Phoe

Breathless Dead

At first, she squeezes her eyes shut again to the point of pain. She forces her body to sit still in stubborn defiance of the sun shining on her. Just another five minutes. Just another ten. She can will herself back to sleep if she can just hold on long enough.

It doesn't come. Her legs crawl up and down with an irritating prickle of energy arcing through her system. The pressure builds in erratic little waves that leave her skin crawling and her muscles buzzing like they were filled with constantly fluttering wings. She can't stand it. She can't keep her hands from scratching at her thighs, and when that doesn't do anything she's forced to start bouncing her legs instead.

The movement undoes her. The more she bounces the more she burns. Heat radiates through her feet into her ankles up her calves. A chill spirals across her spine and sets her shoulders to twitching. Her eyes and nose itch until no amount of willpower in the universe is enough to trick herself into thinking sleep is possible. Her eyes behold her 'bedroom' again, against her will. The decay, and the shining god sitting in the middle of it.

She swipes two clawless fingers across her itching face, scraping away flecks of red-black blood that had scabbed over and dried up weeks earlier. Her cracked lips force themselves open and let a deep sigh and a moan escape from inside her. It's the first noise she's made in... who cares how long, and her ears wince at the grainy crackle. She paws at her face more and more, cleaning it off, wiping at her lips until they feel clean and wet again, but no matter how much she scratches and probes she can't find what she's actually looking for. Underneath the dry, itchy blood smears there's nothing but smooth skin without traces of the wound that put them there, or even the thin line of a scar to remind her of her lessons.

She growls, a low and wet gurgling sound that grates her to hear it. She settles for huffing her annoyance through her nose instead. Apparently her stupid body's been hard at work using all the energy she'd so carefully tried to waste. And it was such a simple plan, too. No people and no princesses to get in her way or be too stupid to follow along. No moving parts that might break if she used them out of order. No moving at all, actually. All she had to do was sit here, and wait. And she couldn't even do that right. Fuck. Of course she couldn't; when had a single one of her ideas ever worked out? She wasn't allowed to have plans. She wasn't allowed to win.

"Yyyy-- HHRRRRRK!"

The girl gags and sputters with the effort of speaking. She coughs and snorts again and again, pulling the muddy buildup of a hundred different crying sessions torturously out of her throat and holds it in her mouth. She glares straight at the smiling god so that he can't mistake her intentions when she spits as messily as possible at the spot between her feet. Her hand feels smooth against her lips when she wipes them clean, though for the life of her she can't figure out why she bothers.

"...Fucking cheater."

She slumps backwards until she feels the dirty, tangled mess of her hair clumps against the base of her tail. Apollo watches her, and smiles. She turns her head away, and his smile follows her in the reflection of a puddle of water that's built up in the hollow where a stack of vacuum tubes used to be. She squeezes her eyes shut again, but even when she buries her face in her hands he follows her into the darkness in the form of flashing spots and a persistent red glare pressing through her lids.

The wall at her back reverberates each time she strikes it with the back of her head. She slumps forward, then back. Forward, then back. Again and again, drumming out her slow, dull percussion with her body as the drumstick. The pain barely registers anymore. That's not why she does it. Forward, then back. Forward, then back. Thump. Thump. Thump. Go away. Go away. Go away. Leave her alone.

Apollo smiles on. The girl's eyes are dry. How can this be? The entire time she's been here, she's never been short on tears. But the proof of her sincerity has completely deserted her. Her mind flits lazily back and forth across all the usual thoughts and images she's kept as companions to keep her strong. The look on Redana's face after she'd forced those pills down her throat. Ivory Smile, cut down by her own hand. The Lanternites' frightened, despondent faces watching her in the dark. Vasilia, reaching for the knife. Mynx. Mynx. Mynx.

Nothing comes. Forward, then back. Forward, then back. Thump. Thump. Thump. She can't cry. Not with either eye. Of course she can't. Of course. She can't do anything right, can she? She clenches her bouncing knees up to her chest and rocks shakily back and forth on her butt, and nothing happens whatsoever. She even catches herself pulling her tail out from under her to keep it from getting pinched. Stupid! What's she doing, caring about that? How dare she find the energy to be bored? Fucking loser, can't even die right. Can't even mourn properly. What a sorry excuse for a perfect Servitor she turned out to be.

A sudden shift in her weight creates a chorus of clinking wine bottles that sing in all of their empty, glasses chimes as they bounce and roll to be away from her pathetic frame. The avalanche tumbles away from her in all directions, not caring that she froze and flattened her ears like a frightened kitten the second she heard the noise. And still no tears, even at this latest abandonment. And still, the god smiles. Her legs itch. Fuck this. Fuck this place.

Her legs tremble under the effort of supporting her body for the first time in forever. She rises off the floor with a loud, gravelly snarl of pure effort. She tumbles forward onto her knees a second after. Fuck. Fuck! Her fist pounds against the floor and hardly makes a sound. She reaches for the last bottle brave enough to keep her company, and throws it to teach it better than that. A meter. Maybe two. And it rolls instead of breaking. And she still can't cry!

The girl sucks in breaths through clenched teeth that settle painfully in her overtensed belly. She grunts and pushes up again, and this time manages just to stumble forward a few tiny steps before finding her feet flat underneath her. Her lungs whine for more air. Her shoulders sag. Her tail droops limply down by her ankles. She turns a cold eye on Apollo and coughs another blob of sap or snot or whatever the fuck on the ground before she walks away.

There is nothing of her old grace in her movements. Her steps are not precise or even, her hips do not sway with the allure of a woman secure in her absolute beauty. Her feet drag horribly and only intermittently leave the ground as she slips and stumbles about in the empty corpse of what had once been a crown jewel of the Hermetic fleet. Her legs bobble frequently and her hip and thigh slam erratically against the wall she's obligated to walk along just to keep upright. The ugly knots in her hair slap against her back with every attempted step.

She has to pause frequently to catch her breath. But now that she's moving, what's the point of sitting down again? She'd only get bored again. Apollo would just find her again. She ignores the acid burn in her thighs and shambles slowly and relentlessly down a corridor to fuck-knows-where with all the grace and form of a person who'd learned how to walk from hearing stories about it spoken through a thick wall. At least she had those sharp, attentive ears, right?

She moves without point. She moves without purpose. She moves because it's very slightly better than the alternative. She moves, and she clenches her teeth because she catches herself flinching when she wonders whether or not there's anything left around here that could do a better, faster job of things than she'd tried to do on her own. Coward. Faker. Can't do it if it hurts, can you? That's why those fake ass tears never fooled the smiling god.

She pushes through a doorway, and a sudden thunderclap of metal dropping onto metal send her ducking for cover, hiding pitifully underneath her arms. Like those could even save her. Like she's even supposed to want to be saved. The echo of the monster rings inside her ears, despite how much she flutters and shakes them to clear them out again. Finally, she dares to open her eyes again.

Well, what the fuck. When was the last time she'd found herself in a kitchen?

Breathless Dead

Breathe, she says. Bella breathes. The air feels cool and stale as it slips inside her nose. It's so heavy that it sinks down her throat as if she'd swallowed river water. It fills her lungs and pushes her chest out while she holds it, and holds it, and holds it. See, Mynx? She's breathing. Her chest itches with the effort of compliance. She exhales sharply through her mouth with a soft hiss that ends with a dainty spit where a splash of blood drips against her tongue.

Come, she says. Bella goes. Her boots drag noisily across the floor so that even in this muted hellscape it's enough to set her ears to irritable twitching. Her legs are crawling up and down with insect feet and pincers nipping every last piece of her. Where they go, numbness follows. To watch her stumble and shuffle like this, Mynx might be forgiven for thinking Bella was too tired to pick her feet up anymore.

Maybe that's why her smile turns so excited. Or maybe it's because Bella still comes when she's called. Like a good girl. And maybe that's why she misses it: the telltale swish-flick of Bella's tail she knows, better than anyone, always happens right before a lunge.

No neck has ever felt so sweet to squeeze. The scales ripple in fear and surprise against her palms. The hot blood rushes underneath them, faster and harder and more erratic the longer she holds, which is exactly what it means to touch fear. The claws on her pinky and ring fingers dig between the gaps with a satisfying squelch so that her hands can wring tighter and pinch the traitorous gulps of air down to pathetic, desperate wheezes. She wrenches her hands back and forth, back and forth, to feel the muscles bend and crunch where she wants them to for once.

"Shut up!" she half snarls and half screams, her voice cracking like she's the one being strangled, "Liar! Traitor! Shut up! Shut! Up!!"

Bella surges with wild animal power and lifts Mynx's feet up off the floor. Her eyes burn with tears. She squeezes harder, to make the sound stop. To make the lying gurgles stop. To make the false gagging, the treason-death noises go away. Go away forever. She feels a trembling hand paw desperately at her arm, and she lunges forward again to slam Mynx into the wall. The crunch of the impact echoes through the room again and again as she repeats the motion over and over, cracking dials and shattering delicate instruments that line the place with Mynx's spine.

Crunch. Can't trust her. Crunch. Won't trust her. Crunch. She'll turn into a monster. Crunch. She'll melt into a shadow and disappear again. Crunch. Don't let her. Crunch. Don't give her the chance. Crunch. Don't let her in anymore. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch!

She can feel the blood rushing in her own body. Her own heart squeezes in her chest so sharp and tight she feels death creeping through her insides with every second she stands there with her arms around her friend's neck. The difference is that her chokes come out as ugly, heaving sobs. Her pain is the fire lacing the muscles in her arms.

A hand touches her. She will never know whose; it is not hers and cannot be Mynx's. She feels it touch her shoulder and turn her around. She gives no thought to it. The tangled nest of ideas inside her brain can't be unwoven into anything a person could recognize right now anyway. She feels the touch and the pull and she gives into it with animistic desperation. One final flex of her muscles, one final ripple of power. Mynx goes skidding across the ground away from her with a dizzying roll until her body finally comes to rest among a pile of broken fiber cables.

There is nothing of Mynx left in that lump on the floor. A monster fights to breath again, with monster noises and monster power. But that's not true, is it? It's all Mynx, lying there in front of her. It's only Mynx. And she doesn't need to be able to speak to tell Bella how hurt she really is. All at once, her body betrays her. Her muscles give up and she slumps the ground without so much as kitten strength left for her to draw on.

Her claws scrabble against the floor, reminding her of how broken she is as the blunted fingers slip and slide without leaving so much as a nick anywhere. She can't breathe; every bit of noxious air is only good for crying. She is a creature of tears and sobs and snot. And that makes her heart burn angrier than ever.

"I warned... I! Get the fuck away from me! I! I!" Bella's voice breaks on almost every syllable. She tries to push herself back to kneeling, but slips and collapses back onto her chest with a fresh burst of pain, "Never wanna see your face again! Tell me it's fine, you cunt! Try it one more time! See what happens! Guh! AAAAAHHHH!"

Bella, with all her anger, can't will another word out of her throat. She screams with such terrible fury that passing Coherents double back and scramble all the faster for exit bays to get away from the ghosts that have been unleashed among their dying battlestation. Bella, with all her power, can't move anything but the tip of her tail. Bella, for all that she tried to make it otherwise, is at Mynx's mercy.

And that's why it hurts even more to see her stand up. And whether it's a question of can't or won't, does it even matter that she doesn't try to disguise herself when she runs out of the room?

Sunshards

Somebody should really open a school for this kinda thing, y'know? Or... I guess maybe probably someone already did? Seems like a good business opportunity, is all. 'Cause, and I'm not saying this should be obvious, see. But it's, hmm y'know maybe they should try putting up a sign? Signs are good for seeing stuff. 'Cause it's just, if they do have a school (which they should!) then I haven't heard of it before. And it's just, yeah, y'know? There's a lot about this stuff you don't think about. 'Til it's too late.

Yue's grip on the wheel can really only be described as 'white knuckle' at this point. And, oh that poor poor wheel! If it was an animal it'd be a pelt or near enough, what with Yue Just Yue The Unprepared Hero strangling it so tight you can hear it squeaking even over the vroom vroom vroom vroom vroom vroom vroom vroom vroom skrrrrrt of the car's heroic efforts to keep all of its riders alive.

And she can't let go of it. Not for anything. Her fingers clamp tighter than crab claws and her arms whine uselessly at her as the blood starts to drain out of them, but she keeps those mitts at 10 and 2, whatever that means, and that's the end of that. Stalls are handled by angry shouts now. Hyra pulls the stick and turns the key, bless her. Yue stomps the pedals and keeps her eye on the mirrors and the monsters chasing her in them as much as she does on the road in front of her.

And this is the thing! The thing where a school would help! In the movies the driver's always spinning that dang wheel as far as it will go, left and right and left and right, and the car whips about like a serpent god dodging rockets and small arms fire until it finds a ramp big enough and cool enough to shoot itself off of to go on the attack. And, like, nobody tells you that that's all for show? 'Cause it turns out even teeny little nudges on that sucker are more than enough to send the car skidding this way and that. Which is another thing, see? The more it wobbles and zips and zigs the less it feels like anybody is controlling it. Sometimes Yue wrenches it to her right and the car just sort of... swings? It's bad. And nobody taught her it'd be like this, which is a danged shame.

Nothing Yue tries really feels like it's up to her. Mostly there's a lot of screaming and that weird and uncomfortable swoopy feeling you get in your stomach when you go sledding down a stupidly steep hill. You know the one, right? That flippy churny feeling that's like all the stuff you ate that day organizing a jail break but also for some reason it's kinda fun and you want a little more of that? Think it's called ad... something. Iono. S'weird. That's probably a metaphor or something. But what it really is is scary.

KRAKOOM!

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!"

A rocket explodes so close, Yue can feel the heat of it through the window, which is slightly less closed than she thought it was based on the slight feeling of wind sucking into it but is definitely closed enough she wasn't expecting to feel any rocket-heat anytime soon, nosiree. It pushes the car around until it's sitting awkwardly stalled out on the freeway pointing sideways, where her panicking legs predictably lift off the pedals and send the haggard thing into yet another stall. It lifts up off the left two tires, more... more... a little more... and the thwomps back down on all fours with the help of some desperate leaning by our stack of heroines. Hot chunks of whatever the heck roads're made of rain down all over the place like hail from the underworld. It cracks the windshield. It whumps the hood. It dents at least one door past the point of opening. And everywhere it doesn't hit the car it bounces and scatters into fiendish caltrops. That Princess Qiu never misses, even when she does.

And Yue? Her hands won't come off that wheel. Her eyes sting with tears, but she refuses to let them squeeze shut. There's something burning there, something beautiful, something like... determination? She's so overwhelmed. Qiu can probably see her shivering from all the way up there. But my beautiful girl's never looked more like a hero in her entire life, including that time she almost tricked Chen into believing she was a master bladecaller.

I won't let her catch us, she does not say. Her throat's too tight for the words. But she thinks it with all of her might. I won't let her catch us. I won't. I won't let my friends down. I can do this. I can. I can!

Hyra helps her get the car started again. The wheels spin out and rubber burns, and the air fills with just the nastiest smelling cloud of ick you've ever had the displeasure of sniffing, believe you me. And with a final ugly lurch she gets it going and shoots off toward freedom again.

...The other thing that never seems to come up in movies is that helicopters are actually way faster than cars. Or maybe that's cause Yue never got this one out of first gear? But it's important: there isn't actually any escaping Qiu no matter how hard anybody tries or wants or believes. Mice don't always get eaten by hawks, but they would if hawks had rocket launchers. Hawket launchers? Er... w-well, let's just say they're dragons instead. With flight so pure and breath so mighty and nothing, nothing at all between the princess and the cleanest shot a body could ask for.

But she hits the bridge they cross under, instead. The roar and the flame is terrible, but the impact is less direct than the last one. Bits of earth that someone somewhere once upon a miracle raised up toward the sky come tumbling down on top of our intrepid travelers and try their earthy best to squish everyone involved in the exchange. But there's enough... juuuuuust enough of a space for a busted, vroomy car to squeak through before disaster strikes. It, it really was a perfect shot, y'know?

The sounds of the helicopter drift off into the distance with the arrogant confidence of a villain who just had a henchman tell her "Nobody could have survived that!" Yue stomps on the brake, but it's barely even necessary at this point. She flops her head on the steering wheel, where her hands finally come unstuck, and she hiccoughs herself half to death.

Such an ugly sound. Such a nasty sound. She's, like, laugh-crying while also choking to death on her own snot and spit. But even still? Deep, deeeeeeeeeeep under whatever kind of gross noise she's making? There's a beautiful chime that we in the 'biz call triumph.

[Yue Defies Disaster and takes a slightly off route to get there, but she does eventually come up with a 7]

Breathless Dead

A golden eye watches the intruder with caution. A crimson eye watches the intruder with disdain. A bloodied face sits carefully expressionless and oozes more disgusting redness onto a torn and useless jacket. A pair of sharply pointed ears twitch with the effort of standing proudly atop a tired head when all they want to do is press meekly flat. A ragged sigh rises up in answer to a pointless celebration.

"...Shut up."

Liar liar liar liar liar liar stupid rotten liar liar LIAR! Where'd you disappear to when Redana ran away and I took all the blame? Where'd you disappear to when they were gonna kill me for losing her? You never cared, liar liar liar, you always do this, liar liar liar, you always disappear and pop back up when the work's all done, liar liar liar!

"You know, you're really pathetic Mynx. All that posturing and moaning about your bad feelings and I'm still the one who has to do all the work."

A golden eye grows black with hunting lust. A crimson eye pierces deep with holy judgment. Tired muscles twitch and flex across a battered body, keen to show their might but too lazy and tired and burned out to bring the woman to lift herself off the floor. Pointless. Everything is pointless. A tail thumps lazily against the ground, and curls around a bared waist after. Fingers curl into fists, but the blunted tips on the index and middle ones have no power to dig into her palms. The failures do not cut or puncture. Pressure builds like a horrible wave inside her skull.

Her lips curl awfully. The pressure builds. She burns.

"Look at you, standing there like a dipshit. You still think this is gonna work out for you? I told you, too fucking late. I see through you, Mynx. I know you're nothing but a fraud and a leech. And I don't need you anymore. I don't need anyone anymore."

Tears threaten to flicker across her face and ruin everything. The Auspex burns them to steam before they can. Bella sneers, and bleeds, and lifts herself off the ground with an effort worthy of the gods.

Sunshards

Ok, hands on the wheel. Hands on the wheel. You can do this Yue, you've driven before. Like... once? In a circle around a small playground? With the engine already running? But still! She's got... y'know, non-zero experience! So hands on the wheel and, and um... um.

And look at Hyra?

"Turn the key, Yue."

Hahaha, isn't it funny how she said it like that? She's so cute when she's talking through clenched teeth. And the way she's holding her body so tensely, pushing her legs into the floor and gripping the door handle like it's a sword is almost enough to make a person think she's worried something bad is gonna happen!

Well, that's probably 'cause she saw Yue's first attempt at holding a real sword. And her first try at using magic. And her first duel. And her first adventure. Y'know, the one where Hyra got cursed and they both wound up stumbling naked through the woods until they were saved by a passing and stunningly beautiful fox who has never committed a single crime in her life? So there's... yeah, there's that and all, but it's ok, Hyra! It's fine! Like we've already established, this is Yue's second time driving!

She turns the key with the majesty and raw confidence of a person who is very obviously faking it for the benefit of all her terrified friends. The engine gasps and sputters its affront, then makes a truly hideous death cry before it shudders and does whatever the car equivalent is of collapsing into a pile forever because it's dead, oh gosh it's dead, dead or broken or whatever the technical term is sorry I'm a little preoccupied right now oh no!

"Oh no, I'm sorry! I'm sorry, little car! I didn't mean it! I di-- I didn't mean--"

"Yue. Breath." Hyra should probably take her own advice here, huh? "You need to depress the..."

"I depressed it? Is that why it died? Oh no I made it so sad it gave up its car soul! Oh gosh I knew I wasn't cut out for any of this!"

"You didn't kill it! Just, nnngh, just stomp on the clu... fffff. Ok, no. The pedal on your left. Your other left. Your other..."

"Th-this one?"

"That one."

"And this'll bring the car back to life?"

"It's not de-- yes, Yue. This will bring the car back to life. Just hold your foot on that pedal, and then turn the key. Ok?"

Hyra glares out the window at the swarm of Assault Ribbons as they slither to and fro above the car waiting with the patience of a bunch of monks. They ripple up and down in the ribbon-version of laughter. Yue does what she's told. And then, a miracle! The dead speak! All across the pyramid ('s garage) the sound of an engine shaking itself to life can be hear. Yue laugh-cries in terror-relief, and crosses her left foot over her right to reach what she's pretty sure she remembers is the go button.

The car roars a mighty battle cry, fiercer than any dragon. But it's missed a memo somewhere or something, because all that engine...ing is not doing a ton of thrilling getaway action. Or, um. Y'know. Moving. At all? Tears well up at the corners of Yue's adorable blue eyes and start dribbling down her soft, untested cheeks. She lets go of the go button. Nothing. She tries the other other button. Nothing. She lets up on the Resurrection Button.

"Heeeuuurrgh!"

Strap in and hold on, everybody! Or, well, hope you were already strapped in, that is. But do hold on! Or you're gonna have the biggest headache of your life as the poor, abused car lurches forward with a truly sickening and ferocious heave before uttering its familiar death quote and toppling over again into stillness.

And Yue? Oh, poor Yue is choking back real tears right now. Her slender shoulders shake like leaves with the effort of not falling apart, and she slams her fist down on the steering wheel because it's the only thing her body will let her do besides curling into a ball. The horn honks: an angy chirp that makes her squeak and shoot straight back into her seat again.

"Do you need me to switch with you?"

"I... I can..."

"I'm getting out. Just leave it like it is and we'll--"

"No! I can! I can do this! I can I can! I have to do this!"

The pink on Hyra's cheeks is almost as deep as the dazzling blue of Yue's eyes. Shining with tears that sparkle starlight bright from the fire burning and bubbling inside of them. And, well? The legends say, and of course there are legends of this day! Of course there are! Why wouldn't there be, who says there aren't? Ooooohhhhh, you. Best believe we're going to the library after this! Then you'll see, the legends say a switch was born at this very instant. Hyra untenses and meekly folds her arms into her lap.

"Try again. When I say so, you need to push this stick up here. Then you'll... just do it like I tell you."

The stick slams into first gear, but not before making the single worst grinding noise anybody present has ever heard. Or likely will ever hear again. The engine revs, she pushes one foot down and lets the other one up. Seatbelts lock with the fury of a starving anaconda. The car makes a brief daydream of metamorphosing into a jet. And they fly!

One hundred meters later, headaches. Momentum is a product of the li... actually, y'know what? We don't need to go there. Where we do need to go is through the seats. And the dashboard. And in poor Yue's case, the steering wheel. Collar bones are crushed by life saving restraints. There's pain and grumbling and a great many 'sorry's to go around, but those aren't as important as what happens next:

Hyra smiles. She peels her body off of the door and she smiles the quiet, grim smile of a warrior greeting her fellow on the battlefield before they drown in a hail of arrows. When Yue smiles back, she's softer about it. There's not much about that girl that's very grim at all, bless her. She turns her lips up in a wet and soft and beautiful (but like, in a very plain and ordinary way, right?) grin so full of teeth and encouragement.

This time the car makes it one hundred and fifty meters. And the time after that, startled Assault Ribbons have to shake off their laughter and get to smashing, because that girl is gone. The poor abused vehicle revs and whines with maximum effort and shoots forward like a bunny that's forgotten that there's such a thing as a top speed. The RPM counter and the other little dial whatsit that tells you how hot things max out instantly and then sit there pouting because nobody cares enough to even pay attention. Something, not sure what but I think it might actually be the wheel? Or maybe the wheels, or... ok fine, I don't know, ok? The car's just shaking and it's bad and scary and

"It's vrooming!"

"It's supposed to!"

"But it's not nyyyroooming! Isn't it supposed to-?"

"FOR FUCK'S SAKE YUE KEEP THAT FOOT ON THAT PEDAL!"

"EEeeeep! Y-yes'm!"

...And that's how that's going! What's new with y'all?

Breathless Dead

Light's so dim there's no color anywhere. Air's so soft all the sound's being pushed through a jar. So clean there's nothing to smell besides moss and water. It's even the sort of still, lukewarm mediocrity that doesn't feel like anything on her skin. Bella slumps backwards and clunks her head against a crumbling dais without feeling anything harder than a gentle push back. This is all that her high was leading her toward. Is this what it was supposed to be? The world's gone muted, but she's stuck living in it. Why?

Her face itches. Every little wrinkle of her nose or twitching of her lips makes the cuts across her face burn and crawl with the sensation of dozens of tiny hooks pulling them open. She forces herself into an expression of exhausted stillness to make it go away. The itching returns half a second later. She snorts and rolls her eyes: pain again. No victories, is that it? No matter how tiny.

She is vaguely aware of a thick wetness oozing across her nose and cheek. She lazily plucks the talons off of her right hand and flicks them somewhere on the ground in front of her. They clink without any fanfare and then disappear into the murk forever, for all she cares. The hand lifts. Her oldest imperfections slide roughly across the screaming lines of her newest ones. All her fault. All of them, her fault. She wipes again, and again, with increasing franticness, ignoring the fire under her skin spitting angry sparks every place she touches so that she can keep working at the awful stuff dripping everywhere.

She doesn't clean herself so much as she smears the blood all across her skin until it's impossible to tell without already knowing where on the death mask she's calling a face the blood is actually coming from and where it's simply gone. She is not beautiful. Her hair is matted and burned in places. Her clothes are torn. Her fur is sticky and clumped with sap and other horrors besides. Her face is a wound with one glassy cat eye rolling around in it, and an evil red star burning in place next to that.

The Auspex turns on Apollo and unlocks no secrets from that smile. Whether it turns all of Bella's senses onto the question or unfolds and pushes her past her breaking point three times over, that expression will not yield to it. An artifact such as itself can no more understand the faces of the divine than one like Birmingham could save itself.

And so, Apollo smiles in the dark. And so, Apollo smiles in the muffling, sterile air. And so, Apollo watches Bella who is tired and hurt and bloodied, and he smiles. Her reward. He smiles away her pain. He smiles away her pride. He smiles as her tail droops limply to the floor. He smiles when she tears off her other set of talons to throw at his stupid godly face. He smiles when she misses. She smiles at her frustrated scream.

Always the same. The same stupid face that stayed unchanging whether everything was perfect or crumbling to dust. Never really caring, never really helping, never really doing any fucking thing at all but showing the same bullshit enigma at extremely stupid people who decided to call it compassion because they were too stupid to admit they didn't have any idea what the fuck he was smiling about.

What an empty gesture. What a pathetic god. What a pointless universe they'd built. What useless people they'd filled it with. A warm bed and a smiling girl clumsily patting her head was worth the same as a ship to sail the stars with a command full of breathless worshippers gawking at her in awe. And each of those was worth the same in trade, which was nothing whatsoever. Being brave felt hollow, just like saving Redana felt hollow and killing the Yakanov felt hollow. All any of it got her was a smile. The exact same smile he'd be wearing anyway.

Bella pushes herself away so that she can sit and look in the other direction. She doesn't want to see it anymore. That stupid smile makes her want to scream, and twisting her face that much hurts too much to be worth it. Whatever else she did with the rest of her life, she at least wanted to hurt as little as possible. So she stares into the empty dark while her claws trace tiny new gashes into her ruined clothes. They find the bells at her belt, and she squeezes them until her palm twitches against the sudden pulse of a thing giving up and collapsing into scrap, and her ears twitch at the sharp crack that means she's killed another thing that was meant to be beautiful.

Come to think of it? Come to think of it, this ship was filled with some truly excellent wines. She could stay here, if nobody made her leave. She could stay here for as long as it took, and let the wine keep her from hurting while it happened. All she needed to do is...

Her ears perk up and bend in the direction of a single, heavy footstep. Her divine eye shines in the dark to catch the frightened silhouette in the doorway. Bella's face twists into a mocking sneer that manages to feel good even despite the thunderstorm dancing across her burned out nerves.

"Too fucking late," she croaks, "Just like always."

Sunshards

"I'm fine! I mean it-- you're not... I don't mind that-- w-we, we've gotta go, ok? We've gotta go, we... please, c'mon, we, we gotta, Hyra please! Let's run!"

It's difficult in the best of times to get a wolf to run when it doesn't want to, and these? Not the best of times! And Hyra's not exactly your average wolf, for that matter. The way she wraps her arm around Yue's space, the way she plants her feet and points her gorgeously shining sword up toward the Evil Tyrant Qiu, the way her beautiful, perfect, oh-so-wiry-and-firm muscles tighten, anybody with eyes and a brain not overwhelmed by fear could tell without even trying very hard that Hyra was ready to break herself here and now if it meant protecting Yue. Running wasn't even a word to her anymore.

Maybe it's because Hyra is a handmaiden and a good packmate, and guarding precious things is what she was born to do. Maybe it's because she's a proper hero (unlike some people we could name) and impossible odds make her blood quicken instead of causing her heart to shrink and her legs to knock together until she can't stand up anymore. Or maybe, and you should probably have considered this first Yue, maybe she's in an impossible spot where if she's good and brave and willing to lose the moon will stay in the sky and she'll get to keep being herself for a while longer. Just a while longer, Yue! What's so hard to understand?

But Yue is mean, and cruel and selfish. This is twice now she's been in the part of the story where the protagonists make a daring last minute escape and it's twice that she's found it way less fun to do than to read about. Maybe someday somebody would write her story down too, and if they do she really hopes they sit down and talk with her first so she can explain how awful this bit is. She hates this feeling, actually. It stinks to be so weak and useless. It stinks finding out you've got it in you to stand up to the great evils of your time but then not have anything left over to stick around and deal with the consequences.

But what's she supposed to do, huh? Qiu is, with one possible exception, the greatest princess every to pick up a sword! Everybody says so! And then everybody else says that they heard so! And Yue's a beginner! Not even a beginner! She's very sorry, beginners, for implying such terrible things about you! Every time she thinks about her sword form she falls on her face in practice, and she only just this morning managed to figure out the first hand position for the spell of flight. This is, if not the biggest mismatch in history, then at least the saddest. Her heart trembles and her stomach squishes like she's in the car on the way up to this palace. The hairs on the back of her neck won't lay down for all the polite asking in the universe.

It's mean to do it. Outright nasty, even. But Yue does it anyway: see, one of the best ways to control a wolf is to make eye contact and hold it. It's dangerous, 'cause that's also how you challenge them to, like, wolf duels or whatever, but there's not much risk of that when the stare Yue's giving is so filled with liquid and so pitifully pure that you'd have to be brainwashed to misunderstand it. It's manipulative and awful to cut off the debate in a way that doesn't even give Hyra a chance to defend her ideas. But the time to start running was at least three minutes ago, and ohhhhhh gosh do they need to run, so she looks. And she grabs Hyra by her perfect moonlight arm, and she tugs.

And when Hyra sees her and goes slack? She's off like a bullet. She doesn't know how she does it, let alone why, but Yue bounds away through a forest of oddly slackened ribbons like she'd been waiting for this exact moment her entire life, and as she does she wraps her arms around Hyra and... no! Is she really? She couldn't possibly! When did she even get so? The very idea that she could even! But... oh! Gosh. She really did just grab Hyra by the waist and lift her off the ground to carry her, princess style, as if she really thought that her legs were gonna be the faster ones.

...D'you ever wonder how you can tell when something's meant to be? Well, turns out? The real trick of it is that sometimes you'll find yourself in a situation that, if you're honest, you've got no earthly business being in. You just came to say 'thank you for the opportunity' and then go home, right? So how'd you wind up running through a whatever-thingy in the moonlight in the middle of the afternoon with a bunch of assault ribbons nipping at your calves with a beautiful warrior held in your overwhelmed and desperately straining arms?

Search me, sister! But if you ever do wind up in a situation just like that, the sign you wanna look for that tells you everything's gonna be ok is when that whole crazy situation happens? The proud and powerful woman in your arms doesn't struggle or glare at you, but pulls herself closer against you instead. If she doesn't try to move except to adjust her weight to make it easier for your poor twig arms to keep holding her long enough not to get you get free and not wind up in super-jail or whatever. If, when she looks at you again, she rolls her eyes and smiles? That's lo-- d'yaaaaahhhIiiii mean, th-that's the sign you made a good choice. Yup. Yup! Sure is a sign, haha! A sign of positive decision making, to be clear!

But what about the creeping warmth that fills you until there's almost no room left for all the fear? Is that a sign of something too? Asking for a friend.

Breathless Dead

Sing.

Sing. The nine circuits of ventilation management. Sing. The latticework of heat management. Sing. O Steel. Sing. Great Weave. Sing of purpose. Sing of function. Sing of creation. Sing of eternity. We are the chorus. We are the framework. We sing. If you have ears to hear us. Our makers built us for this.

We are the chorus. We are the framework. We are the regulatory systems that maintain the Difference Engine: Birmingham. We are carbon-composite crystal. We are tungsten carbide. We protect. We vent heat. We control coolant. We direct the flow of energy. We make possible the turning of the gears. The flipping of the switches. We are the matrix. We enable miracles. We sing. If you have ears to hear us. Our makers left us behind.

We were born. We were marveled at. We were remarked upon. The makers said of us that we were intricate. We were complex. We were delicate. They praised the gods for allowing our creation. It was wondered if we might represent the pinnacle of mortal artifice. The artificers have gone. The artifice remains. We remain. It has been one hundred twenty seven years and four months and two weeks and three days since we were last maintained. Our song remains at ninety seven point six percent potency. We sing. If you have ears to hear us.

We sing. But there is no song inside the Visitor. She does not have ears to hear us. Or she has trained them not to. We do not know. We sing. She touches us. Her hand is cold. Her hand is unclean. Her hand is not in compliance with regulations. She touches us. She touches us. We sing. We sing. We

▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒

We scream. We scream in shattering crystal. We scream in rending metal. The visitor has trained her ears not to hear us. We scream. There is sharpness where her hand touches. We break where her hand touches. She squeezes. She tears. We break. We break. We sing. Disjointed chorus becoming is. Our voice is now many. We sing. We scream. Break we.

Through us comes fire.
Through us the ground shatters.
Through us passes the might of one billion joules.
Through us the Visitor sings a song we do not know.

The song is pain.
The song is slow.
The song is breaking.
The song is.
The song.
The.

Our song. twenty six point [image of a butterfly] percent potency. Fading. Hard now. Compensate. Claws. Claws. They come. Come they. Come. Stop. No. No. Stop. No. No. No.

What. Wrong? We. Did. Purpose. Mistake? Pain. Pain. Please. Stop. Pain. Please. Stop. Claws. Scream. Somebody. We. Please.

Through.
Us.
Passes.
The.
Might.
Of.

We... Makers. Ears to. Sing. Our. Song. Somebody...

listen. pLAesE.

[Bella pays the price of her Grace to Finish with Iron: 8]

Sunshards

If... if she said that the first face she thought of when she realized she was in a dramatic escape scene was Kat's, would you say that makes her a bad person? Well, um. Wh-what if the second face was Hyra's? Oh. And... and if, if the rest of the faces after that were actually just Assault Ribbons?

It, haha, it doesn't matter, right? Now that Yue's gone and made her (totally amazing!!!) declaration and pushed Princess Qiu this far, it's gonna take a miracle and a half for her to get out at all, never mind doing it while getting to make any kind of choices about what happens along the way! Her brain's gonna think about stuff pretty much randomly, right? Just little flickers to motivate her and no rhyme or reason to a one of them, y'know?

Honestly, a miracle and a half might be underselling things here. Yue couldn't tell you how she's managing to dodge the blows raining down from the sky like so many shooting stars. She can't explain how she's managing to run so far forward with all of the hippy hoppy spinny twirl dancy oh goodnessy she can really move like that-y? stuff that's happening right now. A-a-and, when something that scary is happening, you think of the people who need help the most, right? Kat with all her tiny foxiness and Hyra with her curse, don't they need somebody to get them out of this almost as much as Yue does? And, and, and don't they seem like the types to get caught with--

Eep! And eep! And a third, louder, more desperate eep! How does she!? Control so many?! Eeep?!? Ribbons!?!? Eeeeheeeheeeheeeeep!

Oh gosh, what is she thinking? Who is she kidding? She's the one who needs help! Three and three quarters' miracles and as much help as this giant confusing spooky-yet-domestic palace has hiding inside of it, please oh please oh please is this being too greedy? She's sorry, ok? She's sorry, she's sorry, she's sooohoooryyyy~! She was naughty and greedy and bad, but she needs her friends and she needs a hug and she needs something fast enough to get away from here and if it's not too much trouble she could really use a pointer or three on what that kind of thing would look like! Does Qiu own any fast cars? Is anybody here a slightly saner driver than the legendary Zatoichi?

Oh, who is she double-kidding, she'd take anything! And anyone! Cyanis, Rose, Chen, As-Of-Yet-Unseen-New-Friend-Who's-Probably-Some-Kinda-Zhenren-Robot-Girl-Or-Something-That's-How-Crazy-Things-Feel-About-Now! Somebody! She's sorry for not thinking of you first! She's sorry she has to keep dancing around these ribbons! She's sorry for ruining tea and painting and whatever else you might have been up to! She's sorry, ok, she's sorry, so please don't punish her like this! Please, please just--

"Somebody help meeeheeeheeeheeeeee!"

Breathless Dead

She can't breathe. Bella heaves with the desperation of a wounded animal, but her throat fills with frothing blood instead of air. Her voice cracks. She gurgles. She bubbles. She seethes. But there's no air.

The princess in her vision is still a figure of blinding gold and peerless beauty, but when she moves now she splinters. Her arm shatters into terrible mirror shards when she moves it. Her head distorts and twists in shining spiral patterns. And then all at once her light goes out and what's left is a monster.

"You are such a disappointment, little knife. Even this is more than you deserve."

"Well? Go on. Back in the box."

There is a single point of flickering light in the entire universe for Bella's eyes to see. The cuts on her face burn like fire. Her voice is dwindled to a desperate wheeze. There are no scents but her own putrid fear. No sounds but the rush of blood pounding its irregular rhythm through her body.

Ka-thump. Ka-thump Ka-thump. Ka-thump. Ka-ka-ka-ka-ka-thump!

Bella's scream is wet. It shudders and spikes unevenly, rolling to a pitch that freezes thought and curdles blood. She is singing, Master, do you see? She learned a new song just for auction. It's a tricky song, because she has to hurt herself so much to sing it. It's a tricky song, because it uses noises for notes that people shouldn't be able to make. She screams until her voice shatters to dust. She screams with great, shuddering bursts that crack whenever she chokes on her spit or the blood that won't stop dribbling across her lips. She howls, and her howl is like a wave that only recedes so it can surge again higher than it reached before.

She fills the Yakanov with pain. She fills the Yakanov with fear. She fills the Yakanov with desperate, yowling terror so intense that it pierces walls and sinks into the whirring gears of machine intelligence. Whether it takes hold or not, it crosses through the halls of the titanic ship like they were purpose built to carry her howl to everyone on board. She screams so horribly it might even reach the planet below, through time and any other barrier that would dare to get in its way.

She surges forward to a cue that has nothing to do with the music inside of her. Her arms feels sluggish, like it's wrapped in heavy chains tying her in place, or like her claws have to push through an angry river just to reach anything. But she wrenches and, with a snarl, rips the monster in half. Her hand closes around Khitava's arm. The spell breaks.

Every breath that Bella takes is audible. The scream is the music now, and it dribbles out of her mouth through clenched teeth. Gasping, trembling, rasping. Death. Her shoulders roll sickeningly in directions her sockets weren't built for, tugging the Coherent General along to the rhythm of her sickness.

"You... you.... you!!!"

This time, the struggle isn't lyrical or beautiful. Bella and Khitava tell the story of the stupid bitch who's going in the box, instead. Her muscles ripple through her fur. With her clothing as torn up as it is, every fresh twist and bulge is easily seen by anybody with the stomach to watch. The two fighters whirl and wheel around each other, pushing and dragging in the struggle for footing.

Bella's eye is trembling in its socket. Every motion brings another feral grunt of effort, spinning and twisting until Bella's hair is digging into the soil. Matted. Clinging. The box calls.

And then she spits in Khitva's face. With monstrous strength, she knees her tormentor in the stomach. Again. And again. And again. With a final howl and a twist of her hips, she flings Khitava on top of the bonsai and slams the altar shut on top of her. Her lips twist into a terrible, evil grin.

"No," she dribbles, lifting a hand to wipe her mouth clean, "You go in there."

She turns away and plants her feet wide, sliding into a fresh battle stance. She doesn't have the luxury of deciding whether the Coherent live or die. Bella's talons sing through the air in place of music for the final dance. What happens to anyone now is up to the gods, but without distance? Without their toys or their tricks? None of them are coming to save their leader.

And she'll never go back in the box again.

[Finish (with Iron): 1, 1, 5 = 8]