If the gods were kind, they would let XIII stay here forever. They would let no one and nothing bother her, so she could continue watching these strange ships roll across the stranger sky for the rest of her life, or at least until her daric ran out, which she could stretch well beyond Thist's three month prophecy. It's not like she'd need to eat very much to sit up here and stare, and even if she did these people were apparently too stupid to eat any of the real food that the humans had left behind when Nero called them home. And with so much unused space, she wouldn't need to worry about a place to sleep either. Not that she had any intention of doing [i]that[/i] anymore any more than she could help it. 

If the gods were kind, they would transform her into a philosopher. They would let her watch the spheres, transfixed, and contemplate their orbits from an Imperial perspective until she arrived at a new truth about the universe and the nature of beauty. They would make this lesson cost her everything, but they would let her learn it. She would forget her name, first the gifted one and then the older one. She would forget her mission. She would forget all the specifics of her home that still burned inside her head. She would forget... well, it didn't matter. She wouldn't forget. She couldn't forget. The gods were cruel, and they made XIII so that she would cling to all her memories as if they were precious treasures. Even still. Even now.

XIII reaches toward the sky as if to push one of the smaller ships onto a new path so she could see it spin and roll away. A moment later it begins the gentle curve as it lazily turns along the path she pushed, along the path the Auspex had predicted for it. Not so hard to tell where and when they'd do something. But impossible to understand what any of it meant. It'd be easy to guess it had something to do with their weird spiral patterns, but the sharp red lines her implanted eye draws through the sky for her make it obvious that's not the case. Sometimes they follow something sort of like the markings, but most of the time their trajectories are shockingly straightforward.

Which, of course they are. They're [i]going[/i] somewhere, aren't they? This place is dead, but that doesn't make it haunted. All around her, the sounds of scraping and cleaning slither across the streets just underneath the sharp peaks of banging, shouting, and laughter that burst up from shops and homes and around the river like living monuments to the serpent people who dwell here. They are the dead, but they live here. There's a lot more to them than pointless ghost ritual. They conquered the djinn, they mastered flight and craft in ways she's never seen before. Underestimate them at your peril. 

If anything, what they remind her of is stars. Or planets, maybe, whatever the fuck the difference is supposed to be. It's all... orbits and spirals and rotations, and where Humanity took the secrets of heavens and burned them for fuel, the Azura seem almost like they've mimicked them, instead. Or, or could they have conquered those, too?! How the fuck did they get these things to fly, anyway? It's no wonder Her Majesty's deathblow wasn't enough to break them. A people who thought like planets... she clicks her teeth together and swallows. She looks up at the sky again, and sees nothing but a serpent lazily stretching across the universe. Someday it would wake, and it's jaws would unhinge in that creepy freak show way of theirs, and when they did they'd swallow everything they saw.

And through that vision of terror plunges a single black dagger. XIII jolts upright faster than if she'd been whipped. Her heart stabs, knifelike inside of her. Her fingers all forget at once how to hold her bread, and the remains of her masterpiece tumble to their death off the edge of her perch. There is. Nothing. More beautiful. Than her ship. After all. And yet.

All the fur on her arms stands up on edge. Her spine prickles with fear. Her tail bushes and her ears flatten. She scowls, and leaps to her feet. The [i]Anemoi[/i] is not here for her. She didn't call for it, she had no idea [i]how[/i] to call for it. She didn't pray for this, even accidentally. She hadn't prayed once since she crashed, and aboard the [i]Yakanov[/i] she'd asked every god she could think of to keep the black dagger as far away from her as it could go. XIII's fingers curl into fists. 

"...Apollo." she hisses. 

She paces back and forth along the edge of her roof, as bits of stone and debris slide off and plummet to the street in her wake. Her eyes are on her ship, always on her ship, and spare no thought to where her feet take her. The idea that she might fall is laughable. She paces, and as she turns she swings her arms in irritation. Back and forth, back and forth, the name of the god ringing in her throat. Hadn't he hounded her after everything else in the galaxy had left her behind? Hadn't he forced her back on her feet, hadn't he harassed her and pushed her and prodded her until she had no choice but to escape on that skiff, and then flicked his stupid godly golden fingers and brushed her [i]here[/i], instead of anywhere even slightly useful to her goals? He had.

"Apollo, Apollo... damn it. Damn it! Shit!"

XIII tears her fraying coin-patterned dress up over the top of her head and throws it off the roof as she passes. Are you watching, you Azura fucks? Can you see? Get a good look at Perfection while she changes, if you're not stuck too far up your own asses to turn your heads. Fuck you. Fuck you. Her muscled legs coil and burst as she races from the edge of the roof to where her coin purse sits. Her tail lashes behind her, and she digs frantically through the pile of irritatingly perfect coins looking for the micro-folded fabric she'd tucked in there this afternoon. Wasn't meant for this. It's too early for her final work. But she'll be damned if she's going to sneak back onto [i]her ship[/i] looking anything less than her best. 

She pulls the dazzling dress with its thousand-thousand precious metal beads shaped into a starry night sky. Her final outfit, just in case. Well fine, whatever. When's Apollo ever let her do something the way she wanted to do it? She slips it on, and screams up at the burning sky. The [i]Anemoi[/i] is here, and not for her. It's [i]here[/i], and after her. It's a thousand years away from anywhere Dany should be going, even as part of her stupid dumbasses suicide run, and that means and that means and that means.

"Jil you useless fucking bitch I left you in charge I [i]gave[/i] you my ship what the fuck did you let happen to it? You'd better be fine, you got that? You'd better be ok, so I can kill you myself!"

XIII hesitates with her arm halfway to hurling the bag full of Azura money straight into the river. She stares at it with mistrusting, mismatched eyes, and finally lowers her arm to tie it to a belt, instead. She promised, after all. With a final shake of her head, she takes off like a thunderbolt launched from a bow and throws herself back down into the city below. And she runs, like she hasn't since her Empress commanded her to, or die. Yield, Endless Azure Skies, to a champion pedigree blessed with holy purpose. Yield or learn what happens to whichever one of you is stupid enough to make her miss the docking.