Balmas

Breathless Dead

"… Ah."

It'd be nice to imagine that time slows down in this instant. That just this once, Time might be kind enough to her to give her a break.

Just this twice? It's not the first time. Tiny twinge of pain at that thought, of the loss of enough time, forever.

It'd be a nice thought. It'd be nice to be able to have thoughts, like "What?" and its sister, "the fuck?", but A) Time hates her, and B) staring down an arrow has a lovely way of concentrating the mind on not staring down an arrow as quickly as possible.

No fingernail should look that bony.

Dimly, she's aware--well, mostly that Dekal is fucking heavy when she's busy being stabbed (and we're not unpacking the idea right now, thanks much)--but also that the horizon behind her is lit with the dim glow of paper catching fire, and she remembers catching a brazier with her tail as she dove through a wall, and--

And you know what, she's aware she's running from the god of haste and speed and messengers, so right now that's less important to think about than getting away as quickly as possible.

[Get Away: 5,6, +2. 13 to Get Away quickly, avoiding harm, while bringing Dekal with her, but drawing attention as she does.]

Breathless Dead

Planning has never been Dyssia's strength.

Dyssia's body is the feeling of a splinter wedged under a fingernail--skin-stinging, joint-locking, thought-numbing, tail-writhing pain. She has no plan, no thoughts, nothing but a purple glint behind her eyes as she drags herself towards the Lawgiver on spasming marionette arms.

Except… That's not right, though?

The voice is small. Quiet, faint, drowning in lavender, but insistent despite it all. Not the voice behind the eyes, not the voice looking out at the world. The voice is from the space behind the space behind the eyes--the one looking at how the other space seese the world.

Not "the Lawgiver?" Why not? Why is that important? Why does that nagging little voice seem to think that--

Not the Lawgiver. Dekal. Not the Knight, not the role, not the description, not the job, not the red-turned-white of the robes. Dekal, the person behind it, the person looking at her as if enough lightning will make things… stop? Go away? Change?

"Come with me!"

Her voice is raspy and wet, she realizes--hardly worthy of the exclamation point.

"Come away from this place!"

Scales scrape on wood as she approaches, soaking lightning and spasms with each inch.

"I used to want to be you!"

And she's hauling herself up and wrapping her arms around Dekal, and she's squeezing with all her might, not to hurt, but as if by touching her, she could push all the thoughts in her heart through the skin and into Dekal.

"I used to want to be you, and it hurts me to see you like this," she cries, and the floodgates open.

It's a jumbled mess, is what it is. All feelings, no order, no plan.

Come with me, I'm begging you. I've read all about you from the stories, and--you sit here, and hide away, alone in this tent, doing work that doesn't help for a goddess who doesn't care, and it's hurting you, and you--

Come with me! Come, meet my friends! You're alone, and you're hurting, and I can help you if you'll just come with me! You can't hide away from the world, from people, think of people as numbers, as good done in a ledger, and stay--we need people to help us stay people!

Come with me! Touch all the good things in life! Not as a hedonist, not as a glutton, not as the chemmed-out bliss-eaters, but to remind you of what it is to be alive! Come with me!

Come with me--I never could have gotten this far on my own, and neither can you. Alone, you've ruled a Service that spans the stars, organizes kingdoms, and makes you more miserable the more you spend time here!

Loosen your fingers, loosen your grasp, walk away with me! See the stars without a haze of smoke! Come with me! Make more stories! Put up tacky signs that make you laugh, tell jokes with your friends--do you remember what jokes are? I'll help!

Come with me, away from this place, away from this Service! Come, love the world, love me if you want, but please, Dekal, I'm begging you, for the good of the galaxy and for the good of yourself, please, I'm begging you, find it in yourself to love you!

Planning has never been Dyssia's strength. You might, if you were the sort to make silly wordplay, insist that not planning has, in fact, been Dyssia's strength all along, but that's not right either. It's in finding and loving and accepting and emulating--in bringing people into her heart, and finding room for more in it.

You could have a place in it, Dekal. You could learn. You could find something better.

Come with me. Please, come with me.

My Hider

[Whatever roll this is, this is a 5,4, 9+modifier]

Breathless Dead

"Why not take more than a few days?"

Dyssia's hands clench and unclench at her side.

"Surely you've earned peace, have you not? No, no, wait, let's not use that framework, it's not about earning or deserving, it's your right to live in peace."

Still, she doesn't reach for the scrolls, except to start to roll them up, shutting off the dizzying array of numbers, of information, of statistics, folding down charts and popups until they neatly slide back into the scroll case.

"There aren't any bars on this cage, Lawgiver. No chains, no collars, no whips or crops. Anyone who does not wish to be here can be off-planet in hours, if not minutes, soaring off through space to wherever they wish."

Which, side note, kind of a disappointment? What self-respecting empress doesn't have a scantily-clad harem?

"No chains in here but the ones you've forged yourself."

She doesn't slap her, but god does it feel like she has. Like the words are the cruelest whip she could use, even while not twitching a muscle.

"And those chains do not bind me, Dekal. I'm not the type to sit inside a bureaucracy and tell people what to do, how to think, how to be. Put the Skies on my shoulder and I'll let it drop."

Her voice is pleading. Stop this, Dekal. See sense.

"Just leave. Come with us. Don't. See the universe. Just stop sitting here, holding up the Skies, and telling yourself your sacrifice is making things better."

[Unfortunately, this is a 5,1, and Wisdom for appealing to emotions is +0. 6 on Talk Sense.]

Breathless Dead

Dissent.

Weird word, really? It feels so, so peaceable. We, the undersigned, do not agree with our peers, but will nevertheless follow the conclusion reached by the majority.

Doesn't feel like a word that'd be used to describe a screaming rebellion, like chemical mortars in your face, like clawing yourself from the dirt for another swing.

A respectable word.

And a lie, as surely as she breathes. Dissent, in every revolution. Dissent, in violence, in throwing the first punch, in striving, in lying, in bluffing, beating…

The Dissident Knight.

… Is that tautology? Would it be arrogant to name herself as the one? Like, to make that what makes her different from the others, to claim that for herself, even as she recognizes that only dissidents become knights?

Or, you know, only people that don't fit the system.

Like, she's been thinking of how to title herself for this long partially because it's, it's declaring yourself to be a power in your own right? Isn't arrogance the right kinda mental state for that?

Better than the Distracted, for friggin' sure.

The Dissident Knight--which, whew, is gonna take some mental effort to envision herself in that big of a name--reviews the maps, admires the paper, the--

Clockwork is the wrong word, right? But that similar level of this tugs that until a delicate flower of data unfolds over there. Except a clock only has to go one way, do one thing at a consistent time, and her hands itch to pull every tab, to flip every page, until she knows it all by the feel of the air against her skin, and she has to sit on her hands now or catastrophe will doubtlessly unfold across all of the service, which apparently this legendary knight runs, and--

She clears her throat and begins to speak. Of home, of Merilt, of a storm diverted. Of lazy afternoons chasing rainbows through reefs, listening to people speak of the Outside. Of the stories told of Beri before the Knight.

It's… strangely peaceful to talk of it. Like a bubble full of memory, and every sound from just outside the door threatens to pop it.

Breathless Dead

Dyssia sits next to her and takes her hand slowly, as if moving too fast will spook the universe.

"Precious little, at times," she admits, and stares.

It's like standing next to a statue, you know? She's seen that face on statues, read stories of her exploits, had spacers talk about her in low whispers, and she's here, in front of her, and she wants her to tell her of outside?

Where did the words go? Normally they're so easy, you know? Her mouth is burbling brook, full of commentary on what's happening and her thoughts and side thoughts and those little thoughts that aren't relevant to the situation but would fit neatly in a parenthetical aside, and now her mouth is failing her. It's a desert, both of words and saliva.

She swallows, or at least tries to.

"The Azure skies are…"

She sighs, and gestures to the walls, alight with red.

Which… does not convey the skies outside.

… Is she allowed to go outside the tent? Would she want to? Would they even be visible through the haze of fire and smoke and screams?

Wait, shit, she's thinking about--

"Everywhere," she finishes hurriedly. "Peace and beauty as far as the eye can see, relative to here. Servitor and Azura alike are free to live according to the demands of their civilization, if they are able. Entire planets, systems, space station, all living in harmony and pulling together in service of painting the skies blue.

"It's just that… People like you and I do not often get to experience it. If we were content to serve the Azure Skies, we would not be Publica, would not be knights. Would not follow in the wake of problems, and leave problems in our wake."

Is it her, or is her mouth suddenly even drier? Like, if you took a desert and fed it into a continent-sized desiccator, you might approach a hint of a fraction of how her mouth feels.

Breathless Dead

Why is she still talking?

Dyssia wishes she would stop talking.

No, no, better. More emphatic. Dyssia wishes she could shut her face--not that the Shogun would stop talking, that Dyssia could find the words that would make her clam up.

Because she… She recognizes it, right?

How often has Dyssia embraced that peace? The cessation of the voices, the worries, the fears? No need to plan, no need to think, nothing but the immediate future and making sure that there's something less immediate. Yourself, the people to either side, and the people trying to kill you.

There are so many things to do, right now. So many more important things that they could focus on.

Anything, so long as it means she doesn't have to listen to another word out of the Shogun's mouth.

Breathless Dead

Dyssia has never seen war. Not before today.

Oh, she thought she knew what it was. Been in battles, doncha know? Seen the results. Felt the exhaustion left behind when adrenaline runs out, once all that's left to keep muscles raising and falling is the thought of what will happen if you don't.

Her nose is full of chemical weapon and burning flesh.

She thought she understood what she proposed to bring to the galaxy. Peace, prosperity, freedom, all served on the tip of a spear. Her spear, of course--her weapons, her plans, her friends.

Her plans. What a laugh that is, right?

She's a child once more, being taught a lesson by a master too good at what they're doing to be truly frustrated with her.

They're demons--beautiful, terrible, fallen angels, carrying out their work with barely a thought. No, no, that's wrong, without thought. On instinct, on a level that training could never instill.

She has no plan. Had no plan coming here, still doesn’t have one.

Her gravrail feels inadequate, impossible. It's a fool's errand to deflect that . There are too many cannons aimed at them fired by people who've just demonstrated their perfect coordination.

Bella is on the ground. Eyes drill into the back of her skull. She rises.
There's no time for words. Which, when you think about two gravrail masters doing the same thing in the same space, is damned inconvenient.

The ground cracks between them. Her heart quails, and she almost shuts her rail off entirely.

But the shots are missing, is the thing. Close, right? Close enough to shave hair, to deafen the one ear that particular shell whizzes past.

But she meets Vasilia's eyes in between shots, and darts away from the Shogun.

Vasilia will protect the Shogun with the formation. Mars will protect.

She?

She doesn't have a plan, and if this goes wrong, she'll be isolated and vulnerable. Or, you know, as vulnerable as any gravrail master can be? Which is to say, as vulnerable as she was stepping on any planet with a large enough number of Ceronians?

Anyway.

The point, see, is that you don't always need a plan. You don't always need to be elegant and upright and a master. That's for Vasilia and Bella and Redana.

For her, sometimes you just need to fuck shit up.

Two gravrail users going at it in a small space is a recipe for disaster. Everyone knows that. Stories about palaces torn apart, chaos spread, disasters unmitigated.

But as bunkers and emplacements crumble around her, as shots go wild and miss and stray… Sometimes it pays to be good at fucking up.

Overcome with hope: 5,3,6, -1: 10

Breathless Dead

Any wolf, huh?

The thought won't leave her head. It's been bouncing along inside her head like a pebble in a boot.

Any wolf could try. Any wolf could be shogun, if they had the ambition and the guts to try it.

… Redana's a wolf, isn't she?

It's a terrible thought, a nightmare of logistics, counter to their whole mission, a position that Redana would hate and Bella would chastise her for even considering.

But still, the thought is--

Dyssia takes the notebook like a shipwrecked sailor climbing into a lifeboat.

It's weird, right? Because on the one hand, writing things down is, ugh, you know? Like, you're pinning thoughts on paper, and making plans you just know you're not gonna keep, and setting goals you'll find unimaginable once two weeks have passed.

But on the other hand! Oh, on the other hand, words that someone else has written down! Glorious thoughts, or, or better yet, instructions! Like nectar from the gods! Stabilizing, bracing, understandable! Distraction, compulsion, immortal, eternal!

She pores over the figures, absentmindedly nodding, eyes flicking between sums and columns and supplies, and makes some quick notes.

"Yes, in this column here, I think you'll find. An addition error, perhaps."

Like they're trapped repeating the same project, over and over again, always moving forward and yet staying still. Locked into their ambitions, working towards them, making endless progress and no change whatsoever.

Aphrodite has his claws in them all.

Breathless Dead

Teeth.

Teeth teeth teeth stench meat teeth

Why are there so many teeth why is everything fire this is not sexy at all.

Trillions.

She knew, right? Like, this many planets, this big a scale--

Intellectually, right? Like, a number that big stops fitting in your head? You can't imagine a million grains of sand, let alone a million millions.

Trillions. On the low end!

Is a low trillion even a thing? Can a trillion of anything be described as a low of anything?

Is this what the knights felt like, staring down the barrel of interplanetary--

Trillions!

But they at least had--

Friends? Coworkers? Allies? Idiots whose ideals happened to line up?

She has those, though? Right? Or, you know.

Already, she's feeling the loss. They're gonna make the best world possible for them here, but--she's losing friends, nevertheless.

It's so, so tempting to say yes.

Such a relief when she turns away, like a cloud passing in front of too hot a burning sun, and isn't that a shameful little ember piercing her. Yes, let Bella take the weight--she's always been the strong one, even now, even broken.

Even now, there's a part of her that's contemplating the idea. She doesn't have a plan for what happens after the Skies, after all--she's not a dreamer, not an ideas person, doesn't have a grand art project to cast into the skies.

She can see the blood already, dripping off her hands to pool on the floor and drown them all.

What would be the harm in saying yes?

Better put, what would be the harm in saying no? Beyond, you know, trillions of lives?

If, you know, you were to think about it purely numerically. If you shut yourself away from thinking of them as people, and reduced them purely to casualties reduced.

How do you go forward, knowing that--

She's not wrong, is the thing, right? How can she do anything against the sheer scale of trillions?

… How can she not, against the scale of hundreds of trillions?

It'd be so easy. Sit back, be a toy, let massive atrocity be carried out in her name from the safety and distance of the seraglio, tell herself she's taking the moral option, the humane option.

Her hands ball into fists.

Unthinkable. She will bathe the galaxy in blood, first. If there are horrors to be done, she will do them. Dyssia the distracted? No. There will be other epithets carved on whatever shallow grave she's eventually dumped into, but they'll be hers.

Breathless Dead

The books get everything wrong, did you know that?

In the books, this is it! This is the meet-cute! This is the savage Ceronian who will be won by the guiles of the Azura temptress, and turn out to be not that bad, actually, and secretly kind and caring if treated right, and--

God, she's scared out of her mind. Is it weird to be concerned about her clothes right now? Like, she's dressed up to the nines, formal to her wits end, and--

And in the face of the savagery in front of her, it's like. It's like it all melts away. Like it's both right and also incredibly out of place. Like, just by existing in this space with her, she turns the space into her own space and now it is they who are wrong.

Which, I mean. They're in orbit over her planet, and she's the Shogun, and--

She takes a deep breath, and then a second one.

"Tempting," she admits. "Truly, it is. I intend both to rebuild this ship and cast the Azura from the skies."

She takes another shuddering breath and meets the Shogun's eyes.

"But if you wanted to do that, you would have done it a century ago."

Polite. Even. Not like she expects it to make a difference. This is not a court, this is not a place where manners can deflect. She's not being rude, not trying to offend, simply stating facts in as neutral a voice as her pounding heart will allow.

"If you wanted to govern, subdue, occupy, in the way it would take to fully kill the skies--to fully halt the inertia of self-running bureaucracies that keep it ticking along--you would not have built your planet in a way that lets you live forever in the moment of conquest. You want the glory, the thrill, the battle, the next, and have set up your planet to provide exactly that in spades."