Balmas

Breathless Dead

It's important to remember, here, surrounded by--

Well, let's be real, calling it drab and uninspiring is giving drab and uninspiring far too much credit. It's like someone sat down and said, "what's the single most soul-crushingly ugly thing we can build I the name of functionality? Great, do that a dozen times."

Does it even count as something being functional? Like, in a situation where there just aren't resources to go around, she could maybe understand making something to do just the job it needs to be, but that's--

Honestly, even in the survival stories, you don't think about things just being ugly. Like, for no reason! The landscape is beautiful all on its own, everywhere you go. Everywhere but here, where even the things the Portuguese have deliberately made are--

They're people. She has to keep repeating it to herself, keep telling herself that, because no matter what they've produced (ugh) or how they've built (yuck) or how they're dressed (why even bother), they're still, you know, people.

Delicate people. People who she doesn't want to hug because, you know, what if they squish under her? People with eyes that--

Honestly, she wants to scoop them up even more when she looks at the eyes. It's like they're all waiting to die. Like they've given up on improving their situation, like hope is just another thing that hurts, and so they've resolved to work every day for the rest of their lives until they blessedly keel over dead from old age.

Still a weird thought, that.
She wishes they didn't look at her like that. Like she's a god, or a curse, or a reincarnation, or worst, hope. Not when she knows they've gotta get out of here as quickly as possible, not when she can't meaningfully help.

Still, she flags one down, and asks, quite gently, if she could be shown to--what was that, a factory? Yes a factory would be delightful, off you pop.

Breathless Dead

Dyssia pauses, and gingerly tears out a bit more of the insulation in her Plover.

The noise has to be right, d'you understand? It won't be the Electric Tiger II if the noise isn't that same spine-rattling purr as before.

It's dumb that she gets one.

Gets to spend time painting it so the stars gleam against its orange. Make it hers. Actively change its configuration to fit how she flies, how she listens, how she's shaped.

She gets a plover, after losing the last one. After losing the one the crews already customized for her.

It's why she's pulled this into a side hanger, banished the plover crews. It has to be her doing it, her fixing her own mistake.

It has to be her. She has to show that she's learned, even if nobody but her will notice.

Breathless Dead

"That… seems unideal."

Brilliant. Perfect. Spectactular. Master of the understatement.

But it's true! The idea of--
Well, of a species being at war with itself, when nobody has anything worth fighting over is absurd! It's like someone went into things with the idea of creating a system worse than the Skies!

Granted, it comes from a place of, of, you know, of scarcity, right? Of not having enough? Of everyone fighting over scraps, simply because they don't--

She's so used to having enough that the idea of worrying about where something might come from is alien. Everything's made somewhere, right?

But if that's what they want--is it her place to tell them what they actually want? The Azure Skies genuinely have something better!

But they don't even know what they want, and--

Well, are we even better than them? Look at the Azure skies! Look at these three doofuses here--one generous, one warlike, one confused, and none of them willing to--

Guiltily, she sneaks a glance at Mosaic. Dyssia's still thinking in terms of how to help, how to--not control, but influence maybe? In terms of what she thinks is ideal, what she thinks is better, how she can 'help,' when it's obvious that that's a different thing for everyone.

But what else is she to do when--when someone is this backwards?

"How are they taking the shipments?"

Breathless Dead

Dyssia is dressed to the nines, every inch a prince and knight of the Publica.

Or, you know, as much to-the-nines as the budget and surviving stores will allow.

It sucks so much. Like, not from a perspective of impressiveness, though now that she's here, she kinda wishes she hadn't bothered? Whatever her best is, it's less than the best of two Azura who aren't willingly handicapping themselves with ethics, so swooshing in here--and she's doing her best to swoosh, be sure of that--is less useful than you might think.

And it's uncomfortable, to boot.

Still, she does her best to look regal and commanding as she asks about the Portuguese. What do they want, apart from not being raided by Ceronians?

Breathless Dead

"You know, the worst thing is I don't even disagree with what she's doing?"

It should be impossible for a snake to pace, but Dyssia is managing it. Up and down the window, occasionally glancing out the window at the gleaming planet below them, and then back at her friends as if she expects to be scolded.

It's like, she's been lectured about this before, right, during her training in ? You're expected to be dignified, and stately, and have your thoughts composed, and roll with the punches, and not do that thing where your hands talk as much as your mouth without you telling them to do that?

It's nice to be with friends, whether or not that sentence ends with 'who don't care' or 'who don't know better.'

"It's like, the thought of your body just, you know, up and crapping out on you one day, for no other reason than because some virus disagreed with your liver and you wore out is, is, is horrifying, right? So Cash Money, bringing that to these people, good thing?

"But doing it the sneaky way is just. It's like, you could appear in whatever town square you like, say 'who wants to not die,' and have people lining up. She's doing it to people who'd sign up for it anyway, but wants to control, wants to force it on them. She's--what's the phrasing?--she's feeling good about herself instead of helping people, if that makes sense. She's not willing to give it out on their terms, because that would mean thinking of them as people, as equals. She's treating them like a project, as objects, as things that will be ever-so-grateful for her help and worship her feet as a demigod for her kindness and mercy."

The Argumentative Portuguese. She wishes she knew what they called themselves, if for no other reason than, you know, distinguishing herself mentally from the other Azura. Meaningless, except it isn't.

"The only reason to side with the Generous Knight over Cash Money is that it'd be easy. I already have an in with her, I'm a friend of a friend, I could probably talk her over, get her to put in some supply requests for us, get us gone nice and simple. I don't wanna, though, because she's an asshole. She's technically correct, in that uplifting the Portuguese will cause a lot of short-term problems in terms of, whoops, all our supply and medical issues just got solved and now whatever power structures the Azura like are going to calcify into a terrifying cancer-clump of abuse.

"But she's also only doing it because she wants a fight that will be entertaining. She could sweep in and crush them right now without a thought, and that's not fun. Better to let them die by the millions if it means she doesn't have to wait to sweep in and crush them later on. Because let's be real, the Portuguese aren't winning this militarily--the only reason they haven't been subsumed already is because the Azure Skies aren't threatened by them enough to care. If they actually fought and won against old Genny, they'd be a target for every aggrieved knight and minor noble looking to make a name for themselves."

Like us, she very carefully does not say.

"The Synnefo is a non-starter. Just, no. He'll be polite and obsequious and oh-so-willing to help, but of course madames will understand that he cannot help just one of us, and somehow in the conversation you'll be back in the ship, feeling grateful that he's here while also having been given homework out of it. He's going to be neutral. He might care about whether Cash Money or the Generous Knight come out on top, but he's never going to let it show, and he's certainly never going to help us over them.

"The only lever he has--thank you Brightberry, this information is incredibly helpful--is that pack of rogue Ceronians. It occurs to me that if we could incorporate them into ourselves--Ember, you're Ceronian liason duty, you'd know whether that works or not--we could simultaneously remove a threat to the Portuguese, ingratiate ourselves with the person in charge of supplies, and also bulk ourselves up slightly in case of any fighting we need to do.

"So, two options as I see it. Option one: bribe NBX-462 by taking care of his Ceronian problem. Option two: try to support Cash Money and, in so doing, make the process more aligned with the desires of the people on-planet. Option one is gonna cause less problems for us long-term, but I think I'm slightly leaning option two."

Breathless Dead

You know, there are times when she hates the color blue.

Which is a weird thing to say, right? Blue's nice. Got no end of variety to it. The blue so dark it's almost black of meditating on a shifting sea floor. The blue of a lapis, polished, gold-flecked. The infinite in-betweens, the rich, the thin.
And hate is a strong word, insists her mental censor. Does she actually hate the color blue, or just what it stands for?

Has she met an alien? When could she have? Going from a sheltered existence as a backwater neophyte to thrusting herself into the arms of constant pressure and danger? When and where would she have had the opportunity?

Which isn't to say she hasn't read stories about them, right? Daring heroine first contacts an alien planet? Stories that, with the benefit of hindsight, wow, sure do involve those daring heroines showing alien people how much better life is in blue?

It's like--

Fuck, she feels selfish even thinking of it like this, but it's like all the Azura can see is their favorite food, right? Favorite food, favorite music, favorite opera, favorite story, favorite everything. And now that they've decided what their favorite is, everything has to be that favorite. If their favorite dessert is cinnamon rolls, then whatever aliens have come up with now needs to be round and glazed. Whatever music they came up with is now filled with horns, because such is the fad.

Blue. Blue everywhere, even if it means that theres no room for reds, greens, purples, and so on. It seems like such a small sacrifice to make--even reasonable.

Bow to their sense of art, and all shall be well. Incorporate yourself, get used to horns and cinnamon rolls, and get comfy.

And ignore everything that isn't blue.

For a time, she can spare them. For a time, she can keep them--the actual them, not the them in the stories that are told afterwards--for a time she can keep them alive.

And also, handily, keep her and her allies alive, if perhaps a touch toasty. Seems like a good deal, if they can pull it off.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

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Breathless Dead

We wouldn't be coming to him, she wants to say. She's not suicidal, not stupid, she knows that assaulting his stronghold is insane.

But… If we're talking about them being deployed against us, then we don't have to. If they're a concern, it's because we worry he might send them against us. That means that all we have to do is survive one battle in good enough condition to pick up as many as we can on the way out.

If. If we survive. Fuck, she hates that word.

If. Not survive, obviously. Survive is a great word, If is less good. If means--

Reality sucks, you know that? She always knew they were fighting a losing battle, but hearing it laid out in numbers by someone who's much better at numbers than her really highlights it, lays it bare.

They're not a threat!

But they are. Not because the crew of the Plousios is a military power, but because they're a cultural threat. They represent a chance of something different, an idea apart from empire. Let one idea grow, and suddenly people get the idea that the status quo might be possible to change.

No matter how it might feel on the other end, for the ones who have to do the changing.

Surely missing one or two is--Liquid Bronze wouldn't even notice, right? They're insignificant to him, disposable, he proves it by how he made them.

But they're also his magnum opus. Losing even one is to set loose a new, uncontrollable warrior servitor species to rival the Ceronians.

How like an Azura to make a weapon with a built-in casus belli.

Psh. Like they fuckin' need one, right now. Planet lost, town stolen, knight dead, rogue servitors in an imperial ship about to go who the fuck knows where, least of all her.

Through a star, apparently.

It's the right thing to help them. It is! It one-hundred-percent is the moral thing to do.

And it's--

It's not impossible, insists the treacherous mental censor. You could pull it off.

All it would cost you is everything, but it could be done. It's the right thing to do.

It'd be suicidal to pursue it. Destructive, not to just herself, but to everyone who follows her. All of her Pix? Gone. Her newfound friends? Dead, to no end. An angry mosquito, hurling itself and everyone they care about at a bug zapper in a last, meaningless 'fuck you' to the universe.

It still reeks of cowardice to her own mind, though.

It'd mean losing Brightberry.

"I assume we'd survive blasting through a star," she grudgingly says, at last. "Make us hard to follow, or at least worth leaving alone."

Breathless Dead

That--

She hasn't felt this sick since she stood from a desk and beheld Aphrodite holding her triumph.

Behold, the triumphs of biomancy!

It isn't even from the perspective of trying to fight that, although, holy shit, we gotta talk about that. It's--

When you die, is the you that's reborn the same you as the one that died? Would they need Ikarani-fast memories and learning if they did? They're servitors--Is each one a separate soul? Are you sharing one soul with hundreds--millions--of the same-but-different yous that came before?

Servitors, with lifetime measured in weeks. Weeks, instead of--

You don't have to do this! Making their lives so short is, is, is pointlessly cruel! Is it purely for the Ikarani learning? Is it so they do not realize their plight and rise? Can't be a threat if any one given leader is gone in a month!

She has to lean against something, just to catch her breath. Let her heart stop hammering, stop beating with the--

A month! A month, for real? You can't-- Fucking monstrous--

She blinks hard, and realizes tears are there, squeezing from the corners.

"We have to--"

Dyssia swallows, hard, forces the knot down her throat and tries again.

"We can't let Liquid Bronze have them."

And again, rushing, as if to clarify:

"Not because they're a threat, because holy shit are they a threat. But Liquid Bronze's made a self-destructing, self-genociding, race of servitors."

The immensity of the task ahead is--

How do you save everyone? You can kidnap some, raise them as best you can, give them happiness, give them support, raise them as people, raise them as, as, not as godsdamn weapons, not as disposable self-genociding trash, with--

But Liquid Bronze still has the mold! Still has the secret to making them! To creating people, born to die, born to explode, born to--

She swallows again.

"Eight hours. Eight hours to finish the battle, gather the eggs, escape, and start to raise a new generation. We have to try."

Breathless Dead

Huh. It's kind of flattering to think that they count as an existential threat. You wouldn't think just one ship would merit that.

Granted, yeah, it's an imperial warship. Which means basically full access to the galaxy, without needing to stay coastal and use the regular shipping lanes. Full of Ceronians and three-quarter--

Actually, you know what, retiring that joke. The Pix are more than just tinier Ceronians. If there's anybody who oughtta know that, it's her.

Buncha clingy rapscallions. Fuck, she doesn't know what she'd do without them.

Anyway. Imperial warship with access to the entire galaxy, full of two full complements of warrior servitors, as well as seemingly half-a-planet's worth of support servitors. All led, she just knows people will assume, by a knight. Which is fair, because, you know, they still haven't spent five seconds with Mosaic.

God, she wishes--

Well, she doesn't wish she could go home. But she kind of wishes she could see the look on Merilt's face if she ever found out. Fuck, they're an existential threat.

Which means, of course, the naturally disproportionate response.

Honestly, she kind of wishes she could talk to the Oracle again. Talk about cats. She's met this super cool one recently, you know?

"So running doesn't work, then. We can't provide nearly the level of sacrifice they can. If they want to find us, they will. Do we have intel on the new drone species? How hard would it be to get someone less psychopathic into the role? Any counter-assassination prospects? What options do we have that don't end with us swarmed with drones?"