Phoe

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

From the day Alina began her exile from the fallen Illumina, Alina has carried exactly one treasure with her that neither time or the most dedicated efforts of the Riders or even the Slaugh was able to take from her. It's the treasure she's been most fiercely protective of, that guided her through so many difficult decisions and painful moments. It's the treasure that she turned to on sleepless nights. It helped her prove her existence when nothing else could.

Memory. Alina has always remembered the little details of her life more sharply than other people; she's always been able to conjure a moment in her head to push her forward whenever she's needed it the most. They're the fuel that power her love. But consequently, she's also always proved completely defenseless against them. She's never once in her life gone to Askaia and not gotten lost in the mist, not even with Rita holding her hand the whole way into the city. They were like water, and she was a fish. It couldn't be that surprising that she was having more trouble than any of the others making it back to the surface again.

There's an awful lurching feeling in her stomach when she looks up at Eupheria. The shards of her mind that are rooted to the Now register shocks of color, and tell her that all of the colors are wrong. She feels ill. And at the same time, somehow oddly comforted, which only makes the sickness creep deeper inside of her. This too is family. Her family. Her--

All at once she tumbles bodily into the present, without a single effort to right herself or fall gracefully as was her nature. She tumbles in an errant tangle of princess and unseemly yelping. Her own colors flare brightly around her to protect her from the journey. And then... she stops. And then they stopped.

They are overjoyed, her lights. How long has it been since they've seen these sisters?! Alina feels a jolt of pure terror as for the first time in her life, they disobey her. She stops glowing, all except for her crystal eyes. Instead, above Eupheria two sets of lights twirl, dance, chime, and twinkle in the language of their kind. Even Gold floats somewhere between the two of them, as if it were a mother supervising this rather large gala. And though Alina tried immediately to call them back, nothing happens. Nothing at all. Her lights are there, but they won't listen to her.

[Alina is damaging the first layer of her lights to avoid damage from the fall, but after that they become the precious thing she loses]

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

Errant sips her coffee, because that's something she can do to delay this. It's sweeter now, but she's got even less taste for it than she had when it was straight. She forces herself to laugh, which feels harder than winning a staring contest with the Shogun. It's awkward as hell. But she does it anyway, because the alternative is screaming.

She watches the mirror. Right now, it's just a mirror. It could stay a mirror, if she wants it to. That's a choice that she can make. She doesn't have to do this. She doesn't have to do this. She can sit down, crack off a reference or three, and ask for her next assignment.

This is a good job. It's a good job that pays... well, not amazingly, but the health benefits are otherworldly. More importantly, it's a job she loves. This is a place she loves, full of people that she loves. Isn't she allowed to put her faith in her home? Can't she trust the people who raised her up from a cripple to keep their souls? It's only a new boss. She's had new bosses before. All she has to do is smile, promise to find Victor, and her life will snap right back to normal. Maybe she can ask to shift her focus to future Fitness Corners and more programming-centered jobs and just hand the position of Champion over to Maria full time.

She could do that. All of it. Any of it. Almost anybody would. Almost nobody would blame her.

...But a True Princess would never, ever look away.

Errant reaches up and clicks her visor on over her eyes. Loving something means that you can't look away when it starts going bad.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Alina is crying.

Her face is pressed hard against the ground, which is the only reason the dark chamber isn't full of the sounds of her little whimpers and moans. The rest of her writhes and twists like a serpent, or one of the many tentacles swarming about the room just beyond the relative safety of the entrance. Her arms twist at unnatural angles. They rise up behind her back, then one whips forward and hits her in the head while the other flails about off to the side. Her legs thrash this way and that, sometimes together, sometimes apart. Her glass boots beat out a staccato on the dull floor.

When her head turns, she sucks in air like she thinks she's dying. In out, in out, in out, inout inout inout inoutinoutinoutinoutinout. Then her neck cranes and her face rolls back onto the ground and she falls back into quiet sobbing. Her entire body is drenched in sweat. Her lavender hair is turned a much deeper shade of purple, and it clings to her face and her neck in clumps or messy strands. Her skirt is stuck to her legs so badly it may as well be painted on. When she finally manages to roll on her back, the silks don't shift at all.

Tears stream down her cheeks to her lips, which curl into a wide, manic smile.

Then she stands, all at once. Her legs tense and her back arches, and then she lifts up onto her feet as though pulled up on puppet strings. One hand reaches up to squeeze her forehead. She takes a shaky step forward, and then quickly takes it back. She takes another breath, in, out. In. Out. In... Out.

She turns. Her eyes fall on Adila. Green retreats deep into the back of them.

All of a sudden, it's like her feet grew wings. All of her shakiness melts into nothing, and she crosses the space between them like it was never there in the first place. On her head, Gold glints dully, almost as if it was apologizing. The rest of her colors don't seem to have that problem. Red light twists about her arm like ribbons. The sound of glove striking scales echoes sharply across the clock chamber, above all the other commotion.

"How could you?!" she shrieks, voice hysterical, "After everything we've been through together! We made a promise to help each other, didn't we? Didn't we?! And now you're just... now you..!"

Alina shakes up and down her entire body. She stares up into Adila's golden eyes while hurt and confusion swirl across her face, and her ragged breathing finishes her sentence for her.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

I'm honestly not in a great place today and I'm probably just going to focus on getting my brain to uncoil itself tonight. Post probably won't happen until at least tomorrow: if you want to just write whatever in the meantime that's fine, even if it doesn't line up with what we'd talked about

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

...What was the point of all of that? Urgh! What the f... god! Why do dumb shits like this get to have cushy jobs where they're in charge of anything more important than keeping the cafeteria clean? They rank above her! Like, way above her! Just, just think about that for a second! How messed up is that?

What is the point? What is the god damn point?! Why send all of these hostility signals, why march her all the way down here and put her in a criminal interrogation room to ask her so many questions they god damn well know she can't answer and then just... smile and wave when she goes and tries to challenge them? What if she didn't go and get sugar like a good little girl, huh? What if she just left? What if she resigned and took her billion dollar body and got rich playing Aristeia! or something? What if she just disappeared and that was the last bit of edge they got to squeeze out of her? What then, huh? Jerks.

Errant glides through the hall on autopilot. One slow, floaty, spaced-out step and then the next and the next, while her mind spins in an angry loop. Why? What? How dare they? Why? And so on. She's so deep into it that she runs face first into Maria and is only saved the embarrassment of spilling her coffee everywhere by the magic of skillwires. She looks up. And up. And up. Holy crap, was she this tall last time?

"Oh great, it's the woman who tried to break my spine! So happy to be working with you, see any good movies lately?"

Her face is so tense she's not sure she can move her lips any more. She doesn't make the slightest effort to smile or look at least a tiny bit more polite. Or maybe it's more accurate to say she can't make that effort. The last time she met Maria she only survived because a reactor core was in the middle of exploding and it turned the fight from a 1v1 beatdown by an invincible tank into a mad scramble to get out while the getting was good. Though granted that was two sets of limbs ago; if this murder goddess hadn't undergone any significant upgrades since then she might actually be able to--

!!!!!!

Errant freezes up completely. She's standing there, looking at Maria while a bead of sweat rolls down her forehead. Her fingers are clasped tightly around three sugar packets, held just barely above the dispenser. Her heart is hammering inside her chest like she's just run a marathon. Cyberlimbs don't shake, not unless something's gone horribly wrong with them, but Errant's magical connection with hers fills her with the sense that they'd very much like to be. She swallows. Then she slowly, carefully brings the packets over her coffee and pours the blissful white crystals into her cup.

"...Excuse me, I need air."

She zips away like she's been fired out of a cannon. Fuck. God. Now she's thinking like Victor. Calm down, Euna, calm down. Think about this.

But what else could it mean? They're testing her. They don't care if she knows anything about Victor or not. There's been a merger, and someone in Command wants to know if she's going to respond to this as the obedient soldier or the wide eyed idealist. And if she fails... a-and if she fails...

She shakes her head. She's doubling back to the interrogation room. Someone's watching her in there. Someone more important than Buddy or Bargain. She's being ridiculous. She knows she is. But she has to ask anyway. She has to know.

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

"Chocolate chips!!" Alina squeaks in her little songbird voice, by which of course she means good morning and I love you. You have to read between the lines with Lina in the morning.

She yawns a dainty princess yawn and is super duper extra special careful to only use the most graceful motions in her arsenal to rub the last bits of sleep from her bright, shining eyes. She's gotta be pretty so that nobody notices she might be getting sick, or else Momma wasn't gonna let her go sledding and shell hunting today. That would be bad! Luckily it's a soooooooo perfect day and her excitement is bubbling over so much that she can't keep the bounces out of her steps as she races across the kitchen like a perfect little ballerina to sit down next to Rita and immediately start a war of tiny kicks and giggles. And this, of course, means I'm glad you're here, you're my bestest friend in the whole wide world.

She'd been dreaming. Something... something... weird and boring and without a single shark in it, if you can believe that. That's why she thought she might be sick! It was all happy and sad and, and grown up and the longer she sits there watching the thick, fluffy flakes of snow, the less of it she can remember. But weirdly, the more it fades the better she feels. It's prolly just cause she's never up this early. That's a Rita thing, being up before the sun is. She looks at her adventure buddy and sticks her tongue out.

Most days she'd grumble a little, but today it's worth it. Today's Solstice! That's the whole point of even having winter! And since she did such a super great rainbow job of waking up so early, there'd be time for breakfast and running around till her nose froze off before it was time to get... er, give presents! Heh, she's such a genius. Alina leans her little elbows on the table and watches her Momma cook with a silly little smile on her face.

She watches a pancake flip through the air and wobble in all its fluffy glory as it lands back in the pan, and squeals with delight. She's so lucky. She is. She is! Momma makes the very bestest pancakes in the whole kingdom. No, the world! Even Ourania would be all, wow, these are so great, can I have the recipe! But it wouldn't matter, because she wouldn't be as good at making them as Momma!

...But today was different. And not cause it's Solstice. Well not just. Alina's been thinking and thinking and then thinking some more just to be safe, but she can't remember the last time Momma made breakfast like this. It's been, um... um... forever, she's pretty sure, since she's gotten to eat these ooey gooey yummy fluffballs. Maybe even two forevers.

Why... is she crying?

Silly girl! She stealthily wipes her eyes on her sleeve (she's got her Adventure Silks on already!) before anybody can see. Just in time too, cause now there's a big stack of pancakes just stuffed with chocolate sitting in front of her and Momma is beaming at her little Ripple and it's making her so happy she wants to start crying all over again!

"Hey Momma, guess what?" She says with her mouth still half full, "I found a new bend in the river last week! I'm gonna show Rita before the Gifting, ok? I bet we'll find diamond crabs! It'll be the best Solstice adventure ever!"

She beams brighter than the sun on a summer afternoon. Brighter than rainbows over aqueducts, or sparkly jewels on a wedding dress. The only thing Alina loves more than Mommy and Momma is having adventures. Then she stops, and sniffles a little. Another thought just snuck into her head, and it reminds her of that dream.

"Do you... wanna come too?"

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

I could be wrong, but I think that's either my 4th or 5th XP. Anybody else remember whether I'm leveling up or not?

@Balmas

hahaha, you are very funny. I barely remember which playbook everybody is at this point...

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

"...I would be honored to borrow Gold," Alina's choosing her words and her tone just as carefully as her mother, "I promise, I'll bring it home without a scratch. You'll hardly have time to miss me."

There, keep it all nice and official sounding, a Princess to her Queen, without any sort of presumption or request for Mommy to worry about. If it's time, then it'll be time. But before that... before that, she'll have to figure out what medicine she's missing. But if she's made it this far, and done this much, she can make it the rest of the way. Alina smiles and joins hands with her sisters.

Alina is her Green, and her Green is her. Is it any wonder, then, that when she pours her magic into the room it feels like water? Not a cold drizzle or a chilly waterfall, but the warmest summer rain. The kind of warmth and wetness that seeps through the top of your head and sinks through the rest of you, from your neck down to your heart and then from there down your legs until it reaches your toes and there's nothing but the pleasant damp, the summer warmth, and the clinging of silks.

And then, just when it's about to be too much, the magic changes and the sensation shifts. It invites you in from the rain with a hug and the fluffiest towel ever. From head to toe again, Alina's love is the feeling of getting dry after being so perfectly soaked, filled with closeness and affection and maybe soon after a hot mug of tea. Jasmine perhaps, or a simple earthy black mixed with cream and sugar and...

Alina kisses her Mommy on the cheek. With all of that ice inside her there's no way that this will last, but if it buys her even a day, even a couple of hours of feeling like herself then it's worth every ounce of magic in her body.

"Ok!" she chirps with a chipper confidence she's not sure really belongs to her, "Who wants breakfast? Free, do you wanna help me in the kitchen?"

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

Errant has to close her eyes to keep from doing something stupid. She takes the deepest breath of her life, and takes her time with letting it go.

"...When I accepted a position here, the thing that everybody sold me on was that AEGIS maintained its own operational control. Public Security wasn't supposed to be a market with enough action for an invested ownership interest. That's what the Commander told me while I was in surgery. We control our own future. Maybe Atlas would start footing the bill instead of Athena or something, and... honestly? If that was happening right now? Fine. Maybe we shake down some assets, cut Animation, take a few higher profile defense contracts or something around the city, I get that. I don't like it, but I get it. I'd get over it. But we just ceded day-to-day control over to a woman who was just last week at #2 on our threat board. I think she's actually still there on the spreadsheet. That really doesn't... seem off to you?"

Blank stares. Probably. Maybe? It's hard to tell through those stupid sunglasses. It's moments like these that the rumors that PR doesn't have eyes start to feel unnervingly literal. In any case, there's no stirring of hearts and a change in the conversation. They lean. And they insist.

Errant's halfway to bringing the coffee to her lips again when she stops herself. She stares into the shiny black liquid and sees her wobbly reflection staring back at her. Damn, she looks tired. She should probably make a better effort to sleep tonight instead of reviewing corporate memos and security footage. Her coffee-reflection glares back up at her, like it's mad at her for taking so long to do the right thing.

"I don't know where Victor is. How the fuck would I? I was literally off-world when he went to ground, and Command hasn't let me outside since I got back! And frankly, you're a lot dumber than he says you are if you think he'd ever tell me about this kind of thing!"

...That one stings. He's said all of those things to her, both nasty and nice, but at the end of the day she'd always believed they were on the same side. And he didn't even leave a hint for her to follow. What a team. What a leader she turned out to be, huh?

She stands abruptly, sending her hair over-dramatically tumbling like a black and silver waterfall. It did that a lot these days. She glances down at her coffee, and makes for the door.

"I'm getting sugar."

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

"Mom, I..."

Alina's voice hitches. The air in her mouth tastes bitter. It steals down her throat and fills her lungs like smoke, swirling and twisting and seeping deeper and deeper inside of her as it fills her insides with a sick and awful sensation of being full of something prickly and cold. She can feel her stomach drop, then turn. Then after that, her skin comes alive with a burning sensation that she knows without being told is called shame. She can't get the words out. And what's more, she won't.

"I know." she finishes instead, because she has to say something. Because the alternative is looking scared and needing Mommy and that's the opposite of what has to happen right now. Be strong, Alina.

She reaches up and takes her mother's hand. Her hand, but not her burdens. Not her worries. Certainly not her crown. It should be such a simple thing, the duty of a daughter and especially of a Princess-Promised. But just thinking about saying the words makes her skin crawl, makes her feel like vomiting. She can't. She can't! And she won't!

Alina sits up, which is difficult under all the blankets and sisters and her mother trying gently to keep cradling her head, but she rises with perfect grace anyway. Like this, the pair of them are nearly equal. Alina's lips are pressed together tightly. Her face is strained. She stares into her mother's deep green eyes with an intensity that reaches through to her core, and for the moment doesn't care how much her Mommy stares back and sees the crystals she views the world through now. It's better for her to know. It's better she ask the questions here and now. And if she says nothing, then... Alina needs to know. If that's still really Mommy she's looking at.

Her long and tumbling lavender hair is just the same. Her perfect brow, her nose, her daughter-kissing lips, the way she keeps her head raised high even when she's obviously tired, it's all the Halcyon that Alina remembers. The woman she idolizes. But the eyes. The eyes are... they're, they're... she doesn't know how to shape the thought. Mommy's eyes are carrying something extra that they should never ever have. There is love in there, and kindness, laughter, and the deep wisdom of someone you'd trust to carry a kingdom on her graceful shoulders, but there's something else besides. Unnatural fatigue, and... and a, a shock even bordering on terror. And a hope that makes Alina sick to see.

She knows that hope. That's the ugly, nasty, childish hope that turned Alina's entire body to crystal, almost forever. 'I hope that someone else will do this thing. I hope she'll take my place, and let me rest. I just want to rest. Didn't I do enough? Didn't I?'

Alina's face softens. She smiles at her mother, and turns to look out the window.

"The... the sun's really pretty this morning, isn't it Mom? I bet it'll be much warmer today."

There are tears beading up against her eyes. Alina blinks them away, and watches through the window with a determination she doesn't understand. It's early in the day, hardly even time for breakfast, but already she can see dozens of Illuminans out and working, trying to clean snow off of the glass roads, or picking up pieces of broken tools and treasures, or diligently counting heads and trying to figure out who is missing. Alina knows, the answer is too many.

The tears stream down her face without caring how often she moves to wipe them away. She stops trying after only a moment. She knows. Without being told, she knows. This is her last big adventure. She's going to have to apologize to Kazelia: there's not going to be a Great Jedadi Heist. Work restoring the castle alone would take months, maybe even years, and there's an entire country just as broken beyond that. More, even. It's got nothing to do with being a Queen or a Princess, this is her home. These are her people. This is her place. If Oberon and Eska weren't still lurking in the shadows with Adila and Dandy in their clutches and the threat of the Caduceus hanging over the world, she might not even be willing to leave this time.

Her mind drifts back to Feloria and the company who had so fiercely defended her from herself before that night in the lashing rains. Their silly little circus and the delight they brought to children's faces simply by believing their Princess still shined for them. The word would be out soon. Would they hear it? Would they learn that Illumina was calling out to them again? And if they did, would they come? Would they bring their brave smiles and invincible hopes back to their struggling homeland, or would they choose to stay among the flowers and plenty they'd already run to? Did they want to rest? Like Mommy did?

No. They would rush straight back. And if Alina wasn't there to welcome them, then... she'd die of shame right immediately, wherever she happened to be at the time. On the windowsill, Alina finds a little guest. The first starling she's seen in years hops on its little bird feet and trills the first few hopeful notes of Spring.

"Look, Mom!" She's not keeping her voice down anymore. There's an irritated grunt from Jessamine, and Freesia is running fingers through her hair with a worried look on her face, but Alina carries on without acknowledging either of them, "I love starlings, don't you? Y-you know... their song saved Jessamine. They brought her back to us from an awful spell, just them and the sun. You have to make sure to tell them thank you, ok?"

Jess isn't glowering anymore. She's sitting up on the bed and listening so intently you'd think her life depended on it. If it weren't for that lullaby, and Ourania's miracle, could they still be a family today? Brave, stupid Jess ran right back into the most dangerous place on earth because someone had to save Mommy. Alina hadn't done it. She'd run. She'd run just like she was told, and...

There are hugs and tears enough to fill this little room this morning. Alina squeezes tighter and sobs harder than anyone. Mommy could have fought him. She could have arrayed her precious daughters against the evil king and made him claw and scrap for every inch of Illuminan soil. She had Gold, she had her daughters and her knights and all of Alina's rainbow sisters, and her own adjutants besides. If they'd fought, really, honestly fought... maybe they would even have won. Maybe they could have matched Oberon's monstrous daughters and his armies and his treasures and stopped him from ever getting a foothold in Hyperborea.

Maybe...

But then, maybe not. Mommy made the braver play by far. She tried to take all of the risk onto herself, without putting a single precious treasure in harm's way. She trusted her daughters to find themselves and be the biggest, strongest, bravest girls and fix whatever she couldn't stop from breaking. That's why she hid Gold. She... Mommy was so brave. She was so strong. The greatest Queen Illumina's ever had, better than Marina or even Aurora who tamed the Roc. If she gave up now, it'd...

Alina's tears burn hot on her cheeks. No! NO! She can't say the words! And she won't say the words! Even with a heart full of ice, that's still her Mommy! Taking her burden right now won't make her happy! It won't make her better! So she... so she... she... she can't, ok? That's why the words won't come out. Because her Mommy is the bravest and most beautiful woman Illumina has ever had on its throne, and she deserves a happier ending than for her daughter to help the ice inside her freeze forever.

Her hand brushes against her mother's soft, pale cheek. She lifts herself up to plant the warmest of kisses on Mommy's forehead, where he crown and her Gold should be shining right this second.

"Don't worry, Mommy. I'm going to fix it, ok? I'm going to fix everything..."