[b]Redana![/b]

If Mynx had a desire in all this it would be to avoid having to talk about this. She squirms and shifts under your gaze in a way that you only have ever seen when questioning her about a mysterious wound she somehow acquired in the line of duty. But her heart weighs the scales and comes to the exhausted conclusion that she, shield and guardian, has to protect you from your own aching heart.

And so she speaks.

"Do you know the meaning of life, Redana?" said Mynx. "I do. It is to die in someone else's place. If I close my eyes and let my mind wander that's what I come back to. When I imagine where I'll be as an old lady it's dying in the place of an old lady. It's, just," she twitches her tail. "I'm not talking about me. Bella's not like that. She was made differently. She was made to be perfect, to be the [i]best[/i]. The fastest. The strongest. The smartest. The most beautiful." Again Mynx shifts, hands in her lap in a demure maid's pose. "And you have no idea how scary that makes life for her. Because being the best isn't worth anything, Redana, and doesn't and has never given her control over anything. When she fails it's always for reasons outside of her control but she has to carry the consequences anyway."

She took a breath and, at last, made eye contact. "And she has carried so many consequences. All of palace security's consequences fell on her. All of the household staff's consequences fell on her. All of your failings fell on her. All of my..." she blinks for a moment. "She has all of the responsibility and none of the power, Redana. And she's in so much pain because of it. The only thing she can control is herself and time and again that's not enough."

Her voice, her ears, her head have all dropped. "I can't say she doesn't hate you, Redana. I can't say she doesn't hate me either. And I can't say she doesn't deserve to. Here I am, warm and comfortable here with you, and Bella... I could fail here so easily. I could just... give up and go with you and defend you and fulfill my purpose. It'd be easy and I'd love it. But Bella doesn't have that option. She's trapped between perfection and powerlessness and nobody has ever once supported her when she needed it, the way she needed it. So if I go with you I'm letting her down, just like you did."

Her voice is sore and her eyes are wet and her fists are clenched so tight her knuckles are white.

[b]Alexa![/b]

"Forgiveness?" said someone who was probably the Magos. "Forgiveness is unnecessary. I hold no grudge. You are beneath my notice. You are merely a stranger to me."

And then (s)he gestured coldly and the Coherent cast you down a shaft to land upon a heap of garbage.

[b]Vasilia and Dolce![/b]

You meet in the kitchen. The pasta is boiling. Hestia tastes it and holds up three fingers; not quite yet.

She is there for both of you this time. Salt, too, is there for you. And pepper. It's not a meal that'll change your life, but it's quick, it's warm, and it'll fill you up and give you time to talk.

[b]Bella![/b]

"Oh, you're from the Reaches!" said Thist, smiling brightly and immediately rummaging around in a drawer. "On behalf of Xerxes CVI, The Violet Sunbeam That Kisses The Graves Of Her Foes, Shah of the Endless Azure Skies, welcome to civilization! I've got some pamphlets - ah!" 

Thist scatters an array of beautifully illustrated pamphlets across the table in front of you. Stark, simple colours and shapes that captures the imagination with landscapes and laws in a way a lesser bard might need great battles and heroic deeds to achieve. These hold [i]up[/i], even to Imperial eyes, and have titles like SUMPTUARY LAWS, THE PATHS AND THE ARISTEIA, LANDMARKS OF GORGAN.

"Those'll cover the other basics, but here in the Skies we trade in coin," Thist held up a single, round piece of metal, stamped with a sun-and-mask icon. "This is a daric. One of these is worth about a kilogram of flour, ten of these will get a fine meal prepared for you or ingredients for three of your own. Accommodation is... ah, you won't have any trouble finding places to sleep here, put it like that. Eighteen hundred daric is enough for a woman to live in modest means for about two, three months, longer if you're cautious with it. Not that you'll need to be - if we work together, I can develop a legal case before the Senate that'll extract tribute from the Order of Hermes for their negligence towards your safety and the insult they have cast before mighty Xerxes and all that. You'll get a cut, of course!"