Miscalculation. Error in judgement. Thinking too much. Thinking too little. Mistake. Wrong. He’s done it wrong. All wrong. All wrong.

He says nothing. The only sounds he makes are the bleating cries she beats out of him. Shameful, to beg now. To be so stupid as to think that begging could change anything. The worthwhile sheep accepts the truth silently. The black sheep needs punishment. When the punishment ends, there will be no black sheep. There is nothing more to it. When the punishment ends. There will be no black sheep. Nothing more to it. When the punishment. Ends. No more black sheep. Nothing more needs. When the. Punishment ends. There will be no punishment. The black sheep. Ends the black. Nothing. More. Ends. [i]Ends...[/i]

A lost lamb lies crumpled on the bridge of a cruiser, a long, long ways from his home. The Master has not given him leave to rise, or leave to go. He is permitted to partake of the air, provided he does so quietly, without crying. All else is forbidden, without the word of the Master. A good sheep stays where he is told. A black sheep needs punishment. There is nothing more to it.

The lamb tips over against the hull. One hoof finds purchase on the deck. Slowly, he disobeys.

It mattered little, whether it was possible to evade punishment. A Captain did their duty.

“You aren’t going to kill me.” His hand falls heavy on the instruments for leverage. Heedless of broken glass. Still, he rises.

“You didn’t kill Mynx. You didn’t kill me. You...aren’t going to kill me.” His hooves stomp defiance above the screaming chaos. His ears ache terribly at the loudest steps he’s ever taken. Still, he rises.

“Mynx could not harm a friend to their face. Whoever told you that you could do worse was...was a terrible liar. You. Aren’t going to kill me.” Closer. He expects the blow to fall at any moment, and he must get closer. The full weight of a princess in wrath...no, a friend, lost in darkness, will bear down on him, and still, he rises.

Mynx will need all the opening he can give her.

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

“Rice is a trial of the gods, given to us to punish hubris.” Vasilia snapped. “A grain so diabolical an appliance had to be invented specifically to defeat it, and yet even this mechanically engineered bane falls to pieces if you don’t posses the precise secret ratios.” Ratios which she might have a better shot at learning if someone hadn’t hidden the rice cooker, [i]Hestia.[/i]

“...it’s news to me too.” She pushed bits of coleslaw about with a single chopstick, forming a larger and larger glob, before starting all over again. “That I could live with...less. I’ve been ‘relevant’ my entire life, I’d no idea what was going to happen if I just. Stopped. If I’d even keep going.” Would she have, if Hestia hadn’t been there to promise her a future? A dangerous thought. One she preferred not to dwell on. “All the same, you give me too much credit. Can you call it acceptance, if the alternative means death? If I’m merely doing what I must to survive? Am I just walking this long, slow road because it’s the path that lets me win in the end?”