Phoe

Return to Thellamie

Vespergift, the City of Towers. Close city, strong city, cold city. Elongated R's and over-intense vowel sounds, quite difficult to entirely purge from one's accent even with training. An inborn tendency to crane one's neck upward and a particular style of tail crooking and ear posture that marks even the most assimilated among them as an obvious denizen of the only Avel city in Thellamie to even the thickest skulled fellow natives.

A place where open-air pathways were vanishingly rare and chance meetings tended to happen under beautiful and elaborate stone archways instead. A place where bridges were sheltered by bridges which were sheltered by bridges and where navigation of the local marketplaces required the ability to think at four different levels of elevation in addition to direction and distance. Yes, that baker's shop was on the west corner, but third story? Fourth? Surely they weren't doing well enough to be on the second?

Possibility of ground level location did not bear mentioning. Wealth in Vespergift measured by proximity to the earth. Most obvious means of display possible, really. Hit every factor: clear record of original habitation, most shade during warm season and easiest to keep warm during much longer cold season, least difficulty to access, and best of all to live your life down there meant you spent all your time looking at the walls feeling grateful for the sacrifice of Vesper the Conqueror.

Instead of spending your time peering over the walls. Wondering when the forests would advance again and swallow you whole. To note, again, not an act of cruelty. Merely practicality. When the homelands were consumed (the history books say) there was simply nowhere else for Avel folk to go and still be home. The city could not expand. No one believed it was safe, no one trusted the forest. Even today that remains true. But an influx of new people required a solution: build up. The walls rose higher with every new level to protect new citizens, but practicality and space saving gave out eventually.

Impossible, simply impossible, to stack the entire city on top of itself more than four times. Space largely taken up by amenities; decision born out of kindness. Full mirror of the cityscape helped to limit stratification. Nevertheless, need for housing overwhelmed aesthetic purity. Only solution remaining was spires. To build the outer walls to the height of the towers was to invite instability. Unacceptably risky. By the fourth floor marketplace it was possible to peak over the edge of the barrier, if one were inclined to stand atop the fountain. On a fifth floor home the view was uncomfortably full of snow. By level twelve windows felt like a mistake. Trees all there was to see. The thickness of the forest, the wavering in the winds, the sense of an army at the gates. Always wondering, wondering when your time was coming.

But where else could they have put the orphanage? Paradoxically it was the level with the most available free space. Pure coincidence one supposes, levels ten through twelve were built proactively rather than reactively, anticipating the wave of refugees and washouts from the wider world. Just an incorrect guess. And no one wanted to live that high up if they could help it, so it sat (it sits) largely empty. Kindest thing to do for children with nowhere to call home was at least to give them lots of space to run around in.

A terrifying experience. A miserable experience. Flowers everywhere, outside, hardly any to be found inside the city. Gardens only grown with approval of the Weeders. Local constabulary, self important, largely unhelpful. Mostly there to fine and jail people who braved the near trees for petals and mushrooms. Fine enough to have them in the city, no one complained. Medicine was excellent, food even better. But couldn't be seen doing it, never be seen. To be seen was to remind. To remind was to make the city fear. And Vespergift is so tired of feeling afraid.

Proud of their fear. Stubborn about it. General refusal to leave among those that had come. Another reason transplants so often sought each other out. Only bastion of true Avel culture in all of Thellamie. Meaning there are no bastions of true Avel culture in all of Thellamie, only this tree-sieged shadow. Impossible to say what it meant to be a cat among cats with no reason to look over your perch and shiver.

Still. Good bread. Better coffee (local pride, took leaving to realize it was imported). Excellent warm clothing, sense of community permeating everything. Crime rampant. Crime rampant? Positive experience? One supposes. One likewise supposes even orphan girls never leave their homes for the Manor of all places if they are not on some level unhappy with their lives. To be a Maid-Knight is to not fit in where you were born. All the same, all the same, all the same...

No. She had not gone back since the first day she'd scooped an extra little dress and two loaves into a rotting pack and slipped out the gate (out that gate) in search of the road. Had no intention of going back, tendency to avoid assignments that might require investigation in that area. Successful so far. Streak broken.

Similarly, stories left untold. Even in thought, only vague generalities, nothing to give away how difficult it might have been to be a little Eclair. Tragic stories of childhood trauma play well among certain subsections of the Aurora but the cost of inviting their swooning affections did not feel worth it. Opportunity cost among other sects for one thing. Constant reminders of a period best left to haze by way of foreplay, for another. And frankly if there was any desire to experience the tender ministrations of a mother in these later stages of life then

In any event. Somehow Timtam knew anyway. Knew on a level beyond what their personal friendship (had that even been real?) should have suggested. This message said that she knew. Screamed it. Flaunted it. Why? Why and how? Terrifying in its implications. Eclair's chest feels like it is on fire. Difficult in the extreme to sort through the rush of emotions and arrive at truth. No, nothing for it. She would have to go. She would have to put her hands on that envelope, examine the ticket inside (or confirm its lack of existence), locate the level the business being advertised was on, and then if possible confirm the validity of the ticket. While taking copious notes of course. There is a difference between triggering an obvious trap because you are desperate to believe you might get an apology and triggering an obvious trap because the mechanics of it would provide illumination on key factors in your investigation.

If each of these factors was true then there is no time to waste here. This rain-soaked liaison must be closed with all immediate speed. Nevertheless her honor as both maid and knight of the Aurora demanded certain concessions. Therefore:

Lock eyes, nod once. Set expression as grim determination. Convey full understanding of situation, share frown of consternation. Full seriousness. Now, lean in and touch forehead against Ruthmoreness'. Sign of regretful parting. Use shift in body position to access messenger bag. Retrieve pair of Commissions. Difficult part now, peel gauntlet off of left hand. Bite thumb, draw blood. Press against first slip, burn hedge magic to summon small open air tent.

Spend second Commission creating small fire with attendant tea kettle and single ivy patterned cup. Side note: yes, every Maid-Knight carries tea on her person at all times even when unprovisioned. This counts as separate larder from actual travel supplies. Shrug. Stand and retrieve notebook, pocket safely. Slip tablet out of companion's hands and return to satchel.

Offer curtsey. Salute of the Manor, greeting and blessing and thanks and parting in the same dip of the legs and lift of the skirt. Allow moment to smooth hair out of eyes. And.

Turn and leave. The road is long but there is no time to waste. Food and drink will have to wait until she can brave the jaws of Sayanastia once more. And those concessions, once she has them, will taste of a city that once called Eclair Espoir its own.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"...Disappointing."

Why must everything and everyone deny her? All she'd even demanded this time was that her opponent fight her with his mightiest weapons. Instead a... clown? A clown was making some sort of speech calling her an idiot. Just like every other Servant she'd come across.

"Disappointing, disappointing, disappointing."

She lets him speak. Every shake of her head is punctuated with another thrust of her sword into the body of Bohemond, until he is more stabs than man. It is not rage that drives this pointless violence. Her core is hollow, she cannot in this moment manage even a flicker of anger. There is simply nothing else for her to do just now, with her castle a smoking wreck and her army had been wiped off of the earth, more than half by her own hand.

"I would blame this on your Christianity," she says after a long while of stabbing, "Except that Lancer fell victim to it too. I do not understand what it is about you children that makes you all so certain you are the lone arbiters of truth and strategic insight."

Lift, stab. Lift, stab. Lift, stab. Lift...

Bohemond lies dead. But despite the fact that he is a Servant, his body does not disappear. Rather, his magical energy does not return to the Sunshard that spawned him. He does not power the ritual. Rather, he is absorbed into the throne room and is made to power the gleaming machinery inside. Avenger cranes her neck to watch the ceiling, and sighs.

Lift. Hold. Stab. The laser sword thrusts into one of the many slots carved into the landscape in here. Ghost-green lights flash along the length of the floor up to the throne, which rapidly unfolds into its component materials under the weight of the usurper suddenly sitting there. Assassin is more than quick enough to keep his feet, but shivering, feverish Angelesia is dumped onto the ground and left to tumble gracelessly down several stairs before she is caught by a quivering mass of cables.

Twist. Stomp. The nest pulls Angelesia tight and drags her down through the floor. She emerges wet and moaning at Avenger's feet, where a new seat has begun to assemble from blocks of raw material. It is not a throne this time. Cushions to absorb the shock of sudden g-forces, with joysticks at the end of both armrests stuck tight to her hands, belt after belt after belt snakes around Angelesia and straps her in inescapably tight. Her feet come to rest on a pair of pedals. The girl lurches violently, as though to throw up. Instead her head merely lolls as sweat drips from every pore in her body.

Avenger lifts her sword again and steps in front of the girl in the pilot's chair. She thrusts it deep into the walkway one more time and leans on it the way a knight might in some other bygone age and land if they were inviting challenges for the crossing of a bridge, a world she had never known but had knowledge of anyway thanks to the magics of her summoning.

"Let me ask you now, lambs-son. Puppet of Actia. Do you feel clever now? Do you believe you are in charge here? Do you even understand what it is I want?

The castle is dead. In the blinding glow of warning lights the last crumbling towers and walls all fall to dust. Only the core remains. The Keep, if you must be accurate. Only... not. From the dust, a massive clawed hand rises. It pulls a sword free from the rubble, blade crackling with dangerous energy in an outside replica of Avenger's own. A head like a helmet with a shining blue visor, black body of sleek armor plates and dangerous energy vents that extend like spikes from the joints, a coiled heat whip on its waist, and in its spare hand...

A great chunk of the primary weapon's tower lifts out from the ground with a plume of dust. A tower shield.

What had been a grand and empty throne room is now the much more cramped core of a second mecha standing against the Shrine Giant. Though it would be wrong to call it a cockpit. Between the sheer size of the monster and the general lack of need for real mechanical parts there proved to be an excess of empty (if reconfigured) space. More than enough for an army, and a painting, and a chimera. And of course, if it came to that, a battle.

"When you are hunting foxes," she growl-sighs, "It is first necessary to restrict their movements. Terror is more than a sword, did you say? Perhaps you are wiser than I gave you credit for."

Avenger leans backwards to plant a kiss on Angelesia's clammy lips. The hideous red cursemark, the fully gestated seed planted within her, burns bright against her chest.

"Darling Angelesia, my Queen-and-Pilot. I say to you once more: do not forget your gifts~"

Breathless Dead

"Nnf."

Bella sighs as well. But then next to a goddess what possible weight could her own melancholy carry? She could sit on the ground next to Hera, but her silly cut up suit will not form an island to match Hera's ocean. Tight fitted and simple fabric that it is, it wouldn't shift enough on her person to make so much as a pebble. She could loose her braids, but the gesture would take her awkward minutes to finish and then what? Half of it was already loose so instead of any dramatic cascade she would at most add a touch of wavy volume to an already loose and tumbled look. Blue hair did not matter in the face of absolute divine sorrow.

The fact is that she's just standing there, having just said something so stupid it might have doomed reality, holding a plate of pancakes with a berry compote slowly seeping into them and ruining their fluffy warmth. She might have been made to be perfect, but perfection meant nothing to a god. Call her what she really is instead: a useless little shit.

Without anything dramatic for her to do, all that's left for her as a response is setting the plate down on a table that both is and is not contained within the depths of Hera's magnificent dress. She picks up a knife and a fork (etiquette above practicality, Bella) and carefully cuts the stack into bite sized pieces. The universe is quiet while she works. There is only the clink of silverware on the surface of a plate and the mixed symphony of two people breathing anywhere in all creation. The gods are quiet. The universe is quiet.

Bella crosses infinity to be with Hera, and kneels down next to her with the plate balanced delicately on one palm. She jabs the fork into a bite of pancake and holds it in front of the Queen of the Gods' mouth, quiet but insistent. There is nothing to be said, there is nothing that can be said, until the offering is accepted.

"Um." she offers at last.

Now she watches Hera chew the food she'd made. If these were Dolce's cooking that might have been enough, but all Bella's gesture buys her is the opportunity to offer another forkful. What the fuck did she expect? They're just pancakes. Even still she offers another bite and then another, a rhythm of fluffy prayer, until the plate is more than half emptied.

"What good's it doing anyone to just give up?"

Her mouth hangs open in shock. What... did she just say? She almost drops the plate in surprise. When she lifts the fork again, her hand is trembling. She does not dare to watch what happens, in case the audacity of continuing to make her offering is worse than the audacity of cutting it off. What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck is wrong with her?!

"I just, it's... like you said. Everything is getting worse. Doesn't that mean you're free? You could try, just, just anything at all. It wouldn't even matter how useless or trivial it is. If you can't, erm, have... ch-children then, like, I don't know? You could inspire people to pick up hobbies or just weave stuff yourself or whatever. You could fight another war if that's really what you wanted. You could talk to Lady Demeter or any of your children or siblings or, you know, your wife. Or you just..."

She has to set the fork down on the plate. It takes both hands to hold it in the intense pressure of this moment. Mosaic wouldn't falter like this. Redana wouldn't falter like this. Nobody but Bella would trip here. Why her? Why did she have to be herself?

"It just... doesn't matter. At all. If every stupid little thing turns out to be useless then it's just the same as it is. I just know that if we sit here forever, then we're all gonna wind up dead. And I... used to want that. But I don't now. So I just, I guess, if... if the food meant anything to you just now, then what I'd ask in exchange is that you. That you..."

Her voice falters. But the strain of her muscles, strangely, reminds her how strong they actually are. She didn't mean to arrive here, but Vesper might have. The little heart on the back of the note now tucked into her breast pocket fills her neck with the power to lift up, and sets lantern lights inside her eyes. She dares, from one knee, to behold Queen Hera in this moment.

"Hope," she finishes in a high and clear voice, "And if I have to pay a higher price for that then just name it. Anything. Everything, ok? There are so many mistakes I need to fix. The only thing I need is a world where I can try."

Return to Thellamie

It has been said there is no such thing as a perfect crime.

Strictly speaking that is not true. A perfect crime is definable as a sequence of events where the offending act accomplishes something desirable for the criminal that can also anticipate a desirable outcome from the punishment that follows. To wit: a maid-knight might steal a rival's perfectly crafted sandwich, earning her a superior lunch slash delicious treat. If that same maid-knight targets a crush with a tendency toward dispensing retribution in the form of the lash and the leash, then the sandwich thief has accomplished a second benefit when her abused posterior is paraded around the Manor on 'walkies'.

To name one example, at any rate. There are less frivolous possibilities, such as humiliating a figurehead knowing that your capture and punishment will inflame those who benefited from or otherwise enjoyed your actions and further destabilize a major hub or even several, depending on the nature of the original crime and the prominence of the target. If the actual target of theft was the status quo itself...

Nevertheless, they say there is no perfect crime. This concept is not even undermined by the existence of actual perfect crimes, because the true meaning of this wisdom is that no criminal act regardless of how masterful its planning or the skill of its execution can remain invisible to a sufficiently determined and objective investigative effort. It is the reason Eclair is valued as a Knight of the Aurora. It is why she is selected for missions. Not specifically to catch criminals per se, but the unraveling of mysteries. Another might occasionally get to the bottom of a problem before she can, but no one will pursue it as relentlessly and fully as she can in the end.

That is not to brag. That is simply to say that there is no value in spending thought cycles wondering if Timtam intends this revelation as subterfuge. This too would be revelatory, as it would showcase a motivation the target considers worth covering up. If even that turned out to be false it would instead imply a highly specific focus on and interest in Eclair's investigation in particular and that would open new avenues of thought that would eventually wind themselves around Timtam's wrists and ankles and catch her in the end. The only thing in doubt about this would be whether or not the act of catching would turn out to be a reward for her, or perhaps if she would prefer herself be caught by some other entity first for the sake of her plot.

In any event Timtam is creating messes. Yes, that is a very succinct and interesting way of putting it. Thank you Ruthmoreness. An anti-maid is a very intriguing hypothesis even if it is not one that shines any light on the essential question of motivation. It does at the very least emphasize specific possibilities that the more general concept of that lovely vision in orange curls merely turning traitor. She may be a victim: her heart inverted after contact with a Fallen entity or another corrosive force. She may be sitting on a secret of the Manor that requires revealing to the world, Cursed Be They and Such and Such. She might seek the full destruction of the Order of the Aurora or she might instead be agitating a sort of disaster to draw out the Maid-Knights' full strength and guide that to "accidentally" clean some presently invisible problem from the wider world. Oh yes, there are many many possibilities to consider where the cause of an anti-maid could be considered more righteous than Eclair's own.

In fact it could well turn out that reaching the end of this mystery could require--

Eclair sniffles. She does not shiver but that is an act of pure willpower on her part. If she implies too much weakness, Ruthmoreness will see through the spell she has cast and move to shelter her instead. The most imperative thing is not scoring points in the Great Game (or losing them) but the safety of that notebook, which will regardless of skill or intention be exposed to this downpour to some degree during any kind of position switch. She angles her body to invite the other knight to stare at her, instead. Presses her lips taut and draws a sharp breath through her nose to brace herself against a sudden snap of wind.

She opens her mouth, intending to praise her ward. She is forced once more to close it in silence. Even now? Even after achieving understanding and forging a connection in this moment, after such free flowing conjecture and interesting consequences to consider? She is still stuck shut? Would could be... oh. No of course. The fact remains that she has not eaten, and here in the face of love she can finally feel that for the problem it is. The fact remains that she has not drank her fill, and with shining eyes looking up at her in equal parts awe and earnestness she feels as dry inside as she feels wet out. The fact remains that she has overtaxed her muscles and asking them to hold firm here and for who can know how much longer is an act of self cruelty she can no longer conjure the death spiral of dark thought to convince herself she deserves.

The most frustrating weakness of them all, then: the need for basic care and rest. That is what has her voice stolen now. She will likely part from Ruthmoreness' company without managing a single word the entire time. But she must safeguard this woman, as thanks for what she's managed here (no matter if it is a trick or not), and she must safeguard the notebook until she can compose more formal notes so that she can return to this hypothesis after new, non-speculative interviews and fresh physical evidence without having to hold the entire thought in the forefront of her mind the entire time or risk it dissolving in the acid of new thoughts and needs. And she must above all say something to the woman beneath her, because it is unbecoming of a Maid-Knight to ignore a worthy thought no matter her own condition.

And so she turns 'That is possible' and 'I must consider this' and 'Thank you for your contribution' into a single sentence that also means 'You're beautiful'. She speaks this sentence in silence, but with her lips. Her elbows bend, though she fears it will be a challenge to straighten them again. She leans close enough that her soaking, heavy hair caresses Ruthmoreness' temples. And she plants a kiss that will have to satisfy all her hungers at once on the mouth that spoke the thought.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"My failure?"

Avenger cannot contain herself. Her grand sword trembles in her hands as she falls helplessly into a fit of horrible, breathy laughter. Giddy, ecstatic, sardonic, incredulous, uncertain, the only form of laughter her strange chorus of non-voices echo here is a full bodied one. Certainly as she cackles she throws her entire being into it, curling her spine uncomfortably far backwards and staring at the ceiling through her mask and the hand she's clamped over top of it. She convulses with the sheer strength of her amusement and anger, but none of it manages to reach the sounds coming out of her. Her mismatched giggles, chortles, and guffaws bounce around the room until they lap onto one another and wrap into a sound a bit like a burst of feedback from an overtuned amplifier, but not even this ear splitting noise carries a note of real, human depth.

Of course it doesn't. This creature has completely lost her connection the human world she once loved so.

Avenger stumbles, only stopped from ragdolling across her own throne room by the sudden emergence of two twisted paws from her cloak of demons. She glances down at the holy arrow embedded up to the fletching in her stomach. She clutches the offending missile in one armored hand and tears it straight back out of her to a sudden rush of messy, red blood.

"My failure?" she asks again as her armor plates reweave themselves and seal the hole in her suit closed over the wound.

She takes flight, flipping upside down as she does to hang from an overhead platform as though gravity had suddenly inverted for her. Her iron ring braid swings heavily underneath her head. She is just beginning some sort of gesture with her sword when two more arrows pin her to the ceiling by the knee and the shoulder.

"My failure..." she muses, wrenching her body free and falling like a stone.

She shudders with fresh laughter as she drags herself shakily to her feet. Even when a bolt pierces her neck, she doesn't stop. It would be fair, if one were inclined, to wonder exactly what was making these sounds on her behalf. Certainly it could not be her body, or if it was then she must be some sort of machine at this point to be able to continue functioning. She bleeds, at least. And she laughs. Those things can be said to be true.

"For the sake the heroes' blood that flows through you I have done my best to understand your words. But I cannot. Yours is the prattling of a child who either will not or cannot view the world through any lens but his own pretensions. Were he still alive I would be doing the Allfather a disservice by reaping your soul."

Now they clash as Servants, for the first time since the war began. Arrows are struck down, blows are matched and dodged and countered faster than the blurry eyes of an only-just conscious Angelesia can follow, if indeed she can manage to rouse herself from such concussed sleep. Simply sit on your throne and rest, innocent one. Avenger and Archer clash from wall to wall and ceiling to floor, tearing at each other and the structures all around them, which scramble to repair themselves in the aftermath in much the same fashion as Avenger's miraculous armor.

It is several long minutes of struggle for position and the breaking and reestablishment of distance before Avenger, now so soaked through with blood that it is the only thing visible through the crystal etchings of her armor, manages to corner her opponent. Her fighting style had switched from lazy efficiency to vicious overextension, but for all her talk of power she had shown little in the way of supernatural might. No bright beams of mystic light or electroshielding or powers of teleportation. Her sword had become a thing of energy, but she still wielded it as she had ever swung a blade. It seemed almost pathetic compared to the angelic glory of her opponent.

Right until she buried the giant blade in the base of his left wing. Now she grips the back of his neck with one hand as she saws and burns painfully through the false symbol of Bohemond's glory. With a final wrenching tear she plants her foot on his back and kicks him to the ground, clutching the feathered appendage and throwing it behind her for her cloak to devour.

"You have bound yourself in service to a demon, and allowed your warrior's soul to rot. Disgusting, I feel ill just looking at you. No more. Show me. Show me the relics of your hollow god one last time, if you can even wield them in your sorry state. I will shatter them as I shatter you. Perhaps then you will understand the meaning of the word 'failure'."

She spits foamy blood on the floor at his feet. It is comical how quick the throne room is to clean and absorb it. Even after all their fighting, this place remains pristine.

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."