All crowds have flows to them, you know. Everybody’s going somewhere. Lots of them are going to the same somewheres. Others, they’re going in the same direction for a little bit, and everyone fell into a little line that snakes its way through the oncoming rush. In ones and twos and threes and many. If you keep your eyes open, you can see it. The ebbs and flows of a hundred souls milling about, following the rules nobody’s really bothered to write down, but everybody seems to know anyway.

Kitchens were rarely crowded places, but you never knew what sort of events you might be entertaining for.

Dolce flitted through the crowd at an unhurried pace, yet a pace that never seemed to falter. Wherever he turned, there was always a gap, or a fresh flow of Hermetics all parting the sea around them, or a rare bit of open space. Without stopping, he followed after the Lady Demeter, no matter how he wished he could stop and rescue a few plates. He breathed a quiet prayer for whoever was on kitchens today, that they could get off with only a little warning.

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

Vasilia buries a scowl in her wine glass, yet left her eyes smiling.

“Hmph. Little yourself, short stuff.”

She takes a sip. Paused. Then another, to confirm if she’d tasted that correctly, but no, quite right the first time; rubbish. The worst sort of bad wine. A wine too strong, at least you didn’t have to taste it for very long. A wine too weak, you had all the time (and glasses) to appreciate how terrible it was.

Vasilia furrows her brow thoughtfully, pretending to truly contemplate the beverage in her hand, all while she furiously contemplates everything surrounding the beverage in her hand. Terrible choice to impress a guest. Not a punishment or a joke, or else Bella’d have given herself something better. Her eye had turned soft as she drank, so clearly she didn’t realize it was awful. But not an hour ago, Bella had picked a marvelous vintage from a whole lineup of top-shelf wines, so clearly it wasn’t a matter of bad taste. She had deliberately selected ditchwater wine to share with an honored guest, rather than any of the better vintages she had at the ready, and this had to mean something but for the life of her Vasila couldn’t begin to guess what.

Thank the fates Bella dropped her glass when she did, and dashed the mystery straight out of her.

At once, she too is alert. Through the room, through the air, no spacer worth their salt could miss the feeling of engines kicking up. Certainly...no, hold that thought, multiple engines?! “That’s not our-”

It’s all she has time to say before death comes for her.

She fights you, even though she has to know she’s already lost. There’s no leverage for her legs. She’s only got the one arm. The last of her breath is pulled from her lungs in jagged spurts as bones creak beneath your fingers. But she fights. With the one arm you’ve left her, she punches and pushes and rakes every inch of you she can reach. And though she cannot speak for screaming, her eyes cry out that she cannot die like this. Not like this. Not...not like…

The air rushes back with a choking gasp, and for a moment all her thoughts are on filling her lungs as quickly as possible. She lies there, limp, hand still clutching your shoulder and

“Ah-!”

Her whole body tenses under you. The gasps are shorter. Faster. No room for words. But you know the tongue she speaks. You feel her claws through your jacket, tightening as you feast. Taste her pulse on your teeth, racing, bursting, so near, so fast, so fast. And still you demand more of her.

Were you not satisfied with this, Praetor? Did you need to steal away the moment her heart needed to be heard too? See her now, beneath your palm. All that’s left is the eyes. This isn’t the brave, defiant Captain. This isn’t the dancing socialite with the silver voice. She’s just...her. A lioness you held in your arms, and now hold at your mercy. Flushed. Confused.

Hurt.

You never even learned her name, did you?

You walk away, and miss how all melts into indignation, blazing fury directed squarely at your retreating back. Of all the-! Exactly when did she say she was your territory to mark, or could you only hear the wine talking?! Brute! Drunkard! Sloppy, miserable, wretched-!

In an act of supreme defiance, Vasilia raised her head above the baseboard to spy out Bella’s visitor.

Redana!

You stand upon a beach alongside Lord Hades. You watch three figures sprinting away, heels kicking up splashes as they cut across the gently rolling tide, trailing their fine uniforms behind them in fragments. One blooms with blood as a spear bursts from their back and the other two come to a halt to first scream in horror, and then scream at each other. Like mad beasts these comrades fall upon each other with claw and blade.

Hades looks away. His gaze instead falls on the rushing tide of vicious wooden figures that pour in their thousands from a great nozzle twenty meters above the ground. His gaze traces up the enormous thing's form - spacer silver banded with gold, beaded through with the green weavings, branches enough to wrap the Yakanov and eat it like a tiger might eat a dog.

A tear glitters in the eye of Hades, and you feel regret.

The clock swings back further. It is drawn, it is called, it hunts. You feel reality click into place like it was made to be this way and everything else was but a dream.

Your auspex recovers first, though at first you are terrified it is broken. No, not broken - that it has reset to the standard set for it by Nero. It is flooding your mind with data in the way it did before it learned your limits. For a moment it's terrifying but then you realize you're handling it. Sort of - you're not understanding it, but it's washing through the back of your mind without crushing you. Perhaps it's like the ocean - you have learned you can be on the same world as the ocean without being made to drink it all.

But you don't need to drink the ocean to know it is whipped by a storm. The specifics flow in maddening detail but you know that the galaxy is at war, and that it is your will that it be so.

You sit on a velvet red pillow, the court shrouded from you by a red curtain veil. You sit on what isn't yet a throne with the legendary wolves of Ceron below you - guarding the stairs leading up to you, engaging each other in debate, pushing miniatures across maps of a burning world.

You look in the mirror and see yourself as Director Nero, pretender to the Imperial Throne.

Alexa!

"Keep your spear, Alexa," said Artemis, and terribly it was indeed pity. "This is a murder a year in the making and all the forms have been observed - and you have not observed Athena's forms of defense. Neither I nor she are positioned to help you."

She gave you a complicated expression, like she was compromising a principle as an act of charity by saying this. "It is too late to prepare, Alexa. You need something more... impulsive."

She folds her papers under her arms and leaves. In the space behind her are two choices. There is Aphrodite sitting at the bar, habitually flicking a broken lighter in search of a spark to light his cigarette. And there is Ares, outside in the void of space, grinning and knocking on the glass.

Dolce!

[Overcome with Grace: 6]

You try to make your way through the kitchen but you can't resist tasting a passing dish - and then another. How could you resist when it smelled this delicious? When everything smelled... so...

You try to taste another but it's snatched away from you. The chef crams it into her face like that is the only place it might be safe, and you find yourself reaching to prove her wrong...

The blow shocks you. One of the cooks has struck another in the last gesture either of them gave as a thinking entity, because after that both of them have their teeth in the same bone and are pulling back and forth and snarling like dogs. All around you the kitchen is falling into a frenzy - and as you watch you can see those who fight over the scraps are physically withering as though they were weeks starved. And you can feel that cold, consuming hunger raise inside you too.

The assassin looks over at you from the doorway, a broken vial at her feet and its scent is starvation. She gives you a smile and a wave, then closes the door and slides a bar into place, locking you inside.

Vasilia!

You raise your head to see an elegant horror.

The practice of bonsai is a traditional art for a genewright for nothing is less becoming than engineering an ugly species. So one begins with a plant, weaving it on a genetic level with precisely targeted serums and on a physical level with cables and wires. One must learn the tricks of scale, what the plant is capable of and what it will try to get away with should it be permitted. One must learn synergistic plants and practices; when moss will add to the beauty of one's creation and when it will smother its delicate roots.

For all of that, this is a masterwork. The leaves hang like puffs of clouds at the end of twisting branches, four distinct almost circular shapes. The roots are thick and strong and give the impression of enormous age. The plant's crown fades from green to yellow with just the smallest tip of fire red. All along its trunk mossy patches glitter with tiny flowers that smell far too sweet and strong for their size. There are a great many trials to create a thing of such beauty, and it is a great statement that the artist was able to do so with a plant that was to burst out of a person's skull.

Ivory Smile is dead. Through his brain and face grows this terrible bonsai, roots running in and out of his bloodless flesh, delicately falling autumnal leaves catching on his shoulders. He is dead but he still moves - and how he moves! He moves with a plant's carelessness towards pain, slowly and achingly, but with enormous strength. He shoves Bella aside and storms towards Vasilia.

The fact that Vasilia's name is engraved upon the knife he wields makes his intention perfectly clear.

Bella!

There are many shocks here. Seeing a human dead in defiance of Imperial law is not the least of them, but added to that a priest killed in this way? All mortals are called to the House of Hades in time and to commit this sacrilege speaks of a truly immortal hubris.

Another shock, though, is that this is a new way to kill.

You know so many ways to deal death - so many ways someone might hurt Redana. You've never seen this before, this arboreal zombification. How are you to guard against it? What are its limits? What are its capabilities? The Auspex is racing to find out but this is new to it too. It tells you what it can - the engraving on the dagger is sacred to Artemis, but when you look at the tree your vision flashes with the green of hunger and the blue of hatred and the name Demeter, Demeter, Demeter rings out in your eye like the thoughts of a fearful granddaughter.

You know from the chill in your bones and the sudden empty craving in your stomach that the Harvest Goddess personally wants Vasilia dead. And for once in your life you don't have a biological imperative hardcoded into your being telling you to protect her. You can choose to let her die safe in the knowledge that veridian craving will not then fall upon you.

Do you?

The sound of the moment is the sharp crack of bone and body crashing into a set of hardened synthetic wood shelves with an intensity even the Anemoi cannot or will not devour entirely. Bella wheezes, pain without air to express it with, and goes dropping forward onto her hands and knees.

Behind her, she feels more than hears some of her treasures wobble atop the suddenly unstable surface of their home. She turns her head away from the horror and the coming carnage to see the shape of her life falling apart.

She pushes herself up, but her legs stay folded uselessly underneath her. The shifting furniture soundlessly upends a pile of books and a box of assorted uneaten candies, but her attention is focused solely on the ancient camera teetering valiantly on the edge. She sucks in a sudden breath and then, as if that were the signal, it comes tumbling down to the ground. What's absurd is that she sees it happening in slow motion. The way that it spins as it falls. The delicate lense and the film ports glinting in the light of her sanctuary, sending her a message that she doesn't need an Auspex to decode. Goodbye, Bella.

It happens so slowly that she must surely be able to catch it. With all of her strength and speed? She could catch a dozen falling in the same breath! But she doesn't. Aphrodite takes her by the shoulders and stands her back up again. He dusts off her jacket for her. But even as he worries over her, she stands and watches the device fall and knows without understanding why that she was always going to let this happen. It drops to the ground without so much as a crunch, but pieces break off of it in silence. This far out in space, she has no power or resources to fix it, excepting the Hermetics she would never in a hundred lifetimes trust with such a treasure. Goodbye, then.

...The smell of the moment is sterile. Clinical. Perfect. Ivory Smile is utterly clean of blood or gore or any of the other telltale signs of death. Everywhere there should be signs of her priest there is only the smell of sap and dying leaves, without even the traces of soil that made plants feel so comfortable. There is nothing of sentiment here. The first human to take her side is gone. There is nothing of gardens here. There is death, and there is mastery, and there is the promise of more.

The feeling of the moment is fear. Bella's eye is wide with horror as her heart drums fiercely inside of her, perhaps to make up for Vasilia's. She watches the lunge, knowing Redana's replacement for her is helpless. Deprived of weapons, she saw to that personally. Still shackled tightly enough to hamper her natural athleticism, she saw to that as well. Lying on the bed, where Bella left her, where Bella pushed her, where Bella ordered her to stay, as unprepared as she might possibly be.

The deathblow is certain. Bella saw to every step herself. And yet, she did not choose the shape of the weapon. She had not called upon Demeter nor done anything to invoke her wrath. It's not guilt that crawls around inside her; she knows the sting of that disease as surely as she knows the coursing of her own blood. She feels no compulsion to help, even as her body tightens up and tells her that this is within her power too. This is a choice that she can make.

She looks away again, and there finds Aphrodite standing at her side. Silent and bristling with irritation as is his way. He gestures toward the bed. Well, Bella? Choose.

The Auspex lights her path as fast as she can pick it. The spots where her feet need to land shine golden in front of her, the hazy white death lines crisscross her target at her destination. Her muscles surge and spark with power as she crouches lower, and lower, and lower, flicking her tail with the force of a whip as her single sign of warning.

The knife is diving for the kill when she pounces. She comes at Ivory Smile from the side, wheeling about with a swift kick that would send most warriors sprawling on the floor. The assassin merely flinches, driving the knife deep into the bed no more than a fist's width away from Vasilia's ribs. It, or He, or They, or Whatever, twists the knife without reacting and wrenches its arm to slash at her instead. But Bella's hand is already moving, her claws are already bent and quivering with lust for the kill, and when she swings her arm she tears through his where she meets it, and the knife stays lodged in the matress where it is.

The Bonsai turns to look at Bella with milky, useless eyes. There are vines where there should be veins dangling from the stump cut short at the elbow. There are roots twisted around bones. Thick, sweet sap drips slowly from the ruined appendage, which it does not lift or spare a glance to. The assassin lunged again as Bella twists nimbly out of the way.

She has misunderstood. Ivory Smile's remaining fingers clench tightly around Vasilia's throat, and they squeeze. Tighter and tighter, with strength that couldn't possibly belong to his lanky and malnourished form. Tighter and tighter. End of breathing, end of life. Tighter and tighter. There is darkness here. Welcome aboard the Anemoi.

Bella's claws can tear through anything. Her Auspex shows where all things are held together by the will of the divine, and how they can be separated. But when she slashes, for the first time in a long time that she can remember in a fight, she feels resistance. It's like pushing her hand through a bog. Or a river. Her fingers tremble with the effort of staying dug in. Her arm quivers with the terror of what it is she's doing. Her howl of fury is almost as terrible as the grip around Vasilia's throat.

But then all at once it falls away. Air returns to you once more, Vasilia, rushing in like a lover come home from war. Ivory Smile falls to the ground in pieces, the branch growing from his head reduced to splinters. The hole left there is so clean it makes you want to vomit.

Bella stands there in silence, breathing steadily. Her lustrous white fur and the sleeve of her sleek black jacket are dripping and covered with plant muck and wilting golden leaves. She glances down at her arm with disgust etched on her face. But the way she looks at you, when she finally does, has none of that. There's an intensity carved into her eye, and her lips, and her jaw, and her ears that's made sharper by her silence?

But, if you had to attach a word to it? Then that word would be vulnerable.

[Finishing Ivory Smile('s corpse) with Blood: 10]

SING, O Muse, of the fury of Nero—
daughter of the virgin goddess[1], who brought upon her home
ruin. Many a noble man found himself cast down,
made a meal for the red jaws of her hounds.
That was good feasting they had at Hades’ table[2].

Her hair is up, wrapped around the iron wreath. Red Saber lies naked on her lap; despite the name, it is a wicked-tipped flamberge, gleaming like blood in the low light. Her armor is layered; the ornaments and gilded tabard belying the mail and padding below. The Ianuspater attends to its functions admirably: perimeter scan, war archival (entry: Ridenki, agri-world, supply lynchpin, subversion priority Alpha, theater ongoing for forty days, Theater Commander: Daimyo Mengekai.), aetheric receptor (entry: Demeter immanent. Hades, Athena in attention. Arrival: Artemis, among your commanders.), and second eye, burning bright when she looks at herself in the mirror and looks again because she is something between the Empress and the Princess. She is younger than she had thought. Mothers are ancient forever, unassailable, impossible to catch up to.

She twitches back a curtain, not quite trusting the Ianuspater, that thousand-fold jewel. Conversation outside stops, all eyes turn to her, and Redana panic-shuts the curtain again. But what is she doing? Like Mom would have been caught dead peeping out and second-guessing herself! Be the Nero you pretended to be, Dany[3]!

So the Director pulls back the curtain decisively and puts on her game face, looking down upon the assembly. “Daimyo Mengekai,” she says, one hand resting on Red Saber. “I have waited long enough. Present your proposal.” And Mengekai turns[4] to face her, Artemis by his side.

***

[1]: almost certainly artistic license. The only grandparents that Redana knows about with any certainty are the Castrate and the Sicklekeeper. The origins of Nero Claudius are a great sweep of imperial mythology, and the truth lies at the bottom of those waters.

[2]: the iconic opening lines of the Neroiad, composed three centuries post-Declaration by Avernon Septimus, Poet Laureate of Tellus. The uncharacteristically dark tone was made at the subject’s request; the sweep of the poem depicts Nero as receiving the blessings of the Olympians, and through each blessing, becoming worthy of rule.

[3]: “Come, Daimyo Beylaketan! To the Southern Reach!”

[4]: oh Stormfather he big. Resist the urge to challenge him to sparring right now. Or give him headpats[5].

[5]: we do not give Ceronian Daimyos headpats, Dany!!

The rescue comes. But did it come soon enough?

Her neck is ruined. Burning spots of red stand out against sickly, blotchy bruises, shaped by hands neither human nor servitor. Sap lives in her fur now, clumped and sticky and worked in so deep it may never come out again. She lifts a hand to rub at her throat, and there is nothing familiar in the motion. As the eye of the storm imitates stillness, torn in equal measure by winds of all directions, so too would a fool mistake the restraint for composure.

She doesn’t speak. She gasps - ragged, ugly breaths - and perhaps that is the only sound she will make now.

But ah! Fear no longer, Captain of the Starsong! Here is your hero! Shining with the glory of battle, clothed in resplendence and victory. Mighty of arms, powerful and terrible in wrath upon her foes. Does not the sight of her soothe your hurt? Can you not feel your heart grow calm in her shadow? What could possibly hurt you in the care of the Empress’ hand?

She reaches out, shaking with the effort...

...and her hand closes on the hilt of the knife, still embedded in the mattress.

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

Dolce cannot stop.

If he holds the ingredients in his hands, long enough for his stomach to realize what he’s holding, all will be lost. The moment he picks it up, he throws it in a high arc across the kitchen to land safely in a cookpot. What did he throw? He couldn’t begin to say. He was too busy somersaulting over countertops to his next destination. Where was he going next? An excellent question, he’d get to that in a few minutes, he was busy now. Go here, then there, then back over there, that was his job, and he had to do it, and he couldn’t ever stop.

Please, everyone. Please. He knows it’s hard, but hold on just a little while longer. He’ll be done soon. He’s going as fast as he can. It hurts, oh, how it hurts, the emptiness, trying to eat you up from the inside unless you eat first. He knows it hurts. Believe him, he knows. Please, trust him. Stay strong. Stay alive, please.

See, see, he’ll use what he has. He won’t make any more trips. What does he have? A bottle of it doesn’t matter put it all in. Some packets of he’s not thinking about that he’s too busy putting that in too. Stirring. Stirring. Just keep stirring, Dolce. Almost there. A little while longer. Almost there.

Gods. The emptiness.

Just...a little...a little longer...

His mouth fills with a heavenly flavor. Rich, sweet, dense and chewy, a little hard in places, no, hold on, that’s a spoon. Why’s there a spoon in his mouth? He looked down his nose and saw the rest of a long stirring spoon sticking out of his mouth, gripped tightly in both hands. All about him, he had the sensation of a crowd, of bustling activity, but perhaps, a growing calm? Or perhaps that was just the work of...well, whatever it was he was chewing. Quite nice though. He thought he ought to keep chewing, spoon or no spoon, and the rest of him agreed it was a fantastic idea. Everything else, he could sort out in a moment.

[Dolce makes it in the nick of time, rolling Overcome w/Grace at 7. Paying a price of his Vigor drinks, marking that off his sheet.]

To Alexa's credit, she only takes half a step back from the window. Which is good, since her legs are insisting that she should be tackling the pair of beauties by her side and bullrushing them down the corridor. They'll just have to clack together with the nervous energy and be happy with it, okay?

Gods. Join with Ares? Wouldn't that just be the ultimate betrayal for the father who worked so hard to destroy him? She, the ultimate expression of the Warsage's mastery, the embodiment of his martial techniques, turns around and invites him in, sinks into the madness of battle?

And with Isty right next to her! Next to an Ares-driven warmachine! Her mind floods with visions of what could be, and red is a prominent color in most of them. A blood-mad Pallas, standing over a broken furry body! Or worse, somehow, that they stand together, eyes alight with unstoppable fury! Who could stand against them, halt them in their course?

But what's the alternative? What can love to do stop a battle? She tears her gaze away from Ares' leering grin to stare at the bar.

...Granted, if there's somebody who could stop her, it'd be Isty. Not two minutes ago she was feeling how strong those msucles were, how that fur sits on top of layers of iron sinews. And Ramses--she's felt the adept strength in those tentacles. She'd stop her if Alexa went mad, right? Might even be an entertaining end to the eveni--

Her heart drops into her iron shoes. No, Alexa. It's thinking like that which brought you to this point, remember? Letting your groin do the thinking? What makes you think they even care for you? What makes you think you're worth--

It's peculiar to notice a silence. But the moment Aphrodite stops flicking his lighter, the way that little chk-whrr cuts out, is so quiet as to be deafening.

He's glaring, he's gotta be. But when she dares to meet his gaze, it's more than even her practiced face-reading skills can interpret. Anger? Pity? Frustration?

She's pretty sure there are deserts that are wetter than her mouth right now, but she pulls up a chair and strikes a match for the god of love's cigar.

"I." Dammit, what does she say? "I can't let them. Can't let the Alced go through that again. But I don't know how to stop them."

Redana!

Daimyo Mengekai - he should never have been a soldier. He was a creature of golden fur and faultless trust. His gifts were a smile and a kind word. If only you hadn't had to mislead him so.

"Of course, Director," he said and oh, so gentle! "Simply put, we reclassify this world as destroyed. We signal the Sowers."

And isn't this atrocity upon atrocity? A blood-soaked innocent, still naive despite the oceans of blood upon his hand - he believes you so totally he doesn't see a problem with extending your lies on to your last pure children. Like a drop of ink in the water your falsehood extends twisting tangles to corrupt everything without end. And yet tick, tick, tick. The number on the Auspex counting down until the Spear of Civilization is finished grinds down so fast and there's no time left.

The emotions crush upon you, the agony of racing against time and losing - but they're not quite yours. You can feel its colossal heaviness but the full weight doesn't stand entirely upon you. Something has gone wrong with the weapon - you're experiencing someone else's pain and your own self becomes clearer in the contrast.

Dolce!

As warmth spreads through your veins your ears pop - Demeter is howling, howling so loud you have spent minutes entirely deaf without knowing, and that sound was hollowing you out from the inside. But as calm starts to settle in the kitchens the sound starts to resolve and it's not a howl at all. It's a song, sweet and twisted, the song of a maiden on an island all the wet and raging things in the ocean.

"You want to sail - you want to stop
You want to thrive - you want to lie
You don't want to see
Let my hoe break your spine
Let my hoe grind your bones
Let my hoe till your soil
Till you're all just compost
It's the way you want it
It's the way it is
It's the way you want it
Come back next year"

The voice fades away until it takes up unwelcome residence in the back of your mind, a twisting earworm that runs deeper.

Then - Ding! Order up! The receipt from the service desk slides into the back and you hang it up on a peg on raw instinct. It's the glyph of Artemis, a black circle of ink like an iris - a simple and ancient ritual and message: You are being hunted. The assassin knows you have evaded her first attempt and she must now ritually appease the Goddess of the Hunt by giving you notice and a few minutes head start before she tries to murder you again.

The door out is still locked.

Alexa!

"What are you on about? You don't give a single shit about the Alced," said Aphrodite between puffs of smoke. It hangs preternaturally thick and heavy, spreading to block out the external windows. "At best you care about these girls. So just steal a ship and get the fuck out of here. Leave the others to die, fuck 'em, what are they to you?"

The smoke flows grey-purple and faded pink, curling and cascading, filling the whole room and rendering everyone else flickering red silhouettes. "You go to Athena for tactical solutions to military problems. You come to me to get what you want."

Vasilia and Bella!

Green light strobes softly somewhere deeper in the Anemoi and the ships silence and stillness begins to break and stir like rain on a stagnant pool. Distorted footsteps echo in the distance - heavy boots stepping on soft and wet mush rather than sound absorbent alloy. You are not in immediate danger but this place is not safe.

Alexa stares at Aphrodite as if he'd just suggested a small act of genocide and blurts out, "That is not true!"

Or rather, that's what she tries to say. But somehow the words refuse to come out, stick in her throat, steal her breath away with the enormity of the lie.

Because that's been the image haunting her dreams since Molech, isn't it? To get away. To beg, plead, and wheedle with Hades for something to conceal her from the gods, stow aboard a ship, and sail till she finds a place where "molech," "empire," and "pallas rex" are meaningless nonsense sounds. Somewhere she can be--well, be someone else. Not the Pallas, maybe not even Alexa. To reinvent herself, be free of the past.

It's always somewhere by the mountains in her imagination. A place with a chill glacier stream tumbling down the rocks, feeding across the hills and down towards the town. A farming community perhaps, surrounded by rolling fields and shadowed by a nearby forest. She keeps chickens on the edge of town, gets dirt under her fingernails. Tells dirty jokes to the other old women, trades gossip about how Samantha needs to work up the courage to ask Azucar out, does she really think nobody can tell, and aren't the two girls so cute together? A good match, meant to be, really. Mockingly wags a finger at the little ones, tells them there'll be no pie for them later if they don't stop running through her rhubarb now--because, of course, this hypothetical version of her is also an expert cook--and affectionately shakes her head as the rumpus careens further down the lane.

An impossible vision, of course. Even if she managed to somehow outbid the wealth of empire with the gods, even if she'd tracked down and stolen the seal, she knew that any attempt to escape could only end poorly for anyone left behind--comrades, lovers, anyone she knew was a potential collateral in her escape. Anybody Molech knew about could be threatened to keep her in line. And when she'd thought and plotted how to take Minerva with her--

Well.

The dreams never stopped, really, when she helped Nero come to power. She had her niche, she had her peace, and she'd have to be incredibly selfish to want more. So shut up, dreams, you're being inconvenient. Quiet down, bottle yourselves up, and let her have this.

But now, they blossom anew in her mind, painting an image in vivid oranges and browns. A larger house than before, with more stories and more room. Smoke rises from the chimney, steam laden with smells wafts from the kitchen. This is the house of a family, not just a spinster hermit, full of stories and memories. That would be Isty's room--and oh, what a twinge of betrayal that it is Isty, and not Minerva--and she could have that study downstairs…

She gulps, and forces out, "I. I do want that. Want to run and be selfish."

She winces at the burst of muffled anger from inside Ramses' tentacles. Yikes. Yeah, that's gonna be a conversation, isn't it?

But the Alced! And the planet! The engines whine, and she can hear it echoed in the back of her throat. She hasn't seen them in decades! She can't see them driven back to--back to what she and Molech did to them! Can't just stand by and let it happen for--for the sake of a quickie!

The door in her dream house swings wide, and a sheep emerges, carrying a steaming pile of food. He turns and says something through the doorway, though she can't hear what. He's not supposed to be here--not here, not wherever this planet might be--he has his own life, his own endings to pursue. But she lets him draw her inside, past the small shelves of dogeared books and various souvenir knickknacks, to the dining room and its simple wooden table.

It's larger than it should be for just two people. Vasilia sits at one end, gesticulating wildly at Redana. The two look up, and happily accept ladlefuls of noodles before continuing their debate. Isty buries her knife in the cutting board, and comes to join. Even Galnius is here!

She swallows the urge to reach out, to pull someone--any of them, all of them--into her arms and squeeze for all she's worth.

"I can't," she groans, and she can feel the words carving a hollow into her chest. "Cannot run. You may be correct--it has been long since I saw the Alced, and not once have I reached out--but there are others I care for. They--"

Are the first to care for her without knowing what she was? Tell stories together? Value her as more than just a fighting machine? Might--and it hurts to think, in case she's wrong--might just be the ones to smash the seal for good?

"Surely, the love of friends is just as important?"

Her ship is dying. What other explanation could there be?

The sound of the Lanternites scurrying about the corridors is deafening. Their small and careful feet make hundreds of tiny pitter patters across what should be dampening plastic compound. But the sound of it that carries to her twisting, twitching ears is the stomp stomp squelch of feet atop densely packed and sodden earth. Every few steps they stop with a heavy thump that makes them sound more like a phalanx of heavily armored giants. She can hear the grinding of their heels as they wince. Some of them even chance panicked whispers, which echo through the halls like trumpets played by serpents. Bella's teeth grind with the same frustrating audibility as she senses their panic.

Somebody is killing her ship, and these are its death throes. Her ship. Her people. Hers.

Bella squeezes her hands into fists so tightly that her claws draw blood from her palms. She should be worried about showing weakness in front of an enemy, but she isn't even looking. There's too many sensations assaulting her to care about anything else.

Ivory Smile's corpse doesn't even smell right. That dork should've gone out smelling like paper and vellum and sickening amounts of sanitizer. He should be huddled in a corner somewhere, muttering mystic nonsense to his depressing god or to himself, with his robes so starched they digging into his throat when he bends over. Instead he smells like sap and rotting leaves. Instead his robes are a disheveled mess. Even his stupid hair has been eaten through with roots and the gaping hole burst through his empty skull. Is this the way her priest is meant to enter Elysium? Who would let him through?

She tosses a coin onto what's left of his body. Inside her own, her blood boils and her stomach writhes. She was built to be a protector. The Master taught her a thousand and one tricks for pleasing her future owner, and for all she dedicated herself to perfecting them all she ever had to show for it was...

"Worthless brat! Do you have any idea how expensive it was to breed you? Get out there and make it back for me or you'll learn how many worse things than the whip are waiting in my closet!"

"Oh, you thought the song would be prettier this way? Is that right? The unsellable mutt without a single desirable talent thinks she knows better than the Master! How about a month with no food then, huh? Does that sound pretty, too?"

"You stupid. Little. Bitch. If I catch you fouling your mouth eating the rats one more time... I'm going to make you wish you'd never been born."

"You're lucky I'm a genius, you stupid sack of shit. Despite your best efforts, I've managed to line up one last audition for you. But I'm warning you. I'm warning you, you fucking disgrace to the gene pool, if you don't go home with them? I'm harvesting you for parts. Those I can sell just fine."

Bella heaves. Again and again she retches, but her traitorous body won't bring anything up. She brings a hand to her mouth and squeezes her eyes shut, where the cold smile of the Master waits for her in the black. His face is so folded with lines etched into his skin from all the times she made him angry that he looks more like the Eater of Worlds than a human. No, that's just what he is; his mouth stretches wider and wider and wider, showing row after row of teeth that could cut her to shreds without even feeling the crunch of her bones and she can't even scream, she needs to scream, no, no, no, no, NO!

The image bursts open like a box and in an instant everything is too bright. She's shaking like a kitten and trying not to cry, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry everybody knows that Good Girls don't cry! But the second face she sees has the most beautiful golden hair in the entire universe and eyes as kindly as Hera's and twice as lovely for their different colors. Redana Empress Nero pats her head and stands her on her feet.

"Do you love my daughter, little one? Mmm, mm! Of course you do! So honest. What a good girl you are! Well, how would suuuuuuch a good girl like to have a very special new job? All you have to do is..."

Nero's face sharpens into something that is not anger but could comfortably stand next to it at a party. She turns her back, and the air is filled with expectations.

"...Come back with my daughter, or not at all. Praetor."

She's standing in her bedroom on the Anemoi. The sounds of frightened crew scurrying on wet muck is omnipresent. Her eyes behold a dead human on the ground, a human, a human, dead in front of her, in defiance of the precepts, a failure, her failure, what if that had been---!

On the bed, Vasilia is watching her. And reaching for a knife. Bella blinks, and rises slowly to her full height. Her face twists into a truly evil smile, the kind of thing that the gods would capture so they could shape it into a blade for felling planets. Her laughter is wet, and hacking, and cruel.

"That's right, sugartits, you take that knife. It's got your name on it and everything. Have fun with the next monster that shows up to kill you, ah! Just... don't forget to scream. I don't wanna miss the show."

She turns on her heels and stalks out of the room before the wetness can show in her eyes. There's silence for almost a minute before the hallways around the room fill up with the sound of furious howling and the scream of rending walls.

Her back was exposed. One simple toss, and she could plant the blade square between her shoulders. But that would involve letting go of the knife. So she sat. She hissed. And she said nothing.

Alone in the Praetor’s bedchamber, Vasilia took to the long task of freeing herself.

It was bitter work. The knife did not want to fiddle with pins and tumblers. It hungered for her blood, and the slightest lapse in concentration was opportunity enough to feed. Soon her jacket bore dozens of tiny slashes, and her unprotected hands were sprinkled with cuts. She had to move slowly. Deliberately. Tell her racing heart to just, just calm itself, for a moment while she worked, and maybe they’d both be out of this within the week-

Screeching. Metal rending in two. And in the same moment, an angry bleeding slice across her hand.

Vasilia growled, a rush of choice expletives all crushing together in a single, agonized cry. She sacrificed another length of sleeve to wrap around her hand in a loose bandage; a mercy she found a patch not soiled by sap or wine. As she held the dressing tight against her wound, her eyes pierced through the walls, following the rabid monster outside, and words finally spilled out of her in a molten stream.

“Shut up, you. Just...just shut. Up. As if you have anything to howl about! Spoiled, rotten, miserable little thing! They should have left you to starve in whatever dump they found you in! Gods know it’d have made the galaxy a better place.” Could Bella even hear her, over all the racket? The thought never once crossed her mind. “This is all you’re good at! It’s all you’ll ever be good at, and anyone would be a fool to believe otherwise! Pile on all the airs and fancy clothes you like; it’ll never change anything, you...waste!”

She squeezed her hand tight, tighter, until her eyes screwed shut with pain, and bitter tears flowed freely down her cheeks.

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

Oh dear.

Whyever would someone be hunting him? Of all the people here? He’d thought he’d just been foolish in his attempts to follow Demeter, been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but this rang quite a bit more serious than that. This was personal. Which, again, made hardly any sense at all. He’d not been so crass as to give his name out, nor had he done much more than attend to his Captain. And speaking of, he didn’t have time for this! She was waiting for him! He musn’t delay! How he wished Artemis had developed a return service for this sort of thing; it would make clearing all this up so much easier.

Still. Hunt or no hunt, mistake or deadly serious, he still had a job to do. And he would see it through.

First thing’s first though; he jotted down a quick note to the pile of chefs recovering from their ordeal, apologizing for the trouble he’d put them through, and recommending they keep their heads down for the foreseeable future. With that taken care of, he carefully wrote out a detailed letter stating his name, station, location, date of birth, age, marital status, generational number in lieu of nearest relative, and a polite inquiry for any public records on active hunts related to his person. This he left by a single, burning candle, along with a little bit of trail rations he saved for just such an emergency. Artemis did enjoy her practical snacks, the kind you could eat on the go. Or during your requisite five-minute breaks.

[Rolling to Speak Softly with Artemis: 4 + 5 + 1 = 10. What can she tell me about this hunt?]

“Right, yes, the Sowers!” The Sowers? The Sowers. The Sowers? Redana needs to start visualizing something that’s not those little spherical constructs from that adventure serial. Nope. That’s all she’s getting: swarms of spheres descending on the skies of Ridenki. Auspex! Help her!

And while you’re at it: Mom, stop! You’re going to win! Redana has seen the wreck of that station with her own eye; this story has a happy...

No. Redana frowns, and it’s a serious enough expression that it sends every servitor in the room into an anguished hush. This wasn’t a happily ever after. This war might have been the right thing to do, to wage, to struggle through... but it’s going to lead back to Tellus. Back to a prison for humanity. Back to a little girl watching the clouds in the hope a star would pierce through.

“Was it the guilt?” She asks herself, fingers brushing on the map spread out upon the table. “Was it because you felt like this, that you needed to... make up for it? Why did you take us there?”

Athena only knows what conclusion her generals are going to jump to.

Response Level: 6
This was a trap a year in the making, and your journey was destined to end here.

The Order of Hermes: The Order of Hermes is present here in force.
The Huntress Awakens: You are being observed, no matter where you are or what you do.
Patterns of Enforcement: Investigative channels have opened from the Magos to the Order's forces; they will attempt to arrest any player character they encounter
Deathless Murder: The dead will arise as bonsai
The Jungle Hungers: Demeter is immanent, and she brings with her hunger
True Hunter: This area has a second Boss

Redana!

It is Thriss who stands by your side as you look at the radiant wreckage of burning stars. An entire sector of space alight and ablaze. The laws of gravity tugging at the unleashed powers as the moon holds back the tsunami. Half the galaxy dead and bleeding all the blood-soaked colours of Poseidon. The Spear of Civilization thrown through the heart of the cosmos and sending it down to the House of Hades.

A lesson. A vision. A reminder.

"Humanity may have been the first," said Thriss and her voice was exultant, "but even they are not peers to the gods. When the end comes calling it shall be Zeus Storm-Mother who shatters the heavens and Poseidon One Eye who shatters the earth and Hades Root-Gnawer who consumes all within his gut and Demeter Fairest who brings forth new life, rampant and wild. And the wreckage shall be ours to inherit. From the fires of Ragnarok shall come the Wolftime."

She looks at you with a terrible vigor that you do not feel in your ancient bones.

"For all things, there is a season."

Alexa!

A smile cracks those ancient lips and brown-green eyes twinkle through the smoke. "If you're willing to die for something, Alexa, then the worst thing that can happen to you is being kept alive while you lose what you were trying to protect. So be honest about what you're prepared to die for, yeah?"

He stands up as flashes of sickly yellow-green light up amidsts the purple-grey smoke. Coherent - dozens of them. Setting up their grand and unwieldly weapons as priests scuttle for safety in all directions, the clanking shadow of a MRU looming over them, sculpted into the face of an empty fish.

"After all," he said, "your life isn't at risk here. The assassin can't hurt you until she's killed Dolce. All of this is delaying action."

That's not entirely a comfort - there are plenty of really bad non-death things that can happen when walking into a Coherent phalanx, and Isty and Ramses are well within the blast radius. Aphrodite's smoke is currently keeping the three of you concealed but not so much that you can close the distance to the Hermetics easily - but you do have a moment to think.

Dolce!

"You know, it's not often anyone takes an interest," said Artemis, going over the paperwork from behind discreet silver glasses. "Normally it's all running and screaming, and I guess that's at least quick."

She seems so normal, just like any other person. Some gods have a presence like a pulled bathplug, sucking reality in all around them, but Artemis emanates such a mundane stillness it's so easy to overlook the intense violence that dwells underneath that suit.

"Most of my assassins master a single art. This one has all four - and the price of that is that she must go through them in cycles, as the moon does. Planning, disguise, poison, violence. Planning did for Redana, disguise did for Birmingham, poison was for you, violence was going to be for Vasilia, coming around to finish off Alexa with planning again. Now the cycle is broken she has to kill you with violence before she can move on to any of the others. That means she's going to come at you directly and as soon as she's tooled up, and you will not be able to fight her - but at least she can't kill anyone else until you're dead first."



Vasilia!

This knife is an Anathame. It is your death, a fated dart that you cannot defend against, something that will be your end. An awful, wretched thing to have, but better that you have it than any other. For as long as you hold the fate of your death like this no other blade will claim your life and no copy can be forged. It will seek to betray you in ten million ways but it is limited to the manifestations of chance that can befall a knife. As your blood already speaks, it cannot be trusted - but it can be controlled and it can be destroyed.

Once you have time to come to yourself, you must make a decision of how to handle this wicked blade. If you break it damage a stat, but such will be the end of it. If you hold it, gain Protection from a Location Stat though it will seek to betray you when it can.

Bella!

Demeter sits kindly here and there, maiden of spring. Her hair is crowned with flowers and strawberries bloom about her feet and every glance at her is a <##########> of raw sensation. Here she pours you another glass of wine and there she places a blackberry in your mouth and now your bare feet are crushing the grapes beneath your toes. She is so easy to lose yourself in, the way she touches your neck and her teeth brush your ear and she's biting it so hard it really hurts but that's the only way she can whisper just how incredibly mad she is that you denied her promised murder -

But all of those sensations cannot lift your heart, heavier than all the gifts of Hermes. The storm of thorns slough off your regal clothing and Hera helps you lift your head tall. If nothing else, Bella, you are still beautiful.

And your beauty is illuminated. Lights in the dark ahead - knights in armour and plate, lanterns held across from their mighty swords, leading an army. The Lantern Knights light you up and you see a ripple of awe run through the crowd of menials. Silently they kneel before you in their dozens, their hundreds. You may be heartbroken, but you are a heartbroken queen.

"They cannot help you," said Hera. "But you can help them. That is power, Bella."

do you remember when you you were young and
you walked into her room it was morning
it always smelled like gasoline and disinfectant so
sweet and sharp and stinging and sour sour
sour so that you couldn’t tell you always trembled back then you were so worried no confidence in
your cooking you couldn’t smell it couldn’t tel
l if it was good and you were only barely clean
enough of dirt for her not to notice but this
time you made pancakes with gooseberry jam and
the tang made your ears wiggle and your step was bouncin
g you were so confident and sure this time
but you came in and everything was wrong she was slick with s









weat and lying there in bed with no energy
poor thing
her musk reminded you of clay and alkaline and flowers
but she carried the sickness smell
so rank like death
was she dying you brought her the wrong food you idiot
she needed more liquids and you panic
ked and squeaked and she said your name she
said it like butterfly wings she said it and
you came to her you said you were sorry
you would go and make something else but she grabbed you
and the pancakes fell and the jam mixed with
everything she pulled you so close there was no choice
no choice no choice at all she was delirious
couldn’t tell what she was doing never gonna
remember so you had no choice you

The blackberry bursts inside her mouth. The rough flesh of the tiny fruit tickles Bella's tongue as it passes across it, carrying the taste of tart juice sweetened to impossible degrees by more sugars than could possibly have fit into such a tiny thing. It's sweet on top of sweet on top of sweet, piled over the vague suggestion of something natural and good until she can feel it rotting her mouth just from the contact. Her mouth is filling up with saliva, and her saliva is the juice of the berry replicating endlessly inside of her. It gushes in endless rivers of cloying fake flavor and no matter how much she wants to spit it out, how is she supposed to refuse a gift from a god? She swallows, but there is always more, and more after that, and more after that and...

The berry is washed off of her tongue with a glass of the floral wine she'd ordered brought to her ship. The sensation is relief, of course, though her tongue is so numbed to sweetness that she can only notice the faint bitter notes of the alcohol and a grassy note that she hadn't been able to detect before. For some reason it makes her think of honey. But even now it's calming and soothing, she needs more, her mouth is so full of pain and this will fix it, she swallows but another mouthful rushes in to replace it faster than she can breathe. She sputters. Her entire universe fills up with flavor.

There's an acid sweetness in her fingertips and a metallic tang rippling through her kneecaps and the oily orange blandness of her most comforting wine is twisting in great whorls with the miracle of flowers she'd declared to be the greatest treasure of the Yakanov until these, the most wonderful and perfect flavors she can recall experiencing across her life both at once turn to the wretched taste of vomit that's burning inside her spine.

She can't see. She can't hear. She can't--

There's a sensation of teeth on her ear and they bite and painpainpainpaineverythingispainithurtsdon'tgrinditpleasejustletgonopleasestopwhatdidshedowhatcanshedopleasegodpleasepleasepleaseletgoshecantthinkcantbreatheneedairneedairneedairbutthenthere'sfingersonherchin and they're lifting her head and soothing her hurts and it fades. Bit by bit, it fades. The pain pulls back and her senses rush back in to blessed normalcy. Hera offers her a smile.

She is vaguely aware that her foot is standing in a pool of vomit. She doesn't need to wonder where that came from. She grits her teeth, which are somehow still there, still perfect and strong and exactly where her instincts expect them as they squeeze together. Ignore it. Ignore all of it.

Through the hall, her Lanterns shine. Row after row of armored servitors gleam before her, and promise her their strength. The menials fill in the gaps and stare at her with awe, their perfect queen. Their eyes grow wide and shine like tiny motes of starlight in the dark of her beloved ship and they promise her their love. Her ears perk up at the sight and even though her stomach is churning with the sensations of leftover sickness, her muscles coil and release, tense and relax, flex and then unwind again with such smoothness and strength that she might as well be feeling better than ever before.

Her eye is watering. She lifts a hand to brush her cheek, and her talon comes away soaked.



buried your head in her hair and you sniffed and
you dragged and it was warm and soft and clean it was
cinnamon but dotted with lilies and
it was her and it was her and
it was all of her and you
have never known happiness like that and
you will never know happiness like that
stupid bitch you stupid bitch you cursed yourself forever then and there and now you’re---

Ivory Smile floats in front of her vision, hands too ruined to hold the coin she'd given him. His goreless face is too mangled for her to tell what sort of expression he watches her with, and when she opens her mouth to breathe his name he vanishes into the dust of the lamplights.

She is alone, among her people. Her chest won't stop squeezing and her heart won't stop pounding and her eye won't stop leaking and she's so strong, she's so strong, she's so strong that nobody can help her at all. The warmth and the wet creeps about the Anemoi again. Something wet and rotten sloughs off a wall and lands on the dampening floors with a pop loud enough to make her wince.

They can't help her, but she can help them.

Bella shuts her eyes. Her claws wear ugly grooves into her palms that will require new surgeries to correct again. All the pressure comes oozing out of the wounds like puss deserting an infection. All her anger goes dripping out with the little drops of blood. Breath after deep, slow, breath, she empties out inside. What's left is hollow. Fit for growing bonsai.

She sighs. It did not take a genius to figure out where Nero's daughter had gone. She opens her eyes again, her golden eye so dull and listless it's become a perfect match for the inhuman calm of the Auspex. She walks painfully slow steps among her people. She has to force her shoulders up. Be strong. Be proud. Be a queen. Bella's tail droops low enough to brush the ground. Every motion and every muscle begs her to go and rest. She scoffs loudly; there's already somebody in her bed, you idiot.

"Listen to me!" if she tries she can make her voice as clear and strong enough to echo through the hall. If she tries she can almost forget how dry her throat feels, "Get the ship ready to depart immediately! And the second you finish, fuck off into space and don't come back here. You useless bunch of assholes. Get the fuck out of my face!"

Her strides are powerful, now. Her body crackles with the renewed strength of someone who has figured out her purpose at long last. She makes it half a dozen steps before she feels a hand clamp down against her wrist. Small, gentle fingertips brush against her fur. Stay, they plead. Where are you going? Take us, take me with you. Bella wheels about, snarling, and stares into the soulful eyes of Jil of the Bridge Clan.

"Let go before you lose that arm, you fucking disgrace. You stupid fucking waste of air, I said! Let! Me! Go!"

It's like throwing a child. No resistance at all. No capacity to do the thing. She simply twists her hips and she feels Jil's small body lift into the air, and suddenly the sounds are the squeak of surprise that the girl couldn't keep inside her mouth where it belonged, and the rattling of her ugly and absurd totem necklaces as they clattered against each other. With a thump and a clatter ten times too loud for Empress Nero's great gift of a ship, she smashes into an unprepared knight and they both go bowling over.

Bella spits on the ground, hissing at everyone stupid enough to try and placate her. She lifts her hand in the air, claws already tensed in threat.

"I'm so sick and fucking tired of you little shits slowing me down. I'm better off alone. I've always been better off alone."

Something in her throat hitches, but Bella ignores it and stalks through the passageways like a stalking panther. The Anemoi swallows her every sound, like a parting gift to its Mistress. Good riddance. Ugly fucking boat that it was, it was still the Empress'. It didn't deserve to blow up with the rest of the Yakanov.

Dolce’s heart sank to his hooves.

How the pen got into his hand, he couldn’t say. If it was his hand at all. The words spilled out too fast, too wild to be his work. A wonder, an eccentric of incredible craftsmanship must have taken the place of his arm, and it could hear the words welling up inside of him before he even had a chance to think them. And speaking was simply out of the question. So it was that another form materialized in front of him, and he pushed it forward to Artemis.

A formal request for the status, health, and well-being of (1) Redana Honorius Claudius. With an acceptable number of errors for one who may have just lost a dear friend.

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

Security is the luxury of those who already have power.

She makes her deposit in blood and heartache. By the risk of a dagger, wrapped and knotted in dense fabric, her stock rises. At a high price, she purchases a chance. Just the one, that some things might be well by day’s end.

She finds enough left over for a scarf from Bella’s wardrobe, which she wraps tight around her neck.

Her business done, her heart emptied, she retreats into the darkened hallway. The first mouse that crosses her path will find a fearsome lion, with their master’s clothes and a growling voice, politely asking where her weapons have gone.

[Vasilia will be Speaking Softly for this, if possible. Will figure out the Protection stat later.]

The words that scrape their way out of Redana’s throat aren’t hers. They belong to those old, aching bones. They belong to the woman who broke the Spear, who shattered it over her knee, and will always and forever remember the cost she paid for it.

“Don’t speak too loudly,” she says, with an exhausted attempt at wit. “The gods love to punish hubris when they hear it; they’ll upend plans generations in the making at a whim, just to defy our expectations.” She steps back, but her fingers linger on the railing. “The gods have no peers save themselves. I will not be baited into saying otherwise.”

The ruins drift before them, and there is something beautiful to the sight that makes Redana ache, a shiver in her flesh, and speak again, in a smaller voice, in her own voice, as she watches the light of stars sparkle on frozen jewels of blood, as she did before the Eater of Worlds.

“But I don’t think what she— what I— what we did was about forever,” she says. “It was about now. What we have to live with right now. Who makes choices about things right now. How we get to live.” The red sun shines through the ruin of a ship’s corpse. “Because right now is what really matters.”

When she touches her cheek, her fingers come away wet. Her shoulders shake, sudden and scary. Why does it hurt?

The stars offer no answer but themselves.

Did Ramses know about this?

It's a terrible thought, one that catches her in the gut like a thrown brick. Is that why she agreed to go with her so quickly? Is that what kept them going down the hallway?? Those hands on her shoulders and clutching at her hair--was that real, or just an expertly practiced deception?

She tells herself that the look on Ramses' face is confusion and not guilt. It has to be. Please, she couldn't stand if it weren't.

She could charge. They're getting set up. If she's gonna face them, now's the time, before they're fully impregnable. The spear nudges against her hands, its familiar weight begging to be used. She stares at it, runs a thumb across its worn groove. If you're going to die for something...

Alexa takes a deep breath, forces herself to slow down, forces her voice to stablize before she turns to Ramses. "I think I need to take a rain check on our fun. Someone is trying to kill my friend. Do you know where the kitchens are on this ship?"

It's a ridiculous guess, but if someone there hasn't spotted a helpful fuzzy friend, she'll eat her own cooking.

[If needed, that's an 8 on Talk Sense.]

Redana!

"Right now is what matters!" Reality itself revolts against those words. The walls twist and thrash and the stars grow fingers and claw away the veil. Time dissolves in saffron light, rolling back further, resolving from yellow to silver-white.

Thriss walks with you through this. She is young now - fierce and feral, an intelligence so mighty that she might understand the problems you deal with and so predatory she would hunt the stars themselves. She does not know of Cronus' forbidden lores. She does not know that cannibalism in ritual to the ancient father has more power than the gods would like to admit. But you always wonder if she might sense it.

Would that there was another like her.

"It is as you suspected, Director," said Thriss. "Humanity as a species is on the brink. Too many have vanished into genetic solipsism - entire ecosystems are sculpted to serve the preferences of individuals. They build their own paradises and spend lifetimes with their own thoughts made manifest. They have become a billion selfish creator gods, each building their own worlds to their own preferences, and then abandoning them due to boredom, apathy or death. Agony follows in their wake."

Dolce!

The paper ignites with black fire right as Artemis has begun to reach for it. "She lives yet," said Hades.

He has come to you in the form of a pyramid of black marble, vast and surrounded by columns woven with gold. Look at him askew, try only to glimpse the fragments - to look at him directly is to confront the reality that scale and stone are but playthings of the gods.

"I apologize," said the Pyramid in a voice that was worthy of it - don't listen to it directly either. "If I had given you future warning that would have enabled Artemis to launch an even more terrible ambush. Redana is trapped upon Hermes' path."

"She is among the wolves," confirmed Artemis, all the more fearsome for how she stands in relation to the pyramid. Hades may be that ancient structure but before it she is the hero who will adventure into its terrible depths without fear.

"You must become a bandage," said Hades. "You must stretch yourself taught and stanch the bleeding. Tend not to your own wounds."

Moments later, the bars pull away and Alexa enters through the door.

Alexa!

Ramses smiles like sunflowers - finger raising to point as the seeds begin to drip down onto the ground. You can feel the ants swarm across your feet as they gnaw away at the fallen seeds. The pink mist of Aphrodite starts to fade and your spear feels hot and wet beneath your fingers.

"Hunger for her," whispers Demeter. "Hunger for her. You want her. You want them. You want to bend and let them break you. You want to take their want. You don't want her to fill you. You want me to fill you. You want to drink me until you're free of you."

How is she like this? Her fingers sink into your shoulders like skin instead of stone. You've had the attention of gods before but nothing like this. She speaks in craving, and there is malice behind that craving.

You have a clear line to the kitchens and Isty is still with you, but Ramses and the Hermetics glitter in the radiance of the rising harvest moon and soon they will bloom.

Vasilia!

This is a place conditioned to obeying the whims of lionesses. There is no resistance from the Lanterns. The only one you must contend with is Demeter.

She walks behind you, casting seeds by the handful into every drop of blood that falls from your many cuts. Each patch explodes into a verdant riot of flowers, grains, tubers, and venus flytraps. Her calloused fingers tug away at your scarf and bite after bite of moths gnaw away at the fabric. Her hands pull your tail and stick into your mouth so that they can trace your teeth and always she's whispering into each of your senses.

"Lethe, lethe, lethe. Just sink back! It's right here, you'll be reorganized, you'll be in a new pattern. You are ripe, eggplant juicy, let me make you eat. It's just some indigestion, dear, it's just that you've grown so much that your trellis has ripped off the wall and now the rusty nails are showing and jagged and the clippers will cut you back to your knees. You want to taste it. Open your mouth wide, I can fit the entire river in there."

Bella!

You can smell more than the growth now. You can see more than the sensation. Demeter is still behind you, pulling the plough behind her shoulders leaving a deep channel through the steel, but you're more than just that. You can see more than the fact that these things grow; you can see how they can break.

It's just a matter of following the scent. How did you not smell it before? These saffron thieves had stolen one of Nero's treasures. You can smell it radiating out from the heart of the vessel. The enormous beam radiating down onto the planet - that's her. She's there, she built this, and she is more miserable and fragile than you've ever felt her. You just need to get through to the heart of this ship where they've weaponized Imperial suffering. Get there and you can break something that matters. Break that and it might be enough.

Coherent are everywhere, but you have Hera on your side.

Everything that belonged to Nero always smelled of roses. It's a truth at least as old as Bella: to live and work in the palace, you had to learn to love that scent, the sweetness of her favorite crimson petals and the laurels that cut across them. When she was a child, Bella thought it smelled like tea. She even tried making it, once, but it turned out it didn't taste as pretty as it smelled. She hadn't known better, back then. She still cared too much about seeing smiles.

Bella drinks deeply of the air, and sure enough the rose-and-laurel is unmistakable now. It's headier and more intoxicating than any of her favorite wines; this version of the scent is cut through with a tender, savory meatiness she can't quite place. It's like petals garnishing a steak, or perhaps flowers growing from a sun-baked corpse. Her mouth waters more with every whiff of it she gets, until she has to wipe her lips with her thumb to keep herself from drooling. Remember, Bella. The smell is always the best part.

Her body feels light and loose and powerful as she glides through the corridors chasing that luscious, beautiful smell. It's almost as if the chaos of the Yakanov and its strange mix of industry and cleaner and science and sweat and sparks had been set up like a maze just to trick her, a series of walls to keep her nose from the truth of what they were working on. They should have known better than to think it would be enough to hide from her. They should have expected her to be able to pluck something this beautiful from a bouquet of millions.

Ahead of her there are Coherents scrambling this way and that to assemble themselves into a line capable of stopping her. Her lips twist into a huge, feral grin. Good. Good! Her ears and tail are twitching with delight, her arms and back are singing with power! Her legs and hips shift and sway to the song of battle, ruffling her skirt and bouncing her hair with the beauty of the dance she'd been built rather than born for. Come. Come! Her fingertips are itching, her claws need sharpening. Come! Maybe they'd send that Khitava bitch at her. Bella's body ripples with drunken laughter. She flicks the bells now as she walks. Can you hear her? Come on!

Her Regalia has never felt so light on top of her head before. No more strings. No more expectations. No more worries, no more memories, no more connections past following this smell... and breaking the cage they've built for it. For the first time, her neck doesn't beg for the weight of a collar. For the first time, the name of the princess isn't pushing its way into her skull and dragging a dozen memories up with it. For the first time, her breath comes freely and easily in a place that isn't Tellus. She could even sing right now, if she had the mind to.

Her eye is blazing with delight and lust for the coming battle. She is powerful. She is beautiful. She is a Queen. She is free. Ah, she should have made this decision years ago. All it's costing her is everything she used to think she wanted.

Then we bring them back.

“I won’t say it,” Redana bleeds out through a clenched jaw, even as the words suppurate all around her.

One world. One species. We can’t let humanity’s legacy be wasted.

“Shut up. That’s not me.” But she’s wrong. It’s her voice, or else impossible to distinguish. When the ship is repaired, plank by plank, is it still the same? When a girl is woven on a genetic loom, what flaw makes her less than her mother? Her mother, brilliant, decisive. The Director.

Until they learn empathy. Until they learn community. Until we remember we are mortal.

“Until they forget the stars!”

The die is cast.

Redana takes her head in both hands and squeezes. She mirrors, without knowing it, the pregnancy of her father: the terrible weight in her head, threatening to split open in her anguish. Her furious howl is drowned out by the steady, relentless logic of the Director’s last gambit, the authorization of her second galactic campaign.