[IC] Breathless Dead

[Thanqol]

Bella!

Artemis looks at Bella like she's stupid. "You're alive," she said. "Aren't you?"

She wears her suit, silver grey, tight fit, sharp against the black collared shirt, black office shoes, and black strangler's gloves. Her hair is a shock of tangled brown, cut short on both sides, a single silver moon-shaped earring on her right ear. She stands like she's either greeting a dignitary or about to throw a punch, and no amount of polite precision can distract from the fact that her eyes are voting for the punch. Don't worry, it's not personal.

"You're alive," repeated Artemis, "when you started as dead. I've had hunters raised from the dead before but that's because people remembered them enough to summon them from the Lethe. I've never had one drag themselves out the hard way. Of course I'm not disappointed."

She paused. "Unless you're talking about the sex, which I will reluctantly concede as being necessary for this stage of the operation. I can overlook it, for now."

Ember and Dolce!

Plundering Fang has always had an eye for vulnerability.

"I have decided," she said, "that we shall make the captive into the Syneffo's outfit."
"What do you mean?" asked her combat tailor, Lytefit.
"This is also fashion in the Skies," said Plundering Fang, high-handedly. "Sometimes a pet servitor is made to be both companion and fashion, like a fox-scarf who wraps around her mistress' neck. It's unusual for an Azura themselves to be used for this sort of thing but not entirely unprecedented. We just need to pretty her up, wrap her in -" Hera maliciously leaned down to whisper in Plundering Fang's ear. "- peacock feathers," said Plundering Fang with a smile, "paint her scales, add some gold chains and supports so that she can move easily while carrying him. Maybe fit her with a saddle~"

Ember, this is a problem. Plundering Fang has just found an opportunity to move to the next stage of the competition without having her puppet release Dolce for a moment - if she gets away with this there's not even going to be a moment where you'll be able to do more than stare into those glazed and helpless eyes. You need to find a gap in the armour.

Dyssia!

It's time. The Plousios is about to descend into the flames of a star.

The diviners agree it can't be put off any further; the initial clash with Liquid Bronze delayed but did not end the pursuit, and as decisive a victory as 'stopping time' was the Biomancer General has divine allies of his own that have put him back on the case. It's time to follow through on the original plan and descend into an open fusion reactor until the hounds pass by.

The upside for you is that this is going to put you beyond having to worry about any big philosophical questions for a while. The downside is that the interiors of stars are hot. Not too hot - the Academy of Biomancy, where new species are forged, is built on the volcanic Forge of Hephaestus in the center of a trinary star system, so organic life in this galaxy knows a thing or two about enduring extreme solar heat. Also, the sunspot where you will be sheltering will actually be several million degrees cooler than the fusion reactor in the heart of the ship's Engine. An Imperial-Era battleship's hull armour is proof against even the direct plasma vent of a Starbreach. You're not going to die.

But oh my god does it feel like you're going to die. It's hot. Servitors cluster around ventilation panels, lying sprawled in the whispers of cool air. The entire ship is covered in a fine layer of downy fur from where the Ceronians and Pix have been shedding. And here and there can be seen the hulking and indifferent shape of a battlecrab, often carrying on its back a prisoner or two who strayed too close to the waterline in search of relief. There'll be time to launch a rescue invasion or negotiate with the Tides or something later, this isn't a crisis. You just need to get through it.

So how do you beat the heat, and who is keeping you company while you do?

[Balmas]

As much as she loves the Pix, they are a bit much.

That is to say, she loves them so much--loves their smell, their feel, their competition, the way she can be on top one moment and under someone else's heel the next--but also they run incredibly hot. Being in a cuddlepile of Pix is to have several miniature furnaces purring into you from every direction. Restrictive in the best way, normally her favorite way to sleep but...

She's not so much hiding from them as, you know, temporarily avoiding them.

(They'll recover, surely, and she'll make apologies later for not being in the room which is currently more shed fur than bunkhouse. Ropes may be involved, depending on how adeptly she apologizes.)

The ones clustered around the vents are smart, you know? But the smarter ones--like, say the ones that had a couple years of redshifted time to poke around and unscrew and put things back together--know that there's a magic spot near the ramming prow of the ship, yeah? The armor of the ship's thicker there, with more insulation. It's about as far as you can get from the Engine, which itself puts out a not-inconsiderable-amount of heat. And, most importantly, the vents widen out enough to be comfortable, instead of just tolerable. Less airflow, but it's all hers.

She, admittedly, didn't expect anyone else to know about it. And yet, here Iskarot is, tucking the glowing-edged section of cut-out ventilation shaft back into place behind him.

[Phoe]

It's all she can do to laugh. In spite of the danger. Because of the danger. Bella tilts her head back and guffaws in full sight of the goddess of the hunt. Her messy hair rolls and tumbles in dark waves across her neck, over her shoulders, and down her back as she rocks back and forth amid the barking of her own amusement. She laughs so hard it starts to burn her lungs and somehow that manages to make her laugh even harder, tail curling in pleasure up against the wall.

No, it was good to be alive. In that sense, even the exhaustion felt a strange kind of nice.

"My whole--" she says, but then stops herself.

The air is hot where it enters her nose. It stings inside her lungs when she holds it there. It leaks between her fangs as steam. She pulls a breath in again, carries it into the next moment, and then pushes it away with the next shape of the thought inside her head. On the third cycle she lets her eyes flutter shut, if only for a moment. Just a slow blink, and nothing more.

"...Fair enough."

She does not rise to her feet and try to bow. She does not drop to her knees and sink her forehead to the ground in prayer. Her body is still but for the now steadied rise and fall of her chest as she takes in more of that wonderful air. No sudden movements that could be taken as aggression. No fawning that could be construed as begging for any favors she is not owed and cannot earn. No showing of her claws or tensing of her muscles that might imply an attempt at defense. Under the direct gaze of the greatest hunter in the universe Bella could not be predator or prey, or even subject or priestess. Right now she had someone who could watch her back and did not need to be watched in turn. Or she was a single incorrect remark away from traveling back through the Lethe to meet Hades again. Either way it was out of her hands.

There's simply nothing to do besides relax. The tranquility of that thought bleeds into her shoulders and the knot at the base of her neck finally slips free. While her muscles fall slack her skin hisses in protest at the sudden change in shape and position of her wounds. Once again she blinks.

"I've been, mmn. Watching you for a very long time. I could never find you, but I knew where to look. You talked to Mynx all the time. Belja-- for fuck's sake Bella -- Gemini always went on and on about how she was your special girl. After she and I started talking to each other anyway. But even when Mother stuffed me inside of that suit and woke up the name that's hiding underneath this one I couldn't see you at all. Even while I was asleep! My, Mosaic's prayers never blessed her, uh... me? With your voice. You've been there, always, but I have never once been good enough to spot you."

That quiet little smile steals across her lips again. While it sits there she is beautiful, and worthy of her name. But the shadow passes over her face like an eclipse and steals it all back. She watches Artemis with hungry eyes that long to take that punch with almost as much zeal as they yearn for the touch of affection. She sighs.

"Well that's not true, is it? You were the one who woke me up from my dream. But why me? I'm more confused than ever. I can't possibly be your best piece on whatever game board the galaxy's supposed to look like. I'm even shittier as a priestess. I thought for a bit there maybe you were punishing me, but if I'm not a disappointment then, why? What am I here for? Why am I... me?"