Phoe

Breathless Dead

To make a pancake, one must first create the universe.

Bella blinks. No sooner had Hera suggested that she might cook than she'd found herself standing in the middle of a kitchen, still surrounded by the grand cosmic wonder of Olympus. Her body had taken over her mind a moment later, and now even as her ear bends to absorb the Queen of the Gods' musings about her terrible son she finds herself absorbed in the act of making breakfast. Specifically, pancakes.

Nothing about this is the way she'd always imagined this happening. Every offering she'd ever made to Hera she'd always made excuses for. A lack of ingredients, or time, or, or, or whatever really, but always she would apologize for the meagerness of it all and swear to do it better next time. To do it right. And so in the perfect kitchen stocked with every wonderful grass and grain of wheat and creamy milk-filled pod she could dream of she'd expected herself to prepare something appropriately upscale. A meal to rival anything she'd created before, or even seen inside the Imperial kitchens. Nero herself should not have known a finer or fancier cuisine in all her life.

Instead, Bella was making Redana's favorite breakfast. A thing she'd first cooked when she was nine years old. She grinds out her flours and mixes her fats and picks out the spices that delight her nose the most before turning her attention to the berries that seem like they would be the best compliment to the budding flavor profile unfurling in front of her.

"He also taught them how to paint with liquid crystals so that their art could layer on top of itself and tell a story when you fed it an offering. And how to weave wisps of almost immaterial nothing into beautiful dresses that celebrated the body. And how to make stuffed shark plushes."

She flushes fever hot and tries to bury the moment in the motion of her hands grinding and sorting the powders she needs to work with. Her head hangs, spell of propriety or no, and braces herself for Hera to fling her into a star for being so stupid. Or worse, to laugh at her. She does neither.

"I, uh, saw it all on the Tunguska," she says awkwardly, "I really thought that the Ancients were beautiful. And if Hephaestus gave them those crafts, then I think we lost something precious when he died. Even if he also enabled all the horrible things that struck down the old civilizations in the first place."

...Maybe pancakes were the best that she could offer, after all. A more skilled chef would have seen the potential of a more intricate dish, but the fact of the matter was that Bella had next to no formal training after all. And of all the things she knew how to make, this is the that best responded to the skills she did have. Putting her hands in the batter she can feel when it reaches the consistency that will make it fluff when it hits heat. Her nose can tell her when she's added her seasonings to the perfect levels without needing to know what the measurements ought to be. She can hear the moment when the insides have stopped cooking and she needs to flip them over, and of course her muscle memory guides that flip in a perfect, majestic arc.

It is not the best food that she could make. It is the best food that she could make. The sweet tang of the purple-red berry syrup wafts up her nose and mixes with the storm of cardamom and stars anise that are so delightful it makes her tail curl even in the middle of this awful, heavy conversation.

She looks up, and feels a tear on her cheek. How awful, to see a god this vulnerable and fragile. How awe inspiring to see her still so poised and and beautiful even with all her feathers rotted down to nothing. Bella's breath shudders, and the drip of pancake batter off her claws reminds her to wash them clean before she returns to the final mix and pour.

"I dunno, though. Like I don't blame you at all for throwing him out. I think if I had a son like that..." she trails off for a moment, looking toward the peak of Olympus and trying to imagine it. Bearing a child, trying to raise it. Would it be Dany's? That is, Ember's? That is, urrrrgh, ah,

She nods and her vision is once again filled simple with the infinite wonder of creation.

"Yeah. I do think I'd wind up doing the same as you. Especially in your position, like, how could you not be horrified by everything that could turn out to mean? I don't think it's fair for anyone to call you a monster over that. I'm just, saying I guess, there was something maybe worth salvaging."

There it is, the moment. Bella's hands are pristine, freshly dipped into the purest water before she slides her pinkie claw along the fluffy length of the pancakes to divide the stack in half. She pours the syrup and the mixed berries (a compote, you dipshit) overtop and watches for it to sink into the opening she's created. Her nose tells her it's perfect. Better than she's ever made before. She holds the plate up in front of her like a knight offering a sword.

"For you, then. You deserve more and better but this is all that I can do. I wish the stories had been kinder to you when they were written. I wish it was easier to understand, and be understood. Maybe then..."

Bella stops. Her lips press tight as she watches the dance of the gods unfold behind her. Against the backdrop of the heat of the kitchen and the smell of sweet batter and tart berries though, it all seems somehow more relatable than it had before. Maybe she was just getting used to everything the Auspex already knew?

"We can't really take back the things we've done. But maybe if you ever, uh," she awkwardly clears her throat in place of explaining the image suddenly filling her head to Hera, "You could... try again. Maybe it'd be worth it. Something new, I mean."

Return to Thellamie

What to do? What option presents itself as the obviously correct one?

Step one. Claw at face. Intense glare at little idiot playing the Great Game in the face of A Moment. Lift arms to either side, mouth hanging open. Intention: What? What? Literally what?

Step two. Sigh and hang head. Contrition? Admonition? Headache? Ignore interloper, walk forward, pick notebook back off of ground. Smooth cover with fingers, soft. Delicate. Tender. Open to desired page, return to interloper.

Step three. Sweep leg. Catch back of head, hold steady, sweep low and lean forward until hair brushes against ground. Until face to face. Eye to eye. Breath to breath. Lips so close they taste heat. Hold. Hold. Hold.

Step four. Place open notebook in inter-- in Ruthmoreness' hands. Use now free hand to caress her face. Same technique as used on notebook earlier. Wait for eye to flutter shut in anticipation.

Step five. Flick that little idiot right where she's expecting a kiss. Once, twice, thrice. Pointer finger with the sharpness of a rapier. Pull flinching figure close against shoulder, hold face against neck, lean close. Plant kiss like candlelight on top of head.

Eclair's expression is extra intense as she, well, not releases Ruthmoreness, but opens her hold on her enough to slide her grip down to the other maid's wrist and pull her fingers to the pages of the notebook. Just at the beginning of her notes on Timtam. She takes Ruthmoreness' own finger and slides it over the words, carefully as can be, forcing through tactile awareness the gaze of the beautiful klutz toward the words, so that she can see for herself what Eclair is up to and why she is in the state that she is.

Understand. Understand. Please just, understand. She cannot ask the way that you are looking for. She cannot converse as an equal. So raise yourself, or lower, however it is you see it, to her level and... and Understand.

The rain is moving closer, now. The smell of petrichor is so strong she can't focus on anything else. The first few drops are falling on the pair of them, cool and beautiful and just ahead of an absolute wall of water to come. Without meaning to at all and even though it is an utterly inappropriate gesture for her own plans, Eclair finds herself smiling.

Step six, then. Sweep the leg again. Knock Ruthmoreness to the ground and pin her there, legs clamped over waist. Hands placed firmly to either side of her head. Lick lips.

The rain falls in earnest, now. A modest drizzle becomes a heavy downpour, and Eclair's short cropped and carefully swooped hair soaks through and hangs messily across her eyes. The shade of violet she claims her title from shines differently when it's this wet, no longer signaling a sort of perfection to challenge the Outside with but rather defined by a, for lack of a better word, allure. A silent, dripping prayer for someone to run a hand through it and feel the tangles smooth under the warmth of a shaky caress.

Her uniform drenches as thoroughly as the rest of her, until the white is merely a suggestion and the black only exists to highlight the degree to which Aurora armor plating is mythically form fitting. It is second skin, projecting strength upon on the maidens of the Manor while reveling in the unique beauty of their every curve and little strangeness of their bodies.

Many things can be said about Eclair Espoir, but sopping wet like this there are very few that aren't about beauty. Her willowy frame and delicate little curves are perfect for keeping the woman trapped beneath her safe from the storm without smothering her. Ruthmoreness is free to watch the knight grow wetter and (impossibly, but still) wetter for her sake, to watch more and more of the body above her be revealed to her, and still to take her own breaths. To smell the rain and exist in this tiny pocket of warmth created by an act of love.

And, if she would just pull her ditzy little head out of the clouds, to read.

Return to Thellamie

Stopped here why did you stop here stopped here why did you stop here stopped here why did you stop here pointless to stop here knock it off this is not forward this is not where she is not where she went not where she's going this just is it doesn't matter you don't need to be where something is that only makes it novel knock it off not here stop here stopped here why did you stop here don't you do it don't sit down oh you rotten bitch you don't even get five minutes it's going to hurt now it's going to hurt and you deserve for it to because you shouldn't be stopped here stopping here why why why why no no no no you are not thirsty you do not deserve to be thirsty that spring is not for you stop it don't think about being parched that only makes it true you are strong supposed to be strong supposed to be better than this don't don't damn it damn it damn it it tastes good why does it taste good why are you doing this this is all you're fault I'm going to take this out on you later where nothing is around where no one can see me no one can stop me the armor is coming off I will take it off of you and then I am going to elbow you in the ribs until it bruises do you understand Eclair you need to listen you are useless and they are counting on you not to be you are failing the Auroras you're failing your sisters you are failing Yuki Edogawa you are failing Timtam why is this so difficult to comprehend would you just stop slurping up that spring you are just, just, just, simply the very most

What was that noise?

Eclair looks up. Perks up would be an overexaggeration, but she looks up. She also slumps over. It's a complicated set of motions, but she manages it with the dignity expected of a maid-knight. She is simply tired. She has been walking for quite a long time at this point. More damning, with the excitement of finding the mural the other day she had forgotten the need to eat anything. And of course there'd been no time after. She brought neither food nor water when she left Crevas, in that stubborn proud insistent sort of way that dragged her into the Outside to begin with, that miserable pounding voice that screamed over and over again that it would only take her a few short hours at most to catch up and so there was simply no need, no time, and above all else no capacity to prepare for a sustained march.

It isn't Timtam come to negotiate or explain herself. Eclair does not remember to hide her disappointment. She flinches, plucks at her skirt, and hangs her head in obvious disappointment before -- well. No, before nothing. That's just what she does. Her sigh is long suffering and very very loud, and zero effort is made to be polite about it or think about why she ought to be. She busies herself with the act of sitting there trying to will the Oasis out of existence, to make this anything other than a meeting place, to make it unsafe for someone else to be here and to talk with her, or at the very least to project the hint that company was neither desired nor possible at this specific moment.

But of course, none of that can be heard over the sound of clattering charms. And none of it can be smelled over the coming rain. It's actually very difficult to be mad at rain, if you didn't know. It's very easy to be mad at yourself for not being mad at something, even rain, but it's a losing battle to drag yourself down when something is working so hard and so effortlessly to lift you back up. So Eclair stops trying to stab Ruthmoreness with mind daggers and just opens her mouth to say hail and well met.

But no sound escapes her. Well that's a new kind of frustrating. She huffs and rolls her eyes, instead. Wait no, what's the question? Any messes? That one is obvious.

Gesture toward sky. Meaningful look, making sure to capture attention, full eye contact. Break gesture, point at top of own head. At self. Point at self. Here. Here is the mess. Observe head tilt, roll eyes. Point again. Be more insistent. Faster, sharper gesture. Wave hand at uniform, at state. Tap throat. Shake head.

...

Take out notebook. Place bookmark at mission start (blue satin ribbon, very soothing). Throw book at maximum velocity in direction of Ruthmoreness' head.

Angry, yes. Irritated. Tired. Annoyed. But open. No proof the clumsy girl has not been tricked. Is not a plant. Possibilities abound. Nevertheless, choosing to trust. Always make the attempt, even if it turns out to be for the sake of a traitor.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

All she needs time. All she needs is patience. This is a simple matter of waiting for the trap to swing closed and her forces to reassert control over the situation. Hers is an army she has collected on behalf of the gods for the sake of a a righteous cause. It is perfect and it is functionally infinite, at least in terms of the scale she intends to work at. If some of her heroic shells became corrupted by the evil magics of her enemies then all she needed to do was release more and she would always have the advantage of numbers, no matter how effective the technique being used against her.

Even now. Even now they scheme. They plot. They plan and they sneer, she can hear them all the way from here. Contemptuous louts, disgusting fools. They continued to see her war as just another bit of political maneuvering. They thought of her as possessing mortal thinking, and a mortal tolerance for bloodshed. They thought that since their plans were in place so long before she could concoct their own it made her an inferior creature that did not need to be respected. They thought this was could be won with information

If they thought that, they were blind. Imagine spending so much time tracking her movements and winding up here without knowing anything about her personally. Though then again, perhaps they knew very well. Did they understand the nature of a Valkyrie?

Call it meaningless. Call it unhelpful. Her castle smokes and bursts apart in places. Her siege weapons and laser arrays are crumbling off of the outer walls. Parapets are shearing off and tumbling to the battlefield below. The main building is dropping from the perpetual stormclouds and falling down to meet them. For all of this the throne room is pristine and glittering. Utterly untouched by the chaos and terror ripping apart the rest of the castle; a quiet place for Angelesia to rest. Jezara prowls about in frenzied restlessness, but all Avenger does is stand behind the throne and allows the tears to run underneath her mask and splatter on the floor.

How can she not despair? How can she not howl? She had done her duty. She had summoned warriors, worthy heroes to rally to her cause. And not only warriors, but the most pure ones imaginable. They had no ideals to clash with hers, they had no histories or tragic pasts that would betray or unmake them at the critical moment. They were swords, spears, and skills summoned by the command seals painted across her body. And despite that, they had betrayed her. She put her faith in them and they repaid that by turning to the side of the most hateful creature that has ever walked the earth. Her vision blurs with the pain of it. Her shoulders tremble, and the shudder is felt throughout the structure. The final layer of weapons on the outer walls all fire as they are destroyed, reducing more of the land to blighted ruin.

"...Ah," the tears stop in an instant as she looks toward a mirror and sees Hope again, "She comes."

Avenger steps forward, and places a tender, loving hand on Jezara's neck. She strokes the Princess as she would a lover, leaning her weight against the griffon woman and sighing in ecstasy.

"She has been drawn in! She will arrive, and all we need do is prepare! If it is so, then my warriors have acquitted themselves! If it is so, then!!!"

Shark teeth glint in the light of the throne room. The baleful red of her Command Seals gleams with sudden power.

"My loyal warriors. My detested traitors. I sing for you both. I love you all. You have done well. I have only one more thing to say."

Avenger sighs, shuddering with the relief of climax. Her hideous chorus of mismatched voices all scream out in decadent pleasure.

"By these Command Seals, I order you: Die."

Her castle falls to the ground. All the while, screaming. And then finally, silence.

Breathless Dead

"That's, uh, a really good question. I don't... know? I think my sister sent me. Maybe. She wrote me a note, anyway."

Redana would not have needed the protections of this miracle spell. Her smile would have done enough for the whole thing, and turned whatever awkward babble that spilled from her lips into a refreshing stream of good company and earnest intentions. She'd have walked right up and asked what needed to be asked, because it was her birthright to ask and to know and somehow she'd been such a good person that she'd managed to flip the script around and put herself lower than everybody else anyway. Could any other Human have managed that? Could even Nero have--?

Bella winces. It is not jealousy or fear that strikes her body into the shape of the cringe. No, it's just embarrassing as fuck to be here like this. What is she supposed to do with her hands? With her tail? With her -- fuck! Yeah, great, the humility in her heart, how wonderful. Don't worry sister, she's got that in spades, there's not a trace of arrogance anywhere inside of her she could summon under the direct gaze of Hera, of all people. Not her. Never her. But that doesn't...

It would still be... nice. If she came off as cool? A visit to Olympus should be a wonder, a miracle of profound and reality defining importance. For Bella it feels more like a prolonged flopsweat. If she doesn't manage to get something to drink she might literally die while she's here just from the sheer terror of it all. All she can perceive is the peril on either side of the path she needs to walk down. It's all death, from here to eternity. It's worse, even, because she is directly in the realm of the gods and interacting with them on a level they fully understand. They wouldn't kill her at all, they'd turn her into a new myth. On top of whatever more literal thing they metamorphosed her into.

She coughs. Her tail droops around her ankles, and she forces herself to match the posture of the Queen of the Gods. She owed that much and more besides. She pushes her ears into perfect poise and alignment atop her head. She smooths her hair and adjusts her outfit until it fits as stylishly as she can manage. She does not allow herself to hide the clothing's celebration of the things that make her Mosaic. To wear her imperfections as honors: that's what it meant to mirror Queen Hera. She couldn't think of any other way to show respect.

She licks her dried lips with every last ounce of decorum she can muster.

"There's a lot," she turns her eyes up to watch the cage that Aphrodite builds around them, "I'd want to say to you. Here where it matters, I mean. I'd love to cook for you, if I could. Even above Dany you're the one I'd most like to serve a meal. That's a dumb dream I've had since I was a little kid and I saw the first prayer of my life get answered. But I was sent here. I didn't earn this. So I just..."

The paper in her hand is rough as it crunches and wrinkles in the face of her nervous fidgeting. The ink on it feels oily on her skin, but even as it rubs off onto her the message stays as clear as when she first noticed it. Bella watches the Queen of the Gods across the infinite reaches of space and the horrible infinity of this awkward silence, and closes her eyes.

"The thing my sister Vesper wanted from me was that I ask you. Um. About your son."

Return to Thellamie

Irrelevant. Unimportant. Stupid.

She is marching (trudging, really. shuffling. sliding? dragging herself. shuff-- damn it! shambling. she is shambling) forward into the dessert. Desert. The desert. Toward the Outside. Timtam went this way. Did. Did. Did. Saw. She saw. Timtam went and she has to follow. Already made that decision. Already commute....... committed. Commit to the commute. Come, come, come. No: go. Forward. Answers are behind her,

Irrelevant. Unimportant. Stupid.

Methodology behind her. Process? Investigation. Clues and notes and stuff. If she wanted those she would not have given chase in the first place. She would have allowed Timtam to escape (allowed? allowed?! you arrogant incompetent above-all-else-unnatractive useless piece of)... deep breath. Hold. Hands on face, slide down through air toward hips and exhale. Drop thought chain into sand. Leave it behind.

Irrelevant. Unimportant. Stupid.

That's right. Speaking with Timtam is more important than catching her. Being her friend is more valuable than stopping her. Not possible. Neither possible. Catching her comes first. Also not possible. No. Not... not not possible (word, word. word? Prefix. forget), immanently pos-- im!! impossible! Er, no. Not impossible. Achievable, one and all. That is why one foot keeps moving in front of the other and why her hips keep pivoting beneath her waist and why she is leaving these dainty footprints in the sand while she waits for the wind to swallow them up and sweep them away like colors off the floor of a

Irrelevant. Unimportant. Stupid.

Timtam does not want to be her friend. She, she, she, she, she, she, uh, um...............

proved that.

She knew. Somehow knew. Knew ever, every, thing. Every, everyth-- rrrrrrrrrrrgraaaaaaahhh!! Snffft. Hck. EVERYTHING. She knew everything already. Knew Eclair would be the one they sent. Planted clues that would lure Eclair the most specifically. Probably misworded her painted warning on purpose to use as bait. Planted seeds of dissent at every interview point. Dissent? No, what? Not dissent. Diss, diss... shoot, no. Discord!!! There it is, ok. Ok. Thank goodness, yes. Discord. Stop getting distracted. Irrelevant, unimportant, blah blah blah.

Eclair's feet stop moving. She turns her head to look back on Crevas, the point of reality shining bright and strong against the backdrop of this shifting, sandy nothing. Everything she wanted was back there. Cup of tea, snack, small meal possibly. Clues, methodology, pages and pages and pages in the notebook that would become the rope she could bind Timtam in no matter how skillfully she maneuvered.

She sighs and hangs her head as she turns forward again. Shuffle slide march shambles further into the unknown and the dyes. Timtam hurt her. Set the trap and filled her mind with too-bright lights and too-loud noises and now she, and now she, now she, she now and, and she now, and, and, and, and. Um. Uh.....

.............
...!..!.!!!..

What was she? Erm. A single finger traces the lines jotted down in her notebook. Eclair frowns. She's chasing after Timtam. It doesn't matter that she can't catch her. She is colors and smears and stains, waiting to be swept off the floor. Can't be swept off the floor. She is colors and a mess and she wants to cry but she's broken and it isn't happening.

Open mouth, test. Speech? Express thought. Say anything. Say 'ow'.

"..."

Right. Foot forward then. Return to investigative principles advised but ignored. Turning around means losing. Admission of mistake. Giving up. She just. Doesn't feel ready for that. Onward, then. Legs versus mind, to see which tires first. It's all

Irrelevant. Unimportant. Stupid.
Self defeating. Pitiful.
Desperate. Longing. Loving.

It's

hold

don't let go

What lead her to the Manor in the first place.

Eclair marches on.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Avenger was born from the pain of betrayal. Naturally she now lived every moment expecting more of it. This invincible body of hers was constructed knowing that anything and everything might break from her at any minute. It did not matter one bit. So long as her own promises were held to, the castle would not fall from the sky. And as its keeper, the Avenger would never know defeat.

But even so. When the gates open, her scream tears the skies asunder. Amplified by receptors on the towers of the castle, the waves of sound pour down like lances upon the siege works of Boehmond. They tear the earth until it is unwalkable; mangled wreckage of stone and forest covered in unseemly tilled earth. Within the floating palace, hot tears pour down from underneath Avenger's mask.

"Tarry alone but a moment, my Queen," her voice is a chorus of sorrowful song and barely restrained fury, every note of which is another dagger that falls to the earth beneath them, "I shall see to the guests."

All at once, the power in the wondrous machines lighting this place and filling it with the sounds of their labor shuts down. Avenger's castle morphs into a place of silence and darkness, broken only by the gleaming of her own weapon and armor, and the quiet sound of her hissing breath. She glides rather than walks, so even the sound of her footfalls is denied to the hallways and launchpads that will eventually carry out her grand assault.

Later. Now there are wrongs to be righted. A blood price to be extracted. She vanishes into the castle in search of her prey. Not the pawns of Assassin, but her own corrupted soldiers. These she will butcher with her own hands. When the task is done it will hardly matter what poisons and cretins have attempted to seep into her being. If this opening had been left for Lancer and her dismantling logic the wound might have meant something, but any creature that owed loyalty to Actia was powerless before her. So much the more if they should attempt to betray the great betrayer themselves. So far as she was concerned, the hired knives were nothing more than bits of undigested mana to be ground down into more soldiers and ammunition inside her gears.

The first traitor, a Saber Class Shell, gurgles in its empty casing when the great laser sword rends its chest open. Black sludge bubbles out of the armor as it shudders hideously, staining the pristine walkway beneath it with the foul mud of disloyalty. She tears the head off of a Caster and uses its staff to impale the faceplate of an Archer. The darkness fills with clattering, empty armor and the slosh of disgusting sludge dripping everywhere.

Avenger does not spare a single shell. Not a thought is given to the wasted resources. It does not occur to her that she could simply capture and reprogram them again and cleanse the sin of her palace without losing a single unit. She does not care. It is time the world ceased underestimating her. This is not a campaign that can be brought down by scheming. This is not the campaign of a king. This is a Promise, this is vengeance, this is wrath that can burn entire cities past recognition and then dump the loot in a river for the wolves to pick at. This is anger that could forge an entire nation within the quivering chest of a civilization that had come before it.

Her sword sings. Her voice chokes with painful sobbing and something beneath it, something bordering on ecstasy. The tears pour down her face heavier than the rain outside. Her cloak of demons howls and snatches bodies out of the air, crunching them into powder beneath a snapping of the idea of jaws and teeth. Her castle is filled with violence, and in some way or another most all of it is directed at herself. There's probably a metaphor for the monks and mystics in that, somewhere.

"Those of you who hear my voice and obey, descend now. Yours is to test my so-called descendant. Make him prove himself before the ancient ways, as I have done before him. Whomever among you manages the deathblow, I shall grant a soul. Those who opt to remain, I shall paint this place in your filth."

She melts away toward her throne room, where the Assassin's blow would fall. She would weather it there, and watch. And if her entire army should fail? Nothing changes. She remains.

Return to Thellamie

What is she supposed to do? Turn away, unacceptable risk. Cease chase, unacceptable outcome. Already committed. Already obligated. Have to catch up, have to ask questions. Have to.

Tuck body, backside 540 into melancholy air, pull board to -- is. Is that? Yuki Edogawa? What is she do-- colors! Running colors smearing colors colors all over colors in her skirt colors in her hair get them out get them out she can't get them out how do you wash them away?

She was. Warned. About this. Unlovable fool, Eclair.

Noise. Noise noise noise, too loud too loud too loud too loud too loud too loud!!

Hands lift off board. Hands clamp over ears. Eyes squeeze shut, overwhelmed, overwhelmed. Read and prepared for, outmatched, defeated, make it stop please just make it sto--

Landing. With no grip on her board and no eyes on her landing, Eclair cannot stomp through. Her processes are broken up by useless whimpers and admonitions. Thoughts worse than useless and senses willfully turned off and attention actively diverted toward stopping all the things she needs to keep going.

She cannot push through this. She cannot stick the landing. Her skateboard goes skidding out from under her feet and Eclair Espoir crashes violently into the ground. Feet first, then knees, and now back as she rolls and bounces and tumbles inelegantly across the Welcoming Plaza with the deafening clatter of her armor bruising her soft body in the name of protecting her bones, crash and clatter and the tearing of messy skirts upon the stone street until with a final horrifying crack she collides with the fountain and stops all at once.

Collapse onto floor. Hands on ears, hand on ears. Noises, animal noises. Quiet, quiet, quiet. Not quiet. Need quiet. Please quiet. Where did? Just. Come. Please come. Please come ba-- please come, please come back. Answer. Just, just, j-j-j-just say...

Why?

Tears force their way through Eclair's tight clenched eyes. Her teeth grind together and drool escapes her lips as well, her entire face determined to leak and ruin her decorum and her station. But she does not cry. Does not wail or sob. Instead she shudders. Her voice is small and shattered, stuttering the beginning of a word or a sound that could express the sensations trying to explode out of her but never quite getting there.

Cease. Reclose mouth. Pivot, wipe mouth on shoulder, tuck legs into chest. Cease, cease. Breathe and sink. No more. What's a 'Hazel'? No more.

Breathless Dead

What the fuck?

Everything is nonsense. The air smells left. Her tongue tastes cold, her ears are filled with the deafening roar of quadratic equations. It's worse for having her Auspex; perhaps if she'd had both natural eyes she might have just been blind, or mapped some kind of incorrect texture over everything in her own stupid mortal understanding of the universe, but here she has just enough context for reality that her overmatched senses are insisting on delivering her correct information.

Bella stumbles on her first step. Her legs won't stop trembling and her stomach swoops with nausea. Those at least are sensations she can understand. But she clamps a hand over her mouth, and forces her breathing to slow until she starts to feel stable. If there's one thing that's gonna get her killed right now, it's puking on Olympus.

Once while she was fighting Taurus, Mosaic briefly glimpsed the true shape of the gods. In that moment she could see the curve of reality and the shackles of the rules that bound it tight. It was something of a lonely awakening, realizing that the gods she'd dreamed of having a relationship with had been much, much too large to be considered anything like she was. The anthropomorphism had been incorrect; these beings were reality itself.

But now, fighting a headache that could kill the worst migraine of her life, Bella can see everything unfolded in front of her with enough time and clarity to properly gawk at it. Her other self had only been half right. The gods were manifest. What they did changed everything, determined everything, became everything. But they moved, they schemed, they put on airs and took effort in their appearance. It wasn't the failings of her idiot brain that made her see it, the eye of Hermes assures her, the gods were the universe. But they were also at the same time and for lack of a better word, human.

For a moment, Bella forgets her nausea. She stands in place with eyes wide with wonder. She forgets decorum, neither maintaining proper posture or remembering to keep her mouth closed. She even forgets that she still needs to breathe. She just stands there, half slumped and slack jawed, watching truth and beauty so deep and indescribable that she can't even tell if it makes her feel huge or tiny to bear witness to it all.

And then the little note slips a bit in her palm. Bella turns, and stares at the little prayer her sister left for her before she'd been kicked away to stand in the same place as the gods. Her throat dries in an instant, and her sudden nervous swallow is painful. Shit, that's right. She's not just looking through a spy lens. She's here, and they'll be expecting something from her. Suddenly she can't keep her spine from snapping so rigid that it interferes with the motion of her legs. Her tail won't stop bushing, and between the arm wrapped tightly around her stomach and the one clutched desperately at Vesper's note she has nothing she could use to soothe it. Not that it would help if she could. Every part of her body telegraphs nerves and fear response.

And the worst thing of all is that she's shuffled up to Hera anyway. Hera, who wears even her imperfections as beauty and pride. Hera, who can command decorum anywhere and from anyone with nothing but her gaze. Hera, who wields the fear that only a disappointed mother can control. Bella flinches in on herself, but no storm of mirrors and shattering glass sends her elsewhere. She is trapped.

"Um," she says, "Uh. Hi. Sorry. Uh, hello."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

The temptation, of course, would be to simply fly over these wretched fortresses. But they are the product of a Noble Phantasm, the crystallization of the concept of claimed territory, and that demands a certain degree of respect. It is dangerous to wage a campaign deep within enemy territory when you do nothing to break their power; bypassing these defenses might well cost them more than fighting them would.

Not that it matters either way. Above all else, these are Berserker's castles. Avenger could no more ignore them than she could call Actia a good girl. Just the thought of it makes her quiver with rage. No, this demanded her attention. Proving the impotence of the Betrayer's alliance was of equal importance to actually killing the wretch. She could not inflict the kind of suffering that she needed to if she did not strip bare every last little plan, every pretense of power, every last little scrap of hope down to its most pointless and desperate incarnation. Even if these castles lead out of the way she would take the time to hunt them down and crush them.

"We shall not commit our forces to this obstacle."

Avenger brushes her fingers underneath Angelesia's slumping chin. The girl is feverish, hot enough for the warmth to filter through her armor. The seed of hatred within her has sprouted; soon it would blossom and transform this brave and silly girl into a proper Queen and a flame of vengeance. It would be the final tick on her ledger, a figure aligned with her and of true majesty she could repeat all of her pledges to. It would cement her power, even against the possibility of her Master getting cold feet. And it would, of course, win the war. Gather every other Servant against her in perfect harmony if you must, even the hidden Rider. It matters not. The world itself could not bring enough power to bear to outmatch the strength of her promises.

"But fear not. My power is more than sufficient for our purposes."

She plucks her sword out of its pedestal, and the seven factory gates snap shut. For the moment, the tide of her endless Servant horde is stemmed. She holds the gleaming blade aloft to the sound of stomping feet and crashing shields, now the very thunder of the storm itself. The castle halts, crackling with power where it hovers.

A step forward. She takes the blade in both hands and plunges it into another socket on the far wall. An observer might be tempted to say it is Avenger's sword that powers the castle. That wherever it is plugged into determines the subsystems she is activating to accomplish the specific purpose she has in mind. The lightning flashing through the clouds, then, is merely discharge. Some fantastic siege weapon has been unleashed, and this is the howl of its battery.

"Let My anger become your pain. Let My hatred become your suffering."

Another step forward. Avenger thrusts even deeper into the wall, and the entire castle howls. The mechanical roar of her army, the thundering of the machinery, the howl of animal pain. The silent gasp of the observer, understanding too late to matter that they misunderstood the nature of the creature floating in their sight.

"No god will love you. No afterlife will welcome you. What I leave behind is not a mercy, for you deserve none. Writhe, O Worm."

The castle does not fire any kind of beam. Except insomuch as a laser comprises the edge of her sword. For it is the sword itself, magnified to titanic proportions, that cleaves Berserker's fortress walls in half. This then is the true nature of Avenger's castle. In terms the modern world would understand, it is her kata. The meditation of her forms and the manifestation of her will. It is not a stretch to say that the castle itself is her body, and the woman prowling about its maze of platforms merely her heart.

"Blood. Eagle."

The fortress does not merely crumble. It screams and shudders under the light of the sword crushing it into uselessness. And it bleeds. Horrifying, impossible geysers of red stain the pure rain still falling all around it as mana vents into grotesque wounds that do not merely carve the land, but scar it like flesh. The walls stay standing even with the gaping hole carved through them, but they seem to sag and shudder, twisted into shapes that speak of pain and the desire to simply crumble, to surrender to oblivion, to not be asked to endure more of this.

But they do. Avenger leaves the territory in the hands of her enemy. She breaks only the power. Leaves it as a monument to torture, grim fury wrought upon a barely deserving target in the slight hope that the sight or the rumor of it would dim the light in her true enemy's eyes before they met face to face. And if she could not? So much the better.

She marches on.