[b]Redana![/b]

The two old soldiers exchanged a Deep Look, and then turned their attention to their marbles. Hades' sky-blue eyes glittered with every roll and curl of the marbles across the rough dirt surface. Click, click, click - and now there were three colours on the field - an invading, encircling red, a static, defensive black, and a single pearl of white in the centre of it all.

"Far be it from me to contradict royalty," said Sands, taking the role of red and breaking black's formation. "But the promise of a safe return is not something even a princess can offer, least of all to one marked by Athena."
"After all, our princess doesn't seek simple adventure," said Leon, clacking a marble back into one of the chinks caused in the scattered armour. "She seeks [i]war[/i] as we once did. She's practiced since she was a child to fight, and who could stop her? Violence is in the blood of Ceron."
"A child of Hades," murmured Sands, pressing the attack, cutting a line through the formation of black and bisecting it. "Favoured of Athena. War and death. Does that sound like someone destined for safe returns and a life of peace?"
"Her mother doesn't think so," said Leon, sacrificing the broken part of his formation to scatter several of red's threatening marbles, limiting the vectors red can attack from. "Her mother gave all of our lives in service to the Empire. Her mother rammed the [i]Lupincas [/i]into the brow of the World Eater, and when we awoke in Elysium she had us forswear the Lady Athena."
"We had done our duty, she said," said Sands, making a last doomed attack on the still-too-solid formation. "Athena and Empire can ask no more from us, we who slew the leviathan with our dying breaths."
"She will not react kindly to Athena's attempt to snatch her daughter away to perish in the endless war of stars," said Leon, perfectly striking away the last few feints of red and ending the battle with the precious white sphere intact and immaculate. 

Hades looks you in the eye - and as he does you can see Athena's frustrated hand pulling away from Sands' red - and a victorious Aphrodite smiling a scowl in black. It is Aphrodite who has been invoked by Queen Hatchan as her daughter's gaoler. It is Aphrodite who will work against you with all his viciousness if you try to rescue her.

(And by the same token... you might not be Athena's only piece on the board)

[b]Alexa, Dolce, Vasilia![/b]

The shuttle flies into the Leviathan's interior. The splendor of the crystal sun ignites the world; the impossible mangroves and cascading waterfalls alight for you as they did for Redana - but your vision is not as pure as hers. Imperial shuttlecraft are here too - huge and brutal, rectangular shapes that speak of uncompromising strength, defiant of concepts like wind resistance. They maneuver like shopping trolleys but bristle with solid projectile cannons that open fire even though they are out of effective range. Shells fall short, shattering trees and sending explosions and gouts of blinding, poisonous gases into the air. 

The make and aesthetic of the Plousios shuttlecraft isn't Imperial - it's stranger, sleeker, older, a device that somehow speaks to the ocean as much as it does to the void. You can guess where Redana has gone but there is a lot of distance between you and there, especially if you want to delay King Jas'o's landers from settling there and deploying their phalanxes.

[b]Bella![/b]

It's only through your hand, so close to Mynx's jugular vein that you feel the dizzying pounding of her heart. She almost keeps it off her face entirely but when she tries to speak it's from a dry mouth and it comes out as an inarticulate squeak. When you pull her up she stumbles trying to keep her unfamiliar legs underneath her. It's not often you get to leave the shapeshifter totally speechless, totally defenseless, but you've done it here. Payback for the poisoning [i]indeed[/i].

"I don't know why -" she starts, and then stops, and swallows. Didn't even have the courage to finish that one this time around. She tries humming a few bars of the Admiral's theme song as you walk across the hangar bay to help focus her head a bit.  

Then the Codexia almost cartwheels out, pointing her spear at you, perfect smile gleaming so white it's a bit like looking at an engine wash. Codexia make a... sound when they move, like a '!' sound, like an action hero in a cheap drama might make when appearing on a scene unexpectedly. "Halt!" she said, cupping her chin with an L-shaped hand to further emphasize the gleam of her smile. "Admiral!" she said. "Catgirl!" she continued. "Death priest!" Ivory Smile gave a nervous little wave from the background. 

"Codexia," said Mynx, hand half straying up to touch her mouth.

"Admiral!" the Codexia repeated.

"Codexia...?" Mynx said a little more firmly.

"Thoth, Admiral!" said the Codexia.

"Codexia Thoth," said Mynx.

"Admiral Odoacer!" said Codexia Thoth.

"Go away," said Mynx.

"Okay!" said Codexia Thoth, saluting and stepping away.

Across the hall you can see Athena storming towards the Codexia with fury in her grey eyes - and then you see her stumble, trip, and fall to one knee as her legs entangle in red ribbons. She turns her spear upon them in a fury - and Aphrodite by your side mutters, "Go. Now."