Phoe

Huntresses of Hybrasil

There is always time to pet a cat. Just a minor bit of indulgence, and really not even that. Her people need bonds like this, the give and the take. The soft touch and the hard carry, is how her mother once described it. Matty's purrs, and the weight of her body on Mirror's lap are deep therapy. They smooth out the pathways of her thoughts, make following ideas and feelings and plans a simpler process on a day like this where her heart wants everything to be an unsolvable knot of tension and confusion. Her claws slide down the length of Matty's spine and play with the spot just below the base of her tail.

When the world was young (the story goes) and cats had only just discovered they had claws, the bloody-fanged Goddesses of the Hunt sprung up from the sea, from the ground, out of fires, and down from the skies. The precise nature of these goddesses is a riddle with many answers, depending who you ask. They might have been great cats formed from the primal elements of the universe, or they might have been machines from some great precursor society. They might even have been a plague that floated in from some other planet to nest in some unlucky few; granting them power and wisdom in exchange for devouring their minds and personalities. There are many theories, but all came later. The ancient cats of Hybrasil only knew that that these were goddesses, and that they were beautiful and dangerous. These goddesses saw that the children of Hybrasil lusted in their hearts for violence and glory, and said that this was good. They taught cats the secrets of the ways of the spear and the net and told them to conquer the world around them.

The fury and vibrancy of the goddesses lifted cats toward supremacy. They fought the stones on the ground, and split them into pieces they could arrange into grand temples rising up out of the mountains or the forests to better catch the goddess' eyes. They fought the great beasts that roamed the planet, killed them and ate their flesh to become mighty. They trapped the rivers to steal their power, and turned it toward the earliest concepts of industry. And the goddesses smiled, for this pleased them greatly, and descended once again to demand the payment they were due.

The Huntresses quavered with fear, but they were devout before a community, and they turned their blessings on each other. The goddesses demanded tribute, and Hybrasilian blood ran down the steps of the temples in reply. But how not to be chosen? Now, this is a legend, and depending on how you count the star charts you might have heard it differently, but here is one telling: the avoid selection, one had to make themselves indispensable. However names were drawn and hearts were crushed, whatever will drove these decisions, it never happened to the best and most prolific Huntresses. Those who hunted the mightiest beasts and came back alive also kept their lives thereafter, always. And what else would this have lit in the hearts of young catkind but competition? Greed, some might say.

It was the tendency thereafter for cats to be solitary creatures by nature. Their tools and skills were up to the task, so why share? Why want company? There was the kill, and by making the kill you saw the next turning of the moons. Jealousy rose in the heart of every cat, and they split farther and farther apart. Temples fell to ruin from lack of interest in the skills needed to maintain them, for even the priestesses were roaming to hunt. The rivers broke free again, and flooded places long since turned to other purposes. Forests fell and species died off in their dozens. Fires burned across the lodges of Hybrasil, and the goddesses saw this and were not pleased at all.

Who, exactly, among them had courage and wisdom enough to demand the first bride is an accounting left to experts. It hardly matters so far as this story is concerned. Because when the goddesses began to seek sacrifices to woo instead of eat, ears around the planet perked up from their hiding places in the reeds and the grasses. Up on the mountains and down by the lakes, cats gathered and dreamed of being brought up to live in the harems the goddesses were building. Their bloody deities one by one washed their mouths and turned to their people and said:

I love your fangs. I love your claws and the way you move when you spot the potential for the kill. I love your muscles and your power and your skill, and these will always please me. But more still, I love the softness of your fur. I love the warmth of your bodies and I love the sweetness of your voices. Harden your spears, but soften your hearts and train forevermore in the arts of the veil and the bath, and in this way you shall have my blessings always. Divine intervention had lit the fires of war and creativity in the Cats of Hybrasil. And now divine intervention had awakened in this same people a deep love of grooming and a desire to hold and be held by their peers. Cities grew again, and cats taught themselves to live in harmony with the world around them, though they never quite lost their taste for power and the finer things it could bring them.

So it was, and so it went, and entire lodges were held together through the sharpest disagreements almost entirely off the back of this single instinct, whether planted in their hearts by a divine will or no. Amusing, to be thinking in these terms now, all of a sudden. To be dreaming of goddesses on the day she was called one for the first time. Funny to even want justification for the desires of her heart. It's not something Mirror normally bothered with or worried about. But this, she supposes, is a day for vulnerability and revelation. Maybe, then, it's normal to worry that she shouldn't want to feel so full from this behavior she has never let herself participate in ever since she grew too large to fit comfortably in her mother's lap. Not as the soft one, or the hard. Neither bride nor goddess. But maybe... but maybe...

Hm. A Sacrifical Bride's gown. Now that would be a fun piece to draw. Oh, she needed to write this down, to hold onto it long enough to find the time to sketch it out. Busy, busy, busy. And from that thought flits another: how to explain to her crew what had happened tonight? She had only left to get information, so far as they knew. And only minutes after giving them that information, she had betrayed them. She'd given away secrets she'd sworn them all to secrecy about. This... could not be a memo. But from her own lips? There were too many ways to tell the story. And besides, to this point, she had nothing to bring back but orders. She was not finished working tonight, not by half. Hm. Hmm.

Slowly, Mirror straightens her legs until they form a ramp. She loosens her grip on Matty, and lets gravity take over. A few more soft touches and, yes, there you go little darling, back on your feet. She's gentle about it. Careful to guide the technician back onto her shaky feet, and hold her there until her brain starts to turn back into a solid.

"And now our time tonight is over," she says through soft purrs and whispers, "I have work to do tonight. And in fact, I believe, so do you. But we're not done with each other, are we?"

"Mmmgh..."

"That's right cutie, no we are not. In fact, I have a special task for you, when your shift here is ended. Go to the hangar at these coordinates, and announce yourself loudly so the crew can hear you coming. Wear a bell, if you have one. You are to find Slate, can you do that? Find Slate and tell her that you are in her care while I am not around. Tell her who you are and what you're there to do. Tell her who you are to me. Tell her anything you like, on that front. And then let her rage. Do not let her chase you away, but stand quietly in the storm. It is her right to be angry. You are to be one part of my apology. So when she calms down again, obey her. I will be back in the night to see if things are well, and you may decide then if this is a life you want or not. Can you manage all that?"

It's difficult for Matty to speak, still. And difficult for her to even nod with her cheeks all squished in Mirror's hands. But she manages a silly smile and pushes her face forward so Mirror's hands can feel her consent. Her reward is a tender kiss on the middle of her forehead.

"Good girl~"

******

Smokeless Jade Fires? Well, it certainly didn't take long at all to find a suitable prey to hunt now did it? The goddess, Smokeless Jade Fires. The first new goddess of Hybrasil to rise in... well. Who could say how long? The goddess that claims to inhabit her own mecha frame. The goddess who claims not to need a pilot. Who, rumors say, can inhabit any space she pleases, cross any boundary that she wants, manifest in any form whatsoever if it pleases her to do so.

Ha! There's a lot that could be said about all of that, now isn't there? Is that her priestess? Her, hmhmhmhm, bride~? Hahahaha! It brings a twisted grin to Mirror's lips. Certainly, this is a being she might be able to consider a peer. Certainly this is something to test her teeth on. And most importantly, Smokeless Jade Fires represents another expert voice to ask about infiltrating places that should not be possible to infiltrate. Even if she's not forthcoming, there are secrets that could be... mmmm, pried out? She licks her lips and slips through the crowd after the procession, into the grand hall.

Her promise to eat dinner falls forgotten from her mind.

"The stars send their greetings, Honored Priestess. Congratulations on your hunt, was this... creature a worthy hunt? Or are you mainlanders as bored out of your skulls as you look?"

Dolly, there's a cat at your table. On your table, actually. A tall, snowy creature in an all-black neural mesh suit that has been... aggressively unzipped down to her belly button. She's apparently trusting to her curves to keep the clingy material on enough to keep her from getting kicked out of these public, mixed-species zones. She squishes Angela's face between her fingers and turns her head from side to side with curiosity openly etched onto the features of her face, even if it doesn't reach all the way to those cold, watery eyes of hers.

A moment later she hops down off the table and dips into a wide, sweeping bow. You would be forgiven for not recognizing her, under the circumstances. She probably doesn't seem quite like the shy, drunk girl who must have been working with Mayze Szerpaws on that wonderful dress. But that's exactly who she is, and that's exactly who is leaning forward to share the full glory of her body for a saucer-eyes Ksharta Talonna right now. Her tail flicks with mischief behind her, and her smile is full of teeth.

"Don't worry, I'm not here to interrupt your, ah, meal. Lucky girl that she is. I simply could not help but overhear you outside. And I was wondering, hnnn, who should I be addressing, exactly? Which one of you little cuties is in charge here? Speak up, if you please, I would like to know the price for a conversation with your goddess? Oh, I am interrupting something, sorry. Go ahead, finish up. Talk amongst yourselves, kittens. Enjoy your night. When you're finished, Mira of the Gods-Smiting Whip will be waiting right over there~"

And with a swish of her hips, Mirror turns in such a way to hit all three of you in the face with her long, bushy tail, and saunters off to find an empty table of her own.

Breathless Dead

"Redana..."

Bella comes to a sudden stop in front of Redana, so stiff and so sudden that there's no avoiding a collision. The Princess bounces off her back, and only doesn't fall backwards because Bella spins around and catches her by the wrist. Her grip is crushing. Her fingers are turned carefully toward the ceiling to keep her claws away from Redana's skin.

"Would you. Just. Shut. The fuck. Up?"

She squeezes harder as she lifts Redana fully back onto her feet, and then off of them again to hold her up in the air. At eye level, for once. Her Auspex glares bitter red into Redana's. Her cat's eye shimmers with light fierce enough to match them both. Her iris trembles. Her bared teeth glint inside her mouth, and her tail whips hard enough behind her to crush stone.

"You don't fucking... what the fuck even makes you think you're in charge anymore? Because you're royalty? Go suck a wolf off, Your Highness, if there is a single gods forsaken person on this ship who is NOT making that crossing, it's you. After all this time, you... you really think that... ghhhhk! Rrrrragh!"

Their violent dance carries the pair of them to the far wall, where Bella slams Redana against a mural hard enough to leave cracks. Their faces are touching, now. Eye to eye. Matching breath for breath. The smell of it washing over each of them in turn. Bella's blood smears on Redana's skin, but she's too far gone to care. Her lips part. Her eyes shut. Her head tilts. Her mouth draws closer, and closer, and closer to Redana's.

And at the last instant, she pulls away. Drops Redana to the floor and spins away, striking her in the face with an angry tail. She makes it a full dozen paces away before coming to a sudden stop again. She stands there stiffly, statue like if not for the severe, trembling effort of her own breathing.

"You moron. You really think stuffing me in a closet again is going to make things better? Fuck off. It's your turn this time. You stay behind. You worry what might be happening. You find out what it feels like to look up at the sky and know somebody's forgotten all about you. I don't...

I don't get you, Redana. Do you love me or hate me? You never fucking leave me alone, but every time we're together all you do is try to get rid of me. Which is it? Which one is the real you? The one who won't stop fluttering her eyelashes at me, or the one who kicks me in the stomach before she runs away? Are you the girl who took naps with me in the garden, or the one who couldn't stand the idea of my touch after wrestling? Are any of them real? Or are they just... masks that you wear when it's convenient? Because I don't know. I don't know a single fucking thing about you. Fuck off."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Mirror's claws are clipped short as a matter of practicality. Her daily life sees her working with too much thread, touching too many screens, and most importantly pressing too many buttons in too precise of sequence to give up even the momentary disorientation of a knife point where she doesn't expect one. For her inputs to be anything other than automatic while piloting would be terrible beyond imagination.

It's a cat's choice to trim or to grow, as a matter of course. Fashion trends come and go, as they tend to. But it was rare to see another pair of hands with claws as clipped and blunted as Mirror's, wherever she went. They barely protruded past her fingertips in the first place, and since she favored tapping on hard surfaces over traditional meditative practices they weren't even the slightest bit sharp. No one ever judged her for it, of course. Not to her face. But it was never hard to notice the moment when another Hybrasilian saw them for the first time. The little finger twitch and the sudden burst of calculus that showed in their eyes while they worked out whether or not it was ok to ask if she was sick were very difficult to miss. And when they did, she would inevitably respond 'Oh, yes. Very. Thank you for noticing.' As if the conversation was a favor to her.

But there are... advantages. Beyond the practical. Mirror's fingers are buried deep in Matty's thick hair to play at the base of her ears. She digs them deep and lets them trace circles and other, more intricate patterns on the back of her new partner's head, pressing her claw tips into the skin with gentle intimacy but nevertheless far greater force than a longer, more pointed tip could get away with. Long, soft strokes of her hair end in claws scraping the skin at the base of the neck, and instead of a sharp breath and a squeak or a tiny drop of blood, she is rewarded with the deepest and most full bodied purr.

Matty turns boneless in Mirror's lap. She has to slide her other hand around Matty's butt and hold it firmly to keep her from sliding onto the floor. She listens to the gasp turn into a moan laced through with still deeper purrs, and feels the exact moment when her stubby, blunted claws erase all useful thought from Matty's brain. Just a flicker of the ears, a slight turning of her head, and then it's nothing but the sensation of facial muscles rearranging themselves into a wide smile as they push against the cushion of her breasts. Mirror's own purr is a quiet thing that can normally only be heard in very quiet rooms, but here it's immaterial. She joins this chorus of two, and as a pair they let their happiness seep into one another.

Sometimes, a thing is simply meant to be. Sometimes, a connection forms more quickly than one could ever anticipate. Soft whispers of Good Girl and Sweet Little Willow join the purring as Mirror holds Matty safe and secure in her lap. This one, she thinks, might be worth the risk. This one can be sat down and explained to. They will both of them complete small corners of each others' puzzles, insignificant but essential. If. If, if, if. If she did it right. If she explained herself correctly, if she promised to keep this place on her routes, if she did not become absorbed in the other fragments of her life, if, if, if, if, if. If. If she could just be perfect, forever, then she would be allowed to this. A connection she had no idea she was missing, because it could only define it when it started to fill in.

But for right this moment, she lets herself look past the future and over the top of Matty's head. Trosta watches her with an amusement that reminds her of Solarel only by how much the two of them contrast. Solarel would not find this exchange amusing, or likely even cute. She would become entranced by it, asking ten thousand questions about the ritual and how it could be applied to war. If Mirror's answers resonated with her, she might even take notes. And if she were asked about the question of payment and who she fought for...

"I fight with the blessings of Mother Hybrasil, yes," she says, still stroking Matty's hair and neck, "But this is a secret project. I promised them victory in the end, but the means are mine to achieve. It is not their business how I bind or free myself, and yet they will ask. The cost may be prohibitive, but I will take it onto myself. This is my dream. My burden. I will carry it, and everyone who is part of it, by my own power.

Anything less would only prove me unworthy to be myself. Like your rod. The shape of our work will determine its end result. So I. Will preserve that. Break, bargain, or take what you will. I will not diminish. Does that..."

She trails off, and lets the question flutter away into the air around her.

Breathless Dead

The Plousios is a place of rust and death, but only where it's been swallowed by the sea. It is loud, groaning, echoing, and constantly shuddering with tortured sighs, but it's only noticeable in the places where the ship is emptiest. And it is empty: every hall, every maintenance tunnel, and every single room regardless of function give off a sense of scale too grand for the people here to fill it. Nothing so much as the Prison Planet Tellus and its cramped billions of citizens, but a city more than any vessel nevertheless. A city picked clean of its people and left to float across the stars, shedding pieces of its former grandeur at every place it came to rest.

For hundreds of years, it shrank. And for hundreds of years, it grew. What had been a city filled with gamblers and their dreams so big it took the God of the Dead to see them true fell victim to the machinations of a second god, and the Master of Assassins. It was only natural a garden would grow in its place.

It only took a moment of quiet walking, for once, to see the truth. The revelations of the gods. The inevitability of the Assassins. Bella curls her fingers toward her palm, but stops short of making a fist when here claws bite into her skin. She lifts them up to stare at them with horrified fascination.

This is not Mynx's garden they walk through. The trees are sparse, but the flowers are everywhere. Brilliant bursts of red, purple, yellow, pink, blue, and green greet every flicker of the eye. The walls are faded stucco murals and chipped statuary made whole again by the defiant blossoms. No, not made whole. They've been made into new images, new stories and conquests entirely. Flowers triumphing over steel and the ambition of the Human Empire. Every now and again, a foot crunches down on some opalescent and shimmering gemstone that the mind wonders at until with a start it realizes this is bone. Here were lovers. Here, friends. Here, uneasy companions brought together by desperate circumstances. All of them dead. Betrayed or picked off or the losers of honorable combat, what did it matter? The Temple of Artemis was built around four pillars. Four disciplines that contained inside of them every possible way to commit murder.

And from those murders...

The air is thick with humidity and the smell of pollen. Grass. Nectar. Underneath it, stone and metal, and in the distance the ever present bite of salt.

Bella does not speak. Her footsteps are swallowed by the deafening curtain of this garden of death, that the Plousios could no longer even muster people enough to direct it to some purpose, let alone fight against it. She prowls over leaping blades of grass like the ghost she truly is, a monster and a corpse and a bomb amidst a wellspring of teeming life. Behind her, the heavier footfalls and deeper breathing of Beljani, equally awed but trying much harder not to feel frightened. To her right, Redana walks in equal silence and equal noise. Not awkward. Not brave. Not graceful. Not cruel. Not a princess or the hero who saved her from the Hydra or the treasured friend that betrayed her to a life of endless yearning and chasing. Nothing at all. Just a girl. That's all she's ever been.

Redana's scent carries into several breaths, carrying the kinds of calming notes that make Bella's claws bite deeply into her wrists. Drops of crimson feed the flowers as she passes them without acknowledgment. She tries to look at Redana, but it's like staring into a star. Bella swallows: a noise much too loud for all the effort she's put into keeping silent. She turns her head away, as if to hide everything. Her fingers stretch insistently and push her claws into the air to flick away the blood.

It is not a question of whether or not she should make the crossing. That much is certain. The question how many murders she will need to commit to make certain she is the only person who does so. The Temple is inevitable. Mother is inevitable. The only good that she can do with her useless unlife is seal away the people in her heart on this side of the Rift, to try and make something of the journey on her own.

Because in the Realm of Demeter, she would inflict far crueler and more terrible things to her family than death.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

This conversation, like ice. Held in her mouth. The unexpected shift. The surprised crunch in response. The reflexive swallow. Sharp. Cold. Sliding down the throat. Hitting the stomach. Sudden surge. Creeping chill, like ink in a bowl of water. But then? Ease. Pleasant; the desire to bite down on a new shard and feel it all again.

Stupid. Thinking herself clever enough to say so much and still hide the truth. And this was the truth, pinned as though by a needle, if expressed in culturally biased terms. Certainly Mirror did not view herself as a god. But if the gods of Zaldar were the animating forces of that people's great machine beasts, then... yes. The concept technically applied to her as well. Already in the short time she'd been here Mirror had let multiple secrets be pulled off of her like layer after layer of teasing silks.

And yet... huh. A moment of tension, and then her body relaxes into her seat. Muscles unclench almost all the way into jelly, releasing their secret toxins into her body. The secret lessons of Colony Clans' fashions: exposure would set you free. Function as an expression of form. This is... pleasure? Yes, this is pleasure. The comfort of expression reaching another soul. Nevertheless, admonishment. Successful communication when unintended had consequences. There will still many, many layers she could not afford to have plucked from her. Not here, and not by this craftsperson.

"...I will," she chirps, "Address your comments in order."

Immediately, she drops out of using the hand language to supplement her speech. Her hands are needed for more important things. She pulls her screen back onto her lap and lets her fingers resume their dance. This time the contents of the screen are not for the people in the room. She sends instructions to Slate for inquiries to follow up on. To delegate or take the task herself as she sees fit. An invitation to play with a new toy soon, though not until permission is acquired. She takes a moment to order dinner for the entirety of her crew, to reward them for working so long and so hard with so little direction today.

She switches accounts and starts making inquiries about cultivars of flower. Roses in red, pink, yellow, and white. Hibiscus, noncommittal. And perhaps... ah! Well, this would be expensive. The [Starlight Yearning], the so-called "Chroma Lotus" as humans called them. Ridiculous name. But perfect flower, absolutely tailor made. She'd need petals in #ffd217, #17cfff, and #1790ff and... ah. Ah. Designs are already unfolding in her head. She shoves them aside and turns off the device entirely. She's taken more time than she's realized.

"Your apology is unnecessary. My story is my story: I do not control who tells it or how. You do not control what you hear, and there are precious few sources you may have heard it from. My own people, on down to my family mock me for what happened. I will not say they are wrong to do so. We are speaking together now, you may decide the truth about me as you will. The conclusion you come to will do me greater good than any apology you could offer me today."

Mirror shrugs as she uncrosses her legs. She smooths her fur with her hands and a small smile directed at Matty. A playful, yet tender expression for the flustered sillyhead. This would not last. Could not last, in fact. But that did not make the girl any less beautiful, or the nervous way she claws at her pants any less soothing to Mirror's heart. She was a creature of many needs who needed many hearts to fill them. Every connection, and every kind of connection she could fill was good for her, and if she had the chance to at least leave them fuller than she found them... that was charity enough to make it worth it, surely? That was enough... to make her something other than slime.

"Your assistant," she begins sharply but with a lick of her lips, "Does not interest me in any professional capacity. I have explained this. I am... my crew is perfect. No addition, no subtraction. I told Slate I would never replace her, and under no circumstances will I break that promise. What I was referring to was. Well, Matty? Come here, little ripple. Be a good girl for me and show your boss what it is you're so excited about. There's a sweetling, come along~"

The curl of her lips is suggestive. The curl of her finger, even more so. When she pats her lap in sweet condescension she crosses from simple suggestion into demand. And promise. Come be safe. Come be loved. Come let yourself be adored, and taken to a place beyond caring who sees it happen. She pats her lap again, full of encouragement, and sets fire to the bomb.

[Mirror will immediately spend her String to compel Matty to come snuggle into her lap and accept pets while the shop talk continues, like a good kitten should]

"To the last," Her voice and face are stony and serious now, regardless of what other behaviors she might presently be engaged in, "I am... surprised. By your guess."

That's an understatement. Even now her spine tingles from the shock. Her tail tip curls and flicks unconsciously above her head.

"I will not call myself a god. I am not of my peoples' faith, not exactly, but the. Context. Of the wording. The claim. Disrespectful to people I care about very much. So I will not do it. But in the way that you mean it... hrm. Here is what I will say. The name of my armor is the Gods-Smiting Whip. And there is no one, anywhere in the galaxy, that can fight inside it but me. Fewer than one in ten could even compel its arm to move. And even if by some miracle you found someone enough like me to make my [Nine-Tails] stir... they could never, ever, dance the way that I do. The chains must be built to fit the armor. But I assure you, they are for me. My hands, my mind, my heart. Me.

If that still seems an honor to you, then cost is of no concern to me. I will move what I must to make it happen. I'll devote as much of my time as I can spare, and my Slate's when I cannot spare any. And of course, I want little Matty to take her work seriously. In fact, I'm excited to see her connect with roots she wasn't aware of. Don't work her so hard she hurts herself and we'll be fine. Is all of this acceptable?"

Breathless Dead

Overwhelming. The aroma: the acrid stench wafting through the air and choking her like a malevolent cloud. The bitter tang of iron building in her nose. The antiseptic sting of combat drugs swirled into sweet, honeyed toxins and salty pheromones. Like being trapped inside a bakery built into a hospital morgue. The pressure building behind her eyes as blood vessels restrict instinctively at the at the sight of the ruby red shower, gemstones falling like rain and... blood. So much blood. Mynx's... Mynx's blood. In the air. On the floor. In her -- ghk!!

She is incapable of tolerating it. She is programmed especially to get sick at the sight and smell of it; a last minute safety added to her suite to keep the ultraviolent tendencies suppressed. They'd told her, of course, it was a vaccination. So she wouldn't get the Princess sick with her Kennel filth. And she'd never questioned it, and even now she doesn't question it. Bella simply breaths, tilts, and drops to one knee as heavy as a stone. It is far, far worse when the smell belongs to someone she's so familiar with.

"Hfff, hsssst, M-M... Myn-- d-don't you... get. G-get back hhhfffffffft!"

Speaking through it is a mistake. Her body contracts violently, and the welling headache tips completely over into nausea. She feels it rising in her throat and automatically covers her mouth with her hand, to keep from making a scene in front of Redana. And the smell grows stronger. Her hand. Her claws. Covered in sweet, shimmering red poison.

Her retching is too violent to contain. The air fills with the sounds of Bella gagging, coughing, sputtering, stubbornly trying to pull air through her nose while her hand stays planted over her mouth to keep more than a glistening trickle of drool from escaping to the floor. Her entire body is convulsing with seizure pains and hideous choking. Her throat is filled with dying animal snarls as she falls from one knee to both, and from her knees to needing her hands to keep from dropping to the floor completely. She hunches and shivers as she spills her shame out onto the floor beneath her, and trembles until the air clears enough for her to get her first whiffs of clean air.

Slowly, her body calms. Her breathing slows, but then it hitches. No, no, no, damn it, no! But whether she wills it or no, the tears sweep in to fill the growing calm.

"Damn it. Damn it!" she hisses, and weakly pounds her fist into the floor.

The girl called Bella unravels. Her claws feel unnaturally, sickeningly pleasant at the ends of her fingertips, tingling with the sweet, soft itch that faintly calls to mind the sensation of a name going cool and silent against her skin. No, her armor. That isn't her. That isn't her. She sobs openly, without any thought or care for how it makes her look. Her wails pierce through the broken remnants of the party and coax sad sighs from the forest. She grieves.

"You, you!" Bella is interrupted by a hiccough that almost sends her spiraling back into the world of sickness, "Fucking idiot! What's gonna, nnnrgh! Gods! You... you! How can you? Just, just..."

She breaks down into a fresh wave of tears that are stronger than any words. Pitiful sniffles and wet vocalizations drip out of her like a summer storm across a plain. A hand touches her shoulder, but she curls into herself and away from it. No. No. Leave her alone. Fucking... leave her alone. Don't you get it?

What else could they be? What else could the Lethe possibly leave left of them both but murderers and monsters?

Breathless Dead

She should be stronger. Faster. More ruthless. She should be everything Mynx is accusing her of being, and everything she feared that she was. But in this moment she is pinned. All that power won't come to her; muscles strain and her body thrashes, but it's not enough to even move Mynx. Her fire has gone cold. Her ELF flickers out. Their lips come this close to touching, and all her strength is good for is wrenching her head away instead of closing the distance.

That's how it always was. In the lonely dark, in the heat, just the two of them. Clinging to each other, listening to the sounds of their breathing mix. Mynx's, slow and shuddering. Bella's, short and sharp. Their hands would find each other's, wrapped behind their backs. It was as difficult to move back then as it is right now. And then she, and Mynx would close her eyes like an idiot and inch her face closer... only to flinch. Only to let go suddenly, and draw back the entire space of the bed with her scales constantly rippling in complete embarrassment.

"Do... do you want me to..?" she asked, already shifting her form to be smaller, more muscular, covered in smooth skin.

"No. Don't you dare. Put on her face and I'll kill you."

"But why? She's the one you want. Just because she's not here doesn't mean you can't have h--"

"I SAID! I... said no. She's not here. You're here. I don't want you to be anyone else."

It was on Bella to cross the distance again, to prove her words meant anything with her lips, and her teeth, and the fingers where no claws grew. That was how it was. She'd never forget...

Well. Apparently she would. Before long it would be failure or erasure. No other options. Bella's stomach twists in knots as she strains and thrashes against the captor still pinning her to the floor, but none of it does her any good. She's still stick, still mute, still snarling and frustrated when any decent person would be understanding and sympathetic in the face of those scars.

"Mynx, you are... such a liar."

Her accusation explodes in a storm of feathers. Her tongue sits heavy in her mouth, her breath sticks in her lungs, her eyes blink stupidly. Stunned. And then suddenly the weight is lifting off of her. Suddenly she is free. Suddenly she lifts her neck and there's no threat of a final kiss anymore because Mynx has turned toward Redana and shifted her weight away from Bella.

But her eyes are only on that scar. That pale patch of pinkish scales among the red where they've had to rapidly regrow; the thing that probably pushed her into this latest transformation. That's where her claws dug in. Where she buried her arm up to the elbow in her sister, and never knew that it was her until it was too late. Which is why she recognizes the posture: Mynx is rearing her hand back to put claws into the distraction. Because she too does not recognize her target. She doesn't have a name to guide her. Redana is about to die, and the stain on both of them will run so deep not even the Lethe could wash it out.

Her entire being is a scream. Her legs are lightning, and she plants them in Mynx's stomach with desperate forces that launches her a full dozen meters into the sky. Bella is on her feet faster than thinking, surrounded in a burning halo of ELF light. Her tail thrashes behind her with the fury of a dragon's, and in that single gesture she takes to the air and meets her target halfway to the ground again.

They speak in combat. Heavy elbows against enlongated, whiplike arms with claws wicked enough to give XIII pause. Crushing knees meeting bones suddenly solid enough to pierce a star ship, and a dozen dozen heavy bruises appearing on both bodies where they meet. I hate you, I hate you, I love you. You rejected me. You lied to me. You told me I was special. You told me I mattered. You lied. You lied.

You lied to yourself. The entire fucking time. And now you. And now you! And now you're killing Redana!

Two bodies crash into the ground together, their positions flipped. Bella is stronger. Faster. More ruthless. She is as unstoppable as Mynx threatened she would be. Her body is softened, slowly turning blackish blue underneath thin trickles of red, but it's nothing compared to Mynx. She howls in fury. She howls in victory. She lifts her arm back for the final strike, the one that will render Mynx unconscious and give Bella a chance to put her words in order. She'd fix it. She'd fix this. She'd say the last and most important 'sorry', and nothing would get in the way.

But the blow never comes. Bella's eye blinks shut to block a sudden drip of blood. She glances up, only for a moment, to see where it came from.

Her claws are dripping red.

Her.

Five.

Claws.

Bella's eye opens wide, iris shrinking to a slit in equal parts surprise and terror. Her body freezes, first in place and then in temperature. She no longer breathes. Heart no longer beats. Her every nerve is a frazzled, frigid mess of pure static. The sense of power is welling in her core, ready to explode into violence.

She disappears from on top of Mynx, reappearing several steps away on her feet in the same instant. Her wrist is gripped tight in her other hand, which digs her other pair of fresh claws into her own skin and muscles. Her posture is hunched, back arched, tail bristling in terror. And only now does she see, feel, smell how much damage she was really doing.

"...Mynx. I--"

Huntresses of Hybrasil

"But at any rate, it is possible?"

Mirror repeats the question in the sign language she picked up from Solarel. She is all at once much too fast and much too slow: her hands move with the absurd speed and precision necessary to pilot the Gods-Smiting Whip with the skill that she does, but she lingers on each word for too long and 'rewrites' several of them multiple times before moving onto the next, even though they wind up exactly the same each time she does it. But even accounting for her peculiarities, the act of moving the question to a different language changes the meaning of what she's trying to say.

<You agree, then, that many things are possible.>

The riddle of the Mirror is, is this a mistake? Has she fallen victim to bad dialectic decisions, or is she making a deliberately dense inquiry? Or is she even asking a question in the first place? Maybe she's hiding something, instead.

In any event, she frowns as she sits. Her hands briefly fold on top of her knee as she crosses her legs, but when she immediately uncrosses and flips them she switches to stretching her arms behind her head as she leans into the seat. Her stub-clawed fingers play idly with her cascading snowy hair as her whiskers twitch in thought.

"...What would it take for me to adopt your assistant?" she asks, "I have honestly felt minimal desire to ever have a kitten, but she feels like she would make excellent practice. My Slate would have a field day with her."

Liquid eyes flick over to catch the reaction. Or maybe reactions? Matty's expressions are a rapid and many-tiered thing, which is a delicious and welcome tension break in an otherwise very cluttered day. Mirror licks her lips, and allows herself a moment to hope that Matty is imagining it. She would like to know what it looks like when that face combusts.

"Not trying to poach her, to be clear. Despicable behavior. My interest in her is strictly that she is adorable. Though I suppose, since you must already know that, you might consider that a form of poaching anyway?"

Mirror's hands continue to worry at the back of her hair, and across her neck. She rolls her shoulders, straightens and curls her spine, and lets her tail flop back and forth between the armrests of the chair. She makes no effort, in short, to hide her own discomfort with the direction of the conversation.

The directness of the consultation, and the speed with which it closed. The burden shifted back onto her with the mystery left entirely intact. The implication that she had Masters who could be charged in her stead. Which was of course a moment of cultural expectation, but the thought digs into her brain like an icicle fallen from a roof. To wonder why she would have said it in the first place, and to feel ashamed for spending any amount of time not getting it. To feel angry with herself that there was still so much that needed learning in spite of all her advantages and her life, and to feel resentment that she should be the one who needs to feel inadequate.

In short, to feel defeated by Solarel all over again. Mirror sits up in her chair, and leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees, her chin on her freshly folded hands. Eyes cast down toward the floor.

"I'm uninterested in armor. I have no use for it right now. I had armor, and it was pried open as simply as a shellfish. My ugliness is bared, and I will not cover it again. Do you not know who I am, even looking at me this close?"

She sighs.

"Naturally, you don't. She is the famous one; I am a name on a list of conquests. I am Mirror, the whispered promise. The One-Day Defender. I fought Solarel in her Aeteline for a full solar cycle. And then I lost, and disappeared from history for the duration of the war. My story is someone who sits and watches. Little difference if it happened staring at the stars from the port of a research station or tied up inside a war tent. The fish tastes nearly the same in both places."

Mirror plucks her tablet up and lets her fingers dance across the screen, for a moment treating it like she would the Nine-Tails. She rapidly closes her mail, calls up several data files only to close them all again, reopening and rearranging until the information is laid out in a way that would be impossible to misunderstand.

When she flips it around, what she's showing are the schematics to the Gods-Smiting Whip. Not its public specs, but its true self. Its beating heart, with only the cockpit data excepted. Even that is a kind of sharing, isn't it? There are detailed glyphs explaining the nature of her crystal fire drive and the conduits she designed herself and built with only help and resources procured by her own close-knit engineering team.

The Nine Drive System: an energy transfer device that operates on the principle of alternating current, pushing power from one output device to the next and even drawing latent, leaked energy signals into itself from competing systems in the atmosphere itself. In short, a beast that devours its prey and becomes stronger with every passing battle. In short, a family of smaller figures working in concert to take down the largest foes imaginable. In short, a weapon. One that only she, only Mirror, could operate. The system is stupendously complex and fiendishly intricate, the sort of thing it would take hours of intense study to really understand. Certainly more than the handful of seconds Mirror lets it be seen.

But for someone like Trosta, it surely says enough. Ancient concepts, expressed in novel ways. Uniquely Hybrasilian ideas, blending ideology from the Hunter and the Fisher lodges, bound together in response to her exposure to the Gods of Zaldar, both the tiny and the huge. Here, she would see, was an effort by the ugly stray to transform her body into something godlike and glorious, to rise up and over the bar she'd fallen short of.

And now she was seeking to alter it again.

"I will say it again. Armor has no interest for me. For protection, I have plenty. What I lack, what was revealed to me... is restriction. I need a system that will bind and baffle my hands, and occupy my mind. I need a system that will reduce my sum capacity so that I can overcome it and develop new techniques. Like She did. I need a system that will reward me for testing myself against it even as it seals away my old tricks.

In short, Miss Trosta, and her darling little helper... I am interested in chains."

Breathless Dead

There's electricity caught in the back of her neck. There's fire racing down her arms to settle in her fingertips. There's a hurricane thrashing about her chest. Her vision is specked with silver. This is it. This is it. The thought pounds inside her skull with the relentless pressure of war drums.

The Hunt is back on.

Bella's body is as fluid as the river she watched on Salib, and as firm and unyielding as the walls of the Yakanov. She does not glide or sway behind Redana; she prowls. Liquid motion gives way to planted feet and muscle tension worthy of a mountain that crushes the floor beneath her. There's electricity caught in the back of her neck. There's fire burning in her fingertips. Sparks are bursting all along her back, and she has to fight not to let them explode into burning wings.

Not yet. Not yet. Silver specks are building into a line, but they are still disjointed. Her nose closes off scent after scent, narrowing the possibilities down to a manageable space. She knows what she's looking for this time. Not the faint whiff of perfumes and chemicals trying to cover over that pheromone tell, that won't ever fool her again. She is sniffing for Mynx's true scent, which is to say Redana's scent. Perfected. The real Redana is sweaty and nervous and coated in wolf musk. Mynx will be a better, purer version of the smell underneath all of that. Anything less would fail to live up to Mynx's idea of the princess. It would be a failure on her part. She can fake a flaw on purpose, but not one that implies a failing of Dany's. That's her true tell. Bella will never mistake it again, if she can simply find it.

The waiting is unbearable. Her palms itch, and demand to be flexed. Her claws stretch ominously, promising death. The silver path is winding around Redana's silly dancing girl persona, tighter and tighter and tighter. Soon, the moment would come. The moment to pounce. Mynx would lower her guard to attack. She'd go after Redana first, confident she's a step ahead of Bella. She'd only need a tiny nick, and this whole fucking thing would become pointless. It would end in death. And maybe... maybe the pair of them were still very much alike after all.

Well fuck her. No. If that path ended in failure for her every time she took it, Mynx wasn't going to manage it either. No. If Bella has to keep living, so does Mynx. It's in the middle of that thought she almost misses it. The pair of princesses are dancing. The push and pull, the give and take, the inevitable defeat. The pressure in her spine is unbearable. Wait, it says. Wait. And while she's coiling tight enough to make her own strike, Mynx moves in for the kill.

And misses. Something stops her, and in that moment of hesitation Bella closes the gap and sends Mynx sprawling across the hall. She is not gentle. The move will daze, and it leaves her in the open where escape is not an easy option. Her eye has been calculating the angle on this strike the entire time she's been prowling.

"Mynx..."

Yes? Mynx what? What is she supposed to say? It's time to stop? You don't need to do this? I'm here for you? No it isn't. Yes, she does. No, she's not. And if she was, then she's shown more than enough times that it's a bad thing for Bella to be there for anybody. There's no way to finish her sentence. No way to even start it. The only thought worth expressing is the one she doesn't dare try.

Why? Why didn't you tell me? Why, for all that time, did you let me think I was different from you? Why did you lie?

Bella's mouth closes without a sound. She turns away from her prey, though she bends both ears back to track things anyway. There's something more important right now. Something she can say, because she doesn't have to say it to just one person. Her hand clasps around Redana's wrist, and she lifts the princess to her feet as easily as if she were lifting a child.

There's a pause. Another moment of hesitation that almost costs her everything. Bella's voice is raw, when she finally speaks.

"I need you."

She turns. Her ELF flares across her back, scorching her dress but expanding no further than a meter or so to either side of her. Controlled violence. Measured aggression. In a flash, she vanishes. She crosses the space between herself and Mynx without touching the surrounding air, and puts her fist through the floor not even a breath after a shaky Mynx has risen to her feet. Bella snarls, and both eyes gleam with menace.

You're gonna fight, Mynx. The gods damn you, you're gonna fight and get this shit out of your system. That's what Bella can offer you. If there's one thing she's learned, it's that peace only comes after defeat.

[Keep Them Busy: 4, 2, +2 = 8. At the end of this sequence, the fight will turn against Bella]

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Hmph. Irritating, the degree to which people never think through the ramifications of a thing. Order after order after order, no specifications to speak of. Ridiculous. Absurd. Did no one realize the cost of an endeavor like this? Clearly not.

To be certain nobody who saw her show, saw Mayze's show, and understood would know how to ask for a dress that was made just for them. They weren't meant to, even having a flower in mind was silly, unnecessary, extra information from people more worried about seeming connected than they were with getting the piece that actually fit them. Certainly, little sillyheads, you may have precisely the petals you were dreaming of. Bravo to you for thinking you know what those are. You might even be right! But that's not at issue, here.

While asking her what flowers you wanted your dresses grown from, did it occur to a single one of you that these dresses would, in fact, be grown from flowers? To spec?? Was she unclear about the way this process worked? And despite this, not a single prospective client shared their measurements and dimensions. Fools, what made you think that listed dress size was enough? This is not a factory. Every mannequin needed to be built in exact replica of the client. Now she'd need to reverse engineer it from publicly available photos! Idiots!

...As soon as she finishes reading it, she deletes the Chrysanthemum mail. No actionable information. Ok, you're mysterious, so what? Goodbye, see you again later. Next time bring a degree of trackable mystery and you might actually get her attention. As things stand there's too many other puzzles to solve and this is too likely to fizzle into something useless. Pass. Next was Charon. Flowers for the underworld, is it? Difficult to know where to begin with that. Maybe she could... no, getting ahead of things here. This isn't the place to get wrapped up in design work. Play later, Mira. Mayze Szerpaws has no place in a forge.

Maelia Dala, though. Well that was a mystery worth exploring. If only for stress relief. Best to respond after a delay with clarifying questioning, tease out the details of the person behind the order. If this was some flustered assistant assuming the big name designer would only work with names she recognized... well. Again, the dress must be made to a person's exact body shape, or there'd be no point to making it at all. And if it was the great scientist after all? That would be its own sort of fun. Perhaps it would behoove her to assume this was straightforward after all? It would let her get to the design process faster, and... mm. Mm. More distractions. Flag it, put it aside.

Which left Adriana Teresio. Grand Queen of the human world. This one at least was easy to understand. She'd watched the show seen Mayze's work, and like everyone else cut straight past her attempts at expression and jumped to the big showstopper piece. Fair enough. But this one goes a step farther. Strict directions, but unlimited sanction. To 'avoid restricting the designer's creativity', that would be the public reasoning. Stupid. Anyone could see what this really was: a challenge. A slap in the face. This woman was daring her to be bold beyond any of her previous designs. Adriana Teresio thought she was a woman without flaws to highlight. You will learn, Human Queen. You will learn. She was serious when she offered to overthrow the Zaldarian Empire for Solarel, do not think yourself safer. Hmph.

It's a lot to think about, all at once. So it surprises her when she stops tuning out the pounding of the hammer and is greeted with a Hybrasilian face. Mattara... Swimmer, is it? Eight Cigni? Oh, how curious! A hybrid!

"A Worlder, working this far out? Fascinating. Truly. Mira Fisher, Whispered Promise. I am... not a customer. Not looking to buy. I don't want your services. My team is adequate. I will wait, if I must. Oh, to clarify: I seek information. Expertise, if you don't mind. My [Partner] was sabotaged recently, while my hangar was staffed. Allegedly. I simply want to understand how this is possible."

The look of disappointment on Matty's face hits like a knife in Mirror's neck. Tch. Hffff. Shocking. Irritating. She's so overwhelmed by the aura suddenly hitting her in the face that she almost hands back the ginger beer without comment. She also almost reaches into her pockets for some way to pay for it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop making that face. You knew what you were doing when you came out here to work, what made you think you'd see another cat looking to let you tinker with her life's work? You could not have recognized her, could you Matty? Or you would triply never have dared to..!

She blinks. Her eyes wander across the expansive hall, as they might have on their own. But this time, it's a retreat from that face. What she sees pulls her breath from her. She takes a loud sip of the ginger beer before she realizes what she's doing. Cold, mostly bitter, but a little bit pleasantly tingling and sweet. Not sweet like Slate's drink was, just barely enough to stimulate. And relax. Ahhhh. Home is so very, very far away. Isn't it?

What a. Fascinating place. The workings of nanobots are inscrutable. Bleeding edge tech to use them so specifically, if she understands Zaldar even a little bit. And she flatters herself to think she does. But the hammer blows ring in her ears, making them flinch and flatten, making her heart pound faster and faster to keep up with the rhythm. Archaic techniques guiding modern advancements. Here as well. Here... as well.

Is that what makes her pulse constrict so much it hurts? Is that what makes the guilt crawl over here like ten thousand prickling needles? Is that what makes her finish her drink so recklessly fast? Is it why she almost hands the glass back as if to dare to ask for another one? Is that why? Is that? What face is she making? Why is Matty looking back at her?

Mirror swallows. Her face feels hot. She wipes it with the back of her wrist. She leans closer, gestures for Matty to lean in with her. And she surprises herself when she starts to whisper:

"I do, actually. Have work I need done. There are parts I cannot produce myself. Outside consultation to finalize the design. I simply... it was not a lie. My [Partner], the Gods-Smiting Whip, was tampered with this morning. I do not know why or how. You see my issue, yes? Can I. Can I count on you? To be discrete?"

Hrn. Stupid, why did she say that? The only expansions worth making would require, to some extent, explaining the secrets of the Nine Drive System to a stranger. But now that face was lighting up. Coming to life! So earnest, serious, and guilelessly giddy. Damn it all, there was no backing out.

Mirror's tail curls behind her with apparent pleasure. She frowns and flicks it from side to side to calm the feeling welling up inside her. She cannot help that it looks just like wagging.