TheAmishPirate

Breathless Dead

This would be the part where an objection ought to go. Were it Zeus before her, she might’ve still found one. But it was unfair Hestia, and she put into words aches her heart had never thought to speak of, and Vasilia had no one here to hide behind or lean on. Just her, a lifetime of exhaustion, and a jagged little truth.

“So, what now?” She still didn’t want the cocoa. But the warmth of the mug was...pleasant. And it gave her hands something to do. “I regale anyone who’ll listen to my infinite record of regret until I can say what color I’ll paint the garden fence?”

She winced. Only thing she was good at. “Ugh, no, it’s not like…” Like she planned on not sticking around for the rest of her life. Just. Not something she thought of in much detail. And. Well. The question stood vis a vis painful autobiographies.

*************************************

Forgive the little sheep, if he cannot manage any more divine revelation today. He carefully unpacks every word, arranges them just so, as ordained, they never transform into anything more than words in an odd order. Impossible? Cannot fail? Hadn’t he gotten into this mess by trying to do too many impossible things? But enveloped in the presence of dear Hera, even the lost were acceptable. Especially the lost.

“Who can I even go to with...any of this?” He’s only whispering now, and this too, feels acceptable. “This is, well, it might be, she’s the Captain. My Captain. And, a personal matter, such as this…” He couldn’t. How could he? If word got out-! No no no no no, no, a thousand times no. So who...?

(He did not dare close the last inch between them, to rest his head against hers. Such a thing would be far, far above his station. But. He did close one of the two last half-inches. And if she deigned to close the other, she would not hear any complaint from him.)

Fellowship: The Heart

The world is quiet. All is still.

Her mind was a whirling mechanism of epiphany, each thought setting the next into motion, free of jam or ill-fitting conclusion. Nothing could grow stagnant when all was in proper order. Nothing could rot, poisoning her heart, dulling her eyes until all she could see was herself.

You see? You see! Wasn’t that lovely? She could tell you the pages of the novels she’d cobbled that together from. She’d held onto those words for years now, thinking that it would be the perfect way to explain such things should the moment ever come for her to express the thoughts. But that was all backwards, wasn’t it? She’d held onto them not because they were perfect. But because they were perfect to her. Picking out the one right answer in a sea of infinite words had crushed her into a useless stone time and time again. Picking out the words she adored, to be whatever they needed to be for the people she held close to her heart? So much easier. So much more fun!

Love. Always kept turning up in the best stories, didn’t it? She really ought to have noticed the throughline sooner-

And that shadow of a memory kept her at the boundary of Crowhame. Because she wasn’t a machine. Not really. Not in the ways that mattered. All that ran well in this one, beautiful moment would, in time, wear down, skip, clog, fall apart, drown, descend into a useless pile of anxieties all over again. Even the act of trying to hold onto this perfect clarity would squeeze her to the point of breaking. Wouldn’t it be nice, to never have to fall from this height? To never endure the cycle again? Hadn’t she climbed enough?

Can she rest, now?

Perhaps.

But then again, she did have a rather good memory. If she found her way here once, she could do it again. And this time, with better company.

She took a step. And gently closed the book behind her.

***********************************************

“Ack!”

A black-cowled figure stumbled into the clown-rich chaos, the victim of a sudden lesson in comparative body mass. But before she could fall to her knees, where a death of pies surely awaited her, a second pair of shoulders came under her burdens, and a second pair of paws marked her path forward. Wolf wasted no time on words; they had precious little to reach safety, and less still to complete the miracle.

Soon the four of them were huddled behind the now-flaming donut cart, mere seconds of safety left. Just enough time for the figure to hurriedly transcribe one, last edit to their reality...

Lucien!

You can’t be dead.

You smell fried pickles.

No, more than that, you hear fried pickles, Crackling, sizzling, fresh from the fryer and ready to eat.

Worst of all, you want fried pickles. Don’t lie. We all know you do. And when was the last time you heard of a dead man wanting anything?

Now then, are you going to wake up and taste them? (Mind your tongue, they’re still hot.)

Professor!

So. You’ve finally wound up dead, have you? After all this time, the boogeyman finally caught up to you, like you knew it would. All those years of worry, and now that it’s here, does it seem so bad? Was the ending really worth all that fuss? I bet it seems rather silly, in hindsight. You’d think that simple logic would’ve steered you right. By what merit does the last day get weighted more heavily than all the others that came before? The rest of your life outnumbers the end of it, after all. So by that logic, the end shouldn’t be all that important.

You think so too?

Ah-ha!

And how exactly is a dead man agreeing with me? Unless, of course, you’re not really dead! You never were! Members of the court, I rest my case, we may all recess for fried pickles now. (Yes, yes, there’s some for you too, Professor. Get up already, before Lucien scarfs them all down!)

Breathless Dead

Zeus. You bastard.

You knew.

You knew this would happen. You threw Hestia at her, and you knew this would happen. All roads led to cocoa. Moments of absolute stillness, when all their attentions were enraptured with the first shy wisps of steam emerging from the kettle. The intense battle between too-large fingers and a rascally little packet. A spoon riding the eternal circuit of a mug, scraping out a steady little tune as it went.

This is how he learned to make it so well; learning at the feet of the master.

The gift of a goddess lay before her. She took the mug in her hands. Felt the heat bloom against her skin.

She didn’t want a drop of it.

“I don’t know why I’m this way.” She continued. Quietly staring into her mug. “I don’t want to be this way. Not a day goes by that I don’t ask myself why, and in all this time I haven’t found an answer.” The first sip filled her belly with a sweet, comforting warmth. Reminding her, keenly, of the warmth she so sorely missed.

“And I hurt him. He put his precious, fragile little heart in my hands, and I shattered it. For no reason at all.” The mug froze, halfway to her lips, clouding her face with steam. “...no. I think there was a reason.” A terrible, awful, reason, but a reason all the same. “I was alone. Bella was in my way. And it was the easiest way I could think to get one over her. Of course, nobody forced me to, but once I had that...all I could see was forward.” Good, that the cocoa was hot enough to scald her tongue, if she wasn’t careful. Kept her from downing the whole thing in one go. Forced her to take it slowly. Linger. “What happened after that...I don’t know. I don’t know. Always, it’s forward, forward, and I don’t know why. Why did I have to be the one to beat her? Why couldn’t I love him enough to stop?” Her head fell, catching on the rim of her cup. “And why can’t I think of anything else I could’ve done?”

“I hurt people, Hestia. That’s what I’m best at. That’s all I’ve ever really done. Oratory, the stage, the arena, this ship, what good is any of it? But put an opponent in front of me, and I will make them bleed. That, I can do.” No matter who else got hurt along the way.

Herself - and him - included.

“Leaving Lakkos...was just the first time I had to do it on purpose.”

Was that it, then? Had she told enough stories for one day? Was she going to have to say her name? please no Would this be the last she’d ever see of Hestia? The thought cut through the stone-heavy haze, and before she realized what she was doing she was asking, “Is all this why you’ve never visited me before?” She couldn’t stop herself. She didn’t want to. She didn’t want cocoa. “Is this why you stay away from him, whenever I’m near?” She stared the Lady Hestia dead in the eye, crumbling beneath the whole of her presence, and still she could not be silent. “Are we that unsuited for each other?”

************************************************

Terrible. Horrible. As if there were words enough for such a tragedy. That someone so kind, so beautiful, so unbelievably deserving of so much should think herself not even worth loving. In spite of the unimaginable breach of propriety, were Zeus in the room at that moment, Dolce would have bent time and space to show her the full extent of the harm she’d caused. Had Hera not already recovered - and what a relief, she knew she was wrong! - he might’ve raced to the altars to get started on-

Wait.

She was wrong. About herself.

If Hera (a goddess) could be wrong in this matter, and Dolce (a silly, lost chef) was no better than her, then. Then.

Oh. Oh heavens.

A door burst in his heart, before he could finish giving himself permission to open it. Questions upon questions, without form, before words, filled him up to bursting. Nowhere to go, but they had to go, but nowhere to go. No way out. Too many words. No words. He felt...he felt something, several somethings, all blended together into a horrible lump, deep in his chest, at once hardened into a thousand needle points and melting into white-hot slag, and, and, and,

“I don’t feel well, Hera.” His legs were splayed out in front of him. He didn’t remember when he’d stopped kneeling. Or when he’d begun to sob. “It hurts. It hurts bad. You told me I could not carry the darkness alone, but. How can I ask someone else to shoulder something so awful? Something I can’t even manage myself?”

Breathless Dead

"But Hera, I don't want to stand alone. I want to stand with her. I swore I would, always." What value was an oath if he only kept it when things were easy? If his word could be broken by a cross-universe voyage, then what good was it? "Besides, there's nothing wrong between us. Whatever’s the matter with me, it doesn’t feel fair to blame the both of us for my shortcomings." And that was just good, common sense.

*************************************************

"I believe I mentioned the tragic past?" She waved her flask in a vaguely past-ward direction. "Take your pick: Perhaps it was discovering all my good intentions could not overcome my pride, vanity, and the cruelty of wicked souls. Only took me years of earnest collaboration with them to realize I’d been played. And to think, I once believed I would be the one changing them! Me! Armed with the right words, speaking them in the right way, what heart couldn’t I change? Obviously, Lakkos would have discovered a better way of life years ago if I’d had the decency to be born sooner.” She directed a derisive snort to her younger self. “A naive lie. Or perhaps, a truth meant for a better person. Maybe that was what did me in.”

Her ears perked up, and a slow smile curled across her face. “Oh, here’s a good one: Of all the shuttles in the family hangar, when it came time to leave my life behind, what did I take but the biggest one? Surely I would need room for all the friends, family, and associates who would want to leave with me, no? Imagine my surprise when we only used two seats. Including my own!” What a grand joke! The two of them, alone, in a shuttle that could’ve held her entire household with room to spare. She couldn’t help but laugh; what a fool she was! “Myself and dear Alethea only, who would’ve run off without me had I refused the idea. When just days prior, there’d have been a stampede to share a ride with the Queen of the Arena. Ha! Some good a silvered tongue is when you’ve not the silver to back it up.” Wasn’t she a card? Wasn’t she in rare good form today?

“I’d thought,” (Had she?) “We’d at least have convinced a few to follow us.” But no one had listened. “I thought about ordering the staff aboard too, but, hrm, not the wisest thing, to have a disloyal crew when you’re about to stab someone else in the back.” It’d been a mistake to tell them anyway. Should’ve left alone, or left no one to tell the tale. “It’s hard enough to fight off all your terrible co-workers without” Half measures. They catch up to you, don’t they? “Without, having to” They told her. “Go through...” She found you.

“A-anyone. Else.”

Ah. Oh no. Bad. Bad. Laughed too much. “Excuse me, I just.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Her fur came back damp with tears. “I just need a moment.” Come on, Vasilia, pull yourself together. So you don’t get to have nice people; what else is new? Clarissa wasn’t nice people anyway. Bad luck, getting tangled up in her. You’re better off without her, now. Or. You were.

Her hands flew to her pockets, checking them again and again and coming up empty but having nothing better to do with them then check yet again. Of course she didn’t bring a handkerchief to guard duty, who would? He would. Like a child she dried her eyes at the expense of her sleeves, and before long they were mottled with unsightly wet splotches. “Forgive me, I. I’m not usually in such a state.” No, she was usually much better about the awful things she’d done to the people she’d made the mistake of loving. A thousand pardons, Lady Hestia. She will take care not to love you too, just as soon as she collects herself.

Captain. Captain Vasilia heaved a great sigh, sinking against the command table along with the tattered remnants of her composure. “Well. There you have it. What a mystery, that we haven’t met before.” Miracle of miracles, was she still here, listening to her?! Her gaze drifted to the now-empty mug of cocoa, set above her. “...I don’t suppose you have another mug of that you could spare?”

Fellowship: The Heart

All happens, as it always has happened, and as it always will happen, and as it all happens. Thus is Crowhame. Thus nothing changes, once happened, and always happening. And nothing is the Jackdaw.

*******************************

“You are transformation in the eternal present.” The click-clacking hagstones cackle. “You are the tree pruned by storm. You are slag which was iron. You are courage persisting. The tide strips away, and you surge forth, lest nothing else remain. The Flayed! The Flayed! So you are! So you are!”

What is this, that comes rattling down the hagstones? An offering? An insult? Here are broken bones, and shattered senses, and all that would stifle existence. Here they come to the many feet of the Flayed. “It is yours! It is your name! It is not his. It is not anyone else’s. You must have dropped it, didn’t you?” And that which spoke in no tongue, how could it argue against its own name?

*******************************

“Hopeless! Hopeless! Hopeless are you, Ring-master! How could you have forgot? Was eternity too long to remember?” The figures upon the Grail, they do not caper for you. Gone is their laughter, so poor a show you put on. They busy themselves with far greater entertainments of station queues, morning newspapers, and taxes. “Do not frown, do not cry, I will teach the lesson to you again, and again, for as long as the lesson shall flow."

“And the lesson is this: That all things are the joke, and all places are the show, that all is sacred nonesuch.” Catch the twinkle upon the shining Grail! A light of revelation in this new venue. “Who forbid you to be the punchline? Why does no-one laugh at my Ring-master? All things are the joke.” And the engraved audience peers from their drudgery, and the Grail peers close at what used to be a man.

“Go show them what it means to take a fall.”

*******************************

The meat who was a man is gone, the standing-stone who was a man is gone, the book that is the whole of Crowhame is gone too, and the backwards footprints will tell you the Jackdaw was never here. All that happens had always happened and nothing changed. Nothing, to hold everything, to be anything, of anything she loved. The Jackdaw was never here.

Fellowship: The Heart

Everything is wrong here. The three of them should not be here, and should not be, as they are. Crowhame and the Dark Carnival declare the other to be wrong, and perhaps both of them are correct, but how terrible the argument, here for all to witness. Lucien, the Professor, they belong somewhere other than between the two. And whether or not they make it there? It ought not to depend on a gangly fox with no name. But here is Coleman, riding in Sasha - so big now! So grown-up! - the rain hissing off her hide, iron whining, low and curious. Here is Wolf, a bundle of unbreakable twigs, and here Wolf will be, even if she is gone a year and a day. All of them, huddled around an upturned cart; this is right, and maybe that will be enough.

You’ve never seen her smile like this, Coleman. She’s only ever had the two; smiles atop smiles, when she is too lost in her books to think, and smiles atop fear, when she thinks it’s the safest way for her face to be. But when you look at her now, she has found something new to build a smile upon. “Words, Coleman. All that I’ve ever had.” She pets Sasha, on the tippy top of her head, right in the space where a fox might like to scurry and cling to. “We’ll have some more passengers soon. I think, you should get ready to leave, Conductor.” Out she goes, from safety into the downpour. Stops. And looks back, square at your cabin, Coleman.

“Wormwood wasn’t your fault.”

And there’s a second chain. That’s not enough words to explain how she could say them with such certainty. So she’ll have to say more. She’ll have to come back.

She steps into the wavering boundary of Crowhame, and of all the books in all the pockets in all her cloak, she reaches for the one she’d never read before. Tempted to, on many an occasion. Peek ahead, at what she might find in the depths of the Heart. But if she did, would she ever make the journey herself? Would it be another fox who discovered a perfect, precious name? Or would she read some terrible prophecy, and live the rest of her days crushed by it? So it went.

She flips to the one spot that was safe to read. Or, rather, the one spot it was safe to flip to. The present. Her present. Still being written. Not quite ready to read. And what would she write? What could she write? Just about anything. The second reason she’d never opened it.

The right words still elude her. Which, wasn’t to say she had no words. Always too many to choose from. But as it was with Wolf, and as it was with Coleman, she opens the book of a book, and the words pour out of her...

Peace! Peace! The Jackdaw walks the woods!

Unlatch your doors! Uncover your treasure-vaults! Let all that is precious to you walk free in the black rain!

Sit, sit, and do not watch for her. Do not wait for her. You waste your time. You waste your worry. Peace, peace. She who has no name, how will you recognize her? What cry will pass your lips, to give her form? Frustrate the robber, but the word is not thief. Resist the enemy, but the word is not foe. Welcome the friend, raise the daughter, abide the neighbor, obey the king, suffer the Flayed, forevermore be the present, but the word is nothing, and the word is Jackdaw.

Nothing to bind. Nothing to catch. You will not see her. You cannot stop her. Everywhere, nowhere, anyone, no-one.

Peace! Peace! The Jackdaw walks the woods!

Breathless Dead

“What?”

So first you ignore her, now you’re picking over her past with a fine-toothed comb? Which is it, Hestia?!

“Well. It’s, it was, a rather complicated decision. There wasn’t just one reason behind it.” Vasilia muddles on, grasping at a rhythm that kept slipping between her fingers. Thrillingly tragic tales were not meant for this sort of sudden transition to scrutiny. Hestia, to her credit, did not rush her. Soon enough, she had her thoughts, and she began a new tale:

“When we first took Redana on board, the celebration lasted two full weeks. Not because she was the life of the party; far from it, all she knew was formal balls and state dinners. No, she wanted to see everything. Do everything. There was nothing so insignificant aboard our ship that she wasn’t interested in. We had to keep pausing to make expeditions to the other decks whenever we offhandedly mentioned the waterfall we used to cool the cannons, or the second, upside-down bridge on the lowest deck, or what have you. The things we all took for granted, she saw their worth. Their wonder. All this time, and I don’t believe she’s stopped seeing it, not really.”

She fixes her gaze on her audience, and draws her voice, ringing with iron certainty. “That girl is going to die, Lady Hestia. Either in space, or Tellus will catch her, and they will kill her, and it will be centuries before she is permitted her rest. The only way she survives this is if she reaches Gaia, and receives her wish. There is no other path for her victory. Her future. None that I can see. It is simply what has to be done.”

“...so I’m an old softie. Guilty as charged. Perhaps I could’ve withstood just her, but two-”

She stops. Stares a hole through the deck, eyes filling with a simpler past. She does not even look at the numbing flask as she draws it to her lips again.

“Ah. Two. Two bright, dear hearts. I didn’t stand a chance.”

**********************************************

The Lord of the Dead possessed many wondrous things. A comforting presence was not among them.

So, please, do not take it the wrong way if Dolce is silent and still through the whole argument. Nor should you think he chooses a side, subtly inching towards Hera. How can he; he works for you, after all! But she is an honored guest, and you should not think much of it that he sits, kneeling, at her feet, filling his vision with her warm radiance.

“I don’t understand, Lady Hera.” It could only be Lady, this close to her. “Where is the threat? She said she did not fancy Bella that way. She clearly regrets her actions. I told her that we will be fine.” Do you hear it, Lady Hera? His voice, he doesn’t intend for it to shake so. Clear enunciation, he strives for it, but hear what hollow, brittle words pass his lips. Broken, just as he said. “So, then, where is the threat?”

Breathless Dead

Before? Before? Do pardon her, Lady Hestia, but had you not already conveyed the gravity of the moment, she might have thought you were joking. And if you’re not joking, then do you mean to say that you’ve genuinely not taken notice of her for her entire life, until this very day? That, yes, alright. Hrm. Was not an option she’d ever considered, to be frank. Usually, to avoid someone, you had to at least acknowledge they were there. Unless it worked rather differently for a goddess?

...questions for later.

“Perhaps it would be best if I started at the beginning,” she says, folding her legs to sit beside Hestia. “Where I began, born on Lakkos to one of the great noble families. A rising star of a rising star. I made my name in the Olympics, winning favor in the eyes of the gods and the people alike. There wasn’t a soul on the planet who hadn’t heard my name. As I climbed, I sought to use my position to forge peace for all, on a world that had known none for generations.”

She sniffs. “...I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice to say, I did no better than all who’d come before me. I paid dearly for compromises that bought nothing of value. My plans forever remained a day ahead of me. All the while I swam drunk in ceaseless admirations and imagined virtue.”

“Then the Starsong came, and accomplished in a week more than I had in years. And I was expected to help fight them.”

“Instead, I allowed their escape. No, more than allow, I was their escape. Of my life and fortune, I brought those of my staff who wished to fee with me, and the clothes on my back. Nothing more.”

Not even a heart.

“I drifted with the Starsong for a time. I was handy in a fight, and good enough at parties. ‘The exile with the dark past, only spoken of in hushed whispers.’ I think they had a betting pool going on what terrible fate I'd escaped from. But they were as good as they were on Lakkos. I had nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do; their causes were just enough for me.”

And are there no other names in this story, Captain? No faces to tie to these ideals? In all the years of living among the best people you’d ever met, wasn’t there at least one that touched your heart? Changed the course of a life spiraling down? Won’t you tell us of a miracle, Vasilia?

“It was...pleasant.” She shifts, suddenly uncomfortable on the cold floor. “As nice a position as I could hope for, and so it was for a time. I rose through the ranks, never so high that would have to direct the Starsong themselves. And when word came we had a...moonshot of a chance, to overthrow Tellus’ grip on the galaxy without ever fighting them directly, I made sure I would be the one they chose.”

She reaches into her coat, and takes a long pull from a precious flask. The past was thirsty work.

“What I am trying to say, Lady Hestia, is that I’m afraid I have no ‘before.’ I do what I have always done. Of second chances, all mine were burned away on Lakkos.” She gives a distant, wan smile. “Never quite gave up enough to find anything else.”

*********************************************

Could he tell you a secret?

It’s not always intuition.

It might seem like that, when he shows up with a favorite dish in your lowest moment. But maybe you just forgot when you said how much you enjoyed this sort of bread those seventeen months ago, and so it seems like magic when he produces a loaf now. But sometimes there aren’t enough months, or lucky moments, or thoughts going right that he can turn to the question at hand. And when that happens, he returns to the altars.

For Hestia, he leaves out a mug of her favorite cocoa. Shredded dark chocolate, hot, but not too hot, cool whipped cream, to give the ideal sip, a sprinkling of cinnamon to bring it all together; just how she liked it. What few thoughts he had, they all agreed that perhaps Mynx could use a little taste of home, and so to Hestia he must turn.

For Hera, he leaves a humble stew. Prepared with care, of scraps secreted away from greater dishes, in a quiet corner of the kitchen where no-one goes. And before her, he kneels, and he thinks, and he kneels, and he thinks, and he is oh so grateful that Hera is not one to mind her time too strictly.

“Hera. I’m afraid something’s gone terribly wrong with me, and I don’t know what. I cannot think. I can hardly sleep. I am useless in the kitchen-” Pause. “Well, I can cook, yes, but it just isn’t right. I make food, but little else besides. And what little I make is slow, much too slow for the mouths we need to feed. Something’s broken, and I am full of uselessness, and please, can you tell me what it is? Can you fix me? Why-?” Oh, Hera. Do not mind your time too strictly today. Grant him a moment, please. Just a moment. “Why can’t I do my job anymore? Am I so far gone that...that I cannot even do what I was made for?”

And he waits. With his head pressed against the cold floor, a shivering tangle of emotion, he waits for an answer.

Breathless Dead

Oh, very mature, Zeus. Flee while she has you on the rhetorical ropes, and block off her pursuit with...with...oh gods, how long has she been glaring at thin air? Hestia hadn’t left already, had she? Thank goodness, still talking. Nod, Vasilia, nod thoughtfully, the most thoughtful nodding you’ve ever nodded in your entire life, while you try to remember everything she’s just said while you were definitely listening.

“For the record.” Slowly, yes, speak slowly and deliberately. Every second is precious. “This is just a hypothetical exercise. I’ve no intention of losing or forfeiting my command. But since you asked…” And of course she would consider it fairly, because you asked, because she is a good host, and you should definitely stay, yes? “My personal effects are somewhat limited; if I could return to the Starsong, I have some furnishings that may fetch a worthwhile price. But the return would be, ah.”

“No.”

“Please, at least let me ask the question first.”

“It wouldn’t change my answer.”

“Is there anything I could say that would change it?”

“Again: No.”

“Is it because there’s nothing to be said, or nothing I can say?”

“It’s because the last time you uprooted your life, you took mine along with it, and while the change was a good one, I can’t let you roll the dice for me every time you get antsy.”

“Ah. I...I see.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I just...I can’t. Not again.”

“You’ve nothing to apologize for, Alethea darling. Gods only know how much of me you’ve put up with already. We’ll manage alright on our own, Dolce and I.”

“...awkward. And not likely to produce many recommendations either.” No matter how she rested her hands, she never quite grew unaware of them. Fingers interlaced with fingers. No place for them to lie, and be still. “There may be some individuals here and there that could vouch for me, but only if I wished to stay landlocked for the rest of my days.” Translation: Stuck on a backwater planet that was only barely learning how to spell Civilization. “Apart from starfaring, I’m skilled at stagecraft, speechcraft, and combat, but I don’t think you or I are about the celebrity life.”

She risked a laugh. A gamble, but a well-calculated one. Goddess who went about in fluffy bear hoodies and mugs of hot cocoa were almost certainly easygoing enough to appreciate a little humor.

Almost certainly. The risk was worth the reward.

********************************************

A good servant follows orders.

The moment she pushed away from his wool, she would neither feel nor hear Dolce again.

The Auspex finds him out immediately. It sees the way the air swirls in his absence. The motes of dust, dancing in his wake. He will never be able to vanish around her.

The next sign of his presence was the warm, comforting aroma of a freshly-made bowl of soup.

Is she at all hungry? Does she even want to eat? Can she?

Her teacup would never be empty.

Because she isn’t drinking anything. No matter what blend he brings for her.

She would have blankets to rest on, handkerchiefs to wipe her eyes.

As if she could risk falling asleep. As if she is a child, unable to tend to her own tears.

He would appear whenever called, whenever she needed to talk through a problem.

He will be no help. He had his chances.

Dolce followed his orders. Like a good servant.

And left her worse than he’d found her.

Breathless Dead

She. What. And her. And her! Zeus!!

“She most certainly does not! I do not! No one is checking out!” Vasilia stamped her foot set herself in a strong and indomitable posture, completely overcoming the indignity of freshly-ruffled hair. Also. She raised a hand in greeting. “And no. We haven’t met. Hello.” Lovely to finally see you, Lady Hestia. Is it Lady? She didn’t strike her as Lady. But she might still be Lady. Gods, what was her title? How in the stars could she forget...nevermind! Informal is fine! She’s fine!!

“I am staying right here, rather than entrusting the fate of this entire voyage to someone who only just recently experienced a third dimension in its entirety. Not a one of the Alced are anywhere near ready to command a starship yet.” Which you know to be true, you great thundering lummox, so come back here and just try to tell her she’s wrong, because you can’t, and she’s nowhere remotely close to finished with you, Zeus! Zeus!

...Zeus?

************************************

Centuries ago, mankind strove to answer the question: What made the ideal servant?

Of the thousand thousand invocations of the answer, few remain coherent today, and only one could be heard within the Plousious’ kitchen: Docile. Agreeable. Lacking in natural defenses and combat capabilities. Pleasing to the eye, pleasing to the soul. But the true masterstroke was this; that whether useful or useless, the ideal servant provides for their master simply by their continued existence.

The inspiring creatures of the distant past knew this secret already, the ability to transmute life into profit, albeit in a much more intensive and tedious fashion. Shearing, cleaning, carding, spinning, weaving, and more! Every step requiring complicated machinery. Complicated machinery requiring trained help. Wouldn’t it be so much faster if the wool were a finished product from the beginning? Soft, warm, luxurious, ready to become product in a matter of minutes?

So the sheep of the Manor earned their keep, and the Family wanted for nothing, having a nigh-infinite supply of the galaxy’s softest wool to trade for anything they did not bother to fabricate themselves. It is said that the tributes - when they remembered to send them - were primarily composed of bolts upon bolts of the precious material. Cared for properly, in the right hands, some of that wool may have survived to this day, in the blankets and pillows of the Tellus elite.

Redana!

You are alone, surrounded by ghosts, gods, and guilt, when a touch of home brushes the back of your hand. Far away, a desperate cook does the only thing left he can think to do, and bonks his wooly head against you. Isn’t it soft? Isn’t it warm? Would you like to run your fingers through the curls? Would that ease your mind? Please, Princess. Please, Hera. At least let his presence be of use. Let him be of some help. Please.

But in the dark, across the distance between heart and body, do you expect the touch of a cook?

Or an actress?