Balmas

Breathless Dead

On the one hand, oh no. She can already imagine what awaits her if even maids have badges. She's gonna have to work her way up to a maid outfit?

Unless maids are something different on this ship? Ooooh, maybe they have assassin maids. Tasteful dresses, hiding steel stilettos. Steelettos.

Mmmf, she's already getting squirmy, and it's not just tentacles getting familiar.

On the other hand, should she be feeling bad about her servitors getting kidnapped with her? It's not her doing, she's not responsible, she's not the one airlifting a house into the ship, she didn't volunteer for any of this, they didn't ask for this, but.

Honestly, it's more that she's guilty for not feeling more guilty? Like, she also didn't ask for this. It's not her doing and she's not responsible for them kidnapping her either, but it's also super reassuring to know that she's not going to be kidnapped alone? She'll have at least twelve other people also wrestling for badges. They can form a badge kidnapping coalition, steal each others' badges, bully the ones who don't have any yet…

Oh, this is a good thing. This is a game. And games have rules.

Rules are good. She likes rules. Honestly, she doesn't understand why other people don't like rules as much as she does? They say they do, but then they contradict themselves the entire time, act like they didn't tell her one rule when yes you did say that rule, you can't just decide the rules are different or act like she didn't understand them correctly. Maybe you just should say exactly what the rules are, and then we can all record it, and look back at it, and you'll see exactly what you said the rule was, and how she is so following the rules, and so there!

Rules are nice. They delineate the world so neatly into what to do when, if you can just figure them out.

But more importantly, rules mean that Dyssia can win.

"So, in the assumption that backstabbing will happen at some point, you've organized your society so the roles will continue, even if the person doing them is different. I wonder, does the badge confer the abilities? Some kind of scent-based prompting? That'd make things so much easier, makes so much more sense than training for a lifetime for one skill."

She's talking more at Tidal than to, narrating a train of though.

"Any means. Is there a system in place to keep them from immediately taking it back if you use violence, beyond the obvious of them already having beaten you? Do you declare immediately what you are, or do you just know by scent? Scent would make theft harder, if only because it means that the person you're pickpocketing can tell when the scent leaves them. Is there a grace period, a time of no-take-backsies? When I become captain, what orders can I give?"

Ooooh. Oh, there are so many thoughts.

"You're excluded from this, though," she says, as if it's the most obvious thing. Which it is? "You're the one running the experiment, after all. If it takes six weeks to rejigger someone into a different role, you can't have the biomancer in charge needing to constantly swap between whoever has the badge.

"I wonder if you're allowed to partake, though. Must be plenty of outlaws for you to hunt and punish, but it wouldn't be fair if they couldn't take your badge, too. Must get tempting."

Breathless Dead

Oh.

That… works? She hadn't expected it to work, honestly. Like, if you're going to memorize a disclaimer about how friendship is not available for six to eight weeks, depending on cloning time--to the point that you can recite it on demand, underwater, while tying up your victim--you'd think you'd be less flexible than "Yeah, sure."

Not that she's complaining! It's. Well, it's honestly a relief! She's still trapped in a situation that's spiraled laughably quickly out of her control, soon to be in one where she's entirely removed from any resources she has now, which, to add up, sum total negative one clothes, negative two veils, negative twelve servitors, but positive one crystal dragon best friend..

Neutral? Has not gained, but also has not lost. Positive, definitely positive. Positive by virtue of the sucking gape that negative would be.

"Oh hey, d'you mind if we stop by my place before we leave the planet? Need to pick up some things before I leave."

Gotta say it before the thought goes away. It'd suck majorly to remember as you're leaving the planet the one--okay, several dozen--things you want to take with you, which somehow you do not think to pack when you're leaving to visit a friend who shares cat pictures with you a lifetime ago.

Is that what the other Azura use their flocks of gear-carrying servitors for? Just to make sure that you have your couch on the off-chance you need to flee the planet with your entire house under your arms? That's smarter than she'd given them credit for--mostly she'd just seen them carrying art supplies or files or massive blocks of marble.

God, she almost went to the spaceport without her couch. Buck naked too, but focus on the important things, like, you know, keeping your captor sweet.

"Never had the privilege, honestly. Or a Ceronian vessel, which I gather are kind of similar? Or is that a bad assumption to make? You're scaled down from them, right? But is the culture different? Do you have a shogun of your own? Does that get you in trouble with the Shogun-Shogun? What kind of mercenary work have you done? What makes you unique relative to other ship cultures?"

Keep them occupied, too. People love talking about themselves, right?

Breathless Dead

Dyssia opens her mouth.

Dyssia closes her mouth.

It hadn't quite hit her yet--here, in this place of life, surrounded by electrifying thrills and threats, here in the enfolding tentacles of this mirage in front of her--but she's going to be alone. Just her and the Pix and, you know, whatever they decide they want to do to her, or have her do for them, or.

Just her, surrounded by people who.

Well, it's not fair to say that they don't care about her. She hopes, anyway. They care very much about her, and about what she does, and what she can do for them. It's in their best interest to keep her happy.

But it feels.

Well, you know, in the stories, the hero always has a sidekick, right? Or a friend, or a lover, or a nemesis that is actually a lover but neither of them have figured it out yet? And sometimes the story needs them to be apart--the sidekick has to be kidnapped so the heroine can kidnap her back, and confess that she's always meant the world to her, and hey since we have all this rope from climbing the wall, maybe we could.

Ehm.

Anyway, the point is, the point is that being alone always leads to being together. You ache while they're apart, you worry about them, but you know the payoff is coming. The sidekick will rescue the heroine, the lovers will confess, the nemesis will be redeemed.

And. Well, she has Brightberry, and that's good. There's days when that's all she wants, when things aren't making sense and all she wants is to crawl in bed so tomorrow comes faster.

D'you think they'd let her take her couch if she asks nicely? That seems important, right this moment. Take her family, her friends, her city, her planet, but don't take her couch, too.

But sometimes the storyteller pulls back the curtain, right? Gives you glimpses of, whoops, the friend is actually a plant of the evil Baroness Meerline, and you can almost see the calculating happening in the corner of their eyes? Seeing how the manipulation happens, and wondering why people don't see it, and lowkey screaming internally because are you blind, can't you see that if you go with her, your friends will be left alone, and--

And she's about to be surrounded by. Well, by people who are going into this knowing the score. Knowing that she's the pawn that they have to crack, which is a terrible metaphor. She's going to be surrounded by Pix who want her to trust them, want her to work for them, want to be her friends.

And she doesn't know that she doesn't want them to be her friends? Which sucks massively, because it doesn't make any damned sense? She wants to be able to trust them? But also if she picks any one of them at random, the biomancer is--

What a shitshow. How do you biomancer in a way that doesn't lead to the biomancer immediately biomancing to keep you happy?

So, can't trust them to make a friend. Can't choose one on her own to make a friend, because then the biomancer gets involved to make the friendship happen perfectly.

And she can't even keep the dismay off her face, can't keep it from crumpling, can't keep the hood from half-flaring. Even a blind biomancer--a blind biomancer who is also deaf and dead--could see this.

"How long would it take to happen naturally? Not to have a friend assigned, or cloned, or created, or edited, but. You know, to let me muddle into it without interference? If I ask for that, is that an option?"

Breathless Dead

You know, people don't notice things nearly enough?

It's weird, right? Doesn't make sense. People just say things, as if everyone's a prince, too busy thinking about what they're going to say next to pay attention.

Dyssia knows she's weird, right? People won't let her forget it. But surely everyone else is weird for not paying attention?

Do other people just… not care? Not notice? Not pay attention to the emotional state of everyone around themselves? Are they not constantly trying to figure out what other people are thinking, are feeling, so they can fit themselves in better?

And you know, she used to wish that everyone would do the same? Like, paying attention, she means. Pick up on all the cues that are right there if you just [/i] look. And they just don't?

It's to the point that someone talking to her and--and, you know, actually paying attention, actually watching her, actually listening--almost feels like it's accusatory? Like she's done something wrong, and every nerve is singing, and--

And oh shit, it's.

Go back. Go back to not paying attention to her, please go back!

It's like suddenly the universe has a physical pressure. Eyes stare at her from every direction, invisible, but totally present by the force of attention they exert. A great sucking pull, the weight of every creature in the environment hanging off her next words.

He's here.

He's here and he's watching. Here and waiting, waiting for those words to spill from her lips.

Tidal Specialization was way too quick to accept that. Way too eager to get her to promise.

Until she betrays me. Tidal has that pressure in her eyes, that built-in species-level urge. It's inevitable, right? She can't not betray her. Unless she does? Unless she just chooses to leave? Recuses herself? Can't. Gotta be a trap. Can't trust a scorpion to sting you if stinging you is. Um. Not? Stinging you?

Reexamine. Other terms? Until she's.

Until she's delivered to another pix. Seems like a good way to end up in solitary?

Until they're off planet? Does she know they're leaving? If she says that, will that mean they just. Just won't leave? She wouldn't leave if all she had to do was break one person to claim a planet.

The tentacles are squeezing her too hard. They must be, because it's hard to breathe right now.

"Not particularly, I don't think," she babbles. "I mean, not that it's not striking, because I mean, wow, what a coincidence, did your parents name you that and then you went into it? C'mon, you gotta have a name of your own, I can't call you by your job. We can be friends, right, no need for"--potentially life ending, holy shit--"promises like that, right?"

Breathless Dead

"Oh my gosh, you know about crabs."

She's tugging at the tentacles, but not--Look, it's not an escape attempt, right? It's just hard to properly talk about something like crabs without the proper wild gesticulations.

"I know about crabs!

"Did you know they're on literally every planet we've ever conquered?! Every single one! Planets that are barren, lifeless, just rocks and bacteria, have crabs!

"Oh I'm silly, you know that. There are some planets where we--it's like, we've never even seen them, but we know they're there because--well, admittedly, some survivors have seen them, but that's just anecdotal, and I hear most of them were gibbering--we know they're there because of the evidence it leaves on the crabs' natural prey! If there weren't crabs there, the submarines would see far more animals down there!"

She beams at the Pix.

"Oh, you have to tell me your favorite. Please? I've read books, but my favorite is--get this--a crab the size of a planet. One of the sailors told me about it, can you imagine it? A crab so big, it has sub-crabs inside it, so big it can eat starships! It hasn't been seen in centuries, but the sailors say it's still out there!

"…Hmm. Now that I think about it, she might have been pulling my leg? She seemed serious, didn't have that little tell around her eyes that said she was joking. Or maybe trying to scare me?

"But come on! A crab the size of a planet? How do you get scared of that? I wanna see it! I wanna fly inside it, crawl on its back!"

Dyssia is grinning and wiggling against the Pix. There are benefits to tentacles, you know? Yeah, you can't escape them, but you have an excuse for getting nice and close to them, and pressing your face against them, and really getting familiar.

"Have you been working with crabs long? Have you made any improvements on crabs? I mean, they're crabs, I'm surprised you've taken the time out of your busy schedule for Azura matters, you know? Is Tidal Specialization your name or your job? C'mon, I gotta know the name of my partner in crime slash new best bud slash kidnapper!

"And the answer is yes! Although you can't really know whether that's the truth or not, because I'd say yes even if I were secretly thinking no, you know? If I wanted to escape, the easiest way to do that would be to trick you into letting me out, right?

"So, how about this: I will promise on whomever you choose not to attempt to escape until after you betray me. Does that work?"

Breathless Dead

She's the most beautiful person Dyssia has ever seen.

Which is saying something, when you consider that Dyssia grew up with Merilt, and if you look up "sex goddess" in the dictionary, you'd find a picture of Merilt there!

Well… no, no you wouldn't. Making a dictionary, writing up sex goddess, and putting a picture of anyone but Aphrodite--or maybe Demeter, depending on your definitions--is a good way to end up with a bunch of slag that used to be a factory.

But you get the picture, right? Merilt's the kind of hot that lets you walk into a room and instantly quiet every conversation. The kind that has options. The kind that doesn't have to settle for--

Look, it wasn't a crush, right? Dyssia explicitly did not want it to affect her relationship with Merilt. She was lucky enough that Merilt chose her, out of all people, to be best friends with.

Because let's face it, Dyssia is. Well, yes, attractive. She looks in a mirror and thinks, "Yeah, I'd do me." But in an unconventional way. Attractive, but. Not in a way that would let you go on the street and know that every eye is on you. Not in a way that gives you that easy walk, that confident gaze. Not in the way that would let you walk up to your best friend and ask whether they'd like to be more.

She's her best friend.

Was. Was, she needs to remind herself. Past tense.

It made so much sense, though. Yeah, you might end up in a fulfilling relationship that goes places and ends with both of you sharing a life of adventure. Ooooor, you might alienate one of the only true friends you have--again--and end up in a gutter.

Or, you know, you could spend years pining? Pining is probably the wrong word. Being happy with what you have, telling yourself not to ruin it. Being scared to ask that first question, hoping against hope that maybe, maybe she feels the same way? Only to be stabbed in the back anyway?

Did… Did Merilt know? She always told herself that no, there's no way she could have.

But right now, she's questioning a whole lot of her past assumptions. She can't have known. She had to have known. There was always that teasing look when she smiled. And, so you know, Merilt has a great smile. Dyssia could look at the smile for hours, and god help her if Merilt laughed. Just, plain up girl-melting laugh.

Or, you know, it was. Back before. Before things changed.

The smile she gives out now is… It's the same shape, right? Like, to a tee. Could photograph one, and photograph the other, and line them up over one another, and have no differences. But it's fake, Dyssia knows--the mouth shape is the same, but it doesn't reach the eyes.

You wouldn't do that to a friend, right? Wouldn't keep them by your side, letting them stew in--

Fuck, is she the bad friend? Is that what happened, is that Merilt knew, and got tired of waiting for Dyssia to finally get her guts together and ask?

It's not fair. She wants to be angry--wants to nestle into it like a warm ball of energy, draw power from it. But now she's not even sure who to be mad at.

The Pix has the same smile, you know? Like she's spent time with Merilt, and crafted her mouth to look the same, and spent hours perfecting that same smile under her tutelage.

And she's open, and willing, and wants her. She's even more of a sex goddess than Merilt, could have her pick of anyone, and is asking for her, and wants her, and--

And she's within arm's length now, she realizes with a jolt. No idea how she got through the jellyfish tentacles--she'd moved past them almost without thinking, on autopilot, just figuring out which way they were going and then not being there. Just…

On second thought, it's not quite like Merilt's smile. Not like either of Merilt's smiles, she means--not the real one that she used in private back then, or the one she gives out to devotees today.

It's probably just the light, you know. From the jellyfish, and the bioluminescence, and the way the wings scatter and diffract both across the Pix's face.

It's a crafted illusion of a smile. But it somehow seems kinder than what she's used to.

She gulps, and stares at the Pix, almost at a loss for words.

"Come here often?"

Fuck. No, actually, at a loss would be better.

Breathless Dead

You know, on second thought, healthbars are a pretty great thing? Getting whittled down, one razor-cut at a time, is certainly not how she wants to spend her afternoon!

Gosh, has it only been a few hours since she woke up? How did she actually plan to spend her afternoon? Baking, wasn't it? Was that today, or was it baskets today? She doesn't quite recall, and the schedule on her desk has been accumulating dust since she made it an promptly started to ignore it.

Ahem. Not how she wants to spend her afternoon, right? Shock and poison and glass in her eyes and splinters under her fingernails. But the point is, see, that stuff is survivable. Get a healthbar big enough, and you can endure tons of small hits.

Down here, it feels like everything around her threatens a one-shot-kill. Oh man, She Is In Danger Now.

She's never felt so alive before.

Fucked up, innit? If this were one of her stories, this is where the heroine would do something clever and subvert everything. Or, you know, fall into a bad end of indeterminate duration, depending on the story, don't judge her.

But the heroine is always alert and aware and thinking, where here, she feels almost drunk with sensation.

Possibly, that's a neurotoxin in the water. Should probably watch out for that.

But it's true! Her pulse races, her heart threatens to burst in her chest, she's breathing hard, and everything--everything stands out. Every twitch out of the corner in her eye gets focused on. Every color is bright, vivid, a confusing mess of blurred edges and threat.

She should go up. She should go up. Go up, get away, take the risk. Twenty--no, no, fifteen, 75 percent, remember--fifteen Ceronians cannot hope to match the terrors down here.

And yet she lingers.

Every nerve is lightning, every sense is screaming to get away. Threats from every corner, every direction. Ancient sense of electricity coursing, telling her it's useless to pinpoint the direction of danger, because it's every direction, and up, up, up is the smart.

Colors and lights and glows… How has she always wanted to go find adventure in space, when all this time, it's been here?

She should leave. She should go. Swim up. Swim away. Her hands haven't stopped pressing the ELF on her belt since she got here. Everything is danger. Everything is perfecting themselves, the better to kill her.

But she could no more tear herself away from this--this sense, this wonder, this peril, these colors, this bliss--than she could become a master by wishing for it. It's madness, pure and simple.

And with a thrust of her tail, she sends herself further into it.

Breathless Dead

Well, put like that, It's gotta be diving deep, innit?

Because, and here's the thing, yeah, she could skim along the top of the water, draining those healthbars all the way. And as she went, they'd learn what her limits are for both, and when she needs to surface, and how much shocking she can take, and how long she can be shocked before an eyeful of glass shards seems appealing, and let's not forget it'd suck.

Yeowch! Correction, present tense, sucks! Is sucking!

And, to top it all off, there's no guarantee that she'd even make the spaceport, right? The main problem with wearing down your healthbar--or two healthbars, as the case may be--is that at the end of it, she's at low health, while they're fresh as daisies. She'll have spent the entire time getting gassed and shocked and forcing her way through thick water, while they'll have been riding pretty, skimming across the waves and, you know, not getting shocked?

Noooot exactly ideal conditions for a mad dash to a spaceship that may or may not be A) willing to board her and B) ready to launch immediately or C) willing to try to futilely hold off a dozen Ceronian skirmishers while negotiation and ship prep happen.

But, uh…

You hear stories, right? Azura grew up in the ocean, so it's not like there's monsters to be afraid of. Or rather, if there are monsters in the depths, it's like. Someone asks you what monsters exist in the depths and you answer, "Oh yeah, there's dangerous things down there, and it's us."

So there's nothing down there that could be a threat.

Right.

Course not.

We've rearranged the skies and the stars. It's just some deep water, right?

We'd know if Poseidon had swarms of monsters in the depths, right? 'Cuz they'd be on the land, see?

And she can breathe underwater! The Pix can't do that, right? Or at least, not for long enough to find her, certainly? They can breathe in the vacuum of space, or hold their breath, or whatever, but they still have to come up for air eventually! Where she can just stay down!

All she has to do is stay down there, break line of sight, and the rest of the planet is wide open to her! Sustain herself on kelp and, um, crabs maybe. It'll be an adventure, like that one story about a kid who got stuck underwater with nothing but a knife, and built her way up to making skyscrapers! Survive, thrive, stay down there, and come up on a different continent when she's ready to make her dash for it!

So when you think about it, diving deep into the ocean is practically just a walk in the park!

Ouch! Or at least, more of one than staying up here!

And, bonus! Bonus thought! Because she's diving, and they're not, it gives her an opportunity to figure out exactly the range at which she stops getting shocked! If she knows the range and they don't, that's something she can use against them when they have to come after her! Information is your best ally, after all.

Unless a Guardian would like to come out of nowhere and demolish their formation? That'd be a pretty darn good ally, a lot more useful than information. It'd be pretty darn cool if that happened.

…

No?

Darn. Of all the times for the universe not be listening in on her thoughts. Damned inconvenient, she'll have you know. If this were a story, that'd be just the kind of timing for a wise mentor to show up, solve the plot, and pass on a call to adventure, possibly just before dying heroically.

Gah! Right! Right! Shocks, gas, diving!

Breathless Dead

It's unfair how pretty they are.

Weird to focus on that, right? Pack of hunters surrounding her, flares of blue and orange against the night, streaks of brilliant light reflected against the waves. She sits at the center of the flower, salt in her nostrils as she skims mere meters above the surface of the water, the hunters a dome above and around her.

No sound but the roar of the jetpacks and the soft shooshing of the waves. No thoughts but speed. Serenity at a breakneck pace.

Damn you, Merilt, for taking this away from her.

Jetpacks are pretty cool, you know? Like, don't tell the grav-rail she said this, but there are actually some applications where they're more useful?

F'r'instance, you know, just naming something that springs to mind off the top her head, they're pretty damn good for pursuit of a single target by a coordinated group while in an atmosphere.

In space, grav-rails are king. Put a gravity well in front of something, and you can fall forever, and the only thing stopping you from accelerating forever is the possibility of a rogue planet being in the way. But in atmosphere, terminal velocity rears its ugly head.

She dives headfirst down the side of the planet, arms flat against her side, minimizing her profile, and wishing for once that nature had made her flatter. The dress--that lovely, billowing, swooshy dress, with all the layers and fabric--is somewhere miles behind, having been wriggled out of as unnecessary drag. Nothing is too precious to sacrifice in the name of lower wind resistance.

And yet they're still gaining on her! Look at those little flooferdoodles and their solid-fuel anachronisms!

See, that's what they are in the stories, right? Anachronistic, primitive, used by depraved villains who are cocksure of themselves, and outsmarted by the clever Azura?

But what the stories always seem to forget is that it works? The Ceronians conquered the Azura with jetpacks! It works because they're coordinated, and they're faster than she is, even with the rail! Is it really an anachronism if they're still working the same way they did hundreds of years ago?

Um. Okay.

So, um, all she needs to do, right, is figure out, you know, how to beat a strategy that's bested the best Azura minds for a century. In the next few minutes. While not being an easy enough target to be hit on the battle rhythm, and not close enough to be drawn into the net.

Heights and depths. Heights have failed her, but depths… Water. Water's an option.

She stares at the Huntress, trying to read intention behind those eyes. Is the flicker there a promise? A threat?

Okay. Play with that idea for a second. Dive into the ocean, propelled by the rail. Water means resistance, more than air. But more for them than for her, born of water. Do their jetpacks work underwater? Assume they do, assume that the solid fuel inside the jetpacks does not require oxygen for its combustion and will not be extinguished in the ocean. Assume the jetpacks will still have the advantage.

Salt. Does the salt corrode it fast enough? Can she evade long enough for that to be a thing?

They've nocked bows. Do bows work underwater? Do the Pix know how to fight underwater?

Her brain fizzes and bubbles, like caged lightning.

Electricity. ELF. Salt. Salt in water. Saline. Salt water and electricity.

The flower is closing, she can tell. The longer she flies, the more chances the Pix have to set up the battle rhythm. Maybe she makes it to the spaceport before then? Can she gamble on that?

Can she gamble on the ocean?

One hand flicks over the belt, and she dives arms-first into the waves. Coolness and silence roll over her, shocking and icy.

Air isn't working. Water might.

And let's be honest, she wants them to follow her. Make them suffer for their prize. Give the painters some sodden victors for their mural.

Splashes, muffled roars behind her.

Right then. She doesn't want to turn her head, check to see what damage that's done to their formation.

Water. Their organization is done by pheromones, right? Perfect synchronization, perfect unity, interpreted by scent? Can they smell underwater? Does that work? Does she dare hope that they'll get disrupted by that?

More importantly, do they know the new range of an ELF through saltwater? Gotta be better than through air, right? Because she sure as hell doesn't, and she'll probably only get one shot to find out.

Death or glory. Or, well, you know, a big-ass gag or escape, but that doesn't scan as well?

She waits for the formation to reform, offers a quick look of hope at Artemis, darts for the edge, and hopes like hell. Hopes she's gotten the range right. Hopes their formation is disrupted by the water. Hopes she's faster than them. Hopes Artemis smiles on her rather than them.

Come on. Let's roll those dice.

Breathless Dead

Oh my gosh they're so adorable she's going to diiiiiie.

Look at them! Look at how serious they are! With their liddle helmets and their pointy ears and their stares! Oh, she wants to pick them up and squeeze their little cheeks and carry them under an arm like a purse!

Ooooh, please let her take a Ceronian home. You know, like in that one book, but in reverse? Where like, the Ceronian demands a maiden be sent to live with her? Oh gosh it'd cause so many problems but can you imagine? Just waking up, swathed in fur, or cuddling around one like a pillow?

But that's not what they'd want, right? They're bristling with armor and spears and doing such a good job of not wagging their tails, yes you are.

An entire hunt! A war-party! Twenty Ceronians, just for her! They've gone out of their way to move the moon and everything!

Well, seventy-five percent of a Ceronian, so, uh, fifteen Ceronians, one Azura? She's read books like that one too, on the more fanciful nights of wandering the town. Gotta know where to look for them and cultivate those acquaintances, you know.

So, obviously surrender is out of the question, right?

Can you imagine? Everyone's gone to this effort, and she just walks up, bites the bridle, swoon, oh dear, I have been captured, take me to the pleasure cabin!~

Nothing against pleasure cabins, mind! Or bit gags, come to think of it! Not her favorite, if that makes sense? They look pretty, right? Very aesthetic, very symbolic, the painters are gonna go wild.

Because of course Merilt's made sure there are friggin' painters to see this.

But bridles never feel good to wear, do they? They hurt to wear for too long, dig into the corners of her mouth. Is that because they're metal? Would a wood bit feel better? It'd have to, right? Which is weird, because in order to make it strong enough, it'd have to be bigger, or else she could just bite through it. Bigger'd be nice--give her something to gnaw on, in the journey in the plovers and who knows how long in the ship.

They'll take it off in the ship, at least, right? Hard to do whatever a "salesman" does if your target can't talk? Right? Unless you just need them to listen?

It's weird to focus on how you're gonna be gagged, right? But it--it's like an itch, right? But an itch on your brain, so you can't scratch at it except by thinking about it?

It's just… bits are for animals. Chattel. Objects. They're meant to hurt a bit, so you can control the animal. Pull on the reins, bit digs into the mouth, animal turns.

Maybe if she submits, they'll give her a better gag? Something big and rubber, with some bite to it.

Moon shining down. Brilliant white against her scales, swirling and swaying with every movement, begging to billow out against the night sky. Artemis stalking amongst the huntresses, tightening laces and putting fresh points on spears, putting fire in Dyssia's own veins.

Dammit, this should have been fun. This should be a night of skill, of challenge, of racing blood and bodies. The thrill of the chase, the fun of being caught, adorable vixie bondage!

… She's not going to have a chance to fight that Guardian again.

What is she thinking?

She should have run hours ago. Disappeared while they moved the moon. Been on a ship by the time the dressmaker came looking.

Fuck. Just thinking of it makes her feel that little ball of tension in her chest, like someone's tied her lungs into a knot.

Twenty Pix. Fifteen Ceronians. They could take the planet with that, and she's thinking how much fun she could have with twenty pheromone-organized arrows pointed at her ass.

Why didn't she run? It's not her job to save the planet. All she wanted when she got up this morning was some coffee, a bagel, and a mild dose of enlightenment. Mastery. Some fun. To sleep in.

She could have run. Flown to the spaceport, bargained with one of the two shipmasters she hasn't alienated with listening to stories, been off-planet, and nobody would miss her.

It's not like she doesn't hear them, you know? The conversations that stop when she turns a corner. The messages in taut eye corners and tighter lips. The weariness in masters who've tried. They don't call her the Distracted to her face--unless they're an asshole, Salhadin--but they say it in any of a hundred ways that are so much simpler to understand.

The Inactive Asshole. Hah! Nailed it.

But she doesn't want to doom the planet, either? It's not her job to save it, but she likes to think it might be her job not to doom it? Does that make any kind of sense? It tastes hollow in her mouth.

And it's not like she's even saving the planet if she does surrender! Delays it, at best! Why shouldn't she fuck them over like they're trying to fuck her?

Because…

No. She will achieve mastery. The Pix will be back. The planet's conquering--conquenance? Conquence? Conquest!--the planet's conquest is already an established fact, because Merilt's a liar.

But she can at least give them time.

It's not her job to save the planet. But she's not giving up the friends she does have without a fight, either.

Ooooh, you fuckin' assholes. You're gonna get it, see if you don't.

She had a whole plan in mind. She'd thought it over the whole time they were preparing her to be their sacrifice, you know?

She has the heights, and she has the depths. She has a grav-rail, and she can breathe underwater far longer than any primitive fox body. Ooh, she could lead them a merry chase, to be sure. Over mountain and hill, soaring out of reach of even the most determined and athletic leap. Agile and lithe, carving through the ocean like a thrown trident and forcing them to get their precious little vixie fur ruffled and soggy.

You want a meek, submissive little sacrifice? You want to get your blood pumping in a chase? Fuck that, fuck this, and fuck you.

The second the priestess's hand drops, the instant she has the signal, she's haring for the spaceport.

Because maybe she gets nice things by playing nice, but sometimes you just need to commit to the bit.