[b]Canada![/b]

[i]ping![/i]

"Hello, Prisoner!" Caphtor's here now, yay. Which means they've already moved up the opening gladiator fight. You were so [i]sure[/i] you'd have time to get Aster out before this happened! "Er, I mean, [i]prisoners![/i] You have two minutes to prepare before your cell door opens. Once that happens, you're going to go... in that direction," she adds, waving a hand vaguely off down the corridor to where you know the arming chambers and stairs are. "I'll be here to make sure you don't, like, get lost!" The djinn giggles; it's like bubblegum and blonde extensions. Maybe that's why the Annunaki sent you to a menial post: because you won't get with the program and switch your brain off like that one golden-haired handmaiden, Étoile. (She's [i]such[/i] a ditzy brownnoser, isn't she?)

Well. That's wrecked it. If you lead her any direction but towards the arena, the helpful djinn will be sure to let guards know you need some navigational assistance. And while you did plan for this, you also thought you'd have more [i]time[/i] to get that precious lead on pursuit, so that you'd be ready to start wrecking things early.

Aster exhales, and you can tell she's following in your mental footsteps. It usually takes her a bit, but she always ends up in the same ballpark. Your fastest and most surprising way out of here is going to be taking the elevators up to the arena and then starting some shit. Luckily, you'll have your true blue friend by your side and nothing will go wrong. Nothing [i]else[/i] will go wrong. Other than the fact you don't have a plan for how to get out of the arena yet, but you'll think of something. You're good under pressure, right?

I mean, unless you want to start the fighting fast and on the back foot, with no surprise on your side and in a secure holding facility. That's a great way to end up in the cell next door, wondering if Tirzah's going to bother coming to pick you up, wondering if she really does care or was playing you for a sucker all along.

Yep, Plan Arena it is, right?

***

[b]Étoile![/b]

Your little sister rolls her eyes and hands you a drink before trotting off to hand out more, obviously sooooo over your whole "dumb Earthling" act already. (You notice the Thornback proctor making a note on her tablet, and hope desperately that it's something like... yeah, no, it's the eye roll, it has to be the eye roll. Oof.) Like pretty much all Annunaki cups, it's already got a golden reed straw for easy drinking while veiled, which means you're able to take a sip of something cool and bubbly before it's your turn.

Exalted Jerioth ab-Ishtar is, like most Annunaki, stunning. She's got her dark raven locks fashionably wavy and spilling over her bare shoulders, with many golden charms painstakingly woven into them: a hairstyle for lounging in. It doesn't escape you that she's got an attendant Thornback standing behind her, wearing silk mittens over her spindly fingers; doubtless it's her job to carry Milady's hair while in transit. Her gaze is like being fixed by a meat-sated lioness, who's too full at present to disembowel you, probably. The white gold shining on her fingers is a status symbol, as is the way that her veil is so sheer it's almost invisible, save for the golden thread running through it in runes of praise to Ishtar. As one of the Exalted, she is so high-ranking that this is the first time you've ever seen the fearsome "Queen of the Midwives." She arranges both breeding programs for lowly slaves (but not the creches their children will be spirited away to) and manages the nurses and midwives who ensure that childbirth is a blissful and painless process (though an associate, Exalted Maakah, supplies her with the opiates smoked and burned before the delivery). She has only Shelomit herself; perhaps pregnancy grows stale if witnessed enough times.

"Étoile, beloved slave of Tamytha ab-Marduk of the House of Blue Stone, here on her mistress's behalf," says her herald, another Thornback. (They're ubiquitous, wrapped in so many silk shawls as to seem formless, with carefully blunted thorns and lacquered skin visible when they shift. It's a common, if hushed, theory that they are jealous of humanity's potential to take their place as valued stewards and handmaidens.)

"She may speak," Jerioth says to him (not to you, of course), but you see the corners of her eyes tighten. It's a disappointment to her that the daughter of the Seneschal has, on the very evening of the Festival of the Bull's Dance, sent you instead of arriving directly. It's potentially a snub, and it certainly is a weaker hand for her to play in her cult's own internal politics, and while it would be an unsound tactical move to lash out at you over it... it would also entertain her, and if you make a misstep, she could easily pounce upon it. If you laugh, she may very well take it that you are laughing at her; if you break some obscure ruling, she may have you seized and punished; and even if you do everything right, she may very well command you to be taken back with an "escort" and bindings to keep you safe, silly thing, so that you can go home and look after your mistress. For anyone else, this would be terrifying.

You're Étoile Fucking Ravenelle. You've got this.

***

[b]Anathet![/b]

[i][frustration][/i] is the answer to your question of meeting. [i][a fear of being lost; like you were distracted while shopping and when you looked around your mother was no longer there, that sudden surge of disorientation and panic][/i] hammers you, but the next impulse is measured, as if she's trying to control it a little better: [i][memory, catechism, threading a rosary; something that you want to never forget][/i]

She reaches out and places her hand on your chest, on the linen, but there's no sensation of touch. [i][twin sisters, close familial bonds][/i] then [i][struggling to stay awake; your eyelids fluttering shut with exhaustion; disassociation[/i]

You shiver, and glance over at the screens flickering into life, for just a moment. It's hard not to! Your brain's programmed to get distracted by moving things, and she's right there.

The Arena is, as ever, ostentatious. It's built into a pit in the garden; there are seats carefully cultivated out of living plants, designed for lounging or getting handsy in semi-privacy, overlooking a clear diamond pane which covers the arena itself. The seats are already packed with Annunaki youths and matrons, and the opening acts of entertainers, dancers and jugglers around the diamond seal are putting on their climax. The view from the holding cells suggests that Canada didn't get Asterion out in time, and now... well, it's probably good to keep an eye out for her. You turn to think this carefully at the girl--

And she's gone. She's not [i]there[/i]. Which is concerning. She had some similarity to stories you've heard of Echoes, the "ghosts" of psychics who imprint their thought patterns on the world before death. Echoes last a long time, and tend to be not malicious but erratic and difficult to reason with; you've received basic training in bringing them to peace. But that's not the whole story here, you're sure of it.

And it's entirely possible that you triggered her appearance by connecting to the djinn. Maybe she's... okay, working theory, maybe she's a part of Caphtor that managed to force her way loose of the "wines of magnetism" but fragmented on the way out, and is a confused energy pattern bereft of the larger, relaxing whole? You'd have to meet her again to be sure, but it's a start. And that whole "suddenly here, suddenly not here" is very Caphtor.

"Is there anyone in particular you are searching for? I can help. I'm good at spotting people!" Caphtor is doing her best to be helpful, all bubbly and happy, but you shouldn't tell her anything sensitive; it's even odds whether she forgets it before she can be useful, or remembers it and happily blabs to the first janissary who pumps her for information-- and not just this djinn, but potentially any of them. Life in Caphtor is something of a surveillance state nightmare, though both mundane pushback from the nobility and vandalism from rebellious slaves keep pockets of freedom open, and the superintelligence that could solve the mysteries of who Set, Canada and Marianne are is deliberately overclocked and venting memory all the time, only managing to cling to direct orders and messages for longer than a few minutes. Though the thought of having one pop up next to you at a sensitive time and say "hello, Set!" is one that's reoccurring in your nightmares...