Phoe

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Katherine means to smile. She means to laugh and hop around with giddy joy and tell an anecdote about the way she used to chase off birds when she was an ordinary forest fox. She means to praise her Servant, and gush about how good she knows she'll be at the job she's just taken interest in. She means to duck her head a little bit and play it careful, just in case this is the time the Civil Servants notice how cool and awesome and pretty she is and push her into some kind of job she super meowmeow doesn't want to be doing. She even means to make a joke about how this must mean the world's not going to end.

So it surprises her when she hiccups, instead. It surprises her so much that it shakes a tear out of her eye. And once one rolls down her cheek, there's hardly any barrier at all between her and another. And another and another, and another, and another after that. It takes zero seconds for those tears to come dripping off her chin before she has to sniffle, and after that knocks her breathing off rhythm she is soon bawling like a kit whose birthday cake just fell on the ground.

She will never be able to explain herself. To articulate what it was that overwhelmed her would just send her over the edge of tears all over again. Did she even know what had convinced her that Berserker would take this chance to leave her? She who had wasted three Command Seals guarding crops without providing a useful alternative and on not kidnapping a very fluffy dog that definitely belonged to someone else and on breaking up a bar fight that Berserker hadn't even started (but she was sure going to finish). She who had scrambled around in a Fox Alliance and then committed Fox Treachery and Cutie Betrayal only to force her own Servant into a cooperative formation with someone she seemed to regard as her mortal enemy. And even took that other Servant's opinion over Berserkers.

Was it because she'd lost Berserker's respect by forcing her out of her castle? Or by being such a lousy, unpretty princess? Was it because she'd made such a mess of her first princess Duel (nobody told her there'd be so much math!)? Was it because she was just a silly two-tailed fox and not any kind of princess or handmaiden or even baroness to begin with, and thus ultimately unworthy of such a magnificent and beautiful armored knight's loyalty, let alone respect?

Whatever it was, it wasn't true. It hadn't happened. The pair of them were not crossing Breakup Bridge. Civil Servants were not rushing up to assign a new and better Master for anybody. Berserker hadn't even given away the water painting Kat had made for her during that long, boring stretch where they'd had to guard the electricity shrine so Cyanis could muck up her attempt at betraying Actia. She'd only taken something. Something beautiful. Something for later.

So there are many tears now, and choking, broken fox wails. Katherine flings herself against Berserker and hugs her tight. She doesn't care how hard that armor is, or how cold, or even how sharp. She is soft enough for both of them. She clings to her Servant's neck and squeezes her for all she's worth, nuzzling wet fox cheeks and delirious fox softness and tickling with fluffy fox tails and laughing and crying and coughing herself into a stupor all at once.

For the moment she doesn't even remember that she's supposed to be doing this to convince Caster not to blow up the planet.

"Hey come on," she manages after a very long while, "You wanna get something to eat? Not all the food here is great, but there's a lot of it."

And she giggles with delight.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Ever since she first learned it existed, the highest ambition of Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits has been to get dumped for the sake of stomping dramatically across Breakup Bridge. The drama, the passion, and the clean break at the end when two people turn their backs on each other and literally walk away from what once was and toward what could be. Perhaps a single furtive glance backward (unshared of course. Unless, just as one were to turn around again and resume walking...), but then with a final burst of resolve to finish the journey and speak to the crowd of people who would Get It.

It all sounded impossibly romantic. It sounded profound, and mature and very, very wise, and it sounded if it was possible just the slightest bit sexy? The lighting on that bridge was always immaculate for one, and some mystery of the bridge's construction or the engineering of its location within the city made it the perfect place to capture a dramatic gust of wind that always seemed to blow a person's hair or her dress exactly so, and there was nobody alive on the earth today who wouldn't look prettier robed in the perfection of Righteous Rebound Aura as they stepped away from a thing as supposedly immutable as love. But to not only give it away but think to look for it again? That really floofled Kat's fluffles, to borrow an expression from somewhere.

The trouble was, she'd never had a girlfriend to break up with. Or a boyfriend for that matter, but that whole concept felt so alien to her that she never seriously pursued it even in idle daydreaming. And it did seem somehow wrong to proposition someone for a relationship just for the sake of getting dumped. Even if that wasn't true she was certain the magic of that bridge wouldn't function if you faked it. It could be old, but it had to be real or it wouldn't count.

And then of course, once she found herself in a relationship (if she ever could), how could she get it to end? She didn't know. Maybe if she looked really hard she could find a girl who would slowly become overwhelmed by the idea of snuggles whenever she wanted them and fresh eggs and soup at the beginning of every morning. Maybe she could find an almost almost almost perfect someone who could give her four, maybe seven months of absolute magic but then turn out to have very particular opinions about tea and not be able to tolerate the presence of somebody still learning how to control the sugar levels in any drink. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But she was starting to think she didn't have it in her to offer her heart to anybody unless she thought they were The One.

And if she met The One then didn't she not actually want to be passed over like a stone in a burbling river bend? Wouldn't that be as bad as wishing for Yue and Hyra to break up so she could live vicariously through them? Or Chen and Rosepetal, or Princess Jessic and Countess Keron? If she could figure out a way to call it a duel she could maybe convince Qiu to do it with her, but in the first place she didn't want to lose at Breakup Bridge and in the second place she was so scared of Qiu right now that even the idea of meeting up for sandwiches sounded worse than the end of the world she was technically still trying to figure out how to stop.

Katherine finds her attention turning to Caster for a moment. He'd indulged her this far, maybe he'd be willing to give it a go? This was back to faking it more or less, but that counted for science at least, she thought. If they made a day of walking around the festival arm in arm only to part ways in dramatic fashion and cross the bridge as --

The thought fractures before she can even finish it. What would that even look like, to everyone else? Like a father indulging his daughter's silly fantasy maybe. Or like a wastrel fox running away from home. Not sexy at all. And then on top of that her whole plan was making the guy she was trying to get to settle down into an enemy? That did not seem like a sensible course of action to any of her scattered brain cells.

But so it went sometimes. Another year, another missed opportunity. She'd just have to let it go. With a last longing look at the bridge, Katherine did the only sensible thing: she broke up with Breakup Bridge. Maybe some other time. So it was that her feet carried her away from the crowd of ex and hopeful lovers in their very finest yukata and cheongsam (and other assorted fashions according to taste), and toward the dusty marketplace filled with unwanted things.

Her broken phone is in her hands, both halves of it that she'd saved after Saber and cleanly split it in two and prevented it from devouring her. Not much good to anybody anymore, least of all her. But maybe somebody would like it as an art piece? Or maybe they'd be interested in the challenge of trying to fix it. Or maybe there's some slightly less broken part inside of it that would help some third person with a project they were stuck on. That was the thing about junk, she'd found: there was simply no way to tell when it would turn out to be treasure.

With a quiet little smile, she kisses the fragments of Wolf Moon Phone and sets them on a blanket full of other electronics in various states of ruination. As she steps away, her minty green tails entwine with one another in a release of happiness. She takes a deep breath that pulls her arms out to either side and then squeezes them back down with a sigh like a bellows.

"Your turn, Berserker. Got anything you'd like to be rid of?"

She twists her foot into the street with just the slightest touch of nervousness.

Return to Thellamie

>[.eclairespoirviolet]
>@snowkitten
>Greetings and Salutations, Yuki Edogawa the Hero of Crevas,
>I have seen your face as well. It pleases me to find you once again within the cities of Thellamie. You have grown into a rather fine young woman since last we crossed paths, I am certain your family and instructors must be proud. Whatever your business in our little world I wish you success and minimal interference.
>I believe it is a risk to say so in an open missive which may be intercepted before it reaches your hands, but I would like to confirm for your sake that you are correct about my presence at the Festival of Light. I was quite far away from the ceremonies the entire night on official business, which if you wish to corroborate you may inquire with Lady Vessenmer the proprietress of Vessenmer Dyes. If you happen to meet an idiot/assassin/cleaning partner/mount/professional nuisance by the name of Aady-something, the Rock Upon a Mountain she would also be able to confirm my alibi. Though my brief encounter with her did leave me with the impression that you would have to beat it out of her. I am confident in your chances.
>Regardless, if you were in proximity to the ceremony and the actual assassination attempt (which I must presume at least did actually happen, as my current assumptions mark it very unlikely the Civil Church would knowingly fabricate an entire inciting event before issuing a bounty), you are therefore in possession of knowledge that would be of benefit to my own investigations. I would fain offer instruction on the practices of the manipulation of heartblade magic in exchange.
>If this is for any reason impossible or disagreeable to you it would remain my deepest honor to join you for tea at the earliest moment of your convenience. I will make efforts to place myself near enough to you on the game board to arrive at your next destination.
>Warmest Regards and Returns,
>Eclair Espoir, Investigative Knight of the Aurora

Assessment, Tally: Announcing self properly carries benefit of expediency. Likewise, chance to observe at scale Civil response to the name 'Eclair Espoir'. Result of fight likely, but possible to win. However, activation of combat scenario in any outcome necessarily results in failure of primary objective. Victory also not guaranteed, and likelihood of disproportionate and undesirable response mutes temptation deeply. Target also likely to mock me in all future interactions, closing off avenues of interview and investigation that might otherwise be pried open.

Conclusion: it is against the best interests of the mission to indulge in continued tablet use. The use of disguise is warranted. An Aurora Knight is not welcome within the Interstitial.

A detective, however...

Eclair has donned a wig, of similar color to her own hair but a bluer shade of purple than the violet from which she takes her moniker. It is useful to remain within the range of normality because it creates fewer failure points for a disguise to break down along. Maintaining a shade of purple for her hair means she is not required to treat her tail to prevent it from clashing. But the wig allows her to style her hair completely differently from her usual look. In this case her severe neck length swoop has been replaced with flat bangs across her forehead framed on either side by shoulder length tresses, and a pair of long pigtails dancing across her back. She clips a pin of pink and white lace with a red rose bud behind her left ear.

Her armor must, of course, be set aside for the time being. Her lodgings are considerably cheaper here but the room is at least anonymous enough and secure enough to trust to it the duty of housing her uniform, at least after she places her usual litany of traps and wards around it. With that handled, she is free to don a dress of pure frills and ribbons in the gothic lolita styling: a tight pink corset with an equally pink bow pulled taut over a crisp white blouse with wide, ruffled sleeves complimented by a collar of white lace.

Her multilayered ruffled skirts drape down to just above her knees, each of them a deep burgandy that will clash less obnoxiously with the sheer black, rose patterned leggings she has pulled up to cover the rest of her legs. She wears a ring of gold and a ring of platinum on each of her ring and index fingers respectively. All four are topped with colorful inset stones resembling rubies, sapphires, diamonds, and emeralds, but on any close inspection they will be revealed to be merely very well cut and colored glass. This connotes her as a woman of relatively modest means but reasonably taste, as will the soft and very large lavender ribbon tied in a classic bow behind her back.

A pair of pointed white high heeled shoes with a clasp wrapped around each ankle to finish her ensemble. All that is left from there is to paint her lips a soft shade of pink and apply feathery black eyeliner to draw an almond shape and softer appearance out of her typically quite sharp and dangerous looking eyes. She inserts contacts to turn her blue irises into purple ones, and fills a small black purse with several pens, her lipstick, and a tiny little diary she may use as a surrogate notebook while her normal tools would call too much attention.

This is how she enters the cafe and begins her search. Not as Eclair Espoir the Knight of the Aurora, but as Erika Fullbright the Private Eye.

Breathless Dead

Bella has been provided with a couch to lounge on during this meeting. For the sake of her recovery, of course. She'd been pushed beyond the brink already, so much that only the intervention of a god had saved her. Now she needed constant repose, so that her body could do all of the difficult work of stitching itself together over top of the new materials Redana had used to save her. To weave new and more powerful muscles out of the ones she had shredded, to grow denser bones that wouldn't shatter under the strain she'd just put them under, to regrow lost hair and fur, and to claim all the potential of an (outdated) Diodekoi from biological components that had never conceived of being put to such purpose.

For a week she has done nothing but sleep, and eat. Sleep and eat. Sleep and eat. For twenty hours out of every day, she has slept. The entire rest of that time has been devoted to devouring a staggering amount of food, heavy metals, and complex chemicals. She finds that she is constantly starving, and that even taking ten times her share of supplies in a day hasn't come close to satisfying. She is sick of it already.

But at the moment, she is standing up. She is healing well: so well her body has begun to itch. But more than that, the criticism of Artemis gnaws at her. The need to exert herself, to train her body to be up to the tasks she's about to put it to is overwhelming. So for the moment, at least, she rises and she paces around her little couch. Watching Vesper's thoughts arc through the air around her.

Bella's body is strong: she has grown straight and even slightly taller than it had been before. In fact, in most every way she'd been put together not quite correctly. Like a sculpture of the idea of herself shaped out of a collective memory. She is hard and sharp now in places that had once known softness. Her hips protrude like knives and her shoulders like spears. Her fingers are elongated and even her face right down to her nose is harsher and more pointed than it used to be. Patches of fur grow thicker and rougher on her limbs, though not around the large and uneven scars across her thighs or her right shoulder. The jagged lines marking surgery around her ribs also shine like beams of moonlight on her cream colored skin.

But she has dressed to emphasize her old ideas of beauty. No more suits, no more of Mosaic's ridiculous failed appeals to the goddess she considered her patron. No more hiding from her past. Her name is Bella. She brings the Empire of Humanity with her wherever she goes.

"Are you kidding me? What kind of a question is that? Obviously they don't separate themselves from their surroundings, that's the point of the entire rest of the fucking empire. That's why we're being chased by a monster clown, and that's why Ves' plan makes any kind of sense to begin with. They don't do shit here except attempt the finishing touches on their art project. Isn't that the point of the Skies to begin with?"

She is wrapped in black silks. Luxurious softness clinging to her breasts from the clasps they are fastened to in the golden choker she wears around her neck. The strips of fabric widen as they extend, but the neckline they create plunges. And plunges. And plunges, not joining all the way into her skirt until the deep v crosses her belly button. The slashes in the sides of the skirt rise higher than that to the top of her waist, so that this dress of jet seems to splash across her body like a waterfall from the depths of Hades' palace. Delicate chains drape between her breasts and down her shoulders and her biceps where they join at a ring hanging at the bottom of her ribcage and more jangling chains all dotted with tiny bells wind their way around her hips.

The dress pools around her feet like the tail of a fish, or since the material fades to crimson and gold along a series of rapidly conjoining hexagon shaped coins, a pool of wealth and blood. It follows her like water and spills fresh wherever she settles when she paces. Her every step is music. She clutches at the back of her couch with two hands covered in golden talons joined into a pair of gloves by links of black chain draped across her hands and stemming from a pair of bangles worn about her wrists.

She fishes a can of cold, sloshing liquid of some sort off of her couch and throws it at the sheep's head. She leers at Vasilia, and laughs at her reaction. For old times' sake.

"Makes sense to me, anyway. Not like they're a bunch of vegetables or anything. But once you've been here, what else matters? That's why they'll stomach us showing up, but not the cogs we drag in from outside. Don't worry, Ves. I refuse to get stuck here. I'm going to Gaia, and I'm going to fix you. All of us."

She leans down again and plucks something else from the end of her furniture. In the midst of her regeneration, Bella's hair had decided it wanted to grow longer, as well. Rich curtains of blue-black softness draping all the way past her knees. She couldn't see the point in cutting it so soon. But Gemini had been disgusted with it, and pushed a pair of Silver Diver handmaidens on her who had woven these strands into elaborate braided loops atop the cascade of little silver chains pulling the rest of it into a semblance of cleanliness and elegance that would also keep it from catching on her feet. Even now these girls worked golden ribbons into her work, but Bella's addition is rather darker and more terrible.

For the first time in a very long time, she wears the Imperial Regalia atop her head. She had no ability to function without her senses, no matter how overloaded Capitas might render them. But with this, and the help of her Auspex eye, she would be able to rapidly cycle between her senses, turning each one off and on as she needed them and not before (or after). It would be annoying and it would still render her slower and too close to helpless for her own liking, but it would mean she could do what needed to be done for as long as it needed doing. As long as she didn't fall apart first.

Bella yawns wide and loudly, only making a halfhearted attempt to cover it behind her talons. She slips around the edge of her couch and settles onto her stomach, propping one side of her face up with her sharp and slender hand. And watches the proceedings through half-lidded eyes.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Hey, so... has anyone ever told you you're really pretty? Because goshies. You really, really are!"

As soon as I ask her, I know the answer is no. Not like I can soul read a girl I've just met, but Saber is not a super subtle individual. If that's not too rude to say? It's in that sharp jerk of her head and the sudden suspicious narrowing of her eyes and the way her shoulders suddenly lock all tense so that her arms stop swinging in that wild way she uses to run faster. Like, most of the way so far she's had kind of an animal gait to her, dropping onto three "legs" every few steps to push off of the ground and scrabble over terrain, now that we're kissing open air again, but as soon as I open my mouth she's running like any normal person.

Well. Any normal person if they were taller than a car is long. But you know what I mean. I'm not a super sleuth or a sword saint or a buddha or anything like that, but I'm darned sure I know what it looks like when a girl's just got told she's pretty for the first time in two lives.

"No? Oh well dang," I say as I float awkwardly next to her, maybe to break the tension, "But I'm betting you've been called 'handsome' a lot huh? And tall and strong and other things like that, too."

"...What is the point of this conversation? I am a warrior, child, and a King. Not some besotted maiden weeping to be compared with the treasures brought home from war. You have promised to explain both your presence and your plan, and you have managed neither."

"Well, true. But this is important too, I think. Like, I've heard you say a lot of stuff about being a Valkyrie too and I'm not an expert on ancient world stuff but they were all women, right?"

She nods with a scowl so dark I think it might have blotted out the sun? Oh yikes. But I dig in my- uh well no I guess I don't dig in much of anything in the air but metaphorically I stand my ground even in the face of Saber's terrifying glowering.

"That means you conduct yourself as one too. I mean, gender stuff is super duper messy and I don't mean to oversimplify your position, but I'm certain of this much: you're a girl just as much as you are a warrior. Maybe even more so."

Saber doesn't answer. That's ok, even in the gloom of night I can see the color rising in her cheeks. And this really is every bit as important as finding magic swords to fight an emperor/pizza restaurateur with. I promise. You're just going to have to trust me. I flash her one of my very best smiles and stretch my hands behind my head. Oh whoops, there's the hill that means we need to bank right!

"It's not mutually exclusive, y'know. If anything, pretty warriors get the most done so far as I've seen. Like, you know Princess isn't a hereditary title, right? The only girls involved in that game are there by choice, and nobody sticks with it for very long without either being or getting really gosh darned good at a bunch of different things. And I know you've met Princess Jezara so you get what I'm talking about. Anyway. A pretty girl never getting to hear how pretty she is... it's actually a crime, in my opinion."

"Child, make your point and be done with it. If you prattle for much longer we will be out of time for the important things."

"No, this is important! What I'm trying to tell you is, I'm sorry. I'm sorry you got summoned by someone who couldn't see you were a person. I'm sorry you had to give up on your wish, and I'm sorry so many people have tried to mess with the story of who you are. Most of all I'm sorry nobody's taken the time to say it all out loud. Or leastwise that they've squeaked instead of using the words. You're journey's too short to let it go the way it has."

Saber's got nothing to say to that, so I just stop talking and let her think it over. We're really close to where I want to take her, actually, so I lead her in a small loop around a hill instead of going over it to give her the extra bit of time to figure everything out. Pretty is a state of mind, y'know? So is inner peace. And when you can bring someone into that world, that's when your blade and theirs shines the clearest.

The shrine isn't anything special, once we come to it. It's not a grand temple and it doesn't have any impressive statues hanging around it. No waterfalls or lanterns or music or sand gardens or anything like that. It's hardly anything more than a- I mean gosh, it is a tiny little well with a little roof over top of it where someone left their old bamboo practice sword. I like this place a lot. The air here is clean in this extra wholesome sort of way and hardly anyone ever comes by so if I want a quiet little place to go through katas it's always worth the hike.

But today I'm here with someone. And today I'm here to rob it. I bend down and pick up the training sword and offer it to Saber with a bow. Without even looking up I can see her scoffing, maybe even contemplating cutting it in half just to punish me. Before she can, I snap out of my pose and strike out at her with an overhead slash aimed somewhere at her chest. She blocks it easily of course, but that's not the point.

I duck down and come at her from beneath her feet with a rising thrust. She steps out of the way so I grab her opening and launch up into the air through it, and come crashing back down on her head like a waterfall! You like my first finisher, Saber? She lifts her gleaming Underworld blade and catches the bamboo sword with it, thrusting me away from her as easily as if I weighed nothing. Before I can even land, she rushes at me with that same terrifying lunge as she introduced herself to me with, but this time I don't topple over. The slats of bamboo make a loud thwappy noise when they smack into each other, but the sword holds. I hold. Secretly it took most of everything I had, but I've managed to slap her strike aside and hold it at bay by lifting this training sword up across my shoulder. She nicked my skin before I could manage so there's a small gash in my sleeve. That's fine, honestly.

Because Saber is watching me with renewed interest. She stands up straight and reaches out her hand. I bow once more, and place the handle in her grip.

"There, you see? This won't lose, and neither will you."

"What on earth? What is this feeling? Child, no, Yue: what did you do?"

"Hahaha, nah I didn't do anything. Someone else loved this sword, that's why it is the way it is. I wonder how long they practiced with it? Must've been a long time, even after they got so good that most people would've said they'd outgrown it. Things like this are really precious, and I just figured, like, if the old world's so keen on stepping up to fight for everybody's futures, why not let the new world join in? Dual wielding's not a forbidden technique where you're from, is it?"

"A shield is more customary. But there is no reason I could not use a second blade in that capacity. Hmph, you people are such a curious lot. I wondered how such soft hearts could hold enough strength to withstand my rage. I begin to understand."

"Well, I think you're just as special as anyone here. In fact I, oh actually could you sit down for me? If it's all right with you I'd like to braid your hair. It must be getting in your way at this point."

Saber watches me in silence for a moment, with the kind of expression that says she'd really like to blow me off again. She'd had her hair braided up before, but it was real simple stuff clamped in a bunch of heavy iron bands. Practically another weapon in and of itself. I'm talking about doing something a lot softer and prettier to it, and she knows it. But she flashes a smile at me before she turns around and drops onto the ground in a cross-legged position.

"Yes. I will accept all of the power you are able to gift."

She's such an interesting person. I wish I had a day or seven to just chat with her over tea. She must have so many cool adventure stories from back when she was alive! Unfortunately, she's got a job to do. And so do I. I pull a brush out of my bag and set to work soothing out her tangles before winding all her hair up and around and through, and over, and under (and over and under and over and under and over and wowies yeesh there's so much of it how does she stand?!)

"So. The thing is, and I think you'll agree, we have to be the ones to stop Lancer. Waiting for her to de-power after Kat gets done won't be enough."

"No, it will not. It is in her nature to rationalize away her losses. And having been so close, she will probably grasp desperately at a way to continue forward with her plan for victory. She has only to kill the remaining Servants to take her wish, and most of us are weakened at this point. Even still, I'd hoped..."

"You wanted to take her on when she wasn't in Final Boss Mode, yeah. Sucks, but there you are. But you can't die in the process either, ok? Everybody's gotta stay alive to hold off this ritual. I don't know what it wants to accomplish but the air around all of you is so icky I can't imagine it's anything as cute as granting a wish. Right?"

"...Hm."

"I mean, I dunno. Anyway I just, I wish I could do more but this is your story, and Kat's. If it really comes down to sitting back or watching the world end I'll do my job but... honestly, I believe in you? You don't need me to beat Lancer. You just need a way to reach her heart, y'know? And that's... phew, there! Ok, how do you feel?"

Saber stands up, and swings each of her badly mismatched swords around a bit. Testing their weight, feeling the balance and the length and the speed of each. While she's at it, I sneak back over to the shrine and place my old practice sword where the other one used to be. You know, the one Hyra enchanted to weigh the same as a metal sword. That enchantment still holds to this day! It might be a poor replacement for such a beloved weapon, but I just feel like the shrine deserves to always have something here to love.

I turn again to look at Saber, who has stopped and just watches the lake from the edge of the crater we're near to. The wind blows her thick, beautiful braid around behind her back when she turns to me and smiles. For once, it's not a smile full of sharp and evil teeth.

"...Pretty." she says, and then howls with laughter.

Breathless Dead

There are no smiling faces waiting for her. No light to sustain her but the dim flickering of evercandles in the far corridors beyond her resting place. The air is cool and stale in a way that makes it easy not to care about anything. Impossible means impossible, doesn't it? Just let her rest.

And they do.

It would be a simple thing to sit here forever, waiting quietly for the end of everything. Her body does not itch with excess energy; even the idea of tapping her foot seems bothersome and exhausting. She has no real desire to move around, to explore, to speak, even to open her eyes and find out where she is. Her neck lolls without interest and her head bounces off of her shoulder in a brief sting of burning pain, but that soon settles into a dull ache. That's good. She can ignore that. She slumps further to one side and sleeps with her wrist jammed backwards against something smooth and round and cold.

And this is everything. Forever.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

She moans her annoyance. The girl can feel her ear twitching to catch each little plip of liquid as it splashes down from somewhere into a puddle of something else. Not quite rhythmic enough to fade into background noise, and just on the edge of too constant to fade in between splashes. She grits her teeth. Every time she hears it she twitches. The sound makes her feel dirty, like the sensation of it was somehow covering her in wet, disgusting slime and layers of grungy, melting something or other. She does not know, and does not wish to know.

But her eyes open. She has to see what's doing it, has to stop it if she can. If she stops it, she can sleep again. Just one more time, and then impossible will finally be over. As dim as the light is, it still blinds her. She hisses and wrenches her eyes close to shut again, but now that she is paying attention the light shining through her eyelids is a pale substitute for darkness. It hurts as much to ward it off as to just deal with it. Her hiss becomes a sigh, and she moves as if to stand.

Her world fills with the sound of clinking glass as dozens upon dozens of empty wine bottles scatter and roll from her position like a lotus of dominoes, just before her nose crunches against the hard metal floor of the ship. She sputters and chokes on a cry of pain, but all she has the strength to do is roll onto her back. At least like this the light is less blinding. She can look around.

She sees shattered vacuum tubes. Broken consoles and banks of whirring machinery that will never move again. On the far wall, a dent and a trailing bloodstain that fills her heart with fantastic terror.

Hello? She has no voice.

Hello? She can't even work her jaw correctly.

Hello? Is anybody there?

But she is alone.

The ship tilts violently, and the floor shifts underneath her. With an almost silent cry she tumbles helplessly out of the room and into the hallway beneath her. Her head impacts the wall and she falls limply into the pool that had been making that terrible noise. All at once she is aware of the sensation of crawling, terrible wetness and it fills her with disgust. She tears at her body and thrashes about, this desperate, clumsy, and violent attempt to get clean, to get to safety, to feel anything but... this. She feels the weight and the muck fall away and she does not know if it is clothing or flesh that she discards.

She does not care.

The girl does not understand how she managed to gain her feet. All she knows is that they are bare and they are pressed flat against the cool floor as they support her weight. She feels at once too heavy and too light, all weakness at war with the idea that some essential part of her is missing. But what could that be? She coughs, and feels something moving in her throat. Vile. It takes minutes for her retching to end. There is nothing left but a desperate desire to be somewhere other than here, and in this more than anything she finds the strength to move. Clutching at the wall for balance, the girl stumbles away in search of answers.

What greets her at the end of her journey is an old and ruined kitchen. Once upon a time, this had been a place of ruthless creativity and competition. She can tell from the arrangement of the cooking stations, which are too individually well equipped and spaced too far apart to have been part of a unified, professional setup. This had also been the site of an incredible bounty and a harvest, once, enough for even an amateur chef to prepare a feast that could delight the very gods.

But now there is only ruin. The girl breathes in the air and the wilted grasses bring only the smells of desiccation and neglect: a muted symphony of too-old spices under layers and layers and layers of dust and dryness that bring her halfway to sneezing and all the way to gagging. Vegetables in every conceivable size and shape lie ruined on the floor, long since shriveled beyond the point of edibility. There is no color here but grey, possibly with vague bits of brown mixed in somewhere if she could be bothered to scan for it.

There's a clatter to her right as a table overladen with ancient, half eaten food collapses under its own weight. She feels her ears crush flat against her skull to shield her from the terror of it, but even then the overwhelming sensations pull a stinging wetness from her eyes and choke her breath until she gags as badly under the strain as she had in the horrible pool she'd come here to escape from.

She flees in terror, and finds only ghosts.

Everywhere she wanders there are signs of haunting. Room after room in rusted out disrepair still host a smattering of poorly thought out hobbies and useless crafts attempted by someone who was the farthest thing possible from a master artisan. Musty old paintings with the colors too faded to be able to tell how well they'd captured their subjects, implying but not showing clearly various stages of inspiration, clumsiness, frustration, and completion. These give way to rows and rows of makeshift mannequins draped in ugly dresses still clinging by the meanest of dried out and fraying threads. Benches dedicated to hideous metalwork and clumsy children's jewelry. All of it pitted, all of it tarnished, all of it ugly. Much of it surrounded by shattered furniture now little more than rotting splinters or piles of claw-torn metal where the craftsperson had broken down in frustration and despair at their own lack of ability.

The girl glides through the mausoleum without a sound. Her wet hair and fur falls away from her in chunks as she passes memory after memory after memory. Aha, she thinks, I must be dead. This must be my punishment.

What a disappointment this had turned out to be. To have come so far only not to be able to see it through to the end. To have suffered so much and never come close to balancing the scales. Had she really been so terrible a person, so horrible a friend and sister and leader that she couldn't even find out how the journey was meant to end? This was worse than just falling short: this was getting sent back almost to the start.

Her arms have begun to itch. She rubs at them with claws that flake away when they make contact, and it only spreads the itch up to her fingers. Her grunt of frustration is trembling, but filled with the real hints of her voice she's heard since she first woke up. She throws herself against the wall and rubs against the corners of the hallway and the bolts securing various braces and doorways, but there's no relief in any of it. She is burning up. She is crumbling to ashes. She is going to claw her own fucking nerves out if they don't leave her alone!

She finds a nest of blankets tucked into the middle of nowhere, surrounded by the detritus of a hundred different snacks nobody had ever bothered to clean up long after they'd been reduced to crumbs and sugar scraps and crumpled packaging. More bottles of wine, all of them empty, roll around underneath her feet and fill her world with sad, hollow clinks. The girl feels a brief pang of temptation to fling herself inside this place, which at least feels haunted by some more soothing memory, but there is nothing here to soothe her body. She'd robbed this place of everything it was worth long, long ago. She slinks away in search of something more.

The hangar is empty when she arrives. No ships to carry her away, not even so much as an escape pod to shoot herself off in and take her chances on a planet below. Not that there are any of those to be seen either, in all the vast technicolor emptiness of space that stretches past her vision from the bay she stares out from. There are a great many welding tools and signs of work having once been done, but all of these have decayed into the same rusty uselessness as the rest of the ship.

There is no music here to distract her. There is no hint of perfect, comforting cinema other than the now-collapsed projector that had come unscrewed from its tripod and shattered where some force or other had knocked it over. The girl turns her head sharply all of a sudden. There is a vague rumbling noise coming from somewhere above her. She cannot place it. She cannot understand it. She waits in terror, she waits in desperation, she waits in increasing impatience for it to explain itself, but the rumbling just repeats.

She turns away, and feels something crunch underfoot. The girl swallows: a sharp and uncomfortable motion that wrenches her jaw tight and burns every muscle in her throat as if she'd been force fed a stone. Her eyes are consumed by the maw of space, which for the moment at least feels less terrifying than the prospect of looking down and seeing what she's standing on. She turns away from everything, instead. Away from the stars and the nebulae that are making her stomach churn, away from the still crunching object that is making her heart pound staccato against her ribs. Everything hurts, everything burns, every part of her feels destroyed and brand new at the exact same time. Enough. She's had enough. She'll take the blankets after all.

But the door is gone.

There is nothing but the hangar now, nothing but space and a broken projector and herself. Still shifting restlessly on top of the source of her terror. Alone but for the horrible noise, now peaking in her ears like thunder. She clamps her hands on top of her head and screams. When her legs collapse from underneath her, that is when she sees. The reel of film bleeds where her toe claws have punctured it.

She! But..!

Tears fall in earnest from her eyes. Her lungs squeeze as if in a vice with real and actual effort to find the air to give a voice to her emotions. Her wail is tiny and shaky to begin with, but it rolls across the room like a wave. And like a wave it soon swallows everything. She tastes salt and snot and blood and all of it only brings louder cries, as if to drown out the hideous noise that's only growing more insistent at her screams.

"Bella. Bella? Bella!"

Bella sniffles, and she blinks. Behind her, the hangar begins to rust. With terrifying rapidity, her resting place is falling to pieces. Not giving way to the cold freedom of space, but to crushing infinite blackness. To nothing whatsoever. She clutches at the broken, bleeding film reel and holds it to her breast. As if it were some precious piece of her she cannot lose or replace.

"Bella? Bella?!"

She turns. The voice is coming from the stars.

What else can she do? That'll kill her for sure, but it's the only real thing left. The only way to go, if she's going to get anywhere before she dies. She's so sorry. She's so sorry for everything. Is it enough, at least, to want to save this broken little piece of her? Is it enough to pray for that at least she can preserve it somewhere that won't disappear, somewhere somebody else might find it and fix it and love it in a way she'd never deserved for herself?

It has to be. Her legs seem to have shattered, so she has to drag herself. Inch by painful inch across an infinite hangar, barely faster than the encroaching darkness. No, slower than that. She is being swallowed. She is too late. Her left arm won't move anymore, so she tucks the reel against the locked elbow and pulls with just the right instead. She can't see anything. She can't tell if she's moving in the right direction anymore, or if there's even a right direction to go. But the only thing she has left is this little prayer. Her arm lifts. Her claws dig into the floor. She bends, and tears muscles open, and drags her heavy, limp body across blood slicked, disgusting wetness.

"Bella? Come on, Bella! Don't you dare give up!"

It takes more than everything she has to lunge just one final time. And then suddenly, she is falling.

The light is so bright it blinds her.

It's so warm...

Return to Thellamie

What does it matter how there came to be soap in the water? Obvious on the face of things there would need to be. Fire does not burn anything completely. Perhaps one day long ago it did as part of some long defeated scheme of the Dark Dragon but today a fire merely burns out the combustible portions of various materials and leaves behind waste product. Ash, soot, mineral deposits, these manner of things. In short, impurities. The smell of smoke would be everywhere and the blackened deposits would cover and cling and obscure all manner of architecture and debris that might otherwise be sorted, repaired or else identified as salvageable. To say nothing of how much more instantly re-habitable Vespergift will become if it is washed instead of merely doused.

Create whatever extenuating circumstances you will. Lock a door, throw away the key, seal the cracks and pour mercury in the keyhole. Create a perfect Locked Room Mystery if you must, a Maid-Knight of the Aurora will find a way to clean properly regardless of circumstances. Say that the water was 'compelled by Eclair Espoir's argument', if that satisfies you. Say that she stole supplies from four dozen homes and seven different businesses. Say the magic of her Say that she killed a man and rendered his fat down to lye. Consider yourself as clever or as foolish as you like, as undeniably correct or as impossibly stymied as satisfies your heart. For all that it matters.

Eclair Espoir has stored away her skateboard. This is because it is not enough to simply unleash the waterways: they must be guided where they are needed. Force must be applied in the problem spots and avoided where it would cause collapse. Fortunately where fire is temperamental and beyond her skill to tame, water is an incredible conduit for her Heartblade and its magics. Water loves to dance and it loves to flow where it is guided, and so it is that Eclair can be seen at the crest of the wave washing over the city standing goofy foot on her polearm, holding a mop in each hand.

One one street she cuts the wave in half to avoid flooding a kitchen. In another she climbs the wall with her great surge to hold the shop inventory where it lies. Here and there she twirls, leaps, and demonstrates her mastery over two-sword style in the name of scrubbing the streets and walls of the city until they sparkle. She is as methodical as she is fast, though this is rather too much concentration on saving everything she can for the sake of those who will return that she has hardly any attention leftover for those who have remained. The consequence of directing water away from something is that it will spray one someone, and probably a fair few someones at that. Certainly many among the Civil ranks will find themselves sputtering and briefly losing themselves to invectives thrown in the direction of a maiden moving too fast to catch.

Through it all, she fights a yawn. Through it all she fights fatigue that threatens to sink so deep into her muscles that it infects her very bones. When she comes to a halt at last Eclair does not dismiss her Heartblade so much as it sputters out and vanishes. She does not land gracefully on her feet amidst the gently dispersing water (now that someone has realized what is happening and turned off the taps): she collapses onto her knees and is immediately knocked onto her side by a random gush of water, which sends her rolling on her side through a marketplace until she smashes her back against a stall heavy enough to arrest her.

She does at least push herself to a seated position. Here in her one time home she closes the book on her story with some semblance of her dignity intact. But nevertheless, Eclair Espoir sits in a puddle with her legs tucked under her and her body dripping from head to toe as though she'd just jumped into (and out of) the shower with all her clothes still on. And she closes her eyes while she waits for the world to stop spinning.

Her head squeezes underneath her ears with the pounding force that only nine consecutive cups of sake can muster. Quizzically, her stomach growls with hunger. It is here, under these dual assaults that Eclair Espoir finally relents. 'Pace yourself', her commanders so often told her. 'That is unnecessary', she would chirp in reply.

She can hear their disappointed tsking ringing in her head. It hurts. She wishes they would stop.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Oh wow, temptation piled atop temptation.

With this much to work with, with so much firepower at her fingertips, it was suddenly real tough to think about things in terms of stalling for someone else anymore. Why should she bother? With her Fylgja (or a recreation of it at any rate) restored she could easily crush Lancer where she stood. Even in the event that her opponent was strong, determined, and clever enough to pierce the inner chamber and turn the fight back into a swords-and-spears brawl, she would have such an arsenal stockpiled that it would be like having her shadow army returned to her as well. All of it of the new world, with every manner of conceptual advantage she could hope to think of. And all for free! Why should she bother holding back? Why shouldn't she solve this whole stupid problem according to her original plan?

...Because it would break a promise she'd made. That's why. Five whole entire wasted minutes of longing stares at the most powerful arsenal of weapons she'd ever laid eyes on just to remember this simple little fact about herself. And once she did remember, everything shifted all at once. Promises were important to her no matter the age she lived in but just now they were literally all that was holding her manifestation together. If she broke the spirit of a single one, not only would she not be able to bring her full power to bear when it mattered, she'd probably just vanish into golden sparkles on the spot. And the plan couldn't afford another-- right, right. That meant it couldn't afford Lancer's death either.

She hated relying on Kat. She grimaced and glowered and wished on the dozen superweapons she'd already broken or discarded that the situation were reversed, and it was the little fox depending on her and her own way of doing things to make it all happen. But in the end, she'd lost her fight against this world already, hadn't she? With a shrug, she lets all of it go. When she reaches forward, her hand closes around the hilt of a single sword.

And what a beauty of a blade it was! A simple handle wrapped in textured rubber composite material that was warm and durable and stuck perfectly in her grip no matter how she held it. The massive sword a match for her stature and forged from unbreakable diamond-like metals set long and straight and perfect as you like it, arranged with a honeycomb sort of hexagon pattern along the blade, possibly for effect but possibly also marking where pieces of it had been arranged to form a stronger, lighter whole. In the exact center of the blade there was a small four point diamond shape carved out of the material, a perfect spot for capturing and shattering an arrow or a spear tip, if the sword's wielder was skilled and brave enough to try that sort of maneuver.

"Oh wow, that's a nice one!"

I am not ready for the speed or the viciousness of the charge. They just don't make this kind of killing intent where I'm from! I can't sidestep in time, or gracefully tumble out of the way. Only thing that stops me from turning into kabob is that I tripped and fell onto my butt with a squeak as soon as she made a motion for me. We can call it battle instinct, if you'd like to me a favor. From down here the height disparity is such that she can only swing straight down if she wants to hit me, and from there I can at least get my bow in the way.

"Gyuh?! Woah woah woah woah woahwoahwoahwoah w-wait! Truce, truce! Uh, surrender? Whatever, I'm on your side just stop stop stop!!"

Saber glares at me. But the pressure eases up enough that I can sit straight, and lower my weapon a touch. Dang it, she did a number on this thing. I'm gonna have to lacquer the whole thing, probably restring it too before it'll shoot again. Bummer.

"You have ten seconds to explain yourself, little girl. After that I shall kill you." she snaps at me.

"What, even if I explain myself?"

She gives me A Look, and for a second I feel like I've disappointed my mom. But she does take a step back, and lowers that terrifying weapon of hers. I take a deep breath and dust myself off as I get back to my feet. Next to her I kind of can't help stretching as tall as I can, just to close the gap a little. It's pointless; even hunched over in the tunnel like this she dwarfs me to the point where it doesn't even look like I'm standing straight. I guess that's why she's always calling everybody 'Little This' and 'Little That'. Yeah, makes sense now.

"R-right. Uh, thanks. So! My name's Yue, and..."

"You?" Saber snorts, "Are Princess Yue?"

Pfffffft ahahahahahahaha oh my goshies! Have you ever heard anything so funny in your entire life? Me, a Princess! As if I could, ahaha!

"No no, just Yue." I smile my brightest and push my floofy mess of brown hair back behind my shoulders.

Saber raises an eyebrow in my direction.

"I mean, uh, if it makes you feel any better you could. Erm. Call me the, ehehe," and then I mutter the rest into my shoulder.

"Speak up, child."

"The... Demon Swordswoman."

Now her eyebrow's arching so aggressively I'm pretty sure it's about to leave her face. Aish. This isn't going any kind've way I pictured in my head when I decided to step out of the shadows.

"Listen, just! Never mind all that I'm just trying to help here! Like, yeesh."

"What help do you profess to offer, little sword maiden? Do you intend to join the fight as well?"

"Well uh," I turn my eyes toward the ground for a moment, "Matter of fact I don't. Not that I don't wanna! But this isn't my story, see? I don't want Kat knowing I got involved."

Saber clenches her fist and makes some kind of frustrated growl. I think her love of the world is at war with her understanding of it. I don't blame her honestly, it stinks to not feel like you belong.

"Then what?" she snarls, "Perhaps you come bearing some warning instead. Allow me a guess: this sword is cursed, and if I bring it to the surface I will become corrupted by evil spirits."

"Eh? Nah nothing like that. I said as much at the start, didn't I? It's a super duper nice weapon, you couldn't have picked a better one down here if you'd tried. Plus it really does want to help, y'know? I think you should let it. I just also think you're gonna want something to... balance it out?"

But she's already got her back turned to me. Those long, rock hard muscles and the turn of steel colored hair (oh goshies she's pretty up close) are dancing as they recede down the tunnel.

"I have no more time for games, girl. There is work to be done and risks that must be taken if this final alliance is to triumph. If I am truly underequipped I shall simply have to give up my body to make up the difference."

Ok that's really the problem with these hero types, isn't it? Rose was just the same way for the longest time, before her heart finally uncoiled. That urge to sacrifice is part of what makes 'em beautiful, but isn't the whole point from here that nobody's allowed to die? Not every problem can be solved by throwing your body in front of it. Sometimes, you need to trust in a helping hand. Or a sword, in this case.

I still remember when I thought I'd never get this technique worked out. All the practice and all the messing up, and if Chen hadn't finally drawn a diagram in a way that clicked for me I'd probably still be bobbling it. But now my hands slip fluidly through the positions and when I breathe out I feel my body lifting off the ground, lighter than a feather. I push away on the air and fly my way in front of Saber to look her directly at eye level.

"Look, Miss Ivar the Boneless. If that is your real name. You've gotta get out of this tunnel before you can do anything, right? The place I want to show you is barely a kilometer from where you came in, it'll take no time at all to get there, fast as you are. I'll explain more on the way, yeah? And if I can't convince you by then, I'll... just have to risk it, I guess."

Saber doesn't break stride, but she does give me her full attention again. There's one, maybe two horrible moments where I think she's going to start yelling at me, but seeing me gliding backwards through the air is a joke and a half too far or something, because out of nowhere she starts just howling with laughter. Really sharp, edgelordy sort of laughter, the kind that makes her need to clutch her hand over her eye and push her bangs back out of her face.

"What is this? What is this?! You people never cease to surprise me. Demon Swordswoman indeed! Very well then, little bird. You may show me the path. But if you cost me my window to act, your punishment will be swift and brutal."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Wha? But I? Y'know, Actia told me Servants aren't even supposed to need food! And yet! What'm I supposed to do? We just had soup, I've gone through all my favorite cereals, every pastry in Cy's secret snack cabine- uh, please don't tell on me, that's confidential, I told her we had a rabbit infestation. Anyway I'm not normally the one who does the cooking! It's hard!"

Katherine grabbed Berserker by the wrist and ran with her. It was her turn to be the one who dragged somebody along, or to die trying.

"I did!" she shouts with pure-hearted sniffly defiance, "My besht!"

She'd slow down once she remembered Caster probably couldn't keep up with her. But in the meantime embarrassment told her to run.

And speaking of running! Oh man oh man, here comes a lil' narrative flourish! I think this is called a segue? Hehehe, nice. Check it out:

Yeah so speaking of running, Saber sprinted like her life depended on it. That wasn't true, strictly speaking? In fact you could make a pretty strong case that her life depended on her taking it easy and not burning through her last reserves of magical energy for no reason. And you could make another, different but equally strong case that her life didn't depend on anything at all since she was already the ghost of a long dead warrior only running along the surface of the earth on a very temporary contract. But if you were inclined to make either of those arguments, you couldn't say anything to the fact that she really ran because her promises depended on it.

She also ran because all of her plans were on fire, so to speak.

As soon as she'd gone a ways down the tunnel it became rapidly apparent to Saber that there was no way to steal the sunshard without having the kind of tools that would make doing so unnecessary in the first place. Besides, as a spirit all by her lonesome, having it did nothing for her. She needed somebody it could attune to, ideally even the Princess it belonged to in the first place, and she had no idea who that was. Without a Fluffybiscuits she was helpless. Berserker of course was the opposite of helpful: she was English.

That left her in the awkward position of needing to pick a different moment to accomplish a different objective. At first she thought to ambush and kill Caster (trivial, even in her condition) but then even just basic glances around at what things were like underground told her that Rider had gone and managed to get herself killed in the meanwhile, which meant that killing Caster as well put the ritual dangerously close to completion. An impatient hand might even detonate the ritual it was prepared for early and count on whatever world-ending power it was meant to unleash being strong enough as is to be worth doing. No, everyone had to stay alive now.

So the next hope was that Kat would manage what she'd already done with Saber herself and squeak and stab her way through a Servant's defenses to make an ally out of an enemy. But though she'd squeaked, she hadn't stabbed. In fact she'd done a whole lot worse than just not stabbing and managed to lose an argument all by herself. Why hadn't she?

Saber felt the sword sitting on her hip. She stared at it in the near-dark and sighed. Well. These were the dangers in assuming you were the smartest one in a gathering. All clever minds betrayed themselves eventually, wasn't that how you wound up with foxgirls? So yeah. Kat was skipping off in a promising direction but it would take her a long time to sweetie her way through danger. Time that nobody had right now.

Because Rider was dead. Da-, uh, no sorry I'm not comfortable doing this voice. Dang her. Sorry. Sorry! All right move it along we're still trying not to get caught her remember?

So now it fell to Saber to be the one to buy time. Had she still been an Avenger in the peak of that particular transformation she would not have feared Lancer's power whatsoever, but that was all behind her now. Truth be told she was still half an Avenger, just stuck in this awkward space in between spirit origins without full access to any of the skills or powers derived from her legend that might've been helpful. If she had her king's sword, for example, that'd be real helpful. But no. If she fought she'd lose, and yet she was the only one who could do the fighting anymore.

Luckily, Ivar still had a single edge. Nobody in all the sunshard war was better at running away than her. And now, that doesn't sound like much? But she was actually very proud of that. From her point of view, living meant winning. Being on the next battlefield was a chance to wrap herself in glory that she'd be denied if she went down like a punk too soon. So she'd always had a keen sense for when to cut and run, and it was a skill she'd honed practically all the way to the level of a secret sword.

But even so, it was going to be hard. She needed weapons. Things of this material earth that Lancer couldn't just deny, and powerful ones at that. Something strong and sharp enough that it wouldn't just shatter when she threw it at Lancer's head, and yet light enough that when she cut and run she'd be able to lead her ally turned hated rival turned hopefully eventually ally again maybe who knows this was complicated.

Anyway, weapons. Weapons with stories. That's what had her running. Luckily for Saber, she was in a world full of stories. Just begging to be told. <3

Breathless Dead

"Yeah," says Bella, "Me too."

There is at best one last lunge left in Bella's body. When she leaps up into the air again her leg buckles under her and she needs to compensate by pressing against the floor with her palms to get the lift she needs. Spurts of hot, disgusting blood leak from each limb as they are strained, but she flies. It is fortunate that Vesper cannot avoid her. It is enough to wrap both arms around her sister as best as she is able, and then to fall.

Her legs shatter on the landing. Bone tears through muscles that no longer hold their shape and shear every which way like plates on a fault line. Her tail droops limply on he floor, twitches once, and then stills entirely. Her spine bends forward to support the weight her lower body cannot, and the heat and the compression and the pressure all push a hiss through her teeth. Jump again? Stand? She can't even let go of this bonfire of a sister she's clinging to.

And now she burns on top of everything. Fur singes away to nothing, skin cracks and flays as the flesh underneath dries and blackens. The pain should be enough to kill her all on its own. It might have, if she hadn't gone through the terrible ordeal of Apollo's wrath dealing with the Portuguese. It might kill her still; her throat seizes as the water in her body boils at Vesper's touch. There is nothing beautiful about her now. Her hair is a corona, and her world is smoke and misery.

"But you still don't get it, Nn, Why I keep winding up, On the other side of, fffhhk... your plans."

It is not possible to smile, now. Bella does not have control over her own face, nor her eyes, which keep wrenching shut to shield themselves from the worst of this terrible sensation. Her voice is hoarse and ugly the way an ancient raven's might be. Her arms shudder with the effort of holding up the weight of another person, though they stay locked so tight that even as they tear themselves to charred and messy shreds they do not let go.

"I don't need, A golden future."

This is the position she will die in. On one ruined knee, with her other leg splayed awkwardly to her right, two arms clutched crushingly tight around Vesper's back and waist and her chin resting on that fragile shoulder because her neck just can't support itself anymore. This is the position she will die in, this grim parody of a hug.

"I don't need, Your fire."

Every breath is pitiful and desperate. Bella makes this terrible wheezing sound every time she forces it, as her lungs crumble and holes open up in her breathing tube that she has to devote all of her remaining energy into rapidly regenerating. Nothing else matters. Nothing at all. In the heat of this new and awful sun all she needs is her ability to speak. If the rest of her melts or crumbles to ash then let it. Just let her finish.

"I only, Need, You."

Blackened, bony fingers paw clumsily at the back of Vesper's head.

"I'm not, Going, Anywhere. I'm only, HAaaaAaaaaaaaaa..."

"Only gonna, Hff, HFFFF. Burn, if. If. IiffffFFff, You, Do."

Something in her jaw twists. Bella's teeth glint in the light.

"Hold on, To, Me, Ves. If you, Can't, Pull yoursElf, Free, I'll do, The lifting."

"Put, Your faith, In me, FfFFfor once. Let me, Lead you, In. Inst, Stead."

Her voice quiets down to a small, low hiss. Bella's body uncoils at last. All her promises and all her power have failed her. Time passes.

Her voice ceases. The only sounds are the smoldering of her body. The ash of her clothes and hair falling away. The sizzle of sweat and tears spilling on what's left of her.

Time passes. Elsewhere a flower wilts.

Time passes. A harsh splash of water echoes through a place where no one listens.

Time passes. Without a sound, a doorway shuts tight.

Bella's finger twitches. Her Auspex gleams in baleful red light and her mouth falls open. She coughs, violent retching that loses fluids she should have lost a long time ago that make a disgusting mess down Vesper's back. Somehow, her neck rolls back and Bella watches the shadows.

In the very same spot. In the very same part. Of this very same ship. Where Vesper once helped her pull another sister back from the brink.

"Hey, Mynx? We never finished playing," Bella's voice is clear now, free of smoke and fire, "So let's have that twentieth poison."

She falls over onto the floor, dragging Vesper down with her.

"What does it mean to be a family?"