Nothing quite so refreshing as flying helplessly through the air to be maimed or murdered. No exit to furiously search for while staying steps ahead of her doom. No form-fitting dresses to creep into her awareness and incite washes of shame on reflex. No good that a blessed pistol might do, if only she could find the target to aim for. The world reduced down to the question of what a flying lioness will do with the moments she has left. For the first time this fight, since she landed on this planet, she's empty again The glaive leaves her hand. The guards raise their shields. And the glaive raises the guards, a sudden well of gravity dragging them up in the weapon's path and out of the way of hers. The throw’s momentum sends her corkscrewing, and she will not waste it. One hands strikes the floor. One hand taps her belt. No plume of smoke marks her passage and yet she rockets to the ceiling, past guards, past glaive, no weight to stop her ascent. No weight, that is, save for an astronomically attractive glaive. The ceiling filling her vision, she slows. She stops. She falls, into an orbit circling her blade, tighter and tighter until she lays hand on it. There it freezes. There about she swings. And the two land upon on an ornamental outcropping not yet blasted by the storm. There, she stops. There she breathes. There, she watches, for the split-second warning she will have before you strike again. She is here, because for the first time in her life she was looking for the path that did not end in blood. Hers, or another's. And not even lightning can blind her eyes. If she wasn't doomed, she might consider that a victory. If Redana could direct an ounce of care to her plight, she might consider celebrating. Lucky for her, she'd grown so accustomed to disappointment, she hardly felt a thing. [Rolling to Overcome: 6 + 3 + 1 = 10. Paying a Price by erasing Vasilia’s bond with Redana.] ******************************************************* Dolce inclines his head to the mouse, his Captain’s hat remaining undoffed thanks only to the near-empty pot he juggled with both hands. ”I'm terribly sorry for startling you. But I’ve volunteered to cook for the assembly today, and we’ve run out of soup, and I must return to the kitchens to fetch some more.” Of course he must use the servant’s corridors to restock. What if he ran into a dignitary and splattered their carefully blue robes? Unthinkable disaster, far too perilous to risk, and both of them know it. “Please, accept my apologies for intruding unannounced upon your corridors.” The pot shifts suddenly, and he might have splashed her spotless robes but for the skill of his hands. Not a drop spills on her or the floors. Not even when his hand darted to her sleeve, and a ring vanished into his coat. “I won’t be in your way at all.”