Phoe

Breathless Dead

Damn these blankets. The warmth that seeps into her bones, the softness tickles her fur and skin with every little breath she takes, the way they have been arranged into a safe little nest that is impossible to escape from. They steal her strength. They demand she rest. They even smell correct: the exact softeners, cleaning agents, and perfumes that she used to use back when this was her job.

Bella groans as she drags herself out of the cocoon the Princess had wove for her. It isn't right. Home is ahead of her now, not behind.

"This isn't over, Mynx..."

*********

"Seawater?"

Bella squeezes her temple. Memories tangle themselves into knots that pull on her head with the same painful squeezing as matted hair against her scalp. What is hers? What is Mosaic's? She shakes her head, and sniffs away her own stupid question. In the time it takes her to recover the maid girl has already run off before she can be told not to bother.

She stiffens at the brush of the hand against her arm. But she does not flinch away.

"...I'll have to teach you some other time about proper vintages. But it's old, old knowledge and we don't have any time for that. No time for anything really. I'll give you a toast, but after that I--"

The hand pulls away. Bella's arm falls to her side, and her jacket flops open. She stares into the hurt, almost reproachful look on the Ceronian girl's face and the wagging tail that has since fallen still and silent. She glares at Ember, trying to crush her with nothing but the force that emanates from her eyes. But there are more memories in the shock and the hurt, and they pull on Bella's shoulders like chains.

"Ember for the love of fuck, do you not understand how much danger we're in? This stupid rustbucket is older than the Azure Skies! It is huge and it can go anywhere but it is falling to fucking pieces from the inside and who do we have to keep it stuck together? Nobody! There is never a night off, don't you get it? If I'm not organizing everything and keeping us afloat, we die. I don't know if we implode in an asteroid cluster or get eaten by a leviathan or just plain got by the wounded super empire we've gone and pissed off but whatever catches us first will kill us in an instant! And after I killed the Crystal Knight in a hunt I'm not exactly eager to find out what Demeter'll do to my body when she gets it. Just... fuck! You're always like this! It's all excitement and adventure to you but you never once stop and think about--"

Bella's eyes open wide. Her mouth falls open in shock. Her arm shoots out and she just manages to catch Ember by the wrist in time to keep her from dashing off. Her grip is iron, but the pressure of her thumb against that slender wrist is as tender as she knows how to let it be. Her head droops as her shoulder slump forward. This sting in her chest is going to kill her. This shame. That's not Redana, you dipshit.

"No. I'm... I'm sorry," her voice is made soft and soothing by the pressure of her guilt, "Fuck. I've been dreaming for five years, it never occurred to me that I'd also need to rest. But you're right. If I break I can't hold anyone up. Vesper is counting on me. And Belja- I mean, and Gemini, and Taurus too after I made her all those promises. And Quajl and all of Beri and even Princess Redana, though she doesn't know it yet. And you, obviously. You... kept your promise. You came back. You even brought me a... nnnngh, maid. I'll reward that. I have to. Ok then. One night, with wine and fireworks and just the two of us. Make it count."

The glare is back again. But this time, Bella puts just enough smirk to it that she stops seeming cruel. The stubborn, invincible aura of Mosaic is fucking exhausting to maintain, but it's what honor and a mountain of corpses and mistakes under her feet demand. Just one night. Please let it be enough.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

So then. Perhaps that explained why her kingdom had not endured. This was the shape of the world after Ragnarok. If so it had been a battle well fought, and a battle worth fighting. But if so, she had not been called to it. Whatever the reason, the world had burned and it had not asked her to fight for it. The thought makes her jaw clench until a tooth snaps. She spits it out without concern; another is already pushing forward to take its place. The thought also makes her laugh. The dream inside her heart burns fiercer than ever before.

After all, the world has called her now. Countless hundreds of warriors had fought in the Twilight, but only nine were called here to fight in the light of the long Dawn that followed. Calling it something stupid like 'redemption' would be egotistical mockery. This was a challenge. That's why she'd been pinned to such a wretched priest, and it's why her heart sang at the thought of crushing those elite few who'd risen from slumber to challenge her here even with that weight across her shoulders.

Man or woman. Man or beast. Honored warrior or defiled corpse. King or barbarian savage. Excuses, excuses, excuses. None of it mattered in the face of being chosen. None of it measured up to the hunger in her belly. This beautiful world had grown from the ash of the world tree so full of fruit, it could hardly be considered a failing if she plucked and ate it. Her new kingdom would far surpass the old one. This time she'd take the whole of England, and see if she stopped there. Rivers would tremble at the idea of her, and not the other way around. Impossible, that she of all people should ever fear the water.

But just now, the current on the wind was her sea. Just now she slows her prowling, perched on a stone as silent and still as if she'd grown from those same rocks. Schools of little skyfish pass her by in abundance, and she lets them go. Let her smaller sisteren chase the minnows. She had promised her Master a demonstration. So she is patient as she holds her head up to the wind to feel the currents of energy waft across her face. And she hunches in wait for more worthy prey.

The swordfish comes wielding its deadly rapier. It is wrong to say she explodes into motion, but she hunts. The way she lurches up is almost awkward, especially with the weight of a person still tucked into her arm. They dance for long minutes, it thrashing and darting and almost skewering her precious Master, her bending and loping after it with low laughter caught in every breath. Her empty arm stretches around her back and plucks her ax free. She grips it by the very tip of its overlong handle, and when she swings there is far too much shoulder rotation and a pivot to her elbow. The blade whips about in a wild arc that seems to be travelling in a kind of inevitable seeming slow motion. The proud fish thrashes in response to the idea of a threat. Correct, little warrior. But it never sees the arc of that swing until it's cleaved through the spine.

The fish is heavy enough that the ground near her trembles when its body drops from the air. She breathes deep of the smell, showing more and more teeth with every whiff. And then at last she sets Diaofei on her feet and fells several trees with single strokes in the same lazy overwide technique she'd felled the fish with.

When the campfire blazes in the night sky, she kicks the massive fish at her Master's feet and upends a huge pile of vegetables overtop of it. There is an absurd amount here: the bounty of several shrines in their entirety that she plucked clean as she passed without even thinking of it. She spears the lot of it on a massive tree branch, and hangs it over the fire. She fastens the ax to her back again, and stretches one long arm to lift Diofei's chin once more.

"I will say nothing for the taste, little priest. But you will eat. And when you have finished I will bring you back to your palace so you can sleep. When you have some strength back, we can discuss our war. These are your king's commands."

Breathless Dead

"I'm not asking you to stop! I'm, I don't!"

Bella thrashes for a moment, old tensions and even older arguments flaring up and pouring new strength into her body. But like a breath on the wind it passes, and she sags again until all she can do is keep walking. Left leg forward, press weight, flinch when the heat lances through her knee. Right leg lurches forward to compensate. It sucks. But there's nothing else for her to occupy the moment with.

"...Gods. If it's gonna be like this, just fucking drop me here. I'll drag myself the rest of the way back. I'm so sick and tired of hearing that voice tell me how wrong I am. I have never given a single shit about this journey, ok? It's only ever been about you."

Her mismatched eyes are slightly crossed when she forces her head back up to look the Princess head on again. All the trembling effort in the world can't make them focus, can't make the person in front of her unblur. She's slipping into sleep even now. Only one last chance to say it.

"It's fine" Bella's voice cracks, "I just want... one last chance. To give you anything else to be before I die. That's why you have... to..."

And then she is sliding, slurring into the arms of the Oneiroi. Her ear twitches to catch half a sentence in reply to carry down into her dreams.

**************

Grim faced and ashen, Bella watches a parade of ghosts. Here is the town she is meant to love. Here are the warriors of Ceron who have learned not to spit ashes at the sound of her name. Her name. Her name. What they tell her is her name.

She is able to walk again. She can stand up straight under her own power, if little else. Her arm is still a twisted lump, though it is growing back together with prickling waves of discomfort that make it through the nerves she deadened to protect herself. She tried to stuff herself into one of Mosaic's suits before she answered the summons, but it was ill fitting garbage despite being made for the same body, supposedly.

She tore the shirt off her body in disgust, and left only the jacket hanging open to cover her torso. There's nothing left of her old softness but even so it took this level of display to make her not feel fat. Her muscles twitch with every step, and she is constantly reaching toward the shorter end of this obnoxious, uneven jacket to keep it from flapping open and exposing her to everyone. Her glare withers everyone who tries to look.

But now she walks. She sniffs at every offered food, and holds it in her hands to stare at it until she's pulled apart the secrets of its creation in case she needs or wants to make it herself in the future. She eats almost none of it but just hands it off to someone else before she's off again to the next sight. The next sound. The next smell.

She knows that crumbling building. She knows this patch of flowers. She knows every little shred of the town of Beri that has been gathered on the Plousios, and it galls her. These are stolen memories that belong to someone better. Someone who was brave enough to at least try to be a hero. But all Bella could be is herself. Her tail thrashes behind her as she walks.

It wasn't meant to be like this; the Lethe betrayed her. Now there are fireworks that burst in fantastic colors so bright they almost blind her still-adjusting eyes, but quiet enough that the gesture moves her to tears anyway. Bella watches Ember watching her right back, and for the first time her expression softens. She sniffs at the air once in caution, and once in curiosity. The various honeyed scents of besotted love are obvious, but there's a waft of something beneath them that escapes her. Bella shakes her head.

She doesn't deserve this. She cannot be Mosaic. But do any of these people deserve to lose her, even so?

"...You know, someone told me once that fireworks are something you can't truly enjoy without a glass of wine. What've we got for," she clears her throat, "That is, uh. Did you find treasure enough for this as well?"

Fuck.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

She has come dressed for war.

No pretense of maintaining the illusion. No more synthweave pilot suits, no more hyper specific camera angles inside her cockpit to imply she has any of the setup or the skills of a normal pilot. No suicidal leap into the air right at the beginning of things. No long con or far-seeing strategies remain. All of that is useless now. It only ever existed to get her to this moment... no. Not even that. It was all for a fragment of hope: that this moment could exist in the first place, and that she would be allowed to step into it.

And now it is here. And she is here. And Solarel. Solarel has no need for a Mirror. A Whispered Promise is useless to her. That is why what greets her is a one-day defender. Simply, for the first time since the war ended, Mira. And she has come dressed for war.

Her hair is gathered up into tails. Not the fancy, intricate braids of the Terenian beauticians, but nine simple tails that sit clustered on top of one another, four in a row then two then three that lift her impossible waterfall of frosty white hair into a halo or a great crown. Each tail is decorated with a single token: a feather, a tooth, or a scale. Her lips are painted in blue, two simple vertical slashes just slightly misaligned from top to bottom. Beneath her eyes and down into her cheeks, her fur is painted in numerous shades of red and orange depicting setting suns dipping below the horizon of her liquid irises.

Her dress is, of course, a Mayze Szerpaws original. The last ever Mayze Szerpaws original ("It. Is! Pronounced! Sure Paws!" she shrieked at the poor courier who'd delivered her a video tape, the last person ever to make that mistake), in point of fact. This one is made of crystal. Not just crystal dangling from thread to create the illusion of layers of 'fabric', but actual flowing gem in a constant sweeping rainbow of color. It wraps around her shoulders, where a pair of flamboyant spikes jut out to either side of her, and kisses her arms down to the wrist, in some places opaque and in others so dazzlingly clear that you'd swear you could touch her spots through it.

It wraps across her chest and down her stomach, only flaring into a glittering battle skirt once it crosses the bottom of her hips, and all throughout the body are cut ovals of empty space that form patterns with her fur and the stone that neither the colors nor the glittering translucent windows could match on their own. But when she moves, the dress moves with her. Not in the sense that the material follows her movement or anything base like that - the dress moves with her. That is to say it morphs and changes into new forms that highlight the new position she shifts into, changing the placement and arrangement of the openings and even outright reconfiguring itself to reflect a different idea of who she is. Here it is imposing armor, now it is the clinging, revealing suit of a mecha pilot, now it is a gentle brush of elegant color fit for a ball room or an art gallery, now it resembles a simple diving jacket.

It is her attempt at capturing what she'd considered to be the uncapturable. Incorporating Zaldarian nanotech into her attempts at bridging Hybrasillian and Terenian fashion culture not for flashy effect (...not just for flashy effect) but to grab hold of the idea of the technology and the culture sprouting all around it. Something impermanent and forever at the same time, something crafted but freely growing or shrinking or re-imagining itself on a whim. The form it takes upon her victory will be different from the one she'll wear on her defeat. It is a dress to be married in, a dress to cross blades in, and a dress to tumble down a hillside trading kisses in.

It is the loudest expression of intent she is capable of. It is both what she is and what she wants to be, though those will forever be a hundred different things. It will never be 'for sale'.

For the Gods-Smiting Whip there is only a single difference in its loadout. Its armor is the same and its Tails twitch in anticipation of a battle as they float behind the main body. It still shifts about with the restless micro-twitching of a creature that can never sit entirely still. It has not sought to avoid being mirrored, it merely wonders if it can be. But it has traded Matty's knight sword for a much larger weapon. Still a sword to be sure, but something much more akin to the one wielded by Marcina Villajero, if much blockier and boxier in its construction. All along the "blade" are thin lines that imply the speed of its construction, and that it has been built around something rather than as it. But for now it is a sword, and a colossal and dangerous one at that. A charging swing from this at Mira's full thruster burn would snap the frames of many lesser machines.

The meaning of it is obvious enough that there is no point in trying to conceal it. Always. Always one layer of defense.

Mira's lips twitch. A fang flashes out from under them.

> thank you.
> for making this worth the effort.
> it took a very long time.
> even with me screaming at the top of my lungs for months.
> i ask of you:
> was 'Nine Drive System' really too difficult of a puzzle?

The supermassive blade lifts from the arena floor with a loud crack that brings up chunks of the ground with it, scarring the battlefield before she's even made a move. The Gods-Smiting Whip holds it with both hands parallel to the ground and balanced against a hip. The form is simple by necessity, but dangerous by design.

> this is our final dance like this, Solarel.
> i have a wish and you are standing in the way.
> but i have a dream, also.
> a riddle?
> or a final promise if you prefer.
> at the end of today.
> one way or another.
> you and I will no longer say 'Speak Not'.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Two long and powerful fingers stretch out and curl under the priest named Diaofei's chin. They roll toward the palm and that is enough to lift her head up, though even like this she can't look directly into the hunching warrior's eyes without craning, or without an obliging look down back at her.

The skin on her fingers is like sandpaper. The palm is no gentler when it turns and caresses Diaofei's cheek. Thick rings and slender rings all of gold feel more like ice against such tender skin. Everything about this giant of a woman is rough and harsh, even the nature of her regal bearing. It's easy to believe she is a king like she claimed, but if it's true then her entire reign must have been in war camps and travel. Had she even once stopped to enjoy the fruits of her labors?

"That was an oath ill sworn, if you meant to join me as my brother." even her frown is toothy, "I cannot be the instrument of your revenge. Whatever form that takes is yours to discover. There is nothing you could offer me, nothing I would trust, that would allow me to walk into battle with you side by side so that our enemies lay dead at our feet."

It's not cruelty in her voice, or even disapproval. Her assessment is harsh, but with her thumb brushing underneath Diaofei's eye and her fingers now feeling their way up along the scars of her shaved head it's difficult to read her tone as rejection. This is a calculation. There is war to be waged, and war is a thing fought with the mind before the body.

She promised victory the instant she appeared. That requires getting to work.

"I could still take you as my woman. But I do not think that will work. Your body is as fragile as your spirit right now, and a woman who I take to bed must be prepared to bruise my body as much as I bruise hers. I would break you if I gave you myself, little priest. And I will not risk the Trickster's curse on me for claiming your heart while it is still entwined with hers."

The spirit looks around the room, lost in the thought. Her legs stay hunched forward in a high squat to keep the priest's face and neck in easy reach, and to fit inside the space the building leaves for her. Extended squats, possibly better known to some as horse stance can be some of the most brutal and torturous form of self improvement or training known to man, but she's held this position for several minutes without twitching. Either her legs are even stronger than they look, or something makes a bend like this mean nothing to her.

And then suddenly her arm wraps around Diaofei like a serpent and lifts her back out of the tub to rest in the crook of her elongated elbow, holding her as one might a puppy or a rugby ball. Now she is motion, a pair of impossible stretching steps reaching the door and prying it open, but the feeling of motion never reaches the priest in her arm.

"It will be easiest if I think of you as a treasure, instead. An exotic and delicate flower from foreign lands. Mine to have and my glory for owning you for however long my sword arm stays strong enough to keep you from being taken by anyone else. Do you like that, my Treasure? It is the role you are best suited for in your present condition. I cannot command you as a soldier or safely love you as a woman, but with this much I can anchor our contract and fight even without your magical energy.

Now come! If you will not rest where I put you then you will at least eat real food when I give it to you. But since you do not have any, we must hunt! We shall return here shortly with our feast, but for the moment this will be the fastest way to show you who you've summoned."

And without waiting for an answer, she is off. Her long, loping strides carry the pair of them down the road and over hills, avoiding the moonlight and favoring the shadows wherever she can. Even in the open air like this she does not stand at anything approaching her full height. If anything she moves more like a beast, low to the ground with her nose pointed toward the air to catch scents on the wind. Her free hand stretches out ahead of her and occasionally pushes off against the ground or pulls her further up the grass as she climbs the terrain. If her other arm wasn't full, the definite impression of her movement is that she would fall to all fours when it suited her without thinking twice about it.

But for all that she is a hunting beast, riding in her arm feels so smooth that it's more like sitting on a cloud. A very rough, warm cloud that won't stop grabbing your butt, but still a cloud.

Breathless Dead

"I don't have a fu--"

The words are stolen from her by a painful hacking fit. Redana's fingers against her cheek are soft and soothing and warmer than a blanket fresh out of a dry cycle. Bella allows her eyes to flutter shut and presses her face deeper into that hand. Where it retracts, she cranes her neck to press close again. It's all she has to cling with. It's all she has to cling to.

"I don't have a future idiot," Her voice is softer this time; the melancholy and melodic whisper of the defeated, "Just look at me. Clean slate and all I managed to be was myself."

When she opens her eyes again they are wet. The tears sting at the corners and blur her vision even through the Auspex. Her breath hitches, stinging her chest with little hiccup pains magnified by her broken bones and ruined body. Her arms don't belong to her, she can't use either one to make it stop. The muscles in her face refuse to scowl or squint away the crying fit. So all she can do is let it happen. All she can do is let herself be carried, let herself be pushed away, and let herself believe it's because she is loved. All she can do is--

"I don't want you to be Princess Redana."

The words startle her so much she winds up pinching her tail on her mangled claws. She gasps, half in pain and half in shock. But now that they've tumbled out, she can't make them stop.

"I don't want anyone to be Princess Redana. I don't want this debt, this guilt this... this... pushing me away for my own good. It's all so stupid. That's what Princess Redana does and I hate it. I hate her. But I don't hate you. I don't... this isn't about dreams, or biomancy programming whatever, ok? I've had five years to think about this. The Empire is dead. We're not. Fff... fuck it."

She sighs, and nestles closer. But her feet find purchase on the floor, and she shuffles forward to move them toward the hideous rust bucket known as the Plousios once again. Hand in hand and arm in arm.

"Don't make me chase you. Please. Just let... just let me be the one to take you where you're going."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Whether it was the best thing to say or the worst was impossible to know. There are no words in answer to the priest's defiant declaration or her pain filled struggle to stand up and express herself. A pair of hard blue eyes like shards of ice watch her from the frigid waters without a hint of smile or scowl. If anything this ghost has all the seeming of an animal's shrewd and alien wit, piercing the soul rather than the body without giving the impression that she understood a word of what was said. It is a small wonder she does not tilt her head.

Instead, she rises. And rises. And rises. An impossibly long, lanky, and muscular body surges forward and slides out of the water as easily as a seal might. She is leather and chain and fur from neck to toe, decorative skirts clatter as she climbs into the air and everything she is drips pink tinged water on the floor and on the priest. As she lifts toward her full height she starts to bend forward as well. It obscures her exact height, but the impression of the movement is less that she is ashamed or troubled by it and more that now that she has started moving her body does not wish to stop. Forward is as good as upward. So she looms as the bending branch of a gnarled tree might.

One long arm bends at an impossible angle and plucks the little priest into the air as one might grab a cat. Her robe is her scruff. The warrior holds her close to her face and sniff-sighs.

"I do not think you appreciate your situation, Master." she says, and tosses the woman into the bath she'd just stepped out of.

"Deny me all you like. It does not change your reality. You don't need my war? The others fighting it will not care. You have summoned me, and as the most powerful of the lot of us I will have answered the call last of all. Do you wish to pursue your vengeance in the face of a thousand traps, ambushes, and even armies? I admire your dedication to dying a warrior's death in the face of your loss. I will not deny you the attempt."

She crosses the length of the room in a handful of long, loping strides over to the fridge. She grabs a fresh bottle from the fridge before closing it with surprising gentleness and returns to place it in the priest's trembling hands. A thumb and forefinger stretch out and tear the cap off with a mere suggestion of movement.

"Drink. Rest. You are very fortunate to have summoned a king, since you cannot be one yourself. Very well: if you will not command me as a leader or compel me as a lover then what is left is for you to bend your knee instead. You might be so broken that you're barely supplying me with any of the energy I need to fight, but you're still what binds me to this world and I will not tolerate you dying on me before I even get to make my wish. You have that responsibility as a Master, whether you asked for it or no. "

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Truly, it could be said that the gods had favored craftsmen in the years since she'd been buried. Or perhaps they'd bartered, maybe even plundered these secrets from the forges of the dwarves. For all she knew about the construction of this tub and its operation, she had no insights into the secrets of why it existed in the first place. Not that it matters in the slightest. No, the much more important and more obvious fact of the now is that her kingdom had fallen after all.

It must have, if for all their mastery the bathsmiths had not thought to make it large enough for someone like her.

Indeed, every part of her is too large for the room she finds herself inside of. Long, much too long arms spill over the sides of the bath, revealing coiling muscles bound tight in roll after roll of white cloth and fur-lined leather wrist guards. Every finger on her hands is adorned with golden rings of entirely different sizes and styles, treasures she could not possibly have made for herself. More than one finger is even favored with a second mismatched ring. They curl in unnatural directions as she grips the sides of the tub and pulls herself through the ice with a wet slosh.

Now that she is lying on her stomach there is no room for her legs, which curl girlishly behind her and yet with all the seeming of a serpent's raised head in warning. Chain glitters in the silver light pouring in from the windows with hardly a clink as her feet kicked about, stuffed deep into her massive tanned boots as it is. A tight braid flops across the ground, soaked with pink tinged water in places and dry in others where it coils on the ground, far too long and majestic to have fit inside the bath with her. Her hair is the color of spun straw, dotted through with jeweled chains and heavy iron bands.

Even her eyes are large, flashing with equal parts danger and delight at the fridge, the empty bottles of mead, and at the warrior-priest gawking at her with all the seeming of a woman haunted by ghosts. Her jaw, too, seems bigger than it needs to be given the design of the world around her. When she grins, she shows rows of horridly sharp and jagged teeth. They line her mouth all the way to her lithe, dancing tongue. All of her is too much for the world she has woken up to.

Just as she was when last she lived. In that way, nothing had changed. She had failed. She spits out a chunk of ice and watches it slide across the ground to the priest's feet. Her fingers grip tighter around the edges of the bath until the material starts to crack beneath her.

Creature of the water. A mermaid, maybe, if much too large for that. Or. Or... whatever it is, not human. The sharp ends of blue-ink tattoos are just visible on her collar bone and the base of her neck where her armor shifts to show skin. The massive axe on her back clinks against her 'bed'. She has all the seeming of a lion, or perhaps more accurately a polar bear. No, a shark. It's not that she is trapped. There is simply no need to stand on ceremony here. A predator, a king, can afford to take her time.

Besides, there is power coursing through her body, and a dream lodged like a knife inside her heart. The world may still be building itself too small, but it's plain to see that it hasn't grown any weaker since she died. That's enough to put her in a good mood. There is fun to be had, still. And conquest. Perhaps she would fight a frost giant after all.

She smiles, and leans farther over the edge of her ice bath/bed. Muscles bunch and roll along her shoulders as she surges, the envy of any shield-maiden despite their impossible length. A heavy necklace slides out of the water and drips frigid water on the ground as it dangles from her craning neck.

"You called to me!" she booms, "Little priest. And so I have come. Congratulations, you war is already over. Now tell me, Master: do you fancy yourself my king? Or are you here to be my new wife?"

Huntresses of Hybrasil

"Hmph."

Her fingers wrap around Marcina Villajero's wrists. She pulls each arm down and wraps them across the Terenian's chest until they meet at her hips. This embrace, close enough to hear the nervous patter of her heartbeat with nothing but the contact of fur to flesh. Mirror closes her eyes and waits. Ten. Nine. Eight. She pushes a long breath out through her nose so that it brushes her new guest's neck. Seven. Six. Five. Her tail rises up and wraps around both of their midsections. Four. Three. Two. Her flicks around until she finds a show camera panning around them. Her smile is the grim amusement of the huntress before the pounce.

One.

"You are the only one among all your kind I will ever grant this privilege to."

She pulls them backwards, and falls into her seat. Still holding onto Marcina Villajero. Keeping her safe in the confines of her lap as the Gods-Smiting Whip snaps shut around them. The posturing achieved its purpose: the air has siphoned off most of the terrible heat that had been cooking her at the end of the fight. It is now merely reminiscent of a hot spring or a steam bath. Her arms reach forward from either side of Marcina Villajero's waist, and her body presses closes against her back as she leans forward to place her hands on the console.

"You understand now why that is. You alone can see the truth. You alone are small enough for my world."

It is. Difficult to work the pedals with another pilot in her lap. But she is not without her practice. Her feet find their places, though it pushes her to the edge of her seat. Her hand grips a joystick while the other dances across her limitless buttons. Lights glitter in the cockpit like stars, and the Whip turns on a dime and burns its way across the arena.

She flies through the corridors, flipping upside down as she reaches the hangar and then even sailing backwards as she travels past it. Every micro movement that is endemic to her piloting style is much easier to feel from inside than it looks in combat against her. It is not a smooth journey, exactly. But it is controlled. There is nothing they experience together that does not happen at the express direction of Mirror's fingers.

Out. Out. Out. Away from the arena. Outside. Into space. Into quiet and cold. Into the place she learned how to fly. Every little motion suddenly turns to silk. The last vestiges of battle heat drain from the cockpit. Even Mirror's heart rate slows until it seems outright lazy.

She dances. In spirals and loops, she dances. She builds hoops with her Tails and pilots them through, around and up and over, cresting in an arc behind them and through again as they separate and reform further ahead. Above. Below. She dances through an obstacle course of her own creation. The emotion is joy. The sequence is control.

But there is nothing here to feel except momentum. Nothing but her own small body and the useless mesh wrapped around soft, splotchy spotted fur. She stops. They float. For the first time, her voice betrays her nerves.

"Do you. Understand?"

Breathless Dead

Too loud. Too bright. Her head droops and her eyes find the floor so they don't have to watch anything more complicated than her feet. Her ears sink lower, and lower, and lower, until they are squashed flat against her skull. It doesn't help. A lifetime's worth of context floods her mind, and the more she realizes how much of her life was spent in a washed out muted hellhole the harsher and more overwhelming her reality becomes.

Put her back. Put her back, please. Mosaic was a dumbfuck peasant girl but at least she didn't have to be so aware of what the air tasted like. At least she didn't find these lights so glaring that the pain made her nauseous. Put her back. Please, please put her back. Stupid fucking Lethe. Stupid gods damn--

Bella breaks into a coughing fit. Her ribs feel like they are turning into dust from the stress of it.

Her left foot rises, but her toes drag across the floor. It stomps back down as if she'd dropped it off a shelf anyway. The right foot follows but all it does is scrape along behind. Her tail is so limp that it's dragging across the ground, over sharp rocks and pungent grasses and too cold water without the strength to keep itself from staining and catching on literally everything.

Her arms aren't working. One of them is so useless that all she can do with it is flop it over the shoulder of the beautiful woman carrying her and watch it dangle there like a mutilated lure trying to catch a particularly ugly fish. She can't feel it at all. Never mind what's happened to her claws, she's not sure it even has fingers anymore. Her useful arm isn't much better. All it can do is ache and cling to a better woman.

Bella forces her head to rise. She forces exhausted, half blind eyes to look at the painful radiance she's propped up on. She forces herself to smell again, and not just breathe. Though the air is thick with the herbaceous notes still clinging to her tail, with the sting and half peppery aftertaste of spent SP materials, through the protest of earth and the loud cry of sap dripping like blood over everything and the pungent, disgusting musk of wolf sweat that's just sitting over everything in front of and around her right now, there is still a note she can't quite place. Enough to be wrong. But not wrong enough to be right.

Someone is missing. Someone is here. Her vision blurs with salt and tears on top of simple weariness.

"I really f--" Bella rasps her way into a coughing fit. Her legs go so limp she has to cling to the person around her through the cloak that's muting the world just enough to make it bearable. Hot guilt and embarrassment rushes through her to see how eagerly her one good hand feels for every little curve and tries to push her fingers through that cascade of golden hair, "Fff, Gods. I, I fucked up again. Didn't I?"

Tears turn to crying. The pain can't make her stop. Bella trembles and twitches so hard that it forces the pair of them to stop. Which is better than moving. Which is worse. Waves of ice and needles ripple out from her chest but all she wants to do is be here and feel it happen. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. She needs to say things. Needs to ask.

"I wanted to... look for you. I know I did. But I didn't... remember how. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I! Are you?"

She sniffs. She stiffens. She tries to push away and stand under her own proud power for just a moment but it only sends her to her knees. She looks up at the golden princess, the last symbol of the Empire she was raised to serve, and her lips tremble.

"Please. Are you real? Please stay. Please don't go. Whatever you, where you're going, I'll! I've lost you so many times. I can't...

"I can't do it again."