Balmas

Breathless Dead

Every word hits like a sledgehammer blow. All of this pain, and suffering, because she was too dense to follow simple instructions. Had to fight! Had to glory hound! Had to be the big warrior queen! Couldn't wait for instructions, couldn't follow what she had, and--

And Dolce and Vasilia suffer for it.

Honestly, it's not fair that she can't hug him how she'd like. Can't wrap all four arms around him and squeeze until all the hurt and panic leaves. Can't just bury her face in his wool, breath in, and hold him until the shaking stops. Can't stop trembling herself, and hold on for dear life. But she can't. Needs to hold back, be cautious, be ever mindful of struggling, hitching in breath, anything to indicate that she's holding on too hard.

Still, even if it's not ideal, this is. This is nice.

Nicer than somebody like her deserves.

She gently pulls him in closer, and tucks his head under her chin. (His fur is so soft, it's not fair.) "Listen," she murmurs. "None of this is your fault. It is mine for not being there for you. Mine for challenging Jas'o instead of listening to Vasilia. We are going to fix this. And when it is done and your Vasilia is back, you shall have a boon of me. Ask what you will, whatever you will, and I shall destroy myself to bring it to pass."

Breathless Dead

“So, your former Admiral; has a taste for chains and gags, does she?”

@TheAmishPirate

Huh. Genuinely didn't peg her as that, but perhaps it might be worth cultivating that acquain--

"What?" said Galnius. "No. She's into gold."

@Thanqol

Oh. Drat.

And this is why she's awful, you know that right? Is because she's sitting here distracted by thoughts of good times when the evidence of her crimes is before her.

She bows awkwardly, and then springs upright again like a puppet with rusty joints. "Of course, Captain. I will follow your orders in the baths." One long stone arm snakes out and wraps around Dolce's shoulder. "Could I count on your assistance, please? I will require your aid in chiseling the spots I cannot reach."

And it's not a lie, she tells herself as she gently but firmly walks the sheep around a corner. She does need help to reach the nasty exit wound in her shoulder, and sanding and abrasion are better with someone else doing it. But the main reason is immediately apparent the second they're more than two corners away, and she can wrap the small sheep in a bear hug and squeeze for all she's worth, and let the dam of apologies come down. It's a babble of words that all run together, but "I'm sorry" and "What happened" feature prominently.

Fellowship: The Heart

"So boring," she said, a blazing hot specter of Impatience rising above and around her. She cupped her hands and addressed Coleman: "Hey! Short stuff!" it was okay when she said it. "Can't you make this hunk of garbage go any faster?"

@Thanqol

Getting a hand over Ailee's mouth is a journey in itself, because the universe clearly is poorly designed by people who have never had to get a stool to reach high shelves. He clambers up Lucien, sticks a toeclaw through a belt loop for balance, and--

And the dratted mouse has the sheer indecency to laugh and cover her own mouth before he can get there. Not fair, universe. Not fair at all.

"Never," he hisses, doing his level best to keep the train from hearing, "ask a train to go fast unless you've done your due diligence to clear the path."

Dammit, this is not a dignified position from which to administer correction. Still, he rallies magnificently. See the way he stands, like a gentleman adventurer clinging to the peak of a frost-ridden summit? Tall and proud and noble? Definitely not questioning his choice of support, no sir.

"Words for the wise," he finishes. "We go carefully."

Breathless Dead

Alexa stares at Vasilia, a knot forming in her gut and the breath catching in her throat.

"What happened?" she does not say. It is there, poised on the tip of her tongue, but it is fighting with all the other things trying to get out: I am so sorry, I should have been there, You should not have had to face whatever did this to you alone, This is my fault, If I had not disobeyed I would have been there to help you, I am so sorry, and on and on forever.

And the look on the poor sheep's face, he knows it. She will need to do something special for them both to make up for today. Hera and Zeus, what must be going through his mind right now?

Hades, she's waiting. Alexa forces a swallow, before offering a gentle "Many thanks," to Galnius. They have done more than their fair share.

Her leg twinges with every step, but she is not allowed to show pain. She must be strong and graceful, no matter how her ankle screams for bronze to fill the hole. Just long enough to cross the room. Five seconds, or maybe a millenium, that is all.

Her parade rest is perfect, because of course it must be, no matter how she wants to scream when she meets the captain's Hades-cursed vision. "Jas'o is with Redana," she reports, "and I must advise against confronting him in this moment. Athena has ordained his triumph, and he is"--do not look at the new holes in her stone, please--"an expert shot. Instead, Hera has commanded that we find and coerce a minor bureaucrat to move this titan from its space. It is a good tactical decision, if for no other reason than to remove the Armada from the equation."

She pauses, and follows up with, "What would you have me do, Captain?"

Breathless Dead

Twice, in the same day.

That, almost more than anything else, stings the most. More than the twitching (constant), more than the electricity coursing through her legs, more than being jostled like a sack of flour because apparently Galnius has never learned a fireman's carry, seriously, we're having a training meeting if we survive. Athena has turned against her. Zeus, Poseidon, and her mother all conspire to grant Jas'o his victory.

But Hera has not yet abandoned her. It is that thought that gives her the strength to gasp out, "Left!" She cannot face Jas'o in this state. But hopefully, she can find this official who can grant Hera her wish. Left, if she recognizes the design of the palace--and she's been around a few--should take them away from the grand courtyard, and towards the smaller servant's quarters.

Now if only Galnius can be trusted to carry her away from glory, and she's not entirely sure they will.

Fellowship: The Heart

Coleman is out of the train in a flash, and giving Sasha the pat-down of her life. Who's the best train? She is, of course, and she's earned an extra rich dose of fuel tonight--it's oak, your favorite! You don't like that coarse stuff we normally source, but this is special, just for you. Apparently some rich bureaucrat bit it, and you know they didn't need their desk, so I managed to score some of the worksurface just for you! And then we've got a polishing cloth, and you've been such a good girl who just needs love and care, and to press just that little bit more on because we can't stop for too long or else the cave collapses, but you've done oh so very well, good job Sasha! Yes you did~!

Breathless Dead

It isn't a planned advance. Alexa sees the thunderbolt, and the calm, measured lope becomes a furious, churning, mad dash. There's nothing but the pounding of stone on stone, the rush of wind, and somewhere, Redana and a man(?) with the power to beam this whole mess out of the midst of the Armada. That's the goal, that's the hope, and heaven help anyone standing in her way.

(Yeah, that's a 5, 1, -1, 5 on Get Away.)

Breathless Dead

[[9] on Finish with Courage]

For a second, there is only the thunder of SP fire and a cloud of smoke and grit so thick it could choke a horse. It clings to everything, shoves itself down throats, and muffles the world in an all-consuming emptiness of sound. The world and skirmishers hold their breath.

And then the growling starts. It's the worst kind, the kind of growling that reaches down the spine and plucks directly at that bit of hindbrain that remembers when you used to be a kind of fluffy animal, clutching at nuts in the undergrowth. It's the spring-laden bassen growl that speaks of something with a chest large enough to swallow you whole, and which probably will do so if you don't find a hole to crawl into.

Then the two furnace-red eyes appear, casting light into the grit like dual lighthouses, too far into the air to possibly be real, and moving too fast to believe.

Then the titan emerges from the smoke far more quickly than is fair for anything that size to move. Alexa is a hecatonchire of pain, lashing fingers and slamming spearbutts against temples, growling all the while like Charybdis at her hungriest. And behind that, a wall of thrusting, stabbing spears.

All it takes is one skirmisher turning. Then the spears are through the gap, the titan is in the midst of the formation, and men are scattering like rats chased by flame.

Gah! Every time! Damn SP weapons! They get everywhere, and she can't even wipe her eyes!

Well. That will have announced her. Time to get while the going's good.

Breathless Dead

Alexa's mouth trembles in a silent gasp of relief as the Thunderbolt comes out, but it does not prevent her from bending the knee and spine in a bow of acceptance. "It shall be so," she intones, and does her best not to let the storm swirling inside her mind rise to the surface.

The Ceronians have been abandoned by Zeus. No, not abandoned--actively targeted, which is infinitely worse. And even with Hera's blessing, Alexa would much rather grab Redana and clear the blast zone than actively seek to thwart the will of the King of the GOds.

But the bargain has been struck, the demand made, and it is even less in Alexa to become an oathbreaker to the gods than it is to be one who follows orders. That has ever been her job--to follow the orders, and not to question them.

She rises, eyes set on the palace. This is not running, she insists to herself. She is seeking a higher goal, a strategic objective. That's not running. There's no need to punish anyone else. You can't punish anyone else for her following the orders of a god!

It sounds desperately hollow, even to her own mind.

Still, as she turns, she hesitates, her eyes seeking her own. Please let them be alive. Of course they're alive, right? Scratches, perhaps, but nothing that won't heal. They'll recover. Let that be true, and she can--be brave, Alexa--turn against the will of Zeus himself in peace.

Breathless Dead

This is not the first time she has been struck by the power of Zeus. And yet, past experience does nothing to prepare her for the way that the lightning sparks and crawls across her, arcs from the bolt lodged in her back to the sword and back again, steals the breath out of her chest, spins around every impurity in her stone and lights trails of fire down every brass inlay. Her fingers, unbidden, scrabble against the grass, finding no purchase.

And through it all, she makes no sound. Makes no complaint, nothing that could be taken as an objection. Zeus and Athena judge her wanting, as is their right, and she will not countermand them. But as she locks eyes with Hera, and lifts a trembling arm, is it selfish to hope for mercy? Let her demand what she will, and Alexa will fulfill it. Just let it stop.