Phoe

Breathless Dead

Bella waits alone. The stillness of the air has a physical presence; she can hear it whenever she moves. Only the rustle of her dress, only the breath in her lungs, only the clack of her shoes, only the steady clunk of glasses being set on tables keep her company. Each one is swallowed up by the vastness of the observation deck, now bathed only in pink light so bright and gaudy it turns even her raven-black hair to a strange shade of purple.

She shrugs it all off. Her senses feel muddled in this place. The rush of feet and the crying of a hundred voices are all around her and a kilometer away at the same time. She can't let it bother her. Unlike everyone else on the Plousios, she still has a job to do. One hundred forty one, one hundred forty two, one hundred forty three... she drowns out the distractions. She dares to cleave the air with her presence. She ignores the way the Rift is upsetting her sense of colors, only blinking as she moves until her Auspex adjusts the room for her.

Practice makes perfect. One hundred forty eight, one hundred forty nine. The last glass is still in her hand when the awkward tripod-clunking sprint she's been hearing for the last fifteen minutes finally enters the room instead of merely echoing through the hallways into her skull. She glances up from her work to see the scarred and wizened badger face of Iskarot, the Hermetic magus that (she was told) was in charge of keeping this ship operational. Her first new companion.

"...Fuck." she observes, without a shred of shame or tact.

Suddenly she is vaulting over her carefully arranged tables. She is a meteor, tearing through the air with palpable heat and the promise of absolute death when she lands. She crashes to the ground and the impact rattles the entire ship down to its bones. Elsewhere, the Tides are briefly shaken from their meditation. Bella towers over the magus, and shadows darken her face. In the pink light her claws shine like diamonds with every slightest twitch of her fingers. A single animistic snarl passes for a warning.

She sighs, and reaches for the bottle. She pours too hastily to quite capture the bouquet the way that she knew brought out the best in this vintage. But there's nothing for it: she's out of time.

"You took a shortcut, you asshole. I was supposed to have three more minutes to get this set up."

Well, she's good and on the clock now. She hands the glass over and promptly dives back into her work, pouring swiftly and carefully now. She rotates between each hand, one pouring from a height of one meter while the other grabs the previous glass and swirls it three times, counterclockwise, for the exact correct presentation. This is a momentous occasion. She thought about it for hours, and hours after that. And in the end, this was all she could think of to share it with everyone.

The Lanterns had held onto all of her treasures, even through the brief reign of Sagakhan. And when they had decided to depart with their ship, they left behind more than just their champions. Bella had accrued an extremely impressive and fantastically heavy collection of wine, and with goodbye finally on their lips at last they saw no value in preserving it. Three times, Bella turned them down. 'Leave it for Hades if you hate it that much,' she'd told them. On the fourth negotiation they'd simply skipped over her and brought it aboard while she was busy with Redana.

But thank the gods for the stubbornness of mice. Now she had more than enough stock to do... anything she wanted, really, for the entire crossing and possibly years beyond that if she made it that far. In its haste to appease her the Yakanov had buried her in gifts, but it was the last of her plunder from Baradissar she was using here. Too many hermetics on board, it felt weird gifting them their own creations. And besides, Molech had no business crossing this scar he'd made except in everyone's stomachs. His legacy would die at last, one final murder before she gives up the trade forever.

More people pour in. In clumps, in pairs, all alone they come. Many catch Bella in the act of serving, and each of these gets an increasingly frustrated and nastier swear directed across the room. But none of them had gotten the jump on her the way that Iskarot had. All of them have a glass, at least, waiting for them. If not for everyone.

Now the hall is filled with laughter. Now it is filled with warmth and drink and even food that mixes into a delicate cocktail of smells that lights the room ablaze like the merriest of fires. Epistia holds the mysterious sword and everywhere she passes there is calm in her wake. Beljani's tail is wagging with absolute delight, and Scribe stretches its glyph-filled wings on her shoulder. Mynx enters, and immediately takes her place by Bella's side and refuses to leave. Beautiful flits about the room with a dreamy expression on her face and a fedora tilted halfway off her head, grilling and interrogating everyone she corners for the sheer thrill of forgetting it all again as soon as she can.

Jil is sipping juice, the only one on the deck gifted something different though she is none the wiser for it. All around her the champions of the Lanterns rattle about with a sense of puffed up importance. There are dozens of people here she cannot name, and she hands them each a glass just the same. Dolce has done no cooking, and will do no serving. Not this time, you little punk. Here at the end, we feast. We party. Leave the work to the one who planned it. Go ahead and take notes: despite her furious efforts she has not surpassed you, but in a dish or two she's gotten unnervingly close. Bella guffaws at the sour look that Vasilia wears on her face, and passes her by without a care or concern for what might happen.

But everywhere she goes, the scent she notices first is Redana. Redana, Redana, Redana. Here at the end. Here at the beginning. Here. With her. Bella raises the one hundred and fiftieth glass to the sky, and a room full of Imperial vintage and majesty does the same. In this moment all eyes are on her. In this moment faces that have seen the worst of her look upon her with smiles, and some even with admiration. In this moment, the regalia resting in her hair shines with the glory of the stars.

And this? This is a place of honor.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Through an endless plain of thick grass stretching to the heavens even as it dances for their pleasure, a river flows. Boundless, wide, and yawning; the shores so far apart they seem almost like a lake. The currents swift and sure even as they are full of deception. They betray nothing about their rapids by anything so crass as the breaking of the waters. The river bubbles with the melody of a goddess, it has no need to roar to show its power.

In the dark, lips meet. They press together, gentle. Forceful. Hungry. Guided. A white flash of sharp teeth brought to heel by the delicate ministrations of a soft pink tongue. Eyes, squeezed shut tight against the world. Together. A pair of hands guides two lovers together. There is no need for them to see.

At the end of the river, a dam. Pouring through the dam, a waterfall. Only in restraint is the true power of the river possible to understand. Hidden depths become roaring froth tumbling endlessly down, down, down, down where they splash into the bottom of a crater and pool to form a lake. Bluest of blues, glittering and pristine. The angry churning rolls away into gentler tides and from there, into perfect, serene stillness. Fish wriggle about in the shallows. Their scales glisten in the sun.

Hands clasp, fingers entwine in those same shallows. They tense. The implication of an arching of a back, the lapping of the waters meets lapping of a different sort. Cool and hot, tender and passionate, powerful yet weak, helpless and desperate. Tails splash and make little ripples in the lake, and fish dart close to see what is to be found at the source of all that motion.

A crack in the dam. The river cares not.

Hand snatches at the water. Seizes fish. Ripping, tearing, gnawing hunger. Teeth. Teeth. Teeth. Teeth. Teeth against the stomach of a shivering woman. Teeth that nourish. Teeth that destroy. Teeth that satiate. Every kind of hunger. Every kind. Intimate. Close. Insistent. And. In. The. End. Soft. Soft. Soft. Warm and sharp. And soft.

Crack widens. Stone crumbles. Steel snaps. Chunks of construction (obstruction) tumble down with the water. Splash. Splash. Giant plumes of water kick up where they strike. The river races on, unabated. Wrath unleashed at last. No change in perceivable current, until suddenly all is waterfall.

Flood. Surge. The grasslands are swallowed up by the ravenous waters. Nothing remains. Pounding. Pounding. Pouring. Pulling. Pushing. Tugging. Filling. Roaring. Sighing. Moaning. Singing.

Power. Power. Power. Power. Power. Power. Power. Power. Power.
Desire. Desire. Desire. Desire. Desire. Desire. Desire. Desire. Desire.
Lust. Lust. Lust. Lust. Lust. Lust. Lust. Lust. Lust.
Control. Control. Control. Control. Control. Control. Control. Control. Control.

Images and emotions flow like water, down the connection of the synthweave to pile haphazardly into Smokeless Jade Fires. They do not all fit into Mirror anymore, they cannot be contained. But the goddess is no more fit to stem the tide than her mercenary pilot, and the stream continues downhill through her into Dolly as well.

These three, now connected with a single goddess as a conduit and the Whispered Promise as a source. She is no longer whispering. Her fingers are pressed deep into Jade's hair, those clipped claws held firmly against her skull. When she squeezes it is pressure, and then a release that leaves the entire body feeling limp and weak and soothed.

"You. Will. Not. Move. Patience. Obedience. You shall. Have your. Prize."

Mirror's voice is husky and a little bit breathy as she chirps out her orders. She punctuates it all with soft, fluttering, only the barest levels of squeezing strokes of Jade's neck. She is unleashed. She does not hold back. But she is also tender in a way that invites trust. These are hands that were meant for holding things. They can carry so much. They promise pleasure, without any thought for the cost to themselves.

And with a final dramatic flutter of her dress, she slips free from the confines of the temple and her simulated control panel, and dives back into the cool kiss of the physical world. Mirror breathes deep, and shivers at the release. It has been. A very, very long time. Since she tasted the air of a station like this. The memories of it surge freshly down the chain, and pull an amused frown across her face. She should not share herself like this so much.

She does not care.

There are no pirates to fight her way through to reach her destination, so it does not take her long. She greets compliments with a crack of her tail and threats with a slash of her crackling, now barely-contained control spike. She wields it like a dagger, flipped around so that the 'blade' guards her curved wrist. The promise of a claw. A much sharper one than Hybrasilians can grow for themselves. More than a knife, less than a sword. But barely.

And perhaps, not at all?

She steps smoothly through the door into Valynia's chambers, though she doesn't know them by that name. The Red Band is known to her, but the specifics of their command are a distant concern. No reason to assume the involvement (or control) of any particular member. She is here with purpose. In this particular moment, losing is impossible. Defeat would mean a failure to fulfil the terms of her contract, which in turn would mean a denial of payment. Unacceptable, and therefore unthinkable. She would simply overcome whatever she must for as long as she must to come through.

Her Fisher's dress is alive with the motion of her body. Her watery eyes flicker around the room, from the paperwork to the pirate still quite calmly working at it, to the bound and squirming priestess trying to free herself via the innovative technique of burning so hot and flustered that she ignites her bonds and collapses into a trembling, emancipated heap on the ground.

There is so much paper in here. Pirates, tch. Mirror sniffs.

She does not speak. Merely watches quietly for a moment before carving an elaborate glyph into the floor in front of her. The spiraling symbol loops in on itself so that the pieces do not form a concept, but a poem. And yet, contained within a single word. Whoever wrote the signal for this place, they inspired her.

A spear thrown at the heavens may only strike the earth. A thief may challenge the stars as a fish challenges a waterfall. Triumph is temporary. The cost is swift and steep. But through a waterfall, a daring hand may pluck a full thousand shards of sunlight in the manner of flower petals. What, then, is most beautiful?

Mirror's stance is neutral, implying no expectation of combat or need to hurry. But she brandishes her weapon with a flourish, and she waits.

[Mirror is at Feelings 4. She lets the mask fall, and gives Jade, Dolly, and Valynia all a string, taking one from each in turn]

Breathless Dead

There has been... time. Time enough for many things. Time enough for everything. There are the conversations with Redana: the kind from when they were children on Tellus, the kind she pined for since forever, and the kind that don't need any words from start to finish. There are the arguments among those staying: the awkward accusations of the mistrustful, the bold sacrifices of the desperate, and the long apologies to those champions of the Lanterns that honored her by giving her their everything. All of this, and more.

And when it all had passed, still they had not reached the point of crossing. The Rift choked the entire ship in clouds of choking, foul cigarette smoke, it dominated every dream of every soul on every night, and if one were to flit outside the ship (in a Plover or otherwise) it would dominate the horizon with its ghastly pink light until it became clear at last that the awful wound had in fact swallowed the entire galaxy and all the stars inside it. There was nothing else. Only this. The Tunguska behind them, but only just. It's treasures all exhausted or kept covetously behind. Bella had not said goodbye to any of it. Nor to anyone who had decided to part from the journey at this last possible resting point. All of it gone. All of them gone.

And still, they had not crossed. Boarded. Departed. Committed. But not crossed. Could anything possibly be worse than this interminable space between the decision to act and the consequences? There is nothing left except the waiting. Aboard this mostly empty, once glorious ship. It is an... uncomfortably familiar feeling. This time there is no Prion Paula to keep her company and soothe away the itch when meditation floods her mind with memories instead of calm. Her entire life seems determined to pound its way through her skull before it's stolen away from her forever. It feels just the same as a hangover.

At least the Tunguska had given her time to assemble a new wardrobe. And with the wardrobe and the sudden emptying of the ship had come the justification for having her own quarters, not that she made particular use of it. But it was, at last, a space to retreat to when she needed it. And she would need it soon and often, she had zero doubt. The idea felt carved into her bones. The impulse grew stronger every day.

But today she manages to ignore it. Thank the gods. She prowls the mazelike hallways of the Plousios, bending her ears every which way and stopping at every junction to sniff the air before committing to a direction. Smoke. Smoke. Smoke. Smoke. But something else, very faint, at the end of a very long trail.

"...Mynx."

She finds her in an old workshop, staring at the shadows covering a thousand saws and plasma cutters and hammers and other assorted tools that once upon a time in a kinder world had kept this ship in perfect shape as a glittering work of art. Like the Argo a thousand thousand lifetimes before it, the Plosious had all the seeming of a ship that must have been the sort of vessel that shone with the pride of the heroic voyages it was used for. Not the pinnacle of civilization, Bella had seen what happened to those, but a place where legends gathered to do great things.

And look at it now. Look at them now. These broken, useless sisters.

"Mynx." she says it again, without the growl in her voice this time.

"Mm?"

"I've been, uh, looking for you."

"Well, good job."

"I wanted to... talk."

That got no answer. Bella's leg takes an automatic step in retreat, but she grinds her heel into the floor. The snarl builds, but does not crest. She's able to turn it into a clearing of her throat before it's too late.

"Well, I mean. You haven't exactly been making it easy to find you, lately."

"Well Bella I really can't imagine why that would be."

"But you kept it."

"Huh? Kept what?"

"Your smell. The one you told me was a trick. You're still... using it."

Mynx's scales ripple across her entire body. She turns, and opens her mouth with the kind of expression that suggests she had a very nasty thought on her tongue, but she says nothing. And she does turn.

"I know ok?" says Bella, "I know. It sucks being out here."

"Bella do you seriously still want to go back to Tellus? I thought after all the princess fucking you've been doing that you might finally loosen up! I wanted you to want this, Bella! Just like she did! We're out, we're supposed to be free, doing whatever we wanted to! And we've run out of universe and I've still got my whole damn list left!"

"No! I mean, yes! I mean--" it's Bella's turn to blush now. Her eyes find Mynx's feet with a hunter's acuity worth of Artemis, "I didn't mean I want to turn around. I just meant... fucking, you know! Here! This gods-damned waiting. I want to be washed clean too, you know!"

Mynx's eyes flicker. A startled blink. Bella grabs at her own arm and pulls it across her chest with no small amount of shame.

"Oh." says Mynx.

"Yeah."

"I guess we don't really get a say now that we're here, but there's really nothing you want to keep?"

"Not... really Mynx. I have fucked this entire journey up from top to bottom, at every opportunity. I'd really rather just... start over."

"Huh. Well, there's lots that I want to keep. I've got a list all written down so it's--"

"Easier to understand what you were thinking."
"Easier to understand what I was thinking."

They laugh together, briefly. Somewhere in the span of that small noise the space between them has closed to just a step or two. But they don't cross it. They don't touch.

"I want to remember that time we were both you." says Mynx with a smile.

"And you yelled at me for being me wrong? Ha!"

"And what about you?"

"...That time we stole Odoacer's yacht."

"We were so young then~"

"And I want..."

"What do you want, Bella?"

"To remember when I tried to kill you."

The smell of smoke, that some would say is the smell of love, grows so thick in the room that for a moment neither of them can do anything but choke. The air turns cold and the light turns harsh, and in the shadows it's difficult to see anything but the eyes of two monsters prowling in a circle around one another, trying to decide how best to strike before the other one eats them.

"I strangled you. I tried to rip you in half. I put my fist through your fucking stomach, Mynx. And every time it-- it wasn't the last one. You kept showing up. You smiled at me. You, you fucking smiled! And even now you smell like you, when you know damn well it's all I can use to find you!"

At last, the teeth show. Claws flash in this blaring spotlight. Suddenly Mynx turns away and makes to slip into the shadows, but she gets caught by the wrist. Bella's fingers are curled carefully inward, to keep her claws from so much as scratching those now-constantly rippling scales.

"Bella please, I don't want this to turn into another fight. I'll still see you on the other side, ok? It'll be better, you were right. We can just be friends this time. And we really will go on adventures together."

"No! Fuck you Mynx, no! I don't want that! That's why I needed to talk to you now, while we're still us! I have to say--"

She chokes on the words, and Mynx doesn't step over them. All she does is turn again, wrist still caught, and watch her oldest charge with the same wide, expressive eyes that always seem determined to soak in every detail down into the absolute depths of her dna. Just in case she needed them for a performance. Just in case it mattered.

"I'm sorry," Bella manages, through tears, "And... and thank you. I was nothing but horrible to you, but you still saved me. I will never stop owing you. Even if we both forget why. And I needed-- needed you to hear it. While it still means everything."

It takes a long time for Mynx to react. Even then she's strange about it. Always has been. Perhaps the truest power of the Toxicrene is their inability to break properly. She is soft as she pulls her wrist free. And she is softer still when she pulls Bella into an embrace.

"Honestly, Bella? That makes two of us."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

"You must be insulted, little goddess. Is this all they think of you?"

It is not the numbers that draw her comment. No Hybrasilian can be blamed for thinking they alone are enough for a hunt. It is not the nature of their mecha either. Inferior models, certainly. But they come with numbers, they come from ambush, they come with superior knowledge of the terrain, they come against an opponent they must doubtless suspect has been severely weakened. No, their force was adequate. Arrogance to try and claim that it wasn't.

But their tactics. Insulting. Stock standard hunting formation, zero deviation. The long-range distraction, using light and noise and just enough threat of physical harm to corral the prey into a small space. The onrushing threat charging directly into the trap box to take advantage of the prey's anticipated acceleration shift. Both technically lethal, but both in essence a distraction. The third hides behind imperfect camouflage made invincible by the chaos created by their two partners, and strikes the prey from a vulnerable angle while reacts on an instinctual level to the threats directly in front of it.

Time tested. High success rate. Utter, clownish buffoonery. Insulting.

Mirror has not used her travel time idly. On the contrary, her fingers have been hard at work inside of Smokeless Jade Fires, learning all the intricacies of her body and how to pluck her strings until bent and twisted and turned herself from an instrument into a puppet. It was, again, an absolute necessity just to avoid falling asleep at the wheel of such a stripped down mecha. It takes thirteen inputs to move the left leg just so. Twenty seven to pivot using the torso as a fulcrum. Three to make the neck crane left, but four to go right. So on and so on, down every inch of the idol's body until the Goddess Smokeless Jade Fires was a shivering mess.

And now she gets her reward. Mirror does not take the bait and dodge the laser fire into the prepared zone. She dodges instead with miniature thruster bursts and tiny shifts in the idol's articulation points, letting sprays of asteroid splash against the armor like the teasing cracks of a whip to give her slightly more maneuvering room to weave between the more problematic shots woven in between them. They pass close enough to warm the paint. And this, O Goddess, is the candle wax dripped lovingly across your perfect body. The kiss of heat against your breasts, your back, your stomach. How does it feel?

"You see? They want to make you dance, little goddess. They think this is all it takes to make you their slave. Foolish. You cannot be tamed by the likes of these cretins. You came with me. This is our date, and you shall dance only for me. Who else could try. Only the Whispered Promise, my darling."

The charger halts her momentum in a sudden back vent and veers off at a new, slightly awkward angle to realign with her rudely uncooperative target. At the speed she's traveling it won't be but a spare second or two at maximum, but that's enough for Jade's sensor sweep to pick Ms. Cloak and Dagger out along her trajectory in time to respond. Preemptively, of course.

A classic trap for pirates to fall into. They get so used to preying on Mainlanders awkwardly hopping from system to system that they forget sometimes they're not the only ones who live out here as a rule. Perhaps they think Smokeless Jade Fires can operate without a pilot. Perhaps they think she would only turn to someone in her cult. Perhaps they did not expect her to offer unlimited sanction to the One Day Defender, of all the creatures on Akar she might have turned to.

But she did. And Whispered Promise did not earn her title under gravity's yoke.

"Target takes back. Feint. Intended angle of assault is... got you! Below!"

The body-mounted cannons at the idol's shoulders whir to life, soundless in this environment. Her target is the spear wielder. Her aim is in essence not especially different from this foolish trio's to begin with. Distract, redirect, destroy. But with nobody to play allies with, her target selection is... by necessity. Superior. Guns like this are generally ineffective for chewing through even second-gen models' armor, being primarily an anti-missile defense for the poor, the lazy, and the unlucky without imaginative engineers. So that is what she uses them for. One-point-five second burst, center of mass targeting. Her bullets trigger several EMP grenades at once. Cat's Cradle. Amusing.

But only part one. Sustained gunfire without counter-thrusters pushes Smokeless Jade Fires backwards into the void of space. The momentum is... limited, but it throws off the Sneak's aim. There will be no grand reveal of her capabilities today. She streaks up and her systems are already screaming at her to shift her attack over, over, over there you idiot, now! But momentum is so easily adjusted in space.

Jade, you are a dancer. You are a marionette. You feel your leg pulled by the chains, and you sail upwards, back into the new field of laser fire to be kissed anew by the re-established zoning shots. Your arm. Your 'good' arm, if you must, thrusts down in the same motion. You spin like a top. Your sword gleams against the darkness of space. And it plunges, ruthlessly, through the center of the cloaked mecha.

Total system shutdown. It slumps like a drunken date against you, as Mirror leans into the acceleration and pivots the both of you around to face the third and final would-be usurper. And you find you are no longer wielding a sword but a shield, fashioned on the fly from a fallen enemy. Those shots are no longer gentle kisses, but lethal stings. Flying directly into them as you are, you could easily lose your idol's other arm. A leg. Piloted like this, you are a whisker's breath away from being dragged down in chains to serve as some dullard's fantasy alongside your precious Dolly. Not that your pilot understands any of what's going through your head.

But you're safe, aren't you? Mirror doesn't let anything touch you at all now. The arm shifts, and the fallen mecha shudders as it loses chunks of ablative armor off its back. You see what might have happened. You are allowed to imagine what it might have felt like. But you, little goddess, are protected. This wander-eyed usurper of a pilot is keeping you safe. This may even be what it feels like to be held.

And inside your cockpit, Mirror, the Whispered Promise dances. Her fingers dance across the strange buttons and dials she's cajoled you into conjuring for her. Her fancy Fisher's dress swirls and delights your eyes, drawing them up to her tail and to the spots across her back. She swings easily to and from her console to drape herself atop you as she wills it, whenever it is necessary to keep you quiet, whenever she wants to hear you moan.

Her teeth are on your neck. Her hands are at the impossible strings that pull straight on your heart. She bids you stop, and you do. No further attacks are necessary. Your leg kicks up of its own accord and suddenly your shield is a sword again, and nobody is shooting you at all, because two foolish mecha pilots are too busy careening into one another for anything else to matter. You disappear among the asteroids, and when you move again it is to rain your wrath upon the trio, or something rather enough like it. To hurtle stars from the sky onto their paths. Theatrical, no?

What a shame it wasn't your idea.

"Three targets confirmed neutralized. Mmmmm, such a good girl you're being for me, my precious little goddess. But you must try a little harder to listen, if you want my kisses instead of my claws. You mustn't think you've reached the level of my Gods-Smiting Whip just with this. Mhm, say, why do you think I named it that, anyway~?"

Breathless Dead

"With respect, Liege," Bella chirps, her voice instantly finding that old note of placid politeness expected of an Imperial Handmaiden rather than a Praetor, "I believe you are being over generous in your assessment."

A careful dip of her head. Her Auspex turned respectfully toward the ground, daring to look at the majesty of King Anjia only with her natural eye. That's the only way she looks at any of them around the table. Her tongue curls inside her mouth, begging for wine. She is parched. A desert of nerves and nervousness. Something is crawling inside her throat, begging her to wash it down.

But she does not move except to curtsey, her hands even in the middle of the gesture holding on to Redana. As if she still believed they were the only things in the universe that could keep her lover safe. Her lover... her shield. Her invitation. Her Princess.

"Technical skill is the pillar I deserve to be measured by. I am a maid. At the Empress' request I became an administrator. I did my best to run a ship, and run it well, but I did so in opposition to the journey you are praising. And I was thwarted by... forgive me, Princess, but by absolute morons. I think about it constantly. I do not understand how I could have failed to keep things from coming this far. But now that they have..."

Gods. Gods, if ever any of you did not hate her even a little bit, please give her a glass of wine. She has no right to intrude on Hades' hospitality after winning so many of his treasures from him. But she is dying. Wilting. Fading into a creature that cannot leave this place. Or she will, at least, without something to restore her. Her body is pinpricks and claw points where she ought to have skin. Her body is an itch like a name on her armor that she is forbidden from erasing. Her body is shame and an empty, ravenous void that screams desperately for any manner of real food, real drink, real relief.

Though of course, were it presented to her she would not dare do more than nibble on an hors d'oeuvres. Not in front of legends like these. How can being seen, being praised feel so much like torture? She swallows; the feeling is painful and dry.

"It was not my heart that overcame the Master of Assassins," she begins again, "It was Beautiful who put me back together, when I had come undone. It was Beljani who dared to write the name Sagakhan on my skin as a prayer to the Diodekoi. It was Mynx who woke me with her own blood. And Redana pulled me free. I did nothing. I raged and I killed, but I never took my target. I was merely a pawn, and a costly one at that. It took a lifetime's worth of other hearts to pull mine free."

Huntresses of Hybrasil

What the hell kind of question is that? How good is she? How good is she? Utter nonsense. Smokeless Jade Fires is not in this moment a goddess. There is nothing particularly powerful or overwhelming about her, with her presence so specifically directed at a single topic like this. She is a mewling, needy, besotted maiden.

And you are asking if Mira of the Fisher Clan, Whose Star Name is Whispered Promise is at all adept at pleasuring a girl and piloting a mech at the same time. It's never been so easy in her entire life: for once they are the same thing. Accomplished by the exact same mechanism. Every now and again she needs to stop what she's doing to pinch or slap or spank her operating system into fresh submission, but this hardly counts as a distraction.

A single external weapon. No moving parts outside of basic limb articulation. A full arm's worth of motion completely missing from the range of available inputs. No targets, as of yet, to even need to dodge and weave around. Frankly this would be harder without the leg drumming, squealing, muffled brat behind her fighting so hard to cling to whichever scrap of dignity she still thinks she has left. Frankly she needs the extra actions to keep her hands busy. APM is a sacred art, you know. Without it, one's reaction speed plummets into the realm of mere mortals.

She has been here before. She is... practiced. She can make a girl moan, make her squeal, make her drip and shiver and beg. All while ignoring the physical sensations that get pushed back onto her. Mirror requires no reciprocation. The terms of the contract do not allow for it. This is, after all, not about her. It never is.

Maybe, if the goddess mumbled her name. But alas, she is in love. She is so drenched in love that she is less than a puppet, and so desperate that her higher thoughts have fled her prodigious electronic mind completely. Alas. And yet, there is beauty in the obsession. In this vision so tunneled she doesn't even attempt to make the comment about Mirror's bizarre control scheme or the particularities of her request. Smokeless Jade Fires doesn't even wonder what kind of payment it will take to finally satisfy the Whispered Promise. She simply lusts. She simply grinds. She simply reaches out toward the stars with a hand that is not her own, and will not obey her commands.

But it is thrilling, nevertheless. Mirror's heart pounds joy through her body with a rush of pleasure so total it approaches pain. She could lose herself in this, if she chose to. She has never piloted a mecha with such a powerful Crystal Fire Drive before. Even her precious Nine Drive System does not compare. The sensation of forward momentum is so powerful it slashes through the synthweave and pushes her backwards through the cockpit.

"Yes yes, you poor pathetic thing. We're on our way to take back your precious Seven Quetzal. I wonder what that adorable little saint will have to say when she sees you like this? Excited, no doubt. She must thrill to see her Goddess so... exposed. At last, honesty~"

Mirror draws the energy blade and twirls it through the void space in front of her as she guides Smokeless Jade Fires in the direction of the unintelligible signal and the immanent battle waiting on the other side of it. Truthfully she has never felt so in control or powerful as she does right this second.

Ah, Little Goddess. Do you think that this is bliss? Just wait until she guides you through a battle. Your holy blessings will drench the cockpit so thoroughly your little priestess will not be able to use this place for weeks without needing a shower just to clear her head.

Breathless Dead

It does not occur to Bella to be disappointed with the reality of meeting her heroes. She has seen the tales of their exploits a hundred times across films and stage plays and in books surreptitiously read when she thought nobody was looking. Their accomplishments were above reproach. Nothing short of the proof of the true glory of Humanity and what they were supposed to be capable of; their flaws every bit as brilliant as their triumphs.

So what that actors had always made them seem taller? More like... well. More like her? So what that in her wildest, most sinful dreams she'd seen Ikari with fluffy ears and a tail? So what that... so what? So what? They were each of them of a height with Redana. Of course they were. This is the stature of true heroes. It is monsters like Bella who need to tower over everything so that these peerless warriors could glitter and shine in even the dimmest lights. Redana's golden hair could be a beacon even in the murkiest corners of the Anemoi. So it is with King Anjia, Sir Aeon, and Odysseus before all.

This is what heroes look like. Smell like. Sound like. Talk like. They must have seemed healthier, once. Less sickly, with no death stench upon them before their legends caught up with them and they tumbled into the realm of Lord Hades. They would have seemed even more like Redana, then, in their primes. Or Redana would have seemed more like them. And someday she will. Would. Because for her, the journey would surely end up here eventually.

But for Bella...

"Princess."

She comes when she is called. Her nose wrinkles only a little at the smell all around her. Their little chest of treasures rattles along the floor on its pristine wheels as she pulls it behind her. Her footsteps clack and echo with the force of thunderbolts. Her teeth are sharper teeth, and no less blinding than Redana's when they flash briefly behind the pursing of her lips.

Her fingers end in cruel daggers that even hanging at her sides seem to threaten the table in front of her. Her body has returned to its carefully engineered curves and softness, but it cannot hide the aura of raw power crackling underneath it. Not from these great warriors. She is a titan among them. A monster born on the altar of genetic miracles and the endless meddling of the biomancers. The final chapter of the story each of them had been telling. The very last form of the enemy they'd dedicated their lives to stopping.

Her arms wrap tenderly around Redana's shoulders. She squeezes softer than a summer breeze, and when she leans down to breathe the clean air that radiates off the princess her hair tumbles forward and wraps the pair of them in a silken blue-black halo that could have launched a thousand ships of its own, had she only been born into the days when such things were possible.

The glittering past. The uncertain future. The empty seat among legends. And the assassin, defeated, proof of the invitation to the feast.

She dips into a bow. Still clutching her treasure. And still standing behind her afterward.

"This counts as resembling working order? That empty, decaying scrapheap? I see." Bella's golden eye flits across the faces of every assembled knight, lingering on none of them in particular. All of them are heroes in her heart. None of them should be able to stand to look at her, "Mother was... right about me. I don't measure up to her older assassins at all. Not if that's the best I was able to do, stopping you."

Bitterness. Longing. Relief. This is the song she sings. Her claws gleam dangerously against the glistening skin she holds them up to so very tenderly.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

November, 3V!

Euna is deathly quiet. Statue still. Her eyes drill into 3V with every bite of that greasy slop she puts in her mouth. The corners of her lips keep twitching towards a frown, but she doesn't comment on it. Barely winces at the sound of the crunch, does not comment at all on the fact that she's just paid for some of the least food-y food she's ever laid eyes on.

She can't keep the disapproval out of her eyes, but she never lets it become more than a vague sense of an expression that would like to be playing more fully across her face. In the end she just watches her friend eat dinner, and doesn't do anything about it except to make sure that 3V finishes every single bite of it.

Sometimes, calories are calories. Optimizing for perfection can mean climbing toward ever greater heights, but sometimes it just paralyzes you instead. Sometimes forward is better than upward. Sometimes to move, simply at all, is to win.

"I..."

Something shifts in the way she's sitting. Her finger taps a beat against the back of her other hand, and the rhythmic clinking of the metal meeting fills the little room. It's the most nervous she has ever looked.

"I want it to be a fight," she says at last, "I want that heat. Or, well, no I don't. People who aren't me are gonna get hurt and I can't fucking... I can't stand it. But what the fuck good is sitting still doing me? In the end I'm going to lose everything anyway. No. What's the point in not swinging?"

Euna rises to her feet, and walks over to the door to her office. She leans against it instead of opening it, and watches the three of you with a very strained expression on her face.

"Sara's going to beat my ass to death for this. 'Oh, you let the robot talk you into it, but when your own wife says she's ready you just--' Man. Fuck. Look. Just. Ms... White? You are the most interesting student I have had in a very long time. And I expect to see you back here regularly. With as much of the rest of you as wants to come. If you do anything to jeopardize that, I will never forgive you. So just. Keep that in mind. Understood?"

--------

Errant: By design, the kid can't think rationally about any of this.
Errant: The allure and the horror of Omelas are both supposed to be that the suffering is random. No intent. The child doesn't know why they suffer, nor are they selected with any malice in mind.
Errant: But even if they could volunteer. It doesn't matter. It doesn't make it noble.
Errant: You can assume that a single person's suffering for the sake of the rest of society is the best we'll ever be capable of, if you want to.
Errant: But even in that case there would be more we could do to reduce. You've got how many volunteers? Why should any one of them have to go it alone?
Errant: Why doesn't it rotate? Why doesn't EVERYBODY take their turn? Go inside the machine and suffer so that when you come back out, paradise is waiting for you.
Errant: You can optimize it further, but I don't care. It's a sick system.
Errant: And if martyrs could fix the world we wouldn't be living like this in the first place.
Errant: My point in bringing it up in the first place is that you can't stop fighting.
Errant: Ever.
Errant: There is always work to be done.
Errant: Pass the torch. Share the load. But never accept that what's around you is the best that we can do.
Errant: The minute you become too afraid to lose what you have, you get eaten.
Errant: And you'll never be of help to anyone ever again.
Errant: Lovely chatting with you all, as always.
Errant: You may now resume mocking me for writing twice a year about popular musicians instead of doing 'real' good in the world.
Errant: <3

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Temptation: check out. Roll over and let the yowling goddess wash over her like the rain. Wrap herself in chains, hide her face, hide her talents, and simply let Smokeless Jade Fires conduct her body to whatever end she was headed toward. Sloth exchanged for hubris. Withdrawal from the absolute terms of her contract as a reprimand for these gaudy and counterproductive power struggles.

Temptation: leave altogether. Tear off this synthweave sleeve she's only fashioned for herself out of courtesy. Not to avoid the imparted sting of Smokeless Jade Fires' attacks. Those, she takes freely. She does not bleed from any of her cuts; they are not real, and the sensory input cannot make them so. This is merely another impact of cognition. But the shared sense data itself is brutally painful to endure. For the sake of such an uncooperative client, why suffer so? Leave. Tear it off, or simply dig the control spike into the console and establish manual (if clumsy) control directly.

Except. If she yields, then she cannot Climb the Mountain. Except. Her competence is being challenged, and this excites her more than annoys. Except. The idol is not Smokeless Jade Fires, is not Mirror, is not even Little Sister Fire (The Ever Born, The Last-First). The idol is the idol, which is to say the mecha itself. The sudden surging of the crystal fire drive and the frenzied pulsing of the power conduits that's creating these butterfly-like manifestations. The machine itself was begging to be flown out. Recognition of a superior pilot.

Impossible to ignore. Thus, she sinks into the third and most insidious temptation: fight to win.

But Mirror is not a goddess. She is not a Pattern, and does not possess powers comparable to either within a virtual space. She is a titan only in the eyes of Smokeless Jade Fires, who will not cast aside her own pride or aesthetics to defeat Mirror's recognition of reality and reestablish her mastery of the assumed space. There are no more tricks for her to pull here. She cannot become water and surge across the battlefield like a wave. She cannot even bend her limbs in ways that are unintuitive to her physical body, since awareness of her own form and its dimensions and limitations is her inviolate shield against the spear of virtual reality. She can no more summon the Tails of her Gods-Smiting Whip to this mindscape than can she pick up a rock and throw it.

Creation is an act of impossibility. Everything must be accomplished in the negative. That is the only way to fight a god. Negation as a principle of combat is achieved through varyingly simple or complex techniques. In the first place, treating the spear and cords of Smokeless Jade Fires as real enough to dodge means that she can avoid the pain signal simply by ducking out of the way and dodging the (perceived) physical contact. The young goddess is a creature of insatiable physicality; though it is doubtless within her capability to simply cripple Mirror with a series of disconnected 'wounds' until the pain was so overwhelming she became pliant, doing so would also be admitting her created world was less than real. It would mean her connections to the mortal world were fleeting, transitory, and false.

Dodging her is therefore an act of love. As much as refusing to bleed is an act of defiance. Every strike builds the world she lives in, and every strike builds Whispered Promise more and more into a creature on par with the divine. See how she calls this world sacred. See how she will not submit to it, regardless. Negation, achieved in the negative. So to speak. Their bodies kiss in passing motions. Accepting one another. Flesh yielding to flesh. Hips brush and fabric rustles. They split apart. Mirror chases the butterflies deeper into the forest of chains.

Smokeless Jade Fires, it would have benefitted you to do your research. By her record, Mira of the Fisher Clan is the most skilled mercenary you could have hired for the job you need doing. And this is certainly true, but perhaps if you'd read and understood her background properly then you, a Goddess, would not have dared call on her. Especially not in the exact way that you did. The Whispered Promise is not properly what the Terenians refer to as an 'athiest', though that is the word they use in their written profiles of her.

The word in Hybrasilian speech is [Cosmos Denier/Cartographer]. It is virtually unheard of for a child of Hybrasil to reach the conclusion that the sky and the planets are not filled with the essence of the divine, even if they disagree (loudly) about the exact manifestations. Every word and concept in the culture can be expressed in at least two ways, but one word that does not exist in the language at all is Nothing. Why would it need to? Nothing is Nothing. Even the void is defined by existence. So it would be a very sad and unfortunate cat who could look up at the sky and around at her home and see no pathways up there and no spark anywhere around her. Certainly Mirror is not such a broken creature.

But there is a theological tradition, mostly championed by Hybrasilians living off-world (and even then only a fraction of them) that hold that the pathways and the stories written in the stars are always changing. That they must be constantly plotted and replotted to maintain the necessary levels of accuracy to be guided by them. There is a space for Goddesses in this tradition, and little trouble accepting a new one no matter how she may or may not manifest. But to these unusual cats, these... Pioneers, living divinities are not to be worshipped by submitting to them. They are instead loved by owning them.

This is the manner of Hybrasilian that Mira the Whispered Promise is. And you, creature of divine fire, have told her to come here as a pilot. Does the ship fly the crew, O Goddess? She acknowledges you. She loves you, in her way. That is the shape of your doom.

She weaves her way around the cockpit, painfully limited by her diseased and improper body, and for a while it seems as though you almost have her. Breathing heavily, worn down by the constant, morphing assault of a tireless warrior, she tangles herself in the forest of chains the idol and Little Sister Fire manifest to crown both winner and loser in this contest that is a prelude toward adventure. Your bodies join and separate many times, and each time you feel a spark of electric ecstasy. And each time she seems to become more tangled and trapped.

If you had at least watched how she fought, you might have seen the trap swing shut. But, Smokeless Jade Fires, you are too beautiful for that. You are in love, and Lovers rarely think with their heads. You are blameless. You are also defeated. Mirror leans into the chains one last time, willing them to have a physical presence, demonstrating their ability to you to hold someone of even her colossal stature aloft. She rolls up and over them, just avoiding her pounce, and as gravity inverts from her perspective for that briefest of moments she aims a kick at you. Her first attack. And as it turns out she can create weapons just fine. The idol provided them to her, just to see what she could do.

Her attack comes from a dozen different angles at once. Chains uncoil from her limbs and lash about like hungry serpents. Clenching around your ankle, your knee, your waist. Your arms are pulled up and apart for you to dangle by. She wraps herself around you a moment later. The weight of her is... pleasant. The heat, the softness of her body, the textural contrast of her fur and her rough-patterned dress. Her breath steams against your neck. Her teeth nip into your ear, and her laughter follows a moment later.

"I choose this confinement of my own free will. Is that not correct, Little Goddess? A creature of your infinite power could no doubt free herself in an instant. But you will not. You will not. You will not, because you chose to fight me as an equal. And you see now that I am your superior. It is consuming you, is it not? My fire. I have buried it right... here."

And as she speaks, her fingers splay across your tummy. Her caress leaves a sensation like the still-fluttering butterflies inside of you, and a spreading warmth just after. Her other hand is behind your ear, massaging so expertly to drive all the thoughts from your mind. You gave yourself this shape, Little Goddess. Now let yourself be defined by it.

"You want to see what I can do. You want to know what it feels like. You, who have refused to set the terms of our contract, will now accept my demands. This is not my payment, Little Goddess. This is our code of conduct, which I shall deliver exactly as I promise. We will travel out among the stars, you and I. We will retrieve your missing pilot and return her here to your temple. You will allow me to do this as I see fit. You will facilitate my every need. You will dial down the senses fed into my body by this cockpit link. You will take them into yourself, instead. And you will construct inside of this space a console, a dais of switches and buttons in the exact layout I describe for you. Through this I will teach you the secrets of the Whispered Promise. You will keep these secrets, and through them you will learn what it means to be piloted."

And with that final emphatic purr, she brandishes the control spike against you at last. It slashes across your divine dress just as it had disrobed your idol, and with a loud and lewd rip it does much the same to you. She cuts strips from your outfit, and wraps them neatly into a ball. She exposes more of you to her wandering, watery eyes, and uses this to fashion a cord. She prises your jaw apart and forces it inside, tying it behind your head and giving you a smile as she wipes away the drool already forming at your godly lips in response to the sudden intrusion.

"I asked you over and over again to be a good girl. You have thus far chosen to... disappoint me. So I have decided, furthermore, it will be unnecessary for you to speak. At least, intelligibly. Feel free to garble at me as much as it pleases you, Little Goddess. But you have made it clear enough that I must first teach you how bad girls are treated, and so I shall. And so. I shall."

Her stubbed claws drag across your thighs, and with a slash she deprives you of your skirts. And in this same motion, you feel the crystal fire drive in your idol thrum with a deep power that clears the exhaustion from your being and anchors you to reality with far greater insistence than you had been. Your outline solidifies, the pain that missing arm should be causing is nowhere to be found. You have drunk enough power from your hangar that you are made whole even in this state of disrepair.

If this was her plan all along, or simply a lucky effect of how you're feeling right now, is a mystery left only for you to unravel. Much like your sacred garb.

[Mirror gives Jade a String and rolls an Entice of her own: 7. Through the power of a secret loving act, she reduces her Feelings back down from the String just given]

Breathless Dead

It's less painful to look up at the sky than she remembers. The jacket on the floor is her anchor. The girl nestled into her arms is her light. The warmth of her, the weight of her, the scent of her (now half smothered in Bella's own), the sound of her breathing all make up the difference. The ugly pink blotch doesn't steal the floor out from under her legs. It doesn't threaten to pull her into it or promise death in its thousand horribly creative ways. It is huge and ugly, but that's all.

"It's not that surprising, Dany. Why would Hades give us treasure? Why would Poseidon clear a path? They don't care. They're not here to help us. The first god who ever answered my prayers wasn't a god at all, and the nicest thing any of the real ones have done is sit there staring at me without saying or doing anything. Bastard."

Her arms wrap themselves tight around her princess, as she pulls the other girl into her lap and envelopes her in a protective wall of fur, muscle, and fabric. Her head pivots on instinct, disguised by the sudden motion of her body. First this way and then that, looking about for signs of retribution due to her blasphemy. But no face appears, smiling or otherwise. She does not feel the grasp of disease in her body. She swears in relief.

"While I was... alone, I spent a lot of time watching the rift. I hated it, but I had to. I couldn't stand looking at that backwards, broken, fucked up space station all the time, and there was nothing else for a break besides Prion Paula. Which I... look, don't judge me. You can't know what it's like. I don't want you to. In fact, the less you get it the better.

But I looked, ok? Every day, I looked at that ugly fucking mouth in the middle of the ocean. Gods, this close it looks even more like the jaws of some monster or something. Makes me want to reach up there and just tear it to pieces, fuck. Because I, Dany I... your stars. I looked out at this sea of polychromatic puke and it burned me alive because I wanted you to be right. I wanted the stars to be just like you imagined when we were kids. And they weren't, and I wanted to kill them for it."

Her arms pull tighter around Redana. Bella bends her neck to bury her face in the spot where Dany's shoulder meets her neck. Her breath is hot against the skin. She plants the softest kiss there, and when she uncoils she is Strength. No tension fills her muscles, but they are as starship alloys anyway. The beating of her heart is slow, and even. No nerves, no doubt. She has her princess, and she isn't letting go.

"But in the end I'm glad it's here. Because of that I knew where to find you. I just had to point my skiff at the giant scar and hope that when I finally crashed, it'd be somewhere useful. And once we're on the other side of it, I'll never have to look at it again. So, there's that."

Confidence pulls Bella's face into a smile. No god stands behind her or lights her path, though back on the Plousios a certain sword grows slightly warmer to the touch. What has she to fear from the Rift? Let it take what it will. If there is no Bella on the other side... whoever takes her place would at least be a better person. It's a choice. To believe the little girl who got pulled from that box was more real than the woman who'd murdered her way across the rotten carcass of the galaxy.