“So. Admiral Odacer has some...strong preferences regarding her prisoners.”

“She explicitly mentioned gags.”

“And chains. Twice over. For that cat-whoever she sent, too.”

“Who she is...very excited to see again.”

“...”

“...”

“...I don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on. Do you?”

“Not at all.”

“But that’s bad, yes? A lusty Admiral with an army of loyal hounds? Not an ideal situation?”

“Not at all.”

“Okay! Yes. Something to start with. We make for the palace, arrive before them, rescue everyone, sail off into the sunset. How does that sound?”

“I think there may be some missing steps.”

“And it is our job to fill them in as we go. Come, come! They’re fast for old dogs.”

Vasilia tossed Dolce his sword, and raced off without another word through the now-abandoned village. What choice did he have but to follow in silence? The talk was over, the job had begun, and he'd been equipped for service.

If he didn't want to suffer yet deeper shame, then he'd better make it work.

Princess Epistia!

You were raised godless.

You did not know the sacrifices. You did not know the rituals. You did not know how to build relationships with the forces underpinning reality. But every so often you touched on something dark, a ball of fire blazing at the heart of the artificial instinct-cluster that ran right through your mind. Were the Hermetic Iskarot to extract your brain and reveal the neuronic pathways carved by the marvels of bioscience he could tell you that this was not just an organ for processing data: it was a temple.

The scent of blood wet the altar of the nose. The torches were ignited in turn, belching forth heat and rage. The ache of muscles and adrenaline came together in silent hymn. Each breath was tinged with incense. You have seen hints of this power in forbidden training bouts - in the arms of practice partners broken, in slips of blunted blades that cut just too much, in rivals whose eyes lower at the thought of challenging you to a contest of strength. But now it is all alight and you stand as graven effigy of Bloody-Handed Ares. You don't know who these foes are. You do not need to.

You raise your scythe and you descend upon the phalanx as the rain begins to pour down. The Thunderbolt soars from the bowstring of the King and you reflexively lash out and catch it on the sharp of your scythe blade. It shatters in a thunderclap echoing the thunder from above, scythe and arrow both. Shards of white-hot metal embed in enemy shields and your own flesh, and still you come, mind running crimson. It's not the celestial mechanics you see, Athena's marvels of lines and force and discipline - it's the music of human hearts. It's not equipment and strength, not numbers or training, but fear. You smell it like sizzling fat burning atop the altar of your weaponized brain and you lunges for it like a starving animal.

First blood is theirs - cuts slash across you as you enters the thicket of spears, opening your veins up like a puzzle box, red mixing diluting amidst the greys. But not every hand here is strong. One pair flinches as you charge towards them and that is the opportunity you need. You lunge across the top of the shield and take the woman's throat in your jaws. It's enough. You're in. Like a blood-mad fox in a henhouse you rage. This is your place. Ares' temple can only exist in the ruins of Athena's.

And then it ends. You're in the dirt again, Thunderbolt through your chest, at the feet of the King. You have left her mark. The phalanx is reeling and you have many companions to lay in the mud alongside her. Was this your life? Two decades of preparation for this abrupt and violent end? As brief and terrible as the fire that consumes a great house and vanishes at the conclusion of the act. You breathe still, but slowly, and through great pain. Zeus' will triumphs even here.

Bella, Redana!

There is a moment when the King is unshielded by his soldiers. He is still an armoured warrior tall upon the battlefield, so he cannot yet be Finished - though now he is vulnerable to being distracted and overcome in the preparation for that moment.

"I am dealing with matters of importance, princess," King Jas'o snarled, hand hovering above the next arrow in his quiver. "And I do not care how many of your fucking pets I have to put down in order for you to get the message. You're going to do one useful thing in your life, and your only choice is how many bodies have to pave the road there."

Alexa!

For all Galnius' pride as a hoplite in service to the Empire, they have no great wish to face Jas'o in this moment. Even the bravest and proudest women recognize when the gods have made their will clear, and the message sent by Athena was clear: King Jas'o was to have victory after victory upon this day. When you advise retreat and avoidance it's Athena who stands steely-eyed in the other direction, offering death with four hands. It's not honourable to shy from such a fight, but neither is it unthinkable. These are just humans, after all.

Instead they storm into the Palace on your command, cutting through the dull-eyed Ceronian zombies who try to block their path. Two of them overturn feast tables and slam them against the doors as barricades. Another roughly hacks the Thunderbolt from your foot with a hand-adze - it's a clean penetration, not requiring the complex surgery a direct torso hit would require. All around these soldiers are braced for a storm.

And it comes - the door flies open, and spears rotate smoothly around to focus on the sudden noise. In comes a startled looking sheep and a grim looking lioness - Vasilia and Dolce - and the soldiers relax, exhausted, falling and catching their breath in the moment's reprieve.

Bella is halfway to pouncing in an instant. She's risen to one knee before she even notices her response, and on the hand she isn't using to support Redana her claws are extended on each of her curled and straining fingers. All of her fur is bristling horribly and her tail is snapped back so straight it hurts. Would that the gods had granted her the power to hide her own agitation, but alas, they played no role in her creation at all. A scowl darkens her features as she clenches her sharp teeth tight against one another, powerless to keep the low growl out of her throat. Her eyes shine with lethal golden light, locked on Jas'o for the first time.

But then her gaze slips off of his chiseled form (there is a permanent stink of thunderbolts that will cling to him for the rest of forever. It is worse by half than being next to the Nemean) and heroically handsome face to the quivering fingers already reaching for his next deadly shot. Her heart catches in her chest. She turns her head, sight sliding downward, and beholds Princess Epistia properly for the first time.

Thunderbolts are awful weapons. Of all the tools humans have been granted to kill with, they may well be the worst. There's no blood spurting from that wound, but it must be spilling all over her insides. She reeks of burning skin and fur, and...ugh. Just look at the way she twitches. Lying there, calm as death, until the spark sets her abdomen to spasming, convulsing, arcing through her skeleton and bending her spine until surely it must break? It'd be a kindness to tear out her throat.

The corner of Bella's eye grows wet with tears. She slides smoothly to her feet, lifting Redana up by the butt until she can wrap her arms around Bella's neck and gingerly supporting her wounded legs with her previously free hand. With nothing to stop her tear, she has to suffer to let it roll slowly down her cheek and dangle from her chin until it finally, mercifully drops onto her Princess' stomach. She draws herself to full height with deeply practiced poise and restraint, her prizes from a lifetime's worth of lessons and floggings.

"No, King," her voice is as polite and level as it is in almost all of Redana's memories, "Her Highness' choice is not for you to make. Not you, not the Admiral, and not any other traitor to the throne."

The princess detests blood. And she hates foul play even more. But surely she'll understand just this once? Bella digs her heel into the ground and spins sharply, raking her other foot across the ground before kicking in a wide and vicious arc. If the debris here is more dangerous than usual, Jas'o has only himself to blame: bits of cracked stone, fragments of a hoplite's shield and shards of broken scythe, and a bit of mud besides all spray indiscriminately toward the King's face. Maybe it'll be enough to make him bleed. She can only wish the Ceronian pup's last gasp would be enough to blind him. But all she needs is one small flinch, and for Jas'o to shut his eyes.

She turns and runs deeper into the city without a moment's hesitation, her boots squeaking and sliding across the rain slicked stone streets. Hers is a pedigree of a champion. Her stride won her the laurel wreath in the Olympic Games her princess missed. Every rough step forward is another fresh explosion of momentum that can't help but jostle her charge violently, but speed is more important than comfort. She darts agilely first this way and that, and disappears around a corner into an alleyway.

"I promise Milady," she breathes in between steps, "I promise I'll keep you safe."

Alexa stares at Vasilia, a knot forming in her gut and the breath catching in her throat.

"What happened?" she does not say. It is there, poised on the tip of her tongue, but it is fighting with all the other things trying to get out: I am so sorry, I should have been there, You should not have had to face whatever did this to you alone, This is my fault, If I had not disobeyed I would have been there to help you, I am so sorry, and on and on forever.

And the look on the poor sheep's face, he knows it. She will need to do something special for them both to make up for today. Hera and Zeus, what must be going through his mind right now?

Hades, she's waiting. Alexa forces a swallow, before offering a gentle "Many thanks," to Galnius. They have done more than their fair share.

Her leg twinges with every step, but she is not allowed to show pain. She must be strong and graceful, no matter how her ankle screams for bronze to fill the hole. Just long enough to cross the room. Five seconds, or maybe a millenium, that is all.

Her parade rest is perfect, because of course it must be, no matter how she wants to scream when she meets the captain's Hades-cursed vision. "Jas'o is with Redana," she reports, "and I must advise against confronting him in this moment. Athena has ordained his triumph, and he is"--do not look at the new holes in her stone, please--"an expert shot. Instead, Hera has commanded that we find and coerce a minor bureaucrat to move this titan from its space. It is a good tactical decision, if for no other reason than to remove the Armada from the equation."

She pauses, and follows up with, "What would you have me do, Captain?"

The command seal is livid black and red breaking the cream of her skin, spread over the back of her hand. It is fully subdermal now, a twisted and delicate thing of Protohermaic script in gleaming metal. Redana has no idea how long she has until her theft of it is discovered. Maybe the wardens are already on their way.

“See this?” She pulls her glove down and Bella recoils, her tail stiff and her eyes wide. “It’s a command seal. I can use it to tell the statue at the door to help us steal a ship! She’ll take us to the hangars, and then we’ll go see the stars. The stars, Bella! Imagine how many wonders we could see out there, how many new friends we could meet—“

Redana ignores the warning until it’s too late: the way that Bella’s ears lay flat on her skull, the sick and frightened smile that isn’t matched in her eyes, the tensing of her fingers. She’s just too excited. The crack of Bella’s palm on her cheek tears the words away, leaves her ear ringing.

For a moment the two stare at each other. Redana holds her blemished hand to her cheek, her mind a whirl. The Auspex highlights in shimmering orange the pressure points of Bella’s body for a painful, non-lethal takedown; she misses the way that Bella’s eyes flick wildly between the red mark on her cheek and the hand that planted it there.

“Take that, that thing out,” Bella finally hisses. “We are going to put it back and pretend nothing happened.” She isn’t clear what she means by that, exactly. The Auspex pops up a little picture of a frantically beating heart. So many distractions! Her cheek is still throbbing; Bella put her hips into the swing.

“Bella, please, we don’t have time for this!” In her mind the wardens are already at the door, waved in by the statue of Athena, here to help with removing the seal and assisting her to her room, where she is to stay until her mother arrives. Why can’t Bella see that? An adorably stylized princess presses her thumb against the flashing orange spot until the servitor slumps over with zzzs over her head. Another slams an open palm against the base of her perfectly fluffy ears and then presses two fingers against her jaw until the struggling stops. Redana closes her eyes as tight as she can but the horrible images keep coming.

When she opens her eyes, Bella is framed perfectly in the doorway, her tail lashing, her chest heaving. “The Empress said to keep you safe,” her Bella says, crumpling and kneading her apron. “Even from yourself...”

***

“You scaredy-cat!”

Redana hauls herself up using a bell strap as a handhold. She looks terrible. Her hair tie has given up the ghost, her breath is shallow, and her pallor makes her look like she’s put on her paint for the Festival of the Honorable Dead. But she’s not stopping. Her grip is firm and her mismatched eyes are steady.

“I made a promise, Bella! We have to go back!” Her boot hits a corner as Bella ducks into a side street and she bites down on the scream, burying her face into Bella’s neck for a moment. She still smells like home. She always smells like home. “Bella, please,” she sobs in frustration: at her body, at her servitor, at Jas’o. “We don’t have time for this...”

There was a terrible, terrible moment, where Artemis stood thoughtfully over Vasila’s shoulder, and all could see the equations running in her head. Bows and rifles. Thunderbolts and ambush. Ordained victory and the mission.

She was considering it. By all above and all below, she was considering it.

Then, the moment passed. Or it never began. Or it never ended, and she’d set it aside for later. Guess, guess, as if the answer mattered a whit. “I’d have you clean yourself up. You look like death,” she curtly replied, and walked right past her. Clapped her roughly on the shoulder, before moving on to Galnius. “So, your former Admiral; has a taste for chains and gags, does she?”

Beside her, Dolce winced with a shame she could no longer possess.

Bella!

Lightning reigns in the sky. It comes not in flashes but in sheets, curtains of power that cover entire directions in woven grids.

And then the storm comes down.

Stone shatters and burns. The winds prise the roofs from buildings. The Engine in the centre of the crystal brain pulses and writhes like a mad rainbow heartbeat. Zeus and Poseidon, the terrible scions of Cronus, voice their fury together. Stones lift from the ground and trees are pulled up by their roots. Great waterspouts form in the distance.

And of all this terrible destruction cast from the jaws of the natural world, one man has been chosen as the avatar.

Boom, boom, boom. Heavy Imperial boots are audible even above the pounding rain. Boom, boom, boom. A drumbeat in time with the thunder. He strings an arrow to his bow, halo of divine lightning crashing above his head, and Zeus herself guides her aim. She guides it so, just so - but just so askew.

Bella, the wall of the alley detonates. The building besides you explodes, slants, collapses. The entire structure slumps diagonally towards you, like a gladiator falling backwards after a blow to the gut. Thunderbolts are dire enough when used on living targets, but against mere stone and steel they are nightmarish. Normally it would be considered unthinkable to speculatively fire Thunderbolts lest you displease the gods, but in a city marked for destruction everything is a valid target.

Those boots stomp again through the rain. Boom, boom, boom. It's when they stop that you need to fall and brace for everything around you is about to fall to the mighty talons of the Cloudgatherer.

"Come out, Princess," called Jas'o. "Nothing you possess is worth risking my wrath this day."

Galnius!

"What?" said Galnius. "No. She's into gold. Everyone knows that. Wants her partners to come wearing as many necklaces, earrings, bracelets and other pieces of jewelry as possible. Why -" his face fell into soldier-default as his mind came up with a couple of possible reasons why "- do you ask?"

"Oh, now you care about keeping pr--"

The crack of stone is even louder than the thunderclap. Bella's ears clamp flat against her skull to drown out the sound, but it's a useless gesture. The city is screaming as it dies: the stone howls and the metal bubbles, scentless and burning brightly in the pouring rain. It comes down in curtains now, soaking through her fur and her dress and pooling inside her boots so that they squelch with terrifying loudness with every darting step she takes.

Bella's eyes are shrunken and trembling. Her scowl is permanent, teeth bared and clenched together so tight they look like they might shatter. She turns toward Redana with this same look on her face, her cheeks flushed and burning in a way that calls to mind a fever. And then she looks away, stealing glances over her shoulder and chancing to lift and bend her ears to lock down the sound of the stomp stomp stomping that signals a clear shot, and death. She spins around a corner and dives for shelter under an angled slab of a building that must have once been somebody's home, and can't quite make the line cleanly enough to avoid smacking Redana's leg on the way under.

She clamps her hand tightly over Redana's mouth to stop the scream before it can ruin everything. The scowl deepens for just a moment before it falls off her face entirely. Now she lets herself be vulnerable. Now she lets herself look tired. Her chest heaves with effort as every bit of her drips miserably.

She did not come dressed for a storm. Her shirt is drenched so thoroughly that it's clinging to her every curve like second skin, and where she's chosen to wear white it's gone completely see-through. Her top whisks water slightly better, but that's no comfort either: every breath sends rivulets draining into the space between her breasts and sending her into fits of shivers. Her sodden sleeves constrict her wrists like angry snakes, and even her bells are too waterlogged to sing their song; they rattle and slosh sadly when she shifts her weight to adjust her grip. Her skirts are stuck to her thighs tight enough that it restricts her movement. If she can't take a time to pull them free then her next great leap might even tear them.

Like this, her tail's too bony. Like this, her fur looks matted and unpleasant. Like this, her thick hair is bedraggled and flat and her artfully arranged bangs now flop gracelessly onto her forehead and bother her eyes. Is there anything less seemly than a wet cat? Her cheeks burn with a fresh flush of color, but her eyes are only on her Princess. Her Princess. Hers. Whoever the wolf girl was to Redana, she clearly never had what it took to be a proper r... R... Re... the thought cuts short with a growl. In any case she's dead now.

"Don't you understand how much danger you're in? You idiot! Jas'o's here for you! The whole Armada's here for you! Do you think it's on your mother's orders? Odoacer wants you for herself! She's going to turn you into her trophy and then climb you like a ladder to take the throne! She's already killed everyone else here who cares about you at all! So don't... don't you... don't call me a scaredy-cat! This is not one of your holos, Milady! And don't lecture me about time, I'm the one who's..!"

There's a rumble and a blinding flash of light that's followed by a crack of stone loud enough to leave a ringing even in ordinary human ears. The little shelter explodes and fresh sheets of water and stone rain down on Bella hard enough to knock her to one knee. She snarls and presses Redana close against her as she springs away into a twisted nest of streets and crumbling buildings with only the wrath of Zeus to guide her way.

“Mmmn mmfffr!!” Bella has a firm grip. Her fingers grip Redana’s cheek and jaw snugly, stifling further response as she lectures her princess on what’s going on. And of course, Redana realizes with a sinking heart: of course Odoacer is going rogue. She’s not stupid: she’s seen (some of) what the Admiral has tried to do. She knows she’s supposedly a prize. Well, the joke’s on the Admiral: she has no intention of being a damsel in distress today.

She grabs Bella’s wrist and pries her hand free, having figured out that just shaking her head was getting her held tighter. (The hand relents, but rests against her jaw and throat stubbornly, threatening to silence her again. Is Bella still sore over how Dany had to make sure she wouldn’t call for Mynx?)

“Then help me,” Redana pleads. “Together, we can do anything!” Even to her, it sounds desperate and childish, an echo of their games. “We can run away,” she yields, as Bella vaults an overturned cart, “but with Epistia, and Alexa, and Vasilia and Dolce! You’ll love Dolce, he’s so sweet and soft and...“

Aphrodite’s slender fingers undo a button, already twisted on its side and half slipped free by Bella’s exertion, and Redana glances down. Soft. Bella is soft. Not just her fur, which is silky and so good for running fingers through, but. Every step sends a ripple through her. Color rises to Redana’s cheeks as she stares, wide-eyed, thoughts arrested.

Bella’s buds strain against that soaked top, shockingly dark and firm. Why is the sound of her heart reverberating in her skull? She’s bathed with Bella before, she’s always treated her pet with respect and never treated her like a, like a concubine, or a trophy, she’s her best friend so stop staring and why does her mouth suddenly feel so empty? Why is that a sensation her flushed, hot body chooses to focus on?

“Hold on,” Bella says, and before Redana can react they’re already jumping from a high place down onto a lower street, and Bella’s hand is on the back of her head pulling her close and tight and the world is, for a moment...

Soft.

“So, your former Admiral; has a taste for chains and gags, does she?”

Huh. Genuinely didn't peg her as that, but perhaps it might be worth cultivating that acquain--

"What?" said Galnius. "No. She's into gold."

Oh. Drat.

And this is why she's awful, you know that right? Is because she's sitting here distracted by thoughts of good times when the evidence of her crimes is before her.

She bows awkwardly, and then springs upright again like a puppet with rusty joints. "Of course, Captain. I will follow your orders in the baths." One long stone arm snakes out and wraps around Dolce's shoulder. "Could I count on your assistance, please? I will require your aid in chiseling the spots I cannot reach."

And it's not a lie, she tells herself as she gently but firmly walks the sheep around a corner. She does need help to reach the nasty exit wound in her shoulder, and sanding and abrasion are better with someone else doing it. But the main reason is immediately apparent the second they're more than two corners away, and she can wrap the small sheep in a bear hug and squeeze for all she's worth, and let the dam of apologies come down. It's a babble of words that all run together, but "I'm sorry" and "What happened" feature prominently.

Vasilia didn’t bother watching them go. She knew a lie when she heard one. She knew what they’d be speaking of. And it was fine! Ideal, even. Maybe if Dolce had better luck than she, Alexa would finally dispose of the bowing and scraping. That song was old, and the steps wearied her.

“Because.” She fell into a chair and draped herself carelessly across the nearby table. “She just appeared, alone, took command of the Ceronians, and demanded Redana and one of the Imperial agents brought before her. Gagged and chained, very particular on that note.”

Is this making you uncomfortable Galnius? Be honest; you’re not wearing your good parade face because she’d saved your life twice over, it’s because you’re bothered. Does that make you a better soldier? Is that what keeps you in the phalanx line?

“Go on then, out with it.” She cast a lazy eye over him. “Why did you think I asked?”

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

Dolce, you will pull yourself together this! Instant!

You have a job, you silly, silly sheep! You have so many jobs. Much to do, much to do! How can you hope to get any of it done if you need Alexa to keep you from falling apart?!

So, just...just stop shaking. Stop leaning on her, and stand on your own two legs. Tell her you’re fine. Tell her what happened, and-

“She won’t tell me.”

And. Oh. That’s not-

“I couldn’t stop Jas’o. I couldn’t get the Ceronians on our side. I took too long to get back to her.”

Slow down! Get your words in the proper order, then-

“Everything’s gone wrong, and she...she…”

Open your eyes, you useless, useless-!

“She won’t tell me.”

Dolce. Please. Pull yourself together. You’ve got to.

You’ve got to do your job.

Bella!

They come through the storm in their hundreds. Spreading out, encircling, making use of every sight-line and observation nook and choke point they built into the bones of their city. The warriors of Ceron know how to wield their numbers and everywhere you look is filled with ancient soldiers and their ropes and slings. Not here. Not here. Not here. They know how to search. Trap. Consolidate. The sounds of horns and drums gurgle through the clap of Victory-Granting Zeus' thunder. Everything here is your enemy.

The wolves close in from all directions. Circling. Flanking. Threatening. And sprinting ahead of them at their fore comes their king.

The alley goes dark, light blocked by the sudden shadow that fills the entire exit. The silhouette ignites as a violet-blue arrow leaps to his fingertips. You duck behind a building and the building ceases to be. Through the rubble and the wreckage the King steps forwards to the sound of drums. Boom, boom, boom.

The world is shrinking. Step by step, obstacle by obstacle. Soon it shall be you, Redana and the King.

And then it will be Redana and the King.

Galnius!

"Because you're a pirate," said Galnius. "You're a rebel. You're a servitor who has ceased performing her function and has gone on to lay claim to strength and station that does not belong to you."

She speaks frankly. You are a hero, after all, and one does not dissemble before one of your reputation.

"So your prediction for dishonour and treachery will naturally incline you to find alternatives to fighting. You plan to seek Aphrodite's aid rather than Apollo's, and will attempt to seduce the Admiral to distraction. And I cannot help but recall the legend of the time the Starsong Privateers smuggled an entire phalanx into a palace disguised as harem dancers."

Every word hits like a sledgehammer blow. All of this pain, and suffering, because she was too dense to follow simple instructions. Had to fight! Had to glory hound! Had to be the big warrior queen! Couldn't wait for instructions, couldn't follow what she had, and--

And Dolce and Vasilia suffer for it.

Honestly, it's not fair that she can't hug him how she'd like. Can't wrap all four arms around him and squeeze until all the hurt and panic leaves. Can't just bury her face in his wool, breath in, and hold him until the shaking stops. Can't stop trembling herself, and hold on for dear life. But she can't. Needs to hold back, be cautious, be ever mindful of struggling, hitching in breath, anything to indicate that she's holding on too hard.

Still, even if it's not ideal, this is. This is nice.

Nicer than somebody like her deserves.

She gently pulls him in closer, and tucks his head under her chin. (His fur is so soft, it's not fair.) "Listen," she murmurs. "None of this is your fault. It is mine for not being there for you. Mine for challenging Jas'o instead of listening to Vasilia. We are going to fix this. And when it is done and your Vasilia is back, you shall have a boon of me. Ask what you will, whatever you will, and I shall destroy myself to bring it to pass."

The world is shrinking. It's squeezing her, crushing her, pinning her in place. The world is the stomp of angry feet and the cold of lashing rain and the burning of rubble that once was home to an entire people. The world is three sharp, looming walls doomed to die by Jas'o's uncaring hand. The world is the muted stench of whipped mutts pretending they are soldiers, the blinding flash of Zeus' triumph and the deafening clap of her victory roaring across the shattered stones and the weeping sky.

The world is Bella. The world is Redana. There's no more room for anything else.

Bella's body is tenser than steel. Her eyes are wild shrunken slits that gleam savagely in the flashes of lightning. Suddenly her back is hunching with the weight of carrying her princess all this way. Her chest heaves and strains within it's sodden silken prison, heavier and heavier, until she sounds like she's about to pop.

She lets Redana fall to the ground. Her tail thrashes and her ears flatten miserably as she watches Redana's head smack against a wall, followed by her back and butt. Only her legs touch down gently, and Bella is quick to rise to her full posture in the instant the princess is blinking away her pain. Bella reaches down with one hand until the sight of her jewelry talons makes her snatch it back. She closes her eyes. She forces her breathing to slow. She forces herself to be calm, be calm. She must be calm for what comes next.

"Fine then!" she screams across the storm, "Fine! If... if you love your new friends so much I know just how to reunite you! It's easy, right Princess?! All you have to do is sit here! And watch what happens!"

Her ears flick up and behind her immediately, listening for the sounds of feet rushing in faster toward the signal. The breakdown. It's good that there's so much rain. It means she doesn't need to worry about her eyes. She turns her back on Redana, bedraggled tail twitching with obvious irritation.

"...I'm the only one," her voice is so low that surely even Redana won't pick it up this time, "The only one who can keep you safe."

She leaps into the air and springs off a broken slab of wall. There's a shower of sparks as her claws slash through one of the only standing walls still left to climb, until she finally finds purchase. She scrabbles up the wall and vanishes like a shadow into the storm.

Alexa, you truly are too kind.

He didn’t ask for any of this. He made quite sure that he hadn’t asked for any of this. (No, his attention had been, well, had been rather focused on Vasilia, he couldn’t have possibly given any sort of signal to her.) Yet, here you were. Holding him when he was too lost to stand. Speaking soothingly when he couldn’t get his thoughts together.

Trying to take the duty he was too incompetant to carry.

Frankly, it was a touch...ah, worrying? The depths to which you’ll strive to steal this responsibility from him. Why would he ask you to destroy yourself for his mistakes? Wouldn’t that be the greatest failure of them all? He softly nuzzled under her chin - a perilously rough patch, for those with less natural padding - and eked out a relieved sigh. “Thank you, Alexa.” For what, he studiously didn’t say.

But don’t you see? He was well now. He was better now. He wrapped his arms around her as far as they would go, and patted her back. Once. Twice. The hug had gone on long enough, and you were free to let him go. “Let’s get you patched up, yes?” He offered with a bright little smile.

You’ve done enough. Now, it was high time for him to get back to work

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

Can you taste that? It’s an old recipe; powerful, yet subtle. A masterful blend of anxious looks shared between close friends, the scuffing of boots inching away from the firing line, the clenching of spears, of muscle, of breath. And it only gets better the longer you let it sit. And. Steep.

That, my dears, is the delightful taste of honesty.

“Mmmm. One of their finest hours.” Vasilia mused, eyes half-lidded, swimming in insults left unanswered. “So tempting, to let history repeat itself. You’d look fetching in silks and veil.~” Her eyebrows danced suggestively, and oh, what a delight it was to let Galnius stew in implication. See the gears turn! Surely, she wasn’t serious? Where would she get the outfits? Unless...did she have them on her person this whole time...

“But not today,” she sighed, and what a pity that was. “Something’s off about this Admiral, and I don’t like it.” And if they couldn’t see that, she was in no hurry to explain herself. “So instead, we move the Eater of Worlds, break her hold on the Ceronians, and rescue our Princess when they make a run for the shuttles.”

She paused. Frowned. “...tell me; what do you think? Should I add some more treachery? Have I sufficiently dishonored myself?”

”Don’t look at me like that, Bella. Shhhh. The King of Stones and I have a plan, and we’re going to save Tellus. Ow! Quit it! Bella, this is for you! I’m going to save you and everybody else, whether or not you want to come with me, now stop! squirming! and get! in! the! closet!”

***

“Bella!” The name tears her throat open as if made from splintered glass. “Stay, please!”

But she’s gone. Redana pushes herself up onto her palms and looks up at Jas’o. Being abandoned by Bella a second time hurts just as much as the first.

(Except it’s not, right? She’ll be back. She has a clever plan. She’s sneaking on board Jas’o’s shuttle, or preparing to grab him from behind and pull his weapon from his hand, to smack his neck and make him choke and gasp for air while she brushes down her ridiculous new dress and says something like, “You’re lucky no harm came to Her Highness,” with a sniff and a flick of her tail. She can’t have left. She’ll always come back. Even if she’s angry. She wouldn’t leave. She wouldn’t.)

“I’ll give you one more chance to surrender,” she says, blinking rain out of her eyes. Why did Mom have to ban secondary eyelids? “My cause is just. You don’t have a chance.”

Redana!

"Just?" chuckled King Jas'o, silhouetted in polar lightning. He looms above you like the shadow of Cronus. "You offer the gods justice? What an offer, princess! Perhaps you will allow me to make a counter-offer?"

He strode a step or two away, arms held wide open, looking up into the sky. "Zeus, Mother of Athena! I offer you a temple! I shall carve its pillars from the bones of a mighty planet! I shall fill its sacred fountain with blood from ten million sacrificed species! I shall populate it with a million slaves, and have them sing to your glory every hour of every day! I shall have a hundred barbarian kings collared and yoked, and together they will melt their crowns down into a great golden statue made in your likeness! Grant me freedom, o Zeus! Grant me freedom to travel the stars and make war as is humanity's birthright, as is humanity's purpose! I will carve from the bloody wreckage of the galaxy a new empire, far grander than the prison world of Tellus, and it will all be in your name!"

The King swung around and kicked you in the chest as fast as the lightning that filled the void. You fall on your back, splashing into the wet and mud as those heavy booming footfalls come towards you one final time. Boom. Boom. Boom. The final earthquake strikes you directly in the head, the boot of the king resting across your cheek as he leans down to look at you like a prize hunter standing atop a trophy.

"You offer the gods justice, little princess?" said King Jas'o, a wicked grin on his face as he pressed your face into the mud. "I offer them wealth and sacrifice and glory everlasting. Zeus blesses me with an army and victory after victory, whereas you cannot command the loyalty of a single slave. So much for justice. So much for you."

*

Vasilia!

Galnius froze for a moment. There was nothing there to righteously stand against, nothing for him to get morally outraged over. He clearly didn't like it. His Imperial pride was clearly looking for something, anything he could use to denounce you as a barbarian servitor whose orders and council he could ignore but it didn't come. And with the idea alone, without any evidence to support it and an important job to do...

He touched his symbol of Apollo, took a breath, and put palm in fist. He dismissed that pride with the focus of a votive. Visibly the haughtiness fell from his features and the scales fell from his eyes and when he looked at you again he was calmer, more focused.

"As you say," he said. He waved about and the phalanx's members picked themselves up after their rest, folding their spears in half so they'd be more suitable for tunnel fighting, and falling back into order. "The Admiral cannot be allowed to triumph here. We're ready to follow in your lead."

The corridor to the castle's dungeons were not far ahead, but you do not doubt there will be guards waiting for you there.

“Justice is what the gods demand![1] We might not understand them, but Laxarus[2] teaches us that the gods abhor injustice! At the end of every story, Olympus brings the scale of Themis[3] to rights, and the wicked will fall,” Redana does not say. She thinks it really, really hard! Bella would be so proud of how that semester of Moral Philosophy rubbed off on her!

What she actually says is “Blrmphl hkklkh grrhhhk.” There is mud in her mouth. There is mud on the Auspex. There is mud up her nose. Her fingers scrabble angrily at the boot but find no laces, no purchase. Her limbs flail like serpents, even the one scored by forbidden science.

How dare he? Here, now? How dare he when she just needs a chance to catch her breath? The Nemean will not come; the strain would kill them both. Bella? Aren’t you coming back?

Her fingers fumble through the incantation to summon Alexa, and... nothing. The seal beneath her skin remains inert. So she does need to do the chant. What a way to find out. She can hold her breath a very, very long time, but it’s still making her unpleasantly light-headed. She’ll be as weak as a kitten when Jas’o claps her in chains and drags her up to be carried back to Odoacer as a trophy...

***

[1]: ”But remind me, Thesaa. If justice exists outside the person of the gods, should we not worship it? For surely only that which is most powerful is deserving of worship, and a justice such as yours must be more powerful than the gods, if they abide by it. And if it does not exist outside them, then is justice merely the will of the gods in their judgment? If that is so, why does any one who lives bother to address the gods in the name of justice? Do they think that the gods will change their minds if we act like persistent beggars who keep pace with them as they go about their business?”
— The Testament of the First Teacher, retrieved from the Palatial Library of Atlas

[2]: Laxarus, The Comedy and The Tragedy (abridged edition, printed in Ka’anshou)

[3]: ”To Themis, the fumigation of frankincense and attar. Illustrious Themis Ouranopaide, be invoked. First flower of Gaia, virgin of many ramparts! From your hand we learned the first rites of prayer; from your lips came the first prophecy of what might be, should all align. You make the offering proper and the sacrifice just. Be present in this place, Themis Ouranopaide, and regard us with your shining thoughts.”
— The Ant-Rite of Hermes, translated from High Binharic, II.1-13.

A flash of lightning splits the air in fractal patterns of furious arcing electricity. It bursts across the sky, violent and fleeting, and for a single moment bursts brighter than the broken reactor this place had called a sun. Then it rips apart, as lightning always does, and plunges the crumbling ruins into darkness. A figure looms above the scene playing down in the mud and the alley; coiling, tensing, watching with golden-eyed intensity. There is a pause of exactly one half-second's silence. The thunderclap that follows is deafening. For one brief instant, you would be forgiven for thinking the horrible weapon of the King to be a child's toy by comparison.

These are not signs of victory. Zeus does not storm when she is happy. Jas'o crows and digs and needles, he asks favors and makes offerings and forgets that all his power and authority is borrowed and overdue to be returned. Perhaps he imagines that today is a sign he is destined to stride atop his Admiral and his Empress both. But he has forgotten his nature. It is not the place of tools or hounds to dream of such grand prizes. It is the brightest bonfire that burns down first. It is the tip of the spear that chips before the shaft. Unseen above the fray, Bella hunches forward.

And she leaps.

Bella is a living missile. She drops through the wet air like a knife, and just like a knife she twists herself to inflict the highest amount of pain. Her back arches like a rainbow and her shoulder curls to bring her right arm up behind her, bent at the elbow and all her claws extended, tense and quivering with anticipation. Her hip rocks back and her legs spread apart as though she was bounding off of the raindrops, the better to put her body's full weight and power into her strike. Her bells sing dully, drowned out by the storm, by taunts, and by justice. The chain on her collar writhes and slithers behind her with all the fury of a viper defending its nest.

Her first slash is vicious: it tears angry red lines from the base of Jas'o's neck and down his spine all the way to his left knee. Bella lands with a crash and a hiss, dragged down to all fours by the weight of her blow. She rolls on her feet and springs off of her hand without a moment's hesitation and whips her body around in a full circle so that her chain coils itself around that freshly opened knee. She springs all the way up to standing as if the muddy street had rejected her, and wraps her hands around the chain.

Her face twists into a wicked sneer, and she yanks the links up toward her neck so that they twist tight around Jas'o's leg and pull him off his feet to land with a wet thud right next to the princess. He bursts back up with a howl and a vicious backhand, but Bella rolls with the blow and takes his back. In a second she's crushed his quiver, and with it his hope. Jas'o stomps and yanks Bella by the collar. She drops willingly to the ground again but springs to her full height in another instant, raking her claws from his groin up across his abdomen as she soars.

Her chain snaps halfway down its length, freeing them from each other; the metal defeated by the power of his body. But disarmed, taken by surprise, in such close quarters, he's nothing compared with the iron will of Empress Nero that's been twisted into the shape of this servitor. Redana's first companion. Her greatest. The only one she needs. Bella whirls, and her claws turn the rain red. She slashes his chest, his leg, his elbow, and his eye. She grabs him by the mouth and slams him against a wall, squeezing and listening intently for the sound of cracking jaw over the storm. She lets him go.

The mighty King slumps into the mud without help. Bella knees quietly beside him and traces her fingers across his many ragged wounds as a tiny smile spreads its way across her face.

"It's such a sad thing, O King. Is it not? Your prayers were made too late; mine were made before you laid eyes upon the Princess. Guess Zeus liked my offerings best of all~"

Bella's eyes dart across the alley to the Princess. Her Princess, covered in mud, writhing on the ground and choking for air. The smile falls off her face. Her claws squeeze at Jas'o's throat.

"Stupid shit-for-brains king. You weren't worthy to touch her. But that's a mistake you'll never have to make again."

She snatches at his throat with her claws, and her hand and the fur around her wrist turn red. She stands and kicks his limp head with her boot, staring down with unrestrained hatred. The Empress sanctioned acts like this for exactly one reason, and he'd gone and kicked that reason in the chest like the great clod he'd been. She spits.

And then the venom falls away from her. The world is still shrunken; there is only room for two. She turns and crosses the space between her and Redana, hiding her bloody hand behind her back. And she stands.

And she watches.

[Finish with Iron: 11]

When Bella turns, Redana is already looking at her. And the expression on her face is horrified. One hand covers her mouth; her eyes are wide with shock; her every nerve is frozen and taut. She is prey.

She knows, indistinctly, that Bella was, is a trained bodyguard, a last line of defense for the greatest prize of the Empire. But she has never seen anyone die at Bella’s claws before. Never. Never ever! Bella Oystershell Meowmeow is a fussy little maid who’s always worrying and fixing her lady’s hair and blushing whenever someone makes an off-color joke and does a silly little trot in place when she’s flustered!

And watching that calm attentiveness, that worried twist of her lips, that demure lowering of her lids, slip back onto her face is sickening. Redana’s stomach plummets as if someone kicked her legs out from under her. Everything. Everything she thought she knew about her Bella was a lie.

Was she trained before she ever hopped into that box? How long has she been pretending to be her lady’s friend? Her best friend? How many lies has she told her princess, if she can kill someone and then put on the mask of meekness? Was their whole friendship a lie?

That’s why she didn’t want to let you leave.

No. No no no. Bella can tell something’s wrong. Redana can’t get purchase in the mud, can’t get up on her feet, not with one leg now completely numb. Her scramble backwards is ungainly, panicked, her fear palpable. Let her face a dozen hydras, or a legion of thinking machines, or a void dragon, just please don’t make her face the monster in front of her.

She can’t hurt Bella.

And she doesn’t know, can’t know, whether Bella won’t hurt her. For her own good. Jas’o is a crumpled mess and he was an ass and deserved punishment—

Zeus, father, was this the punishment for Jas’o’s hubris? Bella your thunderbolt? The words won’t come out of her mud-clogged throat. All she can do is gurgle and crack her elbow on a rock as the ground slips out from under her again.

Weak. Vulnerable. Pathetic.