Phoe

Breathless Dead

Silence rules the date site.

The tinny, soulless music barely qualifies as subliminal memory. The highest notes it can reach on crescendo speak less than Bella's lack of voice; they don't even register. What is properly worth listening to in the moment is the sound of breathing, the tiny popping of tired muscles and overworked joints, and the subtle thumping of a fluffy tail on a very exposed thigh.

Bella closes her eyes. Her hands slide down Ember's arms and press against her tummy.

"You haven't eaten enough lately," she says, "Get working on these rations."

She leans in close, which squashes her breasts against Ember's back, and softly sniffs at the spot where her neck and shoulder meet.

"You haven't slept a minute since you saved everybody, either. Bad Girl."

Before a reply of any kind can interrupt her flow, Bella's tongue darts out and drags itself slowly, sensually up the neck and along Ember's cheek. She clicks her tongue in playful disappointment.

"So nervous," she purrs, "Not to mention poorly cleaned. Shall I draw you a bath, princess? You always did need me for every little thing~"

Her fingers trace their way down the body trapped in the prison of her own limbs to brush playful fingers and even clawtips against shivering thighs. Bella dares every little thrill a teenaged version of her had fantasized about every night but never dared to act on. The sounds she elicits are the first notes of real music this picnic has known. The chirps and half-panicked, half-desperate whines pull her lips apart in a savage grin. She leans in again and lets her teeth speak as well: neck, neck, shoulder, ear, and then she drags them all along the route of Ember's flesh to where she started once again.

Now her hand grabs both wrists and pins the would-be Alpha, would-be Princess' arms in front of her. Her other hand grips Ember's jaw tightly and she presses, gentle enough not to hurt but much too firm to be ignored, until their eyes meet and Ember can watch the dim and dusty light of faint stars find true purpose and glimmer shining through those brilliant red and gold orbs.

"Honestly, when they were wolfing you did they just skip your nose entirely? It's like you don't even know something's there at all if it's not one of those cute little pheromone packets your lot are always huffing. Sorry I don't stink good enough for you to hear me, but unlike some of us around here I have standards."

Bella laughs, taunting and bright. And then she buries that laugh along with her tongue down Ember's throat. No breath allowed for the living, today. No thoughts but the moment, the sensation, the heat. No food but this divine flesh, in defiance of her own commandment a moment ago. The feeling, the pressure of lips on lips, of teeth that always threaten blood but never make good on the promise, of impossible strength bent like a singularity toward holding this one position in this one moment and this pointless gesture forever.

Until they part. Bella scoffs.

"I could waste my entire night explaining it all to you," she says, "But you're not going to listen if I do. You're going to find some secret worry that I missed and cling to it all night long, because you're you, which means you're a dumbass, and turning into someone else entirely hasn't changed a fucking thing apparently. But that's fine. I can just work on another problem I've been having."

She smirks wickedly, and pulls Ember's hands down to the feast of Crabtions still sitting patiently in front of the pair. She grabs it, pulls it up, and artlessly stuffs it into her lover's mouth.

"See, nobody listens to me. It's not just a you problem. And it's entirely my fault. I got too used to just thinking I'm in charge and that everyone knew it. Forgot to actually put in the work of proving it. So how do you feel, Dany? My Ember? Is the princess in command by divine right?"

Bella's hand, which has never left Ember's jaw even as she sputtered and half chewed, now presses firmly and drags that silly head from side to side in a demure little 'no'.

"Correct. You listen to me. You obey me. When you knew your wore a crown you would have put it on my head in an instant if you only thought you could get away with it. Now I'm going to show you why."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Among the class containers, there are none better suited for close quarters combat than the Saber. Their reflexes tend toward the impressive even by supernatural standards. Their instinct is rarely wrong and enables baffling sight reads of opponent move sets in a way that makes them seem even faster than they are. And of course, to qualify for the class in the first place they must be paragons of the blade. In short: the skill to move a sword as though it were a third arm, the vision and the speed to respond to a mortal duelist after their strike had already reached the point of commitment, and the battle sense to shift out of the way of attacks that come directly from their blind spots. And all of this was just the container itself, before even considering the particulars of the legendary warriors that qualified to be summoned within it.

The strongest. So often the very last one standing, or at minimum the last of two. But nothing about this ambush is as pretty or effortless as these facts would lead an observer to believe.

The simple truth of it is that Saber is losing. Her sweeping, minimum effort combat style and oversized body both cut against her in a fight where her opponent might well number a thousand and can approach from as many angles with the advantage of perfect stealth and disguise. Sometimes she bends her sword as if it were liquid to catch an attack at an impossible angle and fling her assailant a full dozen meters away from her, but they never strike the ground. More often she steps into a long swing to bat down a handmaiden (what a violent term that has become since the ancient days) and takes a sharp cut across her back or her leg or an arm in the opening she leaves.

Being so long and so tall, even moving faster than all of her opponents still has her maneuvering in the outside circle, so to speak. She has further to travel and can only make herself so small in the end. There are always openings, and a perfectly choreographed attack will find them every time. Meanwhile the death screeching pounds her ears and disguises the movements of the warriors beyond her ability to get ahead of them with prediction. Impossible to even think straight, let alone make a play for the technomancy protecting the Baroness she keeps pinned to her shoulder through everything.

More than once she swings her prisoner instead of her sword, as though holding a shield that can ward off some of the pressure that is overwhelming her. But her prowess as a warrior seems at odds with this kind of desperate coward's tactics, and every time she shifts Fallweaver she also steps in a way that carries the woman away from the direction of attack and buries another knife in her own flesh, instead. She is accumulating a horrifying collection of them across the minutes she fights the swarm.

The one thing in her favor is that she has not been stopped from running. She continues speeding across the countryside, attempting to break free from the swarming, screaming flock. Wing travels faster than foot no matter how confident that foot may be, but in this way she is at least able to keep the jaws of the trap from swinging fully closed on her. She takes another step forward, and another, and another. They chase, and she leads. Suddenly she lifts Fallweaver over her head to the full extension of her massive arm. In that moment no fewer than four handmaidens pierce her from the cardinal directions in perfect synchronicity. It is a brutal attack, but such is war.

Here at last, Saber's wounds have become severe enough that it is possible to observe the miracle of them. It is not blood that seeps from the many openings left in her runecarved body. It is shadows: swirling darkness that swallows the light of her perfect compass and devours the hundred knives embedded in her flesh. As they drip to the ground, they spread around her feet until she is standing on a ragged pit of night. The metal has all melted on her skin; a hundred empty handles clatter to the ground, while a dorsal fin as sharp as one of Lancer's vaunted katanas glints on her back. The proof that she has given herself over and irrevocably to battle: her own approximation of wings.

She does not smile. Vengeance is not a sweet thing. There is no room for pleasure in the act and no point to it in the first place. There are only the endless calculations and sacrifices needed to make it happen, and the will to pursue it in the face of impossible odds. Saber cracks her neck. The braid that shifts along the ground and the hair atop her head has been completely drained of color. A gray that defies description, no longer faded gold but an attack on the mere idea of color. A void of hues bound in wrought iron clasps that offer sickening contrast to this impossible sight.

"Warriors," says the Valkyrie without hint of fatigue, anger, or pleasure, "I commend you. It was a trap well laid and a battle excellently fought. My lone sorrow as its witness is that you did not spring it on the one you meant to catch."

She jerks downward with surprising suddenness and plunges her ruined sword into the shadow-stained ground beneath her. The air fills with screaming of a kind that gives even southern birds something to aim for. Her grip on Fallweaver tightens.

"Noble Phantasm, partial activation."

When she tears her sword free again, it is whole and wrapped in runes that speak only of death and endless rivers of blood. And from the wound in the ground she leaves behind, the earth bleeds. Torrents of hot red liquid erupt in a wide circle, enough to catch the flock and even partially block its retreat. Everything is blind. Everything is pain. Everything is terror. Everything is red.

The rain falls, and feathers fall with it. It clears quickly, just a passing storm after all. But in the moment where the world resolves itself properly again and shudders at its torture, the Servant and her prisoner have vanished entirely.

Return to Thellamie

Day 3 addendum: appreciable shift in tactics noted in the proprietress' tactics. She has opened her speech patterns and now favors softer reminders of the world outside her shop.
Possible misread of her intentions earlier? Possible escalation of avoidance tactics?
Note for posterity - once again unable to maintain poise in the face of overloud noises.

"As you say, Milady. My service does not preclude the pursuit of pleasure. Naturally I am not a stranger to the sensation of 'fun'." she takes the time to form bunny rabbit quotes with her fingers around the word, "However. Even a festival requires working, and I--"

Pause. Cock head, shift focus forty-five degrees. The child playing with her pet has traded giddy clapping for closing her arms around the creature and covering it in soft strokes of its fur. Turn head, reconfirm environment. Aural distraction ceased. Dye makers have paused their labors to stare.

The circle, closed. An act of affection indistinguishable from a trap.

The decision to give this establishment space to fulfill my request will ultimately serve the investigation the best of all available options. I accept full responsibility should this turn out to be a ploy.

Once again, Eclair caps her pen and tucks it safely away. Once again she blows on her little book to set the ink and clicks it shut with the exact same flourish. The maid-knight's brilliant violet hair bounces around her shoulders from the motion.

...A moment, if you please. The Order of the Aurora has a semi-contentious relationship with the Civil Church and all its festivals. Even in the days when a Queen of Light was around the maids of the Manor did not swear fealty to her, and this has always left them just a little bit unwelcome at parties, at least the very formal and official ones. A celebration like this one in such a large and important city is practically begging to drag Eclair into some kind of duel, though it may not be one that involves any heartblades.

But that doesn't mean that the festival is unimportant to the Aurora! The love of the Manor is for the world and for the people who live in it, and their mission is first and foremost to see those same things safe above the needs of politics. Of course a celebration of those exact things is welcome among the maid-knights! Contrary to popular opinion, Eclair's sisters are the best at partying! And even if the Manor's own festivals have a tendency to never be held on specific dates but more crop up around general vibes and declarations from the Morning, Noon, and Evening they'd all be idiots if they let the world's biggest parties pass them by.

It's the funnest thing in the world. In truth Eclair is sorry she's missing it. The jousts, the halfpipe competition, the fireworks! Pin the tail on the Maid (which is meant to involve a blindfolded player trying to tie a sash with a (second) tail on it around another girl's waist but for mysterious reasons often devolves into giggling and more thigh touching and butt pinching than is strictly required for good knot tying?)!

The food and the drink on offer at the Manor on this day is beyond imagining. All of the Order's best cooks and bartenders get involved and quite sneakily spend the entire day trying to outdo each other and produce the most lewd-adjacent look of pleasure from their unsuspecting targets (all the knights and in particular fresh squires who don't know what to expect yet) when they taste their offerings. Even the girls who normally don't make the time for formal meals show up with empty plates and extra kerchiefs on Festival day.

Best of all, though? The kissing. Aurora knights are known for flirting among each other most any time of the year but on a big day like this one the games escalate to an entire other level. The drunken pickup lines that have been uttered between would-be lovers are the stuff of legends. The girls who are lucky enough to match up describe nights together that blur the lines between winning and losing so that nobody can quite remember who was pinned and who did the pinning. Or, for that matter, can they remember quite where all the pieces of their uniforms have got to. The disheveled maidens are easy pickings for any enterprising knight for weeks after. All you have to do is sneak up behind them and nibble on their ears and they'll just--

"I will return," Eclair says with the confidence that is only possible under the veil of full Formality, "In one hour's time. There is no need to rush your check on my account. Please simply inform your staff there will be no need to clean as part of closing. On my honor I will handle it myself."

There is no point in denying an Aurora Knight the honor of sweeping. If Lady Vessenmer tries she'll find an expert lockpick and infiltration specialist has sneaked in and done it anyway. At least by accepting she can reserve some manner of direction over the process.

Breathless Dead

A flicker of irritation betrays Bella. But the speed of a Diodekoi assassin is not a thing that can be denied, especially in pursuit of her target. Her arm and then most of her body crosses the sacred border of the picnic blanket faster than a falling star. Her fingers close around Ember's wrists and as she stands she lifts her Princess into the air as easily as a doll.

As a child she'd mistaken this cluelessness on Dany's part as a lack of interest. But Ember pines so obviously that isn't possible anymore. Instead she's left to wonder how the fuck she missed it all in the first place. The way the girl in her arms tosses her hair when she's flustered is exactly the same. The slump of her shoulders a moment ago. The smell is so similar it's overwhelming. The sparkle in her eyes, not to mention her own Auspex gleaming there like the most obvious, screaming sign ever crafted by any of the gods.

The flush of her cheeks is so intense it leaves her legs short on blood to keep her standing. Before she can fuck everything up and drop Ember straight into the six dozen preparations of crab she finishes the motion and tosses her up into the air, instead. Smooth, calculated, though more Mosaic than Bella. She catches the other girl as she sits down and wraps her arms around her in the exact way she used to at the Palace, whenever Dany failed a test and thought the world was ending with it.

Pinned safe and still against her larger frame. Held tight against her body, the shield that denies the galaxy. She waits for the breathing to settle before she risks loosening her arms to put her fingers in that radiant, golden hair. Then, she begins to weave.

"When I was very young, I..." Bella hesitates, "Fell into a trap. A terrible prison I was sure would kill me. And you, still a child, pulled me free. You held me and called me beautiful. The most beautiful thing in all the world. I had bells in my hair, and on my collar. You loved the sound they made. Asked if my name could be Bella. And I'd... never had a name before that."

She has Ember's curls tamed now. This hair has never been a match for these fingertips. Even if the claws that tip them now force her to be more careful than she'd needed to be, once upon a time. She pulls it all back and spins gold into a braid reminiscent of the laurel wreath. A thing fit for a princess.

"And then I met you," she said, "Just outside of Beri. You weren't watching where you were going and you walked straight into my trap. I'd set it up for crabs but in the end I caught something a bit more... valuable. More dangerous, I'd thought. And the look on your face burned itself into my mind for the rest of the day. I was useless, I had to give up on hunting straight away. Vesper made fun of me for a week. Because I saw myself hit you."

Bella reaches around Ember's shoulder and brushes the spot where she'd hit herself, whisper soft in the space between those beautiful breasts, using only the backs of her fingers where nothing sharp can threaten them.

"Right there. Shit's funny, isn't it? That I've got memories of meeting you for the first time twice? I don't know. Though as a matter of fact, I've spent most of my life chasing after you. Myn-- someone told me a little bit ago she hoped I'd find a new dream. She went on and made it sound like a very pretty sentiment. But fuck her. I don't need a new dream. I have you."

Breathless Dead

Bella's stare is blank. For a moment that's all she offers. And then the smile creeps across her lips. It spreads up her cheeks, into her eyes so that they glitter like the depths of space. It crawls down her throat until she can't hold it there any longer and she trembles with the beginnings of laughter. Where it starts it catches, like a fever, like wildfire, like the raging waves of the endless sea.

She has to catch her forehead with her palm to keep from doubling over into piles of crab. To keep her hair from tumbling down over her face and into sauce or brine or... whatever the fuck. Don't talk to her right now. A snicker turns into a chuckle turns into a laugh turns into full on breathless guffawing in the span of one tail's mirthful twitch.

The noises escaping her can't be described in terms of pure joy. They're too amused, too uncontrolled, so hard and so full is on the verge of tears without ever quite spilling over. But still. It's clear and bright and musical, even if that music mostly resembles a jam session at a percussionists convention. She is so concerned with not toppling forward that she nearly pushes herself backward instead, and has to catch herself with her other hand, which crushes a pile of discarded shells into powder so fine it's now impossible to repurpose into leftover ship supplies.

And still she laughs. And laughs. And laughs. She finds the air for it all. It is all the good that air can do in her lungs. There is no point to breathing but to laugh. She holds her face like she's afraid it's going to split and expunge some new god, and she laughs. Her brilliant, glittering Auspex shines in red from between her fingertips and somehow it laughs too. In on the joke.

"Oh gods," she manages at last, "Holy shit. No sweetheart, not like that. Dany couldn't pull that off with a thousand years of practice. She'd... you'd have caught fire trying. I mean, you did try I guess. You were constantly in etiquette lessons that I had to keep sneaking you the answers when nobody was looking so you wouldn't get disciplined. And even then you blew off everything you thought you could get away with to spend more time in the gymnasium. Training for the Olympics and for... this, I guess. Adventure."

The laughter has fallen from her face and her posture now. Bella is careful, proper, delicate, demure, and above all clean as she takes the first bites of offered crab, and precise when she chews. With every bite she waits a moment before cleansing her mouth with water, or with sub-par wine. In every action she is noble. Imperial. She is what she was made to be. Watching a new Dany be what she chose, entirely.

No more smiles, now. She stretches out a hand, across the blanket, across the spread, across the galaxy. Across the Lethe.

"But you don't... actually remember, do you? You didn't get everything stuffed back inside your head like me. You don't remember the garden, or watching me chase the butterflies in there when we were kids. What about the bells? Do you... were you told about them?"

She does not pull her hand back. Nor does she push it the rest of the forward into Ember's. And from the look on her face, it's not clear if she'd rather the answers be 'yes' or 'no'.

Return to Thellamie

"Cursed be they that open dead inside."
"Cursed be they that open deed inside."
Meaning? Uncertain. Grammatical nightmare.
Resent use of shorthand alongside calligraphic flourishes.
Give her a piece of my mind later.
Dye confirmed Vessenmer origin.
Sourcing: _____

Posture straight. Notebook held steady. Pen supplied with dye purchased from selfsame manufacturer. Also, held between thumb and forefinger at proper 23 degree angle. Assessment of uniform: mixed. Presentation and wrinkle levels both at acceptable standards but increasing buildup of sand residue on skirts, apron, and armor rapidly degrading to hellish levels of grit and dust.

Mantra: maintain professionalism. Implication of disdain for local establishment height of impropriety and unacceptable risk to investigation. Three taps, pen on paper: reminder of purpose. Eyebrow arched: quizzical, maybe even cute? Smile: dignified and enigmatic, or at least obviously non-hostile.

Proprietress is possibly hostile. Defensive? Possibly concealing illegal activities. Recommend ~~~~~~~////‰‰‰‰‰‰~~~

Sand pours: too loud too loud TOO LOUD TOO LOUD!

Eclair winces, though it does not affect her posture. She dries her pen tip on her Pen Napkin, caps it, and stores it in her apron's left pocket. She blows twice on the notebook to preserve her observations and snaps it shut. Though her ears press flat against her skull and she can't force her left eye open amidst the cacophony, she clears her throat and presses on.

"I appreciate that the question is complicated, Lady Vessenmer," (oh no oh no her voice is trembling! she squeezes a gauntleted fist closed with a soothing clank) "Nevertheless I must insist. Sourcing this specific sample is my foremost priority. So. If that requires a look at your books I would ask that Milady please open them. I assure you that no name or outcome will be unsatisfactory. So long as the information is accurate."

She coughs. She curtsies to fill the awkward silence. The staff fill that gesture with another batch unload. Eclair flinches even harder this time, and the sword at her side rattles against her greaves even through the muffling effect of her skirts.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

It would be unfair to criticize the young world for going soft when the evidence in every other aspect of life was that it hadn't. Things like this made it difficult, though. Time was that you kept the beautiful maidens you didn't want being carried over the horizon safe by building walls to hold them and keeping stout warriors with spears ready to hand nearby, so that the only avenue to managing the act was a surprise attack by night and by sea. It was unheard of to find someone this desirable, a treasure of a foreign royal court no less, just... standing in the middle of nowhere?

But then, the way Angelesia had described it this type of thing must be very common indeed. Certainly it was possible that there were more clever traps than her scans of the landscape had noticed on approach. Or just as likely this Princess was unbothered by the possibility that her jewel would be stolen. There were, after all, systems in place for its retrieval. One could hardly blame a lion for assuming it was invincible.

Saber appears over the hilltop in an eye blink. She moves faster than any man or animal. Faster even than she had when she carried Diaofei on their hunt, or away from Bohemond's first assault. It's easier without her armor. It's even easier with the trickles of mana flowing in from the plants and the air around her into her legs. Where she steps, grass withers and insects drop. The winds turn stagnant. And Saber moves faster.

She pounces like an animal from atop a cliff, though she comes from the low ground initially. An elbow flashes into Fallweaver's stomach, to drive the air she needs for spellcasting from her lungs. She clamps a hand around her mouth, to keep the sounds that would alert any hidden guards in this singular moment of vulnerability. With her other hand she plucks the little black cat by the scruff to keep it from setting anything off or rallying a response. Familiars are not to be underestimated; no obvious openings to be exploited. She was asked to do a job in exchange for payment, and she would deliver on her end. It is the spark that will allow her to cash in regardless of what happens next.

The next moment she is turned and leaving, tossing Fallweaver over one shoulder and bounding on two legs and one arm, not the way she came directly but to a point she can triangulate her destination. More importantly she is moving deeper into woods, where it will be easiest for her to use hill and tree to fight off the inevitable response. But in the meantime if this Princess' troops wish to engage her and learn the ways they will first have to prove that they can catch her.

"Be honored," she offers in reassurance, "Though you are at best a tertiary objective in a conflict you are as yet ignorant of, in better times I would have captured you for the simple pleasure of your company. You are a treasure worthy of my best efforts."

Breathless Dead

"Bella."

Her voice is automatic, casual. She doesn't even look up from her crab. Not that she's eating any of it; she's too focused on preparing and fixing it. Her pinkie claw slides through the shells of various legs and she plucks the flesh out whole and unspoiled before she sets it on a plate near a heating pellet she cracked open when Ember wasn't looking. When the smell shifts she picks it up again and places the properly cooked leg in a neat pile on another plate, dips her claw in a jar of water, and then starts again.

Occasionally she picks up a bit of crab and sniffs at it with a frown. Overcooked, instead of under. Not that there's a lot of nuance to cooking these stupid rations, but still. These, she shreds to tiny bits and places in a bowl. When she's done with the rest of it there will be a chance to stuff these shredded bits in some old dumpling wrappers, where at least the texture differences will make the mistake pile more edible. Old cooking tricks applied to Ember's picnic instead of actually eating any of it. She won't touch a thing until it's perfect.

"Mosaic." she corrects herself.

This is a lousy date so far. Bella still hasn't looked up from her work long enough to take any real notice of Ember. The lowered ears, the watery, seductive eyes, the small gestures she makes with her hands: Bella sees none of this. The smells and the tone of her voice are impossible to ignore but those amount to all the physical presence her supposed girlfriend even has. She couldn't even say what Ember is wearing right now. Whether she's done herself up in the style of an Imperial Princess or a Ceronian Scout. She could be nude and unadorned and all Bella would know is crab.

"I don't care." she says, and the lie is obvious across every sense that it possibly could be.

She sighs.

"It's not like I hate the name Mosaic, ok? My sister gave it to me. And pretty much everybody's going to call me that anyway so it doesn't really matter if you're one of them or not. But Bella is the name that you... that Princess... it's. My name. It's the first thing I had that meant I was a person and not a, a," she snarls, "A product. And it's been twice now that the universe has tried to take it from me. Is that really a preference? It's mine."

She flinches, and looks up from the rations for the first time since she sat down. The scowl hasn't faded from her face, but guilt and shame are welling in her eye. What a fucking idiot. This is how you lose everything you've gained in life, Bella. Is that what it's worth to you?

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Naturally, Saber ends the conversation with a kiss.

It is a quick, rough thing. Hardly the stuff of romance or fantasies. But it is lip to lip and the surprising suddenness of it all will leave Angelesia blushing and stammering all the same. And even despite the total lack of passion it will also leave her lips tingling with the memory of the contact for hours.

No, not tingling. A very subtle burn, more like. This is another difference created by Diaofei's interference. As a King, Saber might have been inclined to use a moment like this to unbalance Angelesia; to flirt and make certain to pose in as provocative a manner as possible whenever Lancer wasn't looking with an eye toward winning the new Master's loyalty even just enough to create that one tiny opening when the time came and the alliance inevitably fell apart. It would be the same sort of trick she was attempting with Fluffymountains, only targeted toward a warrior (well, a fighter really) instead of a child.

But as a Valkyrie it was less important to secure victory herself than it was to acknowledge the valor of a chosen champion. And as an instrument of vengeance even that was almost meaningless in and of itself. So she has not sought a spark of passion nor of avarice. It was not even a gesture aimed at something so crass as buying silence to let herself slip away - Angelesia was plainly done speaking before Saber had kissed her.

What she had actually buried in Angelesia was a tiny shadow. A flame of revenge, though no more than an ember. Let it sink into her heart and there let it grow. Let it fester. Let it make her stronger, and in turn feed on that strength. One more to carry on the work. It was the only practical thing to do. The plan she'd been left with was a thing of a thousand what-ifs with a trust fall at the end of it. But this Master was a ripe garden with perfectly flowing magical circuits. If she could not guarantee a power source through the machinations of her alliance, she would build one of her own.

Wordlessly, she salutes the girl with her shattered sword. A witch dedicated in her mystic arts to the falling leaves and decay of the world into the stillness of the coming winter. A white coat, black hair with an orange streak. To be found in the place where her magecraft blossomed the strongest, and a summoner of monsters. More than enough to go on, and capturing hapless maidens for ransom was well within her skillset to begin with. Now, little shieldmaiden: train hard and steel yourself. Make good on your promise, one way or another.

With a flick of her whiplike iron braid, Saber turns and vanishes into the countryside.

Breathless Dead

She arrives with her own name still lingering on her ears. Everything is cooler now, darker, dimmer, duller, diluted. It's a welcome relief against the quiet sizzle of her own skin as even now waves of heat rise off of her in little hisses of steam. Stacked against the reality of her nightmare, this place feels even more like an unfocused dream than it did when she first landed. Her eyes long to flutter closed, her head to loll, her body to sag and spill out over the arms of her partner in this life, her heart to drift away on the currents of a long-distant river.

Anything to rest. Except that her ears are ringing: Bella, Bella, Bella. In Ember's voice: Bella, Bella, Bella. And the name stirs up the wind, and with nothing else to distract her all there is to breathe is the scent of effort sweat that carries her all the way back to long afternoons in the gymnasium and sleepless nights thereafter. Roses. Sweet, tender roses painted over salt and heat. And alongside them, a memory of a face. A hand reaching out to her so deep inside the armor of XIII that gave her the strength to pull free. A smile she thought she'd only seen in her dreams. And the name that goes with it all.

Dany. Dany, Dany, Dany, Dany. Re. Da. Na.

Bella stiffens. Her head lifts and her neck cranes, looking for the one who wears that face and mantle now, but there is no sign of her. There wouldn't be; she elected not to come along on the barbaric mission to doom an independent planet. There was only Ember. No. No, no, no, no. She can't. She couldn't. But... she is. Every breath only confirms it. The sounds her voice makes line up more and more. A princess and a child of the gods?

She's going to vomit. She's going to faint. She's. She...

She rises. Plants her feet on the ground, which isn't hard being so much taller than the one who's holding her, and forces them to be strong enough to hold her. She curls her back and wills the muscles to clench and pull her skyward until she stands vertical once more. Her body feels heavy and exhausted as she slips around behind Ember, but she stands tall against the tide of wolves and wolflings, and taller against the memory of the hateful sun. Her hand finds Ember's shoulder, and she squeezes it. Her second hand on the other side. A gesture of support, on the surface, throwing her weight behind the declarations of the bright young Ceronian and latest face of the Princess Redana Claudius (she sniffs again, quietly. Her mouth curls in surprise). But in truth it's Ember that's lending her strength to Bella. Just like always. Ever since...

"You're going to leave this planet," her voice is imperious, booming against the empty air of 'Portugal', "And you're going to take these half-lifted with you when you go. Find them somewhere new to be and teach them how to live with the bodies you've given them. Then you're going to fuck off back to Ceron and let them record the stench of all your failures into the histories, or else tuck your tails between your legs and go running from all the things in this universe bigger and badder than you. I don't care. But fix this first. You owe them that much."

Bella's head dips, just a fraction. Her eyes lower, and find the weapon that had killed her. Failed to kill her. Even now was killing her. She snarls.

"Dyssia. Pick that fucking thing up right now. I want to throw it into a star."