Phoe

Breathless Dead

"...Apollo."

Hermetics are baffling voids of disinformation in the best of times, but Bella watches the old man anyway. Anything he might give up that would help her make sense of this situation. A little shudder of his cloak that implied hidden laughter and a joke of some terrible sort. She couldn't perceive where his legs actually were on that tripod setup he operated with, but even the tiniest shift in his weight would hint that he was concealing some uncomfortable truth, or at least nervous about the things that he was saying. A twitch of a finger, a fluttering of his muddy yellow hood, anything. Anything at all.

But no. So far as she had the ability to discern, the old hermit had told her what he understood at exactly the level he understood it. She does not hide the shiver of fear that creeps up into her shoulders.

"You really look at this and see Apollo's hand? Are you stupid?! Or just blind? And I already told you we are not resetting her! You're useless! You decrepit, moron, blind ass idiot motherffff--"

She vents frustration through her hair. Hands raise to press tight into the blue-black locks. Claw tips ever so barely brushing against her scalp, fingers teasing their way through the length as her spin bends backward further, and further, and further in the glare of the moon. As though bathing. She drops her arms to her hips, curls forward again to a standing position, and sighs.

"...It's moonlight," she says, turning away to watch it through a window, "Apollo has nothing to say here. Artemis is the one who's descending here."

Some terrible mixture of fear, anger, and longing wars across her face, twisting it into a scowl under the shadows that form beneath her eyes when she turns her head down toward the hallway again. Why did she have to be so stupid? She'd only known a single Ikarani in her entire life, and even that undersold the gravity of the problem here. She barely understood anything about the temples, about who designed each of them, and what each of her sisters (and herself) were even intended to do.

Was this a special instance? Was it only Vesper? Or had the Ikarani designers been wrong from the beginning and just never questioned the essential workings of their labor because the "product" had been performing to spec? The air smells like blood; every last molecule is saturated with its stench. Bella's hand flies up to cover her mouth as she retches and coughs uncontrollably.

It doesn't make any sense. The question is making her almost as dizzy as the smell. How could this be the first time Artemis had come for an Ikarani, rather than Apollo? How did it make any sense at all for the Sun God to take issue with for what is for all intents and purposes a handpicked, handcrafted priestess of his sister? But then how could multiple empires bent toward fanatical, almost insane micromanaged worship of the gods have failed to notice this detail the entire time? So it must have been sunlight at one time, only it can't have been because that's utter nonsense.

What made her even sicker than anything was how of her wanted to let this happen. If Artemis manifested through Vesper, or at least... showed up she'd finally have a chance to witness the goddess with her own eyes. There were so many questions. But the one with all the answers refused to speak to her. What did it take? What was happening here? Why, why, why?

The room lurches, and Bella stumbles. There's a sudden pressure and a warmth under her armpit, wrapping around to her shoulder on the other side. She opens her eyes and sees Redana, who has dropped her little tablet to scramble over and keep her from falling. Bella relaxes, if only slightly. She can see the answer in the mismatched eyes shining up at her. No, of course. Obviously she can't allow this to happen. More than not allowing the chance to come to pass, she has to actively slam the door shut on it. Dany would never consider it. Dany would scream at her if she knew about the thoughts in her head right now. Dany wouldn't, couldn't ever leave anyone behind. Dany, Redana...

"Oh, fuck."

Bella wraps her arms around her wife. She forces herself to stand up straight, and closes her eyes to focus on her senses until she's dulled them enough to function normally. It feels like a mistake to push her smell this far down, but what else can she do.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck. I hate this. Fuck. But, oh gods is that the prob-- shit. Shit, fuck! I think we might be running out of time after all? How long would it take to gather Lethe from wherever it's collected on this ship? And can we dilute it? Mix it with, mmmf. I don't know how any of this shit works. But I don't want to make her forget everything. I want her to not need a bunch of chanted instructions and a target to function in the first place. I don't want everything to be the first time she's seen or felt or tasted it, not ever again. We just need to clear her head of her plan now. Never mind a delivery method, I need... Dany, Ember. Can I count on you? Can you handle a hunt for the Princess Redana Claudius?"

She doesn't say the name. She doesn't dare let it pass her lips. But there's more than one assassin that needs saving from the moon tonight.

Please forgive her. Please, please forgive her.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits was ladling soup. It should've been something nicer but someone went and blew up the fridge while she was busy saving the day and also she didn't really know how to cook anything fancy. But soup really just needed a big enough pot to throw a bunch of stuff into and enough salt that you could keep dumping it in until everything tasted ok. It wasn't a smart person's dish, but she didn't need it to be.

She did need food. If there's one thing she learned from a lifetime of perching on Yue's shoulder it was that after a bunch of fighting and shouting the most important thing you could do is have dinner. And as luck would have it all the rain from that big scary storm had attracted a school of very delicious looking skyfish so there was actually a pretty nice smell coming out of the bowls as she handed them out. But yeah, dinner. It's not like she asked for this but her Princess Adventures Party turned out to be more of a Loosely Strung Together Alliance of Convenience (which nobody in their right mind would think as being half as fun or worth getting into trouble for) and if she didn't do something to smooth all that "we were all just enemies until a couple hours ago" stuff real quick the whole rest of this adventure was just gonna be...

"Spirit." said Diaofei with a forced calm that nobody was buying.

Ivar turned her head to watch a fresh bowl of broth splash all over the table after an uneven chunk of fish fell into it mid-pour. She smiled.

"...Spirit."

"I did not ask for you to speak, little monk."

"You will tell me why I am in chains."

"To punish Actia, of course," said Ivar, "There are no tortures I can conceive of more horrible than being forced to endure your--"

Cyanis cut across the moment with a dramatic sigh that saw her splay her entire body across the table in an even more dramatic flop. For as petite and slender a figure as she cut, with those three tails all floofed to maximum floofness she could take up a surprising amount of space when she wanted to. She wore sunglasses over her eyes and another pair resting on her forehead. In the most dramatic move of all, she shoveled a spoonful of soup[1] into her mouth.

"Oh, I see how it is! How convenient that you figured out how to not kill people after YOU MURDERED MY POOR, BEAUTIFUL ARCHER! He was so sweet! So innocent! A perfect little angel and you killed him with your stupid jerk sword you jerk you jerk you stupid... jerk!"

She punctuated every fresh insult with a jab of her spoon, flicking little bits of soup[2] everywhere.

"If you lament the loss of your Servant that much you ought to have provided him with your support, child. You cannot possibly have thought that nobody would die in a war."

"Uh, yeah I thought someone would die?? YOU????? This is so- why am I even explaining myself to you? I won already! I outfoxed everyone, I did all the work and I won fair and square! I should have four, no, five tails already and handmaidens feeding me grapes and massaging my poor aching feet! Instead I'm the only one at the table whose lost her Servant! Cheaters! Cheaters, all of you! Mean to me!!"

Avenger stiffened, though she did not stir. Her eyes made the briefest of flickers across the room to where her sword lay against the wall, but she mastered herself before she could so much as twitch in that direction. Berserker snarled at her anyway from overtop her bowl of soup[3].

"...And I suppose if you stupidly put a piece on a board for no reason and I captured it, that would be cheating as well?"

Cyanis' mouth hung open. Her fingers let slack and her soup[4] spoon fell with a clatter and a splash.

"Wh-who," she asked in a trembling voice, "Taught you how to play Wolf Go?"

No one answered. Kat cleared her throat in preparation, but that it seemed had been the final straw. Cyanis gathered herself up with every ounce of dignity[5] she could muster (which was a lot, as she was a Cool Big Sister in spite of everything that had happened) and stormed off into the other room. Though not before grabbing herself a bowl of ice cream[6] for dessert.

...So yeah, disaster. Everyone hated everyone else, and if they didn't then they were so injured they still hadn't woken up even with all of the delicious smells wafting about them this whole entire time, like Actia and Angelesia, a name Kat only knew from context. Not for the last time, she wished she could call Yue and ask for help. But that was a terrible, awful, stupid wrong bad idea for dummies because if she told Yue what was happening, then Yue would know what was happening and really did she even have to unpack that thought any further to know she didn't wanna do it?

But ooooooooof, did it really feel like she bet on the wrong horse. Er, shark? Girl? Miss Saber (even now it didn't feel right calling her by those other names. 'Avenger' especially seemed like something she didn't want to be) was the principle cause of most of the infighting happening in her Loosely Strung Together Alliance of Convenience, not to mention the one who wrecked her Secret Base and destroyed her Apology Souvenirs so that Kat would have to get lucky enough to find replacements before she finished saving the world or else it was Cutie Fox Island for life she just knew it.

Erm, anyway. Miss Saber carried herself with a confidence like she thought she could take on Princess Qiu (and make you believe it too) but this new shape of her was... sad. Her wings had melted and sunk inside of her body, like she ate them or something to gain enough power to keep herself around even after burning an entire Command Seal (actually, how'd she get those? how does that... work, exactly?) to keep her promise. And even after all that, the place where Kat had, uh, um, uh u-uh-uh-uhhhhhhhh gotten through to her was still bleeding. It was a wound that refused to close and it was plainly bothering her, though she sat there hunched over trying very hard to maintain the illusion that it wasn't. Her braid had come undone when the bands holding it in place had all snapped, so instead of wings or a cloak she had this massive waterfall of almost colorless-white hair, like snow made out of glass tumbling every which way.

She looked sad, is the main thing. Not, like, defeated, but sad. Like she was carrying the weight of failure after failure after failure on her back and the only thing that kept her going was the idea that not walking it off was worse than laying down or something. All in all it made her wonder if maybe she should have just cut and run for it and tried her hand at things with just Berserker, who by the way was super duper strong and hadn't lost to anybody yet. But... no. She needed help. She needed someone who she could talk to, darn it, and who talked back and understood anything that was happening but also very crucially was not out to flip the tables on her and try to win a Fox Game. And Miss Saber, whatever her flaws might be, was the only one who owed Kat a favor. Also the only one who'd called her wise?

She didn't want to believe that was a lie.

Anyway, soup[7]. Getting it to everyone took a bit of doin', and getting everyone to actually start eating it took even more doin', but y'know a funny thing about a hot meal, especially when it turns out extra tasty and nice like this one did? It gets hard, real hard when you're full and warm to hate anything or everything quite so much. Even if you're an ancient warrior-ghost or a very, very, very sad monk or a bored dragon or really any other weird thing you could maybe name. They ate, and though they did not laugh or joke with one another, they at least stopped scowling quite so much, and looked up to the horizon together.

The sun, with her ever-perfect sense of timing, broke through the clouds with her first pale rays of dawn. In that light, the world looked pretty darn saveable. Y'know?

[1] melted ice cream
[2] still ice cream
[3] actually soup
[4] ice cream again
[5] ice cream
[6] hot, steamy soup
[7] I trust you this time

Return to Thellamie

Potential Thread of Mystery Discovery: Khaganate threats toward the Manor (and the Dreamers themselves)
Subject is boastful young subordinate, Serigalamu heritage. Identifying markings include angular body tattoos reminiscent of teeth and a set of jeweled braces in her mouth in the Kel style. Name unknown.
Specifics of threat imply full-scale invasion of the Manor by Khaganate raiders, intention to claim Morning, Noon, and Evening as trophies and suborn them, potentially in the role of exotic pets.
Subject clearly intended to provoke listener (myself: Eclair Espoir) into a fight, not obviously inebriated.
Most likely conclusion: empty threat from embarrassed child attempting to save face, but threat = high aggression/unusual specificity
Further investigation is warranted.
Mystery Rank: E

Eclair blows on her fresh notes without ever moving her eyes off of the young woman. To call the expression on Eclair's face and in her eyes specifically 'cold' would at this point be an insult to temperature measurement. Vespergift has experienced warmer blizzards. Null reaction. She clicks her pen shut in its cap and pockets it, shaking her head.

Unbalance hip, palm on face, takedown onto pressure point for quick knockout? Procure string, bind irritant by the wrists and thighs, dangle her from statuary? No good and no good. Explicit request from house staff not to escalate toward violence. Order of the Aurora Precept Number Three: The Battle Must Not Involve Innocents.

Not just innocents here. Chrysanthemum workers do not live up to the full standards of the Manor, but in their own way they try to uphold their own version of the shining glory of the Maid. Inelegant at times perhaps, but beautiful. And beauty must be respected. Furthermore, Mission above Honor. Still though. Still. To allow her to yap so without any consequences...

It made her itch.

"A friendly word of warning, Little Miss. It is both unbecoming and dangerous for a young madame such as yourself to attempt intimidation using stolen valor. Doubtless though you believe her banner shall never fall, there will at the least come a day when your mother grows weary of your trading on her name and cuts you off. When that day comes, pray that I am the one who arrives to teach you your lessons. I will merely claim your dignity as my forfeit. Others will be less kind."

Sneer, break eye contact, snap notebook shut. Interpose self between squawking beast and attendants. Back turned, present target. Brace back but loosen neck to avoid injury. Take hand of woman offering dinner service and kiss it, palm down.

"It is all right, my flower. None of you have anything to fear from me. Now if you would kindly lead the way? I do not require bribes to keep the peace, but if you could help me confirm the validity of this ticket and bring me to a meal of any sort I would be in your debt..."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Fluffymountains."

Hearing her own name makes the two-tailed fox turn bright red for some mysterious reason, but the power of her anger is such that it doesn't break her war face or her concentration. For all that she might have bobbled the moment in a happier time, today she maintains her grip on her sword enough to continue dangerously gesticulating with it in a manner indistinguishable from attempted murder.

Avenger responds by turning away from her quarry and hefting her sword in the direction of all this flustered killing intent. The laser sword seems invincible matched against the flimsy curving blade pointing back at her, and is easily more than twice the size of Kat in and of itself. In any other scene this sight would be comical. Here it is merely strange.

It would be a very simple thing to ignore this little squeaking doll. For all that her fury made her dangerous she was nothing compared to the wounds Ivar had already endured, and with her Noble Phantasm still active even if Fluffymountains had been supported by her Saber self it would not make a difference. All she had to do is take the blow in exchange for the opportunity to kill Actia. But she does not make the move. Her posture is entirely that of someone who is taking this threat of a fight with full seriousness.

"I have lost the ability to call myself Saber. You may address me as Avenger. Or Ivar," she smirks, "The Boneless."

She brings her weapon down in a perfect overhead strike. Her speed is beyond human comprehension. Her form is without flaw. But her sword hisses and sparks as it clashes with not one but two others and halts before the deathstroke can complete. Berserker snarls and hurls her away. Avenger offers a small nod in response.

"Nevertheless I do acknowledge I am the same being you made a pact with. You gave me my life when I asked for it. Though my former Master very thoroughly squandered the opportunity I meant to buy, I agree you have the right to kill me now if that is your will."

"Wh--" sputters Kat, "Why would? No, what, no! No!! NO! Who wants that? Who wants to go and kill anyone? That's exactly the icky nonsense I was talkin' abou-- oh there I go again with the accent thanks a LOT! It takes forever to start talkin' normal after I slip, y'know?!"

"...Very well then. You may correct my 'vibes' if you prefer, but either way do so with that sword in your hands. I will not honor our accord if you do not."

It is an intense battle that follows, though lacking in artistry. Katherine is far too nervous to follow through with any of her slashes and far too angry to invest in vigor, and so what unfolds is a somewhat jittery dance of maximum aggression. She is too close and too wild for Ivar to meaningfully block her, and too short for the majority of the enormous warrior's natural strikes. In short order Avenger's armor is marred with dozens of tiny cuts, while she is limited to only vertical slices.

There is no purpose for defense in Kat's case. Any one of these strikes would shatter her arms and legs all at once if she blocked them full on. But the predictable patterns are simplicity itself for a warrior of Berserker's caliber, who manages to hip check her Master out of the way or with a howl make her flinch in the exact perfect moment, or in one case lift young Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits up on a tiny rampart so that her sword manages to meet Avenger's blow before it can build any real power. And there are openings for her to make her own counteroffensives, but she accepts none of them. Her armor rattles from the concerted effort of holding herself back, but alone among Servants in the Sunshard War, Berserker has a legitimately positive relationship with her Master. And for the sake of that Master, she keeps herself as out of this duel as she can get away with.

Like this! Then like this! Finishing like this! Again! The Again is the important bit as it turns out, as the completion of these sloppy, petrified forms do very little to finish off an opponent as inevitable as Avenger. But it turns out that Yue got one thing wrong, for all the help she had. The duel is not always about the duel. This duel is about dignity. About humanity. About saving the world. It is also about a single strike and all the heart and determination that a person can pour into it.

It comes at last when Ivar changes tactics. She slips past Berserker by letting her giant sword fall out of her hands, and lunges with her flexible arm and powerful fingers instead. And with a palm the size of her head suddenly shooting straight at her, Kat reacts with the perfect poise to be expected from her long years of training:

She screams. She ducks and covers her head. She feels something pulling on her sword arm and reflexively jerks it out of that grip as though being trapped by anything was the scariest thing in the entire world. Somehow this translates into a flat thrust. She feels the sword sink deep into Avenger's chest, and immediately falls to her knees.

"I, I, aish! I, oh no, oh goshies, oh Miss Saber no I'm so sorry! Oh no oh no don't die don't die you're not supposed ta get swords there I'm pretty sure oh shoot shoot shoot heck hold on I'll pull it out! No wait is that worse? I'll leave it in! Oh no but that must hurt so much I didn't know it was gonna! Oh!!"

"Child."

"Y-y-yes?" sniffled Kat, now trying not to break into a full on sob now that adrenaline had well and truly got the best of her.

"It is," Ivar grunted. It was difficult to talk with a sword jutting out of her lung, "Your intention to save the world?"

"It, I, uh, um! I mean yeah! Yes! Uhuh! Y-you're not dead right? You're gonna help right? You got some kinda magic spell for this?"

"I do not, Fluffymountains."

"...Biscuits."

"What?"

"M'name's..." Kat buried her face in her chest and her eyes in the crook of her elbow, "Fluffybiscuits."

"...What?" said Ivar again, plucking the sword out of her body.

"K-KATHERINE ISABELLA FLUFFYBISCUITS!"

Ivar stood speechless. For a moment she seemed to be contemplating stabbing herself again. With legendary effort, she tossed it on the ground instead.

"Yes, well. I have felt your resolve and I accept it. By our terms I owed you one defeat. This debt is repaid. But I also owe you a victory. Will you expend that on my assistance with your quest to save the world?"

"D-d'you," sniffle-snorted Kat, "Really mean that?"

"It is Actia's scheme that the world needs saving from. I will not turn away from my revenge. But for the sake of an alliance I am willing to focus it on this."

"You... promise? You r-really, super promise to knock off all the creepy murder death stuff and just help?"

"I have never once allowed my oaths to go unfulfilled."

Kat's knees shook horribly. Her throat felt like it had gotten a stick caught in it somehow. She wanted to say something smart, but everything that had held her together was unraveling with a speed that made her yearn to scamper home and bury herself in Yue's sock drawer. Not that she still fit in there, mind, but it's where her brain went. And neverminding she had too much work in front of her to get away with that even if she did, no matter if she was about to get a helper who could actually speak in words or no. It had just... been a lot for her. This whole thing was a lot to ask of a house fox.

She screwed up her courage one more time inside the creepy death castle, and nodded.

Avenger stood in silence, with blood still oozing out of the promise-wound. She turned her head around the room to look at Diaofei, and at Angelesia, and finally at Actia. All three of these girls lay sprawled and miserable in her power. Angelesia in particular looked about to die under the illness of the grudge she'd been forced to bear.

Ivar removed her mask. Underneath was the face of a young woman with hollow amber eyes. She plucked her sword up off the ground and walked away along the corridor to plant it in the slot she needed. The Fylgja rose at her command, and with legs at the end of its power reserves stepped foot by enormous foot over to the ruins of the shrine where the Giant had once rested. Ivar lifted her sword again, and the mecha took a knee in place.

She took a deep breath.

"By my Command Seal, I order... myself," she held the gleaming brand aloft in defiance of the woman who had decried their uselessness only after crushing her dreams with one, "Survive this."

It burned away and disappeared.

"Angelesia. My pilot. My queen. Your war is over. I release you from your duties; you may rest."

The throne she had been buckled into quickly unfolded around her and slipped into the strange mechanics of this place, dumping Angelesia on the floor. Almost immediately she began to wretch with horrible, violent lunges until with a horrible noise and an even worse smell she coughed up a seed, which withered to dust absent the mana source that was sustaining it. With a final quiet shudder, Lancer's Master fell asleep and lay still.

All at once a thousand wounds erupted violently across Avenger's body. She dropped almost to one knee, but clinging to her sword kept her feet. She stared through pain at Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits. And as she promised, she remained.

Breathless Dead

How many miracles was one person allowed to ask for?

She'd gotten plucked out of an impossible situation and watched what should have been the moment she lost everything into her own wedding. She saw the light return to Redana's eyes after she'd already said goodbye. She'd come home to her ship and for eleven minutes everything felt like it was going to be perfect.

But time marches on. Spitefully, it turns out. The scorching light pouring into every corridor isn't turned so directly on her as Apollo's displeasure had been in that nightmare world, but it was every bit as dangerous. Bella watches the moonlight. She can feel it watching her back. Just waiting for the moment she screwed up enough that it had permission to burn her to ashes.

Meanwhile, her ship was tearing itself to pieces. One thing about this piece of shit was that she didn't need to be around a problem to know it was happening. The Anemoi swallowed all senses, but that had turned out to be a blessing now that she can only stand here and remember it in passing. The silent darkness of that ship meant that it flew with precision and trust or not at all. By comparison the Plousios held no secrets, so there was no hiding the paranoia, the scheming, or the misery onboard.

The bulkheads rattle and quake with the sounds of physical conflict. With a little bit of practice it's possible (even simple) to pick out the loud bursts of poping echoes that indicate a skirmish between more militarily minded people from the duller more rhythmic drumming that meant a former Bitemark citizen was fending off a crab incursion. Or the even worse single-instance tremors that told her that her people had managed to toss over one of their own crafting stands or a critical ship component as part of an argument with each other.

If she pressed her ear to a wall Bella could even hear what the voices were shouting about: her. Mosaic, so odd and so distant lately. Everything was falling apart worse and worse on a daily basis, and far from keeping her promises about holding the Silver Divers in check she'd let even more military Servitors on board the ship and the bullying was worse than it had ever been under the lazy eye of the Regional Governor and the distantly disinterested Crystal Knight. The great hero of Beri was ruining their lives, if it was really even her and not some monster wearing her flesh as a mask. How could you say that about her!? And then the blow that meant the drunken shouting match had turned violent again.

The air did not smell of tension. That was not a condition that had a real smell, since every individual became aggressive, nervous, or frightened in different situations and all had slightly different chemical reactions to these things that turned any stressful situation in a crowd into a bizarre soup of sour, spicy, and bitter notes. And absent any direct presence with the people giving off those smells what happened instead was that the air started picking up sparks that dried it out and made breathing feel heavy or dangerous. The smell she did get was worse: brine and sea rot. There were multiple crisis level events happening all over the ship and somehow they weren't even related.

"Dany shut the fuck up I'm trying to think. I can't sit still ok, I need to-- there's nothing to clean. If I can't put my hands on something I, please. Don't open that door yet, we're not ready. Just let me pace. Let me figure this out."

Bella shrugs and returns to her silent, bestial stalking. She brushes the tips of her claws against her palms and stares at them in disbelief. Life was so much easier before they'd grown back. She barks with sudden, dark laughter. Life was a lot easier when she was dead, too. She can't hold it together. Cackling, she falls into Redana's arms and clings to the smaller girl until she's laughed tears into her eyes. Easier when she was dead, gods! It takes three attempts to calm down. When she's got her own feet again it's all she can do not to kill herself blushing at the concerned/enigmatic looks she's getting from her company.

"...This is so fucked," she observes, "Just completely fucking fucked. We've only got one thing going for us on this entire stupid ship, and that's the problem we're here to fix. Don't get me wrong, she's going to get us all killed. But the goals-- Vesper's..."

Yeah, the goals. Vesper's attention would be pulling the same direction Bella's was at the moment, this clusterfuck of a power struggle. It's why her mind kept turning back to it, even though her sister was a higher threat priority. Frankly the Ceronians, Summerkind, Pix, and all the people of Bitemark could start a war right now for all it mattered if Vesper was allowed to get even one more idea off the ground. But she couldn't help it. For all she knew it was pointless trying to out think an Ikarani Adept, the way that she talked things out made Bella feel it was important to at least grasp the edges of everything.

Forget the difference in the ships for a minute. Why had the Anemoi run so much smoother than her version of the Plousios? That ship hadn't actually run any better to begin with either, if she was being honest. Her authority had all been fake from the start; the Kaeri operated under instructions fine but under the surface they had no delusions about what Bella's orders were for or who they were really from. The literal instant they were presented with Redana they tried to take over without a second thought, even though it should have been obvious to the most braindead slob that letting the Princess take over would just hijack their mission.

That part wasn't so different from Mosaic being 'in charge' of the Silver Divers. They followed orders if she gave them, but they didn't follow instructions at all. Their presumption of superiority superseded even being trapped on a hostile backwater planet without the support required to do more than petty raiding against a bunch of farmers and stoneworkers, and no matter how many of their alphas she dominated (or married) they were always testing the limits of what they could get away with. Every single Ceronian on the ship barring Ember gave off the impression of a temporarily embarrassed noblewoman. Bella would have to be blind not to see that the second the ship crossed into Shogunate territory they would try something. They'd been blatantly preparing since the moment the journey began. But she'd let it go on for the time being because...

Why? She'd have never tolerated that sort of belligerence out of the Kaeri, at least not after they'd fucked up the pirate raid so badly. What had made her think such a light touch would be better now? For an Empire to be strong, the Empress must be weak, but... that was just bullshit, wasn't it? Easy for Nero to say it, in a theater in a palace on the safest planet on either end of the galaxy. But Bella wasn't trying to build an empire. She wanted, she wanted--

"She wants to help. For everything that happened to her, she remembers me. Most of her life all her solutions involved mass death, but ever since we met she's bent over backwards to keep her hands clean. She just pulled off the stupidest thing I've ever seen her do and nobody died for it. That's our advantage. She trusts me. So we don't need to reset her, we just need to cut her off long enough to pull her back down underneath the clouds. If she loses that perspective, nothing we try will ever work."

Fucking... no no no, what kind of stupid joke is this? She can't possibly be this stupid? What was the difference? Obvious. Bella you moron. You stupid, glazed eyed drooling dipshit. The Lanterns trusted her. And they trusted her because she'd done things for them, and kept doing that until it stuck. Her motivation was irrelevant, she was strong and she used that to do something other than force her way onto things. By comparison, what the fuck had she done here?

She never talked to the Pix, not once. She and the people of Beri had beaten the Silver Divers but her relationship with Ember immediately recomplicated that dynamic, and even if that hadn't been true what vision of the future was she even offering? A Servitor could be more than they were made to be, but that would never happen without a clear alternative and a reason to go in for it. What had she done besides wear stupid outfits and fill out paperwork? She was a logistics manager sitting in a captain's chair and expecting nobody to be call her out on it.

If Nero were in this situation she'd take control by leaning on Dyssia. And while she was putting out fire, Nero would make a swift demonstration of her own power by crushing a faction and playing the rest against each other to maintain a tenuous hold on a majority of power, and then make speeches to her enemies to blind them with her charms and keep them pointed away from her the entire time. The Empire would be strong. The Empress would be weak. But if anybody upset the balance she would call in her favors, flip that dynamic, and wipe the dissenting force off of her map. Her rule would be total, only playing loose enough to keep the lot of them growing stronger.

But Nero, and please forgive your former maid, Your Most High Imperial Majesty, had no fucking friends. A city didn't need an Empress. It needed a culture. It needed a goal that could pull people in, and maybe most importantly of all it needed to let people walk away from it if they needed to. She could do that. She could provide that goal, and she could be strong enough to hold up the mountain while everyone else climbed it.

She needed to tell them all. More important than that, she needed to show them. But before any of that could happen she needed the ship to not fucking explode, please and thank you.

"We have time. Vesper is going to set up some kind of cosmic bomb that's going to open the path for this ship to cleanly get where it's going, but to do that she needs to play up the fighting going on high enough to bounce the gods off of it. I'm sure she sees how to get there already but I'm just as sure she doesn't have the tools yet. So while there's still room to think, tell me how we fix her. She's done everything for me, and I'm going to pay that back. What can we do to pull her away from Rampancy without erasing her?"

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?"