Phoe

Breathless Dead

A flash of lightning splits the air in fractal patterns of furious arcing electricity. It bursts across the sky, violent and fleeting, and for a single moment bursts brighter than the broken reactor this place had called a sun. Then it rips apart, as lightning always does, and plunges the crumbling ruins into darkness. A figure looms above the scene playing down in the mud and the alley; coiling, tensing, watching with golden-eyed intensity. There is a pause of exactly one half-second's silence. The thunderclap that follows is deafening. For one brief instant, you would be forgiven for thinking the horrible weapon of the King to be a child's toy by comparison.

These are not signs of victory. Zeus does not storm when she is happy. Jas'o crows and digs and needles, he asks favors and makes offerings and forgets that all his power and authority is borrowed and overdue to be returned. Perhaps he imagines that today is a sign he is destined to stride atop his Admiral and his Empress both. But he has forgotten his nature. It is not the place of tools or hounds to dream of such grand prizes. It is the brightest bonfire that burns down first. It is the tip of the spear that chips before the shaft. Unseen above the fray, Bella hunches forward.

And she leaps.

Bella is a living missile. She drops through the wet air like a knife, and just like a knife she twists herself to inflict the highest amount of pain. Her back arches like a rainbow and her shoulder curls to bring her right arm up behind her, bent at the elbow and all her claws extended, tense and quivering with anticipation. Her hip rocks back and her legs spread apart as though she was bounding off of the raindrops, the better to put her body's full weight and power into her strike. Her bells sing dully, drowned out by the storm, by taunts, and by justice. The chain on her collar writhes and slithers behind her with all the fury of a viper defending its nest.

Her first slash is vicious: it tears angry red lines from the base of Jas'o's neck and down his spine all the way to his left knee. Bella lands with a crash and a hiss, dragged down to all fours by the weight of her blow. She rolls on her feet and springs off of her hand without a moment's hesitation and whips her body around in a full circle so that her chain coils itself around that freshly opened knee. She springs all the way up to standing as if the muddy street had rejected her, and wraps her hands around the chain.

Her face twists into a wicked sneer, and she yanks the links up toward her neck so that they twist tight around Jas'o's leg and pull him off his feet to land with a wet thud right next to the princess. He bursts back up with a howl and a vicious backhand, but Bella rolls with the blow and takes his back. In a second she's crushed his quiver, and with it his hope. Jas'o stomps and yanks Bella by the collar. She drops willingly to the ground again but springs to her full height in another instant, raking her claws from his groin up across his abdomen as she soars.

Her chain snaps halfway down its length, freeing them from each other; the metal defeated by the power of his body. But disarmed, taken by surprise, in such close quarters, he's nothing compared with the iron will of Empress Nero that's been twisted into the shape of this servitor. Redana's first companion. Her greatest. The only one she needs. Bella whirls, and her claws turn the rain red. She slashes his chest, his leg, his elbow, and his eye. She grabs him by the mouth and slams him against a wall, squeezing and listening intently for the sound of cracking jaw over the storm. She lets him go.

The mighty King slumps into the mud without help. Bella knees quietly beside him and traces her fingers across his many ragged wounds as a tiny smile spreads its way across her face.

"It's such a sad thing, O King. Is it not? Your prayers were made too late; mine were made before you laid eyes upon the Princess. Guess Zeus liked my offerings best of all~"

Bella's eyes dart across the alley to the Princess. Her Princess, covered in mud, writhing on the ground and choking for air. The smile falls off her face. Her claws squeeze at Jas'o's throat.

"Stupid shit-for-brains king. You weren't worthy to touch her. But that's a mistake you'll never have to make again."

She snatches at his throat with her claws, and her hand and the fur around her wrist turn red. She stands and kicks his limp head with her boot, staring down with unrestrained hatred. The Empress sanctioned acts like this for exactly one reason, and he'd gone and kicked that reason in the chest like the great clod he'd been. She spits.

And then the venom falls away from her. The world is still shrunken; there is only room for two. She turns and crosses the space between her and Redana, hiding her bloody hand behind her back. And she stands.

And she watches.

[Finish with Iron: 11]

Chuubo's GMD: Love and Shattered Alchemy

Dulcinea blinks stupidly. Only, well, that's not true at all, is it? She blinks with genius-level acuity, but by the standards she sets for herself it feels like a pretty stupid response. She has to crane her neck to look up at Rinley from her girl-perch, which also feels pretty stupid to be quite h with you.

She reaches into the pocket of her slacks and pulls out an intensely tiny notebook she immediately starts scribbling equally tiny notes into. She looks up again. Down. Up. Down. Up. Down. And she blinks, because actually that's the smartest answer she's got left to her right now.

"A giant... snake?" she slurs.

Her mouth widens into an enormous yawn, which she makes zero effort to cover. She looks up at Rinley one last time before rubbing uselessly at the dark circles under her eyes. She pockets her tiny notebook again.

And then she turns away and resumes her exhausted trudge down the street without bothering (remembering?) to reply.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Lady's shoulder is too bony to make a very good pillow. Étoile's butt is too sore and the chariot's seat is too hard for the ride to be at all enjoyable. There are rope burns criss-crossing all over her tender skin that sting whenever air whispers over them too sharply. And if that weren't bad enough, Jezcha hasn't shut up the whole way back. She bounces back and forth between crowing about her 'amazing haul' and making all sorts of cutesy put-downs for Étoile to pretend to smile at.

It's impossible to get the rest she so desperately needs right now. But even so? There's nowhere in the world she'd rather be.

"Who's a good girl? Who's my good girl?" Lady softly whispers, just for her.

Étoile's voice is so exhausted from squeaking, giggling, and wailing for help in increasingly less believable ways that she can't even croak out a 'me~', so she has to let the fluttering of her eyes do it for her. She pulls her legs in close to her stomach and leans as hard as she can against Lady's hard but oh-so-relaxingly warm body to take the pressure off of the sorest parts of her body. One of Lady's hands glides through her mussed up hair and slowly untangles the matted clumps into something resembling the golden splendor that made her such an expensive slave in the first place.

And Étoile? She melts. Burns and bruises and silly disheveled costumes and all, she uncoils and unwinds until she's nothing so much as a vaguely Étoile-shaped noodle. Her eyelids grow heavy. It's not an easy thing to act badly on cue, you know? All of the training that goes into presenting a believable face works against you when you suddenly have to sound wooden and clueless and still shut it off and go back to being a real person at a moment's notice. It's even harder when you have to bounce back and forth between "tricking" humans in such a stupid way that they couldn't help but pop out to look insulted and then needing to sound plausibly excited whenever Jezcha got bored and decided the dumb little pet wanted smacking, instead.

But Lady kisses the top of her head and calls her a good girl, and the happy shiver that runs up her spine tells her today was a good day. Lady is safe. Is it too much to hope she realizes how much her lamassie had done for her today? And Jezcha seemed much more relaxed around her than she'd ever been before. Even Marianne felt happy right now, if only because she was imagining the possibilities a sloppy Jezcha represented. Étoile could possibly have access to new depths of intel soon, if she could keep her silly mask in place. Oh, the fun that they would have...

Her eyes are too heavy to keep open any longer. The pain doesn't matter. The work doesn't matter. Étoile is a good girl, safe in the arms of her Lady. With a sigh and the tiniest of groans, she lets those warm and tender fingers coax her to sleep. And maybe, she thinks as she slips under, she'll be lucky enough to get tonight in Lady's bed.

Breathless Dead

The world is shrinking. It's squeezing her, crushing her, pinning her in place. The world is the stomp of angry feet and the cold of lashing rain and the burning of rubble that once was home to an entire people. The world is three sharp, looming walls doomed to die by Jas'o's uncaring hand. The world is the muted stench of whipped mutts pretending they are soldiers, the blinding flash of Zeus' triumph and the deafening clap of her victory roaring across the shattered stones and the weeping sky.

The world is Bella. The world is Redana. There's no more room for anything else.

Bella's body is tenser than steel. Her eyes are wild shrunken slits that gleam savagely in the flashes of lightning. Suddenly her back is hunching with the weight of carrying her princess all this way. Her chest heaves and strains within it's sodden silken prison, heavier and heavier, until she sounds like she's about to pop.

She lets Redana fall to the ground. Her tail thrashes and her ears flatten miserably as she watches Redana's head smack against a wall, followed by her back and butt. Only her legs touch down gently, and Bella is quick to rise to her full posture in the instant the princess is blinking away her pain. Bella reaches down with one hand until the sight of her jewelry talons makes her snatch it back. She closes her eyes. She forces her breathing to slow. She forces herself to be calm, be calm. She must be calm for what comes next.

"Fine then!" she screams across the storm, "Fine! If... if you love your new friends so much I know just how to reunite you! It's easy, right Princess?! All you have to do is sit here! And watch what happens!"

Her ears flick up and behind her immediately, listening for the sounds of feet rushing in faster toward the signal. The breakdown. It's good that there's so much rain. It means she doesn't need to worry about her eyes. She turns her back on Redana, bedraggled tail twitching with obvious irritation.

"...I'm the only one," her voice is so low that surely even Redana won't pick it up this time, "The only one who can keep you safe."

She leaps into the air and springs off a broken slab of wall. There's a shower of sparks as her claws slash through one of the only standing walls still left to climb, until she finally finds purchase. She scrabbles up the wall and vanishes like a shadow into the storm.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Étoile swallows loudly. She's picturing it even though she can't afford to: the inside of the Inquisitor's chambers, the threat of 'rehabilitation', and the end of everything she knows. That's what's at stake here, and nothing less. That's why she's got exactly four seconds to get her face on right and do her job properly before she takes a dart to the neck and all of her decisions get made for her for the rest of forever. Come on, is she Lady's lamassie or isn't she? That's right, there's a good girl.

She very gently dips down to let her Lady rest on the ground. She has just enough time to sneak in an affectionate bit of nuzzling before she has to turn around, and this only because it helps sell the image of the ridiculous little pet. She's a bit far away at this distance for Jezcha to be counted on to catch the bright sparkle in her eyes, so Étoile is extra careful to giggle and clap her hands with delight. The pistol clatters to the ground, apparently forgotten.

"Amazing, amazing! Oh wowies," she trills, "Lady Jezcha plays such wonderful games! lamassie was completely fooled! Ahaha!"

She trots forward with mincing little steps that seem as heedless to the danger in front of her as they are to Tamytha's desperate warnings behind her. How could Mistress's beloved sister wish her adorable pet any harm? She trips on a rock and falls backwards onto her butt with an 'oof' of protest which seems to miss the sound of a rifle firing and the dart that zips through the space her head had been a second ago. Her eyes are adoring. Her neck seems suddenly very stiff, but that's just... because she fell, yes! Silly lamassie!

"...Was I good? Did I do a good job playing? Is Lady Jezcha pleased, can lamassie have a treat? Oh! Oh! I wanna get tied up this time! Lady Jezcha is so generous and kind, she's given up all her hunting time to play with Mistress! But she's sooooooo skilled, I bet she'll get a dozen trophies anyway! Can lamassie help? Oh please please please, let her play 'bait' too! She's so so good at wiggling and squeaking, she'll draw all those naughty humans right here with her pretty shiny hair! Pretty pretty please, can she go on the pole now?"

Étoile lifts her hands up to her chest and does her best soulful begging impression. Inside her stomach there's a dark flame burning a hole through her, but her mask is up to the challenge. Her win condition just shifted, that's all. Whatever it takes to let Lady rest in the shade and go home with her this evening, that's what will serve the Cause. That's the same thing as defeating Jezcha, the exact same thing. She wiggles her hips just to be extra shameless and enticing. It's the cute ones you need to watch out for, in the end. n'est-ce pas?

[Mild Mannered: 7]

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Étoile glances nervously about as she bends over (sticking her butt unnecessarily high in the air while she does it) to pick up the clunky antique looking revolver.

"H-hello? Is... is anybody here? Lady? Are you playing a new game, Lady? l-lamassie is scared..."

But there are no replies. It's just her in the empty ruins of a Disneyland restaurant, alone but for the heavy weapon in her hand and the tattered remnants of the picnic she'd been dreaming of all week. She lifts the gun and holds it to her chest like a treasured stuffed animal, and pushes all of the air out of her lungs.

This is the first time she's let her mask drop since she first met Marianne. When she looks across the way to where she knows her targets lie waiting, her eyes don't smile with the calm servitude of Tamytha's darling little star, or the silly and unfocused glee of lamassie, or even the hot fury of her alter ego. The real Étoile's fury is cold. Her eyes are dull and filled with lethal intent. Jezcha, espèce de raté, you ruined everything. She'll make you wish you'd drawn Marianne instead of her.

Then she sneezes, and that girl disappears and leaves frightened little lamassie back in her place. She carefully gathers up all of Lady's belongings back into her pack, and drags it with her as she trots off to find her mistress, making exaggerated sniffing sounds as she goes? See, Lady? She can track, she can!

The sight of Lady, all trussed up and dangling precariously from a pole like the mermaid on the prow of a ship, makes her squeak in horror.

"Ohmygosh and goodness! Oh! My Lady, please hold on, I'll save you from the humans who did this to you! Oh gosh gosh gosh! Oh!!"

Étoile, of course, is not a natural born huntress. If you want one of those, get a Lynx of course. But did you think she's been taking naps whenever Marianne came out to do her work? Of course she sees their hiding places! Of course she knows where to look! But she minces closer on trembling legs, trying to hold the heavy pistol out in front of her like a pro but needing two hands and an awful lot of bobbling to do it.

Every slight noise seems to frighten her. Oh no, oh no! Is that a shrub, or a monster lurking over there? She squeezes her eyes shut and holds her head away from the gun as she fires a wild shot into absolutely nothing. It's a strange gun that lacks the sharp report she knows from movies, but fires with a dull popping sound instead. Still, it makes her jump three feet into the air at the sound of it. And that's her one, besides.

She spins in a slow circle, waving the gun in front of her for protection when, oh gosh! Oh no! Silly lamassie, you shot right at one of Jezcha's hunting buddies! The shot scares her so badly she bobbles the gun and almost drops it straight to the ground, and in her mad scrambling she somehow manages to fire it twice more at the area her most exalted companions are hiding. If you were watching, you'd be forgiven for missing the tiny moments where her gun arm suddenly straightens and her aim switches from incompetence to (well, not quite) deadly precision. It's only just long enough to find a center-mass shot, and she is such a very silly girl in all.

Now she runs toward her Lady, yelping and sobbing and waving the gun behind her as she goes. Pop! She hears more than sees a body slump against something hard. Pop! She has to assume she just missed. And that's two. She sprints all out, clearing the distance between her and Lady with frightening alacrity before... she trips on the ditch they dug and lands flat on her face under Lady's tender feet. It takes her a few moments of squeaks and groans before she regains her feet to fumble at these too-tight knots.

"Oh gosh, oh gosh, My Lady I am so sorry! I'm so sorry! I am! Are you all right? We have to go, we have to go, let's get out of here, please I'm so scared! Oh, I'm here, but... please!"

Her mask falls away again without her realizing it. But though her eyes aren't smiling, it isn't fury that's dancing in them right now. You would have to be the biggest idiot in the whole universe to miss to miss the spark of love that flickers in that look.

[Defend: 9. Étoile takes Influence over Tamytha, but escalates the situation]

Breathless Dead

"Oh, now you care about keeping pr--"

The crack of stone is even louder than the thunderclap. Bella's ears clamp flat against her skull to drown out the sound, but it's a useless gesture. The city is screaming as it dies: the stone howls and the metal bubbles, scentless and burning brightly in the pouring rain. It comes down in curtains now, soaking through her fur and her dress and pooling inside her boots so that they squelch with terrifying loudness with every darting step she takes.

Bella's eyes are shrunken and trembling. Her scowl is permanent, teeth bared and clenched together so tight they look like they might shatter. She turns toward Redana with this same look on her face, her cheeks flushed and burning in a way that calls to mind a fever. And then she looks away, stealing glances over her shoulder and chancing to lift and bend her ears to lock down the sound of the stomp stomp stomping that signals a clear shot, and death. She spins around a corner and dives for shelter under an angled slab of a building that must have once been somebody's home, and can't quite make the line cleanly enough to avoid smacking Redana's leg on the way under.

She clamps her hand tightly over Redana's mouth to stop the scream before it can ruin everything. The scowl deepens for just a moment before it falls off her face entirely. Now she lets herself be vulnerable. Now she lets herself look tired. Her chest heaves with effort as every bit of her drips miserably.

She did not come dressed for a storm. Her shirt is drenched so thoroughly that it's clinging to her every curve like second skin, and where she's chosen to wear white it's gone completely see-through. Her top whisks water slightly better, but that's no comfort either: every breath sends rivulets draining into the space between her breasts and sending her into fits of shivers. Her sodden sleeves constrict her wrists like angry snakes, and even her bells are too waterlogged to sing their song; they rattle and slosh sadly when she shifts her weight to adjust her grip. Her skirts are stuck to her thighs tight enough that it restricts her movement. If she can't take a time to pull them free then her next great leap might even tear them.

Like this, her tail's too bony. Like this, her fur looks matted and unpleasant. Like this, her thick hair is bedraggled and flat and her artfully arranged bangs now flop gracelessly onto her forehead and bother her eyes. Is there anything less seemly than a wet cat? Her cheeks burn with a fresh flush of color, but her eyes are only on her Princess. Her Princess. Hers. Whoever the wolf girl was to Redana, she clearly never had what it took to be a proper r... R... Re... the thought cuts short with a growl. In any case she's dead now.

"Don't you understand how much danger you're in? You idiot! Jas'o's here for you! The whole Armada's here for you! Do you think it's on your mother's orders? Odoacer wants you for herself! She's going to turn you into her trophy and then climb you like a ladder to take the throne! She's already killed everyone else here who cares about you at all! So don't... don't you... don't call me a scaredy-cat! This is not one of your holos, Milady! And don't lecture me about time, I'm the one who's..!"

There's a rumble and a blinding flash of light that's followed by a crack of stone loud enough to leave a ringing even in ordinary human ears. The little shelter explodes and fresh sheets of water and stone rain down on Bella hard enough to knock her to one knee. She snarls and presses Redana close against her as she springs away into a twisted nest of streets and crumbling buildings with only the wrath of Zeus to guide her way.

Breathless Dead

Bella is halfway to pouncing in an instant. She's risen to one knee before she even notices her response, and on the hand she isn't using to support Redana her claws are extended on each of her curled and straining fingers. All of her fur is bristling horribly and her tail is snapped back so straight it hurts. Would that the gods had granted her the power to hide her own agitation, but alas, they played no role in her creation at all. A scowl darkens her features as she clenches her sharp teeth tight against one another, powerless to keep the low growl out of her throat. Her eyes shine with lethal golden light, locked on Jas'o for the first time.

But then her gaze slips off of his chiseled form (there is a permanent stink of thunderbolts that will cling to him for the rest of forever. It is worse by half than being next to the Nemean) and heroically handsome face to the quivering fingers already reaching for his next deadly shot. Her heart catches in her chest. She turns her head, sight sliding downward, and beholds Princess Epistia properly for the first time.

Thunderbolts are awful weapons. Of all the tools humans have been granted to kill with, they may well be the worst. There's no blood spurting from that wound, but it must be spilling all over her insides. She reeks of burning skin and fur, and...ugh. Just look at the way she twitches. Lying there, calm as death, until the spark sets her abdomen to spasming, convulsing, arcing through her skeleton and bending her spine until surely it must break? It'd be a kindness to tear out her throat.

The corner of Bella's eye grows wet with tears. She slides smoothly to her feet, lifting Redana up by the butt until she can wrap her arms around Bella's neck and gingerly supporting her wounded legs with her previously free hand. With nothing to stop her tear, she has to suffer to let it roll slowly down her cheek and dangle from her chin until it finally, mercifully drops onto her Princess' stomach. She draws herself to full height with deeply practiced poise and restraint, her prizes from a lifetime's worth of lessons and floggings.

"No, King," her voice is as polite and level as it is in almost all of Redana's memories, "Her Highness' choice is not for you to make. Not you, not the Admiral, and not any other traitor to the throne."

The princess detests blood. And she hates foul play even more. But surely she'll understand just this once? Bella digs her heel into the ground and spins sharply, raking her other foot across the ground before kicking in a wide and vicious arc. If the debris here is more dangerous than usual, Jas'o has only himself to blame: bits of cracked stone, fragments of a hoplite's shield and shards of broken scythe, and a bit of mud besides all spray indiscriminately toward the King's face. Maybe it'll be enough to make him bleed. She can only wish the Ceronian pup's last gasp would be enough to blind him. But all she needs is one small flinch, and for Jas'o to shut his eyes.

She turns and runs deeper into the city without a moment's hesitation, her boots squeaking and sliding across the rain slicked stone streets. Hers is a pedigree of a champion. Her stride won her the laurel wreath in the Olympic Games her princess missed. Every rough step forward is another fresh explosion of momentum that can't help but jostle her charge violently, but speed is more important than comfort. She darts agilely first this way and that, and disappears around a corner into an alleyway.

"I promise Milady," she breathes in between steps, "I promise I'll keep you safe."

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Étoile has not mastered the subtle art of "gasping for air, but quietly", but even still she tries her best. The problem is that when you force your voice out of a cough you also make it much less good at doing the things a cough is supposed to accomplish. She hangs on the fence for several minutes, sputtering uselessly with her throat feeling scratchier and more awful until she finally manages to get the last bits of lake water out of her system so she can start filling it with air again.

What a mess. Marianne would be through this fence before you could blink, and oh, what fun she'd have after that, but Étoile doesn't dare call on her. They had both worked too hard to keep their connection a secret, and she couldn't ruin that over one of Jezcha's pranks. Not to say those weren't dangerous, but... so far out from anything important? Nothing to steal but veils and hearts? No. It would damage the Cause too much.

Still, though! Maybe just a little? Just a teeny flash of power, then back to the shadows with her? Just enough to, oof, say maybe, eep! Make it so she, oof, ugh! Doesn't have to climb this fence with her wrists and ankles bound? It's chainlink, thank goodness, but she... oof! Has to shimmy up it like a worm. Which makes much more noise than even ducks can quite cover over, and is very painful besides.

Cresting over the top, she saws her wrist cuffs apart on the chicken wire looped around the links to discourage children from doing exactly what she's doing now, and then drags herself unglamorously across it to flop down to the other side with a squeak and a thud. She winces as she rubs her butt before bending forward to untie her ankles. Her outfit is completely ruined, to say nothing of her poor skin, which is covered from stomach to thigh with angry red scratches that sting fiercely as the air kisses them. Just because Marianne took worse blows with regularity doesn't mean this didn't hurt!

Stupid Jezcha! Stupid, rotten bully! Maybe she'd like a dart in her butt, hmm? Pour qui tu te prends? Étoile stands up, and then immediately flops back onto her veiled face again. Oh, right. That whole... almost drowning thing. Fine. It's fine. c'est bon, vraiment! This is just... the strategy portion of her comeback. She sucks in fresh breaths of air greedily but as quietly as she knows how, and squeezes her eyes shut to help her think.

This whole thing is a game, which she wins if she can get to Lady before anything too embarrassing can happen to her. But how's a little lamassie to fight back when the board is so stacked against her? With a weapon, is how. Where did she leave Lady's rifle? Oooh, get ready Jezcha and friends. There's a sacred oath laid over these grounds, that no one under any circumstances shall be allowed to ruin a magical afternoon at Disneyland. And woe betide those who break taboo...

[Assess the Situation: 7 What here can I use to fight back without switching personas (or more accurately, how do I get to it?)]

Breathless Dead

"Princess..."

Bella's voice is barely more than a hiss. For a fleeting second, her body is wrapped in the shroud of total weightlessness, but she barely notices. She's coming down with it again, she can tell. The strange sickness she first caught from the baths when she was fourteen, just after she'd turned to tend to Redana right as she was rising out of the water. It's a terrible illness, that not even her superior breeding can protect her from. And the most insidious part about it is that... she...

She is dimly aware of the sensation of her feet hitting the ground. But she is far too focused on other feelings to really pay attention to something so pointless. She feels the ache of her muscles as they tense harder than diamonds, and the burning sensation that crawls up her rigid spine all the way to the base of her neck, and all the way down to the tip of her tail, which she wraps tightly around her leg. Yes, there it is, the affliction. Her breath comes shorter now, and she can only draw it in through her nose. Her eyes water even though she isn't sad, and can't feel the irritation from any of the hundred pollens or bits of debris she might otherwise be inclined to blame. Her heart beats arrhythmically and, with every horrible flutter, sends an unwelcome warmth spreading in her chest.

And then, and then, yes, there it is. The heat seeps into her stomach, down to her hips, her thighs, right where the Nemean touched her, where she was reaching... yes. This feeling is a sickness. A disease that wracks her body. These feelings, this tension, they have no earthly cause. So it can only be an illness, or else a curse, that makes her squeeze her legs together to distract herself from the building well of pressure. Damn the giant muscle bitch. Whatever she tried to do, it won't work. She won't fail here. She can't. Not now.

She blinks and startles slightly when she catches a spray of mist on her lips. A spot of blood dribbles off her lower lip and splashes against Redana's neck. Bella takes her thumb and wipes it gingerly away. The princess. Her princess. She looks so peaceful when she's resting like this. So pure. And so... vulnerable. Bella winces when she sees the shape Redana's leg is in.

This is a sign from the gods. She cradles her princess and watches the pain inflicted on her body, and they take the sickness out of Bella in their turn. Her heartbeat finds its beat again. Her insides chill to ice. Her ears catch the sounds of battle drawing closer, and she pulls Redana nearer without a second thought. Above, the spray slicks her hair and clothes. She does not care.

But the wetness on her face has nothing to do with water. Unseemly. The princess will be upset to see it. Bella snorts at the thought, and lifts her hand to lick the palm. A towel would be more appropriate, but she needs her other arm to support the princess. She won't let those legs touch the ground, maybe ever again. Until they'd reached Tellus again. Her rough tongue darts across her palm with dainty, precise strokes. She lifts the palm to her face, and wipes Queen Hatchan's blood from her cheek.

Lap, lap. Smear. She can taste it this time. The familiar sensation of rising bile crawls up her throat in response. She turns her head and chances spitting, instead. Lap, lap. Smear. The retching. She turns and spits, violently. Uncouth. In the kennels, she'd be beaten severely for this behavior. But she must get herself washed for the princess, and she's running out of time.

"Finally," she whispers, "I finally found you. I've got you at last."

Bella squeezes her arm around Redana's shoulder. She takes the other one and carelessly brushes several of those disheveled golden locks out of the Princess' face. There'd be time to do it properly on the way home. There'd be time for everything now. She plants her legs deep into the earth, readying for this final charge, the last great duty of her adventure. But the rest of her uncoils, capable of ignoring the universe for the sake of the girl in her arms.

It was her duty to be gentle. And her duty to return home. Her mind slips past the crazy lioness and the strange sheep, beyond Jas'o (that dumbass), and across the stars to the Empress on her throne. She can hear the words of praise wash over her, feel the marble under her feet as she walks confidently forward to take her reward, take up her old station, and put things back in order where things will be safe again. She drifts past even that, to Redana's garden, with the butterflies and the smell of flowers and--

The princess groans weakly. Bella is drawn inexorably back to the present. She turns to look, and finds she'd shut her eyes. They drift open now. She's not dreaming. She's not. She draws a deep breath, which still shudders when she lets it out, and shakes her head.

"You're such an idiot, Milady. Didn't I tell you? Didn't I warn you space was dangerous? But you can't just listen to your Bella, noooo. You have to learn everything the hard way. Well, it's fine. I've got you, now. I've got you. And I won't let anything bad happen to you ever again."