Phoe

Breathless Dead

"Are you FU--"

Bella's hands unlock as she slams them down into the desk.

"Do you just not res..."

Her claws scratch terrifying and deep grooves into the surface. But she stops, looking almost like she's choking on the reaction. This, Bella. This is why the Anemoi lost to the Plosious in the beginning, the middle, and the end. Because every single time you had the chance to be more competent, more perfect, more of a leader than the disorganized bleeding heart morons...

She sighs. She'd spent it screaming and posturing until everybody knew how big and important she was. And after that the moment for action had already slammed shut in her face. Did Hera know, then? She warned Mosaic about-- fuck. Bella's eyes squeeze shut, and she pinches her nose between two fingers, too late noticing she's done it hard enough to draw blood. She'd never imagined how difficult it would be to hold two sets of memories in her brain at the same time. How the shit did Vesper not just shrivel up and die?

"Sorry." she says through a very long breath. Her arms sink toward her lap and a meditative posture. Inhale, exhale, she pushes the tension out through her lungs. As much as she can manage, at any rate.

"...Sorry." she says again.

She sniffs the air again and holds only her golden eye open to follow Dyssia's movements. The smells may be a shipwreck so far as her training could carry her but that posture she knows all too well. That's the same squirming and twisting that Mynx was always full of whenever she felt guilty about a deception. That expression, the constant movement of the thick Azura tail, all of it tracked one to one with a rippling of scales and a coolness of touch.

Ok then. If getting to be Mosaic got to be good for one thing, let it be that she could manage to not strangle the ones who trusted her in a moment of vulnerability. It's not what a Praetor would do. But what good had being a Praetor ever done for her? She would never discard the title, no, but she could still be more.

"Let's say that what happened..." her voice is slow and cautious, as if she didn't trust herself not to burst into flames and blood at any second, "Is a lesson you needed to learn. And leave that part where it is. I don't--"

She rolls her eyes, already wincing. She manages to turn that motion into an abrupt lean onto one hand, suddenly in informal posture with her fist on her cheek. She groans and stands up, instead, so she can at least turn all of the energy she's trying to bury into pacing, instead. Her tail keeps flicking as she walks: the warning gesture for her pounce. But Dyssia never recognizes it for what it is, and Bella never follows through.

"No, I get it. I do. It's a planet, right? A whole ass civilization getting plucked apart like cheap toys. You don't have to sell me on it. But fuck me, I-- ghhhhhn. No, I was right the first time, there's no point in going over this. You tried to do what you thought was right. I... accept that. But your deal is off. I'm not inclined to go looking for NBX-462 at all at this point, but even if we find him I'm not letting you trade this for anything."

The red eye, this time. It used to be a different color, Dyssia, do you remember that? But you broke the promise of the ribbon and it changed its color. Now 'Mosaic' looks permanently angry, or at best like she has a headache, and uncomfortable every time she opens her mouth. She doesn't look directly at you, or at anything, but keeps turning her head as if she thinks there's something for her to find inside the room with both of you if she just walks to the right spot.

"It's pointless to argue with me, you know. That sword isn't yours to give away for any price. It's not Belja-- fuckdamn it. It's not Gemini's either. It's not even mine. It's... Hera help me, how do I explain this? Do me a favor and get comfy, please. Sit, or, float around or... I don't know, pace around with me, whatever works. This is gonna take a minute."

For an uncomfortable moment, Bella goes statue still and quiet again. Her eyes are only on the gouges in her desk. She shakes her head, and all at once the tension seems to flee her body. Her shoulders relax and her tail drifts down until it's hovering around knee height. She manages to look directly who'd already once managed to free her from a prison she'd been locked inside of, made of ignorance and doubt. Arguably, Dyssia's even freed her twice. If you wanna call it that.

She shrugs.

"In the first place, you need to understand. There is a land of the dead. You're gonna have to take my word on this; I was born there."

Return to Thellamie

Trust level: /+/+/+/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Dollwaltz!!!!!!
Connection, taught by Madeline. Recollection of Timtam Target's performance.
Coincidence? Connection. To investigate.

Dollwaltz Dollwaltz Dollwaltz, oh than the dreamers she has the tune now! The entire piece is audible inside her mind. Information processed, stored. Releasing and resuming investigation. Temptation: immediately query Lady Olyessa about the song and the Target. Rejected, mission orders prioritize Order privacy.

Madeline will know. Official business to ask her, now. Priority, post cleaning post festival post nighttime meal. A lead! Or a herring! Either way, delicious! Er, exciting!

"Settled?" Eclair cocks her head.

"No I am afraid not. I must impose upon you a moment longer."

Eclair's face is tense. The kind of tense that many outsiders and possibly Outriders mistake for a battle aura but is really just the focused concentration that comes from noticing something important. And she has. There is a very real argument to be made that spotting a Pairing supersedes the importance of all but the highest missions, and in Eclair's case the only thing that had even raised the Mystery Score above her default ranking was the involvement of a, a, a, a... um. You know, a colleague. Coworker. Fellow Knight. Person. Girl. Who, like, used to give offer extraordinary ear rubs. For. Medicinal purposes. You see.

Stress kills, you know!

Anyway, there is a spark in the air. This demands attention! Eclair rushes forward with supremely reckless speed and takes the Civil woman's hand in her gauntlet with a care and gentleness that is startling for how quickly she was able to seize it. She takes the Hunter's hand in her other.

"We are not settled," she says through a smile as magical as a sunset, "Because the information I was gifted has turned out to have far greater value than what I offered you."

She pulls, and brings the hands together. Some say that Maid-Knight mystic arts bind the hands of those they touch such that you can't help but entwine your fingers with whomever you've been brought together with. The Order simply insists they have a talent for spotting matches, nothing more. Either way her smile intensifies, from Evening glow to Noon, as the maxim holds true this time as well. She holds them together with one hand now, and draws a glyph in the air with another.

It's a simple bit of hedge magic, actually. Nothing to be excited over. Basic retrieval. She takes the long, red string she pulls free and wraps it several times around both of their wrists.

"Please, be excellent to your mistress, Lady Nun."
"Please, be excellent to your pet, Lady Hunter. Olyessa? Yes. Yours is a sacred duty."

She places the end of the string in the Hunter's other hand. The string with a handle looped onto the end. And a clip dangling from the other. A leash. She has given the pair of them a leash.

"The blessing of dreamers upon you both. I only pray that you each remain constant, whatever that may look like for you."

With that she hops away, somehow landing ten feet from where she started and also in the middle of a beautiful curtsy (the envy of even the one she opened this conversation with). Her tail tip flicks merrily behind her as she smooths her apron.

"There. Now we may consider ourselves settled, Madame Outrider. Enjoy the festivities, I am told the local cuisine is..." she fumbles, "Noteworthy?"

That's surely NOT the word, right?

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Very well then."

A moment, spent staring into the sky. A second moment spent sitting Fallweaver comfortably where Saber herself had been seated a moment ago. A third on patting her head, though with the sort of care and gentleness one might expect from looking at her. A fourth inspecting the lance, a fifth taking her own long swallow of liquor.

She does not return the smile, hard edged as Lancer's is. She does not scowl or set her brow or her teeth. If a word can be put to her expression, it is boredom.

It should not be so: the joy of testing a warrior should be sacrosanct for a Valkyrie, even an artificial one such as herself. But all she sees looking at Lancer is a waste of resources. Mana spent on movement that cannot be replenished, injuries that would take even greater concentrations of magical energy to heal when she was already running out of tricks to keep restoring herself. The possibility that their duel would distract from Angelesia's and swing the fight in the incorrect direction. All for what? Servants could not improve themselves merely through training. Neither could they become properly drunk (though wine was famously mana dense as far as drinks went). There were endless reasons why this was pointless, even detrimental. Dozens of justifications for rolling her eyes and picking up one of Lancer's books on foreign culture to pass the time, instead. But she grips the javelin that had been thrown at her and takes her stance.

"For the sake of our alliance," she says.

The shaft disappears behind her back as Saber dips into a wide, three point stance that stretches her body until her posture somewhat resembles a siege engine. She neither throws nor pounces, but simply waits.

"I accept the wisdom of your thought. We will drink and we will duel in the custom of your class container. I will allow you to curry favor with your Master by demonstrating your superiority. Let us become accustomed to one another's movements; I continue to require your cooperation to achieve my goals in this war. A logician such as yourself is doubtless aware that the reverse is equally true. If you should injure me beyond the point of recovery I will simply take this as the proof that your true name is Actia."

Finally, she grins. Now her heartbeat quickens. What is your move, Lancer?

Return to Thellamie

Travel discovery: Serigalamu war queen. Classification outrider, literally travels the Outside without the Paths.
Air of familiarity - forgetting a history lesson? Possible. Reminder for clarification later.
Claims familiarity with Mistress Noon. possible, given credentials. nature of relationship unknowable.
personal observation, extreme fatigue. likely in need of long rest, personality deemed unlikely to accept prognosis
Trust level: /-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
Assigned mystery score on first contact: C+++

Once more the little ritual to dry the ink in her notebook. Refusal to look up until finished. The importance of accurate, on the minute information was paramount. Three nods in satisfaction, return to pocket. Full curtsy, right leg sweep out wide, skirt at maximum flare. In the absence of certain hostility, information gathering favored respect and kindness.

"Greetings to you, Madame Outrider! Your, ah, pack looks well? Congratulations on your difficult journey. I am pleased to inform you that Mistress Noon is exceedingly well. She is in excellent spirits after development of a technique she refers to as 'Soul Hacking'," (pause for exaggerated bunny quotes), "Which has rendered her the delightful terror of the Order's communal spirit tablet letterhead. We are at her mercy at all times, Milady. It has been sometime since she has gone hunting, as Your Ladyship no doubt has noticed and, well, the heart has needs does it not? We provide."

One problem people sometimes have with the Order of the Aurora is that the Maid-Knights' tendency to treat everybody with their maximum level of respect and formality meant they had nowhere higher to take their honorifics when addressing a person of note. Ordinary folk found it off putting to be lifted so high without warning, and nobility or suchlike as they refer to themselves rankled when addressed without their due, specific respect.

The bright smile and shimmering eyes of Eclair suggest she has not even considered this possibility. She is much too caught up in the delight of being offered a chance to talk Order gossip in a safe context in front of outsiders (even Outsiders! or Outriders at any rate) to have any space left in her brain for consideration of the risks of etiquette. If she were not so hyper aware of the clock ticking down in the background she might very well attempt to hold up the procession with this discussion the entire night, causing either a series of heart duels or for a very prominent political group to miss the core of the festival outright. Such a shame that she was cut off from the possibility by her own prior commitments.

In any case this was all for learning. Now she would see by laugh or scowl how this woman connected with one of the dreaming dragons that loved her so. And by detailing herself as not a threat in the immediate sense, Eclair also kept open the chance for further exchanges of important information. This might even be a lead toward her primary investigation in time. She might even--

"Aha~! If this one may be so bold as to intrude on your time Milady I would please kindly propose an exchange of information in return for the requested news."

Eclair's smile approaches manic. She can't keep it in, does not even wait for a nod of assent. Such a worldly traveler must know, and she has the right of fair bargain on her side! It must be correct! It must be! Once again in any case, this was all for learning. Her glossy purple hair bounces with every excited movement of her body.

"...Are you familiar with the song that goes dum-te-dum, dum-TE-dum, dum-te-dum-DUM?"

She leans forward, poised and ready. Her notebook has appeared in her hands again, though neither Mel or Jaks-- saw her reach for it, pen hovering excitedly just over paper, ready to fill in several pieces of missing information at once...

Breathless Dead

"No, thank you. If I was actually after 'juicy' I would frankly prefer to wind up a film. Text all by itself can't wind me up. I'm more concerned with..."

Bella trails off into silence, looking at the sword. Her eyes snap to the way it's held in Dyssia's hands, to the grip so tight it's cutting off blood to the fingers. She watches the blade tremble with an uncomfortable intensity on her face. She is stillness contrasted against all of Dyssia's nervous, excited shifting. It is startling when she suddenly moves her arms to lean her elbows on her desk and rest her chin atop her thumbs. Like watching Galatea suddenly come to life, if Pygmalion had been into stuck up, monster catgirls in weird suits.

She takes a very deep breath, and is slow to let it out as she watches the sword now resting between them. Then, as if changing her mind she swaps to a burst of sharp, rapid sniffs. She reacts with a scowl; Azura biology has always been a difficult nut for her to crack. The chemical codes of their bodies aren't quite what she's used to and even on Beri she spent single digit hours in the same room as any, so there wasn't a lot of opportunity to practice the craft. Dyssia mostly just gives off chemical odors, the sharpness of an oil paint and a general bite that is always hanging over her thanks to her innate excitement. Was she lying? Nervous? Just... her? The usual tells weren't giving her anything.

With a click of her tongue, Bella stands. She runs her fingertips along the edge of the blade.

"People don't appreciate," she murmurs, now brushing the tip with her thumb, "How twisted the god of love really is. Then again..."

Her fingers wrap around the hilt. She does not lift it, but simply squeezes tight as if holding hands with a dear friend for the first time in a while. Stands like this in silent stillness for an uncomfortable moment before shaking her head and sitting herself down again.

"...Never mind. That's not your problem. This, though? What the fuck. This sword? You're sure that gun became this sword? And now you can't find NBX-462?"

Bella frowns. Click click click, she taps the claws on her left hand against the one on her right.

"That doesn't make any sense. A sword, whatever. It's an esoteric. But this sword... no. Tell me what happened. Tell me everything. Don't leave out a single detail."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Saber arrives on the field, unbent and unbothered but completely drenched in blood with no apparent source. Cradled in her arms is Fallweaver, tastefully disheveled though otherwise clean and unblemished. She dumps the sorceress on the ground at Angelesia's feet with a quiet smile.

The sword at her hip which had been broken when she left is now pristine. Saber brushes past the young master now dabbing herself in war paints and crosses the distance to the other Servant she found herself relying on. No words pass between them before Saber bends down to grab a jug of water from Angelesia's supplies without bothering to ask. She upends the entire container over her head and lets the water soak into her hair and splash down her body with slightly too much curve to her back for it to be an entirely innocent act on her part. She twists her body in ways that at once seem impossible and alluring, highlighting muscles and the long, graceful curves of her body under the guise of cleansing herself in a way that highlights her beauty more than a warrior should need to bother with.

The blood does not wash away. Rather, it falls. Rather, it gathers across her tattoos and then shatters, falling at her feet in a neat pile of needles and broken shards like dark red ice. One particularly large piece tumbles from her chest in the exact shape of a dagger, and this she plucks out of the air with one hand and lets it roll between her fingers.

It is the crystallization of a grudge. The ill will she absorbed from the trap trickled uphill toward the king (that is to say, the princess) that had ordered it, small though it was. Jezara was not Actia and Saber could only manage to care so much, but even so pain was pain it demanded to be returned. Saber steps across the field again and towers over Angelesia. The idea she was fragile in that moment seemed absurd. If that was an illusion, it was a powerful one indeed.

She places the dagger in the young woman's hand. It is uncomfortable to touch, at once hot and slick and somehow sticky feeling, though it was none of those things and left no stain in the hand that held it. A gift. A tiny fan to feed to spark.

"You look a warrior, now. And you have earned my respect. Another gift, fit for your mantle. A warrior's last resort, and nothing more."

She turns her hollow eyes on Lancer, but only nods to acknowledge her existence. If she'd heard anything said about her, she gives no sign. Shows no interest in any developments that have happened here, in the choice of battlefield, or the dynamics of their alliance. These things have no bearing on her goals. Her work was finished, for the moment. The only thing that mattered now was waiting for her chance to cleanse herself of this ridiculous obsession that burned away even jealousy toward a superior tactician with a superior student. This freedom from desire thing did not suit her at all, and she could not wait to split Actia's skull open and have done with it.

She bends to pick up Fallweaver, as gently as she'd held her on arrival, and crosses away from the proper Master and Servant pair to sit with her hostage. Her teeth peek out from behind her lips as she makes a strange face, like a smile that died halfway to her cheeks.

"Well then. Here we are, little treasure. I thank you for your silence during our trip together. How now shall I reward you for it?"

Breathless Dead

There was nothing more that could be said with words. Their destination was already set. Maybe it even had been before either of them had been born. Bella neither knew or cared, when what was in front of her already meant more than she could understand. There's little of the touch of a maid attending to her princess in her fingers just now; this grip belongs to Mosaic. The same fingers, the same memories, but the pressure spoke of a confidence and control she hadn't felt even on the Tunguska.

...There are really only so many ways you can cook a crab. Especially without real supplies, a proper kitchen, or a chef's training. Even the variety in the creatures themselves can only do so much before the feast turns into a monotonous chore: just resentful chewing through the same flaky sweetness and fat, fighting to swallow as much as possible before reaching for the drinks to keep the latter from running out before the former. It's a test of willpower rather than an indulgence of pleasure. It's jaw pain and sore throats and an uncomfortable churn in the stomach begging to stop, just please stop.

But Bella eats it all without complaint, for the sake of the journey ahead. The most she does is explain the process of winemaking, and her plans to manufacture something modeled after Nero's distilleries in the Plosious as soon as she could find the time and resources. But even this dies down to nothing so she can focus on the food. Her body needs the energy, if she's going to make it Gaia.

It's not a big thing at all. It's just that, for the first time since Tellus became a memory, the future feels like it might be more important than the past.

[Bella will Fill Her Belly, and heal Iron]

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

There was still nothing to be done about the ridiculous nature of Mosaic's wardrobe. Bella was running out of tricks and alterations she could make without turning this into her only project, and unfortunately her days of isolated pursuit of hobbies were behind her. So until she finally found a planet that was willing to barter a supply of dresses worth half a shit, this is what life meant for her.

Relaxing today meant putting herself in a very tight black suit with knee-high boots worn over equally black pants that were somehow even tighter than the rest of the ensemble, worn so close to her skin and fur that they were really more akin to leggings despite the material and the deliberate creases pressed into the center of each leg. Black on black on black, with gold filigree in a stylized pattern of unfurling wings spreading across her chest on either side of a brilliant golden tie. Of course this being a Mosaic piece meant the stomach had been cut free from the shirt and jacket both, so even though she'd buttoned them until they conformed to her every bend and curve she was still exposed across the midriff.

It was easier to handle than normal. Not simply for the comfort of being alone, but because she'd tossed a long, crimson overcoat across her shoulder almost like a cloak. Her blue-black hair tumbled down the back of it, the left half in tight braids woven like rows of crops and the right half merely brushed until it flowed like a river. Perched atop her nose were a set of golden frames holding glasses over her eyes, somehow delicate and sloppy at the same time as they kept the vaguely oval lenses where she needed them.

She does not look up from her book when Dyssia crashes through the door. The glasses' work at hand: she'd been given a pair like this for study in Tellus. By Sagakhan, but never let a bitch mother ruin a good idea. The lenses themselves were just plain glass; the very idea of corrective eyewear was so alien to her that she didn't even know that people once upon a time would have mocked her for this. It was nowhere in her histories, after all, and the grand Human works she'd grown up watching or seen painted on the ancient liquid crystal canvases in Hades' palace never lead her to believe they served the Ancients any differently than they did her. The simple act of having them on her face meant she had to direct effort on the words in front of her. A thousand predator/prey instincts and the universe's most overtuned eyes stopped feeding her information that wasn't pertained to her studies when she had them on. Making them again in life had been difficult but worth it, because now when she had a day like this to spend in pleasure she could...

"Useless fucking asshole." she mutters, snapping Silk, Steel, and Heartstrings: A Treatise on Love and Lust, Volume III shut and squeezing it between her fingers.

She does not glance up when the Azura woman squeaks with panic, nor when she bobbles the door in the act of shutting it and winds up slamming it harder than intended. Bella's ear presses against her skull for a moment, but her focus is entirely on the closed manuscript in her hand.

"I've never read anybody who knew less about love and still turn up with so much to say about it. Honestly, I know the Skies favor constant iteration of a craft until they hit perfection but this fuckhead stopped experimenting with her verse halfway through the first volume. I thought surely the published works would be her selected best, but like. Fuck me.

"Desperately I yearn to feel her flesh yield beneath my fingers, grasping empty in the dark. To sigh, the song of loneliness and sorrow. I weep into the night sky with Aphrodite's painful arrow my only companion.

"Idiot's never fucked a woman before in her entire life. If you wanted her so bad your fingers would be so deep inside yourself you wouldn't even be able to pick up a pen, let alone moan about it like that. Ridiculous. She doesn't show the first bit of interest in explaining the intensity of the heart, includes nothing in her songs about the motivating force of the lance that's supposed to be driven through her heart. I can't feel it pulling her even if I close my eyes and put myself in her place. Not even the decency to be afraid of a fire that should be melting her bones from the middle out. Injustice. That's what this is. It's a crime. Was she ever arrested, do you know? I hope this bitch, specifically, got her planet bombarded and was crushed under... whatever, I don't know. Something ironic I guess. Is this why you rebelled against your society? 'Cause honestly, I wouldn't blame you."

At last, her focus shifts. She sets the book on her desk and carefully plucks her reading frames off her face before she sets them down next to it with the care that would normally be afforded to a relic sacred to all of Olympus. Just now, her eyes could freeze a Leviathan in place. Bella sniffs the air, and gives her intruder a polite nod.

"You here to kill me, then? No? Then put that sword down, Dyssia. I've been meaning to talk to you."

Return to Thellamie

"If I were to leave the Order..." (subtle correction of nomenclature. avoid shaming. gold star for Eclair!) "It would be for love. If I am ever blessed to meet a heart brilliant enough to pull me away from Duty I do not know if I could manage to focus long enough to make money with my meager skills."

Not that her own assessment of her work has stopped her from dreaming about that bounty. The problem was finding the time to chase it. A problem was finding time to chase it. A second problem was the lack of availability of cheap-yet-quality dyes and canvas, and a third problem was that her painting skills were hobbyist at best, even by the mediocre standards of the Manor. Honor demanded she finish the work herself if she undertook it at all, but then the resultant output would surely not be worthy of reward.

Even still. Step one, assessment of the building layout of the Sapphire City. Step two, map of optimal grind spots and construction of mental layout to simulate a super ramp, ideally one that required no construction on her part. Step three, board. Flying was no difficult trick for the merest Maid-Knight when she had a shield at the ready; she doubted very much that she should fail at reaching sufficient altitude in center downtown to find her angle and allow herself sufficient time to locate at minimum three backup shots. Win bounty. Use proceeds to source new teas for the Manor. Become hero of the Order and get all of the snuggles, ehehehehehe~

The problem was the landing. The problem was not dying for the shot itself. The wings of a Maid-Knight were -- dum-te-dum, dum-TE-dum -- ah! Darn it, what was the tune? Not a children's song, though the child was singing it. Popular. Soothing, swinging beat, lacking sultry undertones. Escape from Sapphire City? No! No, no, no, conflation of current mental track with epiphany. Curses. Why was her relationship to music broken?

Startle. Laugh, three note trill. Realization, mimicking mystery melody again. Subtle wince. Recovery, smile.

"That is to say milady that I do not charge for tablet paintings. As a general rule an Aurora Knight in uniform will never seek recompense for leisure activities. Generally we negotiate with businesses and local governments for contract work as well, when necessary so I advise you be wary of any Maid that asks you for money. If you are uncertain, please ask them to perform a triple-orbit-prayer-stomp on their Shield. If they cannot, or worse do not understand the question, you are in the presence of a scam artist."

It does not occur to her to explain what the trick in question looks like or how to tell a well-executed skateboard trick from a poor one. These things have become so elemental to her that she has forgotten the terminology is not common parlance. Neither can she read the look on Lady Mel's face to know if she is curious about the conversation or about Lord Jaks--'s (what a strange name. check pronunciation with couple before parting. use notebook, official recording) exclamations.

She turns her head in curiosity. In truth she had not noticed the commotion without having had it called to her attention. Nor could she guess at what it might mean. Even among the Maid-Knights, Eclair was infamous for selective learning. She knew most everything there was to know about things she considered mission critical, but the politics of Thellamie were not among these topics. Most details of cities, of maps, of directions from one location to another, of the feelings for one location's peoples toward another, these did not interest her and it was impossible to sit her down for a lesson that would correct her ignorance. The workings of various machines, which is to say the mechanics of their operation rather than their end-use, were similarly outside of her ability. In truth she did not even know if the land was flat or round, if it moved around the sun or the moon (neither? both?) or how much Outside lay between Thellamie and Yukisworld.

But opportunities for on site learning were exciting! What she learned on a mission was, by definition, mission critical. Eclair's ears perk up and her eyes catch a very earnest fire as she rises up onto the tips of her toes to catch an early glimpse.

"Ah~?" she asks, still in melody, "What is~~?"

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

So that was the creature Angelesia had chosen to challenge.

Saber had lived in an age of gods and monsters. Most people she had met counted her among them, in fact. All the same, hers had been a campaign against the world of men. It was exceedingly rare for her to meet another warrior she even needed to not look down upon, let alone up: among the more lamentable deficiencies of England had been its near total lack of giants. Detestable.

So this? A rare thing. A beautiful thing. From the shadows cast by the sea of falling autumn leaves, Saber pauses to gaze upon the shape of this Princess, this "lioness" who shook the earth with her terrible roars of anger. For a moment even thoughts of vengeance and Actia are driven from her mind, so captivated is she by (in particular) the towering blade that sweeps through the air demanding her own head for her brazen act of thievery.

How her body quivers! She'd never had the chance to test herself against a creature like this in life! Even now, counting only her vision and her instinct against the knowledge of the full potential power of her ghostly body she is not sure if she'd even win a fight against the gorgeous and majestic Jezara. Saber's entire fighting style hinged on being the larger combatant; her strength was even contingent upon leverage. Could she be fast enough to outmaneuver a foe who outranged her? Could she be clever enough to outwit a creature who commanded armies in the form of flocks of birds and held the hearts of beautiful witches in her palm?

With a command seal powering her, she could-- no, that did not warrant thinking about. Not because it would never happen, though it wouldn't. And not because it would be "cheating", though in several senses it would be. The problem was that it skipped past the value of the exercise to the end. But now that the idea had entered her mind she was having difficulty mapping the scenario without it. It felt like poison in her mind; even this tiny indulgence skipped straight to "win". And she knew exactly who to blame for that poison.

Diaofei Actia.

If her Master's heart had simply been whole, none of this would have been necessary. If that garbage bitch hadn't inflicted so much pain the flame of vengeance would have found nowhere to catch in the first place. And if she hadn't, she would also have had a Master with pure magical circuits and a clean flow of mana and she would not have even needed to worry about engaging in these pointless mental exercises to strengthen herself in the first place; she could simply have fought what she wanted to. No matter how she chased the problem it only ever came back to Actia. She needed to die. Everything would be fine once she was dead. The only thing that mattered was following the path that best lead to that happening.

Her grip on Fallweaver had tightened without her realizing. Not until the yelps of pain threaten to expose her position. Quickly she adjusts her grip on the witch, no longer tossed over the shoulder but nestled so she can sit comfortably in the crook of Saber's elbow. Easier to secure the familiar this way, and simpler to clap a hand over the offending mouth as well.

"Apologies," she says, and means it.

This truly was a beautiful world. Everything about the planet after Ragnarok was just as the poems had described it. It would have been such a joy to conquer it. With a sigh, she turns her back on the majesty of her surroundings and runs on. Every color near her seemed like it burst off of the leaves and grass and even the dirt before her foot trampled all of it into the same dull ash. Light filled every corner of her vision ahead of the shadows that creep across it all and take the vague shape of new warriors; mere shells of her brothers with only one task set to them this time.

They carry something like torches in their hands. Saber pays them no mind, but merely sprints in a straight line toward the place where Angelesia and Lancer awaited her return. She had a job to complete. And dreams to forsake. Not for the sake of the world, but for Actia. In the name of the woman who burned her Master the forest catches too, for no higher purpose than another moment's distraction.

Breathless Dead

"You... did," Bella says, "Run away, I mean."

Lying. The desire not to. Lying. Lying. Bella's grip on Ember tightens until it's painful for both of them. She forgets how to breathe; she numbers the dead once more. It takes a soft, warm hand on hers to restore her, and when she looks down she sees Ember's liquid eyes trying with full bravery to look into hers.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to--"

"No," Bella cuts her off, "You should hear this."

Knowing every physical reaction that went into lying made Bella one of the best practitioners of the art anywhere in the galaxy. She did it all the time, even from childhood. But being skilled at something and it being easy weren't the same thing. The need to carefully shut down specific parts of her body to keep them from triggering detectable reactions was stressful in the extreme. To someone like Mynx who knew even more intimately than she did what that looked like she was even more obvious the more effort she put into being subtle. And Ember... had the potential. To see through her. It sent rigid terror down Bella's spine.

The gnawing hunger she felt just now, hearing those words. The desire to explain everything, all at once, and drag her Dany back into the world exactly the way she remembered her. And she did remember her. Perfectly. Artemis had triggered the reset herself, in the kind of exacting detail that only she cared about. The distinction of the memories between the Praetor Bella and the demigod Mosaic were clearer than crystal inside her mind. But if she admitted that... if she admitted that, it meant.

Pain. Pain for Ember, pain for her. Was it so wrong to take the middle path? Was it a crime to leave the most important person in the universe in the dark, where she earnestly believed in weddings and true love and even her horror scenarios were just that little bit sweet? Was it evil to let Redana dream? Just for a while longer? Or forever, if she could manage it.

Still. Lying. The stress of it made her tail bush and her claws crush silverware to dust. To do that, forever if she must...

"You didn't run from me. You just ran. Because..."

She closes her eyes. Sucks air as deep into her lungs as it will go, and pulls the scent of the feast and of her, her, her, her -- say it now -- her bride along with it. She holds these things in her lungs. Half-truths. Those were always easier to maintain. She sighs.

"Lord Hades told you our," she bites her lip, "Marriage would be... cursed. If you didn't find Gaia, the lost birthplace of our Empire. Everything about our relationship would be chains and misery, woven by your mother. Unwittingly. She... it's complicated. I've still got blurs where I can't piece the details together. But I know she didn't want you going. But you left anyway. You just did such a shitty job of explaining why that I thought you'd dumped me."

It's a bitter laugh that escapes her this time. She holds onto Ember as if afraid she'll vanish into nothing if she lets go, even as she reaches to feed herself some of the crab she's been neglecting all this time. It's been so long since she's sat down and actually eaten real food. She'd almost forgotten what it felt like. The flaky, sweet flesh and the pockets of juice that burst against her tongue. She swallows, and she flushes hot with embarrassment when she notices the sound rising from her throat.

"The, the point is we're not married, Ember. Not, not yet. But, when we, find Gaia, then..."

Bella trails off in failure. It's too much. She can't do it. Handing the wish back is the same as crushing the new life she felt so suddenly desperate to hold onto. Even though no part of her monstrous life deserved to. She tilts her head to look up at the sky. Trying so hard to see the stars she and Dany had imagined from inside the Palace walls as children. The ones she tried to paint, to keep her Princess' feet on the miserable ground with her. The ones she'd destroyed in a fit of rage. The ones she'd made again when she was completely alone and had nothing else to convince her to attempt sailing the True Sea one last time.

The same childish stars she so desperately wants Ember to see, too. That she can never explain, for fear of harming the one thing she wants to protect more than all the rest of the galaxy combined. The tears that streak down her face have no explanation. They cannot be allowed to.