Phoe

Breathless Dead

Bella's spin is rigid, all the way down through her tail. Her first several steps are awkward and stiff as the disgusting squelching of this nightmare mud filled hellscape assaults her poor ears. All around her are the sounds of battle being readied, and the oppressive feeling of this dense atmosphere, sweltering and still. She has to fight to keep her eyes in front of her, but her ears bend to every tiny noise whether she wills them to or not. Already there are beads of sweat slicking her neck underneath her collar, and the urge to claw at her chest is overwhelming.

That's before accounting for the raw stench of the place. Her squelching boots turn up a ghastly mix of earth and shit and something worse besides, something raw and rotting that fed the sweltering green of the world inside the leviathan's corpse. It might have been tolerable were it not for the acrid smoke billowing everywhere in the wake of King Jas'o's rampage, or the tang of sweat that seemed soaked into everything (her heart skips a beat when she smells her own mixing into the air. Unacceptable. If Redana noticed, she'd be...), or the crackle of ozone that preceded the release of a thunderbolt, or even just the scent of fresh entrails wafting off of her cruiser from all the gore plastered across it. But there were all these things, and more. The openness of the air had a stench all its own, something she couldn't even put into words. It belonged too deeply to the realm of the gods. All she knew is that this was a place Hades had stolen from Posiedon. This was not a place of raw rage and might and majesty. This is a land of death. A chill crawls up her spine despite the heat.

Bella's eyes sweep the space in front of her. She ignores the bootlicker's troops; as long as they were with their King they may as well not have eyes. Jas'o himself would be the bigger problem, but... ah, there's the Princess' pet sculpture. The snarl catches in Bella's throat, but she swallows it before it pushes her to do anything stupid. Get in, get out, get... ah! Up on that hill, that glint of gold! Princess! Her body flushes with a different sort of heat for a moment. She could swear she could even pick up the Princess' scent from across all that distance and over all these other smells. That was the strength of their bond, wasn't it? Redana wore such a particular scent, unique in all the galaxy. The barest touch of laser mixed with...

No. Wait. Bella's nose wrinkles, and she turns her gaze closer to her immediate surroundings. She extra sniff is involuntary. She retches immediately. That's raw laser, slathered on so obscenely thick it's actually overpowering everything. Disgusting. She knew she was bound to meet backwater savages on this trip, but she never for a second imagined that... ugh. A lion and a... sheep? Dressed up like a clown's idea of mercenaries. Which breeder was responsible for this travesty? Their pedigree couldn't possibly match the cat who served her venison today. Comparing them to Bella wasn't even worth the...

Her brow furrows. Her jaw falls slack for a single stunned moment. The lion is pointing some kind of ridiculous facsimile of a sword at her. And taunting her. Her!

Bella sneers. Her fingers stretch and then curl, brandishing her claws. Her tail flicks aggressively from side to side. This is all the warning she offers.

And then all of a sudden she lunges forward in a smooth rush, hunching low to the ground as she dashes at her prey. She's there in two steps. Worthless fool. Worthless toy. Are you the one? Are you supposed to be a replacement? That stance is less than useless; this is not a duel. Bella explodes upward with a thrust of her powerful legs and grabs Vasilia by the face with her bare hand. The momentum lifts her off her feet entirely, and in another blur of motion, Bella slams her into the disgusting muck. She's probably used to it anyway.

Bella steps forward and spins on the ball of her foot with the poise of one of the ballerinas who put on shows for Redana back on Tellus. Somewhere in the rush of action, she's gotten her hands on that stupid sword, which she whirls and presses against Dolce's throat. It's a moment frozen in time. Bella's deep, golden eyes are alight with the promise of death as she watches to see whether he'll parry, or bleat. But then... he waits. Eyes on her bells, eyes on Vasilia. Bella pulls back and lifts the blade in front of her face, examining it with curiosity etched onto her face.

"I didn't figure they'd make anything worthwhile outside of the capitol, but this is..."

She smiles coldly, and drags her claws against the metal. The blade keens horribly, almost as if it was screaming out in pain until she snaps her hand shut and it falls to the ground in several pieces. She scoffs.

"Well. I'm sure I'd love to stay and chat, but unlucky me I've got a princess to go rescue. So stay down and let me work. Got it? Good. Don't make me have to get nasty."

She spits on the ground, mouth full of the unholy miasma of this place, and starts toward the hill with contempt and a chiming of bells.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

When she was younger, back before the world exploded, Étoile used to hate the Eiffel Tower. It wasn't the thing itself so much (though it was ugly enough, for sure), but everything it brought with it. In particular, the tourists. Ugh, Americans. You could always tell, even when they weren't walking around with their flag on their asses. They gave themselves away with their gawking and the absurdly loud voices they used to talk to each other about everything. Many of them would have their hands clenched around pockets or purses as though this would protect them from the pickpockets they'd read about on tourist websites.

And the sunglasses, too! Why did they always wear sunglasses? Even when they would wave Étoile over to them and ask (in even louder voices, like that somehow made English easier to understand) for her to take their picture, they wouldn't take them off! What kind of photo didn't show your eyes in your moment of happiness? And then of course they'd hand her a camera or a phone, but as soon as she tried to stand on a bench or climb a tree to give them a memory from an interesting angle, they'd call her a thief and threaten to call the police on her. None of them wanted to know what she was trying to do, none of them cared that this was her talent, they all wanted the same stupid straight-on shot with them folding their arms across their chest and forced smiles on their faces, or arms crushing their children into their bodies, always from either much too close or much too far away for the picture to turn out well...

Glimpsing it now, she has to suppress the urge to sigh. Oh, how she missed Paris. Her Paris. Even the stupid parts of it that drove her insane. But it was dangerous for any slave to express even momentary discontent with their lot in life anywhere anyone could hear them, especially for a privileged handmaiden like Étoile. She wouldn't dare take the risk had it been just herself and Lady Tamytha, but with Jezcha watching, of all the people who might be? It was the most vital thing in the world for her to project absolute elation at all times.

God, what she wouldn't give to make this little brat Marianne's next target. But it couldn't be done, of course. Or, well, it could, but it was exactly the sort of misty daydream Marianne had roasted Set for. She'd put the Seneschal on high alert, possibly for the rest of her life, and for what? Revenge? Revenge would come. Being a spy meant having patience, even with terrible bullies who can't stop hurting people for even five seconds.

Étoile looks over at her Lady and feels her heart swell up with sadness. But under her soft teal and pink veil, she offers a simple smile: warm and non-threatening as she knows how to be. She leans and rests her head against Tamytha's shoulder. Look at her, Jezcha! Isn't she such a good girl?

"My Lady is so modest!" she chirps, "Every day when I wake up I'm amazed all over again by her grace and compassion, and even still she finds it in herself to downplay her gifts so effortlessly! Oh gosh, my heart is going pitter patter, yes it is! Don't worry, Lady! Even if your heart is too filled with love for you to hunt today, your Étoile will make sure you come home happy!"

Deep inside her heart, Marianne stirs just enough to roll her eyes. But she's listening more attentively now. You're a weak, pathetic suck up, little star, but this kind of boldness is good for you, yes!

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Moments like these are more dangerous to the Revolution than a thousand guard patrols. If the ab-Enkiji spent a month at work on a new marvel designed specifically to de-fang Marianne, whatever they came up with, they would still accomplish less than the sight that greets Étoile right now.

The reaction is instant. In a flash, all thoughts of how she might exact revenge on her Janissary escorts are forgotten. The pain pulsing across her back fades to a dull background hum. Her back and shoulders straighten without conscious effort. Her legs find the strength to pretend they can carry her right now. And Marianne, with one last disdainful sniff, releases her hold on Étoile's heart and sinks deep beneath the surface to await the next night she's needed more than this absurd little star.

It's just Étoile now. And someone's gone and turned her mouth into a desert while she was away. She doesn't answer, except to try swallowing. It takes her several attempts to get any kind of saliva flowing again. And all she does is stand there with one foot frozen in mid step and an arm tentatively reaching out as if it could clear the space between one end of the room and the other in a single gesture. She is bounding across the room and drawing backwards to flee it at the same time, and the result is that she's frozen completely in place.

Her world is the sound of Tamytha's effort filled breathing which is somehow barely audible and yet drowns out Caphtor's music at the same time. It is the sight of the sweat beading on her forehead in the pale moonlight as if she'd been caught in the rain, as though that were a thing the Annunaki allowed to happen under any circumstances. It is the feeling of pain, until it is swallowed whole by another feeling which is called guilt. She swallows again; she's getting better at it as she goes.

Her foot decides to carry her forward after all. Étoile pads softly, deeper into the room. She makes less noise than a ghost as she bounds more than steps, and then prances more than bounds closer to her Lady. Then she freezes again, a fresh statue in the middle of the room. Her hair bobs this way and that as her head darts around the room looking for something, looking for... yes, that will do.

She trots daintily away again. Just for a moment. Just to scoop up a discarded shawl that found the floor when the evening became too hot to tolerate it. She drapes it over her shoulders, though not quite correctly. It's lopsided the way she's wearing it, so that instead of giving her an air of added modesty and decorum she looks more like a silly animal that couldn't figure out how the pretty fabric worked. Lady called for her lamassie, after all. And this way all her bloody marks are covered. They never happened. Do not let your heart tremble at the thought, Lady.

Étoile hops lightly from tile to tile as though she were on an obstacle course and needed to consider each leap to a new platform carefully lest she fall in some sort of hazard pit. Then she reaches the bed and dips gracefully (and gratefully) onto her knees. Her hands tremble as she takes one of Tamytha's in them and touches it to her cheek. And if this were a kinder world, she would cry now. But there are too many masks that need wearing, and the reaction passes by her face to settle inside her chest instead.

"It's me, Milady. Lamassie is really here, she promises. She is so sorry for losing your pretty jacket. She is so sorry for losing your pretty veil. She is so sorry she made you worry all night when you needed her more than ever. Lamassie is a bad girl, but she is here now. She promises."

Breathless Dead

Even now it was impossible to feel certain the monster was really dead. No, that wasn't quite true. Not 'even here', the truth was that the closer she got the more impossible the thought became. The World Eater was... is too big to be killed, least of all by something as pathetic as a starship (could she still remember when seeing one of those felt impossibly vast and grand, too much thing for her little servitor brain to comprehend all at once? No. Not here, maybe never again).

Bella had been expecting teeth. Massive saws in multilayered rows, each the size of the grand castle on Tellus. Or maybe a great spiraling fan of them drawing ever inward toward a rotting gullet, with a huge tongue like a leaf to scoop up whole continents and grind them to dust on those sharp, quivering protrusions. She's had time to imagine all the ways this place would be shaped to kill her. It hadn't occurred to her she might simply glide past the open beak and find no fresh instruments of death beyond it.

Call it a lack of imagination. She hadn't fully appreciated the scale such a monster must think at, if indeed it ever thought at all. Inside, everything is vast and impersonal, calcified walls of something passing for flesh that stretch far beyond the boundaries of her sight and do not care in the slightest if they kill her here or not.

The fur on her arms and tail bristles with dread. It is not a comforting thought in the least. There must have been, in the old days, entire kingdoms that got swallowed up in a single nightmarish morning and dragged screaming into this thing's stomach so they could wait to be digested. Maybe it took years? Years of feebly trying to hold their laws together, of offering more and more desperate prayers and sacrifices to the merciless Poseidon, begging to be spared, begging to be forgiven, begging to be spat up before it was too late. And then, when it was? Begging to die.

Suddenly all of those songs and stories about Poseidon make a lot more sense. The miserable, spiteful bastard couldn't be satisfied through worship or piety or any other stupid thing. He wanted everyone to realize how utterly small and beneath him they truly were. When the Empire and all of its trash heap outposts all wake up feeling like remorae desperately clinging to the side of a shark the size of creation, when they all understood their utter insignificance, that's when he would smile and start to love them like his children. She shudders. Make no mistake about it, the Empress intended this mission as--

Her reverie is interrupted by a deafening rumble. Bella's eyes shrink to slits and her skin turns paler than the dead. Impossible, utterly impossible, to think this beast could ever die. The shuttle itself is quivering. It takes her a moment to realize that's because her arms are so taut they're twitching of their own accord. She chances a long, slow banking maneuver. It would leave her exposed to Imperial pursuit. But she has to know.

And she sees it. Where the tongue should be, though it must have hardened itself into a mountain range by now, stray clumps of old dirt that maybe once were cities are coming loose from their years long balancing act and colliding with one another. Good job, Princess. See what you've done? The earth churns against itself like gladiators wrestling over a thrown sword. Grass gives way to soil, and out of that like corpses spills chunks of stone and steel large enough to crush her shuttle into nothing, and then beneath that the flashes of crystalline blue that must mean the World Eater had gone silent bleeding from its gums. Maybe it still was? Who knew how this thing worked.

Bella lets out a deep, shuddering sigh. She is supremely careful as she lifts first one hand and then the other off of her controls so that she can smooth her hair and fur. She flicks the bells on her arms, then reaches to her neck to trace the contours of her collar. Her next sigh is... not calmer. But more subdued.

"I can't wait to get free of this place. What kind of insane moron would come here willingly?"

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Sweat drips from her forehead down into her eyes as an involuntary shudder runs through Étoile's entire body. It stings horribly, which is an extra kind of terrible because the niggling irritation only more attention to how much Marianne's price is wracking her body. It's going to be almost impossible to do all of her chores properly tonight; her only hope is that when Her Ladyship sees the state of her handmaiden she'll be too distraught to be upset at her.

The lynx squeezes her butt. Étoile squeaks like a mouse filled with helium and jumps several inches in spite of herself. Immediately, the pain of her lashes turns her legs to jelly and she winds up flopping limply in his arms. This only earns her further groping. The hand wanders up, and it squeezes. It wanders down, and it squeezes. Étoile can't keep the tiny moan inside of her mouth, and that's when she feels the fingers pinch her thong and tug!

Her cheeks burn so brightly not even this deeply unflattering veil can hide it.

"I, u-um... eep! I can't, uh, a-aahhHH~" she stammers, nearly biting her tongue, "I d-d-doo... eeeheep! Th-think I can walk all the way back. My legs feEEel ffffffunny..."

No sooner has she brought up the subject than the female lynx has pulled in close as well, squishing her between a pair of hot, furry bodies as she gets her squirming thighs poked, prodded, and caressed. Is that so? Is that so? Poor thing! Itsy bitsy little human, do you need the big strong Janissaries to make you feel aaaallll better, hmm?

Étoile's sapphire eyes flutter daintily through all of the teasing. Under her veil it's obvious that her lips are making little puckering motions, and even if it weren't no sharp eared lynx could miss the sounds they make as she presses her body tight against each of theirs, desperate for the attention, or else to take any amount of pressure off her back for any amount of time.

Incorrigible little minx. She's every bit the naughty girl they made her out to be, isn't she? Or, say this about her: she wears her masks well. Her eyes are soft and liquid to the point where even if you knew where to look you'd be hard pressed to find the resentment flashing inside of them. Even Anathet would have to stretch herself to notice that tiny moment, and then it's gone in a flash and a purr.

"Pleeeaaase? Can I pretty please ride in your beautiful, strong arms? I promise, if you tell me your names I promise to tell Her Ladyship how... gentle you were with me. I just know she'll want to reward you~"

She flashes them her softest and most soulful eye-smile as she bursts into a small and tired fit of giggles. Little doe. Kitten. Temptress. Humans really are all the same, aren't they?

[Pierce the Mask: 8 - How can Étoile get these two to give her what she needs to see them punished later?]

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

JOURNAL ENTRY NUMBER: ACTUALLY, SCREW IT

What a disaster. I can't believe I'm in a position where I have to be grateful to Shoykyo. Guh. Gah. Urgh. Noises. Just barely spared the agony of having to explain what a 'Ninja Gaiden' is and how that factors into the sorting of good or bad 'bzzzts'. I mean, what was I gonna do, tell her to go back to walking around in the rain? Little idiot doesn't understand her own mortality down here. She's so cute, though. I can't stand it.

Regardless! My real problem right now is this overwhelming compulsion I feel to join a musical competition despite the fact that I
a) can't dance
b) can't sing
c) have zero (0) sense of rhyme or rhythm
d) hate it when other people look at me

So anyway yeah obviously I'm just going to do a cover. I could build a machine to spit mad bars and maybe, like, some kind of hell pony to autotune whinny my backup vocals and draw the most perfect vision of my innermost thoughts into lyrics out from the purest crystals on earth, but... y'know, like, I've got plenty enough to be getting on with already. That's why instead of that, I'll be testing out my Adaptive Suit. It's the very latest in both Adaptive and Suit technology!

Well actually point of fact it's not so much a 'suit' as it is a... hm, what's the word? Oh yes, a bio-mechanical, chitinous exoskeleton. It's got morphic camouflage features and mechanically perfect muscle memory recorders, such that it can always repeat back the physical motion you intended instead of the one your dorky useless body actually wound up doing! With a sufficient power source, it could even enable voice alterations and project upwards of seven independent Solid Holograms (Soligrams) for much more intricate choreographs. Plus! And this is the really good part! The shoulder spikes spit acid! The feet have retractable dewclaws! And on top of that for some reason it can also spontaneously grow human-scale dragonfly wings capable of limited flight.

So you may be expecting this part to be my project right now. But you are wrong, Hypothetical Journal Rinely Person! Point of fact, the Adaptive Suit is already built! I finished it a month ago, actually, put it through all its initial tests. Works perfectly, except that it's very power hungry. And, uh, by default? It draws energy by feeding on the unwilling flesh of the wearer. Which is... you know? Not? Ideal?? So instead I'm spending my time trying to develop an alternate energy supply. See, first I'm gonna...

Actually, wait. Wait wait wait. Hold up. Why do I already have something like this? Usefulness notwithstanding, it's a heck of a coincidence to have something so bizarrely purpose built for something I didn't see coming until last ni-- hm. beerb, checking my archives for a sec.

JOURNAL ENTRY NUMBER A MONTH AGO (THE RETROACTIVE ONE)

“She got me,” Retroactive Dulcinea said of the Wishing Machine. "That f***ing Shoykyo boomed me."
Dulcinea added, “She’s so good,” repeating it four times.
Dulcinea then said she wanted to add Shoukyo to the list of people she competes with in a music contest next month.

JOURNAL ENTRY NUMBER ?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!

I gosh darned KNEW it! That stupid wishing machine! I swear to... how did somebody like her even BUILD something like th-- I just! Do you have any idea how hard it was to build the Nightmare Engine? And I mean, like, I really don't mind the comparisons at all, even though the Engine is literally incomparable and therefore any such attempts to are pointless by their very nature. I don't mind! I don't! I just don't understand HOW it works. Or WHY. Whydoit? Mark my words, there's something incredibly fishy going on here. And I'm not talking about the lake. Or the fishery. Or the eel farm. Or the... you know what? There's a lot of fish here, now that I think about it. That's weird, right? I should look into this!

Regardless!

The true tragedy here is the realization that I've just had an entire project thrown into my lap from outside the proper flow of time by a wish, which means I'm probably going to lose it when it's done enabling all this nonsense. But I'm not going to let it get me down! Temporary or not, the Adaptive Suit will still be an excellent test of the Theoretical Sympathetic Cables, and my third (3rd) attempt at generating a stable portal to the realm of eternal Nightmare. Last time everything exploded because all of my cabling got caught on things it shouldn't have and destabilized my experiments before they were finished drawing on the UNLIMITED POWER OF THE VOID, AHAHAHAHA... oh dear.

The, uh, the point is... well I mean, kind of that thing I said? With functionally unlimited, if slightly horrible and distinctly icky tasting power to draw on, the Adaptive Suit should fully realize my vision for this contest with power and functionality to spare. I won't win, I should think, but now that I know why I'm here I don't really care about that anymore. In fact, I'd have have a mind to blow the whole thing off, except personal experience has taught me that when wishes are being granted it's best to just ride the wave until it passes. I've gone against them before. That's, uh... story for another entry, yeah? It wasn't pretty, I'll tell me that.

Double Regardless!

I am determined to be able to stabilize this portal, because it would make material gathering vastly simpler if I could just step into the world of everybody's collective bad dreams instead of needing to keep cutting my way in there any time I need a cup of xorth angles or whatever. And just think about how many inventions I could build without needing to design power sources! Incredible. The knowledge is worth the risk. The plan is to fully shield this one except for the small holes I'll need to connect the Theoretical end of the Sympathetic Cables to. I'll write the runes with the intent that the portal will be self collapsing inside of three (3) weeks.

It's going to work this time. Everything's going to be perfect...

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

The only thing that held her cover together this long was Marianne's extremely thorough work. Alone with the Janissaries, Étoile could barely keep the glare of contempt out of her eyes. She sniffed unpleasantly as they teased her with their tails, and in one moment she was seized with an almost uncontrollable urge to bite!

But the pain made her meek. Her bindings kept her still. Her embarrassment made it possible to forget her connection to her own powers, and when the Lynx started making lewd faces and noises at her breasts, instead of igniting a fire inside of her it simply put the image of the liaison into her imagination, making her blush horribly, and squeak her feeble protests through that soft and furry gag pressed against her lips.

When she is saved, it is by the worst possible figure imaginable. But she pounces on the Inquisitor's presence like a desert traveler finding an oasis just the same.

"P-please!" she begs, "Please, please! Th-this unworthy..! I, I! Help me, please!"

Étoile fights not to gag on the tail hairs now clinging to her tongue. She dares not try and spit them out. Not in front of an Inquisitor. She tries her best, but it's so miserable! And her back screams with pain while her arms and especially her wrists groan subtler complaints underneath. And there's a hand! On her face! And it's squeezing and there's the voice and it's the same! It's so, so, so like h-her and! And! And...

It's too much to ask of a poor little slave like her. Fragile flower! Innocent handmaiden! Étoile bursts into hysterical tears, right on cue. She leans into that hand that is both salvation and destruction, and she sobs for everything she's worth.

"Sh-she took me! The demon! She t-t-took me to this, this pl-pla-place and, and, and sh-she..." Étoile sniffles loudly. Her eyes are cast down in shame, even as her head is lifted up, "It was horrible! She called me a slut and a t-traitor and she hit me! She took the clothes my m-m-most exalted and beloved Lady Tamytha asked me to wear! I thought I would die!"

She sniffles and squeezes her eyes shut at the memory. She is babbling and useless, prattling on and on about the sensation of sinking through floors and some kind of "Hell", locking on the kinds of images Jerioth ab-Ishtar is probably still dwelling on. She quails with fear to mention the threats: the drowning, the theft of her purity, the promise when Ma-Ri-Ann left poor little Étoile to be found that her shamefully uncovered face would lead to further punishments. She can't take another whipping! She can't!

"I beg you, I beg you! Do anything else! Spank me, march me down the street in shame, call me bad girl, bad slave, bad pet! I am, I am, I am! But d-do-don't hurt me, please! I only," she sniffles again, "I only wish to return to my Lady! She needs me! She needs her little star! I, I don't know anything else! The Ma-Ri-Ann only said a, a... revolution was coming! She wouldn't tell me what it meant! Please, please! Bring me back to my Lady! I am, I just want... I wanna go home~"

Breathless Dead

The ship that carried Bella this far into space was a drab and dingy thing. The hull groaned like a dying monster as it hurtled across the stars, and the sounds of every fresh impact with a meteor or other piece of celestial garbage reverberated deep into her personal quarters. Every one of them made her flinch as they pushed little visions of her death inside of her skull. The whole of it was undecorated, barely furnished, and permanently smelled of dust that she was constantly forcing herself not to clean.

She'd give almost anything to back there right now.

Space does not need monsters. Space is a monster. Bella stares wide eyed into the open maw of the roaring, roiling sea of stars, and realizes she must know better than to exhale with relief. Poseidon's grand kingdom exists for no other reason than to remind people how small and utterly pathetic they really are. And then, having done that, its secondary purpose is to kill them.

There's no emotion her heart can conjure right now beyond terror. On a proper ship, you pray, point your engines, and then pray again while the ship and the gods handle everything else. But on this shuttle, every twitch of the controls sends an unpleasant swooping sensation down Bella's spine that settles in her stomach. She growls constantly, feathering the flight stick first one way and then another, rocking the plush cruiser this way and that in what little flecks of empty space she still has to find her bearings in. An errant fleck of rock or steel or... something else knocks against the side of the transport, and the entire thing rattles horribly. The plating on this thing is so thin it might as well not exist. She has no weapons. The only point of this shuttle to begin with is to stroke Odoacer's ego as she pops from ship to ship in the relative safety of the space between one of her blockades.

Her claws tighten around the controls in a death grip. Bella shakes her head. It is essential she master this, and now. Just ahead of her the cockpit fills with the awe-inspiring sight of the World Eater's sapphires. The merest drop of its frozen blood is enough to tear her to shreds. There would not even be enough left of her to commune to the gods and whatever resting place Hera would leave for her. The sound of her growling now fills the entire shuttle.

She pushes down on the controls and dives under the first sapphire with surprising grace. It's several agonizing seconds before she can see anything else. Seconds where all she has to contemplate is the horror of Poseidon's most terrifying pet. Such power, frozen here. If she were braver, bolder, and more foolhardy... no. She mustn't dwell on it. And yet, wouldn't even the merest fraction of this crystal be enough to grant her powers undreamed of? And if she dug even deeper and cracked open the core of an arterial clot...

Her window fills with colors beyond the ghastly blue, and the line of thought ceases immediately. What she sees is enough to make her heart drop into her stomach anew. The Princess has been here, there's no doubting that. The sheer number of mines floating in front of her now would be laughable for any other target. But it's just as clear they don't have her yet, or there wouldn't be the tiny flares of plovers flitting about from spot to spot in obvious search. It's suicide to go in there. She'll be spotted for sure.

No. The real suicide would be to delay. Another minute to the minefield. Maybe thirty seconds beyond that until she's spotted, and from there, just moments before word reaches Odoacer's ears. She's going to be furious. The only things keeping Bella alive right are the possibility of retrieving the Princess and securing the Empress' permanent protection, and the simple hubris of the Armada. But neither will last long. If she's lucky, she'll make it halfway to the leviathan's corpse before ELF weapons render this thing a barely mobile (if especially fancy) tub. Or worse. They could do much worse. They will do much worse.

Bella turns up the throttle on the shuttle and darts toward death at utterly reckless speeds. Soon, Redana, soon. It must be soon, before it's never.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Étoile has been judged and found guilty of the crime of not being Marianne. Her sentence is to continue her crime. She will be the furthest thing from Marianne, so that no one would dare to dream of connecting them.

To begin with, her hair is a mess. It's been pulled free from its high ponytail and ruffled so much that it falls every which way over her shoulders and down her back and chest. It's also slicked with sweat, but unevenly, so that some locks cling unpleasantly to her bare skin while others feather alluringly whichever way they will.

Her makeup has also been smeared across her eyes and down her cheeks, which is significant because her veil is missing. Of course it is. It has to be, or nobody would believe she was kidnapped by the wicked Ma-Ri-Ann. This is a subtler sort of humiliation; dropping her in public where expectation and social pressure will force her to act flustered and embarrassed about her situation, while guards leer and make a dozen crude remarks at her expense.

Not that it's stopped there. Marianne has taken the beautiful jacket Lady Tamytha made for her to wear, and thrown it somewhere utterly irretrievable. Her arms, her back, her stomach, most of her chest, all of it is laid bare now. All she has to cover herself as the suggestive bindings that were supposed to be an accent piece more than anything to properly clothe her. It's little better than being in a micro bikini, something she never had the courage to do in her old life. With her skin bared like this, there's also nothing to cover up the fresh lashes on her back. Marianne heated her chains over a fire before whipping herself Étoile to the point of blood. It drip drips down the contours of her back, where the impression of large chain links are burned into her skin.

This is a kindness, Étoile! This is mercy! This is proof that you are loved! With your little body on display it will be easier for you to show your humiliation! With your back in such pain, you will not have to fake your tears! Fret not; wounds like these are nothing to Marianne. This will not interfere with the next job, even if your oh-so-precious Lady doesn't get squeamish and sees you tended to. Now do your work, you lazy, useless, good-for-nothing little pet!

This was the price to get Marianne to calm herself sink beneath the surface again for the night. Étoile is in a state of utter disarray, with her head slumped down into her chest, tied to a light post with small blackened cuffs locking her wrists to her ankles. Best to hope they find you quickly, little star!

Breathless Dead

Her first step is deliberate and confident. Bella saunters, perfectly at ease being here under Admiral Odoacer's orders. She walks toward the shuttle without so much as a backward glance. By her fourth step, her pace starts to quicken. Her feet pull closer together and her arms draw in around her stomach. She does not dare to look back, but her ears pivot behind her and strain for sounds of a Codexia who's figured out what game is actually being played right now.

By the twelfth step, she's running. Just seven long strides that set her bells to singing, and she's inside the door. Her legs swing smoothly beside each other in a form that her father, if he knew she existed in the first place, would be proud of. Even inside, she hardly slows down at all, but vaults over a plush couch and lands on all fours as she lunges through the passenger section toward the controls.

This is how she pays homage to Aphrodite and Athena both.

Her hands hesitate in front of the flight stick. The charitable would call this mercy, or "giving her companions a chance to catch up and slam the door before she dashes off into space". The truth pounds against her chest with a rush of pure adrenaline. Her fingers tremble as she fumbles with unfamiliar switches and dials.

She snarls and shivers at the same time, as all the prayers at her lips fall forgotten to the floor. Click. Click click. There's a pressure on the top of her hand as if someone was squeezing it. She resists the urge to turn her head; she needs her eyes right now. But she can't keep the rising blush off her cheeks as the pressure becomes a light shove that brings her fingers curling around the flight stick. She yanks it hard to her right.

The air fills with the tortured sound of screaming metal. Odacer's personal cruiser tears itself away from the scaffolding like a falcon slicing through the glove of an unworthy handler. The catwalk falls to pieces and crushes the bar Mynx had been working just minutes ago. The shuttle swerves hard and then shudders as a stray beam that had been holding it in place smashes against the side where it gouges the sleek paint horribly and knocks several feathers out of the wings carved into one side.

The scene descends into the kind of chaos that would call to mind the name of a particular god only the impious or truly foolish would dare name out loud, here least of all. Bella flies the way she runs, and is not the least bit shy about putting what armor the cruiser does have through its paces. Chandeliers go smashing down onto the ground where they explode with loud pops and the crack crack crack of shattering crystals. Walkways and wall paneling peel away from their fastenings and bounce against each other in a chain reaction of destruction. Whatever 'accident' befell the main hangar, she puts it to shame here.

Now comes the hard part. Bella sniffles involuntarily in her seat as the cold unwelcome sight of space expands to fill her vision. In her wake lies a scene of destruction so thorough that nobody in their right mind will believe she didn't cause it on purpose.