Phoe

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Her arm trembles with rage. Her teeth clench together tight enough to draw blood. She spits it in Actia's face but there is no flinch visible underneath those sunglasses. The girl trembles in Avenger's grip and gasps in obvious pain, but for all that she cannot control her body nothing breaks her composure. She faces her death as a warrior should, with the kind of poise that should compel a valkyrie to scoop up her broken body and carry it with her into the sky after the end comes.

Truly there is no pleasure in revenge. But it is work that cannot be set aside.

Ivar lifts her prey higher into the air. It creates better leverage for the pivot, when she turns and slams the fox into the ground hard enough to buckle the walkway. Actia bounces off the metal, gasping and spitting as all the air is driven from her body at once. She moans in spite of everything when a large boot plants itself on her chest and squishes down hard enough to snap a rib.

"Silence, witch! I do not accept your pity. I will not allow your wretched charity. There is nothing you can say to me that will forestall your death. But I will not have you drifting off into oblivion with first tasting your own poisons."

Ivar bends an arm behind her and grasps hold of one of the "feathers" jutting from her bizarre shadow wings. With gritted teeth she wrenches it free to a crunch and a spurt of blood even though it was not visibly connected to anything. She strokes this long dagger lovingly before kneeling down and slamming it deep into Actia's shoulder.

The blade itself is slick and warm. There is a pervasive, unwholesome wrongness to it that grows more potent the longer it sits inside a body. It is like venom and it is like a bone. The arm and the dagger take turns as to which one feels like it is melting, until with an inelegant twist, Avenger wrenches it inside the wound and it blossoms into a cluster of steel roots that extend the length of Actia's arm and bury themselves into muscle, nerves, and bone at a thousand twisted angles. Setting her on fire would have been a kindness by comparison.

The tears that leak from under her glasses are involuntary. In between small gasps that force her lips apart, Actia carefully sets them again in a practiced, neutral expression. The degree to which she has to fight for her composure is immaterial to a creature like the Avenger-class Servant. When a second and a third branch-dagger take over the opposite leg from the knee down and one of those stupid thrashing tails, it does nothing to help. There is no satisfaction in the work, no sense of victory.

Ivar is not a stupid creature. She knows that somehow she is losing. Her howl shakes the throne room down to the last bolt.

At last she grips her shining blade, and holds the tip steady overtop of Actia's heart. The gnawing hunger tears at her still. If this will not move her prisoner, if every last triumph and proof of her power is not worth a sniff to this poisonous witch of a fox, then there is only a single avenue left for her revenge to flow. At last. At last, the smile takes over her face. Her spine curls in laughter that briefly lifts her sword away from its target.

"If there were any words left in your disgusting little throat, you would be using them to tell me I have proven nothing. And I must say I quite agree. You speak of such blasphemous villainy in front of me as though I were a child, helpless in your grip. I will not tolerate it."

With surprising deftness, Avenger flicks her sword across Actia's body and splits her blood slicked suit down the middle. She bends her body to stroke the soft flesh underneath, pushing the scraps of fabric to either side to expose her body further. And then once more she stands and holds her killing blow at the ready.

"Before I kill you, I will swear this oath to you and on the corpses of the gods who gave their lives to build the world you wish to ruin. I will unmake you, Actia. There are no plans you could have laid that I will not cut through. There is no doom that you could weave that will be safe from me. Your every last ambition will be as dust, even should my body burn and my spirit core shatter beyond repair. Deny me all mana, seal my every last ability, undo the workings of my Noble Phantasm and none of it shall matter. I will persist. I will remain. And I will tear down your schemes even if I have to devour time to do so."

With a gesture, she tears her daggers free and lets them snap back onto her wings. At last, a twitch! A true recognition of the horror that faces her! It is the smallest measure of vengeance, but it is enough food to sustain her for the work that is still to follow. For the final time, she lifts the blade. When it descends again, death will be instant.

But, she has decided, she will leave the body beautiful. The ruination of her plans, the true source of her pride and boastful nature, is enough to satisfy after all.

Return to Thellamie

There are, of course, Aurora Maids who are deep enough into their particular roles and interests that they would jump at the chance to trip over themselves fawning at this brazen attempt at their decency. There is (...supposedly) a certain thrill (?) in rendering oneself subservient to an individual with such obviously inferior skills. The giddy thrill of being so weak that a puffed up puppy could bowl you over is (allegedly) so delicious it is worth the reprimand you would receive upon returning to the manner. See also prior musings on perfect crimes.

"...I trust that with your no doubt stellar deductive reasoning skills there is no need to explain what your palm is so plainly screaming at you, but for the benefit of these lovely maidens gathered to watch us, I shall clarify anyway."

Eclair is not such a Maid. With her hands full it is rather difficult for her to employ her notebook at the moment, but allow me to be the one to tell you that in the Great Game an opening gambit like this one wouldn't even rate. More to the point it would require a sufficiently powerful aura, the kind of thing one only develops after many tense battles where the fullness of one's pride or possibly even death have been on the line. Few even among the Manor could manage the move as written, and among them who would bother? It would be boring compared to their own more specialized proclivities.

"I am not, in fact, dressed for "repressed freaks". I am dressed for travel, the unfortunately dangerous kind where I cannot discount the possibility of battle. I am also arrayed in the manner that most pleases the three Dreamers for whom my Order is named. Both this uniform and the plate beneath it represent the love and affection of Morning, Noon, and Evening, and I should be surprised to think you could meet anyone in all of Thellamie or indeed Outside of it who could less deserve the label of 'repressed' than they."

There are also some among the Maid-Knights who possess a fantastically unnerving glare that if they were to (hypothetically) stub their toe on a wall, that wall would (again, purely hypothetically) crumble to dust on the spot rather than attempt to endure the look that followed. It is to the benefit of all currently inside the Chrysanthemum that Eclair lacks this legendary skill as surely as she lacks the demeanor to go skipping up the stairs with her heart all aflutter. Despite this, when she pivots to better peer over the stack of boxes in her arms, the temperature in the room drops by several degrees.

"Courtesy demands I offer you a chance to apologize for this no doubt unintended disrespect. Honor likewise compels me to warn you in advance that any further escalation will result in punishment so swift and thorough that every worker from the basement to that lovely mural above us will for the rest of their lives and yours understand at the most instinctive level that they are, in fact, your dominant. Have I been quite clear? I am here and waiting, Little Miss."

She does not, of course, drop these drinks. Apart from being boorish and rude, that would create a mess. Utterly unacceptable. Though, you might also be interested to know (depending on who you are) that it will be quite some hours before it occurs to Eclair that a more magnanimous form of acceptance of this task would have served the honor of the Aurora almost equally well, and another twenty minutes of frantic pacing after that before she draws the conclusion that this service might have later served as a shield when someone inevitably came here accusing her of assassination.

Alas, here in the present she is too consumed with walking herself through the steps of drawing her heartblade without bobbling these containers to have any awareness of her other options. It is quite difficult enough for her to show restraint as it is.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Avenger's body twitches on the ground where it had fallen. The arms and legs lift and fall slack in a slow and steady rhythm like the beating of a sleeping heart. The spine curls back at an unnatural angle, and on the tenth shudder this motion lifts the fallen Servant's body to her feet as though plucked there by puppet strings.

She folds forward on her first step, blood spilling from a still smoking hole in her chest. Another step and she snaps straight except for her head, which lolls to one side on a neck that seems like it's broken. Her fingers curl around the hilt of her sword as it rises out of the ground next to her, and her head lifts until it's tilted back to show her the ceiling instead of the world at an odd angle.

Angelesia convulses in her chair, sweating with such a high fever that she can no longer control her body. All her violent shudders reach for the direction Actia is traveling. Avenger watches her and sighs, a chorus compressed into a single voice. And then she leans forward and spits out a bullet.

"I would be willing to overlook that pointless display as the actions of a maiden too overwhelmed by love to comprehend her own foolishness."

Her boots fall heavy on the walkway, each step bouncing across the throne room in triplicate before its echo settles down beneath the waves of the chorus. Her sword thrums with power and sings a song of sparks as she drags it along the ground with careless laziness behind her. By the time she reaches Diaofei her armor has woven shut again.

"I would be willing to overlook the pain your alliance has inflicted on me as a sign of respect for my power. I would overlook the damage you have done to my former master's soul, though it is the reason I am standing here in this form. You are after all not a warrior. I would be very happy to kidnap you as a prize rather than butcher you as a foe, even if three full Command Seals had been burned demanding that I hack you to pieces."

Her cloak thrashes wildly in a hundred horrible shapes and beasts. Convulsing, twitching, fighting against the motions of Avenger's own body until she grabs the insubstantial nothing of its form with her hand and tears it off. In a grand whipping motion she fashions it into something solid and huge. A pair of pitch black wings that curl unnaturally upward with jagged rune-carved blades where bones or feathers might have been, and the barrel of some unwholesome gun pressed against her shoulder.

She stands in front of Actia and puts her hand on the four-tailed fox's head.

"...But."

Her fingers squeeze that obnoxious, vainglourious skull. Tight enough to crush her fluffy ears. Enough to hear skin and bone protest under the pressure. She hears the first gasp and she grins, lifting the foxgirl off the ground entirely. And for all of this she is holding back, neither crushing Actia into pulp nor inflicting the kind of damage that would cause her to pass out. If she's worth anything at all, it isn't even enough to prevent a counterattack, or to keep her from speaking.

Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. The only point of any of it, the only point there ever would be, is pain.

"To come here? To come here and speak of FREEDOM? To lament your status as a prisoner of fate and circumstance where I could hear you? You are truly every bit the villain I was told you are. There is no amount of suffering I can inflict that would ever be enough. But I will try."

Return to Thellamie

Knife, carefully resheathed and tucked back into satchel. Envelope, incinerated. Basic trick, not worth explanation. Ability to cleanly dispose of paper waste in odd situations highly valued among the denizens of the Manor. Ticket carefully held in one hand. Inspected. Free of mechanical booby traps (envelope), free of offending powders (target), free of scrying spells or scripts to link it to a spirit tablet. At the very least none she has the skill to discover.

Next, scrutinize ticket for signs of forgery. None found. Service is a genuine offer at the Chrysanthemum, duration and promises both reasonable and not all-encompassing. Even VIP guests were expected to render additional gratuities for access to in particular a handful of especially prized attendants, and this ticket makes no mention of access to the ministrations of any of the 'Princesses'. Furthermore the existence of a pass such of this passes muster; had it claimed it had been a contest prize that might have born cause for concern but this had the proper markings of a purchased ticket and was essentially how the establishment justified these kinds of offers to itself. Whatever tab a guest like Eclair could wrack up in three days had more or less already been paid for by whomever procured this.

...Eclair snorts while she's thinking, and scrambles a little further up the Vesper Victoria's to perch on a raised engraving of a tangle of thorns roughly at eye level with the carving of Sayanastia. She carefully tucks the ticket into her notebook like a bookmark, and then places that in its usual pocket. As she settles into a pocket of 'thorns' she expends another requisition order on summoning a cup of tea for herself, known to scholars of the leaf as a Golden Yunan. Ordinarily she would drink this with a single lump of sugar and a small amount of cream, but this looks to be a long mission and it is unknown when she will be able to replenish her stock of spells, what that will cost her, or if that will even be safe. She should not waste too many of them on petty indulgences. Nevertheless, she requires it to think.

"I hope that you will forgive me, My Lady Dragon of Darkness, if this is a rude thing to say," she says while splashing a tiny amount of the tea on the carving's tongue before taking a sip herself, "But I have always assumed that dragons are all to some degree or other related. Certainly there are many similarities in the depiction of your legend and the realities of the Dreaming Sisters. You must at the least be cousins, I should think?"

Quick glance at the local Church, followup on street level. Checking for increased scrutiny or signs of agitation. Benefit of black-on-black, further benefit of a deep shade of purple. No notice as of yet of detection, or at least aggression. Shrug, sigh. Sip. Share.

"In any case I presently count myself an enemy of the Civil Church for... some reason, my allies have to an unknown degree become a danger to me, and my adversaries outnumber them by ten-to-one or more. I feel that this makes us kindred spirits of a sort and as such I would very much appreciate you offering me your opinion on the matter of this voucher."

Finish tea, slow sips. Allow cup to fall back into unreality and dreams. Remove notebook, tuck voucher into earlier pages and retrieve pen. Prepare self for interview with the most dangerous witness of all time (according to her own notes from age five and three quarters).

"I do find it suspicious, yes. An item of this nature costs no small amount and I truly struggle to see how it could be within Timtam's means. At least not easily. I... true, if she really is comporting herself as an Anti-Maid then she might have resorted to-- well no, even if she still considered herself a maid in full standing she could still have -- in any case it is true that she might have stolen or otherwise acquired it via illegitimate means. I shall have to add that to my list of questions to investigate. If she is being bankrolled by some manner of ally than my investigation is more dangerous than I have been treating it to this point. I cannot jump to this conclusion, though. Do you understand? Theories must fit facts and not vice versa. I... no, I suppose that is rather rude to assert in front of your personage specifically. My apologies, Lady Sayanastia."

Jot jot scribble scribble. All the thoughts pouring out of her mouth make it onto the page before they can drift away in the sea of endless possibility and overactive observation instinct.

"Setting aside the 'how' I do feel rather confident that I can pin the 'who' in place. Based on the location of the object in question and the degree to which it had been secured here (for which I apologize on her behalf) we can infer that this was left here intentionally, and for a person with specific knowledge. There's a degree of risk to it, but that is in keeping with Timtam's methodology. Furthermore she has proven over the early course of this investigation that she is both familiar with my methods and able to perform at least a limited degree of predictive power over my likely actions. While it is possible a proxy has been acting under her name it was verifiably her Member Address that sent the paintings showing me where to look, and furthermore this establishes a pattern of covert messaging intended for my eyes before anyone else's. That is, hmm. That is very..."

She is halfway to summoning a second teacup when she manages to stop herself. No, she mustn't. Not when the investigation looks to be so long. She'd miss that tea later. Or worse, need a different tool to escape a trap. A Maid is pure and a Knight is disciplined, Eclair Espoir.

"A message, yes. This then is -- forgive me, but for the sake of expediency I am about to start speaking in terms of absolutes. It of course remains true that were are firmly within the space of conjecture and there are many alternative possibilities that deserve examination. At the end of this experimentation will be an absolute necessity to arrive at the truth. In any case this is not an apology of any sort. If it were I, erm. No yes, expediency. My sincerest apologies once again. Let us consider the case of Crevas, where she hand painted a warning using colors acquired via intermediary from Vessenmer Dyes. The investigative process was simple, predictable, and lead immediately into disaster. Accordingly we can immediately infer the intention of putting me inside the Chrysanthemum itself will be to deliver a message that will point me in a new direction, likely within the private suite though not necessarily exclusive to it. If this is a continuation of this selfsame methodology, that is to say if Timtam is still playing her game in the same way, or rather to the same aim, I should conclude the three day nature of this voucher is a trap. By no later than Day Two I will be found out and in a compromising position at that. It is the clearest escalation to this cat-and-fox situation we find ourselves entangled in. But what is the nature of this trap? According to the posters below I am wanted as an assassin. It is still my belief that, that, uh, erm..."

Flip flip flip. Point. Stare. Wrinkle nose in adorable disbelief. Tilt head and shrug. If it's written that way it must be right.

"Aadya, the Rock Upon a Mountain provided some amount of the physical description of my person responsible for my depiction hence, and if it is also the case that she believes me to be an assassin then... what happened elsewhere in the city that night? I haven't been able to ask anybody about it, I remain the in dark. Not so dark I cannot make an educated guess, though. If the......... Kel Paladin agrees with my depiction it implies that something happened to Sister Tammithyn Murr while I was recovering from the chase."

Eclair's mouth falls open. She stares at the statue of Sayanastia in open shock, and her hand goes so slack she nearly drops her pen and her notebook down into the streets below (and below, and below, and below...).

"That! That is the most compromising situation I could find myself in. If she has been kidnapped and made to work the sauna then! Yes, no of course, she would be terrified and easily coerced. She would know my face with reasonable certainty and would do anything to purchase her own safety, especially if it is as simple as delivering a message on Timtam's behalf. Of course as an Aurora Knight I would then be honor bound to protect her, assuming I could convince her of my own innocence (she might even have been convinced of it ahead of time. That would reduce variables to an incredible degree...), at which point the trap would spring shut. Eclair Espoir, discovered in a house of pleasure with an apparently kidnapped Civil Nun."

She blows her notebook dry and pockets it carefully. Move to stand, offer a careful wall-mounted curtsy to to the Dark Dragon.

"The only way to test this hypothesis is to enter without a disguise. It is to my benefit to avoid creating a cover identity until I have brought legitimate heat down on my own head in any case. Operating as someone else or a series of someone else's will restrict my ability to travel via the Outside by quite a degree, and I will only be capable of impersonating so many personae in the first place. I should save that card. Regardless, thank you for this lovely conversation Lady Dragon of Vengeance and Unmaking. I am afraid I am rather useless at conclusions without an audience, you have been an invaluable help. I hope you will understand if I stop short of wishing you luck in your future endeavors, but... yes, well. May life be kind to you for a while, at the least. Farewell!"

And then she is gone, recklessly sliding down Vesper Victoria's without much consideration for the arm strength she'll need to keep herself from turning into a mess on the ground below. She's good enough to escape with only bruises, and the famous hot baths she'll need to partake in as part of her experiment are supposed to have incredible medicinal properties for exactly this problem.

Breathless Dead

"...Hey Dany."

It's shocking how much 'after' there is in a world where time stands still. After gawking at a god's departure. After prayers and promises and silent thanks to the goddess that had stayed. After tears that fell from love and then the ones that fell from happiness and finally the ones that fell from soft, almost delirious relief. After kisses and a thousand embraces. After passing their names back and forth over and over again just to be able to say them. After laughter. After sighing. After ogling each other up and down and after far too many glances at the danger all around them just sitting there with perfect patience for them to at long last be finished.

After all of that and more, there is still more after. So the pair of them are laying on a blanket looking up past the shrine of Hera to the sea of stars beyond. Even with the terminal of Liquid Bronze standing there and all his thousands of Summerkind around him. Why not? An ugly battle for life and death and the slim chance of escape was something that would happen later. Happen after everything else. Right now it was this.

"Is this how you pictured everything? The journey, I mean. And... this. Like, getting married here. Getting married fucking here. Does it count? Is it what you wanted? Does it even matter?"

Breathing just now feels strange. Normally the air is overwhelmingly thick with information: there's so many things in here to smell, so many enemies she should be marking, so much to read from the temperature and pressure of the air around her. Even the smell of Redana, who is Ember, who is Redana would ordinarily be overwhelming. And certainly she can tell all of that is there. Her senses are working. But none of it filters into her thinking, none of it matters to her at all.

For the first time in her life, Bella is not calm around Redana because she's programmed to be. She just isn't afraid. Sometime after all of this, she'll pause to think about how strange that feels.

"I'm just wondering. Because it all feels impossible to me. When I left... Tellus, all I let myself imagine was bringing you back to your mother. That's as far as I ever got, and when I lost that I just kind of... stopped. I assumed we'd die, I've just been waiting for it to happen. I even got turned into a whole other person and she never let herself think about this, either. You were loyal to her enemy and... wow fuck, it all kinda goes in circles, doesn't it?"

Bella sighs into the starlight, and for all the weight of the questions on her soul there's nothing of heaviness to it. That comes later, comes another dozen 'afters' from now. Her fingers entwine with Redana's, and she feels at peace.

"Is it... meant to be a straight line from here?"

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Against most assaults, Avenger saw no need to defend herself. Against this one however, Avenger could not defend herself. Diaofei's mystic fists tear holes in her armor as if it wasn't there to begin with. The flesh underneath fares no better. Avenger's stomach crumbles like clay, her left shoulder tears off completely and the arm falls to the ground in a bloody heap. Even her own essence is not immune to the routines of the throne room; the shattered pieces of her body are quickly swept up into the floors and absorbed into the main power supplies of the mecha itself. The beast eating its own master in the name of a vengeance that nobody seemed to actually want.

Not needed. Not wanted. Her proud form and her long accumulated wisdom had all been discarded as worthless trash. In desperation she'd twisted herself into a warrior of shadows, a beast from the waning age of the gods that could twist herself into the kind of knife that certain trembling hands would actually want to hold. Not needed. Not wanted. Just another mistake. The words crush her as heavily as the punches. There is no magic in the Eighty-Sixth Stance of the Daemon Banishing Kata. Not truly. This was an act of unmaking, and whether Avenger wanted to or not, whether she tried or not, her body could not do anything but weather this rejection and the fury that was rapidly shattering her down to her spirit core.

Diaofei lifts her bloodied fist to deliver the final blow. She pauses to utter a prayer before she swings, and in that instant a paw the size of her torso knocks her across the room. Princess Jezara snarls and takes to the air. Her monstrous frame pins the monk to the scaffolding around the Archer Gate. For a moment there is only the sounds of breathing: of Diaofei's desperate grunts as she struggles to finish her work, to free herself, to channel for one more second the righteous fury that drove her here. Of Jezara's heavy panting as she presses more weight and more on this idiot interloper that couldn't even see what needed to be done anymore, so heavy was the aura of pain around her soul. Of Avenger, who wheezed in eight different voices and writhed on the floor with what was left of her long and lanky body.

Not needed. Not wanted. Just the second mistake.

Avenger's scream splits the heavens apart.

Outside, the storm unleashes its fury all at once. Lightning crashes down from three dozen different cloud fronts and converges all around Avenger's mecha, which bears the true name of The Fylgja. White hot power sears the air and boils rain water in an instant. It splits stone and melts earth, carving a scar into the planet a full kilometer across that ten thousand years of geology and all the wealth of the technomantic world could not heal again if it poured itself into the effort a million times over.

The heat is enough to make many a mortal faint even miles away. The light is so blinding it seems as if the world might have turned to pure, featureless white all on its own. The sound is so deafening, but more than that so agonizing and so saddening to hear that it could drive lesser souls mad just to witness it. The wise would do well to clamp hands over their fluffy foxy ears and whimper until it stops.

The air is thick with mana, as dense as it was even in days before the will of mankind controlled destiny and the world was its own master. Dense enough to activate the Primordial Runes written across the sleek, now melting body of the Fylgja. They gleam blue-white against the black sludge of its armor, and with a ripple of metal it grows strong once again. It lifts its grand blade and moves to pierce the Shrine Giant through the stomach.

Freed from their fury, the storm clouds pour gentle, pure rain on the world...

**

Avenger swallows mana in huge and greedy gulps. Every breath she takes is stronger than the one before it as her body reweaves itself out of fresh spirit particles. First the bone and then the flesh until finally her armor knits itself anew. She takes her feet as if nothing had happened to her in the first place. No, not nothing. Diaofei's former command seals now burn brightly against her own hand. She stretches her fingers experimentally.

"Blood..." she giggles. Snarls. Seethes. Commands.

Her blade buries itself to the hilt in Diaofei's back.

"Eagle."

A sword as large as this one should have skewered Diaofei so completely that there were no organs left inside her. Her spine should be melted and her body rendered an unintelligible mess. Certainly she experiences these sensations, but sadly for her they are not the end of her. The blade is buried deep, impossibly deep, and yet it does not pierce through her other side. Her body is whole and will continue to live for many long years when all of this is over unless someone steps in to change that.

"I will not. Allow it. Not from you. You called to me! You reached through time and grasped my hand, don't you dare dismiss me as some lowly fraction of your work! Spirit? Hardly. I am a proud warrior! I held the mantle of Valkyrie and lead my brothers to battle and victory even beyond my death! They crowned me king, and when they buried me I refused to rot! You never bothered to ask my name, not even to reduce yourself to address me by my title! Did you even notice I altered my legend for your sake. No you worthless woman, I am human just as you are. I am Ivar! And you will remember my name!!"

The power of Avenger's Noble Phantasm is not in destruction, though it can accomplish that much easily. This is a blade of grudges. It is the manifestation of her Oblivion Correction: the skill that renders every hurt against her into fuel for her continuing quest for vengeance. Many of Avenger's enemies to this point had tried to destroy her body, and the vengeance that the Blood Eagle inflicted doubled that in kind. Ruination and terror until no one could stand the sight of it. But Diaofei had dared to attack Avenger's soul. She had even used her privilege as a Master to strike at the weakness of a heart that had been rejected countless times across history. Now she is made to feel that pain, in every way a human being can.

"...And yet for all your faults, I love you still. So no, you foolish monk. I will not disappear into your memories. I cannot be banished by your arts, nor any others. I. Remain. And I will do the work that you require, even if you are so weak and wretched that you can't bear to recognize it anymore. So lie there. Writhe for me! I will have you remember that desperation that summoned me in the first place. I will have you scream for me. Lift your voice so high that your missing heart cannot fail to hear you. I need her here. I cannot give you what you want without her."

Phantom blood oozes from Diaofei's back, writhing chains of greasy, hot, and slippery muck that squeeze her into new and terrible positions before oozing back inside the origin point of the wound only to pour back out and bind her all over again. Even Princess Jezara turns her eyes away from the sight.

Return to Thellamie

Firstly, spoon small amounts of the jam into the tea and stir until by careful observation of color, consistency, smell, and very careful tasting it can be determined that the additive has balanced out flaws in the leaf selection and steep time. Remaining portion: slightly over two thirds. Eat directly with spoon.

Secondly, burst yolks with tines of fork. Season only the parts that leak out, half a turn of salt and two turns of pepper. Eat quickly and quietly, using cuts of white to sop up yolk. Transfer fork to left hand while cutting, then to right to bring up to mouth. Small sip of tea, repeat. Wipe fork clean with spare napkin before turning attention to pastry.

"Hmm," says Eclair, "I wonder..."

Thirdly, cut into pastry with fork. Repeat of previous technique. Outside crust will flake off into strips, drop onto plate. Leave for now, focus on main body of food. Take care not to spill chocolate, chew, swallow, follow with tea as before. Comparison of flavor profiles. Once main pastry is finished, pick up excess crust and run through now-congealing yolk remnants. Bring to mouth, continuing to follow laws of etiquette. Continue until both plates are clean.

"A satisfying puzzle, thank you very much." she speaks while pulling her pen free, touching it to the page while lifting the cup to her mouth again with her other hand.

Sighted in Vespergift: Civil Church sponsored wanted poster offering unspecified reward for capture of my person. Name in full, accurate spelling.
Depiction of face wildly inaccurate in excess of allowance for the style favored by this particular artist - Vespertine impressionism remains striking and lovely, but identification next to impossible against numerous mistakes.
I do not smile like that. Furthermore: ringlets?
Obvious conclusion is that poster is a construction of multiple descriptions. Assass------

"If you would be so kind Madame, could I direct your attention to the Civil Advertisement being placed on the wall opposite ourselves? I wish for your opinion on the matter."

Eclair takes the moment of conversation to flip three pages back in her notes and locate a forgotten piece of information.

-----Aadya, Rock Upon a Mountain accounts for one degree of accusation. However, she was under the mistaken impression I was a stalker. To mark me as an assassin in my own right requires a second criminal act have taken place, likely also in Crevas. From this observation and several superficial similarities in the physical portrayal of the criminal's features I conclude the artist has rendered a composite sketch of both my own self and Timtam.
Curious.
She gave them my name? And they accepted this uncritically?
The Civil Church is to be avoided as a line of questioning for the time being. Imprisonment would be inconvenient at my current levels of hypothesis.
A dependency? Erosion of support in traditional structures/natural mistrust of Aurora Maidens/threats of violence = Target's arms only ones to turn to?
Or merely attempting to destroy me without the risk of single combat. Though that does not line up with her method of invitation.

"No, if her aim was solely my capture or destruction there would be no need to say anything at all. Absent a new stimulus I would have eventually returned to Crevas, the location with the highest concentration of enforcement personnel thanks to the temporary presence of the Goddess. If she encouraged me here that can only mean..."

Eclair taps the tip of her pen against her lip, deep in thought. She rises out of her chair, and in that motion stacks her plates and cup perfectly alongside both folded napkins arranged for best and quickest carrying and cleaning. Under ordinary circumstances she would offer to do the work herself as a thank you for a meal prepared beyond the standard she was testing for.

However in this exact moment she is out of time. She needed to either locate her invitation to the Chrysanthemum or else determine the invitation to be a ruse and drop instead into a need for battle. Or flight. In every case the cafe would have to settle for merely being overpaid in a cute little pyramid of coins.

"To answer your question Milady, I am Eclair Espoir. There are some who refer to me as the Violet Flash, and I am here in pursuit of a target. If you are of the inclination to raise an alarm, I suggest you do so now before it becomes too late. And if you are not, I may return for dinner service. Regardless, please pass along my compliments to your chef and consider investing in a sand timer for your tea."

And with a curtsy and a careful tuck of her pen she is gone, making for the walls where the Dark Dragon might at long last fulfill the threat of her childhood and devour her whole. Vespergift is not especially well suited to her board, but it is nevertheless the dream of those who practice the movement arts of the Aurora. She is bounding off into shadows and toward the light on wings of stone and brick.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Avenger can only cock her head. What is he... doing? Some obscure branch of magecraft clearly, but what was it meant to accomplish? Assassins' absurd behavior made it clear he put great stock into its power, so much that he had dropped the pretense of being enemies and picked up the pretense of being in charge without so much as pausing to breathe, but so far as she could tell he hadn't actually done anything.

She follows a quiet routine of checks on her systems and subroutines. Her flow of magical energy remained uninterrupted, her parameters all remained at or above the standards her extra class set for her and even if that particular information had been scrambled she could feel the energy and strength coursing through her body plainer than the dawn. Her grand battle machine was currently stumbling, but that was because it was locked in a fight against an ancient wonder of the world from the coming of the Twilight; her control of it was everything she expected given the circumstances.

There was a possibility, she supposed, that his magic had altered some part of her mind. And if it had she would have no great way to detect it. But it seemed unlikely as she sat there hating him as obviously and openly as she could beneath her opaque mask. Her plans felt like they continued forward to his death and past it, and the only reason she hadn't already gutted him the way she would a fish was because--

...Aha. Because she had called Angelesia 'queen'. The magic of marriage, was it? The binding of these two great houses, a political tradition older than politics itself. It followed that if Angelesia was the queen of this dark palace, then by making himself her husband he would become its king. But then, well... that worked out fine enough for her. There was still a certain order her work needed to be completed in, and none of -- whatever this is -- conflicted with that.

Nevertheless, she does not bow to him. Neither does she acknowledge Assassin with her voice. All Avenger does is sigh, a lilting musical shudder with her pale echoing voice as she turns her head to look at the spot she knew her Master was hiding. Little fool.

**

Avenger's robot shudders against the might of the Shrine Giant. As restricted as its movement had become there was nothing it could do to avoid the clash, and neither could its sleek and (for its height) slender body contend with the raw power of this miracle that had surely one day long ago stood against the wrath of Surtr. Stood and fallen, certainly, but intact enough to one day stand again. That was a testament to its unrivaled power. Joints groan and sparks fly as the shield arm bends to support the blockade with as much weight as it could manage.

Knees that are already bound must bend, or buckle if they cannot. One arm is not enough, it must drop its mighty sword to reinforce defense. The machine's reflexes are slow and sluggish to the point that even when it engages the thrusters hidden in its calves and back to compensate for the lack of mechanical strength it cannot push back against this simple thrust.

Until suddenly the restraint binding its elbow snaps under the pressure of being crushed between two opposing directions of force. Now it is able to lift the shield higher and tuck its faceless head beneath it, hiding the majority of its own bulk behind the solid wall so it can focus all of its thrust on a single point and push back against the spear. And this might have been doomed to failure too, if it had been a pilot other than Angelesia that guided the methodology of this terrible machine. She understood just as Avenger did that the purpose of a shield was not simply blunting a blow you could not otherwise afford to take.

Its true purpose was to steal your opponent's weapon. With a snap and a great clamoring of machinery the tower shield begins to disassemble in much the same manner the inner components of the throne room itself kept doing. From the center of the shield a huge hole opens up and swallows the trident, allowing its wielder to be skewered at the knee (and another restraint) in exchange for being able to envelope the offending weapon in a tight metal mesh that swallowed the Shrine Giant up to the shoulder.

Now the heat whip sings: snatched from the hip and drunkenly lashed against the plating of that hideous pulsing eye. It wraps around the horrible weapon as Avenger's mecha pulls it taut, the thick and heavy links that comprised the weapon growing red and then white hot as it poured more heat and more power and still more heat along the length of it. Steam rises between the pair of them, soon enough to begin to obscure the specifics of the action from all but the most determined observers. All while thunder screams above them.

**

"Oh Master," Avenger sighs, "My dearest, darling Master. Whatever do you think it is you're doing?"

Avenger's grip is a vice around Diaofei's mouth. She lifts the little monk up off the ground, but not to the full extension of her arm, and crucially not away from her, either. One hand remains on the hilt of her sword, now buried in a new slot nearer to where her Master had been hiding, and together they hang sideways along the middle of a wall in the grand chamber. Not far from the Saber Gate, not that it counts for much now.

"You poor confused and silly thing," one voice laughs while another one weeps, and still a third whisper merely admonishes, "It is too soon to give up on your dreams. I promise you, your lover will be here soon. And you shall have everything from her that you begged me to deliver. Your very deepest wish is about to come true. But I must ask you, for just a few moments longer..."

Shark's teeth bite into a monk's hand. Through flesh and through bone, and through Command Seals. Avenger is not gentle; her jaw twists but does not chew. She does not even bite all the way through, nothing that would reduce the agony or leave Daiofei a moment to become used to or master this intense and wracking pain destroying her hand.

Avenger grins through a mouthful of blood and mana. Her sigh is sweet, and louder than the echo of the storm outside.

"Endure."

Return to Thellamie

Current Threat Assessment of Target: S/A
Ranking top of cleverness index, deep into advanced planning. Current assumption is that all possible-to-likely responses will be accounted for to a level of depth reaching 3 stages.
Favored protocol advises stealth entrance. Confession: personal bias. Hate this city, do not wish to be seen.
Target too likely aware of this, inadvisable. Though note for future: sweep outer walls of Vespergift before final departure to check for signs of tampering.
Data gathering.
Believe I am being herded through the most traceable entrance with the largest total defensive and deceptive options for Target.
But noting for posterity: I accept this and choose the path of my own free will.

She will not put it in her notes even under threat of death, but the deepest truth of the matter is that it has been, uh...

Eclair tries to work her way through the reckoning. When that fails she turns to dirty math. Twenty four plus... twelve? Fourteen? Error. She resorts to counting on her fingers, and it takes her four hands' worth to realize she is looping rather than incrementing. Never mind a number, then. It has been an unacceptably long time since she last took in any form of sustenance.

Personal addendum: this place is smaller in person than in my memories. I can no longer find it within myself to be mad.

The Marché Couvert, therefore. It is cramped and crowded enough to oblige Eclair to shuffle through what passes for streets here in side profile. Even still the sword at her hip manages to jab a youth in the back and she is further obliged to apologize to occupy a hand holding it in place against her thigh to keep anything from causing further harm or distress.

Her neck cranes automatically upward, pulled toward the higher labyrinths by the deep and long buried muscle memory that also wraps her tail like a belt around her waist in the same motion. She navigates the pathways in front of her via the ones above, only occasionally glancing down to track the crowds. Despite how many souls there are milling about, it is quiet here. The people of Vespergift know better than to excite the forest.

Eclair makes minimal effort (which is different from zero effort) to look for carrot orange curls or the black and white of a fellow maid. She works slightly harder to pick out any recent markings from attempts at skateboarding or parkour in this city that was practically built begging to be climbed, but these are likewise secondary concerns. There was frankly no concern to apprehend Timtam and no desire to speak with her even until she's put eyes on the display of Sayanastia and confirmed the presence (current or former) of the note she saw in that tablet painting. Any traps or lures encountered prior to that would have to content themselves with springing all on their own. She would not give them the satisfaction of consideration.

Even this is all background noise compared with the hunt for the titan of her childhood. A cafe she used to pine after, used to dream of dining at just a single time as the highest ambition of her tiny Avel life. It's nearer to the walls than most reputable establishments tend to be, but the smell of their ingredients was always so potent she'd just assumed it had to be the best anywhere in all of Thellamie. Even now she idly wonders if it might be worthy of a new conquest for the Manor.

Finally, her feet stop supporting her weight. She settles into a chair. Of course it's still there. From the looks of things, the same staff. Did you expect otherwise? Who could imagine any shop or dwelling collapsing on the ground level? That's like thinking Princess Heron could lose a duel. Absurd. Just the height of absurdity.

"Pain au chocolat," the first words out of her mouth since her collapse are strained but satisfyingly clear. She does not look up from her notebook, "With three eggs prepared to the chef's preference. I will also require a cup of tea. Black, steeped for two and a half minutes in water poured just before boiling. Place a serving of blackcurrant jam on the right side of the cup, thank you."

Breathless Dead

Bella arrives in the mien of a decorated hero. She arrives wreathed in gold and crimson, like her eyes and not the black she donned when she first took hold of an Imperial title. Instead she has the seeming of someone more than worthy of the most coveted bride in the galaxy: a princess in her own right. Or maybe more accurately than that, a prince.

A clean white robe sits elegantly atop her chest, tucked neatly into a blackened leather waist corset cinched tight with a pair of golden belts that perches with tantalizing grace across her hips. Underneath the robe, the folded collar of a dress shirt, and draped overtop of it connected to a red ribbon and a golden pendant of a crescent moon wrapped around a star: a series of layered crimson straps that cling to the underside of her ample chest and then hang loose as they dip closer to her waist. Her pants are a match for her robe, smooth and clean and loose as they flare a little away from her thighs only to pull tight against her knees and tuck into the heavy black boots with the high, flat heel that lifts her further off the ground than her normally impressive stature already manages. A golden chain with a matching moon-and-star pendant wraps around her pocket and glints with the regal bearing of a house she has yet to found. This demigod, this child of the moon-which-foreswore-love, has descended.

Draped across her shoulders is a long and flowing cape of the same brilliant and furious red as her Auspex. The shoulders are decorated in gold filigree winding and spiraling patterns like rose petals and twisted stems that wind down the hem along the front of her arms and all the way to the ground where the fabric brushes against the floor. Bella flexes her fingers, and five golden talons glint in the light shining on the shrine, with each ruby inlaid on the second knuckle blazing like a setting sun on some planet where the Skies are not so Endless and that kind of thing would be allowed. For once she wears these talons over her natural claws, not compensation for anything lost or broken and not a tool of servitude, but a celebration of her beauty and perfection, and a promise of her power. She wears no sword at her hip; she has no need of it.

Her blue-black hair is dotted through with golden ribbons that bind a series of thick and elegant braids together in layer after layer that cascade like a waterfall down her back. Red and gold the eyeliner painted in opposition to the mismatched eye it accents, set against deep black shadow that pulls out the animal shape of her eyes. Everything that makes her herself is beautiful. It is to be celebrated. On her perfect skin, no attempt is made to enhance it. The lone remaining concession to improvement are her ruby painted lips, so that when she smirks to see her princess carrying her flowers, it creates an arresting and bloody backdrop for her fangs to sparkle against.

And smile she does. She is Bella, and she has come to wage war.

"Hey, Redana~" she sings in greeting.

"Of course I'll have you," she adds a moment later, "My Ember. My bride."

She does not blush or stiffen when she says it. Neither does she wait at the altar of Hera, but saunters down the steps with the exaggerated flow of her hips that marks Mosaic's absolute confidence in a hunt, and places her golden talons on Ember's wrists. With a whisper of sharpness she cuts the bindings loose. With a gentleness that belies the danger of this conquering heroine who crossed the great Rift and lived, she brushes the back of her hand underneath Ember's veil and caresses her cheek. A moment later she is a flash of violence that shatters the electric prod torturing her lover. These things have outlived their purpose, she declares with a flick of her beautiful tail as it peeks from beneath her cape. She will not suffer them to mar the ceremony any farther.

And then she turns on her heels and glides back to where she first appeared. And offers a deep bow with a wide flourish of both her arms not to the proxy terminal of Liquid Bronze, who could not deserve the gesture less if he tried, but to the polite rows of Summerkind warriors who sit and wait for whatever it is they're meant for.

"I'd like to thank you all for coming to my wedding. I couldn't ask for a more magnificent host. When this lovely vision of Ceron and I are joined, it will mean the end of a long journey. And the beginning of a new one. Though I have already been gifted it, I ask once more in front of you all for the blessing of Queen Hera to take this woman for my own, and promise to live a life that no empire has yet dreamed of."

She looks up at the deadly gathering around her. One wrong move and they'll all descend, and against them a mere Praetor and a Ceronian Imperial Princess, without even the promise of a sacred hunt to guide them through the shadows back to safety. But her eyes have all the sunken hunger of the sunshark rampaging in the sea above them, and all the frozen fury of the Lady Artemis having been caught bathing once again.

"I am Bella Hostilius Mosaic: Ember is mine and no one else's."