Phoe

Breathless Dead

If she could go back in time and kill the person who came up with 'Twenty Poisons', she would. But then, that'd be rather counterproductive. Bella pressed her thumbs into Mynx's jaw, and frowned where nobody could see her do it. This was the opportunity she was looking for. But twenty questions was a lot to have to figure out. And it was also no space at all to pull a person out of the hole they've been hiding in.

"That's a brave answer," she purrs with a confidence she does not feel, "I almost want to reward that."

Bella wraps her arms over Mynx's shoulders and slumps against her, so that the chains holding them up strain under their combined weight and dig into Mynx's wrists. She buries her face into her oldest friend's neck and sniffs, loudly. To prevent a sigh or any other type of concerned, weak noise from leaving her and shattering the illusion of her control, but the scent she draws in gives her renewed strength. The smell of roses has grown faint, and in its place has risen the acrid sting of artificial cleaner that represents her 'true' perfume. She blinks, unseen. Takes a second whiff. No. It's... it's similar, but it's not that same scent. Not only from the telltale, sickly sweetness of her arousal that's washing over her form, but the old fake marker scent itself is fundamentally altered somehow. It has a peppery heat to it, where before it was defined by its astringency. Still sharp, still bitter and chemical and familiar, but a new take on it. Still Mynx, but... different. New.

"Let's see how you handle this. If you want a treat after everything you've put me through, you'll need to earn it. Number two: now that we've come so close again, are you going to keep insisting you're meant to be alone?"

"I..." Mynx shudders under the touch of Bella's palms against her hip bones.

"Yes or no, Princess."

"N-no~" she manages, to the immediate reward of fingers spreading across her skin and pressing into her body with careful little pinpricks.

"Good, that's very good to hear. And still eighteen left! That's a bit surprising; I thought we'd be here longer before we got this far. Hmm, maybe that means you're holding out on me. Ok then smart girl, how's this? When did you figure out you're more than just a bodyguard to us?"

Mynx does not answer. Her breath hitches, and she rocks forward onto her toes and back again, squirming and writhing and dragging Bella's claws all over her stomach. Bella flips her hands over, to a lot of whining and an even more insistent press of bodies up against her.

"You dismissed it because Redana always acts like everybody's her friend, and not her servant. That makes you just as stupid as me. But you can't have thought I was like that too. You're thinking about it, I see it in your breathing. All those times I wouldn't let you pose as me or put yourself in danger for my sake. And you're weighing that against everything else you know about me. And I can smell you're stuck on it. You're coming down too soon, you idiot. You're never going to get the climax you're looking for if you slip away now, trust me. Would you like me to explain it, so you don't hurt your pretty little head?"

She lifts her arms and takes a step back. Mynx slumps into the emptiness, and cannot keep her hips from squirming. But though her lips are shimmering with drool and her knees are almost knocking together from how badly they're shaking, her back is straight when she answers. She lifts her head high, and says the word with as much certainty as she can muster.

"Yes. Please, please, yes. Tell me, please..."

And in answer, Bella bites her ear, and laps at the mark she leaves behind.

"Precious. Irreplaceable. You're not Redana, but you are her equal. You are the only other person who watched the butterflies with me in that garden. And you are the one I did not have to chase. You were my shoulder to lean on when I could not stand. You were my confidant. And if an Empire stood between us, I would burn it to the ground to cross the distance. Do you understand?"

"I... I!"

Bella's hands caress the contour of Mynx's rib cage. That new scent is growing stronger. She breathes deep, and allows her fingers to wander where they will.

"I do not give a single fuck what your capabilities are or what you were made to be. I do not want a biomancer's opinion on what makes you valuable. If I were offered a thousand new Toxicrenes with all of their latest improvements, I would cave in the face of the person who suggested it. I want you. I want the woman who has lived her life alongside me, the only one in the entire galaxy who I could trust to take my place if I died. I'm going to ask you again: Do. You. Understand?"

"Bella," she moans and cranes her neck to open it for more kisses and more fang marks, "Yes, yes, yes!"

The deeper she goes, the more Bella feels her insides tighten. It's wrong. All of this is wrong. Not that the words are inaccurate, but that she has no right to say them. A hundred very childish impulses beg for her to spend a question asking forgiveness, but what the fuck would that accomplish? The only thing that could feel worse than being told that she wasn't would be being told that she was. As if she had any right to know. As if peace of mind was something she could just ask for and receive.

Besides, any sense of closure in either direction would break the spell that Mynx was under, and it still had so much work to do. Selfish shit like that didn't matter anyway. This journey was going to be the death of Bella. It was nonsensical to her that it might be otherwise. But she could make sure that Mynx and Ember both reached the destination safely, and if she got them there in any fit state to make wishes for themselves, that was all the redemption she deserved to ask for. For as many gods as hated her, that was already too much to ask. And in light of it, this clawing guilt didn't mean shit.

A new Mynx, but still Mynx. Right now what she needed was to keep it the fuck together long enough to see. After that there were only 12 other disasters to attend to. Easy. She steps in again, and wraps her tail around her sister's leg.

"You've been brave enough to die for everyone for a very long time. Are you brave enough now to live for us, instead?"

"Yessssssss~"

"I'm going to hold you to that, you know. Gods, how does a person so full of poisons manage to be this soft? I thought it when I met you, but you really are some kind of fucking miracle."

"I-it just," stammers Mynx as the heat rises up through her body, "Makes me happy..."

"Oho? And how would it make you feel if I told you that made you a treasure worth possessing all by itself?"

"Ah, ah! GgOoD~"

"Well isn't that sweet. This changes nothing, so you know. At most I am willing to split our time sixty-forty, punishment to reward. You might be a treasure, and my friend, and my precious sister, but you are also a huge fucking pain in my ass. If you get any treats from me at all, you're going to earn every last one of them with your tongue. Your tongue if you're lucky, heh."

At last, Bella lets her sister go. She doesn't undo the chains, but she steps away entirely and does the hardest and most dangerous part of this job by sauntering with casual, confident power to the other side of this exchange where Mynx can read her face freely. What she shows is not a smile, not her teeth, and none of the swaggering or sexy confidence she's been projecting throughout the game to this point. Intensity and earnestness push her features into a scowl of pure concentration. The Auspex burns red in its socket as she watches. And waits.

She puts a hand on Ember's shoulder, and pushes her forward.

"But since Dany here is joining us in bed tonight, I'm going to let her join in here too. I am giving her nine poisons to extract however she sees fit. When she is done, and only when she is done, you are going to answer this one with your body. Do not speak a single word to me about it. But let me know as only you can: when I look at you, who is it you want me to see? Show me the body that truly belongs to you."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Lady I don't remember you now? What're you tryin' to get me to forget? 'Cause whatever it is you don't gotta fight a war over it! Here, watch this!"

It was dangerous and scary to be like this again, especially in the face of someone Katherine didn't know and couldn't trust because of it, but the thing about her little warrior's heart is that once the spark did catch it got real stinkin' hard to put it back out again. If she got blazin', that by goshies that's just what she'd do.

She snaps her fingers and points to her first witness.

"Ok who can tell me what this crazy old lady's deal is? Ready go!"

"...The Lancer class is famous for its bad luck. Most anyone could qualify." lied Actia, through the magic of only speaking irrelevant truths.

"My wrists! They're pinching my wrists get them off get them off get them off!!!"

"Uh, Cy?"

"They're cold and clammy and ugh! They're rougher than the hands of a hundred wolfgirl bandits! I did nothing to deserve this! Nothing!!"

"...Cy?"

But Cyanis had resorted to chewing on the chains that bound her cutie little wrists. Which, as it turned out, was a horrible mistake.

"Ptuigh! Ackfth! Blegh! And they taste just awful!!!"

Kat did the only thing she could, which was to take that answer as a common cutie w and move her finger over to Opalis.

"Oh no! Is this because of the cold? I'm so sorry, I swear I'm normally never like this! I just got so riled up by that other lady's speech, and I thought -- oh hold on, I've got a voucher for a very lovely masseuse in here if I can just... find it..."

Ok well that probably counted too! Everybody kept not making the point as, uh, forcefully as Katherine would like but in their own roundabout ways they were definitely reinforcing the main concept. Which was that nobody knew or cared about Juliwhatsit and her failed pizza restaurant.

Not that Kat had no sympathy for the ghost lady, y'know? She's actually pretty familiar with having dark and terrible secrets she'd rather be erased, though she'd never try to, like, alter history to do it. Whatever Jewelbia's big whoopsie was it couldn't stack up to the time Katherine tried to surprise her friends with tea but forgot to add any tea before she served it so there was nothing for anyone to drink except very lovely cups of scalding hot water. And when she noticed and panicked she tried to take 'em back, see? But she was rushing and she would up spilling it everywhere, including her pretty new dress! And I mean luckily most of it got on the skirt which was very swishy so she didn't burn herself, but it flustered her somethin' fierce and she was halfway to pulling it off before she remembered she was in front of company and, like, see? You could be... gosh I don't know, poked with a spear in the middle of a campaign to restore the empire you just wound up in charge of right after deciding you'd move faster without your armor and then have a famous quote attributed to you that gave props to your worst enemies that you definitely didn't say, just to toss something out there I guess, and I think that'd be maybe half as forget-worthy as our poor girl's nothin' tea incident.

Oh, if it makes you feel any better, she's since learned how to make the most wonder matcha latte you've ever tried. Consider askin' her for one sometime! Promise you won't regret it. Anyway we could move on to Diaofei's testimony but, uh,

"Om, Om,Om Ami Dewa Hrih Om..."

Yeah.

All of this got just, like, no reply by the way. Which definitely meant it was working super duper well? Or that Kat'd managed to doom the entire world by choosing the Way of Rhetoric over the Way of the Sword Axe. Which she still hated, thank you Ivar! The weight of it was much too clunky and it wasn't pretty like a sword and you could only swing it like a big dumb brute (as far as she could figure) and the haft chafed her delicate hands which was taking a lot a lot a lot a lot of foxy willpower not to focus on but it didn't matter anyway because the evil would be defeated in just one more strike!

Kat turned her finger toward Angelesia, who'd come to enough to react to being pointed at. But before she could ask anything, Angelesia lifted off of the ground with a yelp, a squawk, and a yeep! Ivar had appeared again, with Kat's sword now tucked delicately against her very prominent hip, but a wicked curved dagger held in her hand opposite the girl she now held in the other.

"Much as I appreciate what you're trying to do," Avenger sighs, "We have a better use for this one."

And then she -- what? No she didn't knife the girl! What is the matter with you?! Obviously she threw her at Lancer!! Duh!

Screaming her war cry of "help me help me catch me catch me please aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!" the girl-missile flew contrary to her name (the missile part. 'Cause she hit. I dunno what'd it even mean to fly like an Angelesia) straight into Lancer's face. And in that moment everything broke into chaos. Ivar scooped up Kat and tossed her at Berserker, who whatever her other faults might have been was very good at taking a hint and so grabbed her Master and one end of the Great Sillyhead Chain and started running. Avenger, meanwhile, hefted the dragon side of the group onto her back and ran apace. Between them this had the effect of dangling a very indignant and screaming Cyanis in the air across a taut chain on either end of her wrists, while Diaofei half ran and was half-dragged along behind everyone else. Which was an arrangement that suited Ivar perfectly well.

"What the fluff?!" asked Kat, "What is? Why is?? Where are we going now? Did I screw up the plan? Wait is that girl ok?! 'Cause if you hurt her I!"

"Quiet, little fox. Angelesia is fine. Whatever her many flaws, Lancer will not harm her Master. It risks too much. As for us, we are not running."

"Sure looks like we are! You are! Berserker is! You know what I mean!" shrieked Kat, kicking her little legs for emphasis.

"We have nowhere we can run to. Even with my skills anywhere we could hide would be sniffed out before we could justify the time it took us to reach it. What we are doing is buying time."

"To do...what?"

"To stab this dragon." said Ivar, very matter of fact.

"WHAT?!"
"HUH???"
"MY ARMS ARE FALLING OOOOFFFFFFF!"
"E-E-E-EXCUSE ME?"
"CREATURE OF EVIL, WHAT DO YOU INTEND?"
"NO NO NO NO, WHAT?!?"

"Not to death," Avenger rolled her eyes, "We just need her blood."

"M-my blood?" asked Opalis, politely not trying to wriggle free from the warrior woman still technically carrying her to safety.

"Yes. Enough of it to make a summoning glyph. It may not accomplish what I hope, but I still wish for you to be your own sacrifice."

Return to Thellamie

"That's a, a, a, a, a, a, a -- do not call me 'Ecky' -- a, a, misconception. Stereotype. Rumor. Unsubstantiated. A gross - apologies, no, I am speaking to something else entirely, the food is delicious - exaggeration. Oversimplification. To refer to the Great Game as any form of dating is. Ah. Ah."

"In the second place this assessment utterly fails to account for the fact that she, that Timtam is -- stop line of explanation. Details of Aurora examination are still not the purview of civilians, do not reveal secret information. It is of no concern of Mayzie's whom among us has gone renegade. Apologies, but no. I refuse to consider the possibility that this is strictly kink. You may be a genius but she is a mastermind and she has already com, com, compromised you."

"...Fish course astonishing. More meals should be prepared with this much care. The design intent to leave the plate so spotless actually loops back around to heighten the flavor of the bite. There is an inherent lack of mystery in such controlled narration but the specificity! I could not prepare a meal such as this. I am, mmmmmmmmmm, impressed. Almost against my will I am forced to conclude the skill involved justifies the barrier to experience it."

"...I lack the information to determine how she has compromised you. But she has. Do not hide your, your, your, ah, um, uh, your face. You are, you are, you are! You very clearly are! That is fine. I permit it. Since it is you... I permit it. We will attend the fullness of this meal and then you will -hic!- accompany me to my quarters. I require. I need. Require. My notebook. Were you bought off? How much money did it take? Did she, did Timtam apply her feminine wiles upon you? She did that thing with her hair, didn't she? I will kill her when we meet."

"...Arrest. I will force first confession and then apology from her lips. Then I will return both of these things to you as recompense. That is what I meant to say. I am. No, I am not. But I do not... imbibe. That is. My own meals have a marked preference for coffee or oh! Is that a cup of teA? Astonishing. Incredible. I had not even thought to word the wish, my deepest compliments."

"Returning to the mat, matter at hand. Nnnf. I am hot. I am -hic, hic, HIC!- overheating. When we. Retire? Return. Resume, resume the interview in earnest. I will need to, ah, need... please do not assume lecherous intent. I do not wish to harm our friendship any further than I already have."

"You... understand I could not stay. Don't you? It was not that, I do not mean to say, I did not hear the Aurora calling to me. I could not hear the voices of the sleeping dragons until I had already located the Manor. I did not choose to leave. Vespergift... threw me out. There was no, no time to, I did not! It was not my place to ask if... you were, so clearly..."

"Countertop is pleasantly cool against my sweat slicked forehead. The sake is of unimpeachable quality but at the ninth cup I question its implementation. Was it the hidden puzzle of the narration? I missed the clue entirely. I am going to have you tell me everything she told you. Not now. In my room. You will tell me everything. As you are an. An. An, enemy. Enemy agent. I will require. Need. Have to write. Your testimoney in Purple. I wish it were not necessary. But it is. I wish to hear her words. I would hear. Um. Details. Of... you said, uh, Khaganate treasure? Where would she have? No. I must not chase these disorganized thoughts."

"I am. Adrift. The sea is hazy and the waves are deeply uncertain stepping stones. My fear in this moment is that I lack the skill to navigate the maze I now find myself trapped in. Two days to come out ahead of the trap being set. I am. As my once best friend and childhood crush reminded me, currently a bounty-level person of interest to the Civils. My deepest fear is that the only certain path available to me. Leads me. Leads me to. The inevi, um, the um. Inevitable betrayal. Of. All that I... my. Ideals. And..."

"Have I? Been speaking? You appear concerned. I am fine. I am strong, stronger than this. Was I really? The... entire time?"

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"I dunno what cruci-whatsit is." said Kat, who was brave enough to admit it.

"Is this like that time Yue tried to bring back fashion capes? 'Cause that didn't work! She just saw it in a manga and started picturing it on Hyra, but that's-- oh right, that's Yue's wolfgirl girlfriend, you haven't met, but yeah stuff that looks good on Hyra is a lot different from worldwide fashion trends and basically I'm saying you should probably think this through? 'Cause it makes you sound like you've got a lot to prove even though you said you didn't."

Ok, not protecting the dragon. That was not the hint! The dragon does not need protecting! The dragon has some kinda scary magic whatsit going on that Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits is not remotely qualified to understand but it makes her see Princess Jessic in a whole new light and oh my goshies did Cy really not think about who she was stealing from that one time at all?!?!

Right no ok, focus! Focus focus focus! Everybody's doing big hero stuff and she's not going to fall behind! There's something she's supposed to be doing, something only she can, and Miss Saber saw it but couldn't say it out loud in front of the scary old lady on an apocalypse bender so she needed to figure it out before it was too late. She didn't have a sword (...anymore) and she didn't know monk kung fu and Berserker already did the chair thing so it didn't seem like she was gonna save the day with violence. What was it, then?

"I mean, you really oughtta listen to me on this. Miss Sa, erm, Miss Avenger said herself that I'm a wise sage fox, and I got my degree in Cutie Law fair and square so I really know a thing or two about not embarrassin' myself. Yourself. Anyway there's only one kind of Rome I've ever heard of and I really don't think pizza with french fries on it is worth all the violence, do you?"

Mhm, that's right! We're stalling. Because any second now, Ivar is going to strike and put the friendship sword through this woman that she clearly knows from somewhere and that'll drain the tension out of the air for good and for all, and that's probably the job she needs to do! Yup. Any second now. The Lancer lady is already up to '8', which is some other number away from 10, so there's still time. Uhuh. All she needs to do is...

She's in the middle of congratulating herself on her insight when an axe slides loudly across the floor and stops at her feet. The little spark of bravery fluttering inside her chest catches again and she bends to pick it up before she can tell herself she doesn't want it. Why an axe, though? Axes weren't good for much, not like swords. You couldn't swing 'em like this and like this and like this, finishing like that. There weren't Axe Katas the way there were Gun Katas, even. And an axe could never cut down a helicopter, unless it was very super big (or the helicopter very super small, one supposes), so what good did it do?

"It's not too late." she says, meaning every word in her sweet little heart.

Her eyes fall on the phone prisons that have Cy and Angelesia trapped. She looks at the axe in her hand, and grips it tight. One more time, she leaps into action. She whispers a little prayer to herself, that form doesn't matter for this kind of thing. And a second prayer, that neither of these two get mad at her for breaking their phones. But it's for their own good. At a time like this, everyone needs to be present in the moment, y'know?

She brings the weapon down. It's the first step to being a hero. Probably. Could she get another hint?

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

It's really not fair. Like, how brave is brave enough? What good does it do finding a momentary spark when life just asks you to stoke it again and again and again and again? Ok, sure. Maybe not enough gets asked of a house fox on a daily or even a weekly basis. So realizing the foxgirl games were getting out of hand and that she'd need to be the one to save the world? That's fair. And it's fair to make her recruit her own party to do it, too. Even if that party turned out to be super scary and everyone hated everyone else. That's fine, that's fine. I dunno if there's such a thing as responsibility debt or anything but if there is that's Kat paying it.

But like, c'mon? She had to be the one to stand up to Cy. She had to stand up to Actia. She had to stop herself from calling for help from anyone she knew on an almost hourly basis. She had to march up to a rampaging mecha controlled by a death-tainted raider warlord and stab her in the ribs with the Friendship Poker. She had to wrangle the lot of her ragtag bunch into something halfway resemblin' a decent dinner (which she had to cook!) and at no point during any of this did she get to really sit down and rest. This was not the kind of adventure she'd seen once before from inside a messenger bag. But after everything, what was her reward?

Berserker, who she had to wrangle constantly to keep from destroying and/or conquering everything she saw, was frozen stiff at the sight of this new woman. Avenger, who not two days ago was closer than anyone ought to be to slaughtering the planet in the name of revenge on a single person, looked at her opponent and simply stuck her obnoxious glowing sword in the ground. Which, I dunno if you knew this? Is not a thing most fighters do when they're trying to win a duel?

She'd done the thing. She'd screwed up her courage and kicked at the phone monster and did the every day magic of a tiny impossible miracle and it saved her life. So. Why was there another non-optional superboss to begin with? And why the h*ck was it on her to deal with it? She didn't know this woman! She didn't know what a 'Rome' was or why anyone would care! Could you eat it? Could you hug it? No? Then what the fluff?! What the actual fluff? Could she really work herself up to get shouty again when she didn't know if that'd work to begin with? And, like, she'd been trainin' with Berserker for a little while but she was still less than half the demon swordswoman Yue (ehehe!) had been at the end of her first adventure. And as a little reminder, that demon swordswoman lost every fight she got in (...ehe. Heh. Ah)!

"Julia the Philosopher?" Avenger's creepy ghost voice startled Kat out of her reverie/tantrum, "I don't suppose you bothered to get any better at arguing before you gave yourself that title. Tell me, is that spear a blessing from your gods? Or is it just another stick you plucked out of the mud?"

She stood there with her back straight and her feet planted firmly underneath her. She had no weapons in her hands because plainly she had no means of fighting back, but here was a warrior meeting not just the threat of annihilation but complete and total erasure from everything she'd ever held dear. Never mind her future, to have her past stolen from her as well? Kat couldn't even imagine. But there was Ivar. 'The Boneless' she'd called herself. And even so she stood prouder and braver than any role model Kat could have hoped to have right then.

In fact she was just opening her mouth to do a bit of barking of her own when she felt one of those long, rough fingers press down against her lips. She yelped, when she'd meant to scream. To speechify, even. She glared up (and up, and up) at Avenger, who quietly shook her head. With a flick of her hollow golden eyes she indicated that dragon still sputtering in the corner about the destruction of her tablet. Opalis? That was her name, yeah.

Katherine shuffled cautiously and heroically backwards. Ok, sure. That sounded easier than fighting another hopped-up-on-superpowers-bad-vibes-old-lady-ghost. She was so relieved she didn't even notice her sword was missing yet. Protect the dragon, sure sure! Or... wait. Was that not right? Was Avenger trying to tell her something else?

"Listen to me, Lancer. Give up on this at once. You are only going to be embarrassed by how it ends if you continue. I admit, no Servant manifested here can contest you. But these Masters are surprising. And this is their war, too."

Breathless Dead

"Oh, you do remember. I can see it aaaaaallll over your face, hmhmhm~"

Bella presses her fingers under Mynx's chin. With the palm, she pushes upwards. Her other hand descends, claws outstretched, until the clothing fit only for the Princess Redana gives up the game at last and goes flumphing to the floor in a puddle all around her. A snap of her fingers, and the ropes are around those delicate, pale wrists. Tugging them above her head, lifting her to her feet. Forcing her chest up and out, with nothing to do but watching all these eyes watch her back.

"You told me you had so many ideas, back then. For ways that I could punish you after you humiliated me the way you did. But then? You stupid, worthless slut, you never. Said. A. Thing."

Bella descends on the dress with the fury of a lightning bolt. Her claws carve it to tatters in the space of this single, vicious strike. She snatches up a tuft of it and folds it into a perfect square, murder written in her eyes the entire time. She rises to her feet. Tall and imperious, something much larger and more dangerous than a mere Praetor. Her hand once again clenches around Mynx's jaw, and she squeezes to the edge of pain. Just enough to let her mind take over and imagine more. Just enough to pry her mouth open, so she can pack it full of that stupid, shredded dress and watch the drool start forming at the corner of her lips.

SMACK! The back of her hand crashes across Mynx's cheek. SMACK! The palm hits the other side on the return. SMACK, SMACK, SMACK! Hard enough to color that perfect face. Hard enough to draw out tears, to make shoulders slump against ropes now pinned against the ceiling.... and hard enough to make those soft and slender thighs press tight against each other and those delicate toes curl at the ends of their feet.

"You're going to need to endure this." SMACK! "I'm going to have to be very mean to you." SMACK, SMACK! "Things have never been more dangerous than they are right now, and your useless ass is a long walk away from where I need it. Just know this: it's my turn to drive this time. It's your mess that needs cleaning. And I. Will have you. Pay me back. For every. Little. Mistake. And prank. You have. Ever. Pulled."

But the blows stop there. Bella takes a deep breath, and she sighs. It feels so strange, using memories as a weapon like this. But in the end there just wasn't anybody in the entire galaxy who knew the Toxicrene Adept, Mynx, as well as she did. There wasn't anybody else who could do this job. At first it seemed only right to let her live out this fantasy, out of guilt or maybe just a selfish desire to have there be some kind of Redana on this ship. Before she knew better. But if they were Human there were standards to uphold. If the pair of them and everybody like them were all Human, then it wasn't all right for them to be anybody but themselves.

Bella slides behind Mynx and drapes her considerable weight against her prisoner. Her body presses close, and the backs of her fingers slide up and down the length of Mynx's butt, waist, ribs, shoulders, and neck; pressing firm on all the little spots where Mynx should be meaningfully different than Redana, and waiting to see if she yields to that reality. She plants a kiss on each reddened cheek, soft and wet to soothe the pain, and plucks the sodden packing from that constantly moaning mouth.

"But none of this means we can't have some fun, does it. How about we play Twenty Poisons, until I figure out the best way to show you your place? Here's a good first one: which of us are you hoping is going to be the one to fuck you, when we're through? My wife?"

She pushes Mynx's head up and over to look straight at Ember, then drags her tongue across Mynx's ear.

"Or me~? Oh! Don't tell me! Maybe you're thinking you'd like to take us both at once <3"

Return to Thellamie

Lower spoon into bowl, lift. Take in aroma of broth while manipulating crab with chopsticks. Place on top of broth in spoon, replication of bowl in miniature. Deep breath, insert spoon into mouth. Tilt head to allow for flavors to pass over more of tongue. Swallow.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Hesitation. Glance over, fingers splayed across napkin. No writing implement, notebook still in room. Not worth risk. Smooth napkin with fingertips, another deep breath. Lift bowl and sip at broth directly.

Empty bowl, set down. Lift sake cup, swirl. Cautious sniff. Slowly drain cup, allow tasting notes to compliment flavors of soup still lingering, gently wash palate for oncoming course.

Frown. Turn, look at Mayzie. Frown again.

"...Defend your thesis, if you please."

Silence. Snort of laughter? Why laughter? Confusion playing on face evident; subject's laughter intensifying.

"No really. I require an explanation. I have already explained to you, I am hunting her. The details of my investigation are beyond the purview of this conversation but nevertheless it is a common fact that she is a criminal. I--"

Brief pause, blink. Stare at third sake cup, slow sigh. Alcohol showing signs of taking effect. Nevertheless unacceptable to slow down pace of drinking. Intended part of meal, all plates (and bowls) to this point finish at deeply pleasing levels of cleanliness. Flavors all clear and complimentary. Storytelling as method of cooking: disrespectful of chef to not allow drink to take its course.

...Hiccup. Cover mouth. Clear throat.

"--have even been implicated via the mechanism of her schemes as some sort of wanted criminal myself. Her behavior across the Festival of Light up to and including this invitation is consistent with an attempt to ensnare me in some sort of further trap. I accepted fully anticipating this. It is my intention to discover her methodology. This is the farthest thing from a--"

Halt. Avoid cutting off an avenue of thought, regardless of how unlikely. Recheck menu, find place in meal. Six courses remain. Blink. Blink again. I'm. Sorry? Re-recheck menu. Find place in meal. Use index finger to trace to avoid confusion. Six courses remain. Ah. Nevertheless. On your honor as a maid-knight: persevere.

"...My humblest apologies. Let us proceed from the assumption that I am a fool. What evidence have you ascertained that this is an attempt at dating?"

All focus here, on this moment. On this person. Do not allow thoughts of Timtam to float upward. This will complicate the investigation.

Hiccup. Turn eyes down, feel heat rising in cheeks.

[Figure Out a Person: 3 + 1 + 1 = 5]

Breathless Dead

Bella's hand descends on Ember's head. She pushes her fingers through those luxurious tangles of hair to rub at the spots behind her ears, half in praise and half in contemplation. This is a moment where she would like to close her eyes and breathe the moment in. She does not dare. The smirk that plays across her face is so calculated that it might as well have been a part of one of Vesper's plans. Her spine is locked, her ears perked to maximum alert. When her tail twitches it does not curve so that the effect is a whiplike thrashing that instantly cancels out into absolute stillness, instead of the natural and happy sort of twitching Ember is so generously demonstrating.

"That's excellent work, Ember. Good girl."

The petting is an expected reward, but it is also an essential act of survival for the woman who should be in control here. Mynx was even more sensitive to biochemical reactions than Bella, and a single whiff of anything that could be interpreted as guilt or nervousness would be the end of everything she needed to accomplish. But as long as her hand stayed on Ember, stayed on Redana, as long as she could smell those little wisps of perfume and pleasure, her breathing stayed her own. A tale as old as time, really.

...And that was the fucking problem. Talking to Omn, talking to the Hermetic, talking to her fill of blustering Azura tyrant windbags, even just reading the store of literature she'd managed to pilfer across the trip, everything on the topic amounted to the same basic bullshit. Servitors as a concept were built around hard coded behaviors that everyone assumed just overrode the rational thought she knew they were capable of. There was a time when she wouldn't have questioned the wisdom, but since crossing the Lethe she'd seen too much, done too much, said too much for it not to start boiling her blood. Her fingers clench and Ember yips in surprise as claws suddenly dig into her scalp. Bella hastily splays her fingers and strokes with the back of her hand until calm rules the pair of them again. Shit.

What did she have for proof? Nightmare chimera of a Servitor that she was, Bella was an unholy combination of a traditional maid and a bloodthirsty warrior made ill by the scents of battle. But even though she still had zero leads on the sort of species she was made from the one thing she was certain of is that she'd been built to be a follower. Take instructions. Accept orders. Bend herself into shape to fit the needs of the person with the plan. She'd been lifted to the status of Praetor despite being a failed Imperial Maid because it pointed a ship in the right direction for just long enough to unfuck a problem that Nero was having. The awkwardness she felt about it all was only matched by the sheer rush of power that came from doing it well.

But. If that had been programmed, what the fuck? She was built for three distinct functions in an empire when most everyone she met seemed built for less than half? With that absurd lack of specialty she might as well... might as well just be... she could... call herself...

Her hand falls to her side.

Human.

Bella pulls her hand up again, twisting her fingers upward toward her face in a way that emphasizes her claws. Her smirk mutates into a horrible, toothy grin that belongs on a monster more than anything else. She steps forward, and her body flows like liquid. The swing of her hips is perfect, the bend of her waist is mesmerizing, the motion of her leg is smoother than silk. Her hand flips through her own hair with the careless of a cat, and when she feels every feather soft strand brush against her skin it tickles the pleasure centers of her brain almost as much as holding Ember had.

These are not the answers to her questions. Was there any hope at all of calling her sister home from her soft and pretty dream? Who the fuck knew? Maybe it was hubris to trust in a hope placed on such a high pedestal. Well if it was, the moonlight washing over everything was already the perfect cure to burn herself and all her madness away.

"Well now Princess," she purrs, "How many times does this make? Oh, don't get up on my account! You never were one to pay attention during etiquette lessons~"

She stoops down on one knee and grabs Mynx from under her chin. When she leans forward, her spine curls like a bow and the buttons on her shirt strain against her breasts as they are pushed forward. After a heroic several seconds, the top one bursts free and strikes the 'Princess' on the forehead. Bella's grin widens as her face falls into shadow. The gleam of her teeth and the twin colored lights of her eyes are the only points to focus on in the void covering her features.

"Oho, why that face? You had to know this was coming. Or maybe you tried to forget? No matter how far you run, even across the Lethe, you will never be safe from me."

A claw descends with agonizing slowness, resting against the fabrics of Redana's glorious but impractical dress. When it begins to slice through the material at the chest, it draws a chorus of howls from Ceronian warriors across the room.

"This is just like on the Eater of Worlds, isn't it? I've been waiting so long to pay you back. You remember what you said back then, right? Or do I need to peel you out of this ridiculous clown suit to shake it loose?"

The claw descends lower, the dress sighs. She is watching, Mynx. Watching you. What will you do now?

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

As a rule, Kat was never quick about answering her phone. Don't get the wrong idea! It doesn't have anything to do with danger sense, or some kinda wisdom thing, or a mistrust of phones or anything like that. She loves her phone! The super cool wolf moon part's a little, uh, let's just say... she loves who that represents? That feels safe. Point is, if you'd taken her to the phone... store? And let her trade for one all by herself she'd have picked something a little bit more glittery and soft, like the sweet little kitten bapping at a crescent moon charm that dangles from the top of it when she pulls it out of her bag. But this is hers and she's proud of it and she would never ever ever do a bad girl thing like not answer the phone when it rings.

But she always, always let's it ring. Meaning she lets it play. When Kat got this phone she spent hours 'n hours n' hours picking out the perfect little jingle so she'd always know when it was her phone that was making noises and didn't get excited over nothing. Which worked a treat, except she picked such a good one that she listens to pretty much the whole thing out of habit and only ever picks up at the literal last second. Which is important to remember when you're callin' her 'cause it's easy to give up too early if you think she's just busy and don't wanna go to voice mail, but no, she's just jammin'.

Today? That saved her life. Because while Cyanis and Angelesia were busy screaming at the phone-monsters trying to eat them, Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits was bopping her head up and down and listening to her favorite tune. And that gave her a crucial bit of time to hear screaming and look up to see what the heck was happening. Which meant that when she started screaming too, it wasn't because tentacles were trying to drag her into the phone-o-verse or whatever it is that technomancy calls it. I should ask Xiu.

Still, getting an extra thirty seconds of freedom wasn't the same thing as coming up with a genius plan to save anybody, or even herself, even if speedrunning taught her that amount of time was basically an eternity. It turns out that in situations you haven't practiced, it really super duper isn't. She looked around in a panic, trying to find an out. Who could she count on? Berserker was frothing mad but was so busy defending herself she couldn't even get a proper wall started, let alone a fortress that could protect anyone extra. Cy was clinging to the table so tight her nails were dragging grooves across its surface, and the most you could say about Angelesia in comparison was that her nails weren't long enough to do the same.

Normally she'd look to Actia as the oldest fox, but someone had slipped her an extra dose of crazy powder in her coffee this morning or something, because goodness goshies what was she thinking?! If that was a genius plan to save everyone, Katherine didn't understand it well enough to trust in it. Diaofei was a monk, which put Kat on edge to begin with, but even if desperate times called for desperate situations this particular monk was frozen in shock and also chained to a crazy-powedered foxgirl. That's no good!

Wait. Oh no. Oh nyo. She was still holding her phone. Clutching it tight, even! Was it going to do the scary thing to her too? It rang when everyone else's did so you'd have to figure but sure Hyra of all people would be cool enough to find the only not cursed phone in the world? If it was for a birthday present? Right??? But her tails were bushing, and they didn't do that if she felt safe.

No girl, you've gotta throw it! Even if it's the most precious thing you own, it's gonna eat you! Why hasn't it done it yet? Oh, oh, oh goshies, what was she supposed to-- nyeh!!!

It left her hand at the very last second of her ring. She threw it as hard as she could, but too little too late. Black as night and neon green, the phone spiraled in the air before sprouting tendrils of its own that managed to lasso her delicate and desperately scrambling wrist. Not enough to hold her tight, but its pull was stronger than she was. All she had was her legs. She used them.

This is the kind of moment they made security blankets for. She wished she was curled up safe in hers at home, with the fireplace crackling and a tea kettle boiling over for her to whine at until Yue turned it into hot delicious leaf juice with even more delicious leaf-juice cookies to go with it. Not for the last time! But Katherine was a brave girl, whatever her trembling knees would want you to believe: when she runs, it's forward, not away. It puts a bit of slack in the restraints this curse's tryin' to put on her. It expected her to run. It expects everyone to run, y'know?

See, people never tell you this, but when it comes to a duel it's really little things that make up the difference between victory and defeat. You'd like to imagine that having big fancy finishers or secret swords or whatever'd be really super duper mega important, and I ain't sayin' it's not or anything but none of that makes a lick of difference next to just having enough courage in your heart to believe in what it is you're doing.

Does that make sense? It means that, Katherine could've run screaming like everyone else or froze up and nobody'd blame her. She could have screamed for help and decided before she tried anything that she needed saving, and understandable as that mighta been it'd'a been the end. Maybe for everybody. There's no time but what you buy in a fight, is the thing. But her special song's a thing for magical girls and heroes, and how could she stand to look at herself in the mirror if she didn't try to live up to that? Her, tryin' to save the world and everything. So when she leaps into the air and sends a kick at her still transforming phone, her form's lousy as anything and it doesn't matter at all. It's the one thing she coulda done that the other side wasn't expecting either. It buys her time, time that was already bought and paid for by someone else who'd been expecting to use it for themselves.

She doesn't even get to say the line about asking someone to take care of the landing. Before she can fall or gracelessly tumble face first into a wall, or just plain get eaten anyway because let's face it determination or no this little sweetie weighs about the same as a loaf of bread, something catches her. Something that could not have crossed the distance with all this interference, if she'd gone the other way. A brilliant, shining laser sword slices through the tentacles grabbing at her before it cracks her beautiful Cyber Wolf Moon phone in half.

"Our plan managed to fall apart before we finished making it," muttered Ivar, "I am impressed."

Return to Thellamie

"Milady."

There are no stories of the past worth considering in this moment. There is no novel assessment to be made about the situation. There would be little point and zero value to either. Even the basic assessment of the likelihood that Mayzie had already been weaponized against her, or whether she'd recognized Eclair with the same speed as vice versa (not a ridiculous question: Eclair was a sunny blonde in her youth. still, irrelevant).

Opportunity. This is the first real opportunity to gain substantial knowledge since she'd come to Vespergift. And it would walk away from her in the next thirty-five seconds if she let it. That demands a straightforward approach. Call it earnestness to be generous. Call it desperation to be not.

She lifts out of the water. Sparkling droplets caress her bare body like a robe, dripping off of her even as new ones run down from her hair and a dozen little alcoves in her curves. She bows, to the delighted squeal of an attendant now boiling the pool with her own flustered bemusement. She pays all of it no mind.

"Have I offered you offense? Then I must make amends."

Her tail swats at the surface of the pool, spraying water in an arc that splashes down like rainfall. As it catches the light streaming in from the stained glass windows above, the droplets briefly flash in color: a dusty rose and a sigh of forget-me-not. For one instant, Eclair sparkles. Someone sighs, and touches a hand to her cheek.

"Come and share a meal with me, if you please. My treat." she steps forward and reaches out her hand, though stops short of arresting the cart, "Before you say no, consider this: it comes with a free opportunity to prove you are smarter than me. To my face. Has it been so long you can't see the appeal?"