Phoe

Sunshards

Yue burns so brightly you could probably start a fireworks show with her body, assuming you'd come prepared for the possibility. That is to say, she's not packing sparklers or big star burst rockets under her armor or anything, and she's not glinting and gleaming and dazzlingly beautiful or determined. She's watching Rose with eyes so wide they might keep her from sleeping tonight, you see.

A body like Yue is super bad at lying. With her face all flushed like it is you don't need her to open her mouth to know that she's never seen, um. Never, uh, s-seen anything like this before. Never seen (oh gosh) somebody use (meep!) their tongue like... l-l-like that before, and on! Oh goshies, on that and... oh shoot, knights don't say goshies, do they? See what I mean? Terrible liar.

And if it's obvious she's never been in a situation like this before it's just as obvious that any attempt she made to claim otherwise would sound so ridiculous that you'd go and call the next person to tell you something a liar too just to balance out the scales. She'd say it with her squeaky little stammer but the words would be all bravado and other junk she's read in romance novels, and all the one's she's read are famous enough that you probably know them by heart. Don't you? Doesn't everybody? Yeah.

And if it's obvious that she's combustulating with embarrassment and that she shouldn't bother trying to lie her way past it, then it's even more obvious that she's not brave or valiant. Or at the very least, that she's not seasoned or experienced in... anything, really. Maybe if you were a generous Countess you'd chalk her trembling up to her very obvious and extremely real (ha!) injuries, but you couldn't miss that shake shake shake that gets her armor all rattly and clankerous-like. And brave knights worth the act of conquest don't shiver themselves half to death in the face of dragons, and their fingers don't curl daintily into their gauntleteded hands with the distinct impression they're having thoughts about touching their own bodies and dreaming about what they've seen. No, a Proper Knight wouldn't do any of that stuff.

And if it's obvious that she's blushyful and can't talk her way past it and some kind of impossible combination of scared and turned on (but like, in a very innocent country maiden sorta way, y'know?), then it's the most obvious thing of all that her little beginner's gag isn't the least bit necessary to keep her tongue tied and mute for the duration of this little conversation. Y'know? She's sunk deeeeeeeeep beneath the waves of this here leviathan of a situation and she. Is. Duh-rowning in her stuff, and if she dared to open her mouth at all she'd be lucky if a whimper came out of her. And if she was unlucky: a moan. Oh, she's turning even pinker! So you see, she doesn't need to say anything to explain so super clearly that she's not a knight, not at all, the outfit might be gorgeous but she doesn't even really know where she got it, right? She's nobody worth mentioning, nobody worth treasuring, nobody worth the effort it takes to throw her in a dungeon and tease her secrets out of her.

Though, if you tried that you'd get them all inside of half an hour. If you were any good at the job. So that's kind've a point in her favor, right? Like I said, honest girl. All sun farmers are honest to a fault. And when you've met another one, you can tell me that it isn't true, so there.

But she chances a tiny glance at Cyanis and she sees the way the poor cutie is shaking like a leaf on a paint can mixer on a seesaw in the middle of an earthquake, and how her tails are sooooooo bushy-scared and losing their comfy pampered luster right before her eyes, so nervous is our favorite two-tails. And she sees the way Cyanis is trying to sneakily nod at her, no wait shake her head, no wait nod, no wait shnod diagonalwise? But her eyes are saying please and please and please and just for good measure pwease. Don't sell me out! Aren't we friends? Buddies? Acquaintances? We had that tea!

If it's obvious that all the other stuff is true, it's just as obvious that silly Yue's eyes are gleaming full of courage right now. The every day sort of courage that knows it's not up to the task but makes the effort to try anyway. The absolute power of an overwhelmed girl who does her best to sit up straight before her magic ouchies make her hunch so dramatically back down. The maximum effort baring of her maiden's heart and staring straight back into the eyes of the Countess Keron. And not even losing the staring contest, at that!

She shakes her head. Almost imperceptibly at first, but then firmly. And, oh, would you look at that? She is a knight, at least in the ways that count. Because knights don't flinch when the moment calls for it most, right? Because knights are bravest when they need to be, right? Because knights protect adorable and innocent little maidens from cutie jail. Right?

Of course they do. And of course she does. Guess you've got no choice but to throw her in your Sky Dungeons, huh?

Breathless Dead

It started off small. Everything always does. It was nothing more than a splinter: a momentary sting and an irritating prick that she could hardly be bothered to notice or identify mixed in with all the other aches and hurts in her body. So she shrugged it off and ignored it, and soon enough forgot she'd felt it at all.

And after all, how was she to notice? The kitchen was so overrun with the signs of Demeter's passing that it was impossible to tell what it was meant to look like. The hangar had been arranged to please her. Birmingham's Grave had been arranged to bury her. The endless hallways were alien and took most her attention to navigate until she'd pulled her body back together. There were projects, endless distractions, that she'd chosen so carefully to pull herself away from her thoughts. All of it was exactly as she meant it, by her design.

But like any other wound, when left untreated it started to fester. The splinter twisted inward, and it rotted inside of her. It bubbled sickeningly inside of her and greedily filled in all the spots left behind by her other retreating hurts. Hunger, weakness, boredom, and malaise all ebb away as if drawn out by a syringe only to fill painfully back up with the ache of the infection, which was called Obsession. She could not work. She could not sleep. She couldn't do anything until she found the evidence that would pluck the splinter from inside her.

Her shadow prowls from place to place, retracing all her steps. Her footfalls are as silent as they might have been on... that other ship, but the growl building in her throat seems to echo off of everything. She winds her way from hall to hall, and this time takes nothing for granted. Her claws dig grooves into the walls where she passes in three uneven lines. Her two blunted fingers itch for the kiss of new talons, and the chance to join in.

The kitchens are unchanged since her last visit. Long stretches of countertop run through the room near the garden in orderly rows, broken up by stoves and ovens and the occasional pit for fires. Every element is familiar to her, but the placing is wrong. Her fingertips slide smoothly along the marble as she searches for the stains and specific carvings that prove each station is designed with a particular kind of prep or cooking. She sniffs about for the telltale signs of greens and herbs or the pungent whip of a spice grinding station, but each spot shows mixed traces of everything. All of it separated, but wasted.

She closes her eyes, and the image washes over her. Dozens of cooks, bordering on hundreds. They work on dishes in a system of total chaos, plucking what they need as they need it from the gardens and the waters and even other chefs' stations, and only sometimes with permission. It's noisy and disorganized; people talk and shout at each other almost as much as they dice or fry or bake, and twice as loudly. It's anarchy. A system with no hierarchy except the one loosely pounded into place by a string of failures and successes.

A battleground. That's what this is: a place of war and competition, where food is a weapon and its purpose is as much to bury rivals as it is to keep the ship moving and happy. It's a ruthless place that leads to failure as often as success. She opens her eyes again and sneers. Stupid. Pathetic. Imagine, being stupid enough to let that kind of mess run wild every evening and then daring to put whatever slop came out of it onto the plates of the nobility? She'd be flayed alive if she tried it. She must have made a mistake. This is just a Coherent kitchen; she'd find another, separate one just down here where proper chefs cooked for the real people aboard the ship.

The girl stalks the ship to the point of exhaustion, and finds two other kitchens before the burning in her legs forces her to rest, but neither helps her cause. Whether she turns her imagination or her Auspex to the task, the only differences she finds prove these places are more of the same.

Impossible. Absurd. But the dining halls, such as they are, tell the same story. The girl looks through one horrified eye at uneven scatterings of tables arranged into pure chaos. There are small ones tucked into corners and huge benches and cramped booths and simple chairs sitting over nothing. None of it suggests a social order. No adjoining rooms fix the problem. This is a place for protecting secrets, or collaborating on new ones, sharing gossip, or eating in stony silence. This is a place for hiding and for showing off. This is a place with no head.

It takes her hours to stumble back to the rooms. She picks through each one of them in turn, lifting silly mundane treasures from stupid, pointless lives in her hands and smashing them into walls. The splinter called Obsession falls loose in the commotion. Now there is nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Now there is nothing. Even the figurines, baubles, and blankets she tears to pieces confirm the story. Where she can find the hordes of the Magos everything becomes nicer, but not in the correct way. It's more... more.

And there are no little beds, for silly pets. There are no mass piles of worn out sheets to serve large groups of workers. There is secrecy and individuality in every room and that same sense of loose hierarchy that might slip up or down at any moment on the back of a new accomplishment. Communal. Competitive. Chaotic. And entirely free of any signs of a Servitor class. Or a slave caste to replace them.

Her heart has forgotten how to beat. At long last, tears bead up in the corners of her eyes, but do not fall. Her jaw clenches and her fingers curl permanently into fists that tear huge feathery tufts out of the pillow she'd been holding. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Impossible. This was impossible. Everybody lived that way. On Tellus it was so, and Tellus was the heart of Empire, and therefore life. In the distant territory of the Azura it was very much so, every book agreed. They hadn't bred their perfect workers for every job, but all of the Princess' books went on and on about pleasure slaves and workers worth less than dirt. Two groups as different as can be, but they agreed on this, because it was a simple truth of the universe that it had to be that way. Even n the Ship That Sailed Away it was so, despite the whole crew being made of Servitors. The Kaori made a sort of noble class that pushed the Lanterns down and made servants of them all, until she, until Bella had come and...

She throws her beret to the ground without thinking about it. Her arms reach up to tear her dress off. Something makes her be gentle about it, instead. She carefully folds the coin-patterned dress into a neat square that she sets atop a pillow. Her tail curls around her leg while her hand pulls at her other arm. Hollow. Her entire heart is hollow. Everything is a blur of awkward motion as she stumbles from chamber to chamber.

But here is what she knows. She has stolen every pillow and blanket she could find. She has dragged them to a room with a large, flat wall. And other things, but these are pointless. She destroys them, to make room for the blankets. She has built a nest around her self-made clothes, a place where sunlight cannot reach her and she will never need to leave. She will not need to be seen, not ever again. She has found a projector, which is good because she also found that stupid fucking movie. And this bullshit anarchist farce of a community couldn't possibly have made a single thing worth watching. That's the only reason she's winding the film in now, to prove once and for all that a place like this and a people like this aren't worth a single extra second of her time. She can prove how stupid and godless this whole fucking place is through their idiot movie.

She knows the lingerie she stole is, at best, a half size too small for her build. She knows she's not taking it off anyway, because she knows that black is a flattering color for her fur. She doesn't know why she cares. She knows the projector is ready, and that the wine is plentiful despite her very best efforts these many eternities.

She slips inside her nest, and watches the heathen wall.

Sunshards

It's so hard to be a good knight right this second, and not just 'cause Yue's never done it before! Y'know? She managed, for a minute or two, to pull off "wandering swordswoman" as she left that shrine. All silks and sandals and promises of adventure and freedom. Then she opened her mouth and, well, yeah. B-but that part won't be an issue this time! See this lovely bit of silk tied over her lips? This is a strict no-talky zone, yup yup!

But, y'know, the point's more that being a K N I G H T, that ancient marvel of stories and fighter of dragons (meep!) felt a lot different than walking the walk of an adventurer more her sort after being shown the basic steps of how. This was going off of half-remembered snippets of movies and chirped instructions from Cyanis, which made it hard to tell if she was doing it right. And even then, the one bit she's sure she's doing wrong she couldn't help if she tried.

She's pretty sure, at least, that a proper brave, injured knight being offered as a sacrifice to a passing dragon shouldn't be blushing and smiling so much. But what's she supposed to do, eh? What's she supposed to do when her friends are so darned cute?

Just look at Rose! Just look at... mmmph, gosh ok, yeah, let's look at Rose some more. A-a-and not just the way that outfit hangs so tantalizingly off of her body, all perfectly fitted and somehow still one tiny flick of a clasp away from coming completely undone. Not just that! Not just that, ok? It's the bliss inside her eyes, it's the muscles on her body going from constant threat and coiled tension to a calm serenity sorta thing. It's like... seeing a tiger when she's napping, and realizing how soft she is when she's not out hunting large animals. There's so much beauty in her body that Yue never noticed before. She can't stop staring. She can't stop blushing. And she can't stop smiling under her gag at the silly smile Rose kept flashing at her. Is that what her face looks like when she's truly happy? It must be. Yue'd already made her mind up a while ago about trusting Rose, even being her friend (though she didn't really know what that meant with somebody so ancient and... whatever). But seeing this smile was the first time Yue really felt the spark of affection for the other woman. Whoever could make her look like that all the time would be the luckiest person in the world, just about. How sweet is she? How pretty?

And look at Chen! Look at the way she keeps squirming and wiggling till she looks ready to topple over! Look at the color on her adorable cheeks! Do you hear the noises she's ma-- er, well, trying to make while those ropes dig into her petite little body? What a cutie! How could she be a Princess like Qiu or Yin? D-do... do they look this cute when they're tied up? Gosh. Goshies. Wow. There's no way, right? But maybe! Maybe Yue'd wanna pick them up and hug them tight, like she does right now looking at Chen. If they 'mmphed' like that and wiggled like that and wore gorgeous frilly dresses like that, then maybe. And if... if they looked at somebody else with a face so obviously in love as Chen looking at Rose, well then double goshies. She'd really have no choice but to hold them tight and feel her heart just burst with joy.

And also... here's a funny thing, y'know? Look at Chen and the kinds've sounds she's making. All the silly muffled squeaking and whatnot. Yue always heard that's what gags did to a body, but now that she's got one of her own she can't really figure as to how they manage it. Sure, her lips are all covered up and, well, gosh it feels really nice, right? She feels just stunningly pretty right this second. But it's not, y'know, exactly doing a lot to keep her quiet. Right? If she wiggled her jaw for a few seconds she could spit the whole thing right down around her neck and then whatever muffling it was doing to begin with would be well and over with, now wouldn't it? But looking at Chen... she thinks she gets it. It's not the power of the gag to make you be silent. It's the power of the gag to make you want to be silent. Princesses must do this all the time 'cause they love it so much! She's learning so much right now!

Probably the most magical thing of all, though, of all these new treasures for her to keep inside her brain, is how... nice it is to feel beautiful and powerful. Yue is a small bundle of twigs tied to other smaller twigs. She's the kind of girl where her height's the only thing she's got going for her, specimenwise. Twig and flab that nobody notices because it's super skinny flab, and a pair of boobs so small they couldn't hold up Rose's dress if her life depended on them. Which, thank goodness, it doesn't.

But this, like... this pain of hers was no real pain, but more like a, uh, like exercising a whole bunch at once and then collapsing into a chair at the end of the day and realizing you're not getting up again 'cause you're just donezo. And it turns out that's a nice kind of pain to be in. She can't move hardly at all, but it makes her feel proud and accomplished to be in that position even though she's done nothing to earn it. Maybe it's the armor? Maybe it's the shining plate that hugs her frail body and makes her look like a thing of motion and power, or, y'know, whatever? Maybe that's what it is. But it's just... it makes her feel pretty. Desirable. A treasure worth snatching, even.

She glances around looking for Hyra again. If she could just catch a glimpse of those eyes, she knows she'd melt on the spot. There's just no way they wouldn't be filled with want, and even imagining that glimpse is enough to make Yue feel hot and flustered. She squeaks her own squeaks, forgetting she's supposed to be the knight and not the damsel. The heat rises to her cheeks again, and she makes the bravest attempt at standing she can think of how to do so that she can drop to one knee all dramatic-like and save it. You tell me if she managed it at all, I'm no judge of these things.

But she makes a note inside her heart. To hug Cyanis as tight as she knows how just as soon as she's got arms enough for hugging. And whisper 'thank you' in those adorable fluffy ears of hers for teaching her the shape of a new wish, and for breathing the fire of adventure into her so strongly she didn't see as it could go out again. Wandering swordswoman probably fit her better than Knight, when you got right down to it. But if her silly little trips could make her feel like this? Then that'd be all right with her. Her fingers itch to practice her spell again. Her arms ache to pick up her sword and practice her forms. Oh, if she could just... ah! Ah!!

Breathless Dead

It felt stupid to keep looking out the window like she kept doing, but Bella couldn't help herself. If she strained her eyes from where she was she swore she could almost make out the edges of the palace grounds where safety ended and the death the Master always promised her waited beyond. Where she'd be going any minute now, just as soon as somebody noticed what she did.

She didn't mean it. All she wanted was to give Redana her birthday present.

She'd just... been running to fast, is all. Everything had taken so long to finish and she knew she had to deliver her gift before Redana's training session that afternoon, because after that there'd be no time. Dany would need a bath, and then she'd have to have her hair done and get helped into her new dress and then there'd be the party, during which she'd have no time for Bella on account of all the important guests and after which she'd have no time for anything on account of all the complaining she'd spend the rest of the night doing before finally falling asleep.

And it was so important that she get the timing right. There was so much to say. So much she needed to confess. She'd been working on everything for months, running the conversation over and over and over in her head while she worked on her chores until it seemed almost boring. Stealing the paints she needed bit by bit, in such small quantities that nobody would miss them, but enough that she could experiment and get the colors right. It's not like she had any talent or training in painting, that's not what anybody turned to her breed for, and in any case real Art was something only humans knew how to do. But something as simple as the night sky? Even a screwup like Bella could get that right, with enough time and tries. And she had. And she had.

But it didn't matter anymore. She'd forgotten all the words. She'd crushed her painting (and looking at what was left of the torn canvas, she can't even figure out why she'd thought it was pretty enough to give to Redana in the first place). She had nothing left, now. Nothing. All because she'd been running too fast, and slipped going around a corner. And on top of that she'd gone and knocked over a statue and spilled its ceremonial armor everywhere, and now she had minutes (if she was lucky) to figure out how everything fit back together or she was doomed!

So this goes, and then this over, no no no! What does she, does this go... come on, come ON, you stupid display! This is her life here, don't you understand? This is

"Bella?"

"Gyaaaa!"

Bella toppled over onto the ground with a fresh clatter of metal on marble, and looked up at the concerned face of Redana while desperately trying to smooth out her comically bushed up tail. She had no idea if she was trying to squeak or snarl, or by some daring new combination of the two of them vibrate through the floor and disappear forever.

"Are you, uh, ok?" the princess asked through a sweetly concerned smile

"I'm fine! Er, th-that is, I am fine, Milady. Perfectly fine. I was simply... cleaning. While I had some spare time."

"Haha, from here it kinda looks like you wound up doing the opposite!"

"W-well you startled me!" Bella squeaked and blushed with equal fury.

"Haha, I'm sure!" Redana paused just long enough to make the awkwardness a physical thing before adding, "You want any help?"

"N-no, I couldn't possibly!"

Bella arms shook worse than ever. The breastplate rattled noisily against her claws, which made it feel like she'd taken up playing the cymbals more than any kind of cleaning. It was impossible, just impossible, to get everything back together. But she had to try. If she could just get this...

"Oh hey, what's that?"

"Nothing!"

Bella's blood ran cold. She turned her head so slowly she barely seemed to move. Her mouth felt painfully dry. Please, if any of you gods had ever loved her, please don't let Dany have found it. But of course she had. That was such a stupid thing to pray for. Which god had ever loved her? Which god had ever cared enough to keep the bad things from happening to her? She turned, and saw Redana reaching for her ruined painting.

"It's nothing!" she repeated, more frantic than before.

"I like the colors. Here, just lemme--"

"I said you CAN'T!"

And before she knew what she was doing, before she could stop herself, Bella pounced. All her secret training as a bodyguard had left her motions fluid and her form perfect. Of course they had. The trainers would have killed her if she'd been anything less. And now they'd kill her anyway, for being dumb enough to turn her talents on Imperial royalty. Bella crashed into Redana hard enough to knock over four other displays, and pinned her to the ground. Her eyes were wild, desperate, and filled with hurt as she snatched the painting away.

"Idiot! Dummy!" she sniffled, "What part of 'nothing' is so hard to understand?"

"Bella, please..."

She took the painting, and she ran. That voice meant it was time to run away forever. As she ran, she tore her claws through the crushed and ruined canvas until even a magic eyeball wouldn't be enough to figure out what it was originally supposed to be. The tears stung her eyes, and her sandals pounded every step across the hard floor straight through her legs and all the way up her spine. She ran, in spite of how hard it was to see, in spite of how much it hurt, and in spite of the voice calling for her to stop. She ran, because to run was to live, and anything else was death. She ran.

But being taller, older, and having thirty seconds' head start didn't make her a match for Redana. Bella hissed and squirmed, but she couldn't keep herself from getting pinned to a wall before she'd even made it out of the hallway. Like an idiot, she looked into her best friend's eyes. Why was it so much worse not to see anger there?

"Pl-please don't..."

"Bella, what's going on?"

"You're gonna throw me away! I broke it! I ruined, I! I'm sorry! I don't wanna go back! I don't wanna die! Please Mistress, please! I'll never do it again, so please! Please!"

Bella's voice was high and strained to the point where it was almost impossible to make out her desperate begging. She flailed and squirmed and pounded her fists against her princess' shoulders to get away from her, but kept her claws so carefully tucked away. And maybe that's what really saved her. She'd never know, even years later, what did it.

Why did Dany embrace her like she did?

"Hey. Hey, Bella... Come on. You're not in trouble."

"I'm... not?" she sniffled, and tried to pull away some more.

"You're not." Redana's voice was firm and even.

"But I'm a bad girl!"

"Oh please, you could never be a bad girl. What was all of this about?"

"I..." Bella choked on her words. Her face flushed uncomfortably from being this close, "That painting was..."

"Uhuh?"

"Fr-from an admirer. It came and it was, uh, I mean someone asked me to deliver it to you. B-but I thought it was suspicious so I..."

"...Uhuh?" said Redana with her voice full of confusion about how a painting might be dangerous.

"I don't know! I just, I thought it was... poison or something! And I wanted to check it before giving it to you, but then you picked it up and I panicked and then!"

"Oh Bella, you silly kitten. Nothing bad's ever gonna happen here, ok? Nothing's gonna happen here at all. Not with Mom watching everything like a pair of hawks all the time. Believe me. You've got nothing to worry about."

"But I! I could have hurt you!"

"Psh, you? Please, Bella, you couldn't hurt a butterfly even if I ordered you to. How're you gonna hurt me?"

Bella hiccoughed, and watched Redana's face carefully. There was no lie in that smile. There never was. As far as she was concerned, there never could be. But she always checked anyway, just in case.

"You don't think I'm a bad girl?" she asked, patting around for something proper to blow her nose on.

Redana put her hand on Bella's head, and stroked her hair just behind her ears until the sniffling turned into shaky purrs.

"I don't," she said, "And I never will."

Bella shook her head. Where was that handkerchief? Damn it, she looked like such a mess! All the careful practice, and this is what they got to say to each other today? She'd never get another chance!

"But what if," she stammered as she drifted even further away from the words she'd wanted so desperately to say, "What if I was?"

"You're not."

"But what if I was?" she was shouting now, "What if I did something way worse than this? You'd get rid of me, wouldn't you? You'd get a, a better kitten! You would! You will! Because I!!"

Bella had gotten a lot of hugs from Redana in her life. Dany was a super huggy person, when you got down to it. But never one like this. Never one so soft and warm and safe like this. She was so surprised she couldn't keep herself from hugging back. And for several long minutes neither of them spoke. And neither of them let go, until Bella had uncoiled enough to remember decorum. She drew away quietly, and folded her hands in front of her.

"Bella, you are not a bad girl."

"I... disagree with Mistress' assessment." Eyes on the floor. Words clipped to keep them from betraying her. She couldn't say it, after all. She'd never say it. Ever. She wouldn't risk ruining things ever again.

"And if you were," Redana went on, "I wouldn't throw you away. Bella, you're my best friend! If you did something I didn't like I'd just talk to you about it! And we'd work it out, you and me. Just like we're doing now."

"Do you promise?" Bella's eyes were wide, but full of hope. The shape of a window caught her eye, and she looked away from her princess and back across the horizon where death and danger waited for their chance to get her.

"Gosh, you're such a sillyhead sometimes. Yes, I promise! There's nothing you could do that would ever make me throw you away! Now come on, we're gonna miss my..."

The pattern of the beads remind her of the stars. There's not enough color in the dress, but she can't help drawing the comparison, the longer she looks. It sits on the mannequin and mocks her with all its misshapen tassels dangling at weird angles and the threads she couldn't quite snip cleanly without undoing the whole damn thing again. Looking like the night sky in the shape of a badly fitted evening gown.

And the words echo in her brain again, the other promise of the orbit of her thoughts. Her teeth grind together in an ugly snarl. Never. Nothing. Sillyhead.

Her scream echoes through the hangar, and she pounces on the dress. A few seconds of horrifying violence, and all her efforts lie shattered on the floor. She shakes, and heaves, and coughs like she's about to cry. But of course, she doesn't. Not sick, discarded, broken her.

She shoots Apollo the most vicious, scathing look she dares, and storms away deeper into the lonely corridors of the Yakanov.

Sunshards

"Oh goshies, um, I really don't think I ought to... I mean, I'm completely useless, right? T-to the plan, I mean. You guys are amazing, sure, what dragon or princess or princess-dragon or dragon-princess et cetera wouldn't want to capture you? Y'know? But I'm just... me, s-so I don't see how I'd be any use. I-I should just... supervise? O-or uh, maybe I'll just watch. F-from over there. And I'll catch up later, some other way. Yeah."

Look, before you judge her too harshly please remember that nobody brought Yue along for her acting skills. So fine, she's not fooling anybody. Ok? Glad we've established that. She's not hiding the blush on her face, or the way her head keeps dipping the more she tries to talk herself free of this.

For that matter, she can't hide the long and meaningful glances she keeps throwing Hyra's way. What's she looking for from her, do you think? A nod? A shake of the head? A piercing stare and a smirk? To be told she'll be safe? To be promised it's ok to want this? To hear from somebody who should know that, yes, standing up to two different princesses and then crashing a car actually does qualify her as a full adventuress? Oooooh, perhaps... a kiss?

Mm, sorry Yue, but this isn't that part of the story yet. You've tamed a ghost and cleaned a shrine, you've been chased by demons and found a girl who makes your heart go pitter patter thumpa thump, you've learned how to hold a sword and someday you might even swing a real one! You've done probably a dozen incredible things since leaving home, but everybody knows you don't get to kiss the girl and get carried home in her arms until you are, really for realsies and everyone says so, a hero. And you're just not there. Not yet.

So what she gets instead is shoved forward into the waiting arms of a giggling Cyanis, while Kat is left to gleefully headbutt at her legs until she trips and falls and is totally caught and helpless. She yeeps and yeeks and yikeses with all the proper protest required of a maiden in fine standing. She wiggles like any true hero-in-training should when in the clutches of a villainous fox, who is only very slightly ruining everything by gleefully giggling like she's just heard the world's funniest joke instead of "Ohohohoh"ing into the back of her hand the way you'd expect a really high-class kidnapper to.

But in her defense, have you seen Yue? Adorable. Especially while she's wiggling. And in Cyanis' double defense, she is prepared even before her cue with ropes so soft they border on cuddly and a clean strip of cloth to give the suggestion of a gag without actually hindering her ability to speak up if she needs anything. Say what you will, but she's a fox. And foxes grant wishes.

"J-j-just..." she squeaks, "I guess it won't hurt to try, so, um. Uh. Pl-please don't... make my costume too embarrassing?"

Breathless Dead

The thoughts buzz inside her head heavier and more sickening than any of the wine she's ever had. They float there in her forehead, shapeless, indistinct, and obnoxiously loud. Sometimes they jab at the side of her head, or crush into the back of it instead, so that she feels the urge to slice her hair off to relieve the weight or else feel like her neck is going to shatter under all the pressure.

Pressure. That's the word to describe it, more than thoughts. Except she knows that isn't true. Some of her migraines are memories that churn inside of her until they start to make her nauseous, while others are ideas she simply can't chase to their inevitable ending points. She knows better than to try and grab hold of them, but ignoring them only makes them buzz more insistently. The pressure builds, and she does not have the talent or the background to simply ignore it.

The first solution that occurs to her is exercise. Her body is brimming with annoying and excessive energy, after all. Burn it off, wear down again, sleep, and perhaps if she's lucky slip back into her malaise and die properly this time. Her jaw clenches at the thought, but she pushes past it. Even if she couldn't sink beneath the waves again, she would at least shed the ugly sense of shame that had pulled on her ankles like weights at the utter weakness and gracelessness with which she'd dragged herself this far. So hour by hour and then day by day, she dedicates herself to renewing her body. She lifts crates of abandoned goods and deposits them without pattern elsewhere. She tries crunches and leg lifts and pushups, and when her frustration builds to a peak she finds one of the Yakanov's infinite corners and she destroys everything that looks even remotely valuable until she can't breathe anymore.

Later, she tries simply walking. And when that doesn't work, she runs. The more she does it, the better she gets. Some of the slinky ease she was so used to moving with seems gone forever, but she finds ample power in her stride she didn't have before to replace it with. She sweats, and never bothers with the time it would take to wash herself clean. Her muscles burn, and where she does not bother to stretch or rest them they become nothing but pits of ache and exhaustion. But they also regain their definition, and a little more besides; taking her soft and perfect, touchable body and turning it into a thing fitted snugly over plates of iron.

These are not good changes, and this is not a good ache. They do nothing to pause the buzzing in her head. They do little and less to ease the sense of total disgust she feels whenever she catches her reflection in a glossy enough surface as she passes. And worse than any of that, more she runs the more the memories take shape. Memories of the young woman she watched and helped train, and when she forcefully swats those aside, memories of the time beyond her when she had to take her place. They grow larger in her mind, splinters swelling until they ooze with infection. She has never felt uglier. What is the point of running when there's nothing to run from to?

She stops.

She is vaguely aware of the state of her hygiene. It's such a stupid thing to be bothered by, with no way out of where she is and no company to keep but this single smiling god who never looks like he's even capable of giving a shit what she looks or smells like. But it's a thought that doesn't feed the buzzing, so she clings to it like a precious treasure. Her treasured blue-black hair is matted, clumped, greasy, and more split ends than actual hair. The single braid she'd tied before her life exploded (for luck. now there's a fucking joke...) has turned into a tangled vine that tugs painfully on her whenever anything gets to close to it. Her face is healed of scars, but the blood she'd smeared across it before the wounds had stitched shut is caked across her face in the form of stains and the crusts of scabs that haven't peeled away. Her Auspex shines as brightly as ever, but that only highlights the contrast of her natural eye and the hideous mark she's allowed to build up underneath it with her miserable sleeping patterns.

And her clothes... well. they're worthless, aren't they? Frayed. Sweaty. Torn. Shredded. Threadbare. What had been a beautiful and unique expression of her power was now nothing more than a moldy extra skin and a way to trap extra dirt on her. Ugly, disgusting creature. No wonder nobody loves you. Her stride is fluid and perfect as she makes the long walk from The Grave to the showers. The pump is sluggish after sitting still and unused for so long, but it doesn't matter. She uses the time before she hears water start to splash across the stall to peel away her ruined outfit. It falls apart with barely a whisper from her pinky claw; she knows as soon as it sloughs off of her that it will never move from this spot on the floor again.

The cold water stings everywhere it strikes her skin, but she forces herself not to flinch away from it. It's even worse when she steps far enough forward to wet her hair, and the impossible tangles and mats start tugging against her scalp. She tries to work her fingers through the locks, but whatever magic in her fingers that kept a certain messy princess presentable for every ball and social function isn't up to the task her. Her finger catches against her braid and it pulls a hiss out of her throat. She snarls and slams her fist against the wall, cracking the tile. Fine, then. Fine. She takes claws to it instead. Snip, snip, snip, they run unevenly through the bits that hurt and pull and won't come unstuck whether it's for dirt or knots, and in the end she's left with a crisscross of mismatching styles. Her bangs are gone, the left side of her hair's been cut short against her skin but the right smooths out on its own so she leaves it as it was. Uneven. Unseemly. But at least she can clean it now. She shuts her eyes and lets the water run over her. She scrubs away grime. She scrubs away blood. She scrubs away shame. Soaking wet as it is, her fur returns to the lustrous shine that befits a girl of her high breeding.

All she has to wear now is the towel she's drying herself off on. It's stupid how much that bothers her, but that hasn't exactly been stopping her, lately. There's nobody here. Nobody to care. And even if there was, so what? Let them stare! Let them feast on her beauty and beg her to... she shoots another nervous glance at Apollo, whose eyes are as closed as they had been the last twelve times she'd looked. Heat rises to her cheeks, and she snarls as she pulls the towel tighter.

Her hair and tail leave a trail of water on the ground as she glides through the station. Now her steps turn delicate and quiet: instincts all turned on avoiding attention and keeping her bare feet from stepping on anything that might hurt her. No more pain, she decides for the hundredth time before discarding the thought again. All the buzzing in her head is quiet right now in the face of the problem occupying her. There are thousands of quarters aboard the Yakanov, and in the face of the evacuation there's no way they could have taken anything with them. A hundred new outfits lie waiting for her if she is but willing to explore the depths of a small moon to find them. She turns her feet toward more familiar ground, instead. Through the hall where she'd given herself over to dance and swam through a river of something beyond beauty and terror both. Over the cracked ruins of the weapons and armor she'd destroyed to make it that far, through the winding hallways that echo with a satisfying click when she taps her toe claws on the floor. The Lanterns would be miserable here. It's a good thing that she'd... nnnngh. Her fingers brush across her hacked and ruined hair to quell the thought before it can join the chorus.

And then after hours and hours that seem longer and lonelier tracing backwards than she remembers them going through the first time she reaches the hangar where she'd thrown her life away. Or discarded the first pieces of it, at any rate. And sure enough, there is Apollo, shining and smiling and giving her light to work by. And sure enough, those useless fucking idiots didn't manage to pack a tenth of the gifts that had been laid out here for her pleasure. And nobody bothered to come check when they left. Her fingers trace the edge of the cold metal braces holding the burning star engine that was supposed to be the crowning jewel of the collection. Morons. The fuck was she ever going to need a thing like that for?

She digs through chests, instead. Ingots of electrum, platinum, and gold clunk against the floor as she tosses them about. And then the bolts of fabric, the real prize. Wool and silk, cotton and synthweaves, reams and reams and reams of them in all manner of colors and patterns. She sniffs at a few, runs her fingers across others, and lets her Auspex run the calculations through her senses. She settles on a soft, comfortable wool, dyed red and black and painted every which way with patterns of coins and diamonds in neat, interlocking rows. A little more digging finds her a knife and several pairs of scissors tucked amidst her treasures. Another bolt of black cloth unravels to make her threads. Her eye guides her muscles through the cuts, though she's never made them before in her life. Three discarded patterns pile into a clump behind her before she finally gets it right. Hours pass by in the sewing, and not a thought or feeling squeezes against her head the whole time.

She slides the dress on over her head, and sighs deeply. The fit is tight, enough that it fights against if her she tries to make any sorts of large or exaggerated movements. The knee-length skirt obligates her to sit on a makeshift stool, or with her knees demurely tucked against and her legs curls to the side if she wants to sit on the ground. The fabric stretches across her soft chest and wraps the sharpened muscles in her arms in a dazzling sort of hug. She reaches up and presses her fingers against the weight of the turtleneck, the first sensation of the comforting squeeze against her neck since...

There's a lot more work to do, Girl. A week of failures and an entire chest of ruined silks finally produces a pair of tights for her to put on, which wind up being white by necessity more than design. Four days to make a hat; a soft and floppy red beret that covers the top of her head and hides the worst parts of the transitions between her hair lengths. Like this, she can almost seem like she swept it all to one side by choice. She finds a mirror, and rolls her eyes at the reflection. So much work to do.

It's a time consuming process to carve usable pieces off of her ingots, and an even longer and more exhausting bit of work to take her tongs and her miniature press and shape and squeeze the lumps of metal into small, smooth beads. They glint in Apollo's light in greens and golds and silvers and reds. She sets each one in a bowl as she finishes, separated by color. The god watches her, though if it's with interest or ire or just the passive zen of an observer of the whole universe she's long since lost the ability to tell. She flicks her tail in his direction, and reaches for her tools again.

She's going to need thousands more of these beads for her next project. Mind numbing work. Good. That's the only sort of thing she needs right now.

Breathless Dead

The chopsticks feel strange in her hand. Smooth and frictionless and so light she can hardly even feel them, and yet she can hold and manipulate them as if they were an extension of her fingers. She rolls them across her palm and fights with the urge to curl her fist around them to learn if they'd break before she did.

The sense of danger crawling down her spine is overwhelming. Every muscle in her back tenses until a light tap would shatter her into a dozen pieces. She looks at the food. The floor. Never the god. This is a trap. Something like this is always a trap. Her throat squeezes saliva and a comment down her clenched esophagus with the same sort of pain she'd expect if she swallowed splinters.

The question is whether or not it's worse for her to take the bait, or to run away. And why does it make her so afraid, when just yesterday (wasn't it?) she was completely sure of what she wanted? Her back itches in the shape of a beautiful rose, and she hisses away the rising image of Ivory Smile from the edges of her brain. Not that. Not that. All she wanted was--

"Ohmigosh Bella, you've gotta try this!"

The delighted face of Redana (Age 11) poked over the top of the biggest stack of ultra-fluffy "black cat" style pancakes the planet of Tellus had ever seen, or indeed would ever see again. Her eyes glittered like the prettiest of jewels and her teeth dazzled as she bared absolutely every last one of them in a display of pure joy. The kind of special, somehow purer joy that humans only got from the true marvels of the universe, like surprise breakfast in bed. Her floppy orange pajama sleeves waved across her face to rub a little extra sleepiness away, which turned the bed into a place of pure chaos. Her nighttime braid flopped across her neck and popped loose from its band, untwining with rebellious intent and sending cascades of golden hair every which way. Covers shifted atop a pair of wiggling legs. And the tray of delicious breakfast food with its accompanying pomegranate juice rocked dangerously back and forth.

Bella (Age 12) pounced in a panic to grab the tray and keep it from ruining the whole morning. She regretted the decision almost before she finished making it. Her scrawny little arms clenched wire-taut as her claws scratched the surface of the tray all over with the effort of saving the morning. She knew as easily as she breathed she'd have to take Redana's fork later and scratch everything up more and pray, or there'd be terrible beatings in her afternoon. Stupid, Bella.

Much worse than that was the opportunity to review her own handiwork up close. She'd been too nervous as she cooked and carried it to really pay attention, but now... she blushed and tried her best to look everywhere but the food. This was the dumbest idea she'd ever had, what was she thinking?! Stupid Bella, stupid stupid stupid! There's no way Redana would believe these amateurish kitty face designs were the work of the Imperial Chef! What idiot would? And if Dany figured out that it was her, it was over. She'd know what Bella's cooking tasted like, and then it was just a short hop and a skip away from realizing that they all tasted like this. The lie would be over. Once she found out Bella did all of the cooking she'd dig deeper. She'd learn who did her laundry. She'd learn who did the mousing. She'd learn her special pet and personal servant was doing stuff for the castle almost every second her back was turned, and then they wouldn't be friends anymore. Never let them see you work, dummy!

"Here you go, give it a shot!"

"Re-- Your Highness, I don't think that's such a--"

She had to stop so she could clamp her mouth shut in time to avoid a forkfull of pancake. Bella blushed and tensed with a nervousness that was only a little bit because her favorite fingers were so close to her face. The first rule of the kitchen was obvious: taste everything, so you knew before you cooked it what you were making. But the second rule was even more important than that: never let them see you try the food. Her ears pressed flat against her skull and she squirmed every which way she could, but Redana pressed the mouthful mercilessly in every path she tried to escape towards. This was a trap. Something like this was always a trap. The Master always baited her with kindness before he mmrfghlbrrble!

"There, see? Amazing, right? The best, right? I dunno how he did it, but the chef really outdid himself this morning!"

Bella's tail curled without her asking it to. She... she'd tasted everything, she knew what she'd been making, but even still she never thought that all together it would be so sweet! The sugary fluff of the pancake met the sugary tartness of the blackberry jam on top and her sharp little teeth cut through the delight with a ravenous hunger that gave the impression she thought she'd never see food again. Bella's golden eyes went wide, and then wider than that. Oh no. Her head darted first one way and then the other, looking for the trap to swing shut. For the Box to swallow her and carry her off to Hades like the bad girl she knew she'd been. Her heart pounded terror in her chest and her fingers squeezed tight enough to crack porcelain. She was in so much trouble.

She did the only thing she could think to do in her panic, and forced herself to cough. She gagged and sputtered and shook her head with shocking violence to cover her paranoid searches. And then she wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue.

"Bl-blegh! You're so weird Dany, how can you eat this kind of thing?"

"Oh. R-really? I was so sure this time. Well... darn it Bella, I'm sorry! I swear, I really thought you were gonna love it! And I thought maybe..."

Bella shook her head again, this time to quell her princess. The look on Dany's face was so fraught, so kind, and so genuine that it killed Bella inside to keep going. But she had to do it. She had to keep it all the same. So that she could stay.

"No, it's, it's all right Dany. I mean Your Highness! Thanks for, no. I appreciate the gesture, Milady." her smile was plastic and ugly, but she kept it on her face anyway and prayed, "But did you forget? I'm not a person, like you are! You can't keep giving me people food. I'll get sick!"

Redana's embarrassed laughter cut her almost as deeply as it soothed her. The world's most perfect and beautiful girl pat her head, and Bella purred dutifully.

"Oh right! Gosh Bella, I'm sorry. I always forget you're different. But in my defense you don't exactly make it easy to remember!"

The girl flinches. But it's too late; the chopsticks are already cutting through the fish. The tender meat cuts without resistance, even from a lazy click of the blunted stick. She lifts a bite to her mouth, and closes her eyes as the meat falls to flaky pieces and melts inside her mouth with barely the briefest suggestion of chewing. The sweetness of the flesh bursts across her tongue all the more sharply for the contrast of the salt. If she were younger and less well trained, she might even make the mistake of moaning.

She makes no noise at all. She squeezes a hand shut and focuses on the bite of her claws, and doesn't say a word. She's not stupid enough to try lying to a god. What did she have to do to make him go away? She takes another bite, and another. The mushroom is rich. The soup is creamy. The cake is so sweet, it makes her gag on a memory.

Sunshards

If the best trained warrior in history took a Cyanis to the face the way that Yue is just now, she'd be lucky just to stay on her feet. At best she'd stumble back several paces acking and pffting and possibly even thbbbting at the face full of cutie all up in her business before she finally managed to get things under control, and even then she'd have to deal with the raw horror of a trembling scaredyvixen nuzzling her neck as though the warmth found therein was some sort of get out of jail free card and a security blanket rolled up into one precious thing. And honestly, how many warriors do you know who'd handle themselves even that well? Bet you a shiny nickel that even the Demon Swordswoman herself (whatever her name really was) couldn't have done any better than that.

Now, if you're Yue? Well, then you've got a bit of a handicap. Or three. See, like, for one thing? She's not even standing! It's a story circle, so she's been politely and attentively sitting here this whole time, maybe pulling steadily further and further into herself as stuff's gotten scarier, but... in a polite and attentive way, y'know? So no warrior's stance and Battle Readiness for her.

And for two things? Ya girl's a lot of things, but 'strong' isn't exactly one of them. Just take a look at her arms. Twigs, you'd call 'em, if you weren't worried about the twigs ganging up on you after work and giving you such a poking for being sassy enough to insult 'em like that. This is the kind of girl who sometimes needs to find a river or a particularly agreeable bear to ask it for help opening a jar for her. A jar that she closed herself! Her tummy is cute and trim in keeping with her skinny-girl profile, but you could go over it with a magnifying glass and not find so much as a one-pack let alone six, 'cause muscle definition implies the existence of muscles. So yeah.

And for three things, these are really scary stories. Ancient debts you don't know you're collecting and ice demons stealing you while you're trying to sleep, and, and... extra c-c-conditions and eeeeeeeep! Also yeeeeeeeep! But mostly eeeeeeeeep! S-so maybe she's not exactly on the best of her game right now, even if her game was somehow magically better than a magic super monk/demon or a double princess or the world's best and prettiest handmaiden. No, she's quivering and shaking and inching ever-so-closer to Hyra the more words come out of anybody's mouths.

All of this is to say that when Cyanis comes to her seeking Asylum, it's all Yue can do to not go rolling so far over that she winds up on the bottom of the pile. And funny enough, it's actually her training that helps her manage this. Not her sword training, sillyhead, that's useless! No no no, it's all her experience as the World's Best Fox Mom that lets her roll with the sudden yipping weight and only go flopping over sideways into Hyra's embrace.

She's love to say it's kindness that guides her now, but it's not. Her fingers rub soothingly behind Cyanis' fluffy ears while her opposite hand wraps protectively around the wish granting girl's tummy, but that's all a function of how scared she, Yue, is. Snuggles are a two way street, ok? That's just science. Snuggle science, specifically. She holds Cyanis tight because she's as badly in need of clinging material as anybody here. She trembles and shivers so much that her body has become a soothing, uh, whaddya call 'em? Tuning forks? Yeah, and her trembling breath makes a wonderful shushing noise that can put any triangle at ease. That's the magic of being born for something, I guess. Even when you're not trying to do it you're still really good at it.

But that's how we wound up in our current situation: Hyra's iron arms around Yue's tiny scrawny twigs (aaaah, no no, it was a... uh, a joke! Don't hurt meeeee~) holding Cyanis as tight as a doll at bedtime, with a softly purring Kat curled up asleep and blissfully unaware of what any of the fancy folk are actually saying as the perfect cherry on top of this comfort sundae. Oooh, man. An ice cream parlour would be an amazing next adventure, just sayin'.

"D-do you, um. Do you maybe think we could, uh... I mean. Um. M-maybe that's enough ghost stories f-for one night. I mean! Um! Thank you and, uh... no, no! It's fun, r-really! I'm having a (gulp) blast. But we're scaring, um, Kat, so..."

"Yeah guys!" squeaks Cyanis with incredibly believable bravado, "You're scaring Kat! Just look at her!"

And the big fox holds up the smaller one and shakes her until frightened yips ayayayayayay their way across the entire castle.

Breathless Dead

It was a mistake to come here. After such a long time haunting Birmingham's grave she'd started to believe the world really had gone muted. Sometimes instead she told herself that swimming as deeply as she had in the Song had damaged her permanently, cutting her off from all the power she'd been bred and trained to wield. Either way, she'd been wrong. Either way, she wasn't prepared for the assault she's experiencing now.

There's too much color, for one thing. In the glow of Apollo's light this kitchen is more of a painting than anything that should properly exist. The greens are so vibrant she has to squint to look at them. Waves of golden wheat shimmer like a treasure hoard, bending and revealing bursts of red and purple berries more potent and radiant than starlight. She glances at a flowering plant so blue that it pulls the word 'ocean' out of some long buried ancestral memory and buries it on her lips.

She lifts a hand to cover her eye, but there's no escape. Every breath is choked with scents: nutty tangs and floral bursts, whirlwinds of spices that tingle in her nose, cascading saccharine sweetness from a dozen different syrups, earthen notes and pine, grasses and even a savory richness that starts her mouth watering in spite of how irritatingly full her body still feels. One breath she swims in cinnamon. The next, hibiscus. She turns her head away from a sirocco of chili powders, and when she waves it away the next wrinkle of her nose washes it away in a tide of strawberries and vanilla pods. At her feet, a great black-and-brown fruit drops to the floor and bursts open with a rush of something like a fresh cream.

Even the sounds are overwhelming. Swishing and rustling and constant sloughing and snapping and scraping and popping fight with the gurgling of the water supply and the shuffle-stomping of her own useless feet and the the flicking of her tail and there's a can rolling across a metal counter and it's hit the separation rods andeverythingisringingringingclangingbumpingroaringSTOPIT!

She is vaguely aware of her arms slashing wildly through the air. She is extremely aware of the way they crash into everything in front of her. Some of it parts with barely a brush of her knuckles, but some of it is the gear of the Yakanov, and it fights and cuts and hurts like an animal defending itself from her. Her head is pounding with hangover fierceness, and hangover nausea. Her eyes are squeezed shut. Her lungs have shrunk so small she can't hold enough of the confusing smell-soaked air to keep standing. Her knees scream fire when they hit the floor. Compared with the Anemoi, everything here is a hundred times too stiff. And loud.

When she opens her eyes, she expects to see carnage and destruction again. That's the only thing she's good for, after all. So it is... surprising, to see a spotless prep counter instead. To her right, a line of pans sit so pristinely she'd almost think they'd been put there to wait just for her. Her eyes slide automatically over the harvesting tools scattered around her on the floor to the figure of Apollo seated in the garden. He smiles, the same as ever, and offers no insight. The girl shakes her head. Gingerly. Her head is still basically soup.

She sits there, with her throbbing knees tucked together and her legs splayed uselessly to either side, doing nothing at all. Breathing without smelling. Looking without seeing. Her tail curls softly, and flicks at nothing. It takes a long minute after that, but when she stirs she begins by searching about for the pair of gloves she knows will be somewhere nearby. A pair of pairs, in fact: one for the harvest and one for the act of creation that follows. A proper cook protects herself. A proper cook never risks contamination between the ingredients, except where she is being an artist.

She loses an hour sampling the bounty around her. Somehow after everything else she's still unprepared for how rich, full, and vibrant everything tastes compared to what she remembers. The creams taste thicker, the honeys sweeter. There are bitter herbs and biting mint that makes her ears do silly wiggles until she elbows herself in the stomach to make them stop. The thick, meaty mushrooms growing nearer to the floor take a full minute of chewing just by themselves. Every fruit seems to explode in her mouth when she bites it, and many of them have flavors she can't describe in words, but instead flash images in her head of things like fires crackling inside a cozy bedroom, or an untamed breeze rippling through an endless field of flowers. Sunlight streaming through a bed of infinite, briny water. And things even more impossible than that. Things she has no concept of. Things she can't imagine just seconds after she spits out her palate-cleansing sips of water. So why? Why can she picture it so clearly while she's eating?

The sickest part is that even now, while she's stuck reaching through a tiny, shrinking window into a world too beautiful to fit her in it, with all the feeling of loss and longing choking away her insides, she still can't find it in herself to cry. Not so much as a single dramatic tear to make any of it feel real. Shit. As if that matters now. As if anything matters now. She spots a white apron hanging on a pole, and loses another moment watching for it to grow teeth and eat her. Instead she shrugs and, on pure instinct, grabs it and ties it around her waist and neck. There's no engine grease to worry about getting in the food. And no princess to worry about eating it. But that doesn't make it feel less important. Or less like armor.

The Servitor disappears into the drudgery and the long work of turning food into a meal. She gathers herbs, leaves, flowers, and peppers. She harvests mushrooms and lays them neatly in thick, meaty stacks. Nuts, honeys, those cream-seed-things, and dozens and dozens of fruits. She gathers wheat by the armful and sets it in stone bowls before fishing out a wheel to grind it all down into flour. Her feet step into the motion as she torques the grindwheel with every ounce of her depleted strength. Her hips push power into her back, up her shoulders and through her arms. Her tuneless humming adds to the chorus of sounds flitting about the kitchen, soothing her overworked ears.

Heaps of flour form into wells, and water turns them to doughs. She glances around. Something is missing. She frowns, shrugs, and adds her yeasts before chucking the resulting lumps back into the bowls and leaving them to rise. Plenty of time to figure it out. More flour mixes with a beer she found underneath a counter to make batter, while berry juices thicken in a row of pans into rich, sugary sauces and syrups. She crushes the heat pellets as she needs them with her bare hands. Always a risk of burning the palms that way, but it's faster than using the rod. Cleaner that way, too, less wasted product. These are the risks you learn to take when your life depended on getting everything done before your mistress woke up.

An idle Servitor was a mistreated Servitor. But you could never let them see you doing it.

She mixes nuts and berries into her doughs and shapes them by hand into loaves almost ready for baking. Seeds make the foundation of flavor for her cakes. A hundred different kinds of knife sit unused on the opposite counter behind her, but she carefully dips her claws in water each time before she uses them to carve and cut the next centerpiece. Mushroom steaks grill and fry, sauté and fricassee, and gently bake in juices and oils until they are indistinguishable from the livestock and hunting meats that populate tables in Tellurian homes. The ones that matter, anyway. She plates each kind on beds of greens and carefully drips the berry sauces around and over each to compliment their flavors. Honeys for the breads, now. Creams whipped into great fluffy clots to decorate her cakes. She carves up fat eggplants and dips them in her batters to fry them in hot oils. And even still she shows no signs of stopping.

With every plat she finishes, she carries carefully, reverently across the room to a long table filled with broken or worn down chairs, except for the empty places where somebody must have snatched it while they fled the station. She sets each plate in turn in specific spots around the table, and returns often in her moments of downtime to fidget and fuss and rearrange them. By color, by primary flavor mixture, by course. Nothing ever satisfies. Nothing ever seems right.

She clicks her tongue after her dozenth failed attempt, and freezes with the shock of sudden insight. She trudges through the waves of fruits and vegetation to the pools of water feeding into pipes that run throughout the station. She goes waist-deep into the water without pausing to think about what it would do to her pants or what was left of her boots; all of her clothes were ugly, useless scraps at this point anyway. She holds still, not even breathing for long periods at a time until... there! She snatches at the water with feline precision, and after several attempts comes up with a pair of juicy, shiny-scaled fish. There. Fucking finally.

She drags them back to her counter space, and clears a place to clean, scale, and bone them. All by hand, just like always. She carves four large fillets, marinates two for searing, and coats the other two with batter and fresh breading to be fried. A set of potatoes slice up just as quickly to join them, in thin, even slices. Salt, and salt, and salt. Her nose twitches as they cook. Her lips curl into a wide smile with nothing hiding behind it. For once.

She catches herself and forces the expression off her face immediately. Fucking moron, what are you doing? She squeezes her tail to keep it from swishing behind her, and paces impatiently waiting for her work to finally finish. She re-scales her fish in the potatoes and lays them gently on plates of fresh herbs and a dusting of spices. These, she carries to the table just like all the others, and sets them at four places without chairs. She rearranges the other plates to match, such that a person seeking her fish couldn't think to eat it without starting at the salad and the soup, and moving to a mushroom platter, nor can they touch the breads or cakes and fruit skewers till after the fish is gone.

Everything perfect. Her work would make a feast if everyone she'd ever known was here beside her. She carefully removes and folds her apron before setting it to one side. Her claws dig into her palms as she watches the table intently. Like she's waiting for something to happen. Her legs tremble from the effort. Her arms burn with the cost of her labor. Her head squeezes her sick again, and a dizzy spell obligates her to sit down.

She does it on the floor. And doesn't touch a thing she's made.

Sunshards

Here's a couple of things I know are true. One, there's no place Yue needs more right now in all the wide world than a clean and pure river like this one for her to sit by and rest. Except maybe a nice restaurant, y'know? Somewhere with tasty food and the promise that she doesn't have to be the one cooking it. With a little fireplace and a cozy comfy atmosphere that she can snuggle into. But, oh! Not so nice that she's gotta worry about how she's supposed to pay for it! Remember, hardly nobody's taking sunstones as currency these days. But, y'know, absent that, this little river is her slice of heaven. Anybody got hot sake or something? 'Cause she does kinda like to... well, anyway.

Two, there's not a single chance ya girl is making it that far from what used to be the car without Hyra doing literally all of the work. Not on those scrawny, shaky legs she's not! Not with her hands still clutching at everything she can reach like it's a steering wheel that she'll die if she lets go of. Poor Hyra, by the way. It can't be very fun having your wrist or your butt squeezed like that. Probably? It's uncomfortably near the tail, is all. But she's a trooper, if the look on her face is anything to go by. So focused! So determined! And after a long and wobbly trail down to safety, she's got Yue sitting daintily down by the water's edge.

From there, it still takes time for Yue to fall back into herself. She sits there watching the water, not... quite looking at it like she's expecting demons, exactly? But eyeballing it like she's expecting something, or maybe just doesn't know what to expect at all. It's a lucky thing that clear, rushing water is so beautiful. It's a magical thing the way it shines in the moonlight and makes all the tiny stones buried in the riverbed look like treasures to be gathered and like old old friends happy to see you at the exact same time. When it carries the leaves out of sight to who knows where, and bubbles its song so sweetly in her ears, with its wet and splashy breath so cool on her legs, it unlocks enough of Yue's brain to let her look around and actually see.

So what's she see? She sees her friends, all together. All in one piece. There's Cyanis patting her tails down, and Hyra (obviously) watching the moon almost as intently as she's watching her, and a little wiggling tuft of fox fur under the flap of her bag that's doing its tiny adorable best to purr away all the bad feelings and stress. There's Rose over to one side standing so incredibly poised and statuesque and trying so very obviously hard to look like nothing was bothering her that it'd be impolite to suggest otherwise. And Chen! Tiny little Double Princess Chen, standing in the river and laughing herself silly. And if all of those things are happening, then what is she so upset about?

Here's a couple of things I know are true. One, Yue's legs are so tense they're cramping from that whole stompy-stomp depress and kill and revive loop she had to put herself through to get on the other side of her encounter with the Evil Princess Qiu (...hm, no that doesn't sound quite right. The Dread Princess Qiu? Work in progress) not even the strongest wings of triumph aren't gonna lift her heart aaaallll the way out of the pit of ickful feelings.

Two, cramps and general exhaustion are a combination of factors that are astoundingly well addressed by a beautiful and above all friendly river. Yue gingerly removes her sandals, though she probably didn't need to, and slips her bare feet into the shallows so the water can splash merrily sillily splishily across them up to her ankles. She coos and sighs at the feeling of the tiny pebbles massaging her soles. And a soothed sole is a soothed soul, am I right?

She leans back, and there's Hyra. Holding her. Bracing her. Wrapping her arms around her. Those intensely red eyes stare into her soft blue ones, and in the light of the moon they flicker with amusement. Hyra's fingers trace the outline of her jaw, and, gosh. Gosh gosh goshies, were they always this soft? Was she always this gentle? Everything about her and all the wonderful parts of her wonderfully human body feel so soft and warm and [inviting[/i] and, a-a-a-and, um, w-wasn't she supposed to be the iron and sinew girl? What's she doing, being so snuggly? So nice? S-so...

"You were impressive." she says, and her voice has all the iron qualities it's supposed and that it needs to to convince Yue that she means it.

"I. Am." Yue sighs and flops dramatically over into Hyra's embrace, "Never driving again!"

Her flipping and her flopping open the flap on her bag, and Kat crawls out because her snuggle radar is going crazy right now and she'll be darned if she's going to miss out on the good stuff, not after putting up with all that adventure silliness! So Yue's dramatic declaration is met on both ends by snuggly triangle girls, and her fingers just can't help themselves but work their magic and give just the best scritchies anywhere this side of the Terraced Lake.

"I mean it!" she says, and she does, even though she's also struggling not to laugh.

Her face is caught halfway between a smile and a pout. Her hands are occupied with pats, which makes it all a lot more difficult to point and gesture dramatically the way she'd really like to right now. But she doesn't mind so much, because to really do that right, she'd need to stand up. And that's just not happening. She kicks her leg instead, spraying droplets of crystal clear and deliciously cold water all over the place.

"Not only am I never driving again, I'm not setting one foot in a car for as long as I live! Or a truck! And don't even get me started on motorcycles! No! No, no, no, I'll walk as many extra days as I've gotta, I don't even care! I'm gonna master this silly flight spell just to put this whole thing to bed! See if I don't! You all... just, g-go ahead if you wanna, I'll, y'know, catch up. Eventually. Without cars!"