Bells ring out on the Rûm. The wonderful watchtower there has a story all of its own; it was beloved of an Azura of such dazzling wit and playfulness that, to this day, his watchtower remains as he left it, the old systems refusing to grind down. Rods of glass bob up and down as shining platinum gears interlock. The bells ring out as they have at their own ineffable intervals, across centuries, the silver and the steel, their tongues unleashed. A flight of birds rises from the roof of the Old Symposium, scattering feathers as they go, and the wind bears those feathers aloft, higher, higher. Skotos takes the wrists of her stepmother in her hands. Her face is in the shadow of the shelves: the dishes and the jars still their trembling. Rusty whines, hops from foot to foot. Birds wheel over the Rûm. She cannot breach the surface, but she comes as close as she can in this moment, fingers outstretched towards the sky. "...she couldn't have survived," she finally says to herself, freed by the wild possibility that tears through her. "Even then, I knew-- we might not have made it back in time." It takes much neglect to kill someone. But every moment they had delayed on that bridge was another that might have made them too late; her heart had been gripped by the terror of seeing Bella's face already, bloodless and frozen over, as her body drifted lifeless between the stars, possessed of strength enough only to accuse her princess of not caring, of being [i]a minute too late[/i] to thaw her safely. When she lifts her head, her eyes are the color of chips of ice, and she can't blink back the tears. "Was it pirates?" Her voice cracks like the splintering of a floe. "Did she ride on Cetus's mane? Did it come crashing down on Ridenki and she dived into-- even knowing how much she hated the water? How? [i]How?[/i]" How did her Bella survive? How can she, Skotos, the shadow, hope to find Bella? How can she, Skotos, the shade, hope to be forgiven? How can she hope for anything beyond those claws, punishing her for what another her once did? How can she stand beneath that violent disdain until she has repaid in full? Her fingers squeeze until they go white, and she only remains dry-cheeked because of how much she has cried already today. There is the shadow of a mania in her again, a reminder of why she must be Skotos. A raw-edged desperation, opener of doors, speeder of feet, the strength to stand beneath the lash. The bells of the watchtower crash one more time and let the ripples of sound spread and diffuse into nothing. "[i]Where is she, Hera?[/i]"