An Assassin? Give me your hand, I need to take a blood sample."

Dyssia!

The Sellarfane is retro.

A RVX-05 Assault Dropship barely seats a thousand in one cramped hangar bay. Chemical-fueled plasma afterburners with eight demi-reactors on a cycling rig - enough to recover from seven direct ELF storms. An externally mounted rack of plasma torpedoes held in grav-spheres and four projector arrays to guide them in. In its prime this would have been a mass assault landing craft, a ship that could endure the storm of a blockade. It could slip onto a planet or space station's surface and deploy a thousand highly armed supersoldiers into the heart of enemy territory, clearing a path and landing zone with precision guided torpedoes. It was a ship designed in the fires of a total galactic war, a ship designed to be expended in the tens of thousands, a ship that was an intimate part of an organized Doctrine that had plans from its manufacturing to its death.

Cool. Stylish. Uncomfortable. And even retrofitted with modern materials, it was a shadow before the Slitted, the flagship of the Crystal Knight. Without the fires of war to pressure the design, warships bloat beyond all reason; armed space stations, weaponized resort moons, temple-complexes designed to be implements of tyranny more than weapons of war. There's no chance this relic will survive an engagement with the Slitted. Ships like the Slitted killed almost every single RVX-05 Dropship ever made and absorbed their mass to repair their hulls. Mars has made it clear who his favourites are.

But with a drunken, manic enough strategy going in, Dionysus can offer you and your legion the element of surprise.

[Phoe]

She has never seen Zeus in more than omens before today. She has never heard her voice in more than distant thunder, never felt her heart in more than storms. Secret doubt, secret fear. Even the best parts of Mosaic did not make her more than a slave, what use did the god of kings have for her?

The crispness of ozone in the dirt. The beauty of indigo and the color of royalty piercing her tired eyes. They do not find her lacking. The flash of a smile like a supernova that is at once encouraging and intimidating. The roiling of the water as the great ship that yearns to be called salvation rises from the depths. Everything is roaring and foam, everything is cheering and crying, everything is the thundering of whips.

And silence. Mosaic rises to her feet. She watches the work crews holding each other up. Exhausted and frightened and even still in this moment proud of themselves and the work they've managed. She watches the Silver Divers, huddled and bowed and reeking of the kinds of oils and sweats that say they are begging to be told to stand up and unleash chaos. She watches Ember, who watches her. Even from this distance, her eyes are endless pools that deserve to be swam in until the end of time. Even with her face twisted in concern, her posture radiates hope. Belief. She expects a miracle.

Her eyes rise, as commanded by the Thunderer. The Crystal Knight floats above her inside her grand and terrible fortress without bothering to reveal the glory of her mortal form. The weight of its attention pushes on her neck and shoulders as if it had directed the gravitational field keeping it aloft toward forcing Mosaic back to her knees. Sweat drenches her fur. Her legs buckle under the effort. But she watches. She watches the bristling weapons and traces the arc of each one back to the people who would suffer for her hubris if she were bold and stupid enough to challenge.

Even at the height of hunting frenzy, could she make that choice? Could she throw away the people of Bitemark to sit atop such an ugly throne? What kind of figure would she cut? Her heartbeat quickens, the way it always does before a hunt. Her pupils open wide to catch the light, to not miss a single detail that the Slitted offers her. She snorts with derision.

Slowly, eyes are turning to her. The Supervisor, as appointed by this rotting administration. Now that the ship breathed the same air as them, what now? What is the next task, god child? Mighty Mosaic, what job would lead back to full bellies and a warm bed? What is ours to have? What should we do and how should we do it? Show us, child of an unknown god.

"Your strength is weakness," she muses, testing the words in her own mouth, "And your weakness is strength. All right then, Milady Crystal Knight. Let's see it! Show me the meaning of this riddle. Let me see how weak you really are, and I'll snatch this ship straight back out of your thieving claws. What's one more mountain stolen between friends?"

She lifts one hand to the sky, a command for all who watch her. Not yet given. Her spine is straight. Her ears perked high. Her face is grim. One sign is all she asks. One small push, to help her climb the wall. And so she waits. And she watches.