[b]Redana![/b]

"Oh, Princess... you may be wearing these [i]rags[/i], but that doesn't mean you can drool all over them," said Mynx, rolling her fingertips up and down Redana's burning-bright ear, ice cold against white heat. "I suppose that it was too much to hope that this place would have a gag worthy of royalty. Well, we will have to make do."

She leans in with a serrated smile, finger running up the place where your shirt used to be before coming around the back of your neck to tie Bella's handkerchief over your mouth. "It's such bad form to have to double-gag someone," Mynx lamented, "but I'm afraid it's the only way to protect your dignity. And besides, you're making so much noise through that gag already I think you're [i]trying[/i] to get someone to burst in here and find you like this..."

She leaned in close. "You're going to have to get used to this, Princess. You're going to have to get used to me be being someone who -" SLAP! Mynx's hand hits you, open-palmed, across the face, "- hits you. You're going to have to get used to me being someone who -" SLAP! Again, against the thigh this time, "- being someone who disobeys you. You're going to have to get used to me being someone who -" she spits in your face, and it soaks down into the already dirty handkerchief, "- [i]degrades[/i] you. I am going to be playing an extremely dangerous role in the presence of a singularly dangerous individual and the wrong," SLAP "[i]squeak[/i] out of you will doom us all. Do you understand, Redana? We're going to have to play a game. We're going to pretend that I am strong, you are weak, and Bella can't get out of those ropes." 

She flicked Bella's ear, and then petted it provocatively. "You see how good Bella is?" said Mynx, running her hand along Bella's tail as she circles all the way around. "She knows that she needs to be a good maid. She knows she needs to keep her eyes down. She knows she needs to keep what she's capable of a secret. She's going to let me do this -" Mynx tugged on Bella's tail sharply, "and [i]worse[/i] because that's the price she has to pay to keep you safe. You're going to play this game, princess, because the alternative is playing it for real."

She stares into your eyes, deadly serious, cold as ice.

[b]Bella![/b]

You know Mynx a little better than Redana, and you know her signs of embarrassment and stress. Her scales are rippling in what you've come to recognize as her version of a blush, and while her hands are cool as ice cubes against your burning face and ears they're warmer than they normally are. She's as much talking herself up to this as she is beating it into Redana. In her heart she's shy and soft as butter. Being able to flirt and project confidence like this is something she's been consciously working on for years, and you can tell how nervous this role makes her.

You have a moment to reflect on this before a trapdoor slams open and a goddess emerges.

[b]Alexa![/b]

You've walked in on - something. The Princess! And Bella, the maidservant you met back at the Palace - what is [i]she[/i] doing here!? And there's a blur of liquid motion you're already coming around to face when -

"Oh, it's you," said Mynx tucking her bioplasma-blue glowing hand inside her sleeve with an air of faint embarrassment and letting out a relieved sigh. "The statue, right? Stand down, the princess is fine, I'm her bodyguard."

You know Mynx. One time she shape-shifted into you and stood directly in front of you silently for six hours before pulling a goofy face. And more, you know what she's capable of - the Toxicrene Temple was one of Molech's favoured instruments, for what better war than one where you controlled the leaders of both sides? She has a lot of strange tricks up her sleeve but all of them are useless against your lack of metabolism, so she'd only be a tactical threat if she was supporting a Trochidae.  

[b]Dolce![/b]

One of the problems of distributed intelligence is that it very easily lends itself to indecision - and so the Assistant Secretary slides back and forth at the end of the tunnel as its limbs all vote differently as to if they should stay or go. But you are soft and harmless-looking and so the octopus comes to the conclusion that it is in no immediate danger here, talking to you.

"Oh, very well," said the Assistant Secretary, one tentacle taking the initiative to pat you on the head and delight in the fluffiness. "Look. I'm out of a job, to be honest... what's the point of managing a dead leviathan's fear? Oh sure I'm still on the organizational chart and my office is one of the ones that didn't get shattered when the ship came through but that doesn't mean I deserve to be here. My position has been destroyed and now I need to grow a backbone," funny. "and decide what to do with myself. Do I take a voluntary redundancy and return to the spawning depths? Do I transfer into a new position? There are so many vacancies, how do I decide what I want? What if I don't like it there? What if I need to [i]apply[/i]?" it groaned.

"Help me out, little sheep," lamented the bureaucapus. "What should I do with myself? Retire? Start a new job? Maybe even go into the private sector and join a cancer colony?"